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As archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Seeker considered himself as the natural guardian, not only of that church over which he presided, but of learning, virtue, and religion at large; and, from the eminence on which he was placed, looked round with a watchful eye on every thing that concerned them, embracing readily all opportunities to promote their interests, and opposing, as far as he was able, all attempts to injure them. Men of real genius or extensive knowledge, he sought out and encouraged. Even tho^e- of humbler talents, provided their industry was great, and their intentions good, he treated with kindness and condescension. Both sorts he would frequently employ in undertakings suited to their respective abilities, and rewarded them in ways suited to their respective wants. He assisted them with books, promoted subscriptions to their 5 works, contributed largely to them himself, talked with them on their private concerns, entered warmly into their interests, used his credit for them with the great, and gave them preferments of his own. He expended upwards o 300l. in arranging and improving the ms library at Lambeth. Arid having observed with concern, that the library of printed books in that palace had received no accessions since the time of archbishop Tenison, he made it his business to collect books in all languages from most parts of Europe, at a very great expence, with a view of supplying that chasm; which he accordingly did, by leaving them to the library at his death.

All designs and institutions that tended to advance good morals and true religion he patronized with zeal and generosity. He contributed largely to the maintenance of schools for the poor, to rebuilding or repairing parsonagehouses and places of worship, and gave at one time no less than 500l. towards erecting a chapel in the parish of Lambeth, to which he afterwards added near 100l. more. To the society for promoting Christian knowledge he was a liberal benefactor; and to that for propagating the gospel in foreign parts, of which he was the president, he paid much attention, was constant at the meetings of its members, and superintended their deliberations with consummate prudence and temper. He was sincerely desirous to improve to the utmost that excellent institution, and to diffuse the knowledge and belief of Christianity as wide as the revenues of the society, and the extreme difficulty of establishing schools and missions amongst the Indians, and of making any effectual and durable impressions of religion on their uncivilized minds, would admit. But Dr. Mayhew, of Boston in New England, having in an angry pamphlet accused the society of not sufficiently answering these good purposes, and of departing widely from the spirit of their charter, with many injurious reflections interspersed on the church of England, and the design of appointing bishops in America, his grace on all these accounts thought himself called upon to confute his invectives, which he did in a short anonymous piece, entitled “An Answer to Dr. Mayhew’s Observations on the charter and conduct of the Society for propagating the Gospel,” London, 1764, reprinted in America. The strength of argument, as well as fairness and good temper, with which this answer was written, had a considerable effect on all impartial men; and even on the doctor himself, who plainly perceived that he had no common adversary to deal with; and could not help acknowledging him to be “a person of excellent sense, and of a happy talent at writing; apparently free from the sordid illiberal spirit of bigotry; one of a cool temper, who often shewed much candour, was well acquainted with the affairs of the society, and in general a fair reasoner.” He was therefore so far wrought upon by his “worthy answerer,” as to abate much in his reply of his former warmth and acrimony. But as he still would not allow himself to be “wrong in any material point,” nor forbear giving way too much to reproachful language and ludicrous misrepresentations, he was again animadverted upon by the late Mr. Apthorpe, in a sensible tract, entitled, “A Review of Dr. Mayhew’s Remarks,” &c. 1765. This put an end to the dispute. The doctor, on reading it, declared he should not answer it, and the following year he died.

Whenever any publications came to the archbishop’s knowledge that were manifestly calculated to corrupt good morals, or subvert the foundations of Christianity, he did his utmost to stop the circulation of them yet the wretched authors themselves he was so far from wishing to treat withany undue rigour, that he has more than once extended his bounty to them in distress. And when their writing* could not properly be suppressed (as was too often the case) by lawful authority, he engaged men of abilities to answer them, and rewarded them for their trouble. His attention was everywhere. Even the falsehoods and misrepresentations of writers in the newspapers, on religious or ecclesiastical subjects, he generally took care to have contradicted: and when they seemed likely to injure, in any material degree, the cause of virtue and religion, or the reputation of eminent and worthy men, he would sometimes take the trouble of answering them himselfOne instance of this kind, which does him honour, and deserves mention, was his defence of Bishop Butler, who, in a pamphlet, published in 1767, was accused of having died a papist.

The conduct which he observed towards the several ditisions and denominations of Christians in this kingdom, was such as shewed his way of thinking to be truly liberal and catholic. The dangerous spirit of popery, indeed, he thought should always be kept under proper legal resiraints, on account of its natural opposition, not only to the religious, but the civil rights of mankind. He therefore observed its movements with care, and exhorted his clergy to do the same, especially those who were situated in the midst of Roman catholic families: against whose influence they were charged to be upon their guard, and were furnished with proper books or instructions for the purpose. He took all opportunities of combating the errors of the church of Rome, in his own writings; and the best answers that were published to some bold apologiesfor popery were written at his instance, and under his direction.

* The biographers of eminent dis- drulge’s Letters,“in his zeal, has* presenters, with all tlx-ir prejudices against duced two letters from archbishop Seckthe hierarchy, setm never to exult er to that dirine, forgetting; that he was more than when they can produce uot archbishop until several year after the correspondence of a distinguished Duddridge’s death, prelate. But the editor of” Dr. Dod intercourse of friendship or civility. By the most candid and considerate part of them he was highly reverenced and esteemed: and to such among them as needed help he shewed no less kindness and liberality than to those of his own communion.

In public affairs, his grace acted the part of an honest citizen, and a worthy member of the British legislature. From his entrance into the House of Peers, his parliamentary conduct was uniformly upright and noble. He kept equally clear from the extremes of factious petulance and servile dependence: never wantonly thwarting administration from motives of party zeal or private pique, or personal attachment, or a passion for popularity: nor yet going every length with every minister, from views of interest or ambition. He seldom, however, spoke in parliament, except where the interests of religion and virtue seemed to require it: but whenever he did, he spoke with propriety and strength, and was heard with attention and deference. Though he never attached himself blindly to any set of men, yet his chief political connections were with the late duke of Newcastle, and lord chancellor Hardwicke. To these he owed principally his advancement: and he lived long enough to shew his gratitude to them or their descendants.

During more than ten years that Dr. Seeker enjoyed the see of Canterbury, he resided constantly at his archiepiscopal house at Lambeth. A few months before his death, the dreadful pains he felt had compelled him to think of trying the Bath waters: but that design was stopped by the fatal accident which put an end to his life. His grace had been for many years subject to th gout, which, in the latter part of his life, returned with more frequency and violence, and did not go off in a regular manner, but left the parts affected for a long time very weak, and was succeeded by pains in different parts of the body. About a year and a half before be died, after a fit of the gout, he was attacked with a pain in the arm, near the shoulder, which having continued about twelve months, a similar pain seized the upper and outer part of the opposite thigh, and the arm soon became easier. This was much more grievous than the former, as it quickly disabled him from walking, and kept him in almost continual torment, except when he was in a reclining position. During this time he had two or three fits of the goat: but neither the gout nor the medicines alleviated these pains, which, with the want of exercise, brought him into a general bad habit of body.

On Saturday July 30, 1768, he was seized, as he sat at dinner, with a sickness at his stomach. He recovered before night: but the next evening, while his physicians were attending, his servants raising him on his couch, he suddenly cried out that his thigh-bone was broken. He lay for some time in great agonies, but when the surgeons arrived, and discovered with certainty that the bone was broken, he was perfectly resigned, and never afterwards asked a question about the event. A fever soon ensued: on Tuesday he became lethargic, and continued so till about five o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, when he expired with great calmness, in the seventy- fifth year of his age. On examination, the thigh-bone was found to be carious about four inches in length, and at nearly the same distance from its head. He was buried, pursuant to his own directions, in a covered passage, leading from a private door of the palace to the north door of Lambeth church: and he forbade any monument or epitaph to be placed over him.

In person, Dr. Seeker was tall and comely in the early part of his life slender, and rather consumptive but as he advanced in years, his size increased, yet never to a degree of corpulency that was disproportionate or troublesome. His countenance was open, ingenuous, and expressive.

By his will, he appointed Dr. Daniel Burton, and Mrs. Catherine Talbot (daughter of the Rev. Mr. Edward Talhot), his executors; and left thirteen thousand pounds in the three per cent, annuities to Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton his chaplains, in trust, to pay the interest thereof to Mrs. Talbot and her daughter during their joint lives, or the life of the survivor; and, after the decease of both those ladies, eleven thousand to be transferred to the following charitable purposes: To the society for propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, for the general uses of the society, lOOOl.; to the same society, towards the establishment of a bishop or bishops in the king’s dominions in America, 1000; to the society for promoting Christian knowledge, 600l. to the Irish protestant working schools, 500l. to the corporation of the widows and children of the poor clergy, 500L to the society of the stewards of the said charity, 200l. to Bromley college in Kent, 500l. to the hospitals of the archbishop of Canterbury, at Croydon, St. John at Canterbury, and St. Nicholas Harbledown, 500l. each to St, George’s and London hospitals, and the Jying-in-hospital in Brownlow-s-treet, 500l. each; to the Asylum in the parish of Lambeth, 400l. to the Magdalen-hospital, the Lock-hospital, the Small- pox and Inoculation-h ispital, to each of which his grace was a subscriber, '6001. each to the incurables at St. Luke’s hospital, 500l. towards the repairing or rebuilding of houses belonging to ppor livings in the diocese of Canterbury, 2.00Q/.

, a nonconformist divine, was born at Marlborough in Wiltshire, in 1600, and educated first at Queen’s college, and then at Magdalen-hall, Oxford. After taking his degrees in arts, he was ordained, and became chaplain to lord Horatio Vere, whom he accompanied into the Netherlands. After his return, he went again to Oxford, and was admitted to the reading of the sentences in 1629. Going then to London he preached at St. Mildred’s, Bread-street, until interrupted by the bishop, and in 1639 became vicar of Coggeshall in Essex, where he continued three or four years. The commencement of the rebellion allowing men of his sentiments unconstrained liberty, he returned to London, and preached frequently before the parliament, inveighing with extreme violence against the church and state: to the overthrow of both, his biographers cannot deny that he contributed his full share, in the various characters of one of the assembly of divines, a chaplain in the army, one of the triers, and pne of the ejectors of those who were called “ignorant and scandalous ministers.” In 1646 he became preacher at St. Paul’s, Covent-garden, where he appears to have continued until the decay of his health, when he retired to Marl borough, and died there in January 1658. As a divine, he was much admired in his day, and his printed works had considerable popularity. The principal of them are, “The Fountain opened,” 1657; “An exposition of Psalm xxiii.” 1658, 4to; “The Anatomy of Secret Sins,” 1660; “The Parable of the Prodigal,” 1660; “Synopsis of Christianity,” &c. &c. He had a brother, John, an ad*, herent to the "parliamentary cause, and a preacher, but of less note; and another brother Joseph, who became batler in Magdalen college in 1634, and B.A. in 1637, and then went to Cambridge, where he took his master’s degree, and, was elected fellow of Christ’s college. After the restora-^ tion he conformed, and was beneficed in the church; in 1675 he was made prebendary of Lincoln, and was also rector of Fisherton, where he died Sept. 22, 1702, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, leaving a son John Sedgwick, who succeeded him in the prebend, and was vicar of Burton Pedvvardine in Lincolnshire, where he died in 1717.

, a dramatic and miscellaneous writer, was the son of sir John Sedley, of Aylesford in Kent, by a daughter of sir Henry Savile, and was born about 1639. At seventeen, he became a fellowcommoner of Wadham college in Oxford; but, taking no degree, retired to his own country, without either traveling, or going to the inns of court. At the restoration he came to London, and commenced wit, courtier, poet, and man of gallantry. As a critic, he was so much admired, tfiat he became a kind of oracle among the poets; and no performance was approved or condemned, till sir Charles Sedley had given judgment. This made king Charles jestingly say to him, that Nature had given him a patent to be Apollo’s viceroy; and lord Rochester placed him in the first rank of poetical critics. With these accomplishments, he impaired his estate by profligate pleasures, and was one of that party of debauchees whom we have already mentioned in our account of Sackville lord Buckhurst, who having insulted public decency, were indicted for a riot, and all severely fined; sir Charles in 500l. The day for payment being appointed, sir Charles desired Mr. Henry Killigrew and another gentleman, both his friends, to apply to the king to get it remitted; which they undertook to do; but at the same time varied the application so far as to beg it for themselves, and they made Sedley pay the full sum.

, a priest and poet, either Irish or Scotch, of the fifth century, is recorded as the writer of an heroic poem, called “Carmen Paschale,” divided into five books. The first begins with the creation of the world, and comprehends the more remarkable passages of the Old Testament. The next three describe the life of Jesus Christ. This performance has been highly commended by Cassiodorus, Gregorius Turrinensis, and others. Sedulius afterwards wrote a piece on the same subjects in prose. The poem was printed by Aldus in the collection of sacred poets, in 1502. It is also in Maittaire’s “Corp. Poet.” and has since been published by itself, with learned notes, by Arntzenius, 1761, 8vo, and by Arevale at Rome, 1794, 4-to.

, an English divine, who was born at Clifton, near Penrith, in Cumberland, of which place his father was rector, had his school-education at Lowther, and his academical at Queen’s college, in Oxford. Of this society he was chosen fellow in 1732. The greatest part of his life was spent at Twickenham, where he was assistant or curate to Dr. Waterland. In 1741, he was presented by his college to the living of Enham in Hampshire, at which place he died in 1747, without ever having obtained any higher preferment, which he amply deserved. He was exemplary in his morals, orthodox in his opinions, had an able head, and a most amiable heart. A late romantic writer against the Athanasian doctrines, whose testimony we choose to give, as it is truth extorted from an adversary, speaks of him in the following terms: “Notwithstanding this gentleman’s being a contender for the Trinity, yet he was a benevolent man, an upright Christian, and a beautiful writer; exclusive of his zeal for the Trinity, he was in every thing else an excellent clergyman, and an admirable scholar. 1 knew him well, and on account of his amiable qualities very highly honour his memory; though no two ever differed more in religious sentiments.” He published in his life-time, “Discourses on several important Subjects,” 2 vols. 8vo and his “Posthumous Works, consisting of sermons, letters, essays, &c.” in 2 vols. 8vo, were published from his original manuscripts by Jos. Hall, M. A. fellow of Queen’s college, Oxford, 1750. They are all very ingenious, and full of good matter, but abound too much in antithesis and point.

In 1610 he printed at London, his “Jani Anglorum facies altera,” 8vo, reprinted in 1681, and likewise translated into English by Dr. Adam Littleton, under his family name of Redman Westcot, 1683, fol. It consists of all that is met with in history concerning the common and statute law of English Britany to the death of Henry II. Selden had laid the foundation in a discourse which he published the same year and in the same form, entitled “England’s Epinomis” and this is also in Dr. Littleton’s volume, along with two other tracts, “The Original of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Testaments,” and “The Disposition or administration of Intestate goods,” both afterwards the production of Selden’s pen. In the same year, 1610, he published his “Duello, or single combat;” and in 1612, notes and illustrations on Drayton’s “Poly-Olbion,” folio. He seems to have been esteemed for his learning by the poets of that time; and although he had no great poetical turn himself, yet in 1613 he wrote Greek, Latin, and English verses on Browne’s “Britannia’s Pastorals,” and contributed other efforts of the kind to the works of several authors, which appear to have induced Suckling to introduce him in his “Session of the Poets,” as sitting “close by the chair of Apollo.”

In his next, and one of his most memorable performances, he did not earn th*e fame of it without some danger. This was his “Treatise of Tythes,” the object of which was to prove that tithes were not due by divine right under Christianity, although the clergy are entitled to them by the laws of the land. This book was attacked by sir James Sempill in the Appendix to his treatise entitled “Sacrilege sacredly handled,” London, 1619, and by Dr. Richard Tillesley, archdeacon of Rochester, in his “Animadversions upon Mr. Selden’s History of Tithes,” London, 1621, 4to. Selden wrote an answer to Dr. Tillesley, which being dispersed in manuscript, the doctor published it with remarks in the second edition of his “Animadversions,” London, 1621, 4to, under this title, “Animadversions upon Mr. Selden’s History of Tithes, and his Review thereof. Before which (in lieu of the two first chapters purposely praetermitted) is premised a catalogue of 72 authors before the yeare 1215, maintaining the Jus divinum of Tythes, or more, to be paid to the Priesthood under the Gospell.” Selden’s book was likewise answered by Dr. Richard Montague in his “Diatribe,” London, 1621, 4to; by Stephen Nettles, B. D. in his “Answer to the Jewish Part of Mr. Selden’s History of Tythes,” Oxford, 1625; and by William Sclater in his “Arguments about Tithes,” London, 1623, in 4to. Selden’s work having been reprinted in 1680, 4to, with the old date put to it, Dr. Thomas Comber answered it in a treatise entitled, “An Historical Vindication of the Divine Right of Tithes, &c.” London, 1G&1, in 4to. This work also excited the displeasure of the court, and the author was called before some of the lords of the high commission, Jan. 28, 1618, and obliged to make a publicsubmission, which he did in these words: “My good Lords, I most humbly acknowledge my errour, which 1 have committed in publishing the ‘ History of Tithes,’ and especially in that I have at all, by shewing any interpretation of Holy Scriptures, by meddling with Councils, Fathers, or Canons, or by what else soever occures in it, offered any occasion of argument against any right of maintenance ' Juredivino* of the Ministers of the Gospell; beseeching your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and humble acknowledgment, together with the unfeined protestation of my griefe, for that through it I have so incurred both his Majestie’s and your Lordships’ displeasure conceix-ed against mee in behalfe of the Church of England.” We give this literally, because some of Mr. Selden’s admirers have asserted that he never recanted any thing in his book. The above is at least the language of recantation; yet he says himself in his answer to Dr. Tillesley, “I confesse, that I did most willingly acknowledge, not only before some Lords of the High Commission (not in the High Commission Court) but also to the Lords of his Majesty’s Privy Council, that I was most sorry for the publishing of that History, because it had offended. And his Majesty’s most gracious favour towards me received that satisfaction of the fault in so untimely printing it; and I profess still to all the world, that I am sorry for it. And so should I have been, if I had published a most orthodox Catechism, that had offended. But what is that to the doctrinal consequences of it, which the Doctor talks of? Is there a syllable of it of less truth, because I was sorry for the publishing of it Indeed, perhaps by the Doctor’s logic there is; and just so might he prove, that there is the more truth in his animadversions, because he was so glad of the printing them. And because he hopes, as he says, that my submission hath cleared my judgment touching the right of tithes: what dream made him hope so? There is not a word of tithes in that submission more than in mentioning the title; neither was my judgment at all in question, but my publishing it; and this the Doctor knows too, as I am assured.” Selden, therefore, if this means any thing, was not sorry for what he had written, but because he had published it, and he was sorry he had published it, because it gave offence to the court and to the clergy. In 1621, king James having, in his speech to the parliament, asserted that their privileges were originally grants from the crown^ Selden was consulted by the House of Lords on that question, and gave his opinion in favour of parliament; which being dissolved soon after, he was committed to the custody of the sheriff of London, as a principal promoter of the famous protest of the House of Commons, previous to its dissolution. From this confinement, which lasted only five weeks, he was released by the interest of Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, and returned to his studies, the first fruits of which were> a learned epistle prefixed to Vincent’s “Discovery of errors in two editions of the Catalogue of Nobility by Ralph Brooke,” Lond. 1622, and the year following his “Spicilegium in Eadmeri sex libros Historiarum,” fol.

* In Trinity term, 1624, he was concerning him were respited until this chosen reader of Lyon’s-lnn, but re- term. Now this day being called agairt fused to perform that office. In the to the table, he doth absolutely refuse register of the Inner Temple is the fol- to read. The masters of the bench, lowing passage “Whereas an order taking into consideration his contempt was made at the Bench-Table this term, add offence, and for that it is without ince the last parliament, and entered precedent, that any man elect-d to into the buttery-book in these words; read in chancery has been discharged Jovtslldie Octobrls 1624. Memoran- in like case, much less has with such dum, that whereas John Selden, esq. wilfulness refused the same, have orone of the utter barristers of this house, dered, that he shall presently pay to *ras in Trinity term last, chosen reader the use of this house the sum of 20J. of Lyon’s-lnn by the gentlemen of the for his fine, and that he stand and be same house, according to the order of disabled ever to be called to the bench, their house, which he then refused to or to be a reader of this house. Now take upon him, and perform the same, at this parliament the said order is coriwithout some sufficient cause or good firmed; and it is further ordered, that reason, notwithstanding many ccwirte- if any of this house, which hereafter ous and fair persuasions and admoni- shall be chosen to read in chancery, tions by the masters of the bench made shall refuse to read, every such offender to him; forwhich cause he having been shall be fined, and be disabled to be twice convented before the masters of called to the bench, or to be a reader the bench, it was then ordered, that of this house.” However, in Michaelthere should be a nt reclpiatur entered mas term 1632, it was ordered, that upon his name, which was done accord- Mr. Seldea “shall stand enabled and ingly and in respect the beneh was be capable of any preferment in the not then full, the farther proceedings House, in such a manner as other drawing up articles of impeachment against the duke of Buckingham, and was afterwards appointed one of the managers for the House of Commons on his trial. In 1627 he opposed the loan which the king endeavoured to raise, and although he seldom made his appearance at the har, pleaded in the court of King’s Bench for Hampden, who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay his quota of that loan. After the third parliament of Charles I. in which he sat for Lancaster, had been prorogued, he retired to Wrest in Bedfordshire, a seat belonging to the earl of Kent, where he finished his edition of the” Marmora Arundelliana," Loud. 1621), 4to, reprinted by Prideaux, with additions at Oxford, in 1676, folio, and by Maittaire, at London, 1732, in folio.

In 164-0$ Selden published another of those works which were the fruit of his researches into Jewish antiquities, already noticed under the title “De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta disciplinam Hebraeorum,” folio. PuiTendorff applauds this work highly; but his translator Barbeyrac observes, that “besides the extreme disorder and obscurity which are justly to be censured in his manner of writing, he does not derive his principles of nature from the pure light of reasoiij but merely from the seven precepts given to Noah; and frequently contents himself with citing the decisions of the Rabbin^ without giving himself the trouble to examine whether they be just or not.” Le Clerc says, that in this book Selden “has only copied the Rabbins, and scarcely ever reasons at all. His rabbinical principles are founded upon an uncertain Jewish tradition, namely, that God gave to Noah seven precepts, to be observed by all mankind; which, if it should be denied, the Jevys would find a difficulty to prove! besides, his ideas are very imperfect and embarrassed.” There is certainly somQ foundation for this; and what is said of his style may be jnore or less applied to all he wrote. He had a vast jnemory and prodigious learning; which impeded the use of his reasoning faculty, perplexed and embarrassed his ideas, and crowded his writings with citations and authori* ties, to supply the place of argument.

In this same year, 1640, Selden was chosen member for the university of Oxford, and that year and the following continued Jo oppose the measures of the court, but his. coneliiet may to some appear unsteady. In truth, he attempted what in those days was impossible, to steer a middle course. He supported the republican party in the measures preparatory to the sacrifice of the earl of Strafford, but was not one of their Committee for managing the impeachment, and his name was even inserted in a list of members, posted up in Old Palace Yard by some party zealots, and branded with the appellation of " enemies of justice.*' On the subject of church-government, although he seems to have entertained some predilection for the establishment, yet he made no effort to prevent its fall, at all commensurate to his knowledge and credit. In the debates on the question whether bishops sat in parliament as barons and peers of the realm, or as prelates, he gave it as his opinion that they sat as neither, but as representatives of the clergy; and this led to the expulsion of them from parliament. Afterwards we find him concurring with other members of the House of Commons in a protestation that they would maintain the protestant religion according to the doctrine of the church of England, and would defend the person and authority of the king, the privileges of parliament, and the rights of the subject. In the prosecution of archbishop Laud, Selden was among those who were appointed to draw up articles of impeachment against him, an office which must have produced a severe contest between his private feelings and his public duties.

Notwithstanding all this, the royalists were unwilling to believe that a man so learned and so well informed as Selden could be seriously hostile, and there were even some thoughts of taking the great seal from the lord keeper Littleton, and giving it to him. Clarendon tells us, that lord Falkland and himself, to whom his majesty referred the consideration of this measure, “did not doubt of Mr. Selden’s affection to the king; but withal they knew him so well, that they concluded he would absolutely refuse the place, if it were offered to him. He was in years, and of a tender constitution be had for many years enjoyed his ease, which he loved was rich, and would not have made a journey to York, or have lain out of his own bed, for any preferment, which he had never affected.” But in all probability his majesty’s advisers savy that his want of iirmness, and his love of safety, were the real impediments. When the king found him opposing in parliament the commission of array, he desired lord Falkhad to write to Selden on the subject, who vindicated his conduct on that point, but declared his intention to-be equally hostile to the ordinance for the militia, which was moved by the factious party, and which he justly declared to be without any shadow of law, or pretence of precedent, and most destructive to the government of the kingdom. Accordingly he performed his promise, but tins remarkable difference attended his efforts, that his opposition to the commission of array did the king great injury among many of his subjects, while the ordinance which armed the parliamentary leaders against the crown was carried: and, according to Whitelocke, Selden himself was made a deputy -lieutenant under it. There was an equally remarkable difference in the treatment he received for this double opposition. The king and his friends, convinced that he acted honestly, bore no resentment against him; but the popular leaders, most characteristically, inferred from this, that he must be hostile to their cause, and made vain endeavours to induce Waller to implicate him in the plot which he disclosed in 1643. Nor was his exculpation sufficient: for he was obliged, by an oath, to testify his hostility against the traitorous and horrible plot for the subversion of the parliament and state,

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

Selden was a man of extensive learning, and had as much skill in the Hebrew and Oriental languages as perhaps any man of his time, Pocock excepted. Grotius, over whom he triumphed in his “Mare clausum,” styles him “the glory of the English nation.” He was knowing in all laws, human and divine, yet did not greatly trouble himself with the practice of law: he seldom appeared at the bar, but sometimes gave counsel in his chamber. “His mind also,” says Whitelocke, “was as great as his learning; he was as hospitable and generous as any man, and as good company to those he liked.” Wilkins relates, that he was a man of uncommon gravity and greatness of soul, averse to flattery, liberal to scholars, charitable to the poor; and that, though he had a great latitude in his principles with regard to ecclesiastical power, yet he had a sincere regard for the church of England. Baxter remarks, that “he was a resolved se-> rious Christian, a great adversary, particularly, to Hobbes’s errors;” and that sir Matthew Hale affirmed, “how he had seen Selden openly oppose Hobbes so earnestly, as either to depart from him, or drive him out of the room.” But the noblest testimony in his favour is that of his intimate friend the earl of Clarendon, who thus describes him in all parts of his character: “Mr. Selden was a person,” says he, “whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of such stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages, as may appear from his excellent and transcendant writings, that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant among books, and had never spent an hour but in reading or writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability, was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good-nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh, and sometimes obscure; which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men, but to a little undervaluing the beauty of a style , and too much propensity to the language of antiquity: but in his conversation he was the most clear discourser, and had the best faculty in making hard things easy, and present to the understanding, of any man that hath been known.” His lordship also used to say, that *' he valued himself upon nothing more than upon having had Mr. Selden’s acquaintance, from the time he was very young; and held it with great delight as long as they were suffered to continue together in London: and he was very much troubled always when he heard him blamed, censured, and reproached for staving in London, and in the parliament, after they- were in rebellion, and in the worst times, which his age obliged him to do; and how wicked soever the actions were, which were every day done, he was confident he had not given his consent to them, but would have hindered them if he could with his own safety, to which he was always enough indulgent. If he had some infirmities with other men, they were weighed down with wonderful and prodigious abilities and excellences in the other scale.“The political part of Selden’s life, is that which the majority of readers will contemplate with least pleasure; but on this it is unnecessary to dwell. The same flexibility of spirit, which made him. crouch before the reprehension of James I. disfigured the rest of his life, and deprived him of that dignity and importance which would have resulted from his standing erect in any place he might have chosen. Clarendon seems to have hit the true cause of all, in that anxiety for his own safety to which, as he says,” he was always indulgent enough."

Several other works of his were printed after his death, or left in manuscript. I. “God made man, A Tract proving the nativity of our Saviour to be on the 25th of December,” Lond. 1661, 8vo, with his portrait. This was answered in the first postscript to a treatise entitled tc A brief (but true) account of the certain Year, Month, Day, and Minute of the birth of Jesus Christ,“Lond. 1671, 8vo, by John Butler, B. D. chaplain to James duke of Ormonde, and rector of Litchborow, in the diocese of Peterboroup-h. 2.” Discourse of the office of Lord Chancellor of England,“London, 1671, in fol. printed with Dugdale’s catalogue of lord chancellors and lord keepers of England from the Norman conquest. 3, Several treatises, viz.” England’s Epinomis;“already mentioned, published 1683, in fol. by Redman Westcot, alias Littleton, with the English translation of Selden’s” Jani Anglorum Facies altera.“4.” Ta. ble talk: being the discourses or his sense of various maU ters of weight and high consequence, relating especially to Religion and State,“London, 1689, 4to, published by Richard Mil ward, amanuensis to our author. Dr. Wilkins observes, that there are many things in this book inconsistent with Seiden’s great learning, principles, aud character. It has, however, acquired popularity, and still continues to be printed, as an amusing and edifying manual. 5.” Letters to learned men;“among which several to archbishop Usher are printed in the collection of letters at the end of Parr’s life of that prelate; and two letters of his to Mr. Thomas Greaves were first published from the originals by Thomas Birch, M. A. and F. R. 8. in the life prefixed to Birch’s edition of the” Miscellaneous works of Mr. John Greaves,“Lond. 1737, in two volumes, 8vo. 6.” Speeches, Arguments, Debates, &c. in Par! lament.“7. He had a considerable hand in, and gave directions and advice towards, the edition of” Plutarch’s Lives,“printed in 1657, with an addition of the year of the world, and the year of our Lord, together with many chronological notes and explications. His works were collected by Dr. David Wiljvins, and printed at London in three volumes fol. 1726. The two first volumes contain his Latin works, and the third his English. The editor has prefixed a long life of the author, and added several pieces never published before, particularly letters, poems, &c. In 1675 there was printed at London in 4to,” Joannis Seldeni Angli Liber de Nummis, &c. Huic accedit Bibliotheca Nummaria.“But this superficial tract was not written by our author, but by Alexander Sardo of Ferrara, and written before Selden was born, being published at Mentz, 1575, in 4to. The” Bibliotheca Nummaria" subjoined to it was written by father Labbe the Jesuit.

, a distinguished French physician, wag born in Gascony about the close of the seventeenth century, and is said to have been a doctor of the faculty of physic of Rheims, and a bachelor of that of Paris; which last degree he obtained in 1724 or 1725. He was a man of profound erudition, united with great modesty, and became possessed, by his industry in the practice of his profession, of much sound medical knowledge. His merits obtained for him the favour of the court, and he was appointed consulting physician to Louis XV. and subsequently succeeded Chicoyneau in the office of first physician to that monarch. He was also a member of the royal academy of sciences at Paris, and of the royal society of Nancy. He died in December 1770, at the age of about Seventy-seven years.

In the first year of Claudius, when Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, was accused of adultery by Messalina (a woman very unworthy of credit), and banished, Seneca was involved both in the charge and the punishment, and exiled to Corsica, where he lived eight years; happy, as he told his mother, in the midst of those things which usually make other people miserable. Here he wrote his books “Of Consolation,” addressed to his mother Helvia, and to his friend Polybius. But, as Brucker remarks, it may be questioned whether stoic ostentation had not some share in all this, for we find him, in another place, expressing much distress on account of his misfortune, and courting the emperor in a strain of servile adulation, little worthy of so eminent a philosopher. When Agrippina was married to Claudius, upon the death of Messalina, she prevailed with the emperor to recall Seneca from banishment; and afterwards procured him to be tutor to her son Nero, and Afranius Burrhus, a praetorian praefect, was joined with him iii this important charge. These two preceptors executed their trust with perfect harmony, and with some degree of success Burrhus instructing his pupil in the military art, and inuring him to wholesome discipline and Seneca furnishing him with the principles of philosophy, and the precepts of wisdom and eloquence; and both endeavouring to confine their pupil within the limits of decorum and virtue. While these preceptors united their authority, Nero was restrained from indulging his natural propensities; but after the death of Burrhus, the influence of Seneca declined, and the young prince began to disclose that depravity which afterwards stained his character with eternal infamy. Still, however, Seneca enjoyed the favour of his prince, and after Nero was advanced to the empire, he long continued to load his preceptor with honours and riches. Seneca’s houses and walks were the most magnificent in Rome, and he had immense sums of money placed out at interest in almost every part of the world. Suilius, one of his enemies, says, that during four years of imperial favour, he amassed the immense sum of 300,000 seslertiae, or 2,42 1,87 5l. of our money.

All this wealth, however, together with the luxury and effeminacy of a court, are said not to have produced any improper effect upon the temper and disposition of Seneca. He continued abstemious, correct in his manners, and, above all, free from flattery and ambition. “I had rather,” said he to Nero, “offend you by speaking the truth, than please you by lying and flattery.” It is certain that while he had any influence, that is, during the first five years of Nero’s reign, that period had always been considered as a pattern of good government. But when Poppgea and Tigellinus had insinuated themselves into the confidence of the emperor, and hurried him into the most extravagant and abominable vices, he naturally grew weary of his master, whose life must indeed have been a constant rebuke to him. When Seneca perceived that his favour declined at court 3 and that he had many accusers about the prince, who were perpetually whispering in his ears his great riches, his magnificent houses, his fine gardens, and his dangerous popularity, he offered to return all his opulence and favours to the tyrant, who, however, refused to accept them, and assured him of the continuance of his esteem; but the philosopher knew his disposition too well to re l y on his promises, and as Tacitus relates, “kept no more levees, declined the usual civilities which had been paid to him, and, tinder a pretence of indisposition or engagement, avoided as much as possible to appear in public.” It was not long before Seneca was convinced that he had made a just estimate of the sincerity of Nero, who now attempted, by means of Cleonicus, a freedman of Seneca, to take him olF by poison; but this did not succeed. In the mean time Antonius Natalis, who had been concerned in the conspiracy of Piso, upon his examination, in order to court the favour of Nero, or perhaps even at his instigation, mentioned Seneca among the number of the conspirators, and to give some colour to the accusation, pretended, that hehad been sent by Piso to visit Seneca whilst he was sick, und to complain of his having refused to see Piso, who as a friend might have expected free access to him upon all occasions; and that Seneca, in reply, had said, that frequent conversations could be of no service to either party, bufc that he considered his own safety as involved in that of Piso. Granius Syivanus, tribune of the praetorian cohort, was sent to ask Seneca, whether he recollected what had passed between himself and Natalis. Seneca, whether by accident 0r design is uncertain, had that day left Cajnpania, and was at his country-seat, about four miles from the city. In the evening, while he was at supper with his wife Paullina and two friends, the tribune, with a military band, came to the house, and delivered the emperor’s message, Seneca’s answer was, that he had received no complaint from Piso, of his having refused to see him; and that the State of his health, which required repose, had been his apology. He added, that he saw no reason why he should prefer the safety of any other individual to his own; and that no one was better acquainted than Nero, with his independent spirit.

