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In 1737, Dr. Reid was presented by the King’s college of Aberdeen to the living of New Machar in that county; but the circumstances in which he entered on his preferment were far from auspicious. The intemperate zeal of one of his predecessors, and an aversion to the law of patronage, had so inflamed the minds of his parishioners against bim^ that in the first discharge of his clerical functions, he had not only to encounter the most violent opposition, but was exposed to personal danger. His unwearied attention, however, to the duties of his office, the mildness and forbearance of his temper, and the active spirit of his humanity, soon overcame all these prejudices; and not many years afterwards, when he was called to a different situation, the same persons who had suffered themselves to be so far misled, as to take a share in the outrages against him, followed him on his departure with their blessings and tears.

The first work published by Dr. Reid was in the Philosophical Transactions of London in 1748. It was entitled “An Essay on Quantity, occasioned by a Treatise in which simple and compound Ratios are applied to Virtue and Merit,” and shews plainly, that although he had not yet entirely relinquished the favourite researches of his youth, he was beginning to direct his thoughts to other objects. The treatise alluded to in the title of this paper was Dr. Hutcheson’s “Inquiry into the origin of our ideas of beauty and virtue.” In 1752, the professors of King’s college, Aberdeen, elected Dr. Reid professor of philosophy, in testimony of the high opinion they had formed of his learning and abilities. Soon after his removal to Aberdeen, he projected (in conjunction with his friend Dr. John Gregory) a literary society, which subsisted many years, and produced that spirit of philosophical research to which we owe the writings of Reid, Gregory, Campbell, Beattie, and Gerard, who communicated, in this society, sketches of their works, and profited by the remarks mutually offered. In 1763 he was invited by the university of Glasgow, and accepted, the office of professor of moral philosophy. In 1764 he published his “Inquiry into the Human Mind;” which was succeeded, after a long interval, in 1785, by his “Essays on the intellectual Powers of Man;” and that again, in 1788, by the “active Powers.” These, with a masterly “Analysis of Aristotle’s Logic,” which forms an appendix to the third volume of lord Karnes’s Sketches, comprehend the whole of Dr. Reid’s publications. The interval between the dates of the first and last of these amount to no less than forty years, although he had attained to the age of thirty-eight before he ventured to appear as an author. Even in very advanced life, he continued to prosecute his studies with unabated ardour and activity. The modern improvements in chemistry attracted his particular notice; and he applied himself, with his wonted diligence and success, to the study of these and its new nomenclature. He amused himself, also, at times, in preparing for a philosophical society, of which he was a member, short essays on particular topics, which happened to interest his curiosity. The most important of these were, “An examination of Dr. Priestley’s opinion concerning Matter and Mind;” “Observations on the Utopia of sir Thomas More;” and “Physiological reflections on Muscular motion.” This last essay appears to have been written in the eighty-sixth year of his age, and was read by the author to his associates, a few months before his death.

The actual and useful life of Dr. Reid was now drawing to a conclusion. A violent disorder attacked him about the end of September 1796; but does not seem to have occasioned much alarm to those about him, till he was visited by Dr. Cleghorn, who soon communicated his apprehensions in a letter to Dr. Gregory. Among other symptoms, he mentioned particularly “that alteration of voice and features, which, though not easily described, is so well known to all who have opportunities of seeing life close.” Dr. Reid’s own opinion of his case was probably the same with that of his physician; as he expressed to him on his first visit, his hope that he was “soon to get his dismission.” After a severe struggle, attended with repeated strokes of palsy, he died on the 7th of October following.

All that is valuable in this sketch has been taken from Mr. Dugald Stewart’s life of Dr. Reid, the most elaborate part of which is the view of the spirit and scope of Dr. Reid’s philosophy. We have long regretted, says another able critic, that the writings of this philosopher, the first who in the science of Mind deserves the title of interpreter of nature, should be so little known, especially in the southern part of this kingdom; and we fondly hope that the illustration afforded by Mr. Stewart of their high merits, and the exposure of the prejudices which have been raised against them by bold censurers, who never took the pains to understand them, will pave the way to a more general diffusion among our countrymen of the advantages which a careful study of them cannot fail to produce.

3. That by an unnecessary multiplication of original or instinctive principles, he has brought the science of mind into a state more perplexed and unsatisfactory than that in which it was left by Locke and his successors. 4. That his philosophy, by sanctioning an appeal from the decisions of the learned to the voice of the multitude, is unfavourable to a spirit of free inquiry, and lends additional stability to popular errors. In his reply to these objections, Mr. Stewart has not only set the merit of the writings which he defends in a clearer light, but has taken occasion to add various illustrations, which will not a little facilitate the study of these writings to those who for the first time undertake it.

He wrote a piece or two upon subjects of his own profession; but the greatest part of his works relate to philology and criticism, among which are “Variarum Lectionum libri tres,” in 4to. Bayle says, he was one of those philologers who know more than their books can teach them; whose penetration enables them to draw many consequences, and suggests conjectures which lead them to the discovery of hidden treasures; who dart a light into the gloomy places of literature, and extend the limits of ancient knowledge. By his printed letters, it would appear that he was consulted as an oracle; that he answered very learnedly whatever questions were brought to him; and that he was extremely skilled in the families of ancient Rome, and in the study of inscriptions. A great eulogium is given of his merit, as well as of his learned and political works, by Graevius, in the dedication of the second edition of Casaubon’s epistles, dated Amsterdam, August 31, 1655, and by Haller and Saxius. He partook of the liberality which Lewis XIV. shewed to the most celebrated scholars of Europe, and received with the present a very obliging letter from Colbert; which favour he returned, by dedicating to him his “Observations on the Fragment of Petronius,” in 1666. The religion of Reinesius was suspected to be of the philosophical kind.

Reinhold prepared likewise an edition of many other works, which are enumerated in the Emperor’s Privileg;e, prefixed to the Prutenic Tables; such as, Ephemerides for several years to come, computed from the new tables; Tables of the rising and setting of several Fixed Stars, for many different climates and times; the illustration and establishment of Chronology, by the eclipses of the luminaries, and the great conjunctions of the planets, and by the appearance of comets, &c. the Ecclesiastical Calendar; the History of Years, or Astronomical Calendar; “Isagoge Spherica,” or Elements of the doctrine of the Primum Mobile “Hypotyposes Orbium Ccelestium,” or the Theory of Planets Construction of a New Quadrant; the doctrine of Plane and Spherical Triangles Commentaries on the work of Copernicus also Commentaries on the 15 books of Euclid, on Ptolomy’s Geography, and on the Optics of Alhazen the Arabian. Reinhold also made Astronomical Observations, but with a wooden quadrant, which observations were seen by Tycho Brahe when he passed through Wittemberg in 1575, who wondered that so great a cultivator of astronomy was not furnished with better instruments.

, an extraordinary scholar, and equally extraordinary man, who has furnished us with very curious memoirs of his life, was born Dec. 25, 1716, at Zorbig, a small town near Leipsic, of ancestors of whom he knew nothing, except that his grandfather was an innkeeper. He was educated at the school of Zorbig until ten years old, then was removed to Soschen, where a gentleman, to whom he afterwards in gratitude dedicated his remarks on the “Tusculan questions,” brought him very forward. Thence he went to school at Halle, where he complains of the length of the prayers, and of the ignorance of his teacher, who knew nothing of Latin. In 1733 he removed to the university of Leipsic; but instead of attending to Greek, mathematics, and polite literature, gave himself, “in an evil hour,” to Rabbinical learning, and Arabic. Such, however, was his oeconomy, that although during the five years he remained here, he received from home only two hundred dollars, he contrived not only to live, but to purchase most of the Arabic books then extant, and in 1736 he had read them all. The last year, indeed, he obtained a scholarship of twenty dollars a-year, which he might have enjoyed longer, had he not in 1738 determined to visit Holland, without ever considering how he was to travel without money. He set out, however, from Leipsic to Lunenburg in the common waggon, and thence by the Elbe to Hamburgh, where he visited Reimarus, who at first received him coolly, but on discovering his learning, gave him letters, and became his fast friend; nor, he adds, did the worthy men of Hamburgh send him penniless on the way.

On his arrival at Amsterdam, he was well received by a friend of his mother’s, who had married a linen-draper there. Nextr day he visited Dorville, to whom he had a letter of recommendation from professor Wolfe. Dorville offered him 600 florins a-year to live with him and be his amanuensis; but Reiske told him that he was not come to Holland to make his fortune, which he could have done better in his own country, but to look for Arabic manuscripts. Dorville seemed surprized and a little angry at such an answer from a man who had not a shilling; but afterwards, Reiske says, “we were very good friends, though I wonder we did so well together, for we were much of the same temper, hasty, passionate, and selfwilled.” He then went to Leyden, where he had the mortification to be told that there was no provision in Holland for strangers, that it was vacation time, that the scholars were all gone, and the library quite inaccessible. He contrived, however, to pick up a livelihood, by being corrector of the press for Alberti’s Hesychius, and giving a few lessons, when he could procure pupils. At length he got introduced to Schultens, who allowed him to copy Oriental Mss. at his house, and teach his son Arabic. At the desire of Schultens, he applied himself to the Arabic poets, and published an edition of the “Moallakat” in 1740; but they did not quite agree about some passages in it, and this laid the foundation of the misunderstanding between them. In the mean time he made a catalogue of Arabic Mss. in the Leyden library, a work which employed him some months, and for which he was rewarded with nine guilders, about eighteen shillings!

After some stay at his native place Zorbig, where he could find no opportunity of settling advantageously, he was obliged to return to Leipsic. In 1747, he tells us he was made professor for the publication of a tract, entitled “De principibus Mahummedanis literarum laude claris.” From this time he lived, during many years, in want and obscurity, frequently not knowing where to get bread to eat. What he did get, he says, was hardly earned, by private instruction, writing books, correcting for the press, translations, and working for reviews; and thus he went on from 1746 to 1758. In the mean time, in 1748, he wrote his “Prograrmna de epocha Arabum, &c.” for which he was made Arabic professor, but in tins office he complains of being rewarded by an ill-paid salary of one hundred dollars a year. In the autumn of that year a bookseller at Leyden agreed with him for a publication of Abulfeda’s History in Latin and Arabic: the first sheet was accordingly printed, and made him known in France and England; and the whole, he says, would have followed, if it had not been for his quarrel with Schultens. Reiske appears to have had an extraordinary propensity to quarrelling, and being a reviewer, vva& not sparing of the means, by reviewing in an arrogant and petulant style the works of those persons with whom he was living in apparent friendship. He even unblushingly avows that a sort of revenge led him to speak ill of the works of some of his friends. He speaks at the same time of the bitter remorse with which he reflected on his treatment of Schultens, who “had been a father to him,” acknowledges the acid of youthful pride which mixed with his criticisms, and yet talks of being influenced by the “conscience and duty” of a reviewer

Among the works which he performed for bread, and invita Minerva, were a translation of the life of Christina from the French, and an index to the translation of the History of the academy of inscriptions. Those which he wrote con amore were his criticisms in the Leipsic Acts, which were very numerous, his “Greek Anthology,” and in 1754 the first part of his tc Annales Moslemici,“dedicated to the curators of the university of Leyden, who, as he says, did not thank him, and he sold only thirty copies. After a little Arabic effusion, called” Risalet Abit Walicit,“he began his” Animadversiones ad autores Gra3cos,“and printed five volumes of them, which cost him 1000 thalers, of which he never saw more than 100 again.” I have, however,“he says,” enough for five volumes more, and should go quietly out of the world, if I could once see them printed, for they weflo? ingenii mei (that is supposing it to be allowed that my genius has any flowers); and sure I am, that little as their worth is now known, and much as they have been despised, the time will come when party and jealousy shall be no more, and justice will be done them. Should they come oat in my life-time, it will pay me for all my trouble if they should not, an ever-waking God will take care, that no impious hand seizes on my work, and makes it his own* Possibly there may arise some honourable Godfearing man, who may hereafter publish them unadulterated to my posthumous fame, and for the good of literature: such is my wish, such are my prayers to God, and he will hear those prayers."

In 1755, he was chosen fellow of Gotsched’s society of the fine arts. This produced two small papers, which are in the Transactions of that society, and an acquaintance with his wife, the sister of Probst, who came with him to Leipsic. Her modesty, goodness of heart, and love of learned men, caught his heart; but the war broke out, and he did not marry till nine years after. In 1756 he made a catalogue of the Arabic coins in x the library at Dresden, and translated Thograi in a couple of days. It came out with a preface and notes, containing accounts of the Arabic poets. There were only two hundred copies printed.

The war now raged very fiercely all over Saxony, and poor Reiske was obliged to avail himself of Ernesti’s generosity* who gave him his table for two years; but in 1758, his fortunes took a surprizing and most unexpected turn, and he was made independent, by being appointed rector of the school of St. Nicholas. This he tells us he had had an omen of at the beginning of the year; for, rising on new year’s day, at three o'clock in the morning, as was his constant custom, to pursue his translation of Libanius’s letters, he found that he had come to a letter written to Anatolius, and the first word he read was Anatolius. “Now,” says he, “thought I, the year is come in which God will let the light of his countenance shine upon thee; and in five weeks after Haltaus (his predecessor) died.”

Reiske died August 14, 1774. Much of his character may be learned from what he has himself told us. Mrs. Reiske, who completes his memoirs, attributes to him a high degree of rectitude, and adds, that he often blamed himself in cases where he deserved no blame, and always thought he ought to be better than he was. He thought ill of mankind, and we have seen that some part of his own practice was not very well calculated to lessen that bad opinion in other minds. When speaking of his ill-treatment of Schultens, who had accused him of irreligion, he denies this, and adds, “the worst he could say of me, happily for me, was, that I was a proud, insolent, and ungrateful young man.”

Mrs. Reiske informs us that his unexampled love of letters produced not only all the works he has published, and all the Mss. he left behind him; but every man who had any thing to publish, might depend upon his countenance and protection. He gave books, advice, subscription, even all that he had. Nay, he made up to several people that had treated him ill, only in order that he might make their works better. He was also a man of great charity. As a scholar his character is too well known to require a prolix detail of his various knowledge. He had read all the Greek and Latin authors, and all the Arabic ones, more than once, and was likewise acquainted with the best Italian, French, English, and German writers. He read Tillotson’s and Barrow’s sermons constantly, and used to translate them for his wife into French. His memory was so wonderful that he remembered all he had heard, and could repeat a sermon he had heard almost verbatim. In the last days of his life he called all his learned works trifles. “All these troublesome labours,” said he, “cannot preserve me from the judgment seat, at which I must soon appear my only confidence proceeds from the thoughts of having lived uprightly before God.”

Rembrandt was first brought into notice by having taken a picture to the Hague, and Coffered it for sale to an able connoisseur; who, conscious of his merit, treated him with kindness, and gave him a hundred florins for it. By this incident both himself and the public were made acquainted with his worth; and hence arose the reputation and success he afterwards enjoyed. Incessant occupation soon crowded upon him, and many pupils applied for admission into his school, with each of whom he received 100 florins a year; and whose copies of his pictures he not unfrcquently sold as originals, after bestowing a short time upon them himself. By these means, aided by incessant industry, and the sale of etchings, which he produced with great facility and skill, he accumulated considerable wealth: his income, according to Sandrart, being, for a. length of time, at least 2500 florins yearly. His place of residence, during this successful display of his talents, was Amsterdam, where his peculiarities procured him the character of a humourist, whilst his abilities astonished and delighted his contemporaries, and he produced those works which still gratify succeeding ages. The peculiarities of his mind are as much observable in the manner of producing his effects, as in the choice of the materials. The execution of his earlier works was in a style highly laboured, with great neatness, and patient completion of the figures; such is that of the picture of the woman taken in adultery at Mr. Angerstein’s. As he advanced in art, he took liberties with the pencil, wrought with all the broad fulness of the brush, and left the touch undisturbed: he even employed the stick, the pallet-knife, or his fingers, accordingly as they were most capable of producing the effect he desired when seen at a proper distance, disregarding the appearance of the work upon a closer inspection.

Mr. Daulby, who, in his late “Catalogue of the works of Rembrandt,” has appreciated his character with great precision and perspicuity, and differs not much, upon the whole, from Mr. Fuseli, observes, that whatever may be thought of Rembrandt as a historical painter, his portraits are deservedly held in the highest esteem. The accuracy of his pencil insured a striking resemblance, whilst his skill in the management of light and shadow, and his thorough acquaintance with the harmony and effect of his tints, enabled him to give to his subjects an appearance of reality so striking, as in some instances to have actually imposed on the senses of the spectators. Thus, a picture of his maid-servant placed at the window of his house in Amsterdam, where he fixed his permanent residence about 1630, is said to have deceived the passengers for several days. This fact is at least authenticated by De Piles, who had the curiosity when he was in Holland, to inquire after this picture, and finding it was well penciled, and possessed a great force, purchased it, and esteemed it as one of the highest ornaments of his cabinet. All Rembrandt’s pictures can be purchased only at very high prices. There are many fine specimens of them in this country, and many in the royal collection at Paris. We know not, however, whether Rembrandt’s merits are not more familiar, in general, from his prints, than from his pictures. Of these, ever since his time, collections have been formed in every part of Europe, and even the emulation of sovereigns has been excited, and the treasures of royalty expended in their acquisition.

His prints, which are partly etchings, and partly engravings, performed with the point of the graver in a singular manner, have all that freedom of touch, spirit, and greatness of effect, discoverable in his paintings, supposing them to be assisted by the variety of colours. Considering the great quantity of etchings which he made, we cannot suppose they should be all equally well executed, or equal in value. Mr. Gilpin, who has resolved the excellence of Rembrandt as a painter into colouring only, observes that his prints, deprived of this palliative, have only his inferior qualifications to recommend them. These, he states, are, expression and skill in the management of light, execution, and sometimes composition. His expression has most force in the character of age. He marks as strongly as the hand of time itself. He possesses too, in a great degree, that inferior kind of expression, which gives its proper and characteristic touch to drapery, fur, metal, and every object he represents. His management of light consists chiefly in making a very strong contrast, which has often a good effect; and yet in many of his prints there is no effect at all; which gives us reason to think, he either had no principles, or published such prints before his principles were ascertained. His execution is peculiar to himself. It is rough, or neat, as he meant a sketch, or a finished piece; but always free and masterly. It produces its effect by strokes intersected in every direction; and comes nearer the idea of painting, than the execution of any other master.

There is perhaps no branch of collectorship that exhibits more caprice than that of prints in general, or of Rembrandt’s prints in particular, which appears by the different estimation in which the same subject is held, merely on account of a slight alteration in some unimportant part. Mr. Daulby instances this in the Juno without the crown, the Coppenol with the white back-ground, the Joseph with the face unshaded, and the good Samaritan with the horse’s tail white, which are regarded as inestimable; whilst the same subjects, without these distinctions, are considered as of little comparative value. Strutt mentions that, in consequence of a commission from an eminent coin lector, he gave forty-six guineas for the Coppenol with the white back-ground, i. e. before it was finished; when, the same evening, at the same sale, he bought a most beautiful impression of the same print finished, distinguished by having a black back-ground, &c. which had an address to Rembrandt at the bottom, written by Coppenol himself (for he was a writing-master of Amsterdam, and this print is his portrait), for fourteen guineas and a half. In the second instance, he adds, that he exceeded his commission by the half guinea; but in the first did not reach it by nearly twenty guineas. Mr. Daulby seems to be of opinion that Rembrandt, who loved money, availed himself of this humour in collectors. The facility with which he could change the effect of his etchings, by altering, obliterating, or working on them again, enabled him to provide sufficient amusement for his admirers; and hence varieties frequently occur which are not easily explicable. He is even said to have frequently suffered himself to be solicited before he would consent to dispose of them; and it is a well-attested fact, that the print of “Christ healing the sick,” usually denominated the “Hundred Guelder,” was so called because he refused to sell an impression of it under that price. Of this print we may remark that it is generally esteemed the chef d'aeuvre of Rembrandt, being highly finished, the characters full of expression, and the effect of the chiaroscuro very fine. Gilpin mentions twenty guineas, as the price of a good impression of this print; Mr. Daulby thirty, to which twenty more, we are assured, must now be added. Captain Baillie purchased the plate in Holland, and retouched it for publication, in 1776, at four guineas to subscribers, and five to non-subscribers. It has since been cut up, but there are impressions of the two groups from the left extremity, one above the other. Rembrandt’s rarest and most expensive portraits are those of Wtenbogardus, called in Holland, “the Goldweigher,” and in France “the Banker;” Van Tol, the advocate, sold as high as fifty-guineas; and the burgomaster Six, of equal value. This burgomaster was Rembrandt’s particular friend and patron, and had the largest collection of his prints that ever was formed in his life-time. Strutt gives 340 as the number of Rembrandt’s prints; but the largest collection known, that of M. De Burgy, at the Hague, collected between the years 1728 and 1755, consisted in the whole, including the varieties, of 655 prints. This great artist died at Amsterdam in 1688, or, according to some, in 1674. The little known of his personal character is not favourable. He was extremely fond of money, and not very scrupulous in his mode of procuring it. He is also represented as being fond of low company; a degrading taste, which seldom fails to affect a man’s profession, whatever it may be.

, a celebrated archbishop of Lyons in the ninth century, and grand almoner to the emperor Lotharius, succeeded Amolo, in the above see, about the year 853 or 854. There being other prelates of this name, we find some confusion as to their actions and writings; but it is supposed to be this St. Remigius, who, in the name of the church of Lyons, wrote an answer to the three letters of Hincmar of Rheims, and others, in which he defends St. Augustine’s doctrine on grace and predestination, which he apprehended to have been at“tacked by the condemnation of Godescalc. This answer may be found in the” Vindiciae Predestinationis et Gratis,“1650, 2 vols. 4to, and in the Library of the Fathers; as also a translation by the same author,” On the condemnation of all men in Adam, and the deliverance of some by Jesus Christ.“He presided at the council of Valence in the year 855, and others of the same kind; and, after founding some pious institutions died Oct. 28, in the year 875. Others of his works are in the” Library of the Fathers."

, an able naval architect, was born in 1652, in Beurn, descended from the ancient house of Elisagaray in Navarre. The count de Vermandois, admiral of France, engaged his services in 1679, by a pension of a thousand crowns; and his opinion concerning the construction of ships was preferred to that of M. Duguesne, even by that gentleman himself. In consequence of this, Renau received orders to visit Brest and the other ports, that he might instruct the ship-builders, whose sons of fifteen or twenty years old he taught to build the largest ships, which had till then required the experience of twenty or thirty years. Having advised the bombardment of Algiers in 1680, he invented bomb-boats for that expedition, and the undertaking succeeded. After the admiral’s decease, M. Vauban placed M. Renau in a situation to conduct the sieges of Cadaquiers in Catalonia, of Philipsburg, Manheim, and Frankendal. In the midst of this tumultuous life he wrote his “Theorie de la manoeuvre des Vaisseaux,” which was published 1689, 8vo. The king, as a reward for M. Renau’s services, made him captain of a ship, with orders that he should have free access to, and a deliberative voice in the councils of the generals, an unlimited inspection of the navy, and authority to teach the officers any new methods of his invention; to which was added a pension of 12,000 livres. The grand master of Malta requested his assistance to defend that island against the Turks, who were expected to besiege it; but the siege not taking place, M. Renau went back to France, and on his return was appointed counsellor to the navy, and grand croix of St. Louis. He died Sept. 30, 1719. He had been admitted an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences in 1699. He has left several Letters, in answer to the objections raised by Huygens and Bernouilli against his Theory abovementioned. He was a man of reflection, read little, but thought much; and, what appears a greater singularity, he meditated more deeply when in the midst of company, where he was frequently found, than in solitude, to which he seldom retired. He was very short, almost a dwarf, but adroit, lively, witty, brave, and the best engineer which France has produced, except M. de Vauban.

His works are, 1. “Carolina in mortem duonim fratrum Suffolciensium, Henrici et Caroli Brandon,” Lond. 1552, 4to. A specimen from this rare volume is given in Mr. Bliss’s edition of the “Athense,” from a copy in the Bodleian. 2. “De Pii V. et Gregorii XIII. furoribus contra Elizabetham Reginam Angliae,” ibid. 1582, 8vo. 3. “An Exhortation to true love, loyalty, and fidelity to her majesty,” ibid. 1587, 8vo, to which is added a treatise against Treasons; and 4. “Syntagma hortationum ad Jacobuui Regem Anglise,” ibid. 1604, 8vo. He also translated from Latin into English, bishop Poynet’s “Apology or Defence of Priests’ marriages.” Bale, who gives Dr. Renniger a high character, attributes other works to him, but without specifying whether in ms. or print; and there are, if we mistake not, some of his Mss. in Bene't college library.

, a learned Spanish Jesuit, was born in Grenada about 1730. After a liberal education, in which he made great proficiency in philosophy and mathematics, and discovered much taste for the fine arts, he retired to Italy on the expulsion of his order. In 1782 he sent to the society opened in Madrid for the fine arts, a memoir which gained the first prize; and in 1788 he carried off the prize proposed by the academy of Seville. These two memoirs, which were printed in 1789, at Seville, met with the approbation of all the foreign literary journals. He had already obtained considerable fame on the continent from his elaborate work, printed at Seville in 1766, on the “Roman Antiquities in Spain,” and had contributed very much to Masdeu’s critical and literary history of Spain, printed in 1781, &c. But perhaps he is best known to artists and men of taste, by his “Saggi sul ristabilimento clelP antica arte de‘ Greci, e de’ Romani Pittori,” vol. I. Venice, 1784. The second edition of this elegant work was published in 2 vols. 8vo, at Parma, by Mr. Joseph Molini in 1787. The author’s object was, as the title indicates, to investigate and restore the ancient art of Grecian and Roman painting, and therefore in his first volume he gives a circumstantial account of encaustic painting as practised by the ancients, by which the lustre of their works is preserved to this day. He proves that they not only used the encaustic art in painting, but employed it in varnishing their statues, and even their utensils, ships, houses, &c. After descanting on the disadvantages that arise from painting in oil, he discloses the method of preparing the materials employed in encaustic painting, with the manner of using them; and substantiates this system by the opinions of many members of the Clementine academy of Bologne, and of several professors of the academies of Venice, Verona, Padua, &c. also of others who, beside himself, have tried them; particularly at Mantua, where under the patronage of the marquis Bianchi, many pictures were painted, of which Requeno gives an account. Artists, however, have not in general been very forward to adopt this plan, which, as the author explains it, differs very much from what has been proposed by Count de Caylus, Cochin, Bachelier, Muntz, and others. The abbe Requeno died at Venice in 1799.

, a learned Danish divine, was the son of a Lutheran clergyman, and born in Jutland, Feb. 2, 1561. After his grammatical education, he went to the university of Copenhagen, and was afterwards made corector of the school of Vibourg. In 1585, being appointed tutor to the young Frederick Rosenkrantz, he travelled with him through Germany, France, Italy, &c. for seven years, part of which we must suppose was spent in studying at some of the universities. On his return in 1592, he was appointed philosophical professor in ordinary, and afterwards extraordinary professor of divinity in the university of Copenhagen. In 1594, having been created doctor in that faculty, he removed to the chair of ordinary professor. In 1606, when the king, Christiern VI. paid a visit to his relation, king James, in England, who had married his sister, Resenius accompanied him as his chaplain. In 1615 he was appointed bishop of Roschildt in Zealand, which he held until his death, Sept. 14, 1638, aged seventy-seven. He was a man of great liberality, and bestowed in the course of his life 5500 crowns on schools and hospitals. Besides a translation of the Bible into the Danish language, published in 1605 7, he published a great number of theological dissertations and sermons in the same language; and the following works: “Parva logica,” Latin and Danish, 1605, 1610; “Institutiones geometricae,” 1612; “Parva rhetorica,” 1619; “Scholia in arithmeticam Gemmae Frisii,” 1611; and “De sancta fide in Deum, libellus apologeticus,” Latin and Danish, 1614.

, ar celebrated cardinal, was born in 1613. He was a doctor of the Sorbonne, and afterwards coadjutor to his uncle the archbishop of Paris; and at length, after many intrigues, in which his restless and unbounded ambition engaged him, became a cardinal. This extraordinary man has drawn his own character in his Memoirs,- which are written in a very unequal manner, but are generally bold, free, animating, and pleasing, and give us a very lively representation of his conduct. He was a man who, from the greatest degree of debauchery, and still languishing under its consequences, preached to the people, and made himself adored by them. He breathed nothing but the spirit of faction and sedition. At the age of twenty-three, he had been at the head of a conspiracy against the life of cardinal Richelieu, It has been said that he was the first bishop who carried on a war without the mask of religion; but his schemes were so unsuccessful, that he was obliged to quit France. He then went into Spain and Italy, and assisted at the conclave at Rome, which raised Alexander VII. to the pontificate; but this pontiff not making good his promises to the cardinal, he left Italy, and went into Germany, Holland, and England. After having spent the life of an exile for five or six years, he obtained leave upon certain terms to return to his own country; which was the more safe, as his friend cardinal Mazarine died in 1661. He was afterwards at Rome, and assisted in the conclave which chose Clement IX.; but, upon his return to France, gave up all thoughts of public affairs, and died at Paris, Aug. 24, 1679. The latter part of his life is said to have been tranquil and exemplary. At this period he wrote his Memoirs, in which there is a considerable air of impartiality. In order to judge of this, however, the reader is advised to compare them with those of Claude Joli, his private secretary. Both works have been published in English, the former in 1774, 4 vols. the latter in 1775, 3 vols., 12fno. Some friends, nith whom the cardinal entrusted the original ms. fixed a mark on those passages, where they thought he had dishonoured himself, in order to have them omitted, as they were in the first edition; but they have since been restored. The best French editions of these Memoirs are those of Amsterdam, 1719, 7 vols. 12mo, and 1731, 4 vols. small 8vo. This cardinal was the author of other pieces; but these, being of a temporary kind, written as party pamphlets to serve particular purposes, are forgotten.

, a learned German, who contributed much to the restoration of letters in Europe, was born at Pforzheim in 1450. His parents, perceiving his talents and turn for books, were easily persuaded to give him a liberal education, and sent him to Paris, then the seat of literature in these western parts, with the bishop of Utrecht; where he studied grammar under Joannes a Lapide, rhetoric under Gaguinus, Greek under Tiphernas, and Hebrew under Wesselus. Being returned to his own country, he took the degree of doctor in philosophy at Basil, where he lived four years; then went to Orleans to study the law, and was admitted doctor in 1479. He taught the Greek language at Orleans, as he had done at Basil; and composed and printed a grammar, a lexicon, some vocabularies, and other works of alike nature, to facilitate the study of that language. By all this he gained Extraordinary reputation; for, the knowledge of the two languages was at that time so rare an accomplishment, that it was actually made a title of honour. This appears from the following inscription of a letter: “Andronicus Contoblacas, natione Graecus, utriusque linguae peritus, Joanni Reuchlino,” &c. that is, “Andronicus Contoblacas, a Greek, skilled in both languages, to John Reuchlin,” &c.

After some time, Eberhard, count of Wirtemberg, being to make the tour of Italy, Reuchlin was chosen among others to attend him; chiefly because, during his residence in France, he had corrected his own German pronunciation of the Latin, which appeared so rude and savage to the Italians. They were handsomely received at Florence by Lorenzo de Medicis, the father of Leo X. and became acquainted with many learned men there, as ChalcondylaSj Ficinus, Politian, Picus earl of Mirandula, &c. They proceeded to Rome, where Hermolaus Barbarus prevailed with Reuchlin to change his name to Capnio, which signifies the same in Greek as Reuchlin does in German; that is, smoke. Count Eberhard entertained so great an esteem for Capnio, so he was afterwards called, thatj upon his return to Germany, he made him ambassador to the emperor Frederic III.; who conferred many honours upon him, and made him many presents. He gave him. in particular an ancient Hebrew manuscript bible, very neatly written, with the text and paraphrase of Onkelos, &c. Frederic died in 1493; and Capnio returned to count Eberhard, who died also about three months after the emperor: when, an usurpation succeeding, Capnio was banished. He retired to Worms, and continued his studies: hut the elector Palatine, having a cause to defend at Rome some time after, selected him as the ablest man for his purpose; and accordingly, in 1498, Capnio made an oration before the pope and cardinals concerning the rights of the German princes, and the privileges o the German churches. He remained more than a year at Rome; and had so much leisure as to perfect himself in the Hebrew tongue under Abdias, a Jew, and also in the Greek under Argyropylus. He had some trouble in his old age by an unhappy difference with the divines of Cologne, occasioned by a Jew named Pfefferkorn. This man, of whom we have already given a brief account (see Pfeffekcorn), to shew his zeal for Christianity, advised that all the Jewish books, except the Bible, should be burnt; but the Jews having prevailed on the emperor to allow them to be examined first, Capnio, who was universally acknowledged to excel in this kind of learning, was appointed by the elector of Mentz, under the authority of the emperor, to pass a judgment upon these writings. Capnio, who had too much good sense to adopt, in its full extent, this wretched policy, gave it as his opinion, that no other books should be destroyed, but those which were found to be written expressly against Jesus Christ, lest, with the Jewish books on liberal arts and sciences, their language itself, so important to the church, should perish. This opinion was approved by the emperor, and the books were by his authority restored to the Jews. Pfefferkorn and his supporters were exceedingly enraged against Capnio, and pursued him with invectives and accusations even to the court of Home. His high reputation in the learned world, however, protected him; and bigotry met with a most mortifying defeat in his honourable acquittal.

With great judgment, and at a considerable expence, he collected a library most rich in scarce, valuable, and beautiful books, and obtained such fame in this department of literature, as to be ranked with the Vallieres, Pinellis, and Lomenies of the day. Of this excellent library, he printed a descriptive catalogue under the title of “Bibliotheca Grseca et Latina, complectens auctores fere omnes Grteciae et Latii veteris, &c. cum delectu editionum turn primariarum, principum, et rarissimarum, quum etiam optima rum, splendidissimarum, atque nitidissimarum, quas usui mei paravi Periergus Deltophilus,” Berlin, 1784, 1794, 8vo. To some of these catalogues were prefixed a letter to M. L. A. D. i. e. Denina, and a preface. Three supplements to this catalogue were afterwards published by him, which are not easily procurable. Although the superlatives in the title smack a little of the dealer, rather than the private gentleman, the count has not exceeded the bounds of truth, and perhaps few men were better qualified to form a collection deserving of such praise. With the boundless zeal, he had also the extensive knowledge of a collector, and understood and spoke readily the principal ancient and modern languages. His frequent removes made him acquainted with every public and private library on the continent; and he never missed an opportunity to add to his collection whatever was most curious and valuable at sales, or booksellers’ shops. This library is now in England, and in the possession of a nobleman who knows its value, and whose own library at present exceeds that of any subject in Europe. When count Revickzky came to London, he made an offer to earl Spenser to dispose of the whole collection to his lordship. What the terms were is variously reported. It seems agreed, however, that it was for a sum of money to be paid immediately, and an annuity, which last the count did not live long to enjoy. The count was himself an author, and published the “Odes of Hafez,” known here by Richardson’s translation; a treatise on Turkish tactics; and an edition of Petronius, Berlin, 1785, 8vo, formed on the editions of Burman and Antonius.

Reyneau, after thus giving lessons to those who understood something of geometry, thought proper to draw up some for such as were utterly unacquainted with that science. This produced in 1714, a volume in 4to, on calculation, under the title of “Science du Caicul des Grandeurs,” of which the then censor royal, a very intelligent and impartial judge, says, in his approbation of it, that “though several books had already appeared upon the same subject, such a treatise as that before him was still wanting, as in it every thing was handled in a manner sufficiently extensive, and at the same time with all possible exactness and perspicuity.” In fact, though most branches of the mathematics had been well treated of before that period, there were yet no good elements, even of practical geometry. Those who knew no more than what precisely such a book ought to contain, knew too little to complete a good one; and those that knew more, thought themselves probably above the task, for which Reyneau was well qualified. In J 716 he was admitted into the royal academy of sciences of Paris, as what was then called a free associate. The works already mentioned are all he published except a small piece on “Logic.” He left, however, in ms. materials for a second volume of his “Science du Calcul.” He died much regretted, as he had always been highly respected, in 1728, at the age of seventy-two.

In this mission he and his colleagues were at first interrupted by certain enthusiasts among the soldiers, headed by one Erbury, who maintained that the ordination of these divines was unlawful, and that no ordination was necessary for any man who had gifts. This was a favourite topic in those days, and is not yet exhausted. In the following year he was nominated to the more obnoxious office of one of thevisitors of the university, and in Feb. 1 648 was chosen vice-chancellor, on the recommendation of the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university. ID this last office he was to continue until August 1649. He was also, by a mandate from parliament, which now was supreme in all matters, created D. D. In March 1648 he was appointed dean of Christ church, in the room of Dr. Fell, who was ejected with no common degree of violence, Mrs. Fell and her family being literally dragged out of the deanery house by force. Dr. Reynolds being admitted into office in form, Wood says, “made a polite and accurate oration,” in Latin, in which “he spoke very modestly of himself, and how difficult it Was for a man that had sequestered himself from secular employments to be called to government, especially to sit at the stern in these rough and troublesome times; but since he had subjected himself to those that have authority to command him, he did desire that good example and counsel might prevail more in this reformation than severity and punishments.”

When the secluded members were admitted again to parliament, they restored him to his deanery of Christchurch, in May 1659. And in May following, 1660, he, with Mr. Edmund Calamy, was made chaplain to his majesty, then at Canterbury. After this he preached several times before the King and both Houses of Parliament; and in the latter end of June, being desired to quit his deanery, he was the next month elected, by virtue of the king’s letter, warden of Merton-college, and was consecrated bishop of Norwich Jan. 6, the same year. Sir Thomas Browne, who knew him well, gives him the character of a person of singular affability, meekness, and humility, of great learning, a frequent preacher, and constant resident. But a more full account of our author is given in a funeral sermon preached at Norwich by the reverend Mr. Riveley, in July 1676, in which his character as a man of piety and learning, and as a divine and prelate, is highly praised. Wood, in his “Athenae,” says he was “a person of excellent parts and endowments, of a very good wit, fancy, and judgment, a great divine, and much esteemed by all parties, for his preaching, and fluid style.” In his “Annals” he is inclined to be less favourable. It was perhaps naturally to be expected that one who had taken so active a part in the revolutionary changes of the times, and yet afterwards accepted a bishopric, should not be much a favourite with either party. Wood also insinuates that Dr. Reynolds was much under the government of his wife, whom he calls “covetous and insatiable,” and concludes in these words: “In this I must commend him, that he hath been a benefactor (though not great) to Merton-college, that gave him all his academical education (for which in some manner the society hath shewed themselves grateful), and 'tis very probable that greater he would have been, if not hindered by his beloved consort.”

Of the family of bishop Reynolds we find mention of his son Edward, who was educated at St. Paul’s school, and a fellow of Magdalen-college, Oxford, archdeacon of Norwich, and prebendary of Worcester. He was also for forty years rector of St. Peter’s Northampton, and died in his sixty-ninth year, June 28, 1698. He was buried in Kingsthorpe chqrch, near Northampton, where is a monument and inscription to his memory. Dr. Knight says, he was “a very able and judicious divine, and a very worthy son of so good a father.” Some notices of two of the bishop’s descendants may be found in Cumberland’s life.

