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Dr. Seeker immediately set about the visitation of his dioeese, confirmed in a great many places, preached in several churches, sometimes, twice a day, and from the information received in his progress, laid the foundation of a parochial account of his diocese, for the benefit of his successors. Finding at the same time, the affairs of his parish of St. James’s in great disorder, he took the trouble, in concert with a few others, to put the accounts of the several officers into a regular method. He also drew up for the use of his parishioners that course of “Lectures on the Church Catechism,” which have since been so often reprinted. “The sermons,” says bishop Porteus, “which he set himself to compose were truly excellent and original. His faculties were now in their full vigour, and he had an audience to speak before that rendered the utmost exertion of them necessary. He did not, however, seek to gratify the higher part by amusing them with refined speculations or ingenious essays, unintelligible to the lower part, and unprofitable to both; but he laid before them all, with equal freedom and plainness, the great Christian duties belonging to their respective stations, and reproved the follies and vices of every rank amongst them without distinction or palliation.” He was certainly one of the most popular preachers of his time, and though, as his biographer observes, his sermons, may not now afford the same pleasure, or produce the same effects in the closet, as they did from the pulpit, accompanied as they then were with all the advantages of his delivery, yet it will plainly appear that the applause they met with was founded no less on the matter they contained, than the manner in which they were spoken.

, one of the most learned men of the seventeenth century, wasthe son of John Selden, a yeoman, by Margaret his wife, only daughter of Mr. Thomas Baker of Rushington, descended from the family of th Bakers in Kent. He was born Dec, 16, 1584, at a house called the Lacies at Salvinton, near Terring in Sussex, and educated at the free-school at Chichester, where he made a very early progress in learning. In 159$, at fourteen years of age, as some say, but according to Wood, in 1600, he was entered of Hart-hall, Oxford, where under the tuition of Mr. Anthony Barker (brother to his schoolmaster at Chichester) and Mr. John Young, both of that hall, he studied about three years, and then removed to Clifford’s Inn, London, for the study of the law, and about two years afterwards exchanged that situation for the Inner Temple. Here he soon attained a great reputation for learning, and acquired the friendship of sir Robert Cotton, sir Henry Spelman, Camden, and Usher. In 1606, when only twentytwo years of age, he wrote a treatise on the civil government of Britain, before the coming in of the Normans, which was esteemed a very extraordinary performance for his years. It was not printed, however, until 1615, and then very incorrectly, at Francfort, under the title “Analects Anglo-Britannicwv Hbri duo, de civile administratione Britanniae Magnae usque ad Normanni adventum,” 4to. Nicolson is of opinion that these “Analecta” do not so clearly account for the religion, government, and revolutions of state among our Saxon ancestors, as they are reported to do. It was an excellent specimen, however, of what might be expected from a youth of such talents and application.

In the beginning of 1654 his health began to decline, and he began to see the emptiness of all human learning; and owned, that out of the numberless volumes he had read and digested, nothing stuck so close to his heart, or gave him such solid satisfaction as a single passage out of St. Paul’s Epistle to Titus, ii. 11, 12, 13, *14. On Nov. lOof that year, he sent to his friend Bulstrode Whitelocke, in order to make some alterations in his will, but when he came he found Selden’s weakness to be so much increased, that he was not able to perform his intention . He died Nov. 30, in the seventieth year of his age, in White Friars, at the house of Elizabeth, countess of Kent, with whom he had lived some years in such intimacy, that they were reported to be man and wife, and Dr. Wilkins supposes, that the wealth, which he left at his death, was chiefly owing to the generosity of that countess: but there is no good reason for either of these surmises. He was buried in the Temple church, where a monument was erected to him; and abp. Usher preached his funeral sermon. He left a most valuable and curious library to his executors, Matthew Hale, John Vaughan, and Rowland Jewks, esqs. which they generously would have bestowed on the society of the Inner Temple, if a proper place should be provided to receive it: but, this being neglected, they gave it to the university of Oxford. Selden, himself, had originally intended it for Oxford, and had left it so in his will , but was offended because when he applied for a manuscript in the Bodleian library, they asked, according to usual custom, a bond of 1OOO/. for its restitution. This made him declare, with some passion, that they should never have his collection. The executors, however, considered that they were executors of his will and not of his passion, and therefore destined the books, amounting to 8000 volumes, for Oxford, where a noble room was added to the library for their reception, Bumet says, this collection was valued at some thousands of pounds, and was believed to be one of the most curious in Europe. It is supposed that sir Matthew Hale gave some of Selden’s Mss respecting law to Lincoln’s-Inn library, as there is nothing of that kind among what were sent to the Bodleian; and a few Mr. Selden gave to the library of the college of physicians.

, an eloquent French divine, was born in 1601, at Paris, and was the son of Peter Senault, secretary to the council of the League. He entered young into the congregation of the oratory, then newly established by cardinal de Berulle, and was one of the most celebrated preachers and best directors of his time. He preached with uncommon reputation during forty years, at Paris, and in the principal cities of France, and wrote several books on pious and moral subjects, which were much esteemed by pious catholics. He appears to have been a disinterested man, for he refused some considerable pensions, and two bishoprics, but was elected general of the oratory in 1662. He died August 3, 1672, at Paris, aged seventy-one. His principal works are, “A Paraphrase on the Book oflob,” 8vo; “L' Usage des Passions,” 12mo; “L'Homme Chretien,” 4to; “L'Homme criminel,” 4to “Le Monarque, on les Devoirs du Souverain,” 12mo; “Panegyrics on the Saints,” 3 vols. 8vo; and the Lives of several persons illustrious for their piety, &c. It was this father, says L'Avocat, who banished from the pulpit that empty parade of profane learning, and that false taste, by which it was degraded, and who introduced a strong, sublime, and majestic eloquence, suited to the solemnity of our mysteries, and to the truths of our holy religion.

“I have been the more particular relating to Mr. Sharp, in the business of constructing this mural arc not only because we may suppose it the first good and valid instrument of the kind, but because I look upon Mr. Sharp to have been the first person that cut accurate and delicate divisions upon astronomical instruments; of which, independent of Mr. Flamsteed’s testimony, there still remain considerable proofs: for, after leaving Mr. Flamsteed, and quitting the department above mentioned, he retired into Yorkshire, to the village of Little Horton, near Bradford, where he ended his days about the year 1743 (should be, in 1742); and where I have seen not only a large and very fine collection of mechanical tools, the principal ones being made with his own hands, but also a great variety of scales and instruments made with them, both in wood and brass, the divisions of which were so exquisite, as would pot discredit the first artists of the present times: and I believe there is now remaining a quadrant, of 4 or 5 feet radius, framed of wood, but the limb covered with a brass plate; the subdivisions being done by diagonals, the lines of which are as finely cut as those upon the quadrants at Greenwich. The delicacy of Mr. Sharp’s hand will indeed permanently appear from the copper-plates in a quarto book, published in the year 1718, entitled Geometry Improved' by A. Sharp, Philomath, (or rather 1717, by A. S. Philomath.) whereof not only the geometrical lines upon the plates, but the whole of the engraving of letters and figures, were done by himself, as 1 was told by a person in the mathematical line, who very frequently attended Mr, Sharp in the latter part of his life. I therefore look upon Mr. Sharp as the first person that brought the affair of hand division to any degree of perfection.” Mr. Sharp kept up a correspondence by letters with most of the eminent mathematicians and astronomers of his time, as Mr. Flainsteed, sir Isaac Newton, Dr. H alley, Dr. VVallis, Mr. Hodgson, Mr. Sherwin, &c. the answers to which letters are all written upon the backs, or empty spaces, of the letters he received, in a short- hand of his own contrivance. From a great variety of letters (of which a large chest-full remain with his friends) from these and many other celebrated mathematicians, it is evident that Mr. Sharp spared neither pains nor time to promote real science. Indeed, being one of the most accurate and indefatigable computers that ever existed, he was for many years the common resource for Mr. Flainsteed, sir Jonas Moore, Dr. Halley, and others, in all sorts of troublesome and delicate calculations.

The peace of the country being now re-established, he appears to have applied himself to a studious life, and replenished his library, which, according to Wood, was esteemed one of the most considerable belonging to any gentleman in or near London. In 1675, he published “The Sphere of Marcus Manilius, made an English poem, with annotations, and an astronomical index,” which was honoured by the very particular and liberal approbation of the Royal Society; and in 1679, he published a translation of Seneca’s “Troades, or the Royal Captives/' and he left in manuscript a translation of” Hyppolitus,“which two, with the” Medea" before mentioned, he endeavoured to prove were all that Seneca wrote.

, eldest son to the preceding, and bishop of London, was born in that city in 1678. He was sent at an early age to Eton school, where he laid the foundation of that classical elegance which is visible in most of his works, especially in his much-admired sermons, About 1693 he was removed to Cambridge, and admitted of Katherine-hall, under the tuition of Dr. Long, afterwards bishop of Norwich. Here he took his degree of B. A. in 1697, and that of M. A. in 1701, and between these periods was elected to a fellowship, and entered into holy orders. How highly he must have been esteemed even at this early period, appears from his first preferment in the church, which was to one of its highest dignities, under the bench, the mastership of the Temple, to which he was appointed in 1704. That such a rapid elevation should have given offence, can excite no surprize. It was probably unprecedented, and in so young a man, might be thought unjustifiable, yet it took place at a time when preferments were not lightly bestowed, and Mr. Sherlock in a very short time exhibited such talents as removed all prejudices against him. Indeed he appears to have felt it necessary to justify the authors of his promotion, both upon his own account and that of the church. He exerted the utmost diligence, therefore, in the cultivation of his talents and the display of his learning and eloquence, and in the course of a few years became one of the most celebrated preachers of his time; and notwithstanding some decree of natural impediment (what is called a thickness of speech), he delivered his sermons with such propriety and energy as to rivet the attention of his hearers, and command their admiration.

On tins pro.notion, he had the misfortune to differ with Dr. Herring, then archbishop of Canterbury, who had made his option for the rectory of St. George’s Hanoversquare, which being one of the most valuable livings in his diocese, the bishop was very unwilling to relinquish it, and drew up a pamphlet respecting the nature of the archbishop’s options, and resolved to oppose the present claim. The matter, however, was accommodated by his giving up the living of St. Anne’s, Solio, which the archbishop accepted. Dr. Sherlock printed fifty copies of his thoughts on the subject, in 1757, for private distribution, in a folio pamphlet, entitled “The Option; or an Inquiry into the grounds of the claim made by the archbishop, on all consecrated or translated bishops, of the disposal of any preferment belonging to their respective sees that he shall make choice of.” The chief argument of the author, deduced from the registers, &c. of the archbishops, is that the archbishop of Canterbury never had, nor at this tune has a right to an option from a translated bishop; but he allows that the claim on consecrated bishops is well founded, for it is properly a consecration fee, and becomes due ratione consecrationis. Archbishop Herring, to whom he had sent a ms copy, in 1749, reprinted the whole afterwards in 4to, with a short answer in onu page, and distributed it among his friends. Dr Sherlock, however, we see, virtually gave up the point, by giving up the living of St. Anne’s.

, a learned puritan divine, whose works are still in reputation, was born at Sudbury in Suffolk, in 1577, and educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he took his degrees with great applause, and obtained a fellowship. The foundation of that character for humility and piety which he enjoyed throughout life, appears to have been laid while at college. After taking orders he was chosen lecturer of Trinity church, Cambridge, and held the living of that church during the last two years of his life. The reputation he acquired here procured him an invitation from the learned society of Gray’s-inn, and in 1618 he became their preacher, and had for his audience not only the gentlemen of the robe, but many noblemen and persons of rank. In 1625, he was chosen master of Katherine-hall, Cambridge, which, although a puritan, he was permitted to retain till his death, with very little molestation. He found that society, says Granger, in a very declining state, but it soon began to flourish under his care, and he was a great benefactor to it. He died July 5, 1635, aged fifty-seven. His works, which are numerous, have lately been reprinted in a new edition, 3 vols. 8vo. They are chiefly sermons and pious treatises. One of the most popular, entitled “The bruised reed,” of which there have been many editions, was that to which Baxter tells us he in a great measure owed his conversion. This circumstance alone, says Granger, would have rendered Sibbs’s name memorable. As a commentator, his principal work is his “Commentary on the first chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians,”" 1655, fol.

The protestant inhabitants of the Netherlands being grievously oppressed by the cruelties of the duke of Alva, implored the assistance of queen Elizabeth, who promised to send a military force to their relief, and on this occasion indulged the martial disposition of sir Philip Sidney, who was now a privy counsellor, by appointing him governor of Flushing, one of the most important places in the Netherlands. Sir Philip, who entered heartily into the cause of the protestant religion, prepared himself cheerfully to sacrifice his life and fortune in this service, and on his arrival at Flushing, Nov. 18, 1585, was immediately appointed colonel of all the Dutch regiments, and captain of a small band of English soldiers amounting to 300 horse and foot. Not long after, the earl of Leicester was sent, with an army of 5000 foot and 1000 horse, to the United Provinces, as general of the English auxiliaries, and sir Philip, promoted to the office of general of the horse under his uncle, joined himself to this army. It would be foreign to our purpose to recount the different causes which obstructed the success of the auxiliaries, or the mischiefs which arose from dissentions among the commanders. Sir Philip, we are told, attempted by wise counsels to reconcile them. In July 1586, accompanied by the young prince Maurice, he took Axell, a town in Flanders, without the loss of a single man; but on September 22, 1586, having engaged with a convoy sent by the enemy to Zutphen, a strong town in Guelderland, then besieged by the Spaniards, the English troops, far inferior in number to those of the enemy, though they gained a decisive victory, sustained an irreparable loss by the death of sir Philip Sidney. Having one horse shot under him, he mounted a second, and seeing lord Willoughby surrounded by the enemy, and in imminent danger, he rushed forward to rescue him. Having accomplished his purpose, he continued the fight with great spirit, until he received a bullet in the left thigh, which proved fatal.

“The Hilliad,” which is perhaps one of the most bitter satires ever published, would afford a very unfavourable opinion of our author’s character, had it not been an attack on a man who had rendered himself ridiculous and contemptible by practising with unblushing effrontery every species of literary and medical quackery. According to Smart, Hill gave the first public provocation, in one of his “Inspectors,” where he accuses Smart of ingratitude. Hill alledged that he had been the cause of Smart’s being brought up to town; that he had been at all times his friend, and had supported his character; and, long before he appeared as “Inspector,” he spoke well of those pieces, on the merit of which Smart’s fortune at that time depended; he hints also among other favours, that he had been the means of introducing him to Newbery; and for all this, the only return Smart made was by an abusive poem, “a long elaborate work, which he has read at alehouses and cyder cellars, and if any bookseller will run the risk, will publish.” To this heavy accusation, Smart pleaded not guilty in totOy solemnly declaring in an advertisement in the Daily Gazetteer, that he never received the least favour from Hill, directly or indirectly, unless an invitation to dinner, which he never accepted, might be reckoned such. He denied at the same time having ever been in his company but twice, the first time at Mr. Newbery’s, the second at Vauxhall gardens; and asserts that Hill had been his enemy as much as it was in his power, particularly in the “Impertinent,” another of his papers, in which he abuses not only Smart, but Fielding, who was his particular friend. This declaration was corroborated by an advertisement from honest Newbery, who adds that he introduced Smart to Hill, six months after the former had engaged with himself (Newbery) in business, when they met as perfect strangers. With respect to Hill’s assertion that he had been the means of introducing Smart to Mr. Newbery, the latter declares it to be an absolute falsehood.

, an English divine of popular fame in the sixteenth century, was born in 1550 of a good family at Withcock in Leicestershire, and after purstuing his studies at Oxford, entered into the church. Wood thinks he took the degree of M. A. as a member of Hart-hall, in 1583; and adds, that “he was then esteemed the miracle and wonder of his age, for his prodigious memory, and for his fluent, eloquent, and practical way of preaching.” His scruples, however, as to subscription and ceremonies were such, that being loth, as his biographer Fuller informs us, “to make a rent either in his own conscience or in the church,” he resolved not to undertake a pastoral charge, but accepted the office of lecturer of the church of St. Clement Danes, London. Here he was patronized by William Cecil, lord Burleigh, to whom he dedicated his sermons, and who prevented the prosecutions to which the other scrupulous puritans were at that time exposed. He appears to have been one of the most popular preachers of his age. Fuller informs us, as an instance, that after his preaching a sermon on Sarah’s nursing of Isaac, in which he maintained the doctrine that it was the duty of all mothers to nurse their own children, “ladies and great gentlewomen presently remanded their children from the vicinage round about London, and endeavoured to discharge the second moietie of a mother, and to nurse them, whom they had brought into the world.” Their compliance with his instructions on this point was the more condescending 1 as Mr. Smith was a bachelor.

, one of the most popular writers of pious tracts in the seventeenth century, and whose works are still in vogue, was the son of a clergyman, and born at or near Dudley, in Worcestershire, in 158S, and studied for some time at St. Mary Hall, Oxford. He left the university without taking a degree, and became beneficed at Vrittlewell, in Essex, and afterwards, as Wood says, in his own country, but,“according to Calamy, he had the perpetual curacy of Cressedge and Cound, in Shropshire. On the breaking out of the rebellion he came to London, sided with the presbyterians, and became a frequent and popular preacher. On his return to the country he was appointed an assistant to the commissioners for the ejection of those they were pleased to term” scandalous and ignorant ministers and schoolmasters.“At the restoration he was ejected from Cressedge, but neither Wood nor Calamy have ascertained when he died. The former says” he was living an aged man near Dudley in 1663.“His works are, J.” David’s blessed man; or a short exposition upon the first Psalm,“Lond. 8vo, of which the fifteenth edition, in 12mo, was printed in 1686. 2.” The Great Assize, or the Day of Jubilee,“12mo, which before 1681 went through thirty-one editions, and was often reprinted in the last century. 3.” A Fold for Christ’s Sheep,“printed thirty-two times. 4.” The Christian’s Guide," of which there were numerous editions. He published some other tracts and sermons, which also had a very numerous class of readers.

In 1768, Dr. Solander was prevailed upon by his friend Mr. (afterwards sir Joseph) Banks, to undertake the voyage round the world, in pursuit of discoveries in natural history: and permission was obtained for him from the trustees of the British Museum, still to hold his appointment during his absence. The circumstance of going is thus mentioned, in the introduction to captain Cook’s first voyage, in speaking of Mr. Banks: “As he was determined to spare no expence in the execution of his plan, he engaged Dr. Solander to accompany him in the voyage. This gentleman, by bi th a Swede, was educated under the celebrated Linnæus, from whom he brought letters of recommendation into England and his merit being soon known, he obtained an appointment in the British Museum, a public institution which was then just established. Such a companion Mr. Banks considered as an acquisition of no small importance, and to his great satisfaction, the event abundantly proved that he was not mistaken.” One of the most remarkable circumstances which attended these heroes of natural history in this expedition, was the difficulty they experienced in attempting to ascend a mountain in Terra del Fuego, in search of Alpine plants. In the danger they here encountered, Dr. Solander undoubtedly preserved the lives of the party by the advice he gave; and what is more remarkable, was himself preserved by their attention to his directions. The matter is thus related in the voyage.

, an eminent English antiquary, was born at Canterbury, March 30, 1606, according to the account given by his wife and son; but, according to the register of the parish of St. Margaret’s, much earlier, for it represents him to have been baptized Nov. 5, 1598. It was a proper birth-place for an antiquary, being one of the most ancient cities in England; and Somner was so well pleased with it, that, like Claudian’s good old citizen of Verona, within the walls, or in the sight of them, he grew up, lived, and died. He was of a reputable family; and his father was registrar of the court of Canterbury under sir Nathaniel Brent, commissary. At a proper age he was sent to the free-school of that city, where he seems to have acquired a competent knowledge of the Latin language at least. Thence he was removed, and placed as clerk to his father in the ecclesiastical courts of that diocese; and was afterwards preferred to a creditable office in those courts by archbishop Laud. His natural bent in the mean time lay to the study of antiquities; and he took all opportunities of indulging it. He was led early, in his walks through the suburbs and the fields of that city, to survey the British bricks, the Roman ways, the Danish hills and works, the Saxon monasteries, and the Norman churches. This was his amusement abroad; at home he delighted in old manuscripts, leger-books, rolls-and records; his knowledge of which was such, that upon questions concerning descent of families, tenure of estates, dedication of churches, right of tithes, and the history of use and custom, he was consulted by all his neighbours.

, a learned Dominican, of great fame under the emperor Charles V. was born at Segovia in 1494. His father, who was a gardener, would have bred him to his own profession, but having learned to write and read, he went to a small town near Segovia, where he performed the office of sacristan. By persevering in study, he fitted himself for the university of Aicala, and proceeded from thence to Paris. It was after his return into Spain that he became a Dominican, and appeared with great distinction in the university of Salamanca. His reputation was now so high, that he was chosen by the emperor Charles V. as arbitrator in some important disputes, and appointed in 1545 his first theologian at the council of Trent. In that assembly he was one of the most active and esteemed members. He spoke frequently, and took the charge of forming the decrees from the decisions which had passed. Every one was fond of consulting him, and this peculiar distinction was the more remarkable, as there were more than fifty bishops, and other theologians, of the same order in the assembly. He refused the bishopric of Segovia, and though he had not been able to decline the appointment of confessor to Charles V. he resigned it as soon as he could with propriety. He died in 1560, at the age of sixty-six. He published, 1. two books “on Nature, and on Grace,” Paris, 1549, 4to, and dedicated them to the-fathers of the council. 2. “Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans,” 1550, folio. 3. “Commentaries on the Master of Sentences,” folio. 4. “De justitia etjure,” two treatises, in folio. 5. “De legend is secretis,” 8vo. 6. “De pauperum causa.” 7.“De cavendo iurarjientorum abusu.” 8. “Apologia contra Ambrosium Catharinum,” &c.

, a celebrated modern naturalist, was born at Scandiano, in Italy, Jan. 10, 1729, and studied polite literature under the Jesuits at Reggio de Modena, whence he removed to Bologna, where his relation Laura Bassi, a lady deservedly celebrated for her genius, eloquence, and knowledge of natural philosophy and mathematics, was at that time one of the most illustrious professors of Italy. Under this instructor, he improved his taste for philosophy, but bestowed at the same time much attention in the cultivation of his native language, and became a very accomplished Latin, Greek, and French scholar. His father had destined him for the law as a profession, but Vallisneri, the professor of natural history at Padua, was the means of diverting him from this pursuit, and he soon acquired such reputation, that in 1754, the university of Keggio chose him professor of logic, metaphysics, and Greek. This, however, was not his final destination, for, during the six years that he held this office, he devoted all his leisure hours to those physical researches which constituted the basis of his fame. Some new discoveries excited his passion for natural history, which was continually augmented by the success of his early efforts; and his observations upon the animalculae in infusions attracted the attention of Haller and Bonnet, and various universities, Coimbra, Parma, and Cesena, tempted him with flattering offers, but he preferred an invitation to be professor at Modena, in 1760, where about five years afterwards he published a pamphlet, in which he proved by many ingenious experiments the anirnality of microscopical animalcuia; and in the same year a truly original dissertation “De lapidibus ab aqua resilientibus.” Here he demonstrates, by the most strking experiments, contrary to the received opinion, that the phenomenon which is called by children “ducks and drakes,” is not produced by the elasticity of the water, but by the change of direction which the stone undergoes in its motion after having struck upon the water when it ascends the inflection of the cavity indented by the shock.

Among the finest editions from the press of Robert are, 1. His Hebrew Bibles, 4 vols. 4to, and 8 vols. 16mo. 2. The Latin Bible, 1538 — 40, fol. of which the large paper copies are principally valued. 3. The Greek New Testament, 1530, fol. one of the most beautiful books ever printed; to which may be added the small editions of 1546 and 1549, usually called the O mirifcam, the first two words of the preface. That of 1549 is the most correct. 4. “Historiae ecclesiastics scriptores, Eusebii preparatio et demonstratio evangelica,” Gr. 1544, 2 vols. fol: this is the first work published with Garamond’s new Greek types. 5. The works of Cicero, Terence, Plautus, &c. &,c. Besides the prefaces and notes with which Robert introduced or illustrated various works, he is deemed the author of the following: 1. “Thesaurus Linguae Latinae,” before mentioned, which has been often reprinted. One of the best of the modern editions is that of London, 1734 5, 4 vols. fol. and the last is Gessner’s, Leipsic, 1749, 4 vols, fol. 2. “Dictionarium Latino-Gallicum,” Paris, 1543, 2 vols. fol. He published an abridgment of this for young people. 3. “Ad censuras Theologorum Parisiensium quibus Biblia a Roberto Stephano excusa calumniose notarunr, responsio,” Geneva, 1552, 8vo. The same year a French edition of this was published; it forms a very able answer to the calumnies of his enemies the Sorbonnists. 4. “Gallicae grammatices libellus,” ibid. 1558, 8vo, and a “Grammaire Frangaise,” 1558, 8vo. He intended to have published a commentary on the Bible, and had engaged the assistance of the celebrated divine Marlorat; he also had projected a Greek Thesaurus, but the honour of that work was reserved for his son Henry, to whom he gave what materials he had collected. Robert had several sons, of whom Henry, Robert, and Francis, will be noticed hereafter, and a daughter, Catherine, who was married to Jacquelin, a royal notary of Paris.

