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In the third year of the Hegira, A. D. 624, he made war upon those tribes of the Arabs which were of the Jewish religion near him; and having taken their castles, and reduced them under his power, he sold them all for slaves, and divided their goods among his followers. But the battle of Ohud, which happened towards the end of this year, had like to have proved fatal to him; for his uncle Hamza, who bore the standard, was killed, himself grievously wounded, and escaped only by one of his companions comincr to his assistance. This defeat gave rise to many objections against him, some asked, How a prophet of God could be overthrown in a battle by the infidels and others murmured as much for the loss of their friends and relations who were slain. To satisfy the former, he Jakt the cause of the overthrow on the sins of some that followed him; and said, that for this reason God suffered them to he overthrown, that so the good might be distinguished from the bad, and that those who were true believers might on this occasion be discerned from those who were not. Tq quiet the complaints of the latter, he invented his doctrine of fate and predestination; telling them that those who were slain in the battle, though they had tarried at home in their houses, must nevertheless have died at that moment, the time of every man’s life being predetermined by God; but-as they died fighting for the faith, they gained the advantage of the crown of martyrdon), and the rewards which were due to it in Paradise; both which doctrines served his purpose so well, that he proj>a-jated them afterwards on all occasions. They have also been the favourite notions of the Mahometans ever since, and enforced especially in their wars; where, it musk be owned, nothing can be more conducive to make them fight valiantly, than a settled opinion, that to whatever dangers they expose themselves, they cannot die either sooner or later than is predestinated by God; and that, in case this predestined time be come, they shall, by dying martyrs for their religion, immediately enter into Paradise as the reward of it.

In the fourth year of the Hegira, A. D. 625, he waged war with the Nadirites, a tribe of the Jewish Arabs in the neighbourhood; and the same year fought the battle of Beder, and had many other skirmishes with those who refused to submit: in all which he had sometimes prosperous and sometimes dubious success. But while his army was abroad on these expeditions, some of his principal men engaging in play and drinking, quarrelled, and raised such a disturbance among the rest, that they had like to have endangered his whole scheme; and, therefore, to prevent any mischief cf this kind for the future, he forbade the use of wine, and all games of chance. In the fifth and sixth years, he was engaged in various wars, and subdued, several tribes of the Arabs. After so many advantages obtained, being much increased in strength, he marched his army against Mecca, and fought a battle near it the consequence of which was, that, neither side gaining any victory, they agreed on a truce for ten years. The conditions of it were, that all within Mecca, who were for Mahomet, might have liberty to join themselves to him; and on the other side, those with Mahomet, who had a mind to leave him, might have the liberty to return to Mecca. By this truce, Mahomet, being very much confirmed in his power, took on him thenceforth the authority of a king, and was inaugurated as such by the chief men of his army.

Having thus made a truce with the men of Mecca, and thereby obtained free access for any of his party to go into that city, he ordained them to make pilgrimages thither, which have ever since been observed, with much superstition, by all his followers, once every year: and now being thus established in the sovereignty, at which he had long been aiming, he assumed all the insignia belonging to it; still retaining the sacred character of chief pontiff of his religion, as well as the royal, with which he was invested. He transmitted both to his successors, who, by the title of Caliphs, reigned after him: so that, like the Jewish princes of the race of Maccabees, they were kings and chief-priests of their people at the same time. Their pontifical authority consisted chiefly in giving the interpretation of the Mahometan law, in ordering all matters of religion, and in praying and preaching in their public mosques: and this at length was all the authority the caliphs had left; as they were totally stripped of the rest, first by the governors. of the provinces, who, about the 325th year of the Hegira, assumed the regal authority to themselves, and afterwards by others, who gradually usurped upon them; till at length, after a succession of ages, the Tartars came in, and, in that deluge of destruction with which they over-ran all the East, put a total end not only to their authority, but to their very name and being. Ever since that time, most Mahometan princes have a particular officer appointed in their respective dominions, who sustains this sacred authority, formerly invested in their caliphs; who in Turkey is called the Mufti, and in Persia the Sadre. But they, being under the power of the princes that appoint them, are in reality the mere creatures of state, who make the law of Mahomet speak just such language as is necessary to support the measures of the government, however unjust or tyrannical.

In the seventh year of the Hegira, A. D. 628, the impostor led forth his army against Caibar, a city inhabited by Arabs of the Jewish religion and, after routing them irt battle, he besieged their city, and took it by storm. Having entered the town, he took up his quarters in the house of Hareth, one of the principal inhabitants of the place, whose daughter Zainoh, preparing a shoulder of mutton for his supper, poisoned it. Here those who would ascribe miracles to Mahomet, tell us, that the shoulder of mutton spake to him, and discovered that it was poisoned; but, if it did so, it was, it seems, too late to do him any good; for Basher, one of his companions, beginning too greedily to eat of it, fell down dead on the place; and although Mahomet had not immediately the same fate, because, not liking the taste, he spit out again what he had taken into his mouth, yet he took enough to have a fatal effect; for he never recovered, and, at the end of three years, died of this meal. The maid being asked why she did this, answered, that “she had a mind to make trial, whether he were a prophet or not: for, were he a prophet,” said she, “he would certainly know that the meat was poisoned, and therefore would receive no harm from it; but, if he were not a prophet, she thought she should do the world good service in ridding it of so wicked a tyrant.”

After this, he reduced under his subjection other towns belonging to the Jewish Arabs, and having increased his strength by these acquisitions to an army of 10,000 men, he resolved to make himself master of Mecca. For this plurpose, pretending that the people of Mecca had broken the truce, he marched suddenly upon them, before they were aware of his design: when, being utterly incapable of putting themselves into any posture of defence against him, they found themselves necessitated to surrender immediately. As soon as it was heard among the neighbouring Arabs, that Mahomet had made himself master of Mecca, several other tribes made head against him, and in the first encounter routed his army, though greatly superior to theirs in number: but the impostor, having gathered up his scattered forces, and rallied them again into a body, acted more cautiously in the second conflict, and gave his enemies a total defeat, and took from them their baggage, with their wives and children, and all their substance. After this, his power being much increased, the fame of it so terrified the rest of the Arabs, who had not yet felt his arms, that they all submitted to him. So that in this year, which is the tenth of the Hegira, and the 631st of our Lord, his empire and his religion became established together through all Arabia.

He spent the remainder of the year in sending lieutenants into all his provinces, to govern in his name, to destroy the heathen temples, and all the other remains of the Arabian idolatry, and establish his religion in its stead. Towards the end of it, he took a journey in pilgrimage to Mecca, where a great concourse of people resorted to him from all parts of Arabia, whom he instructed in his law, and then returned to Medina. This pilgrimage is called, by his followers, the pilgrimage of valediction, because it was the last he made: for, after his return to Medina, Jhe began daily ta decline, through the force of that poison which he had taken three years before at Caibar. It had never been removed from his constitution, and at length brought him so low, that he was forced, on the 28th day of Saphar, the second month of their year, to take to his bed; and, on, the 12th day of the following month, he died, after a sickness of thirteen days. During his sickness he much complained of the mea.t which he had taken at Caibar; telling those who came to visit hirp, that he had felt the torments of it in his body ever since: so that, notwithstanding the intimacy he pretended with the angel Gabriel, and the continual revelations he received from him, he could not be preserved from perishing by the snares of a girl.

Thus ended the life of this famous impostor, who was sixty-three years old on the day he died, according to the Arabian calculation, which makes only sixty-one of our years. For twenty-three years he had taken upon him to be a prophet of which he lived thirteen at Mecca, and ten at Medina, during which time, by his great address and management, he rose from the meanest beginnings to such a height of power as to be able to make one of the greatest revolutions that ever happened in the world. This revolution immediately gave birth to an empire, which, in eighty years, extended its dominion over more kingdoms and countries than the Roman empire could subdue m eight hundred: and, although it continued in its flourishing condition not much above three hundred years, yet out of its ashes have sprung up many other kingdoms and empires, of which there are three at this day, the largest, if not the most potent upon the face of the earth; namely, the empire of Turkey, the empire of Persia, and the empire of the Mogul in India. Mahomet was a man of a good stature and a comely aspect, and affected much to be thought like Abraham. He had a piercing and sagacious wit, and was extremely well versed in all those arts which are necessary to lead mankind. In the first part of his life, he was wicked and licentious, much delighted in rapine, plunder, and bloodshed, according to the usage olf the Arabs, who have generally followed this kind of life. The Mahometans, however, would persuade us, that he was a saint from the fourth year of his age: for then, they say, the angel Gabriel separated him from his fellows, while he was at play with them; and, carrying him aside, cut open his breast, took out his heart, and wrung out of it that black dropof blood, in which they imagined was contained thefomes peccati; so that he had none of it ever after. This is contradicted, however, by two predominant passions, ambition and lust. The course which he took to gain empire abundantly shews the former; and the multitude of women with whom he was connected, proves the latter. While Cadiga lived, which was till his fiftieth year, it does not appear that he had any other wife: for, she being the origin and foundation of all his fortunes and grandeur, it is probable he durst not displease her, by bringing in another wife. But she was no sooner dead, than he multiplied them to a great number, besides which he had several concubines. They that reckon the fewest, allow him to have married fifteen; but others reckon them to have been one and twenty, of which five died before him, six he divorced, and ten were alive at his death.

But of all his wives, Ayesha, the daughter of that Abubeker who succeeded him, was by far his best beloved. He married her very young, and took care to have her bred up in all the learning of Arabia, especially in the elegance of their language, and the knowledge of their antiquities; so that she became at length one of the most accomplished ladies of her time. She was a bitter enemy to Ali, he being the person who discovered her incontinence to Mahomet, and therefore employed all her interest, upon every vacancy, to hinder him from being chosen Caliph, althougn, as son-in-law to the impostor, he had the fairest pretence to it; and when at last, after having been thrice put by, he attained that dignity, she appeared in arms against him; and although she did not prevail, caused such a defection from him, as ended in his ruin. She lived forty. eight years after the death of Mahomet, and was in great reputation with her sect, being called by them the Prophetess, and the mother of the faithful. One of the principal arguments which the followers of Mahomet used, to excuse his having so many wives, is, that he might beget young prophets: he left, however, neither prophet nor prophetess long behind him of all his wives. The six children which he had by Cadiga, his first wife, all died before him, except Fatima, the wife of Ali, who only survived him sixty days; and be had no child by any of the rest.

As the impostor allowed the divinity of the Old and New Testament, it is natural to suppose that he would attempt to prove his own mission from both; and the texts used for this purpose by those who defend his cause, are these following. In Deuteronomy it is said, “The Lord came down from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them: he shined forth from mount Pharan^ and he came with ten thousand of saints: from his right-hand went a fiery law for them.” By these words, according to the Mahometans, are meant the delivery of the law to Mosea, on mount Sinai; of the gospel to Jesus, at Jerusalem; and of the Koran to Mahomet, at Mecca: for, say they, Seir are the mountains of Jerusalem, where Jesus appeared; and Pha-. ran the mountains of Mecca, where Mahomet appeared. But they are here mistaken in their geography; for Pharan is a city of Arabia Petraea, near the Red Sea, towards the bottom of the gulph, not far from the confines of Egypt and Palestine, and above 500 miles distant from Mecca. It was formerly an episcopal see, under the patriarchs of Jerusalem, and famous for Theodorus, once bishop of it, who was the first that published to the world the opinion of the Monothelites. It is at this day called Fara: and hence the deserts, lying from this city to the borders of Palestine, are called the deserts or wilderness of Pharan, and the mountains lying in it, the mountains of Pharan, in holy scripture; near which Moses first began to repeat, and more clearly to explain the law to the children of Israel, before his death: and it is to that, to which the text above mentioned refers.

The Psalmist has written, “Out of Sion, the perfec-­tion of beauty, God hath shined;” which the Syriac version reads thus, “Out of Sion God hath shewed a glorious crown.” From this some Arabic translation having expressed the two last words by “eclilan mahmudan,” that is, “an honourable crown,” the Mahometans have understood the name Mahomet; and so read the word thus, “Out of Sion hath God shewed the crown of Mahomet.” In Isaiah we read, “And he saw a chariot, with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses and a chariot of camels.” But the old Latin version hath it, “Et vidit currum duorum equitum, ascensorera asini, & ascensorem cameli” that is, “And he saw a chariot of two horsemen, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel.” Here, by the rider upon an ass, they understand Jesus Christ, because he so rode to Jerusalem; and by the rider upon a camel Mahomet, because he was of the Arabians, who used to ride upon camels. Our Saviour, in St. John, tells his disciples, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” By the Comforter, the Mahometans will have their prophet Mahomet to be meant: and therefore, among other titles, they gave him that of Paraclet, which is the Greek word used in this text for the Comforter, made Arabic. They also say, that the very name of Mahomet, both here and in other places of the gospel, was expressly mentioned; but that the Christians have, through malice, blotted it out, and shamefully corrupted those holy writings; nay, they insist, that at Paris there is a copy of the Gospels without those corruptions, in which the coming of Mahomet is foretold in several places, with his name expressly mentioned in them: Such a copy, it must be owned, would be highly convenient, and to the purpose: for ttien it would be no easy matter to refute this text in the 61st chapter of the Koran: “Remember, that Jesus, the son of Mary, said to the children of Israel, I am the messenger of God: he bath sent me to confirm the Old Testament, and to declare unto yon, that there shall come a prophet after me, whose name *hall be Mahomet.”

Mahomet was succeeded by Abubeker, agreeably to the wishes of the deceased prophet; who, after a reign of two years, was followed by Omar; and in the twelfth year of his government he received a mortal wound from the hand of an assassin, and made way for the succession of Othman, the secretary of Mahomet After the third caliph, twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, Ali was invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal office. Among the numerous biographers of Mahomet, we may reckon Abulfeda, Maracci, Savary, Sale, Prideaux, Boulainvilliers, D'Herbelot, Gagnier, Gibbon, and the author of the article in the Modern Universal History.

He appears to be the first sultan who was a lover of arts and sciences; and even cultivated polite letters. He often read the History of Augustus, and the other Caesars; and he perused those of Alexander, Constantine, and Theodosius, with more than ordinary pleasure, because these bad reigned in the same country with himself. He was fond of painting, music, and sculpture; and he applied himself to the study of agriculture. He was much addicted to astrology, and used to encourage his troops by giving out that the motion and influence of the heavenly bodies promised him the empire of the world. Contrary to the genius of his country, he delighted so much in the knowledge of foreign languages, that he not only spoke the Arabian, to which the Turkish laws, and the religion of their legislator Mahomet are appropriated, but also the Persian, the Greek, and the French, that is, the corrupted Italian. Landin, a knight of Rhodes, collected several letters which this sultan wrote in the Syriac, Greek, and Turkish languages, and translated them into Latin. Where the originals are is not known; but the translation has been published several times; as at Lyons, 1520, in 4to; at Basil, 1554, 12mo, in a collection published by Oporinus; at Marpurgh, 1604, in 8vo, and at Leipsic, 1690, in 12mo. Melchior Junius, professor of eloquence at Strasburg, published at Montbeliard, 1595, a collection of letters, in which there are three written by Mahomet II. to Scanderbeg. One cannot discover the least air of Turkish ferocity in these letters: they are written in as civil terms as the most polite prince in Christendom could have used.

, a celebrated German alchymist and rosicrucian of the seventeenth century, who sacrificed his health, his fortune, his time, and his understanding, to those ruinous follies, wrote many works, all having reference, more or less, to the principles or rather absurdities of his favourite study. The following are mentioned as the chief of these publications. 1. “Atalanta fugiens,” 1618, 4to, the most rare and curious of his works. 2. “Septimana philosophica,” 1620, 4to. In both these works he has given abundance of his reveries. 3. “Silentium post clamores, seu tractatus -Revelationum fratrum roseae Crucis,” 1617, 8vo. 4. “De fraternitate roseae Crucis,” 1618, 8vo. 5. “Jocus severus,” 1617, 4to. 6. “De rosea Cruce,” 1618, 4to. 7. “Apologeticus revelationum fratrum roseae Crucis,” 1617, 8vo. 8. “Cantilenas intellectuals,” Rome, 1624. 9. “Museum Chymicum,” 1708, 4to. 10. “De Cnrculo physico-quadrato,” 1616, 4to.

, a religious minim, and one of the greatest philosophers of his age, was born at Toulouse, of an ancient and noble family, July 17, 1601. While he was a child, he discovered an inclination to letters and the sciences, and nothing is said to have had so great an effect in quieting his infant clamours, as putting some little boot into his hands. He went through his course in the college of Jesuits, and acquitted himself with great diligence in every part of scholarship, both with respect to literary and religious exercises. He was determined to a religious life, by a check given to his vanity when he was learning rhetoric. He had written a poem, in order to dispute the prize of eloquence, and believed the victory was unjustly adjudged to another. This made him resolve to ask the minim’s habit, and having acquitted himself satisfactorily in the trials of his probation-time, he was received upon his taking the vow in 1619, when he was eighteen. He went through his course of philosophy under a professor who was very much attached to the doctrine of Aristotle; and he omitted no opportunity of disputing loudly against all the parts of that philosopher’s scheme, which he suspected of heterodoxy. His preceptor considered this as a good presage; and in a short time discovered, to his great astonishment, that his pupil was very well versed in mathematics, without having had the help of a teacher. In this, like Pascal, he had been his own master but what he says of himself upon this point must be understood with some limitation; namely, that “in his leisure hours of one year from the duties of the choir and school, he discovered of himself as many geometrical theorems and problems, as were to be found in the first six books of Euclid’s Elements.”

, a learned Jesuit, was born in the French province of Bugey ou the borders of Savoy, in 1670. From the age of twenty-eight he had made himself so completely master of Chinese learning of all kinds, that he was considered as a prodigy, and in 1703, was sent as a missionary into that country, where he was highly esteemed by the emperor Kam-Hi, who died in 1722. By that prince he was employed, with other missionaries, to construct a chart of China, and Chinese Tartary, which was engraved in France in 1732. He made also some separate maps of particular provinces in that vast empire, and the emperor was so pleased with these performances, that he fixed the author at his court. Mailla likewise translated the “Great Annals” of China into French, and transmitted his manuscript to France in 1737, comprising the complete history of the Chinese empire. The first volumes appeared in 1777, under the care of the abbe Grosier, and the whole was completed by him in 1785, making thirteen volumes 4to. The style of the original is heavy, and contains many long and tedious harangues, which the editor has suppressed: it gives many lively and characteristic traits of men and manners. Mailla died at Pekin June 28, 1748, having lived forty -five years in China, and attained his seventy-ninth year. He was a man of a lively but placid character, of an active and persevering spirit, which no labours repressed. The late emperor Kien Long paid the expences of his funeral, which was attended by a procession of seven hundred persons.

, a famous preacher, and a cordelier, was a native of Paris, where he rose to the dignity of doctor in divinity. He was entrusted with honourable employments by Innocent VIII. and Charles VIII. of France, by Ferdinand of Arragon, &c. and is said to have served the latter prince, even at the expence of his master. He died at Toulouse June 13, 1502. His sermons, which remained in manuscript, are full of irreverent familiarities, and in the coarsest style of his times. His Latin sermons were printed at Paris, in seven parts, forming three volumes in 8vo; the publication commenced in 1711, and was continued to 1730. In one of his sermons for Lent, the words hem hem are written in the margin to mark the places where, according to the custom of those days, the preacher was to stop to cough. Niceron has given some amusing extracts from others of them, which, amidst all their quaintnesses, show him to have been a zealous reprover of the vices of thfe times, and never to have spared persons of rank, especially profligate churchmen. He even took liberties with Louis XI. of France to his face, and when one of the courtiers told him that the king had threatened to throw him into the river, “The king is my master,” said our hardy priest, “but you may tell him, that I shall get sooner to heaven by water, than he will with his post-horses.” Louis XI. was the first who established posting on the roads of France, and when this bon mot was repeated to him, he was wise enough to allow Maillard to preach what he would and where he would. The bon mot, by the way, appears in the “Navis Stultifera,” by Jodocus Badius, and was probably a current jest among the wits of the time.

, was the son of Nicolas Desmarets, controller-general of the finances towards the end of Louis XIV.'s reign, and was born in 1682. He first signalized himself in the war on the Spanish succession, and completed his reputation by two brilliant campaigns in Italy. He was afterwards sent against Corsica, which he reduced, but it threw off subjection immediately on his departure. This expedition obtained him the staff of mareschal of France. In the war of 1741, he gained new laurels in Germany and Italy: but in 1746, he was defeated by the famous count Brown, in the battle of Placentia. He died in February 1762, in the 80th year of his age. The account of his campaigns in Italy was published in 1775, in three volumes quarto, accompanied with a volume of maps. The author of this work was the marquis of Pezay, who executed it with great judgment.

, or Moses the son of Maimon, a celebrated rabbi, called by the Jews “The eagle of the doctors,” was born of an illustrious family at Cordova in Spain, 1131. He is commonly named Moses Egyptius, because he retired early, as it is supposed, into Egypt, where he spent his whole life in quality of physician to the Soldan. As soon as he arrived there he opened a school, which was presently filled with pupils from all parts, especially from Alexandria and Damascus; who did such credit to their master by the progress they made under him, that they spread his name throughout the world. Maimonides was, indeed, according to all accounts of him, a most uncommon and extraordinary man, skilled in all languages, and versed in all arts and sciences. As to languages, the Hebrew and Arabic were the first he acquired, and what he understood in the most perfect manner; but perceiving that the knowledge of these would distinguish him only among his own people, the Jews, he applied himself also to the Chaldee, Turkish, &c. &c. of all which he became a master in a very few years. It is probable also, that he was not ignorant of the Greek, since in his writings he often quotes Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Themistius, and others; unless we can suppose him to have quoted those authors from Hebrew and Arabic versions, for which, however, as far as we can find, there is no sufficient reason.

He was famous for arts as well as language. In all branches of philosophy, particularly mathematics, he was extremely well skilled; and his experience in the art of healing was so very great, that as we have already intimated, he was called to be physician in ordinary to the king. There is a letter of his extant, to rabbi Samuel Aben Tybbon, in which he has described the nature of this office, and related also what vast incumbrances and labours the practice of physic brought upon him. Of this we shall give a short extract, because nothing can convey a clearer or a juster idea of the man, and of the esteem and veneration in which he was held in Egypt. Tybbon had consulted him by a letter upon some difficult points, and had told him in the conclusion of it, that as soon as he could find leisure he would wait upon him in person, that they might canvas them more fully in the freedom of conversation. Maimonides replied, that he should be extremely glad to see him, and that nothing could give him higher pleasure than the thoughts of conversing with him; but yet that he must frankly confess to him that he durst not encourage him to undertake so long a voyage, or to think of visiting him with any such views. “1 am,” says he, “so perpetually engaged, that it will be impossible for you to reap any advantage from me, or even to obtain a single hour’s private conversation with me in any part of the four-and-twenty. I live in Egypt, the king in Alkaira; which places lie two sabbath-days journey asunder. My common attendance upon the king is once every morning; but when his majesty, his concubines, or any of the royal family, are the least indisposed, I am not suffered to stir a loot from them; so that my whole time, you see, is almost spent at court. In short, 1 go to Alkaira every morning early, and, if all be well there, return home about noon; where, however, I no sooner arrive, than I find my house surrounded with many different sorts of people, Jews and Gentiles, rich men and poor, magistrates and mechanics, friends as well as enemies, who have all been waiting impatiently for me. As I am generally half famished upon my return from Alkaira, I prevail with this multitude, as well as I can, to suffer me to regale myself with a bit of dinner; and as soon as I have done, attend this crowd of patients, with whom, what with examining into their particular maladies, and what with prescribing for them, I am often detained till it is night, and am always so fatigued at last, that I can scarcely speak, or even keep myself awake. And this is my constant way of life,” &c.

But however eminent Maimorides was as a physician, he was not less so as a divine. The Jews have this saying of him, “A Mose ad Mosen non surrexit sicut Mose;” by which they would insinuate, that of all their nation none ever so nearly approached to the wisdom and learning of their great founder and lawgiver, as Moses, the son of Maim on. He was, says Isaac Casaubon, “a man of great parts and sound learning; of whom, I think, we may truly say, as Pliny said of old of Diodorurs Siculus, that he was the first of his tribe who ceased to be a trifler.” He was so far from paying an undue regard to absurd fables and traditious, as his nation had always been accustomed to do, that he dissuaded others from it in the most express terms. “Take heed,” says he, “and do not waste your time in attempting to draw sense or meaning out of that which has no meaning in it; I myself have spent a great deal of time in commenting upon, and explaining the Gemara, from which I have reaped nothing but my labour for my pains.”

The works of Maimonides are very numerous. Some of them were written in Arabic originally, but are now extant in Hebrew translations only. The most considerable are his Jad, which is likewise called “Mischne Terah,” his “More Nevochim,” and his “Peruschim, or Commentaries upon the Misna.” His “Commentaries upon the Misna” he began at the age of three-and-twenty, and finished in Egypt, when he was about thirty. They were translated from the Arabic by rabbi Samuel Aben Tybbon. His “Jad” was published about twelve years after, written in Hebrew, in a very plain and easy style. This has always been esteemed a great and useful work, being a complete code, or pandect of Jewish law, digested into a clear and regular form, and illustrated throughout with an intelligible commentary of his own. “Those,” says Collier, “that desire to learn the doctrine and the canon law contained in the Talmud, may read Maimonides’s compendium, of it in good Hebrew, in his book entitled Jad; wherein they will find a great part of the fables and impertinences in the Talmud entirely discarded.” But of all his productions, the “More Nevochim” has been thought the most important, and valued the most, not only by others, but also by himself. This was written by him in Arabic, when he was about fifty years old; and afterwards translated into Hebrew, under his own inspection, by rabbi Samuel Aben Tybbon. The design of it was to explain the meaning of several difficult and obscure words, phrases, metaphors, parables, allegories, &c. in scripture which, when interpreted literally, seemed to have no meaning at all, or at least a very absurd and irrational one. Hence the work, as Buxtorf says, took its title of “More Nevochim,” that is, “Doctor perplexorum;” as being written for the use and benefit of those who were in doubt whether they should interpret such passages according to the letter, or rather figuratively and metaphorically. Jt was asserted by many at that time, but very rashly, that the Mosaic rites and statutes had no foundation in reason, but were the effects of mere will, and ordained by God upon a principle purely arbitrary. Against these Maimonides argues, shews the dispensation in general to be instituted with a wisdom worthy of its divine author, and explains the causes and reasons of each particular branch of it. This procedure, however, gave offence to many of the Jews; those especially who had long been attached to the fables of the Talmud. They could not conceive that the revelations of God were to be explained upon the principles of reason; but thought that every institution must cease to be divine the moment it was discovered to have any thing in it rational. Hence, when the “More Nevochim” was translated into Hebrew, and dispersed among the Jews of every country, great outcries were raised, and great disturbances occasioned about it. They reputed the author to be a heretic of the worst kind, one who had contaminated the religion of the Bible, or rather the religion of the Talmud, with the vile allay of human reason; and would gladly have burnt both him and his book. In the mean time, the wiser part of both Jews and Christians have always considered the work in a very different light, as formed upon a most excellent and noble plan, and calculated in the best manner to procure the reverence due to the Bible, by shewing the dispensation it sets forth to be perfectly conformable to all our notions of the greatest wisdom, justice, and goodness: for, as the learned Spencer, who has pursued the same plan, and executed it happily, observes very truly, “nothing contributes more to make men atheists, and unbelievers of the Bible, than their considering the rites and ceremonies of the law as the effects only of caprice and arbitrary humour in the Deity: yet thus they will always be apt to consider them while they remain ignorant of the causes and reasons of their institution.”

, a very extraordinary French lady, who, from a low condition and many misfortunes, was raised at last to be the wife of Louis XIV. was descended from the ancient family of d‘Aubigne; her proper name being Frances d’Aubigne. M. d'Aubigne, her grandfather, was born in 1550, and died in 1630, in his 80th year. He was a man of great merit, a man also of rank, a leading man among the Protestants in France, and much courted to go over to the opposite party. When he perceived that there was no safety for him any longer in his own country, he fled for refuge to Geneva, about 1619. The magistrates, and the clergy there, received him with great marks of honour and distinction; and he passed the remainder of his life among them in great esteem. Mezeray says, that “he was a man of great courage and boldness, of a ready wit, and of a fine taste in polite learning, as well as of good experience in matters of war.”

The son of this d'Aubigne was the father of madam de Maintenon her mother the daughter of Peter de Cardillac, lord of Lane; and of Louisa de Moritalembert. They were married at Bourdeaux, Dec. 27, 1627, not without some apprehensions, it is said, on the part of the lady, upon her being united, we know not haw, to a man of a most infamous character, and who had actually murdered his first wife: for such was Constance d‘Aubigne. Going to Paris soon after his marriage, he was for some very gross offence cast into prison; upon which madam d’Aubign6 followed to solicit his pardon; but in vain: cardinal Richelieu was inflexible, and told her, that “to take such a husband from her, was to do her a friendly office.” Madam d'Aubign6, more attached to her husband in proportion as he became more miserable, obtained leave to shut herself up in prison with him. Here she had two sons, and becoming pregnant a third time, obtained leave from court to have her husband removed to the prison of Niort, that they might be nearer the assistance which they derived from their relations.

In this prison madam de Maintenon was born, Nov. 27, 1635; from which miserable situation, however, she was taken a few days after by madam Villette, her aunt by her father’s side, who, out of compassion to the child, gave her to the care of her daughter’s nurse, with whom she was bred for some time as a foster-sister. Madam Villette also sent the prisoners several necessaries, of which they were in extreme want. Madam d‘Aubigne at length obtained her husband’s enlargement; but it was upon condition that he should turn Roman Catholic. D’Aubigne promised all; but, forgetting his promises, and fearing to be involved again in trouble, he was determined to seek his fortune abroad. Accordingly in 1639, he embarked for America with his wife and family; and arriving safely there, settled in Martinico, where he acquired considerable plantations. Madam d'Aubigne“returned in a little time with her children to France, to carry on some lawsuits, and recover some debts; but madam Villette persuading her to desist from her pretensions, she returned to America, where she found her husband ruined by gaming. In 1646, he died, when madam d'Aubigne” was left, in the utmost distress, to support herself, and manage the education of her children, as she could. She returned to France, leaving her debts unpaid, and her daughter as a pledge in the hands of one of her principal creditors; who, however, soon sent her into France after her mother. Here neglected by her mother, who was indeed little able to support her, she fell into the hands of madam Villette at Poicton, who received her with great marks of affection; and told her, that she should be welcome, if she thought fit, to live with her, where at least she should never be reduced to want a subsistence. The niece accepted the offer which her aunt made her, and studied to render herself necessary and agreeable to a person, upon whom she saw she must depend for every thing. She particularly Jaboured to insinuate herself into the affections of her cousin, with whom she had one common nurse: and to omit nothing that might please them, she expressed a great desire to be instructed in the religion of her ancestors. She was impatient to have some conversation with ministers, and to frequent their sermons, and in a short time became firmly attached to the Protestant religion. In the mean time madam de Neuillant, a relation by her mother’s side, and a Roman catholic, had been busy in advertising some considerable persons of the danger she was in, as to her salvation; and had solicited an order, which was granted, from the court, to take her out of the hands of madam Villette, and to have her instructed in the Roman Catholic religion. She accordingly took her to herself, and made a convert of her: which however was not effected without many threats, artifices, and hardships, which drove her at length to a compliance with the solicitations of madam de Neuillant.

In 1651, she was married to the abb Scarron. Madam de Neuillant, being obliged to go to Paris, took her along with her; and there becoming known to this old famous buffoon, who admired her for her wit, she preferred marrying him to the dependent state she was in. Scarron was of an ancient and distinguished family, but deformed, infirm, and in no very advantageous circumstances; as he subsisted only on a pension, which was allowed him by the court, in consideration of his wit and parts. She lived with him, however, many years; and Voltaire says that this part of her life was undoubtedly the happiest. Her beauty, but still more her wit, for she was never reckoned a complete beauty, distinguished her greatly; and her conversation was eagerly sought by all the best company in Paris. Upon the death of her husband, which happened in 1660, she was reduced to the same indigent condition she was in before her marriage; but her friends did all they timid to prevail upon the court to continue to her the pension which Scarron had enjoyed: in order to which, petitions were frequently given in, beginning always with, “The widow Scarron most humbly prays your majesty,” &c. For a time all these petitions signified nothing; and the king was so weary of them, that he has been heard to say, “Must I always be pestered with the widow Scarron?” At length, madam de Montespan, his mistress, undertook to present one to him “How” cried the king, “the widow Scarron again Shall I never hear of any thing else” “Indeed, Sire,” replied madam de Montespan, “you ought to have ceased hearing of it long ago.” The pension was granted, and madam Scarron went to thank madam de Montespan, who was so struck with the charms of her conversation, that she presented her to the king, who is reported to have said: “Madam, I have made you wait a long time; but your friends are so numerous, that I was desirous of your owing this to me alone.” Voltaire tells us, he had this fact from cardinal Fleury, who took a pleasure in often repeating it, because he said Louis XIV. had made him the same compliment when he gave him the bishopric of Frejus.

Some time after, madam de Montespan, wishing to conceal the birth of the children she had by the king, cast her eyes on madam Scarron, as the most likely person to keep the secret, and educate them properly; and madam Scarron undertook this charge by his majesty’s order, and became their governante. She then led a hard, unpleasant, and retired life, with only her pension of 2000 livres, and had the mortification of knowing that she was disagreeable to the king. His majesty had indeed a degree of dislike to her: he looked upon her as a wit; and though he possessed much wit himself, he could not bear those who made a display of it. He never mentioned her to madam de Montespan, but by the name of “your belesprit.” When the children grew older, they were sent for to court, which occasioned the king to converse sometimes with madam Scarron, in whom he found so much sense, sweetness, and elegance of manners, that he not only lost by degrees his dislike to her, but gave her a particular proof of his esteem: looking over the state of the pensions, and seeing “two thousand francs for madam Scarron,” he erased the sum, and wrote “two thousand crowns.” The young duke of Maine also contributed not a little to remove his majesty’s prejudices. The king frequently played with him, and being much pleased with the sense that appeared even in his eyes, and with the manner in which he answered his questions, said to him one day, “You are very wise” “I may well be so,” replied the child, “for I have a governess who is wisdom itself.” “Go,” said his majesty, “go, tell her you bring her a hundred thousand franks for your sugar plumbs.” Madam Scarron attended this young prince sometime after to the waters of Barege, from whence she wrote to the king himself, to inform him of all that passed. He was much pleased with her letters, and said, “I had no idea that a bel -esprit could write so well.” This circumstance probably gave rise to the report that Louis XIV. was first captivated by a letter she wrote in madam de Montespan’s name; but it is a mere story. Madam de Montespan wrote at least as good letters as madam Scarron, and even as madam de Sevigne.

In the mean time, her elevation was to her only a retreat. Shut up in her apartment, which was on the same floor with the king’s, she confined herself to the society of two or three ladies, as retired as herself; and even these she saw but seldom. The king came to her apartment every day after dinner, before and after supper, and continued there till midnight. Here he did business with his ministers, while madam de Maintenon employed herself in reading or needle-work, never shewing any eagerness to talk of state affairs, often seeming wholly ignorant of them, and carefully avoiding whatever had the least appearance of cahal and intrigue. She studied more to please him who governed, than to govern; and preserved her credit, by employing it with the utmost circumspection. She did not make use of her power, to give the greatest dignities and employments among her own relations Her brother count d'Aubigne, a lieutenant-general of long standing, was not even made a marshal of France; a blue ribbon, and some appropriations in the farms of the revenue, were all his fortune: which made him once say to the marshal de Vivone, the brother of madam de Montespan, that “he had received the staff of marshal in ready money.” It was rather high fortune for the daughter of this count, to marry the duke de Noailles, than an advantage to the duke. Two more nieces of madam de Maintenon, the one married to the marquis de Caylus, the other to the marquis de Villette, had scarcely any thing. A moderate pension, which Louis XIV. gave to madam de Caylus, was almost all her fortune; and madam de Villette had nothing but expectations. This lady, who was afterwards married to the celebrated lord Bolingbroke, often reproached her aunt for doing so little for her family; and once told her in some anger, that “she took a pleasure in her moderation, and in seeing her family the victim of it.” This Voltaire relates as a fact, which he had from M. de Villette herself. It is certain, that M. de Maintenon submitted every thing to her fears of doing what might be contrary to the king’s sentiments. She did not even dare to support her relation the cardinal de Noailles, against father le Tellier. She had a great friendship for the poet Kacine, yet did not venture to protect him against a slight resentment of the king’s. One day, moved with the eloquence with which he had described to her the people’s miseries in 1698, she engaged him to draw up a memorial, which might at once shew the evil and the remedy. The king read it; and, upon his expressing some displeasure at it, she had the weakness to tell the author, and not the courage to defend him. Racine, still weaker, says Voltaire, was so hurt, that it was supposed to have occasioned his xleath. The same natural disposition, which made her incapable of conferring benefits, made her also incapable of doing injuries. When the minister Louvois threw himself at the feet of Louis XIV. to hinder his marriage with the widow Scarron, she not only forgave him, but frequently pacified the king, whom the rough temper of this minister as frequently angered.

The court grew now every day less grty and more serious, after the king began to live a retired life with madam de Maintenon. It was the convent of St. Cyr which revived the taste for works of genius. Madam de Maintenon intreated Racine, who had renounced the theatre for Jansenism and the court, to compose a tragedy, and to take the subject from the Bible. Racine composed “Esther:” and this piece having been first represented at the house of St. Cyr, was afterwards acted several times at Versailles before the king, in the winter of 1689. At the death of the king, which happened Sept. 2, 1715, madam de Maintenon retired wholly to St. Cyr, where she spent the remainder of her days in acts of devotion. What appears surprising is, that Louis XIV. made no certain provision for her, but only recommended her to the duke of Orleans. She would accept of no more than an annual pension of 80,000 livres and this was punctually paid her till her death, which happened the 15th of April, 1719. M. de la Beaumelle published in 1755, “M. de Maintenon’s Letters,” 9 vols. 12mo; and “Memoirs” for her history, &c. the whole reprinted in 12 vols. small 12mo. These “Letters” are curious and interesting, but there are several trifling ones among them. The “Memoirs,” which contain some remarkable anecdotes, are not always to be depended on as to facts, and are frequently censurable for indelicacy.

, a scholastic divine and historian, was born, not at Haddington, as is usually said, but at Gleghorn, a village near North Berwick, in 1469. From some passages in his writings, it appears that he resided for a time both at Oxford and at Cambridge. At the former particularly, we learn from the dedication of one of his works to cardinal Wolsey, he resided, not three months, as Wood says, but a year. The cardinal, whom he styles “your majesty,” received him “after the old manner of Christian hospitality, and invited him with a splendid salary to Oxford, where he had lately founded his college, which Major did not accept, on account of the love he bore to his mother university of Paris.” It appears that he went in 1493 to Paris, and studied in the college of St. Barbe, under the famous John Boulac. Thence he removed to the college of Montacute, where he began the study of divinity, under the celebrated Standouk. In 1498 he was entered of the college of Navarre in 1505 he was created D. D. returned to Scotland in 1519, and taught theology for several years in the university of St. Andrew’s. At length, disgusted with the quarrels of his countrymen, he returned to Paris, and resumed his lectures in the college of Montacute, where he had several pupils, afterwards men of eminence. About 1530, he removed once more to Scotland, was chosen professor of divinity at St. Andrew’s, and afterwards became provost. It is usually supposed that he died in 1547, but it is certain that he was alive in 1549; for in that year he subscribed (by proxy, on account of his great age) the national constitutions of the church of Scotland. He died soon after, probably in 1550, which must have been in his eighty-second year. Du Pin says, that of all the divines who had written on the works of the Master of Sentences (Peter Lombard), Major was the most learned and comprehensive. His History of Scotland is written with much commendable freedom; but in a barbarous style, and not always correct as to facts. Hs was the instructor, but not, as some have said, the patron of the famous George Buchanan. He also had the celebrated John Knox as one of his pupils. Baker in a ms note on the “Athenae,” adds to the mention of this fact, that “a man would hardly believe he ha.d been taught by him.” Baker, however, was not sufficiently acquainted with Major’s character to be able to solve this doubt. Major, according to the very acute biographer of Knox (Dr. M‘Crie) had acquired a habit of thinking and expressing himself on certain subjects, more liberal than was adopted in his native country and other parts of Europe. He had imbibed the sentiments concerning ecclesiastical polity, maintained by John Gerson, Peter D’Ailly, and others, who defended the decrees of the council of Constance, and liberties of the Gallican church, against those who asserted the incontroulable authority of the sovereign pontiff. He thought that a general council was superior to the pope, might judge, rebuke, restrain, and even depose him from his dignity; denied the temporal supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and his right to inaugurate or dethrone princes; maintained that ecclesiastical censures and even papal excommunications had no force, it* pronounced on invalid or irrelevant grounds; he held that tithes were merely of human appointment, not divine right; censured the avarice, ambition, and secular pomp of the court of Rome and the episcopal order; was no warm friend of the regular clergy, and advised the reduction of monasteries and holidays. His opinions respecting civil government were analogous to those which he held as to ecclesiastical policy. He taught that the authority of kings and princes was originally derived from the people that the former are not superior to the latter, collectively considered that if rulers become tyrannical, or employ their power for the destruction of their subjects, they may lawfully be controuled by them; and proving incorrigible, may be deposed by the community as the superior power; and that tyrants may be judicially proceeded against, even to capital punishment. The affinity between these and the political principles afterwards avowed by Knox, and defended by the classic pen of Buchanan, is too striking to require illustration. But although Major had ventured to think for himself on these topics, in all other respects be was completely subservient to the opinions of his age; and with a mind deeply tinctured with superstition, defended some of the absurdest tenets of popery by the most ridiculous and puerile arguments. We cannot, therefore, greatly blame Buchanan, who called him in ridicule, what he affected to call himself in humility, “Joannes, solo cognomine, Major.” His works are, 1. “Libri duo fallaciarum,” Lugd. 1516, comprising his “Opera Logicalia.” 2. “In quatuor sententiarum commentarius,” Paris, 1516. 3. “Commentarius in physica Aristotelis,” Paris, 1526. 4. “In primum et secundum sententiarum commentarii,” Paris, 1510. 5. “Commentarius in tertium sententiarum,” Paris, 1517. 6. “Literalis in Matthaeum expositio,” Paris, 1518. From these two last may be collected his sentiments on ecclesiastical polity, mentioned above. 7. “De historia gentis Scotorum, sen historia majoris Britanniae,” Paris, 1521, 4to. Of this a new edition was printed at Edinburgh, 17+0, 4to. 8. “Luculenta in 4 Evangelia expositiones,” &c. Paris, 1529, folio. 9. “Placita theologica.” 10. “Catalogus episcoporum Lucionensium.” He also translated Caxton’s Chronicle into Latin.

