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Guarino had the misfortune to be early involved in family law-suits, and had to apply for the heritage of his grandfather and grand- uncle in opposition to francis Guahuo, his father, who has left no other character than that of a keen sportsman, and who was the only one of the family that had no taste for literature. Having lost his first wife, he married again to injure his son’s interest; hut the duke Hercules II. interposed, and assigned to our poet a proportion of the family property, which was very considerable. Battista married himself about this time Taddea Bendedei, a lady of a noble family of Ferrara.

He was a member of several academies, besides other societies; as that of the Ricouvrati of Padua, the Intrepidi of Ferrara, and the Umoristi of Rome. Notwithstanding the reputation he had gained by his “Pastor Fido,” he could not endure the title of poet, which he thought was so far from bringing any honour to the bearers, that it rather exposed them to contempt. He wrote other things, a complete catalogue of which may be seen in Niceron; but his “Pastor Fido” was his principal work, has gone through a vast number of editions, and is regarded as one of the standard productions of Italian poetry, although it has all the defects peculiar to the poetry of his age. Hjs personal character, from the preceding account, appears to have been somewhat equivocal. It would not be fair to accuse him of a capricious and irritable temper, unless we were better acquainted with the circumstances of his life. He appears, however, to have owed little of his happiness to his patrons, and less to his family, and was highly unfortunate in public as well as domestic life, whatever share of blame might attach to him.

, an Italian poet, was born at Pavia^ in Milan, 1650, and sent to Parma at sixteen years of age. His uncommon talents for poetry recommended him so powerfully at court, that he received great encouragement from the duke. He composed some pieces at that time, which, though they savoured of the bad taste thei> prevailing, yet shewed genius, and a capacity for better things. He had afterwards a desire to see Rome, and, in 1683, going thither by the permission of the duke of Parma, and being already known by his poems y found no difficulty in being introduced to persons of the first distinctiort. Among others, Christina queen of Sweden wished to see him; and was so pleased with a poem, which he composed at her request, that she had a great desire to retain him at her court. The term allowed him by the duke being expired, he returned to Parma; but the queen having signified her desire to that prince’s resident at Rome, and the duke being acquainted with it, Guidi was sent back to Rome in May 1685.

, an Italian poet, was born at Lucca in 1550. Having received an excellent education, he was introduced to the service of cardinal Alexander Farnese, afterwards pope Paul III. He became very intimate with Annibal Caro, and with many other men of letters at Rome. When his patron was elevated to the popedom, he was made governor of the city, and bishop of Fossombrone. In 1535 he was sent nuncio to the emperor Charles V. whom he accompanied in his expedition to Tunis, and on other journeys. He was, about 1539, made president of Romagna, and afterwards commissary-general of the pontifical army, and governor of the Marche. So well did he act his part in all these employments, that he would have been raised to the dignity of cardinal had he not been carried off by a disease in 1541. He was author of an oration to the republic of Lucca, of many letters, and of a number of poems which gave him a high reputation. His works ka*e been several times printed. The best edition is that of 1749—50, 2 vols. 4to.

, an Italian poet of the thirteenth century, was usually called Fra Guittone, as belonging to a religious and military order, now extinct, called the cavalieri gaudenti, established in 1208, during the barbarous crusade carried on against the Albigenses. This abominable massacre, however, was over before Guittone became a member. Little else is known of his history, except that he founded the monastery of St. Mary at Florence, and died in the same year, 1293. The Florence “Collection of the ancient Italian poets,” 1527, contain his poetical works, amounting to about thirty sonnets and canzoni, partly on subjects of love, and partly of devotion, or of both mixed. In most of these is a harmony, taste, and turn of sentiment, more polished than is to be found among his predecessors, and which Petrarch has evidently studied, and sometimes imitated. His letters, published by Bottari, “Lettere de fra Guittone d'Arezzo con note,” Rome, 1745, are curious, not perhaps for intrinsic merit, but as the first specimens of Italian letter-writing.

, a French poet of the seventeenth century, was abbot of Notre Dame de Cerisy, one of the first members of the French academy, and the most distinguished among the beaux esprits of his time. He died in 1655, and left several poems; that entitled “Metamorphose des Yeux d'Iris changes en Astres,” 1639, 8vo, is particularly admired, and is certainly not without considerable merit. Habert also wrote the “Life, or Panegyric of Cardinal de Berulle,” 1646, 4to, and a Paraphrase on some of the Psalms. His brother, Philip Habert, was among the first members of the French academy, and appointed commissioner of artillery, through the interest of M. de la Meilleraye, who had a great regard for him. He unfortunately perished at the siege of Emmerick, in 1637, aged thirty-two, under the ruins of a wall, which was blown up by a cask of gun-powder, through the negligence of an unskilful soldier. There is a poem of his in Barbin’s Collection, entitled “Le Temple de la Mort,” written on the death of M. de la "Meilleraye’s first wife, which was once much admired.

, an excellent English poet, was descended from a Roman catholic family. His greatgrandfather was Richard Habington or Abington of Brockhampton, in Herefordshire. His grandfather, John, second son of this Richard Habington, and cofferer to queen Elizabeth, was born in 1515, and died in 1581. He bought the manor of Hindlip, in Worcestershire, and rebuilt the mansion about 1572. His father, Thomas Habington, was born at Thorpe, in Surrey, 1560, studied at Oxford, and afterwards travelled to Rheims and Paris. On his return he involved himself with the party who laboured to release Mary queen of Scots, and was afterwards imprisoned on a suspicion of being concerned in Babington’s conspiracy. During this imprisonment, which lasted six years, he employed his time in study. Having been at length released, and his life saved, as is supposed on account of his being queen Elizabeth’s godson, he retired to Hindlip, and married Mary, eldest daughter of Edward Parker lord Morley, by Elizabeth, daughter and sole heir of sir William Stanley, lord Monteagle.

On the detection of the gunpowder plot, he again fell under the displeasure of government, by concealing some of the agents in that affair in his house, and was condemned to die, but pardoned by the intercession of his brother-in-law, lord Morley, who discovered the plot by the famous letter of warning, which Mrs. Habington is reported to have written. The condition of his pardon was, that he should never stir out of Worcestershire. With this he appears to have complied, and devoted his time, among other pursuits, to the history and antiquities of that county, of which he left three folio volumes of parochial antiquities, two of miscellaneous collections, and one relating to the cathedral. These received additions from his son and from Dr. Thomas, of whom bishop Lyttelton purchased them, and presented them to the society of antiquaries. They have since formed the foundation of Dr. Nash’s elaborate history. Wood says he had a hand in the “History of Edward IV.” published afterwards under the name of his son, the poet, whom he survived dying in 1647, at the advanced age of eighty -seven.

William Habington, his eldest son, was born at Hindlip, Nov. 5, 1605, and was educated in the Jesuits’ college at St. Omer’s, and afterwards at Paris, with a view to induce him to take the habit of the order, which he declined. On his return from the continent he resided principally with, his father, who became his preceptor, and evidently sent him into the world a man of elegant accomplishments and virtues. Although allied to some noble families, and occasionally mixing in the gaieties of high life, his natural disposition inclined him to the purer pleasures of rural life. He wa probably very early a poet and' a lover, and in both successful. He married Lucy, daughter of William Herbert, first lord Powis, by Eleanor, daughter of Henry Percy, eighth earl of Northumberland, by Katharine, daughter and coheir of John Neville, lord Latimer. It is to this lady that we are indebted for his poems, most of which were written in allusion to his courtship and marriage. Sha> was the Castara who animated his imagination with tenderness and elegance, and purified it from the grosser opprobria of the amatory poets. His poems, as was not unusual in that age, were written occasionally, and dispersed confidentially. In 1635 they appear to have been first collected into a volume, which Oidys calls the second edition, under the title of “Castara.” Another edition was published in 1640, which is by far the most perfect and correct. The reader to whom an analysis may be necessary, will find a vsry judicious one in the last voluai of the “Censura Literaria.” His other works are, the “Queen of Arragon,” a tragi-comedy, which was acted at court, and at Black-friars, and printed in 1640. It has since been reprinted among Dodsley’s Old Plays. The author having communicated the manuscript to Philip earl of Pembroke, lord chamberlain of the household to king Charles I. he caused it to be acted, and afterwards published against the author’s consent. It was revived, with the revival of the stage, at the restoration, about 1666, when a new prologue and epilogue were furnished by the author of Hudibras.

, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, descended from an ancient family in Scotland, was born near Exeter-house in the Strand, London, September 1, 1592. He was admitted very young into Westminsterschool, where, on account of his proficiency, he was much noticed by Dr. (afterwards bishop) Andrews, but then dean of Westminster. In 1608, along with Herbert the poet, he was elected to Trinity-college, Cambridge. His uncommon parts and learning recommended him to particular notice; so that, after taking the proper degrees, he was chosen fellow of his college, and became a tutor of great repute. One month in the long vacation, retiring with his pupil, afterwards lord Byron, to Newstede abbey, Nottinghamshire, he composed a Latin comedy entitled “Loyola,” which was twice acted before James I. and printed in 1648. He took orders in 1618, and was collated to the rectory of Stoke Hamon, in Buckinghamshire, and had singular kindness shewn him by bishop Andrews and several great men. But above all others, he was regarded by Dr. Williams, dean of Westminster and bishop of Lincoln, who, being appointed lord-keeper of the great seal in 1621, chose Hacket for his chaplain, and ever preserved a high esteem for him. In 1623, he was made chaplain to Jame$ I. with whom he became a favourite preacher, and was also made a prebendary of Lincoln; and the year following, upon the lord-keeper’s recommendation, rector of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, in London. His patron also procured him the same year the rectory of Cheam, in. Surrey; telling him that he intended Holborn for wealth, and Cheam for health.

, a celebrated German poet of the last century, was born at Hamburgh in 1708. His father was minister from the king of Denmark to the circles of Lower Saxony, a well informed man, who associated with men of letters, and was capable of giving a direction to his son’s studies suitable to his genius. By various misfortunes, however, he lost his property, and died when our poet was only fourteen, and very ill provided for the liberal education which his father intended. His mother endeavoured to make up this loss by placing him at a college at Hamburgh, where, having previously imbibed a taste for poetry, he read the ancient as well a* the modern poets with eagerness and assiduity. Without the help of a master, or the salutary aid of criticism, he endeavoured to draw from his own stock the power of dissipating the fogs of dulness in the north, as Haller had done in the south of Germany. In 1728 or 1729, he published a small collection of poems, which have many marks of youth, and though his versification is free, and his language often very pure, the thoughts are frequently cold, and the expression too concise. In subjects which require little taste and philosophy, he has succeeded better than in works of sentiment and imagination. Of his taste at this time, he has given a bad specimen in his satire entitled “The Poet,” in which he puts Pietsch by the side of Virgil.

, a French historian, of an ancient family, was born at Bourdeaux about 1535. He went to court at twenty years of age, and in 1556 and 1557 was secretary to Francis de Noailles, bishop of Acqs, in his embassies to England and Venice. After that, his first appearance in the republic of letters was in the quality of a poet and translator. In 1559, he published a poem, entitled “The Union of the Princes, by the Marriages of Philip King of Spain and the Lady Elizabeth of France, and of Philibert Emanuel Duke of Savoy, and the Lady Margaret of France;” and another entitled “The Tomb of the most Christian King Henry II.” In 1560 he published an abridged translation of “Tully’s Offices, 7 ' and of” Eutropius’s Roman History;“and, in 1568, of” The Life of JEmilius Probus.“He applied himself afterwards to the writing of history, and succeeded so well, that by his first performances of this nature, he obtained of Charles IX. the title of Historiographer of France 1571. He had published the year before at Paris a book entitled” Of the State and Success of the Affairs of France;“which was reckoned very curious, and was often reprinted. He augmented it in several successive editions, and dedicated it to Henry IV. in 1594: the best editions of it are those of Paris 1609 and 1613, in 8vo. He had published also the same year a work entitled” Of the Fortune and Power of France, with a Summary Discourse on the Design of a History of France:“though Niceron suspects that this may be the same with” The Promise and Design of the History of France," which he published in 1571, in order to let Charles IX. see what he might expect from him in support of the great honour he had conferred of historiographer of France. In 1576, he published a history, which reaches from Phararnond to the death of Charles VII. and was the first who composed a body of the French history in French. Henry III. shewed his satisfaction with this by the advantageous and honourable gratifications he made the author. The reasons which induced de Haillan to conclude his work with Charles Vllth’s death were, that the event beingrecent, he must eitlier conceal the truth, or provoke the resentment of men in power, but he afterwards promised Henry IV. to continue this history to his time, as may be seen in his dedication to him of this work in 1594; nothing however of this kind was found among his papers after his death: the booksellers, who added a continuation to his work as far as to 1615, and afterwards as far as to 1627, took it from Paulus Æmilius, de Comines, Arnoul Ferron, du Bellay, &c.

, an English poet of some note, was born at Durham, August 1627, and after one year spent at St. John’s college, Cambridge, removed to Gray’s-inn, London, where he was called to the bar; but entering into the politics of the times, and writing on subjects favourable to the rebellion, he attracted the notice of parliament, who sent him into Scotland to attend Oliver Cromwell, and afterwards distinguished him by other marks of favour: but, being too much addicted to pleasure, he fell a sacrifice to its indulgence; and returning to his native city of Durham, died there, August 1, 1656. In 1646 (during his short residence at Cambridge), being then but nineteen years of age, he published “Horas Vacivse, or Essayes,” a sufficient proof of his abilities. His poems came out the same year. He published the first English version of Longinus, which he entitled “The Height of Eloquence,” Lond. 1652, 8vo. This he translated from the Greek, as he also did “Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras;” before which is an account of the ingenious translator and his works, by John Davis of Kidwelly, by whom it was published in 1657, 8vo. Several of his poems are preserved in Nichols’s “Select Collection,” reprinted from a little volume, entitled “Poems by John Hall, Cambridge, printed by Roger Daniel, printer to the universitie, 1646, for J. Rothwell at the Sun in St. Paul’s Churchyard,” to which in 1647 was added “The Second Booke of Divine Poems by J. H.” which is now become exceedingly scarce. Recommendatory verses are prefixed to it by Jo. Pawson (his tutor), H. More, W. Dillingham, W. Harrington, Ja. Windet, R. Marshall, T. Smithsby, and Edw. Holland.

His errand to London was a dispute with his patron sir Robert Drury, whom we have noticed as the patron of the poet Donne, but who in Mr. Hall’s case does not appear to have acted with liberality or justice. He had detained about ten pounds per annum belonging to the living of

usual judgment, that " the poet is bet-to be circulated or read. See Warton’s

few have ever heard that he was a poet. Dr. John King to the see of London,

, professor of canon law in the university of Paris, was born at Bayeux in Normandy, September 8, 1611. He studied philosophy, law, and divinity, for five years in the university of Caen; and also applied himself to poetry, under the direction of his uncle Anthony Halle, who was a Latin poet of some note, with such success, that he gained the prizes in the poetical exercises that are performed every year in these two cities, “to the honour of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.” This procured him so much reputation, that, though he was still very young, he was chosen professor of rhetoric in the university of Caen. Some time afier, being rector of the university, he made an oration to M. Seguier, chancellor of France, then in Normandy, to -suppress some popular insurrections; which was so much approved by that head of the law, that he received a doctor of law’s degree from him in 1640. He attended M. Seguier to Paris, and gained such reputation by some pieces he published, that they offered him the mastership of five different colleges; and he was incorporated in his absence (a very unusual thing) into the body of the university in 1641. He was made king’s poet, and reader of the Latin and Greek tongues in the royal college in 1646. His assiduous application to study having ruined his health, he was obliged to rest for two years, in order to recover it. He afterwards resolved to raise the glory of the faculty of the law, which was miserably sunk; and in 1655 he obtained the post of regius professor of the canon law, when he vigorously began, and, though he met with great difficulties, successfully executed what he had resolved. Besides “Canonical Institutions,” which he published in 1685, he wrote also for the use of his pupils several treatises upon the civil and canon laws; as, concerning councils, the Pope’s authority, the regale, simony, usury, censures, regular persons, ecclesiastical benefices, matrimony, last wills and testaments, &c. He had published in 1G55, 8vo. “A Collection of Latin Poems and Orations.” He died December 27, 1689.

, of Bangour, an ingenious poet, was the son of a man of fortune and family in Airshire, where he was born in 1704. He received a liberal education, to which he joined the accomplishments of the man of the world, and amidst the lighter dissipations of society, cultivated a taste for poetry, of which he exhibited frequent specimens for the amusement of his friends. In 1745 he joined the unfortunate cause of the Pretender, and conceived great hopes from the temporary success of the rebels at Preston-pans; but after the battle of Culloden, which terminated the struggle, was obliged to provide for his safety in flight, and after many narrow escapes, reached the continent, where he remained until he received a pardon, and was enabled to visit his native land. To recruit his health, however, he was obliged to return to the more genial climate of France, where he died in 1754.

Handel was now settled in England, and well provided for. The first three years he was chiefly, if not constantly, at the earl of Burlington’s, where he frequently met Pope. The poet one day asked his friend Arbuthnot, of whose knowledge'in music he had an high idea, what was his real opinion of Handel, as a master of that science? who re-, plied, “Conceive the highest you can of his abilities, and they are much beyond any thing that you can conceive.” Pope nevertheless declared, that Handel’s finest things, so untoward were his ears, gave him no more pleasure than the airs of a common ballad. The two next years Handel spent at Cannons, then in its glory, and composed music for the chapel there. About this time a project was formed by the nobility for erecting an academy in the Haymarket; the intention of which was to secure a constant supply of operas, to be composed by Handel, and to be performed under his direction. For this purpose the sum of 50,000^. was subscribed, the king subscribing lOOOl. and a society was formed called “the Royal Academy.” Handel immediately was commissioned to go to Dresden in quest of singers, whence he brought Senesino and Duristanti. At this time Buononcini and Attilto, whom we have mentioned before, composed for the opera, and had a strong party in their favour, which produced a violent opposition, ridiculed by Swift and the other wits of the time, although of great importance to the fashionable world; but at last the rival composers and performers were all united, and each was to have his particular part.

As a composer, it would be affectation to attempt any character of Handel after what Dr. Burney has given. “That Handel was superior in the strength and boldness of his style, the richness of his harmony, and complication of parts, to every composer who has been most admired for such excellencies, cannot be disputed; and while fugue, contrivance, and a full score were more generallyreverenced than at present, he remained wholly unrivalled. We know it has been said that Handel was not the original 3-nd immediate inventor of several species of music for which his name has been celebrated; but with respect to originality, it is a term to which proper limits should be set before it is applied to the productions of any artist. Every invention is clumsy in its beginning; and Shakspeare was not the first writer of plays, or Corelli the first composer of violin solos, sonatas, and concertos, though those which he produced were the best of his time; nor was Milton the inventor of epic poetry. The scale, harmony, and cadence of music being settled, it is impossible for any composer to invent a genus of composition that is wholly and rigorously new, any more than for a poet to form a language, idiom, and phraseology for himself. All that the o-reatest and boldest musical inventor can do, is to avail himself of the best effusions, combinations, and effects of his predecessors; to arrange and apply them in a new manner; and to add from his own source, whatever he can draw, that is grand, graceful, gay, pathetic, or in any other way pleasing. This Handel did in a most ample and superior manner; being possessed in his middle age and full vigour, of every refinement and perfection of his time; uniting the depth and elaborate contrivance of his own country with Italian elegance and facility; as he seems while he resided south of the Alps, to have listened attentively in the church, theatre, and chamber, to the most exquisite compositions and performers of every kind that were then existing. We will not assert that his vocal meTodies were more polished and graceful than those of his countryman and contemporary Hasse; or his recitatives or musical declamation, superior to that of his rivals Buononcini and Porpora. But in his instrumental compositions there is a vigour, a spirit, a variety, a learning, and invention, superior to every other composer that can be named; and in his organ fugues and organ playing, there is learning always free from pedantry; and in his choruses a grandeur and sublimity which we believe has never been equalled since the invention of counterpoint.”

, a monk of St. Alban’s, and a Latin poet of the twelfth century, was a native of this country, and educated at Oxford, where he took a master’s degree. He is said to have travelled through a great part of Europe, and during a long residence at Paris, studied rhetoric, and was distinguished for his taste even among the numerous and polite scholars of that flourishing seminary. On his return to England, he became a Benedictine monk in the abbey of St. Alban’s, where he died about the beginning of the thirteenth century. He wrote a long Latin poem in nine books, dedicated to Walter bishop of Rouen, entitled “Architrenius,” which Warton, who has given a long specimen of it, pronounces a learned, ingenious, and very entertaining performance, containing a mixture of satire and panegyric on public vice and virtue, with some historical digressions, but not enough to justify Simlerus’s blunder in the epitome of Gesner’s Bibliotheca, where he says the subject is *' de antiquitatibus Britannise." This work was printed at Paris, 1517, 4to, and is scarce; but there are two manuscripts of it in the Bodleian library, with some epistles, epigrams, and other poems by the same hand.

Notwithstanding the multiplicity of his labours, La Harpe was much in company, and his visits were eagerly courted. Doubtless he owed the favour in which he was with polite circles to his early and brilliant success in letters, which at once balanced the prejudices created by the resentment often excited by the severity of his criticisms. From the first essay of his talents he was patronized by Voltaire and D'Alembert, who were at the head of literature and sciences; and it is well known what influence those two celebrated men possessed over the public opinion. VoUaire accorded him the title of his favourite pupil. Married while yet very young, to a woman of wit and beauty, madame de la Harpe and he mutually shone with unusual brilliancy in the most fashionable assemblies. They had been formed in the art of speaking and declamation under the eyes of Voltaire during a long stay they made at Ferney, where they were accustomed to perform the principal parts in the tragedies of that great poet, got up by his direction at his own theatre. This practice was also of great importance to M. de la Harpe in the art of reading, which he possessed in a very superior manner. The mode was still at the height of attending in crowds at the readings given by authors of their works previous to publication; and M. de Ja Harpe, whose various productions succeeded each other so rapidly, was invited to make his readings in so many circles, that he was soon compelled to be select in his choice of the circles he honoured with this gratification.

, an ingenious English poet, was the son of John Harrington, esq. who was imprisoned in the Tower, under queen Mary, for holding a correspondence with the lady Elizabeth, with whom he continued in great favour to the time of his death. He also was somewhat of a poet and a translator. Sir John was born at Kelston, near Bath, in Somersetshire, in 1561, and had queen Elizabeth for his godmother. He was instructed in classical learning at Eton-school, and from thence removed to Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A. In his thirtieth year, 159J, he published a translation of Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso,” by which he gained a considerable reputation, and for which he is now principally known. Warton says, that although executed without spirit or accuracy, unanimated and incorrect, it enriched our poetryby a communication of new stores of fiction and imagination, both of the romantic and comic species, of gothic machinery and familiar manners. Mr. Harrington was knighted in the field by the earl of Essex, which gave much offence to the queen, who was sparing of such honours, and chose to confer them herself. In the reign of James, he was created knight of the Bath; and, being a courtier, presented a ms. to prince Henry, levelled chiefly against the married bishops, which was intended only for the private use of his royal highness; but, being published afterwards, created great clamour, and made several of the clergy say, that his conduct was of a piece with his doctrines; since he, together with Robert earl of Leicester, supported sir Walter Raleigh in his suit to queen Elizabeth for the manor of Banwell, belonging to the bishopric of Bath and Wells; on a presumption that the right rev. incumbent bad incurred a pr&munire, by marrying a second wife. Wood’s account of it is this "That sir John Harrington, being minded to obtain the favour of prince Henry, wrote a discourse for his private use, entitled * A brief View of the State of the Church of England, as it stood in queen Elizabeth’s and king James’s reign, to the year 1608.' This book is no more than a character and history of the bishops of those times, and was written to the said prince Henry, as an additional supply to the catalogue of bishops of Dr. Francis Godwin, upon occasion of that proverb,

, an English poet and divine, was the son of a father of both his names, who was fellow of Pembroke college, Oxford, prebendary of Wales, canon, of Bristol, and vicar of St. Mary Magdalen, Taunton, Somersetshire. Refusing to take the oaths after that revolution which placed a new family on the throne, he relinquished *all his preferments, in 1691, and retired to Kentbury in Buckinghamshire, where he died Feb. 10, 1736, aged eighty-five. His son informs us, that when judge Jeffries came to Taunton -assizes in 1685, to execute his commission upon the unfortunate persons concerned in Monmouth’s rebellion, Mr. Harte, then minister of St. Mary Magdalen’s, waited on him in private, and remonstrated much against iiis severities. The judge listened to him calmly, and with some attention, and though he had never seen him before, advanced him in a few months to a prebendal stall in the cathedral church of Bristol. Old Mr. Harte was so much respected for his piety and learning, that the prelates Kidder, Hooper, and Wynne, who successively filled the see of Bath and Wells, contrived that he should receive the profits of his prebend of Wells as long as he lived; and Mr. Simon Harcourt, afterwards lord chancellor, offered him a bishopric in queen Anne’s time, which he declined with grateful acknowledgments. According to his son’s account, he was a most laborious student, employing ten or twelve hours a day, without any interruption, but that of casual sickness, for fifty years successively. His principal business was in referring every difficult part of Scripture to those particular passages in the fathers and eminent modern divines who had explained them expressly or occasionally.