Such was the melancholy end of one of the most learned men of his time, and one of the greatest benefactors to literature. The unfortunate circumstances of his life prevented him from bestowing the same attention which his father had to the typographical beauty of the works which issued from his press; but he published a great many which do not yield to Robert’s in point of correctness. To all his editions he prefixed learned prefaces, illustrated them by short and judicious notes, and they have generally formed the basis of all future reprints. Some modern critics, of Germany chiefly, have attacked his fidelity as an editor, and accused him of having introduced readings not justified by the authority of manuscripts; but he has been very ably defended against this charge by Wyttembach, in the preface to his edition of Plutarch’s morals. Henry had great facility in writing Latin poetry, which he often composed almost extempore, while walking, riding, or conversing with his friends. He had a correspondence with all the learned of Europe; but had seme little alloy in his character. He was rather impatient of contradiction, and too frequently indulged his epigrammatic turn at the expence of those who could not accede to his opinions. Among the ancient authors which he published, with notes, we may mention the “Poet. Gracci, principes heroici carminis,” 1566, fol. a magnificent collection, which is every day rising in price; “Pindari et casterorum octo Grfficorum carmina,” 1560, 1566, 1586, 24mo: to these we may add Maximus Tyrius, Diodorus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Hefodotus, Sophocles, ^schylus, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, Apollonius Rhotlius, Callimachus, Plato, Herodian, and Appian; Horace, Virgil, the younger Pliny, Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, and a collection of the Latin historians; but his taste most inclined to Greek literature, and from that language he has furnished us with Latin translations of Anacreon, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, Pindar, Sextus Empiricus; Æschylus, Sophocles, &c. &e. and all his translations, extensive as they are, are allowed to be excellent.

The author of the pamphlet, referred to above, was the first who remarked the dangerous nature of these simplifications, and who attempted to estimate the error to which they had given rise. This author remarked what produced the compensation above mentioned, viz. the immense variation of the sun’s distance, which corresponds to a very small variation of the motion of the moon’s apogee. And it is but justice to acknowledge that, besides being just in. the points already mentioned, they are very ingenious, and written with much modesty and good temper. The author, who at first concealed his name, but afterwards consented to its being made public, was Mr. Dawson, a surgeon at Suclbury in Yorkshire, and one of the most ingenious mathematicians and philosophers which this country at that time possessed.

, one of the most learned prelates of the seventeenth century, was the seventh son of Samuel Stillingfleet, gent, descended from the ancient family of the StillingBeets of Stillingfleet, about four miles from York. His mother was Susanna, the daughter of Edward Norris, of Petworth, in Sussex,gent. He was born at Cranbourne in Dorsetshire, April 17, 1635, and educated at the grammar-school of that place by Mr. Thomas Garden, a man of eminence in his profession. He continued at this school until, being intended for the university, he was removed to Ringwood in Hampshire, that he might have a chance for one of Lynne’s exhibitions, who was the founder of that school.

Soon after his promotion to the see of Worcester, he was appointed one of the commissioners for reviewing the liturgy, and his opinion was highly valued by his brethren. The last controversy in which he had any concern, was with the celebrated Locke, who, having laid down some principles in his “Essay on Human Understanding,” which seemed to the bishop to strike at the mysteries of revealed religion, fell on that account under his lordship’s cognizance. Although Dr. Stillingfleet had always had the reputation of coming off with triumph in all his controversies, in this he was supposed to be not successful; and some have gone so far as to conjecture, that being pressed with clearer and closer reasoning by Locke, than he had been accustomed to from his other adversaries, it created in him a chagrin which shortened his life. There is, however, no occasion for a supposition so extravagant. He had been subject to the gout near twenty years, and it having fixed in his stomach, proved fatal to him. He died at his house in Park-street, Westminster, March 27, 1699. His biographer describes his person as tall, graceful, and well-proportioned; his countenance comely, fresh, and awful. “His apprehension was quick and sagacious, his judgment exact and profound, and his memory very tenacious so that, considering how intensely he studied, and how he read every thing, it is easy to imagine him, what he really was, one of the most universal scholars that ever lived.” His body was carried for interment to Worcester cathedral, after which an elegant monument was erected over him, with an inscription written by Dr. Bentley, who had been his chaplain. This gives a noble and yet just idea of the man, and affords good authority for many particulars recorded of his life.

Among other ways of doing good, sir James Stonhouse was convinced that the dispersion of plain and familiar tracts on important subjects, was one of the most important, and accordingly wrote several of these, the greater part of which have been adopted by the Society for promoting Christian knowledge. The others are, 1. “Considerations on some particular sins, and on the means of doing good bodily and spiritually.” 2. “St. Paul’s Exhortation and motive to support the weak or sick poor, a sermon.” 3. “A short explanation of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, &c.” 4. “Hints to a curate fo i- tue management of a parish.” 5. “A serious address to the parishioners of Great Cheverel,” &c.

, an ingenious and learned Jesuit, was born at Rome in 1572, and entered the society of Jesuits in 1591. His ordinary residence was in the Roman college, where he taught rhetoric, and it was while thus employed that he drew up for the use of his scholars his “Prolusiones Academical,” on different subjects of classical literature, a work elegantly written, and containing many ingenious remarks and just precepts. That prolusion in which he imitates the manner of some of the most eminent Latin poets, has been celebrated by Addison in Nos. 115, 119, and 122 of the “Guardian,” as “one of the most entertaining, as well as the most just pieces of criticism” that he ever read. The “Prolusiones” were published at Cologne, 1617, 8vo, and reprinted at Oxford in 1631, but there are other editions. Strada died in the Roman college in 1649, in the seventieth year of his age.

, an eminent printer, and many years printer to his majesty, was born at Edinburgh in 1715. His father, who had a small appointment in the customs, gave his son the education which every boy of decent rank then received in a country where the avenues to learning were easy, and open to men of the most moderate circumstances. After having passed through the tuition of a grammar-school, he was put apprentice to a printer; and, when a very young man, went to follow his trade in London. Sober, diligent, and attentive, while his emoluments were for some time very scanty, he contrived to live rather within than beyond his income; and though he married early, and without such a provision as prudence might have looked for in the establishment of a family, he continued to thrive, and to better his circumstances. His abilities in his profession, accompanied with perfect integrity, and unabating diligence, enabled him, after the first difficulties were overcome, to proceed with rapid success. He was one of the most flourishing men in the trade, when, in 1770, he purchased a share of the patent for king’s printer, of Mr. Eyre, with whom he maintained the most cordial intimacy during all the rest of his life. Besides the emoluments arising from this appointment, as well as from a very extensive private business, he was eminently successful in the purchase of the copy-rights of some of the most celebrated authors of the time. In this his liberality kept equal pace with his prudence, and in some cases went perhaps rather beyond it. Never had such rewards been given to the labours of literary men, as were now received from him and his associates (See Cadell) in those purchases of copy-rights from authors.

The other works of Dr. Gilbert Stuart were, 3. An anonymous pamphlet against Dr. Adam, who had published a Latin grammar, 1772. 4. “Observations concerning the public Law and Constitutional History of Scotland,” Edinburgh, 1779, 8vo. In this work he critically examined the preliminary book to Dr. Robertson’s History of Scotland. 5. “The History of the Establishment of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland,” London, 1780, 4to, a work commended for the easy dignity of the narrative, and for the more extraordinary virtue of strict impartiality. 6. “The History of Scotland,” from the establishment of the reformation to the death of queen Mary, London, 1782, 2 vols. His chief purpose in this book was to vindicate the character of that queen; but the whole is well written, and has been very generally read and admired. 7. He also revised and published “Sullivan’s Lectures on the Constitution of England,” This was about 1774. Dr. Stuart was about the iRnicldle size and justly proportioned. His countenance was modest and expressive, sometimes announcing sentiments of glowing friendship, of which he is said to have been truly susceptible; at others, displaying strong indignation, against folly and vice, which he had also shewn in his writings. With all his ardour for study, he yielded to the love of intemperance, to which, notwithstanding a strong constitution, he fell an early sacrifice. His talents were great, and his writings useful; yet in his character altogether there appears to have been little that is worthy of imitation. He is painted in the most unfavourable colours by Mr. Chalmers, in his Life of Ruddiman, who says, “Such was Gilbert Stuart’s laxity of principle as a man, that he considered ingratitude as one of the most venial of sins. Such was his conceit as a writer, that he regarded no one’s merits but his own. Such were his disappointments, both as a writer and a man, that he allowed his peevishness to sour into malice; and indulged his malevolence till it settled in corruption.” If this character be not too harshly drawn, it is impossible that much should be alleged in its defence.

, one of the most able and honest ministers that France ever had, was descended from an ancient and illustrious house, and born in 1559 at Rosni, descended from a younger branch of the ancient counts of Flanders. His father was the baron de Rosni. He was bred in the opinions and doctrine of the reformed religion, and continued to the end of his life constant in the profession of it, which seems to have fitted him for the important services to which Providence had designed him. The queen of Navarre, after the death of her husband Antony de Bourbon, returned to Beam, where she openly professed Calvinism. She sent for her son Henry from the court of France to Pau in 1556, and put him under a preceptor, who trained him up in the Protestant religion. She declared herself the protectress of the Protestants in 1566; and went to Rochelle, where she devoted her son to the defence of the Reformed religion. In that quality Henry, then prince of Beam, was declared chief of the party; and followed the army from that time to the peace, which was signed at St. Germains, August 11, 1570. He then returned to Beam, and made use of the quiet that was given him, to visit his estates and his government of Guyenne, after which he went and settled in Rochelle, with his mother.

, deserves a fuller account than can now be given of a learned and diligent man, unfortunately altogether un patronized, who undertook, and in part executed, a translation of the works of Plato. His proposals for this great undertaking were published in a quarto tract in 1759; and he produced successively, between that time and 1767, translation of the “lo, a discourse on poetry,” of “The Greater Hippias,” “The Lesser Hippias,” “The Banquet, Part I.” and “The Banquet, Part II.” He is said to have lived for some years, and finally to have died, in great indigence. The Gentleman’s Magazine places his death on April the 1st, 1787, and adds, that he was born in 1710, and educated at Wadham college, Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. April 30, 1734. In an account published by the society called the Literary Fund, the following narrative of his death is given: “During the summer recess of the year 1788, an event took place, which tarnished the character of English opulence and humanity, and afflicted the votaries of knowledge. Floyer Sydenham, the well-known translator of Plato, one of the most useful, if not one of the most competent Greek scholars of his age; a man revered for his knowledge, and beloved for the candour of his temper and the gentleness of his manners, died in consequence of having been arrested, and detained, for a debt to a victualler, who had, for some time, furnished his frugal dinner. At the news of that event, every friend of literature felt a mixture of sorrow and shame; and one of the members of a club at the prince of Wales’s coffeehouse proposed, that it should adopt, as its object and purpose, some means to prevent similar afflictions, and to assist deserving authors and their families in distress.” Whether the account reported to these gentlemen, of the time and manner of Sydenham’s death was accurate or not, the friends of literature and humanity will feel great consolation in finding that it gave occasion to a society so benevolent in its designs; which arose 3 after a few changes and modifications, out of the proposal above-mentioned. The society is now in a flourishing and improving state, and has given very timely and important assistance to many deserving authors.

, a very eminent physician, and one of the most eminent as an improver of the art that England has produced, was born in 1624 at Winford Eagle in Dorsetshire, where his father William Sydenham, esq. had a large fortune. Under whose care he was educated, or in what manner he passed his childhood, is not known. At the age of eighteen, in 1642, he entered* as a commoner of Magdalen -hall, Oxford, where it is not probable that he continued long; for he informs us himself, that he was withheld from the university by the commencement of the war; nor is it very clearly known in what state of life he engaged, or where he resided during that long series of public commotion. It is indeed reported, that he had a commission in the king’s army*, but no particular account is given of his military conduct; nor are we told what rank he obtained (unless that of a captain), when he entered into the army, or when or on what occasion he retired from it. It is certain, however, that if ever he took upon him the profession of arms, he spent but few years in the camp; for in 1648 he obtained at Oxford the degree of bachelor of physic, for which, as some medical knowledge is necessary, it may be imagined that he spent some time in qualifying himself.

, a pious and learned archbishop of Tuam in Ireland, was the second son of Edward, bishop of Cork, &c. and was born April the 6th, 1659, at Inishonaner, of which parish his father was then vicar. He was educated at the grammar school at Cork, and thence admitted a commoner at Christchurch, Oxford, where he tooTt the degree of B. A. but on his father’s death returned to Ireland, and finished his studies in the university of Drabiin. His first preferment was two small parishes in the di-ocese of Meath, both together of about the yearly value of 100l. These he exchanged for the vicarage of Christchurch in the city of Cork, of the same value, but one of the most painful and laborious cures in Ireland. This he served for above twenty years, mostly without any assistant; preached twice every Sunday, catechised, and discharged all the other duties of his function. Some ecclesiastical preferments, tenable with his great cure, were given him at different times by the bishops of Cork and Cloyne, which at last increased his income to near 400l. per annum. In this situation an offer was made him by government;,' in 1699, of the deanery of Derry; but, although this uras a dignity, and double in value to all that he had, yet he; declined it from a motive of filial piety. He would not; separate himself from an aged mother, who either could not, or was unwilling, to be removed. Remaining therefore at Cork, he was chosen proctor for the chapter, in the convocation called in 1703. Soon after, the duke of Ormond, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, gave him the crown’s title to the deanery of St. Patrick’s, in Dublin. But the chapter disputed this title, and claimed a right of election in themselves; and to assert this right, they chose Dr. John Sterne, then chancellor of the cathedral, their dean. The title of the crown being thus thought defective, and, after a full discussion of the point, found to be so,Dr. King, archbishop of Dublin, proposed an accommodation, which took place, and in consequence Dr. Sterne continued dean, and the archbishop gave the chancellorship to Mr. Synge.

This brought Mr. Synge to Dublin, though without any addition of income, or relaxation from labour, for the chancellor of St. Patrick’s, as such, has the care of the parish of St. Werburgh, one of the most populous in Dublin. This great cure Mr. Synge served for eight years, preaching almost constantly to a crowded audience. During this period he took his degree of D. D. and a new convocation being summoned in 1713, he was chosen proctor for the chapter of St. Patrick’s. On Dr. Sterne’s promotion to the see of Dromore, the archbishop of Dublin appointed Dr. Synge his vicar-general, in which office he continued until he was made bishop of Raphoe, in 17 14. His distinguished zeal for the revolution, and the Hanover succession, which had effectually obstructed his preferment in the latter years of queen Anne’s reign, now as effectually promoted it, for, in 1716, he was made archbishop of Tuam, over which see he presided about twentyfive years. He died at Tuam, July 24, 1741, aged eightytwo, and was buried in the church-yard of his own cathedral.

, one of the most eminent Roman historians, was born, most probably, in the year of Rome 809 or 810, or about 56 of the Christian aera; but the place of his nativity is no where mentioned. He was the son of Cornelius Tacitus, a procurator appointed by the prince to manage the Imperial revenue, and govern a province in Belgic Gaul. Where he was educated is not known; but it is evident that he did not imbibe the smallest tincture of that frivolous science, and that vicious eloquence which in his time debased the Roman genius. He most probably was formed upon the plan adopted in the time of the republic; and, with the help of a sound scheme of home-discipline, and the best domestic example, he grew up, in a course of virtue, to that vigour of mind which gives such animation to his writings. His first ambition was to distinguish himself at the bar. In the year of Rome 828, the sixth of Vespasian, being then about eighteen, he attended the eminent men of the day, in their inquiry concerning the causes of corrupt eloquence, and is supposed to have been the author of the elegant dialogue concerning oratory, usually printed with his works.

In 1428, the earl of Warwick having returned to England, on being appointed governor to the young king Henry, Thomas Montacute, earl of Salisbury, arrived in France, and, accompanied by lord Talbot, sir John Fastolf (See Fastolf) and others, undertook the memorable siege of Orleans, in the course of which lord Talbot exhibited such striking proofs of uncommon valour, that his very name would strike terror into the French troops. The siege was long carried on with great valour on the part of the French, and the English had much reason to think that even if it concluded in their favour, the victory would be dearly purchased. They continued however to be apparently advancing towards the accomplishment of this important object, when the relative positions of the besiegers and the besieged began to assume a new appearance, in consequence of one of the most singular occurrences that is to be met with in history, namely the intervention of the celebrated maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, whose actions have been already detailed. (See Joan.) It may suffice here to add, that when this heroine, whose valour was attributed to supernatural agency, had spread dejection throughout the English army, the earl of Suffolk raised the siege, and retreated with all imaginable precaution. He afterwards retired with a detachment of his army to Jergeau, where he was besieged by the French, attended by Joan of Arc, and, the place being taken, his lordship was made prisoner.

The first book of solos by Tartiui, was published at Amsterdam, in 1734, the second at Home, in 1745; and Dr, Burney relates that he possesses the third, sixth, seventh, and ninth of his publications, besides two books printed in England, amounting to upwards of fifty solos, exclusive of manuscripts. His concertos amount to two hundred but a surreptitious copy of two sets having appeared ic- Hoilaud, he would never own them. Of taese, which are yet supposed to be certainly genuine, six were composed in his first manner, and six after 1744, when he had improved his style. But his most celebrated work is his “Traitato di Musica,” or treatise on music, in which, though his system, as to the scientific parr, has since been confuted, he appears as one of the most ingenious theorists of this century. It was published in 1754, in 4to. He published, in 1767, “Dissertazione de‘ principi dell’ Armenia Musicale, contenuta nel Diatonico genere,” another theoretical work. Tartini was so ambitious of being thought a follower of Corelli’s precepts and principles, that, after his own reputation was in its zenith, he refused to teach any other music to his disciples, till they had studied the opera quinta y or solos of Corelli. His musical character is thus drawn by the very able judge to whose account we have already referred: “Tartini, on a recent examination of his works, seems, to my feelings and conceptions, to have had a larger portion of merit, as a mere instrumental composer, than any other author who flourished during the first fifty or sixty years of the present century. Though he made Corelli his model in the purity of his harmony, and simplicity of his modulation, he greatly surpassed that composer in the fertility and originality of his invention; not only in the subjects of his melodies, but in the truly cantabile manner of treating them. Many of his adagios want nothing but words to be excellent, pathetic, opera songs. His allegros are sometimes difficult; but the passages fairly belong to the instrument for which they were composed, and were suggested by his consummate knowledge of the fingerboard, and powers of the bow. He certainly repeats his passages, a- d adheres to his original motive, or theme, too much for the favourite desultory style of the present times; but it must be allowed that, by his delicate selection and arrangement of notes, his passages are always good; play them quick, or play them slow, they never seem unmeaning or fortuitous. Indeed, as a harmonist, he was, perhaps, more truly scientific than any other composer of his time, in the clearness, character, and precision of his bases; which were never casual, or the effect of habit, or auricular prejudice and expectation, but learned, judicious, and certtin.”

, a most celebrated Italian poet, was descended from the illustrious house of the Tassi of Almcnno, about five miles from Bergamo, a family which had supported itself by alliances till the time of Bernardo Tasao, whose mother was of the house of Cornaro. The estate of Bernardo, the father of our poet, was no wise equal to his birth; but this deficiency, in point of fortune, was in some measure compensated by the gifts of understanding. His works in verse and prose are recorded as monuments of his genius; and his fidelity to Ferrante of Saiii.everino, prince of Salerno, to \\hom he was entirely devoted, entitled him to the esteem of every man of honour. This prince had made him his secretary, and taken him with him to Naples, where he settled, and married Portia di Rossi, of one of the most illustrious families in that city.

The name of M asso now became famous through all Europe: and the caresses he received from Charles IX. in a journey he made to France with cardinal Luigi, who went thither in quality of legate, show that his reputation was not confined to his own country. The cardinal’s legation being finished, Tasso returned to Ferrara, where he applied himself to finish his “Jerusalem,” and in the mean time published his “Aminta,” a pastoral comedy, which was received with universal applause. This performance was looked upon as a master- piece in its kind, and is toe original of the “Pastor Fido” and “Filli di Sciro.” It was not easy to imagine that Tasso could so well paint the effects of love, without having himself felt that passion: it began to be suspected that, like another Ovid, he had raised his desires too high, and it was thought that in many of his verses he gave hints of that kind. There were at the duke’s court three Leonoras, equally witty and beautiful, though of different quality. The first was Leonora of Este, sister to the duke, who having refused the most advantageous matches, lived unmarried with Lauretta, duchess of Urbino, her elder sister, who was separated from her husband, and resided at her brother’s court. Tasso had a great attachment to this lady, who, on her side, honoured him with her esteem and protection. She was wise, generous, and not only well read in elegant literature, but even versed in the more abstruse sciences. All these perfections were undoubtedly observed by Tasso, who was one of the most assiduous of her courtiers and it appearing by his verses that he was touched with the charms of a Leonora, they tell us that we need not seek any further for the object of his passion.

The second Leonora that was given him for a mistress was the countess of San Vitale, daughter of the count of Sala, who lived at that time at the court of Ferrara, and passed for one of the most accomplished persons in Italy. Those who imagined that Tasso would not presume to lift his eyes to his master’s sister, supposed that he loved this lady. It is certain that he had frequent opportunities of discoursing with her, and that she had frequently been the subject of his verses. The third Leonora was a lady in the service of the princess Leonora of Este. This person was thought by some to be the most proper object of the poet’s gallantry. Tasso, several times, employed his muse in her service: in one of his pieces he confesses that, considering the princess as too high for. his hope, he had fixed his affection upon her, as of a condition more suitable to his own. But if any thing can be justly drawn from this particular, it seems rather to strengthen the opinion, that his desires, at least at one time, had aspired to a greater height. It appears, however, difficult to determine with certainty in relation to Tasso' s passion; especially when we consider the privilege allowed to poets: though M. Mirabuud makes no scruple to mention it as a circumstance almost certain, and fixes it without hesitation on the princess Leonora. Tasso, himself, in several of his poems, seems to endeavour to throw an obscurity over his passion. In the mean while Tasso proceeded with his <c Jerusalem," which he completed in the thirtieth year of his age; but this poem was not published by his own authority; it was printed against his will, as soon as he had finished the last book, and before he had time to give the revisals and corrections that a work of such a nature required. The public had already seen several parts, which had been sent into the world by the authority of his patrons. The success of this work was prodigious: it was translated into the Latin, French, Spanish, and even the oriental languages, almost as soon as it appeared-, and it may be said, that no such performance ever before raised its reputation to such a height in so small a space of time. But the satisfaction which Tasso must have felt, in spite of all his philosophy, at the applause of the public, was soon disturbed by a melancholy event. Bernardo Tasso, who spent his old age in tranquillity at Ostia upon the P<>, the government of which place had been given him by the duke of Mantua, fell sick. As soon as this news reached his son, he immediately went to him, attended him with the most filial regard, and scarce ever stirred from his bedside during the whole time of his illness: but all these cares were ineffectual; Bernardo, oppressed with age, and overcome by the violence of his distemper, paid the unavoidable tribute to nature, to the great affliction of Torqua:o. The duke of Mantua, who had a sincere esteem lor Bernardo, caused him to be interred, with much pomp, in the church of St. Egidius at Mantua, with this simple inscription on his tomb:

, one of the most eminent and learned of the puritan divines, was born at Richmond in Yorkshire, in 1576, and was educated at Christ’s-college, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow, and acquired great fame for his literary accomplishments. He was chosen Hebrew lecturer of his college. At what time he took holy orders is not mentioned, but he appears to have incurred censure for non-conformity in one or two instances. On leaving the university, he settled first at Watford in Hertfordshire, then at Reading in Berkshire, and afterwards, in 1625, he obtained the living of St. Mary Alderm anbury, London, which he retained for the remainder of his life, lu his early days he had preached at Paul’s cross before queen Elizabeth, and afterwards before king James, and was every where admired and followed for the plainness, perspicuity, and soundness of his doctrines, and the great zeal and earnestness with which he laboured in the pastoral office for the space of thirty years. While he partook of the zeal, common to all his brethren, against popery, he was also an avowed enemy to Arminianism and Antinomianism. He died in the beginning of 1632, in the fifty-fifth year of his^ge, and was interred in St. Mary’s church. Leigh, Fuller, Wood, and all his contemporaries unite in giving him a high character for learning, piety, and usefulness. He was likewise a voluminous writer; his works, most of them printed separately, were collected in 3 vols. fol. 1659. They consist of commentaries, which were generally the substance of what he had preached on particular parts of scripture; and single sermons, or treatises. He and Dr. Thomas Beard of Huntingdon, were joint compilers of that singular and once very popular collection of stories, entitled “The Theatre of God’s Judgments,” 1648, &c. fol.