, lord of Thirlstone, and afterwards chancellor of Scotland, one of the Latin poets of that country, the second son of the preceding, was born about 1537. He was educated in Scotland, and afterwards sent to France to study the law. On his return to his native country, he practised that profession with great success. In 1567, as already noticed, his father resigned the privyseal in his favour; but in 1570 he was deprived of that office, from his attachment to queen Mary. In 1581 he was made a senator of the college of justice. In 1584 he became secretary of state to king James VI. and the year following, on the death of the earl of Arran, was created lord chancellor of Scotland. The power and influence of the chancellor created him many enemies among the Scotch nobility, who made several unsuccessful attempts to destroy him. In 1589 he attended the king on his voyage to Norway, where his royal bride, the princess of Denmark, was detained by contrary winds. The marriage was there completed, and they passed the winter at Copenhagen. During this residence in Denmark, Maitland became intimately acquainted with Tycho Brahe. In 1590 he was created lord Maitland of Thirlstone. Towards the end of 1592, the chancellor incurred the queen’s displeasure for refusing to relinquish his lordship of Musselburgh, which she claimed as part of Dumferling. He absented himself from court for some time, but was at length restored to favour. He died of a lingering illness Oct. 4, 1595, and was much regretted by the king. He is spoken of by Spotiswood and Johnston as a man of great learning, and eminent political abilities. Of his works, we have “Johannis Metellani, Thirlstoni domini, epigrammata Latina,” published in the second volume of the “Delicioe Poetarum Scotorum,” Amst. 1637; a satire in the Scotch language “aganist sklanderous toungis,” and an “admonitioun” to the regent Mar, published in Mr. Pinkerton’s collection of“Ancient Scotish Poems.”

Upon the Restoration he was made secretary of state for Scotland, and persuaded the king to demolish the forts and citadels built by Cromwell in Scotland; by which means he became very popular. He was likewise very importunate vfith his majesty for his supporting presbyterv in that kingdom; though his zeal, in that respect, did not continue long. In 1669, he was appointed lord commissioner for the king in Scotland, whither he was sent with great pomp and splendour to bring about some extraordinary points, and particularly the union of the two kingdoms. For this purpose he made a speech at the opening of the parliament at Edinburgh on the 19th of October that year, in which he likewise recommended the preservation of the church as established by law, and expressed a vast zeal for episcopal government. And now the extending of the king’s power and grandeur in that kingdom. was greatly owing to the management of his lordship although he had formerly been as much for depressing the prerogative; and from the time of his commission the Scots had reason to date all the mischiefs and internal commotions of that and the succeeding reign. Having undertaken to make his majesty absolute and arbitrary, he stretched the power of the crown to every kind of excess, and assumed to himself a sort of lawless administration, the exercise of which was supposed to be granted to him in consequence of the large promises he had made. In the prosecution of this design, being more apprehensive of other men’s officious interfering, than distrustful of his own abilities, he took care to make himself his majesty’s sole informer, as well as his sole secretary; and by this means, not only the affairs of Scotland were determined in the court of England, without any notice taken of the king’s council in Scotland, but a strict watch was kept on all Scotchmen, who came to the English court; and to attempt any access to his majesty, otherwise than by his lordship’s mediation, was to hazard his perpetual resentment. By these arrogant measures, he gradually made himself almost the only important person of the whole Scotch nation; and in Scotland itself assumed so much sovereign authority, as to name the privy-counsellors, to place and remove the lords of the session and exchequer, to grant gifts and pensions, to levy and disband forces, to appoint general officers, and to transact all matters belonging to the prerogative. Besides which, he was one of the five lords, who had the management of affairs in England, and were styled the Cabal, and in 1672, was made marquis of March, duke of Lauderdale, and knight of the garter. But these honours did not protect him from the indignation of the House of Commons; by whom, in November the year following, he was voted a *' grievance, and not fit to be trusted or employed in any office or place of trust.“And though his majesty thought proper on the 25th of June, 1674, to create him a baron of England by the title of Baron of Petersham in Surrey, and earl of Guildford, yet the House of Commons the next year presented an address to the king to remove him from all his employments, and from his majesty’s presence and counsels for ever; which address was followed by another of the same kind in May 1678, and by a third in May the year following. He died at Tunbridge Wells, August 24, 1682, leaving a character which no historian has been hardy enough to vindicate. In Clarendon, Burnet, Kennet, Hume, Smollet, &c. we find a near conformity of sentiment respecting his inconsistency, his ambition, and his tyranny . Mr. Laing observes, that” during a long imprisonment, his mind had been carefully improved by study, and impressed with a. sense of religion, which was soon effaced on his return to the world. His learning was extensive and accurate; in public affairs his experience was considerable, and his elocution copious, though unpolished and indistinct. But his temper was dark and vindictive, incapable of friendship, mean and abject to his superiors, haughty and tyrannical to his inferiors; and his judgment, seldom correct or just, was obstinate in error, and irreclaimable by advice. His passions were furious and ungovernable, unless when his interest or ambition interposed; his violence was ever prepared to suggest or to execute the most desperate counsels; and his ready compliance preserved his credit with the king, till his faculties were visibly impaired with age." The duke died without male issue, but his brother succeeded to the title of Earl, whose son Richard was the author of a translation of Virgil, which is rather literal than poetical, yet Dryden adopted many of the lines into his own translation.

, an eminent classical editor, of a foreign family, was born in 1668. He was educated at Westminster school, under Dr. Busby, who kept him to the study of Greek and Latin some years longer than usual. He then gained another powerful friend in Dr. South, for whom he compiled a list of the Greek words falsely accented in Dr. Sherlock’s books. This so pleased Dr. South, who was then a canon of Christ church, Oxford, that he made him a canoneer student (i. e. one introduced by a canon, and not elected from Westminster school), where he took the degree of M. A. March 23, 1696. From 1695 till 1699, he was second master of Westminsterschool which was afterwards indebted to him for “Græcæ Linguæ Dialecti, in usum Scholas Westmonastcriensis,” 1706, 8vo , (a work recommended in the warmest terms by Dr. Knipe to the school over which he presided, “cui se sua omnia debere fatetur sedulus Author”) and for “The English Grammar, applied to, and exemplified in, the English tongue,” 1712, 8vo. In “Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliae & Hiberniae,” Oxon. 1697, t. ii. p. 27, is inserted “Librorum Manuscriptorum Ecclesiae Westmonasteriensis Catalogus. Accurante viro erudito Michaele Mattaerio.” But before the volume was published, the whole collection, amounting to 230, given by bishop Williams, except one, was destroyed by an accidental fire in 1694. In 1699 he resigned his situation at Westminster-school; and devoted his time solely to literary pursuits. In 1711, he published “Remarks on Mr. Whision’s Account ef the Convocation’s proceedings with relation to himself: in a Letter to the right reverend Father in God, George, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells,” 8vo; and also “An Essay against Arianism, and some other Heresies; or a Reply tp Mr. William Whiston’s Historical Preface and Appendix to his Primitive Christianity revived,” 8vo. In 1709, he gave the first specimen of his great skill in typographical antiquities, by publishing “Stephanorum Historia, vitas ipsorum ac libros complectens,” 8vo; which was followed in 1717, by “Historia Typographorum aliquot Parisiensium, vitas & libros complectens,” 8vo. In 1719, “Annales Typographic! ab artis inventae origine ad annum MD. Hagae Com.” 4to. To this volume is prefixed, “Epistolaris de antiquis Qnintiliani editionibus Disseitatio, clarissimo viro D. Johanni Clerico.” The second volume, divided into two parts, and continued to 1536, was published at the Hague in 1702; introduced by a letter of John Toland, under the title of “Conjectura verosimilis de prima Typographies Inventione.” The third volume, from the same press, in two parts, continued to 1557, and, by an Appendix, to 1564, in 1725. In 1733 was published at Amsterdam what is usually considered as the fourth volume, under the title of “Annales Typographic! ab artis inventae origine, ad annum 1564, opera Mich. Maittaire, A. M. Editio nova, auctior & emendatior, tomi priori pars posterior.” In 1741 the work was closed at London, by “Annalium Typographicorum Tomus Quintus & ultimus; indicem in tomos quatuor praeeuntes complectens;” divided (like the two preceding volumes) into two parts.

From 1728 to 1732 he was employed in publishing, “Marmorum Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, aliorumque Academies Oxoniensi donatorum, una cum Commentariis & Indice, editio secunda,” folio to which an “Appendix” was printed in 1733. “Epistola D. Mich. Maittaire ad D. P. Des Maizeaux, in qua Indicis in Annales Typographicos methodus explicatur,” &c. is printed in “The Present State of the Republic of Letters,” in August 1733, p. 142. The life of Robert Stephens, in Latin, revised and corrected by the author, with a new and complete list of his works, is prefixed to the improved edition of R. Stephens’s Thesaurus, 4 vols. in folio, in 1734. In 1736 appeared, “Antiques Inscriptiones cluae,” folio; being a commentary on two large copper tables discovered near Heraclea, in the bay of Tarentum. In 1738 were printed at the Hague, “Graecse Linguae Dialecti in Scholse Regias Westmonasterrensis usum recogniti opera Mich. Maittaire. Prosfationem & Appendicem ex Apollonii Discoli fragmento inedito addidit J. F. Reitzius.” Maittaire prefixed a dedication of this volume to the marquis of Granby, and the lords Robert and George Manners, his brothers; and a new preface, dated 3 Cal. Octob. 1737. This was again printed at London in 1742. In 1739, he addressed to the empress of Russia a small Latin poem, under the title of “Carmen Epinicium Augustissimae Russorum Imperatrici sacrum.” His name not having been printed in the titlepage, it is not so generally known that he was editor of Plutarch’s “Apophthegmata,” 1741, 4to. The last publication of Mr. Maittaire was a volume of poems in 4to, 1742, under the title of “Senilia, sive Poetica aliquot in argumentis varii generis tentamina.” It may be worth mentioning, that Baxter’s dedication to his “Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum,” was much altered by Maittaire; who died August 7, 1747, aged seventy-nine. There is a good mezzotinto print of him by Faber, from a painting by B. Dandridge, inscribed, “Michael Maittaire, A. M. Amicorum jussu.” His valuable library, which he had been collecting fifty years, was sold by auction, by Messrs. Cock and Langford, at the close of the same year, and the beginning of the following, taking up in all forty-four nights. Mr. Cock, in his prefatory advertisement, tells us, “In exhibiting thus to the public the entire library of Mr. Maittaire, I comply with the will of my deceased friend; and in printing the catalogue from his own copy just as he left it (though, by so doing, it is the more voluminous), I had an opportunity not only of doing the justice I owe to his memory, but also of gratifying the curious.” Maittaire, it may be added, was patronized by the first earl of Oxford, both before and after that gentleman’s elevation to the peerage, and continued a favourite with his son the second earl. He was also Latin tutor to Mr. Stanhope, the earl of Chesterfield’s favourite son, and was esteemed by so many persons of eminence that we cannot wonder at his portrait being engraven jussu amicorum. He possessed many amiable qualities; in religion was orthodox and zealous ; in temper modest and unassuming despising the pride of learning, yet fond of friendly intercourse.

With respect to his talents, he may be characterized as a sound scholar, and a careful editor; and, although his genius was confined, and his taste questionable, his labours have been truly useful, and entitle him to the grateful remembrance of the classical student. He has the glory, says Mr. Dibdin, of being the first who established in this country, on a solid basis, the study of bibliography.

, an Italian Jesuit, sent by his superiors as a missionary to Portugal, was a man of an ardent zeal, with that facility of elocution which enthusiasm geu*rally confers. He soon became the fashionable confessor, and people of all ranks put themselves under his direction. He was regarded as a saint, and consulted as an oracle. When the duke d‘Aveiro formed his conspiracy against the king of Portugal, he is said by the enemies of the Jesuits to have consulted with three of that order, one of whom was Malagrida. The king, when he thought proper to banish the Jesuits from his kingdom, suffered Malagrida, Alexander, and Mathos, to remain there; and these are the very three who are supposed to have assisted the conspiracy, by telling the conspirators that it was not even a venial sin to kill a monarch who persecuted the saints, i. e. the Jesuits. Malagrida was some time after sent to the inquisition, for teaching heretical doctrines; an accusation which is said to have been not altogether without foundation. He appears, however, to have been an enthusiast of so extravagant a kind, that no singularities in his writings can be thought extraordinary. He conceived himself to possess the power of working miracles; and declafed to the inquisitors, that God himself had appointed him his ambassador, apostle, and prophet. This, and many other very wild declarations, would not, perhaps, have occasioned his condemnation, had he not unfortunately pretended to have had the death of the king revealed to him. The marquis of Tancors, general of the province of Estremadura, ’happening to die, the castle of Lisbon, and all the fortresses of the Tagus, discharged their cannon in honour of him. Malagrida, hearing this unusual sound in the night, concluded that the king was dead, and desired that the inquisitors would grant him an audience. When he came before them, he said, in order to establish the credit of his predictions, that the death of the king had been revealed to him; and that he also had a vision, which informed him what punishment that monarch was to undergo in the other world for having persecuted the Jesuits. This declaration hastened his condemnation. He was burnt alive on Sept. 21, 1761, at the age of 75, not as a conspirator, but as a false prophet. His true character, perhaps, was that of a lunatic. The works in which his heretical extravagancies are to be found, are entitled “Tractatus de vita et imperio Antichrist!” and (written in the Portuguese language) “The Life of St. Anne, composed with the assistance of the blessed Virgin Mary and her most holy Son.”

, a very learned Spanish Jesuit, was born at Fuente del Maestro, a small village in the province of Estramadura, in 1534. He studied under Dominicus Asoto, a Dominican, and also under Francis Tolet, a Jesuit, who was afterwards a cardinal, and there was no better scholar in the university of Salamanca in his time, than Maldonat. He there taught philosophy, divinity, and the Greek language. He entered into the society of the Jesuits, but did not put on the habit of his order till 1562, when he was at Rome. In 1563, he was sent by his superiors to Paris, to teach philosophy in the college which the Jesuits had just established in that city; where, as the historians of his society tell us, he was so crowded with hearers, that he was frequently obliged to read his lectures in the court or the street, the hall not being sufficient to contain them. He was sent, with nine other Jesuits, to Poictiers, in 1570, where he read lectures in Latin, and preached in French. Afterwards he returned to Paris, where he was not only accused of heresy, but likewise of procuring a fraudulent will from the president de St. Andre, by which the president was made to leave his estate to the Jesuits. But the parliament declared him innocent of the forgery, and Gondi, bishop of Paris, entirely acquitted him of the charge of heresy. He afterwards thought proper to retire to Bourges, where the Jesuits had a college, and continued there about a year and a half. Then he went to Rome, by the order of pope Gregory XIII. to superintend the publication of the “Septuagint'? and after finishing his” Commentary upon the Gospels," in 1582, he died there, in the beginning of 1583.

He composed several works, which shew great parts and learning; but published nothing in his life-time. The first of his performances which came abroad after his death, was his “Comment upon the Four Gospels;” of which father Simon says: “Among all the commentators which we have mentioned hitherto, there are few who have so happily explained the literal sense of the Gospels as John, Maldonat the Spanish Jesuit. After his death, which happened at Rome before he had reached his fiftieth year, Claudius Aquaviva, to whom he presented his” Comment“while he was dying, gave orders to the Jesuits of Pont a Mousson to cause it to be printed from a copy which was sent them. The Jesuits, in the preface to that work, declare that they had inserted something of their own, according to their manner; and that they had been obliged to correct the manuscript copy, which was defective in some places, because they had no access to the original, which was at Rome. Besides, as the author had neglected to mark, upon the margin of his copy, the books and places from whence he had taken a great part of his quotations, they supplied that defect. It even appeared, that Maldonat had not read at first hand all that great number of writers which he quotes; but that he had made use of the labours of former writers. Thus he is not quite so exact, as if he had put the last hand to his Comment. Notwithstanding these imperfections, and some others, which are easily corrected, it appears plainly, that this Jesuit had bestowed abundance of pains upon that excellent work. He does not allow one difficulty to pass without examining it to the bottom. When a great number of literal interpretations present themselves upon the same passage, he usually fixes upon the best, without paying too great a deference to the ancient commentators*, or even to the majority, regarding nothing but truth alone, stript of all authorities but her own.” Cardinal Perron laid, that he “was a very great man, and a true divine; that he had an excellent elocution as a speaker, understood the learned languages well, was deeply versed in scholastic divinity and theology, and that he had thoroughly read the fathers.” His character has been as high among the Protestants, for an interpreter of Scripture, as it was among the Papists. Matthew Pole, in the preface to the fourth volume of his “Synopsis Criticorum,” calls him a tvriter of great parts and learning. “He was,” says Dr. Jackson, “the most judicious expositor among the Jesuits. His skill in expounding the Scriptures, save only where doting love unto their church had made him blind, none of theirs, few of our church, have surpassed.” His “Commentaries upon Jeremiah, Baruch, Ezekiel, and Daniel,” were printed at Lyons in 1609, and at Cologne in 1611. To these were added, his “Exposition of the cixth Psalm,” and “A letter concerning a celebrated dispute which he had with above twenty Protestant ministers at Sedan.” His treatise “De fide,” was printed at Maienne in 1600; and that upon “Angels and Demons” at Paris, in 1605. In 1677, they published at Paris some pieces which had never appeared before; namely, his treatise “Of Grace,” that upon “Original Sin,” upon “Providence,” upon “Justice,” upon “Justification,” and that upon “The Merit of Works;” besides “Prefaces, Harangues, and Letters,” one volume, folio.

We will conclude our account of this celebrated Jesuit, with mentioning an high eulogium of him, given by the impartial and excellent Thuanus; who, after observing that he “joined a singular piety and purity of manners, and an exquisite judgment, to an exact knowledge of philosophy and divinity,” adds, “that it was owing to him alone, that the parliament of Paris, when they had the Jesuits under their consideration, did not pronounce any sentence to their disadvantage, though they were become suspected by the wisest heads, and greatly hated by the university.” Nothing can set the importance of Maldonat in a stronger light, or better shew the high opinion that was had of his merit.

, a French philosopher, was born at Paris, Aug. 6, 1638, and was first placed under a domestic tutor, who taught him Greek and Latin. He afterwards went through a course of philosophy at the college of la Marche, and that of divinity in the Sorbonne; and was admitted into the congregation of the Oratory at Paris, in 1660, After he had spent some time there, he consulted father le Cointe, in what manner he should pursue his studies; who advised him to apply himself to ecclesiastical history. Upon this he began to read Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret; but soon grew weary of this study, and next applied himself to father Simon, who recommended Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, rabbinical learning, and critical inquiries into the sense of the Scriptures. But this kind of study was not at all more suitable to his genius, than the former. At last, in 1664, he met with Des Cartes’s “Treatise upon Man,” which he read over with great satisfaction, and devoted himself immediately to the study of his philosophy; of which, in a few years, he became as perfect a master as Des Cartes himself. In 1699, he was admitted an honorary member of the royal academy of sciences. He died Oct. 13, 1715, being then seventy-seven years of age. From the time that he began to read Des Cartes, he studied only to enlighten his mind, and not to furnish his memory; so that he knew a great deal, though he read but little. He avoided every thing that was mere erudition; an insect pleased him much more than all the Greek and Roman history. He despised likewise that kind of learning, which consists only in knowing the opinions of different philosophers; since it was his opinion that a person may easily know the history of other men’s thoughts, without ever thinking at all himself. Such was his aversion to poetry, that he could never read ten verses together without disgust. He meditated with his windows shut, in order to keep out the light, which he found to be a disturbance to him. His conversation turned upon the same subjects as his books, but was mixed with so much modesty and deference to the judgment of others, that it was much courted. Few foreigners, who were men of learning, neglected to visit him when they came to Paris: and it is said, that an English officer, who was taken prisoner during die war between William III. and the king of France, was content with his lot, when he was. brought to Paris, because it gave him an opportunity to see Louis XIV. and father Malebranche.

He wrote several works. The first and principal, as in-deed it gave rise to almost all that followed, was his “Be la Recherche de la Verite,” or his “Search after Truth,” printed at Paris in 1674, and afterwards augmented in several successive editions. His design in this book is to point out the errors into which we are daily led by our senses, imaginvvtion, and passions;. and to prescribe a method for discovering the truth, which he does, by starting the notion of seeing all things in God. Hence he is led to think and speak meanly of human knowledge, either as it lies in written books, or in the book of nature, compared with that light which displays itself from the ideal world; and by attending to which, with pure and defecated minds, he supposes knowledge to be most easily had. These sentiments, recommended by various beauties of style, made many admire his genius who could not understand, or agree to his principles. Locke, in his “Examination of Malebranche’s opinion of seeing all things in God,” styles him an “acute and ingenious author;” and tells us, that there are “a great many very fine thoughts, judicious reasonings, and uncommon reflections in his Recherche:” but in that piece, endeavours to refute the chief principles of his system. Brucker is of opinion that the doctrine of his “Search after Truth,” though in many respects original, is raised upon Cartesian principles, and is, in some particulars, Platonic. The author represents, in string colours, the causes of error, arising from the disorders of the imagination and passions, the abuse of liberty, and an implicit confidence in the senses. He explains the action of the animal spirits, the nature of memory; the connection of the brain with other parts of the body, and their influence upon the understanding and will. On the subject of intellect, he maintains, that thought alone is essential to mind, and deduces the imperfect state of science from the imperfection of the human understanding, as well as from the inconstancy of the will in inquiring after truth. Rejecting the ancient doctrine of species sent forth from material objects, and denying the power of the mind to produce ideas, he ascribes their production immediately to God; and asserts, that the human mind immediately perceives God, and sees all things in him. As he derives the imperfection of the human mind from its dependence upon the body, so he places its perfection in union with God, by means of the knowledge of truth and the love of virtue. Singular and paradoxical, Brucker adds, as the notion of “seeing all things in God,” and some other dogmas of this writer, must have appeared, the work was written with such elegance and splendour of diction, and its tenets were supported by such ingenious reasonings, that it obtained general applause, and procured the author a distinguished name among philosophers, and a numerous train of followers. Its popularity might, perhaps, he in part owing to the appeal which the author makes to the authority of St. Augustine, from whom he professes to have borrowed his hypothesis concerning the origin of ideas. The immediate intercourse which this doctrine supposes, between the human and the divine mind, has led some to remark a strong resemblance between the notions of Malebranche, and those of the sect called Quakers.

Dr. Reid, on the other hand, does not allow, that either Plato or the latter Platonists, or St. Augustine, or the Mystics, thought, that we perceive the objects of sense in the divine ideas. This theory of our perceiving the objects of sense in the ideas of the Deity, he considers as the invention of father Malebranche himself. Although St. Augustine speaks in a very high strain of God’s being the light of our minds, of our being illuminated immediately by the eternal light, and uses other similar expressions; yet he seems to apply those expressions only to our illumination in moral and divine things, and not to the perception of objects by the senses. Mr. Bayle imagines, that some traces of this opinion of Malebranche are to be found in Amelius the Platonist, and even in Democritus; but his authorities seem, as Dr. Reid conceives, to be strained, Malebranche, with a very penetrating genius, entered into a more minute examination of the powers of the human mind than any one before him; and he availed himself of the previous discoveries made by Des Cartes, without servile attachment. He lays it down as a principle admitted by all philosophers, and in itself unquestionable, that we do not perceive external objects immediately, but by means of images or ideas of them present to the mind. “The things which the soul perceives,” says Malebranche,“are of two kinds. They are either in the soul, or without the soul: those that are in the soul are its own thoughts, that is to say, all its different modifications. The soul has no need of ideas for perceiving these things. But with regard to things without the soul, we cannot perceive them but by means of ideas.” He then proceeds to enumerate all the possible ways by which the ideas of sensible objects may be presented to the mind: either, 1st, they come from the bodies, which we perceive; or, 2dly, the soul has the power of producing them in itself; or, 3dly, they are produced by the Deity in our creation, or occasionally as there is use for them: or, 4thly, the soul has in itself virtually and eminently, as the schools speak, all the perfections which it perceives in bodies: or, 5thly, the soul is united with a Being possessed of all perfection, who has in himself the ideas of all created things. The last mode is th^it which he adopts, and which he endeavours to confirm by various arguments. The Deity, being always present to our minds in a more intimate manner than any other being, may, upon occasion of the impressions made on our bodies, discover to us, as far as he thinks proper, and according to fixed laws, his own ideas of the object; and thus we see all things in God, or in the divine ideas.

The next piece which Malebranche published, was his “Conversations Chretiennes, dans lesquelles sont justifié la verite de la religion & de la morale de J. C.” Paris, 1676. He was moved, it is said, to write this piece, at the desire of the duke de Chevreuse, to shew the consistency and agreement between his philosophy and religion. His “Traité de la nature & de la grace,” 1680, was occaioned by a conference he had with M. Arnaud, about those peculiar notions of grace into which Malebranche’s system had led that divine. This was followed by other pieces, which were all the result of the philosophical and theological dispute our author had with M. Arnaud. In 1688, he published his “Entretien sur la inetaphysique & la religion:” in which work he collected what he had written against M. Arnaud, but disengaged it from that air of dispute which is not agreeable to every reader. In 1697, he published his “Traite de P amour de Dieu.” When the doctrine of the new mystics began to be much talked of in France, father Lamy, a Benedictine, in his book “De la connoissance de soi-mme,” cited some passages out of this author’s “Recherche de la verit6,” as favourable to that party; upon this, Malebranche thought proper to defend himself in this book, by shewing in what sense it may be said, without clashing with the authority of the church or reason, that the love of God is disinterested. In 1708, he published his “Entretiens d‘un philosophe Chretien, & d’un philosophe Chinois sur l'existence & la nature de Dieu:” or, “Dialogues between a Christian philosopher and a Chinese philosopher, upon the existence and nature of God.” The bishop of Rozalie having remarked some conformity between the opinions of the Chinese, and the notions laid down in the “Recherche de la Verite”,“mentioned it to the author, who on that account thought himself obliged to write this tract. Malebranche wrote many other pieces besides what we have mentioned, all tending some way or other to confirm his main system established in the” Recherche," and to clear it from the objections which were brought against it, or from the consequences which were deduced from it: and, if he has not attained what he aimed at in these several productions, he has certainly shewn great ingenuity and abilities.

, of Antioch, a sophist, who was a teacher of rhetoric, and a member of the church of Antioch, is supposed to have lived about the year 900, though some authors have been inclined to place him earlier. He is a writer of little value, and abounds in words of a barbarous Greek. He must not be confounded with John of Antioch, another historian of the same place, who was a monk. We have a chronicle written by Malelas, which extends from the creation to the reign of Justinian, but is imperfect. His history was published by Edward Chilmead at Oxford, in 1691, in 8vo, from a manuscript in the Bodleian library; and republished among the Byzantine historians, as a kind of appendix, at Venice, in 1733. The Oxford edition contains an interpretation and notes by Chilmead, with three indexes, one of events, a second of authors, a third of barbarous words. Prefixed is a discourse concerning the author, by Humphrey Hody; and an epistle is subjoined from Bentley to Mill, with an index of authors who are there amended.

In 1771, when the government had dissolved the whole legal constitution, and banished the parliaments, Malesherbes was banished to his country-seat by a “lettre de cachet,” and the duke de Richelieu, at the head of an armed force, abolished the court of aids. During his retirement, Malesherbes’s time was occupied with his family and his books, and the cultivation of his grounds. His expenditure in public objects was large: he drained marshes, cut canals, constructed roads, built bridges, planted walks, and carried his attention to the comfort of the lower classes so far as to raise sheds on the sides of the river for the shelter of the women at their domestic labours. He was thus benevolently and usefully employed when the accession of Lewis XVI. recalled him to a public station, and in 1774 Malesherbes received an order to resume the presidentship of the court of aids, on which occasion he pronounced a very affecting and patriotic harangue, and afterwards addressed the king in an eloquent speech of thanks. His majesty was so well pleased with him, and with the freedom of his sentiments, that he appointed him minister of state in June 1775, an office which gave Malesherbes an opportunity of extending his sphere of usefulness. One of his first concerns was to visit the prisons, and restore to liberty the innocent victims of former tyranny, and his praises were carried throughout France by persons of all descriptions returning to the bosoms of their families from the gloom of dungeons. Although he failed in his attempt to abolish the arbitrary power of issuing lettres de cachet, he procured the appointment of a commission, composed of upright and enlightened magistrates, to which every application for such letters should be submitted, and whose unanimous decision should be requisite for their validity. Malesherbes was also a great encourager of commerce and agriculture, in which he bad the cordial co-operation of the illustrious Turgot, at that period the comptroller of the revenue; but, owing to the rejection of some important measures which his zeal for the public good led him to propose, Malesberbes resigned in the month of May 1776. To obtain an accurate view of the manners and policy of other countries and foreign states, he set out on his travels, and visited Switzerland and Holland, and in the course of his journey he noted down every occurrence worthy of observation, and that might, hereafter, possibly be useful to himself, and promote the melioration of his country. On his return, at the end of a few years, he found his native country so much advanced in what he thought philosophical principles, that he was encouraged to present to the king two elaborate memoirs, one on the condition of the protestants, the other in favour of the principles of civil liberty, an4 toleration in general. Difficulties, however, were now accumulating in the management of the government, and the king, in 1786, called Malesherbes to his councils, but without appointing him to any particular post in the administration. He soon found it impossible to act with the men already possessed of the powers of government, and expressed his opinion in two energetic memoirs “On the Calamities of France, and the means of repairing them;” but it does not appear that these ever reached his majesty, nor could Malesherbes obtain a private interview; he therefore took his final leave of the court, and retreated to his country residence, determined to consult the best means of serving his country by agricultural pursuits, in 1790 he published “An Essay on the means of accelerating the progress of Rural Economy in France,” in which he proposed an establishment to facilitate the national improvement in this important point. In this tranquil state he was passing the evening of his days when the horrors of the revolution brought him again to Paris. During the whole of its progress, he had his eyes constantly fixed on his unhappy sovereign; and, subduing his natural fondness for retirement, went regularly to court every Sunday, to give him proofs of his respect and attachment. He imposed it as a duty on himself to give the ministers regular information of the designs of the regicide faction; and when it was determined to bring the king to trial, he voluntarily offered to be the defender of his master, in his memorable letter of Dec. 11, 1792, that eternal monument of his loyalty and affection. Three counsel had already been appointed, but one having from prudential motives, declined the office, the king, who wept at this proof of attachment from his old servant, immediately nominated Malesherbes in his stead. Their interview was extremely affecting, and his majesty, during the short interval before his death, shewed every mark of affection for, and confidence in, his generous advocate. Malesherbes was the person who announced to him his cruel doom, and was one of the last who took leave of him previously to his execution. After that catastrophe he again withdrew to his retreat, and with a deeply-wounded heart, refused to hear any thing of what was acting among the blood-thirsty Parisians. As he was one morning working in his garden, he observed four savage-looking wretches directing their course to his house, and hastening home, he found them to be officers from the revolutionary tribunal come to arrest his daughter and her husband, who had formerly been president of the parliament of Paris. The separation of these persons from his family was deeply afflicting to his heart, and it is probable that his own arrest shortly after was a relief to his feelings. He had long been esteemed as father of the village in which he lived, and the rustic inhabitants crowded round to take leave of their ancient benefactor with tears and benedictions. Four of the municipality accompanied him to Paris, that he might not be escorted by soldiers like a criminal. He was shut tip in prison with his unfortunate family and in a lew days the guillotine separated his son-in-law Lepelletier from his wife and the accusation of Malesherbes with his daughter and grand-daughter, “for a conspiracy against the liberties of the people,” was followed, as a matter of course, by a sentence of death. The real crime, as it was basely denominated, of this excellent man and worthy patriot, and which the convention never pardoned, was his defence of the king, an act in which he gloried to the latest hour of his existence. He probably thought it an honour to die by the same ruffian hands that had spilt the blood of his master. The condemnation of the females almost overcame the manly fortitude which he displayed in every personal suffering; his courage, however, returned at the prison, and they prepared for the death which was the last and only important event that they had to encounter. His daughter had exhibited the noble spirit with which she was inspired, for upon taking leave of mademoiselle Sombreuil, who had saved her father’s life on the second of September, she said to her, “You have had the happiness to preserve your father, I shall have the consolation of dying with mine” On the fatal day Malesherbes left the prison with a serene countenance, and happening to stumble against a stone, he said with much pleasantry, “a Roman would have thought this an unlucky omen, and walked back again.” Thus perished the venerable Malesherbes in April 1794, when he had attained to the age of seventy-two years four months and fifteen days. His character may be in part deduced from the preceding narrative, but is more fully displayed in his life translated by Mr. Mangin. The subsequent government has since made some reparation for the injustice done him, by ordering his bust to be placed among those of the great men who have reflected honour upon their country.

, a French author, a man of extensive and almost universal learning, was born at Paris in 1650. By Bossuet, and the duke of Montausier, who knew his merit, he was appointed preceptor to the duke of Maine; and the public in general approved the choice. In 1696 Malezieu was chosen to instruct the duke of Burgundy in mathematics. In 1699 he became a member of the academy of sciences, and in two years after of the French academy. The duke of Maine rewarded his care of him by appointing him the chief of his council, and chancellor of Dombes. Under the regency of the duke of Orleans he was involved in the disgrace which fell upon the duke his pupil, and was imprisoned for two years. He had an excellent constitution, which, aided by regularity, conducted him nearly to the close of life without any indisposition. He died of an apoplexy on March 4, 1727, at the age of seventy-seven. Notwithstanding the vast extent of his learning, and many occupations which required great attention, he had an easy and unembarrassed air; his conversation was lively and agreeable, and his manners polite and attentive. He published, 1. “Elements of Geometry, for the duke of Burgundy,” 1715, 8vo, being the substance of the instructions delivered by him to that prince. 2. Several pieces in verse, songs, &c. published at Trevoux about 1712. 3. There has also been attributed to him a farce in one act, entitled, “Polichtnelle demandant une place a l'Academie.” He had, among other talents, that of translating the Greek authors into French, particularly the tragic writers, in a style of harmony and energy of verse, whieh approached as nearly, perhaps, as any thing in his language could do, to the excellence of the originals.

, a celebrated French poet, has always been considered by his countrymen as the father of their poetry; since, upon his appearance, all their former poets fell into disgrace. Bayle looks upon him as one of the first and greatest masters, who formed the taste and judgment of that nation in matters relating to polite literature. Balzac says, that the French poetry before Malherbe was perfectly gothic but Boileau, a better judge, has pronounced that he was the first in France who taught the muse harmonious numbers, a just cadence, purity of language, regularity of composition, and order; in short, who laid down all those rules for writing which future poets were to follow, if they hoped to succeed. The poetical works of Malherbe, though divided into six books, yet make but a small volume. They consist of paraphrases upon the Psalms, odes, sonnets, and epigrams: and they were published in several forms, to 1666, when a very complete edition of them came out at Paris, with the notes and observations of Menage. Malherbe was certainly the first who gave his countrymen any idea of a legitimate ode, though his own have hardly any thing but harmony to recommend them. He also translated some works of Seneca, and some books of Livy; and if he was not successful in translation, yet he had the happiness to be very well satisfied with his labour. His principal business was to criticize upon the French language; in which he was so well skilled, that some of his friends desired him one day to make a grammar for the tongue. Malherbe replied, “that there was no occasion for him to take that pains, for they might read his translation of the thirtythird book of Livy, and he would have them write after that manner.”

Malherbe was born at Caen, about 1555, of an ancient and illustrious family, who had formerly borne arms in, England, under Robert duke of Normandy. He lived to be old; and, about 1601, he became known to Henry the Great, from a very advantageous mention of him to that prince by cardinal du Perron. The king asked the cardinal one day, “if he had made any more verses?” To which the cardinal replied, that “he had totally laid aside all such amusements since his majesty had done him the honour to take him into his service; and added, that every body must now throw away their pens for ever, since a gentleman of Normandy, named Malherbe, had carried the French poetry to such a height, as none could hope to reach.” About four years after, he was called to court, and enrolled among the pensioners of that monarch. After the death of Henry, queen Mary of Medicis became his patroness, and settled upon him a very handsome pension. This he enjoyed to the time of his death, which happened at Paris in 1628. It was the misfortune of this poet, that he had no great share in the affection of cardinal Richelieu. It was discovered, that, instead of taking more than ordinary pains, as he should have done, to celebrate the glory of that great minister, he had only patched together old scraps, which he had found among his papers. This was not the way to please a person of so haughty a spirit; and therefore he received this homage from Malherbe very coldly, and not without disgust. “I learned from M. Racan,” says Menage, “that Malherbe wrote those two stanzas above thirty years before Richelieu, to whom he addressed them, was made a cardinal; and that he changed only the four first verses of the first stanza, to accommodate them to his subject. I learned also from the same Racan, that cardinal Richelieu knew that these verses had not been made for him.” His apparent indolence upon such an occasion was probably owing to that extreme difficulty with which he always wrote. All writers speak of the time and labour it cost Malherbe to produce his poems.

This poet was a man of a very singular humour; and many anecdotes are related of his peculiarities, by Racan, his friend and the writer of his life. A gentleman of the law, and of some distinction, brought him one day some indifferent commendatory verses on a lady; telling him at the same time, that some very particular considerations had induced him to compose them. Malherbe having run them over with a supercilious air, asked the gentleman bluntly, as his manner was, “whether, he had been sentenced to be hanged, or to make those verses?” His manner of punishing his servant was likewise characteristic, and partook not a little of the caprice of Swift. Besides twenty crowns a year, he allowed this servant ten-pence a day board wages, which in those times was very considerable; when therefore he had done any thing amiss, Malherbe would very gravely say: “My friend, an offence against your master is an offence against God, and must be expiated by prayer, fasting, and giving of alms; wherefore I shall now retrench five-pence out of your allowance, and give them to the poor on your account.” From other accounts it may be inferred that his impiety was at least equal to his wit. When the poor used to promise him that they would pray to God for him, he answered them, that “he did not believe they could have any great interest in heaven, since they were left in so bad a condition upon earth; and that he should be better pleased if the duke de Luyne, or same other favourite, had made him the same promise.” He would often say, that “the religion of gentlemen was that of their prince.” During his last sickness he was with great difficulty persuaded to confess to a priest; for which he gave this reason, that “he never used to confess but at Easter.” And some few moments before his death, when he had been in a lethargy two hours, he awaked on a suddea to reprove his landlady, who waited on him, for using a word that was not good French; saying to his confessor, who reprimanded him for it, that “”he could not help it, and that he would defend the purity of the French language to the last moment of his life."