The time of our poet’s birth has not been settled. A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine fixes it about 1707, but an earlier date will correspond better with circumstances. If he was born in 1707, his lines to lady Hertford must have been written at eleven, which is highly improbable, yet there is some difficulty in adjusting the date of this poem. In Lintot’s edition, it is subscribed Sept. 30, 1725; but Francis, the late marquis of Hertford, was born in 1719, a year after his father’s marriage, and when Mr. Harte, according to the above account, could have been only eleven years of age. We have his own authority that all the poems published in this volume were written when he was under nineteen, consequently the date of 1725 must be an error, especially if Collins’s account of the Hertford family be correct But here, too, there is something that requires explanation, as the title of Beauchamp was not conferred on the family for many years after the publication of these poems.

He received his education at Marlborough school, under the rev. Mr. Hildrop, to whom he dedicates the few divine poems in the volume published in 1727. At what time he went to Oxford does not appear, but he took his master’s degree June 30, 1720, according to the last edition of the graduates of that university, a clear proof that he must have been born long before 1707. With Pope he acquired an early intimacy, and shared rather more of his friendship than that poet was wont to bestow on his brethren. Pope encouraged his poetical enthusiasm, and inserted many lines in his poems; and Harte repaid the instructions of so distinguished a preceptor, by compliments introduced, not without elegance and propriety, in his Essays on Painting and on Satire, and elsewhere.

With Pope, Harte appears to have been on very intimate terms, and we find his encomiastic lines among the testimonies of authors prefixed to the “Dunciad.” He had even attained so much character both as a poet and a philosopher, that the “Essay on Man” was at first attributed to him. It may not be impertinent to introduce here an anecdote, related by Dr. Warton, who was very intimate with Harte. " Pope told Mr. Harte, that in order to disguise his being the author of the second epistle of the Essay on Man, he made, in the first edition, the following bad rhyme:

Harte’s poems, in general are entitled to considerable praise, although it may probably be thought that he was a better critic than a poet, and exhibited more taste than genius. His attachment to Pope led him to an imitation of that writer’s manner, particularly in the “Essay on Rear son,” and that on “Satire.” His “Essay on Reason” has been somewhere called a fine philosophical poem. It might with more propriety be called a fine Christian poem, as it has more of religion than philosophy, and might be aptly entitled An Essay on Revelation. The “Essay on Satire” has some elegant passages, but is desultory, and appears to have been written as a compliment to the “Dunciad” of Pope, whose opinions he followed as far as they respected the merits of the dunces whom Pope libelled.

Dr. Hartley was industrious and indefatigable in the pursuit of all collateral branches of knowledge^ and lived in personal intimacy with the learned men of his age. The bishops Law, Butler, and Warburton, and Dr. Jortin, were his intimate friends, and he was much attached to bishop Hoadiy. Among his other friends or correspondents may be mentioned Dr. Hales, Mr. Hawkins Browne, Dr. Young, Dr. Byrom, and Mr. Hooke the Roman historian. Pope was also admired by him, not only as a man of genius, but as a moral poet; yet he soon saw the hand of Bolingbroke in the “Essay on Man.” Dr. Hartley’s genius was penetrating and active his industry indefatigable his philosophical observations and attentions unremitting. From his earliest youth he was devoted to the sciences, particularly to logic and mathematics. He studied mathematics, together with natural and experimental philosophy, under the celebrated professor Saunderson. He was an enthusiastic admirer and disciple of sir Isaac Newton in every branch of literature and philosophy, natural and experimental, mathematical, historical, and religious. His first principles of logic and metaphysics he derived from Locke. He took the first rudiments of his own work, the “Observations on Man,' 7 from Newton and Locke; the doctrine of vibrations, as instrumental to sensation and motion, from the former, and the principle of association originally from the latter, further explained in a dissertation by the rev. Mr. Gay. He began this work when about twenty-five years of age, and published it in 1749, when about forty-three years of age, under the title of” Observations on Man, his frame, his duty, and his expectations,“2 vols. 8vo. His biographer informs us that” he did not expect that it would meet with any general or immediate reception in the philosophical world, or even that it would be much read or understood; neither did it happen otherwise than as he had expected. But at the same time he did entertain an expectation that at some distant period it would become the adopted system of future philosophers.“In this, however, he appears to have been mistaken. We know of no” future“philosophers of any name, who have adopted his system. Dr. Priestley, indeed, published in 1775” Hartley’s Theory, &c. with Essays on the subject of it," but all he has done in this is to convince us of his own belief in materialism, and his earnest desire to prove Hartley a materialist, who dreaded nothing so much, although it must be confessed that hie doctrines have an apparent tendency to that conclusion. Since that time, Hartley’s work was nearly forgotten, until 1791, when an edition was published by his Son, in a handsome 4to volume, with notes and additions, from the German of the rev. Herman Andrew Pistorius, rector of Poseritz, in the island of Rugen; and a sketch of the life and character of Dr. Hartley. The doctrine of vibrations, upon which he attempts to explain the origin and propagation of sensation, although supported by much ingenious reasoning, isnot only built upon a gratuitous assumption, but as Haller has shewn, it attributes properties to the medullary substance of the brain and nerves, which are totally incompatible with their nature.

, a caustic wit of the Elizabethan period, and the butt of the wits of his time, was born about 1545. His father, although a rope-maker by trade, was of a good family, and nearly related to sir Thomas Smith, the celebrated statesman. He was educated at Christ’s college, Cambridge, and for some time at Pembroke hall, and took both his degrees in arts. He afterwards obtained a fellowship in Trinity-hall, and served the office of proctor in the university. Having studied civil law, he obtained his grace for a degree in that faculty, and in 1585 was admitted doctor of laws at Oxford, which he completed in the following year, and practised as an advocate in the prerogative court of Canterbury at London. As a poet and a scholar, he had great merit. His beautiful poem, signed Hobbinol, prefixed to the “Faerie Queene,” bespeaks an elegant and well-turned mind; and among his works are several productions of great ingenuity and profound research. But he had too much propensity to vulgar abuse; and having once involved himself with his envious and railing contemporaries Nash and Greene, came their equal in this species of literary warfare. He afforded the ai, howe?er, sufficient advantage, by having turned almanack-maker and a prophetic dealer in earthqu ikes and prodigies, things which must not be altogether reierred to the credulity of the times, since they were as aptly ridiculed then by his opponents, as they would be now, did any man of real knowledge and abilities become so absurd as to propagate the belief in them. His highest honour was in having Spenser for his intimate friend; nor was he less esteemed by sir Philip Sidney, as appears by the interesting account Mr. Todd has given of Harvey’s correspondence in his excellent Life of Spenser. For an equally curious account of Harvey’s literary quarrels with Nash, &c. the reader may be referred with confidence to one of the most entertaining chapters in Mr. DTsraeli’s “Calamities of Authors.” He is supposed to have died in 1630, aged about eighty-five. Among his works which provoked, or were written in answer to, the attacks of his contemporaries, we may enumerate, 1. “Three proper and wittie letters touching the Earthquake, and our English reformed versifying,” Lond. 1.080, 4to. 2. “Two other very commendable Letters touching artificial versifying,” ibid. 15SO, 4to. Harvey boasted his being the inventor of English hexameters, which very jnstly exposed him to ridicule. 3. “Foure Letters, and certain Sonnets, touching Robert Greene and others,” ibid. 1592. His uniiKinlv treatment of Greene has been noticed with proper indignation by sir E. Brydges in his reprint of Greene’s *' Groatsworth of Wit,“and by Mr. Haselwood in his life of that poet in the” Censura Literaria.“5.” Pierce’s Supererogation, or a new prayse of the old Asse, with an advertisement for Pap. Hatchet and Martin Marprelate,“ibid. 1593, &c. This war ol scurrility was at length terminated by an order of the archbishop of Canterbury,” that all Nashe’s books and Dr. Harvey’s bookes be taken wheresoever they be found, and that none of the said bookes be ever printed hereafter.“Among his more creditable performances, Tanner has enumerated, 1.” Rhetor, sive dtiorutn dterum oratio de natura, arte et exercitatione rbetorica,“Lond. 1577, 4to. 2.” Ciceronianus, vel oratio post reditum habita Cantabrigise ad suos auditores,“ibid. 1577, <Ko. 3.” Gratulatio Vatdenensium, lib. IV. ad Elizabetham reginam,“ibid. 1578. 4.” Smithus, vel musarum lachrymze pro obitu honoratiss. viri Thorn se Smith," ibid. 1578, 4to.

, an English poet who flourished about the end of the fifteenth century, was a native of Suffolk, and educated at Oxford. He travelled afterwards in England, Scotland, France, and Italy, and became a complete master of French and Italian poetry. On his return, his acquired politeness and knowledge procured him an establishment in the household of Henry VII. who was struck with the liveliness of his conversation, and admired the readiness with which he could repeat most of the old English poets, especially Lydgate: his knowledge also of the French tongue might be a recommendation to that monarch, who was fond of studying the best French books then in vogue.

As these compositions, by being frequently performed at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and other public places, and at many private concerts, had become favourite entertainments, and established the author’s reputation as a poet, many persons, finding him also a modest well-informed young man of unexceptionable morals, were become desirous of his acquaintance. Among these was Mr. Hare of Lhnehouse, a brewer, who being himself a musical man, and having met him at Mr. Stanley’s at musical parties, gave him an invitation to his house; and, to forward him in his profession, introduced him to a friend of his, Peter Storer of Highgate, esq. This introduction became, from his own good conduct, the means of making Mr. Hawkins’s fortune, though in a way which neither he nor Mr. Hare at that time could foresee, and different from that in which it was first intended.

, a very elegant poet and critic, was born at Instead in Norfolk in 1766. At an early age he was placed under the care of the rev. Dr. Samuel Parr, then master of the grammar-school at Norwich. Even at this period he exhibited a superior elegance of mind, taste, and genius. He had a certain pensiveness of manner, which conciliated esteem and sympathy; and which, though it might in part have been excited by the delicacy of his constitution, was promoted and increased by his studious pursuits. From Norwich he removed, in 1782, to Oxford, where he became a member of Trinity college, a circumstance for which the world was probably indebted for his celebrated publication on the old English poets. Thomas Warton was then resident, as senior fellow of the college, and Headley naturally became acquainted with his labours as a poetical historian, which confirmed the bias of his mind; and from this time the study of old English poetry superseded every other literary pursuit.

, at first an advocate, afterwards an ecclesiastic, and abbé of Auhignac and Meimac, was born at Paris in 1604. Cardinal Richelieu, whose nephew he educated, bestowed on him his two abbeys, and the protection of that minister gave him consequence both as a man of the world and as an author. He figured by turns as a grammarian, a classical scholar, a poet, an antiquary, a preacher, and a writer of romances; but he was most known by his book entitled “Pratique du Theatre,” and by the quarrels in which his haughty and presumptuous temper engaged him, with some of the most eminent authors of his time. The great Corneille was one of these, whose disgust first arose from the entire omission of his name in the celebrated book above mentioned. He was also embroiled, on different accounts, with madame Scuderi, Menage, and Richelet. The warmth of his temper exceeded rhat of his imagination, which was considerable; and yet he lived at court a good deal in the style of a philosopher, rising early to his studies, soliciting no favours, and associating chiefly with a few friends, as unambitious as himself, he describes himself as of a slender constitution, not capable of taking much exercise, or even of applying very intensely to study, without suffering from it in his health; yet not attached to any kind of play. “It is,” ays he, “too fatiguing for the feebleness of my body, or too indolent for the activity of my mind.” The abbé d'Aubignac lived to the age of seventy-two, and died at xnours in 1676. His works are, 1. “Pratique du Theatre,” Amsterdam, 1717, two vols. 8vo; also in a 4to edition published at Paris; a book of considerable learning, but little calculated to inspire or form a genius. 2. “Zenobie,” a tragedy, in prose, composed according to the rules laid down in his “Pratique,” and a complete proof of the total inefficacy of rules to produce an interesting drama, being the most dull and fatiguing performance that was ever represented. The prince of Condé said, on the subject of this tragedy, “We give great credit to the abbé d'Aubignac for having so exactly followed the rules of Aristotle, but owe no thanks to the rules of Aristotle for having made the abbé produce so vile a tragedy.” He wrote a few other other tragedies also, which are worse, if possible, than Zenobia. 3. “Macaride; or the Queen of the Fortunate Islands,” a novel, Paris, 1666, 2 vok 8vo. 4. “Conseils d'Ariste à Celimene, 12mo. 5.” Histoire da terns, ou Relation du Royaume de Coqueterie,“12mo, 6.” Terence justifié,“inserted in some editions of his” Pratique.“7.” Apologie de Spectacles," a work of no value. A curious book on satyrs, brutes, and monsters, has been attributed to him; but, though the author’s name was Hedelin, he does not appear to have been the same.

, a native of Groningen, was one of the most elegant Latin poets that part of Europe has produced for a century past. Of his early life we have no memorials. In 1760 he went to Italy, and became acquainted with the most eminent scholars of that period, and seems to have joined the cultivation of the modern Italian, with that of the ancient classical taste, which he had before imbibed, and of which be gave an excellent specimen in his work “De Valetudine Literatorum,” Leyden, 1749, 8vo, and again more decidedly in his “Satyra de moribus Parhisiorumet FrUiae,” 1750, 4to; “De Oflicio mectici poema, dedicated to cardinal Quirini,” Groningen, 1752, 8vo; “Iter Veiietum,” which he published at Venice, when on his tour in 1760, and which displays the feeling, tajte, and sentiment of a refined scholar. At Rome he was elected a member of the Arcadi, and under the name which he assumed in compliance with the usual practice of that society, he published in the above-mentioned year “Marii Curulli Groningensia satyræ,” 8vo. In this his satire is free and poignant, yet without merciless severity, and his Latin uncommonly pure. In 1764, after his return home, he published his “Notabilia,” 2 books, and two more under the same title in 1770, containing many anecdotes of the Italian literati, and notices of his own history and opinions. His other publications are, “Anni rustici Januarius,” Groningen, 1767; and “Aves Frisicse,” Rotterdam, 1787, in which he describes in Ovidian style, and with a happy imitation of that poet, ten different birds; the lark, the crossbill, the inagpy, &c. The notes to this poem evince a great knowledge of natural history, and many facts respecting these birds which are not generally known. Heerkens was a physician, but of his character or practice in that profession we have no information. The Diet. Hist, mentions is death as having taken place in 1780, which must be wrong, as in the last-mentioned publication he promises a continuation. It does not appear that he was dead in 1803, when Saxius published his last volume.

, a very learned man, born at the Hague, was a fine poet and orator; and to be compared, says Gronovius, in his “Orat. funeb. J. Golii,” with the Roman Atticus for his probity, tranquillity of life, and absolute disregard of honours and public employments. He went to Rome, and spent six years in the palace of cardinal Cesi. He wrote there' a panegyric on pope Clement VIII. which was so graciously received, that he was offered the post of librarian to the Vatican, or a very good benefice; and preferring the latter, was made a canon in the cathedral at Antwerp. Lipsius had a great esteem for him, as appears from his letters. He was Grotius’s friend also, and published verses to congratulate him on his deliverance from confinement. He was uncle by the mother’s side to James Golius, the learned professor at Leyden, who gained so vast a reputation by his profound knowledge in the Oriental languages: but Golius, who was a zealous protestant, could never forgive his having converted his brother Peter to popery. Hemelar applied himself much more to the study of polite literature and to the science of medals, than to theology. “He published,” says Gronovius, " extremely useful commentaries upon the medals of the Roman emperors, from the time of Julius Caesar down to Justinian, taken from the cabinets of Charles Arschot and Nicholas Rocoxius; wherein he concisely and accurately explains by marks, figures, &c. whatever is exquisite, elegant, and suitable or agreeable to the history of those times, and the genius of the monarchs, whether the medals in question be of gold, silver, or brass, whether cast or struck in that immortal city. It is a kind of storehouse of medals; and nevertheless in this work, from which any other person would have expected prodigious reputation, our author has been so modest as to conceal his name.' 7 This work of Hemelar’s, which is in Latin, is not easily to be met with, yet it has been twice printed iirst at Antwerp, in 1615, at the en.I of a work of James De Bie and secondly, in 1627, 4to which Clement has described as a very rare edition Bayle mentions a third edition of 1654, folio, but the work which he mistakes for a third edition, was only a collection of engravings of Roman coins described by Gevartius, in which are some from Hemelar’s work. The other works of this canon are some Latin poems and orations. He died in 1640. He is sometimes called Hamelar.

, a French poet, was the son of a baker at Paris, and at first a receiver of the taxes at Fores. Then he travelled into Holland and England, and was employed by the superintendant Fouquet, who was his patron. After his return to France, he soon became distinguished as one of the finest geniuses of his age; and gained a prodigious reputation by his poetry. His sonnet on the miscarriage of mad. de Guerchi is looked upon as a master-piece, though it has little intrinsic merit. He also wrote a satirical poem against the minister Colbert, which is reckoned by Boileau among his best pieces. This was written by way of revenging the disgrace and ruin of his patron Fouquet, which Henault ascribed to Colbert. The minister being told of this sonnet, which made a great noise, asked, “Whether there were any satirical strokes in it against the king” and being informed there were not, “Then,” said he, “I shall not mind it, nor shew the least resentment against the author.” Henault was a man who loved to refine on pleasures, and gloried in infidelity. He went to Holland on purpose to visit Spinoza, who did not much esteem him. When, however, sickness and death came to stare him in the face, he became a superstitious convert, and was for receiving the Viaticum or Sacrament, with a halter about his neck, in the middle of his bed-chamber. He died in 1682.

Henley lectured, in this style, on Sundays upon theological matters, and on Wednesdays upon all other sciences. He declaimed some years against the greatest persons, and occasionally, says Warburton, did Pope that honour. The poet retorts upon him in the well-known lines:

, or Blind Harry, are the names given to a Scotch poet who lived in the fifteenth century, but of whom there are few memorials that can be relied on. It is conjectured that he wrote his celebrated “Actis & Deidis of Shyr Willam Wallace,” about 1446, and that he was then an old man. No surname is known; which belonged to Henry, nor is any thing known of his parentage or education. He discovers some knowledge in astronomy, in classical history, in the Latin and French languages, and in divinity; and some think he belonged to one or other of the religious orders, but this in a man blind from his infancy seems very improbable. He was a kind of travelling bard, visited the middle and south partsof Scotland, and probably the court of Scotland, and the great families. Wallace, his hero, was put to death in 1305, and Henry is supposed to have been born half a century later, but not too late for acquiring many particulars proper for his narrative, and it appears that he consulted with the descendants of some of Wallace’s contecaporaries. Besides this, he informs us that he followed very strictly a hook of great authority, a complete history of Wallace, written in Latin, partly hy John Blair and partly by Thomas Gray, both whom he mentions particularly, but no such work exists, nor can we tell whether he borrowed his many anachronisms and mistakes of persons and places from this work, or whether they were owing to defects in his own memory. Henry was blind from his birth; and that he should have acquired the knowjedge imputed to him, is much more wonderful than that he should be misled by traditionary reports. As he was blind, he fails in the descriptive parts of his poems, but for the same reason his invention is perpetually at work, and for matters of fact, he gives us all the wonders of romance. Many of his events never happened, and those which did are misplaced in point of time, or greatly exaggerated. His admirers are ready to allow that it is now impossible to distinguish between what is true and what is false in many of Henry’s relations but this can only be the case where the relation is all his own where we can appeal to other authorities, we frequently find him more erroneous than can easily be accounted for. A comparison has been formed between Henry’s “Wallace,” and Harbour’s “Bruce,” which terminates decidedly in Barbour’s favour. The “Bruce,” says an elegant critic, “is evidently the work of a politician as well as poet. The characters of the king, of his brother, of Douglas, and of the earl of Moray, are discriminated, and their separate talents always employed with judgment; so that every event is prepared and rendered probable by the means to which it is attributed; whereas the life of Wallace is a mere romance, in which the hero hews down whole squadrons with his single arm, and is indebted for every victory to his own muscular strength. Both poems are filled with descriptions of battles; but in those of Barbour our attention is successively directed to the cool intrepidity of king Robert, to the brilliant rashness of Edward Bruce, or to the enterprizing stratagems of Douglas; while in Henry we find little more than a disgusting picture of revenge, hatred, and blood.” As a poet, however, he has considerable merit, and the numerous editions through which his “Wallace” has passed, affords a sufficient proof of his popularity during all that period, when his language would be understood and the nature of his narrative be acceptable. The only manuscript known of this poem, and from which all th printed copies have been taken, is now in the Advocates’ library at Edinburgh, and bears date 1488. The first printed edition was that of Edinburgh, 1570; but the best and more correct is that of the Morisons of Perth, 1790, 3 vols. 12mo.

, a Scotch poet of the reign of Henry VIII. is unknown, except by his works. Mr. Henry styles him chief school-master of Dunfermline; and lord Hailes conjectures that he officiated as preceptor in the Benedictine convent. His “Fabils” were printed at Edinburgh by Andrew Hart, in 1621, and there is a ms copy in the Harleian library, dated 1571, collected, as Mr. Pinkerton thinks, near a century after Henryson’s death, which of course removes him to a more distant period than the reign of Henry VIII. These “Fabils” are likewise in Bannatyne’s Mss. His “Testament of Faire Creseide,” the subject of which was suggested by the perusal of Chaucer’s “Troilus and Creseide,” occurs in the common editions of Chaucer’s Works. His oenius seems to have been well adapted to didactic poetry; and in point of versification and fancy, he is not inferior to any of his contemporaries. Very favourable specimens of his talents may be seen in our authorities.

, the founder of the sect of Heraciiteans, was born at Ephesus. He discovered an early propensity to the study of wisdom, and, by a diligent attention to the operations of his own mind, soon became sensible of his ignorance, and desirous of instruction. He was initiated into the mysteries of the Pythagorean doctrine by Xenophanes and Hippasus, and afterwards incorporated them into his own system. His fellow citizens solicited him to undertake the supreme magistracy; but, on account of their dissolute manners, he declined it in favour of his brother. When he was, soon afterwards, seen playing with the boys in the court of the temple of Diana, he said to those who expressed their surprize that he was not better employed, “Why are you surprised that I pass my time with children? It is surely better than governing the corrupt Ephesians.” He was displeased with them for banishing from their city so wise and able a man as Hermodorus; and plainly told them that he perceived they were determined not to keep among them any man who had more merit than the rest. His natural temper being splenetic and melancholy, he despised the ignorance and follies of mankind, shunned all public intercourse with the world, and devoted himself to retirement and contemplation. He made choice of a mountainous retreat for his place of residence, and lived upon the natural produce of the earth, Darius, king of Persia, having heard of his fame, invited him to his court; but he treated the invitation with contempt. His diet, and manner of life, at length brought him into a dropsy; upon which this philosopher, who was always fond of enigmatical language, returning into the city, proposed to the physicians the following question “Is it possible to bring dry ness out of moisture?” Receiving no relief from them, he attempted to cure himself by shutting himself up in a close stable of oxen; but it is doubtful how far he succeeded, for the cause and manner of his death are differently related by different writers. He flourished, as appears from his preceptors and contemporaries, about the sixty-ninth olympiad, B. C. 504. Sixty years are said to have been the term of his hfe. It has been a tale commonly received, that Heraclitirs was perpetually shedding tears on account of the vices of mankind, and particularly of his countrymen. But the story, which probably took its rise from the gloomy severity of his temper, ought to be ranked, like that of the perpetual laughing of Detnocritus, among the Greek fables. He wrote a treatise “On Nature,” of which only a few fragments remain. Througb the natural cast of his mind, and perhaps too through a desire of concealing unpopular tenets under the disguise of a figurative and intricate diction, his discourses procured him the name of the “Obscure Philosopher.” Neither critics norphilosopbers were able to explain his writings; and they remained in the temple of Diana, where he himself had deposited them for the use of the learned, till they were made public by Crates, or, as Tatian relates the matter, till the poet Euripides, who frequented the temple of Diana y committing the doctrines and precepts of Heraclitus to memory, accurately repeated them. From the fragments of this work, which are preserved by Sextus Empiricus, it appears to have been written in prose, which makes Tatian’s account the less credible. Brucker, to whom we refer, has given as good an account of Heraclitus’s systera as his obscure manner will permit. His sect was probably very soon extinct, as we find no traces of its existence after the death of Socrates, which may be ascribed, in part, to the insuperable obscurity of the writings of Heraclitus, but chiefly to the splendour of the Platonic system, by which it was superseded.

He published, 1. “Oratio qua auspicatissimum sereniss. princ. Caroli reditnm ex Hispaniis celebravit G. H. acad. Cantab. Orator,” 1623. 2. A translation of Coniaro “Oil Temperance.” 3. “Herbert’s Remains, &c.” Lond. 1652, 12mo. In this volume is his “Priest to the Temple, or the Country Parson’s character and rule of Holy Life,” a series of short chapters on the duties and character of a parish priest, which has been separately and very recently printed, and always much admired. 4. “The Temple, Sacred Poems and private ejaculations,” Cambridge, 1633, 12mo, often reprinted. As a poet Mr. Herbert ranks with Donne, Quarles, and Crashaw; but, as some critics have asserted, is inferior to these. He was, however, the most popular poet of his day, for, according to Walton, 10,Ooo copies of this work were sold, and we know that there have been editions since Walton’s time. At the end of this volume is a collection of poems entitled “The Synagogue,” which Granger very improperly attributes to Crashaw. Mr. Zouch has endeavoured to prove that these pieces were written by Mr. Christopher Hervey. There are some Latin poems by Herbert in the “Ecclesiastes Solomonis,” published by Dr. Duport, in the “Epicedium Cantabrigiense,” 1612, and the “Lachrymae Cantabrigienses,” 1619; and a series of his letters are in the orator’s book at Cambridge.