, so called from his being bishop of Mopsuestia, a city in Cilicia, was educated and ordained priest in a monastery, and became one of the greatest scholars of his time, and had the famous Nestorius for a disciple. He died in the year 429, or 430. This bishop wrote a great number of learned works, of which are now only extant, “A Commentary on the Psalms,” which is in father Corder’s “Catena,” the authenticity of which was verified, in one of his dissertations by the duke of Orleans, who died in 1752, at Paris, one of the most learned princes Europe has produced. Theodore left also a “Commentary” in ms. on the twelve minor prophets; and several “Fragments,” enumerated hy Dupin, which are printed in the “Bibliotheca” of Photius. Those parts of his works supposed to contain the distinction of two persons in Christ, the letter from Ibas, bishop of Edossa, who defended him, and the anathemas published by the celebrated Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, against St. Cyril, in favour of Theodore of Mopsuestia, occasioned no little disturbance in the church. This dispute is called the affair of the “Three Chapters,” and was not settled till the fifth general council, in the year 553, when he and his writings were anathematized. His confession of faith may be found in father Garnier’s Dissertations on Marius Mercator.

Great encomiums have been bestowed upon this writer, particularly by Dupin, who asserts that “Of all the fathers who have composed works of different kinds, Theodoret is one of those who has succeeded the very best in every kind. Some have been excellent writers in matters of controversy, but bad interpreters of Scripture; others have been good historians, but bad divines; some have had good success in morality, who have had no skill in doctrinal points; those who have applied themselves to confute Paganism by their own principles and authors, have usually Lad little knowledge in the mysteries of our religion; and lastly, it is very rare for those. who have addicted themselves to works of piety to be good critics. Theodoret had all these qualities; and it may be said, that he has equally deserved the name of a good interpreter, divine, historian, writer in controversy, apologist for religion, and author of works of piety. But he hath principally excelled in his compositions on Holy Scripture, and has outdone almost all other commentators, according to the judgment of the learned Phqtius. His style, says that able critic, is veryproper for a commentary; for he explains, in just and significant terms, whatsoever is obscure and difficult in the text, and render* the mind more fit to read and understand it by the elegance of his style. He never wearies his reader with long digressions, but on the contrary labours to instruct him clearly, neatly, and methodically, in every thing that seems hard. He never departs from the purity and elegance of the Attic dialect, unless when he is obliged to speak of abstruse matters, to which the ears are not accustomed: for it is certain that he passes over nothing that needs explication; and it is almost impossible to find any interpreter who unfolds all manner of difficulties better, and teaves fewer things obscure. We may find many others who write elegantly and explain clearly, but we shall find few who have forgotten nothing which needed illustration, without being too diffuse, and without running out into digressions, at least such as are not absolutely necessary to clear the matter in hand. Yet this is what Theodoret has observed throughout his commentaries, in. which he hath opened the text admirably well by his accurate inquiries.” Other writers, however, have not expressed so high an opinion of Theodoret. Beausobre, in his History of the Manichees, says that “Theodoret is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable of the fathers. He is learned; he reasons well, especially in his dialogues against the Greek heresies of his times: he is a good literal interpreter of the Scriptures. I cannot help admiring his prudence and moderation, when I consider that he ended his Ecclesiastical History at the time when the Nestorian quarrels, in which he was so deeply interested, began. But, I fear, his zeal against heretics imposed upon him almost as much, as his admiration for the heroes of the ascetic life, with whom he was charmed. Monasteries have undoubtedly sent forth great men into the world, but these disciples of the monks contracted there in their youth a superstitious disposition, which is hardly ever thrown off; and the weak side of this able man seems to have been an excessive credulity.” In truth, Theodoret surpasses all other writers in admiration of monastic institutions, and is credulous beyond measure in subjects of that nature. Yet he was undoubtedly one of the most learned and best men in the Eastern church. His pacific conduct displeased the bigots, during the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies, and because he inclined to healing methods, he was condemned at one of the synods, and was not without difficulty reinstated. “His works,” says Milner, “are large, on a variety of subjects; but they speak not for him equally with his life; and it will be sufficient to say, that his theology, with a stronger mixture of superstitioiij was of the same kind as that of Chrysostom. But his spirit was humble, heavenly, charitable; and he seems to have walked in the iaith, hope, and love of the gospel, a shining ornament in a dark age and country.”

, a celebrated bishop of Orleans, one of the most learned men of the ninth century, was born in Cisalpine Gaul. Charlemagne made him abbot of Fleury f then bishop of Orleans about the year 793, and chose him to sign his will in the year 811; Louis le Debonnaire had also a high esteem for him. But Theodulphus being accused of having joined in the conspiracy formed by Berenger, king of Italy, was committed to prison at Angers, where he composed the hymn beginning Gloria, laus, et honor, part of which, in the catholic service, is sung on Palm Sunday. It is said that Theodnlphus singing this hymn at his prison window while the emperor passed by, that prince was so charmed with it that he set him at liberty. He died about the year 821. In the Library of the fathers, d'AcherPs “Spicilegium,” and father Labor’s “Councils,” is a treatise by this prelate on baptism, another on the Holy Ghost, two “Capitularia,” addressed to his clergy, some “Poems,” and other works the best edition of which is by father Sirmond, 1646, 8vo the second of the “Capitularia” is in the “Miscellanea,” published by Baluze.

, whom L‘Avocat prqnounces one of the most judicious and accurate critics and historians that France has produced, was born at Paris Nov. 30, 1637. His father, John L,e Nain, was master of the requests. About the age of ten, he was sent to the famous seminary of the Port Royal, where his attention to instruction, and his proficiency, were very extraordinary, and where he very early became fond of ’the study of history. This partiality seems to have been first excited by a perusal of Baronius, and while thus employed he was perpetually putting questions to his master Nicole, who at first gave him such answers as came in his head at the moment, hut soon found that his pupil was not so easily satisfied; and Nicole, although by no means ignorHiit of history, used to dread his approach, lest he might ask questions for which he was not fully prepared. At the age of e ghteen Tillemont began to read the fathers, the lives of the apostles, and their successors in the primitive church, and drew up for himself an account of early ecclesia^tical history, in the manner of Usher’s Annals, a hook he much admired, and formed his pwn somewhat on the same plan. In the mean time he was successfully instructed in other branches but it was a considerable time before he made choice of a profession. In this he was at last influenced by M. Choart de Buzanval, bishop of Brauvais, who determined him in favour of the church, and gave him the tonsure. About 1663, he went to reside with M. Hermant, a canon of the cathedral of Beauvais, and remained there five or six years. He then returned to Paris, and lodged with M. Thomas de Fosse, an old school-fellow, for about two years; but although in all these situations he was constantly employed in study, and had the quiet enjoyment of his time, he removed to the country, and, after receiving the other orders of his church, and being ordained priest in 1676, he settled at Tillemont, whence he took his name, about a league from Paris. About this time he was employed, along with his friend M. de Sacy, on a life of St. Louis, and two years after he travelled in Flanders and Holland. After his return, he continued his studies, and, in 1690, began to publish his <k History of the Emperors,“which was very favourabl\ received, and made the public more anxious to see his history of the church, on which it was well known he had been for some time employed. His” History of the Emperors“was, in fact, a part of his ecclesiastical history; hut when he printed a volume, as a specimen, it fell into the hands of a licenser of the press, who made so many petty objections, that M. Tillemont determined to suppress the work rather than submit to the proposed alterations and omissions, as none of the objections were in any way contrary to the received doctrines of the church. He then, by the advice of his friends, published the history of the emperors separately; and there being no occasion in this case for a theological licenser, he published vol. I. in 1690, 4to; and completed the work in five vols, in 1701, which had abundant success; was reprinted at Brussels, and translated into English. This was followed by his ecclesiastical history,” Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire ecclesiastique des six premiers siecles," &c. 1693, &c. completed in sixteen volumes, quarto. Extreme accuracy of facts and dates constitute the great merit of this work, and the want of a more methodical arrangement, and of a better style, its chief objections. Dupin wishes he had reduced his work to the form of annals, in imitation of Baronius; and this opinion having been conveyed to M. Tillemont, he said he could not think of going over the materials anew, but was very willing to give his manuscripts to any person who would take the trouble to put them in the form of annals. No such person offering his services, M. Tillemont proceeded in his own way, in which he met afterwards with very little opposition, except a short controversy, of no great importance, with father Lamy.

The year after, 1664, he was chosen Tuesday lecturer at St. Lawrence Jewry: and being now settled in town, and having established the character of an excellent preacher, he contributed his share to oppose the two growing evils of Charles the Second’s reign, atheism and popery. He preached a sermonbefore the lord mayor and court of aldermen at St. Paul’s, in 1663, “On the wisdom of being religious;” which was published in 1664, much enlarged, and has been allowed to be one of the most elegant, perspicuous, and convincing defences of religion, in our own or any other language. In 1664, John Sargrant (see Sargeant), who had deserted from the church of England to that of Rome, published a book, called Sure footing in Christianity; or, Rational Discourses on the rule of Faith.“This being highly praised by the abettors of popery, Tillotson answered it, in a piece entitled” The rule of Faith,“which was printed in 1666, and inscribed to Dr. Stillingfleet, with whom he was intimately acquainted. Sargeant replied to this, and also in another piece attacked a passage in Tillotson’s sermon” On the Wisdom of being religious;“which sermon, as well as his” Rule of Faith," Tillotson defended in the preface to the first volume of his sermons, printed in 1671, 8vo.

, one of the most valuable Italian writers of the last century, was born at Bergamo, in the Venetian states, Dec. Js, 1731. He was sent to the Jesuits’ college at Monza; and when his course of education was completed in 1746, he entered into the order of that society. In 1754, when in his twenty-third year, he was appointed preceptor of grammar, and afterwards of rhetoric, in the college of Brera, in Milan. In that station, in 1755, he republished, for the use of his pupils, the well-known vocabulary of his late colleague, father Mandosio, “Vocabolorio Italiano e Latino del P. Mandosio accrescinto e corretto” and, from 1756 to 1760, he wrote several orations and other fugitive pieces, in which inight be perceived the bent of his mind towards civil and literary history. Of these Fabroni mentions only one as having been published, “DePatriae Oratio,” Milan, 1759. During his professorship he was appointed assistant keeper of the copious and valuable library of the college of Brera, and began to collect original and curious records from printed books and manuscripts. His knowledge of books had already recommended him to the esteem of the illustrious count Firaiian, then Austrian plenipotentiary in Lombardy; and it is not improbable that he might have a share in the compilation of the catalogue of the vast and curious library of that justly renowned patron of letters, which was afterwards printed at Milan in 1783, in nine parts or volumes, 4to.

, one of the most learned Baptist divines of the seventeenth century, was born at Bewdley in Worcestershire in 1603 and, being intended for the church, was educated at the grammar-school, where he made such proficiency as to be thought fit for the university at the age of fifteen. He was accordingly sent to Magdalen-hall, Oxford, at that time, and William Pcmble was his tutor. Here he acquired such distinction for talents and learning, that on his tutor’s death in 1624, he was chosen to succeed him in the catechetical lecture in Magdalen-hall. This he held with great approbation for about seven years, during which he was, amongst other pupils, tutor to Mr. Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester. He then, we may presume, took orders, and went to Worcester, and after that to Leominster in Herefordshire, of which he had the living, and became a very popular preacher, and when the living was found insufficient for a maintenance, lord Scudamore. made some addition to it. Tombes was, says his biographer, among the first of the clergy of those times who endeavoured a reformation in the church, that is, was an enemy to the discipline or ceremonies, for which he suffered afterwards, when the king’s forces came into that country; and being in 1641 obliged to leave it, he went to Bristol, where the parliamentary general Fiennes gave him the living of All Saints. When Bristol was besieged by prince Rupert, the year following, he removed again to London with his feu mily, and there first communicated to some of the West* minster divines, his scruples as to infant-baptism, and held conferences with them on the subject, the result of which was, that he made no converts, but was more confirmed in his own opinions, and a sufferer too, for, being appointed preac-her at Fenchurch, his congregation not only refused to hear him, but to allow him any stipend. From this dilemma he was relieved for a time by a call to be preacher at the Temple-church, provided he would abstain, in the pulpit, from the controversy about infant-baptism. To this he consented on these terms: first, that no one else should preach for the baptising of infants in his pulpit; and, secondly, that no laws should be enacted to make the denial of infant-baptism penal. All this being agreed upon, he continued to preach at the Temple for four years, and was then dismissed for publishing a treatise against infant-baptism. This was construed into a breach of his engagement, but he endeavoured to defend it as necessary to his character, he being often attacked in the pulpit for those opinions. on the subject which he had communicated to the Westminster assembly, although they had neither been published, or answered, by that learned body.

, a learned antiquary, was born in 1657, of a noble family at Ciudad in the Frioul. His connexions with Octavio Ferrari, one of the most learned antiquaries of Italy, increased his natural taste for that study. Haying settled at Rome, he gained the esteem and friendship of the cardinals Imperial! and Noris, pope Innocent XII. and Clement XI. which latter gav<- him the bishopric of Adria, in 1702, where he died in 1717. His works are, “Monumenta veteris Antii,” 1700, 4to, much valued; “Taurobolium antiquum,” Lugduni, 1704, reprinted in Sallengre’s “Thesaurus Antiquitatum;” “De annis imperil M. Antonii Aurelii Heliogabali,” &c. 1714, 4to; Dissertations on worms in the human body, and on an eclipse of the Sun, with several other learned pieces in the Italian journals.

Daniel, the subject of this article, after some education in his native place, was sent to Basil in 1555, where he studied for two years, and was admitted to the first academic degree, probably that of bachelor of arts. He then went to Tubingen, where he continued his studies for two more years, under the patronage and at the expence of Christopher duke of Wirtemberg, who thus wished to reward his father’s services to the infant-church of Montbeillard. Here he applied himself to belles lettres and philosophy, and took the degree of master of arts. He had also gone through a course of divinity; for we find that when his father recalled him to his native place, he preached there, both in French and German; but finding himself indifferently acquainted with the former of those languages, he went in 1559 to Paris, where he might acquire a greater facility in speaking and writing, and at the same time carry on his other studies. The following year he left Paris for Orleans, where he taught Hebrew for some time, and being admitted into the ministry, officiated in the church there, which was one of the most numerous and flourishing of the protestant congregations in France. There in 1565 he married the daughter of an advocate of parliament, who had been counsellor to queen Catherine de Medici before the troubles.

, -viscount de Turenne, a celebrated French general, was born in September 1611, at Sedan, and was the second son of Henry de la Tour, duke de Bouillon, descended from one of the most illustrious French families. He very early discovered uncommon talents for the military art, and made his first campaign in Holland under Maurice, and Frederic Henry of Nassau, his uncles on the mother’s side. He went socm after into Lorrain with his regiment in 1634, and having contributed to the taking of la Mothe, was appointed major-general, though at that time very young. In 1636 he took Saverne, and the year following, the castles of Hirson and Sorle, and it was on this occasion, that he acted like Scipio, with respect to a very beautiful woman, whom he sent back to her husband. He was made marechal of France, in 1644, and had the misfortune to be defeated at the battle of Mariendal, 1645; but gained that of Nortlingen, three months after, restored the elector of Treves to his dominions, and the following year effected,. that famous junction of the French with the Swedish army commanded by general Wrangel, which compelled the duke of Bavaria to sue for peace. This duke having broken the treaty he made with France, the viscount de Turenue defeated him at Zumarshausen, and drove him entirely from his dominions in 1643. During the civil wars he joined the princes, and was defeated at the battle of Rhetel, in 1650; but his majesty, being soon reconciled to him, gave him the command of his army in 1652. His conduct was afterwards much admired at the battles of Jergeau, Gien, and the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, and in his retreat before the army of the princes at Villeneuve-Sainte-George. In 1654 he forced the Spaniards to raise the siege of Arras, and in 1655, took Condé, Saint Guillain, and several other places; won the famous battle of the Downs, and took Dunkirk and Oudenarde, with almost all the rest of Flanders; which obliged Spain to conclude the peace of the Pyrenees in 1660. These important services deservedly acquired him the office of marechal-general of the royal camps and armies. A fresh war breaking out with Spain, 1667, Turenne commanded under the king’s orders in Flanders, where he took so many places that the Spaniards were forced to propose peace the following year. In the same year he abjured the Protestant religion, probably from ambitious motives. In 1672 he commanded the French troops during the war against Holland, took forty towns in 22 days, drove the elector of Brandenburg quite to Berlin, won the battles of Sintsheim, Lademburg, Ensheim, MuU hausen and Turkeim, and compelled the Imperial army, consisting of 70,000 men, to re-pass the Rhine. This campaign acquired the viscount de Turenne immortal honour. He crossed the Rhine to attack general Montecuculli, and pursued him to Saspach, near the town of Acheren; but having ascended an eminence to observe the enemy’s camp, he was killed by a cannon-ball, July 27, 1675, at the age of sixty-four. All France lamented the loss of this great man, whose generosity and modesty, joined to his military virtues, and the noblest qualities of the hero, had made him admired throughout Europe. The king ordered a solemn service to be performed for him in the cathedral church at Paris, as for the first prince of the blood, and that his remains should be interred in the abbey of St. Denys, the burying-place of the royal personages of France, where the cardinal, his nephew, raised a superb mausoleum to his memory. He married Anne de Nompar de Caumont, daughter of the duke and marechal de la Force, but had no children by her. His life has been written by the abbe Raguenet, and M. de Ramsay. The viscount de Turenne, one of his ancestors, wrote a valuable treatise on “The Military Art.”

, a learned French Jesuit, was born at Rennes, April 26, 1661,- of an ancient family. He entered among the Jesuits in 1680, and besides other literary honours due to his merit, was appointed librarian to the society in Paris. His range of study had been so extensive that most of his learned contemporaries considered him as an oracle in every branch of science, taste, or art. The holy scriptures, divinity, the belles lettres, antiquities, sacred and profane, criticism, rhetoric, poetry, had all been the objects of his pursuit, and added to his accomplishments. He was for many years editor of the “Journal de Trevoux,” one of the most celebrated in France, in which he wrote a great many essays and criticisms of considerable merit and acuteness. He published also a good edition of“Menochius,” 1719, 2 vols. fol. and an edition of Prideaux’s History of the Jews. He died May 16, 1739, He was a man of a communicative disposition, and very attentive to strangers. There was, however, some degree of vanity in his composition, and he even prided himself on his birth, but upon the whole, was an estimable character, and contributed, by his Journal, to the diffusion of much useful knowledge.

But it would be injurious to the memory of this excellent person to consider him merely as a virtuoso. He was one of the most benevolent and generous of men. The demands of taste, however importunate, could never tempt him either to rapacity or retention. In his conduct to a numerous tenantry he was singularly considerate and humane: and whether present or absent from his house in the country, the stream of his bounty to the indigent never dried up or diminished. In one year of general distress, approaching to famine, he distributed among the poor of the neighbouring townships a sum equivalent to a fourth part of the clear income arising from the estate. His personal habits, though elegant, were frugal and unostentatious. He never even kept a carriage. He was an early riser, and an exact ceconomist of his time. To his own affairs he was minutely and skilfully attentive. In his later years he grew more attached to his native place, and displayed in adorning the grounds about it a taste not inferior to that which distinguished his other pursuits. His temper, though naturally cheerful, was calm and sedate. His conversation, though regulated by the nicest forms of goodbreeding, was seasoned with a kind of Attic irony, not always unfelt by those about him. His manner had much both of dignity and sweetness. He was happy in a vigorous constitution, and still more so in a slow and sensible decay; for, after half a century of uninterrupted health and spirits, which gave but too keen a relish to every enjoyment, a. lingering disorder which hung over him for the three last years of his life, co-operating with other means, brought him to a deep and serious sense of religion; and in this sense he died.

, an eminent botanist, the son of Leonard Targioni, born at Florence Sept. 11, 1722, was sent to the university of Pisa, where he very soon distinguished himself by a thesis on the use of medicine. At the age of nineteen he became acquainted with the famous botanist Micheli, by whom he was protected, with whom he kept up an uninterrupted friendship till 1737, when Micheli died, and whom he succeeded in the care of the famous botanic garden. Of the plants in this garden Micheli had already made a catalogue, which Targioni published after his death, with very considerable additions by himself. In the year 1737, he was made professor of botany in the Studio Fiorentino, a kind of university at Florence, and at the same time member of the academy ofApatisti. In 1738, he became a member of the Collegio Medico, or faculty of Medicine. Much about the same time he was named by government consulting physician in pestilential disorders, aud had the place of fiscal physician (physician to the courts of justice). This last place obliged him to write a great deal, being often consulted on the accidents that became discussions for a court of justice, such as deaths by poison, sudden deaths, unheard-of distempers, and (when, as it sometimes happened, foolish accusations of the kind were brought into court) witchcraft. Some time after, he was named, together with the celebrated Antonio Cocchi, to make a catalogue of the library, begun by P</lagliabecchi and increased by Marni, duke Leopold, and others, which consisted of 40,000 volumes of printed books, and about 1100 volumes of manuscripts. It is to this nomination we are indebted for the five volumes of letters of famous men, as, during his employment in this capacity, he used to make extracts of the curious books which fell into his hands. On Micheli’s death in 1737, Mr. Targioni had inherited his Hortus Siccus, Mss. and collection of natural history, which last, however, he purchased, but at a very cheap rate, with his own money. This seemed to lay him under the necessity of publishing what his master had left behind him, and accordingly he had prepared the second part of the “Nova Plantarum Genera,” but not exactly in the manner in which Micheli himself would have published them; for, though the drawings were too good to be lost, as they have all the accuracy which distinguish the other works of the great naturalist, Targioni could not suffer the work to come forth with the Zoophytes and Keratophytes classed among the plants, asMicheli had intended. Targioni therefore meant to have given the work another form. It was to be divided into two parts, the first of which would have contained the “Fucus’s, Algae, and Confervae;” and the second the “Zoophytes:” the first part was finished a week before Targioni’s death. Many of the plates are from drawings by Ottaviano Targioni, the son of John Targioni, who succeeded his father as reader of botany in the hospital of Sancta Maria Maggiore, a new establishment formed by the grand duke upon a liberal and extensive plan, in which ducal professors of medicine, anatomy, chemistry, physiology, surgery, &c. read gratis on the very spot where examples are at hand to confirm their doctrine. In 1739, Targioni was chosen member of the academy Naturae Curiosorum; and, in 1745, the Crusca gave him a public testimony of the value they set upon his style, by chusing him one of their members. In 1749, he was chosen member of the academy of Etruscans at Cortona, as he was of that of the Sepolti at Volterra in-4749. The academy of Botanophiles made him one of their body in 1757; as did that of practical agriculture at Udino in 1758. In 1771, he was chosen honorary member of the royal academy of sciences and belles lettres at Naples; and, finally, was named corresponding member of the royal society of medicine at Paris in 1780. It is much to be regretted that we cannot give an account of his manuscript works, several of which are known to be very important, as he was one of the most celebrated physicians of this time, and is known to have written a great deal on inoculation (of which he was one of the first promoters in Tuscany), putrid fevers, &c. &c. His printed works are extremely numerous; among the first of them was his “Thesis de prsestantia et usu Plantarum in medicina.” Pisis, 1734,“folio; and the latest, * Notizie degli Aggrandimenti delle Scienze Fisiche accaduti in Toscana nel corso di anni 60, nel secolo 17, Firenze,” 1780, 4 vols. 4to. He had just published the fourth volume of this last great work, on the improvement made in natural knowledge and natural philosophy in Tuscany in sixty years only of the 17th century, when he died of an atrophy in 1780. Mr. Targioni had a large cabinet of natural history, the foundation of which, as has been said, had been laid by Micheli. It consists of the minerals and fossils which are found in Tuscany, and the Zoophytes and Hortus Siccus of Micheli. There is a drawer made at Amboyna, by order of Rumphius, containing all the sorts of wood of that island. Besides this, there is a great suite of animals and shells and petrified animal substances, particularly of the bones of elephants which are found in the environs of Florence.

Mr. Trenchard was member of parliament for Taunton in Somersetshire, and died Dec. 17, 1723, of an ulcer in his kidneys. He is said to have thought too much, and with too much solicitude, to have done what he did too intensely and with too much vigour and activity of the head, which caused him many bodily disorders, and is supposed at last to have worn out the springs of life. He left no writings at all behind him, but two or three loose papers, once intended for Cato’s Letters. Mr. Anthony Collins, in the manuscript catalogue of his library, ascribes to him the following pieces: “The natural history of Superstition,” 1709. “Considerations on the public debts,” 1709. “Comparison of the proposals of the Bank and South-Sea Company,” 1719. “Letter of thanks, &c.” 1719. “Thoughts on the Peerage-bill,” 1719. Arid “Reflections on the Old Whig,” 1719. Mr. Gordon, who has drawn his character at large in the preface above cited, tells us in his dedication, that " he has set him no higher than his own great abilities and many virtues set him; that his failings were small, his talents extraordinary, his probity equal; and that he was one of the worthiest, one of the ablest, one of the most useful, men that ever any countrywas blessed withal.