, a late eminent pbysijcian, was born in the county of Nottingham, Sept. 26, 1745; and his father having died about a month before, the care of him devolved on his maternal great-uncle and godfather, Mr. Henry Revell, of Gainsborough; by whom he was sent, at an early age, to a school at Beverley in Yorkshire, then in great repute under the government of Mr. Ward. Having early shewn a disposition for his profession, his uncle placed him, at the age of eighteen, as a commoner at Lincoln college, Oxford. It was in the second year of his residence at this university that he had the misfortune to lose his uncle and benefactor, the memory of whom was ever cherished by him with a pious and grateful affection, and who left him a small landed property in Lincolnshire, by which he was enabled to prosecute the object that he had in view. He continued at Oxford till the early part of 1766, when, in order to the obtaining of his medical degrees sooner, he was admitted, by a benc decessit from Oxford, ad eundem to Trinity college, Cambridge, and he kept a term at that university. In the summer of this year he went to Edinburgh, and resided there two years, and after attending a course of medical studies, returned in 1768 to Cambridge, when the degree of bachelor of physic being conferred upon him, he went to London, and attended as pupil at the Middlesex hospital. The following year he became a resident physician at Guildford; and married Miss Wilson, in the month of April 1770. By the advice, however, of his friend, Dr. Huck, afterwards Dr. Huck Saumders, he settled in London, in Lamb’s Conduit-street, in the summer of 1772. The next year he took the degree of doctor of physic at Cambridge, and was immediately afterwards elected physician to the Middlesex hospital. In 1774 he was chosen a fellow, and at the same time a censor, of tke college of physicians. He soon became the object of particular notice and regard by the eminent physicians of that day, doctors Huck, Fothergill, and sir Richard Jebb; and the high opinion which the latter gentleman had formed of his professional abilities, and personal character and manners, and the consequent expression of that opinion, and recommendation of Dr. Reynolds to his majesty, were the original cause of his being called into attendance upon the king in the memorable period of 1788. In 1776 he was appointed to speak the Harveian oration; and, although, his modesty would not suffer him to print it, it has been thought worthy of being compared with the most classical of these harangues. In the course of it, he exactly described that mode, which he ever observed, of performing the various duties of his profession, and of dispensing its various benefits. In 1777 Dr. Reynolds was elected physician to St. Thomas’s hospital; and from this period his business gradually increased, till, in the progress of a few years, he attained to the highest fame and practice in his profession. In every successive illness of our revered sovereign since 1788, Dr. Reynolds’s attendance on his majesty was always required; and his public examinations before parliament are recorded proofs of his high merits as a physician, a gentleman, and a scholar; while his appointments to the situations of physician extraordinary to the king in 1797, and physician in ordinary in 1806, evince the estimation in which his sovereign held his character and his services. When he was called into attendance at Windsor, he was suffering under a rheumatic affection, which had been oppressing him for some time. The anxiety attached to such an attendance as the illness of his majesty required, had oil this occasion a very powerful, if not a fatal, influence. The first day that he seriously felt the fatigues of mind and body was, after his examination before the House of Lords, the etiquette of this branch of parliament not allowing a witness to sit down, Dr. Reynolds, who, in consequence of his having attended his majesty in all his previous similar illnesses, was examined at greater length than his other brethren were, was kept standing fur two hours, and the riext clay was reluctantly compelled to remain the whole of it in his bed. On the following, however, he returned to Windsor; but from this time his appetite began to fail, and his strength and flesh visibly to diminish. In the month of March, 1811, these symptoms had so much increased, that his friends besought him to retire from his anxious attendance at Windsor, to spare his mind and body entirely, and to devote himself solely to the re-establishment of his own health; but unfortunately for his family, his friends, and the public, he would not be persuaded. While any powers were left, to his majesty’s service he resolved that they should be devoted: and thus he persevered till the 4th of May, when he returned to London extremely ill; and from that day his professional career was stopped. Having been confined to his room for nearly three weeks, he was prevailed upon, by his excellent friends Dr. Latham and Dr. Ainslie, to go to Brighton, where he remained two months. Sometimes during this anxious period he would seem to rally, but the appearances were deceitful; they were the mere struggles of a naturally good constitution, unimpaired by any intemperance, against the inroads of a disease. At the end of the month of July, he returned to his house in Bedford-square, where he lingered Until Oct. 23, on which day he expired, very deeply regretted for his talents, virtues, and professional skill and humanity.

Speaking of his own discourses, our great artist says, “Whatever merit they have, must be imputed, in a great measure, to the education which I may be said to have had under Dr. Johnson. I do not mean to say, though it certainly would be to the credit of these discourses if I could say it with truth, that he contributed even a single sentiment to them but he qualified my mind to think justly. No man had, like him, the faculty of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking. Perhaps other men might havg equal knowledge, but few were so communicative. His great pleasure was to talk to those who looked up to him. It was here he exhibited his wonderful powers. In mixed company, and frequently in company that ought to have looked up to him, many, thinking they had a character for learning to support, considered it as beneath them to enlist in the train of his auditors and to such persons he certainly did not appear to advantage, being often i tuous and overbearing. The desire of shining in conversation was in him indeed a predominant passion; and if it must be attributed to vanity, let it at the same time be recollected, that it produced that loquaciousness from which his more intimate friends derived considerable advantage. The observations which he made on poetry, on life, and on every thing about us, I applied to our art, with what success others must judge.” This short extract is not unconnected with a conjecture which many entertained, that sir Joshua did not compose his lectures himself. In addition to his own declaration here, as far as respects Dr. Johnson, who was chiefly suspected as having a hand in these lectures, Mr. Northcote, who lived some years in his house, says, in his memoirs, “At the period when it was expected he should have composed them, I have heard him walking at intervals in his room till one or two o'clock in the mjorning, and I have on the following day, at an early hour, seen the papers on the subject of his art which had been written the preceding night. I have had the rude manuscript from himself, in his own hand-writing, in order to make a fair copy from it for him to read in public: I have seen the manuscript also after it had been revised by Dr. Johnson, who has’ sometimes altered it to a wrong meaning, from his total ignorance of the subject and of art; but never, to my knowledge, saw the marks of Burke’s pen in any of the manuscripts. The bishop of Rochester, also, who examined the writings of Mr. Burke since his death, and lately edited a part of them, informed a friend that he could discover no reason to think that Mr. Burke had the least hand in the discourses of Reynolds.” And Burke himself, in a letter to Mr. Malone, after the publication of sir Joshua’s life and works, Says, “I have read over some part of the discourses with an unusual sort of pleasure, partly because being faded a little in my memory, they have a sort of appearance of novelty; partly by reviving recollections mixed with melancholy and satisfaction. The Flemish journal I had never seen before. You trace in that, every where, the spirit of the discourses, supported by new examples. He is always the same man; the same philosophical, the same artist-like critic, the same sagacious observer, with the same minuteness, without the smallest degree of trifling.” We may safely say, this is dot the language of one who had himself contributed much to those discourses. And if neither Johnson nor Burke wrote for Reynolds, to whom else among his contemporaries shall the praise due to those invaluable compositions be given, if Reynolds is to be deprived of it!

It is much to be lamented, that the world was deprived of this great artist before he had put into execution a plan which his biographer, Mr. Malone says, appears, from some loose papers, to have been revolved in his mind. “I have found,” says that author, “among sir Joshua’s papers, some detached and unconnected thoughts, written occasionally, as hints for a discourse, on a new and singular plan, which he seems to have intended as a history of his mind, so far as concerned his art; and of his progress, studies, and practice; together with a view of the advantages he had enjoyed, and the disadvantages he had laboured under, in the course that he had run: a scheme, from which, however liable it might be to the ridicule of wits and scoffers (of which, he says, he was perfectly aware), he conceived the students might derive some useful documents for the regulation of their own conduct and practice.” Such a composition, from such a man, written after he had spent a long life in successful practice, with none to guide him who had chosen a line of art for himself, stamped with originality; and in which he had to unfold principles, and elucidate them by practice and competent as he was to explain the operations of his own mind could not fail of being interesting and useful in the highest degree.

In many respects, both as a man and a painter, sir Joshua Reynolds cannot be too much studied, praised, and imitated by every one who wishes to attain the like eminence. His incessant industry was never wearied into despondency by miscarriage, nor elated into neglect by success. Either in his painting-room, or wherever else he passed his time, his mind was devoted to the charms of his profession. All nature, and all art, was his academj r and his reflection was ever on the wing, comprehensive, vigorous, discriminating, and retentive. With taste to perceive all* the varieties of the picturesque, judgment to select, and skill to combine what would serve his purpose, few have ever been empowered by nature to do more from the fund of their own genius: and none ever endeavoured more to take advantage of the labours of others. He made a splendid and useful collection, in which no expence wa? spared. His house was filled, to the remotest corners, with casts from the antique statues, pictures, drawings, and prints, by various masters of all the different schools. Those he looked upon as his library, at once objects of amusement, of study, and competition. After his death they were sold by auction, with his unclaimed and unfinished works, and, together, produced the sum of 16,947l. 7s. 6d. The substance of his whole property, accumulated entirely by his pencil, and left behind after a life in which he freely parted with his wealth, amounted to about 80,000l.

The style of portrait-painting by Hudson and Ramsay, who were the only persons of any practice when sir Joshua returned from abroad, was uniformly dry and hard, without any feeling for chiar-oscura, and with little diversity of attitude and expression; the full dress, which the custom of the day prescribed, prescribed also limits to their imaginations, and they never gave themselves the trouble to discriminate between the character of nature, and the character of fashion. Sir Joshua, with a more comprehensive view of his art, shewed how portrait might be generalized, so as to identify the individual man with the dignity of his thinking powers. In dress, he selected and adopted what was most conformable to the character of his subject, without implicitly following the fashion or offending the prejudice which it begets.

, called also Albubecar Mohamed, one of the most distinguished of the Arabian physicians, was born at Rei, in the province of Chorosan, about the year 852. He was first much addicted to music, and is said not to have studied medicine until he was thirty years of age, when he removed to Bagdad, became indefatigable in his application, and having obtained the highest reputation, was selected out of a hundred eminent physicians, who were then resident at Bagdad, to superintend the celebrated hospital of that city. His biographers speak of him as the Galen of the Arabians; and from his long life and constant practice, during which he paid the most assiduous attention to the varieties of disease, he obtained the appellation of the experimenter, or the experienced. He was said also to be profoundly skilled in all the sciences, especially in philosophy, astronomy, and music. He travelled much in pursuit of knowledge, and made frequent journies into Persia, his native country, and was much consulted by several princes, particularly by Almanzor, the chief of Chorasan, with whom he frequently corresponded, and to whom he dedicated several of his writings. Two hundred and twenty-six treatises are said to have been composed by Rhazes, among which the ten books addressed to his patron Almanzor, were designed as a complete body of physic, and may be deemed the great magazine of all the Arabian medicine; the ninth book, indeed, which treats of the cure of diseases, was in such general estimation for several centuries, that it was the text-book of the public schools, and was commented upon by the most learned professors. Yet, like the rest of the Arabian writings, it contains very little more than the substance of the works of the Greeks, from whom the Arabians borrowed almost all their medical knowledge. They have, indeed, and Rhazes in particular, given the first distinct account of the small-pox; and Rhazes wrote also the first treatise ever composed respecting the diseases of children. His book on the affections of the joints contains an account of some remarkable cures, effected chiefly by copious blood-letting. He describes the symptoms of hydrophobia very well; and also some diseases peculiar to eastern countries, and first noticed the disease called spina ventosa. Rhazes had the reputation of being a skilful alchemist; and is the first, as Dr. Freind has shewn, who mentions the use of chemical preparations in medicine. He has a chapter on the qualifications of a physician; and a singular tract on quacks and impostors, who appear to have been at least as numerous, and ingenious in their contrivances as in more recent times.

, a very eminent scholar and editor, was born, in 1485, at Schelestat, a town of Alsace. The name of his family was Bilde; that of Rhenanus had been adopted by his father, who had considerable property at Rhenac, his native place. His mother died in his infancy, and his father, who never married again, bestowed his whole attention for some years on his education. After some instruction in his own country, he was sent to Paris, where he studied Greek, rhetoric, and poetry, under the best masters. He then pursued his studies for some years at Strasburgh, and afterwards at Basil, where he contracted an intimacy with Erasmus that lasted during their lives, accompanied with mutual respect and friendship. In 1520, he returned to Scheiestat, in his thirty-fifth year, just in time to take leave of his father, who died the day after his arrival.

Dupin remarks, that Rhenanus was one of those learned men, who embrace no particular profession, and whose only business it is to cultivate the sciences, and their only ambition to become benefactors to the republic of letters. Rhenanus was so much disposed to this kind of life, that he obtained from Charles V. an exemption from all employment of a public nature. He had even no thoughts of marriage until near the end of his life, nor was that made public, as soon after he found himself attacked by the disorder which at last proved fatal. His physicians prescribed the waters of Baden, in Swisserland, but finding his disorder increase, he returned to Strasburgh, where he died, May 20, 1547, in his sixty-second year. He made no will but a verbal one. He left his library to his native place, Schelestat. He was a man of extraordinary mildness of temper, an enemy to contests, and of singular modesty and probity. Although, by his intimacy with Erasmus, and some of the early reformers, he was enabled to see many of the errors of the church of Rome, he adhered to her communion to the last: he said and wrote enough, however, to be classed with some protestant writers on their side. Beza, who is one of those, attempts to distinguish the share he had in encouraging the efforts of the reformers, with that more general fame he derived from his services to literature, and joins cordially in the praises bestowed on his talents and amiable disposition. One only objection is mentioned by most of his biographers, and that is his parsimony, of which, however, no very clear proof is afforded, except a pun upon his name, “Beatus est beatus, attamen sibi.”

, a celebrated German astronomer and mathematician, was born at Feldkirk in Tyrol, February 15, 1514. After imbibing the elements of the mathematics at Zurick with Oswald Mycone, he went to Wittemberg, where he diligently cultivated that science, and was made master of philosophy in 1535, and professor in 1537. He quitted this situation, however, two years after, and went to Fruenburg to profit by the instructions of the celebrated Copernicus, who had then acquired great fame. Rheticus assisted this astronomer for some years, and constantly exhorted him to perfect his work “De Revolutionibus,” which he published after the death of Copernicus, viz. in 1543, folio, atNorimberg, together with an illustration of the same, dedicated to Schoner. Here too, to render astronomical calculations more accurate, he began his very elaborate canon of sines, tangents and secants, to 15 places of figures, and to every 10 seconds of the quadrant, a design which he did not live quite to complete. The canon of sines however to that radius, for every 10 seconds, and for every single second in the first and last degree of the quadrant, computed by him, was published in folio at Francfort, 1613, by Pitiscus, who himself added a few of the first sines computed to 22 places of figures. But the larger work, or canon of sines, tangents, and secants, to every 10 seconds, was perfected and published after his death, viz. in 1596, by his disciple Valentine Otho, mathematician to the electoral prince palatine; a particular account and analysis of which work may be seen in the Historical Introduction to Dr. Button’s Logarithms.

, a learned German, was born in 1546, at Sassowerf, belonging to the counts of Stolberg in Upper Saxony, who, induced by an early display of talents, bore the expence of his education at the college of Ilfield. He continued there six years; and made so great a progress in literature, that he was thought fit to teach in the most eminent schools and the most flourishing universities. He was especially skilled in the Greek tongue, and composed some Greek verses, which were much admired, but Scaliger did not think him equally happy in Latin poetry. He was very successful in a Latin translation of “Diodorus Siculus,” which Henry Stephens prevailed on him to undertake; and it was published in 1604, with Stephens^ text. He translated also into Latin the Greek poem of Quintus Calaber, concerning the taking of Troy; and added some corrections to it. At last, he was appointed professor of history in the university of Wittemberg, and died there in 1606. His other works were, 1. “Historia vitae & doctrincE Martini Lutheri carmine heroico descripta.” 2. “Descriptio Historian Ecclesiae, sive popult Dei, Politiae ejusdem, & rerum praecipuarum quae in illopopulo acciderum, Graeco carmine, cum versione Latina e regione textus Graeci,” Francof. 1581, 8vo. 3. “Poesis Christiana, id est, Palestine seu Historic sacra? Grseco-Latinae libri 9,” Marpnrgi, 15S9; Francof. 1590, 1630, 4to. 4. “Tabulae Etymologice Grseca?,” Francof. 1590, Svq. 5. “Memnonis Historia de Republica Heracliensium, & rebus Ponticis Eclogoe seu excerptae & abbreviates narrationes in Sermonem Latinum translatae,” Helmstadii, 1591, 4to. 6. “Epithalamia sacra,” Jenae, 1594, 4to. 7. “Ex Memnone, de Tyrannis Heracleae Ponticas Ctesia & Agatharchide excerptae Historiac Greece & Latine partim ex Laur. Rhodomani interpretatione,” Geneva, 1593, 8vo. 8. “Theologiae Christianæ tyrocinia, carmine heroico Græco-Latino in 5 libros digesta,” Lips. 1597, 8vo.

His first printed display of critical Greek erudition, was in an epistle upon certain Greek commentaries on the title in the Digest De Advocatis et Procuratoribus. He gave next, at Hemsterhuis’s persuasion, an edition of the Greek Lexicon of Timseus, for the illustration of words and phrases peculiar to Plato. This was published in 1754, 8vo. Next year he went to Paris, with a view chiefly to inspect th libraries of that city and their manuscript treasures. Here he formed an acquaintance with Dr. S. Musgrave and Mr. T. Tyrwhitt, who was then examining some of the Mss., particularly those of Euripides. During a year’s residence in that metropolis, Rhunken passed most of his time in the king’s library, and in that of the Benedictines of St, Germain’s, transcribed a number of unprinted remains of ancient literature, and collated many manuscripts and rare editions of the most popular classical authors. In October 1757 he was appointed reader in Greek literature, and thus became assistant to Hernsterhuis in the university of Leyden, and upon the death of Oeudendorp, professor of Latin oratory and history, he was advanced to the vacant chair of that eminent scholar. In 1763, he married Marianne Heirmans, a young lady of uncommon beauty and accomplishments, the daughter of a gentleman who had long resided as Dutch consul at Leghorn.

Whyttembach, whom we have followed in this sketch, draws the character of Rhunkenius at some length. His knowledge and his learning are unquestioned. In other respects he was lively, cheerful, and gay, almost to criminal indifference, but he knew his own value and consequence. He said once to Villoison, “Why did not you come to Leyden to attend Valckenaer and me?” He once showed, with pride, a chest of Mss. of Joseph Scaliger to a Swede called Biornsthall “Ah” said Biornsthall, “this is a man who wants judgment,” alluding to his epitaph, but playing a little too severely on the equivoque. Rhunkenius grew angry, and replied with warmth, “Be gone with your ignorance” “aufer te hinc cum tuo stupore.” A German professor, to whom he showed the same collection, observed, “We now write in Germany in our own language, and cannot comprehend the obstinacy of those who continue to write in Latin.” “Professor,” replied Rhunkenius, “look then for a library of German books,” refusing to show him any thing more.

, a celebrated Spanish Jesuit, was born at Toledo, in 1527, and was enrolled by St. Ignatius among his favourite disciples in 1540, before the society of the Jesuits had received the papal sanction. In 1542 he studied at Paris, and afterwards at Padua, where he was sent to Palermo to teach rhetoric. After many,' and long travels for the propagation of the interests of the society in various parts of Europe, he died at Madrid, Oct. 1, 1611. One of his visits was with the duke of Feria to England, in 1558, and his inquiries here, or what he made subsequently, encouraged him to publish a treatise “On the English schism,” 1594, 8vo, in which, it is said, there is less rancour and acrimony than might have been expected, and some curious anecdotes respecting the personal character of queen Mary. He is, however, chiefly known for his Lives of various Saints and Jesuits, and as the founder of that biography of the Jesuits which Alegambe and others afterwards improved into a work of some importance. One of his principal lives, published separately, is that of the founder, St. Ignatius de Loyola. Of this work there have been several editions, the first in 1572, and the second with additions in 1587, in neither of which he ascribes any miracles to his master, and is so far from supposing any, that he enters into an inquiry, whence it could happen that so holy a man had not the gift of miracles bestowed upon him, and really assigns very sensible reasons. But notwithstanding all this, in an abridged edition of his life of Ignatius, published at Ipres in 1612, miracles are ascribed to Ignatius, and Ribadeneira is made to assign, as his reason for not inserting such accounts before, that though he heard of them in 1572, they were not sufficiently authenticated. Bishop Douglas, who is inclined to blame Ribadeneira for this insufficient apology, has omitted to notice that this Ipres edition of the life was published a year after Ribadeneira’s death, and therefore it is barely possible that the miracles, and all that is said about them, might have been supplied by some zealous brother of the order. His “Lives of the Saints” were translated into English, and published in 2 vols. 8vo.

, an English traveller, was the tenth son of sir Peter Ricaut, probably a mer* chant in London, and the author of some useful works, who was one of the persons excepted in the “Propositions of the Lords and Commons,” assembled in parliament, “for a safe and well-grounded peace, July 11, 1646, sent to Charles I. at Newcastle.” He also paid o.1500 for his composition, and taking part with his unhappy sovereign. His son Paul was born in London, and admitted scholar of Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1647, where he took his bachelor’s degree^ in 1650. After this he travelled many years, not only in Europe, but also in Asia and Africa; and was employed in some public services. In 1661, when the earl of Winchelsea was sent ambassador extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte, he went as his secretary; and while he continued in that station, which was eight years, he wrote “The present State of the Ottoman Empire, in three books; containing the Maxims of the Turkish Politic, their Religion, and Military Discipline,” illustrated with figures, and printed at London, 1670, in folio, and 1675 in 8vo, and translated into French by Bespier, with notes, and anittoadversions on some mistakes. During the same time, he had occasion to take two voyages from Constantinople to London; one of them was by land, through Hungary, where he remained some time in the Turkish camp with the famous vizier, Kuperlee, on business relating to England. In 1663 he published the “Capitulations, articles of peace,” &C; concluded between England and the Porte^ which were very much to our mercantile advantage, one article being that English ships should be free from search or visit under pretence of foreign goods, a point never secured in any former treaty. After having meritoriously discharged his office of secretary to lord Winchelsea, he was made consul for the English nation at Smyrna; and during his residence there, at the command of Charles II. composed “The present State of the Greek and Armenian Churchesjanno Christi 1678,” which, upon his return to England, he presented with his own hands to his majesty; and it was published in 1679, 8vo. Having acquitted himself, for the space of eleven years, to the entire satisfaction of the Turkey company, he obtained leave to return to England, where he lived in honour and good esteem; The earl of Clarendon > being appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1685, made him his principal secretary for the provinces of Leinster and Connaught; and James II. knighted him, constituted him one of the privy council for Ireland, and judge of the high court of admiralty* which he enjoyed till the revolution in 1688, Soon after this, he was employed by king William as his resident with the Hanse-towns in Lower Saxony, namely, Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen; where he continued for ten years, and gave the utmost satisfaction. At length, worn out with age and infirmities, he had leave in 1700 to return to England, where he died, Dec. 16 of that year. He was fellow of the Royal Society for many years before his decease; and a paper of his, upon the “Sable Mice,” or “Mures Norwegici,” is published in the Philosophical Transactions. He understood perfectly the Greek, both ancient and modern, the Turkish, Latin, Italian, and French languages.

, a celebrated Jesuit, was born Oct. 6, 1552, of a good family at Macerata. He went to the Indies, finished his theological studies at Goa, taught rhetoric there, and being in the mean time appointed missionary to China, learnt the language of that country, nor did he neglect mathematics, which he had studied at Rome under the learned Clavius. After many troubles and difficulties, he arrived at Pekin, where he was esteemed by the emperor, the mandarins, and all the learned, acquired great reputation, drew a map for the Chinese, and was permitted to preach the Christian religion. He purchased a house at Pekin, where he built a church, and died there, in 1610, aged fifty-eight, leaving some very curious memoirs respecting China, which father Frigualt has made use of in writing his history of that vast empire. Father d'Orleans, a Jesuit, who published a “Life of Ricci,” in 1693, 12mo, says, that this father drew up a short catechism for the Chinese, in which he introduced scarcely any but such points of morality and religion as are most conformable to Christianity. These words of father d‘Orleans, says L’Avocat, have furnished the enemies of the Jesuits, with abundant matter for critical reflections.

, an artist of temporary fame, was born at Belluno, near Trevisano, in 1659; and having discovered an early genius for painting, was conducted by his father to Venice, and placed as a disciple with Fred. Cervelli, a Milanese artist of good reputation, with whom he studied for nine years. He afterwards improved his practice at Bologna, &c. by copying, and obtained the favour and patronage of Rannuccio, the second duke of Parma. By the liberality of that prince, he was honourably maintained at Rome, studying the productions of the best ancient and modern masters; and there he formed that manner which distinguishes his productions, and for a while raised him into the highest esteem. Having quitted Rome, he returned to Venice, where he was so eagerly solicited for his paintings, that he had scarcely time to take even necessary refreshment. His fame spread through Europe, and he received an invitation to the court of the emperor at Vienna, to adorn the magnificent palace of Schoenbrun. From thence he was encouraged to visit London, where he was immediately and incessantly employed by the court, the nobility, and persons of fortune. Here he remained ten years, with his nephew and coadjutor, IVfarco Ricci, who painted skilfully scenes of architecture and landscape at Burlington house and Bulstrode. He acquired great wealth by the immense occupation he found; and then returned to Venice, where he remained until his death, in 1734, in the seventy-fifth year of his. age.

Ricci was one of the few, comparatively speaking, who enjoy during their lives the utmost extent of their fame. In his history, that portion of renown which attaches to him died with him, or nearly so. In fact, he w*s a machinist, one who, being conversant in the rules of art, and skilful in the application of the means, dazzled where he could not instruct, anJ deluded by ingenuity without judgment, and art without expression. His works are to be found in many of our great houses, as well as those of his nephew. At Chelsea, where he painted the altar-piece, and at the British Museum, there are considerable pictures of his painting, but they do not rise in esteem by continued observation; and yet, unfortunately, they had sufficient influence in their day to lead the artists astray from the contemplation and imitation of the works of Raphael, and the greater masters of the Italian school. Walpole informs us that Sebastian excelled particularly in imitations of Paul Veronese, many of which he sold for originals; and once deceived even La Fosse. When the latter was convinced of the imposition, he gave this severe but just reprimand to Sebastian: “For the future take my advice; paint nothing but Paul Veroneses, and no more Riccis.” Lord Orford adds that Ricci left England on finding it determined “that sir James Thqrnhill should paint the cupola, of St. Paul’s.”

, called Anglicus, was an English physician, who flourished about 1230. He is said to have studied first at Oxford, and then at Paris, and attained a high degree of eminence in his profession. Tanner gives a list of his works, none of which appear to have been published. Some of his Mss. are in the New college library, Oxford.

, an English historian, so named from his birth-place, flourished in the fourteenth century. No (races of his family or connections can be discovered, but they appear to have been such as to afford him a liberal education. In 13 50 “he entered into the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter, Westminster, and his name occurs in various documents of that establishment in 1387, 1397, and 1399. He devoted his leisure hours to the study of British and Anglo-Saxon history and antiquities, in which he made such proficiency, that he is said to have been honoured with the name of the Historiographer. Pits informs us, without specifying his authority, that Richard visited different libraries and ecclesiastical establishments in England, in order to collect materials. It is at least certain that he obtained a licence to visit Rome, from his abbot, William of Colchester, in 1391, and there can be little doubt that a man of his curiosity would improve his knowledge on such an occasion. He is supposed to Have performed this journey in the interval between 1391 and 1397, for he appears to have been confined in the abbey infirmary in 1401, and died in that or the following year. His works are,” Historia ab Hengista ad ann. 1348,“in two parts. The first contains the period from the coming of the Saxons to the death of Harold, and is preserved in the public library of Cambridge. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, speaks of this as evincing very little knowledge or judgment; the second part is probably a ms. in the library of the Royal Society, p. 137, with the title of” Britonum Anglorum et Saxonurn Historia.“In the library of Bene't college, Cambridge, is” Epitome Chronic. Ric. Cor. West. Lib. I.“Other works of our author are supposed to be preserved in the Lambeth library, and at Oxford. His theological writings were,” Tractatus super Symbolum Majus et Minus,“and” Liber de Officiis Ecclesiasticis,“in the Peterborough library. But the treatise to which he owes his celebrity, is that on the ancient state of Great Britain,” De situ Britanniae,“first discovered by Charles Julius Bertram, professor of the English language in the royal marine academy at Copenhagen, who transmitted to Dr. Stukeley a transcript of the whole in letters, together with a copy of the map. From this transcript Stukeley published an analysis of the work, with the itinerary, first in a thin quarto, 1757, and afterwards in the second volume of his ” Itinerarium Curiosum.“In the same year the original itself was published by professor Bertram at Copenhagen, in a small octavo volume, with the remains of Gildas and Nennius, under the title” Britannicarum gentium Historiae Antiquæ scriptores tres, Ricardns Corinensis, Gildas Badonicus, Nennius Banchorensis, &c.“This work has long been scarce, and in very few libraries; but in 1809, a new edition, with an English translation, &c. was published at London. To this the editor, Mr. Hatchard, has prefixed an account of Richard’s life, from which we have extracted the above particulars, and an able defence of his merit and fidelity as a historian, against the objections of certain writers. Among these we observe that Gibbon cannot be reckoned, for he says that Richard of Cirencester” shews a genuine knowledge of antiquity, very extraordinary for a monk of the fourteenth century.“This useful and accurate republication is entitled” The Description of Britain, translated from Richard of Cirencester; with the original treatise de situ Britanniæ; and a commentary on the Itinerary; illustrated with maps," 8vo.

Thus much, however, must be said of him, that when Kneller and Dahl were dead, he stood at the head of the portrait-painters in this country, and practised in it sufficiently long to acquire a tolerable competency. He quitted his occupation some years before his death, when Hudson, who had married one of his daughters, maintained the family honours for a while. Richardson himself, by temperance and tranquillity of mind, enjoyed a life, protracted amidst the blessings of domestic friendship, to the advanced age of eighty, and then died, May 23, 1745, respected and lamented. He had had, a short time previously, a paralytic stroke that affected his arm, yet never disabled him from taking his customary walks and exercise;-iind it was after having been in St. James’s park, he died suddenly, at his house in Queen-square, on his return home.

His “Pamela,” the first work that procured him a name as a writer, was published in 1741, and arose out of a scheme proposed to him by two reputable booksellers, Mr. Rivington and Mr. Osborne, of writing a volume of “Familiar Letters to and from several persons upon business and other subjects;” which he performed with great readiness; and in the progress of it was soon led to expand his thoughts in* the two volumes of the “History of Pamela,” which appear to have been written in less than three months. Never was a book read with more avidity, for these two volumes went through five editions in one year. It was even recommended from the pulpit, particularly by Dr. Slocock, of Christ church, Surrey, although its defects as to moral tendency are now universally acknowledged to be so obvious, that the wonder is, it ever obtained the approbation of men of any reflection. For this it undoubtedly was indebted to the novelty of the plan, as well as to many individual passages of great beauty, and many interesting traits of character. Its imperfections, however, were not totally undiscovered even during its popularity. The indelicate scenes could not escape observation; and his late biographer, who has given an excellent criticism on the work, informs us that Dr. Watts, to whom Richardson sent the volumes, instead of compliments, writes to him, that “he understands the ladies complain they cannot read them without blushing.” Other inconsistencies in the history of Pamela were admirably ridiculed by Fielding in his “Joseph Andrews,” an injury which Richardson never forgave, and in his correspondence with his flattering friends, predicted that Fielding would soon be no more heard of Fielding, whose popularity has outlived Richardson’s by nearly half a century!

The success of Pamela occasioned a spurious continuation of it, called “Pamela in high Life; and on this the author prepared to give a second part, which appeared in two volumes, greatly inferior to the first. They are, as Mrs. Barbauld justly observes, superfluous, for the plan was already completed, and they are dull; for, instead of incident and passion, thev are filled with heavy sentiment, in diction far from elegant. A great part of it aims to palliate, by counter-criticism, the faults which Lad been found in the first part; awd it is less a continuation, than the author’s defence of himself. But if Richardson sunk in this second part, it was only to rise with new lustre in his” Clarissa," the first two volumes of which were published eight years after the preceding. This is unquestionably the production upon which the fame of Richardson is principally founded; and although it has lost much of its original popularity, owing to the change in the taste of novel-readers, wherever it is read it will appear a noble monument of the author’s genius. This will be allowed, even by those who can easily perceive that it has many blemishes. These have been pointed out, with just discrimination, by his biographer. Clarissa was much admired on the continent. The abbe Prevost gave a version of it into French; but rather an abridgment than a translation. It was afterwards rendered more faithfully by Le Tournetir; and was also translated into Dutch by Mr. Stinstra; and into German under the auspices of the celebrated Dr. Haller.

After he had published two works, in each of which the principal character is a female, he determined to give the world an example of a perfect man: this design produced his “Sir Charles Grandison,” a character certainly instructive, while in some measure repulsive. But that of Clementina is the highest effort of genius in this work. Dr. Warton says, “I know not whether even the madness of Lear is wrought up and expressed by so many little strokes of nature and passion. It is absolute pedantry to prefer and compare the madness of Orestes, in Euripides, with that of Clementina.” Yet even here Mrs. Barbauld has, with great acuteness, pointed out Richardson’s want of judgment in the management of his Clementina. It is, as this lady justly observes, the fault of Richardson that he never knew when to have done with a character; and this propensity to tediousness and prolixity in all his narratives, while the bulk is increased, has undoubtedly contributed to procure him more patient than willing readers, and to occasion those who have once gone through his volumes, to-select favourite passages only for a second reading.

His first wife was Martha Wilde, daughter of Mr. Ailington Wilde, printer, in Clerkenwell, by whom he had five sons and a daughter, who all died young. His second wife (who survived him many years) was Elizabeth sister of Mr. Leake, bookseller, of Bath. By her he had a son and five daughters. The son died young; but four of the daughters survived him; viz. Mary, married in 1757 to Mr. Ditcher, an eminent surgeon of Bath; Martha, married in 1762 to Edward Bridgen, esq. F. R. and A. Ss.; Anne, unmarried; and Sarah, married to Mr. Crowther, surgeon of Boswell-court. All these, are now dead.

Mr. Richardson was a plain man, who seldom exhibited his talents in mixed company. He heard the sentiments of others with attention, but seldom gave his own; rather desirous of gaining friendship by his modesty than his parts. Besides his being a great genius, he was truly a good man in all respects; in his family, in commerce, in conversation, and in every instance of conduct. He was pious, virtuous, exemplary, benevolent, friendly, generous, and humane, to an uncommon degree; glad of every opportunity of doing good offices to his fellow -creatures in distress, and relieving many without their knowledge. His chief delight was doing good. He was highly revered and beloved by his domestics for his happy temper and discreet conduct. He had great tenderness towards his wife and children, and great condescension towards his servants. He was always very sedulous in business, and almost always employed in it; and dispatched a great deal by the prudence of his management. His turn of temper led him to improve his fortune with mechanical assiduity; and having no violent passions, nor any desire of being triflingly distinguished from others, he at last became rich, and left his family in easy independence, though his house and table, both in town and country, were ever open to his numerous friends.

No. 97, vol. II. of the “Rambler,” it is well known, was written by Mr. Richardson in the preamble to which Dr. Johnson styles him “an author from whom the age has received greater favours, who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and taught the passions to move at the command of virtue.” In 1804, was published “The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson,” in six volumes octavo. The best consequence of the design of publishing this collection of letters, is the excellent life and criticism on his works by Mrs. Barbauld. As to the letters, every real admirer of Richardson must peruse them with regret. Such a display of human weakness has seldom been permitted to sully the reputation of any man.

In our last edition some testimonies of a different kind to the merits and memory of Richardson were given. Of these we may still retain the sentiments of Mr. Sherlock, the celebrated English traveller, who observes, “The greatest effort of genius that perhaps was ever made was, forming the plan of Clarissa Harlowe.” “Richardson is not yet arrived at the fulness of his glory.” “Richardson is admirable for every species of delicacy; for delicacy of wit, sentiment, language, action, every thing.” “His genius was immense. His misfortune was, that he did not know the ancients. Had he but been acquainted with one single principle, l Omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat,' (all superfluities tire); he would not have satiated his reader as he has done. There might be made out of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison Two works, which would be both the most entertaining, and the most useful, that ever were written. His views were grand. His soul was noble, and his heart was excellent. He formed a plan that embraced all human nature. His object was to benefit mankind. His knowledge of the world shewed him, that happiness was to be attained by man only in proportion as he practised virtue. His good sense then shewed him, that no practical system of morality existed; and the same good sense told him, that nothing but a body of morality, put into action, could work with efficacy on the minds of youth.”

, a learned English divine, was the son of the rev. Samuel Richardson, B. D. vicar of Wilshamstead near Bedford, by Elizabeth, daughter of the rev. Samuel Bentham, rector of Knebworth and Paul’s Walden, in Hertfordshire. His grandfather was the rev. John Richardson, a nonconformist, who was ejected, in 1662, from the living of St Michael’s, Stamford, in Lincolnshire, and died in 1687. He was born at Wilshamstead, July 23, 1698, and educated partly in the school of Oakham, and partly in that of Westminster. In March 1716 he was admitted of Emanuel college, Cambridge, of which he afterwards was a scholar, and took his degrees of A. B. in 1719, and A. M. in 1723. In the mean time, in September 1720 he was ordained deacon by Gibson, bishop of Lincoln, at St. Peter’s, Cornhill, London, and priest, by the same, at Buckden, in Sept. 1722. He was then appointed curate of St. Olave’s Southwark, which he held until 1726, when the parish chose him their lecturer. About this time he married Anne, the widow of capt. David Durell, the daughter of William Howe, of an ancient family of the county of Chester. He published in 1727, 2 vols. 8vo, the “Priclectiones Ecclesiastical' of his learned uncle John Richardson, B. D. author of a masterly” Vindication of the Canon of the New Testament," against Toland. In 1724 he was collated to the prebend of Welton-Rivall, in the church of Lincoln.

Dr. Richardson died March 15, 1775, at his lodgings at Emanuel college, at the age of seventy-seven, after a lingering decay, and was buried in the college chapel, in the same vault with his wife, who died March 21, 1759.

, a French writer, and noted as the first who published a dictionary almost entirely satirical, was born at Cheminon in Champagne, in 1631. He was the friend of Patru and d'Ablancourt; and, like them, applied himself to the study of the French language with success. He composed a dictionary full of new and useful remarks, which would have been more acceptable if it had not been also full of satirical reflections and indecencies; but these were expunged in the latter editions. It was first published at Geneva, 1680, in one vol. 4to; but, after the death of the author, which happened in 1698, enlarged with a great number of new articles to 2 vols. folio, as is the edition of Lyons in 1721. Another edition, 3 vols. folio, was published at Lyons in 1727; and a very neat one in 2 vols. 4to, at Amsterdam in 1732; and, lastly, in 3 vols. folio, at Lyons, 1759 1763, by the abbe Gouget. The abridgment of it by Galtel, 1797 and 1803, 2 vols. 8vo, is now in most demand in France.

