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King Charles appears to have been fully persuaded of the excellence and value of the project, and rewarded sir William Alexander by making him lieutenant of New Scotland, and at the same time founded the order of knights baronet in Scotland. Each of these baronets was to have a liberal portion of land allotted to him in Nova Scotia, and their number was not to exceed one hundred and fifty; their titles to be hereditary, with other privileges of precedence, &c. Sir William had also a peculiar privilege given him of coining small copper money, which occasioned much popular clamour, and upon the whole the scheme does not appear to have added much to his repur tation with the public, although perhaps the worst objection that could be made was his want of success. After many trials, he was induced to sell his share in Nova Scotia, and the lands were ceded to the French by a treaty between Charles I. and Lewis XIII.

But whatever opposition or censure he encountered from the public in this affair, he still remained in high credit with the king, who, in 1626, appointed him secretary of state for Scotland, and in 1630, created him a peer of that kingdom by the title of viscount Canada, lord Alexander pf Menstrie. About three years after, he was advanced to the title of earl of Stirling, at the solemnity of his majesty’s coronation in Holyrood house. His lordship appears to have discharged the office of secretary of state for Scotland with universal reputation, and endeavoured to act with moderation during a crisis of peculiar delicacy, when Laud was endeavouring to abolish presbytery in Scotland, and to establish episcopacy.

His last appearance as an author was in the republication of all his poetical works, except the “Aurora,” (but with the addition of Jonathan, an unfinished poem) under the title of “Recreations with the Muses,” the whole revised, corrected, and very much altered, by the author. He died on the 12th of February 1640, in his sixtieth year. Of hispersonal character there is nothing upon record, but his Doomsday is a noble monument of his piety.

He left, by his lady, 1. William, lord Alexander, viscount Canada, his eldest son, who died in the office of his majesty’s resident in Nova Scotia, during his father’s lifetime: William, the son of this young nobleman succeeded his grandfather in the earldom, but died about a month after him 2. Henry Alexander, afterwards earl of Stirling 3. John, and two daughters, lady Margaret and lady Mary. Henry Alexander settled in England, and was succeeded in titles and estate by his grandson Henry, who died in 1739, and was the last male descendant of the first earl. A claimant appeared in 1776, but, being unable to prove his descent before the house of peers, was ordered not to assume the title .

was born at Trente, in the 16th century, and was successively physician to the emperors Charles V. Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II. This last bestowed many favours and honours on him, and permitted him to transmit them to his children, although they were illegitimate. He died in 1590, at the advanced age of eighty-four. His works, which are both in prose and verse, are chiefly commentaries on Galen. 1. “Salubrium, sive de sanitate tuenda, libri triginta tres,” Cologn, 1575, fol. 2. “Paedotrophia,” Zurich, 1559, 8vo. in verse. 3. “De Medicinaet Medico dialogus,” ibid. 15 59, 8vo. 4. “Methodus Medendi,” Venice, 1554, 8vo. In all his works he combines sound theory with practice.

, a Greek comic poet, was born at Thurium, a colony of Athenians in Lucania, and came to Athens when young. He was uncle to Menander, and his instructor in theatrical composition. He lived in the time of Alexander, about the year 363 B. C. and when advanced to extreme old age, to one who asked him what he was doing, he replied, “1 am dying by degrees.” The only fragments left of his writings are in Cnspinus’s collection, “Vetustissimorum Authorum Grvecorum poemata,” 1570.

, a Benedictine monk in the abbey 0f Lyra, afterwards prior of Bussi au Perche, was living in 1505, and has left various pieces of poetry, which were highly esteemed in his time. The principal works that are known of his, are: 1. “Four Chants-royaux, presented at the Games du Puy at Rouen, in 4to, without date. 2.” Le Passe-terns de tout Hommeet de toute Femme,“Paris, in 8vo, and 4to, without date. The author informs us that he translated it from a work of Innocent III. It is a moral performance, on the miseries of man from the cradle to the grave. 3.” Le grand Blason des Faulses Amours, in 16, and in 4to, Paris, 1493; and in several editions of the Farce de Patelin, and of the Fifteen Joys of Marriage, Hague, 1726 and 1734, with notes by Jacob le Duchat. It is a dialogue on the evils brought on by love. In all his works he preserves the decency becoming his order, which one of his biographers remarks as rather extraordinary for the age in which he lived.

, a Piedmontese, the reputed author of a book of “Secrets,” which was printed at Basil 1536, in 8vo, and translated from Italian into Latin by Wecher it has also been translated into French, and printed several times with additions. In the preface Alexis informs us, that he was born of a noble family; that he had from his most early years applied himself to study; that he had learned the Greek, the Latin, the Hebrew, the Chaldean, the Arabian, and several other languages; that having an extreme curiosity to be acquainted with the secrets of nature, he had collected as much as he could during his travels for 57 years; that he piqued himself upon not communicating his secrets to any person: but that when he was 82 years of age, having seen a poor man who had died of a sickness which might have been cured had he communicated his secret to the surgeon who took care of him, he was touched with such a remorse of conscience, that he retired from the world and ranged his secrets in such an order, as to make them fit to be published. They appeared accordingly at Venice in 1557, 4to, and have been translated and published in every European language; and an abridgement of them was long a popular book at the foreign fairs. Haller says that his real name was Hieronymo Rosello.

, an English poet, once of some fame, who lived in the reign of Charles I. He received his education at Sidney college in Cambridge; and going to London, became assistant to Thomas Farnaby the famous grammarian, athis great school in Goldsmith’s rents, in the parish of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate. In 1631, he published two poems on the famous victories of Cressi and Poictiers, obtained by the English in France, under king Edward III. and his martial son the Black Prince; they are written in stanzas of six lines. Leaving Mr. Farnaby, he went into the family of Edward Sherburne, esq. to be tutor to his son, who succeeded his father as clerk of the ordnance, and was also commissary-general of the artillery to king Charles I. at the battle of Edgehill. His next production was a poem in honour of king Henry VII. and that important battle which gained him the crown of England: it was published in IbliS, under the title of “The Historic of that wise and fortunate prince Henrie, of that name the seventh, king of England; with that famed battle fought between the said king Henry and Richard III. named Crook-back, upon Red more near Bosworth.” There are several poetical eulogiums prefixed to this piece, amongst which is one by Edward Sherburne, his pupil. Besides these three poems, there are in print some little copies of commendatory verses ascribed to him, and prefixed to the works of other writers, particularly before the earliest editions of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays. la 1639 he published the History of Eurialus and Lucretia, which was a translation; the story is to be found among the Latin epistles of Æneas Sylvius. The year after he is said to have died, and to have been buried in the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn.

, a very eminent Arabian philosopher of the tenth century, was born at Farab, now Othrar, in Asia. Minor, from which he took the name by which he is generally known. His real name was Mohammed. He was of Turkish origin, but quitted his country to acquire a more perfect knowledge of the Arabic, and of the works of the Greek philosophers. He studied principally at Bagdat, under a celebrated Aristotelian professor, named Abou Bachar Mattey; and then went to Harran, where John, a Christian physician, taught logic. In a short time, he surpassed all his fellow-scholars; and after a visit to Egypt, settled at Damas, where the prince of that city, Seif-edDaulah, took him into his patronage, although it was with difficulty that he could persuade him to accept his favours. Alfarabi had no attachment but to study, and knew nothing of the manners of a court. When he presented himself, for the first time, before the prince, the latter, wishing to amuse himself at the expence of the philosopher, made known his intention to his guards in a foreign language, but was much surprised when Alfarabi told him that he knew what he said, and could, if necessary, speak to him in seventy other languages. The conversation then turning on the sciences in general, Alfarabi delivered his opinions with such learning and eloquence, that the men of letters present were completely put to silence, and began to write down what he said. He excelled likewise in music, and ingratiated himseif so with the prince, that he gave him a handsome pension, and Alfarabi remained with him until his death in the year 950. He wrote many treatises on different parts of the Aristotelian philosophy, which were read and admired, not only among the Arabians, but also among the Jews, who began about this time to adopt the Aristoteliaft mode of philosophizing. Many of his books were translated from Arabic into Hebrew, and it is by these versions principally that the Europeans have been made acquainted with his merit. His treatise “De Intelligentiis” was published in the works of Avicenna, Venice, 1495; another, “Dfc Causis,” is in Aristotle’s works, with the commentaries of Averroes; and his “Opuscula varia” were printed at Paris in 1638. One of his writings, which brought him much reputation, was a kind of encyclopaedia, in which he gives a short account and definition of all branches of science and art. The manuscript of this is in the Escurial.

, a Spanish painter of considerable eminence, was born at Cordova in 1640, educated under Castillo, and completed his studies with Velasquez at Madrid, whose style he copied, particularly in his portraits. Velasquez, who was the first painter to the king of Spain, procured Alfaro favourable opportunities to study the fine pictures in the royal collections; and Titian, Rubens, and Vandyke, became his principal models. Many of his pictures, particularly his small ones, are very much in the style of Vandyke. As he principally followed the lucrative business of portrait-painting, both in oil and miniature, he probably would have realized a considerable fortune, but a weakly state of health soon plunged him into melancholy, of which he died in his fortieth year. Mr. Cumberland attributes his death to grief, upon account of the banishment of the admiral of Castille, in whose family he was an inmate, and to his having been rejected when he went to pay his respects to the admiral on his release. Alfaro was not only a good painter, but wrote sensibly on th, art. Of his pictures, there is an “Incarnation” at Madrid, and a “Guardian Angel,” and a portrait of Don Pedro Caldefona, in the church of St. Salvador, which are verj conspicuous monuments of his skill.

, a celebrated Roman lawyer, was born in the year of Rome 713, at Cremona, from whence he came to Rome and studied under Servius Sulpicius. His distinguished talents and probity of character raised him at length to the rank of consul. He was the first who made those collections of the civil law, which are called Digests; but none of his writings are now extant. There have been several persons of the same name, whose characters have been confounded, as may be seen by a reference to our authorities.

, a rabbi, was born in Africa, in a village near Fez, in 1013. When in his seventy-fifth year, he was involved in a quarrel, which obliged him to go to Spain, where he resided at Cordova. He contributed very much to the reputation of the academy of that place by his learning and works. He died at Lucena in 1103, at the age of ninety. His principal work is an abridgment of the Talmud, so highly esteemed by the Jews, that they study it more than the original, and call it the little Talmud. It has gone through many editions, some with the text only, but mostly with notes. The first and most rare edition is that of Constantinople, 1509; but the most complete, perhaps, is that published by Sabioneta, Venice, 1552.

, an eminent Italian poet of the last century, was born at Asti, in Piedmont, Jan. 17, 1749, of an ancient family, and sent for education to Turin, where he was principally under the care of the count Benoit Alfred, his father’s cousin. His progress, however, was for some time very slow, partly owing to bad health, and partly to temper; and when his tutor died, he left the academy at the age of sixteen, almost as ignorant as he entered it, and without having acquired a taste for any thingbut riding. His next passion was for travelling, in which he appeared to have no-other object than moving from one place to another. In less than two years he visited a great part of Italy, Paris, England, Holland, and returned to Piedmont, without having sought to know any thing, to study any thing, or to gratify any curiosity. His second tour was yet more extensive and more rapid: in eighteen months he travelled through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and returning through the Spa and Holland, went again to England. During this second visit to London, he engaged in affairs of gallantry, and discovered many oddities of behaviour, but in neither of his visits did he give himself the trouble to learn the language. After remaining in London seven months, he returned, with the utmost expedition, by Holland, France, Spain, and Portugal, and arrived at Turin, May 5, 1772. A violent attachment to a lady of quality of this place engrossed his mind for two years, but had the happy effect of first inspiring him with a taste for poetry and poetical composition. After some imperfect attempts, he wrote a sort of tragedy, called “Cleopatra,” which he procured to be acted at Turin, June 16, 1775, with a small piece “The Poets,” by way of farce, in which the author endeavoured to turn his own tragedy into ridicule. The success of these two pieces, although confined to only two representations, decided Alfieri to become an author, and proved the commencement of a new life. At this time, he knew French very imperfectly, scarcely any thing of Italian, and nothing of Latin. The French he determined to forget altogether, but to cultivate Italian and Latin, and study the best authors in both. The study, accordingly, of the Latin and the pure Tuscan languages, and of dramatic composition, upon a new plan of his own invention, occupied all his time, and gave employment to that activity and sprightliness of mind and fancy which had hitherto been dissipated on trifles. His first two tragedies were “Philip II.” and “Polinice;” and these were followed at short intervals, by “Antigone,” “Agamemnon,” &c. to the amount of fourteen, within less than seven years; and within the same space, he wrote several pieces in prose and verse, a translation of Sallust, “A Treatise on Tyranny,” “Etruria avenged,” in four cantos, and five “Odes” on the American revolution. He afterwards recommenced his travels, and added to his collection of tragedies, “Agis,” “Sophonisba,” “Brutus I.” “Brutus II.” and others. Although he had a dislike to France, he came thither to print his theatre, and with him the lady of his affections, the princess of Schomberg, the wife of the last prince of the house of Stuart, who, when set at liberty by the death of her husband, bestowed her hand on Alfieri. On his arrival in France, he found that nation ripe for a revolution, to the principles of which he was at first inclined, and expressed his opinion very freely in “Parigi Shastigliato,” an ode on the taking of the Bastille; but the horrors of revolutionary phrenzy which followed, induced him to disavow publicly the principles which he had professed, and he resolved to lose the property that he had acquired in France, rather than to appear to maintain them any longer. Accordingly he left France ia August 1792, and the following year, his property in the funds was confiscated, and his furniture, papers, and books sequestered and sold at Paris. In 1794, he published a declaration in the gazette of Tuscany, in which he avowed some of the works left behind him, and disavowed others which he thought might be found among his papers, or altered without his consent, and published as his. Among the latter was his “Etruria avenged,” and the “Treatise on Tyranny” above mentioned; but it is certain that he had caused an edition of these and some other pieces of the same stamp to be published at Kell, about the time he arrived in France, and now disavowed them merely because he had changed his opinions. From this time, ruminating on the unjust treatment he had received at Paris, he never ceased to express his contempt of the French nation in what he wrote, but he resumed his pen and his studies with more eagerness than ever. At the age of forty-eight he began the study of Greek, and continued it with his usual ardour, and the rest of his life was employed in making translations from that language, and in writing comedies, tragedies, and satires. His incessant labours at length brought on a complaint of which he died at Florence (where he had resided from the time of his leaving France), Oct. 8, 1803, and was interred in the church of St. Croix, where his widow erected a splendid monument to his memory, executed by Canova, between the tombs of Machiavel and Michael Angelo. The inscription was written by himself, and is as flattering as his life, written also by himself, and published at Paris, 1809, and in English at London, 1810, 2 vols. His posthumous works, in 13 volumes, were published in 1804, at Florence, although with London on the title: they consist of a number of translations, and some original dramas in a singular taste, and not very likely to be adopted as models. A French translation of his dramatic works was published at Paris, 1802, 4 vols. 8vo. Petitot, the translator, has added some judicious reflexions on the forms given to the Italian tragedy by Alfieri, and notwithstanding its weak parts, this collection is a mine which some new authors have frequently worked. His lofty expression, or attempt at expression, and his anxious search for forcible thoughts, sometimes render him obscure; and he appears to have encumbered his genius with more designs than it could execute. Of his personal character, various accounts have been given. In his “Life,” he is sufficiently favourable to himself; but there are few traits in his character that are not rather objects of warning than of imitation. From his youth he appears to have been the slave of passion and temper, averse to the restraints of a well-regulated mind, and consequently many of his opinions, whether good or bad, were hastily conceived, and hastily abandoned.

, whose real name is said to be Griffith, an English Jesuit, and a native of London, was born in 1537, and entered into the society in 1607. After having studied philosophy and theology, partly in Spain and partly at Louvain, he resided five years at Rome. Returning to England, he was arrested at Canterbury, and sent to London, but was soon set at liberty. From that time he resided in England as a missionary from the society upwards of thirty years. He died at St. Omer’s in 1652, and left two books on ecclesiastical history, “Britannia illustrata,” printed in 4to, at Antwerp, in 1641, and “Annales ecclesiastici Britannorum, Saxonum, et Anglorum a Christo nato, usque ad annum, 1189,” ibid. 4 vols. 4to. These appear, by bishop Nicolson’s account, to be performances of very little value.

, Alfergani, or Fargani, was a celebrated Arabic astronomer, who nourished about the year 800. He was so called from the place of his nativity, Fergan, in Sogdiana, now called Maracanda, or Samarcand, anciently a part of Bactria. He is also called Ahmed (or Muhammed) Ben-Cothair, or Katir. He wrote the Elements of Astronomy, in 30 chapters or sections. In this work the author chiefly follows Ptolomy, using the same hypotheses, and the same terms, and frequently citing him. There are three Latin translations of Alfragan’s work. The first was made in the twelfth century, by Joannes Hispalensis; and was published at Ferrara in 1493, and at Nuremberg in 1537, with a preface by Melancthon. The second was by John Christman, from the Hebrew version of James Antoli, and appeared at Francfort in 1590. Christman added to the first chapter of the work an ample commentary, in which he compares together the calendars of the Romans, the Egyptians, the Arabians, the Persians, the Syrians, and the Hebrews, and shews the correspondence of their years.

The third and best translation was made by Golius, professor of mathematics and Oriental languages at Leyden this work, which came out in 1669, 4to, after the death of Golius, is accompanied with the Arabic text, and many learned notes upon the first nine chapters, for this author did not live to carry them farther.

, the youngest son of Æthelwolf king of the West Saxons, was born in the year 849, at Wannating, or Wanading, which is supposed to be Wantage in Berkshire. Æthelwolf, having a great regard for religion, and being extremely devoted to the see of Rome, sent Alfred to that city at five years of age; where pope Leo IV. adopted and anointed him, as some think, with a regal unction, though others are of opinion he was only confirmed. Soon after his return, his father, being in the decline of life, and going to visit the holy see, took his favourite son with him; where he had an opportunity of seeing and hearing many things, which made snch strong impressions on him, as remained during his whole life, Æthelwolf had five sons, and a daughter; of whom Æthelstan, the eldest, was king of Kent in his father’s life-time, and died before him. Æthelbald, the second son, raised a rebellion against his father, when he returned from Rome; who, to avoid any effusion of blood, consented to divide his dominions with him. Æthelwolf did not long survive this; but, before his death, he, by a full and distinct testamerit, endeavoured to settle all the claims of his children. By this will Æthelbalcl and Æthelbert had his kingdoms divided betwixt them; and he left his private estate, with all the money in his coffers, to his younger sons Æthelred and Alfred. Æthelwolf died in the year 858, and was succeeded by Æthelbald, who reigned but two years and a half. On his demise JLthelbert seized the crown, which he held for five years, and died in the year 866. He was succeeded by his brother Æthelred; who, while he was a private man, had solemnly promised Alfred to do him that justice which had been denied by the two former kings, by giving him what his father had bequeathed him. On his accession Alfred demanded a performance of his promise; but the king excused himself on account of the troublesome times, and assured him that at his death he would leave him all. Alfred having given proofs of his courage in the former king’s reign, Æthelred would never part with him, but employed him as his first minister and general of his armies.

In the year 866 a great fleet of the Danes, under the command of Hinguar and Hubba, sons of Lodbroch, a Danish king, invaded England: in the year 871 they marched to Reading in Berkshire, where they received a considerable reinforcement, and took that town and castle. jSLthelred and his brother Alfred came with an army to Reading a week after it was taken: he divided his forces into two bodies, one of which he assigned to Alfred, and the other he kept under his own command. Alfred rashly engaged the Danish army, which being very numerous, he would probably have been totally defeated, had not the king come to his assistance with a fresh body of troops; this changed the fortune of the day so far, that the Danes were defeated, and lost great numbers of their men. Soon after, however, the Danes attacked and routed the two brothers at Merden, near the Devizes. In this engagement Æthelred received a wound, of which he died, after having reigned five years.

Upon his death, Alfred succeeded to the crown, agreeably to the will of king Æthelwolf and the appointment of Æthelred. This happened in the year 871, and the 22d of Alfred’s age. He had scarce time to attend the funeral of his brother, when he was obliged to fight for the crown he had so lately received. He engaged the Danish army at Wilton, and at the beginning of the battle had the advantage; but, in the pursuit, the Danes, discovering his weakness, rallied, and drove him out of the field. Soon after a treaty was concluded; but the Danes paid little regard to it, roaming up and down the country, and pillaging wherever they came. They at last put an end to the kingdom of Mercia, and obliged Burrhed, the king, not only to quit his dominions, but the island. Alfred fitted out a fleet to guard the coasts; and a squadron of five Danish ships approaching the coast, one of them was taken. A considerable army of Danes, however, having contrived to land, marched as far as Grantbndge, and quartered in that neighbourhood. Next summer they advanced to Werham: here Alfred met them witn all the forces he could raise; but not finding himself strong enough to engage them, he concluded a peace, and the Danes swore never more to invade his dominions; but in a little time they broke their faith; for being on the road to Mercia, they met a body of English horse, advancing in a peaceable manner, under the faith of the treaty: of them they slew the greater part, and soon after surprised Exeter. The king immediately marched against them with what forces he could collect, and besieged them in that city. While things were in this situation, his majesty’s fleet, having engaged a numerous one of the enemy, sunk many and dispersed the rest, which, attempting to gain some of the English ports, were driven on the coasts, and all miserably perished. This so terrified the Danes, that they were again obliged to sue for peace, and give hostages. However, in 877, having obtained newaids, they came in such numbers into Wiltshire, that the Saxons, giving themselves up to despair, would not make head against them; many fled out of the kingdom, not a few submitted, and the rest retired every man to the place where he could be best concealed. In this distress, Alfred, conceiving himself no longer a king, laid aside all marks of royalty, and took shelter in the house of one who kept his cattle. He retired afterwards to the isle of Æthelingey in Somersetshire, where he built a fort for the security of himself, his family, and the few faithful servants who repaired thither to him. When he had been about a year in, this retreat, having been informed that some of his subjects had routed a great army of the Danes, killed their chiefs, and taken their magical standard he issued his letters, giving notice where he was, and inviting his nobility to come and consult with him. Before they came to a final determination, Alfred, putting on the habit of a harper, went into the enemy’s camp; where, without suspicion, he was everywhere admitted, and had the honour to play before their princes. Having thereby acquired an exact knowledge of their situation, he returned in great secrecy to his nobility, whom he ordered to their respective homes, there to draw together each man as great a force as he could; and upon a day appointed there was to be a general rendezvous at the great wood, called Selwood, in Wiltshire. This affair was transacted so secretly and expeditiously, that in a little time the king, at the head of an army, approached the Danes before they had the least intelligence of his design. Alfred, taking advantage of the surprise and terror they were in, fell upon them, and totally defeated them at Æthendune, now Eddington. Those who escaped fled to a neighbouring castle, where they were soon besieged, and obliged to surrender at discretion. Alfred granted them better terms than they could have expected: he agreed to give up the whole kingdom of the East-Angles to such as would embrace the Christian religion; on condition that they should oblige the rest of their countrymen to quit the island, and, as much as it was in their power, prevent the lauding of any more foreigners. For the performance thereof he took hostages; and when, in pursuance of the treaty, Guthruna, the Danish captain, came with thirty of his chief officers to be baptized, Alfred answered for him, at the font, and gave him the name of Athelstan; and certain laws were drawn up betwixt the king and Guthrum, for the regulation and government of the Danes settled in, England. In 884-, a fresh number of Danes landed in Kent, and laid siege to Rochester; but, the king coming to the relief of that city, they were obliged to abandon their design. Alfred’s success was now complete, chiefly owing to his fleet, an advantage of his own creating. Having secured the sea coasts, he fortified the rest of the kingdom with castles and wailed towns; and he besieged and recovered from the Danes the city of London, which he resolved to repair and keep as a frontier.

After some years respite, Alfred was again called into the field; as a body of Danes, being worsted in the west of France, appeared with a fleet of 250 sail on the coast of Kent, and having landed, fixed themselves at Appletree. Shortly after, another fleet of eighty vessels coming up the Thames, the men landed, and built a fort at Middleton. Before Alfred marched against the enemy, he obliged the Danes, settled in Northumberland and Essex, to give him hostages for their good behaviour. He then moved towards the invaders, and pitched his camp between their armies, to prevent their junction. A great body, however, moved off to Essex; and, crossing the river, came to Farnham in Surrey, where they were defeated by the king’s forces. Meanwhile the Danes settled in Northumberland, in breach of treaty, and notwithstanding the hostages given, equipped two fleets; and, after plundering the northern and southern coasts, sailed to Exeter, and besieged it. The king, as soon as he received intelligence, marched against them; but, before he reached Exeter, they had got possession of it. He kept them, however, blocked up on all sides, and reduced them at last to such extremities, that they were obliged to eat their horses, and were even ready to devour each other. Being at length rendered desperate, they made a general sally on the besiegers, but were defeated, though with great loss on the king’s side. The remainder of this body of Danes fled into Essex, to the fort they had built there, and to their ships. Before Alfred had time to recruit himself, another Danish leader, whose name was Laf, came with a great army out of Northumberland, and destroyed all before him, marching on to the city of Werheal in the west, which is supposed to be Chester, where they remained the rest of that year. The year following they invaded North Wales; and, after having plundered and destroyed every thing, they divided, one body returning to Northumberland, another into the territories of the east Angles; from whence they proceeded to Essex, and took possession of a small island called Meresig. Here they did not long remain; for having parted, some sailed up the river Thames, and others up the Lea-road; where drawing up their ships, they built a fort not far from London, which proved a great check upon the citizens, who went in a body and attacked it, but were repulsed with great loss. At harvest-time the king himself was obliged to encamp with a body of troops in the neighbourhood of the city, in order to cover the reapers from the excursions of the Danes. As he was one day riding by the side of the river Lea, after some observation, he began to think that the Danish ships might be laid quite dry; which he attempted, and so succeeded therein, that the Danes deserted their fort and ships, and marched away to the banks of the Severn, where they buikt a fort, and wintered at a place called Quatbrig . Such of the Danish ships as could be got off, the Londoners carried into their own road; the rest they burnt and destroyed. The Danes in a little time began again to invade the territories of the West Saxons both by land and sea; but they did more mischief as pirates than as robbers, for, having built long and largeships, they became masters at sea, and depopulated all the coast. Alfred built some large gallies, and sent them to cruize on the coasts of the Isle of Wight and Devonshire, the sea thereabouts being greatly infested by six piratical vessels, which were all taken or destroyed except one: and such of the Danes as landed when their ships ran ashore, were taken prisoners, and brought before the king at Winchester, who sentenced them to be hanged as piratical murderers and enemies to mankind.

Alfred enjoyed a profound peace during the three last years of his reign, which he chiefly employed in establishing and regulating his government for the security of himself and his successors, as well as for the ease and benefit of his subjects in general. Before his reign, though there were many kings who took the title, yet none could properly be called monarch of the English nation; for notwithstanding there was always, after the time of Egbert, a prince who held a kind of pre-eminence over the rest, yet he had no dominion over their subjects, as Alfred had in the latter part of his reign; for to him all parts of England, not in the possession of the Danes, submitted, which was greatly owing to the fame of his wisdom and mildness of his government. He is said to have drawn up an excellent system of laws, which are mentioned in the Mirror of Justice, published by Andrew Home, in the reign of Edward I. as also a collection of Judgments; and, if we may credit Harding’s chronicle , they were used in Westminster-hall in the reign of Henry IV. In the chronicle said to be written by John Brompton, we meet some laws ascribed to king Alfred. They are in number 51; and before them is a preface, wherein the king recites many things concerning the excellency and use of laws. In the close he says, he collected from the laws of his ancestor king Ina, such as seemed to him most reasonable; and having communicated them to the learned men of his kingdom, he, with their assent, published them to be the rule of his people’s actions. These laws borrowed from king Ina were, if we believe himself, many of them taken from the British constitutions; and those, if credit is to be given to their authors, were excerpts from the Greek and Trojan laws. Although there remain but few laws which can be positively ascribed to Alfred, yet his biographers inform us, that to him we owe many of those advantages which render our constitution so dear and valuable, and that to him we are indebted for trial by jury; and if we rely on sir John Spelman’s conjecture, his institutions were the foundation of what is called the common law, so styled either on account of its being the common law of all the Saxons, or because it was common both to Saxons and Danes 1. It is said also, but this is a disputed point, that he was the first who divided the kingdom into shires; what is ascribed to him is not a bare division of the country, but the settling a new form of judicature; for, after having divided his dominions into shires, he subdivided each shire into three parts, called tythings, which though now grown out of date, yet there are some remains of this ancient division in the ridings of Yorkshire, the laths of Kent, and the three parts of Lincolnshire. Each tything was divided into hundreds or wapentukes, and these again into tythings or dwellings of ten householders each of these householders stood engaged to the king, as a pledge for the good behaviour of his family, and all the ten were mutually pledges for each other; so that if any one of the tything was suspected of an offence, if the headboroughs or chiefs of the tything would not be security for him, he was imprisoned; and if he made his escape, the ty thing and hundred were fined to the king. Each shire was under the government of an earl, under whom was the reive, his deputy, since, from; ji cs, called shire-reive, or sheriff . Alfred also framed a book called the Book of Winchester, and which contained a survey of the kingdom; and of which the Doomsday book, still preserved in the exchequer, is no more than a second edition.

In the management of affairs of state, after the custom of his ancestors the kings of the West Saxons, he made use of the great council of the kingdom, consisting of bishops, earls, the king’s aldermen, and his chief thanes or barons. These, in the first part of his reign, he convoked as occasion served; but when things were better settled, he made a law, that, twice in the year at least, an assembly or parliament should be held at London, there to provide for the well-governing of the commonwealth; from which ordinance his successors varied a little, holding such assemblies not in any place certain, but wherever they resided, at Christmas, Easter, or Whitsuntide. As to extraordinary affairs, or emergencies, which would not admit of calling great councils, the king acted therein by the advice of those bishops, earls, and officers in the army, who happened to be about his person. He was certainly a great and warlike prince; and though the nation could never boast of a greater soldier, yet he never willingly made war, or refused peace when desired. He secured his coasts by guardships, making the navy his peculiar care; and he covered his frontiers by castles well fortified, which before his time the Saxons had never raised. In other affairs he was no less active and industrious; he repaired the cities demolished by the Danes; he erected new ones, and adorned and embellished such as were in a decayed condition . It is affirmed that one sixth part of his revenues was applied to the payment of his workmen’s wages, wha had besides meat and drink at the king’s expence. In respect to religious foundations, as Alfred was remarkable for his piety, so he excelled most of his predecessors in this particular; for, besides re-edifying and restoring almost every monastery in his dominions, which the poverty of the times or the fury of the Danes had brought to ruin, he built many, and improved more, besides other acts of munificence towards the church . He is said by some to have founded the university of Oxford; yet this matter is warmly disputed, and has employed several learned pens; but Anthony Wood has insisted upon it: so much, however, is certain, that Alfred settled and restored that university, endowed it with revenues, and placed in it famous professors . Though he had always a very numerous court, and took particular pleasure in seeing his nobility about him, yet he found out a method of doing this without prejudice to the public. He formed three different households, each under a separate lord chamberlain: and these waited in their turns, a month every quarter; so that during the year, each of the king’s servants was four months at court, and eight at home.

In private life, Alfred was the most amiable man in his dominions; of so equal a temper, that after he had once taken the crown, he never suffered any sadness or unbecoming gaiety to enter his mind; but appeared always of a palm, yet cheerful disposition, familiar to his friends, just, even to his enemies, kind and tender to all. He was a remarkable oeconomist of his time; and Asserius has given us an account of the method he took for dividing and keeping an account of it. He caused six wax-candles to b made, each of twelve inches long, and of as many ounces weight on the candies the inches were regularly marked; and having found that one of them burnt just four hours, he committed them to the care of the keepers of his chapel, who from time to time gave him notice how the hours went; but as in windy weather the candles wer wasted by the impression of the air on the flame, to remedy this inconvenience he invented lanthorns, there being then no glass in his dominions . When Alfred came to the crown, learning was at a very low ebb in his kingdom f; but by his example and encouragement, he used his utmost endeavours to excite a love for letters amongst his subjects. He himself was a scholar; and had he not been illustrious as a king, would have been famous as an author . When we consider the qualifications of this prince, and the 'many virtues he possessed, we need noj; wonder that he died universally lamented, which happened after a reign of above 28 years, and on the 28th of October, A. D. 900, as some writers inform us; though there is a disagreement in this particular, even amongst our best historians. He was buried in the cathedral of Winchester; but the canons of that church pretending they were disturbed by his ghost, his son and successor Edward caused his body to be removed to the new monastery, which was left unfinished at his death. Here it remained till the dissolution of monasteries, when Dr. Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester, caused the bones of all our Saxon kings to be collected and put into chests of lead, with inscriptions upon each of them, shewing whose bones they contained; these chests he took care to have placed on the top of a wall of exquisite workmanship, built by him to inclose the presbytery of the cathedral. Here they remained undisturbed until the cathedral was pillaged by the parliamentary soldiers, under sir William Waller, during the rebellion in 1642, when the chests were thrown down, and most of their contents dispersed.

The preceding account of this illustrious prince, taken from various authorities, exhibits altogether so pleasing a picture of Alfred, that we have not interrupted it by any of those objections which more modern research has discovered. For all the facts of Alfred’s history we are completely at the mercy of the monkish writers; and as we can have little now to disprove their assertions, most historians have implicitly followed their engaging narrative. In some respects, however, there is reason to question their authenticity. There is, in the first place, much reason to believe that the trial by jury is of older date than the time of Alfred: and secondly, there is still more reason to question the assertions in the note p. 448, respecting his having founded the university of Oxford. In addition to other objections which have been made to this origin of the university, we may now refer the reader to a work in which the question seems to be decided beyond all future controversy. The work we allude to is, “The Life of St. Neot, the oldest of all the brothers of king Alfred,” by the late John Whitaker, B. D. 1809. In section II. of this life, it is very clearly demonstrated that Alfred could not possibly have founded any university in Oxford, which was without the kingdom of West-Saxony in his days; and that the only university, or rather school, which he founded, was at Winchester. As to the broad assertion in the preceding note, that “Alfred is universally acknowledged the founder of University college, Oxford;” this is so far from being the case, that the historian of that college, Mr. Smith, a member of it, has clearly proved that Alfred had no hand whatever in it, and that the real founder was William of Durham.

, an English bishop, flourished in the 10th century. He was a monk of the order of St. Bennet, in the monastery of Malmesbury, and afterwards preferred to the see of Exeter. He was one of the most learned men of his time, and wrote: 1. A treatise “De Naturis Rerum;” 2. The “Life of Adelmus;” and, 3. “The History of his own Abbey.” He is said to have been very intimate with St. Dunstan.