, an Italian poet, who endeavoured to reform the style of his country, was born at Vicenza, July 3, 1478, and was descended from one of the most ancient families of that place. It has been said that it was late in life before he began his studies, but as the same writer who gives us this information, adds that upon his father’s death, when he was only seven years old, he applied to them with spirit, it is evident he could not have lost much time. He was first educated at Vicenza, under a priest named Francis Gragnuola, and afterwards at Milan under the celebrated Demetrius Cbalcondylcs. To the memory of this last master, who died in 1511, Trissino erected a monument in the church of St. Mary at Milan, or us others say, in that of San Salvador, with an inscription. From the Greek and Latin language, he proceeded to the' study of mathematics, architecture, natural philosophy, and other branches which form a liberal education. In 1503 he married; and with a view to domestic happiness and literary retirement, went to reside on one of his estates, for he was left very opulent, at Criccoli on the Astego. Herv he built a magnificent house, from his own design, on which he employed one of his pupils in architecture, the afterwards justly celebrated Paliadio.

, a celebrated abbot of the Benedictine order, and one of the most learned men in the fifteenth century, was born February 1, 1462, at Tritenheim, in the diocese of Treves. After finishing his studies he took the Benedictine habit, and was made abbot of Spanheim in the diocese of Mentz, in 1483, which abbey ke governed till 1506, and resigned it to be abbot of St. James at Wirtzberg. He died Dec. 13, 1516. Trithemius was well acquainted both with sacred and profane literature, and left various works, historical and biographical, among which the principal are, a treatise “On the illustrious ecclesiastical Writers,” Cologn, 1546, 4to; in this book he gives some account of 870 authors; another “On the illustrious Men of Germany;” and a third on those of the “Benedictine Order,” 1606, 4to, translated into French, 1625, 4to; six books “On Polygraphy,” 1601, fol. translated into French; a treatise “On Steganography,” i.e. the various methods of writing in cyphers, 1621, 4to, Nuremberg, 1721. There is a scarce book on this work, attributed to Augustus, duke of Brunswick, entitled “Gustavi Seleni Enodatio Steganographiæ J. Trithemii,” 1624, fol. There are also various “Chronicles,” in “Trithemii Opera historica,” 1701, fol. 2 vols, published by Freher, to which we may add his works on religious subjects, 1605, fol. “Annales Hirsaugienses,” 2 vols. folio, a carious and important work, and others.

His reputation among the ancients, if we may judge from their having given him the title of grammarian, was very considerable; for, though the word grammarian be now applied to persons altogether attentive to the minutiae of language, yet it was anciently a title of honour, and particularly bestowed on such as wrote well and politely in every way. The writings of this author were extremely numerous, as we learn from their titles preserved by Suidas yet none of them are come down to us, except his “Destruction of Troy,” which he calls “A Sequel to the Iliad.” He also wrote a new Odyssey, which Addison has described with equal truth and humour. After having proposed to speak of the several species of false wit among the ancients, he says, “The first I shall produce are the Lipogrammatists, or Letter-droppers, of antiquity, that would take an exception, without any reason, against some particular letter in the alphabet, so as not to admit it once into a whole poem. One Tryphiodorus was a great master in this kind of writing. He composed an Odyssey, or epic poem on the adventures of Ulysses, consisting of four and twenty books, having entirely banished the letter A from his first book, which was called ‘ Alpha,’ as lucus a non lucendo, because there was not an Alpha in it. His second book was inscribed * Beta' for the same reason: in short, the poet excluded the whole four and twenty letters in their turns, and shewed them, one after another, that he could do his business without them. It must have been very pleasant to have seen this poet avoiding the reprobate letter, as much as another would a false quantity; and making his escape from it through the several Greek dialects, when he was pressed with it in any particular syllable. For, the most apt and elegant word in the whole language was rejected, like a diamond with a flaw in it, if it appeared blemished with a wrong letter. I shall only observe upon this head, that if the work I have here mentioned had been now extant, the Odyssey of Tryphiodorus in all probability would have been oftener quoted by our learned pedants than the Odyssey of Homer. What a perpetual fund would it have been of obsolete words and phrases, unusual barbarisms and rusticities, absurd spellings and complicated dialects! I make no question, but it would have been looked upon as one of the most valuable trcasures of the Greek tongue.” It may be necessary to add that this singular composition does not exist, and that some have good-naturedly doubted whether it was written by our Tryphiodorus.

, an eminent canonist, was a native of Sicily, and commonly called Panormitanus, from his being at the head of a Benedictine abbey in Palermo, and afterwards archbishop of that city. He was born probably towards the close of the fourteenth century, some say in 1336, and became one of the most celebrated canonists of his time. He was present at the council of Basil, and had a considerable hand in the proceedings there against pope Eugenius; in recompense for which service he was made a 1 cardinal by Felix V. in 1440. He was afterwards obliged, by the orders of the king of Arragon his master, to return to his archbishopric, where he died of the plague in 1445. There is a complete edition of his works, Venice, 1617, in 9 vols. fol. Dupin mentions as his principal work a treatise on the council of Basil, which was translated into French about the end of the seventeenth century by Dr. Gerbais, of the Sorbonne, and printed at Paris.

In 1711 he began to print his theses on different subjects, but chiefly on the necessity of a revelation, and on the truth of the Christian religion, all of which were published at Geneva in 2 vols. 4to, 1737. In 1719 he published a “Dissertation on Fundamental Points,” which he had written at the request of two persons of rank of the Lutheran profession. Along with it was published his “Cloud of Witnesses.” The title was “Nubes Testium de moderate et pacifico de rebus theologicis judicio, et instituenda inter protestantes concordia. Premissa est brevis et pacifica de articulis fundamentalibus disquisitio, qua ad protestantium pacem, mutuamque tolerantiam via sternitur,” 4to. This work, which contains an assemblage of the sentiments of eminent men of all ages on the subject of toleration, was dedicated to archbishop Wake, who as well as the author laboured much to procure a re-union between the protestant churches; and Turretin derived no little reputation from this attempt, which many of the leading men among the Lutherans highly approved. About this time he had a controversy with Buddeus on the subject of miracles, which was conducted on both sides with great urbanity. Turretm also began to prepare for the press his lectures on natural religion, which form an excellent system on that subject. On the death of Pictet he succeeded him in his duties on. solemn academical festivals, and in delivering the accustomed harangues, prescribed by the laws of Geneva, not only in the council of two hundred, but in the half-yearly meetings of the burgesses. He also took an active part in various improvements introduced by the church of Geneva, as a revision of their liturgies, a translation of the new testament published in 1726, the establishment of a society for the education of the young, &c. In 1734 he published his abridgment of ecclesiastical history, in Latin, “Historiae Ecclesiastics compendium a Christo nato usque ad annum. 1700,” Genev. 8vo. This he used to dictate to his students, and it served as a text-book for his lectures. The preceding year he received from our queen Caroline, who had often shewn him marks of respect, a gold medal, brought by Sir Luke Schaub, but she was dead before it arrived. On the death of archbishop Wake in 1737, which Turretin very much regretted, the divines of Geneva having determined to write a letter to the new archbishop, Potter, congratulating him on his promotion, and requesting his protection to the foreign churches, Turretin was employed on the occasion, and this was the last letter of any importance which he wrote. His health, always delicate, now began to give way, and he died May I, 1737, in his sixty-sixth year, regretted as one of the most able divines of his church or time.

, one of the most eminent scholars and critics of the last century, was the son of the rev. Dr. Robert Tyrwhitt, of a very ancient baronet’s family in Lincolnshire, a gentleman of considerable eminence in the church, who was rector of St. James’s, Westminster, which he resigned in 1732, on being appointed a canon residentiary of St. Paul’s. He held also the prebend of Kentishtown, in that cathedral, and was archdeacon of London. In 1740 he obtained a canonry of Windsor, and died June 15, 1742, and was buried in St. George’s chapel, Windsor. He married the eldest daughter of bishop Gibson, and so well imitated the liberality and hospitality of that prelate, that, dying at the age of forty-four years, he left a numerous family very moderately provided for.

, one of the most celebrated Protestant divines of the 16th century, was born at Breslau, in Silesia, July 28, 1534. He had already made a considerable progress, for one so young, when he was sent to Wittemberg in 1550, where he studied seven years, and, as his father was not rich, he was assisted by gratuities both private and public, and by the profits of taking pupils. At the same time, he applied himself so closely to study, that he acquired great skill both in poetry, lan-r guages, philosophy, and divinity. Melancthon, who was the ornament of that university, had a particular esteem and friendship for him. Ursinus accompanied him in 1557 to the conference of Worms, whence he went to Geneva, and afterwards to Paris, where he made some stay, in order to learn French, and improve himself in Hebrew under the learned John Mercerus. He was no sooner returned to Melancthon at Wittemberg, than he received letters from the magistrates of Breslaw in September 1558, offering him the mastership of their great school; and having accepted it, he discharged the duties of his employment in so laudable a manner, that he might have continued in it as long as he pleased, had he not been prosecuted by the clergy, the instant they perceived he was not a Lutheran. When he explained Melancthon’s book, “De examine ordinandorum ad Ministerium,” he handled the subject of the Lord’s supper in such a manner, as made the demagogues or factious orators (for so the author of his Life calls them) term him Sacramentarian. He wrote, however, a justification of himself, in which he discovered what his opinions were with regard to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; and when he found that this did not pacify his adversaries, he obtained an honourable leave from the magistrates; and as he could not retire to his master Melancthon, he being dead a little before, in April 1560, he went to Zurich, where Peter Martyr, Bullinger, Simler, Gesner, and some other eminent personages, had a great friendship for him. From this place he was soon removed by the university of Heidelberg, which was in want of an able professor; and in September 1561 was settled in the Collegium Sapientiae (College of Wisdom) to instruct the students. He also attempted to preach, but finding he had not the talents requisite for the pulpit, he laid that aside. As a professor, he evinced, in the most eminent elegree, the qualifications requisite: a lively genius, a great fund of knowledge, and a happy dexterity in explaining things, and therefore, besides the employment he already enjoyed, he exercised the professorship of the loci communes, or common places in that university. To qualify him for this place, it was necessary for him, agreeably to the statutes, to be received doctor of divinity, and accordingly he was solemnly admitted to that degree the 25th of August, 1562, and he was professor of the common places till 1568. It was he who wrote the Catechism of the Palatinate, which was almost universally adopted by the Calvinists, and drew up an apology for it by ordtr of the elector Frederic III. in opposition to the clamours which Flacius Illyricus, Heshusius, and some other rigid Lutherans, had published in 1563. The elector, finding himself exposed, not only to the complaints of the Lutheran divines, but likewise to those of some princes, as if he had established a doctrine concerning the Eucharist, which was condemned by the Augsburg Confession, was obliged to cause to be printed an exposition of the une doctrine concerning the Sacraments. Ursinus the following year was at the conference of Maulbrun, where he spoke with great warmth against the doctrine of Ubiquity. He afterwards wrote on that subject, and against some other tenets of the Lutherans. The plan and statutes which he drew up for the elector, for the establishment of some schools, and several other services, raised him so high in his esteem, that finding him resolved to accept of a professorship in divinity at Lausanne in 1571, he wrote a letter to him with his own hand, in which he gave several reasons why it would not be proper for him to accept of that employment. This prince’s death, which happened in 1577, produced a great revolution in the palatinate; prince Lewis, his eldest son, who succeeded him, not permitting any clergyman to be there, unless he was a sound Lutheran; so that Ursinus and the pupils educated by him in the Collegium Sapientiae were obliged to quit it. He retired to Neustadt, to be divinity-professor in the illustrious school which prince Casimir, son to Frederic III. founded there at that time. He began his lectures there the 26th of May, 1578. He also taught logic there in his own apartment; published some books, and was preparing to write several more, when his health, which had been frequently and strongly attacked, occasioned by his incredible application to study, yielded at last to a long sickness, of which he died in Neustadt, the 6th of March, 1583, in the forty-ninth year of his age. His works were collected after his death, by the care of his only son, a minister, and by that of David Pareus and Quirinus Reuterus, his disciples; and to the last of these we are indebted for the publication of them in 1612, 3 vols. folio.

, in German Von Watte, one of the most learned men of his nation or time, was born at St. Gal, Nov. 29, 1484, of which city his father, Joachim Von Watte, was a senator. After some education at home he was sent to Vienna to pursue the higher studies, but for some time entered more into the gaieties of the place, and was distinguished particularly for his quarrels and his duels, until by the sensible and affectionate remonstrances of a merchant of that city, to whose care his father had confided him, he was induced to devote his whole time and attention to books, and never relapsed into his former follies. When he had acquired a competent share of learning he wished to relieve his father from any farther expence, and with that honourable view taught a school at Villach, in Carinthia; but finding this place too remote from literary society, he returned to Vienna, and in a short time was chosen professor of the belles lettres, and acquitted himself with such credit, and gained such reputation by some poetry which he published, that the emperor Maximilian I. honoured him with the laurel crown at Lintz in 1514. After some hesitation between law and physic, both of which he had studied, he determined in favour of the latter, as a profession, and took his doctor’s degree at Vienna in 1518. He appears to have practised in that city, and afterwards at St. Gal, until the controversies arose respecting the reformation. After examining the arguments of the contending parties, he embraced the cause of the reformers; and besides many writings in favour of their principles, befriended them in his rank of senator, to which he had been raised. In 1526 he was farther promoted to the dignity of consul of St. Gal, the duties of which he performed so much to the satisfaction of his constituents that he was re-elected to the same office seven times. He died April 6, 1551, in his sixty-sixth year. He bequeathed his books to the senate of St. Gal, which were ordered to be placed in the public library of the city, with an inscription, honourable both to his character and talents. The latter were very extensive, for he was well versed and wrote well on mathematics, geography, philosophy, and medicine. He was also a good Latin poet, and, above all, a sound divine and an able controversial writer. Joseph Scaliger places him among the most learned men of Germany. He was intimate with our illustrious prelate, archbishop Cranmer, but preceded him in some of the doctrines of the reformation. About 1536 he wrote a book entitled “Aphorismorum libri sex de consideratione Eucharistiae,” &c. which was levelled at the popish doctrine of the corporal presence, and thinking it a proper work for the archbishop to patronize, presented it to him; but Cranmer had not yet considered the question in that view, and therefore informed Vadian that his book had not made a convert of him, and that he was hurt with the idea of being thought the patron of such unscriptural opinions. Vadian therefore pursued the subject at home, and wrote two more volumes on it. The only medical work he published was his “Consilium contra Pestem, Basil, 1546, 4to. Those by which he is best known in the learned world, are, 1. A collection of remarks on various Latin authors, in his” Epistola responsoria ad Rudulphi Agricolas epistolam,“ibid. 1515, 4to. 2. His edition of” Pomponius Mela,“first printed at Vienna in 1518, fol. and often reprinted. 3.” Scholia qoaedam in C. Plinii de Nat. Hist, librum secundum,“Basil, 153 1, fol. 4.” Chronologia Ablmtum Monasterii St.Galli“”De obscuris verborum significationibus epistola;“” Farrago antiquitatum Alamannicarum,“&c. and some other treatises, which are inserted in Goldnst’s” Alamanniae Scnptores."

, or Valeriano Bolzam, an ingenious and learned Italian, was born at Belluno, in the state of Venice, about 1477. He lost his father at nine years of age, and was reduced with his mother and brethren to great poverty, which so retarded his studies that he was fifteen years old before he learned to read; but his uncle Urbanus Bolzanius (see vol. VI. p. 36), who was afterwards preceptor in the Greek language to Leo X. took him under his protection, and had him liberally educated. He studied the Latin and Greek tongues under Valla and Lascaris; and made so wonderful a progress, that he was accounted one of the most learned men of his age. Going to Rome under the pontificate of Julius II. he became the favourite of John de Medicis (afterwards Leo X.), who committed to his care the conduct and instruction of two nephews; and the cardinal Julius de Medicis, who entered upon the pontificate in 1523, under the name of Clement VII. shewed him the same regard. He offered him first the bishopric of Justinople, and then that of Avignon; but Valerianus refused them both, being fully satisfied with the place of apostolic notary. He was in imminent danger, when Rome was taken in 1527; and the year after retired to Belluno, for the sake of that tranquillity which he had never found at court. Yet he suffered himself to be drawn from his retirement by Hypolite de Medicis, one of his pupils; who, being made a cardinal in 1529, chose him for his secretary. He continued in this office till the death of the cardinal in 1535; and seems to have passed the next two years with his other pupil Alexander de Medicis, who had been made first duke of Florence in 1531. Upon the death of Alexander, in 1537, he retired to Padua; where he spent the remainder of his life among his books, and died in 1558.

If Valla had his enemies, he has also had his defenders, and of these Erasmus was one of the most strenuous. He expresses his indignation that Poggio should be in every body’s hands, while Valla, who had a hundred times his learning, “centuplo doctior,” was read by nobody and he declares, in the same epistle, that “the mordacity of Valla alone, if they will call it so, has contributed more to the promoting of literature than the foolish and insipid candour of thousands, who admire all the productions of all men without distinction, and who applaud and (as they say) scratch one another:” “itaque unius Laurentii mordacitas, siquidem ita malunt appellare, non paulo plus conduxit rei literarire, quam plurimorum ineptus candor, omnia omnium sine delectu mirantium, sibique invicem plaudentium, ac mutuum (quod aiunt) scabentium.” In short, this whole epistle, which is by no means a short one, is written entirely in the defence of Valla; though at the same time it would be easy to collect from it, if Valla’s works were not extant, that he cannot be defended from the charge of envious and abusive language. The first edition of his “Elegantiae” was printed at Rome in 1471, folio, and the last by Robert Stephens, at Paris, in 1542, 4to.

Walpole has enumerated the best of his pictures, but the number is too great for our limits. Among those of transcendant excellence, however, we may notice his portrait of Charles I. a whole-length in the coronation robes, engraved by Strange, and exhibiting in his opinion one of the most perfect characters of the monarch; George Villiers, the second duke of Buckingham, and lord Francis his brother, when children, at Kensington; Philip, earl of Pembroke, at Wilton, where, Walpole says, Vandyck is on his throne, the great saloon being entirely furnished by his hand; and lastly, the earl of Strafford and his secretary at Wentworth-house.

, eldest son of the preceding, and one of the most turbulent enthusiasts which the rebellion produced, was born in 1612, and educated at Westminsterschool, whence he went to Magdalen-hall, Oxford, and even at this early age seems to have embraced some of those republican opinions which were destined to plunge his country in all the miseries of anarchy. He is said to have then travelled to France and Geneva, and on his return betrayed such an aversion to the discipline and liturgy of the Church of England, as greatly displeased his father. Finding how obnoxious his principles made him, he determined to go to New England, then the resort of all who were disaffected to the Church of England. His father was against this wild scheme, but, according to Neal (in his History of New England), the king advised him to consent to it, and to limit his stay to three years. Young Vane’s purpose was to have begun a settlement on the banks of the river Connecticut; but the people upon his arrival, in 1635, complimenting him with the government of Massachusetts for the next year, he resolved to stay among them. He was, however, Neal says, ' no sooner advanced to the government, than he appeared to be a person of no conduct, and no ways equal to the post he was preferred to: being a strong enthusiast, he openly espoused the Antinomian doctrines, and gave such encouragement to the preachers and spreaders of them, as raised their vanity, and gave them such an interest among the people, as the very next year had like to have proved fatal both to the church and commonwealth; but the sober party observing his conduct, concerted such measures among themselves, as put an end to his government the next election.“Mather, another New England historian, speaks with still greater contempt of Vane, and says, that” Mr. Vane’s election will remain a blemish to their judgments who did elect him, while New England remains a nation.“Baxter tells us, that he became so obnoxious that” he was fain to steal away by night, and take shipping for England, before his year of government was at an end,“Baxter adds, that” when he came over into England, he proved an instrument of greater calamity to a people more sinful and more prepared for God’s judgments."

, one of the most celebrated physicians of the last century, and who attained the highest honours in his profession, was born at Leyden, May 7, 1700, of a very ancient family, which had furnished many distinguished characters for the state, the bar, and the array. He had the misfortune to lose his parents at a time when their affection would have been of most importance to him, and fell into the hands of tutors who took very little care of his property, and less of his education. This last, however, became early his own concern, and a thirst for knowledge led him to form a successful plan. After studying the classics at Leyden, he went in 1716 to Louvain, where, after a course of philosophy for two years, he was admitted into the first class, and his masters would have been glad to have detained him that he might become a farther ornament to their university; but he had by this time fixed his choice on medicine as a profession, and therefore returned to Leyden, where he placed himself under the illustrious Boerhaave. Van Swieten was not more happy in such a master than Boerhaave was in directing the studies of a pupil who soon promised to extend his favourite science. After seven years’ study here, Van Swieten, in 1725, received his doctor’s degree, and Boerhaave, notwithstanding the disparity of years and of fame, chose him for his friend, and discerned in him his future successor.

The sensation produced by his death was, if possible, more astonishing than the reverence in which he was held while living. The splendour of his funeral, which was conducted at the charge of the most munificent of his patrons, the duke of Sesa, the number and language of the sermons on that occasion, the competition of poets of all countries in celebrating his genius and lamenting his loss, are unparalleled in the annals of poetry, and perhaps scarcel) equalled in those of royalty itself. The ceremonies attending his interment continued for nine days. His biographers, however, have been less careful to convey a just idea of this extraordinary man to posterity, and there is little in them that can throw any light upon his character as a man, or his history as an author. His intimate friend Montalvan praises him in general as a person of a mild and amiable disposition, of very temperate habits, of great erudition, singular charity, and extreme good breeding. His temper, he adds, was never ruffled but with those who took snuff before company; with the grey who dyed their locks; with men who, born of women, spoke ill of the sex; with priests who believed in gypsies; and with persons who, without intentions of marriage, asked others their age. These antipathies, which are rather quaint sallies of wit, than traits of character, are the only peculiarities which his intimate friend has t' >ught proper to communicate. We have already noticed his unreasonable complaints of illusage, neglect, and even poverty, which appear to have constituted the greatest blemish in his character. As an author, he is most known, as indeed he is most wonderful, for the prodigious number of his writings. Twenty-one million three hundred thousand of his lines are said to he actually printed; and no less than eighteen hundred plays of his composition to have been acted on the stage. Lord Holland has calculated that according to these accounts, allowing him to begin his compositions at the age of thirteen, we must believe that upon an average he wrote more than nine hundred lines a day; a fertility of imagination, and a celerity of pen, which, when we “consider the occupations of his life as a soldier, a secretary, a master of a family, and a priest; his acquirements in Latin, Italian, and Portuguese; and his reputation for erudition, become not only improhable, but absolutely* and, one may almost say, physically impossible. Yet although there does not now exist the fourth part of the works which he and his admirers mention, enough remains to render him one of the most voluminous authors that ever put pen to paper. Such was his facility, that he informs us himself, that more than an hundred times he composed a play and produced it on the stage in twentyfour hours. To this evidence we may add tins of Montalvan, that he wrote a comedy in two days, which it would not be very easy for the most expeditious amanuensis to copy out in the time. At Toledo he wrote fifteen acts in fifteen days, which, Montalvan adds, make five comedies. He also asserts that Lope wrote 1800 plays and 400 autos sacramentales, a species of dramatic composition” resembling' our old mysteries. That in all this there must be some exaggeration, cannot be doubted.

, one of the most prolific authors in the French series, deserves some notice as having been often mistaken for Claude Du Verdier, and even for Antony, who was dead long before this Gilbert was born. It is not known to what part of France he belonged. It appears that he was historiographer of France, and that after all his numerous publications, he was obliged in 1676 to apply for an asylum, for himself and his wife, in the hospital of Salpetriere, where he died in 1636. Bayle has a very superficial article on him. Joly allows him to have been the author of the historical works attributed to him, but doubts whether the romances under the name of Duverdier are not by another hand, and his reason is, that it is difficult to conceive a man’s continuing to write and publish for the long space of sixty years. This, however, is not absolutely decisive. Thirteen historical works are ascribed to Duverdier, all published in 12mo, in one, two, or more volumes each, consisting of histories of France, Turkey, Spain, England, Rome, and some lives. His romances amount to fourteen, but seem to be quite forgotten in his own country, and will not easily be revived in this by any list we can give. Some of them seem to be translations.

, a brave English commander, was second son to Geoffrey Vere, who was third son of John Vere, earl of Oxford. He was born in 1554, and applying himself early to the military art, became one of the most famous generals of his time. He served first among the forces sent by queen Elizabeth, under the command of the earl of Leicester, to the assistance of the States of Holland, where he gave proofs of a warlike genius, and undaunted courage. In 1588, he was part of the English garrison which gallantly defended Bergen -op- Zoom against the prince of Parma and “that true courage might not want its due reward or distinction,” says Camden, “the lord Willoughby, who was general of the English after Leicester’s departure, conferred the honour of knighthood on sir Francis Vere, whose great fame commenced from this siege.”