This reply kindled the emperor’s indignation, and learning from the messenger that Seneca betrayed no symptoms of terror or distress, sent him a peremptory command immediately to put himself to death. This too Seneca received with perfect composure, and asked permission of the officer who brought the conjmand, to alter his will; but that being refused, he requested of his friends, that since he was not allowed to leave them any other legacy, they would preserve the example of his life, and exhorted them to exercise that fortitude, which philosophy taught. After some farther conversation with these friends, he embraced his wife, and intreated her to console herself with the recollection of his virtues: but Paullina refused every consolation, except that of dying with her husband, and earnestly solicited the friendly hand of the executioner. Seneca, after expressing his admiration of his wife’s fortitude, proceeded to obey the emperor’s fatal mandate, by opening a vein in each arm but, through his advanced age, the vital stream flowed so reluctantly, that it was necessary also to open the veins of his legs. Still finding his strength exhausted without any prospect of a speedy release; in order to alleviate, if possible, the anguish of his wife, who was a spectator of the scene, and to save himself the torture of witnessing her distress, he persuaded her to withdraw to another chamber. In this situation, Seneca, with wonderful recollection and self-command, dictated many philosophical reflections to his secretary. After a long interval, his friend Statius Annaeus, to whom he complained of the tedious delay of death, gave him a strong dose of poison; but even this, through the feeble state of his vital powers, produced little effect. At last, he ordered the attendants to convey him into a warm bath; and, as he entered, he sprinkled those who stood near, saying, " I offer this libation to Jupiter the deliverer/ 1 Then, plunging into the bath, he was soon suffocated. His body was consumed, according to his own express order, in a will which he had made in the height of his prosperity, -without any funeral pomp.

The character, the system, and the writings of this philosopher have been subjects of much dispute among the learned. Concerning his character, a candid judge, who considers the virtuous sentiments with which his writings abound, the temperate and abstemious plan of life which he pursued in the midst of a luxurious court, and the fortitude with which he met his fate, will not hastily pronounce him to have been guilty of adultery, upon the evidence of the infamous Messalina; or conclude his wealth to have been the reward of a servile compliance with the base passions of his prince. It has been questioned whether Seneca ought to be ranked among the stoic or the eclectic philosophers; and the freedom of judgment which he expressly claims, together with the respect which he pays to philosophers of different sects, clearly prove, that he did not implicitly addict himself to the system of Zeno; nor can the contrary be inferred from his speaking of our Chrysippus, and our Cleanthes; for he speaks also of our Demetrius, and our Epicurus. It is evident, however, from the general tenor and spirit of his writings, that he adhered, if) the main, to the stoic system. With respect to his writings, he is justly censured by Quintilian, and other critics, as among the Romans the first corrupter of style; yet his works are exceedingly valuable, on account of the great number of just and beautiful moral sentiments which they contain, the extensive erudition which they discover, and the happy mixture of freedom and urbanity, with which they censure vice, and inculcate good morals. The writings of Seneca, except his books of “Physical Questions,” are chiefly of the moral kind: they consist of one hundred and twenty-four “Epistles,” and distinct treatises, ' On Anger; Consolation; Providence; Tranquillity of Mind y Constancy; Clemency; the Shortness of Life; a Happy Life; Retirement; Benefits."

From the -excellence of many of his precepts, some have imagined, that he was a Christian, and it has been reported that he held a correspondence with St. Paul by letters; but although he must have heard of Christ and his doctrine, and Ms curiosity plight lead him tp make some inquiry 3.bout them, the letters published under the names of the Philosopher and Apostle, have long been declared spurious by the critics, and perfectly unworthy of either of them. A number of tragedies are extant under the name of Seneca, written in a bad style, but it is uncertain whether the whole or any of them were by this Seneca. Of his acknowledged works Justus Lipsius published the first good edition, which was succeeded by the Variorum, 1672, 3 vols. 8vo, and others. Of the tragedies, the best are those of Scriverius, 1621, the Variorum, 1651, &c. and Schroeder’s, 1728, 4to.

Sennertus was a voluminous writer, and has been characterized, by some critics, as a mere compiler from the works of the ancients. It is true that his writings contain an epitome, but, it must be added, a most comprehensive, clear, and judicious epitome, of the learning of the Greeks and Arabians, which renders them, eyen at this day, of considerable value as books of reference, and is highly creditable, considering the age in which they were composed, to his learning and discrimination. It must not be forgot that he also attained some fame as a philosopher, and was the first restorer of the Epicurean system among the moderns. In a distinct chapter of his “Hypomnemata Physica,” or “Heads of Physics,” trrating of atoms and mixture, he embraces the atomic system, which- he derives from Mochus the Phoenician. He supposes that the primary corpuscles not' only unite in the formation of bodies, but that in their mutual action and passion they undergo such modifications, that they cease to be what they were before their union; and maintains, that by their combination all material forms are produced. Sennertus, however, confounded the corpuscles of the more ancient philosophers with the atoms of Democritus and Epictetus, and held that each element has primary particles peculiar to itself. His works have often been printed in France and Italy. The last edition is that of Lyons, 1676, in 6 vols. folio, to which his life is prefixed.

, or John the son of Serapion, an Arabian physician, lived between the time of Mesne and Rhazes, and was probably the first writer on physic in the Arabic language. Haly Abbas, when giving an account of the works of his countrymen, describes the writings of Ser.ipion, as containing only an account of the cure of diseases, without any precepts concerning the preservation of health, or relating to surgery; and he makes many critical observations, which, Dr. Freind observes, are sufficient proofs of the genuine existence of the works ascribed to Serapion, from their truth and correctness. Rhazes also quotes them frequently in his “Continent.” Serapion must have lived towards the middle of the ninth century, and not in the reign of Leo Isaurus, about the year 730, as some have stated. One circumstance remarkable in Serapion, Dr. Freind observes, is, that he often transcribes the writings of Alexander Trailian, an author with whom few of the other Arabians appear to be much acquainted. This work of Serapion has been published, in translations, by Gerard of Cremona, under the title of “Practica, Dicta Breviarum;” and by Torinus, under that of “Therapeutica Methodus.” There is another Serapion, whom Sprengel calls the younger, and places 180 years later than the former, and who was probably the author of a work on the materia medica, entitled “De Medicamentis tarn simplicibus, quam compositis.” This work hears intrinsic evidence of being produced at a much later period, since authors are quoted who lived much posterior to Rhazes.

, or John de Serres, a learned Frenchman, was born in the sixteenth century, and was of the reformed religion. His parents sent him to Lausanne, where he was taught Latin and Greek, and attached himself much to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle; but, on his return to France, he studied divinity, in order to qualify himself for the ministry. He began to distinguish himself by his writings in 1570; and, in 1573, was obliged to take refuge in Lausanne, after the dreadful massacre on St. Bartholomew’s day. Returning soon to France, he published a piece in French, called “A Remonstrance to the king upon some pernicious principles in Bodin’s book de Republica:” in which he was thought to treat Bodin so injuriously, that Henry III. ordered him to prison. Obtaining his liberty, he became a minister of Nismes in 1582, but never was looked upon as a very zealous protestant; and some have gone so far as to say, but without sufficient foundation, that he actually abjured it. He is, however, supposed to have been one of those four ministers, who declared to Henry IV. that a man might be saved in the popish as well as the protestant religion; a concession which certainly did not please his brethren. He published, in 1597, with a view to reconcile the two religions, “De Fide Catholica, sive de principiis religionis Christiana?, communi omnium consensu semper et ubique ratis;” a work as little relished by the catholics, as by the protestants. He died suddenly in 1598, when he was not more than fifty, and the popish party circulated a report that his brethren of Geneva had poisoned him.

, a famous Anti-trinitarian, and the great martyr of the Socinian sect, was born in 1509, at Villaneuva in Arragon, or at Tudela in Navarre, in 1511. His father, who was a notary, sent him to the university of Toulouse, to study the civil law: and there, or as some say, when in Italy, he imbibed his peculiar notions respecting the doctrine of the Trinity. After he had been two or three years at Toulouse he resolved to remove into Germany, and propagate his opinions. He went to Basil, by way of Lyons and Geneva; and, having had some conferences at Basil with Oecolampadius, set out for Strasburg, to converse with Bucer and Capito, two celebrated reformers of that city., At his departure from Basil he left a manuscript, entitled “De Trinitatis Erroribus,” in the bands of a bookseller, who sent it afterwards to Haguenau, whither Servetus went, and had it printed in 1531. The next year, he printed likewise at Haguenau another book, with this title, “Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo:” in an advertisement to which he retracts v/hat he had written in his former book against the Trinity, not as it was false, but because it was written imperfectly and confusedly^ He then resolved to return to France, because he was poor, and did not understandthe German language; as he alleged upon his trial to the judges, when they asked him why he left Germany. He went accordingly to Basil, thence to Lyons, where he lived two or three years, and afterwards to Paris, where, having studied physic under Sylvius, Fernelius., and other professors, he took his degree of master of arts, and was admitted doctor of physic in the university. He now settled as a practitioner for two or three years in a town near Lyons, and then at Vienne in Dauphiny, for the space of ten or twelve. In the mean time, his writings against the Trinity had excited the indignation of the German divines, and spread his name throughout all Europe. In 1533, before he had left Lyons, Melancthon wrote a letter to Camerarius, in which he allowed that Servetus was evidently an acute and crafty disputant, but confused and indigested in his thoughts, and certainly wanting in point of gravity. While Servetus was at Paris, his books being dispersed in Italy, were very much approved by many who had thoughts of forsaking the church of Rome: which, in 1539, excited Melancthon to write a letter to the senate of Venice, importing, that “a book of Servetus, who had revived the error of Paulus Samosatenus, was handed about in their country, and beseeching them to take care, that the impious error of that man may be avoided, rejected, and abhorred.” Servetus was at Lyons in 1542, before he settled in Vienne; and corrected the proofs of a Latin Bible that was printing there, to which he added a preface and some marginal notes, under the name of Villanovanus, from the town where he was born.

Servetus was a man of great acuteness and learning. He was not only deeply versed in what we usually call sacred and prophane literature, but also an adept in the arts and sciences. He observed upon hjs trial, that he had professed mathematics at Paris; although we do not find when, nor under what circumstances. He was so admirably skilled in his own profession, that he appears to have had some knowledge of the circulation of the blood; although very short of the clear and full discovery made by Harvey. Our learned Wotton says, " The first that I could ever find, who had a distinct idea of this matter, was Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician, who was bornt for Arianism at Geneva, near 140 years ago. Well had it been for the church of Christ, if he had wholly confined himself to his own profession His sagacity in this particular, before so much in the dark, gives us great reason to believe, that the world might then have just cause to have blessed his memory. In a book of his, entitled l Christianismi Restitutio, 7 printed in 1553, he clearly asserts, that the blood passes through the lungs, from the left to the right ventricle of the heart, and not through the partition which divides the two ventricles, as was at that time commonly believed. How he introduces it, or in which of the six discourses, into which Servetus divides his book, it is to be found, I know not, having never seen the book myself. Mr. Charles Bernard, a very learned and eminent surgeon of London, who did *ne the favour to communicate this passage to me, set down at length in the margin, which was transcribed out of Servetus, could inform me no farther, only that he had it from a learned friend of his, who had himself copied it from Servetus.' 7 The original editions of Servetus’s works are very scarce, and they have not been often reprinted, but his doctrines may be traced in various Socinian systems.

, a distinguished physician, was born at Tarsia, in Calabria, in 1580, and having, after some intention of studying law, given the preference to medicine, he received the degree of doctor in the university of Naples, where he taught anatomy and surgery with such reputation, as to attract a crowd of students to the university. As a practitioner, however, his method was harsh, and he carried the use of the actual cautery to a great extent. He died at Naples, July 15, 1656, at the age of seventy-six. He was a man of bold and original mind, but somewhat attached to paradox; and was the author of several publications, a list of which may be seen in our authority, and at the time of his death, was preparing for publication some papers, which he meant to illustrate by engravings; they were published together, under the title of “Antiperipatias, hoc est, adversus Aristoteleos de respiratione piscium Diatriba.” “Commentarius in Theophrastum de piscibtis in sicco viventibus.” “Phoca anatomice spectatus,” 1661. A sort of extract or abridgment of his writings on surgery was also published in 1664, with the title of “Synopseos Chtrurgicge Libri vi.” and so late as 1724, a new edition in 4to, of “De AUscessuum recondita natura.”

About 1754, Mr. Seward removed with his family to Liehfield, which continued ever afterwards to be his daughter’s residence, although varied, during her father’s life, by occasional visits to his rectory at Eyam. For the first ten years of Miss Seward’s residence here, she was^rather checked than encouraged in the cultivation of her poetical talents. Her mother possessed no taste for her daughter’s favourite amusements, and even her father withdrew his countenance from them, under the apprehension that his continued encouragement might produce in his daughter that dreaded phenomenon, a learned lady. Poetry was therefore prohibited, and Miss Seward resorted to other amusements, and to the practice of ornamental needlework, in which she is said to have excelled. When, however, she arrived at an age to select her own society and studies, her love of literature was indulged, and the sphere in which she moved was such as to increase her taste for its pursuits. Dr. Darwin, the enthusiast Mr. Day, Mr. Edgeworth, sir Brooke Bootbby, and other names, well known in the literary world, then formed part of the Lichfield society. Dr. Johnson was an occasional visitor in their circles, but not much of a favourite with Dr. Darwin or Miss Seward. He neither agreed with the one, nor flattered the other.

In the mean time Miss Seward’s poetical powers appear to have lain dormant, or to have been very sparingly exercised, until her acquaintance with lady Miller, whose fanciful and romantic institution at Bath Easton, was alternately the subject of public attention and of some degree of ridicule. Miss Seward, however, became a contributor to the vase, and the applause she received encouraged hec to commit some of her essays to the press, particularly her poems on major Andre and captain Cook, which were received hy the public with great favour, and certainly were calculated to couvey a very high impression of the original powers of their author, and procured her the admiration and correspondence of many of the most distinguished literary characters of that time.

After the publication of the “Sonnets,” Miss Seward did not undertake any large poem, yet she continued to pour forth her poeitcal effusions upon such occasions as interested her feelings, or excited her imagination. These efforts, however, were unequal to those of her earlier muse. Age was now approaching with its usual attendants, declining health, and the loss of friends. Yet her interest in literature and poetry continued unabated, and she maintained an unrelaxed correspondence, not only with her former friends, but with those later candidates for poetical distinction, whose exertions she approved of. For a year or two preceding 1807, Miss Seward had been occasionally engaged in arranging and preparing for the press the edition of her poems published after her death by Mr. Scott, and which she would probably have published herself, but her constitution, infirm for years, was now rapidly declining, and after nearly two years of much suffering from bodily complaints, she expired, March 25, 1809. To Waiter Scott, esq. she bequeathed her literary performances, and particularly the works she had so long intended for the press; and her “Letters” to Mr. Constable, the eminent bookseller of Edinburgh. In the same year, 18)0, these gentlemen executed the trust reposed in them; the latter, by an elegant publication of her “Letters,' 7 in 6 vols. and the former by a publication of her” Poems,“and some literary correspondence, in 3 vols. 8vo, with a biographical preface, written with Mr. Scott’s usual taste and acumen. The” Poems“will always remain a monument of Miss Seward’s talents, and place her in an honourable rank among the female candidates for literary honours. Her” Letters," however, are, in our opinion, less calculated to leave a favourable impression of her character. They may be justly considered as the annals of vanity and flattery, and in point of style exhibit every defect which bad taste could introduce.

Mr. Seward was in every respect a desirable acquaintance; he had travelled abroad with great improvement, and was known to most o/ those who had distinguished themselves by genius or learning, by natural or acquired endowments, or even by eccentricity of character; and he had stored his memory with anecdotes which made his conversation extremely entertaining. But though he wished to observe the manner of eminent or extraordinary men, he did not indiscriminately form friendships with them. He knew many, but was intimate with few. He was the friend of Dr. Johnson, bad conversed with Mr. Howard, and condescended to know Tom Paine. Party distinctions, appeared to have but little weight with him. He visited and received the visits of many whose opinions were directly opposite to each other, and equally to his own.

, an English poet and physician, was born at Windsor, where his father was treasurer and chapter-clerk of the college; received his education at Eton-school, and Peter-house, Cambridge; where having taken the degree of B. M. he went to Leyden, to study under Boerhaave, and on his return practised physic in the metropolis with reputation. In the latter part of his life he retired to Hampstead, where he pursued his profession with some degree of success, till three other physicians came to settle at the same place, when his practice so far declined as to yield him very little advantage. He kept no house, but was a boarder. He was much esteemed, and so frequently invited to the tables of gentlemen in the neighbourhood., that he had seldom occasion to dine at home. He died Feb. 8, 1726; and was supposed to be very indigent at the time of his death, as he was interred on the 12th of the same month in the meanest manner, his coffin being little better than those allotted by the parish to the poor who are buried from the workhouse; neither did a single friend or relation attend him to the grave. No memorial was placed over his remains; but they lie just under a hollow tree which formed a part of a hedge-row that was once the boundary of the church-yard. He was greatly esteemed for his amiable disposition; and is represented by some writers as a Tory in his political principles, but of this there is no other proof given than his writing some pamphlets against bishop Burnet. It is certain, that a true spirit of liberty breathes in many of his works; and he expresses, on many occasions, a warm attachment to the Hanover succession. Besides seven controversial pamphlets, he wrote, 1. “The Life of John Philips.” 2, “A vindication of the English Stage, exemplified in the Cato of Mr. Addison, 1716;” 3. “Sir Walter Raleigh, a tragedy, acted at Lincoln’s-inn-fields, 1719;” and part of another play, intended to be called “Richard the First,” the fragments of which were published in 1718, with “Two moral Essays on the Government of the Thoughts, and on Death,” and a collection of “Several poems published in his life-time^” Dr. Sewell was an occasional assistant to Harrison in the fifth volume of “The Tatler; was a, principal writer in the ninth volume of” The Spectator; and published a translation of “Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in opposition to the edition of Garth and an edition of Shakspeare’s Poems. Jacob and Gibber have enumerated a considerable number of his single poems; and in Mr. Nichols’s” Collection" are some valuable ones, unnoticed by these writers.

, an ancient Greek author, and most acute defender of the Pyrrhonian or sceptical philosophy, was a physician, and seems to have flourished under the reign of Cornmodus, or perhaps a little later. He was, against what has usually been imagined, a different person from Sextus, a Stoic philosopher of Cseronea, and nephew of Plutarch: but no particular circumstances of his life are recorded. Of a great many, that have perished, two works of his are still extant: three books of “Institutes of Pyrrhonism,” and ten books against the “Mathematics,” by whom he means all kinds of dogmatists. His works discover great erudition, and an extensive acquaintance with the ancient systems of philosophy; and, on this account chiefly, Brucker says, merit an attentive perusal. Henry Stephens first made, and then printed in 1592, 8vo, a Latin version from the Greek of the former of these works; and a version of the latter, by Hervetus, had been printed by Plantin in 1569. Both these versions were printed again with the Greek; which first appeared at Geneva in 1621, folio, but the best edition of Sextus Empiricus is that of John Albert Fabricius, in Greek and Latin, Leipsic, 1718, folio.

, duke of Somerset, and uncle to Edward VI. was eldest son of sir John Seymour of Wolfhall, in the county of Wilts, knt. by Elizabeth daughter of sir Henry Wentworth, of Nettlested in Suffolk. He was educated at the university of Oxford, whence returning to his father at court, when martial achievements were encouraged by Henry VIII. he joined the army, and accompanying the duke of Suffolk in his expedition to France in 1533, was knighted by him Nov. 1, of that year. Upon his sister’s marriage with the king in 1536, he had the tide of viscount Beauchamp bestowed upon him, in consequence of his descent from an heir female of that house; and in Oct. 1537 was created earl of Hertford. In 1540 he was sent to France to dispute the limits of the English borders, and on his return was elected knight of the garter. In 1542 he attended the duke of Norfolk in his expedition into Scotland, and the same year was made lord great chamberlain of England for life. In 154-4, being made lieutenant-general of the north, he embarked for Scotland with two hundred sail of ships, on account of the Scots refusing to marry their young queen to prince Edward; and landing in the Frith, took Leith and Edinburgh, and after plundering and burning them, marched by land into England. In August of the same year, he went to the assistance of the king at the siege of Boulogne, with several German and Flemish troops; and after taking it, defeated an army of 14,000 French, who lay encamped near it. By the will of Henry VIII. he was appointed one of the sixteen persons, who were to be his majesty’s executors, and governors of his son, till he should be eighteen years of age. Upon Edward’s accession to the crown, it was proposed in council, that one of the sixteen should be chosen, to whom the ambassadors should address themselves, and who should have the chief direction of affairs, though restrained from acting without the consent of the major part of the rest. The lord chancellor Wriothesly, who thought the precedence in secular affairs belonging to him by his office, opposed this strongly, and urged, that it was changing the king’s will, who had made them equal in power and dignity; and if any was raised above the rest in title, it would be impossible to keep him within just bounds, since greater titles made way for exorbitant power. But the earl of Hertford had so prepared his friends, that he was declared governor of the king’s person, and protector of the king*, dom, with this restriction, that he should not act without the advice and consent of the rest. In consequence of this measure, two distinct parties were formed; the one headed by the new protector, and the other by the chancellor; the favourers of the reformation declaring for the former, and the enemies of it for the latter. On Feb. 10, 1547-8, the protector was appointed lord treasurer, and the next day created duke of Somerset, and on the 17th of that month, had a grant of the office of earl marshal of England for life. On March 12th following, he had a patent for the office of protector and governor of the king and his realms. By this patent he had a negative in the council, but they had none on him; and he could either bring his own adherents into it, or select a cabinet-council out of it at pleasure; while the other executors,' having thus delivered up their authority to him, were only privy-counsellors like the rest, without retaining any authority peculiar to themselves, as was particularly provided by Hemy Vlllth’s will. In August 1548 the protector took a commission to be general, and to make war in Scotland, and accordingly entered that kingdom, and, on Sept. 10, gained a complete victory at Musselburgh, and on the 29th returned to England triumphantly, having, with the loss of but sixty men in the whole expedition, taken eighty pieces of cannon, bridled the two chief rivers of the kingdom by garrisons, and gained several strong places.

It may easily be imagined how much these successes raised his reputation in England, especially when it was remembered what great services he had done formerly against France so that the nation in general had vast expectations from his government but the breach between him and his brother, the lord high admiral of England, lost him the present advantages. The death of the admiral also, in March 1548, drew much censure on the protector; though others were of opinion that it was scarce possible for him to do more for the gaining his brother than he had done. In September 1549, a strong faction appeared against him, under the influence and direction of Wriothesly earl of Southampton, who hated him on account of losing the office of lord chancellor, and Dudley earl of Warwick, who expected to have the principal administration of affairs upon his removal; and other circumstances concurred to raise him enemies. His partiality to the commons provoked the gentry; his consenting to the execution of his brother, and his palace in the Strand, erected on the ruins of several churches and other religious buildings, in a time both of war and pestilence, disgusted the people, The clergy hated him, not only for promoting the changes in religion, but likewise for his enjoying so many of the best manors of the bishops; and his entertaining foreign troops, both German and Italian, though done by the consent of the council, gave general disgust. The privy counsellors complained of his being arbitrary in his proceedings, and of many other offences, which exasperated the whole body of them against him, except archbishop Cranmer, sir William Paget, and sir Thomas Smith, secretary of state. The first discovery of their designs induced him to remove the king to Hampton Ctuirt, and then to Windsor; but finding the party against him too formidable to oppose, he submitted to the council, and on the 14th of October was committed to the Tower, and in January following was fined in the sum of two thousand pounds a year, with thg loss of all his offices and goods. However, on the 16th of February, 1549-50, he obtained a full pardon, and so managed his interest with the king, that he was brought both to the court and council in April following: and to confirm the reconciliation between him and the earl of Warwick, the duke’s daughter was married, on the 3d of June, 1550, to the lord viscount Lisle, the earl’s son. But this friendship did not continue long; for in October 1551, the earl, now created duke of Northumberland, caused the duke of Somerset to be sent to the Tower, alledging^ that the latter had formed a design of raising the people; and that when himself, and the marquis of Northampton^ and the earl of Pembroke, had been invited to dine at the lord Paget’s, Somerset determined to have set upon them by the way, or to have killed them at dinner; with other particulars of that kind, which were related to the king in so aggravated a manner, that he was entirely alienated from his uncle. On the first of December the duke was brought to his trial, and though acquitted of treason, was found guilty of felony in intending to imprison the duke of Northumberland. He was beheaded on Tower-hill on the 22d of January, 1551-2, and died with great serenity. It was generally believed, that the conspiracy, for which he suffered, was a mere forgery; and indeed the not bringing the witnesses into the court, but only the depositions, and the parties themselves sitting as judges, gave great occasion to condemn the proceedings against him. Besides, his four friends, who were executed for the same cause, ended their lives with the most solemn protestations of their innocence.

He was a person of great virtues; eminent for his piety courteous, and affable in his greatness sincere and candid in all his transactions a patron of the poor and oppressed; but a better general than a counsellor. He had, however, a tincture of vanity, and a fondness for his own notions; and being a man of no extraordinary parts, was too much at the disposal of those who by flattery and submission insinuated themselves into his esteem and confidence. He made likewise too great haste to raise a vast estate to be altogether innocent. But to balance these defects, he was never charged with personal disofders, nor guilty of falsehood, of perverting justice, of cruelty, or oppression. Lord Orford remarks that his contributing to the ruin of the Howards hurt him much in the eves of the nation: his severity to his own brother, though a vain and worthless man, was still less excusable; but having fallen by the policy of a man more artful, more ambitious, and much less virtuous than himself, he died lamented by the people.

, was a considerable dealer in wool, and had been an officer and bailiff (probably high-bailiff or mayor) of the body corporate of Stratford. He held also the office of justice of the peace, and at one time, it is said, possessed lands and tenements to the amount of 500l. the reward of his grandfather’s faithful and approved services to king Henry VII. This, however, has been asserted upon very doubtful authority. Mr. Malone thinks ft it is highly probable that he distinguished himself in Bosworth field on the side of king Henry, and that he was rewarded for his military services by the bounty of that parsimonious prince, though not with a grant of lands. No such grant appears in the chapel of the Rolls, from the beginning to the end of Henry’s reign.“But whatever may have been his former wealth, it appears to have been” greatly reduced in the latter part of his life, as we find, from the books of the corporation, that in 1579 he was excused the trifling weekly tax of four-pence levied on all the aldermen; and that in 1586 another alderman was appointed in his room, in consequence of his declining to attend on the business of that office. It is even said by Aubrey, a man sufficiently accurate in facts, although credulous in superstitious narratives and traditions, that he followed for some time the occupation of a butcher, which Mr. Malone thinks not inconsistent with probability. It must have been, however, at this time, no inconsiderable addition to his difficulties that he had a family of ten children. His wife was the daughter and heiress of Robert Arden, of Wellingcote, in the county of Warwick, who is styled “a gentleman of worship.” The family of Arden is very ancient, Robert Arden of Bromich, esq. being in the list of the gentry of this county returned by the commissioners in the twelfth year of king Henry VI. A. D. 1433. Edward Arden was sheriff of the county in 1568. The woodland part of this county was anciently called Ardern, afterwards softened to Arden; and hence the name. Our illustrious poet was the eldest son, and received his early education, whether narrow or liberal, at a free school, probably that founded at Stratford; but from this he appears to have been soon removed, and placed, according to Mr. Malone’s opinion, in the office of some country attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court, where it is highly probable he picked up those technical law phrases that so frequently occur in his plays, and could not have been in common use unless among professional men. Mr. Capell conjectures that his early marriage prevented his being sent to some university. It appears, however, as Dr. Farmer observes, that his early life was incompatible with a course of education, and it is certain that “his contemporaries, friends and foes, nay, and himself likewise, agree in his want of what is usually termed literature.” It is, indeed, a strong argument in favour of Shakspeare’s illiterature, that it was maintained by all his contemporaries, many of whom have left upon record every merit they could bestow on him and by his successors, who lived nearest to his time, when “his memory was green” and that it has been denied only by Gildon, Sewell, and others down to Upton, who could have no means of ascertaining the truth.

In his eighteenth year, or perhaps a little sooner, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than himself, the daughter of one Hathaway, who is said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. Of his domestic ceconomy, or professional occupation at this time, we have no information; but it would appear that both were in a considerable degree neglected by his associating with a gang of deer-stealers. Being detected with them in robbing the park of sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford, he was so rigorously prosecuted by that gentleman as to be obliged to leave his family and business, and take shelter in London. Sir Thomas, on this occasion, is said to have been exasperated by a ballad Shakspeare wrote, probably his first essay in poetry, of which the following stanza was communicated to Mr. Oldys.

On his arrival in London, which was probably in 1586, when he was twenty -two years old, he is said to have made his first acquaintance in the play-house, to which idleness or taste may have directed him, and where his necessities, if tradition may be credited, obliged him to accept the office of call-boy, or prompter’s attendant. This is a menial, whose employment it is to give the performers notice to be ready to enter, as often as the business of the play requires their appearance on the stage. Pope, however, relates a story, communicated to him by Rowe, but which Rowe did not think deserving of a place in the life he wrote, that must a little retard the advancement of our poet to the office just mentioned. According to this story, Shakspeare’s first employment was to wait at the door of the play-house, and hold the horses of those who had no servants, that they might be ready after the performance. But “I cannot,” says his acute commentator, Mr. Steevens, “dismiss this anecdote without observing, that it seems to want every mark of probability. Though Shakspeare quitted Stratford on account of a juvenile irregularity, we have no reason to suppose that he had forfeited the protection of his father, who was engaged in a lucrative business 3 or the love of his wife, who had already brought him two children, and was herself the daughter of a substantial yeoman. It is unlikely, therefore, when he was beyond the reach of his prosecutor, that he should conceal his plan of life, or place of residence, from those who, if he found himself distressed, could not fail to afford him such supplies as would have set him above the necessity of holding horses for subsistence. Mr. Malone has remarked in his ‘Attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays of Shakspeare were written,’ that he might have found an easy introduction to the stage; for Thomas Green, a celebrated comedian of that period, was his townsman, and perhaps his relation. The genius of our author prompted him to write poetry; his connexion with a player might have given his productions a dramatic turn; or his own sagacity might have taught him that fame was not incompatible with profit, and that the theatre was an avenue to both. That it was once the general custom to ride on horse-back to the play, I am likewise yet to learn. The most popular of the theatres were on the Bank-side; and we are told by the satirical pamphleteers of that time, that the usual mode of conveyance to these places of amusement was by water, but not a single writer so much as hints at the custom of riding to them, or at the practice of having horses held during the hours of exhibition. Some allusion to this usage (if it had existed) must, I think, have been discovered in the course of our researches after contemporary fashions. Let it be remembered too, that we receive this tale on no higher authority than that of Gibber’s Lives of the Poets, vol. I. p. 130. Sir Win. Davenant told it to Mr. Betterton, who communicated it to Mr. Howe, who, according to Dr. Johnson, related it to Mr. Pope.” Mr. Malone concurs in opinion that this story stands on a very slender foundation, while he differs from Mr. Steevens as to the fact of gentlemen going to the theatre on horseback. With respect likewise to Shakspeare’s father being “engaged in a lucrative business,” we may remark, that this could not have been the case at the time our author came to London, if the preceding dates be correct. He is said to have arrived in London in 1586, the year in which his father resigned the office of alderman, unless, indeed, we are permitted to conjecture that his resignation was not the consequence of his necessities.

How long he acted has not been discovered, but he continued to write till the year 1614. During his dramatic career he acquired a property in the theatre , which he must have disposed of when he retired, as no mention of it occurs in his will. His connexion with Ben Jonson has been variously related. It is said, that when Jonson was unknown to the world, he offered a play to the theatre, which was rejected after a very careless perusal; but that Shakspeare having accidentally cast his eye on it, conceived a favourable opinion of it, and afterwards recommended Jonson and his writings to the public. For this candour he was repaid by Jonson, when the latter became a poet of note, with an envious disrespect. Jonson acquired reputation by the variety of his pieces, and endeavoured to arrogate the supremacy in dramatic genius. Like a French critic, he insinuated Shakspeare’s incorrectness, his careless manner of writing, and his want of judgment; and as he was a remarkably slow writer himself, he could not endure the praise frequently bestowed on Shakspeare, of seldom altering or blotting out what he had written. Mr. Malone says, that “not long after the year 1600, a coolness arose between Shakspeare and him, which, however he may talk of his almost idolatrous affection, produced on his part, from that time to the death of our author, and for many years afterwards, much clumsy sarcasm, and many malevolent reflections.” But from these, which are the commonly received opinions on this subject, Dr. Farmer is inclined to depart, and to think Jonson’s hostility to Shakspeare absolutely groundless; so uncertain is every circumstance we attempt to recover of our great poet’s life . Jonson had only one advantage over Shakspeare, that of superior learning, which might in certain situations be of some importance, but could never promote his rivalship with a man who attained the highest excellence without it. Nor will Shakspeare suffer by its being known that all the dramatic poets before he appeared were scholars. Greene, Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, Nashe, Lily, and Kyd, had all, says Mr. Malone, a regular university education, and, as scholars in our universities, frequently composed and acted plays on historical subjects .