, an able Oriental scholar, was born March 15, 1783, and from his earliest years appears to have devoted his attention to the study of the Oriental languages. From the age of sixteen he began to compose an Arabic grammar, the first part of which was published at Paris, 1803, 4to. and folio, under the title “Developpemens des principes de la Langue Arabe moderne,” &c. The second part has not yet appeared. In his twenty-first year, his talents and reputation procured his admission into the academy of sciences, belles-lettres, and arts. Besides his knowledge of Oriental languages, he was ably versed in the best Greek, Latin, Italian, and English authors. He published also a “Treatise on ancient Music,” and an account of Hafiz, the Persian poet, with specimens of his poetry translated. Of this, however, he printed only a small number, in 1806. He died in his twenty-third year, Dec. 30, 1806, leaving many Mss. which prove his death an irreparable loss to the learned world.

, a French poet of the seventeenth century, was nephew to du Vair, a celebrated keeper ef the seals. His original profession was military, but being disabled by a wound from actual service, hfe bought the place of treasurer to the French guards. He was afterwards appointed historiographer of France, and died in 1680. He wrote only two tragedies, of no great merit, “Hercule furieux,” and “Clavis,” and a few fugitive poems, some of which have a degree of elevation, particularly the “Portrait d'Amaranthe.”

Besides this history, he promised to write another of Assyria: but this was never finished, at least not published. There is ascribed also to Herodotus a “Life of Homer,” which is usually printed at the end of his works; hut the style of this piece is very different from that of Herodotus; and the author mentions several things of Homer, which do not at all agree with what the ancients have said of that poet.

, a Spanish poet, was born at Seville, and flourished in the sixteenth century. In 1582 he published a collection of lyrical and heroic poems, which was reprinted in 1619, and acquired their author a high reputation, as one who had attained to the greatest excellence in the lyric poetry of Spain. His style is neat, correct, elegant, and copious. He published an edition of Garcilasso de la Vega, with notes the life of sir Thomas More; and a narrative of the war of Cyprus, and the battle of Lepanto.

, one of the minor poets, of very considerable merit, in the reign of Charles I. was born in London, but descended from an ancient and genteel family in Leicestershire, the history of which is amply detailed by the able historian of that county. He was the fourth son of Nicholas Herrick, of St. Vedast, Foster-lane, by Julian Stone his wife, and was born in August 1591. He was educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, from 1615 to 1617; and Wood, who indeed speaks with hesitation, seems wrong in placing him in his Athenæ Oxonienses. He is said to have afterwards removed to Trinity hall, Cambridge; but nothing more of his academical progress is known. Being patronised by the earl of Exeter, he was presented by king Charles I. on the promotion of Dr. Potter to the see of Carlisle, to the vicarage of Dean Prior in Devonshire, Oct. 1, 1629, where he became distinguished for his poetical talents and wit. During the prevalence of the parliamentary interest, he was ejected from his living, and resided in London in St. Anne’s parish, Westminster, until the Restoration, when he again obtained his vicarage. The time of his death is not known. His poetical works are contained in a scarce volume, entitled “Hesperides, or the works, both humane and divine, of Robert Herrick, Esq. London,” 1643, 8vo. To this volume was appended his “Noble numbers, or, his pious pieces,” in which, says Wood, “he sings the birth of Christ, and sighs for his Saviour’s sufferings on the cross. These two books made him much admired in the time they were published, and especially by the generous and boon loyalists, who commiserated his sufferings.” In 1810, Dr. Nott of Bristol published a selection from the “Hesperides,” which may probably contribute to revive the memory of Herrick as a poet, who certainly in vigour of fancy, feeling, and ease of vereification, is entitled to a superior rank among the bards of his period, He is one of those, however, who will require the selector’s unsparing hand, for, notwithstanding his “pious pieces,” there are too many of an opposite description, which cannot, like his quaint conceits, be placed to the account of the age in which he lived.

, a political and poetical writer of considerable fame, was the eldest son of John first earl of Bristol, by his second wife, Elizabeth, sole daughter and heir to sir Thomas Felton of Playford in the county of Suffolk, bart. He was born Oct. 15, 1696, and educated at Clare-hall, Cambridge, where he took his master’s degree in 1715, previously to which, on Nov. 7, 1714, he had been made gentleman of the bed-chamber to the Prince of Wales. He came into parliament soon after the accession of George I. and was appointed vice-chamberlain to the king in 1730, and a privy counsellor. In 1733 he was called up by writ to the house of peers, as lord Hervey of Ickworth; and in 1740 was constituted lord privy seal, from which post he was removed in 1742. He died Aug. 5, 1743, in the forty-seventh year of his age, a short period, but to which his life had been protracted with the greatest care and difficulty. Having early in life felt some attacks of the epilepsy, he entered upon and persisted in a very strict regimen, which stopped the progress of that dreadful disease, but prevented his acquiring, or at least long enjoying, the blessing of sound health. It is to this rigid abstemiousness that Pope malignantly alludes in the character he has given of lord Hervey, under the name of Sporus, in the line “the mere white curd of asses milk.” But lord Hervey affords a memorable instance of the caution with which we ou^ht to read the characters drawn by Pope and his associates; nor can too much praise be given to his late editors for the pains they have taken to rescue some of them from the imputations which proceeded from the irritable temper and malignity of that admired satirist. In the character of Sporus, Dr. Warton has justly observed, that language cannot afford more glowing or more forcible terms to express the utmost bitterness of contempt. Pope and his lordship were once friends; but they quarrelled at a time when the poetical world seemed to be up in arms, and perpetually contending in a manner disgraceful to their characters. In the quarrel between Pope and lord Hervey, it appears that Pope was the aggressor, and that lord Hervey wrote some severe lines in reply, and An Epistle from a Nobleman to a Doctor of Divinity.“1733. (Dr. Sherwin). In answer to this, Pope wrote the” Letter to a Noble Lord, on occasion of some libels written and propagated at court in the year 1732-3,“which is printed in his Works, and, as Warburton says,” is conducive to what he had most at heart, his moral character,“to which, after all, it conduced very little, as he Violated every rule of truth and decency in his subsequent attack on lord Hervey in the” Prologue to the Satires,“under the character of Sporus, whic,h, we agree with Mr. Coxe,” cannot be read without disgust and horror disgust at the indelicacy of the allusions, and horror at the malignity of the poet, in laying the foundation of his abuse on the lowest species of satire, personal invective; and what is still worse, on sickness and debility."

, a very ancient Greek poet, is thought by some to have been contemporary with Homer, but there is more re.ason to think he was at least thirty years older. His father, as he tells us, was an inhabitant of Cuma, in one of the Æolian isles, now called Taio Nova and removed from thence to Ascra, a village of Bceotia at the foot of mount Helicon, where Hesiod was probably born, and called, as he often is, Ascraeus from it. Of what quality his father was, is no where said; but that he was driven by misfortunes from Cuma to Ascra, Hesiod himself informs us. His father seems to have prospered better at Ascra, than he did in his own country; yet his son could arrive at no higher fortune, than that of keeping sheep at the top of Helicon, where the Muses met with iiim, and received him into their service.

Hesiod, having entered into the service of the Muses, discontinued the pastoral life, and applied himself to the study of arts and learning. When he was grown old, for it is agreed by all that he lived to a very great age, he removed to Locris, a town about the same distance from, Parnassus as Ascra was from Helicon. The story of his death, as told by Solon in Plutarch’s “Banquet,” is very remarkable. The man with whom Hesiod lived at Locris, a Milesian born, ravished a maid in the same house; and though Hesiod was entirely ignorant of the fact, yet being maliciously accused to her brothers as an accomplice, he was injuriously slain with the ravisher, and thrown with him into the sea. It is added, that when the inhabitants of the place heard of the crime, they drowned the perpetrators, and burned their houses. We have the knowledge of some few monuments, which were framed in honour of this poet. Pausanias, in his Boeotics, informs us, that his countrymen, the Boeotians, erected to him an image with a harp in his hand; and relates in another place, that there was likewise a statue of Hesiod in the temple of Jupiter Olympicus. Ursinus and Boissard have exhibited a breast with a head, a trunk without a head, and a gem of him; and Ursinus says, that there is a statue of brass of him in the public college at Constantinople. The “Theogony,” and “Works and Days,” are the only undoubted pieces of this poet now extant: though it is supposed, that these poems are not perfect. The “Theogohy, or Generation of the Gods,” Fabricius makes indisputably the work of Hesiod; “nor is it to be doubted,” adds he, “that Pythagoras took it for his, who feigned that he saw in hell the soul of Hesiod tied in chains to a brass pillar, for what he had written concerning the nature of the gods.” This doubtless was the poem which gave Herodotus occasion to say, that Hesiod and Homer were the first who introduced a Theogony among the Grecians; the first who gave names to the gods, ascribed to them honours and arts, and gave particular descriptions of their persons. The “Works and Days” of Hesiod, Plutarch assures us, were used to be sung to the harp. Virgil has shewn great respect to this poet, and proposed him as his pattern in his Georgics, though in truth he has greatly excelled him. There is also in the works of Hesiod a large fragment of another poem, called the “Shield of Hercules,” which some have ascribed to him, and some have rejected. Manilins has given a high character of this poet and his works. Heinsi is in the preface to his edition of Hesiod remarks, that among all the poets, he scarce knew any but Homer and Hesiod, who could represent nature in her true native dress; and tells us, that nature had begun and perfected at the same time her work in these two poets, whom for that very reason he makes no scruple to call Divine. In general, the merit of Hesiod has not been estimated so highly; and it is certain that, when compared with Homer, he must pass for a very moderate poet: though in defining their different degrees of merit, it may perhaps be but reasonable to consider the different subjects on which the genius of each was employed. But his “Works and Days” is certainly an interesting and valuable monument of antiquity, as written so near what may be termed the origin of Greek poetry. The first edition of the “Opera et Dies” is supposed to have been printed at Milan in 1493, folio, and the first edition of Hesiod’s entire works, from the Aidine press, appeared at Venice, 1495, folio. Both are described in the Bibl. Spenceriana. The best editions since are those of Gra^vius, Amst. 1667, Gr. and Lat. Le Clerc, Amst. 1701, 8vo Robinson, Oxford, 1737, 4to; and Loesner, Leipsic, 1778, 8vo. All these are Gr. and Lat. We have English translations of the “Works and Days” by Chapman, 1618, 4to> and by Cooke, 1729 and 1740.

Wood tells us, that he was “a person endowed with singular gifts, of a sharp and pregnant wit, solid and clear judgment. In his younger years he was accounted an excellent poet, but very conceited and pragmatical; in his elder, a better historian, a noted preacher, and a ready extemporaneous speaker. He had a tenacious memory to a miracle. He was a bold and undaunted man among his friends and foes, though of a very mean port and presence; and therefore by some of them he was accounted too high and proud for his function. A constant assertor of the church’s right and the king’s prerogative; a severe and vigorous opposer of rebels and schismatics. In some things too much a party-man to be an historian, and equally an enemy to popery and puritanism.” Much perhaps cannot be added to this character. He was undoubtedly biassed and warm to a great degree, which must be imputed to, although it cannot be defended by a reference to his sufferings. That he should be suspected of popery is not very wonderful, as in his history of the reformation he preceded Collier in many of those opinions which brought the same charge against the latter; and in his aversion to puritanism he departs farther from the orthodoxy of his own chuch than is consistent with a knowledge of or attachment to its doctrines. He had, as Swift justly observes, “according to the current opinion of the age he lived in, too high notions of regal power; led by the common mistake of the term supreme magistrate, and not rightly distinguishing between the legislature and administration.”

At the decease of that princess, however, being a bigoted Roman catholic, perceiving that the protestant interest was likely to prevail under the patronage of her successor queen Elizabeth, and perhaps apprehensive that some of the severities, which had been practised on the protestants in the preceding reign, might be retaliated on those of a contrary persuasion in the ensuing one, and especially on the peculiar favourites of queen Mary, he thought it best, for the security of his person, and the preservation of his religion, to quit the kingdom. Thus throwing himself into a voluntary exile, he settled at Mechlin in Brabant, where he died in 1565, leaving several children behind him, to all of whom he had given liberal educations. His character in private life seems to have been that of a sprightly, humourous, and entertaining companion. As a poet, he was held in no inconsiderable esteem by his contemporaries, though none of his writings extended to any great length, but seem, like his conversation, to have been the result of little sudden sallies of mirth and humour. His longest work is entitled “A Parable of the Spider and the Fly,” and forms a pretty thick quarto in old English verse, and printed in the black letter, 1556. Our honest chronicler Holinshed describes this poem in the following words “One also hath made a booke of the Spider and the Flie, wherein he dealeth so profoundlie, and beyond all measure of skill, that neither he himselfe that made it, neither anie one that readeth it, can reach unto the meaning thereof.” Description of England, p. 229. By way of Frontispiece to this book, is a wooden print of the author at full length, and most probably in the habit he usually wore; for he is drest in a fur gown, somewhat resembling that of a master of arts, excepting that the bottom of the sleeves reach no lower than his knees. He has a round cap on his head, and a dagger hanging to his girdle; and his chin and lips are close shaven. There are seventy-seven chapters in this work, at the beginning of each of which is the portrait of the author, either standing or sitting before a table, with a book on it, and a window near it hung round with cobwebs, flies, and spiders. A perfect copy of this work is now of rare occurrence, and on that account only very dear, for, as Warton justly observes, there never was so dull, so tedious, and trifling an apologue, without fancy, meaning, or moral.

, a man of learning of the sixteenth century, was born in 1566, atTredington, in Worcestershire, and in 1579 entered of St. Mary hall, Oxford, which he left after taking his bachelor’s degree, and appears to have lived the life of a country gentleman, relieving his agricultural pursuits by study. His favourite object was the Greek language. He died while on a visit to a relation at Sutton, in Gloucestershire, Jan. 9, 1630. His translation of “Lucian” was published by his son Thomas Hicks, A. M. chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford, in Ifc34, 4to, who also presented to the library of that college manuscript translations by his father of “Thucydides” and “Herodian.” The Life of Lucian and the notes were written by this son, who died young, in 1634, and had been, as Wood says, esteemed a good poet and an excellent limner.

His abilities as a painter appear in his works, which will not only be admired by his contemporaries, but by their posterity; as his tints, like those of Rubens and Vandycfc, instead of being impaired, are improved by time, which some of them have now withstood above 60 years. His idea of beauty, when he indulged his fancy, was of the highest kind; and his knowledge of perspective gave him great advantages in family-pieces, of which he painted more than any one of his time. He could take a likeness by memory as well as by a sitting, as appears by his picture of the duke of Lorrain (the late emperor), which Faber engraved and those ol king George II. (in York assemblyroom) queen Caroline, the two miss Gunnings, &c. Like many other great painters, he had “a poet for his friend,” in the late Mr. Browne; to which may be added, a poem addressed to him in 1726, by the Rev. Mr. Bunce, at that time of Trinity-hall, Cambridge, who succeeded Mr. Highmore, and in 1780, was vicar of St. Stephen’s near Canterbury.

, an English poet and dramatic writer of some celebrity in his day, was born in Beaufort-buildings in the Strand, February 10, 1685. He was the eldest son Of George Hill, esq. of Malmsbury-abbey in Wiltshire and, in consequence of this descent, the legal heir to an, entailed estate of about 2000l. per annum; but the misconduct of his father having, by a sale of the property, which he had no right to execute, rendered it of no advanl tage to the family, our author was left, together with Mr. Hill’s other children, to the care of, and a dependence on, his mother and grandmother; the latter of whom (Mrs. Anne Gregory) was more particularly anxious for his education and improvement. The first rudiments of learning he received from Mr. Reyner, of Barnstaple in Devonshire^ to whom he was sent at nine years old, and, on his removal from thence, was placed at Westminster-school, under the care of the celebrated Dr. Knipe. After remaining here until he was fourteen years of age, he formed a resolution singular enough in one so young, of paying a visit to his relation lord Paget, then ambassador at Constantinople; and accordingly embarked for that place, March 2, 1700. When he arrived, lord Paget received him with much surprise, as well as pleasure; wondering, that a person so young should run the hazard of iuch a voyage, to visit a relation whom he only knew by character. The ambassador immediately provided for him a very learned ecclesiastic in his own house; and, under his tuition, sent him to travel, so that he had an opportunity of seeing Egypt, Palestine, and a great part of the East. With lord Paget he returned home about 1703, and in his journey saw most of the courts in Europe, and it is probable that his lordship might have provided genteelly for him at his death, had he not been dissuaded by the misrepresentations of a female about him, which in a great measure prevented his good intentions. The young man’s well known merit, however, soon recommended him to sir William Wentworth, a Yorkshire baronet, who being inclined to make the tour of Europe, his relations engaged Mr. Hill to accompany him as a travelling tutor, which office he performed, for two or three years, to their entire satisfaction. In 1709, he commenced author, by the publication of an “History of the Ottoman Empire,” compiled from tinmaterials 'which he had collected in the course of his di rent travels, and during his residence at the Turkish conr:. This work, though it met with success, Mr. Hill frequently afterwards repented the having printed, and would himself, at times, very severely criticize it; and indeed, to say the truth, there are in it a great number of puerilities, which render it far inferior to the merit of his subsequent writings; in which correctness has ever been so strong a characteristic, that his critics have even attributed it to him as a fault; whereas, in this work, there at best appears the labour of a juvenile genius, rather choosing to give the full reign to fancy, and indulge the imagination of the poet, than to aim at the plainness and perspicuity of the historian. About the same year he published his first poetical piece, entitled “Camillus,” in vindication and honour of the earl of Peterborough, who had been general in. Spain. This poem was printed without any author’s name; but lord Peterborough, having made it his business to find out to whom he was indebted, appointed Mr. JHill his secretary; which post, however, he quitted the year following, on occasion of his marriage.

was an Ephesian satiric poet, who flourished in the sixtieth olympiad, itbout 540 years B. C. He was so remarkably ugly and deformed, that certain painters and sculptors amused themselves by displaying representations of him to public ridicule, and Hipponax was so offended at the insult, that he exercised against the otfuuders all the force of his satyric vein with such effect, that two of them, sculptors of Chios, Bupalus and Anthernus, are said to have hanged themselves; but Pliny contradicts the story, Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 5. Hipponax is said to be the inventor of the scazontic verse, which is an iambic, terminating with a spondee, instead of an iambic foot.

, an ancient English poet, who scarcely, however, deserves the name, was born probably about 1370, and has been styled Chaucer’s disciple. He studied law at Chester’s Inn, in the Strand, and was a writer to the privy seal for above twenty years. When he quitted this office, or what means of subsistence he afterwards had, cannot be easily determined. Pits seems wrong in asserting that he was provided for by Humphrey duke of Gloucester. Nor is Bale more correct in saying that he had imbibed the religious tenets of Wickliff. From his poems the following scanty particulars of his history have been communicated by a learned friend: " He dwelt in the office of the privy seal, a writer * unto the seal twenty-four years come Easter, and that is nigh.‘ The king granted him an annuity of twenty marks in the exchequer, which it appears he had much difficulty in getting paid. He expresses much doubt of obtaining it from * yere to yere:’ fears it may not be continued when he is no longer able to ‘ serve’ (i. e. as a writer in the privy seal office). Besides this annuity he has but six marks coming in yearly * in noo tide.‘ Speaks of dwelling at home in his ’ pore coote,' and that more than two parts of his life are spent he is ignorant of husbandry;

Hoccleve is supposed to have died in 1454. Some of his poems were printed by Mr. George Mason, in 1796, 4to, from a ms. in his possession, and a preface, notes, and glossary. The glossary is useful, but the attempt to revive the poems impotent. Instead, indeed, of removing, they confirm Warton’s objection to him as a feeble poet, “whose chief merit seems to be, that his writings contributed to propagate and establish those improvements in our language, which were in his time beginning to take place.” The most favourable specimen of Hoccleve’s poetry is his “Story of Jonathas,” which the reader will find in the “Shepherd’s Pipe,” by William Browne, author of Britannia’s Pastorals.

About 1757, his brother-in-law, Mr. Thornhill, resigned the place of king’s serjeant-painter in favour of Mr. Hogarth. “The last memorable event in our artist’s life,” as Mr. Walpole observes, " was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes, in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offence, by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was the more surprising, as he had all his life avoided dipping his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative offer that was made, to engage him in a set of prints against the head of a courtparty. Without entering into the merits of the cause, I shall only state the fact. In September 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his print of * The Times.‘ It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe ’ North Briton.‘ On this the painter exhibited the caricatura of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged in the war, and wrote his ’ Epistle ta Hogarth,‘ not the brightest’ of his works, and in which the severest strokes fell on a defect that the painter had neither caused nor could amend his age; and which, however, was neither remarkable nor decrepit; much less had it impaired his talents, as appeared by his having composed but six months before, one of his most capital works, the satire on the Methodists. In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill, under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter So vituld tit dignus & hie never did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity.

“Mr. Churchill was exasperated at this personal attack on his friend. He soon alter published the ‘Epistle to William Hogarth,’ and took for the motto, ut pictura poesis. Mr. Hogarth’s revenge against the poet terminated in vamping up an old print of a pug-dog and a bear, which he published under the title of ‘The Bruiser C. Churchill (once the Revd.!)’ in the character of a Russian Hercules. &c.”

, a Danish historian, lawyer, and poet, was born at Bergen in Norway, in 1685. His family is said by some to have been low, by others noble; but it is agreed that he commenced life in very poor circumstances, and picked up his education in his travels through various parts of Europe, where he subsisted either by charity, or by his personal efforts of various kinds. On his return to Copenhagen, he found means to be appointed assessor of the consistory court, which place affording him a competent subsistence, he was able to indulge his genius, and produced several works, which gave him great celebrity. Among these are some comedies, a volume of which has been translated into French. He wrote also a History of Denmark, in 3 vols. 4to, which has been considered as the best that hitherto has been produced, though in some parts rather minute and uninteresting. Two volumes of “Moral Thoughts,” and a work entitled “The Danish Spectator,” were produced by him: and he is generally considered as the author of the “Iter subterraneum of Klimius,” a satirical romance, something in the style of Gulliver’s Travels. Most of these have been translated also into German, and are much esteemed in that country. His “Introduction to Universal History” was translated into English by Dr. Gregory Sharpe, with notes, 1755, 8vo. By his publications, and his place of assessor, he had osconomy enough to amass a considerable fortune, and even in his life gave 70,000 crowns to the university of Zealand, for the education of young noblesse; thinking it right that as his wealth had been acquired by literature, it should be employed in its support. This munificence obtained him the title of baron. At his death, which happened in 1754, he left also a fund of 16,000 crowns to portion out a certain number of young women, selected from the families of citizens in Copenhagen.

Not long after, while on a visit in England, he was introduced to Collins, the poet, at Winchester, and Collins addressed to him his “Ode on the Superstition of the Highlanders.” In 1750 Home was settled as minister of the parish of Athelstaneford in East Lothian, on the demise of the rev. Robert Blair, author of the “Grave;” but such a situation could not be very agreeable to one who had tasted the sweets of literary society, and who, in particular, had a paramount ambition to shine as a dramatic writer. His first tragedy was “Agis,”“with which it is said he went to London, where the managers refused it, and immediately returning home he wrote his” Douglas,“which Garrick peremptorily refused. By such discouragement, however, the ardour of the author was not to be suppressed. Being acquainted with the leading characters in Scotland, a ready reception of his play was secured; and accordingly” Douglas" was performed at the theatre in the Canongate, Edinburgh, in December 1756, Mr. Home and several of his clerical brethren being present. Such a departure from the decorum enjoined by the church of Scotland could not be overlooked, and the author was so threatened with ecclesiastical censures, and in reality became so obnoxious in the eyes of the people, that in the following year he resigned his living, and with it all connexion with the church, wearing ever afterwards a lay habit. In the mean time the presbytery of Edinburgh published an admonition and exhortation against stage-plays, which was ordered to be read in all the pulpits within their bounds on a Sunday appointed, immediately after divine service. In it there is no mention of Home or his play, although the latter was probably the cause. It merely contains a recapitulation of what had formerly been done by the church and the laws to discourage the theatres.