, seventeenth earl of Oxford, was the only son of John the sixteenth earl, who died in 1563, by his second wife, Margaret, daughter of John Golding, esq. He is supposed to have been born about 1540 or 1541, and in his youth travelled in Italy, whence it is said he was the first who imported embroidered gloves and perfumes into England, and presenting queen Elizabeth with a pair of the former, she was so pleased with them, as to be drawn with them in one of her portraits. This gives us but an indifferent opinion of his judgment, yet he had accomplishments suited to the times, and made a figure in the courtly tournaments so much encouraged in queen Elizabeth’s reign. He once had a rencounter with sir Philip Sidney (see Sidney, vol. XXVII. p. 507), which did not redound much to his honour. In 1585, Walpole says he was at the head of the nobility that embarked with the earl of Leicester for the relief of the States of Holland; but Camden, who gives a list of the principal personages concerned in that expedition, makes no mention of him. In 1586 he sat as lord great chamberlain of England on the trial of Mary queen of Scots. In 1588 he hired and fitted out ships at his own charge against the Spanish Armada. In 1589 he sat on the trial of Philip Howard, earl of Arwndel; and in 1601, on the trials of the earls of Essex and Southampton. One of the most remarkable events of his life was his cruel usage of his first wife, Anne, daughter of the celebrated William Cecil, lord Burleigh, in revenge for the part acted by that statesman against Thomas duke of Norfolk, for whom he had a warm friendship. Camden says, that having vainly interceded with his father-in-law for the duke’s life, he grew so incensed that he vowed revenge against the daughter, and “not only forsook her bed, but sold and consumed that great inheritance descended to him from his ancestors;” but in answer to this, Collins says, that the estate descended to his son. It was probably, however, much impaired, as Arthur Wilson agrees with Camden, and something of the same kind may be inferred from a letter in Winwood’s Memorials, III. 422. The earl was buried at Hackney, July 6, 1604.

, one of the most learned men of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was born in 1349 at Justinopolis, now Capo d'Istria, a town situated at the extremity of the Adriatic gulph, not far from Trieste. Of his preceptors we only know that he learned Greek of Chrysoloras at Venice, and canon law of Francis de Zabarelia at Florence. -He is said to have composed the inscription on the monument of Chrysoloras in the Dominican monastery at Constance, where that eminent scholar died in 1415. After visiting several cities in Italy, where he displayed his knowledge of philosophy, civil law, mathematics, Greek, &c. he assisted at the council of Constance, and went thence to Hungary, to which it was thought he was invited by the emperor Sigismond. The prince of Carrara, then in possession of Padua, chose him for preceptor to his children. He is supposed to have died about 1431; Saxius says 1428. In his last days his faculties experienced a total decay, nor did he appear to have any enjoyment of his reason but at short intervals.

, a very celebrated French mathematician, was born in 1540, at Fontenai, or Fontenai-le-­Comte, in Lower Poitou, a province of France. He was master of requests at Paris, where he died in 1603, in the sixty-third year of his age. Among other branches of learning in which he excelled, he was one of the most respectable mathematicians of the sixteenth century, or indeed of any age. His writings abound with marks of great originality and genius, as well as intense application. His application was such, that he has sometimes remained in his study for three days together, without eating or sleeping. His inventions and improvements in all parts of the mathematics were very considerable. He was in a manner the inventor and introducer of Specious Algebra, in which letters are used instead of numbers, as well as of many beautiful theorems in that science. He made also corir siderable improvements in geometry and trigonometry. His angular sections are a very ingenious and masterly performance: by these he was enabled to resolve the problem of Adrian Roman, proposed to all mathematicians, amounting to an equation of the 45th degree. Romanus was so struck with his sagacity, that he immediately quitted his residence of Wirtzbourg in Franconia, and came to France to visit him, and solicit his friendship. His “Apollonius Gallus,” being a restoration of Apollonius’s tract on Tangencies, and many other geometrical pieces to be found in his works, shew the finest taste and genius for true geometrical speculations. He gave some masterly tracts on Trigonometry, both plane and spherical, which may be found in the collection of his works, published at Leyden in 1646, by Schooten, besides another large and separate volume in folio, published in the author’s life-time at Paris 1579, containing extensive trigonometrical tables, with the construction aad use of the same, which are particularly described in the introduction to Dr. Hutton’s Logarithms, p. 4, &c. To this complete treatise on Trigonometry, plane and spherical, are subjoined several miscellaneous problems and observations, such as, the quadrature of the circle, the duplication of the cube, &c. Vieta having observed that there were many faults in the Gregorian Calendar, as it then existed, he composed a new form of it, to which he added perpetual canons, and an explication of it, with remarks and objections against Clavius, whom he accused of having deformed the true Lelian reformation, by not rightly understanding it. Besides those, it seems, a work greatly esteemed, and the loss of which cannot be sufficiently deplored, was his “Harmonicon Cceleste,” which, being communicated to father Mersenne, was, by some perfidious acquaintance of that honest-minded person, surreptitiously taken from him, and irrecoverably lost, or suppressed, to the great detriment of the learned world. There were also, it is said, other works of an astronomical kind, that have been buried in the ruins of time, Vieta was also a profound decypherer, an accomplishment that proved very useful to his country. As the different parts of the Spanish monarchy lay very distant from one another, when they had occasion to communicate any secret designs, they wrote them in cyphers and unknown characters, during the disorders of the league: the cypher was composed of more than five hundred different Characters, which yielded their hidden contents to the penetrating genius of Vieta alone. His skill so disconcerted the Spanish councils for two years, that they reported at Rome, and other parts of Europe, that the French king had only discovered their cyphers by means of magic.

a learned Spanish Jesuit, was born at Cordova in 1552, and entered the society of the Jesuits in the twenty-sixth year of his age. We have very few particulars, even by Antonio, of his personal history, unless that he was distinguished for his extensive theological and mathematical knowledge, and for some time was associated with Jerome Prado in a commentary on Ezekiel. It would appear that Villalpando had the king’s orders for this undertaking, as far as respected the description of the Temple, and city of Jerusalem; and Prado, dying before the work was finished, Villalpando has the sole reputation of the whole. It was published under the title of “Explanationes in Ezechielem,” Rome, 1596 1604, 3 vols. fol. As a commentary, the catholic writers, Dupin, &c. assure us that it is one of the most learned. His skill in architecture gave him great advantages in endeavouring to trace the figure and dimensions of the temple of Solomon, but unfortunately he employed a sort of theory which was guided more by imagination than judgment. Having laid it down as a first principle, that the model of the temple, having been given by God himself, must be perfect, he therefore exhausted all the powers of conjecture and fancy to describe an edifice that should answer that character. This led him, among other errors, to introduce many embellishments and additions not mentioned in the sacred text; instead of three courts, for example, he has described no less than eleven. But the reader who is curious in the inquiry, may consult Calmet’s Dictionary, where there are engravings as well as a description, from Villalpando. He edited also a work of St. Remi, “Remigii Rhemensis in Epistolas S. Pauli tractatus,” Mentz, which was not, however, published until after his death, as the date is 1614, fol. He died at Rome, May 23, 1608.

He was not however fully satisfied with its success, and thought with reason that he might be more usefully employed in publishing some valuable work, not before given to the world. He had examined the libraries of France for this purpose ineffectually, and formed a project of going to Venice, to search the library of St. Mark, to which he knew that cardinal Bessarion had left his numerous manuscripts. He accordingly set out in 1781, under the patronage of the king, who appointed that the expenses of his journey and residence (to which no limits were fixed) should be defrayed by the government. His researches were not fruitless. In that depository, he soon discovered several inedited works of the rhetoricians and philosophers, and especially grammarians, which he deemed worthy of publication, either entire or in extracts; and these form the celebrated collection which was printed the same year, in 2 vols. 4to, under the title of “Anecdota Graeca e regia Parisiensi et e Veneta 8. Marci bibliotheca deprompta,” Venice. Of this some copies were taken off“in folio, and two on vellum. It was however unfortunate that publication followed so hastily on discovery, for Villoison soon found, but found too late, that a considerable proportion of the first volume of these” Anecdota“had already been given to the public. He made however a very important discovery in the library of Mark, of a ms. of Homer, which he judged to be of the 10th century, and consequently anterior by two centuries to the commentator Eustathius. This precious volume, which does not appear to have been before examined, contained the whole Iliad, enriched with the scholia of the most eminent grammarians of antiquity. The margins also were filled with various marks by which these grammarians distinguished the verses of Homer, which they judged to be supposititious, corrupted, or transposed, from those whose genuineness was universally recognized. He immediately prepared an edition of this valuable treasure, which was published in 1788, fol. accompanied by learned prolegomena, and was regarded as one of the most valuable presents made to the literary world during the last century, and every scholar hastened with his congratulations. But, says his biographer,” the satisfaction which this brilliant success must have given to M. de Villoison was not long unmixed. He could not see, without sentiments of pain, the spirit of system abusing his discoveries to attack the glory of the father of poetry: and perverting the critical marks affixed to a great number of verses in the Iliad, in support of the darling position, that parts of this poem, even entire books, were the work of ancient rhapsodists, and the first editors, &c. and the idea that he had unintentionally furnished the basis on which these conjectures were constructed, and the weapons by which their authors pretended to defend them, troubled him so much, that he almost repented of having published his work.“He had advanced but a little way in printing the Iliad, when he yielded to the invitation of the duke and duchess of Saxe-Weimar, who honoured him with their particular esteem, and quitting Venice, repaired to their capital. While here, he formed the collection of critical letters, printed at Zurich in 1783, under the title of” Epistolse Vinarienses, in quihus multa Graecorum scriptorum ioca emendantur ope librorum Ducalis bibliothecte,“4to. Having found in the library of St. Mark a very liberal translation of part of the Old Testament, made by a Jew in the ninth century, he laboured, during his stay at Weimar, to put it into a state fit for publication; and on his return to France in 1784, he remained some time at Strasburgh for the purpose of having it printed there under his own inspection. He soon after set out for Greece, in quest of other ancient Mss.; but after a tour of two years, found nothing of that description. He had made, however, many observations, and intended, with the aid of these, to have composed a history of ancient and modern Greece, For the same purpose he determined on a fresh perusal of all the Greek and Latin authors extant, and as Paris had now become the scene of the revolution, and all its enormities, he removed to Orleans, in the public library of which he executed his extensive plan of reading, and its fruits were fifteen large quarto volumes of extracts and observations, which were to contribute to his history of Greece. He also prepared during his retreat at Orleans, materials for a new edition of Montfaucon’s” Palasographia Graeca," all of which are now in the royal library.

Vives was one of the most learned men of his age; and with Budaeus and Erasmus, formed a triumvirate which did honour to the republic of letters. Their admirers have ascribed to each those peculiar qualities in which they supposed him to exceed the other; as, wit to Budaeus, eloquence to Erasmus, judgment to Vives, and learning to them all. Dupin’s opinion is somewhat different: Erasmus, he says, was doubtless a man of finer wit, more extensive learning, and of a more solid judgment than Vives; Budaeus had more skill in the languages and in profane learning than either of them; and Vives excelled in grammar, in rhetoric, and in logic. But although Dupin may seecn to degrade Vives, in comparison with Erasmus and Buda?us, yet he has not been backward in doing justice to his merit. “Vives,” says he, “was not only excellent in polite letters, a judicious critic, and an eminent philosopher; but he applied himself also to divinity, and was successful in it. If the critics admire his books ‘ de causiscorruptarum artium,’ and * de tradendis disciplinis,‘ on account of the profane learning that appears in them, and the solidity of his judgment in those matters; the divines ought no less to esteem his books * de Veritate Eidei Christiana;,’ and his commentary upon St. Augustin f de Civitate Dei,' in which he shews, that he understood his religion thoroughly.”

, an ingenious doctor, and one of the most learned men of the seventeenth century, in Hebrew and the Oriental languages, was a native of Bourdeaux, descended from a respectable family of distinction in the law. He at first held the office of counsellor to the parliament in his native city; but having afterwards chosen the ecclesiastical profession, was raised to the priesthood, and became preacher and almoner to Armand de Bourbon, prince of Conti. M. de Voisin was extremely well skilled in rabbinical learning, and the ecclesiastical authors. He died 1685. His principal works are, a “System of Jewish Theology,” 1647, 4to, in Latin; a treatise “On the Divine Law,” 8vo another “On the Jubilee of the Jews,” 8vo, both in Latin learned notes on Raymond Martin’s “Pugio Fidei” 1651; “Defense du Traite de M. le Prince de Conti centre la Comédie et les Spectacles,” 1672, 4to a French " Translation of the Roman Missal, 4 vols. 12mo, which made much noise, and was suppressed, yet it has nevertheless been printed and sold since, &c. His enemies accused him of intending to have mass said in French, but L'Avocat maintains that he never had such an idea.

The author of No. IV. of Mosheim’s Appendix deduces from the whole of this transaction, and particularly from the entire correspondence given in that Appendix, that Wake was invited to this correspondence by Dupin, the most moderate of all the Roman jcatholic divines; that he entered into it with a view to improve one of the most favourable opportunities that could be offered, of withdrawing the church of France from the jurisdiction of the pope; a circumstance which must have immediately weakened the power of the court of Rome, and, in its consequences, offered a fair prospect of a farther reformation in doctrine and worship, as the case happened in the church of England, when it happily threw off the papal yoke; that he did not give any of the doctors of the Sorbonne the smallest reason to hope that the church of England wpuld give up any one point of belief or practice to the church of France; but insisted, on the contrary, that the latter should make alterations and concessions, in order to be reconciled to the former; that he never specified the particular alterations which would be requisite to satisfy the rulers and doctors of the church of England; but only expressed a general desire of an union between the two churches, if that were possible, or at least of a mutual toleration: that he never flattered himself that this union could be perfectly accomplished, or that the doctors of the Gallican church, would be entirely brought over to the church of England; but thought that every advance made by them, and every concession, must have proved really advantageous to the. protestant cause.

“Further, in the progress of his speculations, he had been led to form notions concerning the expediency and propriety of public worship, extremely different from those of every body of Christians, whether in sects or establishments; and as he was incapable of thinking one thing and practising another, he had sufficiently made known his sentiments on this subject, as well in conversation, as by abstaining from attendance upon every place of religious assembly. They who were well acquainted with him, knew that in his own breast piety was one of the most predominant affections; but the assembling for social worship had for so many ages been regarded as the most powerful instrument for the support of general religion, that to discourage it was considered as of dangerous example, especially in a person engaged in the education of youth. Notwithstanding, therefore, his classical instructions in the college were received by the students almost with enthusiastical admiration, and conferred high credit on the institution, a dissolution of his connection with it took place in the summer of 1791.”

Sir Francis Walsingham was a puritan in his religious principles, and at first a favourer of them in some matters of discipline. To them he offered, in 1583, in the queen’s name, that provided they would conform in other points, the three ceremonies of kneeling at the communion, wearing the surplice, and the cross in baptism, should be expunged out of the Common-prayer. But they replying to these concessions in the language of Moses, that “they would not leave so much as a hoof behind,” meaning, that they would have the church-liturgy wholly laid aside, and not be obliged to the performance of any office in it; so unexpected an answer lost them in a great measure Walsingham’s affection. His general character has been thus summed up, from various authorities: “He was undoubtedly one of the most refined politicians, and most penetrating statesmen, that ever any age produced. He bad an admirable talent both in discovering and managing the secret recesses of human nature: he had his spies in most courts of Christendom, and allowed them a liberal maintenance; for his grand maxim was, that” knowledge is never too dear.“He spent his whole time and faculties in the service of the queen and her kingdoms; on which account her majesty was heard to say that” in diligence and sagacity he exceeded her expectation.“He is thought (but this, we trust, is unfounded) to have had a principal hand in laying the foundation of the wars in France and Flanders; and is said, upon his return from his embassy in France, when the queen expressed her apprehension of the Spanish designs against that kingdom, to have answered*” Madam, be content, and fear not. The Spaniard hath a great appetite, and an excellent digestion. But I have fitted him with a bone for these twenty years, that your majesty shall have no cause to dread him, provided, that if the fire chance to slack which I have kindled, you will be ruled by me, and cast in some of your fuel, which will revive the “flame.” He would cherish a plot some years together, admitting the conspirators to his own, and even the queen’s presence, very familiarly; but took care to have them carefully watched. His spies constantly attended on particular men for three years together; and lest they should not keep the secret, he dispatched -them into foreign parts, taking in new ones in their room. His training of Parry, who designed the murder of the queen; the admitting of him, under the pretence of discovering the plot, to her majesty’s presence; and then letting him go where he would, only on the security of a centinel set over him, was an instance of reach and hazard beyond common apprehension. The queen of Scots’ letters were all carried to him by her own servant, whom she trusted, and were decyphered for him by one Philips, and sealed up again by one Gregory; so that neither that queen, nor any of her correspondents ever perceived either the seals defaced, or letters delayed. Video et taceo, was his saying, before it was his mistress’s motto. He served himself of the court factions as the queen did, neither advancing the one, nor depressing the other. He was familiar with Cecil, allied to Leicester^ and an oracle to Hadcliffe earl of Sussex. His conversation was insinuating, and yet reserved. He saw every man, and none saw him. “His spirit,” says Lloyd, “was as public as his parts; yet as debonnaire as he was prudent, and as obliging to the softer but predominant parts of the world, as he was serviceable to the more severe; and no less dextrous to work on humours than to convince reason* He would say, he must observe the joints and flexures of affairs; and so could do more with a story, than others could with an harangue. He always surprized business, and preferred motions in the heat of other diversions; and if he must debate it, he would hear all, and with the advantage of foregoing speeches, that either cautioned or confirmed his resolutions, he carried all before him in conclusion, without reply. To him men’s faces spake as much as their tongues, and their countenances were in* dexes of their hearts. He would so beset men with questions, and draw them on, that they discovered themselves whether they answered or were silent. He maintained fifty-three agents and eighteen spies in foreign courts; and for two pistoles an order had all the private papers in Europe. Few letters escaped his hands; and he could read their contents without touching the seals. Religion was the interest of his country, in his judgment, and of his soul; therefore he maintained it as sincerely as he lived it. It had his head, his purse, and his heart. He laid the great foundation of the protestant constitution as to its policy, and the main plot against the popish as to its ruin.”

, a celebrated writer on the art of angling, and the author of some valuable lives, was born at Stafford in August 1593. His first settlement in London, as a shopkeeper, was in the Royal Burse in Cornhill, built by sir T. Gresharn, and finished in 1567. In this situation he could scarcely be said to“have had elbow-room; for, the shops over the Burse were but seven feet and a half long, and five wide; yet he carried on his trade till some time before 1624, when” he dwelt on the north side of Fleet- street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow;“by which sign the old timber -house at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane, in Fleet-street, till within these few years, was known. A citizen of this age would almost as much disdain to admit of a tenant for half his shop, as a knight would to ride double; though the brethren of one of the most ancient orders of the world were so little above this practice, that their common seal was the device of two riding one horse. He married probably about 1632; for in that year he lived in a house in Chancery-lane, a few doors higher up on the left hand than the former, and described by the occupation of a sempster or milliner. The former of these might be his own proper trade; and the latter, as being a feminine occupation, might be carried on by his wife: she, it appears, was Anne, the daughter of Mr, Thomas Ken, of Furnival’s-inn, and sister of Thomas, afterwards Dr. Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells. About 1643 he left London, and, with a fortune very far short of what would now be called a eompetencv, seems to have retired altogether from business. While he continued in London, his favourite recreation was angling, in which he was the greatest proficient of his time; and, indeed, so great were his skill and experience in that art, that there is scarcely any writer on the subject since his time who has not made the rules and practice of Walton his very foundation. It is, therefore, with the greatest propriety that Langbaine calls him” the common father of all anglers." The river that he seems mostly to have frequented for this purpose was the Lea, which has it source above Ware in Hertfordshire, and falls into the Thames a little below Blackwall; unless we will suppose that the vicinity of the New River to the place of his habitation might sometimes tempt him out with his friends, honest Nat. and R. Roe, whose loss he so pathetically mentions, to spend an afternoon there. In 1662 he was by death deprived of the solace and comfort of a good wife, as appears by a monumental inscription in the cathedral church of Worcester.

His “Albion’s England” was his principal work; and was not only a favourite with his own age, but has received very high praise from the critics of our own time. It is an epitome of the British history, and, according to the editor of the “Muses Library,” Mrs. Cooper, is written with great learning, sense, and spirit; in some places fine to an extraordinary degree, of which an instance is given in the story ofArgentill and Curan, a tale which, Mrs. Cooper adds, is full of beautiful incidents, in the romantic taste, extremely affecting, rich in ornament, wonderfully various in style, and in short one of the most beautiful pastorals she ever met with. To this opinion, high as it is, Dr. Percy thinks nothing can be objected, unless perhaps an affected quaintness in some of his expressions, and an indelicacy in some of his pastoral images. Warner’s contemporaries ranked him on a level with Spenser, and called him the Homer and Virgil of their age. But Dr. Percy remarks, that he rather resembled Ovid, whose Metamorphosis he seems to have taken for a model, having deduced a perpetiial poem from the deluge down to the reign of queen Elizabeth, full of lively digressions and entertaining episodes. And though he is sometimes harsh, affected, and indelicate, he often displays a most charming and pathetic simplicity.

The plenipotentiaries who framed the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, by leaving the boundaries of the British and French territories in North America unfixed, had sown the seeds of a new war, at the moment when they concluded a peace. The limits of Canada and Louisiana, furnished a motive, or a pretext, for one of the most successful but one of the most bloody and wasteful wars in which Great Britain had ever been engaged. In the disputes which arose between the French and English officers on this subject, major Washington was employed by the governor of Virginia, in a negotiation with the French governor of Fort du Quesne (now Pitsburgh); who threatened the English frontiers with a body of French and their Indian allies. He succeeded in averting the invasion; but hostilities becoming inevitable, he was in the next year appointed lieutenant colonel of a regiment raised by the colony for its own defence; to the command of which he soon after succeeded. The expedition of general Braddock followed in 1755; of which the fatal issue is too well known to require being described by us. Colonel Washington served in that expedition only as a volunteer; but such was the general confidence in his talents, that he may be said to have conducted the retreat. Several British officers lately alive, attested the calmness and intrepidity which he shewed in that difficult situation, and the voluntary obedience which was so cheerfully paid by the whole army to his superior mind. After having acted a distinguished part in a subsequent and more successful expedition to the Ohio, he was obliged by ill health, in 1758, to resign his military situation. The sixteen years which followed of the life of Washington, supply few materials for the biographer. Having married Mrs. Curtis, a Virginian lady of amiable character and respectable connections, he settled at his beautiful seat of Mount Vernon, of which we have had so many descriptions; where, with the exception of such attendance as was required by his duties as a magistrate and a member of the assembly, his time was occupied by his domestic enjoyments, and the cultivation of his estate, in a manner well suited to the tranquillity of his unambitious mind. At the end of this period he was called by the voice of his country from this state of calm and secure though unostentatious happiness.

“A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Landaff in June 1805,” was published in that year; and another in 1808: “Two Apologies, one for Christianity against Gibbon, and the other for the Bible against Paine, published together with two Sermons and a Charge in Defence of Revealed Religion,” in 1806, 8vo: “A Second Defence of Revealed Religion, in two Sermons; preached in the Chapel-royal, St. James’s, 1807.” “Communica r tion to the Board of Agriculture, on Planting and Waste Lands,” 1808. His lordship’s latest publication was a collection, of “Miscellaneous Tracts on Religious, Political, and Agricultural subjects,” 1815, 2 vols. 8vo. Some articles by him occur in the Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was one of the earliest members, During the last years of his life his lordship employed his leisure upon a history of his own times, after the manner of bishop Burnet’s celebrated work; and left directions for its publication after his decease. Such a performance from so, eminent a character will, of course, be expected with no ordinary anxiety by the political as well as the literary world, and will throw light on those parts of his own character and conduct which have been the subject of some difference of opinion. In the mean time it may be said of him, that he was an excellent public speaker, both in the pulpit and in the senate; his action graceful, his voice full and harmonious, and his delivery chaste and correct. As far as his influence extended, he was invariably the patron of merit. As a writer, bishop Watson united the knowledge of a scholar with the liberality of a gentlemaa, and in the course of a long, active, and conspicuous life, his lordship’s demeanour was marked by the characteristics of a very superior mind. His partiality to unlimited toleration in regard to religious opinion called down upon him the applauses of one part of the community, and the censures of the other. He uniformly exerted his endeavours to procure the abolition of the corporation and test-acts. In his private deportment, though somewhat reserved, he was remarkable for the simplicity of his manners, and the equality of his temper; enjoying all the emoluments of his stations, and the fame arising from his writings, in rural retirement, at Calgarth-park, Westmorland, a beautiful sequestered situation on the celebrated Lakes, a retreat which he had not only adorned and improved, but in some measure created, and where he passed much of his time in the indulgence of those deep studies to which his whole life was addicted. His plantations here were very extensive, and in 1789 gained him a premium from the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. On the whole, Dr. Watson may justly be pronounced a prelate of distinguished abilities, learning, research, and industry. He had a numerous family, and many distinguished personages were attached to him by the ties of friendship; amongst whom, the late duke of Grafton, to the close of his life, was long one of the most conspicuous.