After making the usual tour of Europe with the duke’s sows, he returned with them to London, and by the influence of the family, in which he resided, easily gained admission to many persons of the highest rank, to wits, nobles, and statesmen. “By degrees,” says Dr. Johnson, “having cleared his tongue from his native pronunciation, so as to be no longer distinguished as a Scot, he seems inclined to disencumber himself from all adherences of his original, and took upon him to change his name from Scotch Malloch to English Mallet, without any imaginable reason of preference which the eye or ear can discover. What other proofs he gave of disrespect to his native country, I know not; bur it was remarked of him that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend.” It seems unreasonable, however, to impute this change of name to disrespect for his country; with his countrymen many of his most intimate connections were formed, and his friendship for Thomson is one of the most agreeable parts of his history; and almost the last character he sustained was that of an intrepid advocate for lord Bute, and what were then called the Scotch junto who ruled the king and kingdom. As to Scotchmen not commending him, he had at least one adherent in Smollet, who engaged him to write in the Critical Review, where all Mallet’s works are highly praised, particularly his “Elvira.” The late commentator, George Steevens, esq. hit upon the truth more exactly, when he wrote in a copy of Gascoigne’s Works, purchased in 1766, at Mallet’s sale, “that he was the only Scotchman who died, in his memory, unlamented by an individual of fyis own nation.” Steevens probably mad this remark to Johnson, who forgot the precise terms. The first time we meet with the name of David Mallet is in 1726, in a list of the subscribers to Savage’s Miscellanies.

Soon after the exhibition of “Eurydice,” Mr. Mallet published his poem on “Verbal Criticism,” a subject which he either did not understand, or willingly misrepresented. “There is’in this poem,” says Dr. Johnson, “more pertness than wit, and more confidence than knowledge. The versification is tolerable, nor can criticism allow it a, higher praise.” It was written to pay court to Pope, who soon after introduced him, we may add, “in an evil hour” to lord Bolingbroke. The ruin of Pope’s reputation might have been dated from this hour, if the joint malignity of Bolingbroke and Mallet could have effected it. Mallet was now in the way to promotion. When the prince of Wales, at variance with his father, placed himself at the head of the opposition, and kept a separate court, he endeavoured to increase his popularity by the patronage of literature; and Mallet being recommended to him, his royal highness appointed him his under-secretary, with a salary of 200l. a year.

Not long after this, Mallet was employed by lord Bolingbroke in an office which he executed with all the malignity that his employer could wish. This was no other than to defame the character of Pope Pope, who by leaving the whole of his Mss to lord Bolingbroke, had made him in some respect the guardian of his character Pope, onwhose death-bed lord Bolingbroke looking earnestly down, repeated several times, interrupted with sobs, “O great God, what is man? I never knew a person that had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a warmer benevolence for all mankind!” who certainly had idolized this nobleman throughout his whole life, and who adhered to his lordship’s cause through all the vicissitudes of popular odium and exile. What could have induced Bolingbroke to the malice of degrading Pope’s character, and the cowardice of employing a hireling to do it? The simple fact is, that after Pope’s death it was thought to be discovered that he had privately printed 1500 copies of one of lord Bolingbroke’s works, “The Patriot King,” the perusal of which his lordship wished to be confined to a select few. This offence, which Mallet only could have traced to a bad motive, if fairly examined, will probably seem disproportioned to the rage and resentment of Bolingbroke. A very acute examiner of evidence (Mr. D'Israeli) has therefor imputed that to the preference with which Pope had distinguished Warburton, and is of opinion that Warburton, much more than Pope, was the real object. Between Bolingbroke and Warburton there was, it is well known, a secret jealousy, which at length appeared in mutual and undisguised contempt. But much of this narrative belongs rather to them than to Mallet, who could feel no resentment, could plead no provocation. On the contrary, he had every inducement to reflect with tenderness on the memory and friendship of Pope, who speaks of him, in a letter we have already alluded to, in the following terms “To prove to you how little essential to friendship I hold letter-writing I have not yet written to Mr. Mallet, whom I love and esteem greatly, nay whom I know to have as tender a, heart, and that feels a friendly remembrance as long as any man.” Such was the man who gladly undertook what Bolingbroke was ashamed to perform, and in a preface to the “Patriot King” misrepresented the conduct of Pope in language the most malignant and contemptuous. That he had an eye to his own interest in all this, it would be a miserable affectation of liberality to doubt. No other motive can account for his conduct, and this conduct will be found to correspond with his general character. Bolingbroke accordingly rewarded him by bequeathing to him all his writings published and unpublished, and Mallet immediately began to prepare them for the press. His conduct at the very outset of this business affords another illustration of his character. Francklin, the printer, to whom many of the political pieces written during the opposition to Walpole, had been given, as he supposed, in perpetuity, laid claim to some compensation for those. Mallet allowed his claim, and the question was referred to arbitrators, who were empowered to decide upon it, by an instrument signed by the parties; but when they decided unfavourably to Mr. Mallet, he refused to yield to the decision, and the printer was thus deprived of the benefit of the award, by not having insisted upon bonds of arbitration, to which Mallet had objected as degrading to a man of honour! He then proceeded, with the help of Millar, the bookseller, to publish all he could find; and so sanguine was he in his expectations, that he rejected the offer of 3000l. which Millar offered him for the copy-, right, although he was at this time so distressed for money that he was forced to borrow some of Millar to pay the stationer and printer. The work at last appeared, in 5 vols. 4to, and Mallet had soon reason to repent his refusal of the bookseller’s offer, as this edition was not sold off in twenty years. As these volumes contained many bold attacks on revealed religion, they brought much obloquy on the editor, and even a presentment was made of them by the grand-jury of Westminster. His memory, however, will be thought to suffer yet more by his next appearance in print When the nation was exasperated by the ill success of the war, and the ministry wished to divert public indignation from themselves, Mallet was employed to turn it upon admiral Byng. In this he entered as heartily as into the defamation of Pope, and wrote a letter of accusation under the character of a “Plain Man,” a large sheet, which was circulated with great industry, and probably was found to answer its purpose. The price of blood, on this occasion, was a pension which he retained till his death.

From this time (1757) until 1763, we hear nothing of Mr. Mallet, except a dedication of his poems to the late duke of Marlborough, in which he promises himself speedily the honour of dedicating to him the life of his illustrious predecessor. The cause of this promise is another of those charges which have been brought against Mallet, and which it will be difficult to repell. When the celebrated John duke of Marlborough died, it was determined, that the history of his life should be transmitted to posterity, and the papers supposed to contain the necessary information were delivered to lord Molesworth, who had been his favourite in Flanders. When Molesworth died, the same papers were transferred with the same design to sir Richard Steele, who in some of his exigences put them to pawn. They then remained with the old duchess, who in her will assigned the task to Mr. Glwer, the author of “Leonidas,” and Mr. Mallet, with a reward ef lOOOl. and a curious prohibition against inserting any verses. There were other prohibitions and conditions, however, which induced Glover, a man of spirit and virtue, to decline the legacy. Mallet had no such scruples, and besides the legacy, had a pension from the late duke of Marlborough to quicken his industry. He then began, and continued to talk much and often of the progress he had made, but on his death, not a scrap coulil be discovered of the history. In the political disputes which commenced at the beginning of the present reign, Mallet espoused the cause of his countryman lord Bute, and is said to have written his tragedy of “Elvira,” with a view to serve his lordship. This play was performed at Drury-lane in 1763; its ob­]ect was to recommend pacific sentiments, but the public was dissatisfied with the iate peace, and “Elvira,” though well performed, was easily rendered unpopular by the opponents of the ministry. Davies gives us an amusing anecdote of his tricking Garrick into the performance of this piece, by making him believe that he had introduced the mention of him in his life of Marlborough, a bait which Mallet’s principles suggested, and which Garrick’s vanity readily swallowed. Garrick got little by the play, but Mallet was rewarded with the office of keeping the book of entries for ships in the port of London.

Towards the end of his life, Mallet went with his wife to France, but after a while finding his health declining, returned alone to England, and died April 21, 1765. He was twice married. Of his first wife we find no mention, but by her he had several children. One daughter, who married an Italian of rank, named Cilesia, wrote a tragedy called “Almida,” which was acted at Drury-lane. This lady died at Genoa in 1790. His second wife, whom he married in October 1742, was miss Lucy Elstob, daughter to lord Carlisle’s steward. She had a fortune of 10,000l. all of which she took care to settle upon herself; but she was equally careful that Mallet should appear like a gentleman of distinction, and from her great kindness, always chose herself to purchase every thing that he wore, and to let her friends know that she did so. This lady’s sentiments were congenial to those of her husband, who was a professed free-thinker. They kept a good table (at which Gibbon appears to have been frequently a guest), and the lady, proud of her opinions, would often, we are told, in the warmth of argument, say, “Sir, we deists.”

, a learned historian and antiquary, first professor of history in his native city, was born at Geneva in 1730, became afterwards professor royal of the belles lettres at Copenhagen, a member of the academies of Upsal, Lyons, Cassel, and of the Celtique academy of Paris. Of his life no account has yet appeared. He joined an extensive acquaintance with history and general literature to great natural talents. The amenity of his disposition caused his company to be much sought, while his solid qualities procured him friends who deeply regretted his loss. The troubles of Geneva during the first revolutionary war deprived him of the greatest part of his fortune; and he was indebted, for the moderate competence he retained, to pensions from the duke of Brunswick and the landgrave of Hesse; but the events of the late war deprived him of both those pensions. The French government is said to have designed him a recompense, but this was prevented by his death, at Geneva, Feb. 8, 1807. His works were: 1. “Histoire de Danernarck,” to the eighteenth century, the best edition of which is that of 1787. 2. A translation of Coxe’s “Travels,” with remarks and additions, and a relation of his own Travels in Sweden, 2 vols. 4to. 3. Translation of the Acts and form of the Swedish government, 12mo. 4. “Histoire de Hesse,” to the seventeenth century, 3 vols. 8vo. 5. “Histoire de la rnaison de Brunswick,” to its accession to the throne of Great Britain, 3 vols. 8vo. 6. “Histoire des Suisses,” from the earliest times to the commencement of the late revolution, Geneva, 1803, 4 vols. 8vo. 7. “Histoire de la Ligne Anseatique,” from its origin to its decline, 1805, 2 vols. 8vo. He had discovered at Rome the chronological series of Icelandic bishops, which had been lost in Denmark. It is published in the third volume of Langebeck’s collection of Danish writers. The late Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, has made us acquainted with professor Mallet’s merit as an antiquary by his excellent translation entitled “Northern Antiquities; or a Description of the manners, customs, religion, and laws, of the ancient Danes, and other northern nations including those of our own Saxon ancestors. With a translation of the Edda, or system of Runic mythology, and other pieces from the ancient Islandic Tongue. Translated from M. Mallet’s Introduction a l'Histoire de Danemarck,” &c. 1770, 2 vols, 8vo. To this Dr. Percy has added many valuable and curious notes, and Goranson’s Latin version of the “Edda.” It was very justly said, at the time, by the Monthly Reviewer, that Dr. Percy had, in this instance, given a translation more valuable than the original.

, dean of the cathedral of Munster, and celebrated for his inquiries into typographical antiquities, was certainly a learned man, but very turbulent and ambitious. Hence it happened that he was named to two bishoprics without taking possession of either, and that he died in prison for his opposition to another prelate. The emperor Ferdinand I. appointed him to the bishopric of Ratzebourg, and he was, a few days after, elected to the see of Minden. But his ambition was to be bishop of Munster, and not succeeding, in 1650, he intrigued and raised seditions against the bishop who had succeeded, till in 1655, he was degraded from his dignity of dean. Nor yet warned, he continued his machinations, and in 1657, the bishop had him arrested and confined in the castle of Otteinzheim. Here he continued till his death, which happened suddenly, March 7, 1664. He wrote in Latin, 1. “De natura et usu Literarum,” Munster, 1638, 4to. 2. “De ortu et progressu artis Typographica;,” Cologne, 1639, 4to, and since reprinted in Wolfs collection of “Monumenta Typographica,” vol. I. 1740. 3. “De Archicancellariis S. R. imperil,” Munster, 1640, 4to. 4. “Paralipomenon de Historicis Gracis,” Cologne, 1656, 4to.

, an ancient English historian, who flourished in the twelfth century, was born in Somersetshire, and, on that account, as Bale and Pits inform us, was called Somersetanus. When a child, he himself says, he discovered a fondness for learning, which was encouraged by his parents, and increased with his years. Some have supposed Oxford to have been the place of his education. He became, however, a monk of Malmsbury, and it reflects no small honour on his fraternity, that they elected him their librarian. He had studied several sciences, as they could then be acquired, logic, physic, and ethics, but history appears to have been his favourite pursuit. After studying that of countries abroad, he began to inquire into the memorable transactions of his own nation but not finding any satisfactory history already written, he resolved, as he says, to write one, not to display his learning, “which is no great matter, but to bring to light things that are covered with the rubbish of antiquity.” This resolution produced his valuable work “De regibus Anglorum,” a general history of England in five books, from the arrival of the Saxons, in the year 449 to the 26 Henry I. in 1126; and a modern history, in two books, from that year to the escape of the empress Maud out of Oxford in 1143 with a church history of England in four books, published in sir H. Savile’s collection, 1596. His merits as a historian have been justly displayed and recommended by lord Lyttelton in his “History of Henry II.” In all his works (the Latin style of which is more pure than that of any of his contemporaries), he discovers great diligence, much good sense, and a sacred regard to truth, accompanied with uncommon modesty. He says that he can scarcely expect the applause of his contemporaries, but he hopes that when both favour and malevolence are dead, he shall obtain from posterity the character of an industrious, though not of an eloquent historian. Besides what we have mentioned, Gale has printed his “Antiquities of Glastonbury,” and Wharton his “Life of St. Adhelm.” But his abilities were not confined to prose. He wrote many pieces of Latin poetry; and it is remarkable, says Warton, that almost all the professed prose writers of this age made experiments in verse. William of Malmsbury died in that abbey in 1143.

, a gentleman of great literary research, and one of the ablest commentators on Shakspeare, was descended from an Irish family of the highest antiquity, an account of which may be found in the seventh volume of Archdall’s Peerage of Ireland, which, it is believed, was drawn up by Mr. Malone himself. All his immediate predecessors were distinguished men. His grandfather, while only a student at the Temple, was entrusted with a negotiation in Holland and so successfully acquitted himself, that he was honoured and rewarded by king William for his services. Having been called to the Irish bar about 1700, he became one of the most eminent barristers that have ever appeared in that country. His professional fame has only been eclipsed by that of his eldest son, the still more celebrated Anthony Malone, who as a lawyer, an orator, and an able and upright statesman, was confessedly one of the most illustrious men that his country has produced. Edmond, the second son of Richard, and the father of the late Mr. Malone, was born on the 16th of April, 1704. He was called to the English bar in 1730, where he continued for ten years to practise; and, in 1740, removed to the Irish bar. After having sat in several parliaments, and gone through the usual gradations of professional rank, he was raised, in 1766, to the dignity of one of the judges of the court of common pleas in Ireland, an office which he filled till his death in 1774. He married, in 1736, Catherine, only daughter and heir of Benjamin Collier, esq. of liuckholts, in the county of Essex, by whom he had four sons, Richard, now lord Sunderlin; Edmond, the subject of our present memoir Anthony and Benjamin, who died in their infancy and two daughters, Henrietta and Catherine.

Edmond Malone was born at his father’s house in Dublin, on the 4th of October, 1741. He was educated at the school of Dr. Ford, in Molesworth-street and went from thence, in 1756, to the university of Dublin,where he took the degree of batchelor of arts. Here his talents very early displayed themselves; and he was distinguished by a successful competition for academical honours with several young men, who atterwarda became the ornaments of the Irish senate and bar. It appears that at his outset he had laid down to himself those rules of study to which he ever afterwards steadily adhered. When sitting down to the perusal of any work, either ancient or modern, his attention was drawn to its chronology, the history and character of its author, the feelings and prejudices of the times in which he lived; and any other collateral information which might tend to illustrate his writings, or acquaint us with his probable views, and cast of thinking. In later years he was more particularly engrossed by the literature of his own country; but the knowledge he had acquired in his youth had been too assiduously collected, and too firmly fixed in his mind, not to retain possession of his memory, and preserve that purity and elegance of taste which is rarely to be met with but in those who have early derived it from the models of classical antiquity. He appears frequently at this period, in common with some of his accomplished contemporaries, to have amused himself with slight poetical compositions; and on the marriage of their present majesties contributed an ode to the collection of congratulatory verses which issued on that event from the university of Dublin. In 1763 he became a student in the Inner Temple; and in 1767 was called to the Irish bar, and, at his first appearance in the courts, he gave every promise of future eminence. But an independent fortune having soon after devolved upon him, he felt himself at liberty to retire from the bar, and devote his whole attention in future to literary pursuits, for which purpose he soon after settled in London, and resided there with very little intermission for the remainder of his life. Among the many eminent men with whom he became early acquainted, he was naturally drawn by the enthusiastic admiration which he felt for Shakspeare, and the attention which he had already paid to the elucidation of his works, into a particularly intimate intercourse with Mr. Steevens. The just views which he himself had formed led him to recognize in the system of criticism and illustration which that gentleman then adopted, the only means by which a correct exhibition of our great poet could be obtained. Mr. Steevens was gratified to find that one so well acquainted with the subject entertained that high estimation of his labours which Mr. Malone expressed; and very soon discovered the advantage he might derive from the communications of a mind so richly stored. Mr. Malone was ready and liberal in imparting his knowledge, which, on the other part, was most gratefully received.

Mr. Steevens having published a second edition of his Shakspeare, in 1778, Mr. Malone, in 1780, added two supplementary volumes, which contained some additional notes, Shakspeare’s poems, and seven plays which have been ascribed to him. There appears up to this time to have been no interruption to their friendship; but, on the contrary, Mr. Steevens, having formed a design of relinquishing all future editorial labours, most liberally made a present to Mr. Malone of his valuable collection of old plays, declaring that he himself was now become “a dowager commentator.” It is painful to think that this harmony should ever have been disturbed, or that any thing should have created any variance between two such men, who were so well qualified to co-operate for the benefit of the literary world. Mr. Matone, having continued his researches into all the topics which might serve to illustrate our great dramatist, discovered, that although much had been done, yet that much still remained for critical industry; and that a still more accurate collation of the early copies than had hitherto taken place was necessary towards a correct and faithful exhibition of the author’s text. His materials accumulated so fast, that he determined to appear before the world as an editor in form. From that moment he seems to have been regarded with jealousy by the elder commentator, who appears to have sought an opportunity for a rupture, which he soon afterwards found, or rather created. But it is necessary to go back for a moment, to point out another of Mr. Malone’s productions. There are few events in literary history more extraordinary in all its circumstances than the publication of the poems attributed to Rowley. Mr. Malone was firmly convinced that the whole was a fabrication by Chatterton; and, to support his opinion, published one of the earliest pamphlets which appeared in the course of this singular controversy. By exhibiting a series of specimens from early English writers, both prior and posterior to the period in which this supposed poet was represented to have lived, he proved that his style bore no resemblance to genuine antiquity; and by stripping Rowley of his antique garb, which was easily done by the substitution of modern synonymous words in the places of those obsolete expressions which are sprinkled throughout these compositions, and at the same time intermingling some archaeological phrases in the acknowledged productions of Chatterton, he clearly showed that they were all of the same character, and equally bore evident marks of modern versification, and a modern structure of language. He was followed by Mr. Warton and Mr. Tyrwhitt, in his second Appendix; and the controversy was soon at an end. While Mr. Malone was engaged in his Shakspeare, he received from Mr. Steevens a request of a most extraordinary nature. In a third edition of Johnson and Steevens’s Shakspeare, which had been published under the superintendance of Mr. Reed, in 1785, Mr. Malone had contributed some notes in which Mr. Steevens’s opinions were occasionally controverted. These he was now desired to retain in his new edition, exactly as they stood before, in order that Mr. S. might answer them. Mr. Malone replied, that he could make no such promise; that he must feel himself at liberty to correct his observations, where they were erroneous; to enlarge them, where they were defective; and even to expunge them altogether, where, upon further consideration, he was convinced they were wrong; in short, he was bound to present his work to the public as perfect as he could make it. But he added, that he was willing to transmit every note of that description in its last state to Mr. Steevens, before it went to press; that he might answer it if he pleased; and that Mr. Malone would even preclude himself from the privilege of replying. Mr. Steevens persisted in requiring that they should appear with all their imperfections on their head; and on this being refused, declared that all communication on the subject of Shakspeare was at an end between them. In 1790, Mr. Malone’s edition at last appeared and was sought after and read with the greatest avidity. It is unnecessary to point out its merits; the public opinion upon it iias been long pronounced. It cannot indeed be strictly said that it met with universal approbation. Mr. Ritson appeared against it in an angry and scurrilous pamphlet, replete with misrepresentations so gross, and so easy of detection, though calculated to mislead a careless reader, that Mr. Malone thought it worth his while to point them out in a letter which he published, addressed to his friend Dr. Farmer. Poor Ritson, however, has not been the only one who has attempted to persuade the world that they have been mistaken in Mr. Malone’s character as a critic. Mr. Home Tooke in particular, who, whatever were his talents as a grammarian, or his knowledge as an Anglo-Saxon, had by no means an extensive acquaintance with the literature of Shakspeare’s age, has mentioned Mr. Malone and Dr. Johnson with equal contempt, and immediately after proceeds to sneer at Mr. Tyrwhitt. It may readily be supposed that Mr. Malone would not feel very acutely the satire which associated him with such companions. But, to counterbalance these puny hostilities, his work gained the highest testimonies of applause from all who were best qualified to judge upon the subject, and from men whose approbation any one would be prpud to obtain. Dr. J. Warton, in a most friendly letter, which accompanied a curious volume of old English poetry which had belonged to his brother Thomas, and which he presented to Mr. Malone as the person for whom its former possessor felt the highest esteem and the most cordial regard, observes to him that his edition is by far, very far, the best that had ever appeared. Professor Person, who, as every one who knew him can testify, was by no means in the habit of bestowing hasty or thoughtless praise, declared to Mr. Malone’s biographer, that he considered the Essay on the three parts of Henry the Sixth as one of the most convincing pieces of criticism that he had ever read; nor was Mr. Burke less liberal in his praises.

Having concluded his laborious work, Mr. Malone paid a visit to his friends in Ireland; but soon after returned to his usual occupations in London. Amidst his own numerous and pressing avocations he was not inattentive to the calls of friendship. In 1791 appeared Mr. Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson, a work in which Mr. Malone felt at all times a very lively interest, and gave every assistance to its author during its progress which it was in his power to bestow. His acquaintance with this gentleman commenced in 1785, when, happening accidentally at Mr. Baldwin’s printing-house to be shewn a sheet of the Tour to the Hebrides, which contained Johnson’s character, he was so much struck with the spirit and fidelity of the portrait, that he requested to be introduced to its writer. From this period a friendship took place between them, which ripened into the strictest and most cordial intimacy, and lasted without interruption as long as Mr. Boswell lived. After his death, in 1795, Mr. Malone continued to show every mark of affectionate attention towards his family; and in every successive edition of Johnson’s Life took the most unwearied pains to render it as much as possible correct and perfect. He illustrated it with many notes of his own, and procured many valuable communications from his friends, among whom its readers will readily distinguish Mr. Bindley. Any account of Mr. Malone would be imperfect which omitted to mention his long intimacy with that gentleman, who is not so remarkable as the possessor of one of the most valuable libraries in this country, as he is for the accurate and extensive information which enables him to use it, and the benevolent politeness with which he is always willing to impart his knowledge to others. There was no one whom Mr. Malone more cordially loved.

In 1795 he was again called forth to display his zeal in defence of Shakspeare, against the contemptible fabrications with which the Irelands endeavoured to delude the public. Although this imposture, unlike the Rowleian poems, which were performances of extraordinary genius, exhibited about the same proportion of talent as it did of honesty, yet some persons of no small name were hastily led into a belief of its authenticity. Mr. Malone save through the falsehood of the whole from its commencement; and laid bare the fraud, in a pamphlet, which was written in the form of a letter to his friend lord Charlemont, a nobleman with whom he lived on the most intimate footing, and maintained a constant correspondence. It has been thought by some that the labour which he bestowed upon this performance was more than commensurate with the importance of the subject; and it is true that a slighter effort would have been sufficient to have overthrown this wretched fabrication; but we have reason to rejoice that Mr. Malone was led into a fuller discussion than was his intention at the outset; we owe to it a work which, for acuteness of reasoning, and the curious and interesting view which it presents of English literature, will retain its value long after the trash which it was designed to expose shall have been consigned to oblivion. Mr. Malone, in 1792, had the misfortune to lose his admirable friend sir Joshua Reynolds, and his executors, of whom Mr. Malone had the honour to be one, having determined in 1797 to give the world a complete collection of his works, he superintended the publication, and prefixed to it a very pleasing biographical sketch of their author. Although his attention was still principally directed to Shakspeare, and he was gradually accumulating a most valuable mass of materials for a new edition of that poet, he found time to do justice to another. He drew together, from various sources, the prose works of Dryden, which, as they had lain scattered about, and some of them appended to works which were little known, had never impressed the general reader with that opinion of their excellence which they deserved; and published them in 1800. The narrative which he prefixed is a most important accession to biography. By active inquiry, and industrious and acute research, he ascertained many particulars of his life and character that had been supposed to be irrecoverably lost, and detected the falsehood of many a traditionary tale that had been carelessly repeated by former writers. In 1808 he prepared for the press a few productions of his friend, the celebrated William Gerard Hamilton, with which he had been entrusted by his executors; and prefixed to this also a brief but elegant sketch of his life. In 1811 his country was deprived of Mr. Windham: Mr. Malone, who equally admired and loved him, drew up a short memorial of his amiable and illustrious friend, which originally appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine; and was afterwards, in an enlarged and corrected state, printed in a small pamphlet, and privately distributed. But the kind biographer was too soon to want “the generous tear he paid.” A gradual decay appears to have undermined his constitution; and when he was just on the point of going to the press with his new edition of Shakspeare, he was interrupted by an illness, which proved fatal; and, to the irreparable loss of all who knew him, he died on the 25th of May, 1812, in the 70th year of his age. In hid last illness he was soothed by the tender and unremitting attentions of his brother, lord Sunderlin, and his youngest sister; the eldest, from her own weak state of health, was debarred from this melancholy consolation. He left no directions about his funeral; but his brother, who was anxious, with affectionate solicitude, to execute every wish he had formed, having inferred from something that dropt from him, that it was his desire to be buried among his ancestors in Ireland, his remains were conveyed to that country, and interred at the family seat of Baronston, in the county of Westmeath.

Mr. Malone, in his person, was rather under the middle size. The urbanity of his temper, and the kindness of his disposition, were depictured in his mild and placid countenance. His manners were peculiarly engaging. Accustomed from his earliest years to the society of those who were distinguished for their rank or talent, he was at all times and in all companies easy, unembarrassed, and unassuming. It was impossible to meet him, even in the most casual intercourse, without recognizing the genuine and unaffected politeness of the gentleman born and bred His conversation was in a high degree entertaining and instructive; his knowledge was various and accurate, and his mode of displaying it void of all vanity or pretension. Though he had little relish for noisy convivial merriment, his habits were social, and his cheerfulness uniform and unclouded. As a scholar, he was liberally communicative. Attached, from principle and conviction, to the constitution of his country in church and state, which his intimate acquaintance with its history taught him how to value, he was a loyal subject, a sincere Christian, and a true son of the Church of England. His heart was warm, and his benevolence active. His charity was prompt, but judicious and discriminating; not carried away by every idle or fictitious tale of distress, but anxious to ascertain the nature and source of real calamity, and indefatigable in his efforts to relieve it. His purse and his time were at all times ready to remove the sufferings, and promote the welfare of others, and as a friend he was warm and steady in his attachments.

, an eminent French chemist and physician, was born at Caen in 1701, and was the son of a counsellor, who sent him, when of a proper age, to study law at Paris. Young Malouin, however, as soon as he arrived there, without ever informing his father, began the study of medicine, and pursued it with such success as well as secrecy, that on his return home in 1730, his father, whom he had always satisfied in every respect as to moral conduct, expenses, &c. and who expected to see him return as a licentiate in law, was astonished to find him a doctor of medicine, but was obliged at the same time to yield to a choice which indicated so much zeal and decision. Nor was this a new profession in the family, his uncle and grandfather having both been physicians. After remaining at home about three years, he went again, to Paris, and assisted Geoffroi in his chemical lectures, and would probably have succeeded him had he been on the spot when he died; but it was not until 1767 that he was appointed in the room of Astruc, who was the immediate successor of Geoffroi. At Paris, where he got iiitd practice, it lay much among literary men, whom he found generally very incredulous in the virtues of medicine. Malouin, who was a perfect enthusiast in his art, had many contests with them on this account. When a certain great philosopher had been cured by taking Malouin’s prescriptions for a considerable time, and came to acknowledge the obligation, Malouin embraced him and exclaimed, “you deserve to be sick.” (Vous etes digne d'etre maladej. He could not, however, bear those who, after being cured, indulged their pleasantries at the expehce of the faculty, and he broke off his acquaintance with an eminent writer* who had been his patient, on this account. On another occasion, when one of these wits with whom he had had a warm dispute about his favourite art, and had quarrelled, fell ill, Malouin sought him out, and his first address was, “I know you are ill, and that your case has been improperly treated; I am now come to visit you, although I hate you; but I will cure you, and after that never see your face more,” and he kept his word in all these points. This was, however, in him pure enthusiasm, without any mixture of quackery. His liberal conduct and talents were universally acknowledged, and he filled with great reputation the honourable offices of professor of medicine in the college of Paris, and physician in ordinary to the queen. He was also a member of the academy of sciences, and of our royal society. His love of medicine did not hinder him from paying equal attention to preventatives, and he was distinguished for a habit of strict temperance, which preserved his health and spirits to the advanced age of seventy-seven, without any of its infirmities. His death was at last occasioned by a stroke of apoplexy, which happened Dec. 31, 1777. He left a legacy to the faculty on condition of their assembling once a year, and giving an account of their labours and discoveries. His principal works were, 1. “Traite” de Chimie,“1734, 12mo. 2.” Chimie medicinale,“1755, 2 vols. 12mo, a work iti a very elegant style, and including maiiy valuable observations. He wrote also several articles in the dictionary” Des arts et metiers,“published by the academy of sciences* and the chemical part of the” Encyclopedic."

, an Italian physician and anatomist, was born March 10, 1628, at Crevalcuore, near Bologna, in Italy, where he was taught Latin and studied philosophy. In 1649, losing his parents, and being obliged to choose his own method of life, he determined to apply himself to physic. The university of Bologna was then supplied with very learned professors in that science, particularly Bartholomew Massari, and Andrew Mariano, under whose instructions Malpighi in a short time made great progress in physic and anatomy. After he had finished the usual course, he was admitted doctor of physic, April 6, 1653, In 1655 Massari died, a loss which Malpighi severely felt, as independent of his esteem for him as a master, he had become more nearly related to him by marrying his sister. In 1656, the senate of Bologna gave him a professorship, which he did not long hold; for the same year the grand duke of Tuscany invited him to Pisa, to be professor of physic there. Here he contracted a strict friendship with Borelli, whom he subsequently owned for his master in philosophy, and to whom he ascribed all the discoveries which he afterwards made. They dissected animals together, and it was in this employment that he found the heart to consist of spiral fibres; a discovery, which has been ascribed to Borelli in his posthumous works. The air of Pisa not agreeing with Malpighi, be continued there but three years: and, in 1659, returned to Bologna, to resume his former posts, notwithstanding the advantageous offers which were made him to stay at Pisa. In 1662 he was sent for to Messina, in order to succeed Peter Castello, first professor of physic, who was just dead. It. was with reluctance that he went thither, though the stipend was great; and although he was prevailed on at last by his friend Borelli, to accept it, yet in 1666 he returned to Bologna. In 1669 he was elected a member of the royal society of London, with which he ever after kept a correspondence by letters, and communicated his discoveries in anatomy. Cardinal Pignatelli, who had known him while he was legate at Bologna, being chosen pope in 1691, under the name of Innocent XII. immediately sent for him to Rome, and appointed him his physician. In 1694 he was admitted into the academy of the Arcadians at Rome. July the 25th, of the same year, he had a fit, which struck half his body with a paralysis; and, November the 29th following, he had another, of which he died the same day, in his 67th year. His remains were embalmed, and conveyed to Bologna, where they were interred with great funeral honours in the chureh of St. Gregory, and a statue was erected to his memory. Malpighi is described as a man of a serious and melancholy temperament, which is confirmed by his portrait in the meeting-room of the royal society at Somerset-house. He was indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge, on the sure ground of experience and observation, ever candid in his acknowledgments to those who had given him any information, and devoid of all ostentation or pretension on the score of his own merits. He ranks very high among the philosophers of the physiological age in which he lived, when nature began to be studied instead of books, and the dreams of the schools. Hence arose the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, the absorbent system of the animal body, and the true theory of generation. To such improvements the investigations of Malpighi, relative to the anatomy and transformation of insects, particularly the silk-worm, and the developement of the chick in the egg, lent no small aid. From these inquiries he was led to the anatomy and physiology of plants, in which he is altogether an original, as well as a very profound, observer. His line of study was the same as that of Grew, but these philosophers laboured independent of each other, and their frequent coincidence evinces the accuracy of both.

, a distinguished mathematician, philosopher, and military engineer, was born at Paris July 23, 1775. His first education was principally directe'd to classical and polite literature, and at seventeen years of age he composed a tragedy in five acts, called “The Death of Cato.” These pursuits, however, did not prevent him from a study apparently not very compatible, that of the mathematics; for at the above age he passed an examination which gained him admittance into the school of engineers. After having distinguished himself there by his genius for analysis, he was about to leave it in quality of officer of military engineers, but was rejected on political grounds, and as this repulse deprived him of all hope of promotion there, he repaired to the army in the north, where he was incorporated in the 15th battalion of Paris, and was employed as a common soldier in the fortifications of Dunkirk. The officer of engineers, who superintended those works, perceiving that Malus was deserving of a better station, represented his merits to the government, and he was recalled and sent to the Polytechnic school, where he was soon appointed to the analytic course in the absence of M. Monge. Being now re-established in his former rank at the date of his first nomination, he succeeded almost immediately to that of captain, and was employed at the school at Metz as professor of mathematics.

It was at this period (1797), that his military career commenced, and in the army of the Sambre and Meuse he was present at the passage of the Rhine. The same year he formed an attachment to the lady who afterwards became his wife. She was the daughter of the chancellor of the university of Giessen; but honour and duty prevented him from then realising his wishes. He was obliged to embark for Egypt, and assisted at the battles of Chebreis, and of the Pyramids. He was chosen member of the Institute of Cairo, but his life was too active and busy to allow him to indulge his taste for the sciences. One only occasion presented itself, of which he knew how to take advantage. In a reconnoitre on which he was ordered along with M. Lefevre, engineer of bridges and causeways, he had the satisfaction to discover a branch of the Nile, hitherto unknown to travellers, and to draw a description and map of a country where no Frenchman had penetrated since the crusades; and the memoir which he wrote on this subject forms part of the first volume of “La Decade Egyptienne.” But it was as a military engineer that he principally distinguished himself during this memorable expedition, particularly during the dangers of all kinds which attended him in Syria, and at the siege of El-Hariscb, and Jaffa, where he filled the office of engineer. After the capture of this town, he received orders to repair the fortifications, and to establish military hospitals. Here he was attacked by the plague, of which he had the good fortune to cure himself without any foreign assistance. Scarcely recovered, he hastened to Damietta on business, and from thence marched against the Turks who had landed at Lisbech; and was present at the battle of Heliopolis and Coraim, and at the siege of Cairo. After other movements, which will be found in the history of that expedition, he embarked at Aboukir, and arrived in France in Oct. 1801.

The activity of Malus was equal to so many different pursuits. Though he carried in his habit the seeds of that severe illness which was so soon to terminate his life, scarcely a week elapsed without his submitting to the Institute new fruits of his researches and his name being attached to the phenomenon of polarised light, which he discovered, all future discoveries of this kind must recall the remembrance of the philosopher who first opened this new road, and who, if he had lived, would have probably completed the theory of light. He died February 24th, 1812, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, a loss which cannot be sufficiently deplored, as his learning, his genius, and indefatigable industry, afforded every hope that length of years would have added to his discoveries, and extended the boundaries of science. His discovery of the polarisation of light by oblique reflection is perhaps the most important that optics has received since the discovery of the achromatic telescope.

, an ingenious and learned French Jesuit, who has written Latin poetry, was born in the diocese of Clermont, in 1581. He was one of the most ambitious imitators of Virgil; and wrote in the same measure, the same number of books, and in the three different kinds to which that illustrious poet applied himself. Thus we have of Mambrun, “Eclogues,” “Georgics, or four books upon the culture of the soul and the understanding;” and an heroic poem in twelve books, entitled “Constantine, or idolatry overthrown. We cannot, however, say that he has imitated the genius and judgment of Virgil as well as he has his exterior form and ceconomy. He is, indeed, allowed to have had great talents for poetry, and was a good critic, as he has sufficiently shewn in a Latin Peripatetic dissertation upon an epic poem; so that it is not without some foundation that Menage has called him” a great poet, as well as a great critic.“His” Peripatetic dissertation“was published at Paris, 1652, 4to; his” ConstantiYie,“at Amsterdam, 1659, in 12mo; his” Eclogues and Georgics," at Fleche, 1661, in 12mo; in which year also he died, aged eighty.

, a schoolmaster of considerable learning, but chiefly known as the antagonist of the celebrated Ruddiman, was born about the beginning of the last century, at Whitewreatb, in the parish of Elgin, and county of Murray, and was educated, first at the parish school of Longbride, and afterwards at King’s college, Aberdeen, where he took his degree of master of arts in 1721. He was afterwards appointed schoolmaster of the parish school of Touch, in the county of Aberdeen; and at length, in 1742, master of the poor’s hospital, in the city of Aberdeen. While in this station, his zeal for the character of the very celebrated Scotch historian and poet, Buchanan, led him to join the party of Scotch scholars, politicians, and writers, who were dissatisfied with Ruddiman’s edition of Buchanan’s worfcs, published in 1715, 2 vols. folio, and Jie determined himself to give a new edition more agreeable to the views he entertained of Buchanan as a historian, which, he being a staunch presbyterian, were of course adverse to Ruddiman’s well known sentiments. In the mean time he thought it necessary to show the errors and defects of Ruddiman’s edition, and accordingly published a work, the title of which will give the reader some idea of its contents: “A censure and examination of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman’s philological notes on the works of the great Buchanan, more particularly on the history of Scotland; in which also, most of the chronological and geographical, and many of the historical and political notes, are taken into consideration. In a letter to a friend. Necessary for restoring the true readings, the graces and beauties, and for understanding the true meaning of a vast number of passages of Buchanan’s writings, which have been so foully corrupted, so miserably defaced, so grossly perverted and misunderstood: Containing many curious particulars of his life, and a vindication of his character from many gross calumnies,” Aberdeen, 1751. This work, which extends to 574 pages small octavo, forms a very elaborate examination of Ruddiman’s edition, not only as referring to classical points, but matters of history, and is distinguished throughout by an unjustifiable contempt for Ruddiman’s knowledge and talents. Blameable as this was, and as his style generally is, he evidently proves that he was no mean verbal critic, and that his researches into the history of Buchanan and his works had been very extensive. With a better temper he might have proved an antagonist more worthy of Rnddiman’s serious attention. The latter, however, replied in 1754, in a pamphlet entitled “Anticrisis, or a Discussion of the scurrilous and malicious libel published by one James Man of Aberdeen,” 8vo, which was followed by “Audi alteram partem; or a further vindication of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman’s edition of the great Buchanan’s works,” 1756, 8vo. Both these contain an able vindication of the author; but the latter is particularly valuable, on account of the critical remarks Ruddiman offers on Burman’s philological notes on Buchanan.

, a celebrated English traveller, was born at St. Alban’s, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, of a family whose ancestor is said to have come into England with William the Conqueror. Leland, who calls this knight Magdovillanus, affirms that he was a proficient in theology, natural philosophy, and physic, before he left England, in 1322, to visit foreign countries. He returned, after having been long reputed dead, at the end of thirty-four years, when very few people knew him; and went afterwards to Liege, where it seems he passed under the name of Joannes de Barbam, and where he died, according to Vossius, who has recorded the inscription on his tomb, Nov. 17, 1372. His design seems to have been to commit to writing whatever he had read, or heard, or knew, concerning the places which he saw, or has mentioned in his book. Agreeably to this plan, he has described monsters from Pliny, copied miracles from legends, and related, without quotation, stories from authors who are now ranked among writers of romances and apocryphal history, so that many or most of the falsehoods in. his work properly belong to antecedent relators, but who were certainly considered as creditable authors at the time he wrote.