Homer had the most sublime and universal genius that the world has ever seen; and though it is an extravagance of enthusiasm to say, as some of the Greeks did, that all knowledge may be found in his writings, no man penetrated deeper into the feelings and passions of humaa nature. He represents great things with such sublimity, and inferior objects with such propriety, that he always makes the one admirable, and the other pleasing. Strabo, whose authority in geography is indisputable, assures us, that Homer has described the places and countries, of which he gives an account, with such accuracy, that no man can imagine who has not seen them, and no man can observe without admiration and astonishment. Nothing, however, can be more absurd, than the attempts of some critics, who have possessed more learning and science than taste, to rest the merit of Homer upon the extent of his knowledge. An ancient encomiast upon Homer proves him to have possessed a perfect knowledge of nature, and to have been the author of the doctrine of Thales and Xenophanes, that water is the first principle of all things, from his having called Oceanus the parent of nature; and infers, that he was acquainted with Empedocles’ doctrine of friendship end discord, from the visit which Juno pays to Oceanus and Thetis to settle their dispute: because Homer represents Neptune as shaking the earth, he concludes him to have been well acquainted with the causes of earthquakes; and because he speaks of the great bear as never touching the horizon, he makes him an eminent astronomer. The truth is, the knowledge of nature, which poetry describes, is very different from that which belongs to the philosopher. It would be easy to prove, from the beautiful similes of Homer, that he was an accurate observer of natural appearances; and to show from his delineation of characters, that he was intimately acquainted with human nature. But he is not, on this account, to be ranked with natural philosophers or moralists. Much pains have been taken to prove, that Homer expresses just and sublime conceptions of the divine nature. And it will be acknowledged, that, in some passages, he speaks of Jupiter in language which may not improperly be applied to the Supreme Deity. But, if the whole fable of Jupiter, as it is represented in Homer, be fairly examined, it will be very evident, either that he had not just conceptions of the divine nature, or that he did not mean to express them in the portrait which he has drawn of the son of Saturn, the husband of Juno, and the president of the council of Olympus. It would surely have been too great a monopoly of perfection, if the first poet in the world had also been the first philosopher. Homer has had his enemies; and it is certain, that Plato banished his writings from his commonwealth; but lest this should be thought a blemish upon the memory of the poet, we are told that the true reason was, because he did not esteem the common people to be capable readers of them. They would be apt to pervert his meaning, and have wrong notions of God and religion, by taking his bold and beautiful allegories in a literal sense. Plato frequently declares, that he loves and admires him as the best, the most pleasant, and divine of all poets, and studiously imitates his figurative and mystical way of writing: and though he forbad his works to be read in public, yet he would never be without them in his closet. But the most memorable enemy to the merits of Homer was Zoilus, a snarling critic, who frequented the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, and wrote ill-natured notes upon his poems, but received no encouragement from that prince; on the contrary, he became universally despised for his pains, and was at length put, as some say, to a most miserable death. It is said that though Homer’s poems were at first published all in one piece, and not divided into books, yet every one not being able to purchase them entire, they were circulated in separate pieces; and each of those pieces took its name from the contents, as, “The Battle of the Ships;” “The Death of Dolon;” “The Valour of Agamemnon;” “The Grot of Calypso;” “The Slaughter of the Wooers,” &c. nor were these entitled books, but rhapsodies, as they were afterwards called, when they were divided into books. Homer’s poems were not known entire in Greece before the time of Lycurgus; whither that law-giver being in Ionia carried them, after he had taken the pains to transcribe them from perfect copies with his own hands. This may be called the first edition of Homer that appeared in Greece, and the time of its appearing there was about 120 years before Rome was built, that is, about 200 years after the time of Homer. It has been said, that the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” were not composed by Homer in their present form, but only in separate little poems, which being put together and connected afterwards by some other person, make the entire works they now appear; but this is so extravagant a conceit that it scarceJy deserves to be mentioned.

, a Dutch poet and historian, but principally eminent in the latter capacity, was born at Amsterdam in 1581. He was honoured by Louis XIII. with a ribband of the order of St. Michael, probably in consequence of his history of Henry IV. Frederic Henry prince of Orange being dead, Hooft was preparing to attend his funeral, when he was himself taken violently ill, and died in 1647. His works consist of, 1. “Epigrams, Comedies, and other Poems.” 2. “The History of the Low Countries, from the abdication of Charles V. to the year 1598.” A good edition of it appeared in 1703, in 2 vols. folio. 3. “A History of Henry IV. of France,” in Latin. 4. “A Translation of Tacitus into Dutch,” very highly esteemed in that country. To familiarize the style of his author completely to his mind, he is said to have read all the extant works of Tacitus fiftytwo times.

, a dramatic poet and translator, was the son of Samuel Hoole, of London, watch-maker, by Sarah his wife, the daughter of James Drury, a clockmaker, whose family came from Warwickshire. He was born in. Moorfields, in December 1727, and received part of his early instruction from his uncle, a taylor, who lived in Grub-street. He was afterwards sent to a private boarding-school in Hertfordshire, kept by Mr. James Bennet, the publisher of Roger Ascham’s works, where he acquired an accurate knowledge of the Latin and French languages, and a small portion of the Greek. His father, who had carried on the business of watch-making to considerable advantage, in consequence of some newly-invented machinery of his own construction, wished to have his son brought up to his own trade, but his being extremely near-sighted proved an insuperable objection, and therefore, at the age of seventeen, he was placed as a clerk in the East- India-house, in the accountant’s office. At this time, as he often accompanied his father to the theatre, who had access behind the scenes, and assisted in constructing some of the pantomime scenery, he contracted a fondness for this amusement which might have been fatal to him, for he had no qualifications for the stage, had not his father prevented him. He employed his leisure hours, therefore, more profitably, in improving himself in the Latin, and especially the Italian tongue, which last he studied with a view to be able to read in the original his favourite Ariosto, of whom, when a boy, he became enamoured by reading the “Orlando Furioso” in sir John Harrington’s old translation.

From admiring he proceeded to translate this poet, but laid this task aside for some time, to execute a translation of Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered,” which he began iii 1758, and printed in 1761 a specimen for the perusal of his friends, who probably encouraged him to proceed, as in 1763 he published the whole, and was permitted to dedicate and present it at court to the queen. The dedication was written by Dr. Johnson. This was Mr. Hoole' 9 first avowed production, but he had before printed a few poetical essays without his name, and a Monody on the death of Mrs. Woffington, which is in Pearch’s collection. In 1767 he published two volumes of the dramas of Metastasio, consisting of six pieces, a copy of which he transmitted to the author, who wrote a very elegant letter to him. His own dramas were, “Cyrus,” 1768; “Timanthes,” 1770; and “Cleonice,” 1775; none of which had success on the stage.

In 1773, the first volume of his “Orlando Furioso” appeared, and was favourably received, but the farther prosecution of the work was interrupted by his appointment to the office of auditor of Indian accounts to the East India company, which occupied much of his time and attention. Ilein ruing again, however, to his task, he completed the “Orlando Furioso” in 1783, in 5 vols. 8vo. In 1785 he wrote fhe life of his friend Mr. Scott, the poet of Amvvell, with whom he had become acquainted in 1757, by marrying a quaker lady, Susannah Smith, of Bishop Stortford. About the end of 1783 he resigned his employment in the India- house, after a service of nearly forty-two years and in April 1786 retired with his wife and son, the rev. Samuel Hoole, to the parsonage-house of Abinger, near Dorking. Here, adverting to the objections which had been made to the length and perplexity of Ariosto’s poem, he published “The Orlando, reduced to twenty-four books, the narrative connected, and the stories disposed in a regular series,” 1791, 2 vols. 8vo; but this has not prevented the republication of his former edition, which, with all its imperfections, conveys the truest idea of the tedious and extravagant original. In 1792 he gave to the English public Tasso’s juvenile poem of “llinaldo.” His last production was a more complete collection of Metastasio-'s “Dramas and other Poems” in 3 vols. 8vo. In this, if we mistake not, Mr. Hoole has displayed more poetical energy and variety than in his translations of Tasso and Ariosto, in whicjti his chief merit is smooth versification, and his chief defect a want of variety in his harmony. Mr. Hoole died at Dorking, Aug. 2, 1803, leaving the reputation of an amiable and estimable man in his private character; a man of taste, and a good scholar. He lived much in habits of friendship with Dr. Johnson, and attended that eminent man in his last illness, of which he left an interesting diary.

, son of the preceding, was born at Exeter, in 1664; but his father being taken chaplain to Ireland, he received the early part of his education at Trinity college, Dublin; and afterwards was a student at Queen’s college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1688. The rebellion breaking out in Ireland in that year, he returned thither, and exerted his early valour in the cause of his country, religion, and liberty. When public tranquillity was restored, he came again into Elngland, and formed an acquaintance with gentlemen of wit, whose age and genius were most agreeable to his own. In 1694 he published some “Epistolary Poems and Translations,” which may be seen in Nichols’s “Select Collec-' tion;” and in 1695 he shewed his genius as a dramatic writer, by “Pyrrhus king of Egypt,” a tragedy, to which Congreve wrote the epilogue. He published also in that year, “The History of Love,” a connection of select fables from. “Ovid’s Metamorphoses,” 1695; which, by the sweetness of his numbers and easiness of his thoughts, procured him considerable reputation. With Dryden in particular he became a great favourite. He afterwards published the “Art of Love,” which, Jacob says, “added to his fame, and happily brought him acquainted with the earl of Dorset, and other persons of distinction, who were fond of his company, through the agreeableness of his temper, and the pleasantry of his conversation. It was in his power to have made his fortune in any scene of life; but he was always more ready to serve others than mindful of his own affairs; and by the excesses of hard drinking, and too passionate an addiction to women, he died a martyr to the cause in the thirty-sixth year of his age.” Mr. Nichols has preserved in his collection an admirable hymn, “written about an hour before his death, when in great pain.” His “Court-Prospect,” in which many of the principal nobility are very handsomely complimented, is called by Jacob “an excellent piece;” and of his other poems he adds, “that they are all remarkable for the purity of their diction, and the harmony of their numbers.” Mr. Hopkins was also the author of two other tragedies; “Boadicea Queen of Britain,” 1697; and “Friendship improved, or the Female Warrior,” with a humourous prologue, comparing a poet to a merchant, a comparison which will hold in most particulars except that of accumulating wealth. The author, who was at Londonderry when this tragedy came out, inscribed it to Edward Coke of Norfolk, esq. in a dedication remarkably modest and pathetic. It is dated Nov. 1, 1699, and concludes, “I now begin to experience how much the mind may be influenced by the body. My Muse is confined, at present, to a weak and sickly tenement; and the winter season will go near to overbear her, together with her household. There are storms and tempests to beat tier down, or frosts to bind her up and kill her; and she has no friend on her side but youth to hear her through; If that can sustain the attack, and hold out till spring comes to relieve me, one use I shall make of fa<ther life shall be to shew how much I am, sir, your most devoted humble servant, C. Hopkins.”

, an ancient Roman poet, and the. most popular of all the classical writers, flourished in the age of Augustus, and was born at Venusium, a town of Apulia, or of Lucania, Dec. 8, U. C; 68y, i.e. 65 B. C. His father, the son of a freedman, and a tax-gatherer, being a man of good sense, knew the necessity of instructing his son by setting before him the examples of all sorts of persons, and shewing him what behaviour. he should imitate, and what he should avoid spur? ring him on all the while to this imitation, by pointing out the good effects ofvirtue, and the ill effects of vice. With this view he removed him to Rome when about ten years of age, where he had the advantage of an education under the best masters and when, he was about eighteen, was sent to Athens, where he acquired all the accomplishments that polite learning and education could bestow.

Bmtus about this time going to Macedonia, as he passed through Athens, took several young gentlemen to the army with him; and Horace, now grown up, and qualified to set out into the world, among the rest. Brutus made hima tribune, but he did not distinguish himselffor courage, as at the battle of Philippi he left the field and fled, after he had shamefully flung away his shield. This memorable circumstance of his life he mentions himself, in an Ode to his friend Pompeius Varus, who was with him in the same battle of Philippi, and accompanied him in his flight: but though running away might possibly save his life, it could not secure his fortune, which he forfeited; and being thus reduced to want, he applied himself to poetry, in which he succeeded so well, that he soon made himself known to some of the greatest men in Rome. Virgil, as hei has told us, was the first that recommended him to Macenas and this celebrated patron of learning and learned men grew so fond of him, that he became a suitor for him to Augustus, and succeeded in getting his estate restored. Augustus; highly pleased with his merit and address, admitted him to a close familiarity with him in his private hours, and afterwards made him no small offers of preferment, all which the poet had the greatness of mind to refuse and the prince generosity enough not to be offended at his freedom. It is a sufficient proof of his indifference to the pride of a court, that he refused a place so honourable and advantageous as that of secretary to Augustus. But he had a strong partiality to- retirement and study, free from the noise of hurry and ambition, although his life does not appear to have been untainted by the follies of his youth and nation.

Horace, although not a philosopher in the strictest sense, discovered an inclination for the Epicurean philosophy during the greatest part of his life; but at the latter end of it, seems to have leaned a little towards the Stoic. He was of a cheerful temper, fond of ease and liberty, and went pretty far into the gallantries of his times, until he advanced in years. Dacier has very justly said that he was a poet in his philosophy, and a philosopher in his poetry. He met with his greatest misfortune, when his beloved friend and patron Maecenas died; and this event is supposed to have touched him so sensibly, that he did not survive it long enough to lament him in an elegy. He died not many days after, aged fifty-seven, Nov. 17, in the year of Rome 746, about eight years B. C. He was buried near Maecenas’s tomb, and declared in his last words Augustus his heir; the violence of his distemper being such, that be was not able to sign his will. In his person he was very short and corpulent, as we learn from a fragment of a letter of Augustus to him, preserved in his life by Suetonius; where the emperor compares him to the book he sent him, which was a little short thick volume. He was grey-haired about forty; subject to sore eyes, which made him use but little exercise; and of a constitution probably not the best, by its being unable to support him to a more advanced age, though he seems to have managed it with very great care. Confident of immortal fame from his works, as all allow he very justly might be, he expressed his indifference to any magnificent funeral rites, or fruitless sorrows for his death.

Of an author so well known, and whose merits have been so often and so minutely canvassed by classical critics, it would be unnecessary to say much in this place. Yet we know not how to refrain from adding the sentiments of an eminent living scholar, which cannot easily be rivalled for acuteness and elegance. The writings of Horace, says this learned critic, are familiar to us from our earliest boyhood, They carry with them attractions which are felt in every period of life, and almost every rank of society, They charm alike by the harmony of the numbers, and the pttrity of the fiction. They exhilarate the gay, and interest the serious, according to the different kinds of subjects upon which the poet is employed. Professing neither the precision of analysis, nor the copiousness of system, they have advantages, which, among the ordinary class of writers, analysis and system rarely attain. They exhibit human imperfections as they really are, and human excellence as it practically ought to be. They develope every principle of the virtuous in morals, and describe every modification of the decorous in manners. They please without the glare of ornament, and they instruct without the formality of precept. They are the produce of a mind enlightened by study, invigorated by observation; comprehensive, but not visionary; delicate, but not fastidious; too sagacious to be warped by prejudice, and too generous to be cramped by suspicion. They are distinguished by language adapted to the sentiment, and by effort proportioned to the occasion. They contain elegance without affectation, grandeur without bombast, satire without buffoonery, and philosophy without jargon. Hence it is that the writings of Horace are more extensively read, and more clearly understood, than those of almost any other classical author. The explanation of obscure passages, and the discussion of conjectural readings, form a part of the education which is given in our public schools. The merits of commentators, as well as of the poet himself, are the subjects of our conversation; and Horace, like our own countryman Shakspeare, has conferred celebrity upon many a scholar, who has been able to adjust his text, or to unfold his allusions. The works of some Roman and more Greek writers are involved in such obscurity, that no literary adventurer should presume to publish a variorum edition of them, unless he has explored the deepest recesses of criticism. But in respect to Horace, every man of letters knows where information is to be had, and every man of judgment will feel little difficulty in applying it to useful and even ornamental purposes.

The editions of Horace are numerous beyond those of anfy other poet. Dr. Douglas, an eminent physician in the last reign, collected four hundred and fifty. Among these are valuable editions by Baxter, Bentley, Bond, Cruquius, Dacier, Desprez (the Delphin), Gesner, Lambinus, Muretus, Pulman, JSanadon, Zeunius, &c. c. to which may be added the more recent editions of Janus, Combe, Wakefield, Hunter, and Mitscberlichius.

, an English lawyer and poet, was born in 1566, at Mownton, in the parish of Lanwarne, in Herefordshire, and was at first intended by his father for a trade, but his surprizing memory and capacity induced him to send him to Westminster, and afterwards to Winchester school, at both which he made great proficiency. From Winchester he was in 1584 elected probationer-felr low of New-college, Oxford, and two years afterwards admitted actual fellow. In 1591 he took his master’s degree; but being terra jiliu$ y in the act following, he was, says Wood, “so bitterly satirical,” as to be refused to complete his degree as regent master, and was also expelled the university. He then, for his maintenance, taught school for some time at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, where he compiled a Greek lexicon as far as the letter M. Marrying afterwards a lady of property, he entered himself as student in the Twiddle temple, and at the usual time was called to the bar. In 1614 he hid a seat in parliament, where some rash speeches occasioned his being imprisoned for a year. He was afterwards elected Lentreader of the Middle-temple, and four years after was made a serjeant at law, a justice itinerant for Wales, and one of the council of the Marches. He died at his house at Morehampton, in Herefordshire, Aug. 27, 1638.

and certainly no person ever had a better right to assume that sublime device. This excellent magistrate, and truly, great man, died March 13, 1573, at the age of 68 years. “L' Hospital,” says Brantome, “was the greatest, worthiest, and most learned chancellor, that was ever known in France. His large white beard, pale countenance, austere manner, made all who saw him think they beheld a true portrait of St. Jerome, and he was called St. Jerome by the courtiers. All orders of men feared him; particularly the members of the courts of justice; and, when he examined them on their lives, their discharge of their duties, their capacities, or their knowledge, and particularly when he examined candidates for offices, and found them deficient, he made them feel it. He was profoundly vesrsed in polite learning, very eloquent, and an excellent pbdt^ His severity was never ill-naturec! he made due allowance” for the imperfections of human nature was always equtil ' and always firm. After his death his Vety enemies acknowledged that he was the greatest magistrate whom France had known, and that they did not “expect to see such another.” There are extant by him, 1. “Latin Poems,” Their unpretending simplicity is their greatest merit; but they shew such real dignity of character, they breathe so pure a spirit of virtue, and are full of such excellent sentiments of public and private worth, that they will always be read with pleasure. 2. “Speeches delivered in the meeting of the States at Orleans.” As an orator he shines much less than as a poet. 3. “Memoirs, containing Treaties of Peace,” &c. &c. It is said that he had also projected a history of his own time in Latin, but this he did not execute. The best edition of his poems is that of Amsterdam, 1732, 8vo. He left only one child, a daughter, married to Robert Hurault, whose children added the name of l‘Hospital to that of their father; hut the male line of this family also was extinct in 1706. Nevertheless, the memory of the chancellor has received the highest honours within a few years of the present time. In 1777, Louis XVI. erected a statue of white marble to him, and in the same year he was proposed by the French academy for the subject of an eloge. M. Guibert and the abbe Remi contended for the prize. It was adjudged to the latter, who did not, however, print his work; M. Guibert was less prudent, but his eloge gave little satisfaction. The celebrated Condorcet afterwards entered the lists, but with equal want of success. Such fastidiousness of public opinion showed the high veneration entertained for the character of L’ Hospital. In 1807, M. Bernardi published his “Essai sur la Vie, les Ecrits, et les Loix de Michel de L'Hospital,” in one vol. 8vo, a work written with taste and judgment; from these and other documents, Charles Butler, esq. has lately published an elegant “Essay on the Life” of L'Hospital, principally with a view to exhibit him as a friend to toleration.

, a French poetess, was born at Paris in 1638, and possessed all the charms of her sex, and wit enough to shine in the age of Louis XIV. Her taste for poetry was cultivated by the celebrated poet Henault, who is said to have instructed her in all he knew, or imagined he knew; but she not only imitated him in his poetry, but also in his irreligion; for her verses savour strongly of Epicureanism. She composed epigrams, odes, eclogues, tragedies; but succeeded best in the idyllium or pastoral, which some affirm she carried to perfection. She died at Paris in 1694, and left a daughter of her own name, who had some talent for poetry, but inferior to that of her mother. The first verses, however, composed by this lady, bore away the prize at the French academy; which was highly to her honour, if it be true, as is reported, that Fontenelle wrote at the same time, and upon the same subject. She was a member of the academy of the Ilicovrati of Padua, as,was her mother, who was also of that of Aries. She died at Paris in 1718. The works of these two ladies were collectively published in 1747, in 2 vols. 12mo. Several maxims of the elder of these ladies are much cited by French writers; as, that on gaming, “On commence par tre dupe, on finit par etre fripon.” People begin dupes, and end rogues. And that on self-love: “Nul n'est content cle sa fortune, ni mécontent de son esprit.” No one is satisfied with his fortune, or dissatisfied with his talents.

If it be said that Surrey’s age is not exactly known, and therefore allowing 1536, the date of his travels, to be erroneous, it is possible that he might have been enamoured of Geraldine long before this, and it is possible that his travels might have commenced in 1526, or any other period founded on this new conjecture. This, however, is as improbable as all the rest of the story, for it can be decidedly proved that there was no time for Surrey’s gallantries towards Geraldine, except the period which his biographers, however absurdly, have assigned, namely, when he was a married man. The father of lady Elizabeth, the supposed Geraldine, married in 1519, one of the daughters of Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, and by her had five children, of whom Elizabeth was the fourth, and therefore probably not born before 1523 or 1524. If Surrey’s courtship, therefore, must be carried farther back, it must be carried to the nursery; for even in 1536, when we are told he was her knight-errant, she could not have been more than eleven or twelve years old. Let us add to this a few particulars respecting Geraldine’s husband. She married Edward lord C'linton. He was born in 1512, was educated in the court, and passed his youth in those magnificent and romantic amusements which distinguished the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign, but did not appear as a public character until 1544, when he was thirty-two years of age, Geraldine about twenty-four, and Surrey within two years of his death, and most probably a widower. This earl of Lincoln had three wives; the date of his marriage with any of them is not known, nor how long they lived, but Geraldine was the third, the only one by whom he had no children, and who survived his death, which took place in 1584, thirty-eight years after the death of Surrey. Mr. Warton, in his earnest desire to connect her with Surrey, insinuates that she might have been either cruel, or that her “ambition prevailed so far over her gratitude as to tempt her to prefer the solid glories of a more splendid title and ample fortune, to the challenges and the compliments of so magnanimous, so faithful, and so eloquent a lover.” On this it is only necessary to remark, that the lady’s ambition might have been as highly gratified by marrying the accomplished and gallant Surrey, the heir of the duke of Norfolk, as by allying herself to a nobleman of inferior talents and rank. But of his two conjectures, Mr. Warton seems most to adhere to that of cruelty^ for he adds, that “Surrey himgelf outlived his amorous vows, and married the daughter of the earl of Oxford.” This, however, is as little deserving of serious examination, as the ridiculous story of Cornelius Agrippa showing Geraldine in a glass, which Anthony Wood found in Drayton’s “Heroical Epistle,” or probably, as Mr. Park thinks, took it from Nash’s fanciful “Life of Jack Wilton,” published in 1594, where, under the character of his hero, he professes to have travelled to the emperor’s court as page to the earl of Surrey. But it is unfortunate for this story, wheresoever borrowed, that Agrippa was no more a conjurer than any other learned man of his time, and that he died at Grenoble the year before Surrey is said to have set out on his romantic expedition. Drayton has made a similar mistake in giving to Surrey, as one of the companions of his voyage, the great sir Thomas More, who was beheaded in 1535, a year likewise before Surrey set out. Poetical authorities, although not wholly to be rejected, are of all others to be received with the greatest caution, yet it was probably Drayton’s “Heroical Epistle” which led Mr. Warton into so egregious a blunder as that of our poet being present at Flodden-field, in 1513. Dr. Sewell, indeed, in the short memoirs prefixed to his edition of Surrey’s Poems, asserts the same; tut little credit is due to the assertion -of a writer who at the same time fixes Surrey’s birth in 1520, seven years after that memorable battle was fought.

Although the present writer has taken some liberties with the Historian of English poetry, in his account of Surrey’s life, he has not the presumption to omit Mr. Warton’s elegant and just criticism on his poems. “Surrey for justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, may justly be pronounced the first English classical poet. He unquestionably is the first polite writer of love-verses in our language, although it must be allowed that there is a striking native beauty in some of our love-verse, written much earlier than Surrey’s.” It is also worthy of notice, that while all his biographers send him to Italy to study its poetry, Mr. Warton finds nothing in his works of that metaphysical cast which marks the Italian poets his supposed masters, especially Petrarch. “Surrey’s sentiments are for the most part natural and unaffected; arising from his own feelings, and dictated by the present circumstances. His poetry is alike unembarrassed by learned allusions, or elaborate conceits. If our author copies Petrarch, it is Petrarch’s better manner; when he descends from his Platonic abstractions, his refinements of passion, his exaggerated compliments, and his play upon opposite sentiments, into a track of tenderness, simplicity, and nature. Petrarch would have been a better poet had he been. a worse scholar. Our author’s mind was not too much over-laid by learning.”

Surrey’s poems were in high reputation among his contemporaries and immediate successors, who vied with each other in compliments to his genius, gallantry, and personal worth. They were first printed in 1557, by Tottel, in 4to, with die title of “Songes and sonnettes by the right honorable Henry Howard, late earl of Surrey, and other.” Several editions of the same followed in 1565, 1567, 1569, 1574, 1585, and 1587. So many editions prove a degree of popularity which fell to the lot of very few poems of that age. But after the time of Elizabeth they became gradually obscure, and we find no modern edition until Pope’s incidental notice of him (in Windsor-Forest), as the “Granville of a former age,” induced the booksellers to employ Dr. Sewell to be the editor of Surrey’s, Wyat’s, and the poems of uncertain authors. But the doctor performed his task, with so little knowledge of the language, that this is perhaps the most incorrect edition extant of any ancient poet. It would have been surprizing had it contributed to revive his memory, or justify Pope’s comparison and eulogium.