, a sculptor and architect of Bologna, was the disciple of Louis Carrache, and the friend of Dominic, who brought him to Rome, where he died in 1654. In the church of St. Peter of the Vatican is a bas-relief of his representing St. Leon before Attila, in great estimation by connoisseurs: and at Bologna is an admirable groupe of his, the beheading of St. Paul. His other works are, the statue of St. Philippa de Neri; all the fountains and decorations of the villa Pamphili, the faade of the church of St. Ignatius, and the great altar of the church of St. Nicholas Tolentine, which is a chefd'ceuvre. Algardi revived sculpture from the neglect into which it had fallen previously to his time, and became the founder of a school of eminent artists, who owe their high reputation to following his steps. Pope Innocent XI. gave him six thousand Roman crowns for the bas-relief of St. Leon, and presented him with a gold chain which he ordered him to wear all his life. His epitaph in the church of St. John and Petrona, very justly remaiks, that his works wanted nothing but age to place them on a footing with the most perfect specimens of antiquity. Milizia bestows high praise on Algardi in his “Memorie de gli architetti,” Bassan. 1785. His private character appears to have been Tery excellent.

, an eminent Italian writer, was born at Venice, Dec. 11, 1712. His father, a rich merchant, had two other sons, and three daughters; one of the sons died an infant; the other, Bonomo Algarptti, who took the charge of the family on the father’s death, survived the subject of this article, and was his executor. Francis studied first at Rome, then at Venice, and lastly at Bologna, under the two celebrated professors Eustace Manfredi and Francis Zanotti, who loved him for his sweetness of temper, and by whose instructions he made a very rapid progress in mathematics, geometry, astronomy, philosophy, and physics. He was particularly fond of this last study, and of anatomy. Nor was he less assiduous in, acquiring a perfect knowledge of ancient and modern languages. Before his first visit to France he became known to the learned world, by the many excellent papers he had printed in the Memoirs of the institute of Bologna; and in one of his rural retreats, in 1733, he wrote his “Newtonianismo per le Dame,” in which he endeavoured to familiarize Newton’s system to the ladies, as Fontenelle had done that of Des Cartes. He was now only in his twenty-first year, and this work, which was published in 1734, acquired him much reputation. It was almost immediately translated into French by Duperron de CastCra; and, although very incorrect, this was the only edition from which the French critics formed their opinion of its merits, and from which a translation was also made into German, but not into English, as the French biographer asserts. Our celebrated countrywoman, Mrs. Carter, used the original, in her translation, published in 1739, and revised in the press by Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Samuel Johnson,. It was entitled “Sir Isaac Newton’s philosophy explained, for the use of the ladies, in six dialognes on Light and Colours,” 2 vols, 12mo.

In his early years Algarotti had cultivated a poetical turn, and after some favourable attempts of the lyric kind, he wrote several poetical epistles on subjects of philosophy and science. These were collected, with others of Frugoni and Bettinelli, and published with some pretended letters of Virgil, in which a bold attack was made on the merits of Dante and Petrarch. This publication made a considerable noise in Italy, and gave great offence to the admirers of these illustrious poets; but'Algarotti declared himself ignorant of the writer, who is now known, to be Bettinelli.

Algarottihad also studied the fine arts, and produced many excellent specimens of painting and engraving. In particular he designed and engraved several plates of heads in groupes, one of which, containing thirteen in the antique style, is dated Feb. 15, 1744. He travelled likewise over Italy, with a painter and draftsman in his suite; and what he has published on the arts discovers extensive knowledge and taste. Frederick II. who had become acquainted with his talents when prince-royal, no sooner mounted the throne, than he invited him to Berlin. Algarotti was then in London, and, complying with his majesty’s wish, remained at Berlin many years. Frederick conferred on him the title of count of the kingdom of Prussia, with reversion to his brother and descendants. He made him also his chamberlain, and knight of the order of Merit, bestowing on him at the same time many valuable presents, and other marks of his esteem; and after Algarotti left Berlin, the king corresponded with him for twenty-five years. The king of Poland, Augustus III. also had him for some time at his court, and gave him the title of privy-­counselloir of war. Nor was he held in less esteem by the sovereigns of Italy, particularly pope Benedict XIV. the duke of Savoy, and the duke of Parma. The excellence of his character, the purity of his morals, his elegant manners, and the eclat which surrounds a rich amateur of the arts, contributed to his celebrity perhaps as much as the superiority of his talents, and his acknowledged taste. Wherever he travelled he was respected equally by the rich, and the learned, by men of letters, by artists, and by men of the world. The climate of Germany having sensibly injured his health, he returned first to Venice, and afterwards to Bologna, where he had determined to reside, but his disorder, a consumption of the lungs, gained ground rapidly, and put an end to his life, at Pisa, March 3, 1764. He is said to have met death with composure, or, as his biographer terms it, with philosophical resignation. In his latter days he passed his mornings with Maurino (the artist who used to accompany him in his travels), engaged in the study of painting, architecture, and the fine arts. After dinner he had his works read to him, then printing at Leghorn, and revised and corrected the sheets: in the evening he had a musical party. The epitaph he wrote for himself is taken from Horace’s non omnis moriar, and contains only the few words, “Hicjacet Fr. Algarottus non omnis” The king of Prussia was at the expense of a magnificent monument in the Campo Santo of Pisa; on which, in addition to the inscription which Algarotti wrote, he ordered the following, “Algarotto Ovidii emulo, Newtoni discipulo, Fredericus rex,” and Algarotti’s heirs added only “Fredericus Magnus.” The works of Algarotti were published at Leghorn, 1765, 4 vols. 8vo; at Berlin, 1772, 8 vols. 8vo; and at Venice, 17 vols. 8vo, 1791--1794. This last, the most complete and correct edition, is ornamented with vignettes, the greater part of which were taken from the author’s designs. These volumes contain 1. Memoirs of his life and writings, and his poetry. 2. An analysis of the Newtonian system. 3. Pieces on architecture, painting, the opera, essays on vario is languages, on history, philology, on Des Cartes, Horace, &c. 4 and 5. Essays on the military art, and on the writers on that subject. 6. His travels in Russia, preceded by an Essay on the metals of that empire: the congress of Cytherea, the life of Pallavicini, the Italian poet; and a humorous piece against the abuse of learning. 7. Thoughts on different subjects of philosophy and philology. 8. Letters on painting and architecture. 9 and 10. Letters on the sciences. 11 to 16. His correspondence, not before published, with the literati of Italy, England, and France. 17. An unfinished critical essay on the triumvirate of Crassus, Pompey, and Gassar. Among his correspondents we find the names of the Italians, Manfredi and Zanotti, his first masters, Fabri of Bologna, Metastasio, Frugoni, Bettinelli, Frisi the celebrated mathematician and physician, Mazzuchelli, Paradisi, &c.; the Prussians, Frederic II. several princes of the same family, and Form ey, &c.; the English, lords Chesterfield and Hervey, Mr. Hollis, lady Montague, &c.; jand the French, Voltaire, Maupercuis, du Chastellet, mad. du Boccage,; &c. His Essays on painting, on the opera, his Letters to lord Hervey and the marquis Maffei, and his Letters, military and political, have been translated and published in English. His biographers have generally handed down his character without a blemish; aiui Fabroni, on whom ive mostly rely, is equally lavish in his praises. Wiule we take his personal merits from these authorities, we have evident proof from his works that he was an universal scholar, and wrote with facility and originality on every subject he took in hand. They present a greater variety of reading and thought than almost any scholar of the eighteenth century; but they are not without redundancy, and sometimes affectation. His fame is said to be fixed on a more solid basis in his own country, than in those where he has been viewed only througn the medium of translations.

, an Arabian philosopher, was born at Thous in 1058, studied in the college of the celebrated Iman-Al-Haremein, and became a man of great learning. On the death of his preceptor he presented himself to the vizir Neddham El-mulk, who bestowed many gifts and honours upon him, and gave him, the superintendance of a college which he had founded at Bagdad. Algazeli, after retaining this office four years, embraced a solitary life, travelled into Syria and Palestine, and employed himself in the composition of his works, until his death in 1111. Among his papers was a treatise censuring with great freedom some articles of the Mahometan faith; this was of course immediately committed to the flames. He left, however, many other works, some of which have been translated either into Latin or Hebrew. His treatise on “Religious Sciences” is highly celebrated in the East. In 1506 was published at Cologn, another of his works under the title of “Philosophica et logica Algazeli,” 4to. Averroes, who lived after him, wrote against his philosophical opinions, in a piece entitled “Destructio destructionum philosophise Algazeli,” and which is printed in the 9th vol. of his Aristotle. In all, except the first mentioned work, Algazeli is a strenuous supporter of the Mahometan religion.

, or Algerus, a learned priest of the church of Liege, in the twelfth century, was distinguished for a love of study and retirement, which induced him to refuse many tempting offers of promotion. In 1121, he shut himself up at Cluni, and passed his time in the strict observance of monastic discipline. He died in 1131. He wrote, 1. “A treatise on Mercy and Justice,” published by Martenne in the 5th vol. of his “Anecdotes.” 2. “A treatise on the Sacrament,” in three books, which may be seen in the Bibl. Patruro; but the most singular part of its history is, that Erasmus published an edition of it in 1530, at Fribourg, and declared that by the perusal of it he had been confirmed in the opinion of the real presence. 3. A small piece on “Free Will,” published by father Fez in the fourth vol. of his “Anecdotes.” Algerus wrote many letters, and a history of the church of Liege, which remain in manuscript.

, an architect and geometrician of the sixteenth century, was born at Carpi, in Modena. He was employed as architect by the duke of Ferrara, but applied himself principally to the art of fortification. Hia work on that subject, “Delle Fortificazioni,” divided into three books, was printed at Venice in 1570, in a most splendid form, in folio. Modern engineers have been much, indebted to him.

, a very celebrated lithotomist, of Florence, was born Sept. 17, 1669, and died Sept. 24, 1713, of an accident while shooting, his piece having burst, which carried off his left hand. He applied himself chiefly to operations for the stone, which he frequently performed with great success, particularly in the case of one of his patients, pope Clement XI. He published “Lithotomia, overo del cavar la Pietra,” Firenza, 1707, fol. This discovers a great knowledge of the art he professed, and the cures recorded are undeniable proofs of his ability. His opinion, in this work, is that the stone is seldom or never formed in the bladder, but that it falls into it from the kidneys, or some neighbouring part, and that it grows there by several incrustations.

, Allacen, or Abdilazum, was a learned Arabian, a native of Bassorah. He wrote upon Astrology; and his work upon optics was printed in Latin, at Basil, in 1572, under the title of “Opticae Thesaurus,” by Risner. Alhazen was the first who shewed the importance of refractions in astronomy, so little known to the ancients. He is also the first author who has treated on the twilight, upon which he wrote a work, and takes occasion to speak also of the height of the clouds. He first, however, distinguished himself as a projector. He boasted frequently that he could construct a machine to prevent the inundations of the Nile. This being reported to the caliph, he offered him presents, workmen, and every species of encouragement; but Alhazen, having soon discovered the impossibility of accomplishing his scheme, and dreadinothe anger of the caliph, put on a feigned madness, which he continued as long as the caliph lived. The rest of his life he spent, in writing, or in copying books, which he sold. He died at Cairo in 1038. Casiri, in his Bibl. Arab. Hisp. gives a long catalogue of his works, some of which are in the Bodleian, and some in the library of Leyden. The work above mentioned, edited by Risner, is supposed to have been of service to Kepler.

, the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, ought, perhaps, to have been caliph after Mohammed’s death; but beipg opposed by Omar and Othman, he retired into Arabia, and there made a collection of the doctrines of Mohammed, and in this he permitted some things condemned by Abubeker, which gained him many proselytes. After the death of Othman, he was declared caliph by the Egyptians and the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina, in the year of the hegira 35, and of our Lord 655; but after a reign of four years and three quarters, he was mortally tvounded in a mosque, and died three or four days after, A. D. 661. Ali had nine wives, who brought him fourteen sons and eighteen daughters. If we consider him, with regard to his courage, moderation, piety, and understanding, he will be found one of the greatest men that was ever born among the Arabians. The Persians annually celebrate the day of his martyrdom, follow his doctrine, and hold the memory of Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, in abhorrence, while the Turks reverence them, and detest Ali.

, an adventurer, who acted a most distinguished part against the Ottoman empire in the last century, was born in Natolia in 1728, and received at his birth the name of Joseph. His father was a Greek priest, of a distinguished family, who educated him with great care, designing him to succeed him: but, at thirteen years of age, Joseph being hunting in a neighbouring forest, robbers fell on his company, and carried him off to Grand Cairo: here he was sold to Ibrahim, a lieutenant of the janisaries, who had him circumcised, clothed him in the dress of the mamalukes, and called him Ali: he gave him masters in the Turkish and Arabic languages, and in horsemanship, and, by kind treatment, made him by degrees satisfied with his new station. In a course of years, he succeeded in these languages, shewed wonderful dexterity in the use of his arms, and became so dear to his master, that he raised him rapidly in his household, and created him a cachef or governor, at the age of twenty-two.

In this station, he manifested his equity and good administration of justice, improved the discipline of the mamalukes, and laid the foundation of his future greatness. Here he gained the favour of the pasha Rahiph, who, discovering his merit, became his protector. He remained several years in this station, until his patron Ibrahim was elected emir al hagi, or prince of the caravan, who took him with him to escort the pilgrims: in their march they were attacked by the Arabs; Ali fell upon them at the head of the mamalukes, repulsed the enemy, and killed a great number on the spot. On his return, several tribes being collected were determined to avenge their defeat: the young cachef gave them battle, and obtained a signal victory. Ibrahim did justice to the services of his lieutenant in full council, and proposed to create him a sangiak, which, after some opposition, was accomplished.

Become now one of the members of the republic, he never forgot his obligations to his patron. In 1758, the emir al hagi was murdered by the party of Ibrahim the Circassian. From this moment, All meditated vengeance he concealed his resentment, and employed all the resources of his mind to arrive at the post of scheik elbalad, the first dignity of the repuhlic. In 1763 he attained that post; and soon after revenged the blood of his patron, by sacrificing Ibrahim the Circassian with his own hand. This action raised him up numerous enemies; the sangiaks, attached to the party of the Circassian, conspired against him; he was on the point of being murdered, but saved himself by flight, and repaired to Jerusalem. Having gained the esteem of the governor of that city, he thought himself in safety; but his enemies, fearing him even in exile, wrote to the Porte to demand his death, and orders were immediately sent to the governor to strike off his head. Fortunately, Rahiph, his old friend, was one of the divan, and gave him notice to fly from Jerusalem: Ali therefore anticipated the arrival of the capigi bachi, and took refuge with scheik Daker, prince of St. John of Acre. This old man received him with open arms, was not long in discovering the merit of his new guest, and from that moment loaded him with caresses; he exhorted him to bear adversity with courage, flattered his hopes, soothed his sorrows, and made him taste of pleasures even in his disgrace. Ali Bey might have passed his days happily with scheik Daker; but ambition would not permit him to remain inactive; he carried on a secret correspondence with some of the sangiaks attached to his interest. The prince of Acre, on his part, wrote to his friends at Grand Cairo, and urged them to hasten the recal of the schiek elbalad. While this was going on, Rahiph, now grand vizir, procured him to be invited to return to Grand Cairo, and resume his dignity: he set off immediately, and was received with the acclamations of the people. On all sides the storm was gathering around him: all those who were offended at the murder of Ibrahim the Circassian, were constantly laying snares for him; they only waited a favourable opportunity: the death of Rahiph, which happened in 1763, furnished them with it; they threw off the mask, and declared openly against him. He escaped into Arabia Felix, visited the coasts of the Red Sea, and once more took refuge with the scheik of Acre, who received him with the same tenderness. Whilst he was there, the sangiaks of the party of the Circassian persecuted those who were devoted to the interests of Ali. This imprudence opened the eyes of the majority; they perceived that they were the dupes of a few ambitious men; and, to strengthen their party, recalled the scheik elbalad, and promised to support him with all their power: he set otf immediately. Ou his return to Grand Cairo, in 1766, All held a council: he represented to them that moderation had only excited the friends of Ibrahim to revenge, that nothing but flight would have saved him from their plots; and that to secure the common safety, these turbulent spirits must be sacrificed. The wholeassembly applauded this resolution, and the next day they took otf the heads of fottr of them. This execution insured the tranquillity of Ali: he saw himself at the head of the government, and, in the space of six years, raised sixteen of his mamalukes to the dignity of beys, and one of them to that of aga of the janisaries.

In 1768 the Russians declared war against the Porte: the scheik sent 12,000 men to serve in the Turkish army. Even this circumstance of duty was made use of to his disadvantage; and it was represented at Constantinople, that these troops were designed to serve in the Russian army: the calumny was credited, and a capigi, with four attendants, sent to take off his head. All had intelligence by his friends, and dispatched a confident, with 12 mamalukes, who seized the capigi and his attendants, took from them their order, and put them to death. The whole will shew us by how precarious a tenure life is held in the Ottoman empire. The scheik, possessed of this order, assembled the chiefs, and laid before them the despotism of the Ottoman court. This had the desired effect; sixteen of the beys exclaimed that war ought to be declared against the grand signior. The Turkish pasha was ordered to quit fcgypt, and the scheik secured the assistance of the prince of Acre.

Ali levied two armies; of one he gave the command to his brother Abou Dahab, to attack Arabia Felix, and the interior provinces; the other, to Ismae'I, to attack the maritime towns: he also equipped a good fleet for the Red Sea. Mean time, he remained at home, attentive to th internal police of the kingdom. He reformed the customhouse, granted immunities to the European merchants, encouraged commerce, protected the caravans, and the inland merchants; nor was he long before he reaped the fruits of his wise administration; Egypt was relieved, the public safety established, and agriculture encouraged.

In 1771, Ali sent Abou Dahab with 40,000 men to attempt the conquest of Syria, and wrote to count Orloff, the Russian admiral, then at Leghorn, making him large offers to form an alliance with him. The count in return thanked him, wished him success, and made him great promises, which were never realised. He also negotiated with Venice, promising to assist her to retake her possessions from the Turks; but the republic declined this bold enterprise. In the mean time Abou Dahab took some towns of Syria, and drove the Ottomans before him; but he had long meditated the ruin of Ali, his patron and his friend, and had accepted the command of the army, in order to gain it to his interest. Having secured them, he erected the standard of rebellion, withdrew the garrisons from the conquered places, and re-entered Egypt. Not daring to attack the capital, he kept along the Red Sea, crossed the deserts, and entered Upper Egypt. His revolt was now manifest; he gained the beys who commanded there, and marched towards Cairo. Ali repented his placing the command in the hands of a traitor. He collected an army, which he entrusted to Ismatjl bey, who likewise betrayed him and joined Abou Dahab. Upon this, Ali, by the advice of his friends, determined to retire to St. John of Acre. He wrote to count Orloff for assistance; and in the middle of the night, accompanied by the beys his friends, and 7,000 troops, he left Cairo, and tied across the deserts. He reached Gaza, but from agitation of mind was taken very ill: in this situation the venerable scheik Daker came to visit him, consoled him that his condition was not desperate, and that the Russian squadron was at hand. With this consolation, and the assistance of a Russian physician, in a few weeks he recovered.

A Russian squadron appearing before Acre, he wrote again to count Orloff for assistance, and sent also an ambassador to the empress. In August 1772, Ali took Yaffa and Rama. These successes inspired him with the hope of returning to Cairo. The chiefs of the janisaries in that capital also invited him to do so; and therefore collecting the garrisons of the conquered towns, he began his march with 52,250 mamalukes, 3,400 mograbi, and 650 horse. Abou Dahab met him with 12,000 men, and was defeated. Abou, by instilling into the minds of the Mahomruedans, that Ali designed to abolish their religion, and introduce Christianity, procured an army of 20,000 men. The janisaries, however, refused to join him. Ali was unprepared for this event; he abandoned himself to despair, and fell dangerously ill. His friends advised him to retire to St. John of Acre, but he declared he would sooner perish than retreat aw inch. On the 13th of April, 1773, the armies met. Both parties charged with fury, and notwithstanding the inferiority of Ali’s troops, they had at first the advantage; but the mograbi, corrupted hy the promises of Abou Dahab, deserted, and the fortune of the day was changed. Most of Ali’s friends fell round him; the survivors pressed him to retire, but he replied, that his hour was come. The mamalnkes bravely perished with their arms in their hands. Ali slew two soldiers who attempted to sieze him; and the lieutenant of Abou Dahab advancing, Ali, though wounded with two balls, shot him with a pistol. He fought with the utmost bravery, but, being beat down by the stroke of a sabre, was seized and carried to the tent of the conqueror, where he died of his wounds eight days after.

Ali was of the middle size, his carriage noble, and his character open and generous: he possessed an insurmountable courage, and a lofty genius. He died the victim of an ill-placed friendship. Had Russia availed herself of his offers, she might have secured to herself the commerce of Arabia. He was only 45 years of age when he died. The Egyptians long mourned his loss; and saw themselves again plunged into all the miseries from which he had delivered them.

, or Ali-Beigh, first interpreter to the sultan Mahomet IV. was born at Leopold, in Poland, under the name of Bobrowski, about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Dr. Hyde calls him Albert Bobowski. He was carried away while a youth by the Tartars, and sold to the Turks, who, perceiving his talents, had him brought up in the seraglio, where he spent twenty years. After this he went into the service of a man of rank, to Egypt, where, in consequence of his excellent behaviour, he was made free, and, according to the custom of the Turks, had a new name given him, that of Ali-Bey. On his return to Constantinople, his general knowledge of the Western and Eastern languages, gradually advanced him to the rank of Tergjuman Bashi, or first interpreter of the Porte. He composed a grammar and a lexicon of the Turkish language, about the year 1653, and translated at the request of Dr. Basire, the catechism of the church of England into the Turkish language. At the request of another gentleman, he translated the whole Bible, which was sent into Europe to be printed, but remains in manuscript in the library at Leyden. Dr. Hyde had the Psalms translated, and written, in Ali’s hand. His death, which took place at Constantinople in 1675, was much regretted by the Christians at Constantinople, but particularly by the English, for whom he had great affection and esteem, and to whom he often intimated his desire to have come over to England, and to return into the bosom of the Christian church. It is said indeed that this design was on foot when he died. In 1691, Dr. Hyde published “Tractatus Alberti Bobovii. &c. de Turcarum Liturgia, peregratione Meccana, circumcisione, aegrotorum visitatione, &c.” with notes, Oxford. This curious work was brought over by Dr. Thomas Smith, who presented it to Dr. Hyde, and advised him to translate it. It is the most succinct and probably one of the most authentic accounts we have of the religious ceremonies of the Turks. The “Dialog! Turcici” of Ali Bey, and his translation of Commenius’s Janua Linguarum, are in the royal library at Paris. It is thought that he furnished Ricaut with valuable materials for his history of the Turkish empire, and that he had a principal hand in the translation into Turkish of Grotius on the truth of the Christian religion.

, a French engraver, and a member of the academy of painting, was born at Abbeville in 1728, and died at Paris, 1788. He was first known by some small engravings executed with much taste, but his reputation rests principally on his large plates, which he engraved after Berghem, Wouvermans, and Vernet. Among his best works are two of the six plates which represent the battles of the Chinese with the Tartars. He worked with the dry point more successfully than even his master Lebas. His brother Francis Germain Aliarnet is known in this country by some engravings which he has executed for Messrs. Boydell.

, whom Crescembini has placed among the poets of Italy, but who more properly belongs to the class of historians, or antiquaries, lived in the latter part of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. He was educated in the house of Louis de Gonzaga, the first of that name, and captain of Mantua, and he appears to have made considerable proficiency in the study of law and philosophy. He afterwards embraced a military life and served under Guy and Louis de Gon­/aga; and when more advanced in years, was employed in. political aftairs. He is supposed to have died in 1417. The only work attributed to him is a metrical chronicle or history of Mantua, which Muratori has published in the fifth Yolume of his “Antiquitates Italian mediae aevi,” but in which he cautions his readers against expecting poetry or truth. The only valuable part is what concerns his own time in Mantua, which Muratori thinks future historians may consult with advantage.

, a French writer of considerable spirit, was born at Dole in 1600, appointed abbe of St. Paul at Besancon in 1632, and afterwards canon of the church of St. John in the same place. He defended the rights of his chapter, in the election of archbishops, with much firmness, against pope Alexander VII. and published several pieces on that subject about the year 1672. His “Dialogue entre Porte Noire et la Pillori,” a facetious composition, was censured by father Dominic Vernerey, inquisitor of Besancon; and this produced an answer from Alix, entitled “Eponge pour effacer la censure du P. Dom. Vernerey.” This, as well as Alix’s other works, is very scarce. Le Long, in his historical library of France, attributes to him the “History of the abb ay of St. Paul,” but it is doubted whether his talents lay in that direction. He had, however, studied mathematics, and left some manuscripts on that subject, which have been lost. He died July 6, 1676.

, a learned Dutch antiquary, was born in 1654, and amidst the duties of his office as first commissioner of convoys and licences, found leisure to publish many curious works. His first, in 1699, was a “Dissertation on Tournaments,” in which he treats of the ceremonies used at the court of Holland ti the days of chivalry. The third edition, published in 1740, by Peter van der Schelling, his son-in-law, had the addition of a dissertation on the origin, progress, and decline, of tournaments and single combats. Alkemade was afterwards editor of the metrical chronicle of Melis Sitoke, Leyden, 1699, fol. containing a history of Holland to 1337, with engraved portraits of all the counts of Holland. In 1700, he published “Muntspiegel der Graven van Holland,” &c. Delft, fol. a chronological series of coins struck under the reigns of the counts from Floris III. to Philip II. His next work was a treatise on modes of Burial, Delft, 1713, 8vo. This, he modestly says, is only an attempt which may perhaps excite others to investigate the subject more fully. But his principal work, and that which is most esteemed by his countrymen, was published in 1732, under the title of “Nedenandsche Displechtigheden,” 3 vols. 8va, a work not only extremely curious for its illustration of the ancient manners of the Dutch, but for the number of its beautiful engravings. His son-in-law assisted in completing and preparing this work for the press. After publishing some other works of less note, he concluded his literary labours by a description of the town of Brill, and died in 1737, at the advanced age of eighty-three.

, a supposed writer, whose name leads to a dissertation, rather than a life, passes for the author of a poem in old German, and very popular in Germany, under the title of “Reineke de Voss,” or “Reynard the Fox.” It is a kind of satire on the manners of the times during the ‘feudal system. All that is known of Alkmar is, that he lived about the year 1470, and was governor, or preceptor, of one of the dukes of Lorraia. The first edition of Reynard was printed at Lubeck in 1498, and it was frequently reprinted at Rostock, Francfort, ancl Hamburgh; and as the name of H. d’ Alkmar occurs in the preface of the Lubeck edition, which was long considered to be the first, he has as uniformly passed for the author of the poem. There is, however, in the library of the city of Lubeck, a copy of a work with the same title and nearly the same contents, but more full, and in prose, which was printed at Delft in 1485; and one has been discovered still older, printed at Goudesor Tergow, by Gerard Leew, in 1479. These two Reynards are exactly the same, written in the Dutch or Flemish dialect, which differs little from thatof Friesland, Westphalia, or Lower Saxony. It would appear then, that Alkmar had done no more than to versify 'and enlarge the fictions of the old Reynard. He says himself, in the preface, that he translated the present work from the Welch, and the French. Whatever may be the case with the Welch, , as he mentions the French, his evidence accords with known facts, and with the opinion of Le Grand d'Aussay, in his “Notices et Extraits des manuscrits de la bibliotheque de Paris” (vol. V. p. 249), namely, that the poem of Reynard is of French origin, and that Pierre de St. Cloud was the author, whose Reynard was written in prose in the thirteenth century; and that the poem of the same name, the production of Jaquemars Gélée or Giellée, at Lisle, is only an imitation of the former. There are, however, many resemblances to Reynard in the German poets of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from which it may perhaps be inferred that Reynard is of German origin, and older than the work of Pierre de St. Cloud. It has always been a very popular work in Germany, and the grammarian Gottsched published a fine edition, with an introduction, interpretation, and plates, while the celebrated Goethe has taken great pains to restore the text, and paraphrase it in hexameters. It has also been translated into Latin, Italian, Danish, Swedish, and English. Caxton’s edition, 1481, is described by Ames and Herbert, and more fully by Mr. Dibdin in his new edition of Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, vol. I. The Latin edition of Schopperus is very elegant, and has often been reprinted. Dreyer, syndic of Lubeck, published a curious work in 1768, 4to, on the use that may be made of Reynard the Fox in studying German antiquities and law. It yet remains to be noticed that Tiaden, a German writer, ascribes Reynard to one Nicholas Baumann, who died in 1503; but the opinions already given, and the dates of the ancient editions, seem to render this very improbable.

, was born at Chartres, and died at Paris the 2d of May, 1753. He gave to the French theatre several comedies that met with tolerable success; and to the Italian theatre, “l'Embarras des Richesses,” which was far better received; the “Tour de Carnaval,” and some other pieces. His “Ecole des Bourgeois,” abounds in that true comic humour which characterises the plays of Moliere. There are likewise of his: 1. “Les Bigarrures Calotines.” 2. “Lettres à Milord * * *, concerning the Baron and the Demoiselle le Couvreur.” 3. “Anecdotes of Russia, under Peter I.” 1745, 12mo. 4. “Connoissauce de la Mythologie,” 1762, 12mo. This last work is methodical and well digested; but he was only the editor of it. It was written by a Jesuit, who gave it to M. Boudot. Allainval lived in great poverty, sleeping generally in hackney chairs, or coaches in the streets, and died equally poor, in the hotel de Dieu, to which he was carried when struck with the palsy.

, so named from the town of Allais in Languedoc, where he received his birth, travelled to England in his youth. In 1665, we find him on board the fleet commanded by the duke of York. He returned to France, where he taught the English and French languages. His works are: 1. “A Methodical French Grammar,” 1681, 12 mo. 2. “An Abridgment of that Grammar,” in English, 1683, 12mo. 3. “The History of the Sevarambians,” a work divided into two general parts; the first printed in 1677, 2 vols. 12mo; the second in 1678 and 79, in 3 vols. 12mo. It was reprinted in 1716, at Amsterdam, in 2 vols. 12mo, small type. It is a political romance, which was thought to be dangerous, and which in many places is only ridiculous. There are other works of Allais, but not held in much estimation. Marchand appears to have a higher opinion of his merit than any other biographer, and has given a very prolix analysis of his history of the Sevarambians.

, an English writer of the 17th century, was the son of Andrew Allam, a person of mean rank, and born at Garsington, near Oxford, in April 1655. He had his education in grammar learning at a private school atDenton, in the parish ofCuddesdon, near his native place, under Mr. William Wildgoose, of Brazen-nose college, a noted schoolmaster of that time. He was entered a batteler of St. Edmund’s hall, in Easter term, 1671. After he had taken his degrees in arts, he became a tutor, moderator, lecturer in the chapel, and at length vice-principal of his house. In 1680, about Whitsuntide, he entered into holy orders; and in 1683, was made one of the masters of the schools. His works that are extant, are, “The learned Preface, or Epistle to the Reader, with a dedicatory Epistie, in the printer’s name, prefixed to the Epistle Congratulatory of Lysimachus Nicanor, &c. to the Covenanters of Scotland,” Oxon. 1684. “The Epistle containing an account of Dr. Cosin’s life, prefixed to the doctor’s book, entitled, Ecclesix Anglicanae Politeia in tabulas digesta,” Oxon. 1684, fol. “The Preliminary Epistle, with a review and correction of the book, entitled, Some plain Discourses on the Lord’s Supper, &c. written by Dr. George. Griffith, bishop of St. Asaph,” Oxon. 1684, 8vo. “Additions and Corrections to a book, entitled, Angliae Notitia, or The present state of England.” They appeared in the edition of that book, printed at London in 1684; but the author of the “Notitia” did not acknowledge the assistance contributed by Mr. Allam. “Additions to Helvicus’s Historical and Chronological Theatre,” printed with that author in 1687. Mr. Aliarn laid the foundation of a work entitled “Notitia Ecclesiae Anglicance, or a History of the Cathedral Churches, &c. of England;” but death prevented his completing this design. He likewise translated the “Life of Iphicrates,” printed in the English version of Plutarch by several gentlemen of Oxford, 1684, 8vo. And lastly, he assisted Wood in his Ath. Oxonienses, and is mentioned by that author as highly qualified for such a work, by an uncommon acquaintance with religious and Ik terary history. He died of the small-pox, June 17, 1685, and was buried in the church of St. Peter in the East, at Oxford.

, a Scotch portrait and historical painter of the preceding century, was a native of Edinburgh, and patronised by sir William Erskine. He received the rudiments of his art in the academy of painting instituted, and carried on for a considerable time, by Messrs. Foulis, in Glasgow, Thence'he went to Italy, where he spent many years in unremitting application to the study of the great models of antiquity. At Rome in 1773, he gained the prize medal given by the academy of St. Luke for the best specimen of historical composition, and it is believed he was the only Scotchman (Gavin Hamilton excepted) who had then attained; that honour. After his return in 1777, he resided a few years in London; but about 1780 he went to Edinburgh, and was appointed director and master of the academy established in that metropolis by the board of trustees for manufactures and improvements, for the purpose of diffusing a knowledge of the principles of the fine arts, and elegance of design, in the various manufactures and works which require to be figured and ornamented; a charge for which he was peculiarly well qualified, by the extensive knowledge he possessed of every branch of the art. He was much admired for his talents in composition, the truth with which he delineated nature, and the characteristic humour that distinguished his pictures, drawings, and etchings. There are several engravings from his pictures, one “The Origin of Painting, or the Corinthian maid drawing, the shadow of her lover;” and four, in aqua tfnta, by Paul Sandby, from drawings made by Allan when at Rome, representing the sports during the carnival. Several of the figures introduced in them, are portraits of persons well known to the English who visited Rome between 1770 and 1780. Mr. Allan died Aug. 6, 1796. In private life, his character was marked by the strictest honour and integrity, and his manners were gentle, unassuming, and obliging.

, esq. an English antiquary, was an attorney at Darlington, but, having a strong propensity to the study of our national antiquities, devoted his time and fortune to this rational and useful pursuit. His first production, printed in his own house, was, “' ue recommendatory Letter of Oliver Cromwell to William Lenthall, esq. speaker of the House of Commons, for erecting a college and university at Durham, and his Letters Patent (when lord protector) for founding the same; with the Address of the provost and fellows of the said college, &c.” 4to. “A sketch of the Life and Character of Bishop Treror,” 1776. “The Life of 'St. Cuthbert,” 1777. “Collections relating to Sherborn Hospital,” and others mentioned in Cough’s British Topography, vol.1, p. 332. Being possessed of twenty manuscript volumes relating to the antiquities of the counties of Durham and Northumberland, bequeathed to him, in 1774, by the late rev. Thomas Randall, vicar of EHingham in Northumberland, he published “An Address and Queries to the public, relative to the compiling a complete Civil and Ecclesiastical History of the ancient and present state of the County Palatine of Durham,” 1774. He also engraved several charters in fac-simile, and seals of bishops and others. Mr. Hutchinson, the historian of Durham, who carried this plan into execution, acknowledges the generous access he had to Mr. Allan’s library and manuscripts; nor is it any discredit to Mr. Hutchinson’s industry to say, that his work proceeded under the guidance of Mr. Allan’s judgment. In the preface to Mr. Hutchinson’s third volume of the History of Durham, is a very curious account of the difficulties he had to encounter from the delay, &c. of the printer, and an ample acknowledgment of Mr. Allan’s great liberality and spirit. Mr. Allan presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London, of which he was a member, twenty-six quarto volumes of Mss. relating chiefly to the university of Oxford, extracted from the several public libraries there by Mr. W. Smith, formerly fellow of University college, and rector of Melsonby in Yorkshire. Mr. Allan died at the Grange, Darlington, in the county of Durham, July 31, 1800, leaving a numerous family, of which the eldest son is a member of the Society of Lincoln’s Inn.