Sir John Mandevile visited Tartary about half a century after Marco Polo, who was there in 1272. In this interval a true or fabulous account of that country, collected by a cordelier, one Oderic D'Udin, who set out in 1318, and returned in 1330, was published in Italian, by Guillaume de Salanga, in the second volume of Ramusio, and in Latin and English by Hakluyt. It is suspected that sir John made too much use of this traveller’s papers; and it is certain that the compilers of. the “Histoire Generale des Voyages” did not think our English knight’s book so original, or so worthy of credit, as to give any account of it in their excellent collection. Sir John indeed honestly acknowledges that his book was made partly of hearsay, and -'partly of his own knowledge; and he prefaces his most improbable relations with some such words as these, thei seyne, or men seyn^ but I have not sene it. His book, however, was submitted to the examination of the pope’s council, and it was published after that examination, with the approbation of the pope, as Leland thinks, of Urban V. Leland also affirms that sir John Mandevile had the reputation of being a conscientious man, and that he had religiously declined an honourable alliance to the Soldan-of Egypt, whose daughter he might have espoused, if he would have abjured Christianity. It is likewise very certain that many things in his book, which were looked upptv as fabulous for a long time, have been since verified beyond all doubt. We give up his men of fifty feet high r but his hens that bore wool are at this day very well known, under the name of Japan and silky fowls, &c. Upon the whole, there does not appear to be any very g.ood reason why sir John Mandevile should not be believed in any thing that he relates on his own observation. He was, as may be easily credited, an extraordinary linguist, and wrote his book in Latin, from which he translated it into French, and from French into English, and into Italian; and Vossius says that he knows it to be in Belgic and German. The English edition has the title of “The Voiyage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, knight, which treateth of the way to Hierusalem, and marvayles of lude,” &c. Lond. 1568, 4to, reprinted in 1684, same form, and again in 1727, 8vo. All these are in the British Museum, together with copies of the French, Spanish, Latin, and Italian. Of the last there are two editions, printed at Venice in 1537 and 1567, both in 8vo. The original English ms, is in the Cotton library. The English editions are the most valuable to us, as written in the very language used by our countrymen three hundred years ago^ at a time when the orthography of the English language was so little fixed, that it seems to have been the fashionable affectation of writers, to shew their wit and scholarship by spelling the same words in the greatest variety of ways imaginable. The reader will be amused by Addison’s pretended discovery of sir John Mandevile’s Mss. and the pleasant fiction of “the freezing and thawing of several short speeches which sir John made in the territories of Nova Zembla.” This occurs in the Tatler, No. 254, the note upon which has principally furnished us with the above account.

, an author of temporary celebrity in the last century for his writings, was born about 1670, in Holland, where he studied physic, and took the degree of doctor in that faculty. He afterwards came over into England, and wrote several books, not without ingenuity, but some of them were justly considered as likely to produce a bad effect upon society. In 1709 he published his “Virgin Unmasked, or A dialogue between an old maiden aunt and her niece, upon love, marriage,” &c. a piece not very likely to increase virtue and innocence among his female readers. In 1711 came out his “Treatise of the hypocondriac and hysteric passions, vulgarly called the hyppo in men, and the vapours in women.” This work, which is divided into three dialogues, may be read with amusement at least, and contains some shrewd remarks on the art of physic and the modern practice of physicians and apothecaries, among whom he probably did not enjoy much reputation. In 1714 he published a poem entitled “The grumbling hive, or knaves turned honest;” on which he afterwards wrote remarks, and enlarged the whole into his celebrated publication, which was printed at London in 1723, under the title of “The Fable of the Bees, or private vices made public benefits with an Essay on charity and charity-schools, and a search into the nature of society.” In the preface to this book he observes, that since the first publication of his poem he had met with several, who, either wilfully or ignorantly mistaking the design, affirmed that the scope of it was a satire upon virtue and morality, and the whole written for the encouragement of vice. This made him resolve, whenever it should be reprinted, some way or other to inform the reader of the real intent with which that little poem was written. In this, however, he was so unfortunate, that the book was presented by the grand jury of Middlesex in July the same year, and severely animadverted upon in “A Letter to the Right Honourable Lord C.” printed in the London Journal of July the 27tb, 1723. The author wrote a vindication of his book from the imputations cast upon it in that Letter, and in the presentment of the grand jury, which he published in the “London Journal” of August the 10th, 1723. It was attacked, however, by various writers, to whom Mandeville made no reply until 1728, when he published, in another 8vo volume, a second part of “The Fable of the Bees,” in order to illustrate the scheme and design of the first. In 1720, he published “Free thoughts on Religion,” builfc upon the system called rational; an arrogant epithet, which generally excludes from the province of reason a belief in the truths of revelation. In 1732 he published “An inquiry into the origin of honour, and usefulness of Christianity in war;” a work which abounds in paradoxical opinions.

Mandeville died Jan. 21, 1733, in his sixty-third year. He is said to have been patronized by the first earl of Macclesfield, at whose table he was a frequent guest, and had an unlimited licence to indulge his wit as well as his appetite. He lived in obscure lodgings, in London, and never had much practice as a physician. Besides the writings already enumerated, which came spontaneously from his pen, we are told by sir John Hawkins that he sometimes employed his talents for hire, and in particular wrote letters in the “London Journal” in favour of spirituous liquors, for which he was paid by the distillers. Sir John adds, that “he was said to be coarse and overbearing in his manners, where he durst be so, yet a great flatterer of some vulgar Dutch merchants, who allowed him a pension.”' The principles indeed, inculcated in some of his works, although there are many ingenious and many just remarks in them, forbid us to entertain any very high opinion of his morals; and among all his faults, we do not hear that he ever acted the hypocrite, or was ashamed of what he had written.

, Man!, or Manicileus, the founder of a remarkable sect of heretics, flourished towards the conclusion of the third century, and began about the year 267 to propagate his doctrines, which he had taken from the books of one Scythianus. Scythianus was an Arabian, educated upon the borders of Palestine, and extremely well skilled in all the learning of the Greeks. Afterwards he went to Alexandria, where he studied philosophy, and acquainted himself also with the learning of the Egyptians. Here he espoused the opinion of Empedocles, concerning two co-eternal principles, one good and the other bad; the former of which he called God and light, the latter matter and darkness; to which he joined many dogmas of the Pythagorean school. These he formed into a system, comprised in four books; one of which was called “Evangelium,” another “Capita,” a third “Mysteria,” and a fourth “Thesauri.” After this he went to Jerusalem, ivhere he disputed with the Jews, and taught openly his opinions. Upon the death of Scythianus, his books and effects devolved by will to Terebinthus his disciple, who, however, soon quitted Palestine, and fled into Persia, where, to avoid the persecutions to which his doctrines exposed him, he took up his abode with a certain rich widow. Here he died, by a sudden and violent death, as it is commonly related. When, according to his usual way, he had ascended to the top of the house, in order to invoke the demons of the air, which custom the Manichees afterwards practised in their ceremonies, he was in a moment struck with a blow from heaven, which threw him headlong down and fractured his skull. St. Epiphanius says, that Scythianus had also met with the same fate before him. Here, however, it was that Manes became acquainted with the writings of Scythianus; for, having a handsome person and a ready wit, this widow, who had bought him, adopted him for her son, and took care to have him instructed by the magi in the discipline and philosophy of the Persians, in which he made so considerable a progress that he acquired the reputation of a very subtile and learned philosopher. When this lady died, the writings of Terebinthus, to whom she had been heir, or rather of Scythianus, from whom Terebinthus had received them, fell of course into the hands of Manes.

Manes now began to think of founding his system. He made what use he could of the writings of Scythianus; he selected from the heathen philosophy whatever was for his purpose, and he wrought it all up together with some institutes of Christianity; which made Socrates call his heresy a motley mixture of Christianity and Paganism. Although Manes wrote a great many pieces himself, we have nothing remaining, except a few fragments preserved in the writings of Epiphanius. Manes became famous all over Persia, engaged the attention of the court, and as he pretended to the gift of working miracles, he was called by king Sapor to cure his son, who was dangerously ill. This he undertook at the hazard of his life, and the undertaking in the end proved fatal to him. This bold impostor was no sooner called than he dismissed all the physicians who were about the young prince; and promised the king that he would recover him presently by the help of a few medicines, accompanied with his prayers: but the child dying in his arms, the king, enraged to the last degree, caused him to be thrown into prison; whence by the force of bribes he made his escape, and fled into Mesopotamia. There he was taken again by persons sent in quest of him, and carried to Sapor, who caused him to be flead alive, and after that his body to be given to the dogs, and his skin to be stuffed with chaff, and hung before the city gates, where, Epiphanius tells us, it was remaining to his time. His death is supposed to have happened about the year 278.

Manicheism, as we have seen, is a. great deal older than Manes. The Gnostics, the Cordonians, the Marcionites, and several other sectaries, who introduced this doctrine into Christianity before Manes occasioned any contest about it, were by no means its inventors, but found it in the books of the heathen philosophers. In truth, the Manicheau doctrine was a system of philosophy rather than of religion. They made use of amulets, in imitation of the Basilidians; and are said to have made profession of astronomy and astrology. They denied that Jesus Christ, who was only God, assumed a true human body, and maintained it was only imaginary; and, therefore, they denied his incarnation, death, &c. They pretended that the law of Moses did not come from God, or the good principle, but from the evil one; and that for this reason it was abrogated. They rejected almost all the sacred books, in which Christians look for the sublime truths of their holy religion. They affirmed that the Old Testament was not the work of God, but of the prince of darkness, who was substituted by the Jews in the place of the true God. They abstained entirely from eating the flesh of any animal; following herein the doctrine of the ancient Pythagoreans: they also condemned marriage. The rest of their errors may be seen in St. Epiplianius and St. Augustin; which last, having been of their sect, may be presumed to have been thoroughly acquainted with them.

Though the Manichees professed to receive the books of the New Testament, yet, in effect, they only took so much of them as suited with their own opinions. They first formed to themselves a certain idea or scheme of Christianity, and to this adjusted the writings of the apostles; pretending that whatever was inconsistent with this, had been foisted into the New Testament by later writers, who were half Jews. On the other hand, they made fables and apocryphal books pass for apostolical writings; and even are suspected to have forged several others, the better to maintain their errors. St. Epiphanius gives a catalogue of several pieces published by Manes, and adds extracts out of some of them. These are the Mysteries, Chapters, Gospel, and Treasury.

The rule of life and manners which Manes prescribed to his followers, was most extravagantly rigorous and severe. However, he divided his disciples into two classes; one of which comprehended the perfect Christians, under the name of the elect; and the other, the imperfect and feeble, under the title of auditors or hearers. The elect were obliged to a rigorous and entire abstinence from flesh, eggs, milk, fash, wine, all intoxicating drink, wedlock, and all amorous gratifications; and to live in a state of the severest penury, nourishing their emaciated bodies with bread, herbs, pulse, and melons, and depriving themselves of all the comforts that arise from the moderate indulgence of natural passions, and also from a variety of innocent and agreeable pursuits. The auditors were allowed to possess houses, lands, and wealth, to feed on flesh, to enter into the bonds of conjugal tenderness; but this liberty was granted them with many limitations, and under the strictest conditions of moderation and temperance. The general assembly of the Manieheans was headed by a president, who represented Jesus Christ. There was joined to him twelve rulers or masters, who were designed to represent the twelve apostles, and these were followed by seventytwo bishops, the images of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord. These bishops had presbyters or deacons under them, and all the members of these religious orders were chosen out of the class of the elect. Their worship was simple and plain; and consisted of prayers, reading the scriptures, and hearing public discourses, at which both the auditors and elect were allowed to be present. They also observed the Christian appointments of baptism of infants and the eucharist, communicating frequently in both kinds. They kept the Lord’s day, observing it as a fast and they likewise kept Easter and Pentecost.

, an ancient Egyptian historian, who pretends to take all his accounts from the sacred inscriptions on the pillars of Hermes Trismegistus, to whom the Egyptians ascribed the first invention of their learning, and all excellent arts, and from whom they derived their history. Manethos, as Eusebius tells us, translated the whole Egyptian history into Greek, beginning from their gods, and continuing his history down to near the time of Darius Codomannus, whom Alexander conquered; for in Eusebius’s <k Chronica,“mention is made of Manethos’s history, ending in the sixteenth year of Artaxerxes Ochus, which, says Vossius, was in the second year of the third olympiad. Manethos, called from his country Sebennyta, was highpriest of Heliopolis in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, at whose request he wrote his history, and digested it into three tomes; the first containing the eleven dynasties of the gods and heroes, the second eight dynasties, the third twelve, and altogether, according to his fabulous computation, the sum oft 53, 53 5 years. These dynasties are yet preserved, being first epitomized by Julius Africanus, from him transcribed by Eusebius, and inserted in his” Chronica;“from Eusebius by Georgius Syncellus, out of whom they are produced by Joseph Scaliger, and may be seen both in his Eusebius and his” Canones Isagogici.“Manethos, as appears by Eusebius, vouches this as the principal testimony of the credibility of his history, that he took his relations” from some pillars in the land of Seriad, on which they were inscribed in the sacred dialect by the first Mercury Thoth, and after the flood were translated out of the sacred dialect into the Greek tongue in hieroglyphic characters, and are laid up in books among the reveries of the Egyptian temples by Agathodsemon, the second Mercury, the father of Tat.“” Certainly,“says bishop Stillingfleet, in his” Origines Sacroe,“” this fabulous author could not in fewer words have more manifested his own impostures, or blasted his own credit, than he hath done in these."

, a very learned scholar, was born at Florence, June 5, 1396, of an illustrious family that had fallen into decay. After a course of philosophical, theological and mathematical studies, he became, in the Greek language, the pupil of Camaldoli, who then taught that language at Florence, and not of Chrysoloras, as Vossius, and Hody, if we mis-take not, have reported. Manetti then lectured on philosophy in that city to a numerous auditory. He was afterwards employed by the state in various negociatious; and became successively governor of Pescia, Pistoria, and Scarperia, and commissary of the army along with Bernardetto de Medicis. He filled also several offices in the government of Florence, and rendered his own country many important services. When at Rome in 1452, at the coronation of the emperor Frederick, pope Nicholas V. bestowed on him the honour of knighthood. His talents and services, however, excited the envy of some of the families of Florence, and even the favour he acquired with the princes at whose courts he had been employed as ambassador, was considered as a crime; and a heavy fine being imposed on him, he found it necessary to leave his country, and take refuge in Rome, where pope Nicholas V. made him one of his secretaries, with a handsome salary, besides the perquisites of his place. He remained in the same office under the succeeding popes Calixtus III. and Pius II. which last made him librarian of the Vatican. Manetti at length left Rome to reside with Alphonsus, king of Naples, who had a great esteem for him, and gave him an annuity of 900 golden crowns. He did not, however, enjoy this situation long, dying Oct. 26, 1459, in his sixty-third year. He was an excellent scholar in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which at that time was little known in Italy, and employed twenty-two years on those languages. He kept three domestics, two of whom were Greeks, and the third a Syrian, who knew Hebrew, and whom he ordered always to speak to him in their respective languages. He was the author of a great many works, most of which remain in manuscript in the Laurentian Library. Those published were, 1. “De dignitate et excellentia hominis,” Basle, 1532, 8vo. 2. “Vita Petrarchae.” This life of Petrarch is inserted in Tommasini’s “Petrarcha redivivus.” 3. “Oratio ad regem Alphonsum in nuptiis filii sui.” This, which was spoken in 1445, was printed by Marquard Freher, in 1611, 4to, along with three other orations, addressed to Alphonsus on the peace, to the emperor Frederic on his coronation, and to pope Nicholas V. Other works have been attributed to him, as a “History of Pistoria,” and the lives of Dante, Boccacio, and Nicholas V,; but we find no particular account of them.

, a learned physician and laborious historian of that science, was horn June 19, 1652, at Geneva, where his father was an eminent merchant. His father’s brother, author of a work on fevers, was physician to the king of Poland. Manger, having finished his classical studies at the age of fourteen, bestowed two years on philosophy, and then studied theology for five years, when, changing his destination, he entered on a course of medical reading (for he says he had no teacher but his books), and made such proficiency, that in 1678, he received his doctor’s degree at Valence, along with the celebrated Hartman. On his return home he entered upon practice, to which he joined the laborious perusal of many medical works, which served as the foundation of his own publications. In 1699, the elector of Brandenburgh appointed him, by letters patent, his first physician, and the kings of Prussia continued this title to him during his life. He was dean of the faculty at Geneva at the time of his death, Aug. 15, 1742, in the ninetieth year of his age. His works are: l.“Messis Medico-spagyrica, &c.” Geneva, 1683, folio, which contains a most abundant collection of pharmaceutical preparations, arranged in a very complex order. 2. In the same year he edited, “Pauli Barbetti Opera omnia Medica et Chirurgica,” with additional cases and illustralions. 3. “Bibliotheca Anatomica,” 1685, two vols, folio a work which was executed in conjunction with Daniel le Clerc. He afterwards edited, 4. The “Compendium Medicinae Practicum,” of J. And. Sehmitz. 5. The “Pharmcopeia Schrodero-Hoffmanniana.” 6. The “Tractatus de Febribus,” of Franc. Pieus; and, 7. The “Sepulchretum” of Bonetus, to which he added several remarks and histories. 8. In 1695, he published his “Bibliotheca Medico-Practica,” four vqls. folio; a vast collection of practical matter relative to all the diseases of the human body, arranged in alphabetical order. 9. “Bibliotheca Chemica curiosa,” 1702, two vols. folio. 10 “Bibliotheca Pharmaceutico Medica,” 1711, two vols. folio; and 11. “Bibliotheca Chirurgica,” 1721, four vols. in two, folio. 12. “Theatrum Anatomicum, cum Eustachii Tabulis Anatomicis,” 1716, two vols. folio, a description of all the parts of the body, abridged from various authors. On the appearance of the plague at Marseilles, he published a collection of facts and opinions on that disease, under the title of “Traite de la Peste recueilli des meilleurs Auteurs,” 1721, two vols. 12mo; and in the following year, 14. “Nouvelles Reflexions sur l'Origine, la Cause, la Propagation, les Preservatifs, et la Cure de la Peste,” 12mo. 15. His “Observations sur la Maladie qui a commence depuis quelques annees a attaquer le gros Betail,” was a collection of the opinions of the Genevese physicians concerning the distemper of horned cattle. The last work of Manget was his “Bibliotheca Scriptorum Medicorum veterum et recentiorum,” at which he laboured when at least eighty years of age, and published it in 1731, in four vols. folio. It is the most important of his productions, being an useful collection of medical lives, and catalogues of writings. It has not been so much thought of since the appearance of Haller’s Bibliotheca, and particularly of Eloy’s; but the plans are different, and Manget’s, as well as the rest of his voluminous compilations, may be yet consulted with advantage. Although he was so intent on accumulating information, and reprinting scarce works and tracts, that he did not employ his judgment always, either in selection or arrangement, yet those, who, like himself, wish to trace the progress of medical knowledge, will find his works of great use. They contain, indeed, the substance of many libraries, and a variety of treatises which it would not be easy to procure in their separate form.

, a learned English divine, was born at Leeds in 1684, and was educated at St. John’s-college, Cambridge, where he was admitted to his degrees, that of B. A. in 1707, M. A. 1711, LL.D. 1719, and D.D. 1725. He was also a fellow of the society of antiquaries, and rector of St. Mildred, Bread-street, London. He was early distinguished by his “Practical Discourses upon the Lord’s Prayer, preached before the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn; published by the special order of the Bench,” 1716, 8vo. These discourses were again printed in 1717, and in 1721; and in 1718 he published “Remarks upon Nazarenus; wherein the falsity of Mr. Toland’s Mahometan Gospel, and his misrepresentations of Mahometan sentiments in respect of Christianity, are set forth; the history of the old Nazaraeans cleared up, and the whole conduct of the first Christians, in respect to the Jewish laws, explained and described.” The author then stiled himself “Rector of St. Nicholas’s in Guilford,” to which he was instituted in 1717, and resigned in 1719-20. In, January 1719, he published “Plain Notions of our Lord’s Divinity,” a sermon preached on Christmas-day; in June 1719, “The eternal Existence of our Lord Jesus Christ,” a Visitation-sermon in October that year, “The Holiness of Christian-churches,” a sermon preached at Sunderland, on consecrating a new church there; and in 1720, “The providential Sufferings of good men,” a 30th of January sermon before the House of Commons. In 1719, Dr. Mangey wrote “A Defence of the Bishop of London’s Letter,” 8vo and, besides the sermons already mentioned, published five single ones, in 1716, 1726, 1729, 1731, and 1733. On May 11, 1721, he was presented to a prebend, the fifth stall in the cathedral church of Durham, being at that time chaplain to Dr. Robinson bishop of London, and vicar of Yealing, or Ealing, in the county of Middlesex. He was advanced to the first stall of Durham, Dec. 22, 1722; and, when treasurer of the chapter, greatly advanced the fines upon the tenants, and improved the rents of his prebendal lands nearly a hundred pounds a year. He was one of the seven doctors in divinity created July 6, 1725, when Dr. Bentley delivered the famous oration prefixed to his Terence; and at the end of 1726 he circulated proposals for an edition of “Philo Judaeus,” which he completed in 1742, under the title of “Philonis Judaei Opera omnia quas reperiri potuerunt,” 2 vols. folio. He died March 6, 1755, and was interred in the cathedral of Durham, where is an elegant Latin inscription to his memory, composed by Dr. Sharp, then a prebendary and archdeacon of Northumberland. His manuscript remarks on the New Testament came into the possession of Mr. Bowyer, who extracted from them many short notes, which are printed in his “Conjectures.” A very elegant inscription to Dr. Mangey by Dr. Taylor is prefixed to “Lysias Fragmenta.”

, was a Latin poet, who lay buried in the German libraries, and never was heard of in the modern world, till Poggius published him from some old manuscripts found there about two centuries ago. He is mentioned by no ancient writer, and the moderns are so little able to fix the time when he lived, that while some place him as high as the age of Augustus, others bring him down to the reign of Theodosius the Great. Indeed, the only account to be had of him must be drawn from hi poem; and from this, his translator Creech thinks that he was born a Roman, and lived in Rome, when Rome was in her glory, as he says appears from several passages in the poem. In the beginning of it he invokes the emperor; who from the description must be Augustus Csesar. Creech likewise infers that he was of illustrious extraction, and a branch of that noble family the Manilii, who so often filled the consul’s chair, and supplied the greatest offices in the commonwealth. Some, indeed, have thought that he was a Tyrian slave, and that being made free, he took, ao cording to custom, the name of his patron. But this seems very improbable; and he almost, says Creech, expressly declares the contrary in the fortieth verse of his fourth book, where he shews a concern for the interest of the Roman commonwealth, as far back as the age of Hannibal:

, an English lady, authoress of a noted piece of scandal called “The Atalantis,” was born in Guernsey, or one of those small islands, of which her father, sir Roger Mauley, was governor. He wa* the second son of an ancient family, and had been a great sufferer for his loyalty in the reign of Charles I. without receiving either preferment or recompense in that of Charles II. He was a man of considerable literary talents, wnich appeared in several publications, particularly his Latin commentaries on the rebellion, under the title of “Commentaria de Rebelhone Anglicana, ab anno 1640 ad annum 1685,” Lond. 1686, 8vo, and of which an English translation was published in 1691; and his “History of the late wars of Denmark,” 1670. He is also said to have been the author of the first volume of the “Turkish Spy,” which was found among his papers, and continued to its present number of volumes by Dr. Midgley, a physician, who had the care of his papers; but this has been justly doubted (See Marana). His daughter, the subject of this article, received an education suitable to her birth, and gave indications of genius above her years, and, as her biographer says, “much superior to what is usually to be found amongst her sex.” The loss of her parents before she was settled in life, seems to have been peculiarly unfortunate, for her father confided the care of her to his nephew, a married man, who first pretended that his wife was dead, then by a series of seductive manoeuvres cheated her into a marriage. When he could no longer conceal his infamy, he deserted her, and the world tamed its back upon her. While in this situation, she accidentally acquired the patronage of the duchess of Cleveland, one of Charles II.'s mistresses, having been introduced to her by an acquaintance to whom she was paying a visit; but the duchess, a woman of a very fickle temper, grew tired of Mrs. Manley in six months, and discharged her upon a pretence that she intrigued with her son. When this lady was thus dismissed, she was solicited by general Tidcomb to pass some time with him at his country-seat; but she excused herself by saying, “that her love of solitude was improved by her disgust of the world; and since it was impossible for her to be in public with reputation, she was resolved to remain concealed.” In this solitude she wrote her first tragedy, called “The Royal Mischief,” which was acted at the theatre in Lincoln’s-inn-fields, in 1696. This play succeeded, and she received such unbounded incense from admirers, that her apartment was crowded with men of wit and gaiety, which proved in the end very fatal to her virtue, and she afterwards engaged in various intrigues. In her retired hours she wrote her four volumes of the “Memoirs of the New Atalantis,” in which she was very free with her own sex, in her wanton description of loveadventures, and with the characters of many high and distinguished personages. Her father had always been attached to the cause of Charles I. and she herself having a confirmed aversion to the Whig ministry, took this method of satirising those who had brought about the revolution. Upon this a warrant was granted from the secretary of state’s office, to seize the printer and publisher of those volumes. Mrs. Mauley had too much generosity to let innocent persons suffer on her account; and therefore voluntarily presented herself before the court of King’s -bench, as the author of the “Atalantis.' 1 When she was examined before lord Sunderland, then the secretary, he was curious to know from whom she got information of some particulars which they imagined to be above her own intelligence. She pleaded that her only design in writing was her own amusement and diversion in the country, without intending particular reflections and characters; and assured them that nobody was concerned with her. When this was not believed, and the contrary urged against her by several circumstances, she said,” then it must be by inspiration, because, knowing her own innocence, she could account for it no other way.“The secretary replied, that” inspiration used to be upon a good account; but that her writings were stark naught.“She acknowledged, that” his lordship’s observation might be true; but, as there were evil angels as well as good, that what she had wrote might still be by inspiration.“The consequence of this examination was, that Mrs. Manley was close shut up in a messenger’s house, without being allowed pen, ink, and paper. Her counsel, however, sued out her habeas corpus at the King’s-bench bar, and she was admitted to bail. Whether those in power were ashamed to bring a woman to a trial for this book, or whether the laws could not reach her, because she had disguised her satire under romantic names, and a feigned scene of action, she was discharged, after several times exposing herself in person, to oppose the court before the bench of judges, with her three attendants, the printer, and two publishers. Not long after, a total change of the ministry ensued, when she lived in high reputation and gaiety, and aroused herself in writing poems and letters, and conversing with wits. To her dramatic pieces she now added” Lucius,“the first Christian king of Britain, a tragedy, acted in Drury-lane, in 1717. She dedicated it to sir Richard Steele, whom she had abused in her” New Atalantis,“but was now upon such friendly terms with him, that he wrote the prologue to this play, as Mr. Prior did the epilogue. This was followed by her comedy called the” Lost Lover, or the Jealous Husband,“acted in 1696. She was also employed in writing for queen Anne’s ministry, certainly with the consent and privity, if not under the direction, of Dr Swift, and was the author of” The Vindication of the Duke of Maryborough,“and other pamphlets, some of which would not disgrace the best pen then engaged in the” defence of government. After dean Swift relinquished “The Examiner,” she continued it with great spirit for a considerable time, and frequently finished pieces begun by that excellent writer, who also often used to furnish her with hints for those of her own composition. At this season she formed a connection with Mr. John Barber, alderman of London, with whom she lived in a state of concubinage, as is supposed, and at whose house she died July 11, 1724.

The superior accomplishments of her sex in our days must now place her very low in the scale of female authors; and she seems to have owed her fame in a great measure to her turn for intrigue and for recording intrigues. This will probably ba the opinion of those who will take the trouble to peruse any of the works already mentioned, of the following: 1. “Letters, one from a supposed nun in Portugal,” Lond. 1696, 8vo. 2. “Memoirs of Europe towards the close of the eighth century,” 1710, 2 vols. 8vo. 3. “Court Intrigues,” 1711, 8vo. 4. “Adventures of Rivelle,” 1714, 8vo. 5. “The Power of Love, in seven novels,” 1720, 8vo. 6. “A Stage-coach Journey to Exeter,” 1725, 8vo. 7. “Bath Intrigues,” 1725, 8vo. 7. "Secret History of Queen Zarah/' 1745, 8vo. The two last, from the dates, must be posthumous, or second editions.

, marquis of Granby, was son of John duke of Rutland, and grandson of John the first duke, and was born in January 1721. He was bred to the army, and in the rebellion of 1745 raised a regiment of foot at his own expence, for the defence of the country against the rebels. In 1755 he was advanced to the rank of majorgeneral, and in 1758 was appointed lieutenant-general and colonel of the blues. With this rank he went into Germany with the British forces, which were sent to serve under prince Ferdinand of Brunswick; and in 1759 was promoted to the general command of the British troops, an appointment which gave much satisfaction, and for which he appears to have been well qualified. If he had not the great abilities requisite to a commander in chief, he had all the qualifications for an admirable second in command. With a competent share of military skill, he possessed that personal valour and ardour in the service, which inspired his soldiers with confidence; and that humane and generous attention to their comfort and welfare, joined with affability and open-hearted cheerfulness, which strongly attached them to his person. In 1760 he justified the high opinion which prince Ferdinand had expressed of him after the battle of Minden, by his good conduct at Warburg, where the British cavalry were particularly signalized. In the beginning of the ensuing campaign, he commanded under the hereditary prince, in his attack on the frontier towns of Hesse; and at the battle of KirkDenkern, bore the first and most violent onset of the enemy, and by the firmness of his troops contributed much to that victory. He maintained the same character at Grsebesteein and Homburgh, in 1762. He died at Scarborough, Oct. 19, 1770 He had been made a member of the privycouncil in 1760, and resigning the office of lieutenantgeneral of the ordnance, was in May 1763 constituted master-general of that department. In Feb. 1764, he was declared lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Derbyshire. In 1766 he was constituted commander in chief of his majesty’s land forces in Great Britain; which he resigned a little before his death. He married Sept. 3, 1750, lady Frances Seymour, eldest daughter of Charles duke of Somerset, by whom, among other issue, he had Charles, the late duke of Rutland, who died lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1787; and lord Robert Manners, a gallant officer of the navy, who died Jan. 23, 1782, of the wounds he received in an engagement, Sept. 1, 1781, in the West Indies, on board his majesty’s ship the Resolution, of which he was captain. A monument in hoiiour of his memory was ordered at the national expence for him, capt. Blair, and capt. Bayne, which is now in St. Paul’s cathedral.

In 1742 he published “Historical Illustrations of the Decamerone of Boccaccio,” 4to, in which he proves that the greatest part of Boccaccio’s tales were real facts, which occurred in his life. A work of this kind could not fail to be amusing, nor in that country, instructing; and indeed this has been thought one of the best of Manni’s publications. His more elaborate work, connected with the history of Florence and Tuscany, is his “Historical Observations on the Seals of the lower age.” “Osservazioni istoriche sopra isigilli antichi de' secoli bassi,” published in 1749, and originally consisting of 18 vols. 4to, but afterwards extended to thirty. It exhibits the most valuable records of all the illustrious persons who acted a conspicuous part in the vicissitudes of Florence and other great cities of Tuscany. It also elucidates the origin and progress of all the mints of those cities. In 1755 he published his “Method of studying the History of Florence,” which is an account of all the authorities and sources of Florentine history, both printed and manuscript, in which he affirms that the best limited history of Florence is that yet unpublished of the chevalier Francis Settimanni, who wrote on the period which intervened between the accession of the house of Medici, in 1532, and its extinction, in 1737. The only other works he published respecting Florence and its antiquities, were, his “Historical notices concerning the amphitheatre at Florence,” published in 1746; and his “Inquiries into the ancient Thermae of Florence,” published in 1751.

Of the historical works of Manni v relative to other places, and more general subjects, we shall only mention his “History of the Jubilees,” published in 1750, in which he did justice to his subject in a philosophical and political light, by shewing who were the most distinguished persons who had ever visited Rome on those occasions, and how far, on their return to their native countries, they grafted on those countries the manners and practices of Italy. He also illustrated every particular by curious anecdotes, medals, fac-similes, &c. In biography, Manni wrote a singular work, but perhaps of local interest, entitled “Le Veglie Piacevoli,” &c. or “Agreeable Evenings,” being the lives of the most jocose and eccentric Tuscans. This was published in 1757, in 4 vols. 4to. He wrote also the “Life of the well-deserving prelate, Nicholas Steno, of Denmark,” published in 1775. Manni’s publications, not of the historical or biographical kind, were few, and none of them added much to his fame, except his “Lectures on Italian Eloquence,” 1758, 2 vols. 4to.

He died at Florence, Nov. 30, 1788, in his ninety-ninth year. He left behind him the fame not only of one of the most laborious and deserving writers of his time, but of a most exemplary moral character. He was particularly distinguished for his zeal and kindness in assisting with his superior knowledge, younger writers who wished to treat on any subject connected with his inquiries. A catalogue of all his works, amounting to 104, was published in 1789, by his friend count Tomitano, a patrician of Feltri.

, an excellent antiquary and topographer, the son of Mr. Owen Manning, of Orlingbury, co. Northampton, was born there Aug. 11, 1721. He was admitted of Queen’s-college, Cambridge, where he proceeded B. A. in 1740; and about this time met with two extraordinary instances of preservation from untimely death. Having been seized with the small pox, he was attended by Dr. Heberden, who thinking he could not survive, desired that his father might be sent for. On his arrival he found the young man to all appearance dying, and next day he was supposed to have expired, and was laid out, as a corpse, in the usual manner. An undertaker was sent for, and every preparation made for his funeral. His father, however, who had not left the house, could not help frequently viewing the seemingly lifeless body; and in one of his visits, without seeing any cause for hope, said, “I will give my poor boy another chance,” and at the same time raised him up, which almost immediately produced signs of life. Dr. Heberden was then sent for, and by the use of proper means, the young man recovered. As it was customary for the scholars of every college to make verses on the death of any one of their own college, which are pinned to the pall at the funeral, like so many escutcheons, this tribute of respect was prepared for Mr. Manning, who was much beloved by his fellow students; and it is said that the verses were presented to him afterwards, and that he kept them for many years as memoranda of his youthful friendships. Scarcely had he met with this narrow escape, when, his disorder having made him for some time subject to epileptic fits, he was seized with one of these while walking by the river, into which he feJl, and remained so long that he was thought to be drowned, and laid out on the grass, until he could be conveyed to the college, where Dr. Heberden being again called in, the proper means of recovery were used with success.

In 1741 he was elected to a fellowship of his college, in right of which he had the living of St. Botolph, in Cambridge, which he held until his marriage, in 1755. He took the degree of M. A. in 1744, and that of B. D. in 1753. In 1760, Dr. Thomas, bishop of Lincoln, to whom he was chaplain, gave him the prebend of Milton Ecclesia, in the church of Lincoln, consisting of the impropriation and advowson of the parish of Milton, co. Oxford. In 1763 he was presented by Dr. Greene, dean of Salisbury, to the vicarage of Godalming, in Surrey, and was instituted Dec. 22, he preferring the situation to that of St. Nicholas in Guildford (though a better living) which was offered to him by the same patron. Here he constantly resided till the time of his death, beloved and respected by his parishioners, and discharging his professional duty in the most punctual and conscientious manner. In 1769 he was presented to the rectory of Pepperharrow, an adjoining parish, by viscount Middleton. He was elected F. R. S. in 1767, and F. S. A. in 1770. To the sincere regret of his parishioners, and of all who knew him, Mr. Manning died Sept. 9, 1801, after a short attack of pleurisy, having entered his eighty-first year. By Catherine, his wife, daughter of Mr. Reade Peacock, a quaker, mercer, of Huntingdon, he had three sons and five daughters, all of whom survived him, except his eldest son, George Owen, and one of the daughters.

, called Giovanni da san Giovanni, from a village near Florence, where he was born, was a celebrated painter of the Florentine school, where he shone by a natural superiority of genius. He perfectly understood the poetical part of his art, and excelled, therefore, in the ingenuity of those designs by which he at once ornamented the palace, and illustrated the beneficence and taste of Lorenzo de Medicis. He was particularly successful in painting in fresco, and his colours remain uninjured to the present day: in the imitation of bas-relief he was so skilful, that the touch only could distinguish his paintings of that kind from sculpture. He had profound skill also in perspective and optics. With all these excellencies in his art, he was capricious, envious, and malevolent, and consequently raised himself enemies who were not a little inveterate. He died at the age of forty-six, in 1636.

, a very learned Italian prelate, and voluminous editor, was born at Lucca, Feb. 16, 1692. At school and college he made rapid progress in every branch of study, but became particularly attached to ecclesiastical history and biography. He was for some years professor of theology at Naples; but the greater part of his life was spent in reading, and carefully exploring the contents of the Italian libraries, particularly the manuscripts, from all which he amassed a fund of information on subjects connected with ecclesiastical history, of vast extent and importance. His first station in the church was that of a clerk-regular in the congregation of the Mother of God; and from this, in 1765, at the age of seventy-two, he was promoted to the archbishopric of Lucca, by pope Clement XIII. who had a high esteem for him. He died Sept. 27, 1769. His life, in our authority, is little more than an account of his works, which indeed must have occupied the whole of his time. His first publication was entitled “Tractatus de casibus, et excommunicationibus episcopis reservatis, confectusad normam label lae Lucanse,” Lucca, 1724. He then published a translation into Latin of Calmet’s “Dictionary of the Bible,*' with additions; an, edition of Thomasini” De veteri et nova ecclesise disciplina,“3 vols. folio; a Latin translation of Calmet’s” Commentaries on the Bible,“1731, &c. 7 vols. an edition of Baronius’s annals, with great additions, in 30 vols. folio a new edition of the Councils, including Labbe, Cossart, &c. 1759, &c. 30 vols. folio; anew edition of yneas Sylvius (pope Pius II.) orations, with many hitherto unpublished, 1755, 2 vols. 4to. He was the editor of some other ecclesiastical collections and theological pieces of inferior note; but we must not omit the work by which he is perhaps best known in this country, his excellent edition of Fabricius’s” Bibliotheca Latina mediae et infimae aetatis," 6 vols. 4to, generally bound in three, printed at Padua, in 1754. This alone is sufficient to place him in the first rank of literary antiquaries.

, a celebrated Russian officer and writer, was born at Petersburgh in 1711. He was first a lieutenant in the Prussian service, and afterwards a captain of genadiers in the Russian regiment of Petersburgh. At the death of the czarina Anne, he was employed to arrest the Birons, who were then the regents and the tyrants of the young prince Iwan III. who rewarded his services by the rank of colonel, and some estates in Ingria. But when the throne of that prince was seized by the czarina Elizabeth, Manstein lost at once his regiment and his lands. Some time after, he entered again into the Prussian service, where he acted as a volunteer in 1745; and having sufficiently signalized his abilities and courage, was appointed major-general of infantry in 1754. In the war of 1756, he fell the very second year by a shot; leaving two sons and four daughters. His “Memoirs of Russia,” printed at Lyons in 1772, in 2 vols. 8vo, are at once historical, political, and military. They contain the principal revolutions of that empire, and the wars of the Russians against the Turks and Tartars; besides a short sketch of the military and marine establishments, and also of the commerce of his country. These memoirs comTnence in 1727, with the reign of Peter II. and close with the first year of the empress Elizabeth. They are considered as deserving of much reliance from the truth of the facts, and the sincerity of the author.

, an eminent Italian painter, was born in 1431, at Padua or in its district. His parents were poor, but Squarcione, whose pupil he became, was so deeply struck with his talents, that he adopted him for his son, and repented of it when Andrea married a daughter of Jacopo Bellini, his competitor. But the censure which now took place of the praise he had before lavishe'd on his pupil, only added to his improvement. Certain basso-relievos of the ancient Greek style, possessed by the academy in which Andrea studied, captivated his taste by the correctness of their outline, the simplicity of the forms, the parallelism of the attitudes, and strictness of the drapery: the dry servility with which he copied these, suffered him not to perceive that he had lost the great prerogative of the originals, the soul that animates them. The sarcasms of Squarcione on his picture of S. Jacopo, made him sensible of the necessity of expression and character; he gave more life to the figures in the story of S. Cristophoro; and in the face of St. Marc, in the church of S. Giustina, united the attention of a philosopher with the enthusiasm of a prophet. While the criticisms of Squarcione improved Mantegna in expression, the friendly advice of the Bellini directed his method, and fixed his principles of colour. During his short stay at Venice, he made himself master of every advantage of that school; and in some of his pictures there are tones and tints in flesh and landscape, of a richness and zest equal to the best Venetians of his day. Whether he taught Bellini perspective is uncertain; Lomazzo affirms “that Mantegna was the first who opened the eyes of artists in 'hat branch.”