, a learned sufferer during the usurpation, was born near Lynn in Norfolk, about the end of the sixteenth century, and was educated at Caius college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of A. B. in 1610, and that of A. M. in 1614, in which last he was incorporated at Oxford in 1618. After leaving college, he travelled abroad and became master of various languages. On his return he was made chaplain in ordinary to king Charles I. In 1639 he took his degree of D.D. at Oxford, and had the living of St. Alban’s, Wood-street, but the time of his admission does not appear. He was afterwards chaplain under the earl of Arundel, general of the forces in the. Scotch expedition in 1639, and prebendary of Wells. About 1642, his living in London was sequestered, his wife and family turned out of doors, and himself compelled to fly. Some small pittance is said to have been afterwards given to his family out of the sale of his goods. He now joined the king, who appointed him to attend as chaplain upon prince Rupert, and he was present with his highpess in all his engagements. He also served under the prince on board of ship, and was with him when he was blocked up in the harbour at Kingsale in Ireland. While here, Dr. Watts was “taken with a distemper which no physic could cure,” and of which he died in 1649. Dr. Watts is often mentioned by Vossius, as one of the most learned men of his time. He had a principal hand in Spelman’s Glossary, and was the editor of Matthew Paris, a fine edition printed at London in 1640, fol. In the preface he acknowledges his obligations to sir Henry Spelman. He also published in 1631, a translation of “St. Augustine’s Confessions,” with marginal notes, &c. 12mo. Wood mentions some other treatises from his pen, but it seems doubtful if they were printed. Wood adds that he published, before the civil wars of England began, “several numbers of newsbooks,” which appear to be the newspapers called “The German Intelligencer,” 1630, and the “Swedish Intelligencer,” 1631; but he was educated for other and more important labours, had the unhappy circumstances of the times permitted him the quiet use and enjoyment of his time and talents.

, a learned English divine, of whom we are sorry our materials are so scanty, was admitted a scholar at Westminster school in 1680, and was thence elected to Christ-church, Oxford, in 1686, where he proceeded M.A. in 1693, and B. and D. D, in 1704. He was a tutor in his college, and among others had under his care, the celebrated antiquary Browne Willis, who presented him to the rectory of Blechley in Buckinghamshire, where his nephew, Edward Wells, was his curate. Dr. Wells also obtained the rectory of Cottesbach in Leicestershire in 1717, and died in August 1727. Among Dr. Wells’s useful publications are, l.'“An historical Geography of the Old and New Testament, illustrated xvith maps and chronological tables,” 4 vols. 8vo. 2. “The young gentleman’s course of Mathematics,” 3 vols. 8vo. 3. “An historical Geography of the New Testament,” 8vo. 4. “Arithmetic and Geometry,” 3 vols. 8vo. 5. “A paraphrase, with annotations on all the books of the Old and New Testament,” 6 vols. 4to. 6. “An help for the right understanding of the several divine laws and covenants,” 8vo. 7. “Controversial Treatises against the Dissenters.” 8. “An Exposition of 'the Church Catechism.” 9. “Prayers on common occasions,” a sequel to the preceding. 10. “Harmonia Grammaticalis or a view of the agreement between the Latin and Greek tongues, as to the declining of words,” &c. 11. “A Letter to a friend concerning the great sin of taking God’s name in vain.” 12. “Elementa Arithmetics numerosoe et speciosae.” He published also some other tracts on subjects of practical religion, particularly specified in our authority; and was the editor of a good edition of “Dionysius’s Geography,” Gr. and Lat. Oxford, 1706. He was esteemed one of the most accurate geographers of his time.

, one of the most learned men of the fifteenth century, was born at Groningen about 1419, and having lost his friends in his infancy, was sent by a benevolent lady, along with her only son, to be educated at a college at Swoll, which at that time happened to be in greater estimation than that of Groningen. This college was superintended by a community of monks, and Wesselus had at one time an inclination to have embraced the order, but was disgusted by some superstitious practices. After having studied here with great diligence, he removed to Cologne, where he was much admired for his proficiency, but already betrayed a dislike to the sentiments of the schoolmen. Being invited to teach theology at Heidelberg, it was objected that he had not received his doctor’s degree; and when he offered to be examined for that degree, he was told that the canons did not permit that it should be bestowed on a layman. Having therefore a repugnance to take orders, he confined his services to the reading of some lectures in philosophy; after which he returned to Cologne; and afterwards visited Louvain and Paris. The philosophical disputes being carried on then with great warmth between the realists, the formalists, and the nominalists, he endeavoured to bring over the principal champions of the formalists to the sect of the realists, but at lasthimself sided with the nominalists. He appears, however, to have set little value on any of the sects into which philosophy was at that time divided; and to a young man who consulted him concerning the best method of prosecuting his studies, he said, “You, young man, will live to see the day when the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and other modern disputants of the same stamp, will be exploded by all true Christian ditines, and when the irrefragable doctors themselves will be little regarded.” A prediction, says Brucker, which discovers so much good sense and liberality, that Wessel ought to be immortalized under the appellation of the Wise Doctor. Brucker admits him in his History of Philosophy, from the penetration which, in the midst of the scholastic phrenzy of his age, enabled him to discover the futility of the controversies which agitated the followers of Thomas, Scotus, and Occam. Some say that Wesseltis travelled into Greece, to acquire a more perfect acquaintance with the Greek and Hebrew languages than was then to be found in Europe. It is certain that he gained the esteem and patronage of Francis della Rovera, afterwards pope Sixtus IV. who, in an interview at Rome, offered him preferment. Wesselus desired only a copy of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek; and when the pope asked why he did not solicit for a bishopric, our philosopher replied, “Because I do not want one,” On his return he taught philosophy and philology at Groningen with great approbation, and died here Oct. 4, 1489. On his death-bed he was perplexed with doubts, which were soon relieved. His biographer says, that, “Being visited, in the sickness which brought him to his end, by a friend, who inquired after his health, he replied, that ‘he was pretty well, considering his advanced age, and the nature of his indisposition but that one thing made him very uneasy, viz. that being greatly perplexed with various thoughts and arguments, he began to entertain some little doubts with respect to the truth of the Christian religion.’ His friend was much surprised, and immediately exhorted him to direct all his thoughts to Christ the only Saviour; but, finding that such an admonition was displeasing, he went away deeply afflicted. But an hour or two after, Wesselus seeing his friend come back to him, he said, with an air of as much satisfaction and joy as one in his weak condition cpuld discover, < God be praised all those vain doubts are fled and now, all I know is Jesus Christ, and Rim crucified' after which confession he resigned his soul to God.” It appears that his religious sentiments were in many respects contrary to those of the Romish church, and some even called him the forerunner of Luther. Many of his Mss. were burnrd after his death by the contrivance of the monks, but what his friends saved were published at Groningen in 1614, consisting of “Tractatus de Oratione -r- de cohibendis cogitationibus de causis incarnationis de sacramento euchanstiae Farrago rerum Theologicarum epistolsp,” &c. Foppens, however, mentions an edition prior to this, published by Luther in 1525, and another at Marpurg in 1617, 4to.

, a native of Ely, was educated in Jesus-college, in Cambridge, where he was scholar and fellow some time; but, appearing in public, was, first, assistant to Dr. Nicolas Felton, at St. Mary-le-bow, London, and then presented to this church; and soon after to St. Bartholomew’s, London; made archdeacon of St. Alban’s; and at length advanced to the see of Bristol, as one of those persons whom his majesty found best qualified for so great a place, for soundness of judgment and unblameableness of conversation, for which he had before preferred Dr. Prideaux to the see of Worcester, Dr. Winniff to Lincoln, Dr. Brownrig to Exeter, and Dr. King to London. He was offered the same see in 1616, as a maintenance, but he then refused it; but, having now gotten some wealth, he accepted it, that he might adorn it with hospitality out of his own estate. He was much reverenced and respected by the earl of Holland, and other noblemen, before the troubles came on; but was as much contemned, when the bishops grew out of favour; being disturbed in his devotion, wronged of his dues, and looked upon now as a formalist, though he was esteemed not long before one of the most devout and powerful preachers in the kingdom; but this we may suppose not to be done by the parliament’s authority; because we find an order of theirs, dated May 13, 1643, commanding his tenants, as bishop of Bristol, to pay him the rents, and suffer him to pass safely with his family to Bristol, being himself of great age, and a person of great learning and merit. He was afterwards ejected, and died June 25, 1644. He preached the first Latin sermon at the erection of Sion-college; and, though he printed nothing in his life-time, yet two little volumes of his sermons were published after his death, entitled, ;< England’s Face with Israel’s Glass;“containing eight sermons upon Psalm cvi. 19, 20, &c. and” The white robe or Surplice vindicated, in several Sermons;" the first printed in 1646, the other in 1660. He was buried in Bristol cathedral near Dr. Paul Bush, the first bishop, and has a stone with an epitaph over him.

The son of bishop Weston, styled from his being a privy counsellor, the Right Hon. Edward Weston, was born and educated at Eton, and afterwards studied and took his degrees at King’s college, Cambridge. His destination was to public life, at the commencement of which be became secretary to lord Townshend at Hanover during the king’s residence there in 1729, and continued several years in the office of lore! Harrington, as his secretary. He was also transmitter of the state papers, and one of the clerks of the signet. In 1741 he was appointed gazetteer; and in 1746, when he was secretary to lord Harrington, lord lieutenant of Ireland, he became a privy-counsellor of that kingdom. Our authorities do not give the date of his death, but it happened in the early part of the present reign. In 1753 he published a pamphlet on the memorable Jew bill; in 1755, “The Country Gentleman’s advice to his Son;” and in 1756, “A Letter to the right rev. the lord bishop of London,” on the earthquake at Lisbon, and the character of the times. He published also “Family Discourses, by a country gentleman,” re-published in 1776 by his son, Charles, under the title of “Family Discourses, by the late right hon. Edward Weston,” a name, we are properly told, “very eminently distinguished for abilities and virtue, and most highly honoured throughout the whole course of life, by the friendship and esteem of the best and greatest men of his time.” He left two sons, Charles, a clergyman, who died in Oct. 1801, and the rev. Stephen Weston, now living, well known as one of the most profound scholars, and what seldom can be said of men of that character, one of the first wits of the age.

In 1706, he was appointed one of the commissioners for the union with Scotland; which being concluded, he was one of the most zealous advocates for passing the bill enacting it; and in December the same year, he was created earl of Wharton in the county of Westmorland. Upon the meeting of the parliament in Oct. 1707, the earl supported the petition of the merchants against the conduct of the admiralty, which produced an address to the queen on that subject. In the latter end of 1708, his lordship was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, where he arrived April 2, 1709, and opened a session of parliament there, with a speech reminding them of the inequality with respect to numbers, between the protestants and papists of that kingdom, and of the necessity of considering, whether any new bills were wanting to inforce or explain those good laws already in being, for preventing the growth of popery and of inculcating and preserving a good understanding amongst all protestants there. He shewed likewise his tenderness for the dissenters, in the speech which he made to both Houses at the close of the session Aug. 30, in which he told them, that he did not question, but that they understood too well the true interest of the protestant religion in that kingdom, not to endeavour to make all such protestants as easy as they could, who were willing to. contribute what they could to defend the whole against the common enemy; and that it was not the law then past to “prevent the growth of popery,” nor any other law that the wit of man could frame, which would secure them from popery, while they continued divided among themselves; it being demonstrable, that, unless there be a firm friendship and confidence amongst the protestants of Ireland, it was impossible for them either to be happy, or to be safe. And he concluded with declaring to them the queen’s fixed resolution, that as her majesty would always maintain and support the church, as by law established, so it was her royal will and intention, that dissenters should not be persecuted or molested in the exercise of their religion. His lordship’s conduct was such, as lord lieutenant of Ireland, that the Irish House of Peers, in their address to the queen, returned their thanks to her majesty for sending a person of “so great wisdom and experience” to be their chief governor. His lordship returned thither on May 7. 1710, but in Oct. following, delivered up his commission of lord lieutenant, which was given to the duke of Ormond.

In 1692 he published, in 8vo, “A Defence of Pluralities,” in which the subject is handled with great ingenuity; and the same year was printed, in two volumes folio, his “Anglia Sacra, sive Collectio Historiarum, partim antiquitus, partim recenter, scriptarum, de Archiepiscopis &, Episcopis Anglise, a prima Fidei Christianas susceptione ad annum MDXL.” He has been generally commended for having done great service to the ecclesiastical history of this kingdom by this work yet bishop Burnet, in his “Reflections” on Atterbury’s book of “The Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of an English Convocation,” tells us, that “he had in his hands a whole treatise, which contained only the faults of ten leaves of one of the volumes of the ‘ Anglia Sacra.’ They are, indeed,” adds he, “so many, and so gross.^ that often the faults are as many as the lines: sometimes they are two for one.” This may be perhaps asserting too much, but unquestionably the errors in transcription, from haste, or from employing improper amanuenses, are so considerable as to render it necessary to peruse it with great caution, otherwise it is a truly valuable collection. There is a copy of it in the Bodleian? library, among Mr. Gough’s books, with an immense addition of ms notes by bishop Kennet. Jn 1693, Wharton published, in 4to, “Bedae Venerabilis Opera queedam Theologica, nunc primum edita; nee non Historica antea semel edita:” and the same year, under the name of Anthony Harmer, “A Specimen of some errors and defects in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England, written by Gilbert Burnet, D. D.” 8vo. In the answer to this, addressed by way of letter to Dr. Lloyd bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Dr. Burnet observes, that “he had not seen any one thing relating to his history which had pleased him so much as this specimen. It is plain,” says he, “that here is a writer, who has considered those times and that matter with much application; and that he is a master of this subject. He has the art of writing skilfully; and how much soever he may be wanting in a Christian temper, and in the decency that one who owns himself of our communion owed to the station I hold in it, yet in other respects he seems to be a very valuable man; so valuable, that I cannot, without a very sensible regret, see such parts and such industry like to be soured and spoiled with so ill a temper.” And afterwards, in his “Reflections’ 1 upon Atterbury’s book just mentioned, he speaks of the specimen in these words” Some years ago, a rude attack was made upon me under the disguised name of Anthony Harmer. His true name is well enough known, as also who was his patron: but I answered that specimen with the firmness that became me; and I charged the writer home to publish the rest of his “Reflections.” He had intimated, that he gave then but the sample, and that he had great store yet in reserve. I told him upon that, I would expect to see him make that good, and bring out all he had to say; otherwise, they must pass for slander and detraction. He did not think fit to write any more upon that, though he was as much solicited to it by some as he was provoked to it by myself.“In 1695 he published, in folio,” The History of the Troubles and Trials of Archbishop Laud;“the second part or volume of which was published after his death by his father, the Rev. Edmund Wharton, in 1700. This is one of the most useful collections of facts illustrative of the times in which Laud lived, that we are in possession of. He published also a new edition of Becatelli’s Life of Cardinal Pole, in Latin, with the confest between the ambassadors of England and France at the council of Constance. He published in 8vo,” Historia deEpiseopis & Decanis Londinensilxus, nee non de Episcopis & Decanis Assavensibus, a prima sedis utriusque fundatione ad annum MDXL.“Besides these works he left several pieces behind him, about which he had taken great pains: and two volumes of his” Sermons“have been printed in 8vo since his death. Among his Mss, are several English historians not yet published, which he had transcribed and collated with the originals, and prepared for the press; viz. 1.” Benedictus Abbas de Gestis Henrici secundi Regis Angliae, A. D. U70.“2.” Chronicon Nicolai Tribettt (vulgo de Trebeth) Dominicani, ab ann. 1136 ad ann, 1307.“3?” Chronicon Petri Ickham, Compilatio de Gestis Britonum & Anglorum.“4.” Stephani Birchington Monachi Cantuariensis Historia de regibus Angliae post conquestum.“5.” Liber nonus de miraculis Anglorum.“In some of these are contained vast collections out of the ancient and modem records relating to church affairs. Among his manuscripts was likewise” An Account of the Mss. in Lambeth Library“in which, besides giving a most exact catalogue of them, he had under every book transcribed all those treatises contained in them which were not yet published. Among the printed books, towards a new and more correct edition of which Wharton had considerably contributed, were the following: 1.” Historia Matt. Parkeri Archiepiscopi Cantuar. de antiquitate Britaonicae Ecclesiae,“&c. enlarged with notes, collections, and additions, partly made by Parker himself, and partly by others, and several by Wharton; together with the Life of the said Archbishop, as also that of St. Austin of Canterbury, written by George Acworth. 2.” Franciscus Godwinus de Praesulibus Angliae," with some notes. 3. Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthew of Westminster, both with many notes, corrections, and additions. He had likewise made notes on several of his own books already published by him; which it is probable were designed for additions to those books whenever they should receive a new impression. All these, which were purchased by archbishop Tenison, are now in the Lambeth Library.

"I should not presume to give your grace this trouble but that lately I met with an accident that gave me some disturbance. At Mr. Gery’s I chanced to see Mr, Wharton’s book (copy) of the Historia Literaria, wherein I found several notes blotted out, and two or three added, since I saw the book last, which was about a year before he died. The notes that he added are highly injurious to me, and afford one of the most unaccountable instances of unfair and disingenuous dealing that perhaps ever passed among men of letters. I hope therefore that your grace will not be offended if, in as few words as the thing is capable of, I set things in their true light.

But his character is drawn most at length by Tillotson in his funeral sermon. “I shall not,” says Tillotson, “insist upon his exemplary piety and devotion towards God, of which his whole life was one continued testimony. Nor will I praise his profound learning, for which he was justly had in so great reputation. The moral improvements of his mind, a god-like temper and disposition' (as he was wont to call it), he chiefly valued and aspired after; that universal charity and goodness, which he did continually preach and practise. His conversation was exceeding kind and affable, grave and winning, prudent and profitable. He was slow to declare his judgment, and modest in delivering it. Never passionate, never peremptory; so Car from imposing upon others, that he was rather apt to yield. And though he had a most profound and well-poised judgment, yet he was of all men I ever knew the most patient to hear others differ from him, and the most easy to be convinced, when good reason was offered; and, which is seldom seen, more apt to be favourable to another man’s reason than his own. Studious and inquisitive men commonly at such an age (at forty or fifty at the utmost) have fixed and settled their judgments in most points, and as it were made their last understanding; supposing that they have thought, or read, or heard what can be said on all sides of things; and after that they grow positive and impatient of contradiction, thinking it a disparagement to them to alter their judgment. But our deceased friend was so wise, as to be willing to learn to the last, knowing that no man can grow wiser without some change of his mind, without gaining some knowledge which he had not, or correcting some error which he had before. He had attained so perfect a mastery of his passions, that for the latter and greatest part of his life he was hardly ever seen to be transported with anger; and as he was extremely careful not to provoke any man, so not to be provoked by any, using to say `If I provoke a man, he is the worse for my company; and if I suffer myself to be provoked by hira, I shall be the worse for his.‘ He very seldom reproved any person in company otherwise than by silence, or some sign of uneasiness, or some very soft and gentle word; which yet from the respect men generally bore to him did often prove effectual. For he unr derstood human nature very well, and how to apply himself to it in the most easy and effectual ways. He was a great encourager and kind director of young divines, and one of the most candid hearers of sermons, I think, that ever was; so that though all men did mightily reverence his judgment, yet no man had reason to fear his censure. He never spake of himself, nor ill of others, making good that saying of Pansa in Tully, ’ Netninem alterius, qui suae confideret virtuti, invidere,' that no man is apt to envy the worth and virtues of another, that hath any of his own to trust to. In a word, he had all those virtues, and in a high degree, which an excellent temper, great condescension, long care and watchfulness over himself, together with the assistance of God’s grace (which he continually implored and mightily relied upon) are apt to produce. Particularly he excelled in the virtues of conversation, humanity, and gentleness, and humility, a prudent and peaceable and reconciling temper.” Tillotson likewise informs us that as he had a plentiful estate, so he was of a very charitable disposition; which yet was not so - well known to many, because in the disposal of his charity he very much affected secrecy. He frequently bestowed his alms on poor house-keepers, disabled by age or sickness to support themselves, thinking those to bethe most proper objects of it. He was rather frugal in expence upon himself, that so he might have wherewithal to relieve the necessities of others. And he was not only charitable in his life, but in a very bountiful manner at his death, bequeathing in pious and charitable legacies to the value of a thousand pounds: to the library of the university of Cambridge fifty pounds, and of King’s college one hundred pounds, and of Emanuel college twenty pounds; to which college he had been a considerable benefactor before, having founded three several scholarships there to the value of a thousand pounds, out of a chanty with the disposal whereof he was intrusted, and which not without great difficulty and pains he at last received. To the poor of the several places, where his estate lay, and where he had been minister, he gave above one hundre4 pounds. Among those, who had been his servants, or were so at his death, he disposed in annuities and legacies in money to tlje value of above three hundred pounds. To other charitable uses, and among his poor relations, above three hundred pounds. To every one of his tenants he left a legacy according to the proportion of the estate they held by way of remembrance of him; and to one of them, who was gone much behind, he remitted in his will seventy pounds. And as became his great goodness, he was ever a remarkably kind landlord, forgiving his tenants, and always making abatements to them for hard years or any other accidental losses that happened to them. He made likewise a wise provision in his will to prevent lawsuits among the legatees, by appointing two or three persons of the greatest prudence and authority among his relations final arbitrators of all differences that should arise.

In 1773 we find Mr. Whi taker the morning preacher of Berkeley chapel, London; to which office he had been appointed in November, by a Mr. Hughes; but in less than two months he was removed from that situation. This gave occasion to “The Case between Mr. W. and Mr. Hughes, relative to the Morning Preachership of Berkeley Chapel;” in which Mr. W. declares himself “unalterably determined to carry the matter into Westminster-hall.” But the fervour of his resentment threw him off his guard; and he expressed himself so indiscreetly, that his Case was considered as a libel by the Court of King’s Bench. During his residence in London, he had an opportunity of conversing with several of our most celebrated writers; among whom were Dr. Johnson, and Gibbon, the historian of the Roman Empire. It does not appear, indeed, that Johnson was much attached to Whitaker. Both strong in understanding, equally tenacious of opinion, and equally impassioned in conversation, it is not probable that they should amicably coalesce on all occasions. In the Ossianic controversy they were decidedly hostile. With Gibbon Mr.Whitaker was well acquainted; and the ms. of the first volume of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” was sub r rnitted to his inspection. But he was greatly surprised when, as he read the same volume in print, that chapter which has been so obnoxious to the Christian world, was then first introduced to his notice! That chapter Gibbon had suppressed in tjie ms. overawed by Mr. Whitaker’s high character, and afraid of his censure. And, in fact, that the deist should have shrunk from his indignant eye, may well be conceived, when we see his Christian principle and his manly spirit in the rejection of a living of considerable value, which was at this time offered him by an Unitarian patron. Of his integrity, however, some recompense was now at hand: and about 1778, he succeeded as fellow of Corpus Christi college, to the rectory of RuanLanyhorne, one of the most valuable livings in the gift of that College; and into Cornwall he went, to reside upon his rectory. There, it might have been expected that retirement and leisure would greatly favour the pursuits of literature; and that, though “the converser” (to use an expression of Mr. Whitaker’s) had disappeared, the author would break forth with new energies. But Ruan-Lany-r home was, for several years, no tranquil seat of the muses. That pleasant seclusion was now the scene of unavoidable contest. Mr. W. had proposed a tithe-composition with his par shiontTs, by no means unreasonable. This they refused to pay: but he was steady to his purpose. A rupture ensued between the parties; the tithes were demanded in kind; disputes arose upon disputes; animosities were kindled; and litigations took place. That Mr. Whitaker was finally victorious, afforded pleasure to the friends of the rector, and to the friends of justice and truth; yet it was long before harmony was restored to Ruan-Lanyhorne. That his literary schemes had been so sadly interrupted, was the subject of general regret. But the conscientious pastor looked with a deeper concern to the spiritual welfare of his parishioners. He saw with sorrow their aversion to his preaching; their indifference to his instructions; their repugnance“to his authority; and” he laboured more abundantly;“till, after a few years, he had the satisfaction to perceive a visible alteration in the behaviour of the principal parishioners; and a mutual good understanding was established between the pastor and his flock. His cordial, his familiar manner, indeed, was always pleasing to those whom prejudice had not armed against him; and, in proportion as they became acquainted with his kind disposition, the transitoriness of his resentments, and, after injuries, his promptness to forgive, and anxious wish to be forgiven; they endeavoured more and more to cultivate his friendship, and at length loved and revered him as their father. Kothing can more fully display the warmth of his affections, his zeal as a minister of Christ, or his impassioned style of eloquence, than those” Sermons“upon death, judgment, heaven, and hell, which he published in 1783, after having preached them to his parishioners, we doubt not, with a voice and manner calculated to penetrate the conscience. That he should have published so little in the line of his profession, is perhaps to be regretted. His” Origin of Arianism,“however, is a large volume, full of erudition and ingenious argumentation. We have read no other work of Mr. W. in divinity, except” The Real Origin of Government“(expanded into a v considerable treatise, from a sermon which he had preached before bishop Buller, at his lordship’s primary visitation), and” The Introduction to FlindelPs Bible.“This has been much admired as a masterly piece of eloquence. In the mean time the antiquary was not at rest. His” Mary, queen of Scots,“published in 1787, in three octavo volumes; his” Course of Hannibal over the Alps“his” Ancient Cathedral of Cornwall;“and his” Supplement to Polwhele’s Antiquities of Cornwall;“furnish good evidence of an imagination continually occupied in pursuits which kindled up its brightest flame; though not always of that judgment, discretion, or candour, which (if human characters had been ever perfect) we should have expected from a Whitaker. But not even here were his antiquarian stores exhausted.” The Life of St Neot,“”The History of Oxford,“and” The History of London," were works all at once projected, and no sooner projected than executed in imagination, and more than half executed in reality.