, was a native of Dauphiny, and counsellor to the king, and a voluminous writer on the history of his native province. He died in 1716, while employed on a treatise on the police and finances of France, and other works left in manuscript. His printed works are, 1. “Zizime,” an historical novel, 1673, 1712, 1724, 12mo. 2. “Eloges de des Adrets, Depuy-Montbrun, Colignon,” 1675, 12mo. 3. “Les Aieules de madame de Bourgogne,” 1677, 12mo. 4. “Bibliotheque de Dauphiné,” 1680, 12mo, of which a new, but not improved edition, was published in 1797, by P. V. Chalvet. The original is very scarce. 5. “Inscriptions de Grenoble,” 1683, 4to. 6. “La Vie de Humbert II.” 1688. 7. “Les Presidents uniques, et les premiers Presidents au parlement de Dauphiné,” 1695. 8. “Recueil des Lettres,” 1695. 9. “Nobiliare du Dauphiné” 1671, 12mo, reprinted 1696. 10. “Genealogie de la famille Simiane,” 1697. 11. “Histoire genealogique de Dauphiné,” 4 vols. 4to. This work procured him the title of genealogist of Dauphiny. 12, 44 “Etat politique de Grenoble,” 1698, 12mo. 13. “Les Gouverneurs et Lieutenants au Gouvernement du Dauphiné,” 1704, 12mo.

, keeper of the Vatican library, and a celebrated popish writer of the 17th century, was born in the isle of Chios, of Greek parents, 1586. At nine years of age he was removed from his native country to Calabria; bat some time after sent to Rome, and admitted into the Greek college, where he applied himself to the study of polite learning, philosophy, and divinity, and embraced the Roman Catholic religion. From thence he went to Naples, and was chosen great vicar to Bernard Justiniani, bishop of Anglona. From Naples he returned to his own country, but went soon from thence to Rome, where he studied physic under Julius Caesar Lagalla, and took a degree in that profession. He afterwards made the belles lettres his object, and taught in the Greek college at Rome. Pope Gregory XV. sent him to Germany, in 1622, in order to get the elector Palatine’s library removed to Rome; but hy the death of Gregory, he lost the reward he might have expected for his trouble in that affair. He lived some time after with cardinal Bichi, and then with cardinal Francis Barberini; and was at last, by pope Alexander VII. appointed keeper of the Vatican library. Allatius was of great service to the gentlemen of Port Royal in the controversy they had with Mr. Claude, concerning the belief of the Greeks on the subject of die Eucharist: Mr. Claude often calls him Mr. Arnaud’s great author, and gives him a character, by no means favourable, although in general very just. “Allatius,” says he, “was a Greek, who had renounced his own religion to embrace that of Rome; a Greek whom the pope had chosen his librarian: a man the most devoted to the interests of the court of Rome; a man extremely outrageous in his disposition. He shews his attachment to the court of Rome in the very beginning of his book `De perpetua consensione,‘ where he writes in favour of the pope thus: `The Roman pontiff,’ says he, `is quite independent, judges the world without being liable to be judged; we are bound to obey his commands, even when he governs unjustly; he gives laws without receiving any; he changes them as he thinks fit; appoints magistrates; decides all questions as to matters of faith, and orders all affairs of importance in the church as seems to him good. He cannot err, being out of the power of all heresy and illusion; and as he is armed with the authority of Christ, not even an angel from heaven could make him alter his opinion'.” No Latin ever shewed himself more incensed against the Greek schismatics than Allatius, or more devoted to the see of Rome. One singularity in his character is, that he never engaged in matrimony, nor was he ever in orders; and pope Alexander having asked him one day, why he did not enter into orders? “Because,” answered he, “I would be free to marry.” “But if so,” replied the pope, “why don't you marry ?” “Because I would be at liberty,” answered Allatius, “to take orders.” If we may believe Joannes Patricius, Allatius had a very extraordinary pen, with which, and no other, he wrote Greek for 40 years; and we need not be surprised that when he lost it he was so grieved that he shed tears. He wrote so fast that he copied, in one night, the “Diarium Romanorum Pontiftcium,” which a Cistertian monk had lent to him. Niceron gives him the character of a man laborious and indefatigable, of a vast memory, and acquainted with every kind of learning; but adds, that in his writings there is a display of more reading than judgment, and, that biographer might have added, than of candour or urbanity of style, at least in his controversial pieces. He died Jan. 1669, aged eighty-three, after founding several colleges or schools in the island of Chios, his native place. His principal works were, 1. “De Ecclesiæ Occidentalis et Orientalis perpetua consensione,” Cologn, 1648, 4to; which is regarded by the most impartial writers among the Protestants, as the production of a disingenuous and insidious mind. His object is, to prove that Latin and Greek churches always concurred in the same faith; and the Catholics look upon this as his ablest performance. 2. “De utriusque ecclesiæ, &c. in dogmate de purgatorio eonsensione,” Rome, 1655, 8vo. 3. “De libris ecclesiasticis Graecorum,” Paris, 1645, 8vo. 4. “De Templis Grsecorumrecentioribus,” Cologn, 1645, 8vo. 5. “Græcioe orthodoxae scriptores,” Rome, 1652 and 1657, 2 vols. 4 to. 6. “Philo Byzantinus de septem orbis spectaculis, Gr. et Lat. cum notis,” Rome, 1640, 8vo. 7. “Eustathius Antiochenus in hexameron, et de Engastrimytho,” Lyons, 1629, 4to. 8. “Symmichta, et Symmiha, sive opusculorum Græcorum ac Latinorum vetustiorum ac recentiorum libri duo,” Cologn, 1653, fol. 9. “De Mensura temporum antiquorum et proecipue Græcorupi,” Cologn, 1645, 8vo. 10. “Apes Urbanæ,” Rome, 1633, 8vo, a title borrowed from the Bees in pope Urban VIII.'s arms; the book gives an account of all the learned men who flourished at Rome from 1630 to the end of 1632, with a catalogue of their works. Fabricius printed an edition of it at Hamburgh, 1711, 8vo. 11. “Dramaturgia,” in Italian, an alphabetical collection of all the Italian dramatic works published in his time. This was reprinted at Venice, 4to, with considerable additions, and brought down to 1755. 12. “Poeti antichi raccolti da Codici manuscriti della Bibliotheca Vaticana e Barberina,” Naples, 1661, 8 vo, a very scarce work, containing the productions of many ancient Italian poets, not before published, but, according to Ginguene, full of errors. Moreri and Niceron mentions other works by Aliutius, which show the variety of his studies, and the rapidity with which he could pass from one subject to another.­Of his tediousnessan'd digressive powers, M. de Sallo complains with some humour in the Journal des Savans. After noticing a lamentation of the virgin Mary, as a remarkable piece inserted in one of Allatius’s works, he adds: “This lamentation was composed by Metaphrast, and that, was sufficient for Allatius to insert a panegyric upon Metaphrast, written by Psellus. As Metaphrast’s name was Simeon, he thence took an opportunity of making a long dis+ sertation upon the lives and works of such celebrated men. as had borne the same name. From the Simeons he passes to the Simons, from them to the Simonideses, and lastly to the Simonactides.”

, an Italian satirical and burlesque poet, about the end of the sixteenth century, was born at Florence, and in his youth served in the army. He afterwards became an ecclesiastic. He had a considerable share of learning, but perhaps more of wit; and the charms of his conversation made his house at Florence the resort of all the literati of that city. His principal work, in burlesque poetry, “Rime piacevoli,” was printed after his death, in four separate parts, at Verona, 1605, 1607; at Florence, 1608; and Verona, 1613, 4to. Most, of his verses have a prose introduction in the same satirical spirit. These four parts are generally bound in the same volume with his three “Lettere di ser Poi Pedante,” addressed to Bembo, Boccacce, and Petrarch, Bologna, 1613; and with the “Fantastica Visione di Parri da Pozzolatico,” addressed to Dante, Lucca, 1613: in both which he ridicules pedantry, by affecting the pompous language of pedants. This volume is usually classed among books of the greatest rarity. The “Rime piacevoli” were reprinted, on a vil paper and type at Amsterdam, 1754, 8vo; but this contains, what had not appeared before, some account of the author. Ailegri left various pieces of poetry in manuscript, in the hands of his family, which is now extinct, and the poetry probably lost. Among others, he had written a tragedy on the story of Idomeneus king of Crete, of which Carlo Dati speaks very highly. In the collection of Latin poems, printed at Florence, 17 ID, are several pieces by Ailegri, which give him a considerable rank among poets of that class, but they are of the heroic kind, and of a graver cast than his Italian poems.

, a Romish ecclesiastic, whose reputation is founded on his talents as a musical composer, was a pupil of Nanini, and admitted, in 1629, as a singer into the pope’s chapel. Among his most celebrated productions is a “Miserere,” which was performed during passion-week at the Sixtine chapel, and so highly esteemed that it was forbidden to be copied, under pain of excommunication. Mozart, however, after hearing it twice, was enabled to make out a copy, thought to be equal to the original. In 1773, the pope presented a complete one to George III. It had been previously engraven in London, about 1771. Allegri was of the same family with Corregio, and died Feb. 16, 1640. He was a man of a devout and benevolent disposition, and was frequent in his charitable visits to prisoners, and other persons in distress.

, an English non-conformist divine, was the son of Mr. Tobias Allein, and born at the Devizes, in Wiltshire, 1633. He discovered an extraordinary tincture of religion, even in his childhood; at eleven years of age he was much addicted to private prayer; and on the death of his brother Edward, who was a worthy minister of the gospel, he entreated his father that he might be educated for that profession. In four years he acquired a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, and was declared by his master n't for the university. He was, however, kept some time longer at home, where he was instructed in logic, and at sixteen was sent to Lincoln college, Oxford. In 1651 he was removed to Corpus Christi college, a Wiltshire scholarship being there vacant. While at college he vras remarkably assiduous in his studies, grave in his temper, but cheerfully ready to assist others. He might in a short time have obtained a fellowship, but he declined that for the sake of the office of chaplain, being pleased with the opportunity this gave him of exerting his gift in prayer, the liturgy being then disused. In July 1653, he was admitted bachelor of arts, and became a tutor. In this arduous employment he behaved himself with equal skill and diligence; several of his pupils became very eminent non-conforming ministers, and not a few attained to considerable preferment in the established church. In 1655 he became assistant in the ministry to Mr. G. Newton, of Taunton, in Somersetshire, where he married the same year. His income was small, but was somewhat increased by the profits of a. boarding-school, which Mrs. Allein kept. During seven years that he lived in this manner, he discharged his pastoral duty with incredible diligence; for, besides preaching and catechising in the church, he spent several afternoons in a week in visiting the people of the town, and exhorting them to a religious life. These applications were at first far from being welcome to many families; but his meekness, moderation, and unaffected piety, reconciled them to his advice, and made him by degrees the delight of his parishioners. He was deprived in 1662, for nonconformity. He preached, however, privately, until his zeal and industry in this course brought him into trouble. On the 26th day of May, 1663, he was committed to Ivelchester gaol, and was with seven ministers and fifty quakers confined in one room, where they suffered great hardships; tut they still continued to preach till the assizes. These were held before Mr. justice Foster, and at them Mr. Allein was indicted for preaching on the 17th of May preceding; of which indictment he was found guilty, and sentenced to pay a hundred marks, and to remain in prison till his fine was paid. At the time of his receiving sentence, he said, that he was glad that it had appeared before his country; that whatever he was charged with, he was guikv of nothing but doing his duty; and all that did appear by the evidence was, that he had sung a psalm, and instructed his family, others being there, and both in his own house. He continued in prison a year, which broke his constitution; but, when he was at liberty, he applied himself to his ministry as earnestly as ever, which, brought on him a painful disorder. The five miles act taking place, he retired from Taunton to Wellington, where he continued but a short time, Mr. Mallack, a merchant, inviting him to lodge at a house of his some distance from Taunton. In the summer of 1665, he was advised to drink the waters near the Devizes, for his health. But before he left Mr. Mallack’s house, viz. on the I Oth of July in that year, some friends came to take their leave of him; they were surprised praying together, and for this were sentenced to sixty days imprisonment, which himself, seven ministers, and forty private persons, suffered in the county gaol. This hindered his going to the waters; and his disease returning, he lost another summer. At length, in 1667, he went, but was far from receiving the benefit he expected. After some time he went to Dorchester, where he grew better; but applying himself again to preaching, catechising, and other duties, his distemper returned with such violence, that he lost the use of his limbs. His death was then daily expected; but by degrees he grew somewhat better, and at length went to Bath, where his health altered so much, that his friends were in hopes he would have lived several years; but growing suddenly worse again, he died there, in the month of November, 1668, being somewhat above thirty-five years old. He was a man of great learning, and greater charity; zealous in his own way of worshipping God, but not in thft least bitter towards any Christians who worshipped in another manner. He preserved a great respect for the church, notwithstanding all his sufferings; and was eminently loyal to his prince, notwithstanding the severities of the times. His writings breathe a true spirit of piety, for which they have been always and deservedly esteemed. His body lies in the chancel of the church of St. Magdalen, of Taunton, and on his grave-stone are the following lines

His principal works are, 1. “A familiar Explanation of the Assembly’s Catechism,” 8vo, 1656. 2. “A call to Archippus,” 1664, 4to, in which he advises the ejected ministers to continue their public services. 3. “An Alarm tothe unconverted,” 1672, 8vo and 12mo, afterwards published under the title of “A sure Guide to Heaven;” but the original title was resumed, and it has been reprinted oftener, even to this day, than almost any book of the kind. 4. “Christian Letters,” 1672, afterwards given as an appendix to his life. 5. “Cases of Conscience,” 1672. G. “Remains, being a Collection of sundry Directions, Sermons, &c.” 1672. Besides these, he wrote several small practical pieces, which are printed among the works of Mr. Richard Allein. He left also, imperfect, a “Body of Natural Theology,” in Latin. One section, “De Providentia,” was prepared for the press and licensed; but, according to Wood (who, it may here be noticed, gives a very unfavourable account of our author), was never printed, for want of encouragement.

, the son of a clergyman of the same name, rector of Ditchet, Somersetshire, for fifty years, was born at that place in 1611; the first part of his education under his father fitted him for the university in 1627. That year he entered a commoner of St. Alban’s hall, in Oxford, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts. Thence he removed to New Inn Hall, where he took his master’s degree, and entering into orders, became an assistant to his father, who bei,;g inclined to puritanism, die son fell into the same opinions; and possessing great zeal and learning, he soon acquired a proportionable reputation. In March 1641, he succeeded to the living of Batcomb, in Dorsetshire, the duty of which he performed with much industry and fidelity, but being a zealous covenanter, had some disturbances with the king’s forces in those parts. He was, however, a great enemy to that enthusiastic spirit which prevailed in this country, on the ruin of the established church; this appears by his subscribing a representation, entitled “The Testimony of the Ministry of Somersetshire to the Truth of Jesus Christ, and to the Solemn League and Covenant,” printed in 1648. His industry and affection to the cause procured himself and his father to be constituted assistants to the commissioners appointed by parliament, for ejecting scandalous ministers. This was in 1654; and Mr. Wood tells us, what is probable enough, that they acted with great severity. However, on the Restoration, Mr. Allein shewed a disposition to yield obedience to the government, but could not accede to the terms of conformity, which occasioned his being ejected from his living, after he had held it upwards of twenty years. After this, he continued to exercise his function privately, preaching sometimes in his own house, at others in the houses of gentlemen in the neighbourhood. He was once apprehended at the seat of Mr. Moore, who had been a member of parliament, and who had invited him thither to preach to his family and some of his neighbours. Mr. Moore paid the tine, which was rive pounds, for him. He still went on in the way of his profession, notwithstanding he was often summoned to the quarter sessions, and severely reprimanded as the keeper of a conventicle. He, however, escaped imprisonment, as his great learning, piety, and exemplary life, had gained him so high a reputation, that it would have been very unpopular to have sent him to a gaol. After the five mile act passed, he was obliged to leave Batcomb, and retire to Frome Selwood, where he continued in the constant exercise of his ministry, notwithstanding the dangers he was exposed to. He died the 22d of December 1681, being upwards of 64 years of age. He was distinguished for his plain, practical manner of preaching, and for the delight he took in the pastoral office. His writings, which were mostly tracts on religious subjects, were much esteemed and often printed. The principal of these is a work entitled “Vindicise Pietatis, or a Vindication of Godliness,” which was, and is, in high reputation among persons of Calvinistic sentiments. It consists of three parts, published 1664 6. As it was printed without a licence, the king’s bookseller caused the copies to be seized, but afterwards purchased them from the king’s kitchen, where they were sent as waste-paper, and bound them up and sold them; being however discovered, he was obliged to make submission to the privy council, and the hooks were ordered to be destroyed. This occasioned the first edition to be long scarce, and created the mistakes as 10 date into which both Wood and Calamy have fallen, and which are not rectified by the editor of the Biographia Britannica, who does not appear to have examined the book. Although a zealous non-conformist, Mr. Allein was not tinctured either with spleen to the church, or disloyalty to his prince; on the contrary, he lived in a fair correspondence with the clergy of his neighbourhood, and the gentry paid him great respect, although of opposite sentiments.

, or rather Allen (Thomas), a pious English divine, was born about 1682, and educated at Wadham college, Oxford, where he probably took only his bachelor’s degree, as we do not find him in the list of upper graduates. In 1714 he was presented to the rectory of Kettering, in Northamptonshire, on which he resided the whole of his life, and was exemplary in all the duties of the pastoral office, nor less indefatigable as a writer, although his success in this last character bore little proportion to the magnitude of his labours. Of his printed works we know only, 1. “The Practice of an Holy Life; or the Christian’s Daily Exercise, in Meditations, Prayer, &c.” London, 1716, 8vo. 2. “The Christian’s sure Guide to Eternal Glory,” both popular works, and afterwards translated into the Russian language. 3. “A Sermon before the Criminals in Newgate,” 1744. 4. “The New Birth, or Christian Regeneration, in Miltonic or blank verse,” 1753, 8vo. Besides these, he wrote “Pandects of Christianity” “The harmony and agreement between Moses and Christ” “The Primitive and Apostolic Fathers, with their genuine Writings” “God the best interpreter of his law” “The Divine Worship and Service of the Church of England,” with some others, for which he issued proposals, but was obliged to desist from want of encouragement. Lists of these Mss. he sent to various clergymen, requesting they would bear the expence, &c.; and accompanied them with letters in an eccentric style, and with no small portion of conceit. Mr. Allen died May 31, 1755, suddenly, as he was reading prayers in his church.

, an English lawyer and antiquary, was born at Great Hadham in Hertfordshire, about the end of the seventeenth century, and was educated at Eton; whence he went to King’s college, Cambridge, and took his bachelor’s degree in 1707, and his master’s in 1711. He afterwards studied law, was called to the bar, and by the influence of Arthur Onslow, speaker of the house of commons, became a master in chancery. His reputation as a lawyer was inconsiderable, but he was esteemed a good classical scholar, and a man of wit and convivial habits. He became afterwards an alderman of the corporation of Guildford, and an useful magistrate in that neighbourhood. He died April 11, 1754, and was buried in the Temple church. He collected a biographical account of the members of Eton college, which by his will, dated 1753, he ordered to be placed in the libraries of the two colleges, and a third copy to be given to his patron, Mr. Onslow. He also compiled, at his leisure hours, or rather made collections for, an English dictionary of obsolete words, of words which have changed their meaning, as villain, knave, and of proverbial or cant words, as helter-skelter, which he derived from hiiariter cderiter. It is not known what became of this manuscript. He bequeathed his fortune, and probably his books, to a brother who was a Turkey merchant.

, archbishop of Dublin in the reign of Henry VIII. was first educated at Oxford, whence he removed to Cambridge, and took the degree of master of arts; or, as Wood rather thinks, that of bachelor of laws. He was afterwards sent to Rome to the pope, by Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, to manage some affairs relating to the church. He continued there about nine years, and was created doctor of laws in some Italian university. On his return he was made chaplain to cardinal Wolsey, and commissary or judge of his court, when he was legate a latere, but he was accused of great dishonesty in the execution of that office. He assisted the cardinal in first visiting and afterwards dissolving forty small monasteries, for the erection of his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. His church-preferment was considerable. Archbishop Warham gave him Aldyngton, with the chapel annexed, March 6, 1510, in which he was succeeded by Erasmus; and in the following year his grace presented him to Riseburgh, in the deanery of Riseburgh. In 1524 he was presented to the perpetual vicarage of Alborne, and he had, by the favour of Wolsey, the church of Dalby on the Would sin Leicestershire, though it belonged to the master and brethren of the hospital of Burton Lazars. In the latter end of the year 1525, he was incorporated doctor of laws of the university of Oxford; and March 13, 1528, upon the death of Dr. Hugh Inge, he was consecrated archbishop of Dublin, and about the same time was made chancellor of Ireland. In 1534 he was barbarously murdered in an insurrection, by Thomas Fitz-gerald, eldest son of the earl of Kildare, in the fiftieth year of his age. He wrote some treatises on ecclesiastical affairs, which remain in manuscript.

, an eminent mathematician of the sixteenth century, was born at Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, Dec. 21, 1542, and was a descendant, through six generations, of Henry Allen, or Alan, lord of the manor of Buckenhall in that county. He was admitted scholar of Trinity college, Oxford, June 4, 1561, became fellow in 1565, and in 1567, took his master’s degree. From a strong inclination to a retired life, and a dislike to entering into holy orders, to which, according to the statutes, he ftmst have been called, he quitted the college, resigned his fellowship, and went to Gloucester-hall (now Worcester college), in 1570. Here he studied very closely, and acquired a high reputation for his knowledge in antiquity, philosophy, and mathematics. Having received an invitation from Henry earl of Northumberland, a great friend and patron of the mathematicians, he spent some time at the earl’s house, where he became acquainted with those celebrated mathematicians Thomas Harriot, John Dee, Walter Warner, and Nathanael Torporley. Robert earl of Leicester had a particular esteem for Mr. Allen, and would have conferred a bishopric upon him, but his love of solitude and retirement made him decline the offer. He was also highly respected by other celebrated contemporaries, sir Thomas Bodley, sir Henry Savile, Mr. Camden, sir Robert Cotton, sir Henry Spelman, Mr. Selden, &c. His great skill in the mathematics made the ignorant and vulgar look upon him as a magician or conjuror: and the author of a book, intituled “Leicester’s Commonwealth,” has absurdly accused him of using the art of figuring, to bring about the earl of Leicester’s schemes, and endeavouring, by the black art, to effect a match betwixt him and queen Elizabeth. It is more certain the earl placed such confidence in Allen, that nothing material in the state was transacted without his knowledge, and he had constant information, by letter from Allen, of what passed in the university. Allen was very curious and indefatigable in collecting scattered manuscripts relating to history, antiquity, astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics, which collections have been quoted by several learned authors, &c. There is a catalogue of them, bearing date 1622, among Anthony Wood’s papers in the Ashmolean museum. He published in Latin the second and third books of Ptolemy, “concerning the Judgment of the Stars,” or, as it is commonly called, of the quadripartite construction, with an exposition. He wrote also notes on many of Lilly’s books, and some on John Bale’s work, “De scriptoribus Maj. Britanniae.” Having lived to a great age, he died at Gloucester-hall, Sept. 30, 1632, and was buried with a solemnity suited to the greatness of his character. He bequeathed a valuable portrait of himself, which has since been engraven, to the president of Trinity college and his successors. Mr. Burton, the author of his funeral oration, calls him not only the Coryphaeus, but the very soul and sun of all the mathematicians of his time. Mr. Selden mentions him as “omni eruditionis genere summoque judicio ornatissimus, cele-” berrimae academies Oxoniensis dec us insignissimum; a person of the most extensive learning and consummate judgment, the brightest ornament of the university of Oxford.“Camden says, he was” Plurimis optimisque artibus Ornatissimus; skilled in most of the best arts and sciences.“Mr. Wood has transcribed part of his character from a manuscript in the library of Trinity college, in these words:” He studied polite literature with great application; he was strictly tenacious of academic discipline, always highly esteemed both by foreigners and those of the university, and by all of the highest stations in the church of England and the university of Oxford. He was a sagacious observer, and an agreeable companion.

, a learned divine, was born in the year 1573, educated in the king’s school at Worcester, and from thence removed to Brazen-nose college, Oxford, 1589. He was elected a probationer fellow of Merton college in 1593. He afterwards went into orders; but, instead of preaching, he applied himself to the more abstruse and critical parts of learning. This recommended him to the esteem of sir Henry Savile, by whose interest he obtained a fellowship of Eton college in 1604, and whom he assisted in his elaborate edition of St. Chrysostom. While at Eton, he assisted the studies of Dr. Hammond, then a school-boy, particularly in the Greek language. He wrote “Observationes in libellum Chrysostomi in Esaiam.” He died Oct. 10, 1638, and was buried in Eton college chapel. He was a benefactor in books to the libraries of Brazen ­nose and Merton colleges.

, a non-conformist clergyman of Norwich, was born in that city in 1608, and educated at Caius college, Cambridge. He appears to have been minister of St. Edmund’s, Norwich, where he was silenced by bishop Wren, in L636, for refusing to read the book of Sports, and other non-compliances peculiar to the times. Two years afterwards he went to New England, and was a preacher at Charlestown until 1651, when he returned to Norwich, and had the rectory of St. George’s, from which he was ejected for nonconformity in 1662, and during the same period he preached in a meeting called the congregational church. He afterwards preached in the latter place, as he had opportunity, and without molestation, till the time of his death, Sept. 21, 1673. He published several pious practical treatises; but the work which obtained him most reputation, was his “Chain of Scripture Chronology, from the creation to the death of Christ, in seven periods,” 1639, 4to. One of his biographers compares him to Bucholtzer, who, being weary of controversy, betook himself to chronology, saying that he would rather compute than dispute.

was born at Lyons, and fora long time was a practitioner there at the bar. He united, however, a knowledge of the law with a taste for natural history, which last induced him to retire from business to St. Etienne in Forez, where he could more conveniently pursue his inquiries into the properties of fossils and mineralogy in general. He accordingly published “Memoires pour servir a l'histoire naturelle du Lyonnois, Forez, et Beaujolais,” 2 vols. 12mo, 1765; and “Melanges d'histoire naturelle,” which first appeared in 1763, 2 vols. 12mo, but afterwards there was a new edition in 6 vols. He died at St. Etienne in 1768.

, an English minor poet of the seventeenth century, was the son of James Allestry, a bookseller of London, who was ruined by the great fire in 1666, and related to provost Allestry, the subject of the next article. Jacob was educated at Westminster school, and entered at Christ-church, Oxford, in the act-term 1671, at the age of eighteen, and was elected student in 1672. He took the degree in arts; was music-reader in 1679, and terrte filius in 1681; both which offices he executed with, great applause, being esteemed a good philologist and poet. He had a chief hand in the verses and pastorals spoken in the theatre at Oxford, May 21, 1681, by Mr. William Savile, second son of the marquis of Halifax, and George Cholmondeley, second son of Robert viscount Kells (both of Christ-church), before James duke of York, his duchess, and the lady Anne; which verses and pastorals were afterwards printed in the “Examen Poeticum.” He died of the consequence of youthful excesses, October 15, 1686, and was buried, in an obscure manner, in St. Thomas’s church-yard, Oxford.

, an eminent English divine, was born in March 1619, at Uppington near the YVrekin in Shropshire. He was at first educated at a free-school in that neighbourhood, and afterwards removed to one at Coventry, taught by Philemon Holland the translator. In 1636, he was sent to Oxford, and entered a commoner in Christ-church, under the tuition of Mr. Richard Busby, afterwards master of Westminster school. Six months after his settlement in the university, Dr. Fell, dean of Christ-church, having observed the parts and industry of young Allestry, made him a student of that college, where he applied himself to his books with great assiduity and success. When he had taken the degree of bachelor of arts, he was chosen moderator in philosophy, in which office he continued till the disturbances of the kingdom interrupted the studies and repose of the university. In 1641, Mr. Allestry, amongst other of the Oxford students, took ar;ns for the king, under sir John Biron, and continued therein till that gentleman withdrew from Oxford, when he returned to his studies. Soon after, a party of the parliament forces having entered Oxford and plundered the colleges, Mr. Allestry narrowly escaped being severely handled by them. Some of them having attempted to break into the treasury of Christ-church, and having forced a passage into it, met with nothing but a single groat and a halter, at the bottom of a large iron chest. Enraged at their disappointment, they went to the deanry, where having plundered as much as they thought fit, they put it all together in a chamber, locked it up, and retired to their quarters, intending next day to return and dispose of their prize; but, when they came, they found themselves disappointed, and every thing removed out of the chamber. Upon examination it was discovered, that Mr. Allestry had a key to the lodgings, and that this key had been made use of. Upon this he was seized, and would probably have suffered severely, had not the earl of Essex called away the forces on a sudden, and by that means rescued him from their fury. In October following, he took arms again, and was at the battle fought betwixt the king and the parliament’s forces under the command of the earl of Essex upon Keinton-field in Warwickshire; after which, understanding that the king designed immediately to march to Oxford, and take up his residence at the deanry of Christ-church, he hastened thither to make preparations for his majesty’s reception; but in his way was taken prisoner by a party of horse from Boughton-house, which was garrisoned by lord Say for the parliament: his confinement, however, was but short, as the garrison surrendered to the king. And now Mr. Allestry returned again to his studies, and the spring following took his degree of master of arts. The same year he was in extreme danger of his life by a pestilential distemper, which raged in the garrison at Oxford; but as soon as he recovered, he entered once more into his majesty’s service, and carried a musquet in a regiment formed out of the Oxford scholars. Nor did he in the mean time neglect his studies, “but frequently (as the author of the preface to Dr. Allestry’s Sermons expresses it) held the musquet in one hand and the book in the other, unitinEf the watchfulness of a soldier with the lucubrations of a student.” In this service he continued till the end of the war; then went into holy orders, and was chosen censor of his college. He had a considerable share in that test of loyalty, which the university of Oxford gave in their decree and judgment against the Solemn League and Covenant. In 1648, the parliament sent visitors to Oxford, to demand the submission of that body to their authority: those who refused to comply were immediately proscribed; which was done by writing their names on a paper, and affixing it on the door of St. Mary’s church, signifying that such persons were, by the authority of the visitors, banished the university, and required to depart the precincts within three days, upon pain of bein,; taken for spies of war, and proceeded against as such. Mr. Allestry, amongst many others, was accordingly expelled the university. He now retired into Shropshire, and was entertained as chaplain to the honourable Francis Newport, esq. and upon the death of Richard lord Newport, that gentleman’s father, in France, whither he had Hed to avoid the violence of the prevailing party, was sent over to France to take care of his effects. Having dispatched this affair with success, he returned to his employment, in which he continued till the defeat of king Charles II, at Worcester. At this time the royalists wanting an intelligent and faithful person to send over to his majesty, Mr. Allestry was solicited to undertake the journey, which he accordingly did; and having attended the king at Roan, and received his dispatches, returned to England. In 1659, he went over again to his majesty in Flanders; and upon his return was seized at Dover by a party of soldiers, but he had the address to secure his letters, by conveying them to a faithful hand. The soldiers guarded him to London, and after being examined by a committee of the council of safety, he was sent prisoner to Larnbeth-house, where he contracted a dangerous sickness. About six or eight weeks after, he was set at liberty; and this enlargement was perhaps owing to the prospect of an approaching revolution; for some of the heads of the republican party, seeing every thing tend towards his majesty’s restoration, were willingby kindnesses to recommend themselves to the royal party.

Soon after the restoration, Mr. Allestry was made a canon of Christ-church; at the same time he undertook one of the lectureships of the city of Oxford, but never received any part of the salary; for he ordered it to be distributed amongst the poor. In October 1660, he took the degree, of D.D. and was appointed one of the king’s chaplains in ordinary, and in Sept. 1663, regius professor of divinity, in which chair he sat seventeen years, and acquitted himself with honour. In 1665 he was appointed provost of Eton college, where he raised the school, which he found in a low condition, to an uncommon pitch of reputation. The west side of the outward quadrangle of that college was built from the ground at his expense. The excellent Dr. Hammond, who was his intimate friend, left him his valuable library, which he bequeathed himself to his successors in the divinity chair. His eagerness for study 3 and his intention of mind while he was employed in it was so great, that it impaired his constitution, and hastened his death. In 1680, finding his health and sight much weakened, he resigned his professorship of divinity to Dr. Jane. And now the decay of his constitution terminating in a dropsy, he removed to London, to have the advice of physicians; but medicines proving ineffectual, he died January 27th, 1680; and was buried in EJton chapel, where a marble monument, with an, elegant Latin inscription, was erected to his memory.

There are extant forty sermons by Dr. Allestry, for the most part preached before the king, upon solemn occasions, fol. 1684. Mr. Wood likewise mentions a small tract, written by him, entitled, “The Privileges of the University of Oxford, in point of Visitation,” in a letter to an honourable personage, 1647. The first eighteen of his sermons 'were published in 1669, fol. for a benevolent purpose. He gave them to Allestry the bookseller, mentioned in the preceding article, who was his kinsman, and was ruined by the great fire. These, with the others, were afterwards published by Dr. Fell, bishop of Oxford, who has done great justice to his memory in the life prefixed.

, a French advocate, was born at Montpeliier, and died at Paris, March 7, 1785, in the eighty-second year of his age. Having no talents to make a figure at the bar, he became an author by profession, and compiled a great number of works for the booksellers, some of which had considerable success. The principal productions of his industry were, 1. Several dictionaries, particularly “L'Agronome,” 2 vols. 8vo; a good abridgment of the “Maison Rustique;” a “Dictionnaire Theologique,” and another “Des Conciles,” both in 8vo, concise, but not remarkable for perspicuity. 2. “Manuel de l'homme du monde,” 8vo; and “L'Encyclopedie de Penseés,” 8vo; compilations made with little care. 3. “Synopsis Doctrinæ Sacræ,” 8vo, a collection of the passages in the Bible which regard the articles of belief. 4. “Tableau de l'histoire de France,” 2 vols. 12mo, which was adopted into some schools, and although negligently written, and with little attraction, gives the principal facts of the French history with fidelity and simplicity. 5. “Les Princes celebres qui ont regné dans le monde,” 4 vols. 12mo. 6. “L'Histoire des Papes,” 2 vols. 12mo. 7. “L'Histoire des Singes,” 2 vols. 12mo. This transition from the history of princes and popes to that of apes and monkeys, may be thought a proof of the versatility of our author’s genius: his history of princes, however, is the best of the three; that of popes is said to be superficial, and not very impartial. 8. “Les ornamens de la memoire,” 12mo, in which the title is more happy than usual in such works, is a collection of the beauties of the French poets, and has been often reprinted and enlarged. 9. “Les Lemons de Thalie,” 3 vols. 12mo; these are portraits and characteristic pieces from the comic poets. 10. “Connoisances des Poetes Françoises,” 2 vols. 12mo. 11. “Catechisme de l'age mur,” 12mo, an abridgment of the proofs of religion by question and answer. 12. “L'Albert moderne,” 2 vols. 12mo. 13. “L'Esprit des Journalistes de Trevoux,” 4 vols. 12mo. 14. “L'Esprit des Journalistes de Hollande,” 2 vols. 12mo. The former of these is a judicious selection. He compiled likewise several books for schools, and abridgments of the Greek history, the “Magasin des Adolescens,” lives of the saints, &c. &c. This copious list, in which we have not given all his compilations, is no small testimony to the industry of M. Alletz, who was at least virtuously, and often usefully employed, and whose character made his death, although at a very advanced period, be much regretted by his friends and family.