The chief abode and the school of Mantegna were at Mantua, where under the auspices of Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga, he established himself with his family, but he continued to work in other places, and particularly at Rome, where the chapel which he had painted for Innocenzio VIII. in the Vatican existed, though injured by age, at the accession of Pius VI. The style of those frescoes proved that he continued steady in his attachment to the antique, but that from a copyist he was become an imitator. Of his works in oil Mantua possesses several; but the principal one, the master-piece of the artist, and the assemblage of his powers, the picture della Vittoria, afterwards in the Oratorio de Padri di S. Filippo, is now at Paris. It is a votive picture dedicated, for a victory obtained, to the Madonna seated on her throne with the infant standing on her lap, and giving benediction to the kneeling marquis in arms before her. At one side of the throne stands the archangel Michael, holding the mantle of the Madonna; at the other are S. George, S. Maurice, John the Baptist, and S. Elizabeth on her knees. The socle of the throne is ornamented with figures relative to the fall of Adam: the scene is a leafy bower peopled by birds, and here and there open to a lucid sky. No known work of Mantegna equals in design the style of this picture: they generally shew him dry and emaciated, here he appears in all the beauty of select forms: the two infants and St. Elizabeth are figures of dignity, so the archangel who seems to have been, by the conceit of his attitude and the care bestowed on him, the painter’s favourite object. The head has the beauty and the bloom of youth, the round fleshy neck and the breast, to where it confines with the armour, are treated with great art, the expression is to a high degree spirited, and as characteristic. The countenance of the Madonna is mild and benign, that of Christ humane. The future prophet is announced in the uplifted arm of St. John. The guardian angel kindly contemplates the suppliant, who prays with devout simplicity. The whole has an air of life, All the draperies, especially that of St. Elizabeth, are elegant, and correctly folded; with more mass and less intersection of surfaces, they would be perfect. The extreme finish of execution, as it has not here that dryness which disfigures most other works of this master, does not impair the brilliancy of colour. The head of the Madonna, of the infant, of St. Michael, have a genial bloom of tints. The lights are everywhere true, the shades alone are sometimes too grey or too impure. The general scale of light has more serenity than splendour, more the air of nature than of art, but the reflexes are often cut off too glaringly from the opaque parts. The whole of the picture has preserved its tone to this day, is little damaged, and in no place retouched.

Andrea had great influence on the style of his age, nor was the imitation of his style confined to his own school; Francesco, and another of his sons, finished some of the frescoes which he had begun in the castle, and added the beautiful ceiling which shews that the science of foreshortening, and what the Italians call “del sotto in su,” though Melozio be its reputed author, was carried much farther by Mantegna and his followers. Mantegna died in 1505. Besides his talents for painting, Mantegna was one of the earliest engravers on metal, some, indeed, say the very first, but this does not appear to have been the case. Strutt, who gives a list of his principal engravings, has also exhibited a specimen in his Dictionary.

His ministerial functions were exercised in various places, first at Sowton near Exeter, and then at Colyton in Devonshire, where he was much respected. Removing to London, he became more admired for his talents in the pulpit, and about 1643 was presented to the living of Stoke Newington, by colonel Popham, and here preached those lectures on the epistles of St. James and St. Jude, which he afterwards published in 1651 and 1652, 4to. During his residence at Newington, he often preached in London, and is said to have preached the second sermon before the sons of the clergy, an institution then set on foot, chiefly through the influence of Dr. Hall, son to the bishop, who preached the first. He was also one of those who were called occasionally to preach before the parliament, but being a decided enemy to the murder of the king, he gave great offence by a sermon in which he touched on that subject. In 1651 he shewed equal contempt for the tyranny of the usurpers, by preaching a funeral sermon for Mr. Love (see Christopher Love), and in neither case allowed the fears of his friends to prevent what he thought his duty. In 1650 he removed from Stoke-Newington, on being presented to the living of Covent garden by the earl, afterwards duke of Bedford, who had a high respect for him. At this church he had a numerous auditory. Archbishop Usher, who was one of his hearers, used to say that he was one of the best preachers in England, and had the art of reducing the substance of whole volumes into a narrow compass, and representing it to great advantage. Although he had already, by the two sermons above noticed, shewn that he was far from courting the favours, of government, Cromwell, who well knew how to avail himself of religious influence and popular talents, sent for him in 1653, when he assumed the protectorate, and desired him to pray at Whitehall on the morning of his installation; and about the same time made him one of his chaplains. He was nominated also by parliament one of a committee of divines to draw up a scheme of fundamental doctrines. In the same year he was appointed one of the committee for the trial and approbation of ministers, and appears to have acted in this troublesome office with considerable moderation. What influence he had with Cromwell, he employed for the benefit of others, and particularly solicited him to spare the life of Dr. Hewit, a loyalist, whom Cromwell executed for being concerned in a plot to restore Charles II. In 1660, when the days of usurpation were over, Mr. Manton co-operated openly in the restoration of Charles, was one of the ministers appointed to wait upon his majesty at Breda, and was afterwards sworn one of his majesty’s chaplains. In the same year he was, by mandamus, created doctor of divinity at Oxford.

He was then one of the ministers who waited upon the king after his arrival, to beg his majesty’s interposition for reconciling the differences in the church; and afterwards joined several of his brethren, in a conference with the episcopal clergy, at the lord chancellor’s house; preparatory to the declaration of his majesty, who was likewise present. Being satisfied with this declaration, Dr. Manton continued in his living of Covent-garden, and received episcopal institution from Dr. Sheldon, bishop of London, Jan. 16,1661, after having first subscribed the doctrinal articles only of the church of England, and taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and of canonical obedience in all things lawful and honest. He also allowed that the common-prayer should be read in his church. Soon after he was offered the deanery of Rochester, which he might have held until 1662, and enriched himself by letting leases; but, either dissatisfied with the advances he bad already made towards conformity, or foreseeing that greater would soon be expected, he honourably refused to enrich himself by accepting a dignity, the very existence of which he and his brethren were prepared to oppose. In 1661 he was one of the commissioners at the Savoy conference, and continued preaching until St. Bartholomew’s day in 1662, when he was obliged to resign his living. After this he preached occasionally, either in private or public, as he found it convenient, particularly during the indulgence granted to the nonconformists from 1668 to 1670, but was imprisoned for continuing the practice when it became illegal. From this time his history is too generally involved with that of his brethren to admit of being separated. He preserved, amidst all vicissitudes, the friendship of the duke of Bedford, the duke of Richmond, lord Wharton, and many other persons of rank. To this they were probably induced by a congeniality of principle; but independent of this, Dr. Manton was a man of great learning and extensive reading, and his conversation as much recommended him to men of the world, as to those who admired his pious services. Waller, the poet, said “that he never discoursed with such a man as Dr. Manton in all his life.” He was also a person of extraordinary charity, and supplicated the assistance of his great friends more for the poor than for himself, being perfectly disinterested. Wood has misrepresented his character in all these respects. His constitution, although a man of great temperance, early gave way; and his complaints terminating in a lethargy, he died Oct. 18, 1677, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was buried in the chancel of the church at Stoke Newington, where his intimate friend Dr. Bates preached his funeral sermon, which includes a very copious character of him.

, an Italian poet of great temporary fame, was born at Mantua, whence he took his name, in 1448, and not in 1444, as Cardan and others have said; for Mantuan himself relates, in a short account of his own life, that he was born under the pontificate of Nicholas V. and Nicholas was only made pope in March 1447. He was of the illustrious family of the Spagnoli, being a natural son of Peter Spagnolo, as we learn from Paul Jovius, who was his countryman, and thirty-three years old when Mantuan died, and therefore must have known the fact. Mantuan too speaks frequently and highly, in his works, of his father Peter Spagnolo, to whom he ascribes the care of his education. In his youth, he applied himself ardently to books, and began early with Latin poetry, which he cultivated all his life; for it does not appear that he wrote any thing in Italian. He entered himself, we do not know exactly when, among the Carmelites, and came at length to be general of his order; which dignity, upon some disgust or other, he quitted in 1515, and devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of the belles-lettres. He did not enjoy his retirement long, for he died in March 1516, upwards of eighty years of age. The duke of Mantua, some years after, erected to his memory a marble statue crowned with laurel, and placed it next to that of Virgil; and even Erasmus went so far as to say that a time would come, when Baptist Mantuan would not be placed much below his illustrious countryman. In this opinion few critics will now join. If he had possessed the talents of Virgil, he had not his taste, and knew not how to regulate them. Yet allowance is to be made, when we consider that, in the age in which he lived, good taste had not yet emerged. Liiius Gyraldiis, in his “Dialogues upon the poets of his own times,” says, “that the verses which Mantuan wrote in his youth are very well; but that, his imagination afterwards growing colder, his latter productions have not the force or vigour of his earlier.” We may add, that Mantuan was more solicitous about the number than the goodness of his poems; yet, considering that he lived when letters were but just reviving, it must be owned, that he was a very extraordinary person. His poetical works were first printed, in a folio volume without a date, consisting of his eclogues, written chiefly in his youth seven pieces in honour of the virgins inscribed on the kalendar, beginning with the virgin Mary these he calls “Parthenissal.” “Parthenissa II.” &c. four books of Silvge, or poems on different subjects; elegies, epistles, and, in short, poems of every description. This was followed by an edition at Bologna, 1502, folio, and by another at Paris in 1513, with the commentaries of Murrho, Brant, and Ascensius, 3 vols. fol. but usually bound in ne. A more complete, but now more rare, edition of them was published at Antwerp, 1576, in four vols. 8vo, under this title, “J. Baptistae Mantuani, Carmelitae, theologi, philosophi, ppetae, & oratoris clarissimi, opera omnia, pluribus libris aucta & restituta.” The Commentaries of the Paris edition are omitted in this; but the editors have added, it does not appear on what account, the name of John, to Baptist Mantuan.

, the elder of three justly celebrated printers, was born about 1447, at Bassiano, a small town in the duchy of Sermonetta, He was educated at Rome, under Caspar of Verona and Domitius Calderinus, both of whom he has mentioned in several of his prefaces, as men of talents and erudition. Having acquired a knowledge of the Latin language from them, he went to Ferrara to study Greek under Baptist Guarini, and, probably after his own studies were completed, became the preceptor of the prince of Carpi, a nephew of the celebrated Picus of Mirandula. In 1482, Ferrara being closely besieged by a Venetian army, he retired to Mirandula, and spent some time in the society of Picus, who, though not quite twenty years of age, was already a consummate master of almost all learning. From Mirandula, Aldus went, some time after, to reside with his pupil, who, though only twelve years of age, had made such advances in learning, that he was already qualified to take a part in the serious conversations, and the designs of his uncle and his preceptor; and it is believed to have been at this time, that Aldus conceived the project of his subsequent printing establishment at Venice, to the expences of which, Picus and his pupil probably contributed. He began, however, to print, at Venice, in 1488, with an edition of the small Greek poem of Musseus, in quarto, with a Latin translation, but without date. In 1494 he published the Gre*k grammar of Lascaris, and in 1495, in one collection, the grammatical treatises of Theodore Gaza, Apollonius, and Herodian.

In the necessary pains upon these works, Aldus had the assistance of some of the best and most learned among his contemporaries. His house became a sort of new academy. The learned in Venice began, about 1500, to assemble there on fixed days of frequent recurrence, for conversation on interesting literary topics: and their meetings were continued for several years subsequent. The topics on which they conversed were, usually, what books were fittest to be printed, what manuscripts might be consulted with the greatest advantage, what readings, out of a diversity, for any one passage, ought to be preferred. Among those who attended these conversations, were, besides Aldus himself, the famous A. Navagerus, P. Bembo the celebrated cardinal, Erasmus, when he was at Venice, P. Alcionius, M. Musurus, Marc-Ant. Cocch. Sabellicus, Albertus Pius, prince of Carpi, and others, whose names, though they were then eminent, are not now equally in remembrance. Among those who assisted Aldus in the correction of the press, were men not less eminent than Demetrius Chalcondylas, Aleander, afterwards famous as a cardinal, and even Erasmus.

There are some curious circumstances in the history of the acquaintance and connexion between Erasmus and Aldus. The “Adagia” of Polydore Vergil had been printed at Venice, and well received in the world. Erasmus, aware of this fact, wrote from Bologna, to request that Aldus would undertake the printing of his “Adagia.” Aldus readily agreed to the proposal, and invited Erasmus upon it to Venice. When Erasmus came, it was not till after some delay that he obtained admittance to the printer’s closet, whose servants were not aware of the stranger’s Jiterary consequence. But Aldus no sooner knew that it was Erasmus who waited for him, than he hastened to rer ceive his visitor with open arms. He did more he stopped the progress, of several important Greek and Latin works, which he had then in the press, to make room for the printing of the great collection of Erasmus with the desired, expedition. Erasmus was, in the mean time, entertained in the house of Andrew d‘Asola, father-in-law to Aldus, with whom Aldus and his wife appear, by Erasmus’s account, to have lived. D’Asola was rich; yet his table was, even for that of an Italian family, parsimoniously served: and Erasmus loved good cheer. The Dutchman made frequent remonstrances to his friend Aldus, against the thinness of the soups, the absence of solid animal food, the weakness and sourness of the wine, the general scantiness of the whole provisions. The Italians, whose climate and natural habits had taught them to live much more sparingly than was usual for the Dutch and Germans, were astonished and offended by his complaints. Some small additions, such as a fowl or two, and perhaps half a dozen eggs a week, were made on his account to the commons of the family. But these dainties were sometimes intercepted by the women in the kitchen, on their way to the table. On the table, they were devoured by the rest who sat at it still more eagerly than by Erasmus. And if he was not absolutely starved, he wiis assuredly a good deal mortified in his appetite for a glass of good wine and a mess of delicate and savoury meat, before he could see the printing of his “Adagia” entirely at an end. His humours and complaints made him at length a very unpleasant inmate to the family; while he was, on the other hand, dissatisfied still more, that his murmurs were not more complaisantly attended to. They parted with mutual dislike. Erasmus wrote afterwards his dialogue, which has the title of “Opulentia Sordida,” in ridicule of the parsimonious spirit, and the scantily-served table of Andrea D'Asola. Aldus and his successors, whenever they, after this time, reprinted any work by Erasmus, avoided to mention his name, and gave him simply the appellation of “Transalpinus quidain homo.” Aldus, not thinking that he did enough for the interests of literature, in printing, for the first time, so many excellent books in the Latin, Greek, and Italian languages, gave, in his Latin grammar, in 1501, a short introduction to the knowledge of the Hebrew tongue; and even proposed to give a beautiful edition of the original Hebrew of the sacred Scriptures, with the Septuagint and the Vulgate Latin versions. Of this, however, he was diverted from printing more than a specimen sheet. That sheet, now ia the royal library at Paris, exhibits the text in the three different languages, each occupying one of three parallel columns on the same page. It is to be regretted that Aldus should have been hindered from completing a design so noble.

In 1500, Aldus married the daughter of the above-mentioned Andrew of Asola, who had been a printer of some reputation at Venice, and who soon after became his sonin-law’s partner. The “Letters of Pliny,” 1508, is the first book which marks this partnership, “in sedibus Aldi et Andreae Asulani soceri.” In 1506 Aldus was a great sufferer by the war which then rag;ed in Italy, and his printing was so much interrupted, that he was not able to resume it until 1512. From that to 1515, he executed several works, and was proceeding with others when he died, nearly seventy years of age, in the last mentioned year.

, the son of the preceding, was born at Venice in 1512. After his father’s death, he lived with his mother and her other children at Asola, at some distance from Venice, while the business of the printing esablishment at Venice was carried on, for the general benefit of the family, by his grandfather, Andrea D'Asola, and the Torresani, his maternal uncles. At Asola Paul made but small progress in letters; he was, however, removed when very young to Venice, where he had every advantage of instruction and encouragement to study; Bembo, Sadolet, Bonamicus, Reginald Pole, and especially Rambertus and Gasp. Contarinus, who had been his father’s friends, took a pleasure to excite and direct him in hi literary pursuits. Under their tuition he applied to his studies with such zeal and assiduity as even to injure his health, but he suffered more from the disputes that took place respecting the partition of the estates of his father and hi; maternal grandfather, between himself and the other heirs. His uncles and himself could not agree in the management of the printing-house, and in 1529 it was shut up; but in 1533, having arrived at the age of twenty-one, he again opened it, and renewed the business in the names, and for the common benefit, of the heirs of Aldus, and Andrea D'Asola. In 1540, however, this partnership was dissolved and from this period, the business was continued in the names of the sons of Aldus only.

In 1535 he accepted an invitation to Rome, upon the promise of an opulent and eligible situation; but, not being received with respect or attention, he returned to Venice, and resumed his studies and employment. Having, however, attained no degree of opulence, he engaged in the business of education, took twelve young men of family into his house, and superintended their education for three years. Of these, two were Matth. Senarega, who translated Cicero’s Letters to Atticus into Italian, and Paul Contarinus. In 1538 he went on an excursion to examine the manuscripts in certain old libraries, particularly the library of the Franciscans in Cesena, which contained some Mss. left to their convent by Malatesta Novellus; and such was his reputation at this time, that he was invited to fill the chair of the professor of eloquence at Venice, and had the offer of a similar situation at Padua, vacant by the death of Bonamicus. But his ill heahh, and his predilection for his business, induced him to devote his whole time to the printing-house, from which a great number of the classics issued.

After a second journey to Rome, in 1546, he married Margarita, the daughter of Jerome Odonus. His eldest son, Aldus, the subject of our next article, was the firstfruit of this marriage: he had also two other sons, who died young, and a daughter, who is often mentioned in his letters, and was married in 1573. In 1556 an academy was established at Venice, in the house of Frederick Badoarus, one of the principal senators of the republic, which was composed of about an hundred members, who endeavoured to unite every species of literary and scientific excellence. Belonging to this academy was a printing-house, in which it was proposed to print good editions of all books and manuscripts already known to exist, as well as the original writings of the academicians. Over this establishment, Paul was appointed to preside, and it was completely furnished with new founts of his own types, and he had under him several other skilful printers, particularly Dominick Bevilacqua. In 1558 and 1559, fifteen different books were printed in this house, none very large, but intended as a prelude to greater undertakings, of which a catalogue was published both in Italian and Latin, and may be seen in Renouard’s “Annales de Plmprimerie des Aides,” vol. I. The books printed in this academy were all executed with admirable correctness and beauty, and are become exceeding scarce, and valuable. Paul was farther honoured with the professorship of eloquence in this academy, which, however, did not exist long. It was probably thought to have been an engine in Badoarus’s hands, by which he might have become dangerous to the state; or perhaps its expences might exceed his resources, and drive him to pecuniary shifts of the discreditable kind. In August 1562, however, the academy was dissolved by a public decree.

Much of his life appears to have been embittered by sickness, and in September 1573 his health began to decline very rapidly. Three months after, he thought himself better, but he had still an extreme weakness in his loins, with frequent and severe head-aches, and he received no benefit from medicines. On the 6th of April, 1574, he expired in the arms of his son, who had just arrived from Venice to attend him in his sickness. He had lived in general esteem; and his death was universally regretted. He left a variety of writings, which distinguish him as one of the most judicious critics, and one of the most elegant Latin writers that modern times have produced. Of these, the principal are his letters in Latin and Italian, his Commentaries on the works of his favourite Cicero, and his treatise “De Curia Rornana.” The productions of his presses are all of the highest value, for both accuracy and beauty.

, the younger, son of the preceding, was born in 1547. His father paid the utmost attention to his education; and so extraordinary was the progress of the youth in learning, that he was enabled to give the world “A collection of elegant phrases in the Tuscan and Latin languages,” when he was only eleven years of age. Other juvenile works at different periods marked his advances in classical literature, and he soon became his lather’s assistant in his labours. When very young, he conducted the printing-business at Venice while his father was engaged at Rome. In 1572 he married a lady of the Giunti family, so well known in the annals of typography; and on the death of his father in 1574, all the concerns of the Aldine press devolved upon him. He was, however, less calculated for the business of a printer than for the profession of an author. ' In 1577 he was appointed professor of the belles lettres in the school of the Venetian chancery, in which young men designed for public employments were educated. This office he held till 1585, when he was made professor of rhetoric at Bologna. In the same year he published the “Life of Cosmo de Medici,” which was so well received, that he was almost immediately invited to undertake the professorship of polite literature at Pisa, which he accepted, although he received an invitation at the same time to a professorship at Rome, which had been lately held by Muratus. During his stay at Pisa he received the degree of doctor of laws, and was admitted a member of the Florentine academy, on which occasion he delivered an eloquent oration “On the nature of Poetry.” He now paid a visit to Lucca in order to obtain materials for a “History of Castruccio Castracani,” which he afterwards published, and which is much applauded by Thuanus. The Roman professorship being reserved for him, he removed thither in 1588, and intending to spend his life there, he caused his whole library to be brought to Rome from Venice, at a very great expence. He was in high favour with Sixtus V. who gave him an apartment in the Vatican, and a table at the public expence. He was also patronized in various ways by Clement VIII. He died in the fifty-firstyear of his age, in October 1597. He left no posterity, and with him ended the glory of the Aldine press. His library, consisting of 8.0,000 volumes, collected by himself and his predecessors, was sold to pay his debts. He was author of many performances besides those already mentioned, but the most celebrated of his works were his “Commentaries on all the Works of Cicero,” in ten volumes. His “Familiar Letters,” published in 1592, were highly esteemed; but M. Renouard confesses, that were it not from his inheriting the Aldine offices, it might not have been remembered he bad ever been a printer; yet, though difference of taste gave his studies a different bent, his numerous writings, notwithstanding they were inferior to his father’s and grandfather’s, sufficiently prove his industry and learning, and justify, to a certain point, the commendations bestowed on him by many to whom his merits were known.

, a physician and scholar, ^was the son of a father of both his names, whom Wood calls “a sufficient shoemaker,” and was born in 1615 in St. Martin’sle-grand, London, and educated at Westminster-school. He was thence elected a student of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1630, where he took his degrees in arts. Wood gives it as a report that he was first admitted to holy orders, but it is more certain that he was made M. D. in 1647, and principal of Gloucester Hall. He then travelled on the continent with his pupil, Lucius, lord Falkland, for two years, and wrote an account of his travels in Latin, which. Guidot promised to publish. He then travelled with Henry, brother to Lucius lord Falkland, and on his return settled as a physician at Bath in summer, and at Bristol in winter, and had great practice. During the usurpation he had been ejected from his office of principal of Gloucester Hall, but was restored in 1660, and soon after resigned it. He died at Bath, Aug. 4, 1670, and was buried in the cathedral, with a monument and inscription celebrating his learning and skill as a physician. Wood speaks of his Consultations with certain physicians, his cosmetics, and his poems, and epitaphs, but does not say where these are to be found, or whether printed. He has not escaped the diligence of Eloy, who, however, merely copies from the Ath. Ox. The only publication printed appears to have been a collection of letters on the efficacy of the Bath waters, published by Guidot under the title “Epistolarum Medicarum specimen de Thermarum Bathoniensium effectis, ad clariss. medicos D. Bate Eraser, Wedderbourne, &c.” Lond. 1694, 4to. He appears to have been a different person from the J. Maplet who wrote “A Discourse of metals, stones, herbs, &c.” printed in 8vo. This is mentioned by Dr. Pulteney, who says the author was of Cambridge.

, a very learned Englishman, was descended from a good family in Huntingdonshire, and born at Margaret-Inge, in June 1631. He was educated under the famous Busby at Westminster-school, and being king’s scholar, was elected thence to Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1648. He took his degrees in arts at the regular time,' and was made fellow of his college in 1653. In 1658 he left the college in order to be tutor to Joscelin, son of Algernon, the last earl of Northumberland, with whom he continued till 1660, and then travelled at his own ex pence, to qualify himself for the profession of physic, into which he had resolved to enter some years before. He passed through France to Rome, where he lived near a year in the house of the hon. Algernon Sidney, to whom he was recommended by his uncle the earl of Northumberland. In 1663 he returned to England, and to that earl’s family; and, taking his doctor of physic’s degree at Cambridge in 1667, he practised in London. Here he contraded an acquaintance with many eminent persons in his own faculty, as Willis, Sydenham, Locke; and with several of the most distinguished divines, as Whichcote, Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock, Stillingfleet, Sharp, and Clagget. In 1670 he attended lord Essex in his embassy to Denmark; and, in 1672, waited on the lady dowager Northumberland into France. In March 1675, he was chosen professor of physic in Gresbam college, London; and, in 1676, attended the lord ambassador Montague, and lady Northumberland, to France. The same year Dr. Sydenham published his “Observationes medicas circa morborum acutorum historiam et curationem,” which he dedicated to Dr. Mapletoft; who, at the desire of the author, had translated them into Latin. He held his professorship at Gresham till October 1679, and married the month following.

, an English divine, was born at North Thoresby in the county of Lincoln, in the beginning of 1610, of which place his father, Henry Mapletoft, was many years rector. He was educated at the free grammar school of Louth, and admitted of Queen’s college in Cambridge. When he had taken the degree of B. A. he removed to Pembroke hall, and was there made fellow January 6, 1630; and in or about 1633 was appointed chaplain to bishop Wren. He was one of the university preachers in 1641, and was some time after one of the proctors of the university. In 1644 (being then bachelor in divinity) he was ejected from his fellowship for not taking the covenant. After this he retired, and lived privately among his friends, and particularly with sir Robert Shirley in Leicestershire, where he became acquainted with Dr. Sheldon, who became archbishop of Canterbury. He had afterwards a private congregation in Lincoln, where he used to officiate according to the Liturgy of the church of England: this had like to have produced him much trouble; but it being found that he had refused a considerable sum of money offered him by his congregation, he escaped prosecution. On the restoration he returned to Cambridge, and was re-instated in his fellowship, and was presented by the Crown, August 1, 1660, on the death of Dr. Newell, to the prebend of Clifton in Lincoln cathedral, to which he was installed August 23, 1660: and then resigning it, he was also on the same day installed to the sub-deanery of the same church, which he resigned in 1671; and about the same time he became rector of Clayworth in Nottinghamshire, which living he afterwards exchanged for the vicarage of Soham, in Cambridgeshire. In 1661 he resigned his fellowship, and about that time was invited by archbishop Sheldon to be chaplain to the duchess of York, then supposed to be inclining to popery, and in want of a person of Dr. Mapletoft’s primitive stamp to keep her steady to her religion; but he could not be prevailed upon to accept the appointment. In 1664 he was elected master of Pembroke hall, and became doctor in divinity, and was by the king, August 7, 1667, promoted to the deanery of Ely. He served the office of vice-chancellor of the university of Cambridge in 1671, and died at Pembroke hall, August 20, 1677. His remains, according to his own desire, were deposited in a vault in the chapel of that college, near the body of bishop Wren, the founder of it, his honoured friend and patron, without any memorial.

, a learned astronomer and mathematician, was born in 1665 at Perinaldo in the county of Nice, a place already honoured by the birth of his maternal uncle, the celebrated Cassini. Having made a considerable progress in mathematics, at the age of twentytwo his uncle, who had been a long time settled in France, invited him there, that he might himself cultivate the promising genius of his nephew. Maraldi no sooner applied himself to the contemplation of the heavens, than he conceived the design of forming a catalogue of the fixed stars, the foundation of the whole astronomical edifice. In consequence of this design, he applied himself to observe them with the most constant attention; and he became by this means so intimate with them, that on being shown any one of them, however small, he could immediately tell what constellation it belonged to, and its place in that constellation. He has been known to discover those small comets, which astronomers often take for the stars of the constellation in which they are seen, for want of knowing precisely what stars the constellation consists f, when others, on the spot, and with eyes directed equally to the same part of the heavens, could not for a long time see any thing of them.

, the author of the Turkish Spy, a book cried up far beyond its merits, for a long time, both in France and England, was born about 1642, at or near Genoa. When he was only twenty-seven or twentyeight, he was involved in the conspiracy of Raphael de la Torre, who was desirous to give up Genoa to the duke of Savoy. After being imprisoned four years, he retired to Monaco, where he wrote the history of t&at plot, printed at Lyons, in 1682, in Italian. It contains some curious particulars.

Marana, who had always wished to visit Paris, in 16S2 went to settle there; and his merit being distinguished, he found patronage from several people of consequence. He there wrote his “Turkish Spy,” in 6 vols. duodecimo, to which a seventh was added in 1742, when the last edition appeared. Tnough the style of this work was neither precise, correct, nor elegant, it was greatly relished by the public. The author had the art to interest curiosity by an amusing mixture of adventures, half true and half fictitious, but all received at the time as authentic, by persons of confined information. Few supposed the author to be a real Turk, but credit was given to the unknown European, who, under a slight fiction, thus delivered opinions and anecdotes, which it might not have been safe to publish in a more open manner. The first three volumes were most approved; the next three, which are in reality much inferior, were received with a proportionable degree of attention. The whole are now the amusement of tew except very idle readers. Many other spies of a similar kind have been formed upon this plan. Marana lived at Paris, rather in a retired manner, which suited his taste, to 1689, when the desire of solitude led him to retire into Italy, where he died in 1693.

, a prominent actor in the French revolution, was born of protestant parents, in Neufchatel, in 1744. In early life he went to Paris to study physic, and appears to have made very great proficiency in it; but probably from not having patience to pursue the profession in a regular course, he became an empyric, selling his medicines at an extravagant price. On the breaking out of the revolution, he took the lead among the most violent and savage of all the factions that disgraced the capital; and had endeavoured to preach murder and robbery long before it appeared probable that such crimes could have been practised with impunity. His first publication was a periodical paper, entitled the “Publiciste Parisien,” in which he, without scruple, and without any regard to decency and truth, attacked Neckar, and other men eminent for their integrity and public talents. His next paper was entitled “The Friend of the People,” in which he more openly excited the troops to use their arms against their generals, the poor to plunder the rich, and the people at large to rise against the king. After the deposition of Louis XVI. he was named a deputy of the department of Paris to the convention, in which assembly he appeared armed with pistols. In April 1793, he publicly denounced the leaders of the Brissotine party, accusing them oF treason against the state he was supported by Robespierre; a violent tumult ensued, but Marat and his friends were subdued, and himself impeached and prosecuted; in a few days, being brought to trial, he was acquitted. The triumph of his party was now unbounded, and they soon gained such an ascendancy over their enemies, that they murdered or banished all that attempted to obstruct the progress of their nefarious projects; till at length their leader Marat fell a victim to the enthusiastic rage of a female, Charlotte Cord6, who bad travelled from Caen, in Normandy, with a determination of rescuing, as she hoped, her country from the hands of barbarians, by the assassination of one of the chief among them. He died unpitied by every human being who was not of the atrocious faction which he led, having, for some weeks, acted the most savage parts, and been the means of involving many of the most virtuous characters in France in almost indiscriminate slaughter. Previously to joining in revolutionary politics, he was known as an author, and published a work “On Man, or Principles of the reciprocal Influence of the Soul and Body,” in two volumes, 12mo: also some tracts on Electricity and Light, in which he attacked the Newtonian System. These works had been forgot long before he began to make a figure in the political world; but it is remarkable that his death occasioned a fresh demand for them. They are now, however, again sunk into oblivion, and his name is never mentioned but with contempt and horror.

, one of the greatest ornaments of the Gallican church, but a man of great inconsistency of character, was born in 1594, at Gant, in Bearn, of a very ancient family in that principality. He went through his course of philosophy among the Jesuits, and then studied the law for three years; after which he was received a counsellor in 1615, in the supreme council at Pau. In 1621 he was made president of the parliament of Bearn; and going to Paris in 1639, about the affairs of his province, was made a counsellor of state. In 1640 he published “The History of Bearn,” which confirmed the good opinion that was conceived of his knowledge and parts. He was thought, therefore, a very proper person to undertake a delicate and important subject, which offered itself about that time. The court of France was then at variance with the court of Rome, and the book which Peter de Puy published, concerning the liberties of the Gallican church, greatly alarmed the partisans of the court of Rome; some of whom endeavoured to persuade the world that they were the preliminaries of a schism contrived by cardinal Richelieu; as if his eminency had it in his head to erect a patriarchate in that kingdom, in order to render the Gallican church independent of the pope. A French divine, M. Hersent (see Hersent), who took the name of Optatus Gallus, addressed a book to the clergy upon the subject; and insinuated that the cardinal had brought over to his party a great personage, who was ready to defend this conduct of the cardinal; and this great personage was Peter de Marca. But an insinuation of this nature tending to make the cardinal odious, as it occasioned a rumour that he aspired to the patriarchate, the king laid his commands on de Marca to refute Hersent’s work, and at the same time to preserve the liberties of the Gallican church on the one hand, and to make it appear on the other that those liberties did not in the least diminish the reverence due to the holy see. He accepted of this commission, and executed it by his book “De Concordia sacerdotii & imperii, sive, de libertatibus ecclesisæ Gallicæ,” which he published in 1641. He declared in his preface, that he did not enter upon the discussion of right, but confined himself to the settling of facts: that is, he only attempted to shew what deference the Western churches had always paid to the bishop of Rome on the one side; and on the other, what rights and privileges the Gallican churclh had always possessed. But though he had collected an infinite number of testimonies in favour of the pope’s power, the work was of too liberal a cast not to give offence: perhaps even the very attempt to throw the subject open to discussion was not very agreeable and accordingly, the court of Rome made a great many difficulties in dispatching the bulls which were demanded in favour of de Marca, who had, in the end of 1641, been presented to the bishopric of Conserans. That court gave him to understand that it was necessary he should soften some things he had advanced; and caused his book to pass a very strict examination. After the death of Urban VIII. cardinal Bichi warmly solicited Innocent X. to grant the bulls in favour of the bishop of Conserans; but the assessor of the holy office recalled the remembrance of the complaints which had been made against his book “De Concordia,” which occasioned this pope to order the examination of it anew. De Marca, despairing of success unless he gave satisfaction to the court of Rome, published a book in 1646, in which he explained the design of his “De Coocordia,” &c. submitted himself to the censure of the apostolic see, and shewed that kings were not the authors, but the guardians of the canon laws. “I own,” says he, “that I favoured the side of my prince too much, and acted the part of a president rather than that of a bishop. I renounce my errors, and promise for the future to be a strenuous advocate for the authority of the holy see.” Accordingly, in 1647, he wrote a book entitled “De singulari primatu Petri,” in which he proved that St. Peter was the only head of the church; and this he sent to the pope, who was so pleased with it, that he immediately granted his bulls, and he was made bishop of Conserans in 1648. This conduct of de Marca has been noticed by lord Bolingbroke, in his posthumous works, with becoming indignation. He calls him “a time-­serving priest, interested, and a great flatterer, if ever there was one;” and adds, that, “when he could not get his bulls dispatched, be made no scruple to explain away all that he had said in favour of the state, and to limit the papal power.”

In 1644, de Marca was sent into Catalonia, to perform the office of visitor-general, and counsellor of the viceroy, which he executed to the year 1651, and so gained the affections of the Catalonians, that in 1647, when he was dangerously ill, they put up public prayers, and vows for his recovery. The city of Barcelona, in particular, made a vow to our lady of Montserrat, and sent thither in their name twelve capuchins and twelve nuns, who performed their journey with their hair hanging loose, and bare-footed. De Marca was persuaded, or rather seemed to be persuaded, that his recovery was entirely owing to so many vows and prayers; and would not leave Catalonia without going to pay his devotions at Montserrat, in the beginning of 1651, and there wrote a small treatise, “De origine & progressu cultûs beatæ Mariæ Virginis in Monteserato,” which he left in the archives of the monastery; so little did he really possess of that liberality and firmness of mind which is above vulgar prejudice and superstition. In August of the same year, he went to take possession of his bishopric; and the year after was nominated to the archbishopric of Toulouse, but did not take possession till 1655. In 1656 he assisted at the general assembly of the French clergy, and appeared in opposition to the Jansenists, that he might wipe off all suspicion of his not being an adherent of the court of Rome, for he knew that his being suspected of Jansenism had for a long time retarded the bull which was necessary to establish him in the archbishopric of Toulouse. He was made a minister of state in 1658, and went to Toulouse in 1659. In the following year he went to Roussillon, there to determine the marches with the commissaries of the king of Spain. In these conferences he had occasion to display his learning, as they involved points of criticism respecting the language of Pomponius Mela and Strabo. It was said in the Pyrenean treaty, that the limits of France and Spain were the same with those which anciently separated the Gauls from Spain. This obliged them to examine whereabouts, according to the ancient geographers, the Gauls terminated here; and de Marca’s knowledge was of great use at this juncture. He took a journey to Paris the same year, and obtained the appoiutment of archbishop of Paris; but died there June 29, 1662, the very day that the bulls for his promotion arrived. His sudden death, at this time, occasioned the following jocular epitaph:

He left the care of his manuscripts to Mr. Baluze, who had lived with him ever since June, 1656, and who has written his life, whence this account is taken. Baluze also published an edition of his work “De Concordia,” in 1704, as originally written. The only other works he wrote of any note are his “Histoire de Bearn,” Paris, 1640, fol. and his “Marca Hispanica, sive Limes Hispanicus,” Paris, 1688, fol. edited by Baluze. Le Clerc very justly thinks Baluze’s account of De Marca, a panegyric or an apology rather than a life. The most favourable trait in De Marca’s character was his ambition to rise by learning, which certainly first brought him into notice. He is said to have renounced all the pleasures of youth, while he was at school, for the love of books; and to have foretold to his school-fellows, who spent their time in vain amusements, the difference which would one day appear between their glory and his. It was at Toulouse that he laid the groundwork of his great learning; and he did not neglect to make himself a complete master of the Greek tongue, which greatly distinguished him from other learned men. He was early married to a young lady of the ancient family of the viscounts of Lavedan, who bore him several children; but she dying in 1632, he went into orders.

Besides the “Anti-Cotton, ou Refutation de la lettre declaratoire du P. Cotton, avec un dissertation,” printed at the Hague in 1738, at the end of the history of Don Inigo de Guipuscoa, and the “Chef-d‘oeuvre d’un inconnu,” often reprinted, he published in 1740 “Histoire de PImprimerie,” Hague, 4to, a work of great research, and often consulted by typographical antiquaries, but deficient in perspicuity of arrangement. A valuable supplement to it was published by Mercier, the abbé of St. Leger, 1775, 2 vols. 4to, which French bibliographers say is better executed than Marchand’s work, and certainly is more correct. But the vvork which best preserves the name of Marchand, was one to which we have taken many opportunities to own our obligations, his “Dictionnaire Historique, ou Memoires Critiques et Litteraires, concernant la vie et les outrages de divers personnages distingués, particulierement dans la republique des-lettres,” 1758 9, 2 vols. folio. This has been by his editor and others called a Supplement to Bayle; but, although Marchand has touched upon a few of the authors in Bayle’s series, and has made useful corrections and valuable additions to them, yet in general the materials are entirely his own, and the information of his own discovering. The articles are partly biographical, and partly historical; but his main object being the history of books, he sometime*enlarges to a degree of minuteness, which bibliographers only can pardon, and it must be owned sometimes brings forward inquiries into the history of authors and works which his utmost care can scarcely rescue from the oblivion in which he found them. With this objection, which by no means affects the totality of the work, we know few volumes that afford more satisfaction or information on the subjects introduced. His accuracy is in general precise, but there are many errors of the press, and the work laboured under the disadvantage of not being handed to the press by the author. He often intended this, and as often deferred it, because his materials increased so that he never could say when his design was accomplished; and at length, when he had nearly overcome all his scruples, and was about to print, a stroke of palsy deprived him of the use of his right hand, and unfitted him for every business but that of preparing to die, and the settlement of his affairs. This last took up little time. He was a man of frugal habits, content with the decent necessaries of life, and laid out what remained of his money in books. The items of his will, therefore, were few, but liberal. He left his personal property to a society established at the Hague for the education of the poor; and his library and Mss. to the university of Leyden. He died, at an advanced age, June 14, 1756. His “Dictiormaire” he consigned to the care of a friend, who has given us only the initials of his name (J. N. S. A.) to whom he likewise intrusted a new edition of his “History of Printing,” which has never appeared. This friend undertook to publish the Dictionary with the. greater alacrity, as Mart-hand assured him that the manuscript was ready. Ready it certainly was, hut in such a state as frightened the editor, being all written upon little pieces of paper of different sizes, some not bigger than one’s thumb-nail, and written in a character so exceeding small, that it was not legible to the naked eye. The editor, therefore, said perhaps truly, that this was the first book ever printed by the help of a microscope. These circumstances, however, may afford a sufficient apology for the errors of the press, already noticed; and the editor certainly deserves praise for having so well accomplished his undertaking amidst so many difficulties.