During Shakspeare’s abode in this house, his pleasureable wit and good-nature, says Mr. Rowe, engaged him the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friend hip of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Among these Mr. Rowe tells a traditional story of a miser, or usurer, named Combe, who, in conversation with Shakspeare, said he fancied the poet intended to write his epitaph if he should survive him, and desired to know what he meant to say. On this Shakspeare gave him the following, probably extempore

‘ Oh ho’ quoth the devil, ‘tis my John-a-CombeY’ The sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely that he never forgave it. These lines, however, or some which nearly resemble them, appeared in various collections both before and after the time they were said to have been composed; and the inquiries of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone satisfactorily prove that the whole story is a fabrication. Betterton is said to have heard it when he visited Warwickshire, on purpose to collect anecdotes of our poet, and probably thought it of too much importance to be nicely examined. We know not whether it be worth adding of a story which we have rejected, that a usurer in Shakspeare’s time did not mean one who took exorbitant, but any interest or usance for money, and that ten in the hundred, or ten per cent, was then the ordinary interest of money. It is of more consequence, however, to record the opinion of Mr. Malone, that Shakspeare, during his retirement, wrote the play of “Twelfth Night.”

“If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown inn or tavern in Oxford, in his journey to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit, and her husband, Mr. John Davenant, (afterwards mayor of that city) a grave melancholy man; xvho, as well as his wife, used much to delight in Shaks^ peare’s pleasant company. Their son, young Will. Davenant, (afterwards sir William) was then a little school-boy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would fly from school to see him. One day an old townsman observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered to see his god-father Shakspeare. `There’s a good boy,‘ said the other, ’but have a care that you don‘t take God’s name in vain.’ This story Mr. Pope told me at the earl of Oxford’s table, upon occasion of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare’s monument then newly erected in Westminster abbey.”

In the year 1741, a monument was erected to our poet in Westminster Abbey, by the direction of the earl of Burlington, Dr. Mead, Mr. Pope, and Mr. Martyn. It was the work of Scheemaker (who received 300l. for it), after a design of Kent, and was opened in January of that year. The performers of each of the London theatres gave a benefit to defray the expences, and the Dean and Chapter of Westminster took nothing for the ground. The money received by the performers at Drury-Iane theatre amounted to above 200l. but the receipts at Covent-garden did not exceed 100l. From these imperfect notices, which are all we have been able to collect from the labours of his biographers* and commentators, our readers will perceive that less is known of Shakspeare than of almost any writer who has been considered as an object of laudable curiosity. Nothing could be more highly gratifying than an account of the early studies of this wonderful man, the progress of his pen, his moral and social qualities, his friendships, his failings, and whatever else constitutes personal history. But on all these topics his contemporaries and his immediate successors have been equally silent, and if aught can hereafter be discovered, it must be by exploring sources which have hitherto escaped the anxious researches of those who have devoted their whole lives, and their most vigorous talents, to revive his memory and illustrate his writings. In the sketch. we have given, if the dates of his birth and death be excepted, what is there on which the reader can depend, or for which, if he contend eagerly, he may not be involved in controversy, and perplexed with contradictory opinions and authorities

It is usually said that the life of an author can be little else than a history of his works; but this opinion is liable to many exceptions. If an author, indeed, has passed his days in retirement, his life can afford little more variety than that of any other man who has lived in retirement; but if, as is generally the case with writers of great celebrity, he has acquired a pre-eminence over his contemporaries, if he has excited rival contentions, and defeated the attacks of criticism or of malignity, or if he has plunged into the controversies of his age, and performed the part cither of a tyrant or a hero in literature, his history may be rendered as interesting as that of any other public character. But whatever weight may be allowed to this remark, the decision will not be of much consequence in the case of Shakspeare. Unfortunately we know as little of the progress of his writings, as of his personal history. The industry of his illustrators for the last thirty years has been such as probably never was surpassed in the annals of literary investigation, yet so far are we from information of the conclusive or satisfactory kind, that even the order in which his plays were written, rests principally on conjecture, and of some plays usually printed among his works, it is not yet determined whether he wrote the whole, or any part. Much of our ignorance of every thing which it would be desirable to know respecting Shakspeare’s works, must be imputed to the author himself. If we look merely at the state in which he left his productions, we should be apt to conclude, either that he was insensible of their value, or that while he was the greatest, he was at the same time the humblest writer the world ever produced; “that he thought his works unworthy of posterity, that he levied no ideal tribute upon future times, nor had any further prospect, than that of present popularity and present profit.” And such an opinion, although it apparently partakes of the ease and looseness of conjecture, may not be far from probability. But before we allow it any higher merit, or attempt to decide upon the affection or neglect with which he reviewed his labours, it may be necessary to consider their precise nature, and certain circumstances in his situation which affected them; and, above all, we must take into our account the character and predominant occupations of the times in which he lived, and of those which followed his decease.

With respect to himself, it does not appear that he printed any one of his plays, and only eleven of them were printed in his life-time. The reason assigned for this is, that he wrote them for a particular theatre, sold them to the managers when only an actor, reserved them in manuscript when himself a manager, and when he disposed of his property in the theatre, they were still preserved in manuscript to prevent their being acted by the rival houses. Copies of some of them appear to have been surreptitiously obtained, and published in a very incorrect state, but we may suppose that it was wiser in the author or managers to overlook this fraud, than to publish a correct edition, and so destroy the exclusive property they enjoyed. It is clear, therefore, that any publication of his plays by himself would have interfered, at first with his own interest, and afterwards with the interest of those to whom he had made over his share in them. But even had this obstacle been removed, we are not sure that he would have gained much by publication. If he had no other copies but those belonging to the theatre, the business of correction for the press must have been a toil which we are afraid the taste of the public at that time would have poorly rewarded. We know not the exact portion of fame he enjoyed; it was probably the highest which dramatic genius could confer, but dramatic genius was a new excellence, and not well understood. Its claims were probably not heard out of the jurisdiction of the master of the revels, certainly not beyond the metropolis. Yet such was Shakspeare’s reputation, that we are tolcl his name was put to pieces which he never wrote, and that he felt himself too confident in popular favour to undeceive the public. This was singular resolution in a man who wrote so unequally, that. at this day the test of internal evidence must be applied to his doubtful productions with the greatest caution. But still, how far his character would have been elevated by an examination of his plays in the closet, in an age when the refinements of criticism were not understood, and the sympathies of taste were seldom felt, may admit of a question. “His language,” says Dr. Johnson, “not being designed for the readers desk, was all that he desired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the audience.”

Shakspeare died in 1616, and seven years afterwards appeared the first edition of his plays, published at the charges of four booksellers, a circumstance from which Mr. Malone infers, “that no single publisher was at that time willing to risk his money on a complete collection of our author’s plays.” This edition was printed from the copies in the hands of his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell, which had been in a series of years frequently altered through convenience, caprice, or ignorance. Heminge and Condell had now retired from the stage, and, we may suppose, were guilty of no injury to their successors, in printing what their own interest only had formerly withheld. Of this, although we have no documents amounting t^ demonstration, we may be convinced, by adverting to a circumstance which will, in our days, appear very extraordinary, namely, the declension of Shakspeare’s popularity. We have seen that the publication of his works was accounted a doubtful speculation, and it is yet more certain that so much had the public taste turned from him in quest of variety, that for several years after his death the plays of Fletcher were more frequently acted than his, and during the whole of the seventeenth century, they were made to give place to performances, the greater part of which cannot now be endured. During the same period only four editions of his works were published, all in folio; and perhaps this unwieldy size of volume may be an additional proof that they were not popular; nor is it thought that the impressions were numerous. These circumstances which attach to our author and to his works, must be allowed a plausible weight in accounting for onr deficiencies in his biography and literary career; but there were circumstances enough in the history of the times to suspend the progress of that more regular drama, of which he had set the example, and may be considered as the founder. If we wonder why we know so much less of Shakspeare than of his contemporaries, let us recollect that his genius, however highly and justly we now rate it, took a direction which was not calculated for permanent admiration, either in the age in which he lived, or in that which followed. Shakspeare was a writer of plays, a promoter of an amusement just emerging from barbarism; and an amusement which, although it has been classed among the schools of morality, has ever had such a strong tendency to deviate from moral purposes, that the force of law has in all ages been called in to preserve it within the bounds of common decency. The church has ever been unfriendly to the stage. A part of the injunctions of queen Elizabeth is particularly directed against the printing of plays; and, according to an entry in the books of the Stationers’ Company, in the 4 1 st year of her reign, it is ordered that no plays be printed, except allowed by persons in authority. Dr. Farmer also remarks, that in that age, poetry and novels were destroyed publicly by the bishops, and privately by the puritans. The main transactions, indeed, of that period could not admit of much attention to matters of amusement. The reformation required all the circumspection and policy of a long reign to render it so firmly established in popular favour as to brave the caprice of any succeeding sovereign. This was effected in a great measure by the diffusion of religious controversy, which was encouraged by the church, and especially by the puritans, who were the immediate teachers of the lower classes, were listened to with veneration, and usually inveighed against all public amusements, as inconsistent with the Christian profession. These controversies continued during the reign of James I. and were in a considerable degree promoted by him, although he, like Elizabeth, was a favourer of the stage as an appemiage to the grandeur and pleasures of the court. But the commotions which followed in the unhappy reign of Charles I. when the stage was totally abolished, are sufficient to account for the oblivion thrown on the history and works of our great bard. From this time no inquiry was made, until it was too late to obtain any information more satisfactory than the few hearsay scraps and contested traditions above detailed. “How little,” says Mr. Steevens, “Shakspeare was once read, may be understood from Tate, who, in his dedication to the altered play of king Lear, speaks of the original as an obscure piece, recommended to his notice by a friend; and the author of the Tatler having occasion to quote a few lines out of Macbeth, was con^ tent to receive them from D'Avenant’s alteration of that celebrated drama, in which almost every original beauty is either aukwardly disguised, or arbitrarily omitted.”

In fifty years after his death, Dry den mentions that he was then become “a little obsolete.” In the beginning of the last century, Lord Shaftesbury complains of his “rude unpolished style, and his antiquated phrase and wit.” It is certain that for nearly an hundred years after his death, partly owing to the immediate revolution and rebellion, and partly to the licentious taste encouraged in Charles I I.'s time, and perhaps partly to the Incorrect state of his works, he was almost entirely neglected. -Mr. Malone has justly remarked, that “if he had been read, admired, studied, and imitated, in the same degree as he is now, the enthusiasm of some one or other of his admirers in the last age would have induced him to make some inquiries concerning the history of his theatrical career, and the anecdotes of his private life.”

His admirers, however, if he had admirers in that age, possessed no portion of such enthusiasm. That curiosity which in our days has raised biography to the rank of an independent study, was scarcely known, and where known, confined principally to the public transactions of eminent characters. And if, in addition to the circumstances already stated, we consider how little is known of the personal history of Shakspeare’s contemporaries, we may easily resolve the question why, of all men who have ever claimed admiration by genius, wisdom, or valour, who have eminently contributed to enlarge the taste, or increase the reputation of their country, we know the least of Shakspeare; and why, of the few particulars which seem entitled to credit, when simply related, and in which there is no manifest violation of probability, or promise of importance, there is scarcely one which has not swelled into a controversy. After a careful examination of all that modern research has discovered, we know not how to trust our curiosity beyond the limits of those barren dates which afford no personal history. The nature of Shakspeare’s writings prevents that appeal to internal evidence which in other cases has been found to throw light on character. The purity of his morals, for example, if sought in his plays, must be measured against the licentiousness of his language, and the question will then be, how much did he write from conviction, and how much to gratify the taste of his hearers How much did he add to the age, and how much did he borrow from it Pope says, “he was obliged to please the lowest of the people, and to keep the worst of company;” and Pope might have said more, for although we hope' it was not true, we have no means of proving that it was false.

Mr. Capell is of opinion that he wrote some prose works, because “it can hardly be supposed that he, who had so considerable a share in the confidence of the earls of Essex and Southampton, could be a mute spectator only of controversies in which they were so much interested.” This editor, however, appears to have taken for granted a degree of confidence with these two statesmen, which he ought first to have proved. Shakspeare might have enjoyed the confidence of their social hours, but it is mere conjecture that they admitted him into the confidence of their state affairs. Mr. Malone, whose opinions are entitled to a higher degree of credit, thinks that his prose compositions, if they should be discovered, would exhibit the same perspicuity, the same cadence, the same elegance and vigour, which we find in his plays. It is unfortunate, however, for all wishes and all conjectures, that not a line of Shakspeare' s manuscript is known to exist, and his prose writings are nowhere hinted at. We have only printed copies of his plays and poems, and those so depraved by carelessness or ignorance, that all the labour of all his commentators has not yet been able to restore them to a probable purity. Many of the greatest difficulties attending the perusal of them yet remain, and will require, what it is scarcely possible to expect, greater sagacity and more happy conjecture than have hitherto been employed.

Of his poems, it is perhaps necessary that some notice should be taken, although they have never been favourites with the public, and have seldom been reprinted with his plays. Shortly after his death, Mr. Malone informs us, a very incorrect impression of them was issued out, which in every subsequent edition was implicitly followed, until he published a correct edition in 1780, with illustrations, &c. But the peremptory decision of Mr. Steevens on the merits of these poems must not be omitted. “We have not reprinted the Sonnets, &c. of Shakspeare, because the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service. Had Shakspeare produced no other works than these, his name would have reached us with as little celebrity as time has conferred on that of Thomas Watson, an older and much more elegant sonneteer.” Severe as this may appear, it only amounts to the general conclusion which modern critics have formed. Still it cannot be denied that there are many scattered beauties among his Sonnets, and although they are now lost in the blaze of his dramatic genius, Mr. Malone remarks that they seem to have gained him more reputation than his plays; at least, they are oftener mentioned or alluded to.

When public opinion had begun to assign to Shakspeare the very high rank he was destined to hold, he became the promising object of fraud and imposture. This, we have already observed, he did not wholly escape in his own time, and he had the spirit or policy to despise it. It was reserved for modern impostors, however, to avail themselves of the obscurity in which his history is involved. In 1751 a book was published, entitled “A Compendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary Complaints of diuers of our Countrymen in those our days; which, although they are in some parte unjust and frivolous, yet are they all by way of dialogue, throughly debated and discussed by William Shakspeare, gentleman.” This had been originally published in 1581, but Dr. Farmer has clearly proved that W. S. gent, the only authority for attributing it to Shakspeare in the reprinted edition, meant William Stafford, gent. Theobald, the same accurate critic informs us, was desirous of palming upon the world a play called “Double Falsehood,” for a posthumous one of Shakspeare. In 1770 was reprinted at Feversham, an old play, called “The Tragedy of Arden of Feversham and Black Will,” with a preface attributing it to Shakspeare, without the smallest foundation. But these were trifles compared to the -atrocious attempt made in 1795-6, when, besides a vast mass of prose and verse, letters, &c. pretendedly in the hand-writing of Shakspeare and his correspondents, an entire play, entitled “Vortigern,” was not only brought forward for the astonishment of the admirers of Shakspeare, but actually performed on Drurylane stage. It would be unnecessary to expatiate on the merits of this play, which Mr. Steevens has very happily characterized as “the performance of a madman without a lucid interval,” or to enter more at large into the nature of a fraud so recent, and so soon acknowledged by the authors of it. It produced, however, an interesting controversy between Mr. Malone and Mr. George Chalmers, which, although mixed with some unpleasant asperities, was extended to inquiries into the history and antiquities of the stage, from which future critics and historians may derive considerable information.

, an eminent mathematician, mechanist, and astronomer, was descended from an ancient family at Little-Horton, near Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he was born about 1651. He was at first apprenticed to a merchant at Manchester, but his inclination and genius being decidedly for mathematics, he obtained a release from his master, and removed to Liverpool, where be gave himself up wholly to the study of mathematics, astronomy, &c. and for a subsistence, opened a school, and taught writing and accounts, &c. Before he had been long at Liverpool, he accidentally met with a merchant or tradesman visiting that town from London, in whose house the astronomer Mr. Flamsteed then lodged; and such was Sharp’s enthusiasm for his favourite studies, that with the view of becoming acquainted with this emiment man, he engaged himself to the merchant as a bookkeeper. Having been thus introduced, he acquired the friendship of Mr. Flamsteed, who obtained for him a profitable employment in the dock-yard at Chatham. In this he continued till his friend and patron, knowing his great merit in astronomy and mechanics, called him to his assistance, in completing the astronomical apparatus in the royal observatory at Greenwich, which had been built about the year 1676.

In this situation he continued to assist Mr. Flamsteed in making observations (with the mural arch, of 80 inches radius, and 140 degrees on the limb, contrived and graduated by Mr. Sharp) on the meridional zenith distances of the fixed stars, sun, moon, and planets, with the times of their transits over the meridian; also the diameters of the sun and moon, and their eclipses, with those of Jupiter’s satellites, the variation of the compass, &c. He assisted him also in making a catalogue of near 3000 fixed stars, as to their longitudes and magnitudes, their right ascensions and polar distances, with the variations of the same while they change their longitude by one degree. But from the fatigue of continually observing the stars ac night, in a cold thin air, joined to a weakly constitution, he was reduced to a bad state of health for the recovery of which he desired leave to retire to his house at Horton where, as soon as he began to recover, he fitted up an observatory of his own; having first made an elegant and curious engine for turning all kinds of work in wood" or brass, with a maundrii for turning irregular figures, as ovals, roses, wreathed pillars, &c. Beside these, he made himself most of the tools used by joiners, clockmakers, opticians, mathematical instrument-makers, &c. The limbs or arcs of his large equatorial instrument, sextant, quadrant, &c. he graduated with the nicest accuracy, by diagonal divisions into degrees and minutes. The telescopes he made use of were all of his own making, and the lenses ground, figured, and adjusted with his own hands.

The mathematician meets with something extraordinary in Sharp’s elaborate treatise of “Geometry Improved,” (1717, 4to, signed A. S. Philomath.) 1st, by a large and accurate table of segments of circles, its construction and various uses in the solution of several difficult problems, with compendious tables for finding a true proportional part; and their use in these or any other tables exemplified in making logarithms’, or their natural numbers, to 60 places of figures; there being a table of them for all primes to 1100, true to 61 figures. 2d. His concise treatise of Polyedra, or solid bodies of many bases, both the regular ones and others: to which are added twelve new ones, with various methods of forming them, and their exact dimensions in surds, or species, and in numbers: illustrated with a variety of copper-plates, neatly engraved with his own hands. Also the models of these polyedra he cut out in box- wood with amazing neatness and accuracy. Indeed few or none of the mathematical instrument-makers could exceed him in exactly graduating or neatly engraving any mathematical or astronomical instrument, as may be seen in the equatorial instrument above mentioned, or in his sextant, quadrants and dials of various sorts; also in a curious armillary sphere, which, beside the common properties, has moveable circles, c. for exhibiting and resolving all spherical triangles; also his double sector, with many other instruments, all contrived, graduated, and finished, in a most elegant manner, by himself. In short, he possessed at once a remarkably clear head for contriving, and an extraordinary hand for executing, any thing, not only in mechanics, but likewise in drawing, writing, and making the most exact and beautiful schemes or figures in all his calculations and geometrical constructions. The quadrature of the circle was undertaken by him for his own private amusement, in 1699, deduced from two different series, by which the truth of it was proved to 72 places of figures as may be seen in the introduction to S'herwin’s tables of logarithms and in Sherwin may also be seen his ingenious improvements on the making of logarithms, and the constructing of the natural sines, tangents, and secants. He calculated the natural and logarithmic sines, tangents, and secants, to every second in the first minute of the quadrant: the laborious investigation of which may probably be seen in the archives of the Royal Society, as they were presented to Mr. Patrick Murdoch for that purpose; exhibiting his very neat and accurate manner of writing and arranging his figures, not to be equalled perhaps by the best penman now living.

“This celebrated instrument, of which he also gives the figure at the end of the prolegomena, was of the radius of 6 feet 7| inches; and, in like manner as the sextant, was furnished both with screw and diagonal divisions, all performed by the accurate hand of Mr. Sharp. But yet, whoever compares the different parts of the table for conversion of the revolutions and parts of the screw belonging to the mural arc into degrees, minutes, and seconds, with each other, at the same distance from the zenith on different sides; and with their halves, quarters, &c. will find as notable a disagreement of the screw-work from the hand divisions, as had appeared before in the work of Mr. Tompion: and hence we may conclude, that the method of Dr. Hook, being executed by two such masterly hands as Tompion and Sharp, and found defective, is in reality not to be depended upon in nice matters. ”From the account of Mr. Flamsteed it appears also, that Mr. Sharp obtained the zenith point of the instrument, or line of collimation, by observation of the zenith stars, with the face of the instrument on the east and on the west side of the wall: and that having made the index stronger (to prevent flexure) than that of the sextant, and thereby heavier, he contrived, by means of pulleys and balancing weights, to relieve the hand that was to move it from a great part of its gravity. Mr. Sharp continued in strict correspondence with Mr. Fiamsteed as long as he lived, as appeared by letters of Mr. Flamsteed’s found after Mr. Sharp’s death; many of which I have seen.

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

Mr. Sharp continued all his life a bachelor, and spent his time as recluse as a hermit. He was of a middle stature, but very thin, being of a weakly constitution; he was remarkably feeble the last three or four years before he died, which was on the 18th of July, 1742, in the ninety-first year of his age.

In his retirement at Little Horton, he employed four or five rooms or apartments in his house for different purposes, into which none of his family, could possibly enter at any time without his permission. He was seldom visited by any persons, except two gentlemen of Bradford, the one a mathematician, and the other an ingenious apothecary: these were admitted, when he chose to be seen by them, by the signal of rubbing a stone against a certain part of the outside wall of the house. He duly attended the dissenting chapel at Bradford, of which he was a member, every Sunday; at which time he took care to be provided with plenty of halfpence, which he very charitably suffered to be taken singly out of his hand, held behind him during his walk to the chapel, by a number of poor people who followed him, without his ever looking back, or asking a single question.

Mr. Sharp was very irregular as to his meals, and remarkably sparing in his diet, which he frequently took in the following manner: A little square hole, something like a window, made a communication between the room where he was usually employed in calculations, and another chamber or room in the house where a servant could enter; and before this hole he had contrived a sliding board: the servant always placed his victuals in this hole, without speaking or making any the least noise; and when he had a little leisure he visited his cupboard to see what it afforded to satisfy his hunger or thirst. But it often happened, that the breakfast, dinner, and supper, have remained untouched by him, when the servant has gone to remove what was left so deeply engaged had he been in calculations. Cavities might easily be perceived in an old English oak table where he sat to write, by the frequent rubbing and wearing of his elbows. By his epitaph it appears that he was related to archbishop Sharp, but in what degree is not mentioned. It is certain he was born in the same place. One of his nephews was the father of Mr. Ramsden the celebrated instrument-maker, who said that this his granduncle was for some time in his younger days an exciseman, but quitted that occupation on coming to a patrimonial estate of about 200l. a year. Mr. Thoresby, who often mentions him, had a declining dial for his library window, made by Sharp.

, archbishop of St. Andrew’s, and the third prelate of that see who suffered from popular or private revenge, was born of a good family in Banffshire in 1618. In his youth he displayed such a capacity as determined his father to dedicate him to the church, and to send him to the university of Aberdeen, whence, on account of the Scottish covenant, made in 1638, he retired into England, and was in a fair way of obtaining promotion from his acquaintance with doctors Sanderson, Hammond, Taylor, and other of our most eminent divines, when he was obliged to return to his native country on account of the rebellion, and a bad state of health. Happening by the way to fall into company with lord Oxenford, that nobleman was pleased with his conversation, and carried him to his own house in the country. Here he became known to several of the nobility, particularly to John Lesley, earl of Rothes, who patronized him on account of his merit, and procured him a professorship in St. Andrew’s. After some stay here with growing reputation, through the friendship of the earl of Cranford, he was appointed minister of Crail. In this town he acquitted himself of his ministry in an exemplary and acceptable manner; only some of the more rigid sort would sometimes intimate their fears that he was not sound; and it is very certain that he was not sincere.

About this time the covenanting presbyterians in Scotland split into two parties. The spirit raged with great violence; and the privy-council established in that country could not restrain it, and therefore referred them to Cromwell himself, then protector. These parties were called public resolutioners, and protestators or remonstrators. They sent deputies up to London the former, Mr. Sharp, knowing his activity, address, and penetration the latter, Mr. Guthrie, a noted adherent to the covenant. A day being appointed for hearing the two agents, Guthrie spoke first, and spoke so long that, when he ended, the protector told Sharp, he would hear him another time; for his hour ior other business was approaching. But Sharp begged to be heard, promising to be short; and, being permitted to speak, in a few words urged his cause so well as to incline Oliver to his party. Having succeeded in this important affair, he returned to the exercise of his function; and always kept a good understanding with the chief of the opposite party that were most eminent for worth and learning. When general Monk advanced to London, the chief of the kirk sent Sharp to attend him, to acquaint him with the state of things, and to put him in mind of what was necessary; instructing him to use his utmost endeavours to secure the freedom and privileges of their established judicatures; and to represent the sinfulness and offensiveness of the late established toleration, by which a door was opened to many gross errors and loose practices in their church.

Dr. Sharp did not remain long in disgrace. In January 1686-7, he received information from lord Sunderland that he was restored, and might return to his parochial charge. From the time of his suspension, till this welcome news arrived, a guard or sentinel is said to have attended hi* lodgings. In Aug. 1688, he was summoned with the other archdeacons, before the ecclesiastical commission, for disobeying the king’s orders in respect to the “Declaration for liberty of conscience.” But they agreed not to appear before that court, and Dr. Sharp drew up the reasons of their refusal.

The character of Sharp, says Mr. Todd, whose accurate and well-arranged memoir we have followed, affords one of the best examples that can challenge imitation, whether he is considered as a man, as a scholar, as a divine, or as a diocesan. His amiable disposition and unshaken integrity, his distinguished learning and extensive charity, will transmil his name to latest ages, as one of the greatest ornaments of this country. He was that faithful and vigilant governor, who promoted the diligent clergy of his own diocese to the dignities in his cathedral: who conferred, indeed, on the deserving whatever was in his own gift, without the least regard to political opinions and partv interest; who enforced the laudable injunction of residence to the prebendaries of York, Southwell, and Rippon: who, in all respects, promoted by true discipline the decency of the church, as “by sound doctrine he exhorted and convinced the gainsayers.”

His “Sermons,” which are collected into 7 vols. 8vo, have always been admired, as written with clearness, and they were delivered with grace and justness. It was observed of Tillotson and Sharp, that the two metropolitical sees were filled by the t two best preachers of their time. In the management of controversy he was calm and candid, and scorned to calumniate or misrepresent the subjects of dispute. He was wont to say of himself, “That in his sermons against the papists he had always dealt honestly and fairly with them, chargiBg them with nothing but what their church openly avowed in her creed, and councils, and public offices.”

, eminent as a Christian, a scholar, and a gentleman, one of the sons of Dr. Thomas Sharp, and grandson to the archbishop, was born in 1734. He was educated for the bar, but did not practise at it. When he quitted the legal profession, he obtained a place in the ordnance office, which he resigned at the commencement of the American war; of the principles of which he did not approve. He now took chambers in the Temple, and devoted himself to a life of study; at the same time, laying himself out for public utility. He first became known to the public in the case of a poor and friendless negro, of the name of Somerset. This person had been brought from the West Indies to England, and falling into bad health, was abandoned by his master, and turned into the streets, either to die, or to gain a miserable support by precarious charity. In this destitute state, almost, it is said, on the point of expiring on the pavement of one of the public streets of London, Mr. Sharp chanced to see him. He instantly had him removed to St. Bartholomew’s hospital, attended personally to his wants, and in a short time had the happiness to see him restored to health. Mr. Sharp now clothed him, and procured him comfortable employment in the service of a lady. Two years had elapsed, and the circumstance almost, and the name of the poor negro, had escaped the memory of his benefactor, when Mr. Sharp received a letter from a person, signing himself Somerset, confined in the Poultry Compter, stating no cause for his commitment, but intreating his interference to save him from a greater calamity even than the death from which he had before rescued him. Mr. Sharp instantly went to the prison, and found the negro, who in sickness and misery had been discarded by his master, sent to prison as a runaway slave. Mr. Siiarp went immediately to the lord major, William Nash, esq. who caused the parties to be brought before him; when, after a long hearing, the upright magistrate decided that the master had no property in the person of the negro, in this country, and gave the negro his liberty. The master instantly collared him, in the presence of Mr. Sharp and the lord mayor, and insisted on his right to keep him as his property. Mr. Sharp now claimed the protection of the English law, caused the master to be taken into custody, and exhibited articles of peace against him for an assault and battery. After various legal proceedings, supported by him with most undaunted spirit, the twelve judges unanimously concurred in an opinion that the master had acted criminally. Thus did Mr. Sharp emancipate for ever the race of blacks from a state of slavery, while on British ground, and in fact banished slavery from Great Britain. Such an incident could not fail deeply to impress a benevolent mind; and slavery, in every shape and country, became the object of his unceasing hostility. In 17G9, he published a work, entitled “A Representation of the injustice and dangerous tendency of toleratinaSlavery, or of admitting the least claim of private property in the persons of men in England. 7 ' Having succeeded in the case of an individual negro, he interested himself in the condition of the many others who were seen wandering about the streets of London, and at his own expence collected a number of them, whom he sent back to Africa, where they termed a colony on the river Sierra Leone. He performed a still more essential service to humanity, by becoming the institutor of the” Society for the abolition of the Slave trade;“which, after contending against a vast mass of opposition, at length succeeded, as far as this country was concerned, and it is hoped will soon be universal. Similar principles led Mr. Sharp to use his endeavours to restrain the practice of marine impressment; and a citizen of London having been carried off by a press-warrant, Mr. Sharp obtained a habeas corpus from the court of king’s bench, to bring him back from a vessel at the Nore; and by his arguments obliged the court to liberate him. His political principles led him to become the warm advocate of” parliamentary reform,“and he published” A Declaration of the people’s natural right to a share in the legislature, which is the fundamental principle of the British constitution of state." In this he proposed to restore the ancient tithing$, hundreds, &c. and the whole body of the people were to form a national militia, each thousand to constitute a regiment, the alderman or magistrate to be the colonel; and each hundred to constitute a company, the constable of each fo.r the time being to be their captain. So many of the thousands to be summoned once in every year, by their magistrate, as would have a right to vote in their respective hundreds, before the constable, in the choice of their part of the representative legislature. After stating that the division of this kingdom into tithings and hundreds was instituted by the immortal Alfred, he endeavours to prove that such a division is consistent with the most perfect state of liberty that man is capable of enioying, and yet fully competent to answer all the purposes of mutual defence, to secure the due execution of the laws, and maintain public peace. Mr. Sharp was educated in the principles of the established church, and through life shewed a warm attachment to them. This led him to recommend an episcopal church in America; and he introduced the first bishops from that country to the archbishop of Canterbury for consecration.

Mr. Sharp died July 6, 1813, and like Cato, though advanced to the age of 79, he pursued his studies with all the ardour of youth. He was an able linguist, deeply read in theology, and was well acquainted with the scriptures in the original tongues. He was pious and devout, without gloom, strictly moral and temperate, a great lover of music, and cheerful in conversation. His services to humanity were very distinguished, and few persons in private life have deserved a higher or more honourable commemoration. He possessed a very extensive library, in which the theologian, lawyer, classical scholar, politician, antiquary, and orientalist, might find almost every thing of which they could stand in need; and his collection of bibles was esteemed the best in the kingdom; some of these last he gave to the library of the British and Foreign Bible society, of which he was a zealous promoter. The rest, and remaining part of his library, were sold by auction by Messrs. Leigh and Sotheby.