, an English writer of some abilities and learning, born Jan. 1626, was a younger son of Thomas earl of Berkshire, and educated at Magdalen college, Cambridge. During the civil war he suffered with his family, who adhered to Charles I. but at the Restoration was made a knight, and chosen for Stockbridge in Hampshire, to serve in the parliament which began in May 1661. He was afterwards made auditor of the exchequer, and was reckoned a creature of Charles II. whom the monarch advanced on account of his faithful services, in cajoling the parliament for money. In 1679 he was chosen to serve in parliament for Castle Rising in Norfolk; and re-elected for the same place in 1688. He was a strong advocate for the Revolution, and became so passionate an abhorrer of the nonjurors, that he disclaimed all manner of conversation and intercourse with persons of that description. His obstinacy and pride procured him many enemies, and among them the duke of Buckingham; who intended to have exposed him under the name of Bilboa in the “Rehearsal,” but afterwards altered his resolution, and levelled his ridicule at a much greater name, under that of Bayes. He was so extremely positive, and so sure of being in the right upon every subject, that Shadwell the poet, though a man of the same principles, could not help ridiculing him in his comedy of the “Sullen Lovers,” under the character of Sir Positive At-all. Jn the same play there is a lady Vaine, a courtezan which the wits then understood to be the mistress of sir Robert, whom he afterwards married. He died Sept. 3, 1698. He published, 1. “Poems and Plays.” 2. “The History of the Reigns of Edward and Richard II. with reflections and characters of their chief ministers and favourites; also a comparison of these princes with Edward I. and III.” 1690, 8vo. 3. “A letter to Mr. Samuel Johnson, occasioned by a scurrilous pamphlet, entitled Animadversions on Mr. Johnson’s answer to Jovian,” 1692, 8vo. 4. “The History of Religion,” 1694, 8vo. 5. “The fourth book of Virgil translated,” 1660, 8vo. 6. “Statius’s Achilleis translated,” 1660, 8vo.

1663. 39. “Poems:” collected and published by serjeant-major P. F. that is, Payne Fisher, who had been poet-laureat to Cromwell. The editor tells us, that his author Howell “may be called the prodigy of the age for the variety of his volumes: for there hath passed the press above forty of his works on various subjects, useful not only to the present times, but to all posterity. And it is to be observed,” says he, “that in all his writings there is something still new, either in the matter, method, or fancy, and in an untrodden tract.” It is quite impossible, however, to say any thing in favour of his poetry. He published next, 40. “A Treatise concerning Ambassadors,”

Hubald was not only a musician, but a poet; and an idea may be formed of his patience and perseverance, if not of his genius, from a circumstance related by Sigebert, the author of his life, by which it appears that he vanquished a much greater difficulty in poetry than the lippogrammists of antiquity ever attempted: for they only excommunicated a single letter of the alphabet from a whole poem; but this determined monk composed three hundred verses in praise of baldness, which he addressed to the emperor Charles the Bald, and in which he obliged the letter C to take the lead in every word, as the initial of his patron’s name and infirmity, as thus:

, a Spanish poet and critic, and a member of the Spanish academy, was born at Zaira in Estremadura, about the year 1730. Among his countrymen he acquired considerable fame by the exercise of his poetical and critical talents, and was at least successful in one of his dramas, “La Raquel,” a tragedy, which, to many stronger recommendations, adds that of being exempt from the anachronisms and irregularities so often objected to the productions of the Spanish stage. He published “A Military library;” and “Poems” in 2 vols. printed at Madrid in 1778: but his principal work is his “Teatro Hespanol,” Madrid, 1785, 17 vols. 4to, a collection of what he reckoned the best Spanish plays, with prefaces, in which he endeavours to vindicate the honour of Spanish literature from the strictures of Voltaire, Linguet, Signorelli, and others of its adversaries; but on the whole, in the opinion of lord Holland, who appears well acquainted with this work, so far from retrieving the lost honours of the Spanish theatre, he has only exposed it to the insults and ridicule of its antagonists. La Huerta died about the close of the last century.

, an English poet, was son of a citizen of London, and born at Marlborough in Wiltshire July 29, 1677. He was educated at a dissenting academy, under the care of Mr. Thomas Rowe, where, at the same time, the afterwards celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts was a student, whose piety and friendship for Mr. Hughes induced him to regret that he employed any part of his talents in writing for the stage. Mr. Hughes had a weak or at least a delicate constitution, which perhaps restrained him from severer studies, and inclined him to pursue the softer arts of poetry, music, and drawing; in each of which he made considerable progress. Hk acquaintance with the Muses and the Graces did not render him averse to business; he had a place in the office of ordnance, and was secretary to several commissions under the great seal for purchasing lands, in order to the better securing of the royal docks and yards at Portsmouth, Chatham, and Harwich. He continued, however, to cultivate his taste for letters, and added to a competent knowledge of the ancient, an intimate acquaintance with the modern languages. The first testimony he gave the public of his poetic vein, was in a poesi “on the peace of Ryswick,” printed in 1697, and received with uncommon approbation. In 1699, “The Court of Neptune” was written by him on king William’s return from Holland; and, the same year, a song on the duke of Gloucester’s birth-day. In the year 1702, he published, on the death of king William, a Pindaric ode, entitled “Of the House of Nassau,” which he dedicated to Charles duke of Somerset and in 1703 his “Ode in Praise of Music” was performed with great applause at Stationers’-hall.

A man of his amiable character was undoubtedly regretted; and Steele devoted an essay in the paper called “The Theatre,” to the memory of his virtues. In 1735 his poems were collected and published in. 2 vols. 12 mo, under the following title: “Poems on several occasions, with some select Kssays in prose.” Hughes was also the author of other works in prose. “The Advices from Parnassus,” and “The Political Touchstone of Boccalini,” translated by several hands, and printed in folio, 1706, “were revised, corrected, and had a preface prefixed to them, by him. He translated himself” Fontenelle’s Dialogues of the Dead, and Discourse concerning the Ancients and Moderns;“”the Abbé Vertot’s History of the Revolutions in Portugal;“and” Letters of Abelard and Heloisa.“He wrote the preface to the collection of the” History of England“by various hands, Called” The Complete History of England,“printed in 1706, in 3 vols. folio; in which he gives a clear, satisfactory, and impartial account of the historians there collected. Several papers in the” Tatlers,“” Spectators,“and” Guardians,“were written by him. He is supposed to have written the whole, or at least a considerable part, of the” Lay Monastery,“consisting of Essays, Discourses, &c. published singly under the title of the” Lay Monk,“being the sequel of the” Spectators.“The second edition of this was printed in 1714, 12mo. Lastly, he published, in 1715, an accurate edition of the works of Spenser, in 6 vols. 12mo; to which are prefixed the” Life of Spenser,“”An Essay on Allegorical Poetry,“” Remarks on the Fairy Queen, and other writings of Spenser,“and a glossary, explaining old words; all by Mr. Hughes. This was a work for which he was well qualified, as a judge of the beauties of writing, but he wanted an antiquary’s knowledge of the obsolete words. He did not much revive the curiosity of the public, for near thirty years elapsed before his edition was reprinted. The character of his genius is not unfairly given in the correspondence of Swift and Pope.” A month ago,“says Swift,” was sent me over, by a friend of mine, the works of John Hughes, esq. They are in prose and verse. I never heard of the man in my life, yet I find your name as a subscriber. He is too grave a poet for me; and I think among the mediocrists, in prose as well as verse.“To this Pope returns:” To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes; what he wanted in genius, he made up as an honest man; but he was of the class you think him."

, a late dramatic and miscellaneous writer, and an actor, was born in the Strand, London, in 1728, where his father was in considerable practice as an apothecary. He was educated at the Charter-house, with a view to the church, but afterwards embraced his father’s profession, which, however, he was obliged to relinquish after an unsuccessful trial. What induced him to go on the stage we know not, as nature had not been very bountiful to him in essential requisites. He performed, however, for some time in the provincial theatres, and in 1759 obtained an engagement at Covent-garden theatre, which he never quitted, unless for summer engagements. In one of these he became acquainted with Shenstone the poet, who, observing his irreproachable moral conduct, so different from that of his brethren on the stage, patronized him as far as he was able, and assisted him in writing his tragedy of “Henry II.” and “Rosamund.” It was indeed Mr. Hull’s moral character which did every thing for him. No man could speak seriously of him as an actor, but all spoke affectionately of his amiable manners and undeviating integrity. He was also a man of some learning, critically skilled in the dramatic art, and the correspondent of some of the more eminent literary men of his time. His poetical talents were often employed, and always in the cause of humanity and virtue, but he seldom soared above the level of easy and correct versification. In prose, perhaps, he is entitled to higher praise, but none of his works have had more than temporary success. He died at his house at Westminster, April 22, 1808. For the stage he altered, or wrote entirely, nineteen pieces, of which a list may be seen in our authority. His other works were, I. “The History of sir William Harrington,” a novel, 1771, 4 vols. 2. “Genuine Letters from a gentleman to a young lady his pupil,” 1772, 2 vols. 3. “Richard Plantagenet,” a legendary tale, 1774, 4to. 4. “Select Letters between the late duchess of Somerset, lady Luxborough, miss Dolman, Mr. Whistler, Mr. Dodsley, Shenstone, and others,” 1778, 2 vols. This is now the most interesting of his publications, and contains many curious particulars of literary history and opinions. The letters were given to him by Shenstone. 5. “Moral Tales in verse,” 1797, 2 vols. 8vo.

Although Mr. Kurd’s reputation as a polite scholar and critic had been now fully established, his merit had not attracted the notice of the great. He still continued to reside at Cambridge, in learned and unostentatious retirement, till, in Dec. 1756, he became, on the death of Dr. Arnald, entitled to the rectory of Thurcaston, as senior fellow of Emanuel college, and was instituted Feb. 16, 1757. At this place he accordingly entered into residence, and, perfectly satisfied with his situation, continued his studies, which were still principally employed on subjects of polite literature. It was in this year that he published “A Letter to Mr. Mason on the Marks of Imitation,” one of his most agreeable pieces of this class, which was afterwards added to the third edition of the “Epistles of Horace.” This obtained for him the return of an elegy inscribed to him by the poet, in 1759, in which Mason terms him “the friend of his youth,” and speaks of him as seated in “low Thurcaston’s sequester' d bower, distant from promotion’s view.” The same year appeared Mr. Kurd’s “Remarks on Hume’s Essay on the Natural History of Religion.” Warburton appears to have been so much concerned in this tract, that we find it republished by Hurd in the quarto edition of that prelate’s works, and enumerated by him in his list of his own works. It appears to have given Hume some uneasiness, and he notices it in his account of his life with much acrimony. In 1759, he published a volume of “Dialogues on sincerity, retirement, the golden age of Elizabeth, and the constitution of the English government,” in 8vo, without his name. In this work he was thought to rank among those writers who, in party language, are called constitutional; but it is said that he made considerable alterations in the subsequent editions. This was followed by his very entertaining “Letters on Chivalry and Romance,” which with his yet more useful “Dialogues on foreign Travel” were republished in 1765, with the author’s name, and an excellent preface on the manner of writing dialogue, under the general title of“Dialogues moral and political.” In the year preceding, he wrote another of those zealous tracts in vindication of Warburton, which, with the highest respect for Mr. Kurd’s talents, we may be permitted to say, have added least to his fame, as a liberal and courteous polemic. This was entitled “A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Thomas Leland, in which his late ‘ Dissertation on the principles of Human Eloquence’ is criticized, and the bishop of Gloucester’s idea of the nature and character of an inspired language, as delivered in his lordship’s Doctrine of Grace, is vindicated from all the objections of the learned author of the dissertation.” This, with Mr. Kurd’s other controversial tracts, is republished in vol. VIII. of the late authorized edition of his works, with the following lines, by way of advertisement, written not long before his death "The controversial tracts, which make up this volume, were written and published by the author at different times, as opportunity invited, or occasion required. Some sharpness of style may be objected to them; in regard to which he apologizes for himself in the words of the poet:

, an ingenious poet, and very amiable man, the son of James Hurdis, gent, was born at Bishopstone in Sussex in 1763. His father dying, and leaving his mother in no affluent circumstances, with seven children, seems to have laid the foundation of that extreme tenderness and liberality of brotherly affection which formed the most striking feature in the character of Mr. Hurdis. He was educated at Chichester school, where being of a delicate constitution, he seldom partook in the juvenile sports of his school companions, but generally employed his hours of leisure in reading. His inclination to poetry soon appeared in various juvenile compositions, and he contracted at the same time a fondness for the sister art, music, which ended in his being a very considerable performer on several instruments^ Before he left school, he nearly completed the building of an organ, an instrument he preferred to all others.

In 1780 he was entered a commoner of St. Mary-hall, Oxford; and at the election in 1782, was chosen a demy of St. Mary Magdalen college. Here his studies, which were close and uninterrupted, were encouraged, and his amiable character highly respected, by Dr. Home, president of Magdalen, and his successor Dr. Routh, by Dr. Sheppard, Dr. Rathbone, and others. About 1784 he went to Stanmer in Sussex, where he resided for some considerable time as tutor to the late earl of Chichester’s youngest son, the hon. George Pelham, now bishop of Exeter. In May 1785, having taken his bachelor’s degree, he retired to the curacy of Burwash in Sussex, which he held for six years, but in the interim, in 1786, was elected probationer fellow of Magdalen, and the following year took his master’s degree. Finding himself now sufficiently enabled to assist his mother in the support of her family, he hired a small house, and took three of his sisters to reside with him. In 1788, he first appeared before the public as a poet, in “The Village Curate,” the reception of which far exceeded his expectations, a second edition being called for the following year. This poem, although perhaps not highly finished, contained so many passages of genuine poetry, and evinced so much elegance, taste, and sense, as to pass through the ordeal of criticism with great applause, and to be considered as the earnest of future and superior excellence. Such encouragement induced the author to publish in 1790, his “Adriano, or the first of June,” which was followed in a short time by his “Panthea,” “Elmer and Ophelia,” and the “Orphan Twins,” all which were allowed to confirm the expectations of the public, and place the author in an enviable rank among living poets. These were followed by two publications, connected with his profession; “A short critical Disquisition ou the true Meaning of the word tO*OiJin, found in Gen. i. 21, 1790,” and “Select critical Remarks upon the English version of the first ten chapters of Genesis.” In 1791, through the interest of the earl of Chichester, he was appointed to the living of Bishopstone; and about the same time wrote his tragedy of “Sir Thomas More,” a poem of considerable merit, but not intended for the stage. In 1792, he was deprived by death of his favourite sister Catherine, whose elegant mind he frequently pourtrayed in his works, under the different appellations of Margaret and Isabel. On this affliction he quitted his curacy, and returned with his two sisters to Bishopstone. Here the trouble of his mind was considerably alleviated by an affectionate invitation from his much- esteemed friend Mr. Hayley to visit Eartham, where he had the pleasing satisfaction of becoming personally known to Cowper, the celebrated poet, with whom he had maintained a confidential correspondence for some years.

At his return to Germany in 1516, he was recommended in such strong terms to the emperor, that be received from him the poetical crown; and from that time Hutten had himself drawn in armour, with a crown of laurel on his head, and took great delight in being so represented. He was of a very military, disposition, and had given many proofs of courage, as well in the wars as in private rencounters. Being once at Viterbo, where an ambassador of France stopped, a general quarrel arose, in which Hutten, forsaken by his comrades, was attacked by five Frenchmen at once, and put them all to flight, after receiving some small wounds. He wrote au epigram on that occasion, “in quinque Gallbs a se profligates,” which mky be seen in Melchior Adam. He had a cousin John de Hutten, who was court-marshal to Ulric duke of Wirtemberg, and was murdered by that duke in 15 15, for the sake of his wife, whom the duke kept afterwards as a mistress. The military poet, as soon as he heard of it, breathed nothing but resentment; and because he had no opportunity of shewing it with his sword, took up his pen, and wrote several pieces in the form of dialogues, orations, poems, and letters. A collection of these was printed io the castle of Steckelberg, 1519, 4to.

, was an ancient Latin writer, who flourished in the time of Augustus. Suetonius, in. his book “De illustribus Grammaticis,” says that he was a freedman of Augustus, and by nation a Spaniard; though some think that he was an Alexandrian, and brought by Caesar to Rome when Alexandria was taken. He was a diligent follower and imitator of Cornelius Alexander, a celebrated Greek grammarian; and was also himself a teacher at Rome. He was made keeper of the Palatine library; was very intimate with the poet Ovid, and with Caius Licmius, a man of consular dignity and an historian, who has taken occasion to inform us, that he died very poor, and, while he lived, was supported chiefly by his generosity; but Vossius thinks that the person here named the consular historian Caius Licinius, should be Caius Asinius, who wrote a history of the civil war, and was consul with Cneius Domitius Calvinus, U. C. 723.

, a poetical and dramatic writer, was the son of a considerable maltster of Romsey, in the county of Southampton, at which place he was born in 1686. He was bred to the Jaw under an eminent attorney, and was afterwards steward and secretary to the Hon. William Blathwayt, esq. a celebrated courtier in the reign of king William, and who enjoyed great preferments in that and the subsequent reign. These are the only particulars of his life which have been handed down, and are what he inserted in his “Poetical Register,” where he also informs us that he was a great admirer of poets. He died May 8, 1744. His admiration of poetry, although it could not make him a poet, led him to inquire into poetical history, and gradually produced his “Poetical Register, or Lives and Characters of the English dramatic poets,” 1723, 2 vols. which, says Baker, notwithstanding some few errors in it, is by much the best book of the kind hitherto extant; and yet so little merit had his own two dramatic pieces, Love in a Wood“and” The Soldier’s Last Stake,“that, according to Whincop, Dr. Sewel, who was by no means remarkable for ill-nature, on reading his” Love in a Wood," wrote the following very severe lines in the title-page:

, an ancient Italian poet, a contemporary and friend of Dante, whose true name was Jacopo de' Benedetti, was born at Todi of a noble family. Late in life he became a widower, upon which he distributed his wealth to the poor, and entered into the order of minors, where, through humility, he remained always in the class of servitors. He died, at a very advanced age, in 1306; and the reputation of sanctity he had acquired procured him the title of The happy. He composed sacred canticles, full of fire and zeal; which are still admired in Italy, notwithstanding their uncultivated style, which abounds with barbarous words, from the Calabrian, Sicilian, and Neapolitan dialects. He wrote also some poems of the same stamp in Latin, and was the author of the “Stabat Mater.” The completest edition of his canticles is that of Venice, printed in 1617, in quarto, with notes.

, an English poet, descended of a Cornish family, was the third son of the rev. Richard Jago, rector of Beaudesert, or Beldesert, in Warwickshire, by Margaret, daughter of William Parker, gent, of Henley in Arden, and was born Oct. 1, 1715. He received his classical education under the rev. Mr. Crumpton, an excellent schoolmaster at Solihull in the same county, but one whose severity our poet has thought proper to record in his “Edge-hill.” At this school he formed an intimacy, which death only dissolved, with the poet Shenstone, whose letters to him have since been published. In their early days they probably exchanged their juvenile verses, and afterwards communicated to each other their more serious studies and pursuits. Somerville also appears to have encouraged our author’s first attempts, which were made at a yet earlier period, when under his father’s humble roof. From school he was entered as a servitor of University college, Oxford, where Shenstone, then a commoner of Pembroke, the late rev. Richard Greaves, Mr. Whistler, and others who appear among Shenstone’s correspondents, showed him every respect, notwithstanding the inferiority of his rank. A young man of whatever merit, who was servitor, was usually visited, if visited at all, with secrecy, but this prejudice is now so much abolished that the same circumspection is not thought necessary. He took his master’s degree July 9, 1738, having entered into the church the year before, and served the curacy of Snitterfield, near Stratford-upon-Avon. His father died in 1740. In 1744, or according to Shenstone’s letters, in 1743, he. married Dorothea Susanna Fancourt, daughter of the rev. Fancourt of Kimcote in Leicestershire, a young lady whom he had known from her childhood.

In 1784, his poems, as corrected, improved, and enlarged by the author a short time before his death, with some additional pieces, were published by his friend, the late John Scott Hylton, esq. of Lapall- house near Hales Owen, who was likewise the correspondent of Shenstone. To this publication Mr. Hylton prefixed some account of Jago’s life, which, however meagre and unsatisfactory, is all that can now be procured. A very few particulars, indeed, but perhaps’ of no great importance, have been gleaned from Shenstone’s Letters, &c. His life, it may be presumed, was that of a man not dependent on fame, and whose productions formed the amusement of his leisure hours. It would appear by one of Shenstone' s letters that he occasionally used his pencil as well as his pen. His rank as a poet cannot be thought very high. Yet we have few more beautiful specimens of tenderness and sensibility than in, his elegies on the Blackbirds and Goldfinches. The fable of “Labour and Genius” has a pleasing mixture of elegance and humour. The “Elegy on Blackbirds” appeared first in the “Adventurer,” to the editor of which it was sent by Gilbert West, and published as his. The author claimed it, however, when added to Dodsley’s collection, a circumstance which Dr. Johnson has noted, but not with sufficient precision, in his life of that excellent man. Even when Mr. Jago put his name to it, a manager of the Bath theatre endeavoured to make it pass for his own, and with great effrontery asserted that Jago was a fictitious name Adopted from the play of Othello. His longest poem, “Edge-hill,” has some passages not destitute of animation, but it is so topographically exact, that to enjoy it the reader must have a map constantly before him; and perhaps with that aid, if he is not conversant with the various scenery, the effect will be languor and indifference. Even his friend Shenstone seems to speak coldly of it. “You must by no means lay aside the thoughts of perfecting Edge-hill, at your leisure. It is possible, that in order to keep clear of. flattery, I have said less in its favour than I really ought but I never considered it otherwise than as a poem which it was very adviseable for you to complete and finish.” Shenstone did not live to see it published in its finished state; and whatever his objections, probably bestowed the warmest praise on the tender and simple episode of Lydia and the blind lover, taken from a story in the Tatler.

king of Scotland, of the house of Stuart, was born in 1394. In 1405 his father Robert III. sent him to France, in order that he might escape the dangers to which he was exposed from his uncle the duke of Albany, but being taken by an English squadron, he and his whole suite were carried prisoners to the Tower of London. Here the young prince received an excellent education, to which Henry IV. of England was remarkably attentive, thereby making some atonement for his injustice in detaining him. Sir John Pelham, a man of worth and learning was appointed his governor, under whose tuition he made so rapid a progress, that he soon became a prodigy of talents and accomplishments. Robert died in the following year, and James was proclaimed king, but during the remainder of the reign of Henry IV. and the whole of that of Henry V. he was kept in confinement, with a view of preventing the strength of Scotland from being united to that of France against the English arms. At length, under the regency of the duke of Bedford, James was restored to his kingdom, having been full eighteen years a prisoner in this country. James was now thirty years of age, well furnished with learning, and a proficient in the elegant accomplishments of life, and dextrous in the manly exercises, which at that period were in high estimation. He married Joanna Beaufort, daughter of the duchess of Clarence, a lady of distinguished beauty, descended from the royal family of England; and on his return to Scotland, finding that the dujte of Albany and his son had alienated many of the most valuable possessions of the crown, instantly caused the whole of that family and their adherents to be arrested. The latter were chiefly discharged; but the late regent, his two sons, and his father-in-law, he caused to be convicted, executed, and their estates to be confiscated to the crown. Whatever other objections were made to James’s conduct, he procured the enactment of many good laws in his parliaments, which had a tendency to improve the state of society; but at the same time his desire of improving the revenues of the crown led him to many acts of tyranny, which rendered him odious to his nobility. In 1436 he gave his daughter Margaret in marriage to the dauphin of France, and sent with her a splendid train and a vast body of troops. The English, who had in vain attempted to prevent this union by negociation, now endeavoured to intercept the Scotch fleet in its passage, but they missed their object, and the princess arrived in safety at Rochelle. James, exasperated at this act of hostility, declared war against England, and summoned the whole array of his kingdom to assist in the siege of Roxburgh; which, however, he abandoned upon an intimation of a conspiracy being formed against himself by his own people. He now retired to the Carthusian monastery of Perth, which he had himself founded, where he lived in privacy, but this, instead of preventing, facilitated the suecess of the plot formed against his life. The chief actors in this tragedy were Robert Graham, and Walter earl of Athol, the king’s uncle. The former was actuated by revenge for the sufferings of some of his family, the latter by the hope of obtaining the crown for himself. The assassins obtained by bribery admission into the king’s apartments; the alarm was raised, and the ladies attempted to secure the chamber-door; one of them, Catharine Douglas, thrust her arm through a staple, making therewith a sort of bar, in which state she remained till it was dreadfully broken by the force of the assailants. The instant they got admission, they dragged the king from his concealment, and put him to death with a thousand wounds on Feb. 20, 1437, in the forty-fourth year of his age. He is introduced in this work chiefly on account of his literary reputation, for he was a poet as well as a sovereign, and his works, descriptive of the manners and pastimes of the age, were once extremely popular, and are still read with delight by those who can relish the northern dialect. He is said by all the British historians to have been a skilful musician; and it is asserted, that he not only performed admirably on the lute and harp, but was the inventor of many of the most ancient and favourite Scottish melodies, but this Dr. Burney is inclined to doubt. Where this prince acquired his knowledge in music is not ascertained; but it is probable that it was in France, in his passage home from which country he was taken prisoner by the English. Before the reformation we hear of no music being cultivated in Scotland but plain-song, or chanting in the church; nor afterwards, for a long time, except psalmody.