In 1619 the king recalled Richelieu, and sent him into Angouleme, where he persuaded the queen to a reconciliation, which was concluded in 1620; and in consequence of this treaty, the duke de Luynes obtained a cardinal’s hat for him from pope Gregory XV. Richelieu, continuing his services after the duke’s decease, was admitted, in 1624, into the council, through the interest of the queen, and almost against the will of the king, who, devout and scrupulous, considered him as a knave, because he had been informed of his gallantries. It is even said that he was insolent enough to aspire to queen Anne of Austria, and that the railleries to which this subjected him were the cause of his subsequent aversion to her. Cardinal Richelieu was afterwards appointed prime minister, head of the councils, high steward, chief, and superintendant-generai of the French trade and navigation. He preserved the Isle of Rhe in 1627, and undertook the siege of Rochelle against the protestants the same year. He completed the conquest of Rochelle in October 1628, in spite of the king of Spain, who had withdrawn his forces, of the king of England, who could not relieve it, and of the French king, who grew daily more weary of the undertaking, by means of that famous mole, executed by his orders, but planned by Lewis Metezeau and John Tiriot. The capture of Rochelle proved a mortal blow to the protestants, but in France was reckoned the most glorious and beneficial circumstance of cardinal Richelieu’s administration. He also attended his majesty to the relief of the duke of Mantua in 1629, raised the siege of Casal, and, at his return, compelled the protestants to accept the treaty of peace which had been concluded at Alais, and completed the ruin of their party. Six months after this, cardinal Richelieu, having procured himself to be appointed lieutenant-general of the army beyond the mountains, took Pignerol, relieved Casal a second time, which was besieged by the marquis Spinola, defeated general Doria, by means of the duke de Monttnorenci at Vegliana, July 10, 1630, and made himself master of all Savoy. Louis XIII. having returned to Lyons, in consequence of sickness, the queenmother, and most of the nobility, took advantage of this circumstance to form plots against Richelieu, and speak ill of his conduct to the king, which they did with so much success, that Louis promised the queen to discard him. The cardinal’s ruin now seemed inevitable, and he was actually preparing to set out for Havre-de Grace, which he had chosen for his retreat, when cardinal de la Valette, knowing that the queen had not followed her son to Versailles, advised him first to see his majesty. In this interview, he immediately cleared himself from all the accusations of his enemies, justified his conduct, displayed the advantages and necessity of his administration, and wrought so forcibly upon the king’s mind by his reasoning, that, instead of being discarded, he became from that moment more powerful than ever. He inflicted the same punishments upon his enemies which they had advised for him; and this day, so fortunate for Richelieu, was called “The Day of Dupes.” Those who had the misfortune to incur his displeasure, certainly did not all deserve the penalties to which he doomed them; but he knew how to make himself master of their fate, by appointing such judges to try them as were at his disposal. That abominable method of taking the accused from their lawful judges, had, in the preceding century, served as a means for the families of condemned persons to get their characters restored; after which the French had no reason to fear its revival; but Richelieu hesitated not to adopt it, though at the risque of general odium, as being favourable to his designs. By thus making himself master of the lives and fortunes of the mal-contents, he imposed silence even on their murmurs. This artful minister, being now secure of his lasting ascendancy over the king, and having already accomplished one of the two great objects which he had proposed to himself from the beginning of his administration, which were, the destruction of the protestants, and the humbling the too great power of the house of Austria, began now to contrive means for executing this second undertaking. The principal and most efficacious method employed by the cardinal with that view, was a treaty he concluded, January 23, 1631, with Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, for currying the war into the heart of Germany. He also formed a league with the duke of Bavaria, secured to himself Lorrain, raised part of the German princes against the emperor, treated with Holland to continue the war wirh Spain, favoured the Catalonians and Portuguese when they shook off the Spanish yoke, and, in short, made use of so many measures and stratagems, that he completely accomplished his design. Cardinal Richelieu was carrying on the war with success, and meditating on that glorious peace, which was not concluded till 1648, when h died in his palace at Paris, worn out by his long toils, December 4,“1642, aged fifty-eight. He was buried at the Sorbonne, where his mausoleum (the celebrated Girardon’s master-piece) may be seen. He is considered as one of the most complete statesmen, and ablest politicians, that France ever had. Amidst all the anxieties which the fear of his enemies must necessarily occasion, he formed the most extensive and complicated plans, and executed them with great superiority of genius. It was cardinal Richelieu who established the throne, while yet shaken by the protestant factions, and the power of the House of Austria, and made the royal authority completely absolute, and independent, by the extinction of the petty tyrants who wasted the kingdom. In the mean time he omitted nothing which could contribute to the glory of France. He promoted arts and sciences; founded the botanical garden at Paris called the king’s garden; also the French academy, and the royal printing-office; built the palace since called the Palais Royal, and gave it to his majesty; rebuilt the Sorbonne (of which he was provisor) in a style of kingly magnificence; and prepared for all the splendour of Louis the Fourteenth’s reign. His enemies, says the abbe L'Atocat, unable to deny his great talents, have reproached him with great faults; irregularity of conduct, unbounded ambition, universal despotism, from which even the king, his master, did not escape; for he left him, as they express it, only the power of curing the evil; a vanity and ostentation which exceeded the dignity of the throne itself, where all was simplicity and negligence, while the cardinal’s court exhibited nothing but pomp and splendour; unexampled ingratitude to his benefactress, queen Mary de Medicis, whom he inhumanly compelled to end her da*ys in Germany, in obscurity and indigence; and, finally, his revengeful temper, which occasioned so many cruel executions; as those of Chalais, Grandier, the marechal de Marillac, M. de Montmorenci, Cinqmars, M. de Thou, &c. Even the queen, for having written to the duchess de Chevreuse, Richelieu’s enemy, and a fugitive, saw all her papers seized, and was examined before the chancellor Sequier. Mad. de la Fayette, mad. de Hautefort, and father Caussin, the king’s confessors, were all disgraced in consequence of having offended this despotic minister. But, says his apologist, there are many points to be considered with respect to these accusations: it appears certain, from a thousand passages in the life of this celebrated cardinal, that he was naturally very grateful, and never proceeded to punishment but when he thought state affairs required it; for which reason, when in his last sickness, his confessor asked” if he forgave his enemies?“he replied,” I never had any but those of the state.“At the head of his” Political Testament“may be seen his justification of himself on the subject of these bloody executions, with which he has been so much reproached. It is equally certain, that he never oppressed the people by taxes or exorbitant subsidies, notwithstanding the long wars he had to carry on; and that, if he was severe in punishing crimes, he knew how to distinguish merit, and reward it generously. He bestowed the highest ecclesiastical dignities on such bishops and doctors as he knew to be men of virtue and learning; placed able and experienced generals at the head of the armies, and entrusted public business with wise, punctual, and intelligent men. It was this minister who established a navy. His vigilance extended through every part of the government; and, notwithstanding the cabals, plots, and factions, which were incessantly forming against him during the whole course of his administration (and which must have employed great part of his time) he left sufficient sums behind him to carry on the war with glory; and France was in a more powerful and flourishing state at the time of his decease than when Louis XIV. died. After stating these facts, Richelieu’s enemies areinvited to determine whether France would have derived more advantage from being governed by Mary de Medicis, Gaston of Orleans, &c. than by this cardinal The estate of Richelieu was made a dukedom in his favour, in 1631, and he received other honours and preferments. Besides the” Method of Controversy“he wrote, 2.” The principal points of the Catholic Faith defended, against the writing addressed to the king by the ministers of Charenton.“3.” The most easy and certain Method of converting those who are separated from the Church.“These pieces are written with force and vivacity. He wrote also,” A Catechism,“in which he lays down the doctrine of the church, in a clear and concise manner and a treatise of piety, called,” The Perfection of a Christian.“These are his theological works; and they have been often printed: but that which is most read, and most worthy of being read, is his” Political Testament," the authenticity of which has been doubted by some French writers, particularly Voltaire. The cardinal also had the ambition to be thought a dramatic poet; and, says lord Chesterfield, while he absolutely governed both his king and country, and was, in a great degree, the arbiter of the fate of all Europe, he was more jealous of the great reputation of Corneille, than of the power of Spain; and more flattered with being thought (what he was not) the best poet, than with being thought (what he certainly was) the greatest statesman in Europe; and affairs stood still, while he was concerting the criticism upon the Cid.

, a learned French divine, was born September 30, 1560, at Chaource, in the diocese of Langres. He had been at first drawn into the party and sentiments of the Leaguers, and even ventured to defend James Clement, but soon hastened to acknowledge his legitimate sovereign, after having taken his doctor’s degree, 1590. Richer became grand master of the college of Le Moine, then syndic of the faculty of divinity at Paris, January 2, 1603, in which office he strenuously defended the ancient maxims of the doctors of this faculty, and opposed the thesis of a Dominican in 1611, who maintained the pope’s infallibility, and his superiority over the council. He published a small tract the same year, “On the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power,” 8vo, to establish the principles on which he asserted that the doctrine of the French church, and the Sorhonne, respecting papal authority, and the authority of the general council, were founded. This little book made much noise, and raised its author enemies in the Nuncio, and some doctors undertook to have him deposed from the syndicate, and his work condemned by the faculty of theology; but the parliament prohibited the faculty from interfering in that affair. In the mean time cardinal du Perron, archbishop of Sens, assembled eight bishops of his province at Paris, and made them censure Richer’s book, March 9, 1612. Richer entered an appeal (Comme tfabus) from this censure, to the parliament, and was admitted as an appellant; but the matter rested there. His book was also censured by the archbishop of Aix, and three bishops of his province, May 24, the same year, and he was proscribed and condemned at Rome. A profusion or pamphlets now appeared to refute him, and he received an express order from court, not to write in his defence. The animosity against Richer rose at length to such a height that his enemies obtained from the king and the queen regent letters, ordering the faculty to elect another syndic. Richer made his protestations, read a paper in his defence, and retired. A new syndic was chosen in 1612, and they have ever since been elected once in two years, although before that time their office was perpetual. Richer afterwards ceased to attend the meetings of the faculty, and confined himself to solitude, being wholly employed in study; but his enemies having involved him in several fresh troubles, he was seized, sent to the prisons of St. Victor, and would even have been delivered up to the pope, had no,t the parliament and chancellor of France prevented it, on complaints made by the university. He refused to attend the censure passed on the books of Anthony de Dominis in 1617, and published a declaration in 1620, at the solicitation of the court of Rome, protesting that he was ready to give an account of the propositions in his book “on the Ecclesiatical and Civil Power,” and explain them in an orthodox sense; and farther, that he submitted his work to the judgment of the Holy See, and of the Catholic church. He even published a second declaration; but all being insufficient to satisfy his adversaries, he was obliged to reprint his book in 1629, with the proofs of the propositions advanced in it, and the two declarations, to which cardinal Richelieu is said to have forced him to add a third. He died Nov. 28, 1631, in his seventy-second year. He was buried at the Sorbonne, where a mass used to be said annually for the repose of his soul. Besides his treatise on “Ecclesiastical Power,” reprinted with additions at Cologii in 1701, 2 vols. 4to, he was the author of a “History of general Councils,” 4 vols. 4to a “History of his Syndicate,” 8vo, and some other works, in which learning and great powers of reasoning are obvious. Baillet published a life of him in 12mo.

, an ingenious French botanist, was born in 1558, at Chalons in Champagne, and studied medicine. The humane and skilful services he rendered to the people of Pezenas, during an epidemic disorder, recommended him to the patronage of the constable de Montmorency, by whose interest he was appointed professor of botany and anatomy in the university of Montpellier, and Henry IV. committed to him the care of establishing a public garden in that university. This design was executed in the most skilful and splendid manner. Belleval published a catalogue of the garden in 1598, and a French treatise, in 1605, recommending an inquiry into the native plants of Languedoc. This last was accompanied by five plates, intended as a specimen of a future work, for which he subsequently prepared a number of engravings, rude and stiff in execution, but exhibiting many rare species. He never lived to publish these, and the plates remained neglected in the hands of his family, till Gouan recovered them, and sent impressions to Linnaeus. At length Gillibert obtained the plates, and published them in 1796. The two pamphlets above mentioned were republished in 1785, by the celebrated and unfortunate Broussonet; along with a treatise on the white mulberry, by Olivier de Serres, originally printed in 1603. Richer de Belleval lived to see his garden destroyed by the fury of civil war, and was beginning to restore it, when he died in 1623. His nephew accomplished the re-establishment of the garden, on a more extensive scale. M. Dorthes of Montpellier published, in 1786, “Recherches sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Pierre Richer de Belleval,” in which every thing that could be collected on the subject is recorded. Some writers erroneously mention Belleval as the first botanist who gave copper-plate figures of plants. This honour is due to Fabius Columns, whose “Phytobasanos” appeared in 1592. We must not omit to mention, that Scopoli has named a genus BeUcvalio t a name, or something like it, which Belleval himself was fond of giving to the lily of the valley. 1

11ICIUS (Paul), was a learned German Jew, who, having been converted, taught philosophy with great credit at Padua, and was afterwards invited into Germany, by the emperor Maximilian, and appointed one of his physicians. There are no particulars of his life upon record, except the above general facts. He published many works against the Jews, and on different subjects, in which he maintains that the heavens are animated, and advances other paradoxes. “De Ccelesti Agricultural,” Bas. 1587, in folio; “Talmudica Commentariola,” Augsburg, 1519, 4to; “De 73 Mosaicae Sanctionis Edictis,” Augsburg, 1515, 4to. His candour, honesty, moderation, and learning, are much praised. He lived in the sixteenth century, and Erasmus has given his eulogy in the last letter of his first book.

, an eminent English prelate, and martyr to the cause of the reformed religion, descended from an ancient family in Northumberland, was born early in the sixteenth century, in Tynedale, at a place called Wilmomswick in the above county. As he exhibited early proofs of good natural abilities, he was placed in a grammar-school at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in which he made such progress, that he was taken from thence and entered of Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, about 15 18, when Luther was preaching against indulgences in Germany. His disposition was open and ingenuous, and his application to his studies unremitting both at school and university. He was taught Greek by Robert Crook, who had begun a course of that language at Cambridge. His religious sentiments were those of the Romish church in which he had been brought up, and in which he would probably be encouraged by his uncle, Dr. Robert Ridley, then fellow of Queen’s college. In 1522 he took the degree of B. A.; and to his knowledge of the learned languages, now added that of the philosophy and theology then in vogue. In 1524 his abilities were so generally acknowledged, that the master and fellows of University college, Oxford, invited him to accept of an exhibition there; but this he declined, and the same year was chosen fellow of his own college in Cambridge. Next year he took the degree of M. A. and in 1526 was appointed by the college their general agent in all causes belonging to the churches of Tilney, Soham, and Saxthorpe, belonging to Pembroke-hall. But as his studies were now directed to divinity, his uncle, at hjs own charge, sent him for farther improvement to the Sorbonne at Paris; and from thence to Louvain; continuing on the continent till 1529. In 1530, he was chosen junior treasurer of his college, and about this time appears to have been more than ordinarily intent on the study of the scriptures. For this purpose he used to walk in the orchard at Pembroke-hall, and there commit to memory almost all the epistles in Greek; which walk is still called Ridley’swaik. He also distinguished himself by his skill in disputation, but frequently upon frivolous questions, as was the custom of the time. In 1533 he was chosen senior proctor of the university, and while in that office, the important point of the pope’s supremacy came to be examined upon the authority of scripture. The decision of the university was, that “the bishop of Rome had no more authority and jurisdiction derived to him from God, in this kingdom of England, than any other foreign bishop;” which was signed by the vicechancellor, and by Nicholas Ridley, and Richard Wilkes, proctors. In 1534, on the expiration of his proctorship, he took the degree of B. D. and was chosen chaplain of the university, and public reader, which archbishop Tenison calls pradicater publicus, and in the Pembroke ms. he is also called Magister Glonieriaf, which office is supposed to be that of university orator. In the year 1537 his great reputation as an excellent preacher, and his intimate acquaintance with the scriptures and fathers, occasioned Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, to invite him to his house, where he appointed him one of his chaplains, and admitted him into his confidence. As a farther mark of his esteem, he collated him, in April 1538, to the vicarage of Herne in Kent. Here he was diligent to instruct his charge in the pure doctrines of the gospel, as far as they were discovered to him, except in the point of transubstantiation, on which he had as yet received no light; and to enliven the devotion of his parishioners, he used to have the Te Deum sung in his parish church in English, which was afterwards urged in accusation against him.

In 1539, when the act of the six articles was passed, Mr. Ridley, who had now the character of a zealous scripturist, bore his testimony against it in the pulpit, although he was in no danger from its penalties, as he was still a believer in transubstantiation, was not married, and with respect to auricular confession, rather leaned to the practice, but made a difference between what he thought an useful appointment in the church, and pressing it on the conscience as a point necessary to salvation. At Herne he Continued to attract a great multitude of people to his sermons, and in 1540 went to Cambridge, and took his degree of doctor of divinity, probably at the persuasion of Cranmer, who wished to place him in a more conspicuous situation. This he attempted partly by recommending him to the king as one of his majesty’s chaplains, and partly by giving him a prebend in the church of Canterbury. About the same time the fellows of Pembroke-hall elected him master of that house.

In October 154-9, Bonner, bishop of London, was deprived, and Ridley, who was one of the commissioners before whom his cause was determined, was thought the most proper person to fill that important see, on account of his great learning and zeal for the reformation; and he was accordingly installed in April 1550. flis conduct towards his predecessor Bonner, and his family, after taking possession of the episcopal palace, was honourable to his integrity and benevolence, of which the following facts are sufficient proofs. He took care to preserve from injury the goods, &c. belonging to Bonner, allowing him full liberty to remove them when he pleased, Such materials as Bonner had purchased for the repair of his house and church, the new bishop employed to the uses for which they -were designed; hut he repaid him the money which he had. advanced for them. He took upon himself the discharge of the sums which were due to Bonner’s servants for liveries and wages; and that the mother and sister of that prelate, who lived near the palace at Fulham, and had their board there, might not be losers in consequence of his promotion, he always sent for them to dinner and supper, constantly placing Mrs. Bonner at the head of the table, even when persons of high rank were his guests, often saying, “By your lordship’s favour, this place of right and custom is for my mother Bonner,” as if he had succeeded to the relation, as well as office of her son.

In 1552, Ridley visited his old coHege at Cambridge, and upon his return called at Hunsdon,- to pay his respects to the princess Mary. Their interview forms a curious narrative. She thanked him for his civility, and entering into conversation with him for about a quarter of an hour, told him that she remembered him at court, and mentioned particularly a sermon of his before her father; and then, leaving her chamber of presence, dismissed him to dine with her officers. After dinner she sent for him again, when the bishop said that he did not only come to pay his duty to her grace, but also to offer to preach before her next Sunday, if she would be pleased to permit him. On this she changed countenance, and after some minutes’ silence, said, “As for this matter, I pray you, my lord, make the answer to it yourself;” and, on the bishop’s urging his offer, as a matter of conscience and duty, she repeated the same words, yet at last told him, that the doors of the parish church should be open to him, where he might preach if he pleased, but that neither herself nor any of her servants should hear him. “Madam,” said the bishop, “I trust you will not refuse God’s word.” “I cannot tell what you call God’s word. That is not God’s word now, which was God’s word in my father’s days.” The bishop observed, that God’s word is the same at all times, but has been better understood and practised in some ages than in others. Mary, enraged at this, answered, “You durst not for your ears have avouched that for God’s word in my father’s days, that you do now;” and then, to shew how well she had prepared herself to argue with the prelate, she added, “As for your new books, I thank God, I never read any of them; I never did and never will.” She then, after making use of much harsh language, parted from him, with these words, “My lord, for your civility in coming to see me, I thank you; but for your offering to preach before me, I thank you not a whit.” After this the bishop was conducted to the room where they had dined, and where sir Thomas Wharton now gave him a glass of wine. When he had drank it, he seemed concerned, and said, “Surely I have done amiss.” Upon being asked why? he vehemently reproached himself for having drank in that place, where God’s word had been refused; “whereas,” said he, “if I had remembered my duty, I ought to have departed immediately, and to have shaken off the dust from my feet for a testimony against this house.” On this interview, his biographer remarks, “One of our learned historians suggests, that as the princess was under no excommunication, the bishop discovered his resentment too far. Too far in worldly prudence he certainly did, for the princess never forgave him; but Christ’s directions to his apostles were not given to persons who had been cast out of their communion, but to persons of a different belief refusing to be instructed. And the princess having avowed an obstinate persevering refusal of every mean of instruction, reading and hearing, no wonder if the bishop blamed himself for so far forgetting his master’s command, as to accept a pledge of friendship in the house of one who had so wilfully rejected the word of God. This bigotry of her’s gave him a sorrowful prospect of what was to be expected, if ever the princess came to the throne.”

When the parliament assembled in 1553, the kins:, who was languishing under the decline which soon put an end to his life, ordered the two houses to attend him at Whitehall, where bishop Ridley preached before him, recommending with such energy the duties of beneficence and charity, that his majesty sent for him, to inquire how he could best put in practice the duties which he had so welt and so strongly enforced; and the result of this sermon and conference was a determination in the king to found, or incorporate anew, and endow with ample revenues, those noble institutions, Christ’s, Bartholomew’s, Bridewell, and St. Thomas’s hospitals.

Upon the death of Edward VI., Ridley was earnest in attempting to set lady Jane Grey on the throne; but, when the design had miscarried, he went to Mary, to do her homage, and submit himself to her clemency. His reception was such as he might have expected: he was im mediately committed to the Tower, where, however, he was treated with much less rigour than Cranmer and Latimer, who were likewise prisoners in the same fortress. Rid ley, it has been thought, might have recovered the queen’s favour, if he would have brought the weight of his learning and authority to countenance her proceedings in religion. He was, however, too honest to act against his conviction; and he was, after eight months’ imprisonment in the Tower, conveyed from thence to Oxford, where he was, on the 1st of October, 1555, condemned to death for heresy. During the fortnight between his condemnation and execution, the priests tried all their means of persuasion to gain him over to their cause; but he was deaf to their remonstrances, and was not to be shaken in the principles which he had adopted.

, a learned divine, descended collaterally from the preceding bishop Ridley, was born at sea, in 1702, on-board the Gloucester East Indiaman, to which circumstance he was indebted for his Christian name. He received his education at Winchester-school, and thence was elected to a fellowship at New college, Oxford, where he proceeded B. C. L. April 29, 1729. In those two seminaries he cultivated an early acquaintance with the Muses, and laid the foundation of those elegant and solid acquirements for which he was afterwards so eminently distinguished as a poet, an historian, and a divine. During a vacancy in 1728, he joined with four friends, viz. Mr. Thomas Fletcher (afterwards bishop of Kildare), Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Eyre, Mr. Morrison, and Mr. Jennens, in writing a tragedy, called “The Fruitless Redress,” each Undertaking an act, on a plan previously concerted. When they delivered in their several proportions, at their meeting in the winter, few readers, it is said, would have known that the whole was not the production of a single hand. This tragedy, which was offered to Mr. Wilks, but never acted, is still in ms. with another called “Jugurtha.” - Dr. Ridley in his youth was much addicted to theatrical performances. Midhurst, in Sussex, was the place where they were exhibited; and the company of gentlemen actors to which he belonged, consisted chiefly of his coadjutors in the tragedy already mentioned. He is said to have performed the characters of Marc Antony, Jaffier, Horatio, and Moneses, with distinguished applause. Young Gibber, being likewise a Wykehamist, called on Dr. Ridley soon after he had been appointed chaplain to the East India Company at Poplar, and would have persuaded him to quit the church for the stage, observing that “it usually paid the larger salaries of the two,” an advice which he had too much sense to follow. For great part of his life, he had no other preferment than the small college living of Weston, in Norfolk, and the donative of Poplar, in Middlesex, where he resided. To these his college added, some years after, the donative of Romfbrd, in Essex. “Between these two places the curricle of his life had,” as he expressed it, “rolled for some time almost perpetually upon post-chaise wheels, and left him not time for even the proper studies of ceconomy, or the necessary ones of his profession.” Yet in this obscure situation he remained in possession of, and content with, domestic happiness; and was honoured with the intimate friendship of some who were not less distinguished for learning than for worth: among these, it maybe sufficient to mention Dr. Lowth, Mr. Christopher Pitt, Mr. Spence, and Dr. Berriman. To the last of these he was curate and executor, and preached his funeral sermon. In 1740 and 1741, he preached “Eight Sermons at Lady Moyer’s lecture,” which were published in 1742, 8vo, and at different times, several occasional sermons. In 1756, he declined an offer of going to Ireland as first chaplain to the duke of Bedford; in return for which he was to have had the choice of promotion, either at Christ-church, Canterbury, Westminster, or Windsor. His modesty inducing him to leave the choice of these to hispatron, the consequence was, that he obtained none of them. In 1761 he published, in 4to, “De Syriacarum novi fcederis versionum indole atque usu, dissertatio,” occasioned by a Syriac version, which, with two others, were sent to him nearly thirty years before, by one Mr. Samuel Palmer from Amida, in Mesopotamia. His age and growing infirmities, the great expence of printing, and the want of a patron, prevented him from availing himself of these Mss.; yet at intervals he employed himself on a transcript, which being put into the hands of professor White, was published a few years ago, with a literal Latin translation, in 2 vols. 4to, at the expence of the delegates of the Clarendon press. In 1763 he published the “Life of bishop Ridley,” in quarto, by subscription, and cleared by it as much as brought him 800l. in the public funds. In this, which is the most useful of all his works, he proved himself worthy of the name he bore, a thorough master of the popish controversy, and an able advocate for the reformation. In 1765 he published his “Review of Philips’ s Life of Cardinal Pole” (see Philips); and in 17 6S, in reward for his labours in this controversy, and in another which “The Confessional” produced, he was presented by archbishop Seeker to a golden prebend in the cathedral church of Salisbury (an option), but it is probably a mistake that Seeker honoured him with the degree of D. D. that honour having been conferred upon him by the university of Oxford in 1767, by diploma, the highest mark of distinction they can confer. At length, worn out with infirmities, he departed this life in Nov. 1774, leaving a widow and four daughters. An elegant epitaph, written by Dr. Lowth, bishop of London, is inscribed upon his monument. Two poems by Dr. Ridley, one styled “Jovi Eleutherio, or an Offering to Liberty,” the other called “Psyche,” are in the third volume of Dodsley’s Collection. The sequel of the latter poem, entitled, “Melampus,” with “Psyche,” its natural introduction, was printed in 1782, by subscription, for the benefit of his widow. Many others are in the 8th volume of Nichols’s “Collection.” The Mss. Codex Heraclensis, Codex Barsalibaei, &c. (of which a particular account may be seen in his Dissertation “De Syriacarum Novi Fcederis versionum indole atque usu, 1761,”) were bequeathed by Dr. Ridley to the library of New college, Oxford. Of these ancient Mss. a fac-simile specimen was published in his Dissertation above mentioned. A copy of “The Confessional,” with ms notes by Dr. Ridley," was in the library of the- late Dr. Winchester.

, who, from a low and despicable situation, raised himself to sovereign authority in Rome, in the 14th century, assuming the title of tribune, and proposing to restore the ancient free republic, was born at Rome, and was the son of no greater a personage than a mean vintner, or, as others say, a miller, named Lawrence Gabrini, and Magdalen, a laundress. However, Nicolas Rienzi, by which appellation he was commonly distinguished, did not form his sentiments from the meanness of his birth. To a good natural understanding he joined an uncommon assiduity, and made a great proficiency in ancient literature. Every thing he read he compared with similar passages that occurred within his own observation; whence he made reflections, by which he regulated his conduct. To this he added a great knowledge in the laws and customs of nations. He had a vast memory: he retained much of Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Livy, the two Senecas, and Cassar’s Commentaries especially, which he read continually, and often quoted and applied to the events of his own times. This fund of learning proved the foundation of his rise: the desire he had to distinguish himself in the knowledge of monumental history, drew him to another sort of science, then little understood. He passed whole days among the inscriptions which are to be found at Rome, and acquired soon the reputation of a great antiquary. Having hence formed within himself the most exalted notions of the justice, liberty, and ancient grandeur of the old Romans, words he was perpetually repeating to the people, he at length persuaded not only himself, but the giddy mob his followers, that he should one day become the restorer of the Roman republic. His advantageous stature, his countenance, and that air of importance which he well knew how to assume, deeply imprinted all he said in the minds of his audience: nor was it only by the populace that he was admired; he also found means to insinuate himself into the favour of those who partook of the administration. Rienzi’s talents procured him to be nominated one of the deputies, sent by the Romans to pope Clement VI. who resided at Avignon. The intention of this deputation was to make his holiness sensible, how prejudicial his absence was, as well to himself as to the interest of Rome. At his first audience, our hero charmed the court of Avignon by his eloquence, and the sprightliness of his conversation. Encouraged by success, he one day took the liberty to tell the pope, that the grandees of Rome were avowed robbers, public thieves, infamous adulterers, and illustrious profligates; who by their example authorized the most horrid crimes. To them he attributed the desolation of Rome, of which he drew so lively a picture, that the holy father was moved, and exceedingly incensed against the Roman nobility. Cardinal Colonna, in other respects a lover of real merit, could not help considering these reproaches as reflecting upon some of his family; and therefore found means of disgracing Rienzi, so that he fell into extreme misery, vexation, and sickness, which, joined, with indigence, brought him to an hospital. Nevertheless, the same hand that threw him down, raised him up again. The cardinal, who was all compassion, caused him to appear before the pope, in assurance of his being a good man, and a great partizan for justice and equity. The pope approved of him more than ever and, as proofs of his esteem and confidence, made him apostolicnotary, and sent him back loaded with favours. Yet his subsequent behaviour shewed, that resentment had a greater ascendancy over him than gratitude. Being returned to Rome, he began ta execute the functions of his office, and by affability, candour, assiduity, and impartiality, in the administration of justice, he arrived at a superior degree of popularity; which he still improved by continued invectives against the vices of the great, whom he strove to render as odious as possible; till at last, for some ill-timed freedoms of speech, he was not only severely reprimanded, but displaced. His dismission did not make him desist from inveighing against the debauched, though he conducted himself with more prudence. From this time it was his constant endeavour to inspire the people with a fondness for their ancient liberties; to which purpose, he caused to be hung up in the most public places emblematic pictures, expressive of the former splendour and present decline of Rome. To these he added frequent harangues and predictions upon the same subject, in this manner he proceeded till one party looked on him only as a madman, while others caressed him as their protector. Thus he infatuated the minds of the people, and many of the nobility began to come into his views, while the senate in no wise mistrusted a man, whom they judged to have neither interest nor ability. At length he ventured to disclose his designs to such as he believed mal-contents, first separately, but afterwards, when he thought he had firmly attached a sufficient number to his interest, he assembled them together, and represented to them the deplorable state of the city, over-run with debaucheries, and the incapacities of their governors to correct or amend them. As a necessary foundation for the enterprize, he gave them a statement of the immense revenues of the apostolic chamber; demonstrating that the pope could, only at the rate of four-pence, raise a hundred thousand florins by firing, as much by salt, and as much more by the customs and other duties. “As for the rest,” said he, “I would not have you imagine, that it is without the pope’s consent I lay hands on the revenues. Alas! how many others in this city plunder the effects of the church contrary to his will 1”

By this artful falsehood, he so animated his auditors, that they declared they would make no scruple of securing these treasures for whatever end might be most convenient, and that they were devoted to his will. Having obtained so much to secure his adherents from a revolt, he tendered them a paper, superscribed, “an oath to procure the good establishment;” and made them subscribe and swear to it, before he dismissed them. By what means he prevailed on the pope’s vicar to give a tacit sanction to his project is not certainly known; that he did procure that sanction, and that it was looked on as a master-piece of policy, is generally admitted. The 20th of May, being Whitsunday, he fixed upon to sanctify in some sort his enterprize; and pretended, that all he acted was by particular inspiration of the Holy Ghost. About nine, he came out of the church bare-headed, accompanied by the pope’s vicar, surrounded by an hundred armed men. A vast crowd followed him with shouts and acclamations. The gentlemen conspirators carried three standards before him, on which were wrought devices, insinuating, that his design was to re-establish liberty, justice, and peace. In this manner he proceeded directly to the capitol, where he mounted the rostrum; and, with more boldness and energy than ever, expatiated on the miseries to which the Romans were reduced; at the same time telling them, without hesitation, *' that the happy hour of their deliverance was at length come, and that he was to be their deliverer, regardless of the dangers he was exposed to for the service of the holy father and the people’s safety.“After which, he ordered the laws of what he called the good establishment to be read: and assured that the Romans would resolve to observe these laws, he engaged in a short time to re-establish them in their ancient grandeur. The laws of the good establishment promised plenty and security, which were greatly wanted; and the humiliation of the nobility, who were deemed common oppressors. Such laws could not fail of being agreeable to a people who found in them these double advantages; and therefore enraptured with the pleasing ideas of a liberty to which they were at present strangers, and the hope of gain, they adopted most zealously the fanaticism of Rienzi.-^­They resumed the pretended authority of the Romans; they declared him sovereign of Rome, and granted him the power of life and death, of rewards and punishments, of enacting and repealing the laws, of treating with foreign powers; in a word, they gave him the full and supreme authority over all the extensive territories of the Romans. Rienzi, arrived at the summit of his wishes, kept at a great distance his artifice: he pretended to be very unwilling to accept of their offers, but upon two conditions; the first, that they should nominate the pope’s vicar (the bishop of Orvieto) his co-partner the second, that the pope’s consent should be granted him, which (he told them) he flattered himself he should obtain. On the one hand, he hazarded nothing in thus making his court to the holy father, and, on the other, he well knew, that the bishop of Orvieto would carry a title only, and no authority. The people granted his request, but paid all the honours to him: he possessed the authority without restriction; the good bishop appeared a mere shadow and veil to his enterprizes. Rienzi was seated in his triumphal chariot, like an idol, to triumph with the greater splendor. He dismissed the people replete with joy and hope. He ^eized upon the palace, where he continued after he had turned out the senate; and, the same day, he began to dictate his laws in the capitol. This election, though not very pleasing to the pope, was ratified by him; yet Rienzi meditated the obtaining of a title, exclusive of the papal prerogative. Well versed in the Roman history, he was no stranger to the extent of the tribunitial authority; and, as he owed his elevation to the people, he chose to have the title of their magistrate. He asked it, and it was conferred on him and his co- partner, with the addition of deliverers of their country. Our adventurer’s behaviour in his elevation was at first such as commanded esteem and respect, not only from the Romans, but from all the neighbouring states. His contemporary, the celebrated Petrarch, in a letter to Charles, king of the Romans, gives the following account of him:” Not long since a most remarkable man, of the plebeian race, a person whom neither titles nor virtues had distinguished until he presumed to set himself up for a restorer or the Roman liberty, has obtained the highest authority at Rome. So sudden, so great is his success, that this man has already won Tuscany and all Italy. Already Europe and the whole world are in motion; to speak the whole in one word, I protest to you, not as a reader, but as an eye-witness, that he has restored to us the justice, peace, integrity, and every other token of the golden age.“But it is difficult for a person of mean birth, elevated at once, by the caprice of fortune, to the most exalted station, to move rightly in a sphere in which he must breathe an air he has been unaccustomed to. Rienzi ascended by degrees the summit of his fortune. Riches softened, power dazzled, the pomp of his cavalcades animated, and formed in his mind ideas adequate to those of princes born to empire. Hence luxury invaded his table, and tyranny took possession of his heart. The pop conceived his designs contrary to the interests of the holy see, and the nobles, whose power it had been his constant endeavours to depress, conspired against him; and Rienzi was forced to quit an authority he had possessed little more than six months. It was to a precipitate flight that he was indebted, at this juncture, for his life; and to different disguises for his subsequent preservation. Having made an ineffectual effort at Rome, and not knowing where to find a new resource to carry on his designs, he took a most bold step, conformable to that rashness which had so often assisted him in his former exploits. He determined to go to Prague, to Charles, king of the Romans, whom the year before he had summoned to his tribunal, and who he foresaw would deliver him up to a pope highly incensed against him. He was accordingly soon after sent to Avignon, and there thrown into a prison, where he continued three years. The divisions and disturbances in Italy, occa* sioned by the number of petty tyrants that had established themselves in the ecclesiastical territories, and even at Rome, occasioned his enlargement. Innocent VI. who succeeded Clement in the papacy, sensible that the Romans still entertained an affection for our hero, and believing that his chastisement would teach him to act with more moderation than he had formerly done, as well as that gratitude would oblige him, for the remainder of his life, to preserve au inviolable attachment to the holy see (by whose favour he should be re-established), thought him a proper instrument to assist his design of reducing those other tyrants; and therefore, not only gave him his liberty, but also appointed him governor and senator of Rome. He met with many obstacles to the assumption of this newly-granted authority, all which, by cunning and resolution, he at length over> came. But giving way to his passions, which were immoderately warm, and inclined him to cruelty, he excited so general a resentment against him, that he was murdered, Oct. 8, 1354.” Such,“say his biographers,” was the end of Nicolas Rienzi, one of the most renowned men of the age; who, after forming a conspiracy full of extravagance, and executing it in the sight of almost the whole world, with such success that he became sovereign of Rome; after causing plenty, justice, and liberty to flourish among the Romans; after protecting potentates, and terrifying sovereign princes; after being arbiter of crowned heads; after re-establishing the ancient majesty and power of the Roman republic, and filling all Europe with his fame during the seven months of his first reign after having compelled his masters themselves to confirm him in the authority he bad usurped against their interests; fell at length at the end of his second, which lasted not four months, a sacrifice to the nobility whose ruin he had vowed, and to those vast projects which his death prevented him from putting into execution."

, an eminent grammarian, was born at Sawl, in Norfolk, and educated at Eton, and was admitted of King’s college, Cambridge, in 1508. He was first usher to the celebrated William Lilly, master of St. Paul’s school, and afterwards second master, but succeeded Lilly, as head master, in 1522, which situation he retained until his death, in 1532. He composed a tragedy of “Dido” out of Virgil, which was performed at St. Paul’s school by him and his pupils, before cardinal Wolsey, but deserves more notice for the improvements he introduced in Lilly’s Latin grammar, in the edition published at Antwerp in 1533. He had married Dionysia, the daughter of Lilly; and after his death she was again married to James Jacob, one of the masters of St. Paul’s, by whom she had a son, Polydore Jacob, who was probably the god-son of Polydore Virgil, who speaks of Rightwise with great respect.

There was a more recent artist of this name, but nowise related to the preceding, Charles Reuben Riley, who died in 1798, about forty-six years of age. He was placed under Mortimer, and in 1778 obtained the gold medal at the Royal Academy, for the best painting in oil, the subject, the Sacrifice of Iphigenia. He was employed in the decorations of some noblemen’s and gentlemen’s houses, but chiefly in making drawings and designs for the booksellers.