, one of the most eminent divines of the sixteenth century, was born at Holme, in the parish of Burnley in Lancashire, in 1547, and was the descendant of an ancient family. His mother was Elizabeth Nowell, sister to the celebrated Dean of St. Paul’s, who married Thomas Whitaker, gentleman, in 1530, and sur* vived her marriage the wonderful period of seventy-six years. He acquired the elements of grammar at Burnley, where Mr. William Hargrave was at that time master, to whom in his declining years he was a kind benefactor. He was sent for, in his thirteenth year, by Dean Nowell, who maintained him in his own house, and placed him at St. Paul’s school, where he made snch rapid and satisfactory progress that, at the age of eighteen, his pious kinsman sent him to Trinity college, Cambridge, under the tuition of Mr. afterwards Dr. Robert West. His progress here being equally admired, he was first chosen scholar and then fellow. He soon procured high esteem and great fame by his learned disputations and other exercises, which afforded a proof both of his talents and application. It was his practice, and that of several other eminent persons of his time, to stand while employed in study. In 1569 he published the Prayers of the Church of England in Greek, a small volume printed by Reynold Wolf; a circumstance which requires to be mentioned, because most of his biographers assert that he was first known by his translation of Nowell’s catechism; but that translation was not printed till 1573, four years after this version of the Prayers. He had about this time suffered long and severely by a quartan ague; and as he could not live without some literary employment, he made choice of this. The book contains the morning and evening prayers, the litany, the catechism, the collects, and, to fill a vacant page or two, the prayer after receiving the holy communion, accompanied with the Latin version, (the work, as is supposed, of Walter Haddon,) which had been published by the queen’s authority a fewyears before. It is dedicated, in a prefatory address in Latin, to his uncle and patron, the dean of St. Paul’s; from whom he had received, from his childhood, innumerable favours; to whom therefore, he says, of right belonged whatsoever he could perform; and he intreats him to protect his labours, and expresses a hope, that, if he is indulgent in this his first attempt, he may one day produce something not unworthy of his acceptance. The translation achieved under such circumstances, when the author, a bachelor of arts, had barely entered his twenty- first year, must have raised great hopes, which his future progress and celebrity did not disappoint.

The production with which, in Mr. Mason’s opinion, he commenced a poet, was his epistle “On the Danger of Writing in Verse.” This, we are told, obtained general admiration, and was highly approved by Pope. But that it is “one of the most happy imitations extant of Pope’s preceptive manner,” is a praise which seems to come from Mr. Mason’s friendship, rather than his judgment. The subject is but slightly touched, and the sentiments are often obscure. The finest passage, and happiest imitation of Pope, is that in which he condemns the licentiousness of certain poets. The tale of “Atys and Adrastus,” his next publication, is altogether superior to the former. It is elegant, pathetic, and enriched with some beautiful imagery. “The Epistle of Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII.” which followed, will not be thought to rank very high among productions of this kind. “The truth is,” says Mr. Mason, “Mr. Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard is such a chef (TceuvrC) that nothing of the kind can be relished after it.” Our critic has, however, done no credit to Whitehead by this insinuation of rivalship, and yet less to himself by following it with a petulant attack on Dr. Johnson. In his eagerness to injure the reputation of a man so much his superior, and with whom, it is said, he never exchanged an angry word, he would exclude sympathy from the charms which attract in the Eloisa, and, at the expence of taste and feeling, passes a clumsy sarcasm on papistical machinery.

, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of queen Elizabeth and king James, and one of the most intrepid supporters of the constitution of the church, of England, was descended of the ancient family of Whitgift in Yorkshire. His grandfather was John Whitgift, gent, whose son was Henry, a merchant of Great Grimsby in Lincolnshire. Another of his sons was Robert Whitgi ft, who was abbot de Wellow or Welhove juxta Grimsby in the said county, a monastery of Black Canons dedicated to the honour of St. Augustin. He was a man memorable, not only for the education of our John Whitgift, but also for his saying concerning the Romish religion. He declared in the hearing of his nephew, that “they and their religion could not long continue, because,” said he, “I have read the whole Scripture over and over, and could never find therein that our religion was founded by God.” And as a proof of this opinion, the abbot alleged that saying of our Saviour, “Every plant that my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Henry, the father of our archbishop, had six sons, of whom he was the eldest, and one daughter, by Anne Dy newel, a young gentlewoman of a good family at Great Grimsby. The names of the other five sons were William, George, Philip, Richard, and Jeffrey; and that of the daughter Anne.

, the puritan dean of Durham, the son of William Whittingham, esq. by a daughter of Haughton, of Haughton Tower, was born in the city of Chester, in 1524. In his sixteenth year he became a commoner of Brasenose college, Oxford, where he made great proficiency in literature. After taking his degree of bachelor of arts, he was elected fellow of All Souls in 1545, and two years afterwards was made one of the seniors of Christ-church, on the foundation oi Henry VIII. In May 1550, having obtained leave to travel for three yearsj he passed his time principally at Orleans, where he married the sister of Calvin. He returned to England in the latter end of the reign of Edward VI. but, as he was a staunch adherent to the doctrines of the reformation, he found it necessary to leave home, when queen Mary came to the throne, and joined the exiles at Francfort. Here he became one of those who took part against the ceremonies of the Church of England being observed among the exiles, and afterwards became a member of the Church of Geneva. On the Scotch reformer, Knox, leaving that society to return to his own country, Whittingham was prevailed upon by Calvin to take orders in the Geneva form, and was Knox’s successor. While here, he undertook, along with other learned men of the same society, an English translation of the Bible, which was not completed when those employed upon it had an opportunity to return to England, on the accession of queen Elizabeth. Whittingham, however, remained at Geneva to finish the work, during which time he translated into metre five of the Psalms, inscribed W. W. of which the 119th was one, together with the ten commandments, and a prayer, all which make part of the collection known by the names of Sternhold and Hopkins. Soon after his return to England, he was employed to accompany Francis, earl of Bedford, on his embassy of condolence for the death of the French king, in 1560. And he attended Ambrose, earl of Warwick, to Havre de Grace, to be preacher there, while the earl defended it against the French; and Wood says, he preached nonconformity in this place. Warwick appears to have had a very high opinion of him, and it was by his interest that Whittingham was promoted to the deanery of Durham in 1563, which he enjoyed for sixteen' years. During this time he was one of the most zealous opponents of the habits and ceremonies, and so outrageous in his zeal against popery, as to destroy some of the antiquities and monuments in Durham cathedral, and even took up the stone coffins of the priors of Durham, and ordered them to be used as troughs for horses to drink in.

In the beginning of 1782, not succeeding in practice at Darlington, Dr. Willan determined to return to London, where the Public Dispensary, in Carey-street, being opened in the commencement of 1783, chiefly accomplished by the exertions of some of his friends, he was appointed sole physician to it; and under his humane and active superintendence, together with that of his able and benevolent colleague, Mr. John Pearson, the surgeon to the institution, the new Dispensary speedily flourished, and became one of the most extensive and respectable establishments of its kind in London. In March 1785, having passed his examinations before the College of Physicians with great credit, he was admitted a licentiate of that body; on which occasion he addressed some congratulatory Greek verses to the board of censors.

Bishop Wilson’s life was an uniform display of the most genuine and active benevolence. Considering himself as the steward, not the proprietor, of the revenues of the bishopric, he devoted his income to what he esteemed its proper use. The annual receipts of the bishopric, as we have just mentioned, did not exceed 300l. in money; some necessaries in his house were of course to be paid for in money; distressed or shipwrecked mariners, and some other poor objects, it was also requisite to relieve with money; but the poor of the island were fed and clothed, and the house in general supplied from his demesnes by exchange, without money. The poor who could spin or weave, found the best market at Bishop’s-court, where they bartered the produce of their labour for corn. Taylors an'd shoemakers were kept in the house constantly employed, to make into garments or shoes that cloth or leather which his corn had purchased; and the aged and the infirm were supplied according to their several wants. At the same time he kept an open hospitable table, covered with the produce of his own demesnes, at which he presided with equal affability and decorum. His manners, though always consistently adorned with Christian gravity, were ever gentle and polite; and in his conversation he was one of the most entertaining and agreeable, as well as instructive of men. With these qualities of the gentleman, the bishop united the accomplishments and virtues of the scholar and the divine. He was well skilled in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages; and there was hardly any part of science that could be serviceable in his diocese which he did not understand. In his younger days he had a poetical turn, but afterwards laid aside such amusements, as thinking them inconsistent with his episcopal character. During the fiftyeight years that he held the bishopric, he never failed, unless on occasions of sickness, to expound the scripture, to preach, or to administer the sacrament, every Sunday, at one or other of the churches in his diocese, and, if absent from the island, he always preached at the church where he resided for the day. He alternately visited the different parishes of his diocese on Sundays (which the dimensions of the island will permit in a carriage) without giving them notice, and, after doing the duty of the day, returned home to dinner. His family prayers were as regular as his public duties. Every summer morning at six, and every winter morning at seven o'clock, his whole household attended him in his chapel, where he himself, or one of those divinity-students whom he maintained in his house, performed the service of the day; and in the evening they did the same. Thus it was that he formed his young clergy for the pulpit, and for a graceful delivery. He was so great a friend to toleration, that the papists who resided in the island, loved and esteemed him, and not unfrequently attended his ministrations. Dissenters likewise even attended the communion-service, as he admitted them to receive the sacrament, either standing or sitting, at their own option, so that there was neither schism nor separate- congregation in his diocese. The few quakers also, who were resident on the island, visited and respected him. Many other amiable, and some singular traits of the character of this excellent prelate may be seen in the work from which the above particulars are taken.

, an eminent divine in Scotland and America, and a lineal descendant from Knox the celebrated Scotch reformer, was born Feb. 5, 1722, at Yester near Edinburgh, of which parish his father was minister. After some previous education at the public school at Haddingtonj he was, at the age of fourteen, sent to the university of Edinburgh, and having gone through the usual course of academical studies, was licensed to preach, and soon after was ordained minister of the parish of Beith, in the west of Scotland, whence, in a few years, he was removed to be minister at the large and flourishing town of Paisley. During his residence here he was much admired for his general learning, his abilities in the pulpit, and for his writings, one of which, his “Ecclesiastical Characteristics,” is perhaps one of the most humorous satires ever written on a subject which apparently did not admit of that mode of treatment. No satire in our time was read with more approbation and interest than Witherspoon’s a Characteristics“for many years in Scotland. It is levelled at the party in the general assembly of Scotland, who were called the moderate men, in contradistinction to those called the orthodox, of who adhered strictly to the doctrines contained in their national” Confession or Faith.“From this publication, and from his speeches in the general assembly, Witherspoon acquired much influence, but he had to contend with almost all the literary force of the assembly, the Blairs, Gerards, Campbells, and Robertsons, who were considered as the leaders of the moderate party. One day, after carrying some important questions against Dr. Robertson, the latter said in his pleasant manner,” I think you have your men better disciplined than formerly.“”Yes,“replied Witherspoon,” by urging your politics too far, you have compelled us to beat you with your own weapons."

Brucker says, that Wolfe “possessed a clear and methodical understanding, which by long exercise in mathematical investigations was particularly fitted for the employment of digesting the several branches of knowledge into regular systems; and his fertile powers of invention enabled him to enrich almost every field of science, in which he laboured, with some valuable additions. The lucid order which appears in all his writings enables his reader to follow his conceptions, with ease and certainty, through the longest trains of reasoning. But the close connection of the several parts of his works, together with the vast variety and extent of the subjects on which he treats, renders it impracticable to give a summary of his doctrines.” A French critic remarks that all the German works of this author are “extremely well written, and he has also been very happy in finding words, in that language, answering to the Latin philosophical terms which had till then been adopted; and as this renders a small dictionary necessary for understanding his phrases, he has placed one at the end of such books as require it. As to his Latin works, they are very ill written; his words are ill chosen, and frequently used in a wrong sense; his phrases too perplexed and obscure, and his style in general too diffuse.” An abridgment of his great Latin work, “On the Law of Nature and Nations,” has been published in French, three small vols. 12mo, by Formey; to which is prefixed, a life of Wolfe, and a chronological list of all his writings. He was, doubtless, one of the most learned philosophers and mathematicians Germany has produced; but his eulogy seems to us to be carried too far, when he is compared to Descartes and Leibnitz for his genius and writings, in both which he was certainly much inferior to them.

, one of the most eminent of modern engravers in England, was born at Maidstone, in Kent, Aug. 27, 1735. Of his early history few particulars have been preserved, and those mostly traditionary. His father was a thread-maker, and long time a foreman to Mr. Robert Pope. The family is said to have come originally from Holland; and there is a tradition that Woollett’s great grandfather escaped from the battle fought by the parliamentary forces against the royalists near Maidstone. Our artist was educated at Maidstone under Mr. Simon Goodwin, who used to notice his graphic talents. Once having taken on a slate the likeness of a schoolfellow named Burtenshaw, who had a prominent nose, his master desired him to finish it on paper, and preserved the drawing. He was also in the habit of drawing the likenesses of his father’s acquaintances. His earliest production on copper was a portrait of a Mr. Scott, of Maidstone, with a pipe in his mouth. These are perhaps trifles, but they compose all that is now remembered of Woollett’s younger days. His first attempts having been seen by Mr. Tinney, an engraver, he took him as an apprentice at the same time with Mr. Anthony Walker and Mr. Brown. His rise in his profession was rapid, and much distinguished, for he brought the art of landscape engraving to great perfection. With respect to the grand and sublime, says Strutt, “if 1 may be allowed the term in landscapes, the whole world cannot produce his equal.” Woollett, however, did not confine himself to landscapes, he engraved historical subjects and portraits with the greatest success. The world has done ample justice to his memory, and the highest prices still continue to be given for good impressions of all his prints, but particularly of his “Niobe” and its companion “Phaeton,? ' his” Celadon and Amelia,“and” Ceyx and Alcyone;“and” The Fishery,“all from Wilson, whose peculiar happiness it was that his best pictures were put into the hands of Woollett, who so perfectly well understood and expressed the very spirit of his ideas upon thecopper. To these we may add the portrait of Rubens, from Vandyke, and, what are in every collection of taste, his justly celebrated prints from the venerable president of the academy,” The Death of General Wolfe,“and The Battle of the Boyne.”

, of Barwell, Leicestershire, barrister at law, was elected recorder of Leicester in 1680; called by Writ, April 11, 1692, to take the degree of serjeant at law; knighted Dec. 30, 1696, and made king’s serjeant. On the refusal of the lords chief justices Holt and Treby, and Trevor the attorney-general, to accept the great seal, which was taken from lord Somers, it was delivered to sir Nathan, with the title of lord-keeper, May 21, 1700. As he was raised to this situation by the tories, so he seems to have acted in conformity to the views of that party. Burnet says, that many gentlemen of good estates and ancient families were put out of the commission of the peace by him, for no other visible reason but because they had gone in heartily to the revolution, and had continued zealous for king William; and, at the same time, men of no worth nor estate, and known to be ill-affected to queen Anne’s title, and to the protestant succession, were put in. He adds, that the lord-keeper was a “zealot to the party, and was become very exceptionable in all respects. Money, as was said, did every thing with him; only in his court, I never heard him charged for any thing but great slowness, by which the chancery was become one of the heaviest grievances of the nation.” The same author likewise says, that the lord-keeper “was sordidly covetous; and did not at all live suitable to that high post: he became extremely rich, yet I never heard him charged with bribery in his court.” One of the most remarkable events that happened while he was in office, was his sentence for dissolving the Savoy, July 13, 1702; and in the same year, Nov. 30, he reversed a decree of his great predecessor, lord Somers. Sir Nathan’s removal, however, which happened in May 1705, is said to have “been a great loss to the church.” He passed the remainder of his days in retirement, beloved and respected, at Chaldecot-Hall, in Warwicksbire,"wbere he died Aug. 4, 1721.

, an English comic poet, eldest son of Daniel Wycherley, of Cleve, in Shropshire, esq. was born about 1640. At fifteen years. of age he was sent to France, in the western parts of which he resided, upon the banks of the Charante, where he was often admitted to the conversation of one of the most accomplished ladies of the court of France, madame de Montausier, celebrated by Voiture in his “Letters.” A little before the restoration of Charles II. he became a gentleman-commoner of Queen’s-college in Oxford, where he lived in the provost’s lodge, and was entered in the public library, under the title of “Philosophic Studiosus,” in July 1660. He left the university without being matriculated, or any degree conferred on him; having, according to Wood, been by Dr. Barlow, reconciled to the Protestant Religion, which he bad a little before deserted in his travels. He afterwards entered himself of the Middle Temple; but, making his first appearance in town in a reign when wit and gaiety were the favourite distinctions, he soon quitted the dry study of the law, and pursued things more agreeable to his own genius, as well as to the taste of the age. As nothing was likely to succeed better than dramatic performances, especially comedies, he applied himself to the writing of these and in about the space of ten years published four: “Love in a Wood, or St. James’s Park,” in 1672; “The Gentleman-Dancing-Master,” 1673; “Plain Dealer,” in 1678; and “Country-Wife,” in 1683. These were collected and printed together in 1712, 8vo.

Earl Rivers was at this time (1483) in the forty-first year of his age. He was without dispute one of the most accomplished noblemen of his time. Sir Thomas More asserts that “Vir haud facile discernas, manuve aut consilio promptior,” equally able to advise, and to execute in affairs of state. Lord Orford observes, that “the credit of his sister (the queen), the countenance and example of his prince, the boisterousness of the times, nothing softened, nothing roughened the mind of this amiable lord, who was as gallant as his luxurious brother-in-law, without his weaknesses; as brave as the heroes of either Rose, without their savageness; studious in the intervals of business, and devout after the manner of those whimsical times, when men challenged -others whom they never saw, and went barefoot to visit shrines, in countries of which they scarce had a map.”

, one of the most celebrated philosophers of ancient Greece, was born at Chalcedon, B. C. 400. He at first attached himself to Æschines, but afterwards became the disciple of Plato, and always retained a high degree of respect and attachment for that great man, whom he accompanied in a voyage to Sicily. When Dionysius the tyrant threatened Plato one day, saying, “that some person should behead him;” “Nobody shall do that,” said Xenocrates, “till they have first beheaded me.” This philosopher studied under Plato at the same time with Aristotle, but did not possess equal talents: for he had a slow genius and dull apprehension, while Aristotle’s genius was quick and penetrating, whence their master observed of them, “that one wanted a spur, and the other a bridle.” But however inferior Xenocrates might be to Aristotle in genius, he greatly excelled him in the practice of moral philosophy. He was grave, sober, austere, and of a disposition so serious, and so far removed from the Athenian politeness, that Plato frequently exhorted him to “sacrifice to the graces.” He always bore his master’s reproofs with great patience, and when persuaded to defend himself, replied, “He treats me thus only for my good.” Xenocrates is particularly celebrated for chastity, and is said to have acquired so great a command over his passions, that Phryne, the most beautiful courtezan of Greece, who had laid a wager that she would seduce him, could not effect her purpose. Being afterwards laughed at, and the wager demanded, she replied, “I have not lost it; for I undertook to seduce a man, and not a statue.” The conduct of Xenocrates exhibited an equal example of temperance in every other respect. He cared neither for pleasures, wealth, or fame; and was so moderate in his dietj that he often found it necessary to throw away his provisions because they were grown stale and mouldy; whence the proverb among the Grecians, of Xenocrates* s cheese, when they would describe any thing which lasted a long time. This philosopher succeeded Speusippus, who was Plato’s immediate successor in the' academy at Athens, in 339 B. C. He required his disciples to understand mathematics before they placed themselves under his care; and sent back a youth who was ignorant of that science, saying, “that he had not the key of philosophy.” So great was his reputation fqr sincerity and probity, that the magistrates accepted his testimony without an oath; a favour granted to him alone. Polemo, a rich young man, but so debauched, that his wife had begun a prosecution against him for his infamoqs conduct, rambling through the streets, one day, with his dissolute companions, after they had drank freely, entered our philosopher’s school, with an intention to ridicule and insult him. The audience were highly offended at this behaviour; but Xenocrates Continued perfectly calm, and immediately turning his discourse upon temperance, spoke of that virtue in terms so forcible, lofty, and elevated, that the young libertine made a sudden resolution to renounce his licentiousness, and devote himself to wisdom. From that moment, Polemo became the pupil of virtue, and a model of temperance, and at length succeeded Xenocrates in the philosophical chair. Hia conversion made much noise, and so increased the public veneration for Xenocrates, that when he appeared in the streets, no dissolute youths dared to remain there, but turned aside that they might avoid meeting him. The Athenians sent this philosopher on an embassy to Philip, king of Macedon, and, a considerable time after, to Antipater; neither of whom could corrupt him by their presents, which circumstance made him doubly honoured. Alexander the Great so highly esteemed Xenocrates, that he sent him fifty talents, a large sum then; and when his messengers arrived at Athens, Xenocrates invited them to eat with him, but gaVe them only his common farel Upon their inquiring, next morning, to whom they should pay the fifty talents, he replied, “Has not lak night’s supper convinced you that I want no money?” intimating that he was contented with a little, and that money was necessary to kings, not to philosophers. But at the earnest entreaties of Alexander’s messengers, he accepted a small part of the sum, lest he should appear deficient in respect to that great monarch. It is astonishing that ‘the Athenians should suffer a philosopher of such exalted merit to be so ill treated by the collectors and receivers of their taxes 5 for though they were once fined for attempting to imprison Xenocrates, because he had not paid a certain tax imposed on foreigners, yet it is certain that the same collectors and receivers sold him at another time, because he had not enough to pay them. But Demetrius Phalereus, detesting so base an action; purchased Xenocrates’, gave hirri his freedom immediately, and discharged his debt to the Athenians. This philosopher died about 314 B.C. aged eighty-two, in consequence ’of falling in the dark into a reservoir of water. He 1 wrote, at the request of Alexander, *a small tract on the Art of Reigning; six books on Nature; MX books oh Philosophy one on Riches, &c, but none of these have come down to us. There is a tract on Death, under his name, in 'the Jamblicus of Aldus, 1497, folio. Xenocrates used to say, “That we often repent of having spoken, b,ut never of having kept silence; that true philosophers are the only persons who do willingly, and by their own choice, what others are constrained to do by fear of the laws; that it is as great a crime to look into our neighbour’s house as to enter it privately J that there was more necessity for putting iron-plates over the ears of children, to defend and preserve them from hearing vicious discourse, than of gladiators, to guard them from blows,” c. As to his philosophical system, it was truly Platonic; but in his’ method of teaching he made use of the language of the Pythagoreans. He made Unity and Diversity principles in nature, or gods; the former of whom he represented as the father, and the latter as the mother, of the universe. He taught, that the heavens are divine, and the stars celestial gods; and that besides these divinities, there are terrestrial daemons, of a middle order between the gods and man, which partake of the nature both of mind and body, and are therefore, like human beings, capable of passions, and liable to diversity of character. After Plato, he probably conceived the superior divinities to be the Ideas, or intelligible forms, which immediately proceeded from the supreme Deity, and the inferior gods or daemons, to be derived from the soul of the world, and therefore, like that principle, to be compounded of a simple and a divisible substance, or of that which always remains the same, and that which is liable to change.

Xenophon strictly adhered to the principles of his master in action as well as opinion, and employed philosophy, not to furnish with the means of ostentation, but to qualify him for the offices of public and private life; and his integrity, piety, and moderation, proved how much he had profited by the precepU of his master. His whole military conduct discovered an admirable union of wisdom and valour; and his writings, at the same time that they have afforded, to all succeeding ages, one of the most perfect models of purity, simplicity, and harmony of language, abound with sentiments truly Socratic. Of all the disciples of Socrates, he is said, by a recent critic, to be the only one who had the good faith and good sense to report his master’s opinions accurately without addition or disguise. When he teaches, Xenophon is the most delightful of instructors; when he narrates, the most fascinating of all narrators. When he invents, he seasons his fictions with so much of his great master’s genuine philosophy, and so much of his own exquisite taste, that it becomes impossible to decide, whether they are more instructive or more delightful when he speculates as a politician, it is with a good sense and sagacity, which soar above the prejudices of his fellow citizens, and distinguish with correctness, the institutions which lead to virtue and happiness, from those which allow and encourage depravity. The most imperfect of his works, the “Hellenica,” has yet many of the merits peculiar to the writer, and is, at the present day, an invaluable treasure.