, bishop of Exeter in the reign of queen Elizabeth, was born at Great Wycomb in Buckinghamshire, and educated at Eton school. In 1528 he went from thence to King’s college, Cambridge, where he took a bachelor’s degree, but removed to Oxford, and spent some time in the academical studies of that unitersity. He afterwards married, was presented to a living, and became a zealous reformer. On queen Mary’s accession he left his cure, and retired into the north of Epgland, where he maintained himself by keeping a school and practising physic. On queen Elizabeth’s accession, when he could avow his principles with safety, he went to London, and was appointed to read the divinity lecture at St. Paul’s, in which he acquired great reputation; and in July 1560, was consecrated bishop of Exeter. He was not created doctor of divinity until November 1561. He died April 15, 1570, and was buried at Exeter. He wrote, I. “The Poor Man’s Library,” 2 vols. folio, 1571. These volumes contain his twelve lectures at St. Paul’s, on the first epistle of St. Peter. 2. “A Hebrew Grammar,” but it is uncertain whether it was ever published. He translated the Pentateuch in the version of the Bible undertaken by command of queen Elizabeth. Three epistles of Alley to Matthew Parker, in Latin, are preserved among the Mss. of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge. His “Judgment concerning the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church” is in Strype’s Annals. Wood and Godwin agree in placing b shop Alley’s death in 1570; but Tanner says, that it was on April 15, 1571, and Fuller carries it down so low as 1576. He left a son, Roger Alley, who was archdeacon of Cornwall; and his great grandson, the rev. Peter Alley, died so lately as August 1763, at the very extraordinary age of one hundred and ten years and two months. He was for seventy-three years rector of Donamow, in Queen’s County, Dublin, and served his own cure till within a few days of his death.

The following particulars of bishop Alley’s personal history are given by a contemporary. He was well stored, and his library well replenished with all the best writers which most gladly he did impart, and lay open to every good scholar and student requesting the same, whose company and conference he did desire and embrace. He seemed at the first appearance to be a rough and austere man, but in truth was a very courteous, gentle, and affable man; at his table full of honest speeches, joined with learning and pleasantness, according to the time, place, and company; at his exercises, which for the most part were at bowls, very merry and pleasant, void of all sadness, which might abate the benefit of recreation, loth to offend, ready to forgive, void of malice, full of love, bountiful in hospitality, liberal to the poor, and a succourer of the needy; faithful to his friend, and courteous to all men; a hater of covetousness, and an enemy to all evil and wicked men; and lived an honest, godly, and virtuous life. Finally, he was endued with many notable good gifts and virtues; only he was somewhat credulous, of a hasty belief, and light of credit, which he did oftentimes mislike and blame in himself. In his latter time he waxed somewhat gross, and his body was full of humours, which abated much of his wonted exercise. Queen Elizabeth, out of the great respect she had for this bishop, sent him, yearly, a silver cup for a new year’s gift. The mayor of Exeter much opposed him, on his obtaining a commission to be a justice of the peace within the same, contrary to the charters and liberties thereof.

, a celebrated comedian in the reigns of queen Elizabeth and king James, but more justly celebrated as the founder of the college at Dulwich, in Surrey, was born in London, in the parish of St. Botolph without Bishopsgate, Sept. 1, 1566, as appears from a memorandum of his own writing. Dr. Fuller says, that he was bred a stage-player; and that his father would have given him a liberal education, but that he was ntft turned for a serious course of life. He was, however, a youth of good capacity, of a cheerful temper, and tenacious memory, and in his person of a stately port and aspect; all which advantages are qualifications for, and sometimes incitements to, the theatrical profession. By several authorities we find he must have been on tue stage some time before 1592; for at this time he was in high favour with the town, and greatly applauded by the best judges, particularly by Ben Jonson. Haywood, in his prologue to Mariow’s -Jew of Malta, calls him Proteus for shapes, and Roscius for a tongue. He usually played the capital parts, and was one of the original actors in Sluikspeare’s plays; in some of Ben Jonson’s he was also a principal performer: but what characters he personated in either of these poets, is difficult now to determine. This is owing to the inaccuracy of their editors, who did not print the names of the players opposite to the characters they performed, as the modern custom is, but gave one general list of actors to the whole set of plays, as in the old folio edition of Shakspeare; or divide one from the other, setting the dramatis personae before the plays, and the catalogue of performers after them, as in Jonson’s.

It may appear surprising, how one of Mr. Alleyn’s profession should be enabled to erect such an edifice as Dulwich college, and liberally endow it for the maintenance of so many persous. But it must be observed that he had some paternal fortune, which, though small, probably laid the foundation of his future affluence; and it is to be presumed that the profits he received from acting, to one of his provident and managing disposition, and one who by his excellence in playing drew after him such crowds of spectators, must have considerably improved his fortune: besides, he was not only an actor, but master of a playhouse, built at his own expence, by which he is said to have amassed considerable wealth. This was the Fortune play-house, near Whitecross street, by Moorfields. There is a tradition in the neighbourhood of this place, that in digging the foundation of this house, there was found a considerable treasure; so that it is probable the whole or greatest part of it might fall to Mr. Alleyn. He was also keeper of the king’s wild beasts, or master of the royal bear-garden, which was frequented by vast crowds of spectators: and the profits arising from these sports are said to have amounted to 500l. per annum. He was thrice married; and the portions of his two first wives, they leaving him no issue to inherit, probably contributed to this benefaction. Such donations have been frequently thought to proceed more from vanity and ostentation than real charity; but this of Mr. Alleyn has been ascribed to a very singular cause. Mr. Aubrey mentions a tradition, that Mr. Alleyn, playing a daemon with six others, in one of Shakspeare’s plays, was, in the midst of the play, surprised by an apparition of the devil, which so worked on his fancy, that he made a vow, which he performed by building Dulwich college. Whatever may be in this story, he began the foundation of this college, under the direction of Inigo Jones, in 1614; and the buildings, gardens, &c. were finished in 1617, in which he is said to have expended about 10,Ooo/. After the college was built, he met with some difficulty in obtaining a charter for settling his lands in mortmain; for he proposed to endow it with 800l. per annum, for the maintenance of one master, one warden, and four fellows, three whereof were to be clergymen, and the fourth a skilful organist; also six poor men, and as many women, besides twelve poor boys, to be educated till the age of fourteen or sixteen, and then put out to some trade or calling. The obstruction he met with arose from the lord chancellor Bacon, who wished king James to settle part of those lands for the support of two academical lectures; and he wrote a letter to the marquis of Buckingham, dated Aug. Is, 1618, entreating him to use his interest with his majesty for that purpose . Mr. Alleyn’s solicitation was, however, at last complied with, and he obtained the royal licence, giving him full power to lay his foundation, by his majesty’s letters patent, bearing date the 2 1st of June, 1619; by virtue whereof he did, in the chapel of the said new hospital at Dulwich, called “The College of God’s Gift,” on the 13th of September following, publicly read, and published, a quadripartite writing in parchment, whereby he created and established the said college; he then subscribed it with his name, and fixed his seal to several parts thereof, in presence of several honourable persons, and ordered copies of the writings to four different parishes. Those honourable persons were Francis lord Verulam lord chancellor; Thomas earl of Arundel, earl marshal of England; sir Edward Cecil, second son to the earl of Exeter; sir John Howard, high sheriff of Sussex and Surrey; sir Edward Bowyer, of Camberwell; sir Thomas Grymes of Peckham; sir John Bodley, of Stretham; sir John Tonstal, of L'arshalton; and divers other persons of great worth and respect. The parishes in which the said writings were deposited, were St. Botolph’s without Bishopsgate, St. Giles’s without Cripplegate, St. Saviour’s in Southwark, and the parish of Camberwell in Surrey. The contents or heads of the said statutes, or quadripartite writings, containing the laws and rules of this foundation, are as follow: 1. A recital of king James’s letters patent. 2. Recital of the founder’s deed quadripartite. 3. Ordination of the master, warden, &c. 4. Ordination of the assistant members, &c. 5. The master and warden to be unmarried, and always to be of the name of Alleyn or Allen. 6. The master and warden to be twenty-one years of age at least. 7. Of what degree the fellows to be. 8. Of what degree the poor brothers and sisters to be. 9. Of what condition the poor scholars are to be. 10. Of what parishes the assistants are to be. 11. From what parishes the poor are to be chosen, and the members of this college. 12. The form of their election. 13. The warden to supply when the master’s place is void. 14. The election of the warden. 15. The warden to be bound by recognizance. 16. The warden to provide a dinner for the college upon his election. 17. The form of admitting the fellows. 18. The manner of electing the scholars. 19. Election of the poor of Camberwell. 20. The master and warden’s oath. 21. The fellow’s oath. 22. The poor brother’s and sister’s oath. 23. The assistant’s oath. 24. The pronunciation of admission. 25. The master’s office. 26. The warden’s office. 27. The fellow’s office. 23. The poor brother’s and sister’s office. 29. Thac of the matron of the poor scholars. 30. The porter’s office. 31. The office of the thirty members. 32. Of residence. 33. Orders of the poor and their goods. 34. Of obedience. 35. Orders for the chapel and burial. 36. Orders for the school and scholars, and putting them forth apprentices. 37. Order of diet. 38. The scholars’ surplices and coats. 39. Time for viewing expences. 40. Public audit and private sitting days. 41. Audit and sitting chamber. 42. Of lodgings. 43. Orders for the lands and woods. 44. Allowance to the master and warden of diet for one man a piece, with the number and wages of the college servants. 45. Disposition and division of the revenues. 46. Disposition of the rent of the Blue-house. 47. The poor to be admitted out of other places, in case of deficiency in the parishes prescribed. 48. The disposition of forfeitures. 49. The statutes to be read over four several times in the year. 50. The dispositions of certain tenements in St. Saviour’s parish, Southwark.

He was himself the first master of his college, so that, to make use of the words of Mr. Haywood, one of his contemporaries, “he was so mingled with humility and charity, that he became his own pensioner, humbly submitting himself to that proportion of diet and clothes which he had bestowed on others.” We have no reason to think he ever repented of this distribution of his substance; but on the contrary, that he was entirely satisfied, as appears from the following memorial in his own writing, found amongst his papers: “May 26, 1620, My wife and I acknowledged the fine at the common pleas bar, of all our lands to the college: blessed be God that he hath given us life to do it.” His wife died in 1623; and about two years afterwards he married Constance Kmchtoe, who survived him, and received remarkable proofs of his affection, if at least we may judge of it by his will, wherein he left her considerable property. He died Nov. 25, 1626, in the sixty-first year of his age and was buried in the chapel of his new college, where there is a tomb-stone over his grave, with an inscription. His original diary is still preserved.

, D. D. of Magdalen college, Oxford, was a native of Buckinghamshire, and master of the free-school adjoining to Magdalen college. He was afterwards rector of Bradvvell in Gloucestershire, where he died in 1658. He is principally known in the literary annals of Oxford by an exquisite piece of poetical humour, which he ha,d the courage to publish in 1648, in ridicule of the parliamentary visitors and their party: it was entitled “liustica academic? Oxoniensis nuper reformats descriptio: una cum comitiis ibidem, 1648 habitis.” Notwithstanding the danger of publishing a satire of this description, two editions were eagerly bought up, but it is now very rare.

, father of the preceding, was born in 1560 at Wardenton, near Banbury, in Oxfordshire, of an ancient family, and studied at Magdalen -hall, where he took his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and then travelled on the continent. On his return he became rector of Cheyneys in Buckinghamshire, where he died March 6, 1628-9. His publications, according to Wood, were mostly translations of pious works by foreign divines. 1. “Comfort for an afflicted conscience,” Lond. 1591, 8vo, from the French of John L'Espine. 2. “Confutation of the Popish Transubstantiation,” Lond. 1592, 8vo. 3. “The golden chain of Salvation,” from the Latin of Harman Renecker, Lond. 1604, 4to.

, a celebrated Piedmontese physician, and professor of -Botany, in the university of Turin, was born in 1725, and died in 1804. On account of his high reputation for learning, he was elected a member of many scientific societies, such as the institute of Bologna, and the royal societies of London, Montpellier, Gottingen, Madrid, &c. Of his numerous medical and botanical publications, the following are the principal: 1, “Pedemontii stirpium rariorum specimen primum,” Turin, 1755, 4to, containing the description and figures of thirty plants, either new or little known, which grow on the mountains of Piedmont. 2. “OryctographiiE Pedemontan;e specimen,” Paris, 1757, 8vo; an account of the fossils in Piedmont. 3. “Tractatio de miliarium origine, progressu, natura, et curatione,” Turin, 1758, 8vo; a medical treatise much esteemed. 4. “Stirpium præcipuarum littoris et agri Nicaeensis enumeratio methodica, cum elencho aliquot animalium ejusdem maris,” Paris, 1757, 8vo. This work is often quoted by naturalists under the abridged title of “Enumeratio stirpium Nicaeensis.” The principal part of it was collected by John Giudice, a botanist at Nice, and a friend of Allioni, to whom he bequeathed his papers. 5. “Synopsis methodica horti Taurinensis,” Turin, 1762, 4to, a methodical catalogue of the plants in the botanic garden of Turin, divided into thirteen classes. 6. “Flora Pedemontana, sive enumeratio methodica stirpium indigenarum Pedemontii,” Turin, 1785, 3 vols. fol. This splendid work, which is illustrated with ninety-two plates, was the fruit of long labour and study, and added greatly to the author’s reputation. In it he describes 2813 plants, which he found growing wild in the duchy of Piedmont, of which those in the third volume are new. It has been, however, said, that those already known acquire a kind of novelty by his descriptions, which are drawn from nature, and not from books; and the work derives an additional value, especially on the spot, from the very cautious manner in which he speaks of the medical properties of any of these plants. The arrangement resembles that of Haller in his history of the Swiss plants. Haller had a great regard for Allioni, and corresponded with him till his death. 7. “Auctuarium ad Flora Pedemontana,” Turin, 1789, containing some additions and corrections to the former. Besides these works, he wrote several papers in the memoirs of the academy of Turin; and from all his writings seems to deserve an honourable place among those who have contributed to the advancement of the botanical and medical sciences. Loeffling consecrated a genus to his memory, under the name of Allionia, which Linnæus has adopted. It is a genus of the monogynia order belonging to the tetrandria class of plants.

, a very learned and eminent divine of the church of England, although a native of France, and well known by his numerous and excellent writings, was born in 1641 at Alençon; and having received a liberal education, which highly improved his great natural parts, he became minister of the reformed church at Rouen. At this place, before he was thirty-five years of age, he distinguished himself by publishing some very able pieces, which excited much notice, and he was invited to Charenton, then the principal church the reformed had in France, and whither the most considerable persons of the Protestant religion constantly resorted. As he now saw himself in a condition to promote the interest of the church, he applied himself to the task with all imaginable zeal, and preached several valuable sermons in defence of the faith, against the artful attempts of the bishop of Meaux, who was then labouring to overturn the reformed religion, by seeming concessions to its professors. Upon the revocation of the edict of Nants, Mr. Allix found himself obliged to quit France, and had prepared a pathetic discourse, which he intended to have delivered as his farewell to his congregation, but was obliged to omit it, although it was afterwards printed.

In 1685, when the above edict was revoked, and the Protestant religion banished from France, Mr. Allix came into England, either in that or the following year, and met with a most favourable reception, on account of his extensive learning, and especially his knowledge in ecclesiastical history. Soon after his arrival, his first object was to acquire the English language, which he attained in a high degree of perfection. In 1690, he was complimented with the degree of D. D. by the university of Cambridge, and in the same year he had the treasurership of the church of Salisbury given to him; and some foreign memoirs say he was made canon of Windsor, but this does not appear to have been the case. It was proposed that he should have published here an authentic “History of the Councils,” for which laborious and important work he was well qualified; but by some accidents intervening, and for want of encouragement, this undertaking miscarried. He wrote and published, however, several treatises relating to ecclesiastical history, which displayed great learning, were very interesting, and very useful to the Protestant cause, which was then in considerable danger. These pieces, of which we shall give a list, were remarkably well received, and the author became in as great credit here, as ever he had been in France, for his ingenious and solid defences of the reformed religion, from reason and authority, and from the practice of early ages, as well as the precepts of the gospel. In 1699 he wrote a very learned treatise in defence of the Trinity, which has always been considered as an able and argumentative performance, and is mentioned with great respect by the late bishop Horsley, in his letters to Dr. Priestley. He wrote several other learned and ingenious treatises on curious and important subjects, and was, for upwards of thirty years, a strenuous and affectionate defender of the established church. Some of these pieces exposed him, however, to very severe censures; and among the rest, Bayle, who had formerly complimented him very highly, attacked him with contemptuous language; but the opinion of Bayle, where orthodoxy is concerned, is not deserving of much respect. One of his antagonists, Mr. Stephen Nye, rector of Hormead, accuses him of Tritheism; and in Moreri’s Dictionary, printed in 1740, it is insinuated that he was inclined to Socinianism, a charge the most absurd and incredible that could be brought. Dr. Allix, however, continued steady and fixed in his principles, and was so well known to be a zealous defender of the doctrine of the church of England on that subject, that Whiston thought proper to consult him, when he first proposed writing in support of his own opinions, as appears by what he says on this subject in his “Historical Preface,” which, however, Dr. Allix found it necessary to correct in a short relation of his interview with Whiston.

Dr. Allix enjoyed a very uncommon share of health and spirits, as appears by his latest writings, in which there is not only all the erudition, but all the quickness and vivacity that appeared in his earliest pieces. Those who knew him, derived the same pleasure from his conversation, that the learned found in his productions; for, with an extensive share of learning, he had a remarkable liveliness of temper, and expressed himself on the driest subjects with much sprightliness, and in a manner out of the common road. He was consulted by the greatest men of his age, on the deepest and most intricate parts of learning, and received the praise of the ablest critics of his time. It was not any single branch of literature, or a few related to each other, that could occupy his thoughts, but the whole circle of sciences which fall under the cognizance of a general scholar and sound divine. His sermons shew him to have been an admirable orator, and at the same time a profound scholar, and the several ancient authors whose writings he published, testify his skill in criticism, and his perfect acquaintance with antiquity. His treatises on ecclesiastical history discover a vast fund of reading, and an exact comprehension of his subject, with a warm zeal for the Protestant religion. He laboured also to serve it by the tracts he rescued froro oblivion, to shew, which they did effectually, that the charge of novelty on which the Papists insisted so loudly, was not only unreasonable, but entirely groundless. His thorough acquaintance with Hebrew and Rabbinical learning was displayed in his laborious performance in defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, in which his sincerity is as conspicuous as his learning. If in the prosecution of those deep and recondite studies, he sometimes mistook his way, and erred in his computations, as when he fixed the year of Christ’s second coming at 1720, it was no more than had befallen the greatest men who have travelled this road before him, particularly Joseph Mede and bishop Lloyd; neither have these instances convinced other eminent men that the roads are impassable, since the very learned dean Prideaux, and the sagacious sir Isaac Newton, have devoted many of their hours to the like inquiries. Dr. Allix continued his application to the last, and died at London, Feb. 21, 1717, in the seventy-­sixth year of his age, leaving behind him the reputation of a man, equally assiduous in the right discharge of all the offices of public and private life, and every way as amiable for his virtues and social qualities, as venerable from his uprightness and integrity, and celebrated for his various and profound learning.

His works are, 1. “Response a la Dissertation sur Bertram et Jean Scot, ou Erigene,” printed at the end of Claude’s answer to M. Arnaud’s Perpetuity of the Faith, 1670. 2. “Ratramne, ou Bernard, Pretre, du Corps et du Sang du Seigneur,” Lat. et Fr. Rouen, 1672, 12mo. 3. “Dissertatio de Trisagii origine,” Rothomagi, 1674, 8vo. Maimbourg erroneously ascribes this to another person. 4. “Dissertatio de Sanguine D. N. J. Christi,” date uncertain. 5. “Dissertatio de Tertulliani vita, et scriptis.” 6. “Dissertatio de Conciliorum quorumvis definitionibus ad examen revocandis,” 8vo, circa 1680. 7. “Anastasii, Sinaitæ contemplationum in Hexahemeron liber xii hactenus desideratus,” Gr. et Lat. cum notis, &c. Lond. 1682, 4to. 8. “Douze Sermons sur divers textes,” Rotterdam, 1685, 12mo. 9. “Les Maximes du vrai Chretien,” which was printed at Amsterdam, 1687, and joined with “Bonnes et saintes pensées pour touts les jours du mois.” 10. “L'Adieu de St. Paul aux Ephesiens, Sermon,” Amst. 1688, 12mo. This was his intended farewell sermon noticed above. 11. “Reflections upon the books of the Holy Scripture, to establish the truth of the Christian Religion,” Loud. 1688, 2 vols. This work was dedicated to king James II. from whom the author had received some obligations. The dedication, which is wanting in some editions, may be seen in the Biographia Britannica. Bishop Watson, in his late “Tracts,” republished these Reflections, which he says have always been held in great repute for the plainness and erudition with which they are written. 12. “Determinatio F. Joannis Parisiensis cle modo existendi Corpus Christi in sacramento Allans, &c. cui est prefixa prefatio historica de dogmate Transubstantiationis,” Lond. 1686, 8vo. 15. “Some remarks upon the ecclesiastical history of the ancient Churches of Piedmont,” Lond. 1690, 4to. This is a very elaborate work, in which the author traces the history of opinions with great acuteness and fidelity. 14. “Remarks upon the ecclesiastical history of the ancient Churches of the Albigenses,” Lond. 1692, 4to; a performance of a similar kind with the former, and throwing much light on the opinions of the reformed churches. 15. “The judgment of the ancient Jewish Church, against the Unitarians, in the controversy upon the Holy Trinity, and the divinity of our blessed Saviour,” Lond. 1689, 8vo. This was occasioned by the controversy between bishop Bull and the Unitarians, and is the able defence of the doctrine of the Trinity to which we have already alluded. 16. “De Messiæ duplici adventu dissertationes duæ adversus Judeos,” Lond. 1701, 12mo. It was in this treatise our author fell into the erroneous computation respecting Christ’s second coming. 17. “Preface and arguments on the Psalms.” 18. “Nectarii Patriarchte Hierosolymitani confutatio Imperil Papæ in Ecclesiam,” Lond. 1702, 8vo; a translation from the original in Greek. 19. “Aug. Hermanni Franke manuductio ad lectionem Scrip. Sac.” Lond. 1706, 8vo; our author wrote only a short prefatory recommendation to this book. 20. “Dissertatio de J. C. Domini nostri anno et mense natali,” Lond. 1707 and 1710. 21. “The Prophecies which Mr. Whiston applies to the times immediately following the appearance of the Messiah, considered and examined,” Lond. 1707, 8vo. 22. “Preparations a la Cene,” 8vo, often printed at Geneva. 23. “Remarks upon some places of Mr. Whiston’s books, either printed or in manuscript,” Lond. 1711, 8vo. This pamphlet is uncommonly scarce. Besides these, the late Dr. Flexman assured Dr. Kippis that the following pieces may be attributed to our author, “Theses Theologicæ de ultimo judicio,” Salmur, 1660, 4to, probably academical exercises; “A discourse concerning Penance,” Lond. 1688, 8vo; “An historical discourse concerning the necessity of the Ministers’ intention in administering the Sacrament,” 1688, 8vo; “An Examination of the scruples of those who refuse to take the Oaths,” 1689, 4to; “Animadversions on Mr. Hill’s Vindication of the primitive Fathers, against the right rev. Gilbert, bishop of Sarum,” 1695, 4to.

, called Galanino, an eminent painter of history and portraits, received his education in the school of the Caracci, and in all his compositions retained the admirable style of his master. He had naturally a melancholy turn of mind, and was of a retired and solitary disposition: this induced him to avoid the conversation of his friends, and devote himself to the study of his art; but by this plan he became so necessitous, that he was compelled to paint portraits to procure a subsistence. In this branch, however, his success was astonishing; and he grew into the highest esteem, not only for the resemblance visible at first sight, and the beauty of his colouring, but also for a new and unusual boldness of manner, by which his portraits seemed absolutely to breathe. None of his contemporaries could enter into competition with him; and the Italian writers place him in the same rank of merit with Vandvck. He was born at Bologna in 1578, and died in 1638.

, called Bronzing, an eminent painter, was born at Florence in 1535, and was the disciple of Agnolo Bronzino, likewise a distinguished painter, who educated him with all the tenderness of a parent, Allori having been deprived of his own father, when he was but five years old. He was very studious, and applied himself diligently, not only to imitate the manner of his master, but the different manners of those masters who were in the greatest reputation. When he commenced painter, his first work was a crucifixion, intended for an altar-piece, which was much praised, but his success in portrait-painting induced him to employ a great deal of his time in that branch. Michael Angelo was the master whose works he studied with the greatest attention, and he designed a picture of the Last Judgment, after the manner of that great genius, which is preserved at Rome, and will perpetuate the honour of Allori. He died in 1607, aged 72. It is said that he wrote some burlesque poems, and a dialogue on Design. The existence of this last is denied by his French biographer, but we find its title in Haym’s Biblioteca Italiana, “Dialogo di Alessandro Allori pittore Florentine sopra l'arte del disegnare le figure principiando da Muscoli, Ossa, Nervi, Vene, Membra, Notomia, e figura perfetta,” Florence, 1590.

, called also Bronzing, was the son and disciple of the preceding, and born in Florence in 1577. For some time he followed the manner of Alexander, but, afterwards studying design from the works of Santi di Titi, md colouring from the lively and elegant tints of Cigoli, he formed to himself a manner entirely different. He executed several large designs for altars, yet had a particular excellence in painting small pictures, in which he introduced a number of minute figures, so exquisite for correctness of drawing, so round and relieved by the colouring, and touched with so much delicacy, that it seemed surprising how either the hand or the eye could execute them. His portraits were also in high esteem. His best pictures were those of Judith, St. Francis, and St. Julian. The last mentioned, long one of the chief ornaments of the Pitti palace, is now in the imperial collection at Paris, and shews him to have been one of the finest colourists of the Florentine school. He died at the age of forty-two, in consequence of a wound in his foot. Amputation was recommended, but he refused his consent, and continued deliberately using his pencil to the last moment of his life.

, professor of divinity in the college of Navarre, at Paris, and one of the most able scholastic writers of his time, was a native of Sens, and died young at Paris in 1515. During his short life, he published a considerable number of works, on logic, physics, morality, and divinity. The two which procured him most fame are, 1. “De autoritate Ecclesise, &c.” Paris, 1512, 4to, in which he defends the doctrine of the council of Pisa, against Cajetan, who had raised the pope’s authority above that of the councils. 2. “De potestate ecclesiastica et laicali contra Ockam.” These are both in the edition of his works, published at Paris, 1517, fol.; but in that edition we do not meet with his “Moralia,” Paris, 1525, 8vo.

, caliph of Bagdat, a philosopher and astronomer in the beginning of the ninth century, ascended the throne in the year 814. He was the son of Harun-AlRashid, and the grandson of Almanzor. His name is otherwise written Mamon, Almaon, Almamun, Alamoun, or Al-Maimon. Having been educated with great care, and with a love for the liberal sciences, he applied himself to cultivate and encourage them in his own country. For this purpose he requested the Greek emperors to supply him with such books on philosophy as they had among them; and he collected skilful interpreters to translate them into the Arabic language. He also encouraged his subjects to study them; frequenting the meetings of the learned, and assisting in their exercises and deliberations. He caused Ptolemy’s Almagest to be translated in the year 827; and in his reign, and doubtless by his encouragement, an astronomer of Bagdat, named Habash, composed three sets of astronomical tables. Almamon himself, however, made many astronomical observations, concerning the obliquity of the ecliptic, and caused skilful observers to procure proper instruments to be made, and to exercise themselves in such observations. Under his auspices also a degree of the meridian was measured; and he revived the sciences in the East so successfully that many learned men were found, not only in his own time, but after him, in a country where the study of the sciences had long been forgotten. This learned king died near Tarsus in Cilicia, by having eaten too freely of dates, on his return from a military expedition, in the year 833, in the 48th or 49th year of his age.

, was abbot of the monastery of St. Austin in Canterbury, at the time that Alphage, the archbishop, was barbarously murdered by the Danes, in 1011, when the city was betrayed to them. Almarus, however, was suffered by those plunderers to go at liberty; and in the year 1022, was made bishop of Sherborne in Dorsetshire, which bishopric was afterwards translated to Salisbury. Godwin mentions him as a bishop, but adds that he knows nothing of him but his name. Almarus was not inclined either to leave his abbey, or to become a bishop; but was at last prevailed on to take upon him that dignity, which he discharged with great constancy and vigour, until he had the misfortune to lose his sight. On this he resigned his bishopric with more alacrity than he had accepted it, returning back to his abbey, where he lived in a cell in the infirmary, in great innocence and devotion to his last hour. When he was near his death, he directed that he should be buried not as a bishop, but as a monk, which was complied with. He was interred in the church of the monastery, before the altar of St. John, and his memory held in great veneration. The chronicles relate some superstitious stories of him, to which little credit will now be given.

, count d'Abrantes, a Portugueze, was the first governor of India, to which place he was dispatched in 1505, by king Emanuel, with the high character of viceroy. His fleet had a dangerous passage out, and almost continual storms off the Cape of Good Hope, without being able to make it, but at last reached Quiloa. The king of that place having given some cause to suspect his conduct, Almeida resolved to besiege the city, and after landing 500 men, the natives fled, and the Portugueze entered and plundered it. The plunder was however deposited in one house, and shared among the soldiers, Almeida taking as his own share, only one arrow. He then began to build a fort, and offered the people the protection of the Portugueze, which they accepted, and received a king from them, who promised to be obedient to king Emanuel.

From hence they sailed to Mombassa, and immediately attacked that place. A shot from the Portugueze set fire to the powder magazine, which so terrified the inhabitants that they abandoned the fort. Having caused the port to be sounded, and finding water sufficient, he entered the hacbour, and then sent a message to require the king to submit himself to the king of Portugal; but the messenger was refused admittance. Almeida then endeavoured to seize some of the natives, and took prisoner a domestic of the king, from whom he had intelligence that the king had received into his pay 4000 auxiliaries, and expected more. On this intelligence he resolved to besiege the place; and set fire to a part of the city. The natives attacked the Portugueze, although at the same time employed in extinguishing the flames; which however proved their best friends, and obliged the enemy to retire. Next day, when the flames abated, the Portugueze again entered the city, and were much annoyed by the narrowness of the streets, and the darts of the enemy flung from the houses. However, Almeida having soon secured the palace, the Portugueze joined their strength, and obliged the natives to seek their safety by flight, and betake themselves to a wood, to which the king had retreated. The city was plundered, but most of the valuable effects had been carried away. The Portugueze writers tell us, they killed in this action 1500, and took 2000 prisoners, with the loss only of five men killed, and several wounded.

From hence he sailed with his fleet for Melinda, but by tempestuous weather was driven three leagues beyond; from thence they proceeded to the island of Anchidive, where he built a fort, and sent some of his ships out to cruize. Here he received deputies from the king of Onor, to treat of peace, and also the submission of a piratical chief, of the name of Timoia; but a circumstance soon happened to shew the former was not sincere, and the viceroy saited to Onor, and burned some ships i:i the harbour. A day or two after, he sent his son to burn the other ships, when a smart action ensued, and the Portugueze were obliged to retreat. Almeida sailed next day to Cananor, where he found it necessary to build a strong fort to protect his countrymen against the Arabians, who, jealous of the Portugueze, did them every injury in their power. While Almeida remained here, he had the happiness to receive an embassy from the king of Narsinga, offering friendship, and his daughter as a wife for John the son of Emanuel. He had also a visit from the king of Cananor, from whom he obtained liberty to build his fort. From this place he dispatched his son on an expedition to Caulan.

On the arrival of Cugna with a reinforcement from Portugal, and on receiving intelligence of several Arabian ships richly laden being in the port of Panama (about 50 miles off) escorted by a fleet of ships of war of Calicut, he resolved to attack them in the harbour. He sailed for that purpose with 12 ships of war. On his passage he was informed that the ships were not yet afloat, but lay in the docks, under cover of a rampart, and a strong garrison of 4000 men. Almeida had only 700, and with these he resolved to attack the enemy. He attempted to land and burn the ships; and after a violent conflict succeeded. This was a strong proof of the superiority of the Portugueze at this time in war, for the enemy fought with desperate, courage, there being many among them who had taken an oath to conquer or die. These devotees had all their heads shaven, and were destroyed to a man. Almeida, having made good his landing, advanced to the city, and set it on fire, being fearful of the consequences of permitting his men to plunder it. The men murmured at being deprived of such a rich booty, but this the viceroy disregarded; and to keep them employed, dispatched his son with a squadron to cruize against the Arabians, who in an engagement with the enemy’s fleet lost his life. Almeida, who had often shewn that he possessed great fortitude, now gave a striking proof of it; and to those who lamented the death of young Almeida with too much sorrow, he said, “That he had never wished a long, but a glorious life for his son; and for his part, he thanked God for honouring him with so glorious a death.”

While he commanded in India, Albuquerque was making conquests for his country to the northward, but as he did not act under Almeida’s instructions, the latter was offended, and even wrote to some of the enemy’s chiefs, that Albuquerque acted without his orders. Notwithstand-. ing this, the exploits of the latter drew the attention of the court of Portugal, and he was appointed to supersede Almeida in his viceroyship. When the order for the viceroy’s return was brought, he was employed in fitting out a fleet to revenge the death of his son. This furnished him with an excuse for not delivering up his government; and he sailed on an expedition to Dabul, landed there, defeated the enemy, and made a most dreadful slaughter, not sparing even the infants. The next day the city was given up to be plundered, and afterwards burned. Thi& was the fate of many other places on these shores. He then cruized along the coast until he fell in with the enemy’s fleet, and engaged and totally defeated it, killing 4000 men. The sultan had taken great pains in fitting out this fleet, and it is supposed had engaged Europeans of several nations to act on board it, as books in the Italian, German, French, and Spanish languages were found on board the captured ships. This victory procured a peace.

was son of the former, and had he enjoyed longer life, would probably have equalled him in fame. His first exploit was against Caulan, in India, whither he was dispatched by his father to destroy all the ships in that harbour; he executed his orders with so much expedition, that he came in sight of the town before they were apprized of his arrival, and destroyed 27 ships. Soon after he was sent on a cruize against the Maldive islands, to intercept all Arabian ships. The strength of the currents in those seas, drove him as far south as Cape Comorin, and the island of Ceylon, and he put into a port in the latter. The king hearing of his arrival, and having before heard of the fame of the Portugueze in those parts, treated him with great respect, and entered into a treaty, by which he agreed to pay a yearly tribute to the king of Portugal, on condition of receiving protection and defence. The tribute was to be 250,000 Lb. weight of cinnamon; and the first year’s payment was immediately put on board. On his return, he was ordered to the Anchidive islands; when being informed of a large fleet fitting out at Calicut, Lawrence immediately sailed to that place, engaged it, and after a fierce conflict, gave them a total defeat. He then returned to Cananor, where he was received by the king of that place, who was a friend of the Portugueze, with great honour: he afterwards continued with his father, until he sailed on the fatal expedition in which he lost his life. He was dispatched with eight ships to annoy the Arabians, and at first was successful. He put into the port of Chaul, a large and opulent city, adjoining to the kingdom of Canibaya. Here he received advice that the sultan of Egypt had fitted out a considerable force, manned with his bravest soldiers. It consisted of five large ships, and six galleys, to which the king of Cambaya joined 30 sloops of war. When they appeared off Chaul, the Portugueze concluded they were the ships of Albuquerque, and made no preparation to engage; the Egyptian admiral entered the river, but his allies remained out at sea.