Mr. Sharp wrote, besides the works already mentioned 1. “Remarks on several very important Prophecies in five Parts. I. Remarks on the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th Verses in the seventh Chapter of Isaiah; in answer to Dr. Williams’s Critical Dissertation on the same subject; II. A Dissertation on the nature and style of Prophetical Writings, intended to illustrate the foregoing Remarks III. A Dissertation on Isaiah vii. 8 IV. On Gen. xlix. 10; V. Answer to some of the principal Arguments used by Dr. Williams in Defence of his Critical Dissertation,” 1768, 8vo. 2. “A Representation of the injustice and dangerous tendency of tolerating Slavery, &c.” with some other tracts in support of his opinions. 3. “Remarks on the Encroachments on the Riyer Thames, near Durham Yard,” 1771, 8vo. 4. “Remarks on the Opinions of some of the most celebrated writers on Crown Law, respecting the due distinction between Manslaughter and Murder; being an attempt to shew tiiat the plea of sudden anger cannot remove the imputation and guilt of murder, when a mortal wound is wilfully given with a weapon: that the indulgence allowed by the courts to voluntary manslaughter in rencounters, and in sudden affrays and duels, is indiscriminate, and without foundation in law: and that impunity in such cases of voluntary manslaughter is one of the principal causes of the continuance and present increase of the base and disgraceful practice of duelling. To which are added, some thoughts on the particular case of the gentlemen of the army, when involved in such disagreeable private differences. With a prefatory address to the reader, concerning the depravity and folly of modern men of honour, falsely so called; including a short account of the principles and designs of the work,” 1773, 8vo. 5. “Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek of the New Testament; containing many new proofs of the Divinity of Christ, from passages which are wrongly translated in the common English Version. To which is added a plain matter-of-fact argument for the Divinitv of Christ, by the Editor,” Durhiin, '798, 8vo. The first twenty pages of this important, critical, and theological work, appeared in t797, in the second fasciculus of the “Museum Oxoniense,” published by Dr. Burgess, the present very excellent bishop of St. David’s. A Supplement to the Remarks was, at the same time, promised in the third fasciculus of the Museum. “But,” says Dr. Burgess, “as many learned friends concurred with the editor in thinking that the Remarks contain a very valuable accession to the evidences of Christ’s divinity, he was unwilling to detain the Supplement, which exemplifies the rules of the Remarks, any longer from the public; and has, therefore, prevailed on Mr. Sharp to permit him to publish it with the Remarks. He earnestly recommends them both to Mr. Wakeneiu’s must deliberate consideration. To Mr. Sharp’s Remarks and Supplement he has subjoined a plain historical proof of the divinity or Cnrist, iounded on Chnst’s own testimony of himself, attested and, interpreted by his living witnesses and enemies, the Jews; on the evidence of his trial and crucifixion; and on the most explicit declarations of the apostles after the resurrection of Christ. What appeared to him on a former occasion (in a sermon on the divinity of Christ, 1792, second edition), to be a substantial and unanswerable argument, he has, in this little exercise on the subject, endeavoured to render an easy and popular proof of our Saviour’s divinity. It was printed separately for the use of the unlearned part of his parishioners; and is subjoined to this treatise for the convenience of other unlearned readers, and such as have not much considered the subject.” A second edition of the “Remarks” was published in 1804, with the following letter to Mr. Sharp prefixed: “Dear sir, I have great pleasure in presenting you with a new edition of your valuable tract. That you have very happily and decisively applied your rule of construction to the correction of the common English version of the New Testament, and to the perfect establishment of the great doctrine in question, the divinity of Christ, no impartial reader, I think, can doubt, who is at all acquainted with the original language of the New Testament. I say decisively applied, because I suppose, in all remote and written testimony, the weight of evidence must ultimately depend on the grammatical analogy of the language in which it is recorded. I call the rule yours; for, though it was acknowledged and applied by Bege and others to some of the texts alluded to by you, yet never so prominently, because singly, or so effectually, as in your remarks, In the addition to the former edition, I wished to excite the attention of a learned and declared enemy to the doctrine of our Saviour’s divinity; but he is no more and J do not know that he even expressed, or has left behind him, any opinion on the subject, or that any other Socinian has undertaken to canvass the principles of your Remarks. The public has, however, lately seen an ample and learned confirmation of your rule, drawn from a very minute, laborious, and candid examination of the Greek and Latin fathers, in ‘Six Letters addressed to Granville Sharp, Esq. respecting his Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament. London, 1802.’ I have taken some pains to improve the plain argument for Christ’s divinity, which I before subjoined to your Remarks. In this edition I have prefixed to it a table of evidences by Dr. Whitby, which I hope the younger part of your readers will find useful to them in pursuing the different branches of this most important subject; and you, J think, will not disapprove, because it is conducive to the principal purpose of your tract.” Bishop Burgess afterwards adverted, in a note on his primary charge, to a weak attack on Mr. Granville Sharp, in a publication entiled “Six more Letters, &c. by Gregory Blunt, esq.” 1803. Of this Dr. Burgess says with great truth, “These letters are very well calculated to mislead the unlearned reader, by abstract questions, gratuitous assertions, and hypothetical examples, but communicate nothing on the score of authority, which bears any comparison with the unanimous consent of the Greek fathers; and nothing at all which has any pretence to grammatical observation.” In the latter part of 1812, Mr. Sharp demonstrated that his faculties retained their full vigour, by an elaborate illustration of the LXVIIIth Psalm, relative to the Hill of Bashan, and the calling together of the Jews.

, a clergyman’s son, born at Adstock, in Buckinghamshire, in the seventeenth century, was sent from Winchester school to New college, Oxford, where he was admitted perpetual fellow in 1649. In 1660 he took the degree of doctor of civil law, was prebendary and archdeacon of Winchester, and rector of Bishop’s Waltham, in Hampshire. He died July 11, 1684, having the character of a good divine, civilian, and lawyer,and well skilled in the nature and philosophy of plants. His works are: “The History of the Propagating and Improvement of Vegetables, by the concurrence of Art and Nature, &c.” Oxon. 1666, and 1672, 8vo. “Hypothesis de Officiis secundum Humanae Rationis Dictata, seu Naturae jus, unde Casus omnes Conscientitc quatenus Notiones a Natura supersunt dijudicari possint,” &c. ibid. 1660, 8vo, and 1682. This book was written against Hobbes. “Judicia (seu Legum Censurae) de variis Incontinentioe speciebus.” ibid. 1662, 8vo. “De finibus virtutis Christians,” or the ends of the Christian religion, in ten sermons, 4to.

, an ingenious poet, was born at Ravensworth, near Richmond in Yorkshire, about the year 1738 or 1739. His father was a person in low circumstances, and followed the occupation of a shoemaker. Our author was first put to school at Kirkbyhill, in his father’s neighbourhood; but he was soon removed to Scorton, five miles from Richmond, where, after having gone through a common course of education, he was appointed usher. Some lime after he became usher to the grammar-school at Darlington under Mr. Metcalf, and while there published his first poem, in 1756, called “Liberty. Humbly inscribed to the Right Hon. the Earl of Darlington,” 4to. During his residence at this place he began to shew that negligence of the dictates of prudence, and the rules of economy, which marked his future life, insomuch that he was obliged to quit his post and the country; and with nothing but his talents came in quest of fortune to the metropolis.

In London his first employment was as a writer for the newspapers. In the spring of 1760 he was at St. Edmond’s Bury, probably a member of the Norwich company of comedians, and published under the name of W. Seymour, “Odes on the Four Seasons,” 4to, a performance which had been one of his youthful productions. In the summer of that year he joined the hasty raised troop with which Mr. Foote opened the Hay market with the “Minor,” in. which Shaw performed the part of Sir George Wealthy. The winter of that year he passed either in Ireland or in some country company, and afterwards performed on both the London theatres; but about 1762 abandoned a pursuit from which he was likely to derive neither profit nor credit. In the same year he resumed the pen, and the poetical war kindled up by Churchill raging at that juncture with great violence, he wrote a satire, called cc The Four Farthing Candles,“4to. in which he attacked Messrs. Lloyd, Churchill, Colman, and Shirley. This performance was executed with some spirit and success, and obtained so much notice, as to encourage him to proceed as an author. In 1766, he published” The Race, a poem," 4to, in which he characterized the chief poets of that period, and some of them with great severity. This poem was re-published and enlarged in the next year. It appears from it, that he had, by this time, no want of confidence in his powers. He had learnt to deal his satire about with no unsparing hand; and if it was not felt by the parties against whom it was directed, it was owing to no lenity or forbearance in the satirist.

, an eminent naturalist, the younger of two sons of the rev. Timothy Shaw, was born Dec. 10, 1751, at Bienon in Buckinghamshire, of which place his father was vicar. His propensity for the studies which rendered him distinguished, discovered itself at the early age of four years; when, entering into no such amusements as those with which children are generally delighted, he entertained himself with books, or wandered by the sides of ditches, catching insects, and taking them home with him, where he would spend all his leisure time in watching their motions and examining: their structure. He was educated entirely by his father; and as the precocity of his intellect gave him an aptitude for acquiring whatever it was wished that he should acquire, he was, to the credit of the preceptor as well as the pupil, abundantly qualified at the age of little more than thirteen, to enter upon a course of academical studies. In 1765 he was entered at Magdalen -hall, Oxford, where he was no less distinguished by the regularity of his conduct than by an uncommonly diligent application to his studies. On May 24, 1769, he was admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts; and on May ^6, 1772, to that of master of arts. That he might assist his father in his clerical duties, he took orders, and was ordained deacon in 1774, at Buckden, by Green, bishop of Lincoln, and performed regularly the duty at Stoke and Buckland, two chapels, each three miles apart from Bierton, the mother-church. As his predilection for natural science never forsook him, and feeling a stronger inclination for studies more connected with it than parochial duties and theological acquirements, he laid aside the clerical habit, and went to Edinburgh, where he engaged in a course of reading, and qualified himself for a profession more congenial with his favourite pursuit. Having directed his views to medicine, he attended for three years the lectures of Black and Cullen, and other eminent professors, and then returned to Oxford, where he obtained an appointment by which he acquired much celebrity, viz. deputy botanical lecturer. To this office he was appointed by Dr. Sibthorp, the botanical professor, who was then upon the eve of setting out upon his travels in Greece, &c. Upon the death of Dr. Sibthorp, Dr. Shaw was a candidate for the vacant chair of the professor of botany; and so high did the votes of the members of the university run in his favour, that he would have succeeded in his wishes, had it not been discovered that the statute relating to that professorship enacted that no person in orders should be deemed eligible. On October 17, 1787, he was admitted to the degrees of bachelor and doctor of medicine. It appears from the catalogue of of Oxford graduates that when he took these degrees he had removed his name from Magdalen-hall to Magdalencollege. In this year Dr. Shaw removed to London, where he practised as a physician. In 1788 some gentlemen, distinguished for their attachment to the study of, and eminent for their acquirements in natural history, established a society for the advancement of this science, under the name of the Linmean Society. Dr. (now sir James) Smith was elevated to the chair of president of this society, and Dr. Shaw was appointed one of the vice-presidents. Among the Linnsean transactions appear the following articles, contributed by Dr. Shaw: “Description of the Stylephorus cordatus, a new fish.” “Description of the Cancer stagnalis of Linnaeus.” “Remarks on Scolopendra electrica, and Scolopendra subterranea.” “A Note to Mr. Kirby’s Description of the new species of Hirudo.” “Account of a minute Ichneumon.” “Description of a species of Mycteria,” “Description of the Mus Bursarius, and Tubularia magnifica.”

Dr. Shaw’s fame, which had already beamed forth in Oxford, now began to shine with effulgence in London; for about this time he was becoming popular as a lecturer, and admired as an author. His lectures at the Leverian Museum, both before and after that rich and incomparable collection was removed from Leicester-house, never failed to attract a numerous and scientific audience. An elegant production, entitled “The Naturalist’s Miscellany,” made its appearance in 1789: this work was published monthly, in numbers, and had extended at the time of the decease of Dr. Shaw as far as No. 286. A posthumous number, with an index, closed this beautiful and extensive production, which comprises, in one thousand and sixty-four plates, figures of the more curious and remarkable productions of the three kingdoms of Nature, more particularly of the animal kingdom, with descriptions in English and Latin. In this year also Dr. Shaw was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, an honour which few among its members have better deserved, and none ever more justly prized. A periodical work appears to have been projected by him in 1790, entitled “Speculum Linnseum, or Linnsean Zoology,” 4to: one number only appeared. A vacancy happening in the British Museum in 1791, Dr. Shaw became a candidate for the office of a librarian upon that great national establishment; and his eminent qualifications procured him the appointment of assistant keeper of the Natural History. The melancholy scenes and the disagreeable effluvia of a sick chamber, had given him a disgust for the practice of a profession whose studies he had pursued with considerable ardour and delight. Upon this appointment, therefore, he resigned with cheerfulness whatever prospects he might have had as a physician, for the narrow income of an office which afforded him the most enlarged opportunities of prosecuting his researches into that science to which he was most devoted. Between the years 1792 and 1796 appeared “Musei Leveriani explicatio Anglica et Latina, opera et studio Georgii Shaw, M.D. R.S.S. Adduntur figurae eleganter sculptse et coloratas. Irnpensis Jacobi Parkinson.” In 1794 a splendid publication was undertaken by Dr. Shaw, in conjunction with sir James Smith and Mr. Sowerby, illustrative of the accessions which had been made to natural science by the discoveries of those who had attempted to explore the undefined shores of New Holland. The animals peculiar to that country were described by Dr. Shaw, in a work published in one volume 4to, entitled “The Zoology of New Holland;” the beautiful and accurate figures which adorned it were delineated by Mr. Sowerby: the botanical part, which formed another portion of this work, was written by sir James Smith, and published under the title of “The Botany of New Holland.” Sixty large and beautiful prints, published by J. Miller, the celebrated editor of the Gardener’s Dictionary, under the title of “Various subjects in Natural History, wherein are delineated Birds, Animals, and many curious Plants,” not meeting with a quick sale, from want of letter-press containing descriptions of the plates, Dr. Shaw was applied to, to supply the deficiency. This work was published in 1796, under the following title: “Cimelia Physica: Figures of rare and curious Quadrupeds, Birds, &c. together with several most elegant Plants, engraved and coloured from the subjects themselves: with descriptions by Geo. Shaw, M. D. F. R. S.” This, and the Museum Leverianum, are amongst the most magnificent publications England has produced.

From the extended state of natural history, the objects of which had become exceedingly numerous by the discoveries of those, who through love of enterpnze, or stimulated by commerce, ventured to traverse the globe in search of new regions, it became desirable that a work should be accomplished which should give, in a systematic, yet a popular form, the description and history of those numerous beings, among which man holds so elevated a place, and which, equally with himself, have proceeded from the grand source of creative power and goodness. The verbosity and the reveries of BufTon rendered his, otherwise valuable, work uselessly extensive; and the systematic brevity of Linnæus was too dry for any but philosophers. To give a systematic history of the animal kingdom, free from the redundancies of the one, and more inviting to the general reader than the philosophic production of the other, was a comprehensive and arduous undertaking, which Dr. Shaw ventured to attempt, and had, with an ability which will for ever render him illustrious amongst his countrymen, nearly completed. This work was entitled “General Zoology, or Natural History, with plates from the best authorities, and most select specimens.” Of this celebrated work, Parts I and 2 of the first volume were published in 1800, and from time to time seven more volumes in the life-time of the author. Among his papers was found a ninth volume prepared for the press, which is intended for publication.

A course of Zoological lectures was read by Dr. Shaw at the Royal Institution in the years 1806 and 1807; and the same course, with little alteration, was delivered in 1809 at the Surrey Institution. These were published in 1809, in two volumes 8vo. In the first nine lectures the author compresses the substance of what he had already published in his General Zoology. The last three lectures have now become more particularly valuable, as they not only contain materials which have hitherto been almost untouched, but may be further considered as a sketch of what he intended to accomplish in completing his General Zoology. In 1807, upon the death of Dr. Gray, keeper of the natural history in the British Museum, Dr. Shaw was promoted to that office. An Abridgment of the Philosophical Transactions, in 18 vols. 4to, by Dr. Charles Button, Dr. George Shaw, and Dr. R. Pearson, made its appearance in 1809. All the papers relating to natural history, and these amounted to near fifteen hundred, were abridged by Dr. Shaw, and were rendered more interesting than they app'eared in their original form, by the insertion of the Linnaean generic and specific names, and still further so by occasional annotations, pointing out where the subject has been more fully investigated in some of the subsequent volumes of the Transactions, or in other works. After this, no new undertaking engaged his pen. His time was altogether employed upon his two progressive works, his Naturalist’s Miscellany, and his General Zoology, when death, upon a short warning, terminated his useful labours on July 22, 1813, in the sixty-second year of his’age. His illness, which was but of a few days’ continuance, originated in a constipation of the bowels. In this he had relief, and confident hopes of his recovery were beginning to be entertained, when an abscess formed on a portion of the intestines, and brought on speedy dissolution. His senses and his recollection only forsook him with his breath. He died as he had lived, with a philosophic composure and serenity of mind, which neither the acute pains which he endured, nor the awful change which he was about to experience, could in any visible degree disturb.

As few men have left behind them a character more estimable in every quality that regards personal merit, or public service, his name will be transmitted to posterity among those who give lustre to their age and country, who do honour to human nature by their virtues, and who contribute to the advancement of science and the interests of literature by their superior talents. Endued by nature with considerable intellectual parts, and those improved by assiduous cultivation, he acquired a vast stock of general knowledge. His extensive information was treasured up without confusion, applied in his works with discernment, and communicated to every inquirer with cheerfulness and freedom. At an early period of life he became an excellent scholar. He wrote Latin with facility, with elegance, and with great purity, Upon most subjects of polite literature he manifested in his conversations a critical taste, and a high relish for the productions of genius. Among the relaxations from graver studies, poetical compositions occasionally employed his talents, and the productions of this kind, which are dispersed in his General Zoology, and in Dr. Thornton’s “Temple of Flora,” are equally creditable to his taste and his imagination. He had a prodigious and a most tenacious memory: to such a perfection did he enjoy this faculty, that he could refer persons correctly to almost every author he had read, for any fact that they needed. In trials that have been made upon him in the earlier part of his life, he could repeat the preceding or following line of any one recited from Milton’s Paradise Lost, or the works of Horace. Dr. Shaw’s reputation was great in botany, but still greater in Zoology. Herein posterity will be ever indebted for the services he has rendered this branch of natural history, especially that portion of it which relates to arrangement and description. A clear and correct account of the generic and specific character of animals, the essentials of this science, is the remarkable feature and meritorious character of all his works. Having in the first place strictly attended to these, he then proceeded to give his subjects all the suitable embellishments that extensive erudition, good taste, and a correct memory could bestow. His descriptions, if they were minute, yet they were never trifling; if enlivened by anecdote, and rich in information, it was done with propriety, and without being tedious; they were too, always popular, and at the same time possessing all that the dignity of science required. His hours of amusement were frequently employed upon mechanical contrivances, connected with his philosophical pursuits, or his domestic comforts, in which he shewed great ingenuity in invention, and a delicate neatness in execution. His behaviour was remarkably polite. In his person he was neat, gentlemanlike in his dress, methodical in his habits, in the disposition of his library, his papers, and in the order of every thing that belonged to him. His natural temper was lively, good-humoured, sociable. His conversation was precise, full of information, always amusing, frequently smart and witty. He was universally esteemed by men of science, beloved by a large circle of his friends, and had it not been for a few sarcastic expressions which he had, without any malicious intention, suffered to escape him, he had lived without an enemy. None of those passions which produce so much disquietude and misery amongst mankind, seem ever to have found a place in his bosom. He was frugal in his expences, moderate in his wishes, temperate to an uncommon degree in eating and drinking, and so chaste in his desires, that no one could reproach him with the commission of an indecent action, or the use of an immodest word; nay, such was the delicacy and purity of his mind, that the writer of this memoir has repeatedly heard him assert, thnt he had scrupulously endeavoured to avoid in his writings every expression which a woman would blush to read. Sincerity of heart, innocence of mind, and simplicity of manners, eminent!/ and uniformly marked his whole character. Of his religious sentiments little is known, as he was remarkably reserved upon all subjects connected with his personal conduct and opinions. He however sufficiently shewed in his conversation, and by performing the public duties of religion in his attendance upon the service of the Church of England, that his notions were, in this respect, serious and pious.

From Whatton he removed to Cotes, a small village near Loughborough, and during his stay there both himself and his family were afflicted with the plague, being infected by some relations from London, who came from thence to avoid it. He buried two friends, two children, and a servant, of that distemper, during the progress of which he and his wife attended each other, and he himself was forced to bury the dead in his own garden. Towards the latter end of the year 1666, he removed to Asliby de la Zouch, and was chosen in 1668 to be sole school-master of the free-school there, the revenue of which he procured to be increased for himself and his successors, and by his interest with the gentlemen in the neighbourhood, was enabled to re-build the school and school-house: he also obtained a licence from archbishop Sheldon to teach school in any part of his province; and Dr. Fuller, bishop of Lincoln, in whose diocese the school was situated, granted him the same upon such terms as to subscription as Mr. Shaw chose. This school, his piety, learning, and temper, soon raised into such reputation, that the number of his scholars increased in so great a degree, that he had often 160 boys or more under his care. Many of these afterwards became distinguished characters in the three professions of law, physic, and divinity.

He died Jan. 22, 1696, in the 59th year of his age, leaving behind him the character of an upright, modest, sensible, aud moderate man, an ornament to his profession, and a benefactor to his country. Besides bishop Fuller abovementioned, who said that he was glad to have so worthy a man in his diocese upon any terms, he appears to have been highly respected by Dr. Barlow, the subsequent bishop of Lincoln, and lived likewise on friendly terms with the vicar of Ashby de la Zouch. When toleration was granted to the dissenters, he licensed his school for a place of worship, but contrived that the meetings should be between church, hours, and attended the church at the usual periods with his whole school and many of his congregation. He wrote several religious tracts, particularly “Immanuel;” “The True Christian 1 s Test,” “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, &c;” and a Latin grammar, and an epitome of the same; with, what may seem very odd in one of his character, two comedies, 'the one called “Words made visible, or Grammar and Rhetoric,” 1679, 8vo the other, “The different Humours of Men,” 1692, 12mo, which were acted by his scholars for their amusement before the neighbours at Christmas.

, the historian of Staffordshire, was son of the rev. Stebbing Shaw, rector of Hartshorn, on the borders of Derbyshire, near Ashby de la Zouch. He was born in 1762, at or near Stone, in Staffordshire; in the neighbourhood of which town, his mother inherited a small landed estate, which descended to this her only child. He was educated at the school of Repton, near Harishorn, first under the rev. Dr. Prior, and afterwards under his successor, the rev. William Bagshaw Stevens, an ingenious poet and scholar, who died in 1800. From this accomplished man, for whom he retained an unabated friendship till death, he early imbibed a warm love of literature. At the close of the month of October, 1780, he became a resident member of Qu.en’s-college, in Cambridge. At this period, his first literary predilections were fixed on English poetry, of which he had caught an enthu iastic fondness from his last master. But even this partiality yielded to his propensity for music; in which his performance on the violin occupied a large portion of his time, and he had already attained considerable excellence. In due time he took his degree of B. A. was elected to a fellowship, and went into orders. Not long afterwards, the intimacy which, for almost half a century, had subsisted between his father and his neighhour, sir Robert Burdett, of Foremark, in which hospitable mansion the son had passed many of his early days, induced him to undertake the superintending care of the present sir Francis, then lately released from Westminster school, at his father’s villa at Ealing. With this pupil, he made a tour to the Highlands of Scotland in the autumn of 1787, of which he kept a diary. This diary, originally composed merely for private amusement, he afterwards inconsiderately published; and thus, it must be confessed, made his first appearance as an author with some disadvantage; luckily, however, the publication was anonymous. In the following year, he made a tour to the West of England, of which he published a more laboured account, with his name. The book was well received; and, though the style is not simple and easy (an attainment which indeed the author never reached), yet it discovered a dawning attention to the history of families and property, to which his industrious researches were afterwards directed with considerable success. In 1789, about the time of the publication of his tour, he obtained admission to the reading-room of the British Museum. His account of the vast stores of topographical and genealogical materials deposited there, fired the imagination of one of his learned friends, who resided in London, and with whom he passed much of his time. To this connection may be ascribed the origin of a periodical publication, entitled “The Topographer,” which commenced in the spring of 1789, and was carried on for more than two years, during which many useful materials towards the Topographical History of the Kingdom were communicated. Amongst other researches, Mr. Shaw spent part of the summer of 1790 in Sussex, and visited very many parishes, and collected a large store of church notes, of which only a small number was exhausted when the work closed. In these perambulations, his own faithful and constantly exercised pencil, enabled him to be doubly useful.

In 1801 he published the first part of his second volume, which was in all respects equal to the former. He had now succeeded his father, who died at the close of 1799, in the living of Hartshorn, a village rendered remarkable as the birth-place of the celebrated dean Stanhope, whose father enjoyed this preferment. Here he spent the summer, and found some relaxation from his severe studies, in improving his house and garden. But his enjoyments were not uninterrupted. A bilious habit rendered him perpetually subject to slow fevers. The fatigue of exercise in a burning sun now brought on a more fierce attack. He recovered, however, and returned to London in the winter of 1801, and went on with his work. But it was soon perceived that his constitution had received an alarming shock. Early in the spring he found himself unfit for his usual occupations. A new attack of a dreadful and lamentable fever ensued but from this too he was at length restored. All application to books was now prohibited and in June or July it was deemed advisable for him to pay a visit to the Kentish coast, attended by his only relation, an affectionate half-sister, the daughter of his father by a second wife. They went first to Ramsgate, and thence removed to the more quiet seclusion of Sandgate, near Hythe. Here he passed the autumn, and was so well that he joined some friends in a few days expedition to the opposite coast, and visited Boulogne. Towards the end of October 1802 his disorder suddenly returned with more violence than before. After a struggle of ten days, it was deemed right to remove him to London for better advice, where he died on the 28th, aged forty-one, deeply lamented by all vvho knew him, and leaving a chasm in the department of literature which he had embraced, not easy to be supplied

, a celebrated traveller, son of Mr. Gabriel Shaw, was born at Kenda!, in Westmorland, about 1692. He received his education at the grammar-school of that place; was admitted of Queen’s-college, Oxford, Oct. 5, 1711, where he took the degree of B. A. July 5, 1716; M. A. Jan. 16, 1719; went into orders, and was appointed chaplain to the English factory at Algiers. In this station he continued several years, and thence took opportunities of travelling into several parts. During his absence he was chosen fellow of his college, March J 6, 1727 and at his return in 1733 took the degree of doctor in divinity, July 5, 1734, and in the same year was elected F. R. S. He published the first edition of his “Travels” at Oxford in 1738, and bestowed on the university some natural curiosities, and some ancient coins and busts (three of which are engraved among the “Marmora Oxoniensia”) which he had collected in his travels. On the death of Dr. Felton in 1740, he was nominated by his college principal of St. Edmund-hall, which he raised from a ruinous condition by his munificence; and was presented at the same time to the vicarage of Bramley in Hants. He was also regius professor of Greek at Oxford till his death, which happened Aug. 15, 1751. He was buried in Bramley church, where a monument was erected to his memory, with an inscription written by his friend Dr. Browne, provost of Queen’s-college, Oxford. His “Travels” were translated into French, and printed in 1743, 4to, with several notes and emendations communicated by the author. Dr. Richard Pocock, afterwards bishop of Ossory, having attacked those “Travels” in his “Description of the East,” our author published a supplement, by way of vindication, in 1746. In the preface, to the “Supplement” he -says, the intent and design of it is partly to vindicate the Book of Travels from some objections that have been raised against it by the author of “The Description of the East, &c.” He published <c A farther vindication of the Book of Travels, and the Supplement to it, in a Letter to the Right reverend Robert Clayton, D. D. lord bishop of Clogher.“This letter consists of six folio pages, and bears date in 1747. After the doctor’s death, an improved edition of his book came out in 1757, under the title of” Travels or Observations relating to several parts of Barbary and the Levant, illustrated with cuts. The second edition, with great improvements. By Thomas Shaw, D. D. F. R. S. regius professor of Greek, and principal of St. Edmund Hall, in the university of Oxford." The contents of the supplement are interwoven in this edition; and the improvements wero made, and the edition prepared for the press, by the author himself, who expressly presented the work, with these additions, alterations, and improvements, to the public, as an essay towards restoring the ancient geography, and placing in a proper light the natural and sometimes civil history of those countries where he travelled. The Sliawia in botany received its name in honour of Dr. Shaw, who has given a catalogue, in alphabetica order, accompanied with rude plates, of the rarer plants observed by him in Barbary, Egypt, and Arabia. The species amount to 632, and the catalogue is enriched witli several synonyms, as well as occasional descriptions and remarks. His dried specimens are preserved at Oxford. The orthography of the name is attended with difficulty to foreigners, our w being as unmanageable to them, as their multiplied consonants are to us. Some of them blunder into Schawia, Shaavia, or Shavia. Perhaps the latter might be tolerated, were it not for the ludicrous ambiguity of Shavius itself, applied by facetious Oxonians to the above famous traveller and his namesakes.

, a notorious political writer, was born at Biddeford in Devonshire in 1709. His father was an attorney, but having small practice and little fortune, he carried on also the business of a corn-factor. Of his children, John was the eldest, and was educated at the free-school of Exeter, then conducted by the learned Mr. Zachary Mudge. Of his progress at school, it is recorded that he had a tenacious memory, much application, some wit, and a temper quarrelsome, dissatisfied, and irritable. In his fifteenth or sixteenth year he was bound apprentice to a surgeon in his native town, and acquired a considerable share of medical knowledge. To this situation he brought the unamiable disposition of his earlier years; no one could give him the slightest offence with impunity, and almost every person avoided his acquaintance. When out of his time he set up in trade for himself, and then shewed a taste for chemistry; but having little business, removed in 1736 to Bristol.

In 1739 he attracted the attention of the public, we are told, by an epitaph to the memory of Thomas Coster, esq. member for Bristol; in which it has been observed, “that he has contrived to raise emotions of pity, grief, and indignation, to a very high degree.” How far these lines are calculated to produce such an effect the reader may judge. The next year he published a pamphlet on the Bristol waters; but from this period we hear no more of him until 1752, when he was at Paris, and there obtained the title of Doctor, if he obtained it at all. Until this time he appears to have lived in obscurity, but at an age when vigorous exertion usually subsides, he seems to have resolved to place himself in a conspicuous situation whatever hazard might attend it, and commenced a public writer with a high degree of intrepidity and virulence. In 1754 he began this career with “The Marriage Act,” a political novel, in which he treated the legislature with such freedom, that it occasioned his being taken into custody, from whence, however, he was soon released. This was followed by “Letters on the English Nation, by Battista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who resided many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by the author of the Marriage Act,” 1755, 2 vols. 8vo. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the author and translator were the same person, and that the imposition was immediately detected by the similarity of language, and virulent abuse of the establishment in church and state to that which pervades the “Marriage Act.” But his most celebrated performances were a series of “Letters to the People of England,” written in a style vigorous and energetic, though slovenly and careless, yet well calculated to make an impression on common readers; and they were accordingly read with avidity, and circulated with diligence. They had a very considerable effect on the minds of the people, and galled the ministry, who seem to have been at first too eager to punish the author. On the publication of the “Third Letter,” we find warrants dated March 4th and 8th, 1756, issued by lord Holdernesse, to take up both Scott the publisher and the author. This prosecution, however, seems to have been dropped and the culprit proceeded for some time unmolested, “having declared (says one of his answerers) that he would write himself into a post or into the pillory, in the last of which he at length succeeded.” On Jan. 12, 1758, a general warrant was signed by lord Holdernesse, to search for the author, printer, and publishers of a wicked, audacious, and treasonable libel, entitled “A sixth Letter to the People of England.” At this juncture government seems to have been effectually roused: for having received information that a seventh letter was printing, by virtue of another warrant dated Jan. 23, all the copies were seized and entirely suppressed. In Easter Term an information was filed against him by Mr. Pratt, then attorney-genera], afterwards lord Camden; and on June 17th, the information was tried, and the author found guilty. On Nov. 28th following, he received sentence, by which he was fined five pounds, ordered to stand in the pillory Dec. 5, at Charing Cross, to be confined three years, and to give security for his good behaviour for seven years, himself in 500l. and two others in 150l. each.

* This story has been differently the publisher, and the edition was suptold. Mr. Gough, in a letter in the pressed, so that the rarity of the quarto Gent. Mag. Vol. LXXII. says that copies, more than any intrinsic merit, “Shebbeare being engaged by the has now enhanced their value.” This university to arrange or transcribe the seems probable, except what relates to Clarendon Mss. transmitted a copy to Cooper being an assumed name. M. a ncokseller in London to publish under or Mary Cooper was at that time a the assumed name of Cooper. The well known bookseller in Paternosteruniversity, a? soon as they discovered row, and was frequently Dodsley’s city the trick, obtained an injunction against publisher. While confined in the King’s Bench prison, he solicited Subscriptions for the first volume of a History of England, ' from the revolution to the then present time; but this, at the persuasion of his friends, he altered to a first volume of the History of England and of the.constitution from its origin, and is said to have made some progress in the design, which, however, after many excuses and promises, was never accomplished. At the expiration of his imprisonment a new reign had commenced, and the king was not only persuaded to entertain a favourable opinion of Dr. Shebbeare, but to grant him a pension. From this time he became an uniform, defender of the measures of government; but still his character was not such as to conciliate the good opinion of all the friends of power. Smollet introduced him in no very respectful light, under the name of Ferret, in the novel of Sir Launcelot Greaves, and Hogarth made him one of the groupe in the third Election print. Scarce a periodical publication was without some contemptuous notice of him, to which he in general paid little attention: but in 1774 he published a pamphlet in his own defence, coupled with such a virulent attack on the character of king William, as roused the indignation of every Whig in the kingdom.

His publications, satirical, political, and medical, amount, it is said, to thirty-four, besides a novel called “Lydia, or Filial Piety,” in which also he has introduced living characters. He died Aug. 1, 1788, leaving, we are told, among those who knew him best, the character of a benevolent man, which, from the affectionate manner in which he speaks of his relations, he probably deserved. His character, in other respects, cannot be held up to admiration.

, a learned English clergyman, was born in the village of Linton in Craven, Yorkshire, March 18, 1740. His father, who, having no trade or profession, lived upon and farmed his own estate, was a rery sensible and intelligent man, so far superior to those among whom he lived, and so disinterested in the application of his talents, that he was highly popular and useful in his native village. His mother was a woman of very superior understanding. He was educated at the grammarschool of the parish; and in 176 1 was admitted of St. John’s college, Cambridge, where his singular facility in the acquirement of philosophical knowledge quickly became so conspicuous, that, at a time when other under-graduates find sufficient employment in preparing for their own exercises and examinations, he had no less than six pupils. At this time also he laid the foundation of a lasting friendship with two young men of great promise in the university, John Law and William Paley, both of Christ’s college; the one afterwards bishop of Elphin, the other the late celebrated writer. In St. John’s he lived upon terms of almost equal intimacy with Mr. Arnald, the senior wrangler of his year, whose genius, always eccentric, after a short career of court ambition, sunk in incurable lunacy. His academical exercises also connected him more or less with the late lord Aivanley, the present Mr. baron Graham, and the learned and pious Joseph Milner, afterwards of Hull; all of whom, as well as Law, took their first degrees at the same time with himself. Such a constellation of talent has scarcely been assembled in any single year from that time to the present.