, an Italian poet of Florence, who went into France in the suite of Mary of Medicis, queen to Henry IV. is the reputed inventor of the musical drama or opera, that is, of the manner of writing, or representing comedies or tragedies in music, to which the first recitative was applied. Others give this invention to a Roman gentleman of the name of Emilio del Cavaliere, who was more properly the inventor of the sacred drama or oratorio, in a similar species of music or recitative, so nearly at the same time that it is difficult to determine which was first: both had their beginning in 1600. Rinucciui was author of three lyric pieces, “Daphne,” “Euridice,” and “Ariadne,” which all Italy applauded. Euridice, written for the nuptials of Mary of Medicis, was first performed with great splendor and magnificence at Florence, at the court and expence of the grand duke. The poetry is truly lyrical, smooth, polished, and mellifluous. He died in 1621, at Florence; and a collection, or rather selection, of his works were published in 1622, in the same city, in 4*o, by his son, Pietro Francesco Rinuccini, and another entitled “Drammi Musicale,” in 1802, 8vo, at Leghorn. The family is noble, and was subsisting in 1770. More of Ottavio may be seen in the appendix to Walker’s “Life of Tassoni,” just published, 1816.

, a chemist and poet in the time of Henry VII. was a canon of Bricllington, and accomplished in many branches of erudition; and still maintains his reputation as a learned chemist of the lower ages. He was a great traveller, and studied both in France and Italy. At his return from abroad, pope Innocent VIII. absolved him from the observance of the rules of his order, that he might prosecute his studies with more convenience and freedom. But his convent not concurring with this very liberal indulgence, he turned Carmelite at St. Botolph’s in Lincolnshire, and died in that fraternity in 1490. His chemical poems are nothing more than the doctrines of alchemy cloathed in plain language, and a very rugged versification. His capital performance is the “Compound of Alchemic,” written in 1471, in the octave metre, and dedicated to Edward IV. He has left a few other compositions on his favourite science, printed by Ashmole, who was an enthusiast in this abused species of philosophy; and some lives of saints in ms.

, an English topographer, was the son of Thomas Risdon, bencher of the Inner Temple, afterwards treasurer of that society, and lastly, recorder of Totness, who published some law “Readings,” and died in 1641. His son was educated at Great Torrington, Devonshire, previous to his studying at Exeter college, Oxford, which he left without a degree, in consequence, as Prince supposes, of his coming to some family property which required his presence, and rendered him independent. On this, which was an estate at Winscot, be appears to have lived in retirement, and died in 1640. He drew up an account of Devonshire, which remained in ms. of which there were several copies, until 1714, when it was printed, under the title of “The Chorographical Description or Survey of the County of Devon, &c.” William Chappie, of Exeter, intended a new edition of this work, and actually issued proposals; but dying in 1781, his design was not completed, although in 1785 a portion of it, printed at Exeter, appeared in 4to, with many notes and additions. There is a “continuation” of Risdon’s Survey, which is paged on from the first part, and very rarely to be met with, but there are copies in the Bodleian and in the library of St. John’s, given by Dr. Rawlinson.

, a poetical critic and editor, was born Oct. 2, 1752, at Stockton-upon-Tees, in the county of Durham, and was bred to the profession of the law, which he practised chiefly in the conveyancing branch. In 1785 he purchased the office of high bailiff of the liberties of the Savoy, and retained it until his death. These seem the only particulars of Mr. Ritson’s progress in his profession, which have been recorded by his friends. He became, however, far better known for his researches into the antiquities of English literature, particularly poetry; and these he was enabled to carry on for many years, by dint of memory and extraordinary industry. In recovering dates, assigning anonymous fragments to their authors, and those other minute particulars which are important to poetical antiquaries, Mr. Ritson had perhaps few superiors; but all he performed was disgraced by a harsh, rugged, and barren style, and an affectation of a new orthography, and yet more by the contempt, approaching to malignity, with which hfe treated Mr. Warton, Mr. Malone, and his other contemporaries who had acquired any name in the world. Although not absolutely incapable of civility, his conversation partook much of the harshness of his writings; and giving the lie was not uncommon with him, even when the subject in dispute had nothing in it to excite passion. His wretched temper seems also to have been exasperated by the state of public affairs, his hatred of the reigning family, and his attachment to republicanism. Many instances might be given of his unhappy prejudices, but it appeared at last that the whole might be traced to a diseased mind, which was completely overthrown by insanity. When this became too visible to be neglected, he was removed to a receptacle for insane persons at Hoxton, where he died a few days after, Sept. 3, 1803, leaving many works which will prove useful and interesting to poetical antiquaries long after the peculiarities of his temper are forgotten. His first publication was an anonymous quarto pamphlet of “Observations on the three volumes of Warton’s History of English Poetry;” one of the most illiberal productions that had then appeared. He wrote, also anonymously, three sets of. remarks on the editors of Shakspeare: I. On Mr. Sieevens’s edition, 1773, entitled “Remarks, critical and illustrative, on the Text and Notes of the last edition of Shakspeare,” 8vo; 2. “The Quip modest,” &c. on Mr. Reed’s republication of that edition, particularly illiberal 3. “Cursory Criticisms,” &c. on Mr. Malone’s edition. He published also a select collection of English Songs, in 3 vols. 8vo. Ancient Songs, from the time of Henry III. to the Revolution, 8vo. A volume of pieces of ancient popular poetry, 8vo. “The English Anthology,” a selection of poetry, in 3 small octavo volumes. “Robin Hood; a collection of all the ancient Poems, Songs, affd Ballads, now extant, relative to that celebrated Outlaw. To which are added, Historical Anecdotes of his Life,” 1795, 2 vols. 8vo. A collection of Scotch Songs, with the genuine Music, 2 vols. 12mo. “Biographia Poetica a Catalogue of English Poets of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries; with a short Account of their Works.” 1801, 12mo. He put his name to “Ancient English Metrical Romances; selected and published by Joseph Ritson,” 1802, 3 vols. 12mo. This last publication is perhaps the least interesting of the list.

, a learned French writer, was born at Laval, in the province of Perche, about 1571. He wa* brought up in the family of the count de Laval, and for. some time followed the military profession, serving in Italy and in Holland. In 1603, Henry IV. appointed him one of the gentlemen of his bed-chamber. In 1605 he entered into tSie service of the emperor against the Turks: but ori his return he devoted himself to literary and scientific studies and in 1611 he was appointed preceptor to the young king, Lewis XIII. with a pension of 3000 livres, and the title of counsellor of state. An insult he received from his royal pupil obliged him to quit his office for some time. The king had a favourite dog, who was perpetually jumping on Rivault during his giving lessons, and Rivault one day gave him a kick. The king was so incensed as to strike Riv'lult, who retired; but it appears they were soon reconciled, and by the king’s orders Rivault accompanied ma* dame Elizabeth of France as far as Bayonne, on her way to be married to the king of Spain. On his return from that voyage he died at Tours, Jan. 1616, about the age of forty-five. He is spoken of with high esteem by several of the most celebrated writers of his time, particularly by Casaubon, Scaliger, Vossius, Erpenius, and Menage. His works consist of, 1. “Les Etats,” or “The States, or a discourse concerning the privileges of the prince, the nobles, and the Third Estate, &c.” 2. “Les Elemens d'Artillerie,” Paris, 1608, 8vo, a curious and very scarce work. 3. “Archimedis Opera quae extant, Gr. et Lat. novis detnonstrationibus illdstrata,” &c. Paris, 1615, folio; and ether pieces on education, &c.

, a French writer, chiefly on subjects of bibliography and literary history, was born May 19, 1730, at Apt in Provence, and was bred to the church. He was first professor of philosophy in the seminary of Sh Charles, at Avignon, a situation for which he was not very well qualified. He then became curate of Molleges, in the diocese of Aries, but was not much better satisfied with this than his preceding occupation, as he had more taste for bibliographical researches than for pastoral duties. While here he had the credit of an amour with a married woman, that did not advance him much in the public opinion; and when the husband reproached him, the abbe threw him headlong out of the window, from which, however, he received no great injury. In 1767 he came to Paris, and his turn for books being already known, the duke de Valliere appointed him his librarian, and in allusion to his arrogant manner of deciding on literary points, used to call him his bull-dog. On the revolution breaking out, he became one of the most implacable of the anarchists, and denounced vengeance on the clergy, the nobility, and especially those writers who were his rivals in bibliographical pursuits, particularly William Debure, and the abbe Mercier, to whom he was uncommonly abusive. He afterwards led a life of turbulence and hostility, which at last closed at Marseilles in 1792. Among his numerous publications, the most useful were, 1. “Eclaircissemens sur l'inyention des Cartes a jouer,” Paris, 1780, 8vo. 2. “Prospectus sur Tessai de verifier Page de Miniatures,” such as appear on manuscripts from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century; ibid. 1782, fol. 3. “Notices historiques et critiques sur deux manuscrits de la bibliotheque du due de la Valliere,” ibid. 1779, 4to. 4. “Notices sur le traite manuscrit de Galeotto Martio, intitule De Excelientibus,” ibid. 1785, 8vo. 5. “Histoire critique de la Pyramide de Caius Sestius,” &c. ibid. 1787, foi. 6. La Chasse aux Bibliographes et aux Antiquaires mal avises,“ibid. 1789, 2 vols. a receptacle of almost every kind of abuse and awkward wit against Le Long, Debure, Mercier, &c. 7.”Dictionnaire de critique litteraire," &c. with other works of a similar kind, which are very scarce even in France, as he printed but a small number of each edition.

, a celebrated French protestant divine, was born at St. Maxeut, in Poitou, Aug. I, 1572, and after some school education near home, was sent to Rochelle in 1585, where he studied the learned languages and philosophy. In 1590 he was removed to the college at Beam, where he took his master’s degree, and began the study of divinity. Having finished that course, he was in 1595 appointed minister of the church of Thoars, and chaplain to the duke of Thoars, who admitted him into his confidence, and frequently employed him in matters of importance. While in this situation he married the daughter of a divine at Thoars. He was frequently the representative of the protestant churches in national conventions and synods, and in some of these filled the chair of president, particularly in that of Vitry, in 1617. In 1620 he was appointed professor of divinity at Leyden, but about the same time had the misfortune to lose his wife. In 1621 he visiteci England, and going to Oxford was incorporated doctor in divinity, which degree had been conferred on him at Leyden just before. He gave, on this occasion, several books to the Bodleian library. While in England he married, as his second wife, Maria, the sister of Peter du Moulin, and widow of Anthony de Guyot, upon whose death in the civil wars in France, she took refuge in England. What served to introduce him at Oxford was his previous acquaintance wiih John Russe, or Rouse, who had lodged some time with him at Thoars, and was now in the situation of librarian of the Bodleian. After his return to Leyden he resumed his professorship, and passed the rest of his days in teaching and writing. He died in 1647, aged seventy-five. His works, consisting of commentaries on the scriptures, sermons, and controversial pieces, were very numerous, but it is unnecessary to specify them separately, as they were collected in 3 vols. fol. and printed at Rotterdam in 1651. His brother William, who was likewise in the church, published on “Justification,” and on “Ecclesiastical liberty.” We have in English,“A relation of the last hours of Dr. Andrew Rivet,” 12mo, translated and published by Nehemiah Coxe, by which it appears that Dr. Rivet was not more a man of great learning than of great piety.

, of the same family as the preceding, but descended from a catholic branch, was born October 30, 1683, at Confolens, a small town in Poictiers. He studied philosophy under the Jacobins at Poictiers, but an escape from very imminent danger determined him to put on the Benedictine habit, which he accordingly did at Marmoutier in 1704, and took his vows therein 1705. In 1716 he was transferred to the monastery of St. Cyprian, and summoned to Paris the year following, to assist some other monks in compiling a history of illustrious men of the Benedictine order; but this project failing, Rivet turned his thoughts entirely to the literary history of France, which he had before formed a design of writing, and which employed the rest of his trfe, He was-assisted in this work by three of his brethren, Joseph Duclou, Maurice Poncet, and John Colomb, who were all his particular friends, good critics, and accurate and industrious writers. In 1723 Rivet published at Amsterdam “Le Necrologe de Port Royal des Champs,” a work of which he was very fond, and added to it a long historical preface. This publication, joined to his warm opposition to the bull Unrgenitus, from which he had appealed, obliged him to retire -iiftb the abbey of St. Vincent at Mans, the same year, where he laboured assiduously during more than thirty years to complete his “Literary History of France.” >' He published the first volume in 1733, 4to, and was finishing the ninth, which contains the first years of the 12th century, when he died, February 7, 1749, in his sixty-sixth year, worn out with intense application, austerities, and the strict and rigorous observation of his rule, from which he never departed. His history was afterwards extended to 12 volumes, to which Clemencet added a 13th. It is a very useful work, but the French literati have never thought of completing it.

, an eminent French physicist, was born at Montpellier in 1589. He studied in the university of his native place, but having failed in his examinations for his degree, he was impelled to redouble his exertiotis, and in 16 11 was admitted to the degree of doctor with great credit. In 1622 he was appointed to the professorship of medicine in the university, an office which he continued to fill with great honour until his death in 1655. Riverius published “The Institutes of Medicine,” in five books, in Latin, which went through many editions; but the work which has gained him most reputation, is a course of medicine, entitled “Praxis Medica,” of which editions were long multiplied in France, Holland, and England. It treats of most of the diseases to which the body is subject, in seventeen books, in a clear style; but in many places he appears to have borrowed copiously from Sennertus. He published also a work entitled “Observationes Medic* et Curationes insignes,” which has been frequently reprinted, and is not now without its value. These works have been collected and published together, under the title of “Opera Medica Universa,” Geneva, 1737, and Leyden, 1758, fol. Eloy observes, that a friar, Bernardin Christin, who had been a pupil of Riverius, compiled some secrets of chemistry, which he published with the name of Riverius; and although it has been clearly proved that he was not the author of these papers, yet they have been frequently printed in the collections of his works, and separately, under the title of “Arcana Riverii.”

Rivinus published, at his own expence, in 1690, his splendid illustration of the first class of his system, comprising such plants as have a monopetabus irregular 6ower. This part consists of one hundred and twenty-five plates; bub the catalogue of species is imperfect, A learned “Introductio generalis in rem hdtfbariam” is prefixed and this introductory part was, at different times, republished in a smaller form. The second part of this sumptuous work came forth in 1691, and consists of two hundred and twentyone plates, of plants with four irregular petals; into which class, by means of some contrivance, and many grains of allowance, are admitted all the papilionaceous tribe, the cruciform genus Iberis, the Euphorbia, and a few things besides. In 1699 the third part, containing flowers with five irregular petals, was given to the world. Even more liberty is taken in the assemblage of genera here than in the former class. It consists of one hundred and thirtynine plates. A fourth part, the hexapetalse irregulares, consisting of the Orchideae, was finished, but not published, before the author’s death; nor indeed have any more than a very few copies of this ever got abroad into the world, so that it constitutes one of the greatest bibliothecal rarities. With respect to utility or beauty, those who are possessed of the transcendant engravings of this favourite tribe in Haller’s History of Swiss Plants, may dispense with the figures of Rivinus. The author had prepared several supplementary plates to his work, which never came forth, and of which perhaps the only specimens are to be seen in sir Joseph Banks’s fine copy of the whole work, except two duplicate plates presented by the learned baronet to the president of the Linnaean society. There is every reason to believe that the copy in question belonged to the author himself, or to his son, as may be gathered from its manuscript additions and corrections. A complete copy, of even the three first parts of Rivinus’s book is, indeed, difficult to be met with; for several of the plates having from time to time received additions of seed-vessels, or of entire plants; the earlier impressions of such plates are consequently imperfect. The best copies are required, by fastidious collectors, to have every plate with and without the additions.

Though not a great practical anatomist, or dissector, Rivinus is said to have discovered a new salivary duct. He Jeft a son, John Augustus Rivinus, who succeeded him as professor, and under whose presidency was published a dissertation, in 1723, on “Medicinal Earths.” This gentleman died in 1725, aged thirty-three, having survived his father but two years. His premature death seems to have prevented the publication of the fourth part of his father’s great botanical work, at least for some time. Haller says, Ludwig afterwards edited the plates of the Orchidece, without any letter-press; but this publication has never come under our inspection.

, a musician of the sixteenth century, whose misconduct or misfortunes have obtained him a place in the history of Scotland, was born at Turin, but brought up in France. His father was a musician and dancing-master, and the son probably possessed those talents which served to amuse a courtly circle. He appears to have come to Scotland about 1564, when, according to most accounts, he was neither young nor handsome. The count de Merezzo brought him hither in his suite, as ambassador from Savoy to the court of the unfortunate queen Mary. Sir James Melvil, in his “Memoirs,” tells us that “the queen had three valets of her chamber who sung in three parts, and wanted a base to sing the fourth part; therefore, telling her majesty of this man, Rizzio, as one fit to make the fourth in concert, he was drawn in sometimes to sing with the rest.” He quickly, however, crept into the queen’s favour; and her French secretary happening at that time to return to his own country, Rizzio was preferred by her majesty to that office. He began to make a figure at court, and to appear as a man of weight and consequence. Nor was he careful to abate that envy which always attends such an extraordinary and rapid change of fortune. On the contrary, he seems to have done every thing to increase it; yet it was not his exorbitant power alone which exasperated the Scots; they considered him as a dangerous enemy to the protestant religion, and believed that he held for this purpose a constant correspondence with the court of Rome. His prevalence, however, was very short-lived; for, in 1566, certain nobles, with lord Darnly at their head, conspired against him, and dispatched him in the queen’s presence with fifty-six wounds. The consequences of this murder to the queen and to the nation are amply detailed in Scotch history, and have been the subject of a very fertile controversy.

In the earliest periods of his life he seemed to be fully impressed with the importance and value of time, no moment of which he suffered to be unemployed. Whatever was cnrious in literature attracted his attention, but subjects of antiquity were those which he most delighted to investigate. In these his patience and perseverance were very remarkable; and though he read with eagerness and rapidity, he never neglected to note down particular circumstances, or to mark for subsequent reference such things as he could not at once completely embrace. To a natural quickness of observation was added a retentive memory, and the exercise of these was matured into an habit of attention and arrangement.^ Fortunately for Barre these endowments did not escape the eye of him who was most interested by affection and consanguinity in his welfare. His father early discovered and cultivated them. Barre, when at home, was his constant companion, and, soon after the years of infancy were passed, became his most intimate friend. Indeed it is not possible to imagine a greater degree of confidence between two persons, even of similar ages, than that which existed between this youth and his parent; and so well was it supported and understood, that Barre never for a moment lost sight of his relative situation, nor transgressed the limits of respect which filial love, even had there been no other motive, would have taught him to observe. The clearness of his perceptions, and the correctness of his understanding, secured him from anv overrated idea of his own talents, and rather added than detracted from the docility of his disposition: a docility not in him the result of feebleness, or indolence, nor tending to the obliteration of his natural character, but derived from a comparison of his own inexperience with the matured judgment of advanced life, and a just estimate and conviction of his father’s love. Barre, in this free and confidential intercourse, imbibed all the advantages which a system of perfect intimacy with one so much his superior in age and worldly experience could produce, divested as it was, by the discriminating hand of a parent, of all the evils which attend on the formation of an artificial character. It would have been of the highest gratification to his father to have retained constantly under his own eye a son so much fhe object of his care and affection, and who seemed to court all the instruction which could be bestowed on him,; but as this would have demanded leisure, and qualifications which fall to the lot of but few persons, Barre was sent in May 1797, to Dr. Home’s school at Chiswick, and in June 1799, was placed under the care of the Rev. William Goodenough, at Ealing, between whose family and that of his pupil a long intimacy and friendship had subsisted. Here he remained six years, and acquired a competent knowledge of the classics, and some share of mathematics, history, and antiquities, the study of which last had been previously familiar to him while enjoying his father’s library at home.

It was during the same time that he formed his fine collection of coins, which is now in the British museum, having been purchased by the trustees with consent of parliament. This collection was begun to be formed when Barre was very young. He accidentally saw a few Roman coins in his father’s possession, which he presently got transferred to his own. They were hoarded by him with infantine care, and esteemed by him as invaluable property. The occasional presents of friends, and such specimens as a child’s pocket-money could procure, soon increased the store, which he would display and comment upon with the air and importance of a connoisseur. As he advanced in age, however, he perceived that to form a complete and universal collection of coins was an object only in the power of individuals possessed of larger means than he could ever expect to enjoy. He therefore relinquished it in this character, and confined his attention only to those connected with his own country. His father encouraged the pursuit, as he followed it in the light of a science, which illustrated and confirmed him in his historical studies; and his name as a collector soon became known among the dealers, who did not fail to bring him whatever could be discovered most rare and curious in their line of search.

He was prevailed upon, with some entreaty, to make a journey early in July to Southampton, in the company of a near relation, with whom he had ever lired on terms of affectionate intimacy, and who rejoiced in offering him such attentions as he would accept. On his return to Eaiing at the end of September, the symptoms of his disorder had not increased in violence; but the effect of its secret ravages upon him were but too visible. During the whole progress of his ailment, his mind remained unaltered in its inclinations and desires. The thirst for knowledge continued, but the exhausted state of his corporeal system opposed physical obstacles to its gratification he bore up with cheerfulness and courage against evidences of that which certainly he himself could not be ignorant of, and lamented only the languor of nervous debility which rendered him unable to pursue his favourite and wonted occupations. He died Jan. I, 1810, and was buried on the 8th in Eaiing church, where, on a tablet of white marble, is an elegant Latin inscription from the pen of his early tutor and friend, the rev Mr. Goodenough. In 1814, a volume, in 4to, of his “Letters and Miscellaneous Papers,” was published with an elegant and affectionate memoir of his life, written by his cousin Grosvenor Charles Bedford, esq,

, a puritan divine, the son of Henry Roberts of Aslake, in Yorkshire, was born there or in that county in 1609, and entered a student of Trinity college, Oxford, in 1625. In 1632 he completed his degrees in arts, and was ordained. Where he first officiated does not appear but on the breaking out of the rebellion he went to London, took the covenant, and wns appointed minister of St. Augustine’s, Watlirtg-street, in room of Ephraim Udal, ejected for his loyalty. In 1649 he was presented to the rectory of WriiHTton in Somersetshire by his patron Arthur lord Capel, son of the beheaded lord Capel. While on this living he was appointed one of the commissioners for the “ejectment of those” who were called “ignorant and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters.” At the restoration, however^ he conformed, tired out, as many other’s were, by the distractions of the contending parties, and disappointed in every hope which the encouragers of rebellion had held forth. It does not appear whether he had any additional preferment, except that of chaplain to his patron lord Capel whenhe became earl of Essex; and when thrit nobleman was lord-lieutenant, of Ireland in 1672, it is suppose. i he procured him the degree of D. D. from the university of Dublin. He died at Wriugton about the end of 1675, and most probably wasi interred in that church. He published some single sermons: “The Believer’s evidence for Eternal Life,” &c, 1649, 1655, 8vo, and the “Communicant instructed,” 1651, 8vo, often reprinted; but his principal work is entitled “Chivis Bibliorum, the Key of the Bible,” in eluding the order, names, times, penmen, occasion, scope, and principal matter of the Old and New Testament. This was first printed at London and Edinburgh, 1649, in 2 vols, 8vo, and afterwards in 4to; and the fourth edition, 1675, in folio. Wood mentions another work, “Mysterium & Medulla Bibliorum, or the Mystery and Marrow of the Bible,” 1657, 2 vols. fol. as he says, but this is doubtful, and “The True way to the Tree of Life,” 1673, 8vo.

, a learned English divine and miscellaneous writer, was descended from a reputable family, which from time immemorial possessed a considerable estate at Mutter, in tae parish of Appleby, in Westmoreland. His father was an eminent maltster; and his mother, the only daughter of Mr. Edward Stevenson, of Knipe, in the same county, cousin to Edmund Gibson, bishop of London. He was born at this latter place, August 28, 1726; but his father soon afterwards removing to Rutter, he was sent, at a proper age, to the free-school at Appleby, where he received the rudiments of classical learning under Mr. Richard Yates, a man of eminent abilities, and distinguished character in his profession. From thence, in 1746, he went to Queen’s college, Oxford, where he took his degrees in arts, with considerable reputation for his ingenuity and learning. On his receiving orders he was, for some time, curate to the celebrated Dr. Sykes, at Rayleigh in Essex, and in 1758 he was instituted to the vicarage of Herriard in Hampshire; in 1770, to the rectory of Sutton in Essex; and in 1779, to the vicarage of Horucastle in Lincolnshire, to which he wns prcseuteU by his relation, Dr> Edtnund Law, bishop of Carlisle. In 1761 he published a sermon, entitled “The subversion of ancient Kingdoms considered,” preached at St. John’s, Westminster, Feb. 13, the day appointed for a general fast. In 1772, he revised and corrected for the press Dr. Gregory Sharpens posthumous sermons; and the same year completed a new edition of Algernon Sidney’s Discourses on Government, with historical notes, in one volume quarto, at the persuasion of Thomas Hollis, esq. who highly approved his performance.

Mr. Robertson married in 1758, Miss Raikes, the daughter of Mr. Timothy Raikes, apothecary, in London, by whom he had several children, who died in their infancy.

, a very learned divine, was born in Dublin, Oct. 16, 1705. His father was a native of Scotland, who carried on the linen-manufacture there; and his mother, Diana Allen, was of a very reputable family in the bishopric of Durham, and married to his father in England. From his childhood he was of a very tender and delicate constitution, with great weakness in his eyes till he was twelve years of age, at which period he was sent to school. He had his grammar-education under the celebrated Dr. Francis Hutcheson, who then taught in Dublin, but was afterwards professor of philosophy in the university of Glasgow. He went from Dr. Hutcheson to that university in 1722, where he remained till 1725, and took the degree of M. A. He had for his tutor Mr. John Lowdon, professor of philosophy; and attended the lectures of Mr Ross, professor of humanity; of Mr. Dunlop, professor of Greek; of Mr. Morthland, professor of the Oriental languages; of Mr. Simpson, professor of mathematics; and of Dr. John Simpson, professor of divinity. In the last-mentioned year, a dispute was revived, which had been often agitated before, between Mr. John Sterling the principal, and the students, about a right to chuse a rector, whose office and power is somewhat like that of the vice-chancellor of Oxford or Cambridge. Mr. Robertson took part with his fellow- students, and was appointed by them, together with William Campbell, esq. son of Campbell of Mamore, whose family has since succeeded to the estates and titles of Argyle, to wait upon the principal with a petition signed by more than threescore matriculated students, praying that he would, on the 1st day of March, according to the statutes, summon an university-meeting for the election of a rector; which petition he rejected with contempt. On this Mr. Campbell, in his own name and in the name of all the petitioners, protested against the principal’s refusal, and all the petitioners went to the house of Hugh Montgomery, esq. the unlawful rector, where Mr. Robertson read aloud the protest against him and his- authority. Mr. Robertson, by these proceedings, became the immediate and indeed the only object of prosecution. He was cited before the faculty, i. e. the principal and the professors of the university, of wbotn the principal was sure of a majority, and, after a trial which lasted several clays, had the sentence of expulsion pronounced against him; of which sentence he demanded a copy, and was so fully persuaded of the justice of his cause, and the propriety of his proceedings, that he openly and strenuously acknowledged and adhered to what he had done. Upon this, Mr. Lowdon, his tutor, and Mr. Dunlop, professor of Greek, wrote letters to Mr. Robertson’s father, acquainting him of what had happened, and assuring him that his son had been expelled, not for any crime or immorality, but for appearing very zealous in a dispute about a matter of right between the principal and the students. These letters Mr. Robertson sent inclosed hi 'one from himself, relating his proceedings and suffer! ngs in the cause of what he thought justice and right. Upon this his father desired him to take every step he might think proper, to assert and maintain his own and his fellowstudents claims; and accordingly Mr. Robertson went up to London, and presented a memorial to John duke of Argyle, containing the claims of the students of the university of Glasgow, their proceedings in the vindication of them, and his own particular sufferings in the cause. The duke received him very graciously, but said, that “he was little acquainted with things of this sort;” and advised him “to apply to his brother Archibald earl of Hay, who was better versed in such matters than he.” He then waited on lord Hay, who, upon reading the representation of the case, said “he would consider of it.” And, upon consideration of it, he was so affected, that he applied to the king for a commission to visit the university of Glasgow, with full power to examine into and rectify all abuses therein. In the summer of 1726, the earl of Hay with the other visitors repaired to Glasgow, and, upon a full examination into the several injuries and abuses complained of, they restored to the students the right of electing their rector; recovered the right of the university to send two gentlemen, upon plentiful exhibitions, to Baliol college in Oxford; took off the expulsion of Mr. Robertson, and ordered that particularly to be recorded in the proceedings of the commission; annulled the election uf the rector who had been named by the principal; and assembled the students, who immediately chose the master of Ross, son of lord Ross, to be their rector, &c. These things so affected Mr* Sterling, that he died soon after; but the university revived, and has since continued in a most flourishing condition.

Lord Hay had introduced Mn Robertson to bishop Hoadly, who mentioned him to archbishop Wake, and he was entertained with much civility by those great prelates. As he was then too young to be admitted into orders, he employed his time in London in visiting the public libraries, attending lectures, and improving himself as opportunities offered. He had the honour to be introduced to lord-chancellor King, by a very kind letter from Dr. Hort, bishop of Kilmore, and was often with his lordship. In 1727 Dr. John Hoadly, brother to the bishop of Salisbury, was nominated to the united bishoprics of Ferns and Leighlin in Ireland. Mr. Robertson was introduced to him by his brother; and, from a love of the natale solum, was desirous to go thither with him. Mr. Robertson then informed the archbishop of Canterbury of his design; and his Grace gave him a letter of recommendation to Dr. Goodwin, archbishop of Cashel, who received him in a most friendly manner, but died soon after. The first person whom Dr. Hoadly ordained, after he was consecrated bishop of Ferns, was Mr. Robertson, whose letters of deacon’s orders bear date January 14, 1727; and in February the bishop nominated him to the cure of Tullow in the county of Carlow: and here he continued till he was of age sufficient to be ordained a priest, which was done November 10, 1729; and the next day he was presented by lord Carteret, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to the rectory of Ravilly in the county of Carlow, and to the rectory of Kilravelo in the county of Widow; and soon after was collated to the vicarages of the said parishes by the bishop of Ferns. These were the only preferments he had till 1738, when Dr. Synge, bishop of Ferns, collated him to the vicarages of Rathmore and Straboe, and the perpetual cure of Rahil, all in the county of Carlow. These together produced art income of about 200l. a-year. But, as almost the whole lands of these parishes were employed in pasture, the tithes would have amounted to more than twice that sum if the herbage had been paid for black cattle, which was certainly due by law. Several of the clergy of Ireland had,, before him, sued for this herbage in the Court of Exchequer, and obtained decrees in their favour. Mr. Robertson, encouraged by the exhortations and examples of his brethren, commenced some suits in the Exchequer for this herbage, and succeeded in every one of them. But when he had, by this means, doubled the value of his benefices, the House of Commons in Ireland passed several severe resolutions against the clergy who had sued, or would sue, for this “nexv demand,” as they called it, which encouraged the graziers to oppose it so obstinately as to put a period to that demand. This proceeding of the Commons provoked Dean Swift to write “The Legion- Club.” Mr. Robertson soon after published a pamphlet, entitled “A Scheme for utterly abolishing the present heavy and vexatious Tax of Tithe;” the purport of which was, to pay the clergy and impropriators a tax upon the land in lieu of all tithes. This went through several editions: but nothing farther was done in it.

Mr. Robertson had, in 1723, married Elizabeth, daughter of major William Baxter, who, in his younger years, had been an officer in Ireland in the armies of king Charles II. and James 11.; but was cashiered by the earl of Tyrconnel, James’s lord-lieutenant of Ireland, as a person not to be depended upon in carrying on his and his master’s designs. Captain Baxter upon this repaired to London, and complained of it to the duke of Ormond. His father was at that time steward to the duke’s estate. His grace, who was then joined with other English noblemen in a correspondence with the prince of Orange, recommended him to that prince, who immediately gave him a company in his own forces. In this station he returned to England with the prince at the revolution, and acted his part vigorously in bringing about that great event. While the captain was in Holland, he wrote that remarkable letter to Dr. Burnet, afterwards bishop of Salisbury, which is inserted in the bishop’s life at the end of the “History of his own Times.” By this lady, who was extremely beautiful in her person, but much more so in her mind, Mr. Robertson had one and twenty children. There is a little poem written by him eight years after their marriage, and inscribed to her, upon her needle-work, inserted in the Gent. Mag. 1736. In 1743, Mr. Robertson obtained the bishop’s leave to nominate a curate at Ravilly, and to reside for some time in Dublin, for the education of his children. Here he was immediately invited to the cure of St. Luke’s parish; aud in this he continued five years, and then returned to Ravilly in 1748, the town air not agreeing with him. While he was in the cure of St. Luke’s, he, together with Mr. Kane Percival, then curate of St. Michan’s, formed a scheme to raise a fund for the support of widows and children of clergymen of the diocese of Dublin, which hath since produced very happy effects. In 1758 he lost his wife. In 1759 Dr. Richard Robinson was translated from the see of Killala to that of Ferns; and, in his visitation that year, he took Mr. Robertson aside, and told him, that the primate, Dr. Stone (who had been bishop of Ferns, and had kept up a correspondence with Mr. Robertson), had recommended him to his care and protection, and that he might therefore expect every thing in his power. Accordingly, the first benefice that became vacant in his lordship’s presentation was offered td him, and he thankfully accepted it. But, before he could be collated to it, he had the “Free and Candid Disquisitions” put into his hands, which he had never seen before. This inspired him with such doubts as made him defer his attendance on the good bishop. His lordship wrote to him again to come immediately for institution. Upon this, Mr. Robertson wrote him the letter which is at the end of a little book that he published some years after, entitled, “An Attempt to explain the words of Reason, Substance, Person, Creeds, Orthodoxy, Catholic Church, Subscription, and Index Expurgatorius;” in which letter Mr. Robertson returned his lordship the most grateful thanks for his kindness, but informed him that he could not comply with the terms required by law to qualify him for such preferment. However, Mr. Robertson continued at Ravilly performing his duty only, thenceforward, he omitted the Athanasian creed, &c. This gave o(Ferice and, therefore, he thought it the honestest course to resign all his benefices together, which he did in 1764; and, in 1766, he published his book by way of apology to his friends for what he had done; and soon after left Ireland, and returned to London. In 1767, Mr. Robertson presented one of his books to his old Alma Mater the university of Glasgow, and received in return a most obliging letter, with the degree of D. D. In 1768 the mastership of the freegrammar school at Wolverhampton in Staffordshire becoming vacant, the company of Merchant-Tailors, the patrons, unanimously conferred it on him. In 1772 he was chosen one of the committee to carry on the business of the society of clergymen, &c. in framing and presenting the famous petition to the House of Commons of Great Britain, praying to be relieved from the obligation of subscribing assent and consent to the thirty-nine articles, and all and every thing contained in the book of common-prayer. After this he lived several years at Wolverhampton, performing the duties of his office, in the greatest harmony with all sorts of people there; and died, of the gout in his stomach, at Wolverhampton, May 20, 1783, in the 79th year of his age; and was buried in the churchyard of the new church there.

, D.D. one of the most illustrious names in modern literature, and one of the most eminent of modern historians, was born in 1721, at Borthwick, in the county of Mid-Lothian, where his father was then minister; and received the first rudiments of his education at the school of Daikeith. In 1733, when his father removed to Edinburgh, on being appointed minister of the old Gray-friars’ church, tie placed his son at the university, where his industry and application appear to have been of that extraordinary and spontaneous kind, which bespeaks a thirst for knowledge, and is a pledge of future eminence. From a very early period of life he employed every means to overcome the peculiarities of a provincial idiom, and accustom his pen to the graces of the best English style. For this purpose he frequently exercised himself in the practice of translation, and was about to have prepared for the press a version of Marcus Antoninus, when he was anticipated by an anonymous publication at Glasgow. Nor did he bestow less pains on acquiring a fluent and correct eloquence, associating for that purpose with some fellowstudents and others, who assembled periodically for extempore discussion and debate. Thus in all his early pursuits he deviated knowingly, or was insensibly directed into those paths which led to the high fame he afterwards enjoyed.

His studies at the university being finished, he was licensed to preach in 1741, and in 1743 was presented to the living of Gladsmuir, in East Lothian, by John, second earl of Hopeton. This preferment, although the whole emoluments did not exceed 100l. a year, was singularly opportune, as his father and mother died about this time, leaving a family of six daughters and a younger son unprovided for, whom our author removed to Gladsmuir, and maintained with decency and frugality, until they were settled in the world. During the rebellion in 1745, when the capital of Scotland was in danger of falling into the hands of the rebels, the state of public affairs appeared so critical that he thought himself justified in laying aside for a time the pacific habits of his profession, and in quitting his parochial residence at Gladsmuir, to join the volunteers of Edinburgh; and, when at last it was determined that the city should be surrendered, he was one of the small band who repaired to Haddington, and offered their services to the commander-in-chief of his majesty’s forces. He returned, however, as soon as peace was restored, to Gladsmuir, and in 1751 married his cousin, miss Mary Nesbit, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Nesbit, o e of the mU nisters of Edinburgh, He now applied himself to his pastoral duties, which he discharged with a punctuality that procured him the veneration and attachment of his parishioners, and as his eloquence in the pulpit began to attract the notice of the neighbouring clergy, this circumstance, no doubt, prepared the way for that influence in the church which he afterwards attained. In 1755 he published “A Sermon preached before the Society for promoting Christian knowledge,” which has been deservedly admired, and encouraged by a sale of five editions, besides a translation into German. He had some time before this made his appearance in the General Assembly of the church of Scotland, and had taken an active part in their proceedings. In 1757, he distinguished himself in the defence of Mr. John Home, minister of Athelstoneford, who had written the tragedy of “Douglas.” This was considered as so bold a departure from the austerity expected in a presbyterian divine, that the author, and some of his brethren, who had witnessed the play in the theatre, were prosecuted in the ecclesiastical court. On this occasion Dr. Robertson contributed much, by his eloquence, to the mildness of the sentence in which the prosecution terminated; and his conduct was no inconsiderable proof of his general candour, as he had never himself entered within the walls of a play-house, avoiding such an indulgence as inconsistent with the scruis circumspection which he maintained in his private character.

In the mean time, his leisure hours had been so well employed that, in 1758, he went to London to concert measures for the publication of his first celebrated work, “The History of Scotland during the reigns of queen Mary and king James VI. till his accession to the crown of England; with a review of the Scottish history previous to that period; and an Appendix, containing original papers,” 2 vols. 4to. The plan of this work is said to have been formed soon after his settlement at Gladsinuir. It was accordingly published on the 1st of February, 1759, and so eager and extensive was the sale, that before the end of that month, he was desired by his bookseller to prepare for a, second edition. “It was regarded,” says his biographer, “as an attempt towards a species of composition that had been cultivated with very little success in this island; and accordingly it entitles the author, not merely to the praise which would now be due to an historian of equal eminence, but to a high rank among those original and leading minds that form and guide the taste of a nation.” Contemporary puhlications abounded in its praises, but it would be superfluous to coiiect options in favour of a work familiarized to the public by so ^any editions. Among the most judicious of the literati of that period who were the first to perceive and predict the reputation our author was about to establish, were, hon. Horace Walpole, bishop Warburton, lord Royston, the late sir Gilbert Elliot, Dr. Birch, Dr. Douglas, late bishop of Salisbury, Dr. John Biair, late prebendary of Westminster, and Mr. Hume. It may suffice to add, that fourteen editions of this work were published in the author’s life-time.