The next day Lawrence Almeida weighed anchor and attacked the admiral’s ship, but in the action he was wounded. His officers, finding they were becalmed, and could not come to close quarters with the enemy, advised him to return. This he declined, and soon received another desperate wound in the face with a dart. The action continued at a distance, Almeida not being able to get near his enemy. Other captains were more fortunate, as they boarded and took two ships. The next day, the fleet from sea came in and joined the enemy. The Portugueze held a council, and were almost unanimously of opinion, that they ought to put to sea in the night, which they endeavoured to effect, but the enemy pursued and came up with the admiral’s ship, in the rear, and surrounded her. An unfortunate shot rendering it impossible to steer her, she ran aground. The Portugueze captains had a strong desire to assist their admiral, but the violence of the tide prevented them. However, they sent a boat to bring Almeida away; but he refused to quit his fellow-soldiers in this distress, hoping also that he should be able to defend himself until the tide returned. The enemy did not dare to board his vessel, but continued a fierce cannonade at a distance, which was returned with spirit. Almeida at last received another wound, in his thigh, which quite disabled him, and being placed in a chair which was lashed to the mast, he continued to animate his men, until a shot in the breast killed him. The Portugueze on board this unfortunate ship were now reduced to 20, who still continued to defend themselves, but the enemy succeeded in boarding her, and to their honour, treated the few brave survivors with great humanity.

, a Portuguese historian, was born at Vizeu in that kingdom, in 1580, and after an education among the Jesuits, was sent to the Indies, where, having completed his studies, he became rector of the college of Bacaim. In 1622, Vitteleschi, general of the Jesuits, sent him as ambassador to the king of Abyssinia, who received him with much respect; but his successor having banished the Jesuits from his dominions, Almeida returned to Goa in 1634, and became provincial of his order in India, and inquisitor. He died at Goa in 1646. His works are: 1 “A history of Upper Ethiopia,” to which his brother Jesuit, Bathazar Tellez, added many facts and documents, and published it at Coimbra, 1660, fol. 2. “Historical letters,” written from Abyssinia to the general of the Jesuits, and published at Rome, in Italian, 1629, 8vo. He left also some manuscripts on the errors of the Abyssinians, and the misrepresentations of the dominican Urreta in his history of Ethiopia.

, a Portugueze priest, who had the courage in Portugal to study and teach philosophy, xipon more rational and experimental principles than had ever been known in that country, was born in 1722. His most celebrated work, written in Portuguese, and entitled “Itecreaceo Filosofica,” 5 vols. 8vo, 1751, occasioned a revolution in the philosophical studies of the Portugueze, and would probably have involved the author in much danger, had not the Jesuits been soon after banished from that kingdom. He was nevertheless a zealous advocate for the pretensions of the court of Rome, at the time of the famous rupture between Joseph II. and that court; and this rendered him so obnoxious to the marquis de Pombal, that he was obliged to seek an asylum in France, during the ministry of that nobleman. On his return to Portugal, the royal academy of sciences of Lisbon was eager to admit him a member; but it was soon evident that Almeida had not kept pace with the progress which the nation had made in twenty-five years, and he was suffered to eclipse himself, although without losing any of the respect due to his former services in promoting liberal science. He published, after his return to Lisbon, a moral romance, called “The Happy Independant,” which had little success; and it was said that a better title would have been “The Happy Impertinent.” He died in 1805, leaving behind him several manuscripts, for the publication of which he had obtained the permission of the Censor. His works altogether are said to amount to forty volumes, besides five of translations; but we have not been able to obtain a list of their titles or subjects. At the time of his death he was a member of the Royal Academy of Lisbon, and of the Royal Society of London.

, an eminent Dutch physician, but more eminent as a general scholar and editor, was born July 24, 1657, at Midrecht, or Mydregt, near Utrerht, where his father was a Protestant clergyman. His grandfather was Cornelius Almeloveen, a senator of Utrecht, who died in 1658. His mother was Mary Janson, daughter of the celebrated Amsterdam printer, so well known for his many fine editions, and for the atlas which he published in six folio volumes. As the printer had no male issue, the name of Janson was added to Almeloveen, probably by our author’s father. He studied first at Utrecht, and then at Goude or Tergou, where James Tollius was at the head of the schools of that place, and when Tollius removed to Noortwick, near Leyden, Almeloveen followed him, and it appears by his writings that he always acknowledged him as his master. In 1676, he returned to Utrecht, and studied the belles lettres in that city under the celebrated Graevius, and as his father intended him for the church, he also studied Hebrew under Leusden, and philosophy under De Uries; but, taking disgust at the violence and illiberality with which theological disputes were sometimes conducted, he gave a preference to medicine, and attended the instructions of Vallan and Munniks. In 16 So, he maintained a thesis on sleep, and the following year, one on the asthma, and was then admitted to his doctor’s degree in that faculty. In 1687, he went to reside at Goude, where he? married. In 1697, he was invited to Harderwic to become professor of Greek and history; and in 1702, he was appointed professor of medicine, and remained in both offices until his death in 1712. He bequeathed to the public library at Utrecht his curious collection of the editions of Quintilian, which he had made at a great expence, and of which there is a catalogue in Masson’s critical history of the Republic of Letters, vol. V. Bibliography was his favourite study, in which he was ably assisted by his grandfather Jansson; and to this we probably owe the number of editions, with commentaries, which he published. Among these are: 1. “Hippocratis Aphorismi, Gr. Lat.” Amsterdam, 1685, 12mo. 2. “Aurelii Celsi de medicina,” with his own additions and those of Constantine and Casaubon, Amsterdam, 1687, 12mo; 1713, 8vo; Padua, 1722, 8vo; with “Serini Sammonici de medicina prsecepta salubfrrrima.” 3. “Apicii Caelii de obsoniis et condimentis, sive de arte coquinaria libri X.” with the notes of Martin Lister, Hamelbergius, Vander Linden, &c. Amsterdam, 1709, 8vo. 4. “Aurelianus de Morbis acutis et chronicis,” Amsterdam, 1709, 4to. 5. “Bibliotheca promissa et latens,” or an account of books promised, and never published, with the epistles of Velschius on such medical writings as have not been edited, Goude, 1688, 1698, 8vo; 1692, 12mo; Nuremberg, 1699, 8vo; with the additions of Martin Melsuhrerus. 6. “The anatomy of the Muscle,” in Flemish, with observations anatomical, medical, and chirurgical, Amst. 1684, 8vo. 7. “Onomasticon rerum inventarum et Inventa nov-antiqua, id est, brevis enarratio ortus et progressus artis medicæ,” ibid. 1684, 8vo; a history of the discoveries in medicine, with a marked preference to the merit of the ancients. 8. “Opuscula sive antiquitatum e sacris profanarum specimen conjectans veterum poetarum fraguienta et plagiarorum syllabus,” ibid. 1686, 8vo. 9. A new edition of Decker’s work, “De scriptis adespotis, pseudepigraphis, et supposititiis, conjecture,” ibid. 1686, 12mo. 10. An edition of “C. Rutilius Numantianus,” ibid. 1687, 12mo. 11. “Amdenitates theologico-philologicæ,” ibid. 1694, 8vo. Besides some critical pieces, this volume contains several letters of Bochart, Erasmus, Baudius, Scriverius, and others, and an attempt to prove that Erasmus was a native of Goude, and not of Rotterdam; because, according to the laws, the place where children are born accidentally, is not accounted their country. 12. “Dissertationes quatuor de mensis, lecticis, et poculis veterum,” Hanvick, 1701, 4to. These are theses composed by Alstorf, and maintained during the presidency of Almeloveen. 13. “Fasti Consulares,” Amst. 1705, 8vo. 14. A beautiful, but not very correct edition of “Strabo,” ibid. 2 vols. fol. 15. “De vitis Stephanoruni,” 1682, 8vo. Besides some other contributions of notes, &.c. to editions of the classics, he assisted Drakestein in the publication of the sixth volume of the “Hortus Malabaricus.”

, a priest of the oratory, was born at Brescia, of a noble family, Nov. 2, 1714, and studied theology, and the Greek and Hebrew languages, in both which he became an excellent scholar. He applied himself chiefly to an investigation of the text of the sacred scriptures, and read with great care the Greek and Latin fathers. His studies were also diversified by an acquaintance with chronology, history both sacred and profane, antiquities, criticism, and whatever belongs to the character of a general scholar. In his own country, he obtained such fame that his advice was thought to be oracular. He died Dec. 30, 1779, in his sixty-fifth year. He published “Critical Reflexions” on Febronius’s work, entitled “De Statu Ecclesiae, et legitima potestate Romani Pontificis;” some dissertations and other works, particularly one on the “manner of writing the lives of illustrious characters,” with an appendix on that peculiar species of biography, writing one’s own life. He left also some unpublished works, and among them “a comparison between the Italians and French,” and “Thoughts on the life and writings of father Paul Sarpi.”

, a bookseller, author, and editor, was born at Liverpool, about the year 1738, and was educated at Warrington. About 1748 he was put apprentice to a bookseller at Liverpool, but in 1756 he went to sea, as a common seaman. In 1758 or 1759, he returned to England, and came to London, where, it is said, he soon became known to several wits of the day, as Dr. Goldsmith, Churchill, Lloyd, and Wilkes. His turn, however, was for political writing; and in 1759 he published “The conduct of a late noble commander (lord George Sackville) examined.” This was followed by a compilation, in sixpenny numbers, of “A Military Dictionary,” or an account of the most remarkable battles and sieges from the reign of Charlemagne to the year 1760. Soon after, he wrote various political letters in the Gazetteer newspaper, which he collected and published under the title of “A collection of interesting letters from the public papers.” About the same time he published “A Review of his Majesty (George II.'s) reign” and when Mr. Pitt resigned in 1761, he wrote “A Review of his Administration.” His other publications were, “A Letter to the right hon. George Grenville;” “An history of the Parliament of Great Britain, from the death of queen Anne to the death of George II.;” “An impartial history of the late War from 1749 to 1763;” “A Review of lord Bute’s administration.” When Wilkes’s infamous essay on woman was brought to light, Mr. Almon wrote an answer to Kidgell, the informer’s, narrative. In 1763, he commenced bookseller in Piccadilly, and published “A Letter concerning libels, warrants, and seizure of papers, &c.;” “A history of the Minority during the years 1762 1765;” “The Political Register,” a periodical work, and the general receptacle of all the scurrility of the writers in opposition to government; “The New Foundling Hospital for Wit,” a collection of fugitive pieces, in prose and verse, mostly of the party kind: “An Asylum,” a publication of a similar sort; “Collection of all the Treaties of Peace, Alliance, and Commerce, between Great Britain and other powers, from the revolution in 1688 to the present time;” “The Parliamentary Register,” an account of the debates in parliament; “The Remembrancer,” another monthly collection of papers in favour of the American cause; “A collection of the Protests of the House of Lords;” “Letter to the earl of Bute,” 1772; “Free Parliaments, or a vindication of the parliamentary constitution of England, in answer to certain visionary plans of modern reformers;” “A parallel between the siege of Berwick and the siege of Aquilea,” in ridicule of Home’s tragedy, the Siege of Aquilea; “A Letter to the right hon. Charles Jenkinson,” 1782. These were mostly, if not all, anonymous, and they are enumerated here for the information of those who form collections of political pamphlets.

The works which he more publicly avowed are, “Anecdotes of the Life of the Earl of Chatham,” 2 vols. 4to, and 3 vols. 8vo; “Biographical, Literary, and Political Anecdotes of several of the most eminent persons of the present age, never before printed,” 3 vols. 8vo, 1797. Both contain many curious particulars of the political characters and contests of his day, picked up from the various members of parliament who frequented his shop, and confided in him. His last publication was a collection of Mr. Wilkes’s pamphlets and letters, with a life, in which he praises that gentleman in the most extravagant manner, while he relates facts concerning his character that elsewhere might have been accounted defamation. In all his political career he was attached to the party which supported Wilkes, and opposed the measures of government in the early part of the present reign. At that time it was not surprising that many of his pamphlets were popular, or that he should be able to boast of an intimacy with men of rank in the political world. He had the hardihood to publish writings which booksellers of established reputation would have rejected, and he ran little risk, as the expence of printing was defrayed by his employers, while he had the profits of the sale. Even of those which, upon his own authority, we have given as his productions, it is highly probable he was rather the editor than the author. In those wbich more recently appeared under his name, there is very little of the ability, either argumentative or narrative, which could give consequence to a political effusion. About the year 1782, he retired from business as a bookseller; but in a tew years he married the widow of Mr. Parker, printer of a newspaper called the General Advertiser, of which he then was proprietor and editor: the speculation however injured his fortune, and he became a prisoner in the king’s bench fora libel, and was afterwards an outlaw. Extricated at length from his difficulties, he retired again into Hertfordshire, where he died December 12, 1806, leaving his widow in great distress.

was born in Russia, of the imperial line. When that country was disturbed by intestine quarrels, in the latter end of the 16th century, and the royal house particularly was severely persecuted by impostors, this gentleman and his two brothers were sent over to England, and recommended to the care of Mr. Joseph Bidell, a Kussia merchant. Mr. Bidell, when they were of age fit for the university, sent them all three to Oxford, where the small-pox unhappily prevailing, two of them died of it. We know not whether this surviving brother took any degree, but it is very probable he did, since he entered into holy orders; and, in the year 1618, had the rectory of Wot) ley in Huntingdonshire, a living of no very considerable value, being rated at under 10l. in the king’s books. Here he did his duty with great cheerfulness and alacrity; and notwithstanding he was twice invited back to his native country, by some who would have ventured their utmost to have set him on the throne of his ancestors, he chose rather to remain with his flock, and to serve God in the humble station of a parish priest. Yet in 1643 he underwent the severest trials from the rage of the fanatic soldiery, who, not satisfied with depriving him of his living, insulted him in the most barbarous manner; for, having procured a file of musqueteers to pull him out of his pulpit, as he was preaching on a, Sunday, they turned his wife and young children out into the street, into which also they threw his goods. The poor man in this distress raised a tent under some trees in the church-yard, over against his house, where he and his family lived for a week. One day having gotten a few eggs, he picked up some rotten wood and dry sticks, and with these made a fire in the church porch, in order to boil them; but some of his adversaries, to show how far they could carry their rage against the church (for this poor man was so harmless, they could have none against him), came and kicked about his fire, threw down his skillet, and broke his eggs. After this, having still a little money, he made a small purchase in that neighbourhood, built a house, and lived there some years. He was encouraged to this by a presbyterian minister who came in his room, and honestly paid him a fifth part of the annual income of the living, which was the allowance made by parliament to ejected ministers, treated him with great humanity, and did him all the services in his power. It is a great misfortune that this gentleman’s name is not preserved, his conduct in this respect being the more laudable, because it was not a little singular. Walker calls him Mr. B, and the living is not mentioned by Calamy. Afterwards, probably on the death or removal of this gentleman, Mr. Alphery left Huntingdonshire, and came and resided at Hammersmith, till the Restoration pu,thim in possession of his living again. He returned on this occasion to Huntingdonshire, where he did not stay long; for, being upwards of 80, and very infirm, he could not perform the duties of his function. Having therefore settled a curate, he retired to his eldest son’s house at Hammersmith, where shortly after he died, full of years and of honour. It must be owned that this article is very imperfect; but the singularity of a Russian prince’s being a country minister in England is a matter of too much curiosity to be wholly omitted.

Mrs. Alphery, the last descendant of the family, married one Mr. Johnson a cutler at Huntingdon. She was living in 1761, and had eight children. By her the facts contained in the preceding article, first related by Walker, were confirmed to lord Sandwich, and were likewise known to be true by old people in the neighbourhood. His lordship informed Dr. Campbell, that such was the respect paid this woman on account of her illustrious descent, that no persons, of whatever station, chose to be seated in her presence: on the contrary they rose, and remained so till she had taken her chair.

, king of Leon and Castile, who has been surnamed The Wise, on account of his attachment to literature, is now more celebrated for having been an astronomer than a king. He was born in 1203, succeeded his father Ferdinand III. in 1252, and died in 1284, consequently at the age of 81. The affairs of the reign of Alphonsus were very extraordinary and unfortunate, but we shall here only consider him in that part of his character, on account of which he has a place in this work, namely, as an astronomer and a man of letters. He acquired a profound knowledge of astronomy, philosophy, and history, and composed books upon the motions of the heavens, and on the history of Spain, which are highly commended. “What can be more surprising,” says Mariana, “than that a prince, educated in a camp, and handling arms from his childhood, should have such a knowledge of the stars, of philosophy, and the transactions of the world, as men of leisure can scarcely acquire in their retirements? There are extant some books of Alphonsus on the motions of the stars, and the history of Spain, written with great skill and incredible care.” In his astronomical pursuits he discovered that the tables of Ptolemy were full of errors, and was the first to undertake the task of correcting them. For this purpose, about the year 1240, and during the life of his father, he assembled at Toledo the most skilful astronomers of his time, Christians, Moors, or Jews, when a plan was formed for constructing new tables. This task was accomplished about 1252, the first year of his reign; the tables being drawn up chiefly by the skill and pains of Rabbi Isaac Hazan, a learned Jew, and the work called the Alphonsine Tables, in honour of the prince, who was at vast expences concerning them. He fixed the epoch of the tables to the 30th of May 1252, being the day of his accession to the throne. They were printed for the first time in 1483, at Venice, by Radtolt, who excelled in printing at that time; an edition extremely rare: there are others of 1492, 1521, 1545, &c.

, a Spanish Jew of the 12th century, was converted to the Christian religion in 1106, in the 44th year of his age. Being severely censured by his countrymen, he published a “Dialogue between a Jew and a Christian,” which seems to have been no contemptible defence of Christianity against his countrymen. He wrote also “On science and philosophy,” and was eminent for sacred and profane literature. The time of his death is not known. The first mentioned work is in the “Bibl. Patrum.”

, a celebrated physician and botanist, was born the 23d of November 1553, at; Marostica, in the republic of Venice. In his early years he was inclined to the profession of arms, and accordingly served in the Milanese; but being at length persuaded by his father, who was a physician, to apply himself to learning, he went to Padua, where in a little time he was chosen deputy to the rector, and syndic to the students, which offices he discharged with great prudence and address. This, however, did not hinder him from pursuing his study of physic, in which faculty he was created doctor in 1578. Nor did he remain long without practice, being soon after invited to Campo San Pietro, a little town in the territories of Padua. But such a situation was too confined for one of his extensive views; he was desirous of gaining a knowledge of exotic plants, and thought the best way to succeed in his inquiries, was, after Galen’s example, to visit the countries where they grow. He soon had an opportunity of gratifying his curiosity, as George Emo, or Hemi, being appointed consul for the republic of Venice in Egypt, chose him for his physician. They left Venice the 12th of September 1580; and, after a tedious and dangerous voyage, arrived at Grand Cairo the beginning of July the year following. Alpini continued three years in this country, where he omitted no opportunity of improving his knowledge in botany, travelling along the banks of the river Nile, and as far as Alexandria, and other parts of Egypt. Upon his return to Venice, in 1584, Andrea Doha, prince of Melfi, appointed him his physician; and he distinguished himself so much in this capacity, that he was esteemed the first physician of his age. The republic of Venice, displeased that a subject of theirs, of so much merit as Alpini, should continue at Genoa, when he might be of very great service and honour to their state, recalled him in 1593, to fill the professorship of botany at Padua, where he had a salary of 200 florins, afterwards raised to 750. He discharged this office with great reputation; but his health became very precarious, having been much injured by the voyages he had made. According to the registers of the university of Padua, he died the 5th of February 1617, in the 64th year of his age, and was buried the day after, without any funeral pomp, in the church of St. Anthony.

His works, some of which are still held in esteem, were, 1. “De Medicina Egyptiorum, libri IV.” Venice, 1591, 4to, Paris, 1645, and Leyden, 1735, 4to. 2. “De Balsamq dialogus,” Venice, 1591, Padua, 1640, 4to. In this he describes the plant in Asia Minor which produces the white balsam. 3. “De Plantis Egyptii liber,” Venice, 1592, Padua, 1640, 4to. 4. “De Plantis exoticis, libri II.” Venice, 1627, 1656, 4to. 5. “Historiae naturalis Egypti, libri IV.” Leyden, 1735, 2 vols. 4to. 6. “De praesagienda vita etmorte asgrotantium, libri VII.” Padua, 4to, Leyden, 1710, edited by Boerhaave; the most considerable of all his works, of which there have been various editions, and an English translation by Dr. James, 2 vols. 8vo. 1746. 7. “De Medicina methodica, libri XIII.” Padua, fol. 1611, Leyden, 1719, 4to, a work in which he evinces his predilection for the methodists. 8. “Dissertatio de Rhapontico,” Padua, 1612, 4to. All these works have been frequently reprinted. Towards the end of his life Alpini became deaf, and in consequence turned his thoughts towards the causes of that privation, and the possibility of cure. The result of his researches he communicated in a treatise on the subject, which, with some other works, still remain in manuscript. He left four sons, one of whom was a lawyer, and another a physician, and the publisher of his father’s posthumous works. The Alpinia, a of the monogynia order, of which there is but one species, derives its name from him.

, Alvredus, or Aluredus, an ancient English historian, was born at Beverley in Yorkshire, and received his education at Cambridge. He returned afterwards to the place of his nativity, where he became a secular priest, one of the canons, and treasurer to the church of St. John, at Beverley. Tanner, in a note, informs us, that he travelled for improvement through France and Italy, and that at Rome he became domestic chaplain to cardinal Othoboni. According to Bale and Pits, he flourished under king Stephen, and continued his annals to the year 1136. Vossius is supposed to come nearer the truth, who tells us that he flourished in the reign of Henry I. and died in 1126, in which same year ended his annals. His history, however, agrees with none of these authors, and it seems probable from thence that he died in 1128 or 1129. He intended at first no more than an abridgment of the history of the ancient Britons; but a desire of pursuing the thread of his story led him to add the Saxon, and then the Norman history, and at length he brought it down to his own times. This epitome of our history from Brutus to Henry I. is esteemed a valuable performance; it is written in Latin, in a concise and elegant style, with great perspicuity, and a strict attention to dates and authorities: the author has been not improperly styled our English Florus, his plan and execution very much resembling that of the Roman historian. It is somewhat surprising that Leland has not given him a place amongst the British writers: the reason seems to have been that Leland, through a mistake, considers him only as the author of an abridgment of Geoffrey of Mou mouth’s history but most of the ancient writers having placed Geoffrey’s history later in point of time than that of Alredus, we have reason to conclude that Alredus composed his compendium before he ever saw the history of Geoffrey, We have also the authority of John Withamsted, an ancient writer of the fifteenth century, who, speaking of our author, says, that he wrote a chronicle of what happened from the settlement of Brutus to the time of the Normans, in which he also treated of the cities anciently founded in this kingdom, and mentioned the names by which London, Canterbury, and York were called in old times, when the Britons inhabited them; and this testimony agrees with the book, as we now have it. Some other pieces have been ascribed to Alredus; but this history, and that of St. John of Beverley, seem to have been all that he wrote. This last performance was never printed, but it is to be found in the Cotton library; though not set down in the catalogues, as being contained in a volume of tracts: it is entitled “Libertates ecclesias S. Johannis de Beverlik, cum privilegiis apostolicis et episcopahbus, quas magister Alueredus sacrista ejusdein ecclesiao de Anglico in Latinum transtulit: in hoc tractatulo dantur carta3 Saxonicsc R. R. Adelstani, Eadwardi Confessoris, et Willelmi, quas fecerunt eidem ccclesiae, sed imperito exscriptore mendose scriptas. The liberties of the church of St. John of Beverley, with the privileges granted by the apostolic see, or by bishops, translated out of Saxon into Latin, by master Alured, sacrist of the said church. In this treatise are contained the Saxon charters of the kings Adelstan, Edward the Confessor, and William the Conqueror, granted by them to this church; but, through want of skill in the transcriber, full of mistakes.” Mr. Hearne published an edition of Alredus’s annals of the British History, at Oxford, in 1716, with a preface of his own. This was taken, from a manuscript belonging to Thomas Rawlinson, esq. which Hearne says is the only one he ever saw.

, a poetical and miscellaneous English writer, was educated at Westminster school, and thence elected to Christ-church, Oxford, where he took the degree of M.A. March 23, 1696, and of B. D. Dec. 12, 1706. On his coming to the university, he was very soon distinguished by dean Aldrich, and published “Fabularum Æsopicarurn delectus,” Oxon. 1698, 8vo, with a poetical dedication to lord viscount Scudamore, and a preface in which he took part against Dr. Bentley in the famous dispute with Mr. Boyle. This book, Dr. Warton observes, is not sufficiently known. It was better known at one time, however, if we may credit bishop Warburton, who, in one of his letters to Dr. Hurd, says that “a powerful cabal gave it a surprising turn.” Alsop passed through the usual offices in his college to that of censor, with considerable reputation; and for some years had the principal noblemen and gentlemen belonging to the society committed to his care. In this useful employment he continued till his merit recommended him to sir Jonathan Trelawny, bishop of Winchester, who appointed him his chaplain, and soon after gave him a prebend in his own cathedral, together with the rectory of Brightwell, in the county of Berks, which afforded him ample provision for a learned retirement, from which he could not be drawn by the repeated solicitations of those who thought him qualified for a more public character and a higher station. In 1717 an action was brought against him by Mrs. Elizabeth Astrey of Oxford, for a breach of a marriage contract; and a verdict obtained against him for 2,000l. which probably occasioned him to leave the kingdom for some time. How long this exile lasted is unknown; but his death happened, June 10, 1726, and was occasioned by his falling into a ditch that led to his garden-door, the path being narrow, and part of it giving way. A quarto volume of his was published in. 1752, by the late sir Francis Bernard, under the title of “Antonii Alsopi, sedis Christi olim alumni, Odarum libri duo.” Four English poems of his are in Dodsley’s collection, one in Pearch’s, several in the early volumes of the Gentleman’s Magazine, and some in the “Student.” He seems to have been a pleasant and facetious companion, not rigidly bound by the trammels of his profession, and does not appear to have published any sermons. Mr. Alsop is respectfully mentioned by the facetious Dr. King of the Commons (vol. I. p. 236.) as having enriched the commonwealth of learning, by “Translations of fables from Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic 5” and not less detractingly by Dr. Bentley, under the name of “Tony Alsop, a late editor of the Alisopean Fables.” Sir Francis Bernard, his editor, says, that among the various branches of philological learning for which he was eminent, his singularly delicate taste for the classic poets was the chief. This induced him to make use of the Sapphic numbers in his familiar correspondence with his most intimate friends, in which he shewed a facility so uncommon, and a style so natural and easy, that he has been, not unjustly, esteemed not inferior, to his nic;ter Horace.

, an English nonconformist of considerable note, was a native of Northamptonshire, and educated at St. John’s 'college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of master of arts. He afterwards received deacon’s orders from a bishop, and settled at Oakham in Rutlandshire, as assistant to the master of the free school. Being a man who possessed a lively pleasant wit, he fell into gay company, but was reclaimed by the admonition of the rev. Mr. King, a Puritan minister at or near Oakham, whose daughter he afterwards married; and becoming a convert to his principles, he received ordination in the presbyterian way, not being satisfied with that of the bishop, which extended only to deacon’s orders, and he was no longer willing to conform to the church by applying for those of a priest. He settled at Wilby, in the county of Northampton, whence he was ejected in 1662, for nonconformity. After which he ventured to preach sometimes at Oakham and at Wellingborough, where he lived; and was once committed to prison for six months, for praying with a sick person. The book he wrote against Dr. Sherlock, in a humorous style, made him first known to the world, and induced Mr. Cawton, an eminent nonconformist in Westminster, to recommend him to his congregation, as his successor. On receiving this invitation, he quitted Northampton, and came to London, where he preached constantly, and wrote several pieces, which were extremely well received by the public. His living in the neighbourhood of the court exposed him to many inconveniences, but he had the good fortune to escape imprisonment and fines, by the ignorance of the informers, who did not know his Christian name, which he studiously concealed; and even Anthony Wood, who calls him Benjamin, did not know it. His sufferings, however, ended with the reign of Charles II. at least in the beginning of the next reign, when his son, engaging in treasonable practices, was frequently pardoned by king James. After this, Mr. Alsop went frequently to court, and is generally supposed to have been the person who drew up the Preshy terians’ very fulsome address to that prince, for his general indulgence; a measure, however, which was condemned by the majority of nonconformists. After the revolution, Mr. Alsop gave very public testimonies of his affection for the government, but on all occasions spoke in the highest terms of respect and gratitude of king James, and retained a VI.Tv high sense of his clemency, in sparing his only son. The remainder of his life he spent in the exercise of the ministry, preaching once every Lord’s clay; besides which he had a Thursday lecture, and was one of the lecturers at Pinner’s hall. He lived to he a very old man, preserved his spirits to the last, and died May 8, 1703. On grave subjects he wrote with a becoming; seriousness but where wit might be shewn, he displayed it to considerable advantage. His funeral sermon was preached by Mr. Slater, and his memory will always be remembered by his own learned and elegant writings; the most remarkable of which are: 1. “Antisozzo,” in vindication of some great truths opposed by Dr. Sherlock, in whose treatise “Concerning the knowledge of Jesus Christ,” he thought he discovered a tendency towards Socinianism, and therefore entitled this work, which was published in 1675, “Antisozzo,” from the Italian name of Socinus. Sherlock and he had been pupils under the same tutor in the university. Dr. South allowed Alsop’s merit in this contest of wit, but Wood undervalues his talent. 2. “Melius Inquirendum,” in answer to Dr. Goodman’s Compassionate Inquiry, 1679, 8vo. 3. “The Mischief of Impositions;” in answer to Dr. Stillingfleet’s Mischief of Separation, 1680. 4. “Duty and interest united in praise and prayer for Kings.” 5. “Practical godliness the ornament of Religion,” 1696; and several sermons.

, a German protestant divine, and a voluminous writer, was some time professor of philosophy and divinity at Herboni in the county of Nassau; afterwards professor at Alba Julia in Transylvania, where he continued till his death, which happened in 1638, in his 50th year. Of his public character, we only know that he assisted at the synod of Dort. He applied himself chiefly to reduce the several branches of arts and sciences into systems. His “Encyclopaedia” has been much esteemed even by Roman catholics: it was printed at Herborn, 1610, 4to, ibid. 1630, 2 vols. fol. and at Lyons, 1649, and sold very well throughout all France. Vossius mentions the Encyclopaedia in general, but speaks of his treatise of Arithmetic more particularly, and allows the author to have been a man of great reading and universal learning. Jiaillet has the following quotation from a German author: “Alstedius has indeed many good things, but he is not sufficiently accurate; yet his Encyclopedia was received with general applause, when it first appeared, and may be of use to those who, being destitute of other helps, and not having the original authors, are desirous of acquiring some knowledge of the terms of each profession and science. Nor can we praise too much his patience and labour, his judgment, and his choice of good authors: and the abstracts he has made are not mere scraps and unconnected rhapsodies, since he digests the principles of arts and sciences into a regular and uniform order. Some parts are indeed better than others, some being insignificant and of little value, as his history and chronology. Jt must be allowed too, that he is often confused by endeavouring to be clear; that he is too full of divisions and subdivisions; and that he affects too constrained a method.” Lorenzo Brasso says, “that though there is more labour than genius in Alstedius’s works, yet they are esteemed; and his industry being admired, has gained him admittance into the temple of fame.” Alstedius, in his “Triumphax Bibliorum Sacrorum, seu Encyclopaedia Biblica,” Francfort, 1620, 1625, 1642, 12mo, endeavours to prove, that the materials and principles of all the arts and sciences maybe found in the scriptures, an opinion which has been since adopted by others. John Himmelius wrote a piece against his “Theologia Polemica,” which was one of the best performances of Alstedius. He also published in 1627, a treatise entitled “De Mille Annis,” wherein he asserts that the faithful shall reign with Jesus Christ upon earth a thousand years, after which will be the general resurrection and the last judgment. In this opinion, he would not have been singular, as it has more or less prevailed in all ages of the church, had he not ventured to predict that it would take place in the year 1694. Niceron has given a more copious list of his works, which are now little known or consulted.

, an ingenious physician and botanist, was the son of Mr. Alston, of Eddlewood, a gentleman of small estate in the west of Scotland, and allied to the noble family of Hamilton, who, after having studied physic, and travelled with several gentlemen, declined the practice of his profession, and retired to his patrimony. His son Charles was born in 1683, and at the time of his father’s death was studying at the university of Glasgow. On this event, the duchess of Hamilton took him under her patronage, and recommended to him the profession of the law, but his inclination for botany and the study of medicine superseded all other schemes; and from the year 1716, he entirely devoted himself to medicine. In that year he went over to Leyden, and studied under Boerhaave for three years; and having here formed an acquaintance with the celebrated Dr. Alexander Monro, the first of that name, on their return they projected the revival of medical lectures and studies at Edinburgh. For this purpose they associated themselves with Drs. Rutherford, Sinclair, and Plummer, and laid the foundation of that high character, as a medical school, which Edinburgh has so long enjoyed. Dr. Alston’s department was botany and the materia medica, which he continued to teach with unwearied assiduity until his death, Nov. 22, 1760, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

In 1740, he published for the use of his pupils 1. “Index Plantarum praecipue officinalium, qua; in horto medico Edinburgensi, studiosis demonstrantur,” 8vo. 2. “Index Medicamentorum simplicium triplex,” 1752, 8vo. 3. “Tirocinium Botanicum Edinburgense,” 1753; his principal work, containing a republication of his “Index” with the “Fundamenta Botanica” of Linnæus; in this, however, he made an unavailing attempt to overthrow Linnasus’s system; doubtless from a fond attachment to his early instructors, Tournefort, Ray, and Boerhaave. Besides these, he published in the Edinburgh medical essays, three papers on Tin as an anthelmintic, on Opium, and on a case of extravasated blood in the pericardium; and separately in 1752, 1754, and 1757, a “Dissertation on Quick-lime and Lime-water.” His “Lectures on the Materia Medica” were published after his death by Dr. Hope, 2 vols. 4to, 1770, which did not contribute much to his fame, being, as Dr. Pulteney justly observes, rather an account of the state of the materia medica, as it was, than as it is, in the works of Lewis, Bergius, Murray, and Cullen.