In January 1766, he took the degree of A. B.; and in 1767 was elected fellow of 1 his college, on the foundation of Mr. Platt. In 1767, he took the degree of A. M. In part of the years 1771 and 1772, he served the office of moderator for the university with distinguished applause. During this period he numbered among his pupils several whom he lived to see advanced to high stations in their respective professions, particularly the present bishop of Lincoln and the chief justice of the King’s Bench. In 1773> he accepted from the University the rectory of Ovington in Norfolk; and, having married an highly respectable person, the object of his early attachment, settled at the village of Grassington, where he received into his house a limited number of pupils, among whom, in the years 1774 and 1775, was Dr. Thomas Dunham Whitaker, the learned author of the “History of Craven.” In 1777, he removed to Leeds; and in the same year, by the active friendship of Dr. John Law, then one of the prebendaries of Carlisle, he was presented by that chapter to the living of Sebergham in Cumberland. In 1783 he was appointed to the valuable cure of St. John’s church in Leeds; and in 1792 he was collated, by his former pupil Dr. Pretyman, bishop of Lincoln, to a prebend in his cathedral, which, by the favour of the present archbishop of York, he was enabled to exchange, in 1794 or 1795, for a much more valuable stall at Carlisle, vacated by the promotion of Dr. Paley to the subel eanery of Lincoln. This was the last of his preferments, and probably the height of his wishes; for he was in his own nature very disinterested. After having been afflicted for several years with calcukms complaints, the scourges of indolent and literary men, he died at Leeds, July 26, 1810, and was interred in his own church.

, duke of Buckinghamshire, a poet and wit of the seventeenth century, was born in 1649, and Was the son of Edmund^ earl of Mulgrave. At nine years of age he lost his father, and his mother marrying again soon after, the care of his education was left entirely to the conduct of a tutor, who, though himself a mau of learning, had not that happy manner of communicating his knowledge by which his pupil could reap any great improvement under him. In consequence of which, when he came to part from his governor, after having travelled with him into France, he quickly discovered, in the course of his conversation with men of genius, that though he had acquired the politer accomplishments of a gentleman, yet that he was still greatly deficient in every part of literature, and those higher excellencies, without which it is impossible to rise to any considerable degree of eminence. He therefore resolved to educate himself, and dedicate for some time a certain number of hours every day to study. Such a purpose, 'says Dr. Johnson, formed at such an age, and successfully prosecuted, delights as it is strange, and instructs as it is real. By this means he very soon acquired a degree of learning which entitled him to the character of a scholar; and his literary acquisitions are the more wonderful, as those years in which they are commonly made were spent by him in the tumult of a military life, or the gaiety of a court. When war was declared against the Dutch, he went at the age of seventeen on board the ship in which princ Rupert and the duke of Albemarle sailed, with the command of the fleet; but by contrariety of winds they were restrained from action. His zeal, however^ for the king’s service was recompensed by the command of one of the independent troops of horse, then raised to protect the coast,

The consequence of this expedition was the retreat of the Moors, and the blowing-up of Tangier. The poem above alluded to was “The Vision,” a licentious one, such as was fashionable in those times, with little power of invention or propriety of sentiment. At his return he found the king kind, who, as Dr. Johnson says, perhaps had never been angry, and he continued a wit and a courtier as before. At the succession of king James, to whom he was intimately known, and by whom he thought himself beloved, he was admitted into the privy council, and made lord chamberlain. He accepted a place in the high commission without knowledge, as he declared after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the king at mass, and kneeled with the rest; but had no disposition to receive the Ilomish faith, or to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God who had made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily persuaded “that man was quits, and made God again.” A pointed sentence, says Dr. Johnson, is bestoweo^ by successive transmission to the last whom it will fit; this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the Protestant religion, who, in the time of Henry VIII. was tortured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the historian of the Reformation.

Finding king James irremediably excluded, he voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, upon this principle, that he thought the title of the prince and his consort equal, and it would please the prince their protector to have a share irt the sovereignty. This vote gratified king William; yet, either by the king’s distrust, or his own discontent, he lived some years without employment. He looked on the king with malevolence, and, if his verses or his prose may be credited, with contempt. He was, notwithstanding this aversion or indifference, made marquis of Normanby in 1694, but still opposed the court on some important questions; yet at last he was received into the cabinet council, with a pension of three thousand pounds.

Upon this piece he appears to have set a high value; for he was all his life-time improving it by successive revisals, so that there is scarcely any poem to be found of which the last edition differs more from the first. “The coldness and neglect,” says Warton, "with which this writer, formed only on the French critics, speaks of Milton, must he considered as proofs of his want of critical discernment, or of critical courage. I can recollect no performance of Buckingham that stamps him a true genius; his reputation was owing to his rank. In reading his poems, one is apt to exclaim with our author:—

In some starv'd hackney sonneteer, or me!

Parker, in his “Comrnentarii de rebus sui temporis,” tells us, that archbishop Sheldon (t was a man of undoubted piety; but though he was very assiduous at prayers, yet he did not set so great a value on them as others did, nor regarded so much worship as the use of worship, placing the chief point of religion in the practice of a good life. In his daily discourse he cautioned those about him not to deceive themselves with an half religion, nor to think that divine worship was confined within the walls of the church, the principal part of it being without doors, and consisting in being conversant with mankind. If men led an upright, sober, chaste life, then and not till then they might look upon themselves as religious; otherwise it would signify nothing what form of religion bad men followed, or to what church they belonged. Therefore having spoken to this effect, he added with a kind of exultation and joy, ‘Da well, and rejoice/ His advice to young noblemen and gentlemen, who by their parents’ commands resorted daily to him, was always this; ’ Let it be your principal care to become honest men, and afterwards be as devout and religious as you will. No piety will be of any advantage to yourselves or any body else, unless you are honest and moral men/ He had a great aversion to all pretences to extraordinary piety, which covered real dishonesty; but had a sincere affection for those, whose religion was attended with integrity of manners. His worthy notions of religion meeting with an excellent temper in him, gave him that even tranquillity of mind, by which he was still himself, and always the same, in adversity as well as in prosperity; and neither over rated nor despised life, nor feared nor wished for death, but lived agreeably to himself and others."

It is as a prelate of great munificence that Sheldon will be handed down to posterity with the highest honours. On the accession of Charles II. when the members of the university who bad been ejected by the usurping powers, be* gan to restore the ancient establishments, a design was formed of erecting some building for the acts, exercises, &c. which had formerly been performed in St. Mary’s church, with some inconvenience to the university, and some injury to the church. Certain houses were accordingly purchased, which stood on the site of the present theatre; and in 1664, Sheldon, then archbishop of Canterbury, having contributed [QOOl. the foundation-stone was laid July 26, with great solemnity before the vice chancellor, heads of houses, &c. And when no other benefactors appeared to promote the work, archbishop Sheldon munificently took upon himself the whole expence, which amounted to 12,470l. 1 \s. \\d. and gave also 2000l. to be laid out in estates for repairs, or the surplus to be applied to the establishment of a printing-house. The architect employed was the celebrated sir Christopher Wren, and the building was completed in about five years. It was one of sir Christopher’s first works, and a happy presage of the talents which he afterwards displayed in the metropolis. Nor did the archbishop’s liberality stop here. Mr. Henry Wharton has enumerated the following sums he bestowed on other public purposes: To lord Petre for the purchase of London House, the residence of the bishops of London, 5200l. He abated in his fines for the augmentation of vicarages 1680l. He gave towards the repair of St. Paul’s before the fire 2169l. 17s. lOd. and the repairs of his houses at Fulham, Lambeth, and Croydon, 4500l. To All Souls’ chapel, Trinity college chapel, Christ church, Oxford, and Lichfield cathedral, 450l. When first made bishop, the leases being all expired, he abated in his fines 17,733l. including probably the article of 1680l. above mentioned.

, eldest son of a plain uneducated country gentleman, of Hales-Owen, Shropshire, who farmed his own estate, was born Nov. 18, 1714. He learned to read of an old dame, commemorated in his poem of the “School-mistress;” and soon received such delight from books, that he was always calling for new entertainment, and expected that, when any of the family went to market, a new book should be brought him, which, when it came, was in fondness carried to bed and laid by him. It is said, that> when his request had been neglected, his mo^ ther wrapped up a piece of wood of the same form, and pacified him for the night. As he grew older, he went for a while to the grammar-school in Hales-Owen, and was placed afterwards with Mr. Crumpton, an eminent schoolmaster at Solihul, where he distinguished himself by the quickness of his progress. When he was young (June 1724) he was deprived of his father; and soon after (August 1726) of his grandfather; and was, with his brother, who died afterwards unmarried, left to the care of his grandmother, who managed the estate. From school he was sent in 1732 to Pembroke-college in Oxford, a society which for half a century had been eminent for English poetry and elegant literature. Here it appears that he found delight and advantage; for he continued his name there ten years, though he took no degree. After the first four years he put on the Civilian’s gown, but without shewing any intention to engage in the profession. About the time when he went to Oxford, the death of his grandmother devolved his affairs to the care of the reverend Mr. Dolman, of Brome in Staffordshire, whose attention he always mentioned with gratitude. At Oxford he amused himself with English poetry; and in 1737, printed at Oxford, for private circulation, a small miscellany of juvenile verses, without his name. He then for a time wandered about, to acquaint himself with life 7 and was sometimes at London, sometimes at Bath, or any place of public resort; but he did not forget his poetry. He published in 1740 his “Judgment of Hercules,” addressed to Mr. Lyttelton, whose interest he supported with great warmth at an election: this was, two years afterwards, followed by the “School-mistress.” Mr. Dolman, to whose care he was indebted for his ease and leisure, died in 1745, and the care of his own fortune now fell upon him. He tried to escape it a while, and lived at his house with his tenants, who were distantly related; but, finding that imperfect possession inconvenient, he took the whole estate into his own hands, more to the improvement of its beauty than the increase of its produce. His delight in rural pleasure was now excited, and his ambition of rural elegance: he began from this time, says Johnson, “to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great, and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers, and copied by designers.” Of these employ* merits Dr. Johnson has perhaps formed a harsh estimate^ yet Shenstone’s affectionate apologist, Mr. Greaves, is obliged to confess that he spent his whole income in adorning the Leasowes, and that it added little to his comfort, the only happiness he felt being confined to the moment of improvement. It i$ said, that, if he had lived a little longer, he would have been assisted by a pension such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed and overtures appear to have been made lor that purpose, but they came too late he died at the Leasowes, of a putrid fever, Feb^ 11, 1763 and was buried by the side of his brother in the church-yard of Hales-Owen. He was never married, though it appears that he was twice in love, and Johnson says he might have obtained the lady, whoever she was, to whom his “Pastoral Ballad” was addressed. He is represented by his friend Dod^lev as a man of great tenderness and generosity, kind to all that were within his influence but, if once offended, not easily appeased inattentive to (economy, and careless of his expences; in his person larger than the middle size, with something clumsy in his form; very negligent of his cloaths, and remarkable for wearing his grey hair in a particular manner; for he held that the fashion was no rule of dress, and that every man was to suit his appearance to his natural form. These, says Mr. Greaves, were not precisely his sentiments, though he thought right enough, that every one should, in some degree, consult his particular shape and complexion in adjusting his dress; and that no fashion ought to sanctify what was ungraceful, absurd, or really deformed.

His “Works” were collected by Mr. Dodsley, in S vols. 8vo, and still retain a good share of popularity. The first consists of elegies (of which there are twenty-six) t odes, songs, and ballads, levities, or pieces of humour, and moral pieces; many of which are distinguished by elegance and simplicity. The second contains his prose works, and consists of several detached observations on men, manners’, and things, thrown together in small chapters, without any order or connection. His sentiments and reflections are for the most part natural and just; many of them new, lively, and entertaining, a few of them rather paradoxical, and some that are false and ill-supported, though, upon the whole, they seem to have been the genuine fruits of a good understanding and an amiable disposition. The third volume consists of “Letters to his Friends.” On his general merits as a writer, Mr. Greaves says, that Shenstone, “through indolence and ill-health, and perhaps too great a fondness for amusement, lavished and exhausted the talents given him by nature on a few topics which presented themselves to his imagination; but in those few he generally excelled.”

, a very learned botanist, was the son of George Sherwood, of Bushby, in Leicestershire. It does not appear at what time or for what reason the alteration in the name was made. He was born in 1659, educated first at Merchant Taylors’ school, and then at St. John’s college, Oxford, where he entered in 1677. He subsequently became a fellow of this college, and took the degree of bachelor of law, December 11, 1683. Being appointed travelling tutor successively, to Charles, afterwards the second viscount Townshend, and to Wriothesley lord Howland, son of the celebrated patriot lord Russel, who in 1700 became the second duke of Bedford, Sherard made two successive tours through Holland, France, Italy, &c. returning from the last, as sir J. Smith thinks, not. much before the year 1700, when his last-mentioned pupil was twenty years old. Dr. Pulteney supposes him to have come back in 1693, led perhaps by the date of Ray’s “Sylloge Stirpium Europaearum,” printed in 1694, to which Sherard communicated a catalogue of plants gathered on mount Jura, Saleve, and the neighbourhood of Geneva. About this time we find he was in Ireland, on a visit to his friend sir Arthur Rawdon, at Moira. Long before either of his foreign journeys he had travelled over various parts of England, and proceeded to Jersey, for the purpose of botanical investigation; and the fruits of hi* discoveries enriched the publications of the illustrious Ray.

Botany was ever the prominent pursuit of Sherard in all his journeys. He cultivated the friendship and correspondence of the most able men on the continent, such as Boerhaave, Hermann, Tournefort, Vaillant, Micheli, *&c. He is universally believed to have been the author of a 12mo volume, entitled “Schola Botanica,” published at Amsterdam in 1689, and reprinted in 1691 and 1699. This is a systematic catalogue of the Paris garden. Its preface, dated London, Nov. 1688, is signed S.W. A., which the French writers have interpreted Samuel Wharton, Anglus, under which name the book occurs in Haller’s “Bibliotheca Botanica,” v. I. 643. But as no one ever heard of such a botanist as Wharton, and the preface in question displays the objects and acquisitions of one of the first rank, who could certainly not long remain in obscurity, the above initials are presumed to mean William Sherard, to whom alone indeed, with or without a signature, that preface could belong. Its writer is described as having attended three courses of Tourne fort’s botanical lectures, in 1686, 87, and 88, all which years, he says, he spent at Paris. In the summer of 1688 he describes himself as having passed some time in Holland, collecting specimens of plants from the rich gardens of that country, and getting them named by professor Hermann himself, who allowed him to peruse the manuscript rudiments of his “Paradisus Batavus,” to examine his herbarium, and to compose a Prodromus of that work, which is subjoined to the little volume now under our consideration. All this can apply to Sherard only, who became the editor of Hermann’s book itself, and who in Hs preface, dated from Geneva in 1697, appears under his own name, and speaks of himself as having long enjoyed the friendship and the communications of that eminer>t man, whose judgment and talents he justly commemorates, and of whose various literary performances, as well as of his botanical principles, he gives an account. Dr. Pulteney cpnceives this preface to have been written during a third tour of its author to the continent; but we presume him to have then been with the young lord Rowland, and consequently on his second tour only.

Sherard communicated to the Royal Society, in 1700, a paper relative to the making of Chinese or Japan varnishes, which is printed in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. XXII. The information which it contains was sent by the Jesuits to the grand duke of Tuscany, and probably obtained by our author at Florence. He now entered on a more public walk of life, becoming one of the commissioners for sick and wounded seamen at Portsmouth; and about the year 1702, or soon after, was sent out -as British consul to Smyrna. Here his botanical taste met with fresh gratification; nor was he neglectful of other curiosities of science dr literature, He visited the seven churches of Asia, copied several ancient inscriptions, and communicated to the Royal Society an account of the new volcanic island, near Santorini, which rose out of the sea May 12, 1707. Botany, however, continued to be his leading object. He had a villa at Sedekio, near Smyrna., where he could with the more ease resign himself to the contemplation of plants, and where he began his great herbarium. Hasselquist visited this spot, with the devotion of a pilgrim, in the spring of 1750. He saw the house, with a small garden laid out by Sherard, but not enriched at any great expence, nor storeid with extensive collections of exotics. Many of the latter indeed might, in the course of thirty-two years, have disappeared. Whatever specimens Sherard could obtain from Greece, and the neighbouring countries, he here carefully preserved and being well aware of the insufficiency of Baubin’s “Pinax,” as a clue to the botanical knowledge then in the world, he is said to have here formed the project of continuing it, and even to have made some progress in that arduous undertaking, before he returned to his native country in 1718. Soon after his return he received at Oxford the degree of LL.D.

In 1721, Dr. Sherard revisited the continent. Vaillant was now in a declining state of health, and died in May 1722. Previous to his decease he concluded, through the mediation of Sherard, the sale of his manuscripts and drawings of Parisian plants, to Boerhaave, who published in 1727 the splendid “Botanicon Parisiense.” This work, though not free from imperfections in the distribution of its materials, would doubtless have been far less correct, but for the superintendance of Sherard, who passed a summer with Boerhaave in revising the manuscript. Our great botanist had already rendered a more important service to his favourite science, by bringing with him from Germany, in August 1721, the celebrated Dillenius. (See Dillenius.) By a comparison of dates, it appears that Sherard made several visits to the continent. He went from Paris to Holland in 1721, and thence with Dillenius, the same year, to England. He stayed some time with Boerhaave again in 1724, or perhaps 1725. We know not precisely when or where it happened that he was, like Linnæus in Norway, in danger of being shot for a wolf.

, an English poet, was descended from an antient family of the same name at Stanyhurst, in Lancashire. His grandfather, Henry, appears to have belonged, but in what capacity is not known, to Corpus Christi college, Oxford, and settled in that city, where Edward the father of our poet was born. This Edward went afterwards to London, and became secretary to the first East India company, established by queen Elizabeth’s charter, and in 1613, obtained a reversionary grant of the office of clerk of the ordnance. He was afterwards knighted by Charles I. He married Frances, the second daughter pf John Stanley of Roydon Hall, in Essex, esq. and resided in Goldsmith’s Rents, near Redcross-street, Cripplegate. Mis son, the poet, was born here Sept 18, 1618, and educated by the celebrated Thomas Farnaby, who then taught a school in Goldsmith’s rents. On his removal to Sevenoaks in Kent, in 1636, young Sherburne was educated privately, under the care of Mr. Charles Aleyn, the poetical historian of the battles of Cressy and Poictiers, who had been one of Farnaby’s ushers. On the death of Aleyn in 1640, his pupil being intended for the army, was sent to complete his education abroad, and had travelled in France and part of Italy, when his father’s illness obliged him to return. After his father’s death in 1641, he succeeded to the clerkship of his majesty’s ordnance, the reversion of which had been procured for him in 1638,- but the rebellion prevented his retaining it long. Being a Roman catholic, and firmly attached to the king, he was ejected by a warrant of the house of Lords in April or May 1642, and harassed by a long and expensive confinement in the custody of the usher of the black rod.

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

Lord Corke has given the following character of him “Dr. Sheridan was a schoolmaster, and in many instances perfectly well adapted for that station. He was deeply versed in the Greek and Roman languages, and in their customs and antiquities. He had that kind of good nature which absence of mind, indolence of body, and carelessness of fortune, produced; and although not over-strict in his own conduct, yet he took care of the morality of his scholars, whom he sent to the university remarkably well founded in all kinds of classical learning, and not ill instructed in the social duties of life. He was slovenly, indigent, and cheerful. He knew books much better than men; and he knew the value of money least of all. In this situation, and with this disposition, Swift fastened upon him as upon a prey with which he intended to regale himself whenever his appetite should prompt him.” His lordship then mentions the event of the unlucky sermon, and adds, “this ill-starred, good-natured, improvident man returned to Dublin, unhinged from all favour at court, and even banished from the castle. But still he remained a punster, a quibbler, a fiddler, and a wit. Not a day passed without a rebus, an anagram, or a madrigal. His pen and his fiddlestick were in continual motion, and yet to little or no purpose,” &c. &c. This character is in a great measure confirmed by his son, in his Life of Swift.

, son to the preceding, by his wife Miss Macpherson, daughter of a Scotch gentleman, was born at Quilca in Ireland, the residence of Swift, in 1721. Swift was one of his sponsors, and treated him with kindness as long as he lived. The early part of his education he received from his father, who in 1734 sent him to Westminster school, at a time when he could very ill afford it. Our author was there immediately taken notice of upon examination, and although a mere stranger, was by pure merit elected a king’s scholar. But this maintenance sometimes falling short, his father could not add fourteen pounds to enable his son to finish the year, which if he had done, he would have been removed to a higher class, and in another year would have been elected to Oxford or Cambridge. Being thus obliged to return to Dublin, he was sent to the university there, and took his master’s degree in arts. In 1738 he lost his father, and at that time intended to devote himself to the education of youth, and would immediately after taking his degree have entered upon this office, had he not now conceited that high opinion of the art of oratory from which he never afterwards receded, and in the restoration of which art (for he considered it as lost) he laboured with an uncommon degree of enthusiasm. In order to qualify himself for this undertaking, he fancied that he must himself learn the practice of oratory, and that the stage was the only school. With this last strange notion, he appeared on the theatre in Smock- alley, in January 1743, in the character of Richard III. and met with the greatest encouragement. His career, however, was soon interrupted by a petty squabble, the first of many in which it was his fate to be involved, with Gibber about Cato’s robe. The abusive correspondence which passed on this important occasion was printed in a pamphlet entitled * The Buskin and Sock, being controversial letters between Mr. Thomas Sheridan, tragedian, and Mr. Theophilus Gibber, comedian," 12 mo.

In Jan. 1744, Mr. Sheridan accepted an engagement at Covent-Garden, and came over to England accordingly. During his residence here, he published proposals, dated Oct. 16, 1744, for printing in 4to the works of his father, but from warn of encouragement or some other reason, the volume never appeared; and when, a few years before hi* death, he was asked where the Mss. w^re, could not recollect their fate. He played in 1744 at Covent-Garden, and in 1745 at Drury-Lane. During this latter season, some injudicious friends endeavoured to set up a rivalship between Sheridan and Garrick, which occasioned a quarrel between them, which was not made up when Sheridan left London. It is curious to observe how Sheridan treated Garrick on this occasion. Having on his return to Dublin undertaken the management of the theatre there, he, wrote to Garrick, informing him, “that he was then sole manager of the Irish stage, and should be very happy to see him in Dublin: that he would give him all advantages and encouragement which he could in reason expect.” He also made an offer to divide all the profits with him, from their united representation, after deducting the incurred expences; but told him at the same time, that he must expect nothing from his friendship, for he owed him none: yet that all the best actor had a right to command, he might be very certain should be granted. Soon after the receipt of this letter Garrick arrived in Dublin, and had a meeting with Sheridan, who repeated the offer, and taking out his watch, which he laid on the table, said he would wait a certain number of minutes for his determination Such was Garrick’s situation at this time, that he accepted the terms, which, as well as his acquiescence in the arrogant manner of proposing them, he probably did not recollect with much pleasure, when his own merit and public favour had placed him on a vast height of superiority above his manager.

Mr. Sheridan appeared to much more advantage afterwards as a reformer of the manners of the Dublin audience, which he attempted with great spirit. The young and unruly among the male part of the audience, had long claimed a right of coming into the green-room, attending rehearsals, and carrying on gallantries, in the most open and offensive manner, with such of the actresses as would admit of them, while those who would not were perpetually exposed to insult and ill-treatment. These grievances Sheridan determined by degrees to remove, and at last happily effected, though not until he was involved in contests with the most tumultuous audiences, both at the hazard of losing his means of subsistence, and even of losing his life, from the resentment of a set of lawless rioters, who were at length, through an exertion of justice in the magistracy of Dublin in the support of public decency, convinced of their error, or at least of the impracticability of pursuing it any farther with impunity. During the space of about eight years, Mr. Sheridan possessed the office of manager of the theatre royal of Dublin, with all the success both with respect to fame and fortune that could well be expected; till at length he was driven from the stage and its concerns by another of those popular tumults by which managers and performers are daily liable to suffer. In the summer of the year 1754, in which the rancour of political party arose to the greatest height that it had almost ever been known to do in Dublin, Mr. Sheridan unfortunately revived a tragedy, viz. Miller’s “Mahomet.” In this play were many passages respecting liberty, bribery, and corruption, which pleased the anti-courtiers as expressive of their own opinions in regard to certain persons at that time in power, and therefore they insisted on those passages being repeated, a demand which, on the first night of its representation, the actor in whose part most of them occurred, complied with. The absurdity, however, of such repetitions, merely as destroying the effect of the tragedy, having occurred to the manager, the same speeches, when again called for by the audience on the succeeding night, were refused by the actor, and he being obliged to hint the cause of his refusal, the manager became the object of their resentment. On his not appearing to mollify their rage by some kind of apology, they flew out into the most outrageous violence, cul the scenery to pieces with their swords, tore up the benches and boxes, and, in a word, totally despoiled the theatre; concluding with a resolution never more to permit Mr. Sheridan to appear on that stage.

In the year 1757 Mr. Sheridan had published a plan, by which he proposed to the natives of Ireland the establish^ ment of an academy for the accomplishment of youth in every qualification necessary for a gentleman. In the formation of this design he considered the art of oratory, his favourite hobby, as one of the principal essentials; and in order to give a stronger idea of the utility cf that art, by example as well as theory, he delivered in public two or three orations calculated to give the highest proofs of the abilities of the proposer, and his fitness for the office of superintendant of such an academy, for which post he modestly offered his service to the public. His biographer, however, gives us no further account of this plan, but proceeds to relate more of his theatrical disputes, in which he always appears to have been unfortunate, although with a shew of reason on his side. In 1759 we find him again in England as a lecturer on his darling elocution. Four years before he had published a volume in 8vo, called “British Education the source of the Disorders of Great Britain. Being an essay towards proving that the immorality, ignorance, and false taste which so generally prevail, are the natural and necessary consequences of the present defective system of education; with an attempt to shew that a revival of the art of speaking, and the study of our own language, might contribute in a great measure to the cure of those evils.” In confirmation of this opinion, he fiad composed a course of lectures on elocution^ and began to deliver them in London, Oxford, Cambridge, and other places, with the success which generally attends novel plans; and in one instance with very extraordinary success, for at Cambridge, March 16, 1759, he was honoured with the same degree he had received in Dublin, that of M. A. In the winter of 1760, he again appeared at Drury-lane theatre, and again had a quarrel with Garrick, which put an end to his engagement.

Mr. Sheridan’s biographer asserts that “his talents were more solid than brilliant, and his genius inferior to his industry.” If this opinion refers to his merit on the stage, we are not enabled to appreciate its justice: if to his writings, we perceive very little that is either solid or brilliant, or. that deserves to be called genius. He set out in life with absurd and wild notions of the utility of oratory to cure the moral and political evils of the world, and he persisted in them to the last. His biographer allows that he had no mean opinion of himself, and might have added that this opinion of himself, with its concomitant, envy, his preposterous schemes, and his lofty sense of superiority, became the bane of his life, marked as it “uniformly” might be “with uprightness and integrity.” In his biography of Swift, he was fortunate in obtaining the best materials, but peculiarly unfortunate in a want of judgment to make use of them, and in not seeing, what every one else saw, that although they might furnish an impartial account of that.extraordinary man, they could by no art support a continued panegyric. Sheridan’s early attachment to the stage, where he was to learn his wonderworking oratory, proved of lasting detriment to him. It disturbed his imagination, threw his mind out of a regular train of thinking, and, with the distresses which his repeated quarrels and failures brought upon him, led him to the quackery of itinerant lectures, which were neglected after the first curiosity had been gratified.

Mr. Sheridan’s wife, Frances, was born in Ireland about the year 1724, but descended from a good English family which had removed thither. Her maiden name was Chamberlaine, and she was grand-daughter of sir Oliver Cham* berlaine. The first literary performance by which she distinguished herself, was a little pamphlet at the time of the political dispute relative to the theatre, in which Mr. Sheridan had newly embarked his fortune. A work so well timed exciting the attention of Mr. Sheridan, he by an accident discovered his fair patroness, to whom he was soon afterwards married. She was a person of the most amiable character in every relation of life, with the most engaging manners. After lingering some years in a very weak state of health, she died at Blois, in the south of France, in the year 1767. Her “Sydney Bidclulph” has been ranked with the first productions of the novel class in ours, or in any other language. She also wrote a little romance, in one volume, called “Nourjahad,” in which there is a great deal of imagination, productive of an ad­Vol. XXVII. H H mirable moral. And she was the authoress of two comedies; “The Discovery,” and “The Dupe.”

, a learned English divine, was born in South wark about 1641, and educated at Eton 1 school, where he distinguished himself by the vigour of his genius and application to his studies. Thence he removed to Peter-house in Cambridge in May 1657, where he took a bachelor of arts degree in 1660, and a master’s in 1665. He now went into holy orders, and officiated as a curate until 1669, when he was preferred to the rectory of St. George’s, Botolph-lane, in London. In this parish he discharged the duties of his function with great zeal, and was esteemed an excellent preacher. In 1673, he.published “A discourse concerning the knowledge of Christ, and our union and communion with him,” which involved him in a controversy with the celebrated nonconformist Dr. John Owen, and with Mr. Vincent Alsop. In 1680, he took the degree of D. D. and about the same time published some pieces against the nonconformists. Soon after he was collated to a prebend of St. Paul’s, was appointed master of the Temple, and had the rectory of Therfield in Hertfordshire. In 1684 he published a pamphlet, entitled “The case of Resistance to the Supreme Powers stated and resolved, according to the doctrine of the holy Scriptures;” and continued to preach the same opinion after the accession of James II. when it was put to the test. He engaged also in the controversy with the papists, which shews that he was not a servile adherent to the king, but conscientious in his notions of regal power. This likewise he shewed at the Revolution, when he refused to take the oaths to William and Mary, and was therefore suspended from all his preferments. During his suspension, he published his celebrated treatise, entitled “A practical discourse on Death,” 1690, which has passed through at least forty editions, and is indeed the only one of his works now read. But before the expiration of that year, he thought proper to comply with the new government, and taking the oaths, was reinstated in all his preferments, of which, though forfeited, he had not been deprived. Being much censured for this step by those who could not yield a like compliance, he endeavoured to vindicate himself in a piece entitled “The Case of the Allegiance due to the Sovereign Princes stated and resolved, according to Scripture and Reason, and the principles of the Church of England, with a more particular respect to the Oath lately enjoined of Allegiance to their present Majesties king William and queen Mary, 1690,” quarto. This was followed by twelve answers. His design was to lay down such principles as would prove the allegiance due to William and Mary, even supposing them to have no legal right, which the celebrated Mr. Kettlewell could by no means agree with, and therefore wrote, upon another principle, “The duty of Allegiance settled upon its true grounds.” The dispute is perhaps now of little consequence; but Sherlock persisted in preaching his doctrine of non-resistance in the new reign, and had undoubtedly some merit in this kind of consistency, and in rendering that plausible in any degree, which the other nonjurors thought contradictory in every degree. In 1691, he published his “Vindication of the doctrine of the holy and ever blessed Trinity;” but his attempt to explain this mystery was not satisfactory, and involved him in a controversy with Dr. South. What was more mortifying, a fellow of University-college, Oxford, having preached his doctrine in a sermon at St. Mary’s, the university issued a decree, censuring that doctrine as false, impious, and heretical, and warned all persons under their jurisdiction not to preach or maintain any such notions. The controversy being exasperated by this indignity, the king at last interposed, and issued directions “to the archbishops and bishops,” ordaining, that “all preachers should carefully avoid all new terms, and confine themselves to such ways of explanation as have been commonly used in the church.” After this, it is but fair to state Dr. Sherlock’s notion: he thought that there were three eternal minds 9 two of these issuing from the father, but that these three were one by a mutual consciousness in the three to every one of their thoughts. Dr. Sherlock was promoied to the deanery of St. Paul’s in 1691. He died at Hampstead June 19, 1707, in his 67th year; and was interred in the cathedral of St. Paul. He left two sons and two daughters; the eldest of his sons was Dr. Thomas SherLck, bishop of London. Burnet says, that “he was a clear, polite, and a strong writer, but apt to assume too much to himself, and to treat his adversaries with contempt. This created him many enemies, and made him pass for an insolent haughty man.” He was, however, a man of considerable learning and abilities, and conscientious, however mistaken, in those peculiar opinions which engaged him in such frequent controversies with his brethren.

In 1716 he obtained the deanery of Chichester, and soon after this promotion appeared as an author, for the first time, in the memorable Bangorian controversy, during the course of which he published several tracts. One of the principal is entitled “A Vindication of the Corporation and Test Acts: in answer to the Bishop of Bangor’s Reasons for the Repeal of them. To which is added a second part, concerning the Religion of Oaths,” 1718, 8vo. The bishop of Bangor answered him in a piece entitled “The common Rights of Subjects defended, and the Nature of the Sacramental Test considered,” 1719, 8vo: yet, while he opposed strenuously the principles of his antagonist, he gave the strongest testimony that could be of his abilities; for, in the beginning of his preface, he calls his own book “An Answer to the most plausible and ingenious Defence, that, he thinks, has ever yet been published, of excluding men from their acknowledged civil Rights, upon the account of their differences in Religion, or in the circumstances of Religion.” Sherlock replied to the bishop, in a small pamphlet, in which he sets forth “The true Meaning and Intention of the Corporation and Test Acts asserted, &c.” 1719, 8vo. It has been said, by the writer of his life in the Biog. Brit, that in his latter days, Dr. Sherlock did not approve of these writings against bishop Hoadly, and that he told a friend, “that he was a young man when he wrote them,” and he would never have them collected into a volume. That Dr. Sherlock might have changed his sentiments in his latter days is not improbable, but it could not be asserted that he was at this time a young man, for he had passed his fortieth year*. Some part, however, which he took in this controversy, before he published on it, seems to have given offence at court, for in 1717, he and Dr. Snape were removed from the list of king’s chaplains.