The genuine and ancient Scots melodies are so truly national, that they resemble no music of any other part of Europe. They seem to have been wholly preserved by tradition till the beginning of the last century, when a collection of Scots songs was published by a Mr. Thomson of Edinburgh, for which there was a very large subscription; and in February 1722, a benefit concert was advertised for the editor, to be terminated at the desire of several persons of quality, with a Scottish song. To this publication and concert may be ascribed the subsequent favour of their national, singular, and often touching melodies, south of the Tweed. Tassoni, indeed, (lib. x. cap. 22.) tells us, that “Jarnes I. king of Scotland, had not only composed sacred music, but invented a new species of plaintive melody different from all others in which he has beenimitated by the prince of Venosa; who,” he adds, “in our times has embellished music with many admirable inventions.” This assertion, says Dr. Burney, greatly increased our desire to examine works in which so many excellencies were concentred; particularly as we had long been extremely desirous of tracing the peculiarities of the national melodies of Scotland, from a higher source than David Rizzio. But in a very attentive perusal of all the several parts of the whole six books of the prince of Venosa’s madrigals, we were utterly unable to discover the least similitude or imitation of Caledonian airs in any one of them; which, so far from Scots melodies, seem to contain no melodies at all; nor, when scored, can we discover the least regularity of design, phraseology, rhythm, or, indeed, any thing remarkable in these madrigals, except unprincipled modulation, and the perpetual embarrassments and inexperience of an amateur, in the arrangement and filling up of the parts. As a poet, however, there is less room to doubt James’s talents. He has found abundance of editors, but no complete and accurate impression of his works has hitherto made its appearance. Mr. Park, in his excellent edition of the “Royal and Noble Authors,” has given a list of them, and more particulars may be found in our principal authorities.

No circumstance, however, in James’s reign was more unpopular than his treatment of the celebrated sir Walter Raleigh, after the detection of a conspiracy with lord Grey, and lord Cobham, to set aside the succession in favour of Arabella Stuart: he was tried and capitally convicted, but being reprieved, he was kept thirteen years in prison. In 1615 he obtained by bribery his release from prison, but the king would not grant him a pardon. He went out on an expedition with the sentence of death hanging over his head; he was unsuccessful in his object, and on his return the king ordered him to be executed on his former sentence. James is supposed to have been more influenced to this deed by the court of Spain than by any regard to justice. The influence of that court on James appeared soon after in his negociations for marrying his son prince Charles to the infanta. The object was, however, not attained, and he afterwards married him to the French princess Henrietta, with the disgraceful stipulation, that the children of that marriage should be educated by their mother, a bigoted papist, till they were thirteen years of age. As he aavanced in years he was disquieted by a concurrence of untoward circumstances. The dissentions of his parliament were very violent, and the affairs of his son-in-law, the elector palatine, now king of Hungary, also were in a very disastrous state. He had undertaken the cause of the protestants of Germany, but instead of being the arbiter in the cause of others, he was stripped of his own dominions. In his defence, James declared war against the king of Spain and the emperor, and sent troops over to Holland to act in conjunction with prince Maurice for the recovery of the palatinate; but from mismanagement, the greater part of them perished by sickness, and the whole enterprise was defeated. Oppressed with grief for the failure of his plans, the king was seized with an intermitting fever, of which he died in March 1625. It would be difficult, says Hume, to find a reign less illustrious, yet more unspotted and unblemished, than that of James in both kingdoms. James possessed many virtues, but scarcely any of them pure or free from the contagion of neighbouring vices. His learning degenerated into pedantry and prejudice, his generosity into profusion, his good nature into pliability and unmanly fondness, his love of peace into pusillanimity, and his wisdom into cunning. His intentions were just, but more adapted to the conduct of private life than to the government of kingdoms. He was an encourager of learning, and was himself an author of no mean genius, considering the times in which he lived. His chief works were, “Basilicon Doron” and “The true Law of free Monarchies” but he is more known for his adherence to witchcraft and demoniacal possessions in his “Demonology,” and for his “Counterblast to Tobacco.” He was also a poet, and specimens of his talent, such as it was, are to be found in many of our miscellanies. He also wrote some rules and cautels t for the use of professors of the art, which, says Mr. Ellis, have been long, and perhaps deservedly disregarded. The best specimen of his poetical powers is his “Basilicon Doron,” which bishop Percy has reprinted in his “Reliques,” and declares that it would not dishonour any writer of that time. Both as a man of learning, and as a patron of learned men, sufficient justice, in our opinion, has never been done to the character of James I.; and although a discussion on the subject would extend this article too far, it would not be difficult to prove that in both respects he was entitled to a considerable degree of veneration.

, nephew of the preceding, was born at Newport, in the Isle of Wight, in 1592, and admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, Sept. 23, 1608. In October 1611, he took the degree of B A. and in Jan. 1615, that of M. A. in which year also he became probationer fellow of his college. Having entered into holy orders, he preached frequently, and arrived to the degree of bachelor in divinity. Upon what occasion we know not, he travelled abroad; and was in Russia, in 1619, a tour to which country was very uncommon in those days. He was esteemed to be well versed in most parts of learning, and was noted, among his acquaintance, as a good Grecian and poet, an excellent critic, antiquary, and divine; and was admirably skilled i'n the Saxon and Gothic languages. As for his preaching, it was not approved of by any of the university, excepting by some of the graver sort. Of three sermons, delivered by him before the academics, one of them, concerning the observation of Lent, was without a text, according to the most ancient manner; another was against it, and a third beside it; “shewing himself thereby,” says Anthony Wood, “a humourous person.” Selden was much indebted to him for assistance in the composition of his “Marmora Arundeliana,” and acknowledges him, in the preface to that book, to be “Vir multijugae studiique indefatigabilis.” Mr. James also exerted the utmost labour and diligence in arranging and classifying sir Robert Cotton’s library; and it is somewhat singular that bishop Nicolson imputes the same kind of blame to him, of which Osborn, the bookseller, more coarsely accused Dr. Johnson, when compiling the Harieian Catalogue, viz. “that being greedy of making extracts out of the books of our history for his own private use, he passed carelessly over a great many very valuable volumes.” Nothing was wantnig to him, and to the encouragement of his studies, but a sinecure or a prebend; if he had obtained either of which, Wood says, the labours of Hercules would have seen/ted to be a trifle. Sir Symonds D'Ewes has described him as an atheistical profane scholar, but otherwise witty and moderately learned. “He had so screwed himself,” adds sir Symonds, “into the good opinion of sir Robert Cotton, that whereas at first he only permitted him the use of some of his books; at last, some two or three years before his death, he bestowed the custody of his whole library on him. And he being a needy sharking companion, and very expensive, like old sir Ralph Starkie when he lived, let out, or lent out, sir Robert Cotton’s most precious manuscripts for money, to any that would be his customers; which,” says sir Symonds, “1 once made known to sir Robert Cotton, before the said James’s face.” The whole of these assertions may be justly suspected. His being an atheistical profane scholar does not agree with Wood’s account of him, who expressly asserts that he was a severe Calvinist; and as to the other part of the accusation, it is undoubtedly a strong circumstance in Mr. James’s favour, that he continued to be trusted, protected, and supported, by the Cotton family to the end of his clays. (See our account of Sir Robert Cotton, vol. X. p. 326 et seqq.) This learned and laborious man fell a victim to intense study, and too abstemious and mortified a course of living. His uncle, Dr. Thomas James, in a letter to Usher, gives the following character of him: “A kinsman of mine is at this present, by my direction, writing Becket’s life, wherein it shall be plainly shewed, both out of his own writings, and those of his time, that he was not, as he is esteemed, an arch-saint, but an archrebel; and that the papists have been not a little deceived by him. This kinsman of mine, as well as myself, should be right glad to do any service to your lordship in this kind. He is of strength, and well both able and learned to effectuate somewhat in this kind, critically seen both in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, knowing well the languages both French, Spanish, and Italian, immense and beyond all other men in reading of the Mss. of an extraordinary style in penning; such a one as I dare balance with any priest or Jesuit in the world of his age, and such a one as I could wish your lordship had about you; but paupertas inimica bonis est monbus, and both fatherless and motherless, and almost (but for myself) I may say (the: more is pity) friendless.”

Mr. Jameson died at Edinburgh in 1644, and was interred in the churchyard of the Grey Friars, but without, any monument. By his will, written witli his own hand in 1641, and breathing a spirit of much piety and benevolence, he provides kindly for his wife and children, and leaves many legacies to his relations and friends. Of his family, his daughter Mary was thrice married: first to Mr. Burnett, of EIrick, in the county of Aberdeen; afterwards to James Gregory, the celebrated mathematician; and lastly to Mr. Eddie, one of the magistrates of Aberdeen. By all these gentlemen she had children, and many of the descendants of the two first have numerous families in the county of Aberdeen. Mary seems to have inherited a portion of her father’s genius. Several specimens of her needle-work remain, particularly Jephtha’s rash vow; Susannah and the Elders, &c. probably from a design of her father’s; these now adorn the East end of St. Nicholas church, Aberdeen. Though Jameson was little known in England, and has not been noticed by any English writer on the arts, except lord Orford, his character, as well as his works, were highly esteemed in his own country. Arthur Johnston, the poet, addressed to him an elegant Latin epigram, on the picture of the marchioness of Huntley, which may be seen in the works of that author, printed at Middleburgh in 1642.

, a French poet, was, in his youth, a great traveller, and ran over Greece, the isles of the Archipelago, and Asia Minor. Poetry being his delight, he applied himself to it from his infancy; and his writings, both in verse and prose, shew that he had carefully studied the Greek and Latin authors, especially the poets. He is esteemed the rival of Ronsard, who was his contemporary and friend; but he is not so bombastical, nor so rough in the use of Greek words, and his style is more natural, simple, and pleasing. Jamyn was secretary and chamberreader in ordinary to Charles IX. and died about 1585. We have, 1. his “Poetical Works,” in 2 vols. 2. “Discours de philosophic a Passicharis & a Pedanthe,” with seven academical discourses, the whole in prose, Paris 1584, 12mo. 3. “A Translation of Homer’s Iliad,” in French verse, begun by Hugh Sale!, and finished by Jamyn from the 12th book inclusive, to which is added a translation of the three first books of the " Odyssey.*' He appears to have had some notion of the style into which Homer ought to be translated, but he has rendered his performance sufficiently ridiculous by giving modern titles to the Greeks, such as the duke Idomeneus, and the chevaliers Neptune and Nestor.

, a French preacher and poet, was born in the village of Jarry, near Xantes, about 1658. He went young to Paris, where the duke of Montausier, M. Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Flechier, became his patrons, and encouraged him to write. He gained the poetical prize in the French academy in 1679 and in 1714, and it is remarkable that, on this latter occasion, Voltaire, then very young, was one of his competitors. The successful poem was, however, below mediocrity, and contained some blunders with which his young antagonist amused himself and the public. One of his verses began, “Poles, glaces, brulans.” “These torrid poles,” could not escape ridicule. At the same time he was celebrated as a preacher. He was prior of Notre Dame du Jarry of the order of Grammont, in the diocese of Xantes, where he died in 1730. We have of his, a work entitled “Le Ministere Evangelique;” of which the second edition was printed at Paris in 1726. 2. “A Collection of Sermons, Panegyrics, and Funeral Orations,” 4 vols. 12mo. 3. “Uu Recueil de divers ouvrages de Piete,” 1638, 12mo. 4. “Des Poeses Chretiennes Heroiques & Morales,” 1715, 12mo.

, an English poet, born in 1678, was the son of Christopher Jeffreys, esq. of Weldron in Northamptonshire, and nephew to James the eighth lord Chandos. He was educated at Westminster school under Dr. Busby, and was admitted of Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1694, where he took the degrees in arts, was elected fellow in 1701, and presided in the philosophyschools as moderator in 1706. He was also sub-orator for. Dr. Ayloffe, and not going into orders within eight years, as the statutes of that college required, he quitted his fellowship in 1709. Though Mr. Jeffreys was called to the bar, he never practised the law, but, after acting as secretary to Dr. Hartstronge bishop of Derry, at the latter end of queen Anne’s and the beginning of George the First’s reign, spent most of the remainder of his life in the families of the two last dukes of Chandos, his relations. In 1754 he published, by subscription, a 4to volume of “Miscellanies, in verse and prose,” among which are two tragedies, “Edwin,” and “Merope,” both acted at the theatre-royal in Lincoln’s- inn- fields, and “The Triumph of Truth,” an oratorio. “This collection,” as the author observes in his dedication to the late duke of Chandos, then marquis of Carnarvon, “includes an uncommon length of time, from the verses on the duke of Gloucester’s death in 1700, to those on his lordship’s marriage in 1753.” Mr. Jeffreys died in 1755, aged seventy-seven. In sir John Hawkins’s “History of Music,” his grandfather, George, is recorded as Charles the First’s organist at Oxford, in 1643, and servant to lord Hatton in Northamptonshire, where he had lands of his own; and also his father, Christopher, of Weldron in Northamptonshire, as “a student of Christ church, who played well on the organ.” The anonvmous verses prefixed to “Cato,” were by this gentleman, which Addison never knew. The alterations in the Odes in the “Select Collection” are from the author’s corrected copy.

Soon after his father’s death, at the general election in 1742, he was unanimously chosen one of the representatives for the county of Cambridge. From this time he continued to sit in parliament, either for the county or borough of Cambridge, until 1780, except on the call of a new parliament in 1754, when he was returned for the borougli of Dumvich. In 1755, he was appointed one of the lords commissioners of the board of trade and plantations, at which he sat during. all changes of administration, until the business of the board, which was not great, was removed into another department. At the time of its abolition, it consisted of our author, the present earl of Carlisle, the late lord Auckland, and Gibbon the historian. Mr. Cumberland, the well-known dramatic poet, was secretary. His parliamentary conduct was more uniform than is supposed to be consistent with freedom of opinion, or the usual attachments of party. When he was first elected a member, he found sir Robert Walpole on the eve of being dismissed from the confidence of the House of Commons, and he had the courage, unasked and unknown, to give his support to the falling minister, as far as he could without contributing his eloquence, for Mr. Jenyns seldom spoke, and only in reply to a personal question. He was conscious that he could make no figure as a public speaker, and early desisted from the attempt. After the dismissal of sir Robert Walpole, he constantly ranked among the friends of government. Without giving a public assent to every measure of the minister for the day, he contrived to give him no offence, and seems very early to have conceived an abhorrence of systematic oppositions. What his opinions were on great constitutional questions, may be found in his writings, where, however, they are not laid down with much precision, and seem at no time of his life to have been steady. In his attendance at the board of trade, he was very assiduous, and bestowed much attention on the commercial interests of his country. He has not left any thing in print expressly on this subject, but his biographer has given some of his private opinions, which are liberal and manly.

Mr. Jenyns’s poems were added to the second and third editions of Dr. Johnson’s Collection. As a prose writer, we have few that can be compared to him for elegance and purity. As a poet he has many equals and many superiors. Yet his poems are sprightly and pleasing and if we do not find much of that creative fancy which marks the true genius of poetry, there is the spirit, sense, and wit, which have rendered so many modern versifiers popular. 1

, an elegant English poet, descended from an ancient Roman catholic family in Norfolk, was the youngest brother of the late sir William Jerningham, bart. and was born in 1727. He was educated in the English college at Douay, and from thence removed to Paris, where he improved himself in classical attainments, becoming a good Latin scholar, and tolerably well acquainted with the Greek, while the French and Italian languages, particularly the former, were nearly as familiar to him as that of his native country. In his mind, benevolence and poetry had always a mingled operation. His taste was founded upon the best models of literature, which, however, he did not always follow, with respect to style, in his latter performances. The first production which raised him into public notice, was a poem in recommendation of the Magdalen hospital; and Mr. Jonas Hanway, one of its most active patrons, often declared, that its success was very much promoted by this poem. He continued 'occasionally to afford proofs of his poetical genius; and his works, which passed through many editions, are uniformly marked by taste, elegance, and a pensive character, that always excites tender and pleasing emotions; and in some of his works, as in “The Shakspeare Gallery,” “ Enthusiasm,” and “The Rise and Fall of Scandinavian Poetry,” he displays great vigour, and even sublimity. The fiist of these poems had an elegant and spirited compliment from Mr. Burke, in the following passage: “I have not for a, long time seen any thing so well-finished. He has caught new fire by approaching in his perihelium so near to the Sun of our poetical system.” His last work, published a few months before his death, was entitled “The Old Bard’s Farewell.” It is not unworthy of his best days, and breathes an air of benevolence and grateful piety for the lot in life which Providence had assigned him. In his later writings it has been objected that he evinces a species of liberal spirit in matters of religion, which seems to consider all religions alike, provided the believer is a man of meekness and forbearance. With this view in his “Essay on the mild Tenour of Christianity” he traces historically the efforts to give an anchorite-cast to the Christian profession, and gives many interesting anecdotes derived from the page of Ecclesiastical history, but not always very happily applied. His “Essay on the Eloquence of the Pulpit in England,” (prefixed to bishop Bossuet’s Select Sermons and Orations) was very favourably received by the public, but his notions of pulpit eloquence are rather French than English. Mr. Jerningham had, during the course of a long life, enjoyed an intimacy with the most eminent literary characters in the higher ranks, particularly the celebrated earl of Chesterfield, and the present earl of Carlisle. The illness which occasioned his death, had continued for some months, and was at times very severe; but his sufferings were much alleviated by a course of theological study he had imposed on himself, and which he considered most congenial to a closing life. He died Nov. 17, 1812. He bequeathed all his manuscripts to Mr. Clarke, New Bond-street. Mr. Jerningham’s productions are as follow: J. “Poems and Plays,” 4 vols. 9th edition, 1806. 2. “Select Sermons and Funeral Orations, translated from the French of Bossuet, bishop of Meaux,” third edition, 1801. 3. “The mild Tenour of Christianity, an Essay, (elucidated from Scripture and History; containing a new illustration of the characters of several eminent personages,)” second edition, 1807. 4. “The Dignity of Human Nature, an Kssay,” 1805. 5. “The Alexandrian School; or, a narrative of the first Christian Professors in Alexandria,” third edition, 1810. 6. “The Old Bard’s Farewell,” a Poem, second edition, with additional passages, 1812. His dramatic pieces, “The Siege of Berwick,” the “Welsh Heiress,” and “The Peckham Frolic,” have not been remarkably successful.

, a painter of this country, more known from the praises of Pope, who took instructions from him in the art of painting, and other wits, who were influenced probably by the friendship of Pope, than for any merits of his own, was a native of Ireland, and studied for a year under sir Godfrey Kneller. Norris, framer and keeper of the pictures to king William and queen Anne, was the first friend who essentially served him, by allowing him to study from the pictures in the royal collection, and to copy them. At Hamptou-cour the made small copies of the cartoons, and these he sold to Dr. George Clark of Oxford, who then became his protector, and furnished him with money to visit France and Italy. In the eighth number of the Tatler, (April 18, 1709), he is mentioned as “the last great painter Italy has sent us.” Pope speaks of him with more enthusiasm than felicity, and rather as if he was determined to praise, than as if he felt the subject. Perhaps some of the unhappiest lines in the works of that poet are in the short epistle to Jervas. Speaking of the families of some ladies, he says,

The Maid of Orleans, as she is called, declared after this coronation, that her mission was now accomplished; and expressed her inclination to retire to the occupations and course of life which became her sex. But Dunois, sensible of the great advantages which might still b- reaped from her presence in the army, exhorted her to persevere till the final expulsion of the English. In pursuance of this advice, she threw herself into the town of Compiegne, at that time besieged by the duke of Burgundy, assisted by the earls of Arundel and Suffolk. The garrison, on her appearance, believed themselves invincible; but Joan, after performing prodigies of valour, was taken prisoner in a sally, and no efforts having been made by the French court to deliver her, was condemned by the English to be burnt alive, which sentence she sustained with great courage in the nineteenth year of her age, 1431. Such are the outlines of the history of this extraordinary heroine, which however is involved in many doubts and difficulties, and has too many of the features of romance for serious belief. It has lately even been doubted whether she was actually put to death; and some plausible evidence has been brought forward to prove that the judges appointed by the duke of Bedford to try her, passed a sentence from which they saved her on the day of execution by a trick, and that she afterwards made her appearance, was married to a gentleman of the house of Amboise in 1436, and her sentence was annulled in 1456. Be this as it may, her memory has long been consecrated by her countrymen, none of whom, however, have done her so much honour as our present poet-laureat, in his admirable poem of “Joan of Arc.”

, a celebrated French poet, was born of a noble family at Paris, in 1532. He was esteemed by Henry II. and Charles IX. but so entirely devoted to poetry and luxury, that he reaped no advantage from their patronage, but lived in poverty. He was one of the earliest tragic poets of France, but abused the uncommon facility he had in writing verses; so that though his French poems were much admired when their author was living, it now requires great patience to read them. The same cannot, however, be said of his Latin poetry, which is written in a more pure and easy style, and in a better taste. Jodelle was well acquainted with Greek and Latin, had a genius for the arts, and is said to have understood architecture, painting, and sculpture he was one of the poets in the Pleiades fancied by Ronsard, and is considered as the inventor of the Vers rapportes. This author died very poor, July 1573. The collection of his poems was published at Paris, 1574, 4to, and at Lyons, 1597, 12mo. It contains two tragedies, Cleopatra, and Dido; Eugene, a comedy; sonnets, songs, odes, elegies, &c. Cardinal du Perron valued this poet’s talents so little, that he used to say Jodelle’s verses were but pois piles.

, an excellent antiquary, and founder of the Gentleman’s Society at Spalding, was descended from a family much distinguished in the last century. At Berkhamstead, the seat of one of his relations, were half-length portraits of his grandfather, old Henry Johnson and his lady, and sir Charles and lady BickerstafF, and their daughter, who was mother to sir Henry Johnson, and to Benjamin Johnson, poet-laureat to James I. who, agreeably to the orthography of that age, spelt his name Jonson. Sir Henry was painted half-length, by Frederick Zucchero; and the picture was esteemed capital. The family of Johnson were ajso allied to many other families of consideration. Mr. Johnson, born at Spalding, a member of the Inner Temple, London, and steward of the soke or manor of Spalding, married early in life a daughter of Joshua Ambler, esq. of that place. She was the granddaughter of Sir Anthony Oldh'eld, and lineally descended from Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder of Gresham-coilege, and of the Royal Exchange, London. By this lady he had twenty-six children, of whom sixteen sat down together to his table.

His next publication of any note was his “Life of Savage,” which he afterwards prefixed to that poet’s works when admitted into his collection. With Savage he had been for some time intimately acquainted, but how long is not known. They met at Cave’s house. Johnson admired his abilities, and while he sympathized with the very singular train of misfortunes which placed him among the indigent, was not less touched by his pride of spirit, and the lofty demeanour with which he treated those who neglected him. In all Savage’s virtues, there was much in common with Johnson, but his narrative shows with what nicety he could separate his virtues from his vices, and blame even firmness and independence when they degenerated into obstinacy and misanthropy. He has concealed none of Savage’s failings; and what appears of the exculpatory kind is merely an endeavour to present a just view of that unfortunate combination of circumstances, by which Savage was driven from the paths of decent and moral life; and to incite every reflecting person to put the important question “who made me to differ” This Life, of which two editions were very speedily sold, affords an extraordinary proof of the facility with which Johnson composed. He wrote forty-eight pages of the printed copy in the course of a day or night, for it is not very clear which. His biographer, who records this, enters at the same time into a long discussion intended to prove that Savage was not the* son of the countess of Macclesfield; but had this been possible, it would surely have been accomplished when the proof might have been rendered unanswerable.

In 1745 he published “Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on sir Thomas Hanmer’s edition of Shakspeare,” to which he affixed proposals fora new edition of that poet; and it is probable that he was now devoting his whole time to this undertaking, as we find a suspension of his periodical contributions during the years 1745 and 1746. It is perhaps too rash to conclude that he declined writing in the Magazine, because he would not join in the support of government during the rebellion in Scotland; but there are abundant proofs in Mr. Boswell’s Life, that his sentiments were favourable to that attempt. As to his plan of an edition of Shakspeare, he had many difficulties to encounter. Little notice was taken of his proposals, and Warburton was known to be engaged in a similar undertaking. Warburton, however, had the liberality to praise his “Observations on Macbeth,” as the production of a man of parts and genius; and Johnson never forgot the favour. Warburton, he said, praised him when praise was of value.

Johnson was delighted with the task, the utility of which had probably occurred to his mind long before, and he had certainly more acquaintance than any man then living with the poetical biography of his country, and appeared to he best qualified to illustrate it by judicious criticism. Whether we consider what he undertook, or what he performed, the sum of two hundred guineas, which he demanded, will appear a very trivial recompense. His original intention, and all indeed that was expected from him, was a very concise biographical and critical account of each poet; but he had not proceeded far before he began to enlarge the lives to the present extent, and at last presented the world with such a body of criticism as was scarcely to be expected from one man, and still less from one now verging on his seventieth year.