, the reviver of industry and commerce in Sweden, was born in 1685, in the small town of Alingsas in West Gothland, of poor parents. After struggling for a long time with the evils of want, he came to London, where he paid particular attention to commercial speculations; and from his inquiries into the prosperity of England, he deduced the importance of manufactures and commerce. His native country, for several centuries engaged in war, had made little progress in the arts of industry, but was now endeavouring to promote them; and Alstroemer having formed his plan, returned to Sweden to assist his fellow-citizens in this undertaking. In 1723, he requested of the states a licence to establish manufactures in the town in which he was born, and it soon became the seat of activity and industry, which spread over other parts of the kingdom. In the mean time he travelled to acquire a knowledge of the inventions and the methods practised in Germany, Holland, and Flanders, collected able workmen, and the best models, and published several instructive papers. At the same time he carried on trade, in partnership with Nicholas Sahlgren, at Gottenburgh. Here he established a sugar-house, traded to the Indies and the Levant, and bestowed so much attention on rural opconomy, as to introduce some very essential improvements, cultivating plants proper for dying, and extending the culture of potatoes, then a novelty in Sweden. He also improved the wool-trade by importing the sheep of Spain and England, and even the Angora goat. The manufacture of cloth, and other articles from wool, was now much encouraged, and gave employment to a great number of hands, who manufactured to the value of three millions of livres tournois per annum, and relieved the country from the necessity of having recourse to foreign markets; but in other manufactures, as the silk, then did not succeed so well. Alstroemer has been accused of not paying sufficient attention to local circumstances in some of his schemes, and of having encouraged notions that were more showy than solid; but his design was truly patriotic, and his country readily acknowledged the benefit it has derived from his labours. The king Frederic bestowed on him the title of counsellor of commerce, and the order of the polar star; Adolphus Frederic granted him letters of nobility; and the academy of sciences chose him a member, while the States decreed that his statue should be placed on the exchange at Stockholm, with this inscription: “Jonas Alstjoemer, artium fabrilium in patria instaurator.” “J. A. the reviver of manufactures.” He died in 1761, leaving a considerable fortune. His four sons, Claude, Patrick, John, Augustus, were distinguished for talents and patriotism, and the first three were members of the academy of Stockholm.

, son of the preceding, was born in 1736, studied natural history, and was a pupil of Linnseus. He travelled over a considerable part of Europe, beginning with Spain, whence he sent some plants to Linnæus, who mentions him in his “Species plantaruni.” On landing at Cadiz, he saw in the house of the Swedish consul the flowers of a plant, a native of Peru. Struck with their beauty, he asked and obtained some seeds, which he immediately dispatched to Linnseus, with whom they succeeded, and became generally cultivated under the name of the lily of Alstroetner, or of the Incas. Linnæus perpeiuated the name by -Galling the genus Alstrpemeria. Alstroemer communicated with several societies for agriculture and natural history, but one paper only is mentioned of his in the memoirs of the academy of Stockholm, giving a description of the Simia Mammon, a species of, ape. He died in 1794.

, the descendant of an ancient patrician family of Fribourg in Swisserland, was born there in 1689, and died Feb. 17, 1771. In 1718 he was a captain in the Austrian service, but returned to his country, over which he long presided as avoyer, or magistrate, an appointment conferred upon him in 1737. He published a “Histoire de la Suisse” Fribourg, 1750 to 1753, 10 vols. 8vo, of which baron Zurlauben, a competent and impartial judge, says, that it would have deserved more praise, if besides the many faults of the language (French), he bad supported his facts by proofs; if he had omitted matters foreign to the history of Swisserland, which occupy a great deal of the work; if he had made his readers better acquainted with the Swiss government; and had described some of the cantons with more accuracy; if he had passed over in silence events not compatible with the plan of a general history, and if he had not espoused with too much warmth the cause of the catholic cantons.

, a German classical scholar critic, was born at Englesberg, in Silesia, in 1749, and died at Vienna March 29, 1804. He entered the society of the Jesuits, and was Greek teacher in the school of St. Anne, and the academy of Vienna, until his death. He has published two hundred and fifty volumes and dissertations, the titles of which are given in J. G. Meusel’s Allemagne Savante. One of his principal publications was “Novum Testamentum, ad codicem Vindobonensem Græce expressum: varietatem lectionis addidit Franc. C. Alter.” vol. I. 1786, vol. II. 1787, 8vo. The groundwork of this edition is the codex Lambecii in the imperial library at Vienna, with which the author has collated other manuscripts in that library, and the Coptic, Sclavonic, and Latin versions; the latter from the valuable fragments of the Vulgate, anterior to that of Jerome. It is thought that he would have succeeded better, if he had adopted as a basis the text of Wetstein or Griesbach, and if he had been more fortunate in arranging his materials. The merits of this edition are examined, with his usual acuteness, by Dr. Herbert Marsh in his supplement to Michaelis’s introduction to the New Testament. Of Alter’s other works, those in most esteem abroad are: 1. A German translation of Harwood’s View of the various editions of the Classics, with notes, Vienna, 1778, 8vo. 2. Various readings from the manuscripts in the imperial library, which he used in the editions printed at Vienna, of Lysias, 1785; Ciceroni’s Qusest. Acad. Tusc. 1780, 8vo; Lucretius, 1787, 8vo; Homeri Ilias, 1789—1790, 2 vols.; also with various readings from the Palatine library; Homeri Odyssea and min. poem. 1794. 3. Some of Plato’s Dialogues, 1784, 8vo. 4. Thucydides, 1785, 8vo. 5. The Greek Chronicle of George Phranza or Phranzes, not before printed, Vienna, 1796, fol. 6. Notices on the Literary history of Georgia, in German, 1798, 8vo. His numerous essays and dissertations, which are upon curious and recondite subjects, illustrations of Oriental and Greek manuscripts, &c. have appeared in the German literary journals at various periods, particularly in the Memorabilien of M. Paulus, and the Allg. Litt. Anzeiger da Leipzig.

, a celebrated Lutheran minister at Nuremberg, published in the sixteenth century several works in Divinity, as “Conciliationes locorum scripturæ,” 1528, 8vo, Latin and German; “Annotationes in Jacobi Epistolam;” “De Peccato Originali” and “De Sacramento altaris.” He likewise published “Sylva Biblicorum nominum,” Basil, 1535; and “Notes upon Tacitus de situ, moribus, et populis Germanise,” Nuremberg, 1529, 1536, and at Amberg, 1609, 8vo. He was at the conferences at Berne in 1528, which paved the way to the reformation of that canton. His principles appear to have inclined to Antinomianism, and he attacked the authority of the Epistle of St. James with great indecency: this afterwards was introduced in the dispute between Grotius and Rivet, of which an account may be seen in Bayle. Althamerus, who died about 1540, was sometimes called Andrew Brentius from the place of his nativity, Brentz, near Gundelfingcn, in Swabia; and sometimes he assumed the fictitious name of Palaeo Sphyra, 1. Arnold Ballenstad published a life of him in 1740.

, a German Protestant lawyer, was born about the middle of the sixteenth century, and became law-professor p.t Herborn, and syndic at Bremen. He wrote some treatises in the way of his profession, “De Jurisprudentia Romana,” and “De civili conversatione;” but what made him principally known, was his “Politica methodice digesta,” 1603, in, which he maintained the sovereignty of the people, and their right to put kings to death, and those other doctrines, the effects of which were so extensively displayed in England in the seventeenth, and in France in the eighteenth century. A recent French biographer, Michaud, observes that “these strange opinions produced by the revolutionary spirit which prevailed in the sixteenth century, have been revived in ours by the demagogues, who fancy that they are advancing something new.” Althusen died in the early part of the seventeenth century.

, of an illustrious family at Cortona, was born there, March 25, 1689. He entered the society of the Jesuits in 1706, and died in 1777, at Rome, where he had lived many years. He was esteemed a man of great learning, piety, and amiable manners. His principal work is his “Sum of St. Augustine,” Rome, 1761, 6 vols. 4to, in which he gives a history of Pelagianism, drawn from the best authorities in the ancient ecclesiastical writers. He wrote against Beausobre’s history of Manicheism, and other works against the modern philosophers and adherents of the doctrine of materialism.

, one of the Latin poets who flourished in Italy in the fifteenth century, was born at Basilicata, in the kingdom of Naples, or as some think, at Mantua. He studied, however, at Naples, which he made his residence, and associated with Pontanus, Sannazarius, and the other literati of that time and place, and acted as preceptor to prince Ferdinand, who came to the throne in 1495, by the resignation of his father Alphonsus II. According to Ughelli in his “Italia sacra,” Altilio was appointed bishop of Policastro in 1471, and died in 1484; but according to Mazzuchelli, whose authority in this instance appears preferable, he was not bishop until 1489, and died about 1501. He has left but few specimens of his poetry, but they are of acknouledged merit. The most celebrated is the epithalamium he wrote on the marriage of Isabella of Arragon, daughter of Alphonsus II. with John Galeas Sforca, duke of Milan. This is published in the Carm. Illust. Poet. Ital. and with a few of his other pieces, at the close of the works of Sannazarius, by Comino, 1731, 4to, where numerous testimonies are collected of the merits of Altilio. Some of these pieces had, however, been before printed with the works of Sannazarius, Daniel Cereti, and the brothers of the Amalthei, illustrated by the notes of Peter Vlamingii, Amst. 1728, 8vo, which may be united with the variorum classics. Notwithstanding the praises generally bestowed on Altilio, there are some critics who have undervalued his talenjts. In particular, Julius Scaliger thinks there is too great a profusion of thought and expression in this performance:“Gabriel Altilius,” says he, “composed an excellent epithalamium, which would have been still better, had he restrained his genius; but, by endeavouring to say every thing upon the subject, he disgusts the reader as much in some places, as he gives him pleasure in others: be says too much, which is a fault peculiar to his nation, for in all that tract of Italy they have a continual desire of talking.” k may appear singular that his Latin poetry 'should hare raised him to the dignity of a prelate; yet it certainly did, in a great measure, to the bishopric of Policastro. Some have also reproached him for neglecting the muses after his preferment, though they had proved so serviceable to him in acquiring it: “When he was made bishop,” says Paulus Jovius, “he soon and impudently left the muses, by whose means he had been promoted: a most heinous ingratitude, unless we excuse him from the consideration of his order, which obliged him to apply to the study of the holy scriptures.”

, an eminent German divine, was born at Embden, Feb. 17, 1583, of a family of considerable note in Friesland. His father, Menso Alting, was one of the first who preached the doctrines of the reformation in the territory of Groningen, about the year 1566, and under the tyrannical government of the duke of Alva. He faithfully served the church of Embden during the space of thirty-eight years, and died Oct. 7th, 1612. His sjn was from a child designed for the ministry, and sent very early to school, and afterwards into Germany in 1602. At Herborn he made such uncommon progress under the celebrated Piscator, Matthias, Martinius, &c. that he was allowed to teach philosophy and divinity. While preparing for his travels into Switzerland and France, he was chosen preceptor to three young counts, who studied at Sedan with the electoral prince Palatine, and took possession of that employment about September 1605; but the storm which the duke of Bomllon was threatened with by Henry IV. obliging the electoral prince to retire from Sedan with the three young noblemen, Alting accompanied them to Heidelberg. Here he continued to instruct his noble pupils, and was admitted to read lectures in geography and history to the electoral prince till 1608, when he was declared his preceptor. In this character he accompanied him to Sedan, and was afterwards one of those who were appointed to attend the young elector on his journey into England in 1612, where he became acquainted with Dr. Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. King, bishop of London, Dr. Hackwell, preceptor to the prince of Wales; and also had the honour of an audience of king James. The marriage between the elector and the princess of England being solemnized at London in Feb. 1613, Alting left England, and arrived at Heidelberg. In the ensuing August he was appointed professor of the common places of divinity, and to qualify himself for presiding in theological contests, he took the degree of D. D. In 1616 he had a troublesome office conferred upyn him, that of director of the collegium supientite of Heidelberg. In 1618 he was offered the second professorship of divinity, vacant by the death of Coppeniiis, which he refused, but procured it for Scultetus.

He distinguished himself by his learning at the synod of Dort, whither he. was sent with two other deputies of the Palatinate, Scultetus and Tossanus. He appears to have conceived great hopes soon after his return to Heidelberg, the elector Palatine having gained a crown by the troubles of Bohemia, but he met with a dreadful disappointment. Count Tilli took Heidelberg by storm in Sept. 1622, and allowed his soldiers to commit every species of outrage and violence. Alting escaped almost by a miracle, which is thus related: He was in his study, when news was brought that the enemy was master of the town, and ready to plunder it. Upon his bolting his door he had recourse to prayer. One of his friends, accompanied by two soldiers, advised him to retire by the back door into the chancellor’s house, which was protected by a strong guard, because count Tilli designed the papers that were lodged there should come entire into his hands. The lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of Hohenzollen was upon this guard, and addressing himself to Alting, said, “With this axe I have killed to-day ten men, and Dr. Alting shall be the eleventh, if I can discover where he has hid himself,” and concluded this barbarous speech by asking Alting, “who are you?” Alting, with great presence of mind, answered, “I have been regent in the college of Sapience.” This expression the savage murderer did not understand, and permitted him to escape. On this he contrived to retire to his family, which he had sent some time before to Heilbrun. He rejoined it at Schorndorf, but was not allowed to continue there more than a few months, owing to the illiberal conduct of some Lutheran ministers. In 1623 he retired with his family to Embden, and afterwards to the Hague, where the king of Bohemia engaged him to instruct his eldest son, but permitted him at the same time to accept a professorship of divinity at Groningen, which he entered upon, June 16, 1627, and kept to the day of his death.

The last years of his life were embittered by domestic afflictions, and by bodily disease. The loss of an affectionate daughter, and afterwards of his wife, preyed upon a constitution that haa been shaken by the vicissitudes of his former life., and brought on a lethargic disorder, of which be died, Aug. 25, 1644, leaving behind him the character of a man of great piety and learning; and it appears that few men of his time were more highly honoured for their personal worth. He went yearly to wait upou the king of Bohemia, and to inspect the studies of the royal family. He contributed very much to the collections that were made throughout all the Protestant countries for the churches of Germany. He was also employed in two other important commissions: one was the revisal made at Leyden of the new Dutch translation of the Bible; and the other the visitation of the county of Steinfurt. In the first he had some colleagues, but in the second he was the only general inspector, the count of Bentheim having sent him to regulate the churches, and particularly to counteract the progress of Socinianism, which had crept in. Alting, by his temperate character and his abilities as a reasoner, taking all his arguments from scripture, appears to have been well qualified for these and other important trusts assigned to him. He married at Heidelberg in 1614, and had seven children, of whom a daughter and two sons survived him. The eldest son was professor of civil law at Daventer; the other is the subject of the next article.

, son of the above Henry, was born at Heidelberg the 27th of September 1618, at which time his father was deputy at the synod of Dort. He went through his studies at Groningen with great success; and being desirous to acquire knowledge in the Oriental languages, removed to Embden in 1638, to improve himself under the rabbi Gamprecht Ben Abraham. He came over to England in 1640, where he became acquainted with many persons of the greatest note; he preached here, and was ordained a priest of the church of England by Dr. Prideaux, bishop of Worcester. He had once resolved to pass his life in England, but afterwards accepted the Hebrew professorship at Groningen, offered him upon the death of Goraarus. He entered upon this office the 13th of January 1643, the very day that Samuel des Marets was installed in the professorship of divinity, which had been held by the same Gomarus. Alting was admitted doctor of philosophy the 21st of October 1645, preacher to the academy in 1647, and doctor and professor of divinity in 1667. He had visited Heidelberg in 1662, where he received many marks of esteem from the elector Palatine, Charles Lewis, who often solicited him to accept of the professorship of divinity, but he declined this offer. In a little time a misunderstanding arose betwixt him and Samuel des Marets, his colleague, owing to a difference in their method of teaching, and in many points in their principles. Alting kept to the scriptures, without meddling with scholastic divinity: the first lectures which he read at his house upon the catechism, drew such vast crowds of hearers, that, for want of room in his own chamber, he was obliged to make use of the university hall. His colleague was accustomed to the method and logical distinctions of the schoolmen; had been a long time in great esteem, had published several books, and to a sprightly genius had added a good stock of learning; the students who were of that country adhered to him, as the surest way to obtain church preferment, for the parishes were generally supplied with such as had studied according to his method. This was sufficient to raise and keep up a misunderstanding betwixt the two professors. Alting had great obstacles to surmount: a majority df voices and the authority of age were on his adversary’s side. Des Marets gave out that Alting was an innovator, and one who endeavoured to root up the boundaries which our wise forefathers had made between truth and falsehood; he accordingly became his accuser, and charged him with one-and-thirty erroneous propositions. The curators of the university, without acquainting the parties, sent the information and the answers to the divines of Leyden, desiring their opinion. The judgment they gave is remarkable: Alting was acquitted of all heresy, but his imprudence was blamed in broaching new hypotheses; on the other hand, Des Marets was censured for acting contrary to the laws of charity and moderation. The latter would not submit to this judgment, nor accept of the silence which was proposed. He insisted on the cause being heard before the consistories, the classes, and the synods; but the heads would not consent to this, forbidding all writings, either for or against the judgment of the divines of Leyden; and thus the work of Des Marets, entitled “Audi et alteram partem,” was suppressed. This contest excited much attention, and might have been attended with bad consequences, when Des Marets was called to Leyden, but he died at Groningen before he could take possession of that employment. There was a kind of reconciliation effected betwixt him and Alting before his death: a clergyman of Groningen, seeing Des Marets past all hopes of recovery, proposed it to him; and having his consent, made the same proposal to Alting, who answered, that the silence he had observed, notwithstanding the clamours and writings of his adversary, shewed his peaceable disposition; that he was ready to come to an agreement upon reasonable terms, but that he required satisfaction for the injurious reports disseminated against his honour and reputation; and that he could not conceive how any one should desire his friendship, whilst he thought him such a man as he had represented him to be. The person, who acted as mediator, some time after returned, with another clergyman, to Alting, and obtained from him a formulary of the satisfaction he desired. This formulary was not liked by Des Marets, who drew up another, but this did not please Alting: at last, however, after some alterations, the reconciliation was effected; the parties only retracted the personal injuries, and as to the accusations in point of doctrine, the accuser left them to the judgment of the church. Alting, however, thought he had reason to complain, even after he was delivered from so formidable an adversary. His complaint was occasioned by the last edition of Des Marets’s system, in which he was very ill treated: he said, his adversary should have left no monuments of the quarrel; and that his reconciliation had not been sincere, since he had not suppressed such an injurious book. The clergy were continually murmuring against what they called innovations; but the secular power wisely calmed those storms, which the convocations and synods would have raised, threatening to interdict those who should revive what had obtained the name of the Maresio-Altingian controversy. Alting enjoyed but little health the last three years of his life; and being at length seized with a violent fever, was carried off in nine days, at Groningen, August 20, 1679. His works, which consist of dissertations on various points of Hebrew and Oriental antiquities; commentaries on many of the books of the Bible; a Syro-Chaldaic Grammar; a treatise on Hebrew punctuation, &c. &c. were collected in 5 vols. fol. and published by Balthasar Boeker, Amst. 1687, with a life by the same editor.

, the father of Henry and grandfather of James Alting, was born at Fleda in West-Friesland in 1541, and died, first pastor and president of the consistory at Embden, in 1617. The study of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans is said to have brought him from the opinions of Luther to those of Calvin, in whose defence he wrote against Ligorius and Hunnius. His life was written by Ubbo Emmius.

, probably of fche same family, was a learned burgomaster of Groningen, celebrated for his topographical skill and writings. He was born in 1636, and died in 1713. His principal works are, 1. “Notitia Germanise inferioris,” Amst. 1697, fol. 2. “Descriptio Frisiae inter Scaldis portum veterem et Amisiam,” ibid. 1701, fol.

, an Italian poet of the fifteenth century, whose writings do not justify that honourable name, was according to Crescimbini, a native of Florence, his name Christopher; but on account of his merit, he received a poetic crown, and the surname of Aitissimo. Le Quadrio, however, thinks that this was his family name, s that his Christian name was Angel, and that he was a priest. He was one of the most admired improvisatori of his time, and his verses are said to have been often collected and published. He was living in 1514. Of his poems we have only a translation of the first book of the famous romance, “I Riali di Francia,” Venice, 1534, 4to, enough to prove that he was a very indifferent poet.

, a Swiss historian and divine, was born in 1697, and, according to one authority, at Berne, where his father had been rector; or. according to another at Zofinguen, and died in 1758, curate of Inns, a village in the canton of Berne. In 1735 he was appointed moral and Greek professor at Berne, and afterwards published some valuable works on the geography, history, and antiquities of Swisserland. In conjunction with Breitinger, he compiled the collection entitled “Tempe Helvetica,” Zurich, 1735—43, 6 vols. 8vo. His other works are, 2. “Metelemata philoiogico-critica, quibus difficilioribus N. Test, locis ex antiquitnte lux affunditur,” Utrecht, 1753, 3 vols. 4to. 3. “A Description of the Glaciers,” in German, Zurich, 1751—53, 8vo. 4. “Principia Ethica, ex monitis legis naturæ et præceptis religionis Christianæ deducta,” Zurich, second edition, 1753, 2 vols. 8vo.

, an eminent Neapolitan philosopher, physician, and professor of medicine of the sixteenth century, was born at Naples, was one of the most learned medical writers of his time, and enjoyed very high reputation, it being only objected to him that he was too servile a copyist of Galen. We know little else of his history, unless that he had certain enemies who obliged him to take refuge in Rome, and that he did not venture to return to Naples until he had obtained the protection of pope Paul IV. to whom he had dedicated one of his works. Most of them were published separately, as appears by a catalogue in Man get and Haller; but the whole were collected and published in folio at Lyons, 1565 and 1597; at Naples in 1573; Venice, 1561, 1574, and 1600. So many editions of so large a volume are no inconsiderable testimony of the esteem in which this writer was held. He is said to have died in 1556.

, a very eminent artist, was born in 1488, at Altdorffin Bavaria, and rose to be a member of the senate of Ratisbon, and architect to the town, where he died in 1578. His merit as a painter appears to have been very considerable, but much more as a designer and engraver. His works in wood and metal are as numerous as, in general, remarkable for diminutive size, though neither his conceptions nor forms were puny. The cuts of “The Passion,” “Jael and Siserah,” “Pyramus and Thisbe,” “Judah and Thamar,” if we allow for the ignorance of costume in the three last, show a sensibility of mind, and a boldness of design, which perhaps none of his German contemporaries can boast. Holbein is said to have drawn great assistance from him, evident traces of the style of Altorfer appearing in the prints of that inimitable artist, although certainly much improved.

, an Italian scholar and mathematician, was a native of Ferrara, and lived in the fifteenth century. The three works on which his fame rests are, 1. “Observations on Petrarch,” which are inserted in the edition of that poet, Venice, 1539, 8vo. 2. “Le Richesse della Lingua Volgare,” Venice, 1545, fol. in which he has collected, alphabetically, the most elegant words and phrases used by Boccaccio. 3. “Della Fabbrica del Mondo,” Venice, 1526, 1556, 1557, 1558, 1562, consisting of ten books, in which are enumerated all the words used by the earliest Italian writers, but with no very happy arrangement. Alunno was likewise distinguished for a talent perhaps more curious than useful, that of being able to write an exceeding small hand. We are told, that when at Bologna he presented Charles V. with the belief and the first chapter of the gospel of St. John, in the size of a denier, or farthing; and Aretine adds, that the emperor employed a whole day in decyphering this wonderful manuscript.

, a Spanish dominican, was born at Rio Seco in Old Castille. He was professor of theology in Spain and at Rome, and afterwards archbishop of Trani in the kingdom of Naples. In concert with Lemos, his brother in profession, he supported the cause of the Thomists against the Molinists, in the congregation De Auxiliis, held in 1596. He died in 1635, after publishing several treatises on the doctrines which he defended; among these are, “De auxiliis divinae gratioe,” Lyons, 1611, folio; “Concorclia liberi arbitrii cum predestinatione,” Lyons, 1622, 8vo; “A commentary on Isaiah,” 1615, fol. &c.

, a celebrated Portuguese grammarian, was born in the island of Madeira on the 4th of June 1526. Having entered into the society of the Jesuits, he distinguished himself by his probity and his prudence, and became rector of the colleges of Coimbra, Evora, and Lisbon. He was well acquainted with polite literature; and for many years applied himself to the instruction of youth in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, He died at the college of Evora on the 30th of December 1582. His Latin grammar is much esteemed; it is entitled, “De Institudone Grammatica,” and has had many editions; the first, Lisbon, 1572, 4to. Kess, Ricardi, and Tursellinus have published abridgments of it. His work “Demensuris, ponderibus ct numeris,” is in less esteem.

, a Portuguese priest, born at Coimbra, about the end of the fifteenth century, was chaplain to Emanuel king of Portugal, and ambassador from that prince to David king of Ethiopia or Abyssinia. David had sent an ambassador to Emanuel, who in return thought proper to send Alvares and Galvanus to David, but the latter died before he arrived in Æthiopia. Alvares continued six years in this country; and, when he returned, brought letters to king John, who succeeded Emanuel, and to pope Clement VII. to whom he gave an account of his embassy at Bologna in January 1533, in the presence of the emperor Charles V. Alvares died in 1540; and left behind him, in Portuguese, an account of his embassy, with a description of the manners and customs of the Æthiopians. It was printed at Lisbon the same year in which the author died, and was translated into French, and published at Antwerp in 1558. The work was abridged by Ramusius. Bodinus says, that Alvares was the first who gave a true and accurate account of Æthiopia, and that it was approved by the best writers, and read with the greatest satisfaction.

, one of the most esteemed Portuguese poets, was born at Goa in the Indies, in the fifteenth century, about the commencement of the reign of king Sebastian. We have few particulars of his life. It is said that he served in the royal navy, and was captain of one of the vessels belonging to the squadron which admiral Tellez commanded in India, during the viceroyalty of Moniz-Barreto. His principal work, “Lusitania Transformada,” is on the plan of the Diana of Monte.major. The language is pure and harmonious, and the descriptions striking and natural. It was printed, for the first time, at Lisbon, 1607, 8vo. A few years after, a more correct edition was published by father Foyos, of the oratory. Our poet also wrote an elegy, which has been highly praised, and the fifth and sixth parts of the romance of Palmerin of England.

, a celebrated lawyer of Padua, flourished in the fifteenth century. His family was originally of Hungary, and allied to the Speroni, both of which have produced very eminent men. The subject of this short article was very learned both in the civil and canon law, which he had studied under Barthelemi Saliceti and Francis Zabarella, who was afterwards cardinal. He then became professor at Padua, where he wrote several treatises, and among them “Comtnentaria in Libros Feudorum,” a work long held in estimation, and frequently quoted by the Italian lawyers. He died June 27, 1452, and was interred in the church of St. Anthony.

a Prussian statesman, knight of the orders of the red and black eagle, lord of Hundisburgh, &c. was born Dec. 12, 1745, at Hanover, where his father was counsellor of war. During the seven years war he was brought up at Magdebourg with the prince, afterwards Frederic-William II. He then studied law at the university of Halle, and was appointed referendary in the court of accounts at Berlin, and in 1775, was sent as envoy extraordinary to the elector of Saxony, with the title of king’s chamberlain. This proved the commencement of a diplomatic career, for which he was thought qualified by his extensive knowledge and accomplishments, and the address with which he retained the good opinion of Frederic II. During the war for the succession of Bavaria, he acted as intermediate agent between the king of Prussia and the old electorate court, and between the army of Frederic and that of Prince Henry. After having been engaged in this office for twelve years, he was sent as ambassador, in 1787, to the court of France. In 1788 he was sent, in the same capacity, to Holland and in 1789 to England. In 1790 he was recalled from the latter, and appointed minister for foreign affairs, and his zeal and activity rendered him highly acceptable in the court of Berlin. During his administration he founded several benevolent establishments. He died at Berlin in 1802. As a writer he is known by a historical work entitled “Essai d‘un tableau chronologique des evenements cle la guerre, depuis la pair de Munster, jusqu’a celle de. Hubertsbourg,” Berlin, 1792, 8vo.

a modern German poet, was born at Vienna, Jan. 24, 1755; his father was a civilian, and consistory counsellor to the bishop of Passau, He studied the classics under the celebrated antiquary Eckhel, keeper of the medals at Vienna, and while with him, imbibed such a taste for reading-the ancient poets, that he knew most of their writings by heart, and was always so fond of this study, that he remembered with gratitude, to the last hour of his life, the master who had initiated him in it, nor did he neglect his favourite authors, even when obliged to attend the courts of law. When the death of his parents had put him in possession of a considerable patrimony, he made no other use of his doctor’s and advocate’s titles, than in reconciling the differences of such clients as addressed themselves to him for advice. His first poetical attempts appeared in the Muses’ Almanack, and other periodical publications at Vienna, and of these he published a collection at Leipsic in 1784, and at Klagenfurth in 1788, which procured him the honour of being ranked among the best poets of his country for elegance, energy, and fertility of imagination. In the “New Collection of Poetry,” printed at Vienna in 1794, he contributed some pieces not so favourable to his character; but he completely re-established his fame by the publication of “Doolin of Mentz,” and “Bliomberis,” two poems of the romantic cast, in imitation of.Wieland, to whom the last was dedicated. In 1791, he published a German translation of Florian’s “Numa Pompilius,” which some have thought equal to the original, but in many parts it is deficient in elegance. It was, however, his last performance, except the assistance he gave to some literary contemporaries in translating the foreign journals. During the three last years of his life, he was secretary and inspector of the court theatre, and died May 1, 1797, of a nervous fever. He was a man of warm affections and gaiety of temper, and of his liberality he afforded a striking instance in the case of Haschka the poet, whom he regarded as one of the cipal supporters of German literature. He not only ac commodated him with apartments in his house, but made him a present of 10,000 florins. Of his faults, it is only recorded that he was a little vain, and a little given to the pleasures of the table.

, of the fourth century, was an architect in the service of Julian the apostate, who com?­mitted to his care the rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem, which he was forced to abandon, by fires which issued from under the earth, and rendered the place inaccessible. Eight years after, he found himself involved in an accusar tion of magic, and with a great many others condemned without proof and banished, after his goods had been confiscated. His son Hierocles, condemned to death on the same accusation, made his escape when they were leading him to execution; and the news of this happy circumstance softened the affliction of Alvpius in his banishment. He is the reputed author of a geographical work published by Godefroy, at Geneva, in Gr. and Lat. 1628, 4to, but there is no good atithority for attributing it to him.

, a philosopher of Alexandria, flourished in the fifth century, and was contemporary with Jamblicus. He was one of the most subtle dialecticians of his time, was much followed, and drew away the hearers of Jamblicus. This occasioned some conferences between them, but no animosity, as Jamblicus wrote his life, in which he praised his virtue and steadiness of mind. Alypius died very old, in the city of Alexandria. In stature he was so remarkably diminutive as to be called a dwarf.

, bishop of Tagasta, a city in Africa, of which he was probably a native, was the friend of St. Augustine, and baptized with him at IVJilan in 388. He vyas promoted to the bishopric of Tagasta in the year 3iH, and in the year 403 was present at the council of Carthage, where it was endeavoured to bring the Donatists to unity. In the year 411 he was the only one of the seven Catholic prelates who disputed with seven Catholic bishops, in the famous conference held at the same place. In the year 419 he was deputed by the African churches to Honorius, and pope Bonifaqe received him with great friendship, and employed him in confuting the Pelagians, in which he was not a little assisted by the secular arm. St. Augustine bestows very high praise on this bishop, and seems to have intended to write his life. The time of his death is generally fixed at 430.

, a Spanish lawyer of great reputation in his country, was a native of Antequera, and afterwards professor of law at Ossuna and Salamanca. He was lastly a counsellor at Valladolid, where he died in 1640 or 1645. Rewrote “Observationes juris,” Salamanca, 1626, and “Commentaria in posteriores libros codicis Justiniani,” Lyons, 1639, Geneva, 1655.

, was successively deacon and priest of the church of Metz, director. of the school in the palace of Louis de Debdnnaire, abbot of Hornbac, coadjutor to the bishop of Ia-Ous, and then to that of Treves, and according to some was made bishop; but this seems doubtful. Some authors likewise attribute to him a work which appeared in the year 847, in favour of the opinions of Hincmar, archbishop of Rheirns, on predestination; but it is probable that Amalarius was dead ten years before that. He was, however, esteemed a man of great learning in liturgical matters; and his acknowledged works procured him touch reputation in the Romish church. The first mentioned is a “Treatise on the Offices,” written in the year 820, but re-written with many improvements in the year 827, in consequence of a visit to Rome for the purpose of becoming better acquainted with the rites of that church. The most correct edition of this work is in the Bibl. Patrum of Lyons. His object is to give the rationale of the prayers and ceremonies which compose the service, mixed, however, with what is less reconcileable to reason, the mystical use of them, and some scruples about trifles which now will hardly bear repetition. 2. “The order of the Antiphonal,” in which he endeavours to reconcile the rites of the Roman with the Gallican church. This is usually printed with the preceding. 3. “The Office of the Mass.” 4. “Letters,” which are in the Spicilegium of d'Achery, and Martenne’s Anecdotes. His works met with considerable opposition, and Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, wrote against the two first-mentioned works. Florus, deacon of Lyons, accused him of heresy before the council of Thionville, where he was acquitted, and the council at Quierci, where some expressions of his respecting the sacrament were adjudged to be dangerous, but his reputation did not suffer much by the decision.

were brothers who flourished in the early part of the sixteenth century, and distinguished themselves as men of letters. The place of their birth was Oderzo, a city of the Venetian territory. Hieronyrnus, the elder, united in his own person the characters of a skilful physician and a pleasing poet. His Latin poems are in general written in a style of singular elegance and purity. The celebrated French critic and commentator, Marc-Antoine Muret, in his correspondence with Lambin, classes them among the best productions of the Italians, in that species of composition. In poems of the light and epigrammatic kind, he particularly excelledThis learned man is also much commended for his urbanity of manners, and the suavity of his disposition. He cultivated his talent for poetry at an advanced age with undiminished spirit, as appears in his verses to his friend Melchior, notwithstanding the complaint they breathe of decaying powers. He died at the place of his nativity, in 1574, in his sixty-eighth year. His fellow-citizens are said to have inscribed an epitaph on his tomb, in which they represent him as another Apollo, equally skilled in poesy and the healing art. His poems, together with those of his brothers, were first collected and published entire by Hieronymns Aleander, at Venice, in the year 1627, and afterwards by Graevius with those of Sannazarius at Amsterdam in 1689.

The poetical talents of Joannes or Giovanni Battista, the second brother, were not inferior to those of Hieronymus. We remark in his compositions equal harmony, combined with equal spirit; and critics have united them under the flattering title of “Musarum Deliciæ.” Besides the poems written in Latin, others by Giovanni Battista occur in his native language, which rank him among the best Italian poets. Some unfinished pieces of his are said to have been discovered at Rome, in the library of cardinal Ottoboni. Eminently distinguished for his accurate knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, he passed the greater part of his life at the court of Rome, and stood high in the favour of three successive pontiffs. He discharged the office of secretary to the cardinals who were deputed to the council of Trent. We have his own evidence to prove that he was thus enabled to attain, if not to the most splendid and imposing affluence, at least to that moderate degree of it, which, combined with temperance and integrity, conduces most to real happiness. He died at Rome at the early age of forty-seven years.