In 1724 Collins published his insidious attack, entitled “A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion” in which he endeavours to fix the evidences of it chiefly, if not solely, upon the prophecies of the Old Testament; and then explains these prophecies in such a manner, as to make it appear that they have no better foundation than the Divination among the heathens “who learnt,” says he, “that art in schools, or under discipline, as the Jews did prophesying in the schools and colleges of the prophets.” This work occasioned many pieces to be written upon the subject of prophecy; and, though Sherlock did not enter directly into the controversy, yet he took an opportunity of communicating his sentiments, in six discourses delivered at the Temple church, in April and May 1724, which he published the year after, with this title, “The Use and Intent of Prophecy, in the several ages of the world,” 8vo. In these we have a regular series of prophecies, deduced through the several ages from the beginning, and presented in a connectecj view; together with the various degrees of light distinctly marked out, which were successively communicated in such a manner, as to answer the great end of religion and the designs of providence, till the great events to which they pointed should receive thtir accomplishment. These discourses have been exceedingly admired, and gone through several editions. The fourth, corrected

for reforming the lives and manners ters, 1790, 8vo, p. 457. and enlarged, was published in 1744, 8vo; to which are added, “Four Dissertations: I. ‘The Authority of the second Epistie of St. Peter.’ 2. ‘ The Sense of the Ancients before Christ, upon the Circumstances and Consequences of the Fall.’ 3. ‘ The blessing of Judah,’ Gen. xlix. 4. ‘ Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem’.” Three of these dissertations, if we mistake not, accompanied the discourses from their first publication; the fourth was added afterwards. In 1749, Sherlock, then bishop of London, published “An Appendix to the second Dissertation, being a farther enquiry into the Mosaic account of the Fall,” 8vo. An advertisement is prefixed, setting forth, that the dissertation was drawn up some years since, and intended as an examination of the objections made to the History of the Fall by the author of “The Literal Scheme of Prophecy;” but that author being dead, was now published, not in answer to him, but to all who call in question, or are offended with, the History of the Fall, as it stands recorded by Moses. Whether Dr. Middleton, who had ridiculed the “Literal History of the Fall,” considered himself as particularly aimed at here, or whether he acted from other private motives of resentment, which has been asserted, we know not, but he published the year after, 1750, a sharp and satirical “Examination of the Discourses upon Prophecy, with Animadversions upon this Dissertation:” in which he undertakes to explain and affirm these four points: 1. “That the use of Prophecy, as it was taught and practised by Christ, his Apostles, and Evangelists, was drawn entirely from single and separate predictions, gathered by them from the books of the Law and the Prophets, and applied, independently on each other, to the several acts and circumstances of the life of Jesus, as so many proofs of his Divine Mission; and, consequently, that his Lordship’s pretended chain of Antediluvian Prophecies is nothing else but a fanciful conceit which has no connection at all with the evidences of the Gospel.” 2. “That the Bishop’s exposition of his text is forced, unnatural, and inconsistent with the sense of St. Peter, from whose epistle it is taken.” 3. “That the historical Interpretation, which he gives to the account of Fall, is absurd and contradictory to reason; and that the said account cannot be considered under any other character than that of Allegory, Apologue, or Moral Fable.” 4. “That the Oracles of the Heathen World, which his Lordship declares to have been given out by the, Devil, in the form of a Serpent, were all impostures, wholly managed by human craft, without any supernatural aid or interposition whatever.”

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

Bodily infirmities now began to affect him very much, and, though for three or four years he applied himself to business, and made one general visitation of his diocese in person, yet he was then visited with a severe illness, which deprived him almost first of the use of his limbs, and then at times of his speech, insomuch that he could not be understood but by those who were constantly about him. Still the powers of his understanding and his accustomed cheerfulness continued; and under this weak state of body, in which he lay many years, he revised, corrected, and published, 4 vols. of “Sermons” in 8vo. The last time in which he probably used his pen, was in an affectionate congratulatory letter to his present majesty on his accession, being incapable of waiting on him in person . He He died July 18, 1761, in his eighty-fourth year, and was interred in the church-yard at Fulham, in a vault made for that purpose: where likewise a monument was erected to his memory, with an inscription drawn up by Dr. Nicholls, who succeeded him, in the mastership of the Temple, and speaks thus of his character:

nesses ofthe Resurrection, &c. Revised nesses." This was either written by by the Author ofthe Trial ofthe Wit- the bishop, or under his inspection. 1743, he was installed a prebendary in the cathedral church of Winchester; and in March 1745 was appointed chaplain to the duke of Cumberland, to attend him abroad. On October 14, 1748, he took the degree of doctor of divinity; and on January 28, 1749, became canon of Christ Church in Oxford. In the year 1760 he was advanced to the deanery of Winchester, and at the same time was permitted by dispensation to retain the livings of Silchester and Chilbolton. His last preferment took place in the year 1769, when on the death of bishop Newcombe he was promoted to the bishopric of St. Asaph, in which he remained until his death, which took place at his house in Bolton-row, Piccadilly, Dec, 9, 1788. He was buried at Twyford, near Winchester.

Dr. Shipley gave an early and decided opinion against the coercive measures adopted towards America, to which his friends imputed his receiving no further advancement. In the year 1774 he published “A speech intended to have been spoken on the bill for altering the charters of the Colony of Massachusetts-bay,” 8vo the style of which was much admired even by those who disliked the sentiments. Mr. Mainvvaring, in the introduction to his “Sermons,” p. 28, 8vo, speaks of it in the following terms “If it were allowable for a moment to adopt the poetical creed of the antients, one would almost imagine, that the thoughts of a truly elegant writer were formed by Apollo, and attired by the Graces. It would seem, indeed, that language was at a loss to furnish a garb adapted to their rank and worth; that judgment, fancy, taste, had all combined to adorn them, yet without impairing that divine simplicity for the want of which nothing can compensate.” And in a note on this passage, he says, “Amongst all the productions, antient or modern, it would be difficult to find an instance of more consummate elegance than in a printed Speech intended to be spoken in the House of Lords.” Besides this effort, his lordship during the whole American war, continued to be an opponent of Government; but his character, talents, and manners were always highly respected by men of all parties. His works, consisting of sermons, charges, and parliamentary speeches, were published in 2 vols. 8vo, in 1792.

, an English dramatic writer and poet, was of an antient family, and born about 1594, in the parish of St. Mar) Wool-church, London. He was educated at Merchant-Taylors school, and thence removed to St. John’s college in Oxford; where Laud, then president of that college, had a good opinion of his talents, yet would often tell him, as Wood relates, that “he was an unfit person to take the sacred function upon him, and should never have his consent;” 'because Shirley had then a large mole upon his left cheek, which appeared a great deformity. Afterwards, leaving Oxford without a degree, he went to Katherine-hall, Cambridge, where he formed a close attachment with Bancroft, the epigrammatist, who has recorded their friendship in one of his epigrams. At Cambridge, Wood supposes he took the degree in arts, as he soon after entered into orders, and took a cure at or near St. Alban’s, in Hertfordshire; but, becoming unsettled in his principles, changed his religion for that of Rome, left his living, and taught a grammar school in the town of St. Alban’s. This employment being after some time uneasy to him, he retired to London, lived in Gray’s-inn, and commenced dramatic writer, which recommended him to the patronage of various persons of rank, especially Henrietta Maria, Charles the First’s queen, who made him her servant. His first comedy is dated 1629, after which he wrote nine or ten, between that year and 1637, when he went to Ireland, under the patronage of George earl of Kildare, to whom he dedicated his tragi-comedy of the “Royal Master,” and by whose influence that comedy was acted in the castle at Dublin, before the lord deputy. From Ireland he returned to England in 1638; but Wood says, that when the rebellion broke out, he was obliged to leave London and his family (for he had a wife and children), and, being invited by his patron, William earl of Newcastle, to accompany him in the wars, he attended his lordship. Upon the decline of the king’s cause, he retired to London; where, among other of his friends, he found Thomas Stanley, esq. author of the “Lives of Philosophers,” who supported him for the present. The acting of plays being now prohibited, he returned to his old occupation of teaching school, which he carried on in White Friars; and educated many youths, who afterwards proved eminent men. At the Restoration, several of his plays were brought upon the theatre again; and it is probable he subsisted very well, though it does not appear how. In 1666 he was forced, with his second wife Frances, by the great fire in September, from his house near Fleet-street, in the parish of St. Giles’s in the fields, where, being extremely affected with the loss and terror that fire occasioned, they both died within the space of twentv-four hours, and were both interred in the same grave, Oct. the 29th.

There was one Mr. Henry Shirley, a contemporary of our author, who wrote a tragedy called “The Martyred Soldier;” which was often acted with applause. It was printed in 1631, and dedicated by the publisher J. K. to sir Kenelm Digby; the author being then dead. More recently there was a William Shirley, who was for some years resident in Portugal, in a public character, as it is supposed. On some disgust, however, or dispute in which he had involved himself there, he returned to England about 1749. He was esteemed well versed in affairs of trade, and the commercial interests and connections of different kingdoms, especially those of Great Britain and Portugal. He was also considered as the author of several letters on those subjects, published in the Daily Gazetteer, and signed Lusitanicus; and wrote a pamphlet, entitled “Observations upon the sentence of the conspirators against the king of Portugal,” 1755, 8vo. In his poetical capacity, however, Mr. Shirley does not stand in so considerable a light, though several of his plays have been represented on the stage; but others were rejected by Garrick, whom tie abused in the newspapers. He is said to have written for the stage as late as 1777, when he must have been advanced in years; but the time of his death is not specified in our authority.

, son of sir Thomas Shirley, ofWiston in Sussex, and related to the Shirleys the travellers, was born in St. Margaret’s parish, Westminster, in 1638. He lived with his father in Magdalen-college, Oxford, while the city was garrisoned by the king’s forces, and was educated at the school adjoining the college. Afterwards he studied physic abroad, and took his degrees in that faculty. On his return he became a very eminent practitioner, and was made physician in ordinary to Charles II. He was immediate heir to his ancestors’ estate of near 3000l. a year at Wiston, which was seized during the rebellion; but although he applied to parliament, never was able to recover it. This disappointment is thought to have hastened his death, which took place April 5, 1678. Besides “Medicinal counsels,” and “A Treatise of the Gout,” from the French of Mayerne, he published “A philosophical essay of the productions of Stones in the earth, with relation to the causes and cure of stones in the bladder, &c.” Lond. 1672; and “Cochlearia curiosa, or the curiosity of Scurvygrass,” from the Latin of Molinbrochius of Leipsic. Both these are noticed in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 81, and No. 125.

, an eminent optician, was born in Edinburgh in the year 1710. At the age of ten being left in a state of indigence by the death of both his parents, he was admitted into Heriot’s hospital, where he soon shewed a fine mechanical genius, by constructing for himself a number of curious articles with common knives, or such other instruments as he could procure. Two years after he was removed from the hospital to the high- school, where he so much distinguished himself in classical learning, that his friends thought of qualifying him for a learned profession. After four years spent at the high-school, in 1726 he was entered a student of the university of Edinburgh, where he passed through a regular course of study, took his degree of master of arts, and at the earnest entreaties of his relations, attended the divinity lectures: after which, in 1731, he passed his examination to fit him for a preacher in the church of Scotland. He soon, however, gave up all thoughts of a profession which he found little suited to his talents, and from this period he devoted his whole time to mathematical and mechanical pursuits. He was pupil to the celebrated Maclaurin, who perceiving the bent of his genius, encouraged him to prosecute those particular studies for which he seemed best qualified by nature. Under the eye of his preceptor he began, in 1732, to construct Gregorian telescopes; and, as the professor observed, by attending to the figure of his specula, he was enabled to give them larger apertures, and to carry them to greater perfection, than had ever been done before him.

Mr. Short was accustomed to visit the place of his nativity once every two or three years during his residence in London, and in the year 1766 he paid his last visit to Scotland. He died at Newington Butts, near London, in June 1768, after a very short illness, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. Mr. Short was a very good general scholar, besides well skilled in optics and mathematics. He was a very useful member of the Royal Society, and wrote a great many excellent papers in the Philosophical Transactions, from 1736 to the time of his death. His eminence as an artist is universally admitted, and he is spoken of by those who knew him from his youth upwards, as a man of virtue and very amiable manners.

, an eminent English admiral, was born near Clay, in Norfolk, about 1650, of parents in middling circumstances, and put apprentice to some mechanic trade, to which he applied himself for som.e time. He is said to have early discovered an inclination for the naval service, and at length went to sea, under the protection of sir Christopher Mynns, as a cabbin-boy, and applying himself very assiduously to the study of navigation, became an able seaman, and quickly arrived at preferment. In 1674, our merchants in the Mediterranean being very much distressed by the piratical state of Tripoly, a strong squadron was sent into those parts under the command of sir John Narborough, who arrived before Tripoly in the spring of the year, and found considerable preparations for defence. Being, according to the nature of his instructions, desirous to try negotiation rather than force, he thought proper to send Shovel, now a lieutenant, to demand satisfaction for what was past, and security for the time to come. Shovel went on shore, and delivered his message with great spirit; but the Dey, despising his youth, treated him with much disrespect, and sent him back with an indefinite answer. Shovel, on his return to the admiral, acquainted him with some remarks he had made on shore. Sir John sent him back with another message, and well furnished him with proper rules for conducting his inquiries and observations. The Dey’s behaviour was worse the second time, which Shovel made a pretence for delaying his departure that he might complete his observations. On his return he assured the admiral it was very practicable to burn the ships in the harbour, notwithstanding their lines and forts: accordingly, in the night of the 4th of March, Shovel, with all the boats in the fleet, filled with combustibles, went boldly into the harbour, and destroyed the vessels in it, after which he returned safe to the fleet, without the loss of a single man; and the Tripolines were so disconcerted at the boldness and success of the attack, as immediately to sue for peace. Of this affair sir John Narborough gave so honourable account in all his letters, that the next year Shovel had the command given him of the Sapphire, a fifth rate; whence he was not long after *e* moved into the James galley, a fourth rate, in which he continued till the death of Charles II. Although he was known to be unfriendly to the arbitrary measures of James II. yet that prince continued to employ him, and he was preferred to the Dover, in which situation he was when the Revolution took place, and heartily concurred in that event. In 1689, he was in the first battle, that of Bantry-bay, in the Edgar, a third-rate; and so distinguished himself by courage and conduct, that when king William came down to Portsmouth, he conferred on him the honour of knighthood. In 1690, he was employed in conveying king YVilr liam and his army into Ireland, who was so highly pleased with his diligence and dexterity, that he did him the honour to deliver him a commission of rear-admiral of the blue with his own hand. Just before the king set out for Holland, in 1692, he made him rear-admiral of the red, at the same time appointing him commander of the squadron that was to convoy him thither. On his return, Shovel joined admiral Russell with the grand fleet, and had a share in the glory of the victory at La Hogue. When it was thought proper that the fleet should be put under command of joint admirals in the succeeding year, he was one; and, as Campbell says, “if there had been nothing more than this joint commission, we might well enough account from thence for the misfortunes which happened in our affairs at sea, during the year 1693.” The joint admirals were of different parties; but as they were all good seamen, and probably meant well to their country, though they did not agree in the manner of serving it, it is most likely, “that, upon mature consideration of the posture things were then in, the order they had received from court, and the condition of the fleet, which was not either half manned or half victualled, the admirals might agree that a cautious execution of the instructions which they had received was a method as safe for the nation, and more so for themselves, than any other they could take.” On this occasion sir Cloudesley Shovel was at first an object of popular odium; but when the affair came to be strictly investigated in parliament, he gave so clear and satisfactory an account of the matter, that it satisfied the people that the commanders were not to blame; and that if there was treachery, it must have originated in persons in office at home. The character of sir Cloude&ley remaining unimpeached, we find him. again at sea, in 1694, under lord Berkley, in the expedition to Camaret-bay, in which he distinguished himself by his dextrous embarkation of the land forces, when they sailed on that unfortunate expedition; as also when, on their return to England, it was deemed necessary to send the fleet again upon the coast of France, to bombard Dieppe, and other places. In 1702 he was sent to bring the spoils of the Spanish and French fleets from Vigo, after the capture of that place by sir George Rooke. In 1703, he commanded the grand fleet up the Streights; where he protected our trade, and did all that was possible to be done for the relief of the protestants then in arms in the Cevenues; and countenanced such of the Italian powers as were inclined to favour the allies. In 1704 he was sent, with a powerful squadron, to join sir George liooke, who commanded a grand fleet in the Mediterranean, and had his share in the action off Malaga. Upon his return he was presented to the queen by prince George, as lord high admiral, and met with a very gracious reception; and was next year employed as commander in chief. In 1705, when k was thought necessary to send both a fleet and army to Spain, sir Cloudesley accepted the command of the fleet jointly with the earls of Peterborough and Monmouth, which sailed to Lisbon, thence to Catalonia, and arrived before Barcelona on the 12th of August and it was chiefly through his activity, in furnishing guns for the batteries, and men ta play them, and assisting with his advice, that the place was taken.

In 1685 he was prevailed upon by sir Samuel Barnardiston to accompany his nephew on his travels upon the continent. This gave him, what few of his brethren had enjoyed, an opportunity of visiting the most remarkable places in France, Swisserland, Italy, &c. and of returning with additional stores of useful knowledge. On his return through Holland, Mr. Shower parted with the companions of hfs tour, and resided in that country about two years. In 1686 he was again in London, and took his turn at the lecture in Exchange-alley, but disapproving of the vacillating measures of the court both towards the dissenters and the papists, he again went abroad, and took up his residence partly at Utrecht, and partly at Rotterdam, where far three years he officiated as lecturer to the English church. Here he remained until 1690, when he accepted a call to become assistant to the learned John Howe, at his meeting in Silver-street, London; whence, after other changes, he was finally settled at the new meeting-house in the Old Jewry, lately pulled down. Here he continued to preach with great popularity until his death, after lingering illnesses, June 28, 1715, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. He was buried at Highgate. His works are very numerous, but consist chiefly of sermons moulded, for the press, into the shape of treatises, of which the principal appear to be, J. “Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity,” 12mo. 2. “Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica, Italy, &c. with a particular historical account of those and divers other earthquakes,” 1693, 12mo. 3. “Family Religion, in three letters to a friend,” 16L4, 12mo. 4. “The Life of Henry Gearing,” 1694, 12mo. 5. “The Mourner’s Companion, or Funeral Discourses on several texts,” 1699, 12mo. 6. “Sacramental Discourses, &c.” 7. “Winter Meditations,” &c. &c. &c.

We have hitherto considered sir Robert as a physician and naturalist, but his reputation is more securely founded on his having been the first who illustrated the antiquities of his native country, in various learned essays, the titles of which it is unnecessary to give, as the whole were printed in “A collection of several treatises in folio, concerning Scotland as it was of old, and also in later times. By sir Robert Sibbald, M. D.” Edin. 1739. They were, however, at that time sold separately, or bound together. Of all Mr. Gough gives a particular account, and also of his Mss* now in the Advocates’ library. Sir Robert likewise published a piece entitled “The liberty and independency of the kingdom and church of Scotland asserted, from ancient records in three parts,” 1701, 4to, now very rarely to be met with and “De Gestis Gul. Valise,” Edin. 1705, 8vo. A catalogue of his library was printed at Edinburgh, 1722, in 8vo.

He passed a portion of the same year, 1784, at Gottingen, where he projected his first tour to Greece, the botanical investigation of which country had for some time past become the leading object of his pursuits. He first, however, visited the principal seats of learning in Germany, and made a considerable stay at Vienna, where he procured an excellent draughtsman, Mr. Ferdinand Bauer, to be the companion of his expedition. On the 6th of March, 1786, they set out together from Vienna, and early in May sailed from Naples to Crete, where, in the month of June, as his biographer says, “they were welcomed by Flora in her gayest attire.” The ensuing winter they spent at Constantinople, in the course of which Dr. Sibthorp devoted himself to the study of the modern Greek. On the 14th of March, 1787, they sailed from Constantinople for Cyprus, taking the islands of Mytilene, Scio, Cos, and Rhodes, and touching at the coast of Asia minor in their way. A stay of five weeks at Cyprus enabled Dr. Sibthorp to draw up a “Fauna” and Flora“of that island. The former consists of eighteen mammalia, eighty-five birds, nineteen amphibia, and one hundred fishes; the latter comprehends six hundred and sixteen species of plants, These and his other catalogues were greatly augmented by subsequent observations, insomuch that the number of species, collected from an investigation of all Dr. Sibthorp’s manuscripts and specimens for the materials of the” Pro-. dromus Florae Graecai," amounts to about 3000. Without minutely tracing our traveller’s steps throiigh Greece, or the various islands of the Archipelago, we may notice that his health, which suffered from the confinement of a ship, and the heat of the weather, was restored at Athens, where he arrived June lyth, 1787. From thence he prosecuted his journeys in various directions, and with various successes. The ascent of mount Delphi*, or Delphi, in Negropont, one of his most laborious, if not perilous adventures, yielded him an abundant botanical harvest; and mount Athos, which he visited a week after, also greatly enriched Ifis collection of rare plants. From hence he proceeded to Thessalonica, Corinth, and Patras, at which last place he embarked with Mr. Bauer, on board an English vessel, for Bristol, on the 24th of September. After a tedious and stormy voyage, they arrived in England the first week in December.

The constitution of Dr. Sibthorp, never very robust, had suffered materially from the hardships and exertions of his journey. But his native air, and the learned leisure of the university, gradually recruited his strength. The duties of his professorship were rather a recreation than a toil. The superintendance of his exquisite draughtsman, now engaged in making finished drawings of the Greek animals^ as wel! as plants; and his occasional visits to the Linnsean and Banksian herbariums, for the removal of his difficulties; all together filled up his leisure hours. He was every where welcomed and admired for his ardour, his talents, and his acquisitions. His merits procured an augmentation of his stipend, with the rank of a regius professor (conferred in 1793); both which advantages were, at the same time, conferred on his brother professor at Cambridge. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1789, and was among the first members of the Linnsean Society, founded in 1788. In the spring of the year last mentioned, sir James Smith, with sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Dryander, passed a week at Oxford, which was devoted to a critical survey of the professor’s Grecian acquisitions; nor was the honey of mount Hymettus, or the wine of Cyprus, wanting at this truly attic entertainment. But the greater these acquisitions, the less was their^ possessor satisfied with them. No one knew, so well as himself, how much was wanting to the perfection of his undertaking, nor could any other person so well remedy these defects. Though he was placed, a few years after his return, in very affluent circumstances; and though his necessary attention to his landed property, and to agricultural pursuits, of which he was passionately fond, might well have turned him, in some measure, aside from his botanical labours; he steadily kept in view the great object of his life, to which he finally sacrificed life itself. No name has a fairer claim to botanical immortality, among the martyrs of the science, than that of Sibthorp.

On the 20th of March, 1794, Dr. Sibthorp set out from London, on his second tour to Greece. He travelled to Constantinople in the train or' Mr. Listen, ambassador to the Porte, and was attended by Francis Borone, as a botanical assistant. They reached Constantinople on the 19th of May, not without Dr. Sibthorp’s having suffered much from the fatigues of the journey, which had brought on a bilious fever. He^oon recovered his health at Constantinople, where he was joined by his friend Mr. Hawkins from Crete. Towards the end of August they made an excursion into Bithynia, and climbed to the summit of Olympus, from whence they brought a fresh botanical harvest. Dr. Sibthorp discovered at Fanar an aged Greek botanist, Dr. Dimitri Argyrami, who had known the Danish traveller Forskall, and who was possessed of some works of Linnæus.

Recovered health, and the accession of his friend’s company, caused Dr. Sibthorp to set out with alacrity on his voyage to Greece, on the 9th of September. Passing down the Hellespont, on the 13th, with a light but favourable breeze, they anchored at Koum Cale, in the Troad, spent two days in examining the plains of Troy, and then proceeded to the isles of 1mb ros and Lemnos. On the 25th they anchored at mount Athos, and passed ten days in examining some of the convents and hermitages, with the romantic scenery, and botanical rarities, of that singular spot, on all which Dr. Sibthorp descants at length, with great delight, in his journal. Their departure wafe, for some time, prevented, by a few Barbary pirates hovering on the coast, but they sailed on the 5th of October, and on the 7th landed at Skiatho. From hence, on the llth, they proceeded down the strait of Negropont, and on the 13th passed under the bridge of live arches, which connects that island with the main land of Greece. On the 15th, at noon, they entered the harbour of the Pyraeus, and proceeded to Athens, where the four succeeding weeks were employed in collecting information relative to the present state of the government, the manufactures, and the domestic economy of that celebrated spot. Here Dr. Sib thorp lost his assistant Borone, who perished by an accidental fall from a window, in his sleep, on or about the 20i h of October.

November 16th, Dr. Sibthorp and Mr. Hawkins left Athens by the ancient Eleusinian way, while the classical streams of the Cephisus, the heights of Helicon and Parnassus, lay before them. They proceeded to Patras and to Zante, where they arrived in the middle of December, enriched with a large collection of seeds, the only botanical tribute that could, at this season, be collected from those famous mountains. An apothecary at Zante furnished Dr. Sibthorp with an ample and splendid herbarium, of the plants of that island, with their modern Greek names; nor did the winter pass unprofitably or unpleasantly in this sequestered spot; where neither agreeable society, nor copious information relative to our learned travellers’ various objects, was wanting. The season was sufficiently favourable in the middle of February, 1795, to allow them to visit the Morea, of which peninsula they made the complete circuit in somewhat more than two months. The violet and primrose welcomed them in the plains of Arcadia; but in vain did our classical travellers look for the beauty of Arcadian shepherdesses, or listen for the pipe of the sylvan swain. Figures emaciated, and features furrowed, with poverty, labour, and care, were all that they met with.

We have now to record the posthumous benefits which Dr. Sibthorp has rendered to his beloved science, and which are sufficient to rank him amongst its most illustrious patrons. By his will, dated Ashburton, January 12, 1796, he gives a freehold estate in Oxfordshire to the university of Oxford, for the purpose of first publishing his “Flora Gfaeca,” in 10 folio volumes, with 100 coloured plates in each, and a “Prodromus” of the same work, in 8vo, without plates. His executors, the honourable Thomas Wenman, John Hawkins, and Thomas Platt, esqrs. were to appoint a sufficiently competent editor of these works, to whom the manuscripts, drawings, and specimens, were to be confided. Their judicious choice fell upon the learned president of the Linnsean Society, who has nearly completed the “Prodromus,” and the second volume of the “Flora.” The plan of the former, was drawn out by Dr. Sibthorp, but nothing of the latter, except the figures, was prepared, nor any botanical characters or descriptions whatever. The final determination of the species, the distinctions of such as were new, and all critical remarks, fell to the lot of the editor, who has also revised the references to Dioscorides. When these publications are finished, the fcnnlial sum of 200. is to be paid to a professor of rural oeconomy, who is, under certain limitations^ to be Sherar* dian professor of botany. The remainder of the rents of the estate above mentioned is destined to purchase books for the professor, and the whole of the testator’s collections* with his drawings, and books of natural history, botany, and agriculture, are given to the university. The only work which Dr. Sibthorp published in his life-time is a “Flora Oxoniensis,” 1794, in one vol. 8vo, which has the merit of being entirely formed on his own personal observation.

, a strenuous champion for repub-­lican government, who set up Marcus Brutus for his pattern, and died like him in the cause of liberty, was second son of Robert, earl of Leicester, by Dorothy, eldest daughter of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland; and was born about 1617, or as some say, 1622. Of his education, and how he spent the younger part of his life, we know little. It appears that his father, when he went as ambassador to Denmark in 1632, took him with him, when a mere boy, and again in 1636, when he went as ambassador to France. During the rebellion he adhered to the interest of the parliament, in whose army he was a colonel; and was nominated one of the king’s judges, and as some say, sat on the bench, but was not present when sentence was passed, nor: did he sign the warrant for his execution. His admirers, however, assure us that he was far from disapproving of that atrocious act. He was in truth such a zealous republican, that he became a violent enemy to Cromwell, after “he had made himself protector. In June 1659 he was appointed, by the council of state, to go with sir Robert Houeywood, and Bulstrode Whitelocke, esq. commissioners to the Sound, to mediate a peace between the kings of Sweden and Denmark: but Whitelocke observes, that himself was unwilling to undertake that service,” especially,“says he,” to be joined with those that would expect precedency of me, who had been formerly ambassador extraordinary to Sweden alone; and I knew well the over-ruling temper and height of colonel Sidney. I therefore endeavoured to excuse myself, by reason of my old age and infirmities; but the council pressed it upon me:" which at last he evaded. While Sidney was at the court of Denmark, M. Terlon, the French ambassador there, had the 1 confidence to tear out of the university Album this verse; which the colonel, when it was presented to him, had written in it

Lord Molesworth, who relates this in the preface to his spirited Account of Denmark, observes, that, “though M. Terlon understood not a word of Latin, he was told by others the meaning of the sentence; which he considered as a libel upon the French government, and upon such as was then setting up in Denmark by French assistance or example.”

As Sidney adhered to the notions he had conceived of a pure republic, he refused to act under Oliver Cromwell, or Richard Cromwell, and during this period lived in a retired manner, sometimes at the family seat at Penshurst, and it is supposed that he employed some part of his leisure in composing those “Discourses on Government,” which have formed the favourite code of the republican faction in all ages since. When, however, Richard had resigned his protectorship, and the long parliament was restored, and a government without king or lords, Sidney became one of the council of state, and was sent to Denmark, as we have just noticed.

He left behind him “Discourses upon Government;” the first edition of which was in 1698, the second in 1704, folio. To the second is added the paper he delivered to the sheriffs immediately before his death; with an alphabetical table. They also formed one of the publications of Mr. Thomas Hollis, in favour of republicanism in 1763, 4to, with a life, in which the writer or writers declare that they “cannot wish a greater or more extensive blessing to the world, than that it (the volume) may be every where read, and its principles universally received and propagated.”

Mr. Sidney was placed at a school at Shrewsbury, where, at the age of twelve, he addressed two letters, one in Latin, and the other in French, to his father, which produced in answer a valuable compendium of instruction, the original of which was found among the Mss. at Penshurst, and is inserted by Dr. Zouch in the life of Sir Philip. From this school Mr. Sidney was removed to Christ church, Oxford, in 1569, where his tutors were Dr. Thomas Thornton and Mr. Robert Dorsett. During his residence here, he performed a scholastic exercise, by holding a public disputation with Carew, the author of the Survey of Cornwall, then a gentleman commoner of Christ-church. Sidney was at this time only fourteen years old, and yet of three years standing, and his disputation took place in the presence of several of the* nobility, and particularly of his two uncles, the earls of Warwick and Leicester, which last was at this time chancellor of the university. He also appears to have pursued his studies for some time at Cambridge, probably at Trinity college, where he had an opportunity of cultivating and improving that friendship, which he had already contracted with Mr. Fulke Greville his relation, and his companion at school. During these years his proficiency was very uncommon: he cultivated the whole circle of arts and sciences, his comprehensive mind aspiring to preeminence in every part of knowledge attainable by human genius or industry. He acquired, in particular, a complete knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and nothing could equal the diligence with which he explored the stores of ancient literature, which had been recently imported into E.urope; and hen.ce at a more advanced season of his life, he was highly esteemed by the universities at home and abroad,

At Vienna, where Mr. Sidney appears to have arrived in 1573, he learned horsemanship, the use of arms, and all those manly and martial exercises which were suitable to his youth and nobleness of birth. He excelled at tilt or tournament, in managing all sorts of weapons, in playing at tennis, in diversions of trial and skill, in music, in all the exercises that suited a noble cavalier, while his person, his aspect, his discourse, his every gesture were embellished with dignity and grace. In 1574, he was at Venice, where his sacred adherence to the precepts of youth guarded him against its dissipations. His biographer thinks it probable that he was not unknown to the celebrated Paul Sarpi. In June 1574, Sidney left Venice and came to Padua, where he applied hiinself with his accustomed diligence to geometry and astronomy, and here he met with the illustrious 7 asso, which his biographer conceives was one of his motives for visiting Padua. On his return to Venice in 1574-, Mr. Sidney derived great pleasure and instruction from a free and undisguised conversation on topics of learning with persons who professed the religion of the church of Rome. This circumstance gave rise to a suspicion among his friends in England, that he was inclined to become a member of that church; but against this he appears to have been sufficiently guarded by his friend Languet, and it was by his persuasion that he desisted from visiting Rome.

Among the fashionable amusements in the court of Elizabeth, tournaments were most in vogue. In 1580, Philip earl of Arundel, and sir William Drury his assistant, challenged all comers to try their feats of arms in those exercises. This challenge was given in the genuine spirit of chivalry in honour of the queen. Among those who gallantly offered themselves as defenders, were Edward Vere, earl of Oxford, lord Windsor, Mr. Philip Sidney, and fourteen others. The victory Was adjudged by her majesty to the earl of Oxford. With this earl of Oxford Sidney had afterwards a serious quarrel, having received a personal insult from him. The queen interposed to prevent a duel, with which Sidney was much dissatisfied, and to compose his mind retired to Wilton, the seat of his brother-in-law the earl of Pembroke. In this seat of rural beauty (and not at Houghton-house, as asserted in Gough’s Camden, which was not built until after his death) he planned the design of the “Arcadia.” It has been conjectured that the Ethiopic history of Heliodorus, which had been recently translated into English prose by Thomas Underdowne, suggested that new mode of writing romance which is pursued in this work; but it seems more probable that he derived the plan of his work from the “Arcadia” of Sannazarius, a complete edition of which was printed at Milan in 1504. The persons introduced by the Italian author are shepherds, and their language, manners, and sentiments are such as suit only the innocence and simplicity of pastoral life. This species of composition may be considered as forming the second stage of romance-writing. The heroism and the gallantry, the moral and virtuous turn of the chivalry-romance, were still preserved; but the dragons, the necromancers, the enchanted castles were banished, and some small resemblance to human nature was admitted. Still, however, there was too much of the marvellous in them to please an age which aspired to refinement. The characters were discerned to be strained, the style swollen, the adventures incredible, and the books themselves were voluminous and tedious. With respect to the “Arcadia,” Sidney formed a just estimate when he characterized it as “an idle composition, as a trifle, and triflingly handled.” He appears indeed to have written it chiefly for his sister’s amusement, to whom he sent it in portions as it came from his pen. He never completed the third book, nor was any part of the work printed during his life. It is said he intended to arrange the whole anew* and to have changed the subject by celebrating the prowess and military deeds of king Arthur, The whole, imperfect as he left it, was corrected by his sister’s pen, and carefully perused by others under her direction, so that it was very properly called “The countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.” It now lies neglected on the shelf, and has almost sunk into oblivion; yet the reception it obtained from the public, having gone through fourteen impressions, and having been translated into the French, Dutch, and other European languages, clearly evinces that it was once held in very high estimation. “There are,” says his biographer, “passages in this work exquisitely beautiful, and useful observations on life and manners, a variety and accurate discrimination of characters, fine sentiments expressed in strong and adequate terms, animated descriptions, equal to any that occur in the ancient or modern poets, sage lessons of morality, and judicious reflexions on government and policy.”