While the “History of Scotland” was in the press, Dr. Robertson removed, with his family, from Gladsmuir to Edinburgh, in consequence of a presentation which he had received to one of the churches of that city. His preferments now multiplied rapidly. In 1759, he was appointed chaplain of Stirling castle; in 1761, one of his majesty’s chaplains in ordinary for Scotland; and in 1762 he was chosen principal of the university of Edinburgh. Two years afterward, the office of king’s historiographer for Scotland (with a salary of 200l. a year) was revived in his favour. About this time, likewise, it appears that he was solicited to become a member of the church of England, by friends who considered that establishment as more likely to reward his merit than the highest emoluments his own church could afford. He resisted this temptation, however, with a decision which prevented its being farther urged, although it appears at the same time, from his correspondence, that he would not have been sorry to accept any situation which might have relieved him from the duties of his pastoral office, and afford him the power of applying himself wholly to his studies. His refusal, therefore, as his biographer justly observes, “became the consistency and dignity of his character,” and it is greatly to his honour, that whatever offices or wealth he acquired throughout life, were the fair reward of his own exertions. He was, however, about this time, desirous of profiting by the indulgence the public had shewn him, and consulted his friends relative to the choice of another historical subject. A history of England was strongly recommended, and encouragement promised from the most exalted source of honour. His majesty was pleased to express a wish to see a history of England from his pen, and the earl of Bute promised him every assistance that could be derived from the records in possession of government, and held out the most flattering views of encouragement in other respects. At first Dr. Robertson was averse to this scheme, as interfering with the plan of Hume, with whom, notwithstanding the contrariety of their sentiments, both in religion and politics, he lived in the greatest friendship; but afterwards, wben the royal patronage was so liberally tendered, appears to have inclined to the undertaking. This perhaps cannot be better expressed than in his own words. “The case, I now think, is entirely changed. His (Hume’s) history will have been published several years before any work of mine on the same subject can appear: its first run will not be marred by any jostling with me, and it will have taken that station in the literary system which belongs to it. This objection, therefore, which I thought, and still think, so weighty at that time, makes no impression on me at present, and I can now justify my undertaking the English history, to myself, to the world, and to him. Besides, our manner of viewing the same subject is so different or peculiar, that (as was the case in our last books) both may maintain their own rank, have their own partizans, and possess their own merit, without hurting each other.”

After an interval of eight years, Dr. Robertson produced his “History of America,” 1777, 2 vols. 4to, in undertaking which his original intention was only to complete his account of the great events connected with the reign of Charles V.; but perceiving, as he advanced, that a history of America, confined solely to the operations and concerns of the Spaniards, would not be likely to excite a very general interest, he resolved to include in his plan the transactions of all the European nations in the New World. The origin and progress of the British empire there, however, he destined for the subject of one entire volume, but afterwards abandoned, or rather suspended the execution of this part of his design, as he was of opinion that during a civil war between Great Britain and her colonies, inquiries and speculations concerning ancient forms of policy and laws, which no longer existed, could not be interesting. It would be superfluous to say how much this work enlarged his fame, unless, indeed, which is no hyperbole, we consider the fame arising from his former works as incapable of enlargement. He treated a subject here, which demanded all his abilities, and afforded a full scope for his genius, and he proved how eminently he could excel in splendid, romantic, and poetical delineations, with the originals of which he could not be supposed to have much interest. This work, however, laid him more open to censure than any of his former. The world had become more critical, and from having enjoyed the excellence of his histories of Scotland and of Charles V. more fastidious; and perhaps the dread of his acknowledged name had in some degree been abated by time. Besides, it was impossible by any force of argument to vindicate the disposition he shews to palliate or to veil the enormities of the Spaniards in their American conquests. This was the more unaccountable in an author whose writings in general are most friendly to the interests of humanity, and who in his previous researches and inquiries after information, lay under no extraordinary obligaiions to the Spanish court. This blemish in his history was soon followed by a compliment which shews too evidently the light in which it was viewed in Spain. He Was elected a member of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid, “in testimony of their approbation of the industry and care wiih which he has applied to the study of Spanish history, and as a recompense for his. merit in baling contributed so much to illustrate and spread the knowledge of it in foreign countries.” The academy at the same time appointed one of its members to translate the History of America into Spanish, but the government put a stop to the undertaking. It may here be introduced, that as these volumes did not complete Dr. Robertson’s original design, he announced in his preface his intention to resume the subject at a future period. A fragment of this intended work, entitled “Two additional chapters of the History of America,” 4to, was published after his death.

, the most ferocious of those tyrants which the French revolution produced, was born at Arras in 1759, where his father was a lawyer, a man of character and knowledge in his profession, but so improvident as to die insolvent, and leave his two sons, of whom Maximilian was the eldest, in poverty. They soon, however, found a generous patron in De Conzie, bishop of Arras, who in a manner adopted them, but honoured Maximilian with his particular care, and after providing him with school education, sent him to Paris, and procured him an exhibition in the college of Louis Le Grand. The manner in which Robespierre conducted himself here, answered the expectation of his protector. He was assiduous and successful in his studies, and obtained many of the yearly prizes. There was nothing, however, about him, which indicated his future destiny. Being an apt scholar, it might be thought that he would make a figure in the world; but we are told that even this was not the case, and that his instructors discovered neither in his conversation nor his actions any trace of that propensity, which could lead them to conjecture that his glory would exceed the bounds of the college. When he had, however, attained the age of sixteen or seventeen, he was advised to study the law; and this he pursued, under the auspices of a Mons. Ferrieres, but displayed no extraordinary enthusiasm for the profession. He had neither perseverance, address, nor eloquence, and, according to one of his biographers, his consciousness of inferiority to those who were making a great figure at the bar, gave him an air of gloominess and dissatisfaction. It was at first determined, that he should practise before the parliament of Paris, but this scheme was never carried into execution, for he returned to his native province, and was admitted an advocate in the supreme council of Artois. About this time he is said to have published, in 1783, a treatise on electricity, in order to remove the vulgar prejudices against conductors. In this piece he introduced a laboured eloge on the character of Louis XVI.; but the subject of his next literary performance was yet more remarkable; it was against death as a punishment, and in this he reproaches all modern governments for permitting such a punishment to remain on their codes, and even doubts the right claimed by society to cut off the life of an individual!

Such were the sentiments and situation of this man, when the revolution took place, and raised him, and hundreds equally obscure, and perhaps more contemptible, into some degree of consequence. Robespierre, however inferior hitherto in fame, was conscious that he had many of the materials about him that were wanted at this time. Either he actually had good qualities, which is scarcely credible, or by the most consummate hypocrisy, he persuaded the people that he was a steady and upright man. He was elected a representative to the states general, but although he attached himself by turns to the faction that seemed uppermost, he remained long in a state of obscurity. He was considered as a passionate hot-headed young man, whose chief merit consisted in his being warm in the cause of liberty. He had, we are told, another merit, that of bringing the term aristocrat into common use, which afterwards became the watchword of his proscriptions. He tried, too, a journal called “L'Union, ou Journal de la Liberté,” which was conducted with extreme violence. But it was suited to the people who read it, and Robespierre obtained the surname of the Incorruptible, from an affectation of independence, and continually declaiming against courtly corruption.

The Jacobin club, however, raised Robespierre to power and celebrity; they even proclaimed “that the national assembly had ruined France, and Robespierre alone could save it.” It was during the national convention that he attained the summit of his ambition, if indeed he knew what that was. In the first legislature, he joined the patriots, as they were called; in the second he declared for the republicans, and in both the party to which he attached himself proved victorious. In the third, the national convention, he carried all before him; the commune of Paris, the Jacobin club, and even the convention itself, were filled with his creatures, and became obedient to his commands. A scene of blood followed, which exceeded the proscriptions of Sylla and Marius. Men and women of all ranks perished indiscriminately. Suspected persons, that is, those either dreaded or hated by this monster and his accomplices, were arrested; domiciliary visits awakened the sleeping victims of persecution to misery and destruction while revolutionary tribunals, as they were called, condemned them by scores, unpitied and even unheard. The laws were no longer maintained; the idea of a constitution became intolerable; all power was concentrated in a junto, called the Committee of Public Safety, which regulated every thing, absolved or tried, spoiled or enriched, murdered or saved; and this committee was entirely reguJated by the will of Robespierre, who governed it by means of his creatures, St. Just and Couthon. In the short space of two years, nearly 3000 persons perished by the guillotine in Paris only. Even the revolutionary forms were thought too dilatory; the execution of four or five in a day did not satiate Robespierre’s vengeance; the murder of thirty or forty was demanded, and obtained; the streets became deluged with blood; canals were necessary to convey it to the Seine; and experiments were actually made at one of the prisons with an instrument for cutting off half a score heads at a single motion. Among the victims of this tyrant, it ought not to be forgot, that the greater part of those men perished, who had been the means of revolutionizing the people, and so deluding them with the pretences of liberty, that they could calmly exchange the mild government of a Louis XVI. for that of a Robespierre. In this retributive justice was guided by a superior hand.

At length Robespierre began to be dreaded even by his own accomplices, while the nation at large, roused from its infatuation, looked eagerly forward to the destruction of this monster. In this, however, the nation at large had no share. It was the work of his accomplices; it was still one faction destroying another, and although a second Robespierre did not immediately rise, the way remained open to one whose tyrannical ambition was not satisfied with France as his victim. The first storm against Robespierre burst in the convention; and after exercising its violence as all preceding storms of that kind had, Robespierre was arrested on July 9, 1794, and next day was led to execution, amidst the execrations of the people. His fall, it has been well observed, was the triumph of fear rather than of justice; and the satisfaction with which it must be contemplated, was incomplete, because a few monsters even worse than himself were among the foremost in sending him to the scaffold. His punishment, however, was as signal as his crimes. His under jaw was shattered with a pistol shot, either by himself in an ineffectual attempt at suicide, or by a gendarme in the struggle; it was bound up with a slight dressing as he lay in the lobby of the convention, he wished to wipe away the blood which filled his mouth, they gave him a bloody cloth, and as he pushed it from him, they paid to him “It is blood it is what thou likest!” There he lay on one of the benches, and, in his agony of mind and body, clenched one of his thighs through his torn clothes with such force that his nails entered his own flesh, and were rimmed round with blood. He was carried to the same dungeon which Hebert, and Chaumette, and Danton, had successively occupied the gaoler knocked him about without ceremony, and when he made signs to one of them (for he could not speak) to bring him pen and ink, the man made answer—“What dost thou want with it? is it to write to thy Maker? thou wilt see him presently!” He was placed in a cart between Henriot and Couthon; the shops, and the windows, and the house-tops were crowded with rejoicing spectators to see him pass, and as the cart proceeded, shouts of exultation went before it, and surrounded it, and followed its way. His head was wrapt in a bloody cloth which bound up his shattered jaw, so that his pale and livid countenance was but half seen. The horsemen who escorted him shewed him to the spectators with the point of their sabres. The mob stopt him before the house in which he lived; some women danced before the cart, and one of them cried out to him, “Descend to hell with the curses of all wives and of all mothers” The executioner, when preparing for the performance of his office, roughly tore off the bandage from his wound; Robespierre then uttered a dreadful cry, his under jaw fell from the upper, and the head while he was yet living exhibited as ghastly a spectacle as when a few minutes afterwards Sampson, the executioner, holding it by the hair, exhibited it to the multitude.

Some have expressed their surprize that a man to whom nature hud thus been so niggardly, and whose mind owed so little to cultivation, should have acquired such an ascendancy; but a more minute acquaintance with the leading men in France during his time will remove much of this surprize. It has been said that Nero was not the worst man of his court; and it is certain that Robespierre was preceded, accompanied, and followed, by men who could have acted his part with equal inclination and facility, had they been placed in his circumstances.

, an English mathematician of great genius and eminence, was born at Bath in Somersetshire in 1707. His parents, who were quakers, were of low condition, and consequently neither able, from their circumstances, nor willing from their religious profession, to have him much instructed in that kind of learning which they are taught to despise as human. Yet he made an early and surprising progress in various branches of science and literature, in the mathematics particularly; and his friends, being desirous that he might continue his pursuits, and that his merit might not be buried in obscurity, wished that he could be properly recommended to teach this science in London. Accordingly, a specimen of his abilities was shewn to Dr. Pemberton, the author of the “View of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy;” who conceiving a good opinion of the writer, for a farther trial of his proficiency, sent him some problems, which Robins solved very much to his satisfaction. He then came to London, where he confirmed the opinion which had been formed of his abilities and knowledge.

On his return home from one of these excursions, he found the learned here amused with Dr. Berkeley’s treatise, printed in 1734, entitled “The Analyst;” in which an examination was made in the grounds of the fluxionary method, and occasion taken thus to explode that method. Robins therefore was advised to clear up this affair, by giving a full and distinct account of sir Isaac Newton’s doctrines in such a manner as to obviate all the objections, without naming them, which had been advanced -by the author of “The Analyst;” and accordingly he published, in 1735, “A Discourse concerning the nature and certainty of sir Isaac Newton’s method of Fluxions, and of prime and ultimate ratios.” Some even of those who had written against “The Analyst,” taking exception at Robins’s manner of defending sir Isaac Newton’s doctrine, he afterwards wrote two or three additional discourses. In 1738, he defended sir Isaac Newton against an objection, contained in a note at the end of a Latin piece, called “Matho, sive Cosmotheoria puerilis,” written by Baxter, author of the “Inquiry into the Nature of the human Soul;” and, the year after, printed “Remarks” on Euler’s “Treatise of Motion,” on Smith’s “System of Optics,” and on Jurin’s “Discourse of distinct and indistinct Vision,” annexed to Dr. Smith’s work. In the mean time Robins’s performances were not confined to mathematical subjects: for, in 1739, there came out three pamphlets upon political affairs, which did him great honour. The first was entitled “Observations on the present Convention with Spain;” the second, “A Narrative of what passed in the Common Hall of the citizens of London, assembled for the election of a lord mayor;” the third, “An Address to the Electors and other free subjects of Great Britain, occasioned by the late Succession; in which is contained a particular account of all our negotiations with Spain, and their treatment of us for above ten years past.” These were all published without his name; and the first and last were so universally esteemed, that they were generally reputed to have been the production of Mr. Pulteney, who was at the head of the opposition to sir Robert Walpole. They proved of such consequence to Mr. Robins as to occasion his being employed in a very honourable post; for, the opposition having defeated sir Robert, and a committee of the House of Commons being appointed to" examine into his past conduct, Robins was chosen their secretary. But after a committee had presented two reports of their proceedings, a sudden stop was put to their farther progress, by a compromise between the contending parties.

, an English mathematician, was born in Staffordshire about the close of the 15th century, as he was entered a student at Oxford in 1516, and was in 1620 elected a fellow of All Souls college, where he took his degrees in arts, and was ordained. But the bent of his genius lay to the sciences, and he soon made such a progress, says Wood, in “the pleasant studies of mathematics and astrology, that he became the ablest person in his time for those studies, not excepted his friend Record, whose learning was more general. At length, taking the degree of B. D. in 1531, he was the year following made by king Henry the VIIIth (to whom he was chaplain) one of the canons of his college in Oxon, and in December 1543, canon of Windsor, and in fine chaplain to queen Mary, who had him in great veneration for his learning. Among several things that he hath written relating to astrology (or astronomy) I find these following: `De culminatione Fixarum Stellarum,‘ &c.; `De ortu et occasu Stellarum Fixarum,’ &c.; ‘Annotationes Astrologicæ,’ &c. lib. 3;‘ `Annotationes Edwardo VI.;’ `Tractatus de prognosticatione per Eclipsin.‘ All which books, that are in ms. were some time in the choice library of Mr. Thomas Allen of Glocester Hall. After his death, coming into the hands of Sir Kenelm Digby, they were by him given to the Bodleian library, where they yet remain. It is also said, that he the said Robyns hath written a book entitled `De Portentosis Cometis;’ but such a thing I have not yet seen, nor do I know any thing else of the author, only that paying his last debt to nature the 25th of August 1558, he was buried in the chapel of St. George, at Windsore.” This treatise “De Portentosis Cometis,” which Wood had not seen, is in the royal library (12 B. xv.); and in the British museum (Ayscough’s Cat.) are other works by Robins; and one “De sterilitatem generantibus,” in the Ashmolean museum.

, an accomplished musical performer, descended from a good family in Leicestershire, was the daughter of a portrait painter, who, having visited Italy for improvement in his art, had made himself master of the Italian language, and acquired a good taste in music. Finding that his daughter Anastasia, during her childhood, had an ear for music, and a promising voice, he had her taught by Dr. Crofts, at first as an accomplishment; but afterwards being afflicted with a disorder in his eyes, which terminated in a total loss of sight, and this misfortune depriving him of the means of supporting himself and family by his pencil, he was under the necessity of availing himself of his daughter’s disposition for music, to turn it to account as a profession. She not only prosecuted her musical studies with great diligence, but by the assistance of her father had acquired such a knowledge in the Italian tongue as enabled her to converse in that language, and to read the best poets in it with facility. And that her taste in singing might approach nearer to that of the natives of Italy, she had vocal instructions from Sandoni, at that time an eminent Iialian singing-master resident in London, and likewise from the opera singer called the Baconess.

Thus qualified and encouraged, she was prevailed upon to accept of an engagement at the Opera, where she made her first appearance in Creso, and her second in the character of Ismina, the principal female part in Arminio. From this period till 1724, she continued to perform a principal part at the Opera with increasing favour and applause. Her salary is said to have been 1000l. and her emoluments, by benefits and presents, were estimated at nearly as much more. When she quitted the stage it was supposed to have been in consequence other marriage with the gallant earl of Peterborough, the friend of Pope and Swift, who distinguished himself so heroically in Spain during the reign of queen Anne. Though the marriage was not publicly declared till the earl’s death in 1735, yet it was then spoken of as an event which had long taken place. And such was the purity of her conduct and character, that she was instantly visited at Fulham as the lady of the mansion, by persons of the highest rank. Here, and at Mount Bevis, the earl’s seat near Southampton, she resided in an exalted station till the year of her decease, 1750, surviving her lord fifteen years; who, at the time of the connexion, must have been considerably beyond his prime, as he was arrived at his seventy-fifth year when he died.

The following anecdotes of Mrs. Anastasia Robinson were communicated to Dr. Burney in 1787, by the late venerable Mrs. Delany, her contemporary and intimate acquaintance. " Mrs. Anastasia Robinson was of a middling stature, not handsome, but of a pleasing, modest countenance, with large blue eyes. Her deportment was easy, unaffected, and graceful. Her manner and address very engaging; and her behaviour, on all occasions, that of a gentlewoman, with perfect propriety. She was not only liked by all her acquaintance, but loved and caressed by persons of the highest rank, with whom she appeared always equal, without assuming. Her father’s house in Golden-square was frequented by all the men of genius and refined taste of the times; among the number of persons of distinction who frequented Mr. Robinson’s house, and seemed to distinguish his daughter in a particular manner, were the earl of Peterborough and general H; the

"At length lord Peterborough made his declaration to her on honourable terms; he found it would be vain to make proposals on any other; and as he omitted no circumstance that could engage her esteem and gratitude, she accepted them, as she was sincerely attached to him. He earnestly requested her keeping it a secret till it was a more convenient time for him to make it known, to which she readily consented, having a perfect confidence in his honour. Among the persons of distinction that professed a friendship for Mrs. A. Robinson, were the earl and countess of Oxford, daughter-in-law to the lord-treasurer Oxford, who not only bore every public testimony of their affection and esteem for Mrs. A. Robinson, but lady Oxford attended her when she was privately married to the earl of Peterborough, and lady Peterborough ever acknowledged her obligations with the warmest gratitude; and after lady Oxford’s death she was particularly distinguished by the duchess of Portland, lady Oxford’s daughter, and was always mentioned by her with the greatest kindness for the many friendly offices she used to do her in her childhood when in lady Oxford’s family, which made a lasting impression upon the duchess of Portland’s noble and generous heart.

"Mrs. A. Robinson had one sister, a very pretty accomplished woman, who married Dr. Arbuthnot’s brother. AfV ter the death of Mr. Robinson, lord Peterborough took a house near Fulham, in the neighbourhood of his own villa at Parson’s-Green, where he settled Mrs. Robinson and her mother. They never lived under the same roof till the earl, being seized with a violent fit of illness, solicited her to attend him at Mount Bevis, near Southampton, which she refused with firmness, but upon condition that, though still denied to take his name, she might be permitted to wear her wedding-ring; to which, finding her inexorable, he at length consented.

"He appointed a day for all his nearest relations to meet him at the apartment over the gate-way of St. James’s palace, belonging to Mr. Pointz, who was married to lord Peterborough’s niece, and at that time preceptor to prince William, afterwards duke of Cumberland. Lord Peterborough also appointed lady Peterborough to be there at the same time. When they were all assembled, he began a most eloquent oration, enumerating all the virtues and perfections of Mrs. A. Robinson, and the rectitude of her conduct during his long acquaintance with her, for which he acknowledged his great obligations and sincere attachment, declaring he was determined to do her that justice which he ought to have done long ago, which was presenting her to all his family as his wife. He spoke this harangue with so much energy, and in parts so pathetically, that lady Peterborough, not being apprised of his intentions, was so affected that she fainted away in the midst of the company.

"After lord Peterborough’s death she lived a very retired life, chiefly at Mount Bevis, and was seldom prevailed on to leave that habitation, but by the duchess of Portland, who was always happy to have her company at Bulstrode when she could obtain it, and often visited her at her own house.

, a distinguished English prelate and statesman, was born at Cleasby, in Yorkshire, Nov. 7, 1650, and educated at Oriel college, Oxford, to which he was afterwards a liberal benefactor. After he had completed his master’s degree, and taken orders, he went about 1683 to Sweden, as domestic chaplain to the British ambassador at that court; and in his absence was appointed first resident, then envoy extraordinary, and lastly ambassador. He remained in this rank until 1708. During this time he published his “Account of Sweden, as it was in 1688,” which is generally printed with lord Molesvvorth’s account of Denmark. On his return to England, her majesty, queen Anne, was so sensible of the value of his services, that she made him dean of Windsor, registrar of the order of the garter, and prebendary of Canterbury. He was also in 1710 preferred to the bishopric of Bristol. His political knowledge recommended him to the confidence of the earl of Oxford, then at the head of administration, who resolved to have him of the privy council. For this purpose, he was first made lord privy seal, and afterwards was admitted to a seat at the council board, where he so distinguished himself that queen Anne made choice of him as one of her plenipotentiaries at the memorable treaty of Utrecht. With what spirit he behaved on this occasion, appears from the common histories of the treaty, and Swift’s “Four last years of the Queen.” He was also appointed one of the commissioners for finishing St. Paul’s cathedral, and for building fifty new churches in London; was a governor of the Charter-house, and dean of the chapel royal. On the death of Dr. Compton in 1714, he was translated to the see of London, and the qneen, indeed, had such regard for him, that had she outlived the archbishop of Canterbury, she would have made Dr. Robinson primate.

Mrs. Robinson was married very early in life to a husband who had little to maintain her, and for some time she shared in his misfortunes, but, according to her own account, she spent what she could in dress, resorted much to public places, and admitted the visits of noblemen of libertine characters. At length she had recourse to the stage, and while performing the character of Perdita in Shakspeare’s “Winter’s Tale,” captivated the youthful affections of a distinguished personage, and consented to his terms. This connexion, with all its gay and splendid embellishments, and all the flattery and admiration which beauty and levity could wish, lasted about two years, at the end of which period she found herself in possession of jewels to the amount of 8000l. and an annuity of 500l. After a, short recess from a mode of life, into which her apologists tell us she was driven by necessity, she formed another connexion of the same kind, which they allow was from choice, with a gentleman of the army, and lavished the whole of her disposable property on this new favourite. She also lost the use of her limbs in following him, during a severe winter night, to a sea-port, where she hasted to relieve him from a temporary embarrassment Not long after, she went to the continent for her health, and remained there about five years. On her return in 1788, she commenced her literary career, in which she had considerable success. In 1800 her health began to decline rapidly, principally from want of proper exercise, for she never recovered the use of her limbs; and after lingering for some time, she died at nglefield Green, Dec. 28, of that year, and was buried in Old Windsor church-yard. She retained in her latter days, although only forty-two years old, but little of that beauty for which she was once admired, and which, from the moment a price was set upon it, proved the cause of all her misfortunes.

, archbishop of Armagh, a-nd lord Rokeby, was the immediate descendant of the Robinsons of Rokeby, in the north riding of the county of York, and was born in 1709. He was educated at Westminsterschool, whence he was elected to Christ church, Oxford, in 1726. After continuing his studies there for some years, and taking his master’s degree in 1733, Dr. Blackburn, archbishop of York, appointed him his chaplain, and collated him first to the rectory of Elton, in the east riding of Yorkshire, and next to the prebend of Grindal, in the cathedral of York. In 1751 he attended the duke of Dorset, lord lieutenant of Ireland, to that kingdom, as his first chaplain, and the same year was promoted to the bishopric of Kiilala. A family connexion with the earl of Holdernesse, who was secretary of state that year, with the earl of Sandwich and other noblemen related to him, opened the f.iirest prospects of attaining to the first dignity in the Irish church. Accordingly, in 1759, he was translated to the united sees of Leighlin and Ferns, and in 1761 to Kildare. The duke of Northumberland being appointed to the lieutenancy of Ireland in 1765, Dr. Robinson was advanced to the primacy of Armagh, and made lord almoner and vicechancellor of the university of Dublin. When lord Harcourt was- lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1777, the king was pleased, by privy- seal at St. James’s, Feb. 6, and by patent at Dublin the 26th of the same month, to create him baron Rokeby of Armagh, with remainder to Matthew Robinson of West Lay ton, esq. and in 1783 he was appointed prelate to the order of St. Patrick. On the death of the duke of Rutland, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, in 1787, he was nominated one of the lords justices of that kingdom. Sir William Robiuson, his brother, dying in 1785, the primate succeeded to the title of baronet, and was the survivor in the direct male line of the Robinsons of Rokeby, being the eighth in descent from William of Kendal. His grace died at 1 Clifton, near Bristol, in the end of October, 1794.

No primate ever sat in the see of Armagh, who watchedmore carefully over the legal rights of the church of Ireland, as the statute-book evinces. The act of the 11th and 12th of his present majesty, which secures to bishops and eccle^­siastical persons repayment by their successors of expenditures in purchasing glebes and houses, or building new houses, originated from him, and must ever endear his name to the clergy. The other acts for repairing churches, and facilitating the recovery of ecclesiastical dues, were among the many happy exertions of this primate.

, a dissenting divine, of the Baptist persuasion, was born in October 1735, at Swaffham, in the county of Norfolk, and was son of Mr. Michael Robinson, a native of North Britain, who possessed a moderate independence. He was sent to a Latin school at SwalFham, at the age of six years, where he made a considerable proficiency, and discovered an uncommon capacity for learning, and afterwards to an endowed grammar-school at Seaming, where he gained some knowledge of the French, as well as of the classical languages. All this, however, ended in his being put apprentice to a hair-dresser, in Crutched-Friars, London. For tjhis occupation his mind was, as may be supposed, already unfitted by the taste for learning which his education had given him, and which he still endeavoured to improve during some part of the hours devoted to sleep. During his apprenticeship he appears to have imbibed serious impressions of religion, which he encouraged, by attending the most celebrated preachers of the day among the independents, the baptists, and the Calvinistic clergy. Dr. Guyse and Gill among the dissenters, Romaine in the church, and Whitfield, the leader of the Calvinistical methodists, were his chief favourites.

During the latter years of his life the intense application he had bestowed on his work on Baptism undermined the strength of his constitution, and brought on a gradual decay, attended with a great depression of spirits. In these circumstances, it was hoped by his family that a journey to Birmingham, and an interview with Dr. Priestley, which he had long wished for, might prove beneficial to him. Having arrived at that town, he ventured to preach twice on the same Sunday, for the benefit of the charity schools. His friends perceived that he was ill, but none of them suspected his end was so near; he spent the evening of the following Tuesday in the cheerful society of his friends, but next morning, June 8, 1790, he was found dead in his bed. Some time before this he had become a complete convert to the doctrines of the modern Socinians; a change which they seem willing to attribute to the writings of Dr. Priestley. This divine, we are told, charmed as he was with Mr. Robinson’s conversation, confessed himself much disappointed with his preaching, and characterized it in these words: “His discourse was unconnected and desultory: and his manner of treating the Trinity savoured rather of burlesque than serious reasoning. He attacked orthodoxy more pointedly and sarcastically than ever I did in my life.” Few of our readers will require any other character of Mr. Robinson’s attacks on those principles which he once held sacred. His largest work, “The History of Baptism,” &c. appeared after his death in a quartovolume, with another connected with the subject, but entitled, “Ecclesiastical Researches;” both written with considerable ability, but less finished than if he had lived to prepare them for the press. The latter, in particular, exhibits striking proofs of his rooted inveteracy to the established church, as well as of his glaring inconsistency. He appears, indeed, in none of his works, as a man who had attained that truth, or those positions, which he sought to establish; what was wanting in argument he aimed to supply by a kind of buffoonery peculiar to himself; and yet, while thus versatile and unsteady in all his opinions, no man was more intolerant towards those who rested in the belief of what they had been taught, and were desirous to propagate.

, a learned physician and botanist, and physician in ordinary to George I. by whom he was knighted, was the very intimate friend of the celebrated Ray, who distinguishes him by the title of amicorum alpha. Of his early history we have not been able to recover many particulars. He was nearly of an age, and ran his course for some time with sir Hans Sloane, with whom, when a student, he travelled to France. He was educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of bachelor of medicine in 1679, and that of doctor in 1685. While at Montpellier he wrote a letter to Dr. Martin Lister, dated Aug. 4, 1683, concerning the fabric of the remarkable bridge, called Pont de S. Esprit, on the Rhine, which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions for June 1684; and, after his return in lhat year, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. To this learned body he made various communications, particularly an account of the first four volumes of the “Horius Malabariciis” on the natural sublimation of sulphur from the pyrites and limestone at ^tna, &c. an account of Henry Jenkins, who lived 169 years and on other topics of natural history. The printed correspondence between him and Ray commenced during Dr. Robinson’s travels, before mentioned, and was continued for upwards of ten years. Seventeen of his letters appear in the “Philosophical Correspondence,” with all Mr. Ray’s answers. They run much on the subject of Zoology; but contain also botanical and philosophical observations. These, and what he communicated to the “Philosophical Transactions,” prove him to have been a man well acquainted with various parts of learning to which he added also an intimate knowledge of natural history. In this branch Ray had the highest opinion of him, and placed the greatest confidence in his assistance. He had a seat in the council of the Royal Society for many years. He died March 29, 1748.

Accordingly he was ranked high from the schools, being placed in the first class; so as to be a competitor with those who were far his superiors in depth of reading. He stood seventh in the senate-house examination; which was considered a high degree at that time, for one who had not enjoyed the advantage of a private tutor. Dr. Tomline, the present bishop of Lincoln, the senior wrangler of the year, with whom he was engaged in this honourable competition for academical distinction, is well known to have expressed a high respect for Mr. Robinson’s character, and for his attainments as a scholar. Mr. Robinson at this time used to say that he never expected to cope with his lordship and with his other competitors, who were placed before him, in algebra and fluxions; what he knew was chiefly in philosophy. Locke’s “Essay,” and Butler’s “Analogy,” which he had studied attentively, were also of service to him in the examination. His friends, who could duly estimate hrs talents, were anxious that be should be a candidate for one of the classical medals; hut he declined offering himself, through the determination he had formed of entering as soon as possible into the church. He was elected fellow of Trinity-college, with peculiar circumstances of distinction, Oct. 1, 1772; and in 1773 he obtained the second of the middle bachelor’s prizes for the best Latin essay on some moral subject. On this occasion he had eight competitors. Dr. James, the late head roaster of Rugby-school, who particularly excelled in writing Latin prose, gained the first prize; but Mr. Robinson was allowed to be at this time the best general scholar of his year; and his seniors, who were most competent tq decide upon his literary merits, declared that they had not known his superior. His biographer gives us an anecdote which shows, in a very striking point of view, the character he held among his contemporaries. An attempt was made, during his under-graduateship, to set aside subscription to the Thirty-nine articles. Some young men went about the university, endeavouring to prevail upon the under-graduates to sign a petition for that purpose. In Trinity-college, the first question which the undergraduates put to those persons who applied to them was, “Has Robinson signed the petition?” and they declined signing it, when they found he had not and the argument which the persons applying made use of to prevail upon Mr. Robinson to sign was, “If you will sign, all the under-graduates in Trinity-college will sign.” Mr. Robinson, it is scarcely necessary to add, refused to sign this petition.

Soon after receiving his first degree, Mr. Robinson was ordained by bishop Keene, and entered upon the curacy of Witcham, in the Isle of Ely. To this was added that of Wichford; and his performance of the duties of both was equally conscientious and successful. About two years after, he quitted this situation and accepted the curacy of St. Martin’s Leicester, under the rev. Mr. Haines: here he had considerable opposition to encounter; but at length acquired a great degree of general popularity, and the respect of many of the upper classes, who were at first prejudiced against his youth and his doctrines. He was also chosen afternoon lecturer of All Saints, and in 1774, chaplain to the Infirmary. To these labours tie added, during 4 considerable part of his life, the care of instructing s young gentlemen in classical learning, who were preparing for the university, but in some cases at least, would accept of no pecuniary compensation. In the same year (1774) he married a lady, whose name his biographer does not mention, by whom he had a family, and who died in 1791. In 1778 a weekly lecture being founded at St. Mary’s church by Mr. Joseph Wheatley, an opulent manufacturer of Leicester, with the consent of the incumbent, and of the bishop of the diocese, Mr. Robinson was appointed first lecturer. Soon after, in the same year, on the death of the incumbent, Mr. Robinson was instituted to the living of this church, by the lord-chancellor. It was here that he preached a course of sermons on “Scripture Characters,” which has since been printed, and forms the most popular of his works, having gone through several editions, in 4 vols. 8vo.

In this capacity his merit attracted the notice of lord Anson, then at the head of the Admiralty-board, by whom he was sent, in 1762, to Jamaica, in order to make trial of Harrison’s time-keeper. But on returning from this mission he found his prospects of advancement completely clouded: lord Anson was dead; the vessel, on board of which was his pupil Mr. Knowles, had foundered at sea, and all on board perished; and admiral Knowles had retired to the country inconsolable for the loss of his son. He determined, therefore, to return to Glasgow, and admiral Knowles soon after placed under his care his remaining son, who was afterwards rear-admiral sir Charles Knowles. At Glasgow Mr. Robison renewed his studies with great assiduity, but his instructors were changed. Dr. Simson was dead and Dr. Adam Smith had left Glasgow to travel with the late duke of Buccleugh; but the place of the latter was well supplied by Dr. Reid, and Mr. Robison had also an opportunity of attending the lectures of Mr. Millar on civil law, and Dr. Black on chemistry. When, Dr, Black, in 1769, was called to Edinburgh, Mr. Hobison was appointed to succeed him as lecturer on chemistry, and read lectures on that science with great applause for three years.

In 1770, sir Charles Knowles having gone to Russia, on the invitation of the empress Catherine, then intent on the improvement of her. marine, he invited Mr. Robison to accompany him as his official secretary, with a salary of 250l. a-year. As he was still attached to the navy and to his former patron, and as, though lecturing on chemistry, he did not enjoy the rank of professor, Mr. Robison made no hesitation in accepting the proposal. His conduct at St. Petersburgh, and the knowledge which he had there occasion to display, -seems to have powerfully recommended him to the board of admiralty; for in 1772 he was appointed inspector-general of the corps of marine cadets, an academy consisting of upwards of four hundred young gentlemen and scholars under the tuition of about forty teachers. As the person who fills this office has the rank of lieutenant-colonel, it became necessary, by the customs of Russia, that Mr. Robison should prove himself a gentleman, or what is there called a dvoranin, and the proof required was entered on record. In this office his employment consisted in visiting daily every class of the academy; in receiving weekly reports from each master, stating the diligence and progress of every person in his class; and twice a year, in advancing the young gentlemen into the higher classes, according to their respective merits. Of these he was considered as the sole judge, and from his sentence there lay no appeal. He lived in terms of the utmost harmony with general Kutusoff, who was military head of the academy, and held the third place in the admiralty college. By him all Mr. Robison' s measures were supported, and he was even introduced to the notice of the grand duke, as an admirer of the Russian language, which his imperial highness patronized.

But although his situation was thus honourable and advantageous, he felt that something more was necessary to render it comfortable. He could not but regret his distance from his native country, and residence among a people who, though rapidly improving, were still tinctured with barbarism. His appointment also attached him, not to the capital, but to Cronstadt, where he was nearly cut off from all enlightened society. Receiving an invitation, therefore, from the magistrates and town-council tg fi place of professor of natural philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, he gladly removed to that city. The grand duke parted with him reluctantly, and requested, when he left the academy, that he would take with him some young men of talents from the corps of cadets; and he promised him a pension of 400 rubles (80l.) a-year. That pension was regularly paid only during the three years that the gentlemen whom he selected resided in Edinburgh; it was then discontinued, it is believed, because he did not continue a correspondence with the academy, and communicate all the British improvements in marine education.

, a modern French writer, was born in 1731, at Lyons. He had an employ ment in the finances at Cette in Languedoc, which he held for ten years; but having more turn for literature than calculations, he went to Paris, and composed three tragedies upon the Greek models, but had no more success than others who have made similar experiments on the public taste. In prose he published a “Refutation du Systeme de la Nature;” a “Critical History of the opinions of the Ancients concerning Happiness, 1778,” 8vo; and a “Complete Translation of the Plays of Sophocles.” The last-named work gained him much credit by the elegance and fidelity of the version, and the judicious notes annexed to it. He undertook also a complete translation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, of which the preliminary discourses and the notes obtained more applause than the version itself, which, however, he had splendidly printed at the royal press in 1781, in 4to. He was a member of the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres, to which he contributed several learned memoirs. He died in 1788, highly esteemed for a temper in which there was nothing unsocial or selfish. He was always, we are told, fonder of talking of other people’s works than of his own, a case, it is added, of some singularity in literary company.

, prince of Marsillac, and governor of Poitou, was born in 1613. He was the son of Francis, the first duke of Rocbefoucault, and was distinguished equally by his courage and his wit. At the instigation of the duchess de Longueville, to whom he had been long attached, he engaged in the civil wars, and signalized himself, particularly at the battle of St. Antoine. After his return his house became the rendezvous of all the wits of Paris, Racine, Boileau, &c. who were captivated by the charms of his conversation. He died at Paris in 1680, aged seventy-seven. As a writer he is chiefly known by a small work, which has often been reprinted in this country, in English, entitled “Maxims,” of which Voltaire has not scrupled so say, that it contributed more than any performance to form the taste of the French nation, and give it a true relish of propriety and correctness. “Though there is,” continues he, “but one truth running through this whole piece, namely, that ‘ selflove is the spring of all our actions and determinations;’ yet this thought presents itself under such a variety of forms as never fail to strike with new surprise. It is not so properly a hook itself, as a set of materials to embellish a book. This little collection was much read and admired; it accustomed our authors to think, and to comprise their thoughts in a lively, correct, and delicate turn of phrase; which was a merit utterly unknown to any European writer before him since the revival of letters.” It has, however, been mostly admired by those who entertain an unfavourable opinion of mankind, and who have been soured by disappointment and misfortune, particularly by disappointed ambition. Chesterfield and Swift are on the side of Rochefoucault. We have also of this noble author “Memoires de la Regence de la Reine Anne d'Autriche,” written with great sense and a deep penetration.