, the youngest of the Amalthei, has left a few Latin poems, which serve to manifest the conformity of his taste and talents with those of his learned brothers. He probably died in the prime of life, and some accounts fix the decease of all the three brothers in the same year. But these, according to the editor of the General Dictionary, must not be confounded with Amaltheus Attilius, archbishop of Athens, who was born of a family in Italy eminent for producing men of the greatest merit and learning. He lived in the sixteenth century, and made a considerable progress in the study of the civil and canon law, and in that of divinity, he was a man of a noble, generous, and disinterested spirit, was raised to the see of Athens by pope V. and sent to Cologne in the character of nuncio, which office he discharged with much applause; and died about 1600.

, professor of the Hebrew tongue in the university of Franeker, was born in Friesland in the end of the sixteenth century (according to Saxiusin 1593), and studied under Drusius. The university of Leyden endeavoured, by offering him a larger salary, to draw him from the university of Franeker, in order to succeed Erpenius: Amama, without absolutely refusing this offer, yet would not accept of it unless he obtained permission from his superiors of Friesland, which they refused, and perhaps gave him such additional encouragement, that he had no reason to repent of not going to Leyden. The first book he published was a specimen of a great design he intended, viz. to censure the Vulgate translation, which the council of Trent had declared authentic; but before he had finished this work, he publisheda criticism upon the translation of the Pentateuch, entitled “'Censura Vulgatee Latina? editionis Pentateuchi,” 4to, 1620, Franeker, as a specimen of his more elaborate work. Whilst he was carrying on this, he was obliged to engage in another work, which was, to collate the Dutch translation of the scripture with the originals and the exactest translations: this Dutch translation had been taken from Luther’s version. He gave the public an account of this labour, in a work which appeared at Amsterdam, entitled, “Bybelsche conferencie,” Amsterdam, 1623. This employment of collating so much engaged Amama, that he was hindered for a considerable time from applying to his intended general censure of the Vulgate. However, he resumed his undertaking upon hearing that father Mersennus had endeavoured to refute his critical remarks on the first six chapters of Genesis, and he gave himself up entirely to vindicate his criticisms against that author. His answer is one of the pieces contained in the “Anti-barbarus Biblicus,” which he published in 1628; the other pieces are, his Censure of the Vulgate on the historical books of the Old Testament, on Job, the Psalms, and the books of Solomon, with some particular dissertations, one of which is on the famous passage in the Proverbs, “The Lord created me in the beginning of all his ways,” wherein he shews that those who accused Drusius of favouring Arianism were notorious calumniators. The “Anti-barbarus Biblicus” was to have consisted of two parts, each containing three books; the author, however, only published the first part. It was reprinted after his death in 1656, and a fourth book was added, containing the criticism of the Vulgate upon Isaiah and Jeremiah. It is impossible to answer the reasons, by which he shews the necessity of consulting the originals. This he recommended so earnestly, that some synods, being influenced by his reasons, decreed that none should be admitted into the ministry, but such as had a competent knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek text of the scripture. He published also another dissertation, entitled “De Nomine Tetragrammato,” Franeker, 1620, 8vo. When Sixtinuscame to Franeker, drunkenness and debauchery reigned in that university to a very great degree; he tells us, that all the new students were immediately enrolled in the service of Bacchus, and obliged to swear, with certain ceremonies, by a wooden statue of St. Stephen, that they would spend all their money: if any one had more regard to the oath he had taken to the rector of the university than to this bacchanalian oath, he was so persecuted by the other students, that he was obliged either to leave the university, or comply with the rest. Sixtinus contributed greatly to root out this rice, and he inveighed against it with great energy in a public speech made in 1621. He was so much beloved by the people of Friesland, that after his death, they shewed themselves very generous to his children; as Nicholas Amama, who was one of them, acknowledges in the epistle dedicatory to his “Dissertationum Marinarum decas,” 1651. For one circumstance in the life of Amama, we are indebted to Anthony Wood, who informs us that about the year 1613, he came over to England, and resided for some years at Oxford, in Exeter college, under the patronage of Dr. Prideaux, the rector of that college, afterwards bishop of Worcester. Amarna died in 1629, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, if the date of the birth above assigned, be correct.

, the son of Gregory Amaseo, Latin professor at Venice, was one of the most celebrated Italian scholars of the sixteenth century. He was born at Udina in 1489, and educated at first by his father and uncle, but finished his studies at Padua, and in 1508 had begun to teach the belles lettres there, when the war, occasioned by the league at Cambray, obliged him to leave the place. He then went to Bologna, continued to teach, and married, and had children, and was so much respected that the city admitted him as a citizen, an honour which his ancestors had also enjoyed. In 1530, he was appointed first secretary to the senate, and was chosen by pope Clement VII. to pronounce before him and Charles V. a Latin harangue on the subject of the peace concluded at Bologna between the two sovereigns. This he accordingly performed, with great applause, in the church of St. Petrona, before a numerous audience of the first rank. He continued to teach at Bologna, with increasing popularity, until 1543, when he was invited to Rome by pope Paul III. and his nephew cardinal Alexander Farnese. The pope employed him in many political missions to the court of the emperor, those of the German princes, and that of the king of Poland; and in 1550, after the death of his wife, pope Julius III. appointed him secretary of the briefs, a place which he did not long enjoy, as he died in 1552. He wrote Latin translations of “Xenophon’s Cyrus,” Bologna, 1533, fol. and of “Pausanias,” Rome, 1547, 4to; and a volume entitled “Orationes,” consisting of eighteen Latin speeches on various occasions, Bonon. 1580, 4to. His contemporaries bestow the highest praises on his learning and eloAlienee. His son Pompilio had perhaps less reputation, but he too distinguished himself as Greek professor at Bologna, where he died in 1584. He translated two fragments of Polybius, Bologna, 1543, and wrote a history of his own time in Latin, which has not been published.

, a Portuguese physician, and medical writer, of Jewish origin, was born in 1511 at Castel-bianco. He studied medicine at Salamanca, and afterwards travelled through France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy, and taught medicine with success in Ferrara and Ancona. His attachment to the Jewish persuasion having rendered him suspected by the catholics, he narrowly escaped the inquisition, by retiring to Pesaro in 1555, from which he removed to Itagusa, and afterwards to Thessalonica. From the year 1561 we hear no more of him, nor has the time or place of his death been ascertained, but it is said that when he went to Thessalonica, he avowed Judaism openly. His works, although few, give proofs of extensive learning in his profession. 1. “Exegemata in priores duos Dioscoridis de materia medica libros,” Antwerp, 1536, 4to. The second edition greatly enlarged, with learned notes by Constantin, was published under the title “Enarrationes in Dioscoridem,” Venice, 1553, 8vo, Strasburgh, 1554, and Lyons, 1557. There is much information in this work respecting exotics used in medicine, and some plants described for the first time, but it is not free from errors; and the author having imprudently attacked Mathiolus, the latter retorted on him in his “Apologia adversus Amatum,” Venice, 1557, fol. declaring him an apostate and a Christian only in appearance; but what connexion this had with the errors in his book, is not so easy to discover. Amatus, however, intended to have answered him in the notes prepared for a complete edition of Dioscorides, which he did not live to publish. 2. “Curationum medicinalium centuriae septem,” published separately, and reprinted, at Florence, Venice, Ancona, Rome, Ragusa, Thessalonica, &c. In this work, are many useful facts and observations, but not entirely unmixed with cases which are thought to have been fictitious. Few books, however, were at one time more popular, for besides the separate editions of the Centuries, they were collected and published at Lyons, 1580, 12 mo, Paris, 1613, 1620, 4to, and Francfort, 1646, fol. Amatus had also made some progress in a commentary on Avicenna, but lost his manuscripts in the hurry of his escape from Ancona, where pope Paul IV. had ordered him to be apprehended. Antonio in his Bibl. Hisp. attributes to him a Spanish translation of Eutropius, but it does not appear to have been ever published.

, or more commonly Amalric or Almeric (de Chartres), professor of logic and theology at Paris, in the thirteenth century, was a nadve of Bene in the diocese of Chartres, and rendered himself famous for the singularity of his opinions, and the multitudes who became his followers, and suffered for their adherence. Adopting the metaphysics of Aristotle, he formed to himself a new system of religion, which has been thus explained. Aristotle supposes that all beings are composed of matter, which has in itself neither form nor shape: this he calls the first matter. This Amauri called God, because it is a necessary and infinite being. He acknowledged in God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to whom he attributed the empire of the world, and whom he regarded as the object of religious worship. But as this matter was endowed with a property of continual motion, it necessarily followed that this world must some time have an end, and that all the beings therein must return to that first matter, which was the supreme of all beings the first existing, and the only one eternal. Religion, according to Amauri’s opinion, had three epochas, which bore a similitude to the reign of the three persons in the Trinity. The reign of God had existed as long as the law of Moses. The reign of the Son would not always last; the ceremonies and sacrifices, which according to Amauri constituted the essence of it, would not be eternal. A time would come when the sacraments should cease, and then the religion of the Holy Ghost would begin, in which men would have no need of sacraments, and would render a spiritual worship to the Supreme Being. This epocha was the reign of the Holy Ghost, which according to Amauri was foretold by the scripture, and which would succeed to the Christian religion, as the Christian religion had succeeded to that of Moses. The Christian religion therefore was the reign of Jesus Christ in the world, and every man under that law ought to look on himself as one of the members of Jesus Christ. Amauri had many proselytes, but his opinions were condemned by pope Innocent III. His disciples added that the sacraments were useless, and that no action dictated by charity could be bad. They were condemned by the council of Paris in 1209, and many of them burned. Amauri appealed to the pope, who also condemned his doctrines; but for fear of a rigorous punishment he retracted his opinions, retired to St. Martin des Champs, and died there of chagrin and disappointment. His bones were afterwards dug up and burnt by order of the council of Paris. As there is much confusion in the accounts given of Amauri’s system, it may be necessary to add, that Spanheim, Fleury, and others, are of opinion that most of the heresies imputed to him, are without foundation, and represent him as having only taught that every Christian ought to believe himself a member of Jesus Christ, otherwise they cannot be saved, and that Dinant and his other disciples fell into those errors which he was accused of having taught. It seems not improbable that his inveighing against the worship of saints and images would in that age form the principal article against him; and it is certain that many of his disciples were men of distinguished piety, remarkable for the gravity and austerity of their lives, and for suffering death, in all its dreadful forms, with the utmost resolution.

, a painter of Nuremberg, of the sixteenth century, was the disciple of the younger Holbein, and a successful imitator of his manner. His designs were correct, the disposition of the figures admirable, and the perspective excellent, nor was he deficient in colouring. His chief reputation rests on a composition of the history of Joseph, which he described in twelve pictures. He also painted a portrait of the emperor Charles V. which that monarch, according to the testimony of Sandrart, accounted equal to any of the portraits of him painted by Titian; and to express his high approbation of that performance, he not only paid the artist three times as much as he expected, with a liberality truly royal, but he honoured him also with a rich chain of gold and a medal. There are several of his pictures in the royal gallery of Munich. The abbé Marolles, and, after him, Florent le Comte mention Amberger, as an engraver, without specifying his works; but Basan tells us, that he engraved in wood several prints, from his own compositions. He died in 1550.

lived in the latter end of the sixteenth, and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, and acquired in his own time considerable fame upon account of his learning, and some portion of the spirit of literary research. He was the son of a surgeon, but became a great favourite in the courts of Charles IX. of France, and his brother Henry III. and was gradually advanced to offices of high trust in the state. From his childhood, he said, he had been always fond of looking into old libraries, and turning over dusty manuscripts. In some of these researches he laid his hands on the letters of Abelard and Heloise, which he read with much pleasure, and was induced to pursue his inquiries. He found other works of the same author; but they were ill-written, and not to be unravelled without great labour, yet nothing can withstand the indefatigable toil of a true antiquary. Amboise procured other manuscripts; collated them together, and finally produced one fair copy, which made ample compensation, he says, for all the labour he had endured. Even posterity, he thinks, will be grateful to him, and know how to value the pleasure and the profit, they will derive from his researches. Not satisfied, however, with the copy he possessed, he still wished to enlarge it. He applied to different monasteries, and he again searched the libraries in Paris, and not without success. His friends applauded his zeal, and gave him their assistance. His manuscripts swelled to a large bulk, and he read, arranged, and selected what pleased him best. The rising sun, he says, often found him at his task. So far fortune had smiled upon his labours, but somewhat was wanting to give them the last finish. He went over to the Paraclet, where the abbess, Madame de Rochefoucauld, received him with the greatest politeness. He declared the motive of his journey; she took him by the hand, and led him to the tomb of Abelard and Heloise. Together they examined the library of the abbey, and she shewed him many hymns, and prayers, and homilies, written by their founder, which were still used in their church. Amboise then returned to Paris, and prepared his work for the press. As the reputation of his author, he knew, had been much aspersed by some contemporary writers, he wished to remove the undeserved stigma, and to present him as immaculate as might be, before the eyes of a more discerning age. With this view he wrote a long “Apologetic preface,” which he meant should be prefixed to the work. In this preface, an inelegant and affected composition, he labours much to shew that Abelard was the greatest and best man, and Heloise the greatest and best woman, whom the annals of human kind had recorded. He first, very fairly, brings the testimony of those, who had spoken evil of them, whom he endeavours to combat and refute. To these succeeds a list of their admirers. He dwells on their every word, and gives more weight to their expressions, and the result is what we might expect from the pen of Amboise. The compilation, however, although unsuccessful in its main design, contains. some curious matter, and may be read with, pleasure. But he did not live to see it published, for it was not printed till the year 1616. He died before this, but the exact time is not known. The editor of the Dictiounaire Historique places his death in 1620, which must be a mistake. His works are, 1. “Notable Discours, en forme de dialogue, touchant la vraie et parfaicte amitie,” translated from the Italian of Piccolomini, Lyons, 1577, 16mo. 2. “Dialogue et Devis des Damoiselles, pour les rendre vertueuses et bienheureuses en la vraye et parfaicte amitie.” Paris, 1581 and 1583, 16mo. 3. “Regrets facetieux et plaisantes Harangues funebres sur la mort de divers animaulx,” from the Italian of Ortensio Lando, Paris, 1576, 1583. These three works were published under the name of Thierri de Thymophile, a gentleman ofPicardy, which has procured him a place in Baillet’s catalogue of disguised authors. 4. “Les Neapolitaines,” a French comedy, Paris, 1584, 16mo. 5. An edition of the works of Abelard. 6. “Desesperades, ou Eglogues amourouses,” Paris, 1572, 8vo. His yourrger brother Adrian, who was born at Paris 1551, and died bishop of Treguier, July 28, 1616, wrote in his youth, a species of sacred drama, entitled “Holophernes,” printed at Paris, 1580, 8vo.

a French cardinal and statesman of the illustrious house of Amboise in France, so called from their possessing the seignory of that name, was born in 1460. Being destined at a very early age for the church, he was elected bishop of Montauban when only fourteen. He was afterwards made one of the almoners to Lewis XI. to whom he behaved with great prudence. After the death of this prince in 1480, he entered into some of the intrigues of the court with a design to favour the duke of Orleans, with whom he was closely connected; but those intrigues being discovered, d‘Aniboise and his protector were both imprisoned. The duke of Orleans was at last restored to his liberty; and this prince having negotiated the marriage of the king with the princess Anne of Britanny, acquired great reputation and credit at court. Of this his favourite d’Amboise felt the happy effect as, soon after, the archbishopric of Narbonne was bestowed on him; but being at too great a distance from the court, he changed it for that of Rouen, to which the chapter elected him in 1493. As soon as he had taken possession of his new see, the duke of Orleans, who was governor of Normandy, made him lieutenant-general, with the same power as if he had been governor in cbief. This province was at that time in great disorder: the noblesse oppressed the people, the judges were all corrupted or intimidated; the soldiers, who had been licentious since the late wars, infested the high-ways, plundering and assassinating all travellers they met; but in less-than a year, d‘Amboise by his care and prudence established public tranquillity. The king dying in 1498, the duke of Orleans ascended the throne, by the name of Lewis XII. and d’Amboise became his prime minister. By his first operation in that office, he conciliated the affection of the whole nation. It had been a custom when a new monarch ascended the throne, to lay an extraordinary tax on the people, to defray the expences of the coronation, but by the counsel of d‘Amboise this tax was not levied, and the imposts were soon reduced one tenth. His virtues coinciding with his knowledge, he made the French nation happy, and endeavoured to preserve the glory they had acquired. By his advice Lewis XII. undertook the conquest of the Milanese in 1499. Lewis the Moor, uncle and vassal of Maximilian, was then in possession of that province. It revolted soon after the conquest, but d’Amboise brought it back to its duty. Some time after he was received at Paris with great magnificence, in quality of legate from the pope. During his legation, he laboured to reform many of the religious orders, as the jacobins, the cordeliers, and those of St. Germain des Pres. His disinterestedness was equal to his zeal. He never possessed more than one benefice, two thirds of which he employed for the relief of the poor and the support of the churches. Contenting himself with his archbishopric of Rouen and his cardinal’s hat, he was not, like his contemporaries, desirous to add abbeys to it. A gentleman of Normandy having offered to sell him an estate at a very low price, in order to portion his daughter, he made him a present of a sum sufficient for that purpose, and left him the estate. He obtained the purple after the dissolution of the marriage between Lewis XII. and Joan of France, to which he greatly contributed: and, on having procured for Caesar Borgia, son of pope Alexander VI. the duchy of Valentinois, with a considerable pension, his ambition was to be pope, with a view to the reform of abuses, and the correction of manners. After the death of Pius III. he might have succeeded in his wishes, and took measures to procure the tiara, but cardinal Julian de Rovera (afterwards Julius II.) found means to circumvent him; and the Venetians having contributed to his exclusion, he took the first opportunity to excite Lewis XII. to make war on them, a circumstance which seems not a little to detract from his character. This celebrated cardinal died in 15 10, in the convent of the Celestines at Lyons, of the gout in his stomach, aged 50 years. It is reported that he often repeated to the friar who attended him in his illness, “Brother John, why have I not during my whole life been brother John?” This minister has been greatly praised for having laboured for the happiness of France; but he has been equally censured for having advised his master to sign the treaty of Blois in 1504, by which France ran the risk of being dismembered. He governed both the king and the state; laborious, kind, honest, he possessed good sense, firmness, and experience, but he was not a great genius, nor were his views extensive. The desire he had to ease the people in their taxes, procured him during his life, but much more after his death, the title of father of the people. He merited this title still more, by the care he took to reform the administration of justice. Most of the judges were venal, and the poor, and those who had no support, could never obtain justice, when their opposers were either powerful or rich. Another evil not less enormous troubled the kingdom; law-suits were spun out to such a length, were so expensive, and accompanied by so much trick and chicanery, that most people rather chose to abandon their rights than engage in the recovery of them by suits which had no prospect of coming to an end. D‘Amboise resolved to remedy this abuse. He called to his assistance many lawyers and civilians, the most learned and of the greatest integrity; and charged them to form a plan, by which justice might be administered without partiality, the duration of lawsuits abridged and rendered less ruinous, and the corruption of the judges prevented. When these commissioners had made their report, d’Amboise undertook the laborious task of examining into the changes they had proposed in the old laws, and the new regulations they designed to establish; and after having made some changes, these new regulations were published throughout the kingdom. As he was governor of Normandy, he made a progress through that province for the express purpose of seeing his new code properly established.

, a brother of the preceding Francis and Adrian, followed his father’s profession, that of medicine, and obtained a doctor’s degree in 1594. After Henry IV. had reduced Paris to its loyalty and submission, Amboise became rector of the university, which Crevier says he found in great decay and disorder, and which he left in a renovated and flourishing state: He began by making the members of the university take an oath of allegiance to Henry IV. He afterwards supported the unfversity in the law-suit with the Jesuits, which was given against the latter, and they were expelled; he even accused them of being enemies to the Salique law, and to the royal family. He died of the plague in 1606. His only works are, “Orationes duae,” against the Jesuits, Paris, 1595, 8vo, and “Questiones Medicales,” mentioned in Carrere’s “Bibliotheque de la Medicine.” Haller attributes other medical treatises to one of the same name, but does not notice the “Questiones.”

, a miscellaneous French writer, who, in his works, assumed the title of signior de Chevillon, was the natural son of Chaumont d'Amboise, admiral of France, and lieutenant-general in Lombarcly. He was born at Naples in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and was educated with the legitimate son of hig father, but the latter died suddenly, in 1511, before he had made any provision for Michael. He then went to Paris, and was intended for the profession of the law, but was so attached to poetry, although his first performances were unsuccessful, that he could not be prevailed on to study law, and his friends abandoned him. He married also imprudently, and his accumulated disappointments and distresses are supposed to have shortened his life. He died in 1547. Niceron has given a large catalogue of his works, all nominally poetical, but without any characteristics of the art, and which probably procured him some small degree of reputation, chiefly from the rapidity with which he wrote and published.

, an eminent Italian scholar, was born at Florence, June 13, 1713, and died at Rome in 1788, where he had been professor of eloquence for thirty years with great reputation. Most of the present Italian literati are indebted to him for their taste for study and the happy manner in which he taught them to employ their talents. He published a “Translation of Virgil into blank verse,” of which the edition printed at Rome, 3 vols. fol. 1763, a most superb book, is very scarce: he translated likewise some of the tragedies of Voltaire, Florence, 1752, and a selection of Cicero’s epistles; he published a Latin oration on the election of Joseph II. to be king of the Romans; but he is principally known for the “Museum Kicheranum,” in 2 vols. folio, 1765. The care of this valuable museum was long confided to him, and he prevailed upon the learned cardinal De Zelada to enrich it by his collections. He left in manuscript, a Latin poem on the cultivation of the lemon-tree. One other publication remains to be noticed; his translation of the Jesuit Noceti’s two poems on the Iris and the Aurora Borealis, which were printed in the same magnificent manner with his Virgil.

, a learned Italian orientalist, was born in 1469, a descendant of the noble family of the counts of Albanese. At fifteen months he is said to have spoken his native language with facility, and at fifteen years, to have spoken and written Greek and Latin with a promptitude equal to the best scholars of his time. He entered young into the order of regular canons of St. John of Lateran, but did not come to Rome until 1512, at the opening of the fifth session of the Lateran council. The great number of ecclesiastics from Syria, Ethiopia, and other parts of the East, who attended that council, afforded him an opportunity of prosecuting his studies with advantage: and at the request of the cardinal Santa Croce, he was employed as the person best qualified to translate from the Chaldean into Latin the liturgy of the eastern clergy, previously to the use of it being expressly sanctioned by the pope. After having been employed by Leo X. for two years in giving instructions in Latin to the subdeacon Elias, a legate from Syria to the council, whom the pope wished to retain in his court, and from whom Ambrogio received in return instructions in the Syrian tongue, he was appointed by the pontiff to a professor’s chair in the university of Bologna, where he delivered instructions in the Syriac and Chaldaic languages for the first time that they had been publicly taught in Italy. He is said to have understood no less than eighteen languages, many of which he spoke with the ease and fluency of a native; but from the letter quoted by Mazzuchelli, it appears more probable that he was master of at least ten languages, and understood many others partially. In the commotions which devastated Italy after the death of Leo X. he was despoiled in 1527 of the numerous and valuable eastern manuscripts, Chaldean, Hebrew, and Greek, which he had collected by the industry of many years, and of the types and apparatus which he had prepared for an edition of the Psalter in the Chaldean, accompanied with a dissertation on that language. He afterwards, however, came to Venice, in the prosecution of this object; and, in 15.39, published at Pavia, his “Introduction to the Chaldean, Syrian, Armenian, and ten other tongues, with the alphabetical characters of about forty different languages,” 4to, which is considered by the Italians themselves as the earliest attempt made in Italy towards a systematic acquaintance with the literature of the East. He died the year following.

, one of the most eminent fathers of the church, was by descent a citizen of Rome, but born at Aries, in France, then the metropolis of Gallia Narbonensis, in the year 333, according to Cave, or according to Du Pin, in the year 340. His father was the emperor’s lieutenant in that district; one of the highest places of trust and honour in the Roman empire. Ambrose was the youngest of three children, Marcellina and Satyrus being born before him. After his father’s death, his mother, with the family, returned to Rome, where he made himself master of all the learning that Greece and Rome could afford; and at the same time profited in religion by the pious instructions of his sister Marcellina, who had devoted herself to a state of virginity. When grown up, he pleaded causes with so much ability, as to acquire the good opinion of Anicius Probus, pretorian prefect, or emperor’s lieutenant in Italy, who made choice of him to be of his council; and having authority to appoint governors to several provinces, he gave Ambrose one of these commissions, saying: “Go, and govern more like a bishop than a judge.” In this office, Ambrose resided at Milan for five years, and was applauded for his prudence and justice; but his pursuit of this profession was interrupted by a singular event, which threw him into a course of life for which he had made no preparation, and had probably never thought of, and for which he was no otherwise qualified than by a character irreproachable in civil life, and improved by the pious instructions of his youth.

In the year 374, Auxentius, bishop of Milan, died, and immediately the bishops of the province met together to elect a successor. The emperor, Valentinian, sent for them, and told them, that they, as men acquainted with the scriptures, ought to understand better than himself the qualifications necessary for so important a station; that they should chuse a man fit to instruct by life as well as doctrine, in which case, he (the emperor) would readily submit his sceptre to his counsels and directions; and, conscious that he was liable to human frailty, would receive his reproofs and admonitions as wholesome physic. The bishops, however, requested his majesty to nominate the person, but Valentinian persisted in leaving the decision to their choice. This was at a time when factions were strong, and when the Arian party were very desirous of electing one of their number. The city, accordingly, was divided, and a tumult seemed approaching, when Ambrose, as a magistrate, hastened to the church of Milan, and exhorted the people to peace and submission to the laws. On concluding his speech, an infant’s voice in the crowd was heard to say: “Ambrose is bishop;” and immediately the whole assembly exclaimed: “Let Ambrose be bishop,” a decision in which the contending factions agreed unanimously.

Ambrose, in the greatest astonishment, endeavoured to refuse the offer, and afterwards took some measures of an extraordinary, and certainly unjustifiable nature, to evade the office. By exercising unnecessary seventy on some malefactors, he endeavoured to give the people a notion of his savage aild unchristian temper; and by encouraging strumpets to come to his house, he thought to obtain the character of a man of loose life. This singular species of hypocrisy, however, was easily detected. He had then no other means left to prove his repugnance to the profered office of bishop, than by retiring from Milan; but, mistaking his way, he was apprehended by the guards, and confined until the emperor’s pleasure should be known, without which no subject could leave his office. Valentinian immediately consented; but Ambrose again made his escape, and did not return until it was declared criminal to conceal him. He then, with great reluctance, entered upon his new office, in the thirty-fourth year of his age.

The first step he took, which probably confirmed the good opinion to which he owed his election, was to give to the church and to the poor all his personal property, and his lands in reversion, after the death of his sister Marcellina. His family he committed to the care of his brother Satyrus. He now applied himself to the study of theology, under Simplician, a presbyter of Rome, a man of great learning and piety, whom he invited to Milan, and who was afterwards his successor in that see. His studies he pursued with ardour and perseverance; but it has been uniformly regretted that he made the works of the fanciful Origen so much the object of his study, for to this all the extravagant opinions in his writings may be referred. He soon, however, commenced preacher, and officiated everj Sunday, and as head of the church of Milan, he labouret unremittingly in discouraging the Arian heresy in Italy, ii which, it will soon appear, he would have made little progress, had he not been endowed with an uncommon share of heroic firmness.

In his general conduct he was distinguished for his sincerity, charity, and piety, but he could not withstand all the superstitious practices of his time. His encomiums on virginity were certainly extravagant and pernicious. This has been attributed to the little acquaintance he had with the scriptures before his ordination, and to the influence of his sister Marcellina, a zealous devotee, to whom he was affectionately attached, and who had received the veil from the hands of pope Liberius. He wrote several treatises on this subject, and attempted to reduce the rules of it to a kind of system, and probably induced many young women, who might otherwise have been ornaments of society, to become the victims of solitary restraint, and fanciful continence. In other respects he inculcated the essentials of Christianity with fervour and success, and uniformly practised its virtues. When the ravages of the Goths afforded him an opportunity to exercise his liberality, he scrupled not to apply the vessels of the church to redeem captives, and vindicated himself against those who censured his conduct. In the instruction of catechumens, he was remarkably indefatigable, and his character rose to such estimation, that his person was supposed to be sacredly guarded. Some stories to this effect are related in his life by Paulinus, which perhaps may not now obtain credit. On one occasion, when a woman insulted him, he told her that “she ought to fear the judgment of God,” and she died next day. On another occasion, when two Arians, of the court of Gratian, intended to pass a ridicule upon him, they were both thrown from their horses, and died before they could accomplish their purpose. These stories, questionable or not, at least show the veneration paid to his character, while a modern reader is left to draw what other inference he pleases.

His steady adherence to the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, in opposition particularly to the Arians, induced him to take very active measures, and involved him in much trouble. About the year 381, he condemned, in a council held at Aquileia, Palladius and Secundianus, two Arian bishops, and the chief supporters of that heresy in the west, and they were formally deposed. Justina, the empress, was a decided patroness of Arianism, and after the death of her husband, she endeavoured to instil those principles into her son Valentinian, and to induce him to threaten Ambrose, who exhorted him to support the doctrine received from the Apostles. In a rage the young emperor ordered his guards to surround the church, and commanded Ambrose to come out of it; but when the latter told him, that although his life was in his hands, he could not obey such an order, Valentinian desisted, and Justina was obliged to have recourse to more secret hostilities, dreading, probably, the people, who were generally inclined to support their bishop.

About this time Ambrose had to contend with an attempt of another kind. The Pagans, taking advantage of the minority of Valentinian, and the confusions of the empire, endeavoured to recover their ancient establishment. The senate of Rome contained still a considerable proportion of Gentiles, and many of the great families piqued themselves on their constancy, and contempt for the innovations of Christianity. Symmachus, one of their number, a man of great learning and powers of eloquence, applied to the emperor for permission to restore the altar of victory to the senate-house. Ambrose immediately discerned that this was a request for something more than toleration. “If,” said he, in his letter to Valentinian, “he is a Pagan who offers you this advice, let him give the same liberty which he takes himself. You compel no man to worship what he does not approve. Here the whole senate, as far as it is Christian, is endangered. Every senator takes his oath at the altar; and every person who is obliged to appear before the senate upon oath, takes his oath in the same manner. The divinity of the false gods is evidently allowed by the practice, and Christians are by these means obliged to endure a persecution.” The address of Symmachus, with Ambrose’s reply, are still extant; but Ambrose was successful, and lived to defeat Symmachus when he made a second attempt, in the reign of Theodosius.

Still, however, Justina, the empress, continued his enemy, although he had, by his talents in negociation, averted for a tune the invasion of Italy from the court of Milan. In the year 386, she procured a law to enable the Arian congregations to assemble without interruption; and Auxentius, a Scythian, of the same name with the Arian predecessor of Ambrose, was now introduced, under the protection of the empress, into Milan. He challenged Ambrose to hold a disputation with him in the emperor’s court, but the latter denied that it was any part of the emperor’s business to decide on points of doctrine; adding, “Let him come to church, and upon hearing, let the people judge for themselves; and if they like Auxuutius better, let them take him; but they have already declared their sentiments.” Auxentius then demanded that a party of soldiers might be sent to secure for himself the possession of the church called Basilica; and it was represented as a very unreasonable thing, that the emperor should not be allowed one place of worship agreeable to his conscience. This, however, was not the fair question, for the emperor, if he chose to exert his authority, might have commanded any, or all the churches. The fact was, that Ambrose was now requested to do what he could not do conscientiously; namely, by his own deed to resign a church into the hands of the Arians, and thereby, indirectly at least, acknowledge their creed. He therefore refused, telling the officers that if the emperor had demanded his house or land, money or goods, he would have freely resigned them, but that he could not deliver up that which was committed to his care. And although another attempt was made to obtain forcible possession of one or two churches, and violent commotions were about to ensue, Ambrose persisted in his principles of duty, and his resistance was effectual.

Notwithstanding this weight of personal character, which crushed every attempt of his enemies, we find some accounts of superstitious practices upon record, which it is difficult to reconcile to his general conduct. Being called upon by the people to consecrate a new church, he answered that he would comply, if he could find any relics of martyrs there, and we are told that it was revealed to him in a vision at night, in what place he might find the relics; but this last circumstance is not to be found in the epistle which he writes on the subject. He describes, however, the finding the bodies of two martyrs, Protasius, and Gervasius; the supposed miracles wrought on the occasion; the dedication of the church; the triumph of the Orthodox; and the confusion of Arianism, If these miracles were not real, we know not how to exculpate Ambrose from at least conniving at the imposture, or being deluded himself, neither of which are very consistent with the strength of understanding and independence of mind which he displayed on other occasions.

The news of Maximus’s intention to invade Italy arriving at this time (387), Justina condescended to employ Ambrose again on an embassy to the usurper, which he cheerfully undertook, and executed with great fortitude, but it was not in his power to stop the progress of the enemy. Theodosius, who reigned in the east, coming at length to the assistance of Valentinian, put an end to the usurpation, and the life of Maximus, and by his means the young emperor was induced to forsake his mother’s principles, and to embrace those of Ambrose. After his death, in the year 392, Ambrose composed a funeral oration to his praise, in which he seems to believe the real conversion of his royal pupil. The oration is not worthy of Ambrose, and perhaps the best excuse that can be made for him, is that he praised one when dead, whom he never flattered when living.

A more unpardonable instance of his weakness occurred at the beginning of the reign of Theodosius. This emperor, from a sense of justice, ordered some Christians to rebuild, at their own expence, a Jewish synagogue, which they had tumultuously pulled down. But Ambrose prevailed on him to set aside this sentence, from a mistaken notion, that Christianity should not be obliged to contribute to the erection of a Jewish synagogue. His eloquence on this occasion was, as usual, vigorous, but must surely have been used in support of arguments that could be listened to only in an age of remarkable superstition. Ambrose appears, however, to more advantage in another transaction with the emperor Theodosius, of a very extraordinary kind. At Thessalonica a tumult happened among the populace, and one of the emperor’s officers was murdered. Theodosius, who was of a passionate temper, ordered the sword to be employed. Ambrose interceded, and the emperor promised forgiveness; but the great officers of his court persuaded him to sign a warrant for military execution, and seven thousand persons were massacred in three hours, without trial or distinction.

Ambrose immediately wrote a letter to Theodosius, in which he stated his own duty, and the emperor’s crime, and refused to admit him into the church at Milan. The emperor pleading the case of David, Ambrose desired him to imitate David in his repentance as well as in his sin, and he accordingly submitted, and kept from the church eight months, nor was he at last admitted without signs of penitence, and the performance of public penance. One condition which Ambrose imposed cannot be mentioned without approbation; it was, that the emperor should suspend the execution of capital warrants for thirty days, in order that the mischiefs of intemperate anger might be pre vented. Although in these public penances we see more of superstition than real compunction, and perhaps what might now be reckoned an immoderate exercise of episcopal power, yet it is probable in the then state of society, Theodosius lost nothing by submission in the case of so flagrant a crime, nor Ambrose by performing what not only he conceived, but was then acknowledged, to be his duty.