About this time sir Philip formed, along with sir Fulke Greville, a design of accompanying sir Francis Drake in a voyage of discovery to America; and this he projected with the greatest secrecy, and with more of a romantic turn than his friends could have wished. The secret, however, transpired, and the queen issued peremptory orders to restrain him from his purpose, which in all probability would have ended in disappointment, or, if successful, would have left a stain on his hitherto spotless character. In 1585 a very remarkable honour seemed to be within his reach. He was named among the competitors for the elective kingdom of Poland, vacant by the death of Stephen Bathori, prince of Transylvania. Queen Elizabeth, however, was averse from the measure, “refusing,” says sir Robert Naunton, “to further his advancement, not only out of emulation, but out of fear to lose the jewel of her times.” According to Fuller he declined the dignity, preferring rather to be “a subject to queen Elizabeth than a sovereign beyond the seas.”

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

The concluding period of life not seldom presents us with the most prominent features of genuine goodness; and it may be truly said that history does not afford an incident more noble or affecting than the following. As sir Philip was returning from the field of battle, pale, languid, and thirsty with excess of bleeding, he asked for water to quench his thirst. The water was brought, and had no sooner approached his lips, than he instantly resigned it to a dying soldier, whose ghastly countenance attracted his notice, speaking these memorable words: “This man’s necessity is still greater than mine.” He languished until Oct. 17, when he expired in the arms of his secretary and friend Mr. William Temple. He had just arrived at the age of thirty-two years, and had attained in that short period, more fame, more esteem, more admiration, both at home and throughout Europe, than any man of the sixteenth century, and for many years after employed more pens to celebrate his excellent qualities of head and heart. In England a general mourning was observed among those of highest rank, “no gentleman, for many months, appearing in a gay or gaudy dress, either in the city or the court.” His body being brought to England, was interred, with great pomp, in St. Paul’s cathedral. No memorial, however, was erected to him, except a tablet with some very indifferent lines, but his fame did not require aid from brass or marble. For the many testimonies to his uncommon worth and excellence, both by his contemporaries and their successors, we must refer to Dr. Zouch’s elaborate “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of sir Philip Sidney.” There also the petty objections of lord Orford to this illustrious character are fully answered. Both the universities of England lamented the death of sir Philip Sidney in three volumes of elegiac poems, in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Italian. His widow afterwards married Robert Devereux, earl of Essex; and after his death, she married Richard de Burgh, the fourth earl of Clanrickard in the kingdom of Ireland. She became a convert to popery after the death of her second husband, the earl of Essex. There seems little that is very estimable in the marriages and conversion of this lady, and certainly nothing respectful to the memory of her first husband.

He was a man learned above the age he lived in, skilled in all parts of literature and science, of a subtle and penetrating wit, and considering that he lived in the decline of Roman literature, not an inelegant writer. Of his works, nine books of epistles, with about four and twenty poems interspersed, are still extant. There are few things in his letters which relate to religion or the church, so that his opinions cannot be ascertained, but they contain many particulars relative to the learning and history of the times. They were published with notes by father Sirmond, at Paris, 1614, in 8vo;and, after his death, reprinted in 1652, with some additions, in 4to.

, a Florentine artist, born at Corfcona in 1439, was the scholar of Piero della Francesca. He was an artist of spirit and expression, and one of the first in Tuscany, who designed the naked with anatomical intelligence, though still with some dry ness of manner, and too much adherence to the model: the chief evidence of this is in the Duomo of Orvieto, where in the mixed imagery of final dissolution and infernal punishment, he has scattered original ideas of conception, character, and attitude, in copious variety, though not without remnants of gothic alloy. The angels, who announce the impending doom or scatter plagues, exhibit, with awful simplicity, bold fore-shortenings; whilst the St. Michael presents only the tame heraldic figure of a knight all cased in armour. In the expression of the condemned groups and daemons, he chiefly dwells on the supposed perpetual renewal of the pangs attending on the last struggles of life with death, contrasted with the inexorable scowl or malignant grin of fiends methodizing torture; a horrid feature, reserved by Dante for the last pit of his Inferno. It has been first said by Vasari, who exulted in his relation to Luca, that Michael Angelo, in certain parts of his Last Judgment, adopted something of the conduct and the ideas of his predecessor. This is true, because Michael Angelo could not divest himself of every impression from a work he had so often seen: his originality consisted in giving consequence to the materials of Luca, not in changing them; both drew from the same sources, with the same predilections and prejudices, and differed less in the mode than the extent of their conception.

Of this artist, who died in 1521, aged eighty- two, a story is told as a proof of what an absolute command he had over his passions, or rather, it might have been said, over natural affection. He had a son extremely handsome, and a youth of great hopes, who was unfortunately killed at. Cortona. When this son, greatly beloved by him, was brought home, he ordered his corpse to be carried into his painting-room and, having stripped him, immediately drew his picture, without shedding a tear.

, a French writer, whose taste for English literature entitles him to a place here, was born at Limoges in 1709, and appears to have been brought up to civil or political life, although he always cultivated a taste for literature. He purchased the office of master of requests, and after having managed the affairs of the duke of Orleans, became comptroller-general and minister of state in 1759. This was a critical time for France, which was carrying on a ruinous war, and the finances were in a very low condition. Silhouette wished to remedy this last evil by retrenchment and ceconomy, but finding that such a plan was only a topic for ridicule, he quitted his post in about nine months, and retired to his estate of Brie-sur-Marne,and devoted his time to study, and his wealth to benevolence. He died in 1767. His works were: 1. “Idee generate du Government Chinois,” 1729, 4to, 1731, 12mo. 2. “Reflexion politique,” from the Spanish of Balthazar Gracian, 1730, 4to. 3. A translation of Pope’s “Essay on Man,” which the French speak of as faithful, but not elegant. 4. A translation of Bolingbroke’s “Dissertation on Parties.” This is said to have been printed at London in 1739, where, perhaps about this time Silhouette was on a visit. 5 “Lettre sur les transactions pubiiques du Regrie d'Elizabeth,” with some remarks on Rapin’s account of that reign, Amst. 1736, 12mo. 6. A translation of Pope’s “Miscellanies,” 1741, 2 vols. 12mo. 7. “Traite* mathematique sur le bonheur,” 1741, 12mo. 8. A translation of Warburton’s “Alliance,” 1742, 2 vols. 1.2 mo. With Warburton he appears to have corresponded, for in one of Warburton’s letters, printed by Mr. Nichols, we find that celebrated author desiring that a copy of his “Divine Legation” may be sent to M. Silhouette in Franoe. In the “History of the Works of the Learned” also, we find “Observations on the Abbe* Pluche’s History of the Heavens,” translated from the French of Silhouette, who professes that he was chiefly indebted for them to the second volume of the “Divine Legation,” and to some particular remarks communicated to him hy Mr. Warburton. 9. “Epitres morales, Lettres phiiosophiques, et Traits mathematiques,” printed at the Bowyer press, in 1741. 10. “Memoirs des commissaires du roi et de ceux de sa majeste Britamuque stir les possessions et les droits respectifs des deux couronnes en Amerique,” Paris, 1755, 4to. In this he was assisted by M. de la Gahssonniere. 1 1> “Voyage de France, d‘Espagne, de Portugal, et d’ltalie,” a posthumous work, Paris, 1770.

, a Roman poet, and author of a poetical history of the second Punic war, which decided the empire of the world in favour of the Romans, was born in the reign of Tiberius, about A. D. 15, and is supposed to have derived the name of Italicus from the place of his birth; but whether he was born at Italica in Spain, or atCorsinium in Italy, which, according to Strabo, had the name of Italica given it during the social war, is a point which cannot be known: though, if his birth had happened at either of these places, the grammarians tell us, that he should have been called Italicensis, and not Italicus. When he came to Rome, he applied himself to the bar; and, by a close imitation of Cicero, succeeded so well, that he became a celebrated advocate and most accomplished orator. His merit and character recommended him to the highest offices in the republic, even to the consulship, of which he was possessed when Nero difed. He is said to have been aiding in the accusation of persons of high rank and fortune, whom that tyrant had devoted to destruction: but he retrieved his character afterwards by a long and uniform course of virtuous behaviour, and held a principal office under the emperor Vitellius, which he executed so well as to preserve his credit with the public. Vespasian sent him as proconsul into Asia, where he behaved with integrity and unblemished reputation. After having thus spent the best part of his life in the service of his country, he bade adieu to public affairs, resolving to consecrate the remainder of his days to retirement and the Muses. He had several fine villas in the country one at Tusculum, celebrated for having been Cicero’s and a farm near Naples, said to have been Virgil’s, and at which was his tomb, which Silius often visited. Martial compliments him on both these accounts. In his retirement he applied himself to poetry, not so much from the impulse of genius, which would have appeared earlier, but from his enthusiastic regard for Virgil, to whose memory he paid the highest veneration, and whose birth-day he is said to have celebrated annually with more solemnity than his own. He has endeavoured to imitate him in his poem; and, though he falls greatly short, yet there are some splendid passages and strains of imagination which enliven a historical detail that otherwise may be read with more pleasure in Livy’s prose. After spending a considerable time in this retirement, and reaching his seventy- fifth year, he was seized with an incurable ulcer, which afflicted him with unsupportable pains, and drove him to put an end to his life by refraining from sustenance. The best and almost the only account we have of Silius Italicus is in one of Pliny’s letters, from which most of the above particulars are taken.

In the Rawlinson collection of Mss. at Oxford, there is a didactic poem, entitled “Ars Mu^ica,” which, though anonymous, contains internal evidence of having been written by Gerbert. It is composed in Latin monkish rhyme, except where such technical terms occurred, as could not possibly be reduced to metre. The last chapter of this work is a separate treatise, of a very few pages, under the title of “Rhythmomachia,” or the battle of numbers and figures, which is universally allowed to have been written by Gerbert. It was composed as a kind of game, soon after the arrival of the Arabian figures or ciphers in Europe, for which the author gives rules resembling those for chess. Hence some of his biographers say, that it is to Gerbert we are indebted for the Arabic numerals. Certainly such attainments were indications ofno common mind, and induced the vulgar to suspect that he was addicted to magic an absurd notion, which Platina had adopted, for he says that he obtained the papacy by ill arts, and that he left his monastery to follow the devil. He allows him, indeed, the merit of a sincere repentance; but mentions some prodigies at his death, which will claim little regard on the testimony of such a writer.

, surnamed Metaphrasfes, from his having written the lives of the saints in a diffuse manner, was born of noble parents at Constantinople, in the tenth century, and was well educated, and raised himself by his merit to very high trust under the reigns of Leo, the philosopher, and Constantine Pruphyrogenitus his son. It is said, that when sent on a certain occasion by the emperor to the island of Crete, which the Saracens were about to surprize, a contrary wind carried his ship to the isle of Pharos. There he nut with an anchorite, who advised him to write tho life of Theoctista, a female saint of Lesbos. With this he complied, and we may presume, found some pleasure in the undertaking, as be gradually extended his researches to the lives of an hundred and twenty other saints, which, with respect to style, are not disgraceful to a scholar, but, cardinal Bellarmin says, he describes his saints rather as what they ought to be, than as what they were. There are Latin translations of this work by Lipotian, Surius, and others, but no edition of the original Gveek; and iiis translators are accused of having added much of a fabulous nature. Some other religious tracts of Metaphrastes are extant, and some “Annals.” He died in 976 or 977.

In 1684 he published, at Francfort, “Histoire de l'Origine et du Progres des Revenus Ecclesiastiques,” or, “The History of the Rise and Progress of Ecclesiastical Revenues,” under the name of Jerome a Costa. A second edition of it, with great additions, was printed at Francfort, 1709, in 2 vols. 12mo. In 1684 he published, at London, “Disquisitiones Criticae de variis per diversa loca et tempora Bibliorum Editionibus,” &c. and in the same year, at the same place, appeared an English translation of it, with this title, “Critical Enquiries into the various editions of the Bible, printed in divers places and at several times, together with animadversions upon a small treatise of Dr. Isaac Vossius concerning the oracles of the Sibyls.” There is his usual display of learning in this piece, which may be considered as an abridgment of his “Critical History of the Old Testament.” In 1686, he published an answer to Le Clerc, who had criticised his work the year before; and, upon Le Clerc’s replying in 1686, another in 1687, both under the name of the Prior of Bolleville, at which place he then resided,

In 1688 he published at Francfort, under the name of John Reuchlin, “Dissertation Critique sur la Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecc'eYiastiques par Du Pin, &c.” in which he supports with great spirit some principles in his “Critical History of the Old Testament,” which had been controverted by Du Pin. In 1689 came out his “Histoire Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament,” an English version of which was published the same year at London; in 1690, “Histoire Critique des versions du Nouveau Testament;” in 1693, “Histoire Critique des principaux Commentateurs du Nouveau Testament;” in all which, as indeed in every thing else he wrote, there appears great acuteness, and great learning, with, however, an unfortunate propensity to singularities and novelties of opinion, and too much contempt for those who differed from him, and in this last work he has perhaps unsettled more than he has settled. In 1702 he published a French translation of the New Testament, with critical remarks, in 2 vols. 8vo: which was censured by cardinal de Noailles, and Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. In 1714, was published at Amsterdam, in 2 vols. 12mo, “Nouvelle Bibliotheque Choisie,” or, “A new select library, which points out the good books in various kinds of literature, and tht? use to be made of them;” but this must be reckoned a posthumous work; for Simon died at Dieppe in April 1712, in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried in St. James’s church.

, a Grecian poet, wit, and somewhat of a philosopher, uas born in the 35th olympiad, or 558 B.C. and is said to have died in his ninetieth year. He was a native of Ceos, one of the Cyclades, in the neighbourhood of Attica, and became the preceptor of Pindar. Both Plato and Cicero speak of him, not only as a good poet ana musician, but also as a man of wisdom and virtue. His lengthened life gave him an opportunity of knowing a great number of the first characters in antiquity, with whom he was in some measure connected. Fabncius informs us that he was contemporary, and in friendship with Pittacus of Mitylene, Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens, Pausanias, king of Sparta; Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse also with Themistocles, and with Alcuudes, king of Thessaly. X uophon, in his dialogue upon tyranny, makes him one of the interlocutors. His famous answer to Hiero. as recorded by Cicero, has been often quoted as a proof, not only of his wisdom, hut his piety. When Hiero asked of him a definition of God, he requested a day to consider of it; when this was expired, he doubled the time, and thus he did repeatedly, till the monarch desired to know his reason for this proceeding “It is,” said he,“because the longer I reflect on the question, the more difficult it appears to be.”

In his old age, perhaps from seeing the respect which money procured to such as had lost the charms of youth, and the power of attaching mankind by oiiier means, he became somewhat mercenary and avaricious. He was frequently employed by the victors at the games to write panegyrics and odes in their praise, before his pupil Pindar had exercised his talents in their behalf; but Simonides would never gratify their vanity in this particular, till he had first tied them down to a stipulated sum for his trouble: and, upon being upbraided for his meanness, he said that he had two coffers, in one of which he i <id, for many years, put his pecuniary rewards; the other was for honours, verbal thanks, and promises; that the first was pretty well filled, but the last remained always empty. Anu he made no scruple to confess, in his old age, that of all the enjoyments of life, the love of money was the only one of which time had not deprived him. He was of course frequently reproached with this vice, but always defended himself with good humour. Upon being asked by Hiero’s queen, whether it was most desirable to be learned or rich, he answered that it was far belter to be rich; for the learned were always dependent on the rich, and waiting at their doors; whereas he never saw rich men at the doors of the learned. When he was accused of being so sordid as to sell part of the provisions with which his table was furnished by Hiero, he said he had done it, in order, “to display to the world the magnificence of that prince, and his own frugality.” To others he said, that his reason for accumulating wealth was, that “he would rather leave money to his enemies, after death, than be troublesome to his friends when living.”

, an ancient philosopher of the sixth century, was a native of Cihcia, a disciple of Ammonias, the peripatetic, and endeavoured to unite the Platonic and Stoic doctrines with the peripatetic. Distrusting his situation under the emperor Justinian, he went to Cosroes king of the Persians: but returned to Athens, after it had been stipulated in a truce between the Persians and the Romans, A. D. 549, that he and his friends should live quietly and securely upon what was their own, and not be compelled by the Christians to depart from the religion of their ancestors. From his wish to unite discordant sects, he is called by a modern (Peter Petit) “omnium veterum philosophorurn coagulum.” He wrote commentaries upon several of Aristotle’s works, once thought to be valuable in themselves, but now consulted only for some curious fragments of ancient philosophers preserved in them. Of these there are three Aldine editions, 152b and 1527. But, of all his productions, some of which are lost, at least unpublished, his “Commentary upon Epictetus” has obtained most reputation. Fabricius is of opinion, that there is nothing in Pagan antiquity better calculated to form the manners, or to give juster ideas of a Divine Providence. It has been several times printed in Greek and Latin, particularly at Ley den, 1639, in 4to, and at London, in 1670, in 8vo. Dacier published a French translation of it at Paris, 1715, 12mo; and Dr. George Stanhope an English one at London, 1704, 8vo.

His “Chronicon, &c.” was published at Oxford in 1652, with a Latin life prefixed, and was reprinted by the eminent critic Peter Wesseling. Dr. Reynolds, afterwards bishop of Norwich, in his license for the press, speaks of it as “egregtum et absolutissimum opus, summa industria, omniuenaerui ditione, magno judicio, et multorum annoru'n vigiliis productum.” His other works were, 1 “Positive divinity in three parts, containing an exposition of the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, an. 1 decalogue, &c.” 2. “The knowledge of Christ, in two Treatises.” 3. “A Treatise concerning God’s Providence in regard of Evil or Sin.” 4. “The Doctrine of Regeneration, delivered in a Sermon on John iii. 6,” and defended in a “Declaration.” 5. “Tractatus de Justificatione.” 6. “Notce selectiores in Horatium.” 7. “Prselectiones in Ptrsii Satyras.” 8. “Anglicanae linguae vocabuiarium Etymologicum.” 9. “Sanctas linguce soboles.” 10. “Dii gentium, sive nominurn, quibus deos suos Ethnic! appellabant explicatio.”

It was not long after this, that Simpson, being pretty well qualified to erect a figure himself by the advice of his friend, make an open profession of casting nativities, and was so successful, that he quite neglected weaving, and soon became the oracle of Bosworth and its environs. Scarcely a courtship advanced to. a match, or a bargain to a sale, without the parties previously consulting the infallible Simpson about the consequences. Helping persons to stolen goods he always declared above his match; and that, as to life and death, he had no power. Together witii his astrologv, he had furnished himself with arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, sufficient to qualify him for looking into the “Ladies Diary-” (of which he had afterwards the direction), by which he came to understand, that there was still a higher branch of mathematical knowledge than any he had been yet acquainted with; and this was the method of fluxions. But he was altogether at a loss to discover any English author who had written on the subject, except Mr. Hayes; and his work, being a folio and rather scarce, exceeded his ability of purchasing. An acquaintance, however, lent him Stone’s Fluxions, which is a translation of De l'Hospital’s “Analyse des infinitement petits” and by this one book, and his own penetrn<:; tJents, he was enabled, in a very few years, to compose a much more accurate treatise on that subject tnan any that had before appeared in our language. In the mean time an unfortunate event involved him in a deal of trouble. Having undertaken to raise the devil, in order to answer certain questions to a joung woman, who consulted him respecting her sweetheart, then absent at sea, the credulous girl was so frightened on the appearance of a man from beneath some straw, who represented the devil, that she fell into violent fits, from which she was with difficulty recovered, and which for a considerable time threatened insanity or fatuity. In consequence of this exertion of his art, he was obliged to leave the place, and he removed to Derby, where he remained a few years, working at his trade by day, and instructing pupils in the evening. It would seem that Simpson had an early turn for versifying, both from the circumstance of a song written here in favour of the Cavendish family, on occasion of the parliamentary election at that place, in 1733; and from his first two mathematical questions that were published in the “Ladies Diary,” which were both in a set of verses, not ill written for the occasion. These were printed in the Diary for 1736, and therefore must at latest have been written in 1735. These two questions, being at that time pretty difficult ones, shew the great progress he had even then made in the mathematics; and from an expression in the first of them, viz. where he mentions his residence as being in latitude 52, it appears he was not then come up to London, though he must have done so very soon after.

After, however, he took leave of astrology and its emoluments, he was driven to hardships for the subsistence of his family, having married the taylor’s widow with two children, who soon brought him two more. He, therefore, came up to London in 1735 or 1736, and for some time wrought at his business in Spitalfields, and taught mathematics when he had any spare time. His industry soon became so productive, that he was enabled to bring up his wife and children to settle in London. The number of his scholars increasing, and his abilities becoming in some measure known to the public, he issued proposals for publishing, by subscription, “A new Treatise of Fluxions, wherein the Direct and Inverse Method are demonstrated after a new, clear, and concise manner; with their application to Physics and Astronomy. Also the Doctrine of infinite Series and reverting Senes universally and amply explained; fluxionary and exponential Equations solved,” &c. When he first proposed his intentions of publishing such a work, he did not know of any English book founded on the true principles of fluxions, that contained any thing material, especially the practical part; and, though some progress had been made by several learned and ingenious gentlemen, the principles were nevertheless left obscure and defective, and all that had been done by nny of them in “infinite series” very inconsiderable. The book was not published till 1737, 4to; the author having been frequently interrupted from furnishing the press so fast as he could have wished, through his unavoidable attention to his pupils for his immediate support. In 1740 he published “A Treatise on the Nature and Laws of Chance,” in 4to; to which are annexed full and clear Investigati ns of two important Problems added in the second edition of Mr. De Moivre’s “Book on Chances, and two new Methods for summing of Series.” His next performance was, “Essays on several curious and useful subjects in speculative and mixed Mathematics. Dedicated to Francis Blake, esq. since fellow of the Royal Society, and his very good Friend and Patron,” 174-0, 4to. Soon after the publication of this book he was chosen a member of the Royal Academy at Stockholm. Our author’s next work appeared in 1742, 8vo, “The Doctrine of Annuities and Reversions deduced from general and evident Principles: with useful Tables, shewing the values of single and joint lives, &c. at different rates of interest,” &c. This, in 1743, was followed by “An Appendix, containing some Remarks on a late Book on the same subject (by Mr. Abr. De Moivre, F. R. S.) with answers to some personal and malignant representations in the Preface thereof.” To this De Moivre never thought fit to reply. In 1743 he published also “Mathematical Dissertations on a variety of Physical and Analytical subjects,” 4to. This work he dedicated to Martin Folkes, esq. president of the Royal Society. His next book was, “A Treatise of Algebra, wherein the fundamental principles are fully and clearly demonstrated, and applied to the solution of a variety of problems.” To which he added, “The Construction of a great number of geometrical Problems, with the method of resolving them numerically.” This work was designed for the use of young beginners; inscribed to William Jones, esq. F. R. S. and printed in 1745, 8vo. A new edition appeared in 1755, with additions and improvements. This is dedicated to James earl of Morton, F. R. S. Mr. Jones being dead; and there was a sixth edition in 1790. His next work was, “Elements of Geometry, with their application to Mensuration of Superficies and Solids, to the determination of Maxima and Minima, and to the construction of a great variety of Geometrical Problems,” 1747, 8vo, reprinted in 1760, with large alterations and additions, designed for young beginners; particularly for the gentlemen at the king’s academy at Woolwich, and dedicated to Charles Frederick, esq. surveyor-general of the ordnance; and other editions have appeared since*. In 1748 came out his “Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical, with the construction and application of Logarithms,” 8vo. This little book contains several things new and useful. In 1750 appeared in 2 vols. 8vo, “The doctrine and application of Fluxions, containing, besides what is common on the subject, a number of new improvements in the Theory,and the solution of a variety of new and very interesting Problems, in different branches of the Mathematics.” In the preface the author offers this to the world as a new book rather than a second edition of that published in 1737; in which he acknowledges, that, besides errors of the press, there are several obscurities and defects, for want of experience, in his first attempt. This work is dedicated to George earl of Mat-clesfield. In 1752 appeared in 8vo, “Select Exercises for young proficients in Mathematics,” dedicated to John Bacon, esq. F. R. S. His “Miscellaneous Tracts,” printed in 1757, 4to, was his last legacy to the public; a most valuable bequest, whether we consider the dignity and importance of the subjects, or his sublime and accurate manner of treating them. These are inscribed to the earl of Macclesfield, and are ably analyzed in Dr. Hutton’s Dictionary.

Besides the foregoing, which are the whole of the regular books or treatises that were published by Mr. Simpson,

bimson again replied in his notes on Geometry. he wrote several papers which were read at the meetings of the Royal Society, and printed in their Transactions; but as most, if not all of them, were afterwards inserted, with alterations or additions, in his printed volumes, it is needless to take any farther notice of them here. He also proposed, and resolved many questions in the “Ladies Diaries,” &c.; sometimes under his own name, as in 1735 and 1736; and sometimes under feigned or fictitious names; such as, it is thought, Hurlothrumbo, Kubernetes, Patrick O'Cavenah, Marmaduke Hodgson, Anthony Shallow, esq. and probably several others; see the Diaries for 1735, 36, 42, 43, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, and 60. Mr. Simpson was also the editor or compiler of the Diaries from 1754 till 1760, both inclusive, during which time he raised that work to the highest degree of respect. He was succeeded in the editorship by Mr. Edw. Rollinson.

It has also been commonly supposed that he was the real editor of, or had a principal share in, two other periodical works of a miscellaneous mathematical nature; viz. the “Mathematician,” and “Turner’s Mathematical Exercises,” two volumes, in 8vo, which came out in periodical numbers, in 1750 and 1751, &c. The latter of these seems especially to have been set on foot to afford a proper place for exposing the errors and absurdities of Mr. Robert Heath, the then conductor of the “Ladies Diary” and the “Palladium;” and which controversy between them ended in the disgrace of Mr. Heath, and expulsion from his office of editor to the “Ladies Diary,” and the substitution of Mr. Simpson in his stead, in 1753.

any of his Cornier publications. But he lived not to put the finishing hand to it. Whatever he wrote upon this subject, probably fell, together with all his other remaining papers, into the hands of major Henry Watson, of the engineers, in the service of the India company, being in all a large chest full of papers. This gentleman had been a pupil of Mr. Simpson’s, and had lodge ' in his house. After Mr. Simpson’s death, Mr. Watson prevailed upon the widow to let him have the papers, promising either to give her a sum of money for them, or else to print and publish them for her benefit. But neither of these was ever done; this gentleman always declaring, when urged on this point by Dr, Hutton and others, that no use could be made of any of the papers, owing to the very imperfect state in which he said they were left. And yet he persisted in his refusal to give them up again.

In the latter stage of his existence, when his life was in danger, exercise and a proper regimen were prescribed him, but to little purpose for he sunk gradually into such a lowness of spirits as seemed to injure his mental faculties, and at last rendered him incapable of performing his duty, or even of reading the letters of his friends; and so trifling an accident as the dropping of a tea-cup would flurry him as much as if a house had tumbled down. The physicians advised his native air for his recovery; and, Feb. 1761, he set out, with much reluctance (believing he should never return), for Bosworth, along with some relations. The journey fatigued him to such a degree, that upon his arrival, he betook himself to his chamber, where he died, May 14, in his fifty-first year.

When the vacancy in the professorship of mathematics at Glasgow did occur, in the following year, by the resignation of Dr. Robert Sinclair, or Sinclare (a descendant or other relative probably of Mr. George Sinclare, who died in that office in 1696), the university, while Mr. Simson was still in London, appointed him to fill it; and the minute of election, which is dated March 11, 1711, concluded with this very proper condition, “That they will admit the said Mr. Robert Simson, providing always, that he give satisfactory proof of his skill in mathematics, previous to his admission.” He returned to Glasgow before the ensuing session of the college, and having gone through the form of a trial, by resolving a geometrical problem proposed to him, and also by giving “a satisfactory specimen of his skill in mathematics, and dexterity in reaching geometry and algebra;” having produced also respectable certificates of his knowledge of the science, from Mr. Caswell and others, he was duly admitted professor of mathematics, on the 20th of November of that year.

During the remaining ten years of his life, he enjoyed a pretty equal share of good health; and continued to occupy himself in correcting and arranging some of his mathematical papers, and occasionally for amusement, in the solution of problems, and demonstration of theorems, which occurred from his own studies, or from the suggestions of others. His conversation on mathematical and other subjects continued to be clear and accurate; yet he had some strong impressions of the decline of his memory, of which he frequently complained; and this probably protracted, and finally prevented his undertaking the publication of some of his works, which were in so advanced a state, that with little trouble they might have been completed for the press. So that his only publication, after resigning his office, was a new and improved edition of Euclid’s Data, which in 1762 was annexed to the 2d edition of the Elements. But from that period, though much solicited to bring forward some of his other works on the ancient geometry, though he knew well how much it was desired, and though he was fully apprised of the universal curiosity excited respecting his discovery of Euclid’s Por-> isms, he resisted every importunity on the subject. A life like Dr. Simson’s, purely academical and perfectly uniform, seldom contains occurrences, the recording of which could be either interesting or useful. But his mathematical labours and inventions form the important part of his character; and with respect to them, there are abundant materials of information in his printed works; and some circumstances also may be gathered from a number of ms papers which he left; and which, by the direction of his executor, are deposited in the library of the college of Glasgow. It is to be regretted, that, of the extensive correspondence which he carried on through life, with many distinguished mathematicians, a small portion only is preserved. Through Dr. Jurin, then Secretary of the Royal Society, he had some intercourse with Dr. Halley, and other distinguished members of that Society. And both about the same time, and afterwards, he had frequent correspondence with Mr. Maciaurin, with Mr. James Stirling, Dr. James Moor, Dr. Matthew Stewart, Dr. Wm. Trail, and Mr. Williamson of Lisbon. In the latter part of his life, his mathematical correspondence was chiefly with that eminent geometer the late earl Stanhope, and with George Lewis Scott, esq.

Dr. Simson never was married; and the uniform regularity of a long life, spent within the walls of his college, naturally produced fixed and peculiar habits, which, however, with the sincerity of his manners, were unoffending, and became even interesting to those with whom he lived. The strictness of these habits, which indeed pervaded all his occupations, probably had an influence also on the direction and success of some of his scientific pursuits. His hours of study, of amusement, and of exercise, were all regulated with uniform precision. The walks even in the squares or garden of the college were all measured by his steps, and he took his exercises by the hundreds of paces, according to his time or inclination.

, a very learned French Jesuit, was the son of a magistrate, and born at Riom, Oct. 12, 1559. At ten years of age he was sent to the college of Billon, in Lower Auvergne, the first seminary which the Jesuits had in France. He entered into the society in 1576, and two years after took the vows. His superiors, discovering his uncommon talents, sent him to Paris; where he taught classical literature two years, and rhetoric three. Two of his pupils were Charles of Valois, duke D‘Angouleme, the natural son of Charles IX., and Francis de Sales. During this time, he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages; and formed that style which has been so much esteemed by the learned. It is said that he took Muretus for his model, and never passed a day without reading some pages in his writings; and it is certain that by this, or his natural taste, he became one of the purest Latin writers of his time. In 1586, he began his course of divinity, which lasted four years. He undertook to translate into Latin the works of the Greek fathers, and began to write notes upon Sidonius Apollinaris. In 1590, he was sent for to Rome by the general of the order, Aquaviva, to take upon him the office of his secretary; which he discharged for sixteen years with success, and clothed the sentiments of his employer in very superior language. The study of antiquity was at that time his principal object: he visited libraries, and consulted manuscripts: he contemplated antiques, medals, and inscriptions: and the Italians, though jealous of the honour of their nation, acknowledged his acuteness as an antiquary, and consulted him in many cases of difficulty. At Rome he formed a friendship with the most eminent men of the time, particularly with Bellarmine and Tolet, who were of his own society, and with the cardinal Baronius, D’Ossat, and Du Perron. Baronius was much assisted by him in his “Ecclesiastical Annals,” especially in affairs relating to the Greek history upon which he furnished him with a great number of works, translated from Greek into Latin.

Sirmond returned to Paris in 1606; and from that time did not cease to enrich the public with a great number of works, particularly editions of the authors of the middle age, printed by him with great care from original manuscripts discovered by him in the public libraries. Much of his life was employed, and the better part of his reputation depends, on his labours as an editor, which produced correct copies of Geoffrey de Vendome, Ennodius, Flocloard, Fulgentius, Valerian, Sidonius Apollinaris, one of his most valuable editions, Paschasius Radbert, Eugene of Toledo, Jdacius, AJarcellinus, and many others When his reputation> came more generally known, pop.- Urban VIII. had a desire to draw him again to Rome and caused a letter for that purpose 10 be sent to him by fattier Vittelleschi, general of their order: but Louis XIII. would not suffer a person who did so much honour to his kingdom, to leave it; and, in 1637, appointed him his confessor, in the room of father Caussin, which delicate office he accepted with great reluctance, yet demeaned himself with the utmost caution and prudence, never meddling with political affairs, or employing his interest in enriching his relations. In 1643, however, after the death of Louis XIII. he left the court, and resumed his ordinary occupations with the same tranquillity as if he had never quitted his retirement. In 1645, he went to Rome, notwithstanding his great age, for the sake of assisting at the election of a general, upon the death of Vittelleschi, as he had done thirty years before upon the death of Aquaviva; and, after his return to France, resumed his studies. But having engaged in a warm dispute in the college of the Jesuits, the exertion brought on a disorder which carried him off in a few days. He died Oct. 7, 1651, aged ninety- two.