With the brilliant victory of the 12th of April sir George closed his professional career; to his title was added a pension of 2000l. to descend to his heirs. He died in London the 24th of May, 1792. For his important services to the West Indian islands in particular, a temple was built to receive his statue at Spanish Town, Jamaica. but few his equals. He possessed a bold and original genius, which always carried him direcily to the object he had in view. As a man, he was benevolent, generous, and friendly. He has been known to be writing his private letters, and dictating to three secretaries at the same time. “In private life he displayed the manners of an accomplished gentleman and he who, when called by his country, could hurl its thunders against the foes, and lead its navies to almost undeviating victory, was, in peace, the ornament of domestic society, and a pattern of that elegant and polished behaviour, which almost always distinguishes the higher orders among us.”

, a celebrated French professor of philosophy in the seventeenth century, was born, according to Bayle, in Duuphiny, but more probably at Orange, where, as well as at Die, Nismes, and Geneva, he taught philosophy, and was accounted the greatest master of dialectics in his time. The story of aut Erasmus aut diabolus has been told of him; a stranger to his person, when puzzled by his arguments, having exclaimed es diabolus aut Dtrodo. In physics he adhered to the principles of Gassendus. He had been educated in the protestant religion, but embraced that of popery in 1630, and published his reasons in a volume entitled “Quatre raisons pour lesquelles on doit quitter la religion pretendue reformee,” Paris, 1631, 12mo. Bayle had never seen this, and makes him to have been educated a papist. But whatever satisfaction his “quatre raisons” might have afforded to the catholics, they were not of permanent influence on his own mind, for he afterwards became again an adherent to the reformed religion, in which he died. In 1645 he published in 8vo, his “Disputatio de supposito,” at Francfort (Orange), in which, Bayle tells us, he declared for Nestorius against St. Cyril, not in admitting two persons, but in maintaining that Nestorius does not admit them, and that St. Cyril confounds the two natures of Jesus Christ. This was the opinion of Giles Gaillard, a gentleman of Provence, and an intimate friend of Rodon’s, whom he often quotes, but without naming. The work was condemned to be burnt by the parliament of Toulouse, and the copies are therefore now very rare. Bayle had not been able to procure one, and is misled by Sorbiere in thinking that Gaillard wrote a book with the same title as Rodon’s. But the work of Rodon which made the most noise was his “Tombeau de la Messe,” or downfall of the mass, published at Geneva in 1654, 8vo, 1662, Amst. 1682. For this he was banished from France, by an arret of Jan. 29, 1663, on which he took refuge in Geneva, where he died in 1664. Saurin, who saw him in that city about the time of his death, says he appeared to him to be perfectly orthodox. His character is amply discussed in Saurin’s controversy with Jurieu, “Examen de la Theologie de M. Jurieu, &c.” and Jurieu’s answers.

During his residence in the East, he made a large collection of valuable manuscripts in the Greek and oriental languages; which, in 1628, he presented to the Bodleian library. He also brought over the fine Alexandrian manuscript of the Greek Bible, sent as a present to Charles I. by Cyril, patriarch of Constantinople; which has since been transcribed and published by Dr. Grabe. In 1629, he was sent ambassador to mediate a peace between the kings of Poland and Sweden. He succeeded in his negociation and gained so much credit with the great Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, that he inspired that king with a design, which he executed in 1630, of making a descent into Germany to restore the freedom of the empire. Adolphus, upon gaining the victory of Leipsic, sent sir Thomas a present of 2000l. and in his letter calls him his “strenuum consultorem,” he being the first who had advised him to the war. He was afterwards employed in other negociations. In 1640, he was chosen member of parliament for the university of Oxford; and shewed himself a person of great eloquence, learning, and experience, as appears from his printed speeches. The year after, he was sent ambassador to the diet of Ratisbon, in order to mediate the restoration of the late king of Bohemia’s son to the palatinate; and, upon his return, was made chancellor of the garter, and one of the privy couuc;!. The calamities of the nation, in which he cou!d not avoid having a share, not only embittered his life, but probably contributed to shorten it; for he died in Nov. 1644. An epitaph was composed for him by Dr. Gerard Langbaine, but never set up: it may be seen in Wood’s “Athen. Oxon.” By will he left to the Bodleian two hundred and forty-two silver medals.

The extensive use of the vitriolic (sulphuric) acid irr chemistry, and the prospect of its application to some of the mechanic arts, had produced a great demand for that article, and turned the attention of the chemists to various methods of obtaining it. Dr. Ward had made great progress in this, and was the first who established a profitable manufacture, but the price of it was still high, arising from ther great expence of the glass vessels, which he used in procuring it, and the frequent accidents to which they were liable in the process. Dr. Roebuck, however, who hucl been for some time making experiments on the subject, discovered a method of preparing it by substituting, in place of the glass vessels formerly used, lead ones of a great size, which, together with various other improvements in different parts of the process, completely effected his end. After the necessary preparations had been made, Messrs. Roebuck and Garbet established a manufacture of the oil of vitriol at Preston-pans in Scotland, in 1749, and not onlyserved the public at a cheaper rate than had ever been done formerly, but realized a greater annual profit from a smaller capital than had been done in any similar undertaking. The vitriol work is still carried on at Preston-pans; but long before Dr. Roebuck’s death, he withdrew his capital from it.

, or Rømer (Olaus), a Danish astronomer and mathematician, was born at Arhusen in Jutland in 1644; and, at eighteen, was sent to the university of Copenhagen. He applied himself assiduously to the study of mathematics and astronomy, and became such an adept in those sciences, that, when Picard was sent by Lewis XIV. in 1671, to make observations in the North, he was so pleased with him, that he engaged him to return with him to France, and had him presented to the king, who ordered him to teach the dauphin mathematics, and settled a pension on him. He was joined with Picard and Cassini, in making astronomical observations; and, in 1672, was admitted a member of the academy of sciences. During the ten years he resided at Paris, he gained a prodigious reputation by his discoveries; yet is said. to have complained afterwards that his coadjutors ran away with the honour of many things which belonged to him. In 1681, Christian V. king of Denmark called him back to his own country, and made him professor of astronomy at Copenhagen. He employed him also in reforming the coin and the architecture, in regulating the weights and measures, and in measuring the high roads throughout the kingdom. Frederic IV. the successor of Christian, shewed the same favour to Roemer, and conferred new dignities on him. He was preparing to publish the result of his observations, when he died Sept. 19, 1710, aged 66; but some of his observations, with his manner of making those observations, were published in 1735, under the title of “Basis Astronomise,” by his scholar Peter Horrebow, then professor of astronomy at Copenhagen. Roemer was the first who found out the velocity with which light moves, by means of the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites. He had observed for many years that, when Jupiter was at his greatest distance from the earth, where he could be observed, the emersions of his first satellite happened constantly 15 or J 6 minutes later than the calculation gave them. Hence he concluded that the light reflected by Jupiter took up this time in running over the excess of distance, and consequently that it took up 16 or 18 minutes in running over the diameter of the earth’s orbit, and 8 or in coming from the sun to us, provided its velocity was nearly uniform. This discovery had at first many opposers but it was afterwards confirmed by Dr. Bradley in the most ingenious and beautiful manner.

, or rather Richard Of Hexham, an ancient historian, was brought up in the convent of Hexham, in Northumberland, where he embraced the monastic life, and was elected prior some time at least befqre 1138, for he saw the Scottish army march into Yorkshire, under their king David I. previous to the battle of the Standard, which was fought in September that year. He wrote the history of that campaign, wherein he points out, in the most declamatory style, the ravages committed by the Scottish army. But such was his ignorance, that he calls the Highlanders, and Galovidians, who composed part of king David’s army, P-icti, or Picts, as if they had painted their bodies in the same manner as in ancient times; whereas those people only wore party-coloured garments, which the Highlanders call Tartans.

From the time of his admission into the Custom-house, he employed his leisure hours in the cultivation of his mind, and in forming the valuable collection of prints and drawings which he left behind him. In the course of these pursuits, he became acquainted with several persons of similar taste, and among the rest Mr. Pond, a well-known and judicious collector. By him he was introduced to the society of Antiquaries, Feb. 23, 1752, of which he became a very useful member, and was several times chosen of the council. In 1757, he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society. After Mr. Rogers had begun to form his collections, and had made some progress, he conceived the idea of communicating, to the public, specimens of the manners of the several different masters, a work requiring great industry and perseverance, and likely to be attended with great expence. The former he knew he could command, and the latter, as he was a bachelor, gave him little concern. The execution of this undertaking may be considered as the principal object of his life. It appeared in 1777, 2 volumes, folio, under the title of “Description of a Collection of Prints in imitation of drawings, to which are annexed, Lives of their authors, with explanatory and critical notes.” The selection consists of 112 prints, engraved by Bartolozzi, Ryland, Basire, and other artists of reputation, from original drawings in the collections of his majesty, the duke of Marlborough, earls of Bute, Cholmondely, Spencer, lord Frederick Campbell, sir Joshua Reynolds, and his own. The, heads of the different painters, and a variety of fanciful decorations, are also given, in a peculiar style of engraving on wood, by Mr. Simon Watts. The whole performance at once reflects honour on the country, as well as on the liberality of the undertaker, who neither was, nor, it is supposed, ever expected to be reimbursed the great expence he had incurred. Besides this work, Mr. Rogers printed an anonymous <; Translation of Dante’s Inferno,“1782, 4to, in the performance of which he chiefly attended to giving the sense of his author with fidelity, the character of a poet not seeming to have been the object of Ins ambition. He also published in the” Archseologia," vol. III. a paper on the antiquity of horseshoes and in vol. VI. an account of certain masks from the Musquito shore. A curious letter of his, to Mr. Astle, on some ancient blocks used in printing, may be seen in Gent. Mag. vol. LI. p. 169; and another paper, which was read at the Society of Antiquaries, Feb. 18, 1779, is preserved in vol. L1V. p. 265. Mr. Rogers died Jan. 2, 1784, and was buried in the family-vault in St. Lawrence Pountney burying-ground.

, a man of considerable ability in the court of queen Elizabeth, and who in some of his writings calls himself Albimontan us, was the son of John Rogers of Derytend in the parish of Aston in Warwickshire, where he was born about 1540. His father, who had emtxraced the reformed religion, being obliged to quit his country, at the accession of queen Mary, took his son abroad with him, where, at Wittemberg, he was educated under the celebrated Melancthon. When the death of qneen Mary had put an end to persecution for religion’s sake, Mr. Rogers, senior, returned with his family, and placed his son at Oxford, where he appears to have taken his degrees, although Wood has not been able to specify when, or in what college he studied. Afterwards he obtained an introduction to court, where his talents recommended him to the place of one of the clerks of the council, and he had the farther honour of being often employed by queen Elizabeth in embassies to the Netherlands and other parts, in 1575, 1577, and 1588. During these embassies he appears to have acted with wisdom, diligence, and caution, and to have been of the greatest utility to Cecil from the correct information he procured of the proceedings of foreign governments. Strype, who had seen a volume of his political notes and letters, formed during his residence abroad, has preserved one of his communications to secretary Cecil, in the appendix to his “Annals,” No. 48. It contains some important intelligence on political subjects, and is evidently the production of a sensible man accustomed to view the world and its inhabitants with an eye of penetration and sagacity. Many of his letters and instructions are among the Cotton Mss. in the British Museum. He died Feb. 11, 1590, and was buried in Sunbury church, Middlesex.

, the proto-martyr in the days of queew Mary, received a liberal education in the university of Cambridge, and there, we presume, entered into holy orders. Some time after this the company of merchant adventurers, as they were then called, appointed him their chaplain at Antwerp, where he remained many years. This proved also the means of his conversion from popery, for meeting there with Tindal and Coverdale, who had left England that they might enjoy their religious opinions with more freedom, he was induced by their conversation to examine the points in controversy more closely, the result of which was his embracing the sentiments of the reformers as far as then understood. He also joined with these colleagues in making the first translation of the Bible into English, which appeared at Hamburgh in 1532, under the fictitious name of Thomas Matthew. Rogers was corrector of the press on this occasion, and translated that part of the Apocrypha which was left unfinished by Tindal,' and also contributed some of the marginal notes. At Antwerp Mr. Rogers married, and thence went to Wittemberg, and had acquired such readiness in the Dutch language that he was chosen pastor of a congregation there, which office he discharged greatly to their satisfaction until the accession of Edward VI. At this time bishop Ridley invited him home, and made him prebendary and divinity-reader of St. Paul’s, where he was a very frequent preacher as long as Edward lived. When queen Mary made her triumphal entry into London, Aug. 3, 1553, Rogers had the boldness to preach a sermon at Paul’s Cross on the following Sunday, in which he exhorted the people to abide by the doctrine taught in king Edward’s days, and to resist popery in all its forms and superstitions. For this he was immediately called before the privy-council, in which were several of the restored popish bishops, but appears to have defended himself so ably that he was dismissed unhurt. This security, however, was not of long duration, and two days before Mary issued her proclamation against preaching the reformed doctrines (August 18) he was ordered to remain a prisoner in his own house at St. Paul’s. Erom this he might, it is thought, easily have escaped, and he certainly had many inducements to make the attempt. He knew he could expect no forgiveness; that he might be well provided for in Germany; and that he had a wife and ten children; but he preferred giving his testimony to the truth of what he had believed and preached, at whatever risk.

After being confined six months in his own house he was removed to Newgate, where his confinement was aggravated by every species of severity and in January 1555, was examined before Gardiner, bishop of Winchester the purport of his examination, as written by himself, isgiven at considerable length by Fox, but is not capable of abridgment. The issue was that Mr. Rogers was condemned to be burnt on Feb. 4, which sentence he bore with the greatest constancy and patience. On the day of his execution he was awakened with some difficulty out of a sound sleep, and only requested of Bonner, who came to perform the office of degrading him from holy orders, that he might see his family; but this was denied him. On his way, however, to Smithfield, his wife and ten children, with one at the breast, contrived to meet him. When he came to the stake, although not permitted to say much, he exhorted the people to remain steady in the faith and doctrine which had been taught them, and for which he was now willingto resign his life. As he was the first who had suffered in this reign, and one well known for his piety and usefulness, his death made no slight impression on the multitude who witnessed it, many of whom were afterwards emboldened by such scenes as this wretched reign presented, either to suffer in the same cause, or to preserve the tenour and spirit of the reformation until the accession of Elizabeth restored them to their riberty.

, an English divine, was born in 1679, at Ensham in Oxfordshire, where his father was vicar and rector of Wick-Rissington, in Gloucestershire. He was educated at New college school, in Oxford; and, in 1693, elected scholar of Corpus Christi college. After taking the degrees in arts, and entering into orders, he waited a long time for a fellowship, by reason of the slowsuccession in the college; but at length succeeded Mr, Edmund Chishull, in 1706, but in the mean time had becti presented to the vicarage of Buchland, in Berkshire, about ten miles from Oxford, in which he continued about five or six years, dividing his’ time usefully between his cure and the university. At the former he became so popular, that the inhabitants entered into a handsome subscription for an afternoon sermon by him, which was discontinued after he left them. Jn 1710, be took a bachelor of divinity’s degree; and, two years after, went to London, to be lecturer of St. Clement’s Danes. He afterwards became lecturer of the united parishes of Christ-church, and St. Leonard’s Foster-lane. In 1716, he was presented to the rectory of Wrington, in Somersetshire; and, the same year, resigning his fellowship, married the hon. Mrs. Lydia Hare, sister to the lord Colerane, who was his pupil in the university. Some time after, he was elected canon residentiary of the church of Wells; in which he also bore the office of sub-dean. In 1719, he engaged in the Bangorian controversy, and published, upon that occasion, “A Discourse of the visible and invisible Church of Christ: in which it is shewn, that the powers, claimed by the officers of the visible church, are not inconsistent with the supremacy of Christ as head, or with the rights and liberties of Christians, as members of the invisible church,” 8vo. The Rev. Dr. Sykes having published an “Answer to this Discourse,” our author replied to him in “A Review of the Discourse of the visible and invisible Church of Christ.”

He gained much credit by these performances, even those who were against his argument allowing him to have good parts and an excellent pen; and the university of Oxford made a public acknowledgment of their opinion of his merit, by conferring on him, in 1721, without his knowledge, and by diploma, the 'degree of doctor in divinity. In 1726, he was made chaplain to George II. then prince of Wales and about the same time appeared in defence of Christianity, against the attacks of Collins in his “Scheme of Literal Prophecy.” Rogers did not at, first professedly write against the “Scheme;” but, publiihing, in 1727, a volume of sermons, entitled “The necessity of Divine Revelation, and the truth of the Christian Religion, asserted,” he prefixed to them “A Preface with Remarks on the Scheme of Literal Prophecy.” This preface, however, in the opinion of his friends, seemed Kable to some exception, or at least to demand a more full and distinct explication: and he received a letter upon it the same year from his friend Dr. Nath. Marshall. He endeavoured to give satisfaction to all; and therefore, Collins having written “A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Rogers, on occasion of his eight Sermons concerning the necessity of Divine Revelation, and the Preface prefixed to them,” our author published “A Vindication of the Civil Establishment of Religion, wherein some positions of Mr. Chandler, the author of the l Literal Scheme, 7 &c. and an aiionymo-us Letter on that subject, are occasionally considered. With an Appendix, containing a Letter from the Rev. Dr. Marshall, and an Answer to the same,” 1723, 8vo.

, whom Wood styles “a most admirable theologist, an excellent preacher, and well deserving every way of the sacred function,” was a native of Cheshire, and entered a student of Christ church in 1568. He took orders very early, and became a constant preacher; was M. A. in 1576, chaplain to 'Bancroft, bishop of London; and at last, in 1581, rector of Horninger, near Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, where he lived in great esteem, and died Feb. 22, 1616. These are all the particulars Wood has given of this Mr. Rogers, who appears to have been a voluminous author and translator. Among his original works are, 1. “A Philosophical Discourse, entitled, The Anatomy of the Mind,” Lond. 1576, 8vo, with some encomiastic verses by his fellow student, afterwards the celebrated Camden. 2. “Of the End of the World, and Second Coming of Christ,” ibid. Lond. 1577, 4to, reprinted 1582 and 1583, in 8vo. 3. “The English Creed, wherein is contained in tables an exposition on the articles which every man is to subscribe unto,” &c. ibid. 1579 and 1585, fol. This appears also to have been reprinted twice under a somewhat different title; the last edition, in 1586 and 1621, is called “An Exposition of the 39 articles of the Church of England,” 4to. This work, according to Wood, was not at first received so well as it deserved, and some things in it he says gave offence, not only to papists and schismatics, but even to “many protestants of a middle temper.” Wood has expressed their objections rather obscurely, but it may be conjectured that Mr. Rogers interpreted the articles in their literal sense, and did not admit, as Wood adds, of “the charitable latitude formerly allowed in those articles.” 4. “A golden chain taken out of the rich treasurehouse of the Psalms of David,” ibid. 1579 and 1587, 12mo. 5. “Historical Dialoguetouchingantichristand popery,” &c. ibid. 1589, 8vo. 6. “Sermons on Romans xii. v. 6, 7, 8,” ibid. 1590. 7. “Miles Christian us, or, a Defence of all necessary writings and writers, written against an Epistle prefixed to a Catechism by Miles Moses,” ibid. 1590, 4to. 8. “Table of the lawful use of an Oath, and the cursed state of vain swearers,” ibid. 9. “Two Dialogues,” or Conferences concerning kneeling at the Sacrament, ibid. 1608. Wood enumerates about thirteen volumes of translations from various foreign divines, among whom are St. Augustine, Thomas a Kempis, &c. &C.

, another English divine, of a somewhat different stamp, was the son and grandson of two successive rectors of Bishops Hampton, in Warwickshire, where he was horn, Dec. 27, 1660, and educated at the free-school there. In Lent-term 1675, he entered of Trinity college, Oxford, but soon after removed to Hart hall, where he took his degrees in arts, and went into holy orders. Wood celebrates him as a man of extraordinary memory, and independent of the common helps to that faculty, either in the pulpit or in conversation. The latter he enlivened by quotations of uncommon accuracy, particularly from the classics, and would even give the page, &c. if required* His sermons he carefully studied, yet delivered them fluently without notes, and, as Wood says, in elegant and correct language. In July 1689, he was inducted to the small rectory of Slapton, near Towcester, in Northamptonshire. He died of the small-pox, while on a visit at London, June 8, 1694, and was buried in St. Saviour’s, Southwark. Wood speaks of him as a true son of the church of England, in opposition to all extremes, and his writings shew him a friend to the revolution. These writings are mostly poetical, published without his name. As we have not seen any of them, we can only deduce from some expressions used by Wood, that they were not all becoming the character of a divine; their titles are, 1. “Lux occidentalis or Providence displayed in the coronation of king William and queen Mary,” Lond. 1689. 2. “The Loyal and Impartial Satyrist, containing eight miscellany poems,” ibid. 1693, 4to. These seem mostly levelled at the Jesuits and Jacobites. 3. “A Poesy for Lovers,” &c. ibid. 1693, 4to. 4. “The conspiracy of guts and brains; or an answer to the Turn-shams,” ibid. 1693. In prose, he wrote “A true Protestant Bridle; or some cursory remarks upon a Sermon preached (by William Stephens, rector of Sutton) before the Lord Mayor, &c. Jan. 30, 1693,” ibid. 1694, 4to; and the “Commonwealthsman unmasked,” a rebuke, as he calls it, to the “Account of Denmark,” by Molesworth. This he dedicated, and had the honour to present to king William, who received it very graciously.

, peer of France, prince of Leon, colonel general of the Swiss and Grisons, one of the greatest men France produced in his age, was born August 21, 1572, at the castle of Blein, in Bretany. He distinguishcd himself at the siege of Amiens when but sixteen, in presence of Henry IV. who had a sincere regard for him, and alter the death of that prince he hccame chief of the French protestants, to whom he rendered the most important services, both at the head of their armies, and in negociations. He fought with success in Holland, Germany, Italy, and France, and carried on three wars against Louis XIII. in favour of the protestants; the last, however, ended to the advantage of the catholics, in the capture of llochelle. But notwithstanding the consternation into which this event threw the duke’s party, he supported himself by those copious resources with which his prudence furnished him, refusing to surrender but on advantageous terms, and these were granted by the peace of 1629. The civil wars with the protestants being thus terminated, he regained the favour of Louis XIII. but not choosing to live at court, retired to Venice, and was chosen by that republic for their generalissimo, after the unfortunate battle of Valleggio, against the Imperialists, but the treaty of Querasque, concluded June '2[, 1631, rendered his plans useless. The king of France afterwards employed him as ambassador extraordinary to the Orisons, to assist them in reducing to obedience the Valteline, and counties of Bormio, and Chiavenes, which were supported in rebellion by the Spaniards and Imperialists. The Orisons immediately declared him their general, and their choice was confirmed by Louis XIII. who appointed him in 1632, ambassador extraordinary to the Helvetic body; but early in 1635, he received orders to return to Venice, and having staid there some months, was sent back to the Orisons, and seized the passages of the Valteline, took Bormio, Chiavenes, and Riva, and defeated the Germans and Spaniards. The Grisons having rebelled some time after because France delayed to withdraw its forces, he made a new treaty with them March 26, 1637, which did not please the court, and this circumstance obliged him to retire to Geneva, that he might avoid the resentment of cardinal Richelieu; but he left that city in January 1638, to join his friend the duke of Saxe Weimar, who was going to engage the Imperialists near Rhinfeld. The duke of Jiohan placed himself at the head of the Nassau regiment, broke through the enemies’ ranks, was woundcd, Feb. 28, 1638, and died of his wounds, April 13 following, aged fifty-nine. He was the author of many works, among which are, 1. “Memoirs,” the most complete edition of which is in 2 vols. 12mo, containing the transactions of trance from 16 10 to 1629. 2. “Les intérésts des Princes,” 12mo. 3. “Le parfait Capitaine, ou P Abregé des Guerres des Commentaires de Cesar,” 12mo. 4. “Memoires” and Letters, relative to the war of the Valtelines, 3 vols. 12mo; vol. I. contains the “Memoirs;” the two others, the “Pieces Justificatives,” the greatest part of which had never been printed before. From the preface we learn the following anecdote: This nobleman being at Venice, was informed that the grand signor would sell him this kingdom of Cyprus, and grant him the investureof it, on condition of his giving the Porte two hundred thousand crowns, and agreeing to pay an annual tribute of twenty thousand crowns. The duke being a protestant, intended to purchase this island, and settle the protestant families of France and Germany there. He negociated the affair skilfully with the Porte, by means of the patriarch Cyril, with whom he was much connected; but that patriarch’s death, and other unexpected incidents, prevented the execution of his design. The above anecdote originated in the memoirs of the duchess of Rohan, Margaret de Bethune, daughter of the great Sully, who married at Paris, Henry de Rohan, February 7, 1605. This lady, who was a protestant, rendered herself celebrated by her courage. She defended Castres against the marechal de Thémines, 1625, lived in strict conjugal harmony with the duke her husband, and died at Paris, Oct. 22, 1660. The French biographers tell us that all Henry de Rohan’s works are excellent, and extremely proper to form good soldiers: he writes like a great general and able politician, and his letters on the war of the mountains are very instructive. The duke trod in the steps of Sertorius, which he had learned from Plutarch, and the marechal de Catinat trod in those of the duke. To all these uncommon talents, the duke joined great sweetness of temper, the most affable and pleasing manners, and a degree of generosity seldom seen. He discovered neither pride, ambition, nor selfish views; and frequently said, that glory and zeal for the public welfare, never encamp where private interest is the commander. We have two good lives of this great man, one by Fauvelet du Toe, Paris, 1666, 12mo, the other by the Abbé Perau, Paris, 1767, 2 vols. 12mo. Some notice may be taken of Benjamin de Rohan, brother of the preceding, who supported the duke’s undertakings during the protestant war, after having learned the military art in Holland under prince Maurice of Nassau. He made himself master of Lower Poiton, 1622, and went into England soon after to solicit help for the Roohellers. In 1625, he took the isle of Rhe, and ravaged the whole coast from the mouth of the Garonne to that of the Loire, by the capture of several merchant ships. M. Rohan was driven from the isle of Rhe some time after, then from that of Oleron, and forced to retire into England, where he was active in procuring the succour sent to Rochelle; but that city being taken, notwithstanding these succours, he would not return to France, and died in England 1630, leaving no children.

, wife of one of the republican ministers of France, who signed the order for the execution of the king, was born at Paris in 1754. She was the daughter of an engraver, and acquired some skill in music and painting, and a general taste for the fine arts. In 1780 she married Roland, and in 1787 visited Switzerland and England, and in these countries is said to have acquired that ardent attachment to the principles of liberty, which was in general so little understood by her countrymen. M. Roland having been appointed inspector of the manufactories at Lyons, was deputed to the constituent assembly, to obtain from it succours necessary for the payment of the debt of that town. Madame Roland at this period settled with her husband in the capital, and took delight in making her house the rendezvous of the Brissotine party, and among them acquired such superiority, that her biographers would have us believe that, for a time, she was the secret power that directed the whole government of France; perhaps one reason why it was so ill directed. Jn Marcji 1792, when the king endea r voured to allay the public discontents, by appointing 3, popular administration, Roland was chosen minister or the interior, and what kind of minister he was may be conjectured from a speech of Danton’s. When Roland resigned, and was urgently pressed by the assembly to resume his functions, Dan ton exclaimed, “if we give an invitation to Roland, we must give one to his wife too. I know all the virtues of the minister, but we want men who see otherwise than by their wives.” Indeed this lady, who had a remarkably good opinion of herself, informs us in her memoirs that she was in fact the minister without the name; and revised, or perhaps dictated, the letter which Roland addressed to the king on going out of office; “if he had written sermons,” said she, “I should have done the same.” On the 7th of December, 1792, having appeared at the bar of the national convention, to repel a denunciation made against her, she spoke with ease and eloquence, and was afterwards admitted to the honours of a sitting. She presented herself there again, when the decree was passed against her husband; but then, her eloquence having lost its charms, she was refused a hearing, and was herself sent to the Abbaye. From this prison she wrote to the assembly, and to the minister of the interior; her section also demanded her liberty, but it was in vain; and on the 24th of June, 1793, she was sent to the convent of St. Pelagic, which had been converted into a prison, where she passed her time in consoling her fellow prisoners, and composing an account of her own life, which has since been published. At length she was called before the revolutionary tribunal, and on Nov. 8, was condemned to death for having conspired against the unity and indivisibility of the republic. Her execution immediately followed. On passing the statue of liberty, in the Place de la Revolution, she bent her head towards it, exclaiming, “O Liberty, how many crimes are perpetrated in thy name.” She left one daughter, whose only provision was her mother’s writings, which are as follows: “Opuscules,” on moral topics, which treat of the soul, melancholy, morality, old age, friendship, love, retirement, &c. “Voyage en Angleterre et en Suisse;” and when in prison she composed what she entitled “Appel a Timpartiale Posterite”,“containing her own private memoirs, a strange mixture of modern philosophy and the current politics of the revolution, with rhapsodies of romance, and every thing that can shew the dangers of a <* little learning.” Although this work was written when. she was in hourly expectation of death, its principal characteristics are levity and vanity. She was unquestionably a woman of considerable abilities, and might have been, what we are told she was very ambitious of, a second Macauley, without exciting the envy of the amiable part of her sex; but she would be the head of a political party that was to guide the affairs of a distracted nation, and she fell a sacrifice to the confusion of principle in which she had assisted.

, an early Italian historian, was born at Padua in 1200. He studied at Bologna, and had kept a chronicle of memorable events as they occurred, which was continued by his son, and in 1262 was read publicly before the university of Padua, submitted to an attentive examination, and solemnly approved, Rolandino died in 1276. His history, which extends to 1260, is accounted faithful, and has been highly praised by Vossius, who thinks that he surpassed all the writers of his age in perspicuity, order, and judgment. An edition of his work, with other chronicles, was given at Venice in 1636, by Felix Osius, and it has been reprinted by Muratori, in the seventh volume of his Italian historians.

, a learned and upright judge, was the second son of Robert Rolle of Heanton in Devonshire, where he was born in 1589. In 1606 he entered Exeter college, Oxford, and resided there about two years, after which he was admitted a member of the Inner Temple, Feb. 6, 1608, and studied the law with great perseverance and success. His contemporaries Here were Littleton, Herbert, Gardiner, and Selden, with all whom he formed a lasting friendship. Being admitted to the bar, he practised in the court of King’s Bench, and raised a very high reputation as a sound lawyer. His reading and practice were equally extensive; and he seems to have been formed by nature for patient study, deep penetration, and clearness and solidity of judgment. He soon discovered the hinge upon which every cause turned, and when he was convinced himself, had the art of easily convincing others. In the latter end of the reign of James I. and beginning of that of Charles I. he sat as member of parliament for Kellington in Cornwall; and in 1638 was elected summer reader of the Inner Temple,but the plague raging then in London, he did not read until Lent following, and in 1640 he was made serjeant at law. On the breaking out of the rebellion, he took the covenant, and, in 1645, was made one of the judges; and in 1648 was promoted to be lord chief justice of the King’s Bench, in which office his integrity was acknowledged by the generality of the loyalists themselves. He was, of all the judges, the most averse from trying any of the king’s party for treason, thinking indeed that their defence, in which they insisted upon the illegality of the government, was too well founded. He resigned his office some time before his death, which happened July 30, 1656. He was buried in the chinch of Shapwicke near Glastonbury in Somersetshire, the manor of which he had purchased some years before, and had his residence there. In Tawstock church near Barnstaple in Devonshire, is a monument to Alexander Rolle, a lawyer, who died in 1660, aged forty-eight, and was probably son to our judge.

, a learned Italian, was born at Rome in 1687. He was the son of an architect, and a pupil of the celebrated Gravina, who inspired him with a taste for learning and poetry. An intelligent and learned English lord, we believe lord Burlington, having brought Jaini to London, introduced him to the female branches of the royal family as their master in the Tuscan language, and he remained in England until the death of queen Caroline, who patronized him. In 1729 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, by the title of Dr. Paul Antonio Rolli. He returned to Italy in 1747, where he died in 1767, in the eightieth year of his age, leaving behind him a very curious collection in natural history, &c. and a valuable and well-chosen library. His principal works first appeared in London in 1735, 8vo, consisting of odes in blank verse, elegies, songs, &c. after the manner of Catullus. There is likewise by him, a collection of epigrams, of which there are a few good, printed at Florence in 1776, 8vo, and preceded by his life by the abbe Fondini. Rolli bore the character of one of the best Italian poets of his day, and during his stay in London superintended editions of several authors of his own country. The principal of these were the satires of Ariosto, the burlesque works of Berni, Varchi, &c. 2 vols. 8vo the “Decameron” of Boccaccio, 1727, 4to and folio, from the valuable edition of 1527; and lastly, of the elegant “Lucretius” of Marchetti (see Marchetti), which, after the manuscript was revised, was printed at London in 1717. There are likewise by Rolli, translations into Italian verse of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” 1735, folio, and of “Anacreon,” 1739, 8vo.

, a French writer of very great abilities, was the second son of a master-cutler at Paris and born there Jan. 30, 1661. He was intended, as well as his elder brother, for his father’s profession; when a Benedictine, perceiving in him a peculiar turn for letters, communicated this to his mother, and pressed her to give him a liberal education. The proposal was flattering, but as she had been left a widow, and had nothing to depend upon but the continuation of her late husband’s business, and was incapable of providing for his education, she was reluctant to lose the advantages of her son’s skill. The good Benedictine, however, removed part of her fears, by procuring the youth a pension in the college of Du Plessis, and Roliin was now suffered to pursue the natural bent of his inclination. He distinguished himself immediately by parts and application, and easily obtained the first rank among his felloe-students. Many stories are told to his advantage in this respect, and how he became known and esteemed by the minister Pelletier, whose two eldest sons were of Rollin’s class. He studied rhetoric in the college of Du Plessis under Mr. Hersan, whose custom it was to create emulation among his scholars, by bestowing on them epithets, each according to his merit; and is said to have declared in public, that he knew not sufficiently to distinguish the young Roliin otherwise than by giving hirn. the title of “Divine:” and when Hersan was asked for any piece in verse or prose, he used to refer them to Roliin, “who,” he said, “would do it better than he could.” Hersan intended Roliin for his successor, therefore first took him as an assistant in 1683, and afterwards, in. 1687, gave up the chair to him. The year after, Hersan, with the king’s leave and approbation, declined the professorship of eloquence in the royal college in favour of his beloved disciple Roliin, who was admitted into it. No man ever exercised the functions of it with greater eclat: he often made Latin orations, to celebrate the memorable events of the times; and frequently accompanied them with poems, which wer^ generally read and esteemed. In 1694, he was chosen rector of the university, and continued in that office two years, which was then a great mark of distinction. By virtue of his office, he spoke the annual panegyric upon Louis XIV. He made many useful regulations in the university, and particularly revived the study of the Greek language, which was then growing into neglect. He was a man of indefatigable attention, and trained innumerable persons, who did honour to the church, the state, and the army. The first president Portail was pleased one day to reproach Roilin in a jocular strain, as if he exceeded even himself in doing business: to whom Roilin replied, with that plainness and sincerity which was natural to him, “It becomes you well, Sir, to reproach me with this: it is this habit of labour in me, which has distinguished you in the place of advocate general, which has raised you to that of first president: you owe the greatness of your fortune to me,” Upon the expiration of the rectorship, cardinal Noailles engaged him to superintend the studies of his nephews, who were in the college of Laon; and in this office he was agreeably employed, when, in 1699, he was with great reluctance made coadjutor to the principal of the college of Beauvais. This college was then a kind of a desert, inhabited by very few students, and without any manner of discipline: but Rollings great reputation and industry soon made it a most flourishing society. In this situation he remained till 1712; when, the contests between the Jesuits and the Jansenists drawing towards a crisis, he fell a sacrifice to the prevalence of the former. F. Le Tellier, the king’s confessor, and bigoted agent of the Jesuits, infused into his master prejudices against Rollin, whose connections with cardinal de Noailles would alone have sufficed to have made him a Jansenist; and on this account he lost his share in the principality of Beauvais. No man, however, could have lost less in this than Rollin, who had every thing left him that was necessary to make him happy; retirement, books, and a decent competence. He now began to employ himself upon Quintilian; an author he justly valued, and not without uneasiness saw neglected. He retrenched in him whatever he thought rather curious than useful for the instruction of youth: he placed summaries or contents at the head of each chapter; and he accompanied the text with short select notes. His edition appeared in 1715, in 2 vols. 12mo, with an elegant preface, setting forth his method and views.

In 1720, the university of Paris, willing to have a head suitable to the importance of their interests in the then critical conjuncture of affairs, chose Rollin again rector: but he was displaced in about two months by a lettrede cachet. The university had presented to the parliament a petition, in which it had protested against taking any part in the adjustment of the late disputes; and their being congratulated in a public oration by Rollin on this step occasioned the letter, which ordered them to chuse a rector of more moderation. Whatever the university might suffer by the removal of Rollin, the public was probably a gainer; for he now applied himself to compose his excellent treatise <4 Upon the manner of studying and teaching the Belles Lettres:“” De la maniere d‘etudier et d’enseigner les Belles Lettres." This work was published 1726, in two volumes, and two more in 1728, 8vo, and a copy of it presented to bishop Atterbury, then in banishment, who wrote to Rollin a Latin letter, of great beauty and elegance, which gives a just idea of our author and his writings. Whatever defects more recent inquiries have discovered in this work, it was for many years the first of its kind, and may yet be recommended as laying the foundation of a good taste.

Encouraged by the great success of this work, and the happy reception it met with, he undertook another of equal use and entertainment; his “Histoire Ancienne,” &c. or “Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Greeks,” which he finished in 13 vols. 8vo, and published between 1730 and 1738. Voltaire, after having observed that Rollin was “the first member of the university of Paris who wrote French with dignity and correctness,” says of this work, that “though the last volumes, which were written in too great a hurry, are not equal to the first, it is nevertheless the best compilation that has yet appeared in any language; because it is seldom that compilers are eloquent, and Rollin was remarkably so.” While the last volumes of his “Ancient History” were printing, he published the first of his “Roman History;” which he lived to carry on, through the eighth and into part of the ninth, to the war against the Cimbri, about seventy years before the battle of Actium. Crevier, the worthy disciple of Rollin, continued the history to the battle of Actium, which closes the tenth volume; and has since completed the original plan of Rollin, in 16 vols. 12mo, which was to bring it down from the foundation of the city to the reign of Constantine the Great. All these works of Rollin have met with universal approbation, been translated into several languages, and in English have long been popular, although strict criticism may find much to object, as to inaccuracies, and want of purity of style. What, however, forms an honourable distinction in all his works, is his regard for the interests of religion and virtue.