Of this edition it is yet necessary to say, that Dr. Johnson was not in all respects to be considered as the editor. He had not the choice of the poets to be admitted, although in addition to the list prepared by his employers, he recommended Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden. The selection was made by the booksellers, who appear to have been guided partly by the acknowledged merit of the poet, and partly by his popularity, a quality which, is sometimes independent of the former. Our author, however, felt himself under no restraint in accepting the list offered, nor did he in any instance consider himself bound to lean with partiality to any author merely that the admission of his works might be justified. This absurd species of prejudice which lias contaminated so many single lives and critical prefaces, was repugnant to his, as it must ever be to the opinion of every man who considers truth as essential to biography, and that the possession of talents, however brilliant, ought to be no excuse for the abuse of them. Every preliminary having been settled in the month of April, 1777, the new edition of the Poets was sent to press, and Johnson was informed that his lives might be written in the mean time, so as to be ready to accompany the publication.

, was born at Caskieben, near Aberdeen, the seat of his ancestors, in 1587, and probably was educated at Aberdeen, as he was afterwards advanced to the highest dignity in that university. The study to which he chiefly applied, was that of physic; and to improve himself in that science, he travelled into foreign countries. He was twice at Rome, but the chief place of his residence was at Padua, in which university the degree of M. D. was conferred on him in 1610, as appears by a ms copy of verses in the advocates’ library in Edinburgh. After leaving Padua, he travelled through the rest of Italy, and over Germany, Denmark, England, Holland, and other countries, and at last settled in France, where he met with great applause as a Latin poet. He lived there twenty years, and by two wives had thirteen children. At last, after twenty-four years absence, he returned into Scotland, as some say in 1632, but probably much sooner, as there is an edition of his “Epigrammata,” printed at Aberdeen in 1632, in which he is styled the king’s physician. It appears by the council-books at Edinburgh, that the doctor had a suit at law before that court about the same time. In the year following, Charles I. went into Scotland, and made bishop Laud, then with him, a member of that council; and by this accident it is probable the acquaintance began between the doctor and that prelate, which produced his “Psalmorum Davidis Paraphrasis Poetica.” We find, that in the same year the doctor printed a specimen of his Psalms at London, and dedicated them to his lordship, which is considered as a proof that the bishop prevailed upon Johnston to remove to London from Scotland, and then set him upon this work; neither can it be doubted but, after he had seen this sample, he also engaged him to perfect the whole, which took him up four years; for the first etlition'of all the Psalms was published at Aberdeen in 1637, and at London in the same year. In 1641, Dr. Johnston being at Oxford on a visit to one of his daughters, who was married to a divine of the church of England in that place, was seized with a violent diarrhoea, of which he died in a few days, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, not without having seen the beginning of those troubles which proved so fatal to his patron. He was buried in the place where he died, which gave occasion to the following lines of his learned friend Wedderburn in his “Suspiria,” on the doctor’s death:

In 1632, as already remarked, was published at Aberdeen “Epigrammata Arturi Johnstoni;” and in 1633, he translated Solomon’s Song into Latin elegiac verse, and dedicated it to his majesty; in 1637, he edited the “Deliciae Poetarum Scoticorum,” to which he was himself a large contributor, and which, says Dr. Johnson, would have done honour to any country. His Psalms were reprinted at Middleburg, 1642; London, 1657; Cambridge,; Amsterdam, 1706 Edinburgh, by William Lauder, 1739 and at last on the plan of the Delphin classics, at London, 1741, 8vo, at the expence of auditor Benson, who dedicated them to his late majesty, and prefixed to this edition memoirs of Dr. Johnston, with the testimonies of various learned persons. A laboured, but partial and injudicious comparison between the two translations of Buchanan and Johnston, was printed the same year by Benson, in English, in 8vo, entitled <* A Prefatory Discourse to Dr. Johnston’s Psalms,“&c. and” A Conclusion to it.“This was ably answered by the learned Ruddiman in” A Vindication of Mr. George Buchanan’s Paraphrase of the Book of Psalms,“1745, 8vo. Johnston’s translations of the” Te Deum, Creed, Decalogue,“&c. were subjoined to the Psalms. His other poetical works are his” Parerga,“and his” Musae Aulicse,“or commendatory verses upon persons of rank in church and state at that time. Johnston is evidently entitled to very high praise as a Latin poet; and the late lord Woodhouselee seems to admit that from his days the Latin muses have deserted the northern part of our island: Benson’s comparison between Buchanan and Johnston was absurd enough, but it is not fair that Johnston should suffer by his editor’s want of taste. The abler critic we have just mentioned, does not think Johnston’s attempt to emulate Buchanan as a translator of the Psalms, greatly beyond his powers; for, although taken as a whole, his version is certainly inferior (as indeed what modern has, in Latin poetry, equalled Buchanan) yet there are a few of his Psalms, such as the 24th, 30th, 74th, 81st, 82d, 102d, and above all, the 137th, which, on comparison, lord Woodhouselee says, will be found to excel the corresponding paraphrase of his rival. And Dr. Beattie seems to speak in one respect more decidedly. Johnston, he says,” is not so verbose as Buchanan, and has of course more vigour;" but he very justly censures the radical evil of Johnston’s Psalms, his choice of a couplet, which keeps the reader always in rnind of the puerile epistles of Ovid.

During this reign he gave many proofs of his genius and fancy in the pompous machinery for masques and interludes so much in vogue then. Several of these representations are still extant in the works of Chapman, Davenant, Daniel, and particularly Ben Jonson. The subject was chosen by the poet, and the speeches and songs were also of his composing; but the invention of the scenes, ornaments, and dresses of the figures, was the contrivance of Jones . And in this he acted in harmony with father Ben for a while; but, about 1614, there happened a quarrel between them, which provoked Jonson to ridicule his associate, under the character of Lantern Leatherhead, a hobby-horse seller, in his comedy of “Bartholomew Fair.” Nor did the rupture end but with Jonson’s death; a very few years before which, in 1635, he wrote a most virulent coarse satire, called “An Expostulation with Jnigo Jones;” and, afterwards, “An Epigram to a Friend;” and also a third, inscribed to “Inigo Marquis Would-be.” The quarrel not improbably took its rise from our architect’s rivalship in the king’s favour; and it is certain the poet was much censured at court for this rough usage of his rival: of which being advised by Mr. Howell, he suppressed the whole satire .

, an English divine of some note for exciting a controversy respecting the Liturgy, was born in 1700, and is supposed to have been a native of Carmarthen. He was admitted of Worcester college, Oxford, where he took the degree of B. A. about 1721, and quitted the university in or before 1726, in which year he received priest’s orders at Buckden, from Dr. Reynolds, bishop of Lincoln. He had a curacy in that diocese, but in what partis not known. In 1741 he was resident at AbbotsRipton in Huntingdonshire, and soon after was presented to the vicarage of Alconbury, which he resigned in 1751 for the rectory of Boulne-Hurst in Bedfordshire. In 1755 he was vicar of Hitchin, and in 1759 accepted the curacy of Welwyn from Dr. Young, and continued there until 1765, when that celebrated poet died, and Mr. Jones was appointed one of his executors. He afterwards returned to Boulne-Hurst, and probably obtained no other preferment. He was killed by a fall from his horse in going to Abbots-Ripton, but in what year we have not been able to discover, although such a circumstance must have been known to his friends, who, however, have neglected to record it. After his death, many, if not all his manucripts, passed into the hands of the Rev. Thomas Dawson, M. D. a dissenting minister of Hackney, whence they passed to the dissenters’ library in Redcross-street. Some biographical notices which have appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine were extracted from them. Mr. Nichols has given an extensive series of extracts from his literary correspondence with Dr. Birch, from which many particulars of his talents and character may be gleaned. His chief work was entitled “Free and Candid Disquisitions,” published in 1749. These contained many observations on the defects and improprieties in the liturgical forms of faith and worship of the established church, and proposals of amendments and alterations of such passages as were liable to reasonable objections. There was also a compilation of authorities taken from the writings of some eminent divines of the church of England, with a view to shew the necessity, or at least the expedience, of revising the liturgy, &c. Schemes like this have succeeded each other since the time of Dr. Clarke, but have never been attended with complete conviction, either of their necessity or expedience. The author’s name did not appear to this publication, and Mr. Blackburne, whom he consulted previous to publication, was dissatisfied with his timidity. He wrote, however, a pamphlet in defence of it, and other pamphlets appear pro and con; but the controversy was of no long duration. In 1765 he published “Catholic Faith and Practice,” and “A Letter to a Friend in the Country;” but with the subjects of these we are unacquainted.

Our poet was first sent to a private school in the church of St. Martin’s in the Fields, and was afterwards removed to Westminster-school. Here he had for his preceptor the illustrious Camden, for whom he ever preserved the highest respect, and, besides dedicating one of his best plays to him, commemorates him in one of his epigrams, as the person to whom he owed all he knew. He was making very extraordinary progress at this school, when his mother, who, soon after her husband’s death, had married a bricklayer, took him home to learn his step-father’s business. How long he continued in this degrading occupation is uncertain: according to Fuller he soon left it, and went to Cambridge, but necessity obliged him to return to his father, who, among other works, employed him on the new building at Lincoln’s-inn, and here he was to be seen with a trowel in one hand and a book in the other. This, Mr. Malone thinks, must have been either in 1588 or 1593, in each of which years, Dugdale informs us, some new buildings were erected by the society. Wood varies the story, by stating that he was taken from the trowel to attend Sir Walter Raleigh’s son abroad, and afterwards went to Cambridge; but young Raleigh was not born till 1594, nor ever went abroad, except with his father in 1617 to Guiana, where he lost his life. So many of Jonson’s contemporaries, however, have mentioned his connection with the Raleigh family, that it is probable he was in some shape befriended by them, although not while he worked at his father’s business, for from that he ran away, enlisted as a common soldier, and served in the English army then engaged against the Spaniards in the Netherlands. “Here,” says the author of his life in the Biographia Britannica, “he acquired a degree of military glory which rarely falls to the lot of a common man in that profession. In an encounter with a single man of the enemy, he slew his opponent, and stripping him, carried off the spoils in the view of both armies.” As our author’s fame does not rest on his military exploits, it can be no detraction to hint, that one man killing and stripping another is a degree of military prowess of no very extraordinary kind. His biographer, however, is unwilling to quit the subject until he has informed us, that “the glory of this action receives a particular heightening from the reflection, that he thereby stands singularly distinguished above the rest of his brethren of the poetical race, very few of whom have ever acquired any reputation in arms.”

Wood informs us that he succeeded Daniel as poet-laureat, in Oct. 1619, as Daniel did Spenser. Mr. Malone, however, has very clearly proved that neither Spenser nor Daniel enjoyed the office now known by that name. King James, by letters patent dated Februarys, 16,15-16, granted Jonson an annuity or yearly pension of one hundred marks during his life, “in consideration of the good and acceptable service heretofore done, and hereafter to be done, by the said B. J.” On the 23d of April, 1630, king Charles by letters patent, reciting* the former grant, and that it had been surrendered, was pleased “in consideration (says the patent) of the good and acceptable service done unto us and our father by the said B. J. and especially to encourage him to proceed in those services of his wit and pen, which we have enjoined unto him, and which we expect from him,” to augment his annuity of one hundred marks to one hundred pounds per annum during his life, payable from Christmas 1629. Charles at the same time granted him a tierce of Canary Spanish wine yearly during his life, out of his majesty’s cellars at Whitehall; of which there is no mention in the former grant. Soon after this pension was settled on him, he went to Scotland to visit his intimate friend and correspondent, Drummond of Hawthornden, to whom he imparted many particulars of his life and his opinions on the poets of his age. After his return from this visit, which appears to have afforded him much pleasure, he wrote a poem on the subject; but this, with several more of his productions, was destroyed by an, accidental fire, and he commemorated his loss in a poem entitled “An Execration upon Vulcan.”

The “Tale of a Tub,” and the “Magnetic Lady,” were his last dramatic pieces, and bear very few marks of his original powers. He penned another masque in 1634, and we have a “New Year’s Ode” dated in 1G35, but the remainder of his life appears to have been wasted in sickness of the paralytic kind, which at length carried him off, Aug. 16, 1637, in the sixty-third year of his age. Three days afterwards he was interred in Westminster- abbey, at the north-west end near the belfrey, with a common pavement stone laid over his grave, with a short and irreverend inscription of “O rare Ben Jonson,” cut at the expence of sir John Young of Great Milton in Oxfordshire. His death was lamented as a public loss to the poetical world. About six months after this event, his contemporaries joined in a collection of elegies and encomiastic poems, which was published under the title of “Jonsonius Virbius; or the Memory of Ben Jonson revived by the friends of the Muses.” Dr. Duppa, bishop of Chichester, was the editor of this volume, which contained verses by lords Falkland and Buckhurst, sir John Beaumont, sir Francis Wortley, sir Thomas Hawkins, Messrs. Henry King, Henry Coventry, Thomas May, Dudley Diggs, George Fortescue, William Habington, Edmund Waller, J. Vernon, J. Cl. (probably Cleveland) Jasper Mayne, Will. Cartwright, John Rutter, Owen Feltham, George Donne, Shakerley Marmio'n, John Ford, R. Brideoak, Rich. West, R. Meade, H. Ramsay, T. Terrent, Rob. Wasing, Will. Bew, and Sam. Evans. A subscription also was entered hi to for a monument in the Abbey, but prevented by the rebellion. The second earl of Oxford contributed the bust in basrelievo which is now in Poet’s-corner. Jonson had several children, but survived them all. One of them was a poet, and, as Mr. Malqne has discovered, the author of a Drama written in conjunction with Brome. It should seem that he was not on good terms with his father. Fuller says that “Ben was not happy in his children.”

Yet whatever may be thought of his learning, it is greatly over-rated, when opposed or preferred to the genius of his contemporary Shakspeare. Jonson 1 s learning contributed very little to his reputation as a dramatic poet. Where he seems to have employed it most, as in his “Cataline,” it only enables him to encumber the tragedy with servile versifications of Sallust, when he should have been studying nature and the passions. Dry den, whose opinions are often inconsistent, considers Jonson as the greatest man of his age, and observes, that “if we look upon him when he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages) he was the most learned and judicious writer any theatre ever had.” In another place (preface to the “Mock Astrologer”), he says “that almost all Jonson’s pieces were but crambt his cocta, the same humour a little” varied and written worse."

In May 1715, he was admitted of Jesus-college, Cambridge; and, about two years after, recommended by his tutor Dr. Styan Thirlby, who was very fond of him, and always retained a friendship for him, to make extracts from Eustathius, for the use of Pope’s “Homer.” He was not employed directly by Pope, nor did it ever happen to him to see the face of that poet: for, being of a shy modest nature, he felt no impulse to force his way to him; nor did the other make inquiry about him, though perfectly satisfied with what he had done for him. He took the degree of B. A. in 1718-19, and M. A. in 1722: he had been chosen fellow of his college soon after the taking of his first degree. This year he distinguished himself by the publication of a few Latin poems, entitled, “Lusus Poetici;” which were well received, and were twice reprinted, with additions. In Sept. 1723, he entered into deacon’s orders, and into priest’s the June following. In Jan. 1726 -7, he was presented by his college to Swavesey, near Cambridge; but, marrying in 1728, he resigned that living, and spon after settled himself in London, where he was engaged as a reader and preacher at a chapel in street, near Russell-street, Bloomsbury. ID this town he spent the next twenty-five years of his life: for though, in 1737, the earl of Winchelsea gave him the living of Eastvvell in Kent, where he resided a little time, yet he very soon quitted it, and returned to London. Here for many years he had employment as a preacher, in the abovementioned and other chapels; with the emoluments of which occasional services, and a competency of his own, he supported himself and family in a decent though private manner, dividing his leisure hours between his books and his friends, especially those of the literati, with whom he always kept up a close and intimate connection. In 1730, he published “Four Sermons upon the Truth of the Christian Religion:” the substance of which was afterwards incorporated in a work, entitled, “Discourses concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion, 1746,” 8vo.

, or Josephus Iscanus, a writer of considerable taste and elegance, in an age generally reputed barbarous, was a native of Devonshire, and flourished in the close of the twelfth, and the commencement of the thirteenth centuries. He was an ecclesiastic, and patronized by Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury. Some say that he was a priest of the cathedral of Exeter, from which he took his name. According to Camden, he accompanied Richard I. of England into the Holy Land, and was a great favourite with that prince. By archbishop Baldwin’s interest he was made archbishop of Bourdeaux, where he is supposed to have died in the reign of Henry III. and to have been buried in the cathedral of that city. He was author of two epic poems in Latin heroics. The first, in six books, is on the Trojan war the other is entitled “Antiochesis,” the war of Antioch, or the Crusade; of this last only a fragment remains, in which the heroes of Britain are celebrated. His style is not only for the most part pure, but rich and ornamented, and his versification approaches the best models of antiquity. His diction is compounded chiefly of Ovid, Statius, and Claudian, the favourite poets of the age, and wants only Virgilian chastity. “Italy,” says Warton in his History of English Poetry, “had at that time produced no poet comparable to him.” He was also author of love verses, epigrams, and miscellaneous poems. His “De Bello Trojano, lib. V.” was published at Basil, 1541, 8vo; Lond. 1675, 8vo Francfcnt, 1620, 4to, and ibid. 1623; Amst. 1702, 4to. All that remains of his “Antiochesis” is printed in Warton’s “Ftistory of English Poetry.” His love-verses, &c. are lost.

Before the death of Edward, he returned to his own country, and led a sedentary life, closely pursuing his studies; but, upon the accession of queen Mary, he returned thither; and, being a very good poet, he published, in 1554, an epithalamium on the marriage of Philip II. with that queen, entitled “Philippis.” This address could not fail of introducing him in a favourable light to that court, whence he would probably have made a considerable fortune, had not the turbulent state of those times driven him home again. He confined himself some time in Hoorn, but, after a while, settled at Haeriem; and repaired the disappointment he sustained respecting his finances in England, by marrying a young woman of fortune, which he knew how to improve by making the most of his dedications to his books, of which he published three at Haarlem in 1556. Some years after, he accepted an offer from the king of Denmark, to be his physician, with a considerable salary, and removed to Copenhagen; but neither liking the climate nor genius of the inhabitants, he left the country about 1564, very abruptly, without taking leave of the king. Returning to Haerlem, he practised physic, and was made principal of the college, or great school, in that town. He continued there till the place was besieged by the Spaniards in 1573, when he found means to escape, by obtaining leave to attend the prince of Orange, who desired his assistance as a physician; but lost his library, in which he had left a great many works which had cost him much pains and labour; and the loss was aggravated by this circumstance, that they were almost fit for the press. In this exigency he went to Middleburgh, where the prince had procured him a public salary to practise physic; but the air of the country did not agree with his constitution, and he fell into some disorders, which, with the grief he felt for the loss of his library, put an end to his life in 1575. There was a design to have given him a professorship at Leyden, which university was but just rising when he died. He had a prodigious memory, which enabled him to treasure up a vast stock of learning. Besides his skill in physic, which was his profession, he was an historian, poet, philosopher, and understood perfectly eight languages. His works make up 24 articles, among which are, “Lexicon Graeco-Latinum,” 1548; “Adagiorum ab Erasmo omissorum centuriae octo & dimidia,” 1558 which last was published after his death, as others of his pieces were.

, the Roman satirist, was born about the beginning of the emperor Claudius’s reign, at Aquinum, a town in Campania, since famous for the birth-place of Thomas (thence styled) Aquinas. Juvenal’s father was probably a freed man, who, being rich, gave him a liberal education; and, agreeably to the taste of the times, bred him up to eloquence. In this he made a great progress, first under Fronto the grammarian, and then, as is generally conjectured, under Quintilian; after which he attended the bar, where he made a distinguished figure for many years, as we learn from some of Martial’s epigrams. In this profession he had improved his fortune and interest at Rome, before he turned his thoughts to poetry the very style of which, in his satires, speaks a long habit of declamation “subactum redolent declamatorem,” say the critics. He is supposed to have been above forty years of age, when he recited his first essay to a small audience of his friends; but, being encouraged by their applause, he ventured a publication, in which Paris, a player, and Domitian’s favourite, was satirized; this minion complained to the emperor, who sent the poet into banishment, under pretence of giving him the command of a cohort, in the army quartered at Pentapolis, a city upon the frontiers of Egypt and Lybia. After Domitian’s death, he returned to Rome, cured of his propensity to attack the characters of those in power under arbitrary princes, and indulge in personal reflections upon living characters. His 13th satire, addressed to Calvinus, was written U. C. 8T1, in the 3d year of Adrian, when Juvenal was above seventy years old; and as it is agreed that he attained to his eightieth year, he must have died about the 11th year of Adrian.

In his person he was of a large stature, which made some think him of Gallic extraction. We meet with nothing concerning feis morals and way of life; but, by the whole tenor of his writings, he seems to have been a man of acute observation, and a friend to liberty and virtue, but at the same time may be justly charged with a licentious boldness in his expressions. In point of classical merit, he is the last of the Roman poets, and after him Roman poetry rapidly degenerated. The most valuable edition of this poet, without Persius, is that of Ruperti, printed at Leipsic, in 1801, 2 vols. 8vo. But most generally Juvenal and Persius are printed together, of which there are many valuable editions, particularly the Variorums, the Delphin, those by Henninius, Hawkey, Sandby, &C.

Soon after the accession of Alexander VI. he was nominated by that pontiff a canon of St. Peter’s, and dignified with the rank of a prelate. In 1495 he was sent as papal nuncio into the Milanese, to treat with the emperor-elect, Maximilian, on which embassy he obtained not only the approbation of the pope, but also the favour of the emperor, who soon after the return of Inghirami to Rome, transmitted to him from Inspruck an imperial diploma, by which, after enumerating his various accomplishments, and particularly his excellence in poetry and Latin literature, he created him count palatine and poet-laureat, and conceded to him the privilege of adding the Austrian eagle to his family arms. Nor was he less favoured by Julius II. who, besides appointing him librarian of the Vatican, conferred on him the important office of pontifical secretary, which he afterwards quitted for that of secretary to the college of cardinals. Leo X. also enriched him with many ecclesiastical preferments, and continued him in his office of librarian until his death, which was occasioned by an accident in the streets of Rome, Sept. 6, 1516, when he had not yet completed the forty- sixth year of his age. To this unfortunate event it is probably owing, that so few of his writings have reached the present times. From the testimony of his contemporaries, it is well known that he was the author of many books. Among these are enumerated a defence of Cicero a compendium of the history of Rome a commentary on the poetics of Horace and remarks on the comedies of Plautus; but these works were left at his death in an unfinished state, and have since been dispersed or lost. It has been supposed that he was the author of the additions to the “Aulularia” of Plautus, printed at Paris, 1513.

, author of the “Illustrations of Hogarth,” was born at the Trench farm, near Wem, in Shropshire, in a house which had been rendered somewhat remarkable, by having been the birth-place and country residence of Wycherley the poet, and whose widow is said to have adopted Mr. Ireland, when a child; but this lady dying without a will, left him unprovided for. He was descended by the mother’s side from two eminent dissenting clergymen; his mother being the daughter of the rev. Thomas Holland, and great-grand-daughter of the rev. Philip Henry. In his youth he discovered a strong predilection to the arts, and such literature as is immediately connected with them, but as his parents were unable to give him a regular education, and as he had a turn for mechanics, h was brought up to the business of a watchmaker. Although he carried on this for some time with good connexions, it was not upon the whole successful, and during a considerable part of his life, he subsisted by trafficking in pictures, prints, &c. for which he had a correct taste, and in which he was probably assisted by the artists and print-sellers. He amassed a good collection of ^iortimer’s and Hogarth’s works, and lived on intimate terms with many men of eminence in the literary world, and particularly with the artists Mortimer and Gainsborough, and Henderson the actor, whose “Memoirs” he published in 1786. This actor had lived in Mr. Ireland’s house for some time after coming to London, but their intimacy had for some reason abated, and at the period of Henderson’s death was, if we are rightly informed, quite dissolved. His Life of Henderson is said to have been his first publication, and certainly was not very successful, nor very interesting. He was more fortunate afterwards in being employed by the Messrs. Boydell in the “Illustrations of Hogarth,” 3 vols. 8vo, a work in which he displays a correct knowledge of the arts, and a vein of humourous remark and anecdote not ill suited to the subjects he had to illustrate. As Mr. Ireland was a man of integrity, he often felt himself very much hurt as being mistaken for Samuel Ireland, the proprietor of the Shakspeare forged manuscripts, who had also published a volume of scraps and anecdotes relating to Hogarth. Our author, therefore, thought proper to disclaim, in the preface to his third volume, all connexion and relationship with his namesake. For several years Mr. Ireland had been afflicted with a complication of disorders, which had rendered society irksome to him, and occasioned him to remove to the neighbourhood of Birmingham, where he died in November 1808. He was a man of pleasant and inoffensive manners, and full of literary anecdote, which he liberally dispensed around, whether in a coffee-house among strangers, or at the social table among his friends.