Such are the outlines of the life of this eminent father, which might have perhaps been filled up with many collateral events in which he was partially concerned; but for these our readers may be referred to Cave, in his lives of the fathers, and other ecclesiastical historians. Some of these, indeed, seem inclined to depreciate his character by a common error, of estimating the characters of distant and dark ages by the opinions which now prevail, and in this they have been followed by all who are hostile to ecclesiastical establishments.

It remains that we conclude this article with a short notice of his death. In the year 392, Valentinian the emperor being assassinated by the contrivance of Argobastus, and Eugenius usurping the empire, Ambrose was obliged to leave Milan, but returned the year following, when Eugenius was defeated. He died at Milan the 4th of April, 397; and was buried in the great church at Milan, He wrote several works, the most considerable of which is that “De officiis,” a discourse, divided into three books, upon the duties of the clergy. It appears to have been written several years after he had been bishop, and very probably about the year 390 or 391, when peace was restored to the church, after the death of the tyrant Maximus, He has imitated in these three books the design and disposition of Cicero’s piece De officiis. He confirms, says Mr. Du Pin, the good maxims which that orator has advanced, he corrects those which are imperfect, he refutes those which are false, and adds a great many others which are more excellent, pure, and elevated. He is concise and sententious in his manner of writing, and full of turns of wit; his terms are well chosen, and his expressions noble, and he diversifies his subjects by an admirable copiousness of thought and language. He is very ingenious in giving an easy and natural turn to every thing he treats, and is frequently not without strength and pathos. This is part of the character which Du Pin gives him as a writer; but Erasmus tells us that he has many quaint and affected sentences, and is frequently very obscure; and it is certain that his writings are intermixed with many strange and peculiar opinions; derived, as we have already remarked, from his early attachment to the manner of Origen. He maintained, that all men indifferently are to pass through a fiery trial at the last day; that even the just are to suffer it, and to be purged from their sins, but the unjust are to continue in for ever; that the faithful will be raised gradually at the last day, according to the degree of their particular merit; that the bow which God promised Noah to place in the firmament after the deluge, as a sign that he never intended to drown the world again, was not to be understood of the rainbow, which can never appear in the night, but some visible token of the Almighty. He carries the esteem of virginity and celibacy so far, that he seems to regard matrimony as an indecent thing. But it must be observed with regard to all those selections of opinions, that great injustice has been done to his memory by frauds and interpolations, and entire works have been attributed to him, which he never wrote. His works, indeed, are divided into, 1. Those that are genuine. 2. Those that are doubtful. 3. Those that are fictitious: and 4. Those that are not extant. Paulinus, who was his amanuensis, wrote his life, and dedicated it to St. Augustin; it is prefixed to St. Ambrose’s works; the best edition of which is reckoned to be that published by the benedictine monks, in two volumes in folio, at Paris, in 1686, and 1690. His life was also published in 1678, by Godfrey Herment.

, deacon of Alexandria, the intimate friend and admirer of Origen, was a man of great learning and piety, and worthy of being recorded, although his history has not in all particulars been exactly ascertained. Eusebius says that he followed the Valentinian heresy, but was brought over to orthodoxy by the preaching of Origen. St. Jerome says that he was at first a Marcionite, but being convinced of his error by Origen, he became a deacon of the church, and had the honour of suffering for Christ, as a confessor. To him, he adds, and to Protoctetus, Origen inscribed his book on Martyrdom, and dedicated to him many other volumes which were published at his desire and expence. Ambrose was a man of a good family, and of considerable wit, as his letters to Origen show. He died before Origen, and is blamed by many, because, though he was rich, he did not at his death remember his friend, who was not only poor, but in his old age.

Of these two accounts of Ambrose’s first opinions, Dr. Lardner prefers that of Eusebius, and thinks that Ambrose’s conversion from the heresy of Valentinus, took place about the year 212. Eusebius says nothing of his being a deacon of the church of Alexandria, which we have named him, and Dr. Lardner is inclined to think he held that office in the church of Csesarea. Origen, in a letter of which a fragment only remains, calls him “a man indeed devoted to God,” and speaks of his earnest desire to understand the scriptures, and of his great application to them. He had a wife, named Marcella, by whom he had several children; she is commended by Origen as a true Christian, and faithful wife. Eusebius also informs us, that Ambrose was the person who excited Origen to write commentaries upon the scriptures, and that not only by words and entreaties, but by supplies of all things necessary, furnishing him with amanuenses, whom he paid liberally. With respect to his bequeathing nothing to Origen, Tillemont thinks that Ambrose knew his friend’s mind, and that Origen chose to be poor, and to live in a dependence on providence. St. Jerome speaks of Ambrose’s “Epistles;” but there are none of them extant. It appears by the best conjectures, that he lived nearly to the year 250.

, a monk, and general of the monks of Camalduli, was born in 1373, at Portico in the Romagna. Eugene IV. sent him to the council of Basil, where he much distinguished himself, as well as at those of Ferrara and Florence. He acquired a high degree of reputation by his profound knowledge of the Greek language, by his uncommon acquaintance with Grecian literature, by the zeal and industry he discovered in the attempts he made to effectuate a reconciliation between the Greek and Latin churches. He was no less admired for his candid and liberal spirit, and placid and serene temper. Having failed in an attempt to reconcile those literary rivals Poggius and Valla, he told them that men who made use of abusive language could not be supposed to possess either the charity of Christians, nor the politeness of men of letters. His talents would have recommended him to the purple, which the pope intended, but this was prevented by his death, Oct. 23, 1439. He was employed, by order of pope Eugenius IV. to reform several convents of both sexes, which had become irregular; and he has described the result of his labours in this difficult work in his “Hodseporicon,” which contains particulars of the behaviour of the inhabitants of those convents, which he found it necessary to express in Greek. This was printed at Florence, 1431 and 1432, 4to, both scarce editions, and 1678, 8vo. The other works of this learned monk were Latin translations from the fathers. Martenne, in his “Collectio amplissima,” has published twenty books of his letters, which contain many curious particulars of the history of his time. He also translated Diogenes Laertiusinto Latin, which was printed at Venice, 1475, and is a book of great price, as being prior in date by nearly sixty years to any edition of that author.

, a pious and learned capuchin, whose family name was la Peirie, was born at Lombez in 1708, and died the 25th of October 1778, at St. Saviour, near Bareges, at the age of 70. His order was sensible to his merit, and he was successively professor of theology, guardian, and definitor. His tract on “Inward Peace,” and his “Lettres Spirituelles,” each in one vol. 12mo, are said by persons of his communion, to be full of light and unction, and breathe that gentle piety that characterised their author. We are told by pere Mayeul, that he had great talents as a spiritual director, and was an instrument in the hand of God for converting sinners, and consoling the just. Fere Ambrose had by nature a self-love by far too sensible, with an exuberance of delicacy, and an ardent desire of public esteem: but an adherence to the precepts of the gospel effectually cured him of all these defects. To his native pride he opposed humility and self-contempt. “It is self-love,” said he, “that corrupts our virtues, and spoils our happiness. Of a hundred things that offend us in society, ninety-nine were never meant to offend. But pride takes all things in their strictest rigour.” “Let it take things,” added he, “as it will; I will suffer all. If they should spit in my face, have I not a handkerchief to wipe it off?”

, a noted presbyterian teacher in the times of the usurpation, was son of a clergyman, and descended from the Ambroses of Ambrose-hall, in Lancashire. In the beginning of the year 1621 he was admitted of Brazen-nose college in Oxford, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts. Afterwards he went into holy orders, and officiated in some little cure in his own county. Being in very low circumstances, he was often obliged to the bounty of William earl of Bedford for the relief of himself and family. Mr. Wood thinks that lord procured him to be inserted in the list of his majesty’s preachers, appointed for the county of Lancaster. Afterwards, when the times changed, in 1641, he left the church of England, and went over to the presbyterian party, took the covenant, and became a preacher at Preston, and afterwards at Garstang, in his own county. He was very zealous and very active against the clergy of the established church, especially after he was appointed assistant to the commissioners for ejecting such whom they called scandalous and ignorant ministers and school-masters. In 1&62 he was ejected for nonconformity. It was usual with him to retire every year for a month, into a little hut in a wood, when he shunned all society, and devoted himself to religious contemplation. He had, according to Calamy, a very strong impulse on, his mind of the approach of death: and took a formal leave of his friends at their own houses, a little before his departure, and the last night of his life, he sent his “Discourse concerning Angels,” to the press. Next day he shut himself up in his parlour, where, to the surprise and regret of his friends, he was found expiring. The time of his death is stated to have been in 1663-4, in the seventysecond year of his age, but at the bottom of the portrait prefixed to his works, is the inscription “aetat.5.9. 1663.” This contradiction has not been reconciled by Granger. His works were printed in a large folio volume, in 1674, 1682, and 1689, and often since. They consist of pious tracts on various subjects, and have ever been popular.

, was a physician of considerable eminence and professor of botany at Bologna, where he died in 1657. He was also director of the botanic garden, and was appointed by the senate superintendant of the museum of natural history belonging to the republic. His principal botanical work was entitled “De Ccipsicorum varietate cum suis iconibus: accessit panacea ex herbis quas a sanctis denominantur,” Bologna, 1650, 12mo. He was also distinguished as a successful medical practitioner; and during the plague in 1630, his extensive experience furnished the materials of a work on that subject, “Modo, e facile preserva, e cura di peste a beneficio de popolo di Bologna,” 1631, 4to. He published afterwards, “Theorica medicina in tabulas digesta,” 1632, 4to, ibid. “De Pulsibus,” 1645, 4to; “De externis malis opusculum,” 1656; “De Urinis,” &c. He likewise discovered great ability as an editor, in the publication of the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th volumes of the works of Aldrovandus.

, brother to the preceding, and his successor in the direction of the botanic garden at Bologna, in 1657 published the catalogue “Hortus Bononiae studiosorum consitus,” ibid. 1654, 1657, 4-to; and a little before his death, “Phytologia, hoc est, de plantis partis primae tomus primus, &c.” ibid. fol. 1666. This contains the names, synonyms, and etymologies of the plants, with a botanical lexicon, and index in three languages. It has been often consulted for the synonyms, but the etymologies are thought to be sometimes fanciful. The second volume, which was to include trees, never appeared. The Ambrosini were skilful botanists, but living before the science was so well understood as it has been since the time of Linnæus, their works are deficient in order and precision. Bassi dedicated a genus of plants to their memory, under the name of Ambrosinia, a genus of the polyandria order, of which there is but one species, a native of Turkey.

, a French ecclesiastic, born at Paris about 1629, for a few years practised at the bar, but from some disgust with the world, entered the congregation of the oratory in April 1660, and having repaired to the university of Saumur to study divinity, became there intimately acquainted with father Malebranche. He was ordained a priest in 1663, and about the same time was appointed grand chantor of the church of Paris; but this situation affording no scope for his zeal, he exchanged it for that of grand archdeacon, an office which placed under his inspection the greater part of the curates of the diocese. He published, 1. “Traite de la volont6,” Paris, 1684, 12mo, the fruit of his intimacy with Malebranche, but Avhich Bayle has erroneously attributed to M. Nicole. 2. “Traite de l'amour desouverain bien, &c.” Paris, 1699, 12mo, against the Quietists. Some also think he wrote “L'art de vivre heureux,” Paris, 1690, which others give to Louis Pascal.

, an eclectic philosopher of the third century, was a native of Tuscany, and the contemporary of Porphyry, and studied the principles of the Stoic philosophy under Lysimachus. He became afterwards acquainted with the writings of Numenius, and from him learned and adopted the dogmas of Plato, but at last, about the year 246, became the disciple of Plotinus. For twenty-four years he associated with this master, and probably never would have quitted him, if Plotinus, on account of his health, had not been obliged to go to Campania. Amelius then settled at Apamea in Syria, and it was no doubt his long residence here which led Suidas into the mistake that he was a native of the place. The word Amelius in Greek signifies negligent, but no epithet could ever be worse applied than to him. Porphyry therefore tells us that he preferred being called Amerius, and he is accordingly recorded under this name by Eunapius in his lives of the Greek sophists. His disciples also bestowed on him the title of noble. He wrote nearly an hundred treatises, none of which have descended to our times. One of them was a discussion on the difference between the doctrines of Numenius and Plotinus. Eusebius, Theodoret, and St. Cyril, quote a passage from Amelius in which he brings the beginning of the Gospel of St. John in confirmation of the doctrine of Plato on the divine nature. He had an adopted son, Justin Hesychius, to whom he left his writings. The time of his death is not known.

, called by some Abraham Nicholas, but, according to Niceron, Nicholas only appears in his baptismal register, was born February. 1634, at Orleans. He was much esteemed at the court of France, and appointed secretary of an embassy which that court sent to the commonwealth of Venice, as appears by the title of his translation of father Paul’s history of the council of Trent; but he afterwards published writings which gave such offence, that he was imprisoned in the Bastile. The first works he printed were the “History of the Government of Venice, and that of the Uscocks, a people of Croatia:” in 1683, he published also translations into French of Machiavel’s Prince, and father Paul’s history of the council of Trent, and political discourses of his own upon Tacitus. These performances were well received by the public, but he did not prefix his own name to the two last mentioned works, but concealed himself under that of La Mothe Josseval. His translation of father Paul was attacked by the partisans of the pope’s unbounded power and authority. In France, however, it met with great success; all the advocates for the liberty of the Gallican church promoting the success of it to the utmost of their power; though at the same time there were three memorials presented to have it suppressed. When the second edition of this translation was published, it was violently attacked by the abbé St. Real, in a letter he wrote to Mr. Bayle, dated October 17, 1685, and Amelot defended himself, in a letter to that author. In 1684, he printed, at Paris, a French translation of Baltasar Gracian’s Oraculo manual, with the title of “l'Homme de Cour.” In his preface he defends Gracian against father Bouhours’ critique, and gives his reasons why he ascribes this book to Baltasar and not to Laurence Gracian. He also mentions that he had altered the title, because it appeared too ostentatious and hyperbolical; that of “l'Homme de Cour,” the Courtier, being more proper to express the subject of the book, which contains a collection of the finest maxims for regulating a court-life. In 1686, he printed “La Morale de Tacite;” in which he collected several particular facts and maxims, that represent in a strong light the artifices of court-flatteries, and the mischievous effect of their conversations. In 1690, he published at Paris a French translation of the first six books of Tacitus’s annals, with his historical and political remarks, some of which, according to Mr. Gordon, are pertinent and useful, but many of them insipid and trifling. Amelot having employed his peri for several years on historical and political subjects, began now to try his genius on religious matters; and in 1691 printed at Paris a translation of “Palafox’s theological and moral Homilies upon the passion of our Lord.” Frederic Leonard, a bookseller at Paris, having proposed, in the year 1692, to print a collection of all the treaties of peace between the kings of France and all the other princes of Europe, since the reign of Charles VII. to the year 1690, Amelot published a small volume in duodecimo, containing a preliminary discourse upon these treaties; wherein he endeavours to show the insincerity of courts in matters of negociation. He published also an edition of. cardinal d'Ossat’s letters in 1697, with several observations of his own; which, as he tells us in his advertisement, may serve as a supplement to the history of the reigns of Henry III. and Henry IV. of France. Amelot died at Paris, Dec. 8, 1706, being then almost 73 years of age, and left several other works enumerated by Niceron, who objects to his style, but praises his fidelity. The freedom with which he wrote on political subjects appears to have procured for him a temporary fame, unaccompanied with any other advantages. Although he was admired for his learning and political knowledge, he was frequently in most indigent circumstances, and indebted to the bounty of his friends.

, a celebrated French writer, was born at Saintonge in 1606. He maintained a close correspondence with the Fathers of the Oratory, a congregation of priests founded by Philip of Neri. He wrote the “Life of Charles de Gondren,” second superior of this congregation, and published it at Paris in 1643. In this piece he introduced a passage respecting the famous abbé de St. Cyran, which greatly displeased the gentlemen of Port Royal; who, out of revenge, published a pamphlet against him, entitled “Idee generate de l'esprit et du livre de pere Arnelot,” and he was so much provoked by this satire, that he did all in his power to injure them. They had finished a translation of the New Testament, known by the name of the Mons New Testament, and were desirous to have it published, for which purpose they endeavoured to procure an approbation from the doctors of the Sorbonne, and a privilege from the king. They had some friends m the Sorbonne, but at the same time very powerful enemies, and as to the privilege, it was impossible to prevail with, the chancellor Seguier to grant them one, as he hated them; so that father Amelotte, whose advice the chancellor generally followed in matters of religion, easily thwarted all their measures, not only out of zeal for what he thought the true doctrine, or out of aversion to the Port Royalists, but also from a view to his own interest; for he was about to publish a translation of his own of the New Testament, which, accordingly, with annotations, in four volumes 8vo, was printed in the years 1666, 1667, and 1668, but, according to F. Simon, it contains some very gross blunders. It was dedicated to M. de Perefixe, archbishop of Paris, whom he addresses in these words: “You will be confirmed in that zeal which obliged you to take up the holy arms to defend the true grace of God, and the decrees of the holy see, against the new heresy: you will daily strengthen yourself against these blind rebels, whose fury, impostures, and calumnies, add new splendour to your glory, which they endeavour to blemish. They place you in the same rank with the Athanasiuses and Hilaries, when they abuse you in the same manner as the Arians did those great and holy bishops.” In this translation he endeavoured to find expressions more proper and elegant than those of the former versions for which reason he committed his work into Mr. Conrart’s hands, to polish and correct whatever he should judge inelegant or improper. Amelotte wrote also an “Abridgment of Divinity,” a “Catechism for the Jubilee,” and a kind of “Christian Manual for every day, (Journee Chretienne.)” Though he had always been a very zealous Anti-Port-Royalist, yet he was but poorly rewarded for all his labour and trouble, since towards the end of his life he sued for a very small bishopric, that of Sarlat, and met with a refusal, though he had all the qualities requisite to a bishop. He could not forbear complaining of this usage to his friends; telling them that those, whom he had often served effectually, had been very cold to him on this occasion. He entered into the congregation of the Oratory in 1650, and continued amongst them till his death, which happened at Paris, Oct. 7, 1673. His dedication to M. Perefixe was suppressed after his death and the death of Perefixe, and one of a different cast substituted by M. de Harlay, in the edition of 1688, 2 vols. 4to, and the work has been often reprinted with and without notes. The chief objection made to him, on the score of veracity, is that he boasted of having consulted all the manuscripts of Europe, which he afterwards confessed he had not seen; but it is answered, that although he had not seen these manuscripts, he took great pains in procuring transcripts of their various readings.

, an Italian lawyer and miscellaneous writer, was born at Naples in 1659, and for the first fourteen years of his life, was obliged to be confined in a dark room, owing to a complaint in his eyes. On his recovery, he made very rapid progress in general science, went through a course of law, and had very considerable practice at Naples. His leisure hours he dedicated to polite literature, and particularly cultivated the Tuscan language, which he wrote with the greatest purity, and used in all his works. He died at Naples, July 21, 1719. His principal writings are, 1. Seven prose comedies, La Costanza, H Forca, la Fante, &c. which are, Baretti says, perhaps the wittiest we have in Italian; but the author makes some of his actors appear masked and speak the different dialects of Italy, especially the Neapolitan. 2. “Rapporti di Parnasso,” part I. the only one ever published, Naples, 1710, 4to. These are somewhat in the manner of Boccalini’s advertisements, but unlike them in their subjects, which are matters of literature and literary history. 3. “II Torto è il Diritto del non si puo, &c. esaminato da Ferrante Longobardi,” i. e. father Daniel Bartoli, whose work is here reprinted with. Amenta’s Observations, Naples, 1717, 8vo, 1728, 8vo; the latter edition has the remarks of the abbe Cito. 4. “Delia lingua Nobile d'Italia, &c.” another work on language divided into parts, Naples, 1723, 4to. 5. The lives of Scipio Pasquali, and Lionardo, a Neapolitan poet. 6. Twenty-four “Capitoli,” or satirical pieces, in the style of the capitoli of Berni, and other burlesque poets, Naples, 1721, 12mo. 7. “Rime,” or poetical pieces, published in various collections.

, a learned printer of the fifteenth century, was born at Rutlingen, in Suabia, and settled at Basil. He was the first who made use of the round type, instead of the Italic and Gothic. In 1506, he published the first edition of the works of St. Augustine, corrected by himself, with a type known long by the name of the St. Augustine type. He began also the works of St. Jerome; but his death, which took place in 1515, prevented his finishing them, and he left them to the care of his sons, by whom they were published. All his editions are valued for their accuracy. Boniface, his eldest son, who died in 1562, was for thirty years law professor at Basil, five times rector of the university, and went through the different offices of magistracy with the reputation of a man of great integrity. In 1659, was printed at Basil, 4to, the “Bibliotheca Amerbachiana,” a scarce work, which throws considerable light on the history of printing, and mentions many early editions omitted in our largest catalogues. Erasmus and Boniface Amerbach contributed to this Bibliotheca. Boniface had a son Basil, also a man of learning, syndic of the city, and rector of the university. He contributed much to the cabinet of pictures, and medals, and to the library which his father had founded. He founded likewise some charitable establishments, and a new professorship in the university, called the Amerbachian.

was born at Wedinguen in Bavaria, and studied law, philosophy, and divinity, at Wittemberg, where he professed to be a follower of Luther; but on returning to his own country, he became a Roman catholic, and professor of philosophy at Ingoldstadt, where he died in 1557, at the age of 70. He translated into Latin the orations of Isocrates and Demosthenes; the treatise of St. Chrysostom on Providence, and that of Epiphamus on the catholic faith. He published also commentaries on Cicero’s Offices, on the poems of Pythagoras and Phocyllides, on the Tristia of Ovid, and Horace “De arte poetica.” To much learning he added a considerable talent for poetry, in which he left various small pieces, epigrams, epitaphs. His philosophical works “De Anima, de philosophia naturali, &c.” are less known; but a list of them may be seen in Teissier’s Essays, vol. I.

, the celebrated typographical historian, was descended from an ancient family in Norfolk, where they are to be traced back as far as the middle of the sixteenth century. He was born at Yarmouth, Jan. 23, 1688-9, and removed by his father, who appears to have been the master of a merchant ship trading from Yarmouth to London, and placed at a little grammar-school at Wapping. At the age of fifteen, it is said, he was put apprentice to a plane-maker in King or Queen-street near Guildhall, London; and it is added that after serving out his time with reputation, he took up his freedom, and became a liveryman of the Joiners’ Company, but on inquiry both at Joiners’ hall and at the Chamberlain’s office, it does not appear that he ever took up his freedom: he settled, however, near the Hermitage, in Wapping, in the business of a ship-chandler, or ironmonger, and continued there till his death.

Mr. Ames very early discovered a taste for English history and antiquities, in which he was encouraged by his two friends Mr. Russel, preacher at St. John’s Wappino-, and Mr. John Lewis, minister of Margate, an eminent divine and antiquary. Some time before 1720, in attending Dr. Desaguliers’ lectures, he formed an acquaintance with Mr. Peter Thompson, an eminent Hamburgh merchant, and member for St. Alban’s, a gentleman of great humanity, and strong natural parts, who supplied the want of a liberal education by a conversation with men and books. He was also a lover of our national antiquities, and many years fellow of the royal and antiquary societies. This friendship continued uninterrupted till the death of Mr. Ames. Some time before 1730, Mr. Lewis, who had himself collected materials for such a subject, suggested to Mr. Ames the idea of writing the history of printing in England. Mr. Ames declined it at first, because Mr. Palmer, a printer, was engaged in a similar work, and because he thought himself by no means equal to an undertaking of so much extent, But when Mr. Palmer’s book came out, it was far from answering the expectations of Mr. Lewis, or' Mr. Ames, or those of the public in general. Mr. Ames, therefore, at length consented to apply himself to the task, and after twenty-five years spent in collecting and arranging his materials, in which he was largely assisted by Mr. Lewis and other learned friends, and by the libraries of lord Oxford, sir Hans Sloane, Mr. Anstis, and many others, published, in one vol. 4to, 1749, “Typographical Antiquities, being an historical account of Printing in England, with some memoirs of our ancient Printers, and a register of the books printed by them, from the year 1471 to 1600; with an appendix concerning printing in Scotland and Ireland to the same time.” In his preface he speaks with great humility of his work, and of its imperfections; but it certainly has no faults but what may well be excused in the first attempt to accomplish an undertaking of such vast extent. He inscribed this work to Philip lord Hardwicke, lord high chancellor of Great Britain. Mr. Ames was at this time fellow of the royal and antiquary societies, and secretary to the latter of these learned bodies. He was elected F. A. S. March 3, 1736, and on the resignation of Alexander Gordon, previous to his going to settle in Carolina, 174], v.as appointed secretary. In 1754, the rev. W. Norris was associated with him, and on his decease became sole secretary till 1784. This office gave Mr. Ames further opportunities of gratifying his native curiosity, by the communication as well as the conversation of the literati; and these opportunities were further enlarged by his election into the royal society, and the particular friendship shewn to him by sir Hans Sloane, then president, who nominated him one of the trustees of his will.

Besides his great work, Mr. Ames printed a “Catalogue vf English Printers, from 1471 to 1700,” 4to, intended to accompany the proposals for the former; “An Index to lord Pembroke’s Coins;” “A Catalogue of English heads, or an account of about 2000 prints, describing what is peculiar on each, as the name, title, or office of the person, the habit, posture, age, or time when done, the name of the painter, graver, scraper, &c. and some remarkable particulars relating to their lives,” 1748, 8vo. This was a kind of index to the ten volumes of English portraits, which had been collected by Mr. John Nickolls, F. R. and A. Ss. of Ware in Hertfordshire, in four volumes folio, and six iii 4to; and which after his death in 1745, were purchased, for 50 guineas, by the late Dr. Fothergill. The last of Mr. Ames’s literary labours was the drawing up the “Parentalia, or Memoirs of the family of Wren,” 1750, in one volume folio, from the papers of Mr. Wren. At his expence two plates were engraved, one of a Greek inscription in honour of Crato, the musician of Pergamos; the other an ancient marble pillar, in his possession, with the Cufic inscription.

Mr. Ames died suddenly of a fit of coughing, Oct. 7, 1759, and on the 14th was interred in the church-yard of St. Georo-e in the East, in a stone coffin, on the lid of which is an inscription in Latin by the rev. Dr. Flexman; and over the grave was placed a ledger-stone with two inscriptions, one in English, the other in Latin. His collection of coins, natural curiosities, inscriptions, and antiquities, were sold by Mr. Langford, Feb. 20 and 2 1, 1760: his library of books, manuscripts and prints, on May 5 12, 1160. Many of the books had notes by him, and Mr. Gough has enumerated many valuable articles among his collection, with the buyers’ names.

Mr. Ames married April 12, 1714, Marv, daughter of Mr. Wrayford, merchant of London, who died August 12, 1734, and by whom he had six children, one only of whom, a daughter, survived him, and was married to Edward Dampier, esq. lately deputy surveyor of shipping to the East India Company, and descended from, or related to the voyager of that name.

Of Mr. Ames’s character, the opinion seems to be uniform, that he possessed an amiable simplicity of manners, and exemplary integrity and benevolence in social life. Mr. Cole, who bears him no ojood will, because, as he asserts, he was an Anabaptist, allows that he “was a little, friendly, good-tempered man, a person of vast application, and industry in collecting old printed books, prints, and other curiosities, both natural and artificial.” It is confessed, on the other hand, that he had not much of what is called literature, and knew nothing of composition. His preface to the “Typographical Antiquities” commences in the form of a preamble to an act of parliament, “Whereas it appears from reason and ancient history,” &c. His style, indeed, very much resembles that of his brother antiquary and equally laborious collector, Strype. With all this, he appears to have been a man entitled to high respect for his acquisitions; they were entirely his own, and instigated by a laudable desire to be useful. The dates in the preceding account of his life will be sufficient to prove the absurdity of Horace Walpole’s flippant notice of him, in which he says, that Mr. Ames took to the study of antiquities “late in life,” and thac he was “originally” a ship-chandler. The truth is, and it is to the honour of his industry, that he was always an antiquary, and always a ship-chandler, but principally in articles of ironmongery. It is necessary to add that an enlarged edition of the “Typographical Antiquities” was published by the late learned and industrious Mr. William Herbert, of whom some account will be given in its proper place. This was extended to three volumes quarto, the first of which appeared in, 1785, the second in 1786. and the third in 1790, a work of inestimable value to the antiquary, the historian, and the general scholar. To the first volume, Mr. Gough prefixed “Memoirs of Mr. Joseph Ames,” from which all that is valuable in the present article has been taken; and the same has been retained, with many additional particulars, in the new and very splendid edition of Ames and Herbert, by the rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, F. S. A. of which one volume was published in 1810 and a second in 1812, which promise ample gratification to the lovers of typographical antiquities.

, a divine in the reigns of king James and Charles I. and famous for his casuistical and controversial writings, but much more so abroad than in his own country, was descended from an ancient family, which is said to remain in Norfolk and Somersetshire, and was born in 1576. He was educated at Christ-church college, in Cambridge, under the celebrated champion of Calvinism, Mr. William Perkins, and this gave a rigid strictness to his opinions, which was not agreeable to some of his associates in the university. One instance of this is given by Fuller, which we shall transcribe as recording a feature in the manners of the times. He says, that “about the year 1610-11, this Mr. Ames, preaching at St. Mary’s, took occasion to inveigh against the liberty taken at that time; especially in those colleges which had lords of misrule, a Pagan relique; which, he said, as Polydore Vergil has observed, remains only in England. Hence he proceeded to condemn all playing at cards and dice anirming that the latter, in all ages, was accounted the device of the devil and that as God invented the one-and-twenty letters whereof he made the bible, the devil, saith an author, found out the one-and-twenty spots on the die that canon law forbad the use of the same saying Inventio Diaboli nulla consuetudine. potest validari. His sermon,” continues our author, “gave much offence to many of his auditors the rather because in him there was a concurrence of much nonconformity insomuch that, to prevent an expulsion from Dr. Val. Gary, the master, he fairly forsook the col lege, which proved unto him neither loss nor disgrace being, not long after, by the States of Friesland, chosen Professor of their university.” There seems, however, some mistake in this, and Dr. Maclaine has increased it by asserting in his notes on Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical history, that Ames fled to Franeker to avoid the persecution of archbishop Bancroft. This prelate certainly pressed conformity on the Puritans as much as he could, but a man who only preached against cards and dice could have nothing to fear from him. The fact was, that the archbishop died some months before this sermon at St. Mary’s.

It might not, however, be long after, that he went to Holland, the common refuge of many of the divines of this period who were strong opponents to church discipline, for in 1613, his dispute with Grevinchovius, minister at Rotterdam, appeared in print. From thence, we are told, he was invited by the states of Friesland, to the divinity chair in the university of Franeker, which he filled with universal reputation for many years. He was at the synod of Dort, in 1618, and informed king James’s ambassador, from time to time, of the debates of that assembly. After he. had been at least twelve years in the doctor’s chair at Franeker, he resigned his professorship, and accepted of an invitation to the English congregation at Rotterdam, the air of Franeker being too sharp for him, who tvas troubled with such a difficulty of breathing, that he concluded every winter would be his last. Besides, he was desirous of preaching to his own countrymen, which he had disused for many years. He held many public discourses, published many learned books, and acquired a great degree of popularity among all classes. Upon his removal to Rotterdam, he wrote his “Fresh suit against Ceremonies” but did not live to publish it himself, for his constitution was so shattered, that the air of Holland was of no service, upon which, he determined to remove to New England; but his asthma returning at the beginning of winter, put an end to his life at Rotterdam, where he was buried, Nov. 14, (N. S.) 1633, aged fifty-seven. In the spring following, his wife and children embarked for New England, and carried with them his valuable library of books, which was a rich treasure to that country at tliat time Of his private character we know little, but it is generally agreed that he was a man of very great learning, a strict Calvinist in doctrine, and of the persuasion of the Independents, with regard to the subordination and power of classes and synods. As a teacher he was so much approved, that students came to him from many parts of Europe, particularly Hungary, Poland, Prussia, and Flanders. Mosheim, who, upon what authority we know not, calls him a Scotch divine, says, that he was one of the first among the reformed who attempted to treat morality as a separate science, to consider it abstractedly from its connection with any particular system of doctrine, and to introduce new light and a new degree of accuracy and precision into this master-science of life and manners. The attempt, he adds, was laudable, had it been well executed; but the system of this learned writer was dry, theoretical, and subtle, and was thus much more adapted to the instruction of the studious, than to the practical direction of the Christian.

, was the second son of Jeffery Amherst, of Riverhead, in Kent, esq. and of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Kerrill, of Hadlow, in Kent, esq. and was born Jan. 29, 1717. He devoted himself very early to the profession of arms, having received an ensign’s commission in the guards, in 1731, when he was only fourteen years of age; but about ten years afterwards he was aide-de-camp to general, afterwards lord Ligonier, and in that capacity was present with the general at the battles of Roucox, Dettingen, and Fontenoy. He was afterwards admitted on the staff of the duke of Cumberland, with whom he was present at the engagements of Laffeld and Hastenbeck. In 1756, he was appointed to the command of the fifteenth regiment of foot, and in two years more obtained the rank of major-general in the army.

When the war broke out between France and England, of which North America was the principal theatre, general Amherst was appointed to serve in that country, where he soon had opportunities of displaying his talents. The courage and military skill which entitled him to the trust thus reposed in him, were not long unattested hy the fears of his enemies, and the acclamations of his country. In the summer of 1758, he undertook the expedition against Louisbourg, which, together with the island of Cape Breton, on which it is situated, in the gulph of St. Lawrence, surrendered, wiili all its dependencies, to his victorious arms, July 26 of that year. This conquest not only deprived the enemy of an important place of strength, on which the prosperity of their most valuable possessions in America depended, as it was the guardian and protector of their trade in that part of the world, but it also put Great Britain in possession of the navigation of the river St. Lawrence, cutoff France from the advantages of her fishery, and by that means considerably distressed her West India islands, and finally opened the road for the reduction of Canada. The same campaign was distinguished by another very important atchievement; for in the month of November following, a plan being laid by general Amherst for the capture of Fort du Quesne, one of the keys of Canada, situated on the lakes, and the execution being intrusted to brigadier-general Forbes, the assault proved successful, and the fortress was accordingly taken; measures being adopted at the same time with so much spirit and wisdom, that the Indians were so far detached from the alliance of the enemy, as to give no obstruction to the expedition. In the ensuing campaign another strong station was reduced, under the prudent auspices of general Amherst. Sir William Johnson, to whom the command of the expedition against Niagara devolved, in consequence of the accidental death of brigadier Prideaux, on the 24th July, 1759, having defeated and taken M. D' Aubrey near that place, the fort surrendered the next day. This important victory threw the whole of the Indian fur trade into the hands of the English; and also secured the British dominions in that quarter from all hostile annoyance.