, usually mentioned with the epithet Ephesius, from the place of his birth, to distinguish him from the above Xenophon Socraticus, is the author of five books “Of the loves of Habrocomes and Anthia,” which are entitled “Ephesiaca,” although they have no more to do with the town of Ephesus than the “Ethiopics of Heliodorus,” which is a love-romance also, have with the affairs of Ethiopia. His late editor thinks that Xenophon lived about the end of the second, or the beginning of the third century of the Christian jera. It is at least very probable that he is one of the most ancient of the Authores Erotici, from the purity and simplicity of his style, in which there is little of those affected ornaments so common in writers of a later period. The only Mss. in which the history of Habrocomes and Anthia has been transmitted to posterity, is preserved in the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, at Florence, and is written in so small a character, that the whole work is comprised in no more than nine leaves, 4to. The first person who copied it was Salvini, who likewise, in 1723, translated this romance into the Italian language. Of the Greek text itself, the first edition was prepared by the celebrated physician Anthony Cocchi, and published at London in 1726, 4to, although his late editor baron Locellst asserts that London was put in the title instead of Florence. But the fact was that it was printed at London by Bowyer, as is proved in Mr. Nichols’s life of that celebrated printer. Two other editions, of 1781 and 1793, have likewise appeared, but they are all incorrect. At length in 1796 the work was rendered not unworthy of the classical scholar, by baron Locella, a gentleman, not a philologist by profession, but a man of business, who dedicated the leisure of his declining years to the Greek muses. His edition, which was elegantly printed at Vienna, 4to, is entided, “Xenophontis Ephesii de Anthia et Habrooome Ephesiacorum libri quinque, Gr. et Lat. Recensuit et supplevit, emendavit, Latine vertit, ad notationibus aliorum et suis illustravit, indicibus instruxit Aloys. Emerie. Liber Baro Locella, S. C. R. A. M. a cons, aulae.”

, a relation of the Hardwicke family, and known also in the literary world, was the son of Simon Yorke, esq. of Erthig in Denbighshire, who died in 1767, leaving the subject of the present memoir, who was born in 1743, and admitted fellow-commoner of Bene‘t college, Cambridge. 1765; created M. A. by mandamus 1765; elected F. A. S. 1768; married Elizabeth youngest daughter of the speaker of the House of Commons, sir John Cust, by whom he had a son in 1771, afterwards M. P. for Grantham, and a daughter in 1772. She died 1779; and he took to his second wife, 1782, the relict of Owen Meyrick, esq. of Dyffrynaled, co. Denbigh. Mr. Yorke died Feb. 19, 1804. He was a gentleman of superior endowments and the most benevolent disposition. His hospitality, friendship, and charity, made the ample fortune he inherited a common benefit; whilst the peculiar mildness and suavity of his manners endeared him to lire’ relatives, and to every one who had the honour of his acquaintance. He loved his country, and the constitution of its government, from conviction of their excellence; and what he loved he was always ready to support, both in his public and private capacity, although constitutional diffidence would not allow him to speak ift the House of Commons, where he sat as burgess for Helstone and Grantham. But Mr. Yorke had a cultivated as well as benevolent mind, being well versed in most branches of polite literature; which an accurate and retentive memory enabled him to apply with great advantage. Of late years he turned his attention a good deal to Welsh history and genealogy, in which, from the specimens given in his “Royal Tribes of Wales, 1799,” 4to, he appears to have made great progress. This study, rather dry in itself, was, in his hands, enlivened by a variety of authentic and entertaining anecdotes, many of which had escaped preceding historians, as well as genealogical discussions; and his book was adorned with portraits of eminent persons of Wales, well engraved by the late Mr. Bond. He had collected materials for a longer work of the same kind, which has not yet appeared. His taste for natural beauties was very correct, of which the pleasure-grounds of Erthig are a decided proof. Of a character so respectable and amiable throughout, one of the most distinguishing traits was his talent for conversation. Whatever he advanced arose naturally from the occasion; and was expressed in such a happy manner and choice of words, as made him the very life and delight of society.

, one of the most learned men of the sixteenth century, was a native of Bergamo. His real name was Peter, which he exchanged for Basil, when he became a canon regular. He was born in 1501. He appears to have studied at Rome and various other places, but resided for the greater part of his life at Rome, where he was highly honoured for his literary talents, and, as some say (but this is disputed), was made keeper of the Vatican library. He died there, however, in 1560. Paul Manutius, in a letter to Gambara, the intimate friend of Zanchius, says that he was oppressed and persecuted in a very cruel manner, and ended his days miserably, in consequence of a decree of the pope against those who did not reside in their convents, but some have conjectured that he might have probably become a convert to the reformed religion, like his cousin Jerome, of whom we are nxt to speak. It seems certain, however, that he died in prison, and that he was worthy of a better fate, being one of the most learned men, and best Latin poets of his age. His beautiful verses on the death of Sannazarius were translated into Italian by the great Torquato Tasso. His Latin poems were first printed at Rome in 1540, 4to, and were often reprinted. Serassi gave a new edition of them at Bergamo m 1747, with a life of the author. He wrote also observations on all the books of scripture, printed at Rome 1553, and twice reprinted. He is ranked among lexicographers, from having contributed to Nizolius’s observations on Cicero, and from having added a great collection of words to Calepin, from the best and purest authors. He published also “Epithetorum commentarii,” Rome, 1542, 4to, a work better known by the title of the second edition, “Dictionarium poedcum et epitheta veterum poetarum,” &c. 1612, 8vo.

He had not been long settled in the Palatinate, when the elector strongly solicited him to take up his pen against the Socinians, who had fixed their bead quarters in Poland and Transylvania, and were displaying every artifice to propagate their opinions. This produced Zanchius’ s two masterly treatises “De Dei natura,” and “De tribus Elohim uno eodemque Jehovah.” After this he retained his professorship at Heidelberg ten years, until the death of thqi elector, and the accession of a successor of different principles, who obliged him to remove to Newstadt, the residence of prince John Casimir, count Palatine. Here he remained upwards of seven years, ana when excused^ an account of his age and infirmities from public services, he removed once more to Heidelberg, where he died Nov. 1&, 1590, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, and was interred in the college chapel of St. Peter. Zanchius, while one of the most learned of the reformers, was also one of the most pious, and distinguished for great moderation in controversy, united with sufficient firmness in maintaining what he considered to be the truth. His works were printed at Geneva in 1619, 9 vols. folio, usually bound in three.

, a learned poet, critic, and antiquary, was born in 1669, and descended from <an illustrious Venetian family, which had been long settled in the island of Candia. He early applied himself to literature, and the study of Italian history and antiquities. In 1696 he instituted at Venice the academy Degli Animosi, and was the editor of the “Giornale de‘ Letterati d’ltalia,” of which he published thirty volumes between the years 1710 and 1719. His first musical drama, “L'Inganni Felici,” was performed at Venice in 1695, and between that time and his quitting Vienna, whither he was invited by the emperor Charles VI. in 1718, he produced forty-six operas, and seventeen oratorios, besides eighteen dramas, which he wrote jointly with Pariati. His dramatic works were collected and published at Venice in 1744, in 10 vols. 8vo, by count Gozzi; and in 1752 his letters were printed in 3 vols. by Forcellini, in which Dr. Burney, whom we principally follow in. this article, says, much sound learning and criticism are manifested on various subjects. But one of the most useful of his critical labours seems to have been his commentary on the “Bibl. dell' Eloquenza Italiana di Foutanini,” which was published in 1753, with a preface by his friend Forcellini, chiefly dictated, however, by Zeno himself, just before his death. After he was engaged as imperial laureat, he set out from Venice for Vienna in July 1718, but having been overturned in a chaise, the fourth day of his journey, he had the misfortune to break his leg, and was confined at an inn in the little town of Ponticaba, nearTrevisa, till September. He arrived at Vienna, the 14th of that month, “safe,” as he says, “if not sound and cured,” after twelve days of excessive suffering on the road. Most of the dramas, sacred and secular, which he wrote for the imperial court, were set by Caldara, a grave composer and sound harmonist, to whose style Zeno seems to have been partial. But thii excellent antiquary and critic seems never to have been satisfied with his own poetical abilities. So early as 1722, in writing to his brother from Vienna, he says, “I find more and more every day, that I grow old, not only in body, but in mind; and that the business of writing verses is no longer a fit employment for me.” And afterwards he expressed a wish that he might be allowed a partner in his labours, and was so just and liberal as to mention the young Metastasio as a poet worthy to be honoured with -the emperor’s notice. If the musical dramas of Apostolo Zeno are compared with those of his predecessors and contemporaries, they will be found infinitely superior to them in conduct, regularity, character, sentiment, and force. But Metastasio’s refined sentiments, selection of words, and varied and mellifluous measures, soon obscured the theatrical glory of Zeno, who, after the arrival of his young colleague, seems to have attempted nothing but oratorios.

, queen of Palmyra, and one of the most illustrious women that have swayed the sceptre, declared herself to be descended from the Ptolemies and Cleopatras. She was instructed in the sciences by the celebrated Longinus, and made such progress, that she spoke the Egyptian tongue in perfection, as well as the Greek. She also understood the Latin, although she scrupled to speak it. She protected learned men; and was so well acquainted with the history of Egypt, and that of the East, that she wrote an epitome of it. This princess had also read the Greek and Roman history, and was justly admired for her beauty, chastity,-sobriety, and extraordinary courage. She married Odenatus, a Saracen prince, and contributed greatly to the most signal victories he gained over the Persians, which preserved the East to the Romans, when, after the taking of Valerian, it was highly probable that Sapr would dispossess them of all that country. Gallienus, in return for such important services, declared her Augusta, and, in the year 264, created Odenatus emperor. After her husband’s death, Zenobia reigwed with great bravery and glory; for, her sons Herennianus and Timor laus, on account of their tender age, had only the name and ornaments of emperor. She preserved the provinces that had been under the obedience of Odenatus, conquered Egypt, and was preparing to make other conquests, when the emperor Aurelian made war against her; and, having gained two battles, besieged her in Palmyra, where r!enobia defended herself with great bravery; but at length, finding that the city would be obliged to surrender, she quitted it privately; but the emperor, who had notice of her escape, caused her to be pursued with such diligence, that she was overtaken just as she got into a boat to cross the Euphrates. This happened in the year 272. Aurelian spared her life, although he made her serve to adorn his triumph, and gave her a country-house near Rome, where she spent the remainder of her life in tranquillity with her children. Her daughters formed noble alliances, and her race was not extinct in the fifth century. All histonsnl bestow the most magnificent praises on this princess; and yet they suspect her of having consented that Maeonius should assassinate Odenatus, her husband, for shewing [ess fondness for her sons than for Herod, his son by another wife. She has also been censured for protecting Paulus Samosatenus, who had been condemned in the council of Antioch, and by that means preventing his being driven from his church so long as she reigned. But P. Jouve, who published her Life, 1753, 12mo, endeavours, not unsuccessfully, to clear her from all these imputations. She must be distinguished from Zenobia, wife of Hhadamistus, king of Iberia, who fled from the Armenians, and took her with him. This princess being near the time of her delivery, begged Rhadamistus to kill her. He reluctantly yielded to Zenobia’s earnest entreaties, and wounded her with a sword; but she was found by some shepherds, who saved her life, in the year 51. Zenobia being afterwards conducted to Tiridates, he ordered her to be treated as a queen.

Dr. Zimmermann was unhappy in the fate of his children. His amiable daughter, whom he most tenderly loved, fell in,to a lingering malady soon after she left Lausanne: it continued five years, and then carried her off. His son, who, from his infancy, was troubled with an acrid humour, after various vicissitudes of nervous affections, settled in perfect idiotcy in which state he remained at his father’s death. To alleviate these distresses^ a second marriage properly occurred to the mind of his friends, and they chose for him a most suitable companion, in the daughter of Dr. de Berger, king’s physician at Lunenberg. This union took place in 1782, and proyed the greatest charm and support of all his remaining life. Jiis l.ady was thirty years youngerthan he;but s,he perfectly Accommodated herself to his taste, and induced him to cultivate society abroad and at home more than he had hitherto done. About this time he employed himself in completing his favourite work on “Solitude,” which, at the distance of thirty years from the publication of the first essay on the subject, appeared in its new form in the years 178^ and 1786, in four volumes. His ideas of solitude had probably been softened by so long an intercourse with the world and as he now defined it, “that state of the soul in which it abandons itself freely to its reflections,” it was not necessary to become either a monk or an anchorite, in orderto partake of its benefits. Had it not been presented under such an accommodating form, a philosopher might have smiled at the circumstance of a recommendation of solitude from a court physician becoming t.he favourite wojrk of one of the most splendid and ambitious of crowned jbeads. The empress of Russia sent her express thanks to the author for the pleasure which she had derived from the work, accompanied with a magnificent present, and commenced with hjrri a regular correspondence, which subsisted, with great freedom onher part, till 1792, when she suddenly dropped it. She also gave him an invitation to settle at Petersburgh as her first physician; and, on his declining the offer, she requested his recommendation of medical practitioners for her towns and armies, and conferred on him the order of Wladomir. One of the most distinguished incidents of Zimmermann’s life was the summons which he received to attend the great Frederic in his last illness, in 1786. It was at once evident that there was no room for the exercise of his medical skill; but he improved the opportunity which he thus enjoyed of confidential intercourse with that illustrious character, whose mental faculties were pre-eminent to the last; and 'he derived from it the materials of an interesting narrative which he afterwards published. The partiality of this prince in his favour naturally disposed him to a reciprocal good opinion of the monarch; and, in 17S8, he published “A Defence of Frederic the Great against the count de Mirabeau” which, in 1790, was followed by “Fragments on Frederic the Great,” in 3 vols. 12mo. All his publications relative to this king gave offence to many individuals, and subjected him to severe criticism; which he felt with more sensibility than was consistent with his peace of mind. His religious and political opinions, likewise, in his latter years, began to be in wide contradiction to the principles that were assiduously propagated all over Europe; and this added perpetual fuel to his irritability. The society of the Illuminated, coalesced with that of Free-masons, rose about this time in Germany, and excited the most violent commotions among men of letters and reflection. It was sup­'posed to have in view nothing less than the abolition of Christianity, and the subversion of all constituted authorities; and, while its partizans expected from it the most beneficial reforms of every kind, its opponents dreaded from it every mischief that could possibly happen to mankind. Zimmerrnann was among the first that took alarm at this formidable accusation. His regard for religion and social order, and, perhaps, his connexions with crowned heads, made him see in the most obnoxious light all the principles of the new philosophers. He attacked them with vigour, formed counter associations with other men of letters, and, at length, addressed to the emperor Leopold a memoir, painting in the strongest colouring the pernicious maxims of the sect, and suggesting the means of suppressing -it; means which are said to have depended on the decisive interference of civil authority. Leopold, who was well inclined to such measures, received his memoir very graciously, and sent him a letter and splendid present in return; but his death, soon after, deprived the cause of its most powerful protection. Ziminermann, however, in conjunction with M. Hoffman of Vienna, who had instituted a periodical work on the old principles, did not relax in his zeal. They attacked, and were attacked in turn; and Zimrnermann embroiled himself with the courts of law by a paper published in Hoffman’s Journal, entitled “The Baron de Knigge unmasked as an Illuminate, Democrat, and Seducer of the People.” As this charge was in part founded on a work not openly avowed by the baron, 3, prosecution was instituted against Zimmermann as a libeller, and he was unable to exculpate himself. This state of warfare may well be imagined to have been extremely unfriendly to an irritable system of nerves; and, the agitation of the doctor’s mind was further increased by his personal fears on the approach of the French towards the electorate of Hanover in 1794; and his mancer of expressing his fears announced the greatest depression. “I saw therein,” says Tissot, “a mind whose springs began to fail, and which dared no longer say, as it could have justly done, `I carry every thing with me.‘ I neglected nothing in order to raise his spirits, and entreated him. to come to me with his wife, to a country that was his own, where he would have remained in the most perfect security, and enjoyed all the sweets of peace and friendship. He answered me in December, and one part of his letter resembled those of other times; but melancholy was still more strongly marked, and the illness of his wife, which he unfortunately thought more serious than it really was, evidently oppressed him: he had been obliged to take three days to write me details which at another time would not have occupied him an hour, and he concluded his letter with, 1I conjure you, perhaps for the last time, &c.’ The idea that he should write no more to his friend (and unfortunately the event justified him), the difficulty of writing a few pages, the still fixed idea of being forced to leave Hanover,although the face of affairs had entirely changed all, all indicated the loss I was about to sustain.” From the month of November he had lost his sleep, his appetite, his strength, and became sensibly thinner; and this stated of decline continued to increase. In January he was still able to make a few visits in his carriage; but he frequently fainted on the stairs: it was painful for him to write a prescription: he sometimes complained of a confusion in his head, and he at length gave over all business. This was at first taken for an effect of hypochondria, but it was soon perceived, that his deep melancholy had destroyed the chain of his ideas. What has happened to so many men of genius, befell him. One strong idea masters every other, and subdues the mind that is no longer able either to drive it away, or to lose sight of it. Preserving all his presence of mind, all his perspicuity, and justness of thought on other subjects, but no longer desirous of occupying himself with them, no longer capable of any business, nor of giving advice, but with pain^he had unceasingly before his eyes the enemy plundering his house, as Pascal always saw a globe of fire near him, Bonnet his friend robbing him, and Spinello the devil opposite to him, In February he commenced taking medicines, which were either prescribed by himself or by the physicians whom he consulted; at the beginning of March he desired Tissot' s advice; but he was no longer able himself to describe his disorder, and his wife wrote Tissot the account of it. Tissot answered her immediately; but there could be no great utility in the directions of an absent physician in a disorder whose progress was rapid, and with an interim of near a month between the advice asked, and the directions received. His health decayed so fast, that M. Wichman, who attended him, thought a journey and change of air would now be the best remedy. Eutin, a place in the dutchy of Holstein, was fixed upon for his residence. Ingoing through Luneburgh on his way thither, M. Lentin, one of the physicians Jn whom he placed most confidence, was consulted; but Zimmermann, who, though so often uneasy on account of health, had, notwithstanding, the wisdom to take few medicines, and who did not like them, always had a crowd of objections to make against the b.est advice, and did nothing. Arrived at Eutin, an old acquaintance and his family lavished on him all the caresses of friendship. This reception highly pleased him, and he grew rather better. M. Hensler came from Kiel to see him, and gave him his advice, which was probably very good, but became useless, as it was very irregularly followed. At last, after a residence of three months, he desired to return to Hanover, where he entered his house with the same idea with which he had left it; he thought it plundered, and imagined himself totally ruined. Tissot wrote to intreat him to go to Carlsbad;but he was no longer capable of bearing the journey. Disgust, want of sleep, and weakness, increased rapidly; he took scarcely jftiy nourishment, either on account of insurmountable Aversion, or because it was painful to him; or perhaps, as M. Wichman believed, because he imagined he had not a farthing left. Intense application, the troubles of his mind, his pains, want of sleep, and of sufficient nourishment, had on him all the effects of time, and hastened old age: at sixty -six he was in a state of complete decrepitude, and his body was become a perfect skeleton. He clearly foresaw the issue of his disorder: and above six weeks before his death be said to jthis same physician, “I shall die slowly, but very pain fu)ly;” and fourteen hours before he expired, he said, “Leave me alone, I am dying.” He expired Oct. 7, 1795. Most of the works mentioned above have been translated into English, and that on solitude particularly has acquired a considerable degree of popularity.

was an eminent philosopher, whose history is involved in much obscurity, nor is it certain whether the name belongs to one or many. Some have maintained that there was but one Zoroaster, and that he was a Persian. Others have said that there were six eminent founders of philosophy of th'is name. Ham, the son of Noah, Moses, Osiris, Mithras, and others, both gods and men, have by different writers been asserted to have been the same with Zoroaster. Many different opinions have also been advanced, concerning the time in which he flourished. Aristotle and Pliny fix his date at so remote a period as 6000 years before the death of Plato; Hermippus says that he lived 5000 years before the Trojan war: idle tales, which are, doubtless, to be classed with the report of the Chaldeans concerning the antiquity of their astronomical observations. According to Laertius, he flourished 600 years before the Trojan war; according to Suidas, 500. In the midst of so much uncertainty, the probability may be, that there was a Zoroaster, a Perso- Median, who flourished about the time of Darius Hystaspes, and that besides him there was another Zoroaster, who lived in a much more remote period among the Babylonians, and taught them astronomy. The Greek and Arabian writers are agreed concerning the existence of the Persian Zoroaster; and the ancients unanimously ascribe to a philosopher, whom they call Zoroaster, the origin of the Chaldean astronomy, which is certainly of much earlier date than the time of Hystaspes: it seems, therefore, necessary to suppose a Chaldean Zoroaster distinct from the Persian. Concerning this Zoroaster, however, nothing more is known than that he flourished towards the beginning of the Babylonish empire, and was the father of the Chaldean astrology and magic, which was probably nothing more than the performance of certain religious ceremonies, by means of which good daemons were supposed to be prevailed upon to communicate supernatural properties and powers to herbs, stones, and other natural bodies, or to afford assistance, in other miraculous ways, to those who invoked them. In this art the kings of Chaldea and Persia were instructed, as one of the most useful instruments of government, among a people, whose ignorance and credulity rendered them proper subjects of imposture. The Chaldean magic was then a very different thing from a knowledge of the real properties of bodies; and it cannot be inferred, either from their magical or astrological arts, that the Chaldeans were eminent masters in any branch of natural science. All the writings which have been ascribed to the Chaldean Zoroaster, are unquestionably spurious.

, a learned divine, was born in 1737, at Sandal, neat* Wakefield, Yorkshire; and in 1757 removed from the school of the latter place to Trinity-college, Cambridge. In 1760, he was elected into one of lord Craven’s scholarships, along with Mr. Joah Bates, celebrated afterwards for his skill in music. The year following, Mr. Zouch took his degree of B. A. and was classed as the third wrangler. Having been chosen fellow of his college in 1763, he was appointed assistant-tutor, which office he discharged with extraordinary credit; though his assiduity so much impaired his health, that he was obliged to quit the university; on which his college presented him in 1770 to the rectory of Wycliffe in the North Riding of Yorkshire. In this country retirement he continued till 1793, performing the office of a parish priest with great diligence, and augmenting his knowledge of natural history. His botanical excursions, in a pleasant and romantic part of Yorkshire, contributed not a little to invigorate his constitution. In 1791, he was appointed deputy commissary of the archdeaconry of Richmond; and in 1793 was chaplain to the master of the rolls, and rector of Scrayingham. By the death of his elder brother, the rev. Henry Zouch, in 1795, he succeeded to an estate at Sandal, where he resided till his death. On the demise of Dr. Smith, the master of Trinity college, one of the most learned mathematicians of his age, he was requested by the vice-master and senior fellows to deliver a Latin funeral oration in honour of his memory, which is said to have been much admired for the classical elegance of its language. In 1798, Mr. Pitt intended to have appointed him to the mastership of Trinity; but this design was set aside in favour of the present bishop of Bristol. On April 9, 1805, Mr. Pitt gave him the second prebend in the church of Durham, and in the same year he took his degree of D.D. In 1808, the see of Carlisle was offered to Dr. Zouch; but, in consequence of his advanced age and retired habits, he thought proper to decline the acceptance. Besides some anonymous publications, he was the author of, 1. “The Crucifixion, a Seaton prize poem,” 1765, 4to. 2. “A Sermon preached at the primary visitation of William lord bishop of Chester, held at Richmond, in Yorkshire, August 21, 1789,” 4to. 3. “An Inquiry into the Prophetic Character of the Romans, as described in Daniel viii. 23 25.” 1792, 8vo. 4. “An Address to the Clergy of the Deaneries of Richmond, Catterick, and Boroughbridge,” 1792, 4to. 5. “A Discourse delivered to the Clergy of the Deaneries of Richmond, Catterick, and Boroughbridge, within the Diocese of Chester, at the visitation held June 20 and 25, 1793, and published at their request,” 4to. 6. “The good Schoolmaster, exemplified in the character of the rev. John Clarke, M. A. formerly fellow of Trinity college, Cambridge, and successively master of the Schools of Skipton, Beverley, and Wakefield,” 1798, 4to. 7. “An Attempt to illustrate some of the Prophecies of the Old and New Testament,” 1800, 12mo. 8. “A Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of Durham, at the Assizes holden July 30, 1806,” 4to. 9. “Memoir of the Life and Writings of sir Philip Sidney,” 1808, 4to. 10. “Memoir of the Life of John Sudbury, D. D. Dean of Durham,” 1808, 4to.