This excellent person died Sept. 14, 1741. He had been named by the king a member of the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres in 1701: but, as he had not then brought the college of Beauvais into repute, and found he had more business upon his hands than was consistent with a decent attendance upon the functions of an academician, he begged the privileges of a veteran, which were honourably granted him. Yet he maintained his connexions with the academy, attended their assemblies as often as he could, laid the plan of his “Ancient History” before them, and demanded an academician for his censor. He was a man of many excellent qualities, very ingenious, consummate in polite learning, of rigid morals, and great piety; which last has given some of his countrymen, and their imitators here, an opportunity to remark that he wanted nothing but a mixture of the philosophic in his nature to make him a very complete person. When he was discharged from the rectorship in 1720, the words of the lettre de cachet were, as we have seen, that the university should choose a rector of more moderation: but that was hardly possible; for, nothing could be more benign, more pacific, or more moderate, than Rollings temper. He shewed, it must be owned, some zeal for the cause of Jansenism: he had a very great veneration for the memory of abbe Paris, and had been seen with others to visit his tomb in the church-yard of St. Medard, at Paris, and to pay his devotions to him as a saint: he revised and retouched the life of this abbe, which was printed in 1730: he translated into Latin, at the request of father Quesnel, the protestation of this saint, and was assisting in other works designed to support Jansenism; and, oh these accounts, he became obnoxious to the Jesuits and the court. It is related, that, when he was one day introduced to cardinal Fleury, in order to present him with a volume of his “Roman History,” the minister, very uncivilly, said to a head-officer of the guards, “Sir, you should endeavour to convert this man:” to whom Rollin very well, and yet not disrespectfully, replied, “Oh, my lord, the gentleman would lose his time; I am an unconvertible man.” Rollin was, however, a very estimable character. We find in his works generous and exalted sentiments, a zeal for the good of society, a love of virtue, a veneration for Providence, and in short every thing, though on profane subjects, sanctified with a spirit truly religious. So says even Voltaire, and we may add the similar testimony of the poet Rousseau, who conceived such a veneration for Rollin that he came out of banishment incognito to Paris, on purpose to visit and pay his respects to him. He looked upon his histories, not only as the best models of the historic kind, but as a complete system of politics ana 1 morals, and a most instrucfive school for princes as well as subjects to learn all their duties in.

, the first principal of the college of Edinburgh, was the son of David Rollock, of Poohouse, or, as it is now written, Powis, in the neighbourhood of Sterling, in Scotland. He was born in 1555, and learned the rudiments of the Latin language from Mr. Thomas Buchanan, who kept, says archbishop Spotswood, a famous school at that time, at Sterling, as we learn from Melchior Adam, who appears to have copied from the Latin life of Rollock. From school he was sent to the university of St. Andrew’s, and admitted a student in St. Salvator’s college. His progress in the sciences, which were then taught, was so great and so rapid, that he had no sooner taken his master’s degree than he was chosen a professor of philosophy, and immediately began to read lectures in St. Salvator’s college. This must have been at a very early period of life, for he quitted St. Andrew’s in 1583, when, according to Mackenzie, he had taught philosophy for some time. Not long before this period, the magistrates of Edinburgh having petitioned the king to erect a university in that city, he granted them a charter under the great seal, allowing them all the privileges of a university and the college being built in 1582, they made choice of Mr. Rollock to be their principal and professor of divinity.

In 1593 principal Rollock and others were appointed by the parliament to confer with the popish lords; and in the next year he was one of those who, by appointment of the. general assembly of the church, met at Edinburgh in the month of May, and presented, to his majesty a paper en titled “The dangers which, through the impunity of excommunicated papists, traffickers with the Spaniards, and other enemies of the religion and estates, are imminent to the true religion professed within this realm, his majesty’s person, crown, and liberty of this our native country.” In 1595 he was nominated one of the commissioners for the visitation of colleges, to inquire into the doctrine and life of the several masters, the discipline used by them, the state of their rents and living, and to make their report to the next assembly. In 1596, the behaviour of some of the clergy having drawn upon them the resentment of the king, Mr. Rollock was employed, on account of his moderation, to soften that resentment, and to turn his majesty’s wrath against the papists. In 1597 he was chosen moderator of the general assembly, the highest dignity in the Scotch church, and had the influence to get some abuses redressed. Being one of the fourteen ministers appointed by this assembly to take care of the affairs of the church, the first thing which he did was to procure an act of the legislature, restoring to the bishops their seats in parliament. Though he spent the greater part of his life in conducting the affairs of the church, we have the authority of Spotswood for saying, that he would have preferred retirement and study. To the bustle of public life, especially at that turbulent period, his constitution was not equal; and his inclination would have confined him to his college and his library. He was dreadfully afflicted with the stone; the torments of which he long bore with the fortitude and resignation of a Christian. He died at Edinburgh Feb. 28, 1598, in the forty-third year of his age, having exhorted his brethren, with his dying breath, to carry themselves more dutifully to their gracious sovereign.

, an English historical and miscella* neous writer, was born in 1724 or 1725, it is thought at Shrewsbury, but descended from a family of that name in Bedfordshire. He was first placed under an officer of the excise in the North of England, but having, in 1745, joined the rebel army, he was dismissed from his situation. He then went over to Dublin to visit Ambrose Philips the poet, who was his relation, but, owing to Philips’s death soon after, failed of procuring any establishment in that country. While in Ireland he is said to have published Akenside’s “Pleasures of the Imagination,” as his own, but his biographer has refuted this story. He probably, by more honourable means, recommended himself to persons of distinction, as his poem, entitled “Cambria” was, when first written, intended to have been patronized by sir Watkin Williams Wynne, and when corrected and prepared for the press, as it now stands, was shewn to Frederic prince of Wales, by general Oglethorpe and lord Middlesex; by whose interest he had permission to dedicate it to prince George, his present majesty, when it was printed, in 1749, in 4to. On the 25th of September of the same year, sir Watkin Williams Wynne was killed by a fall from his horse; and in the following month Roft published a poem to his memory, which was highly admired, and very popular among his countrymen.

By the above-mentioned, and some other eminent persons, Rolt was encouraged to undertake his “History of the general War” which terminated in 1748. This was published in four successive volumes, octavo, and procured him a correspondence with Voltaire, who sent him some flattering letters. He was also engaged to write the “Life of John earl of Craufurd,” an officer of distinction. The above publications do him no discredit; and he shewed considerable ability in defending the case of Clifford against the Dutch West India company, and in a reply to the answers of the Dutch civilians in that case as also in a series of letters concerning the Antigallican privateer and prize, which had been illegally seized and confiscated by the Spaniards.

Being an author by profession, he was constantly employed by the booksellers in successive compilations, historical, commercial, &c. and in periodical publications, in which he was concerned with Smart and others. In one of these, “The Universal Visitor,” he and Smart are said to have been bound by a contract to engage in no other undertaking, and that this contract was to remain in force u for the term of ninety-nine years.“So absurd an engagement, if it ever existed, could not be supposed to last long. Rolt, who had no other resources but from his pen, was not to be confined in his employment, which in one instance was thought rather singular, but more recent times have afforded many similar impositions. Mr. Woodington, a relation of his wife, being in India, became acquainted with captain John Northall, of the royal regiment of artillery, the second in command at the siege of Surat, where he died of an apoplectic fit in the march to that city in February 1759. This gentleman, having been stationed at Minorca, had made an excursion, in 1753, to Italy, of which he completed an entire tour; and being a man of curiosity and taste, noted down in his pocket-book all the fine pictures, statues, &c. with such remarks as everywhere occurred to him. This pocket-book fell into the hands of Mr. Woodington who, at his return to England, gave it to Rolt, and he from this manuscript journal, with the help of former printed travels, compiled a large octavo volume, which he published under the title of” Travels through Italy; containing new and curious Observations on that country with the most authentic Account yet published of capital Pieces in Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, that are to be seen in Italy. By John Northall, esq." c. &c. &c. 1766.

The proposals for printing, by subscription, his poetical works, was the last attempt of Mr. Rolt, who died March 2, 1770, aged 45 having had two wives, by each of whom he left a daughter. To his second wife, who survived him many years, and who, by her mother, was descended from the Percys of Worcester, the late bishop of Dromore, to whom she was thus related, allowed a pension to her death.

This lady Sondes, who was daughter of the right hon. Henry Pelham, was one of the most charitable persons of quality in her time. She had a little French woman, who was her almoner, and whose whole life was spent in finding out proper objects for her lady’s bounty, which she distributed with a zeal for their welfare, and a delicacy for their feelings, which makes it the subject of regret, that the name of this excellent creature is not recollected. They, unsolicited, discovered and applied to Mrs. Rolt the protection of lady Sondes, on the death of her husband.

, an English divine and writer of great popularity, was born at Hartlepool in the county of Durham, Sept. 25, 1714. His father, one of the French protestants who took refuge in England upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz, resided at Hartlepool as a merchant, and particularly as a dealer in corn. He had two sons and three daughters, whom he educated in the strict doctrines and discipline of the church of England, and lived to see well settled in the world before be left it in 1757. His second son, William, gave indication, at a very early age, of considerable talents, and a laudable eagerness to improve them. This induced his father to send him to the grammar-school, at Houghton-le-Spring, a village in the road from Durham to Sunderland. This school was founded by the celebrated Bernard Gilpin, rector of that parish at the memorable acra of the reformation. At this seminary Mr. Romaine remained seven years, and in 1730 or 1731 was sent to Oxford, where he was entered first at Hertford-college, and thence removed to Christchurch. He resided principally at Oxford till he took his degree of master of arts, Oct. 15, 1737, having been ordained a deacon at Hereford, a year before, by Dr. Egerton, bishop of that diocese.

His first engagement was the curacy of Loe Trenchard, near Lid ford in Devonshire. In the year following he appears to have been resident at Epsom in Surrey, from the date of a letter from him, Oct. 4, 1733, to rev. William Warburton, upon the publication of his “Divine Legation of Moses.” In the same year he was ordained a priest by Dr. Hoadly, bishop of Winchester. His title for orders was probably a nomination to the church of Banstead, which he served some years, together with that of Horton, near Epsom, being curate to Mr. Edwards, who had both these livings. At Banstead he became acquainted with sir Daniel Lambert, lord-mayor of London in 1741, who had a country-house in this parish, and appointed Mr. Romaine to be chaplain during his mayoralty.

The first sermon which he printed had been preached before the university of Oxford, March 4, 1739. It was entitled “The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated, from his having made express mention of, and insisted so. much on, the doctrine of a future state; whereby Mr. Warburton’s attempt to prove the Divine Legation of Moses from the omission of a future state, is proved to be absurd, and destructive of all revelation.” This was followed by a second sermon, preached also before the university, entitled “Future rewards and punishments proved to be the sanctions of the Mosaic dispensation.” These sermons and the letter above-mentioned to Mr. Warburton involved him in a personal dispute with that gentleman Mr. Romaine in his letter attempted to be witty and sarcastic; Warburton used the same weapons and could handle them better. The controversy, however, did not last long. Mr. Romaine appeared to more advantage in 1742, in another sermon before the university, entitled “Jepthah’s Vow fulfilled, and his daughter not sacrificed.” The ingenuity with which he proved this opinion obtained him much credit, and was by many looked upon as a new discovery, which it certainly was not, as the same point was contended for in a sermon printed in the works of Dr. Thomas Taylor, of Aldermanbury, an eminent puritan divine, who died in 1632. Besides other sermons before the university, he preached one in 1757, entitled “The Lord our Righteousness,” in consequence of which he was refused any future admission into the university pulpit. He interpreted the articles of the church in the strict Calvinistic sense, which at this time gave great offence.

The theological sentiments of Mr. Romaine were not so common in his early days as they are now, and therefore rendered him more conspicuous. As a clergyman of the church of England he adhered to the most rigid interpretation of the thirty-nine articles. The grand point which he laboured in the pulpit, and in all his writings, was the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ. He was also a zealous disciple of the celebrated Hutchinson, at a time when he had not many followers in this kingdom. From some dissatisfaction, however, or want of success in his ministry, he appears to have formed an intention of leaving England, and settling in the country of his ancestors. He was prevented from executing this design, by what he piously deemed a providential interposition. He had actually made the necessary preparations, and wa going to the water-side, in order to secure his passage^ when he was met by a gentleman, a total stranger to him, who asked him if his name was not Romaine. He answered that it was. The gentleman had formerly been acquainted with his father, and, observing a strong resemblance tot him in his son, was induced to make the inquiry. After some introductory conversation, he told him, that the lectureship for the united parishes of St. George’s Botolphlane and St. Botolph’s Billingsgate was then vacant; and that, having some interest in those parishes, he would exert it in his behalf, if he would become a candidate for the lectureship. Mr. Romaine consented, provided he should not be obliged to canvass in person; a customwhich he always thought inconsistent with the character of a clergyman, and against which he openly protested many years afterwards, when he was candidate for the living of Blackfriars. He was chosen lecturer of St. Botolph’s in 1748, and the year following lecturer of St. Dunstan’s in the West. In the person of his predecessor in the latter (Dr.Terrick), two lectureships were united: the onefounded by Dr. White, for the use of the benchers of the Temple; the other a common parish lectureship. Mr. Romaine wai elected to both, and continued some years in the quiet exercise of his office, until an opposition arose which ended in a law-suit that deprived him of the parish-lectureship^ but confirmed him in that founded by Dr. White, and endowed with a salary of eighteen pounds a-year. Lest this should be removed from the parish, the use of the church was granted to him, but as lord Mansfield’s decision was, that seven o'clock in the evening was a convenient time to preach the lecture, the church-wardens refused to open the church till that hour, and to light it when there was occasion. His predecessor, however, Dr. Terrick, then become bishop of London, interposed so effectually, and gave such a character of Mr. Romaine, that this ungenerous opposition ceased, every proper accommodation was allowed to his congregation, and he continued quietly to exercise his ministry here to the end of his life.

In 1750 he was appointed assistant morning preacher in the church of St. George, Hanover-square. The rector, who both appointed him to this place, and removed him from it, was Dr. Trebeck. Mr. Cadogan informs us that “the first act originated not in personal friendship, but in the recommendation of his character the latter arose from the popularity and plainness of his ministry. He preached Christ crucified among those who are least disposed to receive him. The church was filled with the poor, and forsaken by the rich: and that which (as a nobleman is said to have observed) was never complained of in a play-house, was admitted as a just cause of complaint in the house of God. When notice was given him that the crowd of people attending from different parts caused great inconvenience to the inhabitants, who could not safely get to their seats, he received it in the most placid manner, and said, he was willing to relinquish an office which he had faithfully performed, hoping that his doctrine had been Christian, and owning the inconvenience which had attended the parishioners.”

These were collected soon after his death, in uniform edition, with some additional pieces and a life, in which a very full account is given of his religious principles and ministerial labours. He appears to have been in some respects an extraordinary character. Although usually reproached with being a methodist, a word which is not always very clearly understood by those who employ it in the service of controversial animosity, he was one of the most zealous advocates for the church of England that has appeared in modern times. His attachment to her doctrines and discipline, indeed, was such as left him but a moderate share of respect for the dissenters, by whom he was often accused of intolerance and bigotry. Towards the close of life, however, it is said, he entertained more candour towards the Calvinist dissenters, although he was to the last a strenuous advocate for the service and forms of the church; and it is certain that many dissenters of the stricter sort contributed to increase his audiences, which were in general the fullest ever known in London. Nor ought it to be forgotten in the catalogue of his virtues that he evinced, in money matters, a great share of independent spirit. He refused large offers from the booksellers for the use of his name to religious compilations, and on one occasion no less than 500l. when his annual income did not amount to half the sum. His funeral, besides being attended by a very numerous concourse of friends, and a long train of carriages of persons of considerable rank, was honoured with the presence of the city marshals and other officers, and funeral sermons were preached on the occasion in various churches, some of which were afterwards published. Mr. Romaine married in 1755, a Miss Price, who survived him about six years, by whom he had a daughter who died young, and two sons, the eldest, Dr. Romaine of Reading, now living, the second, capt. Romaine, who died in 1782, at Trincomale, in the island of Ceylon.

, a distinguished French mineralogist, was born in 1736, at Gray in Franche-Comte, and had scarcely acquired some knowledge of Latin, before he was sent to India in quality of secretary to a corps of engineers. It is not certain at what period he returned, but he went again to India in 1757, was taken prisoner at Pondicherry, and came to Europe in 1764, after suffering five years’ captivity. At this period, in his twenty-ninth year, he directed his attention to natural history in company with M. Sage, who appears to be the first Frenchman who directed his chemical knowledge to the explanation of mineralogy. In 1766, he published a “Letter to M. Bertrand on fresh-water polypes.” The polypus he considered as a hive, a receptacle for an infinity of small isolated animals, directed to the same purpose, that of repairing any loss in the parent; but this opinion was supported only by its ingenuity, without the aid of experiments. His first step in mineralogy was the publication of a “Catalogue raisonnee” of M. Davila’s collection, which he wished to dispose of. It was published in 1767, 3 vols. 8vo, and thence arose his eager wish to examine the forms of crystals, and to construct a system on this plan. His first essay on crystallography was published in 1771, and contains 110 species of crystals, of which Linnæus knew only about 40, though the number has been since extended to above. 400. From this work M. de L' Isle’s fame arose his correspondence was cultivated, and Linnæus added his warmest praises to the applause of philosophers. Our author’s fame from this time rapidly increased, and he was judged worthy of a seat in almost every academy but that of his own country. By the academicians of Paris he was styled contemptuously a maker of catalogues, and in reality, from a scanty fortune, as well as a wish to extend his knowledge of specimens, he was much employed in this business; and from 1767 to 1782, he published eight explanatory catalogues of different collections. In 1778 he published an explanation of M. Sage’s theory of chemistry; and in the following year a memoir against the central fire under the title of “L'Action de Feu central banni de la surface du globe, et le Soleil retabli dans ses droits.” But in the interval his great work was constantly kept in view, and his new edition appeared in 1783, “Christallographie, ou description des formes propres a tons les corps du regne minerale,” 4 vols. Of this elaborate work, it has been justly said that those only who have examined it frequently, can judge of the great labour which it must have cost, the extent of the author’s erudition, and the information to be collected from it, independent of the science of crystallization, which has here attained a state approaching to perfection.

As executor to M. d'Ennery, who possessed a very rich collection of medals, he was induced to examine the relation of the Roman pound to the French marc, and the value of the money of the different nations of European and Asiastic Greece. This produced his “Metrologie, ou Tables pour servir a l‘intelligence des poids et des mesures des anciens d’apres leur rapport avec les poids et les mesures de la France,” which was published in 1789, and addressed to the national assembly to guide their new regulations of weights and measures. From the immense labours of his various works, his eyes soon failed, and his later enjoyments arose from the fanciful prospects of the great good his country and the whole world was to derive from the revolution. He died of a dropsy, at Paris, March 10, 1790.

, an eminent modern artist, was born at Dalton, in Lancashire, Dec. 26, 1734, where his father was a merchant, builder, and farmer, but derived from none of his occupations more than what yielded a bare maintenance to his numerous family. In his twelfth year, George was taken from the village school, and engaged to superintend his father’s workmen; his leisure hours he employed in carving; and being fond of music, made a violin for himself, which be preserved till his death. He was first tempted to draw, from seeing some ordinary prints in a magazine, which he imitated with considerable success: and his first attempt at portrait was from memory, when endeavouring to describe the features of a stranger whom he had seen at church. After some attempts by his father to place him in trade, he consented to let him become a painter, and his first master was an artist of the name of Steele, who taught him, to a certain extent, the knowledge and use of the materials of the art. Leaving this master, he began to practise portrait-painting in the country, and being ambitious to try his fate in the metropolis, as soon as he had acquired nearly an hundred guineas, he took thirty for his travelling expences, and leaving the remainder with his wife, set out for, and arrived in London in 1762.

He was in general fortunate in the choice of his historical subjects; and certainly, in this respect, had far the advantage of his great rival, sir Joshua Reynolds; and no less so in the power of expression, which he scarcely ever failed to obtain; whilst the latter, in his historical pictures, has rarely been so happy. Reynolds gave beauty and grace to his figures: Romney imparted soul. The former delights the eye with the harmony and richness of colour, and beauty of effect; the latter thrills and gratifies the heart with truth and force of expression, in action and countenance; wrought with more simplicity, but with less art. His picture of Ophelia seated upon a branch of a tree, the breaking of which threatens her destruction in the stream below, whilst the melancholy distraction visible in her lovely face accounts for her apparent insensibility to danger, is a sufficient proof of this assertion. His composition also of “Titania and her Indian Votaress,” in the possession of Mr. Beckford; “Titania, Puck, and the Changeling,” at sir John Leicester’s, and others of his works of the like playful and interesting kind, might be brought forward to support it. In portraiture, however, the justly exalted president of the royal academy stood alone, and Romney was not able to cope with him. In the composition of his figures, our artist exhibited the taste he had acquired by the study of the antique; and he admirably varied the characters of his heads. The arrangement of drapery which he adopted, partook largely of the same style; and being well understood, was painted with great dexterity; though it must be confessed, that in form, it was not unfrequently better adapted to sculpture than to painting. His style of colouring was simple and broad. In that of his flesh he was very successful; exhibiting a great variety of complexion, with much warmth and richness. It was not always, however, that his pictures were complete in the general tone; but crude discordant colours were sometimes introduced in the back-grounds, which not being blended or broken into unison with the hue of the principal figures, interrupted the harmony of the whole. The executive part of his works was free, learned, and precise, without being trifling or minute, possessing great simplicity, and exhibiting a purity of feeling consonant with the style of his compositions. He aimed at the best of all principles in the imitation of nature, viz. to generalize its effects; he even carried it so far as to subject himself to the charge of negligence in the completion of his forms: but the truth of his imitation is sufficiently perfect to satisfy the minds of those who regard nature systematically, and hot individually, or too minutely. In a word, adds the critic whom we have principally followed in this character, every lover of art who knows how to appreciate truly what is most valuable in painting, will hold the name of llomney in increasing estimation, the more frequently and impartially he examines his productions.

II. Charles IX. and Henry III. had a particular esteem for him, and became his liberal patrons. In 1562 he put himself at the head of some soldiers in Vendomois, and fought against the protestants, which occasioned the publication of some very satirical pieces against him at Orleans, in which he was represented as a priest: but he defended himself in verse, and denied his being an ecclesiastic. He had, however, some benefices in commendam; and, among others, the priory of St. Cosmas near Tours, where he died in 1585. Du Perron, afterwards cardinal, made his funeral oration; and a noble monument was erected there to his memory some years after. He was much afflicted with the gout, which, it is said, was owing to his debauched way of life. His poems consist of odes, hymns, elegies, sonnets, epigrams, and pieces of amatory poetry, not of the most chaste description. He was considered in his day as possessing great talents for poetry; but these are not so visible to the eye of modern criticism. His style is extremely harsh and obscure, which, it is said^ would have been more excusable, had he not been preceded by Marot. What learning he had appears in a pedantic affectation of allusions, examples, and words, drawn from Greek and Latin, which increase the obscurity of his style. Boileau justly says “It is the approbation of posterity alone which must establish the true merit of works. Whatever eclat a writer may make during his life, whatever eloges he may receive, we cannot conclude infallibly from this, that his works are excellent. False beauties, novelty of style, and a particular taste or manner of judging, which happens to prevail at that time, may raise a writer into high credit and esteem; and, in the next age, when the eyes of men are opened, that which was the object of admiration, shall be the object of contempt. We have a fine example of this in Ronsard, and his imitators, Du Bellay, Du Bartas, Desportes, who in the last age were admired by all the world, in this are read by nobody.” The best editions of Ronsard’s works are those by Binet, Paris, 1587, or 1604, 5 vols. 12mo, and by Richelet, 1623, 2 vols. fol.

, a brave naval officer, was born in Kent, 1650, of an ancient and honourable family. His father, sir William Rooke, knight, qualified him by a proper education for a liberal profession but was at last obliged to give way to his inclination to the navy. His first station was that of a volunteer, from which his merit raised him by regular steps to be vice-admiral, and one of the council to prince George of Denmark, lord high admiral. He had the command of several expeditions in the reigns of William and Anne, in which his conduct and courage were eminently displayed. The former appeared in his behaviour on the Irish station, when he was sent as commodore with a squadron to assist in the reduction of that kingdom; in his wise and prudent management when he preserved so great a part of the Smyrna fleet, which fortune had put into the hands of the French, who suffered themselves to be deprived of an immense booty by the superior skill of this admiral; but more particularly in the taking of Gibraltar, which was a project conceived and executed in less than a week, though it has since endured sieges of not only months but years, and more than once baffled the united forces of France and Spain. Of his courage he gave abundant testimonies, but especially in burning the French ships at La Hogue, and in the battle of Malaga, where he behaved with all the resolution of a British admiral; and, as he was first in command, was first also in danger; and all times must preserve the memory of his glorious action at Vigo.

He died Jan. 24, 1708-9, in his fifty-eighth year, and was buried in Canterbury cathedral, where a monument is erected to his memory. In his private life he was a good husband, and a kind master, lived hospitably towards his neighbours, and left behind him a moderate fortune; so moderate, that when he came to make his will it surprized those who were present; but sir George assigned the reason in a few words, “I do not leave much,” said he, i( but what I leave was honestly gotten it never cost a sailor a tear, or the nation a farthing." 1 Rooke (Lawrence), an English astronomer and geometrician, was born at Deptford, in Kent, 1623, and educated at Eton school, whence he removed to King’s college, Cambridge, in 1639. After taking the degree of M. A. in 1647, he retired for some time into the country, but in 1650 went to Oxford, and settled in Wadham college, that he might associate with Dr. Wilkins, and Mr. Seth Ward the astronomy professor; and also accompany Mr. Boyle in his chemical operations. After the death of Mr. Foster he was chosen astronomy professor in Gresham college, London, in 1652. He made some observations upon the comet at Oxford, which appeared in the month of December that year; which were printed by Mr. Seth Ward the year following. And, in 1655, Dr. Wallis publishing his treatise on conic sections, he dedicated that work to those two gentlemen. In 1657 Mr. Rooke was permitted to exchange the astronomy professorship for that of geometry. This step might seem strange, as astronomy still continued to be his favourite study; but it was thought to have been from the convenience of the lodgings, which opened behind the reading hall, and therefore were proper for the reception of those gentlemen after the lectures, who, in 1660, laid the foundation of the royal society. Most of those learned men who had been accustomed to assemble with him at Oxford, coining to London, joined with other philosophical gentlemen, and usually met at Gresham college to hear Mr. Rooke’s iectwes, and afterwards withdrew into his apartment; till their meetings were interrupted by the quartering of soldiers in the college in 1658. And after the royal society came to be formed into a regular body, Mr. Rooke was very zealous and serviceable in promoting that great and useful institution; though he did not live till it received its establishment by the royal charter.

Few persons have left behind them a more agreeable character than Mr. Rooke, from every person that was acquainted with him, or with his qualifications; and in nothing more than for his veracity: for what he asserted positively, might be fully relied on: but if his opinion was asked concerning any thing that was dubious, his usual answer was, “I have no opinion.” Mr. Hook has given this copious, though concise character of him: “I never was acquainted with any person who knew more, and spoke less, being indeed eminent for the knowledge and improvement of astronomy.” Dr. Wren and Dr. Seth Ward describe him as a man of profound judgment, a vast comprehension, prodigious memory, and solid experience. His skill in the mathematics was reverenced by all the lovers of those studies, and his perfection in many other sorts of learning deserves no less admiration; but above all, as another writer characterizes him, his extensive knowledge had a right influence on the temper of his mind, which had all the humility, calmness, strength, and sincerity of a sound philosopher. For more particulars of his character we may refer to Dr. Isaac Barrow’s oration at Gresham college. The only pieces which were published from his papers consist of “Observationes in Cometam, qui mense Decembri anno 1652 apparuit” printed by Dr. Seth Ward in his “Lectures on Comets,” 1653, 4to. “Directions for Seamen going to the East and West Indies,” which were drawn up at the appointment of the Royal Society, and inserted in their Transactions for 1665; “A Method for observing the Eclipses of the Moon,” in the Philos. Trans, for Feb. 1666. “A Discourse concerning the Observations of the Eclipses of the Satellites of Jupiter,” in the History of the Royal Society, p. 183; and “An Account of an Experiment made with Oil in a long Tube,” read to the Royal Society, April 23, 1662. By this experiment it was found, that the oil sunk when the sun shone out, and rose when he was clouded; the proportions of which are set down in the account.

, or Michael Angelo, an honorary name given him by Paul Sandby, was the son of Edward Rooker, an engraver, who died in 1774, and whose excellence lay in engraving architecture, particularly the section of St. Paul’s cathedral, from a drawing by Wale, which is his finest, and a very wonderful performance. Michael, who was born in 1743, after being taught the use of the graver by his father, was placed under the care of his father’s friend, Paul Sandby, to be instructed in drawing and painting landscape. He appeared first as an engraver, in which capacity he gave early proofs of ability, which were confirmed by his mature productions, excellent specimens of which may be seen in a view of Wolterton hall, Nottinghamshire, and in many other prints which he engraved. But his talents were not confined to the graver, for he also employed the pencil, and in 1772 exhibited a view of Temple Bar, as it then stood, which had considerable merit. He was for many years employed as principal scenerpainter for the little theatre in the Hay-market; and in the summer season generally visited some part of the country, where he selected views, of which he afterwards made finished drawings; so that at his death he possessed a very numerous collection of topographical drawings of great merit. It is, however, on his powers as an engraver that his fame principally depends. He was for many years engaged to engrave the head-pieces to the Oxford almanacks, for which he received 50l. each, a large sum in those days,, although not unsuitable to his merit, or the liberality of his employers. But this engagement he relinquished a fevr years before his death, because he took a dislike to the practice of engraving. The Oxford views were executed from his own drawings, and exhibit some of the best and most accurate that ever were taken of that beautiful city.

He died suddenly, after a lingering illness, at his lodgings in Dean-street, Soho, March 3, 1801, about fiftyeight years of age, and was buried at St. Giles’s-in-theFields. His drawings, of which he left a large collection, produced, at a sale of four days, the sum of 1240l. He was chosen among those who were elected the first associates of the Royal Academy. There was something rough in his manners, but he was a man of integrity.

He painted many pieces for the grand duke and the prince his son, who rewarded him generously. The MafTei carried him to their seat at Volterra, where he painted several pictures, residing there upwards of a year: but literature took up the greatest part of his time, and it was here that he composed his satires, of which there have been several editions.

Among some musical Mss. purchased at Rome in 1770, was the music-book of Salvator Rosa, in which are contained, not only airs and cantatas set by Carissimi, Cesti, Luigi, Cavalli, Legrenzi, Capellini, Pasqualini, and Bandini, of which the words of several are by Salvator Rosa; but eight entire cantatas written, set, and transcribed by this celebrated painter himself. The book was purchased of his great grand-daughter, who inhabited the house in which her ancestor lived and died. The hand-writing was ascertained by collation with his letters and satires, of which the originals are still preserved by his descendants. The historians of Italian poetry, though they often mention Salvator as a satirist, seem never to have heard of his lyrical productions. This book is fully described by Dr. Burney.

, Ruzelin, or Rucelin, a canon of Compeigne, who flourished about the end of the eleventh century, was born in Bretagne. He was a man well versed in the learning of the times, a profound dialectician, and the most eminent doctor of the sect called Nominalists, and by applying some of their tenets to the subject of the Trinity excited a warm controversy in France about 1089. He held it inconceivable and impossible that the son of God should assume the human nature alone, i. e. without the Father and the Holy Ghost becoming incarnate also, unless by the three persons in the Godhead were meant three distinct objects, or natures existing separately (such as three angels or three distinct spirits), though endued with one will and acting by one power. When it was insinuated to Roscellinus, that this manner of reasoning led directly to Tritheism, or the doctrine of three Gods, he answered boldly, that the existence of three Gods might be asserted with truth, were not the expression harsh, and contrary to the phraseology generally received. He was, however, obliged to retract this error in a council held at Soissons, in 1092; but he resumed it when the council was dismissed and the danger apparently over. He was, however, assaulted on account of his doctrine, and therefore took refuge in England, where he excited a controversy of another kind, by maintaining, among other things, that persons born out of lawful wedlock ought to be deemed incapable of admission to holy orders. Some even of the prelates being in this condition, Roscellinus made very powerful enemies, and among others Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, and was finally obliged to quit England. He then returned to France, and by propagating his doctrine concerning the Trinity, occasioned such contests as made him glad to retire to Aquitaine, where he passed the rest of his days unmolested. He is supposed to have died about 1106, Such is the account given of his doctrines by John, his accuser, in a letter to Anselm, published by Baluzius in his “Miscellanea,” and by others who, however, as the annotator on Mosheim remarks, were the inveterate enemies of Roscellinus, and perhaps comprehended his meaning imperfectly, or perverted it wilfully. But as none of the writings of this metaphysical ecclesiastic are extant, we cannot form any other notion of the controversy than appears from the testimony of his enemies.

, Quintius, a Roman actor, was born at Lanuvium, and became so celebrated on the stage that every actor of superior eminence to his contemporaries has been since called a Roscius. It is said that he was not without some personal defects; particularly his eyes were so distorted that he always appeared on the stage with a mask; but the Romans frequently obliged him to take it off, and overlooked the deformities of his face, that they might the better hear his elegant pronunciation. In private life he was so much esteemed as to be raised to the rank of senator. When falsely accused, Cicero, who had been one of his pupils, undertook his defence, and cleared him of the malevolent aspersions of his enemies, in an elegant oration extant in his works. Roscius wrote a treatise, which, however, has not descended to our times, comparing with great success and learning, the profession of the orator with that of the comedian. He died about 61 before Christ. His daily pay for acting is said to have been 1000 denarii, or 32l. 6s. of our money, though Cicero makes his yearly income amount to the enormous sum of 48,434l. 10s.

Dr. Burney observes, that there are several passages in Cicero concerning Roscius, which, if the ancient actors, Romans as well as Greeks, did not declaim in musical notes, would be wholly unintelligible. He tells us (de Orat), that Roscius had always said, when age should diminish his force, he would not abandon the stage, but would proportion his performance to his powers, and make music conform to the weakness of his voice; which really happened: for the same author informs us (de Leg.), that in his old age he sung in a lower pitch of voice, and made the tibicines play slower. As there were combats, or contests, established by the ancients for the voice, as well as for other parts of the Gymnastice those who taught the management of the voice were called φονασχοι, phonasci; and under their instructions were put all those who were destined to be orators, singers, and comedians. Roscius had an academy for declamation, at which he taught several persons, preparatory to their speaking in public, or going on the stage. These are proofs sufficient of the dramatic declamation of the ancients being uttered in mumusical tones, agreeing with those of the musical instruments by which they were accompanied.

After passing three winters at Glasgow, he attended thecourts of law in Edinburgh, and here obtained an introduction to the celebrated Dr. Adam Smith, who was so highly pleased with him, that as long as he resided in Edinburgh,, Mr. Rose was constantly invited to the literary circle of that eminent philosopher. His subsequent intimacy with Cowper appears in Mr. Hayley’s interesting volumes, and perhaps Cowper’s visit to Mr. Rose in Chancery-lane is one of the most affecting incidents in the eventful history of that poet. Mr. Rose had the misfortune to lose his ex* cellent father, while he was pursuing his studies in the North; but a loss so unseasonable did not induce him to shrink from the first irksome labours of an arduous profes^ sion. Having entered his name at LincolnVInn, Nov. 6, 3786, he devoted himself to the law, for which he seemed equally prepared by nature and education. With a mind acute and powerful, with a fund of classical learning, and of general knowledge, with an early command of language, and with manners, as we have already noticed, peculiarly conciliating, he had every thing to hope. Though his spirit was naturally ardent, he submitted to the most tire-r some process of early discipline in his profession, placing himself under a special pleader in 1787, and attending him three years. Being called to the bar in 1796, he attached himself to the home circuit, and to the sessions of Sussex. His first opportunity of displaying professional ability occurred in Chichester, where, having a clergyman for his client, he conciliated the esteem of his audience byexpatiating with propriety, eloquence, and success, on the character of a divine. He was still more admired for the rare talent of examining a witness with a becoming ture of acuteness and humanity; and upon the whole his friends were persuaded, from this first display of his talents^ that he was destined to rise l>y sure, though slow degrees, to the highest honours of his profession.

Mr. Rose married in 1791, a. daughter of Dr. Farr, physician to the Royal-hospital, near Plymouth, a lady, who with a moderate portion, brought him the more valuable dower of an elevated understanding. By this lady he had four sons. An ardent love of literature had ever been a characteristic of Mr. Rose, and he gave a signal proof of it in the closing scene of his life. He had been requested to revise the collected works and life of Goldsmith, published in 1801. In the course of his three weeks confinement to the bed of death, he corrected some inaccuracies in that interesting publication, and sent his corrections with the expressive farewell of a dying man to the publishers. In 1792 he produced an improved edition of lord chief baron Corny n’s “Reports,” and in 1800, in a quarto edition, "The Digest of the Laws of England/' by the same eminent lawyer, corrected and continued inscribing the first to lord Thurlow, and the second to lord Lpughborough.

, an eminent physician, whose treatment df Linna3Us we have already noticed (see Linnaeus, p; 297), was born Feb. 1, 1706, at a village near Gottenburgh, and was sent to the college of that place in 1718. His father was a divine, and he was intended for the same profession, biit gave a decided preference to medicine, whidh he studied at Lund tinder Kilian Stobseus. After residing four years at this university he went to Stockholm, and became tutor in a nobleman’s family. la 1728, when the assessor Martin died at Upsal, Rosen became substitute professor of physic; but before he took tipon him this office^ he made a tour through Germany, Switzerland, France, and Holland, and took his doctor’s degree at Harderwyk in 1730. In the spring of the following year he entered on his professorship at Upsal, became member of the academy of sciences there, and was received a member of the royal academy of Stockholm in 1739. In 1740 he became ordinary professor in room of Rudbeck; in 1757, he was created a knight of the order of the polar star, and was ennobled in 1762, when queen Louisa Ulrica gave him the name of Rosenstein. He gairied great celebrity as physician to the royal family of Sweden, and received in 1769^ for his inoculation of some of them for the small pox, a reward of 100,000 rix dollars from the states of the kingdom. In his last illness, his animosity to Linnreus was so subdued, that he requested the medical assistance of that celebrated man. He died July 16, 1773. The academy of Stockholm struck a medal to his memory, with the inscription, “Sscculi decus incferlibile nostri.” He had a brother, who was also eminent as a physician and botanist; and in honour of both, Thunberg named a plant Rosenia. Dr. Nicholas Rosen’s principal works, which were all published in the Swedish language, are, “A medical repository of Domestic Medicine,” published by order of the queen dowager, &c. “A Treatise on the Diseases of Children,” which has been translated into German, English, Dutch, French, and Italian. He contributed likewise several papers to the memoirs of the academy of Stockholm.