, a French courtier and author, of the fifteenth century, was the son of a Burgundian gentleman. He was first page, and afterwards gentleman to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, who so highly esteemed his fidelity, that he refused to give him up at the demand of Louis XI. La Marche served afterwards with zeal under Charles the Rash, who was slain at the battle of Nancy, in 1477. After this, he had the office of grand maitre d'hotel to Maximilian of Austria, who had married the heiress of Burgundy; and, maintaining the same post under the archduke Philip, was sent on an embassy to France after the death of Louis XI. He died at Brussels Feb. 1, 1501. His works are, 1. “Memoirs, or Chronicles,” printed at Lyons in I 562, and at Brussels in 1616, 4to. They are reckoned inferior to the Memoirs of Comines, as to their style, but perhaps superior as to their sincerity. The author relates several curious anecdotes in a manner which, though flat, is rendered pleasing by its frankness. 2. “ATreatiseon Duels,” &c. 8vo. 3. “Triomphe des Dames d'Honneur,” 1520, 8vo; the Triumph of virtuous Women. This is a work of dull and trivial morality, full of quaint allusions and metaphors. Several other performances are said to be extant, in print, and. in manuscript, but from the account given of them there is little motive for making them the object of any further inquiry.

, a nobleman of great learning and accomplishments, was born in 1708. He was the third in succession to, and the last inheritor of, that title; there being no male descendants of his grandfather, sir Patrick Hume, the first earl, and his lordship having survived his only son, Alexander lord Polwarth, who had been created an English peer, but died without issue of his marriage with the lady Isabella Grey, daughter of the earl of Hardwicke, and heiress of the last duke of Kent; a peeress in her own right, under a limitation by Charles II. of the barony of Lucas of Cruduell.

When a near relation, very dear to sir Patrick, was again imprisoned, he thought it adviseable to keep himself concealed. The following account of his concealment is taken, from the ms. preserved in the family by his grand-daughter. “After persecution began afresh, and my grandfather Baillie again in prison, sir Patrick thought it necessary to keep concealed; and soon found he had too good reason for so doing, parties being continually sent out in search of him, and often to his own house, to the terror of all in it, though not from any fear for his safety, whom they imagined at a great distance from home, for no soul knew where he was but my grandmother, and my mother, except one man, a carpenter, called Jamie Winter, who used to work in the house, and lived a mile off, on whose fidelity they thought they could depend; and were not deceived. The frequent examinations and oaths put to servants in order to make discoveries were so strict, they durst not run the risk of trusting any of them. By the assistance of this man they got a bed and bed-clothes carried in the night to the burying-place, a vault under ground at Polwarth church, a mile from the house, where he was concealed a month; and had only for light an open slit at the one end, through which nobody could see what was below; she (his daughter) went every night by herself at midnight, to carry him victuals and drink, and staid with him as long as she could to get home before day. In all this time my grandfather shewed the same constant composure and cheerfulness of mind that he continued to possess to his death, which was at the age of eighty -four; all which good qualities she inherited from, him in a high degree; often did they laugh heartily in that doleful habitation, at different accidents that happened. She at that time had a terror for a church-yard, especially in the dark, as it is not uncommon at her age, by idle nursery stories; but when engaged by concern for her father, she stumbled over the graves every night alone, without fear of any kind entering her thoughts, but for soldiers and parties in search of him, which the least noise or motion of a leaf put her in terror for. The minister’s house was near the church; the first night she went, his dogs kept such a barking as put her in the utmost fear of a discovery; my grandmother sent for the minister next day, and upon pretence of a mad dog, got him to hang all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting victuals to carry him without the servants suspecting; the only way it was done, was by stealing it off her plate at dinner into her lap many a diverting story she has told about and other things of a like nature. Her father liked sheep’s head, and while the children were eating their broth, she had conveyed most of one into her lap; when her brother Sandy (the second lord Marchmont) had done, he looked up with astonishment, and said,” Mother, will ye look at Grizzel; while we have been eating our broth, she has eat up the whole sheep’s head.“This occasioned so much mirth among them, that her father at night was greatly entertained by it; and desired Sandy might have a share in the next. I need not multiply stories of this kind, of which I know many. His great comfort and constant entertainment (for he had no light to read by) was repeating Buchanan’s Psalms, which he had by heart from beginning to end; and retained them to his dying-day two years before he died, which was in 1724, I was witness to his desiring my mother to take up that work, which, amongst others, always lay upon his table, and bid her try if he had forgot his psalms, by naming any one she would have him repeat; and by casting her eye over it she would know if he was right, though she did not understand it; and he missed not a word in any place she named to him, and said they had been the great comfort of his life, by night and day, on all occasions. As the gloomy habitation my father was in, was not to be long endured but from necessity, they were contriving other places of safety for him; amongst others, particularly one under a bed which drew out, on a ground Moor, in a room of which my mother kept the key; she and the same man worked in the night, making a hole in the earth after lifting the boards, which they did by scratching it up with their hands not to make any noise, till she left not a nail upon her fingers, she helping the man to carry the earth as they dug it, in a sheet, on his back, out at the window into the garden; he then made a box at his own house, large enough for her father to lie in, with bed and bed-clothes, and bored holes in the boards for air; when all this was finished, for it was long about, she thought herself the most secure happy creature alive. When it had stood the trial for a month of no water coming into it, which was feared from being so low, and every day examined by my mother, and the holes for air made clear, and kept clean-picked, her father ventured home, having that to trust to. After being at home a week or two, the bed daily examined as usual, one day in lifting the boards, the bed bounced to the top, the box being full of water: in her life she was never so struck, and had near dropped down, it being at that time their only refuge; her father, with great composure, said to his wife and her, he saw they must tempt Providence no longer, and that it was now fit and necessary for him to go off, and leave them; in which he was confirmed hy the carrier telling for news he had brought from Edinburgh, that the day before, Mr. Baillie of Jerviswoode had his life taken from him at the Cross, and that every body was sorry, though they durst not shew it; as all intercourse by letters was dangerous, it was the first notice they bad of it; and the more shocking, that it was not expected. They immediately set about preparing for my grandfather’s going away. My mother worked night and day in making some alterations in his clothes for disguise; they were then obliged to trust John Allen, their grieve, who fainted away when he was told his master was in the house, and that he was to set out with him on horseback before day, and pretend to the rest of the servants that he had orders to sell some horses at Morpeth fair. Accordingly, my grandfather getting out at a window in the stables, they set out in the dark; though with good reason it was a sorrowful parting, yet after he was fairly gone they rejoiced, and thought themselves happy that he was in a way of being safe, though they were deprived of him, and little knew what was to be either his fate or their own.”

When his serene highness came over, and happily effected the bloodless revolution, sir Patrick Hume was one of those who accompanied him, and was by him created lord Polwarth of Polwarth, and afterwards earl of Marchmont. He was also made lord high chancellor of Scotland by king William; an office in that country, before the Union, of the highest rank, as it is here,

Hugh, of whom we now speak, the third earl, was the third son of the above-mentioned Alexander, and twin-­brother of Mr. Hume Campbell, who was in the first practice at the English bar, but retired from it on being appointed lord register of Scotland. The subject of our present article having finished his studies in the learned languages, in which at an early period of his life he was a most distinguished scholar, he was sent to Utrecht to complete his education. Here, under the instruction of one of the most eminent civilians of modern times, he succeeded in the attainment of a knowledge of the civil law to an extent seldom acquired, even by those who were to follow it as a profession; and at the same time became master of several modern languages, which he read and wrote with great facility.

When the circumstances here alluded to are considered, it will not be thought surprising that the society of his lordship, anil his correspondence, should have been sought by some of the most distinguished characters of the time: he lived in close intimacy with lord Cobham, who placed his bust among the worthies at Stowe lord Cornbury, sir William Wyndham, lord Chesterfield, and Mr. Pope and notwithstanding an essential difference of opinion from lord Bolingbroke on some very important points, he was so attracted by his most extraordinary talents, as to form an intimate friendship with him, which continued to the death of the viscount, although with a short temporary interruption to it, owing to the part which lord Marchmont took in vindicating, rather or extenuating, the conduct of Pope, respecting the printing of lord Bolingbroke’s “Patriot King.” Of this affair we have taken some notice in our account of Mallet; and shall be able to throw additional light on it when we come to the article of Pope, from lord Marchmont’s account, with which we have been favoured.

After his lordship’s accession to the peerage in 1740, he did not mix in public business till 1747, when he was appointed first lord commissioner of police in Scotland; and had no opportunity of rendering himself conspicuous in polir tical life until 1750, when he was elected one of the sixteen peers, in the room of the earl of Crawford. From this time he took a very active share in most of the important debates that occurred, which led to his being appointed keeper of the great seal of Scotland in 1764 (on the death of the duke of Athol), the office substituted for that of lord chancellor. The last political act of his life, was the vote he gave on Mr. Fox’s India bill; on which occasion he was the first peer who went below the bar as a non-content.

It may be truly said, that there have been few men in any age, who read more deeply than this distinguished nobleman. The notes he left behind him on almost every eminent author of antiquity, and on the most useful publications in modern times, afford an unequivocal proof of this. He was never himself an author; but it is to him the public are indebted for the publication of the records of parliament, from very nearly the earliest period of that assembly meeting, which have thrown most useful light on our constitutional history. The famous survey of all the counties in England made under the authority of William the Conqueror, called Domesday Book , was printed at the same time. The earl died at his house in Hertfordshire, January 10, 1794.

, a learned German critic, was born at Arnheim, a town of Gueldres, in 1548. His father, who was a man of rank and learning, observing in him a more than ordinary inclination for books, took particular care of his education. He had him taught at home the elements of the Latin tongue, and then sent him to school at Deventer, where he learned the Greek under Noviomagus. Marcilius, having made a great progress in both languages, was removed thence to the university of Louvain, where he applied himself to philosophy and civil law; and, having finished his studies, went to Paris, and thence to Toulouse, where he taught polite literature many years. Returning to Paris, he taught rhetoric in 1578, in the college of Grassins, and afterwards read lectures in several other colleges successively. In 1602, he was made royal professor of the Latin tongue, and the belles lettres: and died March 15, 1617. Though he was not a critic of the first rank, yet he did not deserve the contemptuous treatment which Scaliger has given him. He published an edition in Greek and Latin of “Pythagoras’s Golden Verses,” at Paris, 1585, with commentaries, which John Albeit Fabricius has called learned; and notes upon many of the ancient authors, Persius, Horace, Martial, Catullus, Suetonius, Aulus Gellius, &c. which are to be found in several editions of their works. He was also the author of some Latin works, as, “Historia Strenarum,” 1596, 8vo “Lusu’s de Nemine,” &c. and some poems and orations.

, a heretic, who lived in the second century of the church, was born at Sinope, a city of Paphlagonia, upon the Euxine sea, and had for his father the bishop of that city. Eusebius calls him 5 votumg, the mariner; and Tertullian, more than once, Ponticus Nauclerus. Whether he acquired this name from having learned the art of sailing in his youth, or from being born in a sea-port town, ecclesiastical antiquity has not told us. At first he professed continency, and betook himself to an ascetic life; but, having so far forgotten himself as to debauch a young lady, he was excommunicated by his father, who was so rigid an observer of the discipline of the church, that he could never be induced, by all his prayers and vows of repentance, to re-admithim into the communion of the faithful. This exposed him so much to the scoffs and insults of his countrymen, that he privily withdrew himself, and went to Rome, hoping to gain admittance there. But his case being known, he was again unsuccessful, which so irritated him, that he became a disciple of Cerdo, and espoused the opinions of that famous heretic. The most accurate chronologers have not agreed as to the precise time when Marcion went to Rome; but the learned Cave, after considering their reasons, determines it, and with the greatest appearance of probability, to the year 127; and supposes further, that he began to appear at the head of his sect, and to propagate his doctrines publicly, about the year 130. Indeed it could not well be later, because his opinions were dispersed far and wide in the reign of Adrian; and Clemens Alexandrinus, speaking of the heretics who lived under that emperor, mentions Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion, who, he says, “conversed along with them, as a junior among seniors:” and Basilides died in the year 134.

The doctrines of this heretic were, many of them, the same with those which were afterwards adopted by Manes and his followers; that, for instance, of two co-eternal, and independent principles, jDne the author of all good, the other of all evil. In other to support and propagate this principle more successfully, he is said to have applied himself to the study of philosophy, that of the stoics especially. Marcion likewise taught, as Manes did after him, that the God of the Old Testament was the evil principle; that he was an imperious tyrannical being, who imposed the hardest laws upon the Jews, and injuriously restrained Adam from touching the best tree in Paradise; and that the serpent was a nobler being than he, for encouraging him to eat of its fruit: on which account, as Theodoret tells us upon his own knowledge, the Marcionites worshipped a brazen serpent, which they always kept shut up in an ark. He taught, that Christ came down from heaven to free us from the yoke, which this being had put upon us; that Christ, however, was not clothed with real flesh and blood, but only appeared to the senses to be so, and that his sufferings were nothing more than appearance; that when Christ descended into hell, and preached the Gospel there, he brought the followers of Cain, the inhabitants of Sodom, and other wicked people, who were converted from the error of their ways, back with him to heaven; but that he left Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, who would not listen to his preaching, but trusted too much to their own righteousness, fast bound in that horrible dungeon; that there would be no resurrection of the body, but only of the soul, &c. &c. He rejected the law and the prophets, as being written tinder the inspiration of the evil god. He rejected also four epistles of St. Paul, together with all the gospels, except that of St. Luke; out of which, and the rest of St. Paul’s epistles, he composed, for the use of his followers, two books, which he persuaded them were of divine authority calling one “Evangelium,” and the other “Apostolicon.” Such is the account given in Irenaeus, in Tertullian’s five books against Marcion, and in Epiphanius.

, was a principal magistrate of the Chatelet under Louis XIV. who reposed great confidence in him, and gave him a considerable pension. He was employed in several important affairs, particularly during the scarcity of corn in 1693, 1700, 1709, and 1710. He received a free gift of 300,000 livres, arising from the ninth part of the increased prices of admission to the public amusements, exhibited at the Hotel Dieu in Paris; but this sum did not increase his fortune, for he liberally employed it all in the expences attendant on the gratuitous functions of his office, the commissions with which he was entrusted, and the completion of his great work. He died April 15, 1723, aged near 82. This worthy magistrate established his fame by a most laborious treatise on the police, in 3 vols. folio, to which another author, M. le Clerc du Brillet, has since added a fourth. They contain a history of the French police, the privileges of the magistrates, the laws on that subject, &c. The two first volumes had supplements, which, in the edition of 1722, were thrown into the body of the work. The third volume was printed in 1719, and the fourth in 1738, and not reprinted. There is a valuable plate of the water-conduits of Paris, which is wanting in some copies.

, de Saint Sorlin, was a man of getiius, and a favourite of cardinal Richelieu, who used to receive him at his retired hours, and unbend his mind by conversing with him upon gay and delicate subjects. On. this account, and because he assisted the cardinal in the tragedies he composed, Bayle used to say, that “he possessed an employment of genius under his eminence;” which in French is a pun, as genie means genius and engineers/lip. He was born at Paris in 1595. He has left us himself a picture of his morals, which is by no means advantageous; for he owns that, in order to triumph over the virtue of such women as objected to him the interest of their salvation, he made no scruple to lead them into atheistical principles. “I ought,” says he, “to weep tears of blood, considering the bad use I have made of my address among the ladies; for I have used nothing but specious falsehoods, malicious subtleties, and infamous treacheries, endeavouring to ruin the souls of those I pretended to love. I studied artful speeches to shake, blind, and seduce them; and strove to persuade them, that vice was virtue, or at least a thing natural and indifferent.” Marets at length became a visionary and fanatic; dealt in nothing but inward lights and revelations; and promised the king of France, upon the strength of some prophecies, whose meaning be tells us was imparted to him from above, that he should have the honour of overthrowing the Mahometan empire. “This valiant prince,” says he, “shall destroy and expel from their dominions impiety and heresy, and reform the ecclesiastics, the courts of justice, and the finances. After this, in common agreement with the king of Spain, he shall summon together all the princes of Europe, with the pope, in order to re-unite all the Christians to the true and only catholic religion. After all the heretics are re-united to the holy see, the king, as’eldest son of the chu/ch, shall be declared generalissimo of all the Christians, and, with the joint forces of Christendom, shall destroy by sea and land the Turkish enapire, and law of Mahomet, and propagate the faith and dominion of Jesus Christ over the whole earth:” that is to say, over Persia, the empire of the great mogul, Tartary, and China.

His works are thus enumerated: 1. “A Paraphrase of the Psalms of David.” 2. “The Tomb of Card. Richelieu,” an ode. 3. “The Service to the Virgin,” turned into verse. 4. “The Christian Virtues,” a poem in eight cantos. 5. The four books, “On the Imitation of Jesus Christ,” 1654, 12mo, very badly translated into French verse. 6. “Clovis,” or France converted, an epic poem in twenty-six books, 1657. This poem, though the author thought so highly of it, as we have already seen, is wholly destitute of genius, and its memory is preserved more by a severe epigram of Boileau against it, than by any other circumstance. He wrote also, 7. “The Conquest of Franche Comte,” and some other poems not worth enumerating. Besides these works in verse, he published in prose, 8. “Les Delices de l'Esprit,” a fanatical and incomprehensible work above-mentioned, which was best criticized by a person who said, that at the head of the Errata should be put, “for Delices, read Delires;” instead of delights of the mind, ravings of it. 9. “Avis du St. Esprit an Roi,” still more extravagant if possible than the former. 10. “Several Romances, and among them one entitled” Ariane,“or Ariadne, at once dull and indecent. 11.” La Verit6 des Fables," 1648, 2 vols. 8vo. 12. A dissertation on Poets, in which the author ventures to attack the maxims of Aristotle and Horace. Some writings against the satires of Boileau, and several against the Jansenists, complete the list. His countrymen now consider the verses of Des Marets as low, drawling, and incorrect; his prose, as disgraced by a species of bombast which renders it more intolerable than his poetry.

, a celebrated divine of the reformed church, was born at Oisemond in Picardy, in 1599. At thirteen he was sent to Paris, where he made great advances in the belles lettres and philosophy; and three years after to Saumur, where he studied divinity under Gomarus, and Hebrew under Ludovicus Capellus. He returned to his father in 1618, and afterwards went to Geneva, to finish his course of divinity. The year following he went to Paris, and, by the advice of M. Durand, applied immediately for admission to the holy ministry, to the synod of Charenton, in March 1620, who received him, and settled him in the church of Laon. But his ministerial functions here were soon disturbed; for, the governor of La Fere’s wife having changed her religion, wrote him a letter in vindication of her conduct, and sent him a pamphlet containing the history of her conversion. His answer to this lady’s letter provoked his adversaries to such a degree, that a Jesuit was supposed to have suborned an assassin, who stabbed him deeply, but, as it happened, not mortally, with a knife into his breast. This induced Des Marets to leave Laon, and go to Falaise in 1624. He afterwards accepted a call to the church of Sedan; and soon after took the degree of doctor in divinity at Leyden, in July 1625. Having made a short visit to England, he returned to Sedan. In 1640, he had an invitation to a professorship at Franeker; and to another at Groningen, in 1642. This last he accepted; and from that time to his death, rendered such services to that university, that it was reckoned one of the most flourishing in the Netherlands. The magistrates of Berne, well informed of his abilities and learning, offered him, in 1661, the professor of divinity’s chair at Lausanne; and, in 1663, the university of Leyden invited him to a like professorship there. He accepted of this last, but died before he could take possession of it, at Groningen, May 18, the same year.

A chronological table of the works of this celebrated divine may be found at the end of his ' System of Divinity.“They are mostly of the controversial kind, and now seldom inquired after. He designed to collect all his works into a body, as well those which had been already published, as those which were in manuscript. He revised and augmented them for that purpose, and had materials for four volumes in folio; but his death prevented the execution of that project. The first volume was to have contained all those works which he had published before his being settled at Groningen. The second, his” Opera theologica didactica.“The third, his” Opera theologica polemica.“The title of the fourth was to have been” Impietas triumphata.“Its contents were to have been the” Hydra Socinianismi expugnata,“the” Biga fanaticorum eversa,“and the” Fabula Praeadamitaruru refutata" three works which had been printed at different times. Marets’s system of divinity was found to be so methodical, that they made use of it at other academies; and indeed this author’s reputation procured him so much authority in foreign countries as well as his own, that a person in Germany, who published some reflections on him, received orders to suppress his book.

, queen of Navarre, and sister to Francis I. of France, celebrated as an author yet more than for her rank, was born at Angouleme, April 11, 1492; being the daughter of Charles of Orleans, duke of Angouleme, and Louisa of Savoy. In 1509 she married Charles the last duke of Alen^on, who died at Lyons, after the battle of Pavia, in 1525. The widow, inconsolable at once for the loss of her husband, and the captivity of her beloved brother, removed to Madrid, to attend the latter during his illness. She was there of the greatest service to her brother, by her firmness obliging Charles and his ministers to treat him as his rank demanded. His love and gratitude were equal to her merits, and he warmly promoted her marriage with Henry d‘Albret, king of Navarre. The offspring of this marriage was Joan d’Albret, mother of Henry IV. Margaret filled the character of a queen with exemplary goodness; encouraging arts, agriculture, and learning, and advancing by every means the prosperity of the kingdom. She died at the castle of Odos, in Bigorre, Dec. 2, 1549. She had conversed with protestant ministers, and had the sagacity to perceive the justness of their reasonings; and their opinions were countenanced by her in a little work entitled “Le Miroir de l'Ame pecheresse,” published in 1533, and condemned by the Sorbonne as heretical; but on her complaining to the king, these pliant doctors withdrew their censure. The Roman catholic writers say, that she was completely re-converted before she died. The positive absolution of the Romish priests is certainly a great temptation to pious minds in the hour of weakness and decline. Margaret is described as an assemblage of virtues and perfections, among which, that of chastity was by no means the least complete, notwithstanding the freedom, and, to our ideas, licence of some of her tales. Such is the difference of manners. She wrote well both in verse and prose, and was celebrated in both. She was called the tenth muse and the Margaret, or pearl, surpassing all the pearls of the east. Of her works, we have now extant, 1. her “Heptameron,” or, Novels of the queen of Navarre, 1559, and 1560, in 4to, and several times re-published. They are tales in the style of Boccace, and are told with a spirit, genius, and simplicity, which have been often serviceable to Fontaine in his tales. Several editions have been printed with cuts, of which the most valued are that of Amsterdam, in 1698j in 2 vols. 8vo, with cuts by Roinain de Hooge; the reprints of this edition in 1700 and 1708, are not quite so much valued, yet are expensive, as are the editions with Chodoviechi’s cuts, Berne, 1780 1, 3 vols. 8vo; Paris, 1784, and 1790. 2. “Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses;” a collection of her productions, formed by John de la Haye, her valet de chambre, and published at Lyons, in 1547, 8vo; a very rare edition, as is that of 1554. In this collection there are four mysteries, or sacred comedies, and two farces, according to the taste of the times. A long poem entitled “The Triumph of the Lamb,” and “The Complaints of a Prisoner,” apparently intended for Francis I.

Margraf was held in considerable estimation as a chemist, throughout Europe, and had the honour of being elected a member of several learned bodies. All the writings which he produced were published in the Memoirs of the Literary Society of Berlin, before and after its renovation; tut they have been collected and published both in German and French. They contain the details of a great number of processes and analyses, described in clear and simple language. Some of the most important of his discoveries relate to phosphorus and its acid; to the reduction of zinc from calamine; to the fixed and volatile alkalies; to manganese, the Boiognian stone, platina, and the acid of sugar. In short, he is entitled to rank among the more accurate experimentalists who contributed to the advance*­ment of the science of chemistry, before the recent luminous improvements which it has gained.

But the tiiost considerable by far of all his performances, is his “History of Spain,” divided into thirty books. This he wrote at first in Latin; but, fearing lest some unskilful pen should sully the reputation of his work by a bad translation of it into Spanish, he undertook that task himself, not as a translator, but as an author, who might assume the liberty of adding and altering, as he found it requisite, upon further inquiry into records and ancient writers. Vet neither the Latin nor the Spanish came lower down than the end of the reign of king Ferdinand, grandfather to the emperor Charles V. where Mariana concluded his thirty books; not caring to venture nearer his own times, because he could not speak with the freedom and impartiality of a just historian, of persons who were either alive themselves, or whose immediate descendants were. At the instigation of friends, however, he afterwards drew up a short supplement, in which he brought his history down to 1621, when king Philip 111. died, and Philip IV. came to the crown. After his death, F. Ferdinand Camargory Salcedo, of the order of St. Augustin, carried on another supplement from 1621, where Mariana left off, to 1649$ inclusive; where F. Basil Voren de Soto, of the regular clergy took it up, and went on to 1669, being the fifth year of the reign of Charles II. king of Spain. Gibbon says that in this work he almost forgets that he is a Jesuit, to assume the style and spirit of a Roman classic. It is a work of great research and spirit, although not free from the prejudices which may be supposed to arise from his education and profession. The first edition was entitled “Historiae de rebus Hispaniae, lib.iginti,” Toleti, 1592, folio. To some copies were afterwards added five more books, and a new title, with the date 1595, or in some 1592. The remaining five books were printed as “Histories Hispanic<E Appendix, libri scilicet XXI XXX, cum indice,” Francfort, 1616, fol. There is an edition printed at the Hague, with the continuations, 1733, 4 vols. in 2, fol. The best editions in the Spanish are, that of Madrid, 1780, 2 vols. folio, and that with Mariana’s continuation, ibid. 1794, 10 vols. 8vo. The French have various translations, and the English an indifferent one by capt. Stevens, 1699, fol.

Mariana’s history did not pass without animadversions in his own time. A secretary of the constable of Castile, who calls himself Pedro Mantuana, published “Critical Remarks” upon it at Milan, in 1611, which were answered by Thomas Tamaius de Vorgas. The latter informs us, “that Mariana would never cast his eyes upon the work of his censurer, or on that of his apologist; though this latter offered him his manuscript before he gave it to the printer, and desired him to correct it.”

, a writer of several romances or novels much esteemed in France, was born at Marseilles in 1697, his family having been originally of Genoa. He was early in orders, and settled at Avignon, where, as a minim, he was much employed in all the offices of his order, and preached against the Jews with no little success. He published some works on pious discipline, which were much esteemed, and gained him the favour of pope Clement XIII. From this pontiff he received several marks of honour, and was employed by him to collect the “Acts of the Martyrs.” He had composed only two volumes in 12mo of this work, when he was seized with a dropsy in the heart, and died April 3, 1767, in his seventieth year. He was much esteemed by all worthy men; and his novels, as well as his other writings, were calculated to serve the cause of virtue and religion. The principal of his works are 1. “Conduct of Sister Violet, who died in odour of sanctity, at Avignon,” 12mo. 2. “Adelaide de Vitzburg, or the pious pensioner,” 12mo. 3. “The perfect Nun,” 12mo. 4. “Virginia, or the Christian Virgin,” 2 vols. 12mo. 5. “The Lives of the Solitaries of the East,” 9 vols. 12mo. 6. “Baron Van-Hesden, or the Republic of Unbelievers,” 5 vols. 12mo. 7. “Theodule, or the Child of Blessing,” 16mo. 8. “Farfalla, or the converted Actress,” 12mo. 9. “Retreat for a Day in each Month,” 2 vols. 12mo. 10. “Spiritual Letters,” 1769, 2 vols. 12mo; and a few more of less consequence.

, a once celebrated Italian poet, was born at Naples in 1569; and made so great a progress in his juvenile studies, that he was thought qualified for that of the civil law at thirteen. His father, who was a lawyer, intended him for that profession, as the properest means of advancing him; but Marini had already contracted a taste for poetry, and was so far from relishing the science to which he was put, that he sold his law-books, in order to purchase books of polite literature. This so much irritated his father, that he turned him out of doors, and obliged him to seek for protectors and supporters abroad. Having acquired a reputation for poetry, he happily found in Inico de Guevara, duke of Bovino, a friend who conceived an affection for him, and supported him for three years in his house. The prince of Conca, grand admiral of the kingdom of Naples, next took him into his service, in quality of secretary; and in this situation he continued five or six years; but having assisted a friend in a very delicate intrigue, he was thrown into prison, and very hardly escaped with his life. Thence he retired to Rome, where, after some time spent in suspense and poverty, he became known to Melchior Crescendo, a prelate of great distinction, who patronized him, and provided him with every thing he wanted.

In 1601, he went to Venice, to print some poems which he dedicated to Crescentio; and after making the tour of that part of Italy, returned to Rome. His reputation increased greatly, so as to engage the attention of the cardinal Peter Aldobrandini, who made him his gentleman, and settled on him a considerable pension. After the election of pope Paul V. which was in 1605, he accompanied this cardinal to Ravenna, his archbishopric, and lived with him several years. He then attended him to Turin, at which court he ingratiated himself by a panegyric upon the duke Charles Emmanuel; for which this prince recompensed him with honours, and retained him, when his patron the cardinal left Piedmont. During his residence here he had a violent dispute, both poetical and personal, with Gasper Murtola, the duke’s secretary. Murtola was, or fancied himself, as good a poet as Marini, and was jealous of Marini’s high favour with the duke, and therefore took every opportunity to speak ill of him. Marini, by way of revenge, published a sharp sonnet upon him at Venice, in 1608, under the title of “II nuovo mondo;” to which Murtola opposed a satire, containing an abridged life of Marini. Marini answered in eighty-one sonnets, named the “Murtolelde:” to which Murtola replied in a “Marineide,” consisting of thirty sonnets. But the latter, perceiving that his poems were inferior in force as well as number to those of his adversary, resolved to put an end to the quarrel, by destroying him; and accordingly fired a pistol, the ball of which luckily missed him. Murtola was cast into prison, but saved from punishment at the intercession of Marini, who, nevertheless, soon found it expedient to quit his present station.

He went afterwards to France, where he found a patroness in Mary de Medicis, who settled a handsome pension upon him. In 1621 he sent a nephew whom he had with him at Paris, to Rome, about business, and conveyed by him his compliments to cardinal Louis Ludovisio, nephew to Gregory XV. then the reigning pope; which compliments were so well received by the cardinal, that he wrote to him immediately to return to Rome. Marini complied, and quitted France about the end of 1622; and on his arrival at Rome, was made president of the academy of the Umoristi. Upon the advancement of Urban VIII. to the pontificate, in 1623, he went to Naples, and was chosen president of one of the academies in that city, but soon after conceived an inclination to return to Rome, which he was about to indulge, when he was seized with a complaint which carried him off, in 1625.

, an eminent French philosopher and mathematician, was born at Dijon, and admitted a member of the academy of sciences of Paris in 1666. His works, however, are better known than his life. He was a good mathematician, and the first French philosopher who applied much to experimental physics. The law of the shock or collision of bodies, the theory of the pressure and motion of fluids, the nature of vision, and of the air, particularly engaged his attention. He carried into his philosophical researches that spirit of scrutiny and investigation so necessary to those who would make any considerable progress in it. He died May 12, 16S4. He communicated a number of curious and valuable papers to the academy of sciences, which were printed in the collection of their Memoirs dated 1666, viz. from volume 1 to volume 10. And all his works were collected into 2 volumes in 4to, and printed at Leyden in 1717.

, a celebrated French writer of the drama and of romance, was born at Paris in 1688. His father was of a good family in Normandy; his fortune was considerable, and he spared nothing in the education of his son, who discovered uncommon talents, and a most amiable disposition. His first object was the theatre, where he met with the highest success in comic productions; and these, with the merit of his other works, procured him a place in the French academy. The great object of both his comedies and romances was, to convey an useful moral under the veil of wit and sentiment: “my only object,” says he, “is to make men more just and more humane;” and he was as amiable in his life and conversation as in his writings. He was compassionate and humane, and a strenuous advocate for morality and religion. To relieve the indigent, to console the unfortunate, and to succour the oppressed, were duties which he not only recommended by his writings, but by his own practice and example. He would frequently ridicule the excessive credulity of infidels in matters of trivial importance; and once said to lord Bolingbroke, who was of that character, “If you cannot believe, it is not for want of faith.”

, or Marcus, the founder of the sect of the Marcosians, is said to have appeared about the year 160, or, according to some, about the year 127. Many learned moderns are of opinion that Mark belonged to the Valentinian school, but Rhenford and Beausobre say that the Marcosians were Jews, or judaizing Christians; and Grabe likewise owns that they were of Jewish extract. Irenseus leads us to imagine that Mark, who was an Asiatic, had come into Gaul and made many converts there. Nevertheless, learned moderns think that they were only disciples of Mark, who came into that country, where Irenaeus resided, of whom, in one place, he makes particular mention. Irenaeus represents him as exceedingly skilful in all magical arts, by means of which he had great success. Tertullian and Theodoret concur in calling Mark a magician. Irenseus, after giving an account of the magical arts of Mark, adds, that he had, probably, an assisting daemon, by which he himself appears to prophesy, and which enabled others, especially women, to prophesy likewise: this practice favoured his seduction of many females, both in body and mind, which gained him much wealth. He is also said to have made use of philters and love-potions, in order to gain the affections of women; and his disciples are charged with doing the same. Dr. Lardner suggests some doubts as to the justice of these accusations; and indeed there is considerable obscurity in every particular of his personal history. His followers, called Marcosians, are said to have placed a great deal of mystery in the letters of the alphabet, and thought that they were very useful in finding out the truth. They are charged unjustly with holding two principles, and as if they were Docetse, and denied the resurrection of the dead; for which there is no sufficient evidence. They persisted in the practice of baptism and the eucharist. As to their opinion concerning Jesus Christ, they seem to have had a notion of the great dignity and excellence of his person, or his ineffable generation: and, according to them, he was born of Mary, a virgin, and the word was in him, When ha came to the water, the supreme power descended upon him; and he had in him all fulness; for in him was the word, the father, truth, the church, and life. They said that the Christ, or the Spirit, came down upon the man Jesus. He made known the Father, and destroyed death, and called himself the Son of Man; for it was the good pleasure of the Father of all that he should banish ignorance and destroy death: and the acknowledgment of him is the overthrow of ignorance. From the account of Irenceus, we may infer that the Marcosians believed the facts recorded in the gospels and that they received most, or all the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Irenaeus also says that they had an innumerable multitude of apocryphal and spurious writings, which they had forged: and that they made use of that fiction concerning the child Jesus, that when his master bade him say, alpha, the Lord did so; but when the master called him to say beta, he answered, “Do you first tell me what is alpha, and then I will tell you what beta is.” As this story concerning alpha and beta is found in the gospel of the infancy of Jesus Christ, still in being, some are of opinion that this gospel was composed by the Marcosians.

, an English author, who lived in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. but whose private history is involved in much obscurity, was son of Robert Markham, esq. of Gotham, in the county of Nottingham. He bore a captain’s commission under Charles I. in the civil wars, and was accounted a good soldier, as well as a good scholar. One piece of dramatic poetry which he has published will shew, says Langbaine, that he sacrificed to Apollo and the muses, as well as to Mars and Pallas. This play is extant under under the title of “Herod and Antipater,” a tragedy, printed in 1622. Markham published a great many volumes upon husbandry and horsemanship: one upon the latter, printed in quarto, without date, he dedicated to prince Henry, eldest son to James I. In husbandry he published “Liebault’s La Maison rustique, or the country -farm,” in 1616. This treatise, which was at first translated by Mr. Richard Surfleit, a physician, Markham enlarged, with several additions from the French books of Serris and Vinet, the Spanish of Albiterio, and the Italian of Grilli. He published other books of husbandry, particularly “The English Husbandman, in two parts,” Lond. 1613 1635, with the “Pleasures of Princes in the Art of Angling.” Granger mentions “The whole Art of Angling,” 1656, 4to, in which he says Markham very gravely tells us that an angler should “be a general scholar, and seen in all the liberal sciences; as a grammarian, to know how to write or discourse of his art in true and fitting terms. He should have sweetness in speech to entice others to delight in an exercise so much laudable. He should have strength of argument to defend and maintai n his profession against envy and slander,” &c. Markham also wrote a tract entitled “Hunger’s prevention, or the whole Art of Fowling,” 1621, 8vo. In military discipline he published “The Soldier’s Accidence and Grammar,” in 1635. But he appears to have been earliest distinguished by his talents for poetry. In 1597 he published “Devereux Vertues tears for the loss of the most Christian king Henry, third of that name king of France, and the untimely death of the most noble and heroical Walter Devereux, who was slain before Roan, in Fraunce,” a translation from the French, 4to. He was the author also of “England’s Arcadia, alluding his beginning from sir Philip Sydney’s ending,” 1607, 4to. The extracts from Markham in “England’s Parnassus,” are more numerous than from any other minor poet. The most remarkable of his poetical attempts appears to have been entitled “The Poem of Poems, or Sion’s Muse, contaynyng the diuine Song of king Salomon, deuided into eight eclogues,” J 596, 16mo. This is dedicated to “the sacred virgin, divine mistress Elizabeth Sydney, sole daughter of the everadmired sir Philip Sydney.” Bishop Hall, who was justly dissatisfied with much of the spiritual poetry with which his age was overwhelmed, alludes to this piece in his “Satires” (B. I. Sat. VIII.); and says that in Markham’s verses Solomon assumes the character of a modern sonneteer, and celebrates the sacred spouse of Christ with the levities and in the language of a lover singing the praises of his mistress. For this censure, Marston in his “Certayne Satires” (Sat. IV.) endeavours to retort upon Hall.

Jeremiah was born Oct. 29, 1693, and in 1704 was admitted upon the foundation of Christ’s Hospital, London, whence, in 1710, he was sent to the university of Cambridge, with the usual exhibition of 30l. per annum for seven years, and admitted of St. Peter’s college. Here he took the degree of B. A. in 1713, and the following year appears among the poetical contributors to the “Cambridge Gratulations.” In 1717 he took his master’s degree, and about the same time ably vindicated the character of Addison against the satire of Pope, in some verses addressed to the countess of Warwick. He was the author also of a translation of “The Friar’s Tale,” from Chaucer, which is printed in Ogle’s edition of 1741. Curl), the bookseller, in some of his publications, includes poems by a Mr. John Markland of St. Peter’s college. If tliis is not a blunder for Jeremiah, these might be the production of Mr. Markland’s brother John, who was also educated at Christ’s Hospital; but this is doubtful, and not very important.

It appears that he had begun an edition of “Apuleius” at Cambridge, of which seven sheets were printed off, from MorelPs French edition; but on Dr. Bentley’s sending him a rude message concerning his having left out a line that was extant in one of the Mss. he went no farther. Bowyer, who knew the value of Mr. Markland’s labours, would have carried on this work, but never could obtain a copy of the printed sheets, which remained for many years in Mr. Bentham’s warehouse at Cambridge.

After several years residence at St. Peter’s college, he undertook in 1728 the education of William Strode, esq. of Punsborn in Herts, with whom he continued above two years at his house, and as long abroad in France, Flanders, and Holland. Some time after their return, Mr. Strode married, and when his eldest son was about six years old, Mr. Markland undertook the care of his education, and was with him seven years. This pupil, who was afterwards a gentleman of the bed-chamber to his majesty, a man of extensive benevolence and generosity, and always very attentive to Mr. Markland, died in 1800.

After his return from France, Mr. Markland again took up his residence at college, and resumed his learned labours. In 1739 we find Mr. Taylor acknowledging his obligations to Mr. Markland for the “Conjecturse” annexed to his “Orationes et Fragmenta Lysiae,” an incomparable edition, on which Taylor’s fame may securely rest. In 1740 Mr. Markland contributed annotations to Dr. Davies’s second edition of Maximus Tyrius. This volume was printed by Mr. Bowyer, uncier the sanction of the society for the encouragement of learning; and such was Mr. Markland’s care, that this society, although on their part not very consistently, complained of the expence which Mr. Markland occasioned by his extreme nicety in correcting the proof-sheets. In an address to the reader, prefixed to his annotations, Mr. Markland brought forward a very singular discovery, that Maximus had himself published two editions of his work. It is very surprizing, therefore, that at this time, when Markland was receiving the thanks and praises of his learned contemporaries, Warburton only should under-rate his labours, and say in a letter to Dr. Birch, “I have a poor opinion both of Markland’s and Taylor’s critical abilities.” Whether this “poor opinion” proceeded from temper or taste, we find that it was afterwards adopted by Warburton’s friend Dr. Kurd, who went a little farther in compliment to his correspondent, and, somewhat luckily for Mr. Markland, involves himself in a direct contradiction, calling Mr. Markland, in the same sentence, a “learned man,” and a man of “slencjer parts and sense.” It cannot be too much regretted that bishop Hurd should have left his Warburtonian correspondence to be printed, after he had, in the republication of his own works, professed to recant many of the harsh opinions of his early days.