Being now in possession of the purple, he began to aspire to the papacy. With this view “he became humble, patient, and affable; so artfully concealing the natural impetuosity of his temper, that one would have sworn this gentleness and moderation was born with him. There was such a change in his dress, his air, his words, and all his actions, that his nearest friends and acquaintance said, he was not the same man. A greater alteration, or a more absolute victory over his passions, was never seen in any one; nor is there an instance, perhaps, in all history, of a person supporting a fictitious character in so uniform and consistent a manner, or so artfully disguising his foibles and imperfections for such a number of years.” To which may be added, that, while he endeavoured to court the friendship of the ambassadors of every foreign power, he very carefully avoided attaching himself to the interest of any one; nor would he accept favours, that might be presumed to lay him under peculiar obligations. He was not less singular in his conduct to his relations, to whom he had heretofore expressed himself with the utmost tenderness; but now he behaved very differently, “knowing that disinterestedness in that point was one of the keys to the papacy. So that when his brother Antony came to see him at Rome, he lodged him in an inn, and sent him back again the next day with only a present of sixty crowns; strictly charging him to return immediately to his family, and tell them, ‘That his spiritual cares increased upon’him, and he was now dead to his relations and the world; but as he found old age and infirmities begin to approach, he might, perhaps, in a while, send for one of his nephews to wait on him',” Upon the death of Pius V. which happened in 1572, Montalto entered the conclave with the rest of the cardinals; but, appearing to give himself no trouble about the election, kept altogether in his apartment, without ever stirring from it, except to his devotions. He affected a total ignorance of the intrigues of the several factions; and, if he was asked to engage in any party, would reply, with seeming indifference, “that for his part he was of no manner of consequence; that, as he had never been in the conclave before, he was afraid of making some false step, and should leave the affair to be conducted wholly by people of greater knowledge and experience.” The election being determined in favour of cardinal Buon Compagnon, who assumed the name of Gregory XIII. Montalto did not neglect to assure him, “that he had never wished for any thing so much in his life, and that be should always remember his goodness, and the favours he received from him in Spain.” The new pope, however, not only shewed very little regard to his compliment, but during his pontificate, treated him with the utmost contempt, and deprived him of the pension which had been granted to him by Pins V. Nor was he held in greater esteem by the generality of the cardinals, who considered him as a poor, old, doting fellow, incapable of doing either good or harm; and who, by way of ridicule, they were used frequently to style, “the ass of La Marca.” He seldom interfered in> or was present at any public transactions; the chief part of his time was employed in works of piety and devotion; and his benevolence to the indigent was so remarkable, that, when a terrible famine prevailed at Pome, the poor said openly of him, “that cardinal Montalto, who lived upon charity himself, gave with one hand what he received with the other; while the rest of the cardinals, who wallowed in abundance, contented themselves with shewing them the way to the hospital.”

Notwithstanding this affected indifference to what passed in the world, he was never without able spies, who informed him from time to time of every the most minute particular. He had assumed great appearance of imbecility and all the infirmities of old age, for some years before the death of Gregory XIII. in 1585; when it was not without much seeming reluctance, that Montalto accompanied the rest of the cardinals into the conclave, where he maintained the same uniformity of behaviour in which he had so long persisted. “He kept himself close shut up in his chamber, and was no more thought or spoken of, than if he had not been there. He very seldom stirred out, and when he went to mass, or any of the scrutinies, appeared so little concerned, that one would have thought he had no manner of interest in any thing that happened within those walls;” and, without promising any thing, he flattered everybody. This method of proceeding was judiciously calculated to serve his ambition. He was early apprised, that there would be great contests or divisions in the conclave; and he knew it was no uncommon case, that when the chiefs of the respective parties met with opposition to the person they were desirous of electing, they would all willingly concur in the choice of some very old and infirm cardinal, whose life would last only long enough to prepare themselves with more strength against another vacancy. These views directed his conduct, nor was he mistaken in his expectations of success. Three cardinals, who were the heads of potent factions, finding themselves unable to choose the persons they respectively favoured, all concurred to elect Montalto. As it was not yet necessary for him to discover himself, when they came to acquaint him with their intention, “he fell into such a violent fit of coughing, that they thought he would have expired upon the spot.” When he recovered himself, he told them, “that his reign would be but for a few days that, besides the continual difficulty of breathing, he had not strength enough to support such a weight; and that his small experience in affairs made him altogether unfit for a charge of so important a nature.” Nor would he be prevailed on to accept it on any other terms, than that “they should all three promise not to abandon him, but take the greatest part of the weight off his shoulders, as he was neither able, nor could in conscience pretend, to take the whole upon himself.” The cardinals giving a ready assent to his proposal, he added, “If you are resolved to make me pope, it will be only placing yourselves on the throne; we must share the pontificate. For my part, I shall be content with the bare title; let them call me pope, and you are heartily welcome to the power and authority.” This artifice succeeded; and, in confidence of engrossing the administration, they exerted their joint interests so effectually, that Montalto was elected. He now immediately pulled off the mask which be had worn for fourteen years, with an amazing steadiness and uniformity. As soon as ever he found a sufficient number of votes to secure his election, he threw the staff with which he used to support himself into the middle of the chapel; and appeared taller by almost a foot than he had done for several years. Being asked according to custom, “Whether he would please to accept of the papacy,” he replied somewhat sharply, “It is trifling and impertinent to ask whether I will accept what I have already accepted: however, to satisfy any scruple that may arise, I tell you, that I accept it with great pleasure; and would accept another, if I could get it; for I find myself strong enough, by the divine assistance, to manage two papacies.” Nor was the change in his manners less remarkable than in his person: he immediately divested himself of the humility he had so long professed; and, laying aside his accustomed civility and complaisance, treated every body with reserve and haughtiness.

The lenity of Gregory’s government had introduced a general licentiousness among all ranks of people; which, though somewhat restrained while he lived, broke out into open violence the very day after his death. Riots, rapes, robberies, and murders, were, during the vacancy of the see, claily committed in every part of the ecclesiastical state; so that the reformation of abuses, in the church as well as the state, was the first and principal care of Sixtus V. for such was the title Montalto assumed. The first days of his pontificate were employed in receiving the congratulations of the Roman nobility, and in giving audience to foreign ministers; and though he received them with seeming cheerfulness and complaisance, yet he soon dismissed them, desiring to be excused, “for he had something else to do than to attend to compliments.” It having been customary with preceding popes to release prisoners on the day of their coronation, delinquents used to surrender themselves after the pope was chosen; and several offenders, judging of Montalto’s disposition by his behaviour while a cardinal, came voluntarily to the prisons, not making the least doubt of a pardon: but they were fatally disappointed; for when the governor of Rome and the keeper of St. Angelo’s castle waited on his holiness to know his intention upon this matter, Sixtus replied, “You certainly do not either know your proper distance, or are very impertinent. What have you to do with pardons and acts of grace, and releasing of prisoners? Don't you think it sufficient, that our predecessor has suffered the judges to lie idle and unemployed these thirteen years? Would you have us likewise stain our pontificate with the same neglect of justice? We have too long seen, with inexpressible concern, the prodigious degree of wickedness that reigns in the ecclesiastical state, to think of granting any pardon. God forbid we should entertain such a design! So far from releasing any prisoners, it is our express command, that they be more closely confined. Let them be brought to a speedy trial, and punished as they deserve, that the prisons may be emptied, and room made for others; and that the world may see, that Divine Providence has called us to the chair of St. Peter to reward the good, and to chastise the wicked; that we bear not the sword in vain, but are the minister of God, and a revenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil.”

In the place of such judges as were inclined to lenity, he substituted others of a more austere disposition, and appointed commissaries to examine not only their conduct, but also that of other governors and judges for many years past; promising rewards to those who could convict them of corruption, or of having denied justice to any one at the instance or request of men in power. All the nobility, and persons of the highest quality, were strictly forbidden, on pain of displeasure, to ask the judges any thing in behalf of their nearest friends or dependants; at the same time the judges were to be fined in case they listened to any solicitation. He further commanded every body, “on pain of death, not to terrify witnesses by threats, or tempt them by hopes or promises. He ordered the syndics and mayors of every town and signiory, as well those that were actually in office, as those who had been for the last ten years, to send him a list of all the vagrants, common debauchees, loose and disorderly people in their districts, threatening them with the strappado and imprisonment, if they omitted or concealed any one.” In consequence of this ordinance, the syndic of Albano, leaving his nephew, who was an incorrigible libertine, out of the list, underwent the strappado in the public market-place, though the Spanish ambassador interceded strongly for him. He par ticularly directed the legates and governors of the ecclesiastical state to be expeditious in carrying on all criminal processes; declaring, “he had rather have the gibbets and gallies full, than the prisons.” He aUo intended to have shortened all other proceedings in law. It had been usual, and was pleasing to the people, as often as his holiness passed by, to cry out, “Long live the pope:” but Sixtus, having a mind to go often unexpectedly to the tribunals of justice, convents, and other public places, forbade this custom in regard to himself; and punished two persons who were ignorant of this edict, with imprisonment, for crying out, “Long live pope Sixtus.” Adultery he punished with death: nor was he less severe to those who voluntarily permitted a prostitution of their wives; a custom at that time very common in Rome. The female sex, especially the younger part, attracted, in a very particular manner, the attention of Sixtus; not only the debauching of any of them, whether by force or artifice, but even the attempting of it, or offering the least offence against modesty, was very severely punished. For the more effectual prevention, as well of private assassinations, as public quarrels, he forbade all persons, on pain of death, to draw a sword, or to carry arms specified in the edict; nor would he be prevailed on to spare any who transgressed this order: even to threaten another with an intended injury was sufficient to entitle the menacer to a whipping and the gallies; especially if the nature of their profession furnished the means of carrying their threats into execution. The banditti, who were numerous when Sixtus was advanced to the papacy, were rendered still more so by the junction of many loose and disorderly people; who, conscious of their demerits, and terrified at the severities they daily saw practised, had fled from justice. Their insolence increased with their numbers; insomuch, that no one could live in the ecclesiastical state with saiety to his person or fortune, nor could strangers travel without imminent danger of being robbed or murdered. The public security more especially required the extirpation of these plunderers, which, by the prudence, vigilance, and resolution of this pope, was effectually performed in less than six months. He obliged the nobility of Rome, and the country round it, to an exact payment of their debts. He abolished all protections and other immunities, in the houses of ambassadors, cardinals, nobles, or prelates. To this purpose, he sent for all the ambassadors, and ordered them to acquaint their respective masters, “that he was determined nobody should reign in Rome but himself; that there should be no privilege or immunity of any kind there, but what belonged to the pope; nor any sanctuary or asylum but the churches, anil that only at such times, and upon such occasions, as he should think proper.”

Thus far we have heheld Sixtus acting in his civil capacity; and if we take a view of his conduct as a politician, in his transactions with foreign powers, we find him maintaining the same degree of firmness as in his treatment of his own subjects. Before he had been pope two months he quarrelled with Philip II. of Spain, Henry III. of France, and Henry king of Navarre. His intrigues in some measure may be said to have influenced, in his day, all the councils of Europe. Sixtus had caused the Vulgate Latin edition of the Bible to be published, which occasioned a good deal of clamour; but far less than his printing an Italian version of it, which excited the in lignation of all the Roman Catholic part of Christendom. Count Olivares, and some of the cardinals, ventured to expostulate with him freely upon it; and said, “It was a scandalous as well as a dangerous thing, and bordered very nearly upon heresy,” But he treated them with contempt, and only said, “We do it for the benefit of you that do not understand Latin.” Though this pope’s behaviour may not command universal applause, yet it is certain the Roman see was under very great obligations to him. His impartial, though rigorous, administration of justice, had a very happy effect; he strenuously defended the rights of the poor, the widow, and the orphan; he refused audience to nobody, ordering his masters of the ceremonies to introduce the poorest to him first; but was more particularly ready to hear any accusation against the magistrates: the same conduct he observed between the clergy and their superiors, always applying quick and effectual, though mostly severe, remedies. In short, he had wrought such a reformation, that the governor told him one day, the place of a judge was now become a perfect sinecure. At his accession to the papacy, he found the apostolic clia.-nber, or treasury, not only exhausted, but in debt: he lei't it, not only clear, but enriched itwith five millions of gold; he also augmented the revenue to double its former amount. To him the city of Rome was obliged for several of its greatest embellishments, particularly the Vatican library, began by Sixtus IV.; and to him its citizens were indebted for the introduction of trade into the ecclesiastical state. Though he was naturally an enemy to profusion, he was never sparing in expence to relieve such as were really necessitous; and, among many other noble charities, his appropriation of three thousand crowns a year, for the redemption of Christian slaves out of the hands of the infidels, will hardly be reckoned the least meritorious.

In respect to his private character, it appears, from several instances, that he was, as well in his habit as diet, generally temperate and frugal; that he remembered, and greatly rewarded, every service that was conferred upon him when he was in an inferior station. Nor did his elevation make him unmindful of his former poverty: his sister once intimating, that it was unbecoming his dignity to wear patched linen, he said to her, “Though we are exalted, through the Divine Providence, to this high station, we ought not to forget, that shreds and patches are the only coat of arms our family has any title to.” The behaviour of Sixtus to his relations, previous to his exaltation, has been already noted: soon after his accession to the pontificate, he sent for his family to Rome, with express orders, that they should appear in a decent and modest manner. Accordingly, his sister Camilla, accompanied by her daughter and two grandsons, and a niece, came thither. The pope’s reception of them was as singular as any other part of his conduct; for some of the cardinals, to ingratiate themselves with his holiness, went out to meet her, dressed them all in a very superb manner, and introduced them with great ceremony to the Vatican. When Sixtus saw Camilla, he pretended not to know her, and asked two or three times who she was; upon which one of the cardinals, who handed her in, said, “It is your sister, holy father.” “My sister!” replied Sixtus, with a frown, “I have but one sister, and she is a poor woman at Le Grotte: if you have introduced her in this disguise, I declare 1 do not know her; and yet I think I should know her again, if I was to see her in such clothes as she used to wear.” Their conductors then thought it expedient to send them to a common inn, where they were disrobed of their finery. When this was done, Sixtus sent two of his ordinary coaches for them; and being introduced a second time, the pope embraced them tenderly, and said to Camilla, “Now we see it is our sister indeed: nobody shall make a princess of you but ourselves.” The terms Sixtus stipulated with his sister, as the conditions of her advancement, were, “not to ask any favour in matters of government, or make the least intercession for criminals, or otherwise interfere in the administration of justice;” assuring her that every suit of that kind would meet with a refusal not less mortifying to her than painful to himself. This being settled, he made, indeed, a princely provision, not only for his sister, who took care punctually to obey his orders, but also for all the family.

This honour appears to have been conferred on him about 1489, and if our author was the Schelton discovered by Mr. Cole, he had now left Cambridge for Oxford; but Mr. Malone says that, a few years after this, he was permitted to wear the laurel publicly at Cambridge, and had been previously honoured by Henry VII. with a grant to wear either some peculiar dress, or some additional ornament in his ordinary apparel. In addition to this, it may be inferred from the titles of some of his works, that he was poet laureate to king Henry VIII.; but Mr. Malone has not been able to discover whether he received any salary in consequence of this office. The origin of the royal laureat is somewhat obscure. According to Mr. Warton, he was only a graduated rhetorician employed in the service of the king, and all his productions were in Latin, until the time of the reformation, which, among other advantages, opened the way to the cultivation of the English tongue.

But although we can now have very little sympathy with the injured feelings of the begging friars, it is not improbable that some of his poems or ballads might very justly rouse the vigilance of his diocesan, the bishop of Norwich, who, Mr. Warton thinks, suspended him from his functions. Anthony Wood asserts, that he was punished by the bishop for “having been guilty of certain crimes, as most poets are.” According to Fuller, the crime of “most poets” in Skelton’s case, was his keeping of a concubine, which yet was at that time a less crime in a clergyman than marriage. Skelton, on his death-bed, declared that he conscientiously considered his concubine as his wife, but was afraid to own her in that light; and from this confession, and the occasional liberties he has taken with his pen, in lashing the vices of the clergy, it is not improbable that he had imbibed some of the principles of the reformation, but had not the courage to avow them, unless under the mask of such satire as might pass without judicial censure.

With respect, however, to Wolsey, his prudence appears to have deserted him, as he felt bold enough to Stigmatize the personal character of that statesman, then irt the plenitude of his power. Whether such attacks were made in any small poems or ballads, or only in his poem of “Why come ye not to Court?” is not certain, but the latter does not appear to have been printed until 1555, and was too long to have been easily circulated in manuscript. Wolsey, however, by some means or other, discovered the abuse and the author, and ordered him to be apprehended. Skelton took refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster-abbey, where the abbot, Islip, afforded him protection until his death, which took place June 21, 1529, not long before the downfall of his illustrious persecutor. He was interred in St. Margaret’s church-yard, with the inscription,

“J. Sceltonus Vates Pierius hie situs est.” Skelton appears to have been a more considerable personage, at one time at least, than his contemporaries would have us to believe. It is certain that he was esteemed a scholar, and that his classical learning recommended him to the office of tutor to prince Henry, afterwards king Henry VIII., who, at his accession, made him royal orator, an office so called by himself, the nature of which is doubtful, unless it was blended with that of laureat. As to his general reputation, Erasmus, in a letter to Henry VIII. styles him “Britannicarum literarum decus et lumen,” a character which must have either been inferred from common opinion, or derived from personal knowledge. Whatever provocation he gave to the clergy, he was not without patrons who overlooked his errors and extravagancies for the sake of his genius, and during the reign of Henry VII. he had the enviable distinction of being almost the only professed poet of the age. Henry Algernon Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland, one of the very few patrons of learned men and artists at that time, appears to have entertained a high regard for our author. In a collection of poems magnificently engrossed on vellum for the use of this nobleman, is an elegy on the death of the earl’s father, written by Skelton. This volume is now in the Bullish Museum, but the elegy may be seen in Skelton’s works, and in Dr. Percy’s Relics.

Although it is impossible to lessen the censure which Skelton incurred among his contemporaries, and immediate successors, it is but fair to say that his indelicacies are of no very seductive kind, that they are obscured by cant words and phrases no longer intelligible, or intelligible but to few, and that the removal of them is a matter of less trouble and less injury to an edition of his works than his biographers, who have copied one another, would insinuate. As to his poetry, Mr. Warton’s character may in general be followed with safety, and ought to be preserved with the respect due to so excellent a critic.

“Skelton’s characteristic vein of humour is capricious and grotesque. If his whimsical extravagancies ever move our laughter, at the same time they shock our sensibility. His festive levities are not only vulgar and indelicate, but frequently want truth and propriety. His subjects are often as ridiculous as his metres: but he sometimes debases his matter by his versification. On the whole, his genius seems better suited to low burlesque, than to liberal and manljr satire. It is supposed by Caxton, that he improved our language; but he sometimes affects obscurity, and sometimes adopts the most familiar phraseology of the common people.” After quoting some lines from the “Boke of Colin Cloute,” Mr. Warton remarks, that these are in the best manner of his petty measure, which is made still more disgusting by the repetition of the rhymes, but allows that in the poem called “The Bouge of Court,” or the Rewards of a Court, the author, by “adopting the more grave and stately movement of the seven-lined stanza, has shewn himself not alwajs incapable of exhibiting allegorical imagery with spirit and dignity.”

His works have hitherto been ushered into the world without much care. It yet remains to explain his obscurities, translate his vulgarisms, and point, his verses. The task would require much time and labour, with perhaps no very inviting prospect of recompense. Besides the works published in the late edition of the English poets, Mr. Kitson has given a list of pieces, the most of which are easily accessible, and would have been added to the late collection, had they appeared to throw any important light on the character of the author, or of his age. But Mr. Ritson thinks it utterly incredible that the “Nigramansii,” described by Warton, as printed by Wynkin de Worde in 1504, ever existed.

Skelton’s only remedy was now to wait patiently till the next commencement, which would take place in about half a year. As the time approached, he contrived to foil the provost at his own weapons, and knowing his tyrannical and capricious temper, played him a trick, which his biographer relates in the following manner. A few days before the commencement, he waited on the provost, “and after paying his humble submission, said, ‘Mr. Provost, I am extremely obliged to you for stopping me of my degree last time, because it was what I wished for above all thipgs, and I be and beseech you may also stop me now, as my friends are forcing me to take it, and quit the college, contrary to my desire.’ ‘ Ah, you dog,’ he replied, * what do you mean? do you wish to stay here contrary to your friends 1 consent? Take your degree, sirrah, and quit the college, or I Ml make you smart for it.‘ Skelton then began to cry, and whine, and sob, saying how greatly distressed he was at getting this unfavourable answer. * Don’t be growling here, sir,‘ he said, ’ but go about your business, I ‘11 not agree to your request, you shall take your degree in spite of you, sirrah.’ Upon this Skelton, with sorrowful countenance, though with joy at his heart, walked grumblingly out of the room.” The consequence of this was, that he commenced B. A. in July 1728, and had his name taken out of the college books, May 31st following, two years before the natural expiration of his scholarship. Notwithstanding this treatment, he always spoke of Dr. Baldwin as in many respects an excellent provost.

During his holding this curacy he resided in Dr. Madden’s house, called Manor-waterhouse, about three miles from Newtovm- Butler, as private tutor; and had three or four boys to instruct in English and the rudiments of the Latin and Greek languages. This left him little time for the composition of his sermons, and such as he wrote at this time, he afterwards very much disliked. Here, however, he exhibited that active benevolence which always formed a striking feature in his character, and although the salary derived both from his curacy and his teaching was very small, he gave at least the half away in charitable purposes. Here likewise it would appear that he wrote his first publication, an anonymous pamphlet, printed at Dublin, recommending Dr. Madderi'a scheme for establishing premiums in Trinity college; but Madden, although he admired this pamphlet, and solicited the publisher for the name of its author, never made the discovery: Skelton judging it for his advantage to keep the secret. In the mean time, his situation being rendered extremely irksome by the vulgar mind and parsimonious disposition of Mrs. Madden, he resigned both the curacy and his tutorship in about two years.

His fame, however, both as a preacher and writer, his extraordinary care as an instructor of a parish, and his wonderful acts of charity and goodness, began, about 1737, to be the subject of conversation, not only in the diocese of Clogher, and other parts of the North, but also in the metropolis; but still no notice was taken of him in the way of preferment. Dr. Sterne, the bishop of Clogher, usually sent for him, after he had bestowed a good preferment upon another, and gave him, “by way of a sop,” ten guineas, which Mr. Skelton frequently presented to a Mr. Arbuthnot, a poor cast-off curate, who was unable to serve through age and infirmity. At length Dr. Delany, who had been his tutor at college, perceiving him thus neglected, procured for him an appointment to the curacy of St. Werburgh’s in Dublin. This would have been highly acceptable to Mr. Skelton, and Dr. Delany would have been much gratified to place such a man in a situation where his merits were likely to be duly appreciated: it is painful to relate in what manner both were disappointed. When he was on the point of leaving the diocese of Clogher, bishop Sterne perceiving that it would be to his discredit if a person of such abilities should leave his diocese for want of due encouragement, sent a clergyman to inform him, “that if he staid in his diocese he would give him the first living that should fall.” Relying on this, he wrote to Dr. Delany, and the curacy of St. Werburgh’s was otherwise disposed of. The first living that fell vacant was Monaghan, where he had so long officiated, which the bishop immediately gave to his nephew Mr. Hawkshaw, a young gentleman that had lately entered into orders! It would even appear that he had made his promise with a determination to break it, for when he bestowed the preferment on his nephew, he is reported to have said, “I give you now a living worth 300l. a year, and have kept the best curate in the diocese for you, who was going to leave it: be sure take his advice, and follow his directions, for he is a man of worth and sense.” But Skelton, with all his “worth and sense,” was not superior to the infirmities of his nature. He felt this treacherous indignity very acutely, and never attended a visitation during the remainder of the bishop’s life, which continued for a series of years; nor did the bishop ever ask for him, or express any surprize at his absence. Under Mr. Hawkshaw, however, he Jived not unhappily. Mr. Hawkshaw submitted to his instructions, and followed his example, and there was often an amicable contest in the performance of their acts of duty and charity.

After he returned to his curacy, he was offered a school xvorth 500l. a year, arising from the benefit of the scholars, but refused it as interfering with the plan of literary improvement and labour which he had marked out for himself; and when told that he might employ ushers, he said he could not in conscience take the money, without giving up his whole time and attention to his scholars. In 1744, he published “The Candid Reader, addressed to his terraqueous majesty, the WorUl.” The objects of his ridicule in this are Hill, the mathematician, who proposed making verses by an arithmetical table, lord Shaftesbury, and Johnson, the author of a play called “Hurlothrumbo,” with a parallel between Hurlothrumbo and the rhapsody of Shaftesbury. In the same year he also published “A Letter to the authors of Divine Analogy and the Minute Philosopher, from an old officer,” a plain, sensible letter, advising the two polemics to turn their arms from one another against the common enemies of the Christian faith. During the rebellion in 1745, he published a very seasonable and shrewd pamphlet, entitled the “Chevalier’s hopes.” On the death of Dr. Sterne, the see of Clogher was filled by Dr. Clayton, author of the “Essay on Spirit,” a decided Arian; and between him and Skelton there could consequently be no coincidence of opinion, or mutuality of respect. In 1748, Mr. Skelton having prepared for the press his valuable work entitled “Deism revealed,” he conceived it too important to be published in Ireland, and therefore determined to go to London, and dispose of it there. On his arrival, he submitted his manuscript to Andrew Millar, the bookseller, to know if he would purchase it, and have it printed at his own expence. The bookseller desired him, as is usual, to leave it with him for a day or two, until he could get a certain gentleman of great abilities to examine it. Hume is said to have come in accidentally into the shop, and Millar shewed him the ms. Hume took it into a room adjoining the shop, examined it here and there for about an hour, and then said to Andrew, print. By this work Skelton made about 200l. The bookseller allowed him for the manuscript a great many copies, which he disposed of among the citizens of London, with whom, on account of his preaching, he was a great favourite. He always spake with high approbation of the kindness with which he was received by many eminent merchants. When in London he spent a great part of his time in going through the city, purchasing books at a cheap rate, with the greater part of the money he got by his “Deism revealed,” and formed a good library. This work was published in 1749, in two volumes, large octavo, and a second edition was called for in 1751, which waacomprized in two volumes 12mo. It has ever been considered as a masterly answer to the cavils of deists; but the style in this, as in some other of his works, is not uniform, and his attempts at wit are rather too frequent, and certainly not very successful. A few months after its publication the bishop of Clogher, Dr. Clayton, was asked by Sherlock, bishop of London, if he knew the author. “O yes, he has been a curate in my diocese near these twenty years.” “More shame for your lordship,” answered Sherlock, “to let a man of his merit continue so long a curate in your diocese.”

After a residence at London of about six months, during which he preached some of the sermons since published in his works, Mr. Skelton returned to his curacy in Ireland, and in 1750, a large living became vacant in the diocese of Clogher. Dr. Delany and another bishop immediately waited on bishop Clayton, and told him, that if he did not give Skehon a living now, after disappointing them so often, they would take him out of his diocese. This, however, was not entirely effectual: Clayton could not refuse the request, hut made several removals on purpose to place Skelton in the living of Pettigo, in a wild part of the county of Donegal, worth about 200l. a year, the people uncultivated, disorderly, fond of drinking and quarrelling, and, in a word, sunk in profound ignorance. He used to say, he was a missionary sent to convert them to Christianity, and that he was banished from all civilised society. He often declared that he was obliged to ride seven miles before he could meet with a person of common sense to converse with. With such difficulties, however, Skeltou was born to contend. He always had a conscientious feeling of the wants of his flock, with a strong impelling sense of duty. His biographer has given a very interesting account of the means, pious and charitable, which he took to meliorate the condition of his parish, which, for the sake of brevity, we must omit; suffice it to say, they were effectual; but his situation affected his mind in some degree, and he became liable to occasional fits of the hypochondriac kind, which recurred more or less in the alterpart of his life.

Jn this lonely situation he found sometime for study, and besides an excellent visitation sermon on the “Dignity of the Christian Ministry,” he published in 1753 “The Consultation, or a Dialogue of the Gods, in the manner of Lucian,” intended to ridicule the Arians; and in this, or the following year, went again to London to publish his discourses, two volumes of which appeared in 1754, under the title of “Discourses Controversial and Practical, on various subjects, proper for the consideration of the present times. By the author of ' Deism revealed 1”

In 1770, he published his works by subscription, in 5 vols. 8vo, for the benefit of the Magdalen charity. The first volume contains “Deism revealed,” the second and third, the “Sermons” he published in England, the fourth an additional number of sermons not before printed; the fifth consisted of miscellanies, of which some had not been before published, as “Reasons for Inoculation,” an “Account of a Well or Pool” near Clovis, in the county of Monaghan, famous for curing the jaundice; “Observations on a late resignation,” that of the rev. William Robertson (see his life, vol. XXVI. p. 257.) “A Dream,” intended to expose the folly of fashion; and “Hilema,” a copse or shrubbery, consisting of observations and anecdotes.

His infirmities increasing, after fifty years labour in the ministry with unexampled diligence, he now found himself incapable any longer of the discharge of his public duties, and in 1780 took his final leave of Fintona, and removed to Dublin, to end his days. Here he received great respect from many of the higher dignitaries of the church, and in 1781 the university offered him the degree of doctor of divinity, which he declined. In 1784 he published by subscription a sixth volume of his works, containing “An Appeal to common sense on the subject of Christianity,” &c. or a historical proof of the truth of Christianity, superior in style and arrangement to any of his former productions, and which shewed that his faculties were in full force at the age of seventy-six. In the same volume, are “Some Thoughts on Common Sense,” some hymns, and a Latin poem. In 1786 he published his seventh volume, entitled *' Senilia, or an Old Man’s Miscellany," In the same year he published a short answer to a catechism, written by an English clergyman, and used at Sunday schools, which he supposed to contain an erroneous doctrine with respect to the state of men after death, and sent a copy to all the bishops of England and Ireland. The archbishop of Dublin was so convinced by it, that he stopped the use of the catechism in his diocese.

, an English antiquary, was born either in London, or in the county of Middlesex, about 1622. He was admitted on the royal foundation at Christ church in Oxford, 1638; but, the rebellion breaking out before he could take any degree, he travelled, and studied in several universities abroad. About 1646, he returned home; and going to Oxford, which at this time ceased to be a garrison, he took both the degrees in arts the same year. He then resumed his travels through France, Italy, Germany, the Spanish Netherlands, and other countries; visited the courts of several princes; frequented the principal universities; and established an acquaintance with the learned in different parts of Europe. On the restoration of the university of Heidelberg, by Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine, he was honoured with a doctor of physic’s degree; and, returning to England, was incorporated into the same at Oxford in 1654. About this time he settled at Lincoln; where, after practising physic with success, he died of a malignant fever, Sept. 5, 1667. Wood says, “He was a person well versed in most parts of learning, understood all books whether old or new, was most skilful in the Oriental tongues, an excellent Grecian, and, in short, a living library.”

, a learned divine and poet, was born in Somersetshire in 1587, and was admitted a member of St. Mary hall, Oxford, in 1600, whence he removed to Brasenose college in 1607. In the following year he took his degree of B. A. and was chosen to a fellowship. He took his master’s degree in 1611, entered into holy orders, and was beneficed. In 1623 he took his degrees in divinity, and bad by this time acquired very considerable reputation for his poetical talent, and his knowledge in English history. He died at Otterden in Kent, where he was beneficed, in Oct. or Nov. 1647. His works are, 1. “Threnodia, sive Pandioniuni,” &c. being elegies and epitaphs on the queen Anne of Denmark, to whom he had been chaplain. It is a quarto of four sheets, printed in 1619. The elegies and epitaphs are in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English verses, and some of them in the fantastical shape of pillars, circles, &c. 2. “PaltcAlbion, or the History of Great Britain from the first peopling of this island to the reign of king James,” Lond. 1621, fol. in Latin and English verse, with historical notes, which Granger, who calls this Slater’s “capital work,” thinks the most valuable part. 3. “Genethliacon, sive stemma regis Jacobi,” Lond. 1630, a thin folio in Lat. and English, with a foolish genealogy of king James from Adam. He published also “The Psalms of David, in fowre languages, Hebrew, Greeke, Latin, and English, and in 4 parts, set to the tunes of our church, with corrections,” 1652, 16mo. There appears to have been an edition before this, which was posthumous, but the date is not known. Dr, Burney says this is the most curious and beautiful production of the kind, during the seventeenth century, that has come to his knowledge. Both words and music are very neatly engraved on near sixty copper- plates. The English version is that of Sternhold, retouched, not always for the better, and the music is selected from Ravenscroft.

, a Dutch artist, eminent as a painter of portraits and conversations, was born at Leyden in 1640, and died in 1691. He was a disciple, and zealous imitator of Gerard Douw, whom he is thought in some respects to surpass. The exquisite neatness of his manner compelled him to work very slowly, and he is said to have employed three years in painting a family picture for Mr. Meermans. He imitated nature with exactness, but without taste or selection, yet he is esteemed one of the best of the Flemish painters.

In 1696, Dr. Sloane published the Prodromus to his history of Jamaica plants, under the title of “Catalogus Plantarum quae in insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt,” 8vo. This volume, intrinsically valuable as it is, may yet be considered as only the nomenclature, or systematic index to his subsequent work. The arrangement of the subject is nearly that of Ray, vegetables being thrown into twenty-five large natural classes, or families. Among botanists of that time, generical characters had not attained any remarkable precision; and Sloane, like Plukenet, was little farther anxious, than to refer his new plants to some genus already established, without a minute attention to the parts of fructification, farther than as they formed part pf the character drawn from habit; yet, with this defect, the figures and descriptions of Sloane proved sufficiently accurate to enable his successors to refer almost all his species to the appropriate places in the system of the present clay.

Having thus resigned all his public employments, he left London in May 1741, and retired to his house at Chelsea, the manor of which he had purchased in 1712, and to which he removed his museum. Here he received, as in London, the visits of persons of rank, of all learned foreigners, of the royal family, who sometimes did him. that honour; and never refused admittance or advice to any, whether rich or poor, who came to consult him concerning their health. Hitherto his great temperance had preserved him from experiencing the infirmities of old age, but in his ninetieth year, he complained of frequent "pains, and was sensible of an universal decay, the progress of which he bore with complacency, and after an illness of only three days, expired Jan. 11, 1752. He was interred on the 18th at Chelsea, in the same vault with his lady, who died in 1724. She was the daughter of alderman Langley of London, and married to Dr. Sloane in 1695. Of this marriage two daughters only survived him, the eldest of whom was married to George Stanley, esq. of Hampshire, and the younger to lord Cadogan.