, in German Roszfelit, an able antiquary, was born at Eisenac in Thuringia about 1550. He was educated in the university of Jena; in 1579, became sub-rector of a school at Ratisbon; and, afterwards was chosen minister of a Lutheran church at Wickerstadt, in the duchy of Weimar. In 1592, he was invited to Naumburg in Saxony, to be preacher at the catli-edral church; and there continued till 1626, when he died of the plague. He was a very learned man, and the first who composed a body of Roman antiquities, entitled “Antiquitatum Romanarum libri decem,” printed at Basil in 1585, foho. It was at first censured by some critics, but is ably defended by Fabricius in his “Bibliographia Antiqnaria.” It went through several editions; the latter of which have large additions by Dempster. That of Amsterdam, 1635, in 4to, is printed with an Elzevir letter, upon a good paper, and has the following title: ' Joannis Rosini Antiquitatum Romanarum corpus absolutissimum. Cum notis doctissimis ac locupletissimis Thomae Dempsteri J. C. Huic postremae editioni accuratissimae accesserunt Pauli Manutii libri If. de Legibus & de Senatu, cum Andreoe Schotti Klectis. I. De Priscis Romanis Gentibus ac Familiis. 2. De Tribubus Rom. xxxv. Rusticis atque Urbanis. 3. De ludis festisque Romanis ex Kalendario Vetere. Cum Indrce locupletissimo, & anneis figuris accuratissimis.“His other works are,” Exempla pietatis illustris, seu vitae trium Saxonirc Ducum electorum, Frederici II. Sapient 'is Joannis Constantly et Joannis Frederici Magnanimi“Jena, 1602, 4to a continuation of” Drechsleri Chronicon,“Leipsic, 1594, 8vo;” Anti-Turcica Lutberi," in German, a collection of some writings of Luther of the prophetic kind, against the TurksLeipsic, 1596, 8vo.

, a voluminous author of the seventeenth century, was born in 1590 in Scotland, and became a divine, but left that country in Charles I.'s reign, and was appointed one of his majesty’s chaplainsj and master of the free-school at Southampton. He died in 1654, leaving a handsome bequest to the above school, from which it is said he had retired for some time before his death, and passed the remainder of his days in the family of the Henleys of Hampshire, to whom he left a large library and a considerable sum of money, part of which was concealed among his books. Echard says “he was a busy, various, and voluminous writer, who by his pen and ether ways made a considerable noise and figure in these* times, and who so managed his affairs, that in the midst of these storms, he died very rich, as appears from the several benefactions he made.” We have a list before us of thirty pieces by this author, but whether published separately, each forming a volume, we know not. Most of them occur very seldom. Among them are some whose dates we have recovered, but cannot vouch for the accuracy of the list. 1. “Comment, de Terrae motu refutatum/' Lond. 1634, 4to. 2.” The new Planet no Planet^ or, the earth no wandering star,“ibid. 1640, 4to, reprinted in 1646. 3.” Virgilius Evangelizans;“ibid. 1634, 8vo. This is a cento on the life of Christ, collected entirely from Virgil. Granger says it is ingenious, and was deservedly admired. 4.” Medicus medicatus, or, the physician’s religion cured,“ibid. 1645, 8vo. Th;s was one of the pieces in which he attacked the reputation of sir Thomas Browne in his” ReJigio Medici.“We find him returning to the charge afterwards in a work entitled, 5.” Refutation of Dr. Browne’s Vulgar Errors,“ibid. 1652, 8vo. 6.” Observations upon sir Kenelm Digby’s Discourse on the nature of Bodies,“ibid. 1645, 4to. 7.” The picture of the Conscience,“ibid. 1646, 12mo. 8.” The Muses’ Interpreter,“ibid. 1646, 8vo. 9.” Arcana Microcosmi,“ibid. 1651 and 1652, 12mo and 8vo. 10.” Observations upon Hobbes’s Leviathan,“ibid. 1653, 12mo. 11.” Observations upon sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World,“ibid. 12mo. After this he published” A Continuation“of that history, which Granger calls his” great work;“but adds, that it is like a piece of bad Gothic tacked to a magnificent pile of Roman architecture, which serves to heighten the effect of it, while it exposes its own deficiency in strength and beauty. 12.” An Epitome“of the same history. 13.” A View of all Religions,“the work for which he is best known, and which has passed through variotfs editions, the sixth in 1683. It had the merit of being the first compilation of the kind in our language, and attained a great degree of popularity. 14.” Abridgment and translation of John Wollebius’s Christian divinity,“ibid. 1657, 8vo. 15*” Three Decades of Divine Meditations,“no date. This is one of his poetical works, and valued in the” Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica“at Si. tis. 16.” Mel Helreonium, or, Poetical Honey gathered out of the weeds of Parnassus, &c.“ibid. 1642, 8vo. This, of which an account is given by Mr. Park in the” Censura Literaria,“is an attempt to spiritualize the Greek and Roman mythology. In moral and metre it resembles Quarles. Of the following works we have no dates:” De rebus Judaicis, libri quatuor,“in hexameter verse;” Rasura tonsoris,“prose;” Chymera Pythagoria;“”Meditations upon Predestination;“” Questions upon Genesis;“” Melissomachia;“”Four books of Epigrams,“in Latin elegiacs” Mystagogus poeticus“”ColloquiaPlantina;“” Chronology,“in English” Christiados poematis libri tredecim," with others, which seem of doubtful authority.

, a learned Italian, who assumed and is generally known by the name of Janus Njcius Erythræus, was born at Rome, of a noble, but not opulent family, about 1577. He studied in the college of the Jesuits, and before he was nineteen years of age had made such progress in the law, that he was permitted to give lessons on the subject. These were so much admired by a magistrate of eminence, that he appointed Rossi his auditor; but as this gentleman died the same year, all his hopes from his patronage were disappointed. The law, however, still holding out the prospect of those honours to which he aspired, he omitted no opportunity of increasing his knowledge under the direction of Lepidus Piccolomini, one of the most famous lawyers of his time, and who advised him to turn pleader; but Piccolomini dying soon after, Rossi was so discouraged by this second disappointment that, as he had devoted himself to the study of the law rather from ambition than liking, he now determined to employ his time in the study of the belles lettres. With this view he became a member of the academy of the Umoristi, where he read several of his compositions, the style of which was so much admired by Marcel Vestri, secretary of the briefs to pope Paul V., that he invited Rossi to his house, to assist in drawing up the briefs, and with a view that he should be his successor in case of himself rising to higher preferment. Rossi soon made himself useful in this office, but unfortunately Vestri died in about eight months, and Rossi was again left unemployed, Many expedients he tried, and made many applications, but without success, and his only consolation, we are told, he derived from his vanity, which suggested to him that persons in office would not employ him, from a consciousness of their inferiority to him, and a jealousy of his supplanting them. It appears, however, that a certain satirical and arrogant temper was more to blame; for this was what he could not easily repress.

, a learned Dane, was born Aug. 30, 1671, at Kraagerop, a country seat belonging to his lather, whose heir he became in 1684. Great care was taken of his education by his guardians, and after studying, some time at the university of Copenhagen, it was recommended to him to visit other universities, where eminent professors were to be found. He accordingly set out in 1690, and spt-nt ten years in extending hi* knowledge of the belles lettres, civil law, &c. and had for his masters Morliof, Gr&vius, Gronovius, &c. While at Leyden in 169.'5, he published “Delicise quorundam poetarnm Danorum,” 2 vols. 12mo. He passed a considerable time in England, particularly at Oxford, for the s;>ke of the ms treasures in the Bodleian library, and employed himself much in reading and copying Greek Mss. He afterwards continued the same researches among the libraries of Paris, where he resided for four years, and applied with ardour to the study of the oriental languages. Among the Mss. which he copied in Paris, were the letters of the celebrated sophist Libanius, a good number of which he had also found in England, and communicated these for Wolf’s edition of that author, published at Amsterdam in 1739. Both in France and Italy, which he next visited, he made Jprge purchases of valuable Mss. On his return home in 1700, the king made him counsellor of justice, and keeper of the private archives. In 1710 he was made counsellor of state, and, some years after, justiciary of the supreme tribunal. In 1721 he was appointed first secretary of the Danish chancery, but lost this office in 1725 by the machinations of some enemies who were jealous of his high favour at court. Being now obliged to leave Copenhagen, he sold his fine library, reserving only a few useful books which might divert his time during his retirement. This library contained about 5000 printed books, and 1068 manuscripts, as appears by the sale catalogue published at Copenhagen in 1726. His disgrace, however, did not last long. Having effectually cleared up his character, the king, Frederick IV. made him, in 1727, baillie of Anderskow, which post he retained until 1730, He then retired to his estate at Kraagerop, and employed his time in study. He was about to put the finishing hand to his “Lexicon Jinguae Danicae,” when he died suddenly April 26, 1745. He was editor of the works of Andrew Bordingius, a much esteemed Danish poet, which were published in 1735, 4to, and had the principal hand in the “Enchiridion studiosi, Arabice conscriptum a Borhaneddino Alzernouchi, &c.” published by Adrian Reland at Utrecht in 1710. He assisted in other learned works, particularly Duker’s Thucydides.

, a learned ecclesiastical antiquary, was born at Utrecht in 1569, and entered the society of the Jesuits at Doway in Flanders, when he was twenty years of age. His taste led him to examine the libraries of the monasteries in that city, until he was called to be professor of philosophy and divinity, first at Doway, and afterwards at Antwerp, where he attained very considerable reputation. He died in 1629, at the age of sixty. He published, in 1607, “Fasti Sanctorum quorum Vitae in Belgicis Bibliothecis Man use rip tee asservantur,” which he intended as a specimen of a larger work, and which was the prelude of the immense collection by Bollandus and others, under the title of “Acjta Sanctorum.” He was author of many other works, among which is “An Account of the Hermits of Egypt and Palestine,” “An Ecclesiastical History from the time of Christ to pope Urban VIII.” 2 vols. folio; and “The History of the Belgic Church.” In none of these did he ever rise above the prejudices of his order, but shewed himself the zealous advocate of superstition and credulity, while he treated those who differed from him with very little respect.

, a very celebrated Dutch poet, was born Oct. 1645, of a distinguished family at Amsterdam. He went into the army during the Dutch war in 1673; but having served two years, retired to a beautiful country house he had on the Vecht, and devoted himself wholly tq study and poetry. He afterwards took a journey to Paris, and on his return home married Ann Adrianna de Salingre, who left him a widower with two daughters in 1689. He died of the small-pox Nov. 3, 17 10, aged sixty-six. His works are, “The Life of William III.” king of England; an epic poem in eight books, much admired by his countrymen; and several other poems in Dutch, Lewarden, 1715, 4to. Rotgans, Vondel, and Antonides, are the three most celebrated Dutch poets.

, a celebrated French poet, was born August 21, 1609, at Dreux. The merit of his come-; dies and tragedies gained the favour of cardinal de Richelieu, who gave him a pension and what was a higher ho-? nour, the famous Peter Corneille called him his father in tragedy, and highly valued his works. It is said that Rotrou lived at a great expence, and when he was distressed for money, could compose a piece in two months. He purchased a civil office, in the bailiwic of Dreux, and held it till his death, which happened at Drenx? June 28, 1650. This author left thirty-seven dramatic pieces, among which “Antigone,” and “Venceslas,” are the most esteemed. The best of them may be found in the “Theatre Francois,” Paris, 1737, 12 vols. 12mo; but it is very difficult to procure a complete set of his works. -When all the poets combined against the “Cid,” Rotrou alone refused to humour cardinal Richelieu’s jealousy, though he received a pension of 600 livres from him, and continued always the admirer and zealous partizan of Corneille. When settled at Dreux, he gained the esteem of the whole province by his integrity, prudent conduct, and piety. That city being visited by an epidemical disorder, his friends at Paris pressed him in the most earnest maruier to quit so dangerous a situation, and save his life; but he replied, that be could not answer it to his conscience to follow their advice, because he was the only person who could keep things in. any order at that time, ending his letter with the following words: “Not but that the hazard I run is very great, for while I write the bells are tolling for the twenty-second person who has died this day. They will toll for me when It pleases God.” 'He was attacked himself some days after, and died, as the French biographers express themselves, witht&e most fervent sentiments of religion and piety.

, a very eminent sculptor, was a native of Lyons in France; but of his early history no memoirs have been discovered. He appears to have come to England, about the time that Rysbrach’s fame was at its height, and became a very formidable rival to that excellent artist, who had at the same time to contend with the growing merit of Scheemaker. Roubiliac is said, however, to have had little business until sir HJdward Walpole recommended him to execute half the busts at Trinity-college, Dublin; and, by the same patron’s interest, he was employed on the fine monument of the general John duke of Argyle, in Westminster-abbey, on which the statue of eloquence is particularly graceful and masterly; but it has been thought that his fame was most completely fixed by his statue of Handel in Vauxhallgardens. Two of his principal works are the monuments of the duke and duchess of Montague in Northamptonshire, well performed and magnificent, although perhapg wanting in simplicity. His statue of George J. in the Senate-bouse at Cambridge, is well executed; as is that of their chancellor, Charles duke of Somerset, except that it is in a Vandyke-dress, which might not be the fault of the sculptor. His statue of sir Isaac Newton, in the chapei of Trinity-college, has always been greatly admired; but lord Orford objects, that the air is a little too pert for so grave a man. This able artist died Jan. 11, 1762, and was buried in the parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields, where he had lived.

The pictures of this master are not frequently to be purchased; and when they are, their estimation is high. He was a man of probity, piety, and benevolence; and at his death he bequeathed the greatest part of his substance to relieve those in England who, like himself, were refugees on account of the French persecution.

, a celebrated French poet, was born at Paris in 1669: he was the son of a shoe-maker, who, however, being a man of substance, gave him a good education; and Rousseau soon shewed himself worthy of it. He discovered early a turn for poetry; and, at twenty, was distinguished for some little productions, full of elegance, taste, and spirit. In 1688 he attended M. de Bonrepos as page in his embassy to the court of Denmark; and passed thence to England with marshal Tallard in quality of secretary. Yet, he had so little of avarice and ambition in his nature, that he never conceived the notion of n^aking a fortune; and actually refused some places which his friends had procured for him. In 1701 he was admitted into the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres. He had now obtained the reputation of a poet of the first rank, expected a place in the French academy, and was in hopes of obtaining Boileau’s pension, which was about to ba vacant, when an affair broke out which obliged him to quit his country, and embittered his whole life afterwards. Some verses full of reflections, and of a very exceptionable nature, were produced as Rousseau’s. Rousseau denied that they were his, and maintained them to be forgeries, contrived for his ruin by those who envied and hated him. He was tried in form; and, by an arrest of parliament in 1712, banished the kingdom for ever. Voltaire, who certainly has not shewn himself well affected to this poet, yet expresses himself thus upon the affair of his banishment “Those couplets, which were the cause of his banishment, and are like several which he owned, must either be imputed to him, or the two tribunals, which pronounced sentence upon him, must be dishonoured. Not that two tribunals, and even more numerous bodies, may not unanimously commit very great acts of injustice when a spirit of party prevails. There was a violent party against Rousseau.” The truth, however, is, that Rousseau was the author, although he denied it, and the probability is, that the tribunal before which he was tried had proof of this; such at least seems to be the opinion of most French writers. He now withdrew to Switzerland, where he found a lector in the count de Luc, the French ambassador to the* Helvetic body; who carried him to Baden, and introduced him to prince Eugene, who was there. He continued with the prince till the conclusion of the peace at Baden; and then accompanying him to Vienna, was introduced by hiril to the emperor’s court. He continued here three years, at the end of which he might have returned to his own country, some powerful friends offering to procure letters of grace for recalling him; but he answered, “that it did not become a man, unjustly oppressed, to seal an ignominious sentence by accepting such terms; and that letters of gracd might do well enough for those that wanted them, but certainly not for him who only desired justice.” He was afterwards at Brussels, and in 1721 went over to London, where he printed, in a very elegant manner, a collection of his poems, in 2 vols. 4to. The profits hence arising put his finances into good condition; but, placing his money with the emperor’s company at Ostend, which failed soon after, he was reduced to the necessity of relying upon private benefactions. The duke of Aremberg gave him the privilege of his table at Brussels; and, when this nobleman was obliged to go to the army in Germany in 1733, he settled on him a handsome pension, and assigned him an. apartment in his castle of Euguien near Brussels. Rousseau, losing afterwards the good graces of the duke of Aremberg, as he had before lost those of prince Eugene, for he does not seem to have been happily formed for dependence, listened at length to proposals of returning to France, and for that purpose went incognito to Paris in 1739. He stayed there some little time; but, finding his affairs in no promising train, set out for Brussels. He continued some time at the Hague, where he was seized with an apoplexy; but recovered so far as to be removed to Brussels, where he finished his unfortunate life, March 17, 1741. He now declared upon his death-bed, as he had declared to Rollin at Paris a little before, that he was not the author of the verses which occasioned his banishment.

His executor, conformably to his intentions, gave a complete and beautiful edition of his works at Paris, 1743, in 3 vols. 4to, and also in 4 vols. 12mo, They contain odes, epistles, epigrams, and comedies, in verse; and a collection of letters, in prose; and have procured him the Character of the best lyric poet of France. Voltaire, who is not supposed to have done justice to Rousseau, owns, however, that “his odes are beautiful, diversified, and abound with images; that, in his hymns, he equals the harmony and devotion observable in the spiritual songs of Racine; and that his epigrams are finished with greater care than those of Marot. He was not,” continues the critic, “so successful in operas, which require sensibility; nor in comedies, which cannot succeed without gaiety. la both these qualities he was deficient; and therefore failed in operas and comedies, as being foreign to his genius.”

, an eccentric genius of our own times, has enabled us to give an account of him by a publication which himself left behind him, under the title of “Les Confessions de J. J. Rousseau, suivies des Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire,” Geneve, 1783, 2 volumes, 8vo. He was born at Geneva in 1711; his parents were, Isaac Rousseau, an ingenious watch-maker, and Susannah Bernard, the daughter of a clergyman, who was more rich than her husband (he having fifteen brothers and sisters). She had also wisdom and beauty, so that she was no easy prize; but a love, which commenced in their childhood, at length, after many difficulties, produced a happy marriage. And at the same time his mother’s brother, Gabriel, an engineer, married one of his father’s sisters. After the birth of one son, his father went to Constantinople, and was watch-maker to the seraglio; and ten months after his return our author was born, infirm and sickly, and cost his mother her life. The sensibility which was all that his parents left him, constituted (he says) their happiness, but occasioned all his misfortunes. He was “born almost dying,” but was preserved and reared by the tenderness of an aunt (his father’s sister). He remembers not how he learned to read, but only recollects that his first studies were some romances left by his mother, which engaged his father, as well as himself, whole nights, and gave him a very early knowledge of the passions, and also wild and romantic notions of human life. The romances ended with the summer of 1719. Better books succeeded, furnished by the library of his mother’s father, viz. “Le Sueur’s History of the Church and the Empire;” “Bossuet’s Discourses on Universal History;” “Plutarch’s Lives;” ' Nani’s History of Venice;“”Ovid’s Metamorphoses;“”La Bruyere;“ ”Fontenelle’s Worlds, and Dialogues of the Dead“and some volumes of” Moliere.“Of these” Plutarch“were his favourite; and he soon preferred Agesilaus, Brutus, and Aristides, to Oroondates, Artamenes, aud Juba; and to these lives, and the conversations that they occasioned with his father, he imputes that free and republican spirit, that fierce and intractable character, which ever after was his torment. His brother, who was seven years older, and followed his father’s business, being neglected in his education, behaved so ill, and was so incorrigible, that he fled into Germany, and was never heard of afterwards. On the contrary, the utmost attention was bestowed on John James, and he was almost idolized by all. Yet he had (he owns) all the faults of his age he was a prater, a glutton, and sometimes a liar; he stole fruit, sweetmeats, and victuals but he never delighted in being mischievous or wasteful, hi accusing others, or in tormenting poor animals. He re^ Jates, however, an indelicate trick he played one Madame Clot while she was at prayers, which still, he says, diverts him, because” she was the most fretful old woman he ever knew.“His” taste, or rather passion, for music“he owed to his aunt Susan, who sang most sweetly; and he paints her in most pleasing colours. A dispute, which his father had with a French captain obliging him to quit Geneva, our author was left under the care of his uncle Bernard, then employed on the fortifications, who having a son of the same age, these cousins were boarded together at Bossey, at M. Lambercier’s, a clergyman, to learn Latin, and other branches of education. In this village he passed two happy years, and formed an affectionate friendship with his cousin Bernard. A slight offence, the breaking the teeth of a comb, with which he was charged, but denied it, and of which now, fifty years after, he avows his innocence, bub for which he was severely punished, and a like chastisement, which, for a like offence, was also unjustly inflicted on his cousin, gave both at last a distaste for this paradise, and great pleasure in being removed from it. This incident made a deep and lasting impression upon him, as did another about planting a willow and a walnut tree, for which we must refer to his own account. At his return to Geneva he continued two or three years wiih his uncle, losing his time, it not being determined whether he should be a watch-maker, an attorney, or a minister. To the last he was most inclined, but that the small remains of his mother’s fortune would not admit. In the mean time he learned to draw, for which he had a taste, and read” Euclid’s Elements“withes Cousin. Thus they led an idle, but not a vicious life, making cages, flutes, shuttle-cocks, drums, houses, cross-bows, and puppets, imitating Punch, acting plays, and at last makiog sermons. He often visited his father, wlxo was then settled at Nion, a small town in the country of Vaud, and there he recounts two amours (as he calls them) that he had, at the age of eleven, with two grown misses, whom he archly describes. At last he was placed with M. Massiron, register of the city, to learn his business; but, being by him soon dismissed for his stupidity, he was bound apprentice, not, however, to a watch-maker, but to an engraver, a brutal wretch, who not only treated him most inhumanly, but taught him to lie, to be idle, and to steal. Of the latter he gives some instances. In his sixteenth year, having twice on a Sunday been locked out of the city-gates, and being severely threatened by his master if he stayed out a third time, by an unlucky circumstance this event happening, he swore never to return again, sending word privately to his cousin Bernard of what he proposed, and where he might once more see him; which he did, not to dissuade him, but to make him some presents. They then parted with tears, but never met or corresponded more,” which was a pity, as they were made to love each other.“After making some reflections on what would have been his fate if he had fallen into the hands of a better master, he informs us that at Consignon, in Savoy, two leagues from Geneva, he had the curiosity to see the rector, M. de Pontverre, a name famous in their history, and accordingly went to visit him, and was well received, and regaled with such a good dinner as prevented hisreplyingto his host’s arguments in favour of holy mother Church, and against the heresy of Geneva. Instead of sending him back to his family, this devout priest endeavoured to convert him, and recommended him to mad. de Warens, a good charitable lady, lately converted, at Annecy, who had quitted her husband, her family, her country, and her religion, for a pension of 1500 Piedmontese livres, allowed her by the King of Sardinia. He arrived at Annecy on Palm- Sunday, 1728 and saw madam de Warens. This epoch of his life determined his character. He was then in the middle of his 16th year; though not handsome, he was well made, had black hair, and small sparkling eyes, &c. charms, of which, unluckily, he was not unconscious. The lady too, who was then 28, he describes as being highly agreeable and engaging, and having many personal charms, although her size was small, and her stature short. Being told she was just gone to the Cordeliers church, he overtook her at the door, was struck with her appearance, so different from that of the old crabbed devotee which he had imagined, and was instantly proselyted to her religion. He gave her a letter from M. de Pontverre, to which he added one of his own. She glanced at the former, but read the latter, and would have read it again, if her servant had not reminded her of its being church-time. She then bade John James go to her house, ask for some breakfast, and wait her return from mass. Her accomplishments he paints in brilliant colours; considers her as a good Catholic; and, in short, at first sight, was inspired by her with the strongest attachment, and the utmost confidence. She kept him to dinner, and then inquiring his circumstances, urged him to go to Turin, where, in a seminary for the instruction of catechumens, he might be maintained till his conversion was accomplished; and engaged also to prevail on M. de Bernet, the titular bishop of Geneva, to contribute largely to the expence of his journey. This promise she performed. He gave his consent, being desirous of seeing the capital, and of climbing the Alps. She also reinforced his purse, gave him privately ample instructions; and, entrusting him to the care of a countryman and his wife, they parted on AshWednesday. The day after, his father” came in quest of him, accompanied by his friend M. Rixal, a watch-maker, like himself, and a good poet. They visited madam de Warens, but only lamented with her, instead of pursuing and overtaking him, which they might, they being on horseback, and he on foot. His brother had been lost by a like negligence. Having some independent fortune from their mother, it seemed as if their father connived at their flight in order to secure it to himself, an idea which gave our author great uneasiness. After a pleasantjourney with his two companions, he arrived at Turin, but without money, cloaths, or linen. His letters of recommendation admitted him into the seminary; a course of life, and a mode of instruction, with which he was soon disgusted. In two months, however, he made his abjuration, was baptized Ht the cathedral, absolved of h f eresy by the inquisitor^ and then dismissed, with about 20 livres in his pocket; thus, at once, made an apostate and a dupe, with all his hopes in an instant annulled. After traversing the streets, and viewing the buildings, he took at night a mean lodging, where he continued some days. To the king’s chapel, in particular, he was frequently allured by his taste for music, which then began to discover itself. His purse, at last, being almost exhausted, he looked out for employment, and at last found it, as an engraver of plate, by means of a young woman, madame Basile, whose husband, a goldsmith, was abroad, and had left her under the care of a clerk, or an jEgisthus, as Rousseau styles him. Nothing, he declares, but what was innocent, passed betwixt him and this lady, though her charms made great impression on him; and soon after, her husband returning, and finding him at dinner with her confessor, the clerk, &c. immediately dismissed him the house. His landlady, a soldier’s wife, after this procured him the place of footman to the countess dowager of Vercullis, whose livery he wore; but his business was to write the letters which she dictated, a cancer in her breast preventing her writing them herself; letters, he says, equal to those of madam de Sevigne. This service terminated, in three months, with his lady’s death, who left him nothing, though she had great curiosity to know his history, and to read his letters to madam de Warens. He saw her expire with many tears her life having been that of a woman of wit and sense, her death being that of a sage. Her heir and nephew, the count de la Roque, gave him 30 livres and his new cloaths; but, on leaving this service, he committed, he owns, a diabolical action, by falsely accusing Marion, the cook, of giving him a rosecoloured silver ribbon belonging to one of the chambermaids, which was found upon him, and which he himself had stolen. This crime, which was an insupportable load on his conscience, he says, all his life after, and which he never avowed before, not even to Madam de Warens, was one principal inducement to his writing his “Confessions,” and he hopes, “has been expiated by his subsequent misfortunes, and by forty years of rectitude and honour in the most difficult situations.” On leaving this service, he returned to his lodgings, and, among other acquaintances that he had made, often visited M. Gaime, a Savoyard abbé, the original of the “Savoyard Vicar,” to whose virtuous and religious instructions, he professes the highest obligations. The count de la Roque, though he neglected to call upon him, procured him, however, a place with the count de Gouvon, an equerry to the queen, where he lived much at his ease, and out of livery. Though happy in this family, being favoured by all, frequently waiting on the count’s beautiful grand -daughter, honoured with lessons by the abbe“, his younger son, and having reason to expect an establishment in the train of his eldest son, ambassador to Venice, he absurdly relinquished all this by obliging the count to dismiss him for his attachment to one of his countrymen, named Bacle, who inveigled him to accompany him in his way back to Geneva; and an artificial fountain, which the abbe* de Gouvon had given him, helped, as their purse was light, to maintain them till it broke. At Annecy he parted with his companion, and hastened to madam de Warens, who, instead of reproaching, lodged him in her best chamber, and” Little One“(Petit) was his name, and” Mama“hers. There he lived most happily and innocently, he declares, till a relation of” Mama,“a M. d'Aubonne, suggested that John-James was fit for nothing but the priesthood, but first advised his completing his education by learning Latin. To this the bishop not only consented, but gave him a pension. Reluctantly he obeyed, carrying to the seminary of St. Lazarus no book but Clerambault’s cantatas, learning nothing there but one of his airs, and therefore being soon dismissed for his insufficiency. Yet madam de Warens did not abandon him. His taste for music then made them think of his being a musician, and boarding for that purpose with M. le Maitre, the organist of the cathedral, who lived near” Mama,“and presided at her weekly concerts. There he continued for a year, but his passion for her prevented his learning even music. Le Maitre, disgusted with the Chapter, and determined to leave them, was accompanied in his flight, as far as Lyons, by John-James; but, being subject to fits, and attacked by one of them in the streets, he was deserted in distress by his faithless friend, who turned the corner, and left him. This is his third painful” Confession.“He instantly returned to Annecy and” Mama; but she, alas! was gone to Paris. After this, he informs us of the many girls that were enamoured of him: of his journey with one of them, on foot, to Fribourg; of his visiting his father, in his way, at Nion; and of his great distress at Lausanne, which reduced him to the expedient of teaching music, which he knew not, saying he was of Paris, where he had never been, and changing his name to Voussore, the anagram of Rousseau. But here his ignorance and his imprudence exposed him to public shame, by his attempting what he could not execute. Being thus discomfited, and unable to subsist at Lausanne, he removed to Neufchatel, where he passed the winter. There he succeeded better, and, at length, by teaching music, insensibly learned it.

At Boudry, accidentally meeting a Greek bishop, Archimandrite of Jerusalem, who was making a collection in Europe to repair the holy sepulchre, our adventurer was prevailed upon to accompany him as his secretary and interpreter and, in consequence, travelled, alms’-gathering, through Switzerland; harangued the senate of Berne, &c. but at Soleure, the French ambassador, the marquis de Bonac, having made him discover who he was, detained him in his service, without allowing him even to take leave of his “poor Archimandrite,” and sent him (as he desired) to Paris, to travel with the nephew of M. Goddard, a Swiss colonel in the French service. This fortnight’s journey was the happiest time of his life. In his ideas of the magnificence of Paris, Versailles, &c. he greatly mistook. He was also much flattered, and little served. Colonel Goddard’s proposals being very inadequate to his expectations, he was advised to decline accepting them. Hearing that his dear “Mama” had been gone two months to Savoy, Turin, or Switzerland, he determined to follow her; and, on the road, sent by the post a paper of satirical verses, to the old avaricious colonel, the only satire that he ever wrote. At Lyons he visited mademoiselle du Chatelet, a friend of madam de Warens; but whether that lady was gone to Savoy or Piedmont, she could not inform him. She urged him, however, to stay at Lyons, till she wrote and had an answer, an offer which he accepted, although his purse was almost exhausted, and he was often reduced to lie in the streets, yet without concern or apprehension, choosing rather to pay for bread than a lodging. At length, M. Rolichon, an Antonian, accidentally hearing him sing in the street a cantata of Batistin, employed him some days in copying music, fed him well, and gave him a crown, which, he owns, he little deserved, his transcripts were so incorrect and faulty. And, soon after, he heard news of “Mama,” who was at Chambery, and received money to enable him to join her. He found her constant and affectionate, ana 1 she immediately introduced him to the intendant, who had provided him the place of a secretary to the commissioners appointed by the king to make a general survey of the country, a place which, though not very lucrative, afforded him an honourable maintenance for the first time in his life. This happened in 1732, he being then near 21. He lodged with “Mama,” in whose affection, however, he had a formidable rival in her steward, Claude Anetj yet they all lived together on the best terms. The succeeding eight or nine years, viz. till 1741, when he set out for Paris, had few or no events. His taste for music made him resign his employment for that of teaching that science; and several of his young female scholars (all charming) he describes and introduces to his readers. To alienate him from other seducers, at length his “Mama” (he says) proposed to him being his mistress, and became so; yet sadness and sorrow embittered his delights, and, from the maternal light in which he had been accustomed to view this philosophical lady, who sinned, he adds, more through error than from passion, he deemed himself incestuous. And let it be remembered that she had a husband, and had had many other gallants. Such is his “good-hearted” heroine, the Aspasia of his Socrates, as he calls tier, and such was he. This is another of his “Confessions.” Thus madam de Warens, Rousseau, and Anet, lived together in the most perfect union, till a pleurisy deprived him of the latter. In consequence of the loss of this good manager, all her affairs were soon in the utmost disorder, though JohnJames succeeded to the stewardship, and though he pawned his own credit to support hers. Determining now to compose, and for that purpose, first to learn, music, he applied to the abbe Ulancnard, organist of the cathedral of Besanc,on. But, just as they were going to begin, he heard that his portmanteau, with all his cloaths, was seized at Rousses, a French custom-house on the borders of Switzerland, because he had accidentally, in a new waistcoat-pocket, a Jansenist parody of the first scene of Racine’s “Mithridates,” of which he had not read ten lines. This loss made him return to Chambery, totally disappointed, and resolved, in future, to attach himself solely to “Mama,” who, by degrees, reinstated his wardrobe. And still cotitin, ing to study Rameau, he succeeded, at last, in some compositions, which were much approved by good judges, and thus did not lose his scholars. From this aera he dates his connexion with his old friend Gauffeconrt, an amiable man. since dead, and M. d Conzie, a Savoyard gentleman, then living. The extra* ityatn-e of his mistr* ss, in spite of all his remonstrances, made? uim absent himself from her, which increased their ex pe ices, but at the same time procured him many respectable friends, whom he name.-. His uncle Bernard was now dead in Carolina, whither he went in oruer to build Charles-tow1, as na* his cousin, in the service of tue king of Prussia. His health at this time visibly, but unaccountably, declined. “The sword cut the scabbard.” Besides his disorderly passions, his illness was partly occasioned by the tury vv:tn union he studied chess, shutting hunself up, for that purpose, whole days and nights, till he looked like a corpse, and partly by his concern and anxiety for madam de Warens, who by her maternal care and attention saved his life. Being ordered by her to drink milk in the country, he prevailed on her to accompany him, and, aoout the end of the summer of 1736, they settled at Charmett- j s, near the gate of Chambery, but solitary and retired, in a house whose situation he describes with rapture. “Moments dear and regretted.” However, not being able to bear milk, having recourse to water, which almost killed him, and leaving off wine, he lost his appetite, and had a violent nervous affection, which, at the end of some weeks, left him with a beating of his arteries, and tingling in his ears, which have lasted from that time to the present, 30 years after; and, from being a good sleeper, he became sleepless, and constantly short-breathed. “This accident, which might have destroyed his body, only destroyed his passions, and produced a happy effect on his soul.” “Mama” too, he says, was religious; yet, though she believed in purgatory, she did not believe in hell. The summer passed amidst their garden, their pigeons, their cows, &c. theauiumn in their vintage and their fruit-gathering; and in the winter they returned, as from exile, to town. Not thinking that he should live till spring, he did not stir out, nor see any one but madam de Warens and M. Salomon, their physician, an honest man, and a great Cartesian, whose conversation was better than all his prescriptions. In short, John-James studied hard, recovered, went abroad, saw all his acquaintance again, and, to his great surprise and joy, beheld the buds of the spring, and went with his mistress again to Charmettes. There, being soon fatigued with digging in the garden, he divided his time between the pigeon-house (so taming those timid birds as to induce them to perch on his arms and head), bee-hives, and books of science, beginning with philosophy, and proceeding to elementary geometry, Latin (to him, who had no memory, the most difficult), history, geography, and astronomy. One night, as he was observing the stars in his garden, with a planisphere, a candle secured in a pai), a telescope, &c. dressed in a flapped hat, and a wadded pet-en-V air of “Mama’s,” he was taken by some peasants for a conjurer. In future, he observed without a light, and consulted his planisphere at home. The writings of Port-royal and of the Oratory had now made him half a Jansenist. But his confessor and another Jesuit set his mind at ease, and he had recourse to several ridiculous expedients to know whether he was in a state of salvation. In the mean time, their rural felicity continued, and, contrary to his advice, madam de Warens became by degrees a great farmer, of which he foresaw ruin must be the consequence.

In the ensuing winter he received some music from Italy, and, being now of age, it was agreed that he should go in the spring to Geneva, to demand the remains of his mother’s fortune. He went accordingly, and his father came also to Geneva, undisturbed, his affair being now buried in oblivion. No difficulty was occasioned by our author’s change of religion; his brother’s death not being legally proved, he could not claim his share, and therefore readily left it to contribute towards the maintenance of his father, who enjoyed it as long as be lived. At length he received his money, turned part of it into livres, and flew with the rest to “Mama,*' who received it without affectation, and employed most of it for his use. His health, however, decayed visibly, and he was again horribly oppressed with the vapours. At length his researches into anatomy made him suspect that his disorder was a polypus in the heart. Salomon seemed struck with the same idea. And having heard that M Fizes, of Montpellier, had cured such a polypus, he went immediately to consult him, assisted by the supply from Geneva. But two ladies, whom he met at Moirans, especially the elder, Mad. N. at once banished his fever, his vapours, his polypus, and all his palpitations, except those which she herself had excited, and would not cure. Without knowing a word of English, he here thought proper to pass for an Englishman and a Jacobite, and called himself Mr Budding. Leaving the other lady at Romans, with madam N. and an old sick marquis, he travelled slowly and agreeably to Saint Marcellin, Valence, Montelimar (before which the marquis left them), and at length, after having agreed to pass the winter together, these lovers (for such they became) parted with mutual regret. Filled with the ideas of madam N. and her daughter, whom she idolised, he mused from Pont St. Esprit to Remoulin. He visited Pont-du Card, the first work of the Romans that he had seen, and the Arena of Nimes, a work still more magnificent; in all these journeys forgetting that he was ill till he arrived at Montpellier. From abundant precaution he boarded with an Irish physician, named Fitz- Moris, and consulted M. Fizes, as madam N, had advised him. Finding that the doctors Jcnew nothing of his disorder, and only endeavoured to amuse him and make him” swallow his own money,“he left Montpellier at the end of November, after six weeks or two months stay, leaving twelve louis there for no purpose, save for a course of anatomy, just begun under M. Fitz-Moris, but which the horrible stench of dissected bodies rendered insupportable. Whether he should return to” Mama,“or go (as he had promised) to madam N. was now the question. Reason, however, here turned the scale. At Pont St. Esprit he burnt his direction, and took the road to Chambery,” for the first time in his life indebted to his studies, preferring his duty to pleasure, and deserving his own esteem.“At his return to madam de Warens, he found his place supplied by a young man of the Pays de Vaud, named Vintzenried, a journeyman barber, whom he paints in the most disgusting colours. This name not being noble enough, he changed it for that of M. de Courtilles, by which he was afterwards known at Chambery, and in Maurienne, where he married. He being every thing in the house, and Rousseau nothing, all his pleasures vanished like a dream, and at length he determined to quit this abode, once so dear, to which his” Mama" readily consented. And being invited to educate the children of M. de Maiby, grand provost of Lyons, he set out for that city, without regretting a separation of which the sole idea would formerly have been painful as death to them both. Unqualified for a preceptor, both by temper and manners, and much disgusted with his treatment by the provost, he quitted his family in about a year; and sighing for madam de Warens, flew once more to throw himself at her feet. She received him with good nature, but he could not recover the past. His former happiness, he found, was dead for ever. He continued there, however, still foreseeing her approaching ruin, and the seizure of her person; and to retrieve her affairs, forming castles in the air, and having made an improvement (as he thought) in musical notes, from which he had great expectations, he sold nis books, and set out for Paris, to communicate his scheme to tht academy.