In 1743, we find Mr. Markland residing at Twyford, where, in June of that year, he talks of the gout as an old companion: and at this period of life, it appears that he was twice encouraged to offer himself a candidate for the Greek professorship; but had either not ambition enough to aspire to this honour, or had some dislike to the office, to which, however, abilities like his must have done credit. From 1744 to 1752, his residence was at Uckfield in Sussex, where he boarded in the house of the schoolmaster under whose care young Mr. Strode had been placed, and where he first formed an intimacy with the rev. William Clarke, whose son Edward was placed uncier his private tuition. In 1745, he published “Remarks on the Epistles of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero, in a letter to a friend. With a dissertation upon four orations ascribed to Cicero; viz. I. Ad Quirites post rediturn: 2. Post reditum in seriatu 3. Pro domo sua, ad pontifices 4. De haruspicum responsis To which are added, some extracts out of the notes of learned men upon those orations, and observations on them, attempting to prove them all spurious, and the works of some sophist,” 8vo. These remarks, which were addressed to Mr. Bowyer, although very ingenious, brought on the first controversy in which Mr. Markland was concerned; but in which he was unwilling to exert himself. He seems to have contented himself with his own conviction upon the subject, and with shewing only some contempt of what was offered. “I believe,” says he, in a letter to Mr. Bowyer, “I shall drop the affair of these spurious letters, and the orations I mentioned; for, though I am as certain that Cicero was not the author of them, as I am that you were not, yet I consider that it must be judged of by those who are already prejudiced on the other side. And how far prejudice will go, is evident from the subject itself; for nothing else could have suffered such silly and barbarous stuff as these Epistles and Orations to pass so long, and through so many learned men’s hands, for the writings of Cicero; in which view, I confess, I cannot read them without astonishment and indignation.”

A little farther account, however, of this controversy, and its rise, may yet be interesting. In 1741, Mr. Tunstall, public orator of Cambridge, published his doubts on the authenticity of the letters between Cicero and Brutus (which Middleton, in his Life of Cicero, had considered as genuine), in a Latin dissertation. This Middleton called “a frivolous, captious, disingenuous piece of criticism,” answered it in English, and published the disputed epistles with a translation. On this, Tunstall, in 1744, published his “Observations on the Epistles, representing several evident marks of forgery in them, in answer to the late pretences of the Rev. Dr. Conyers Middleton.” Markland, the following year, published his arguments on the same side of the question, which called forth a pamphlet, written by Mr. Ross, afterwards bishop of Exeter, entitled “A Dissertation in which the defence of P. Sylla, ascribed to M. Tullius Cicero, is clearly proved to be spurious, after the manner of Mr. Markland; with some introductory Remarks on other writings of the Ancients, never before suspected.” It is written in a sarcastic style, but with a display of learning very inferior to that of the excellent scholar against whom it was directed, and in a disposition very dissimilar to the candour and fairness which accompanied the writings of Markland. It has lately been discovered that Gray, the celebrated poet, assisted Ross in his pamphlet, but at the same time does not seem to have entertained a very high opinion of Ross’s wit. In a manuscript note in the first leaf of his copy of Markland, he writes: “This book is answered in an ingenious way, but the irony is not quite transparent.” Gray’s copy of Markland is now in the possession of his late excellent biographer, the rev. John Mitford, to whom we are indebted for these particulars. Mr. Mitford adds, that the notes which Gray has written in this copy “display a familiar knowledge of the structure of the Latin language, and answer some of the objections of Markland,” who had not then learnt the caution, in verbal criticism and conjectural emendation, which he well knew how to value when an editor of Euripides.“The only other pamphlet which this controversy produced was entitled” A Dissertation in which the observations of a late pamphlet on the writings of the Ancients, after the manner of Mr. Markland, are clearly answered; those passages in Tully corrected, on which some of the objections are founded: with amendments of a few pieces of criticism in Mr. Markland’s Epistola Critica," Lond. 1746, 8vo. At length Gesner defended the genuineness of the orations in question, and they were reprinted by Ernest, and are still believed to be part of Cicero’s works.

These melancholy views of literary patronage and support did not hinder Mr. Markland from hazarding his little property on the more uncertain issue of a law-suit, into which he was drawn by the benevolence of his disposition. His primary object in this affair, which occurred in 1765, was to support the widow with whom he lodged against the injustice and oppression of her son, who, taking advantage of maternal weakness, persuaded her to assign over to him the whole of her property. The consequence was a law-suit , which, after an enormous expence to Mr. Markland, was decided against the widow; and his whole fortune, after this event, was expended in relieving the distresses of the family. Some assistance he appears to have derived from his friends; but such was his dislike of this kind of aid, that he could rarely be prevailed upon to accept it. Yet at this time his whole property, exclusive of his fellowship (about seventy pounds a-year), consisted of five hundred pounds three per cent, reduced annuities; and part of the latter we find him cheerfully selling out for the support of his poor friends, rather than accept any loan or gift from his friends. He appears indeedabout this time to have been weaning himself from friendly connections, as well as his customary pursuits. In October of this year he even declined entering into a correspondence with his old acquaintance bishop Law, who wished to serve him, and desires Mr. Bowyer to write to the bishop, that “Mr. Markland is very old, being within a few days of seventy-three, with weak eyes and a shaking hand, so that he can neither read nor write without trouble: that he has scarce looked into a Greek or Latin book for above these three years, having given over all literary concerns and therefore it is your (Mr. Bowyer’s) opinion that he (the bishop) had much better not write to Mr. Markland, which will only distress him; but that you are very sure that he will not now enter into any correspondence of learning.” At length, in 1768, after much negotiation, and every delicate attention to his feelings, his pupil, Mr. Strode, prevailed on him to accept an annuity of one hundred pounds, which, with the dividends arising from his fellowship, was, from that time, the whole of his income.

Repeated attacks of the gout, and an accumulation of infirmities, at length put an end to Mr. Markland’s life, at Milton-court, July 7, 1776, in the eighty-third year of his age. His will was short. He bequeathed his books and papers to Dr. Heberden, and every thing else to Mrs. Martha Rose, the widow with whom he lived, and whom he made sole executrix, although he had a sister, Catherine, then living, and not in good circumstances. This is the more remarkable, as we find in his letters, expressions of affectionate anxiety for this sister; but he delayed making his will until the year before his death, when his memory and faculties were probably in some degree impaired. He had formerly entertained hopes of being able to make some acknowledgment to Christ’s-hospital for his education, and to Peterhouse, from which he had for so many years received the chief part of his maintenance; but, to use his own words, “as the providence of God saw fit that it should be otherwise, he was perfectly satisfied that it was better it should be as it was.” Immediately on his death, his friend Mr. Strode and Mr. Nichols went to Milton-court, to give directions for the funeral, which was performed, strictly agreeable to his own request, in the church of Dorking, where a brass plate commemorates his learning and virtues. Several of his books, with a few ms notes in them, after the death of Dr. Heberden, were sold to Mr. Payne; and some of them were purchased by Mr. Gough, and others are now in the possession of Dr. Burney, Mr. Heber, Mr. Hibbert, &c. c. Such are the outlines of the history of this excellent scholar and critic, concerning whom many additional particulars may be found in our authority. The most conspicuous trait in his character was his singular and unwearied industry. The scholar, who secludes himself from tlic world for the purposes of study, frequently abandons himself to desultory reading, or at least is occupied at intervals only, in deep and laborious research. This, however, was not the case with Markland. The years that successively rolled over his head, in the course of a long life, constantly found him engaged in his favourite pursuits, collating the classic authors of antiquity, or illustrating the book of Revelation. Of the truth of this remark, which we borrow from his amiable relative, his correspondence affords sufficient testimony; and the proofs which he there displays, even after he had passed his eighty-first year, of vigour and clearness of intellect, are perfectly astonishing. To this we may add what has recently been said of iMr. Markland, that “for modesty, candour, literary honesty, and courteousness to other scholars, he has been considered as the model which ought to be proposed for the imitation of every critic.” With exception to the opinions of Warburton and Hurd, which were concealed when they might have been answered, and published when they were not worth answering, his deep and extensive learning appears, from the concurrent testimony of his contemporaries and survivors, to have been at all times most justly appreciated; and a tribute, of great value, has lately been paid to his memory by Dr. Burney in tho preface to his “Tentamen de Metris ahæschylo in Choricis Cantibus adhibitis,” where he places him among the “magnanimi heroes” of the eighteenth century, Bentley, Dawes, Taylor, Toup, Tyrwhitt, and Porson.

It is to be regretted, however, that the splendour of his abilities was obscured by the extreme privacy of his life, and the many peculiarities of his disposition. The latter indeed seem to have been produced by the former, and that by some circumstances in his early life, which prevented him from making a choice among the learned professions. It is well known that bishop Hare would have provided for him, if he would have taken orders; but what his reasons were for dec-lining them, we are not told. It may be inferred from his correspondence that in maturer age he had some scruples of the religious kind, but these do not appear inconsistent with the liberty which many great and good men have thought consistent with subscription to the formularies of the church. By whatever means he was prevented from taking orders, it appears to have been a misfortune to him, as the patrons who were the best judges of his merit had no means of providing for him in any other direction. If he ever fancied that he could make his way through the world by the talents of a mere scholar employed in writing, we have evidence in his letters that he soon found his mistake, and that in his time classical criticism was not an article in great demand. Another reason for his frequent despondency, and love of retirement, appears to have been his interesting himself too much in the politics of the time, which he always viewed through a gloomy medium. We may, however, conclude this article with the striking and just observation made by his pupil Mr. Strode, in a letter to Mr. Nichols, that “Do friend of Mr. Maryland can reflect on his life without great satisfaction, although, for the further benefit of society, one might be led to wish some few circumstances of it had been otherwise.'”

Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain." In 1557 he translated Coluthus’s “Rape of Helen” into English rhyme. He also translated the elegies of Ovid, which book was ordered to be burnt at Stationers’-hall, 1599, by command of the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishop of London. Before 1598 appeared his translation of the “Loves of Hero and Leander,” the elegant prolusion of an unknown sophist of Alexandria, but commonly ascribed to the ancient Musseus. It was. left unfinished by Marlow’s death; but what was called a second part, which is nothing more than a continuation from the Italian, appeared by one Henry Petowe, in 1598. Another edition was published, with the first book of Lucan, translated also by Marlow, and in blank verse, in 160O. At length Chapman, the translator of Homer, completed, but with a striking inequality, Marlow’s unfinished version, and printed it at London in 1606, 4to. His plays were, 1. “Tamerlane the great Scythian emperor, two parts,” ascribed by Phillips erroneously to Newton. 2. “The rich Jew of Maltha.” 3. “The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Dr. John Faustus.” 4. “Lnst’s Dominion,” Lond. 1661, 8vo, from which was stolen the greater part of Aphra Behn’s “Abdelazer, or the More’s Revenge,” Lond. 1677. 5. “The Tragedy of King Edward II.” 6. “The Tragedy of Dido, queen of Carthage,” in the composition of which he was assisted by Thomas Nash, who published it in 1594.

Marloe’s tragical death is thus related by Wood: “This Marloe, we are told, presuming upon his own little wit, thought proper to practise the most Epicurean indulgence, and openly professed Atheism. He denied God our Saviour; he blasphemed the adorable Trinity; and, as it was reported, wrote several discourses against it, affirming our Saviour to be a deceiver, the sacred Scriptures to contain nothing but idle stories, and all religion to be a device of policy and priestcraft. But Marloe came to a very untimely end, as some have remarked, in consequence of his execrable blasphemies. It happened, that he fell deeply in love with a low girl, and had for his rival a fellow in livery, who looked more like a pimp than a lover. Marloe, fired with jealousy, and having some reason to believe that his mistress granted the fellow favours, rushed upon him to stab him with his dagger: but the footman being quick, avoided the stroke, and catching hold of Marloe' s wrist, stabbed him with his own weapon; and notwithstanding all the assistance of the surgery, he soon after died of the wound, before the year 1593.”

Marloe has found an apologist in Warton , who can seldom conceal his abhorrence of the puritans. “Marlowe’s wit and sprightliness of conversation had often the unhappy effect of tempting him to sport with sacred subjects; more perhaps from the preposterous ambition of courting the casual applause of profligate and unprincipled companions, than from any systematic disbelief of religion. His scepticism, whatever it might be, was construed by the prejudiced and peevish puritans into absolute atheism, and they took pains to represent the unfortunate catastrophe of his untimely death, as an immediate judgment from heaven upon his execrable impiety.” The story was certainly current at the time. It occurs not only in Beard’s “Theatre of God’s Judgments,” but in a work which if we mistake not preceded it, Vaughan’s “Golden Grove.” Vaughan gives the place where the catastrophe happened, Deptford, and his antagonist’s name, Ingram , and adds, that Marloe “wrote a book against the Trinitie.” There is also in the British Museum (Mss. Harl. 6853, 8vo. fol. 320) “An Account of the blasphemous and damnable opinions of Christ. Marley and three others who came to a sudden and fearful end of this life.”

, one of the most distinguished French writers of the eighteenth century, was born in 1723, at Bort, a small town in Limosin. His father, who was in very moderate circumstances, and had a very large family, bestowed great pains on this, his eldest son, and was ably assisted in the cultivation of his talents, by his wife, who appears to have been a woman of superior sense and information. Young Marmoutel first studied the classics and rhetoric in the Jesuits’ college of Mauriac, and at fifteen was placed by his father with a merchant at Clermont. As this, however, was very little to his taste, he applied for admission into the college of Clermont, and having been received into the philosophical class, maintained himself by teaching some of the junior scholars. He afterwards went to Toulouse, and became teacher of philosophy in a seminary of the Bernardines, where his abilities acquired considerable distinction.

Encouraged by this, he was a candidate for one of theprizes given by the academy of Floreal games at Toulouse; but the ode which he wrote on this occasion being rejected, he sent a copy of it to Voltaire, who not only returned it with high praise, but sent him a copy of his works. To a young man like Marmontel, nothing ceuld be more gratifying than the praise and kindness of a man of such high rank in the literary world; and eager to justify Voltaire’s good opinion, he applied more closely to his studies, and obtained the prizes of several succeeding years. It is much to his honour, that while his reputation increased, and his income became considerable, he devoted the latter to the maintenance of his father’s family.

, seigneur du Mont, sainte Aldegonde, by which last name he is recorded by some biographers, was born in 1538, at Brussels, of noble parents, who were originally of Savoy. He was Calvin’s disciple at Geneva, and appointed ecclesiastical counsellor to Charles Louis, elector palatine; but William, prince of Orange, invited him back again some time after, and employed him usefully in affairs of the utmost importance. Sainte Aldegonde was afterwards consul at Antwerp, which city he defended against the duke of Parma, in 1584, and died at Leyden, December 15, 1598, aged sixty, while he was employed in a Flemish version of the Bible. He left “Controversial Theses,” Antwerp, 1580, 8vo; “Circular Epistles to the Protestants;” “Apologies;” a “Portrait of different Religions,” in which he ridicules the church of Rome, Leyden, 1603, and 1605, 2 vols. 8vo; and other works. Sainte Aldegonde drew up the form of the celebrated confederacy, by which several lords of the Netherlands engaged to oppose the odious tribunal of the inquisition, in 1566.

, an industrious French translator, was born in 1600. He was the son of Claude de Marolles, a military hero, but entered early into the ecclesiastical state, and by the interest of his father, obtained two abbeys. He early conceived an extreme ardour for study, which never abated; for from 1610, when he published a translation of Lucan, to 168 1, the year of his death, he was constantly employed in writing and printing. He attached himself, unfortunately, to the translating of ancient Latin writers; but, being devoid of all classical taste and spirit, they sunk miserably under his hands, and especially the poets. If, however, he was not the most elegant, or even the most faithful of translators, he appears to have been a man of considerable learning, and discovered all his life a love for the arts. He was one of the first who paid any attention to the collection of prints, and formed a series amounting to about an hundred thousand, which made afterwards one of the ornaments of the king’s cabinet. There are by him translations of “Plautus,” “Terence,” “Lucretius,” “Catullus,” “Virgil,” “Horace,” “Juvenal,” “Per&ius,” “Martial” (at the head of which Menage wrote “Epigrammes centre Martial”); also “Statius,” “Aurelius Victor,” “Ammianus Marcellinus,” “Athena3us,” &c. He composed “Memoirs of his own Life,” which were published by the abbe Goujet, in 1775, in 3 vols. 12mo. They contain, like such publications in general, some interesting facts, but many more which are trifling. His poetry was never much esteemed. He said once to Liniere, “My verses cost me very little,” meaning little trouble. “They cost you quite as much as they are worth,” replied Liniere.

, a French poet, was born near Caen, in Normandy, in 1463, with a strong inclination to the belles lettres and poetry, which he happily cultivated, although his education was much neglected. He was but in low circumstances, when his abilities and good behaviour recommended him to Anne of Bretagne, afterwards queen of France; a princess who greatly encouraged and patronized letters. She shewed a particular regard to Marot, by making him her poet; and by commanding him to attend Louis XII. to Genoa and Venice, that he might draw up a relation of those travels. He was afterwards in the service of Francis I. and died in 1523. He was a tolerable poet, but infinitely exceeded by his son Clement. His poems are to be found in the later editions of the works of Clement Marot.

, son of the preceding, was born at Cahors, in Querci, about 1496. In his youth he was page to seigneur Nicholas de Neusville, secretary of state; and afterwards to princess Margaret, the king’s sister, and the duke of Alen.con’s wife. He followed the duke to the army in 1521, and was wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia. While Francis I. was Charles the Fifth’s’ prisoner in Spain, Marot was imprisoned at the instigation of Dr. Bouchard, who accused him of being a protestant; but in an epistle to that doctor, he assured him that he was orthodox, and a very good catholic. After his release he retired to his old mistress, the duchess of Alen^on, who was then become queen of Navarre, by her marriage with John d'Albret. In 1536 he obtained leave of Francis I. to return; but, being suspected for a follower of the new opinions, he was obliged to make his escape to Geneva, where, whatever his religious principles might be, his moral conduct was highly exceptionable. After remaining here some years, he went into Piedmont, where he died at Turin, in 1544, in his forty-ninth year; and as some say, very poor.

Marot, according to an expression of the sieur de Vauprivas, was the poet of the princes, and the prince of poets, during his time in France. It is agreed on all hands, not only that the French poetry had never before appeared with the charms and beauties with which he adorned it, but that, even during the sixteenth century, there appeared nothing that could be compared with the happy turn, the native graces, and the wit, that was every-where scattered through his works, and which compose what is called the Marotic style. This has had many imitators, particularly La Fontaine and Rousseau. We find, by the judgments which have been collected upon Marot, that the French poets are obliged to him for the rondeau; and that to him they likewise owe, in same measure, the modern form of the sonnet and madrigal, and of some other of the smaller forms of poetry. His works, however, are highly censureable on the score of indecency. The wonder is, that, with such libertine propensities, he should employ his genius on a translation of the Psalms. Of these he first translated thirty, which he obtained a privilege to publish, about 1540, and dedicated them to Francis I. His translation was censured by the faculty of divinity at Paris, who carried matters so far as to make remonstrances and complaints to that monarch. The king, who had a great value for Marot on account of his genius, put them off with delays, testifying how acceptable this specimen was to him, and desiring to see the whole finished. However, after several remonstrances had been made to the king, the publication of them was prohibited; which, as usually happens in such cases, made them sell faster than the printers could work them off. After he had retired to Geneva, he translated twenty more Psalms, which in 1543 were printed there with the other thirty; together with a preface written by Calvin. Marot’s works have been collected and printed several times, and in various beautiful forms. Two of the best editions are those of the Hague, 1700, 2 vols. 12mo; and 1731, 4 vols. 4to.

, a French grammarian of high reputation, was born at Marseilles, July 17, 1676, and entered into the congregation of die oratory, but disgusted at the too great confinement of that institution, soon quitted it, and went to Paris. There he married in 1704, and practised for a time with some success as an advocate. Ere long, however, we find him quitting that profession, as not continuing to be advantageous, and separated from his wife, on finding her temper intolerable. He then undertook the care of educating pupils in several great families; among others, that of the president des Maisons, of the Scottish adventurer Law, and the marquis de Beaufremont. Some of these pupils did great honour to his care of their principles and learning. Still he was not fortunate enough to obtain any permanent provision; and undertook a kind of academy, which did not succeed; and he was for a considerable time reduced to go about giving lessons at private houses, and subsisting in a very straitened and precarious manner. At length, the persons who conducted the Encyclopedia, engaged him to bear a part in that great work, to which the articles on the subject of grammar, furnished by him, proved a most important aecession. They are distinguished by a sound and luminous philosophy, an extent of learning by no means common, great precision in the rules, and no less accuracy in the application of them. He had now struggled for the chief part of his life with adverse circumstances; when the count de Lauragais, struck with his merit, and affected by his situation, settled upon him an annuity of a thousand livres. He died June 11, 1756, at the age of eighty. Du Marsais had been considered during his life as sceptical, but is said to have returned to a sense of religion before his death. Several anecdotes were circulated respecting his indifference to religion, which materially injured his fortune. It was even said, that being called upon to educate three brothers in a great family, he asked the parents in what religion they would have them brought up? A story of little probability, but which passed sufficiently current to injure him in the minds of many respectable persons. His disposition was mild and equal, his understanding clear and precise; and his manners had a kind of simplicity which occasioned him to be called the Fontaine of philosophers. Fontenelle said of him, “C‘est le nigaud le plus spirituel, & l’homme d'esprit le plus nigaud que je connoisse,” that is, “He is for a simpleton the most ingenious, and for a man of genius the most of a simpleton of any one I know.” As his own character was so natural, so also was he an ardent admirer of nature, and an enemy to all affectation; and his precepts are said to have had great effect in teaching the celebrated actress le Couvreur, that simple and natural style of declamation which made her performance so pathetic, and raised her reputation to so great a height.

The principal works of du Marsais are, 1. “An Explanation of the Doctrine of the Gallican church, with respect to the pretensions of the court of Rome,” 12mo. This esteemed work was undertaken by the desire of the president des Maisons, and was not published till after the death of the author. 2. “Explanation of a reasonable Method of learning the Latin language,” 1722, 12mo. This work, which was most highly commended by d'Alembert and others, was long very scarce, even in France. 3. “A treatise on Tropes,” 1730, 8vo, and 1731, 12mo; a tract much and justly admired for its original conceptions and logical precision. 4. “Les veritables Principes de la Grammaire,” &c. 1729, 4to only the preface toan intended Latin grammar. 5. “The Abridgment of Father Jouvenci'a Mythology,” disposed according to his method, 1731, 12mo. 6. “Logic,” or reflections on the operations of the mind; a very short work, in which is compressed almost the whole art of reasoning. It was reprinted at Paris, in 1762, in 12mo, with the articles which he furnished for the Encyclopedia. At length, his whole works were collected by Duchosal and Millon, and published at Paris, 1797, 7 vols. 8vd In 1804 the institute of France proposed his eloge as a prize essay, and the prize was gained by Degerando, who published it in 1805. That prefixed to his works was by D'Alembert, with whom, as well as with Voltaire, he was at one time too much connected for his reputation.

, a late eminent anatomist and physician, was born in Fifeshire, in 1742, at Park-hill, a large farm on the side of the Tay, near Newburgh, held by his father, Mr. John Marshal, of the earl of Rothes. His lather had received a classical education himself; and being desirous that his son should enjoy a similar advantage, sent him first to the grammar-school at Newburgh, and afterwards tothat of Abernethy, then the most celebrated place of education among the Seceders, of which religious sect he was a most zealous member. Here he was regarded as a quick and apt scholar. From his childhood he had taken great delight in rural scenery. One day, while under the influence of feelings of this kind, being then about fourteen years old, he told his father that he wished to leave school, and be a farmer, but he soon shewed that it had not arisen from any fondness for ordinary country labours. In the following harvest-time, for instance, having been appointed to follow the reapers, and bind up the cut corn into sheaves, he would frequently lay himself down in some shady part of the field, and taking a book from his pocket, begin to read, -utterly forgetful of his task. About two years after, however, he resumed his studies, with the intention of becoming a minister: and soon after, he was admitted a student of philosophy at Abernethy; and next became a student of divinity. In his nineteenth year he went to Glasgow, and divided his ­time between teaching a school, and attending lectures in the university. The branches of learning which he chiefly cultivated were Greek and morals. At the end of two years passed in this way, he became (through the interest of the celebrated Dr. Reid, to whom his talents and diligence had recommended him), tutor in a gentleman’s family, of the name of Campbell, in the Island of Islay. He remained here four years, and removed to the university of Edinburgh, with Mr. -Campbell’s son, whom the following year he carried back to his father. Having surrendered his charge, he returned to Edinburgh, where he subsisted himself by reading Greek and Latin privately with students of the university; in the mean time taking no recreation, but giving up all his leisure to the acquisition of knowledge. He still considered himself a student of divinity, in which capacity he delivered two discourses in the divinity-hall; and from motives of curiosity began in 1769 to attend lectures on medicine. While thus employed, he was chosen1 member of the Speculative society, where, in the beginning of 1772, he became acquainted with lord Balgonie, who was so much pleased with the display which he made of genius and learning in that society, that he requested they“should read together; and in the autumn of the following year made a proposal for their going to the Continent, which was readily accepted. They travelled slowly through Flanders to Paris, where they stayed a month, and then proceeded to Tours, where they resided eight months, in the house of a man of letters, under whose tuition they strove to acquire a correct knowledge of the French language and government. They became acquainted here with several persons of rank, among whom were a prince of Rohan, and the dukes of Clioiseul and Aguilon, at whose seats in the neighbourhood they were sometimes received as gnests. An acquaintance with such people would make Marshal feel pain on account of his want of external accomplishments; and this, probably, was the reason of his labouring” to learn to dance and to fence while he was at Tours, though he was then more than thirty years old. He returned to England in the summer of 1774; and proceeded soon after to Edinburgh, where he resumed the employment of reading Latin and Greek with young men. Hitherto he seems to have formed no settled plan of life, but to have bounded his views almost entirely to the acquisition of knowledge, and a present subsistence. His friends, however, had been induced to hope that he would at some time be advanced to a professor’s cl; ir and it is possible that he entertained the same hope himself. In the spring of 1775, this hope appeared to be strengthened by his being requested by Mr. Stewart, the professor of humanity at Edinburgh, to officiate for him, as he was then unwell: Marshal complied, but soon after appears to have given up all hopes of a professorship, and studied medicine with a determination to practise it. In the spring of 1777, he was enabled by the assistance of a friend, Mr. John Campbell of Edinburgh, to come to London for professional improvement; and studied anatomy under Dr. W. Hunter, and surgery under Mr. J, Hunter. After he had been here a twelvemonth, he was appointed surgeon to the S3rd, or Glasgow regiment, through the interest of the earl of Leverv, the father of his late pupil, lord Balgonie. The first year after was passed with his regiment, in Scotland. In the following he accompanied it to Jersey, where he remained with it almost constantly till the conclusion of the war in the beginning of 1783, when it was disbanded. In this situation he enjoyed, almost for the first time, the pleasures best suited to a man of independent mind. His income was more than sufficient for his support; his industry and knowledge rendered him useful; and his character for integrity and honour procured him general esteem. From Jersey he came to London, seeking for a settlement, and was advised by Dr. D. Pitcairn (with whom he had formed a friendship while a student at Glasgow) to practise surgery here, though he had taken the degree of doctor of physic the preceding year at Edinburgh; and to teach anatomy at St. Bartholomew’s hospital, it being at the same time proposed, that the physicians to that hospital (of whom Dr. Pitcairn was one) should lecture on other branches of medical learning. He took a house, in consequence, in the neighbourhood of the hospital; and proceeded to prepare for the execution of his part of the scheme. This proving abortive, he began to teach anatomy, the following year, at his own house; and at length succeeded in procuring annually a considerable number of pupils, attracted to him solely by the reputation of his being a most diligent and able teacher. In 1788 he quitted the practice of surgery, and commenced that of medicine, having previously become a member of the London college oF physicians. In the ensuing year a dispute arose between John Hunter and him, which it is proper to relate, as it had influence on his after-life. When Marshal returned to London, he renewed his acquaintance with Mr. Hunter, who thought so well of him, that he requested his attendance at a committee of his friends, to whose correction he submitted his work on the venereal disease, before it was published. He became also a member of a small society, instituted by Dr. Fordyce and Mr. Hunter, for the improvement of medical and surgical knowledge. Having mentioned at a meeting of this society, that, in the dissection of those who had died insane, he had always found marks of disease in the head, Mr. Hunter denied the truth of this in very coarse language. The other members interfering, Mr. Hunter agreed to say, that his expressions did not refer to Dr. Marshal’s veracity, but to the accuracy of his observation. Marshal, not being satisfied with this declaration, at the next meeting of the society demanded a.i ample apology; but Mr. Hunter, instead of making one, repeated the offensive expressions; on which Marshal poured some water over his head out of a bottle which had stood near them. A scuffle ensued, which was immediately stopped by the other members, and no father personal contention between them ever occurred. But Marshal, conceiving that their common friends in the society had, from the superior rank of Mr. Hunter, favoured him more in this matter than justice permitted, soon after estranged himself from them. He continued the teaching of anatomy till 1800, in which year, during a tedious illness, the favourable termination of which appeared doubtful to him, he resolved, rather suddenly, to give it up. While he taught anatomy, almost the whole of the fore-part of the day, during eight months in the year, was spent by him in his dissecting and lecture rooms. He had, therefore, but little time for seeing sick persons, except at hours frequently inconvenient to them; and was by this means prevented from enjoying much medical practice; but as soon as he had recovered his health, after ceasing to lecture, his practice began to increase. The following year it was so far increased as to render it proper that he should keep a carriage. From this time to within a few months of his death, an interval of twelve years, his life flowed on in nearly an equable stream. He had business enough in the way he conducted it to give him employment during the greater part of the day; and his professional profits were sufficient to enable him to live in the manner he chose, and provide for the wants of sickness and old age. After having appeared somewhat feeble for two or three years, he made known, for the first time, in the beginning of last November, that he laboured under a disease of his bladder, though he must then have been several years affected with it. His ailment was incurable, and scarcely admitted of palliation. For several months he was almost constantly in great pain, which he bore manfully. At length, exhausted by his sufferings, he died on the 2nd of April, 1813, at his house in Bartlett’s buildings, Holborn, being then in the seventy-first year of his age. Agreeably to his own desire, his body was interred in the church-yard of the parish of St. Pancras. His fortune, amounting to about bOOO/. was, for the most part, bequeathed to sisters and nephews.

Dr. Marshal’s many amiable qualities placed him high in the estimation of those who knew him well; but unfortunately the alloy mixed with them was considerable. His temper was extremely irritable; and, when he had once taken offence, he seldom returned to his former state with respect to the person who had given it, if an equal or superior, though he might afterwards discover that his resentment was without sufficient cause. He seemed to be afraid, in this case, that a confession of error would be attributed to some base motive for when he found that he had taken offence improperly with persons beneath him, with his servants for instance, he was very ready to avow his fault, and atone for it. He was, besides, of a. melancholy disposition; and, like other men of this temperament, frequently believed, that persons of the most honourable conduct were conspiring to betray and to ruin him. From the nature of his early pursuits, these parts of his character seem not to have exhibited themselves very strongly before he returned to London in 1783; but when he came to mix and jostle in this great city with a crowd of persons intent on their own concerns, and little regardful of those of others, when he found himself neglected by some on whom he fancied he had claims for assistance, and experienced unexpected opposition from others, they became very conspicuous, and often rendered him miserable. The causes of irritation, indeed, ceased in a great measure with his lecturing, and the remainder of his life was passed with comparative tranquillity; but he was now almost without a friend to whom he could freely communicate his thoughts, and, from long disuse, with little relish or fitness for the pleasures of society. In this desolate state his chief amusement consisted in reading the ancient classics, after he had closed his professional labours for the tiay. He generally carried one of these to bed, and read it there till he composed himself for sleep. The Greek authors were more frequently used by him in this way than the Latin; and of the former, Plato more frequently than any other.

, a celebrated preacher at the beginning of the last century, was of Emanuel college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of D. D. in 1717. He was lecturer at Aldermanbury church, and curate of Kentish-town, in Jan. 1715, when, at the recommendation of the princess of Wales, who was pleased with his manner of preaching, he was appointed one of the king’s chaplains in 1717, he was rector of the united parishes of St. Veclast and St. Mich;iel-le-Q.nerne, London and, in Feb. 1731, rector of St. Vedast, lecturer of St. Lawrence Jewry, and St. Martin Ironmonger-lane, prebendary of Windsor, and king’s chaplain. These dates and preferments are collected from his title-pages. He died Feb. 4, 1729. His principal publications are, “The genuine Works of St. Cyprian,” 1717, folio; “A Defence of our Constitution in Church and State,” &c. 1717, 8vo, (on which Dr. Sykes published some “Remarks;” and which was also replied to by Matt. Earbury in a tract added to his “Serious Admonition to Dr. Kennett.” Dr. Marshall’s “Sermons on several occasions” appeared in 1730, 3 vols. 8vo, to which another was added in 1750. These were posthumous, and inscribed to queen Caroline by the author’s widow, who was left with eight children, the eldest of whom was preacher at St. John’s chapel, Bedford-row, which he opened Feb. 10, 1722. He died Aug. 23,. 173 1. Bishop Clayton, in his “Letters to his Nephew,” recommends Dr. Marshall’s Sermons, as preferable to Sherlock’s and Atterbury’s for pathos, and for lively and warm applications.

, an English divine, was born at Barkby in Leicestershire, about 1621, and educated there in grammar learning, under the vicar of that town. He was entered of Lincoln college, Oxford, in 1640; and, about the same time, being a constant hearer of archbishop Usher’s sermons in All-hallows church in that university, he conceived such a high opinion of that prelate, as to wish to make him the pattern of his life. Soon after, Oxford being garrisoned upon the breaking out of the civil wars, he bore arms for the king at his own charge; and therefore, in 1645, when he was a candidate for the degree of bachelor of arts, he was admitted to it without paying fees. Upon the approach of the parliamentary visitors, who usurped the whole power of the university, he went abroad, and became preacher to the company of English merchants at Rotterdam and Dort. In 1661, he was created bachelor of divinity; and, in 1663, chosen fellow of his college, without his solicitation or knowledge. In 1669, while he was at Dort in Holland, he was made doctor of divinity at Oxford; and, in 1672, elected rector of his college, in the room of Dr. Crew, promoted to the bishopric of Oxford. He was afterwards appointed chaplain in ordinary to his majesty, rector of Bladon near Woodstock in Oxfordshire, in May 1680, and was installed dean of Gloucester on April 30, 1681. He resigned Bladon in the year 1682. He died at Lincoln-college in 1685. By his will he gave to the public library at Oxford all such of his books, whether manuscript or printed, as were not then in the library, excepting such only as he had not other-­wise disposed of, and the remaining part to Lincoln-college library; in which college also he fitted up the common room, and built the garden-wall.

, a very learned English writer, was the second son of Thomas Marsham, esq. alderman of London, and born in the parish of St. Bartholomew’s, Aug. 23, 1602. He was brought up at Westminster school, and sent thence, in 1619, to St. John’s college in Oxford, where betook, in due time, his degrees in arts. In 1625, he went to France, and spent the winter at Paris; in 1626 and 1627, he visited most parts of that kingdom, and of Italy, and some parts of Germany, and then returned to London. In 1629, he went through Holland and Guelderland, to the siege of Boisleduc; and thence by Flushing to Boulogne and Paris, in the retinue of sir Thomas Edmondes, ambassador extraordinary, who was sent to take the oath of Louis XIII. to the peace newly concluded between England and France. During his residence in London, he studied the law in the Middle Temple; and, in 1638, was sworn one of the six clerks in chancery. Upon the breaking out of the civil wars, he followed the king and the great seal to Oxford for which he was deprived of his place by the parliamentarians, and suffered a vast loss by the plundering of his estate. After the surrender of the garrison at Oxford, and the ruin of the king’s affairs, he returned to London; and, having compounded for his estate, he betook himself wholly to retirement and study. In the beginning of 1660, he served as a burgess for the city of Rochester, in the parliament which recalled Charles the Second; about which time, being restored to his place in chancery, he had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him, and three years after was created a baronet. He died at Bushy-hall in Hertfordshire, in May 1685; and his body was interred at Cuckstone near Rochester, where he had an estate. By Elizabeth his wife, daughter of sir William Hammond of St. Alban’s, in East Kent, he left two sons; sir John Marsham, of Cuckstone, bart. and sir Robert Marsham, of Bushy-hall, knt. both of them studious and learned men, and the ancestors of the Romney family. Sir John Marsham was a very accomplished gentleman, and had acquired a critical knowledge of history, chronology, and languages. He published in 1649, 4to, “Diatriba chronologica;” in which he examines succinctly the principal difficulties which occur in the chronology of the Old Testament.“The greatest part of this was afterwards inserted in another work, entitled” Canon chronicus, Ægyptiacus, Ebraicus, Groecus, & disquisitiones,“Lond. 1672, folio. The principal object of this is to reconcile the Egyptian dynasties. The Egyptians, as is well known, pretended to excessive antiquity, and had framed a list of thirty successive dynasties, which amounted to a number of years (36,525) greatly exceeding the age of the world. These were rejected as fabulous by some of the ablest chronologers; but sir John Marsham first conjectured that these dynasties were not successive, but collateral; and therefore without rejecting any, he endeavoured to reconcile the entire series in this manner, to the scripture chronology. The attempt, which was highly ingenious, gained him great reputation, and many contemporary as well as succeeding authors, have been liberal in their praises. Mr. Wotton represents him as the first” who has made the Egyptian antiquities intelligible: that most learned gentleman,“says he,” has reduced the wild heap of Egyptian dynasties into as narrow a compass as the history of Moses according to the Hebrew account, by the help of a table of the Theban kings, which he found under Eratosthenes’s name in the Chronography of Syncellus. For, by that table, he, 1. Distinguished the fabulous and mystical part of the Egyptian history, from that which seems to look like matter of fact. 2. He reduced the dynasties into collateral families, reigning at the same time in several parts of the country; which, as some learned men saw before, was the only way to make those antiquities consistent with themselves, which, till then, were confused and incoherent.“Dr. Shuckford, after having represented the foundation of sir John Marsham’s Canon with regard to Egypt, says that,” upon these hints and observations, he has opened to us a prospect of coming at an history of the succession of the kings of Egypt, and that in a method so natural and easy, that it must approve itself to any person who enters truly into the design and conduct of it.“Afterwards, having given a view of sir John’s scheme, from the beginning of the reigns of the Egyptian kings down to his Sesostris, or Sesac, he observes, that,” if the reader will take the pains thoroughly to examine it, if he will take it in pieces into all its parts, review the materials of which it is formed, consider how they He in the authors from whom they are taken, and what manner of collecting and disposing them is made use of, he will find that however in some lesser points a variation from our very learned author may be defensible, yet no tolerable scheme can be formed of the ancient Egyptian history, that is not in the main agreeing with him. Sir John Marsham has led us to a clear and natural place for the name of every Egyptian king, and time of his reign," &c. But although sir John Marsham’s system has been followed by some, it has been strenuously opposed by other writers, who have represented it as not only false, but even prejudicial to revelation.

The “Canon Chronicus” was reprinted at Leipsic, in 1676, in 4 to, and at Franeker, 1696, in 4to, with a preface before each edition, in which the editor, Menckenius, endeavours to confute his author; who thought, as Spencer and others have done, that the Jews derived part of their ceremonies from the Egyptians. The edition of Leipsic pretends, in the title-page, to be much more correct than that of London, which is infinitely more beautiful but its only merit is, that it is more correct than that of Franeker. Sir John Marsham wrote the preface to the first volume of Dugdale’s “Monasticon Anglicanum,” which was printed at London, 1655, in folio. He left behind him at his death unfinished, 1. “Canonis chronici liber quintus: sive, Imperium Persicum.” 2. “De provinciis & legionihus Romanis.” 3. “De re numeraria,” &c. We are likewise in some measure obliged to him for the “History of Philosophy,” by his very learned nephew, Thomas Stanley, esq. which excellent work was undertaken chiefly at his instigation, as we are told by Mr. Stanley himself, in the dedication of it, “to his honoured uncle sir John Marsham.”

, an Italian, famous for letters as well as arms, was descended from an ancient and noble family, and born at Bologna in 1658. He was educated with great care, and instructed in all the arts and sciences by the best masters in Italy; learning mathematics of Borelli, anatomy of Malpighi, &c. He went to Constantinople in 167S); and, as he had destined himself for the military profession, he contrived to take a view of the Ottoman forces, and made other observations of a like nature. He examined at the same time, as a philosopher, the Thracian Bosphorus, and its currents. He returned to Italy in 1680; and, the Turks soon after threatening an irruption into Hungary, he went to Vienna, to offer his service to the emperor Leopold II. which was readily accepted. Discovering great knowledge in fortifications and in the science of war, he had the command of a company conferred on him in 1683; and the same year, after a very sharp action, fell unfortunately into the hands of the Tartars. He was sold by them to two Turks, with whom he suffered great hardships; but at length, conveying intelligence of his situation to his friends, who had believed him dead, he was redeemed, and returned to Bologna towards the latter end of 1684. He went again into Germany, was employed by the emperor in several military expeditions, and made a colonel in 1639. A reverse of fortune afterwards overtook him. In the general war which broke out in 1701, on account of the Spanish, succession, the important fortress of Brisac surrendered to the duke of Burgundy, Sept. 6, 1703, thirteen days after the trenches were open: and it being judged that the place was capable of holding out much longer, the consequence was, that count d‘Arco, who commanded, lost his head; and Marsigli, who was then advanced to be a marshal, was stripped of all his honours and commissions, and had his sword broken over him. This sentence was executed on Feb. 18 following. He afterwards attempted to justify the surrender before the emperor; but, not being able to get admittance, he published a memorial, the purport of which was to shew, that long before the siege of Brisac, it had been represented and proved, that the place could not be defended for any long time. It was in fact the geneEfd opinion that d’Arco and he had been sacrificed, to exculpate the prince of Baden, who had posted a numerous artillery in a bad situation, and with a very weak garrison. When Marsigli went afterwards into France, and appeared at court without a sword, the king presented him with that which he himself wore, and assured him cf his favour.

Released now from public concerns, he returned to his studies; and it was his peculiar good fortune, that amidst the hurry, and noise, and fatigue of war, he had made all the advantages which the most philosophic man ecu i have made, who had travelled pureiy in quest of knowledge; hact determined the situation of places by, astronomical methods, measured the course and swiftness of rivers, studied the fossils, the vegetables, the animals of each country, made anatomical and chemical experiments, and done, in short, every thing which a man of science could do, and with such a fund of knowledge, knew how to fill up his time in the most agreeable as well as honourable manner. While at Marseilles, he was called by pope Clement XL in 1709, and invested with a military commission. Returning soon after to Bologna, he began to execute a design which he had long been meditating. He had a rich collection of every thing that might contribute to the advancement of natural knowledge: instruments proper for astronomical and chemical experiments, plans for fortifications, models of machines, &c. &c. All these he presented to the senate of Bologna, by an authentic act, dated Jan. 11, 1712; forming, at the same time, a body out of them, which he called “The institute of the arts and sciences at Bologna.” He afterwards founded a printing-house, and furnished it with the best types for Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. He presented this to the Dominicans at Bologna, in 1728, ‘on condition that ’all the writings of the “Institute, &c.” should be printed there at prime cost. It was called “The printing-house of St. Thomas of Aquinas.”

, a French historian of some credit, was born at Paris in 16*7. He took the habit of a canon regular of St. Gdnevieve, and was sent to regulate the chapter of Usez, where he was made provost. This office he resigned in favour of the abbe Poncet, who was afterwards bishop of Angers. Some time after, he was made archdeacon of Usez, and died in that city Aug. 30, 1724, at the age of 78. Marsollier published several histories, which are still read by his countrymen with some pleasure: the style, though occasionally debased by low and familiar expressions, being in general rather lively and flowing. There are extant by him, 1. “A History of Cardinal Ximenes,” in 1693, 2 vols. 12mo, and since frequently reprinted. The only fault found with this work is, that the author gives up his attention to the public man so much, as almost to forget his private character. 2. “A History of Henry VII. King of England,” reprinted in 1727, in 2 vols. 12mo. Some consider this as the master-piece of the author. 3. “The History of the Inquisition and its origin,” 1693, 12mo. A curious work, and in some respects a bold one. 4. “Life of St. Francis de Sales,” 2 vols. 12mo. 5. “The Life of Madame de Chantal,” 2 vols. 12mo. 6. “The Life of Dom Ranqe, abbe and reformer of La Trappe,” 1703, 2 vols. 12mo. Some objections have been made to the veracity of this history, but the journalists de Trevoux seem disposed to prefer it upon the whole to Maupeou’s life of Ranee. 7. “Dialogues on many Duties of Life,” 1715, 12mo. This is rather verbose than instructive, and is copied in a great degree from Erasmus. 8. “The History of Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne, duke of Bouillon,” 3 vols. 12mo. Not much esteemed. 9. “An Apology for Erasmus,” 12mo; whose catholic orthodoxy the author undertakes to prove from passages in his works. 10. “A History of Tenths, and other temporal Goods of the Church,” Paris, 1689, 12mo. This is the most scarce, and at the same time the most curious, of all the works of Marsollier.

, an English dramatic author, who lived in the time of James I. and wrote eight plays. Wood says, “that he was a student in Corpus-Christi college, Oxford; but where he was born, or from what family descended, is not known.” When he left Oxford, he was entered of the Middle Temple, of which society he was chosen lecturer in the 34th of Elizabeth; but much more of his personal history is not known. He lived in friendship with Ben Jonson, as appears by his addressing to him his “Malecontent,” a tragi-comedy, in 1604; yet we find him afterwards glancing with some severity at Jonson, on account of his “Catiline and Sejanus,” in his “Epistle” prefixed to “Sophonisba,” another tragedy. “Know,” says he, “that I have not laboured an this poem, to relate any thing as an historian, but to enlarge every thing as a poet. To transcribe authors, quote authorities, and to translate Latin prose orations into English blank verse, hath in this subject been the least aim of my studies.” Langbaine observes, and with good reason, “that none, who are acquainted with the works of Ben Jonson, can doubt that he is meant here, if they will compare the orations in Sallust with those in his Cataline.” Jonson appears to have quarrelled with him and Decker, and is supposed to have ridiculed both in his “Poetaster.”

, a Latin poet, and miscellaneous writer, was born at Paris, and entered early into the society of Jesuits, where he displayed and cultivated very excellent literary talents. When he was hardly twenty, he published some Latin poems which gained him credit. His religious opinionsbeing soon found too bold for the society to which he belonged, he was obliged to quit it; and having published in 1754, an “Analysis of Bayle,” in 4 vols. 12mo, he fell into still greater and perhaps more merited disgrace. His books were proscribed by the parliament of Paris, and himself shut up in the Bastile. This book contains a compilation of the most offensive matter contained in the volumes of Bayle, and has since been republished in Holland, with four additional volumes. Having, for a time, regained his liberty, he was proceeding in his modern history (a work of which he had already published some volumes), when he died suddenly in December 1763. Besides the analysis of Bayle, already mentioned, he published, I. The History of Mary Stuart,“1742, 3 vols. 12mo, a correct and elegant work, in which he was assisted by Fréron. 2.” Memoires de Melvill,“translated from the English, 1745, S^vols. 12mo. 3.” Abridged Dictionary of Painting and Architecture,“2 vols. 12mo. 4.” Le Rabelais moderne,“or the works of Rabelais made intelligible to readers in geaeral, 1752, 8 vols. 12mo. This is by no means executed in a manner either satisfactory to the reader, or creditable to the author. Some of the obscurities are removed or explained, but all that is offensive to decency is left. 5.” The Prince,“translated from father Paul, 1751. 6.” The Modern History, intended to serve as a continuation of Rollin’s Ancient History,“in 26 vols. 12mo. This is written with regularity, but little elegance. The abbe Marsy has since had a continuator in Richer, who has written with less order, but more profundity of research, especially respecting America and Russia. 7.” Pictura," in 12mo, 1756. This poem on painting, is considered as less learned in the art, and in that respect less instructive, than that of du Fresnoy; but he has shown himself a more pure and original Latin poet. There is also a poem in Latin by this author, on tragedy. The opinion of his countrymen is, that his fame rests principally on these Latin poems, and that there was nothing brilliant in his literary career afterwards.

, an eminent Italian poet, was born at Bologna in 1665, and was educated at the Jesuits’ school, and at the university of his native city, after which he devqted himself to the study of classical literature, and having obtained the post of one of the secretaries to the senate of B*ologna, was enabled to follow his studies without much interruption. After publishing a serious poem, entitled “Gli Ocche di Gesu,” The Eyes of Jesus, he produced a tragedy called “La Morte di Nerone,” which with several of liis other pieces was acted with great^ applause. In 1707 he was appointed professor of the belles lettres in the university of Bologna, and soon after was made private secretary to Aldrovandi, who had been nominated delegate to pope Clement XI. At Rome, where he contracted an intimacy with many men of high literary reputation, he published a whimsical dialogue, “Del Volo,” On Flying, in which he endeavoured to prove that men and heavy bodies might be supported in the air, and also wrote several discourses in verse concerning the art of poetry. When he accompanied Aldrovandi, who was appointed the pope’s legate at the courts of France and Spain, he wrote at Paris his opinions “On” ancient and modern Tragedy,“in the form of dialogues; and on his return to Rome, he published his tragedies in three volumes, and was reckoned to have conferred a great benefit on Italian literature, although his style is often too turgid and florid for a model. He also began a poem” On the Arrival of Charlemagne in Italy, and his Accession to the Western Empire,“which he never finished. He died in 1727, at the age of sixty-two, leaving the character of a man of amiable manners and social qualities. His principal works,” Versi et Prose," were printed at Bologna in 1729, 7 vols. 8vo.

, an eminent printer, was born at Alost, in Flanders, in 1454. He began printing in 1473, and died in 1534. He is celebrated as the person who first introduced the art of printing into the Netherlands; having exercised this useful and noble art nearly sixty years at Alost, Louvain, and Antwerp. He was an author as well as a printer; and wrote Latin hymns in honour of the saints, a dialogue on the virtues, and other pieces; but he is more renowned for the many beautiful editions of other men’s works which issued from his presses. He was highly esteemed by the learned men of the period in which he lived, arf8 enjoyed the friendship of Erasmus, who lodged in his house. He employed the double anchor as a sign of the books that were printed at his office.

, an ancient Latin poet, and the model of epigrammatists, was born at Bilbilis, now called Bubiera, a town of the ancient Celtiberia in Spain, which is the kingdom of Arragon. He was born, as is supposed, in the reign of Claudius, and went to Rome when he was about twenty-one. He was sent thither with a view of prosecuting the law; but soon forsook that study, and applied himself to poetry. He excelled so much in the epigrammatic style, that he soon acquired reputation, and was courted by many of the first rank at Rome. Silius Italicus, Stella, and Pliny the younger, were his friends and patrons. Stertinius, a noble Roman, had so great an esteem for his compositions, that he placed > his statue in his library, while he was yet living; and the emperor Verus, who reigned with Antoninus the philosopher, used to call him his Virgil, which was as high an honour as could well be paid to him. We learn also from Pliny and Tacitus, as well as from several passages in his own writings, that he had honours and dignities bestowed upon him by some of the emperors. Domitian, whom it must be confessed he has flattered not a little, made him a Roman knight, and gave him likewise the “Jus trium liberorum,” the privileges of a citizen who had three children. He was also advanced to the tribunate. But though he was so particularly honoured, and had so many great and noble patrons, who admired him for his wit and poetry, it does not appear that he made his fortune among them. There is reason to think that, after the death of Domitian, his credit and interest declined at Rome; and if he had still remaining among the nobles some patrpns, such as Pliny, Cornelius Priscus, &c. yet the emperor Nerva took but little notice of him, and the emperor Trajan none at all. Tired of Rome, therefore, after he had lived in that city about four and thirty years, and grown, as himself tells us, grey-headed, he returned to his own country Bilbilis, where he took a wife, and had the happiness to live with her several years. He admired her much, as one who alone was sufficient to supply the want of every thing he enjoyed at Rome. She appears to have brought him a very large fortune; for, in one of his epigrams he extols the magnificence of the house and gardens he had received from her, and says, “that she had made him a little kind of monarch.” About three years after he had retired into Spain, he inscribed his twelfth book of Epigrams to Priscus, who had been his friend and benefactor; and is supposed to have died about the year 100. As an epigrammatist, Martial is eminently distinguished, and has been followed as a model by all succeeding wits. All his efforts, however, are not equally successful, and many of his epigrams are perhaps unjustly so called, being merely thoughts or sentiments without applicable point. He offends often by gross indelicacy, which was the vice of the times; but his style is in general excellent, and his frequent allusion to persons and customs render his works very interesting to classical antiquaries.

His works were first printed at Venice, as is supposed in. 1470, then at Ferrara in 1471, Rome 1473, and Venice 1475. These are the most rare and valuable editions. The more modern and useful are: that of Aldus, 1501 by Raderus, 1627, fol. by Scriverius, 1619, 12mo; the Variorum of 1670; and the Bipont edition of 1784, 2 vols. 8vo. A strange absurdity occurs in the Delphin edition, 1680, 4to, where all the indelicate epigrams are omitted in the body of the work, but carefully collected at the end! This has, however, been followed and perhaps exceeded by Smids, in the Amsterdam edition of 1701, who, having ornamented his edition with engravings, places the more indelicate ones at the end of the volume.

, a Benedictine monk, who distinguished himself by an edition of St. Jerome, was born at St. Sever, a village in Gascony, in 1647. He entered into the congregation of St. Maur at twenty years of age; and applied himself to the study of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. He read lectures upon the holy scriptures in several monasteries, at x\rles, at Avignon, at Bourdeaux: in the last of which places he accidentally met with father Pezron’s book called “The antiquity of time re-established;” “L'Antiquite du temps retablie.” The authority of the Hebrew text, and the chronology of the Vulgate, being attacked in this work, Martianay resolved to defend them in two or three pieces, published against Pezron and Isaac Vossius, who maintained the Septuagint version. This monk died of an apoplexy in 1717, after having spent fifty years in a scrupulous observance of all the duties belonging to his order, and in writing more than twenty works, of which the most distinguished is his edition of the works of St. Jerome, in 5 vols. folio; the first of which was published at Paris in 1693, the second in 1699. In his notes on these two volumes he criticized several learned men, as well papists as protestants, with much severity, and even contumely; which provoked Le Clerc, who was one of them, to examine the merits of this edition and of the editor. This he did in a volume published in 12mo, at Amsterdam, in 1700, with this title, “Quaestiones Hie,ronymianae, in qnibus expenditur Hieronymi nupera editio Parisina, &c.” in which he endeavours to shew that Martianay, notwithstanding the indecent petulances he had exercised towards other critics, had none of the requisites to qualify him for an editor of St. Jerome; that he had not a competent skill either in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, or in the ancient interpreters of scripture, or in profane authors, or in the science of manuscripts, for this work. Martianay published the third volume in 1704, the fourth in 1705, and the fifth in 1706; and Le Clerc published, in the seventeenth tome of his “Bibliotheque choisee,” some copious remarks upon these three last volumes, in order to confirm the judgment he had passed on the two first. Nevertheless, Martianay’s edition of Jerome was by many thought the best, even after the appearance of Vallarsius’s edition.

, seems to be one of the first French writers who practised the plan, so little approved in England, of translating the ancient classical poets into prose. He gave in this way, versions of, 1. Terence. 2. Horace. 3. Juvenal and Persius. 4-. Virgil. 5. Ovid, entire, in 9 vols. 12 mo. These translations are in general clear and exact, but want elegance, and purity of style. This laborious writer published also lives of the archbishops, &c. of Paris, of the seventeenth century, in 4to. He died in 1698, at the age of seventy.

, an eminent civilian, the son of Thomas Martin, was born at Cerne, in Dorsetshire, and educated at Winchester school, whence he was admitted fellow of New college, Oxford, in 1539. He applied himself chiefly to the canon and civil law, which he likewise studied at Bourges, and was admitted doctor. On entering upon practice in Doctors’ Commons, he resigned his fellowship; and in 1555, being incorporated LL. D. at Oxford, he was made chancellor of the diocese of Winchester. This he owed to the recommendation of bishop Gardiner, who had a great opinion of his zeal and abilities, and no doubt very justly, as he found him a ready and useful assistant in the persecution of the protestants in queen Mary’s time. Among other instances, he was joined in commission with Story in the trial of archbishop Cranmer at Oxford. His proceedings on that occasion may be seen in Fox’s “Acts and Monuments” under the years 1555 and 1556. His conduct probably was not very grosser tyrannical, as, although he was deprived of his offices in Elizabeth’s reign, he was allowed quietly to retire with his family to Ilfield in Sussex, where he continued in privacy until his death in 1584. He wrote two works against the marriage of priests; but that which chiefly entitles him to some notice here, was his Latin “Life of William of Wykeham,” the munificent founder of New college, the ms. of which is in the library of that college. It was first published in 1597, 4to, and reprinted, without any correction or improvement, by Dr. Nicholas, warden of Winchester, in 1690, who does not seem to have been aware how much more might be recovered of Wykeham, as Dr. Lowth has proved. This excellent biographer says that Martin seems not so much to have wanted diligence in collecting proper materials, as care and judgment in digesting and composing them. But it is unnecessary to say much of what is now rendered useless by Dr. Lowth’s work. Dr. Martin bequeathed, or gave in his life-time, several valuable books to New college library.

, an English antiquary, was born at Thetford, in the school-house in St. Mary’s parish (the only remaining parish of that town in Suffolk), March 8, 1697. His grandfather, William, was rector of Stantori St. John, in Suffolk, where he was buried in 1677, His father William was rector of Great Livermere, and of St. Mary’s in Thetford, both in the same county. He married Elizabeth, only daughter of Mr. Thomas Eurrough, of Bury St. Edmonds, and aunt to the late sir James Burrough, master of Caius college, Cambridge: he died in 1721, aged seventy-one, and was buried in Livermere chancel, where his son Thomas, not long before his death, placed a monument for him, and his mother, and their children, who were then all dead except himself, “now by God’s permission residing at Palgrave.” Thomas was the seventh of nine children. His school education was probably at Thetford. In 1715 he had been some time clerk to his brother Robert, who practised as an attorney there; but it appears by some objections to that employment in his own hand-writing, in that year, that he was very uneasy and dissatisfied with that way of life. As these give us the state of his mind, and the bent of his inclination at that early period, and may perhaps account for his succeeding unsettled turn "and little application to his business, they may be worth preserving in his own words.

Objections.—" First, my mind and inclinations are wholly to Cambridge, having already found by experience that I can never settle to my present employment. 2. I was always designed for Cambridge by my father, and I believe am the only instance in the world that ever went to school so long to be a lawyer’s clerk. 3. 1 always wished that I might lead a private retired life, which can never happen if I be an attorney but on the contrary, I must have the care and concern of several people’s business besides mine own, &c. 4. If I be a lawyer, the will of the dead can never be fulfilled, viz. of my sister Elizabeth, who left 10l. to enter me at college; and aunt Burrough, to whom I have promised (at her earnest request) that I never would be a lawyer; nay, my brother himself had promised her I never should. 5. It was always counted ruination for young persons to be brought up at home, and I'm sure there’s no worse town under the sun for breeding or conversation than this. 6. Though I should serve my time out with my brother, I should never fancy the study of the law, having got a taste of a more noble and pleasant study. Questions. But perhaps these questions may be asked me, to which I shall answer as follows: Why I came to my brother at all? and have absented myself thus long from school? Or why I have not spoke my mind before this time? Answers. 1. Though I am with my brother, it was none of my desire (having always confessed an aversion to his employment), but was almost forced to it by the persuasion of a great many, ringing it in my ears that this was the gainfullest employment, &c. 2. Though I have lost some time in school learning, I have read a great deal of history, poetry, &c. which might have taken up. as much time at Cambridge had 1 kept at school. 3. I have staid thus long, thinking continual use might have made it easy to me; but the longer I stay, the worse I like it.

He was, however, by some means or other, kept from executing his favourite plan of going to Cambridge. In 1722 be still probably resided at Thetford; for, having married Sarah the widow of Mr. Thomas Hopley, and daughter of Mr. John Tyrrel, of Thetford, his first child was born there that year; in 1723 his second was born at Palgrave in Suffolk, as were the rest. This wife bore him, eight children, and died Nov. 15, 1731, ten days after she had been delivered of twins. He very soon, however, repaired this loss, by marrying Frances, the widow of Peter le Neve, Norroy king at arms, who had not long been dead, and to whom he was executor. By this lady he came into the possession of a very valuable collection of English antiquities, pictures, &c. She bore him also about as many children as his former wife (four of whom, as well as five of the others, arrived at manhood), and died, we believe, before him. He died March 7, 1771, and was buried, with others of his family, in Palgrave church-porch, where no epitaph as yet records the name of that man who has so industriously preserved those of others , though Mr. Ives had promised his friends that he would erect a monument for him, and had actually drawn up a plain inscription for it.

Mr. Martin’s desire was not only to be esteemed, but to be known and distinguished by the name of, “Honest Tom Martin of Palgrave f,” an ambition in which his acquaintance saw no reason not to gratify him; and we have observed, with pleasure, several strokes of moral sentiment scattered about his rough church notes. These were the genuine effusions of his heart, not designed for the public eye, and therefore mark his real character in that respect. Had he desired the appellation of wise and prudent, his inattention to his business, his contempt and improper use of money, and his fondness for mixed and festive company, would have debarred him, as the father of a numerous, family, of that pretension. As an antiquary, he was most skilful and indefatigable; and when he was employed as an attorney and genealogist, he was in his element. He had the happiest use of his pen, copying, as well as tracing, with dispatch and exactness, the different writing of every aera, and tricking arms, seals, &c. with great neatness. His taste for ancient lore seems to have possessed him from his earliest to his latest days. He dated all the scraps of paper on which he made his church-notes, &c. Some of these begin as early as 1721, and end but the autumn before his death, when he still wrote an excellent hand; but he certainly began his collections even before the first mentioned period; for he appears among the contributors to Mr. Le Neve’s “Monumenta Anglicana,” printed in 1719. The latter part of his life was bestowed on the History of his native town of Thetford. His abilities, and the opportunities he derived from the collections of Peter Le Neve, esq. Norroy king at arms, render it unnecessary to enlarge on this, which Mr. Blomefield, thirty years before this publication encouraged the public to expect from his hands. The materials being left without the last finishing at Mr. Martin’s death, were purchased by Mr. John Worth, chemist, of Diss, F. S. A. who entertained thoughts of giving them to the publick, and circulated proposals, dated July 1, 1774, for printing them by subscription. Upon the encouragement he received, he had actually printed five sheets of the work, and engraved four plates. This second effort was prevented by the immature death of Mr. Worth, in 1775; who dying insolvent, his library, including what he had reserved of the immense collections of Le Neve and Martin at their dispersion on the death of the latter, being sold, with his other effects, for the benefit of his creditors, was purchased the same year by Mr. Thomas Hunt, bookseller at Harleston. Of him Mr. Gough bought the manuscript, with the undigested materials, copy-right, and plates. The first of these required a general revisal, which it received from the great diligence and abilities of Mr. Gough, who published it in 1779, 4to.

Mr. Martin’s collection of antiquities, particularly of such as relate to Suffolk, was very considerable, greater than probably ever were before, or will be hereafter, in the possession of an individual; their fragments have enriched several private libraries. His distresses obliged him to dispose of many of his books, with his manuscript notes on them, to Mr. T. Payne, in his life-time, 1769. A catalogue of his library was printed after his death at Lynn, in 1771, in octavo, in hopes of disposing of the whole at once. Mr. Worth, above mentioned, purchased the rest, with all his other collections, for six hundred pounds. The printed books he immediately sold to Booth and Berry of Norwich, who disposed of them by a catalogue, 1773. The pictures and lesser curiosities Mr. Worth sold by auction at Diss; part of his manuscripts in London, in April 1773, by Mr. Samuel Baker; and by a second sale there, in May 1774, manuscripts, scarce books, deeds, grants, pedigrees, drawings, prints, coins, and curiosities.

, a physician, appears to have been a native of Scotland, where he was born in 1702, and entered upon the study of medicine at Edinburgh in 172O, whence he went to Leyden; and, after prosecuting the same study there for some time, was admitted to his degree of M. D in 1725. He then returned to Scotland, and practised his art at St. Andrew’s. In 1740, while about to publish his Commentaries on Eustachius, he was r< quested by lord Cathcart, to accompany him, as physician to the forces under his command on the American expedition. The difficulties of the voyage, and the change of climate, he bore with chearfulness, but the death of that muchloved commander greatly afflicted him. Soon after he was seized with a bilious fever, which proved fatal in 1743, in the forty-first year of his age. His first publication was entitled “Tractatus de similibus animalibus, et animalium calore:” after which appeared his “Essays Medical and Philosophical,” 1740, 8vo. He contributed also some papers to the Edinburgh “Medical Essays,” and to the “Philosophical Transactions.” We find in Dr. Thomson’s list of the fellows of the royal society the name of George Martini, M. D. elected in 1740, who was probably our author. Being possessed, when a student at Edinburgh, of the earliest edition of “Eustachius’s Tables,” he applied himself diligently to correct and enlarge Lancisi’s explanation of those tables, and compared the descriptions of the parts as delivered by authors with these figures, and carefully registered what he read upon the subject. Being at length furnished with many rich materials, he considered of repairing, in some measure, the loss of Eustachius’s commentaries “De dissentionibus et controversiis anatomicis,” and was, as we have observed, about to publish his own Commentaries, when he went abroad. It fell at length into the hands of the first Dr. Monro of Edinburgh, who published it in 1755, under the title of “Georgii Martinii, M. D. in Bartholomaei Eustachii Tabulas anatomicas Coinmentaria,” 8vo. Notwithstanding Albinus’s explanation, Dr. Monro considers this work as indispensably necessary to those who are in possession of Eustachius’s Tables.

, a Jesuit, born at Trent, who resided many years as a missionary in China, and there compiled several curious works on the history and geography of that country, returned to Europe in 1651, and published a description of China, with an exact map of that empire, and fifteen separate maps of the fifteen provinces; to which he added two others, of Corea and Japan. We have met with an account, though on no warranted authority, that he returned afterwards te Asia, and died at Hang-chew in China, at the age of seventy-four. His works consist of, 1. “Sinicae Historiae Decas prima, a gentis origine ad Christum natum,” 4to, and 8vo. This has been translated by le Pelletier, 1692, in 2 vols. 12mo. 2. “China Illustrata,” already mentioned, Amsterdam, 1649, in folio. This was the best account of China, before that of du Halde. 3, “De Bello inter Tartaros et Sinenses,” which has also been translated. 4. “An account of the number and quality of the Christians in China.” Like other missionaries, he is apt to speak in exaggerated terms of the antiquity, riches, policy, &c. of the Chinese.

, a Dominican friar, and eminent orientalist, who flourished in the thirteenth century, was born at Sobiras in Catalonia; and was one of those of his order who were appointed, at a general chapter held at Toledo in 1250, to study Hebrew and Arabic, in order to confute the Jews and Mahometans. The occasion of it was this: Raymond de Pennafort, general of the order, having a strong desire to extirpate Judaism and Mahometanism, with which Spain was infected, procured an order from this chapter, that the religious of his society should apply themselves to the study of Hebrew and Arabic. This task he imposed on Martin among others; and he obtained a pension of the kings of Arragon and Castile, for such as should study those languages, pn purpose that they might be able to exert themselves in the conversion of infidels. Martin accordingly applied himself to those studies with great success; and, having sufficiently studied the works of the rabbins, they furnished him with such arguments, as enabled him to combat the Jews very skilfully. This appears from his “Pugio fidei,” which waa finished, as we learn from himself, in 1278, though the first publication of it at Paris was not till 1651. Bosquet, who died bishop of Montpelier, met with the manuscript, while he was with great ardour examining the library of the college de Foix at Toulouse, about 1629, and, after copying some things out of it, he gave it to James Spieghel, a learned German, and his preceptor in the Hebrew tongue. Spieghel advised Maussac to publish it; who, though very able to do it by himself, had however for an assistant Mr. de Voisin, son of a counsellor in the parliament at Bourdeaux, who took upon him the greatest part of the task. Thomas Turc, another general of the Dominicans, was very earnest in spurring on the promoters of this edition; and, not satisfied with soliciting them by letters equally importunate and obliging, he gave orders that they should be provided with all the manuscripts of the “Pugio fidei” that could be recovered, In short, the Dominican order interested themselves so much in it, that they bore the charges of the impression. Some assert, that Martin wrote another book, entitled, “Capistrum Judaeorum,” and also “A Confutation of the Alcoran;” and that a copy of the “Pugio fidei,” written by his own hand in Latin and Hebrew, was preserved at Naples in the convent of St. Dominic. The great knowledge which he has discovered of the books and opinions of the Jews, has made some imagine that he was of that religion; but this is thought to be a mistake. The time of Martin’s death is uncertain.

, a French author of considerable celebrity about the beginning of the last century, was born in 1684 at Dieppe. He studied at Paris, partly under the instruction of his learned grand-uncle Richard Simon, who then resided in the college of Fortet. In 1709, he went to the court of Mecklenburgh, and began his researches into the history and geography of that state; but, on the death of the duke, and the troubles which followed, and interrupted his labours, he removed elsewhere, probably to Parma, as we find him, in 1722, publishing, by order of the duke Philip Farnese, whom he calls his most serene master, an historical dissertation, “Dissertation historique sur les duchés de Parme et de Plaisance,” 4to. It appears also that the Sicilian monarch appointed him his secretary, with a salary of twelve hundred crowns. The marquis de Beretti Landi, the Spanish minister at the Hague, had a high regard for Martiniere, and advised him to dedicate his geographical dictionary to the king of Spain, and procured for him, from his catholic majesty, the title of royal geographer. Martiniere passed several years at the Hague, where all the foreign ministers paid him much attention, receiving him often at their tables. He died here June 19, 1749. Moreri makes him eighty-three years of age; but this is inconsistent with a date which he gives on the authority of Martiniere himself, viz. that in 1709 he was twenty-five years old. His personal character is represented in a very favourable light by M. Bruys, who lived a long time with him at the Hague, and objects nothing to him but a want of oeconomy in his domestic matters: he was a man of extensive reading and memory, excelled in conversation, which abounded in striking and original remarks, and was generous, liberal, and candid. His favourite studies were history and geography, which at length produced his wellknown dictionary, “Dictionnaire Geographique, Historique, et Critique,” Hague, 1726 1730, 10 vols. folio; reprinted with corrections and additions at Dijon in 6 vols, folio; and at Venice, and again at Paris in 176S, 6 vols. folio. This was the most comprehensive collection of geographical materials which had then appeared, and although not without the faults inseparable from so vast an undertaking, was of great importance to the science, and the foundation of many subsequent works of the kind. He also published several editions of Puftendorff’s “Introduction to History;” a work on which he appears to have bestowed more pains than will perhaps be approved, as his zeal for the Roman catholic religion induced him to omit Puffendorff’s remarks on the temporal power of the popes. His other works were, 1. “Essais sur l'origine et les progres de la Geographic,” with remarks on the principal Greek and Latin geographers. These two essays were addressed to the academy of history at Lisbon, and that of belles lettres at Paris, and are printed in Camusat’s “Memoires Historiques,” Amst. 1722. 2. “Traites geographiques et historiques pour faciliter l‘intelligence de l’Ecriture Sainte, par divers auteurs celebres, M. M. Huet et Le Grand, D. Calmet, &c. &c.” Hague, 1730, 2 vols. 12mo. 3. “Entretiens des ombres aux Champs Elyseés,” taken from a German work under that title, 2 vols. 4. “Essai d‘une traduction d’Horace,” in verse, with some poetical pieces of his own. 5. “Nouveau recueil des Epigrammatistes Francois anciens et modernes,” Amst. 1720, 2 vols. 12mo. 6. “Introduction generate a l'etude des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, en faveur des pefsonnes qui ne savent que le Frangois,” Hague, 1731, 12mo. 7. “Lettres choisies de M. Simon,” a new edition, with the life of the author, Amst. 1730, 4 vols. 12mo. 8. “Nouvelles politiques et litteraires,” a literary journal which did not last long. 9. “Vie de Moliere,” said to be more correct and ample than that by Grimarest. 9. “Continuation de VHistoire de France sous la regne de Louis XIV. commencée par M. de Larrey.” Some other works have been improperly attributed to Martiniere, as “Lettres serieuses et badines,” which was by M. Bruys, and “Relation d'une assemble tenue au bas du Parnasse,” a production, of the abbé D'Artigny. After his death, his name was put to a species of Ana, entitled, “Nouveau portefeuille historique et litteraire,” an amusing collection; but probabljr not of his forming.

, professor of botany at Cambridge, was born Sept. 12, 1699, in Queen-street, London, where his father Thomas was a merchant. His mother, whose maiden name was Catharine Weedon, died Nov. 1, 1700. After being educated at a private school in the neighbourhood, he was taken, at the age of sixteen, into the counting-house of his father; but, without neglecting the duties of this station, he had already so strong a taste for literature, that he constantly devoted much of the night to study, allowing himself, for many years, only four hours for sleep. In the summer of 1718 he first acquired a taste for botany, in consequence of his acquaintance with Mr. Wilmer, an apothecary, who afterwards became demonstrator in the Chelsea-garden, Dr. Patrick Blair, and Dr. William Sherard, under whose instructions his progress was rapid. He soon became desirous of commencing author, and began by translating Tournefort’s History of the plants growing about Paris, from French into English, in 1720. This, however, he did not print till 1732, when the title was “Tournefort’s History of Plants growing about Paris, with their uses in Physic, and a mechanical account of the operation of medicines. Translated into English, with many additions. And accommodated to the plants growing in Great Britain,” 2 vols. 8vo. This year he undertook various botanical excursions, which were chiefly performed on foot, that he might observe plants in their natural situations, as ueU as insects, which had now likewise excited his attention. The leading character of his mind seems to have been a taste for inquiry, which prompted him to examine every thing for himself. His observation of the works of God directed his thoughts to the divine origin of all things, and his perusal of the writings of some of the most famous adversaries of revealed religion, served but to confirm him in its truth. About the year 1721 he became acquainted with the celebrated Dillenius, and in conjunction with him and several others, amongst whom we find the names of Deering, Thomas Dale, and Philip Miller, established a botanical society, which met every Saturday evening, first at the Rainbow coffee-house in Watlingstreet, and afterwards in a private house. Dillenius was president, and Martyn, who was secretary, read before this society a course of lectures, upon the technical terms of the science, the foundation, as it is presumed, of what he afterwards published. These meetings were continued for about five years only.

*About this time he was an unsuc- Transactions“from 1720 to that time, cessful candidate for the post of secre- in conjunction with Mr, John Eames, taryto the royal society. His oppo- who, however, abridged only three nent was Dr. Mortimer, who had the chapters, while Mr. Martyn completinterest of s r Hans Sloane and of the ed the whole in 3 vols. 4to. 1734, as coim, which, Mr. Martyn’s son says, a continuation of the previous abridgwas” too prevalent for 1 he literary ment in 5 vols, by Lowthorp and part of the society;“In 1731 he was Jones. Among his other literary laengaged in putung together Churchill’s hours, he was also engaged in the Collect ion of Voyages and Travels;” General Dictionary, including Bayle,“published proposals fir an edition of 1 vols, fol. but his articles appear only Virgil’s Georgics, anl entered into ar- in the first three volumes, tides for abridging the” Philosophical air disagreeing with his constitution, which was asthmatic, he removed to Chelsea, where he married, on the 20th of August, 1732, Eulalia, youngest daughter of John King, D. D. rector of Chelsea, and prebendary of York, by whom he had three sons and five daughters. Four of the latter died young, but the other children survived him.

Nevertheless, our indefatigable botanist and scholar was not idle. The work on which his literary fame chiefly and firmly rests is his splendid quarto edition of Virgil’s Georgics, which appeared in 1741, dedicated to Dr. Mead. Here his abilities and his acquisitions had their full scope. The text was accompanied by an English translation, and ample notes in the same language. In these the editor was enabled, from his peculiar studies, to throw more light upon the natural history of his author, than any one before him had done, nor is it easy to improve upon his perfor<­mance. He was assisted in the astronomical part by his friend the celebrated Halley, to whose worth he has given a just and feeling tribute in the preface. In 1749 he published the Bucolics on the same plan, and intended to have gone through the whole of the Roman poet; but growing infirmities, and the loss of his wife, who died of a cancer in the breast this year, for a while damped his ardour. The labours of his profession, too, were becoming burthensome. He speedily indeed repaired his domestic loss, marrying, in July 1750, Mary-Anne, daughter of Claude Fonnereau, esq. of London, merchant. This lady bore him one son, and survived him. In the spring of 1752 he retired from practice, and took a farm in a most beautiful situation at Streatham, and, but for occasional attacks of the gout, enjoyed several years of learned leisure united with scientific experience, in attention to the business of his farm, and the care of his family. On the 30th of January, 1761, he resigned his professorship of botany in favour of his son the rev. Thomas Marty n, who was elected in his stead, and who has ever since filled that station with honour to himself and to his parent. In gratitude for this election, so consonant to his own wishes, Mr. Martyn, some time afterwards, gave his botanical library, of above 200 volumes, with his drawings, herbarium, and collections of seeds and materia mtdica, to the university, for which the thanks of that body were very handsomely returned him in 1765.

, recorder of Exeter, was born in that city in 1562, and educated in the grammar school, whence he was sent to Broadgates-hall, now Pembroke college, Oxford, in 1579. Here he is supposed to have taken one degree in arts, and then removed to some of the inns of court in London to study law. In 1605, he was elected reeofder of his native city, where he died April 12, 1617. He is noticed here as the author of a history or chronicle of the kings of England, entitled “The History and Lives of the Kings of England, from William the Conqueror to King Henry VIII.” Lond. 1616, folio, reprinted in 1618, an amusing, and not ill-written work, taken principally from the Chronicles. An appendix was published in 1638, by B. R M. A. including the history of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. It is said that king James took offence at some passages in Mr. Martyn’s work respecting his own family or the Scottish nation, and that the author was brought into some trouble. Of what kind this trouble was we are not told, but that it preyed on his mind, and hastened his death. Mr. Martyn also published a book for the use of one of his sons, entitled “Youth’s Instruction,” Lond. 1612, 'Jto, which Wood saysj shows a great deal of reading. His family appears to have been somewhat poetical, as his history was preluded by copies (if verses by his three sons, and his son-in-law. 1 Ma&Tyr, Justin, see Justin. Martyr, Peter. See Anghiera. Martyr (Peter), a very distinguished divine, was born at Florence, Sept. 8, 1500. His family name was VermiliUs; but his parents gave him that of Marty*, from one Peter a martyr, whose church happened to stand near their house. The first rudiments of literature he received from his mother, who was a very ingenious lady; and used, as it is said, to read Terence and other classics to him in the original. When he was grown up, he became a regular Augustine in the monastery of Fiesoli; and, after three years’ stay there, was sent to the university of Padua, to study philosophy and the Greek language. At twenty-six, in 1526, he was made a public preacher, and preached first at Brixia, in the church of Afra, then at Rome, Venice, Mantua, and other cities of Italy. He read lectures of philosophy and divinity in his college, and applied himself to the study of the Hebrew tongue, the knowledge of which he attained by the assistance of one Isaac, a Jewish physician. Such was his fame at this time, that he was made abbot of Spoletto, in the duchy of Umbria, where he continued three years. Afterwards, he was made go1 Prince’s Worthies 6f Devon. Fuller’s Worthies. Ath. Ox. vol I. vernor of the monastery of St. Peter ad aram in Naples. Here he first became acquainted with the writings of Zuinglius and Bucer, which led him to entertain a good opinion of protestantism: and afterwards his conversation with Valdes, a Spanish lawyer, so confirmed him in it, that he made no scruple to preach it at Rome privately to many persons of quality, and sometimes even publicly. Thus when he came to I Cor. iii. 13, he boldly affirmed, that place not to be meant of purgatory “because,” said he, “the fire there spoken of is such a fire, as both good and bad must pass through and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” “And this,” says Fuller, in his quaint manner, “seeming to shake a main pillar of purgatory, the pope’s furnace, the fire whereof, like the philosopher’s stone, melteth all his leaden bulls into pure gold; some of his under-chemists, like Demetrius and the craftsmen, began to bestir themselves, and caused him to be silenced.”