, a French poet, was born of a respectable family at la Fresnaye, a castle near Falaise. He discovered early a taste for poetry and the belles lettres, and, after having distinguished himself as a student at Caen, succeeded his father as lieutenant-general of the city; but the marechal d‘Estrees persuaded him to resign his post and go to court, where he placed him with M. de Vendome, son of the celebrated Gabrielle d’Estrées. It was for this young prince that des Ivetaux wrote his poem of “L'Institution du Prince,” in which he gives his pupil very sensible, judicious, and even religious advice. After this he was preceptor to the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII; but his licentious way of life displeased the queen, and occasioned him to be excluded from the court a year after Henry IV. died. A pension and several benefices were, however, given him; but he afterwards resigned his benefices, on being reproached by cardinal Richelieu for his libertinism. Thus free from all restraint, des Ivetaux retired to an elegant house in the fauxbourg St. Germain, where he spent the rest of his days in pleasure and voluptuousness, iiving in the Epicurean style. Fancying that the pastoral life was the happiest, he dressed himself like a shepherd, and led imaginary flocks about the walks of his garden, repeating to them his lays, accompanied by a girl in the dress of a shepherdess, whom he had picked up with her Jiarp in the streets, and taken for his mistress. Their whole employment was to seek refinements in pleasures, and every day they studied how to render them more exquisite. Thus des Ivetaux passed his latter years; and it has been said that he ordered a saraband to be played when he was dying, to sooth his departing soul; but M. Huet, on the contrary, affirms, that he repented of his errors at the point of death. However that may be, he died in his ninetieth year, at Brian val, near Germigni, in 1649. Besides the poem above mentioned, des Ivetaux left stanzas, sonnets, and other poetical pieces, in the “Deiices de la Poésie Françoise,” Paris, 1620, 8vo.

, the antagonist of Dr. Caius in the antiquity of the universities, was born, as Wood conjectures, in Lincolnshire, but, according to Blomefield, was of a Yorkshire family. He was, however, educated at University college, Oxford, where he entered about the year 1522. In 1525, he was elected fellow of All Souls, where he took his degrees in arts, and at that time was esteemed an excellent Latin scholar, Grecian, and poet, in 1534, he was unanimously chosen registrar of the university; but. in 1552, was deprived of this office for negligence. Soon after the accession of queen Elizabeth, he was made prebendary of Salisbury. In 1561, he was elected master of University college, to which he was afterwards a considerable benefactor; and, in 1563, he was instituted to the rectory of Tredington in Worcestershire. He died in his college, in 1572, and was buried in the church of St. Peter’s in the East. He was well versed in sacred and profane learning, but, according to Smith, negligent and careless in some parts of his conduct. He translated Erasmus’s “Paraphrase on St. Mark,” by command of queen Catherine Parr, Lond. 1548; and likewise made translations from the Greek of Aristotle, Euripides, &e. but which do not appear to have been printed. What preserves his memory is his vindication of the antiquity of Oxford, metitioned in the preceding article, entitled, “Assertio antiquitatis Oxoniensis academic,” printed with Dr. John Caius’s answer, 1568, 1574, and again by Hearne 2 vols. 8vo, 1730. Mr. Smith, in his history of University College, has nearly answered Caius’s arguments respecting Alfred.

A few years after he became engaged in a long and vexatious lawsuit, in consequence of the neglect (to say the least of it) of an architect who professed himself to be his friend; the particulars of which it is of no importance to detail. At the conclusion of the business he shewed that his good humour had not forsaken him: and in 1787 he gave to the public the principal circumstances of his case in a performance entitled “The Distressed Poet, a seriocomic Poem, in three cantos,” 4to, with some pleasantry, and without any acrimony.

The success of this play induced Mr. Kelly to continue to write for the stage; and he soon produced another comedy, entitled “A Word to the Wise,” which, on a report then current, that he was employed to write in defence of the measures of administration, met with a very illiberal reception; for, by a party who had previously determined on its fate, after an uncommon uproar, it was most undeservedly driven from the theatre. Of this treatment he severely complains in an “Address to the Public,” prefixed to an edition of that play, soon after published by subscription, before which above a thousand names appear as his encouragers; and though the pride of the poet was hurt, his fortune was improved, and his friends were considerably increased.

The ill fate of the “Word to the Wise” cast no damp on the ardour of our poet in the prosecution of theatric fame; and as his friends were strongly of opinion, that his genius excelled in the sentimental and pathetic, he was persuaded to make a trial of it in tragedy, and soon after presented the public with “Clementina.” In 1774, uqder the patronage of justice Addington, who kindly helped to conceal the name of the real author, by lending his own to that performance, he produced his “School for Wives.” By this manoeuvre he completely deceived the critics, who had not yet forgot their resentment; for the play was prepared for the stage, and represented, without the least discovery of his relation to it; though they pretended to be perfectly well acquainted with Mr. Kelly’s style and manner of writing. However, after the character of the play was fully established, and any farther concealment became unnecessary, Mr. Addington very genteelly, in a public advertisement, resigned his borrowed plumes, and the real author was invested with that share of reputation to which he was entitled.

"Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house, and had a bow from every body but me, who, I confess, could not but despise him. When I came to the an ti- chamber to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business, and acted as a master of requests. He was soliciting the earl of Arran to speak to his brother the duke of Ormond, to get a chaplain’s place established in the garrison of Hull for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in that neighbourhood, who had lately been in gaol, and published sermons to pay fees. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake with my lord treasurer, that, according to his petition, he should obtain a salary of 200l. per annum, as minister of the English church at Rotterdam. Then he stopt F. Gwynne, esq. going in with his red bag to the queen, and told him aloud he had somewhat to say to him from my lord treasurer. He talked with the son of Dr. Davenant to be sent abroad, and took out his pocket-book and wrote down several things, as memoranda, to do for him. He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and, telling the time of the day, complained it was very late. A gentleman said, ‘ he was too fast.’ * How can I help it,‘ says the doctor, ’ if the courtiers give me a watch that won‘t go right’ Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse for which ‘ he must have ’em all subscribe' for, says he, the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him. Lord Treasurer, after leaving the queen, came through the room beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him: both went off just before prayers. 11 Nov. 3. I see and hear a great deal to confirm a doubt, that the pretender’s interest is much at the bottom of some

In 1773 he collected the works of Lloyd, 2 vols. 8vo, with a life of that unfortunate poet, remarkable for being written without any dates. In the same year, he produced “The Duellist,” a comedy, acted only one night; and published a “Dictionary” of the English language, 4to, in the preliminary parts of which are many shrewd and useful discussions and remarks. The little credit he had with the world at this time must, we think, have impeded the success of this work, in which he shews himself a philologer of no mean talents. In 1774, we find him giving lectures at the Devil tavern, which he called “A School of Shakspeare;” and about the same time addressed the artists and manufacturers of Great Britain respecting an application to parliament for ascertaining the right of property in new discoveries and inventions. Fancying that he had discovered the perpetual motion, he was at this time alarmed by the literary property bill; but we hear no more afterwards of his discovery.

, a German poet, was born at Zoeblin, in Pornerania, in 1715, and educated partly at the Jesuits’ college in Upper Poland, and partly at the academy of Dantzic, and the university of Konigsberg. At the age of twenty-one he entered the Danish military service, and then into that of Prussia, where he had a commission in the regiment of prince Henry, which gave him an opportunity of forming an intimacy with all the great characters at Potsdam. He was particularly noticed by the king, and advanced in the army. Having obtained leave to take an active part in the campaign of 1759, he was killed at the battle of Kunnersdorff, in the fortyfourth year of his age. His principal work, as a poet, was entitled “Spring,” which was first published in 1749, and has been translated into several languages, and compared with our Thomson. He wrote idylls in the manner of Gesncr, in which he has not confined himself to the language of shepherds, but has introduced gardeners and fishermen. He was the author also of some moral treatises, which have not been published, and of a military romance entitled “Cissides,” printed in 1759, in which there are many animated descriptions of scenes of war. Kleist was a general scholar, and spoke with facility, the German, Latin, French, Polish, and Danish languages.

, a German poet of the greatest renown, was born at Quedlinburg, July 2, 1724. He was the eldest of eleven children, and distinguished himself in his youth among his companions in bodily and mental exercises. At the age of sixteen he went to college, and being placed under Freitag, a very able tutor, he made himself familiar with the languages, and acquiring a taste for the beauties of the best classical authors, made attempts in composition both in prose and verse. In the latter he wrote some pastorals, but not contented with these humbler efforts, he formed at this early period the resolution of composing an epic poem, and fixed upon the “Messiah” as his subject. Such an effort was not known in the German language and the high opinion he had of Virgil, his favourite poet amongst the ancients the honour of being the first who should offer the Cerman public a work like the fiLneid; the warmth of patriotism that early animated him to raise the fame of German literature in this particular to a level with that of other European countries; the indignation he felt in reading the book of a Frenchman, who had denied the Germans every talent for poetry; all combined with the consciousness of his own superior powers, to spur him on to the execution of his exalted purpose. In 1745 he went to the university of Jena, where he commenced the study of theology; but in the midst of his academical pursuits he was planning his projected work, and sketched out his three first cantos, first in prose, but afterwards in hexameters, and was so pleased with having introduced a metre into German poetry, as ever afterwards to defend this mode of versification. In 1746, he removed from Jena to Leipsic, and became a member of a society of young men who had formed themselves into a literary club for mutual improvement. About this time he exercised his genius in lyric compositions. Several of his odes, together with the three first cantos of his Messiah, appeared in a periodical paper entitled “Bremen Contributions.” At length the publication of ten books of his Messiah made his name known throughout Germany, and raised his reputation very high. It found friends and enemies, admirers and critics, every where but its approbation was owing as much to the sacredness of the matter as the beauty of the poetry Christian readers loved it as a book that afforded them at length, amidst the themes of orthodoxy, some scope for devout feeling; young preachers quoted it in the pulpit, and coupled the name of Klopstock with that of the prophets. The stauncher class of divines, indeed, gave the poem the appellation of presumptuous fiction, contaminating the scripture-history with fables, and undermining the faith. The partisans of the German grammarian Gottsched raised the greatest clamour against the work, on the ground of the language, and sought by poor arguments and sorry wit to depreciate its merits. The Swiss critics, as opponents to the Saxons, on the other hand, extolled and defended it with all their might. Bodmer, in particular, the admirer and translator of Milton, embraced the cause of the German epic bard with enthusiastic ardour, and contributed very greatly, by his warm euloaium, to accelerate the universal celebrity of his poem. Klopstock heard and profited by the public disquisitions, but never engaged in any of the disputes.

Klopstock travelled into Switzerland in 1750, to pay a visit to Bodmer of Zurich, in consequence of an invitation, where he was received with every token of respect. The sublime scenery of that country, the simplicity of the inhabitants, and the freedom they enjoyed, were much suited to his taste. Here he intended to have spent the remainder of his life, but baron Bernstorff caused an invitation to be sent to him to reside at Copenhagen, with assurances of such a pension as would make him independent. Klopstock acceded to the proposal, and set out in 1751, by the way of Brunswick and Hamburgh, at which latter place he became acquainted with Miss Muller, a lady perfectly adapted to his own mind, whom he soon after married. They seemed destined to be one of the happiest couples, but he was soon deprived of her, for she died in childbed: her memory, however, was sacred to Kiopstock to the last moment of his existence. He lived chiefly at Copenhagen, till 1771, after which he resided at Hamburgh as Danish legate, and counsellor of the margrave of Baden, who gave him a pension. The latter part of his life was little varied by incidents, and after he had brought the Messiah to a conclusion, he continued to employ himself in composition, and in the correction and revision of his works. He died at Hamburgh, March 14, 1803, being seventy-nine years of age, and was interred with the greatest solemnity, not unmixed with superstitious and fanciful circumstances. By those who were intimate with him he is represented as a truly amiable man, happiest in a small circle of private friends, and particularly fond of the society of young persons. The character of Kiopstock, as a poet, is that of exuberance of imagination and sentiment. His sublimity is great, but he is apt to lose himself in mystical abstraction, and his excess of feeling sometimes betrays him into rant and extravagance. His odes and lyric poems have likewise been much admired by his countrymen, and his dramas display great force and dignity, but they are better adapted to the closet than the stage. The great merit of his works is in the diction; he enchants by his noble and energetic style, but their beauties cannot be preserved in a translation, and it is in Germany alone that they can be sufficiently appreciated. As an excellent specimen of his talents as a prose writer, we may notice his “Grammatical Dialogues,” which abound with judicious remarks.

, an eminent German critic, was born in 1738, at Bischofswerden, near Dresden, where his father was a clergyman. As to his first years, he used to tell Harles that he could not remember how they were spent, except that he was seven years old before his parents could by any means prevail on him to learn any thing. Soon after that, however, he was suddenly seized with such an attachment to letters, that his parents spared no expence to gratify his taste, and to enable him to cultivate his talents to the best advantage. He employed his leisure hours in composing and, reciting German verses, 'and profited very much under Foerstelius, who was his private preceptor, and afterwards at Misna, under Weiss and Cleman.nus. He studied afterwards at Gorlitz, under Baumeister, who taught him the classics, and lodged him in his house. Here Klotz used to say he spent more happy days than he was persuaded he should ever see again. During his stay here, which lasted two years, he gave a specimen of his powers in versification, by a poem composed on the “Destruction of Zittau,” which was laid waste in 1757. In 1758 he proceeded to Leipsic to study jurisprudence, and while here he published several papers in the “Acta Eruditorum,” and some separate pieces. In 1761 he published his “Opuscula Poetica,” containing twenty-three odes, three satires, and as many elegies. From Leipsic he repaired to Jena, where he opened a school, which was well attended. Having accepted of an invitation to a professorship at the university of Gottingen in 1762, he set off for that place, and almost immediately after his arrival he was attacked by a severe illness, from which, however, he recovered, and immediately published a treatise “De Verecundia Virgilii,” to which were added three dissertations relative to the eclogues of the poet. He also published “Miscellanea Critica,” and applied himself to the study of ancient gems and paintings, with which he became well acquainted. His celebrity had now increased so much, that he received two offers in the same day, one from the prince of Hesse Darmstadt, to be professor of the Oriental languages at Giessen, and the other from his Prussian majesty, to be professor of eloquence at Halle. While he was deliberating respecting the choice he should make, he was nominated by his Britannic majesty to be professor of philosophy at Gottingen, with an increased salary, which induced him to remain in that city, till some attempts were made to ruin his reputation. He then quitted Gottingen, and accepted an offer made him by his Prussian majesty, of being professor of philosophy and eloquence at Halle, with the rank and title of aulic counsellor. While preparing for his departure, he published “Historia Nummorum Contumeliosonini et Satyricorum,” containing a history of these coins; and on his removal to Halle he gave the public another work of the same kind, and at the same time he effected, what had been often attempted before without success, the institution of a new society, called the “Literary Society of Halle.” Here also the king conferred upon him the rank of privy-counsellor, and accompanied this mark of honour with a considerable addition to his salary. He died in 1771, and just before his death, revised every thing which he had written on coins, and published “Opuscula, nummaria quibus Juris Antiqui Historiceque nonnnila capita explicantur.” His other works, not already noticed, were, 1. “Pro M. T. Cicerone adversus Dionem Cassium et Plutarchum dissertatio,” Gorlitz, 1758, 4to. 2. “Ad virum doct. I. C. Reichelium epistola, qua de quibusdam ad Homerum pertinentibus disputatur,” Leipsic, 1758, 4to. 3. “Carminum liber unus,” ibid. 1759, 8vo. 4. “Mores Eruditorum,” Altenburgh, 1760, 8vo. 5. “Genius Sxculi,” ibid. 1760. 6, “Opuscula Poetica,” ibid. 1761, 8vo. 7. “Oratio pro Lipsii latinitate,” Jena, 1761, 8vo. 8. “Libellus de minutiarum studio et rixandi libidine grammaticorum quorundam,” ibid. 1761, 8vo. y. “Animadversiones in Theophrasti characteres Ethiros,” jbid. 8vo. 10.“Dissertatio de felici audacia Horatii,” I 762, 4to. 11. “Elegiae,” ibid. 8vo. 12. “Funus Petri Burmanni secundi,” Altenburgh, 8vo. This is a very complete account of the life, &c. of Burman. 13. “Uidicula Litteraria,” ibid. 8vo, a satirical work on useless studies and pursuits. 14. “Vindiciie Horatianae,” against Hardouin, Bremen, 1764, 8vo. 15. “Stratonis epigrammata, uunc primum edita,” Altenburgh, 1764, 8vo. 16. “Epistolae Homericae,” ibid. 1764, 8vo. 17. An edition of Vida, 1766, and of Tyrtacus, 1767. To these may be added many philosophical dissertations, theses, prefaces, &c. enumerated by Harles.

, an English poet, son of sir Edward Kynaston, knt. was of an ancient family, whose seat was at Otely in Shropshire, where, probably, he was born in 1587. In 1601 he entered as a gentleman- commoner of Oriel college, Oxford, which he left after taking his bachelor’s degree, being then, as Wood says, “more addicted to the superficial parts of learning, poetry and oratory (wherein he excelled), than logic and philosophy.” He afterwards, however, went to Cambridge, and after taking his master’s degree, returned in 1611 to Oxford, and was admitted ad eundem. He then became a courtier, admired for his talents, and had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him, and was afterwards made esquire of the body to Charles I. He was the first regent of a literary institution called the Musaum Minerv& 9 of which he drew up and published “The Constitutions,” Lond. 4to, 1636. It was an academy instituted in the eleventh year of the reign of Charles I. and established at a house in Coventgarden, purchased by Sir Francis, and furnished by him with books, Mss. paintings, statues, musical and mathematical instruments, &c. and every requisite for polite and liberal education: but the nobility and gentry only were admissible. Sir Francis was chosen regent, and professors were appointed to teach the various arts and sciences. It probably, owing to the rebellion, did not survive its founder, who died about 1642. He translated Chaucer’s 46 Troilus and Cresseide“into Latin, published at Oxford, 1635, 4to; but is better known to the lovers of our early poetry by his” Leoline and Sydanis,“with” Cinthiades,“1641, of which Mr. Ellis has given some beautiful specimens, and the story is analized by Mr. Gilchrist, with additional extracts, in the” Censtira."

, a French poet, was born in 1650, at Chimay, in Hairiault, and was of the same family with father Lainez, second general of the Jesuits, the subject of our next article. He was educated at Rheims, where his wit procured him an acquaintance with the chief persons of the town, and an admittance amongst the best companies. At length he came to Paris, and attended the chevalier Colbert, colonel of the regiment of Champagne, to whom he read lectures upon Livy and Tacitus. Several other officers of the army attended these lectures, making their remarks, and proposing their difficulties, which produced very agreeable and useful conversations. Having, however, a rambling disposition, he quitted this society, travelled into Greece, and visited the isles of the Archipelago, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, Malta, and Sicily. Thence he made a tour through the principal towns of Italy, and, returning through Switzerland into France, arrived at Chimay, wiiere he resided in obscurity for two years, until the abbe Faultrier, intervdant of Hainault, having received orders from the king to seize some scandalous libels that were handed about upon the frontier of Flanders, forced himself by violence into his chamber, on suspicion of being one of the authors of these. There he found Lainez wrapped up in an old morninggown, surrounded with a heap of papers, all in the greatest confusion. He accosted him as a guilty person, and seiz-" ed his papers. Lainez answered with modesty, proved the injustice of the suspicion; and the examination of his papers, which consisted of verses, and minutes of his travelsj added conviction to his arguments. The abbé Faultrier was much pleased to find him innocent y and, having had this occasion of knowing his merit, took him home with him, furnished him with apparel, of which at this time he stood very much in need, gave him lodging and diet, and treated him as a friend. Four months after, Lainez followed his benefactor to Paris, and lived with him at the arsenal; but, in half a year’s time, finding the little restraint this laid him under not at all agreeable to his spirit, he obtained leave to retire. This being granted, he made an excursion to Holland, to visit Bayle; and then crossed the water to England, whence, at last, he returned to settle at Paris, where he passed his days betwixt stjdy and pleasure, especially that of the table. He was, according to Moreri, a great poet, a great classic, and a great geographer, and, if possible, a still greater drinker. Nobody exactly knew where he lodged. When he was carried homeward in any friend’s chariot, he always ordered himself to be set down on the Pont-neuf, whence he went on foot to his lodgings. His friends, who were very numerous, and among them several persons of distinguished birth as well as merit, did not care where he lodged, if they could often have the happiness of his company. His conversation at once charmed and instructed them. He talked upon all kinds of subjects, and talked well upon all. He was a perfect master of Latin, Italian, Spanish, and of all the best authors in each of those languages. The greatest part of the day he usually devoted to his studies, and the rest was passed in pleasure. As, one of his friends expressed his surprize to see him in the king’s library at eight in the morning, after a repast of twelve hours the preceding evening, Lainez answered him in this distich extempore:

, of Cremona, a celebrated Latin poet in the sixteenth century, followed John Lascaris to Rome, and there taught Greek and Latin. After the death of pope Leo X. in 1521, he went to Padua, where he also instructed youth, more for the profit than the reputation of that employment, in which, however, he was eminently successful. He was then invited to Mantua by Frederic Gonzaga, who appointed him tutor to his son, and there he is said to have died in 1540, or a few years after. Lampridius, we are told, was of so timid a nature, that his friends could never prevail on him to speak in public. We have epigrams and lyric verses of this author, both in Greek and Latin, which were printed separately, and also among the “Deliciae” of the Italian poets. In his odes he aimed to imitate Pindar; but he wanted the force of that unrivalled poet.

, an Italian scholar, philosopher, and poet, was born at Florence in 1424. After having pursued his elementary studies at Volterra, he was constrained, in obedience to his father, to apply to jurisprudence; but by the favour of Cosmo and Peter de Medici, which he had the happiness to obtain, he was enabled to devote his time to philosophy and polite literature. He became particularly partial to the Platonic philosophy, and was one of the principal ornaments of the academy which Cosmo de Medici had founded. In 1457, he was appointed professor of the belles lettres at Florence, and considerably enlarged the reputation of that seminary. About the same time he was chosen by Peter de Medici to instruct his two sons, Julius, and the afterwards celebrated Lorenzo. Between Landinus and Lorenzo a reciprocal attachment took place; and such was the opinion that the master entertained of the judgment of his pupil, that he is said frequently to have submitted his works to his perusal and correction. Landinus became, in his old age, secretary to the seignory of Florence; but in his sixty-third year, he was relieved from the laborious part of this office, and allowed to retain his title and emoluments. He then retired to a residence at Prato Vecchio, from which his ancestors sprung. There he employed the remainder of his days in study, and died in 1504. He left several Latin poems, some of which have been printed, and some remain in manuscript. His notes on Virgil, Horace, and Dante, are much esteemed. He translated into Italian Pliny’s “-Natural History,” and published some learned dissertations both in Latin and Italian. It is said that he was rewarded for his critical labours on Dante by the donation of a villa, on the hill of Casentino, in the vicinity of Florence, which he enjoyed under the. sanction of a public decree. His edition of Horace was published in 1482. His philosophical opinions appear in his “Disputatipnes Cfuaaldulenses,” a work of which Mr. Roscoe has given an ample account. It was first published without a date; but, according to De Bure, in 1480, folio, and reprinted at Strasburgh in 1508. Landinus’s fame, however, rests chiefly on the advances he made in classical criticism.

, an English poet and miscellaneous writer, the son of h clergyman beneficed in Lincolnshire, was born at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland, in. the month of March 1735, His father dying when he was only four years of age, the care of his education devolved on his mother, who initiated him in the first principles of knowledge with such tender anxiety as left a pleasing and indelible impression on his memory. He celebrated her virtues on her tomb, and more particularly by a beautiful monody inserted among his poems. When of sufficient age, he was placed at a school at Winton, and afterwards at Appleby, where he recommended himself to the good opinion of Mr. Yates, his master, not only by speedily dispatching the usual school tasks, but by performing voluntary exercises, which he submitted to his revisal. By this employment of his leisure hours, he probably excelled his companions, and we are told that at the age of thirteen he was able to read and construe the Greek Testament.

During Mrs. Langhorne’s life, he produced one poem only, entitled “Precepts of Conjugal Happiness,” addressed to Mrs. Nelthorpe, a sister of his wife. To this lady he committed the care of his infant child, who lived to acknowledge her friendship, and to discharge the duties of an affectionate son, by the late “Memoirs of his Father,” prefixed to an elegant edition of his poems. In the “Precepts of Conjugal Happiness,” there is more good sense than poetry. It appears to have been a temporary effusion on which he bestowed no extraordinary pains. Not long after Mrs. Langhorne’s death, our author went to reside at Folkstone, in Kent, where his brother, the Kev. William Langhorne, then officiated as minister, a man of a very amiable character. He was born in 1721, and presented by the archbishop of Canterbury to the rectory of Hakinge, with the perpetual curacy of Folkstone, in 1754; and on this preferment he passed the remainder of his life. He published “Job,” a poem, and a poetical Paraphrase on a part of Isaiah, neither of which raised him to the fame of a poet, although they are not without the merit of correctness and spirit. He died Feb. 17, 1772, and his brother wrote some elegant lines to his memory, which are inscribed on a tablet in the chancel of Folkstone church. Between these brothers the closest affection subsisted; each was to the other “more the friend than brother of his heart.” During their residence together at Folkstone, they were employed in preparing a new translation of Plutarch’s Lives; and our poet, who became about this time intimate with Scott, the poet of Amwell (who likewise had just lost a beloved wife from a similar cause) paid him a visit at Aniwell, where he wrote the monody inscribed to Mr. Scott.

it a dull book (as such books generally after 1 became capable of rational inare), and perhaps to laugh at it. But quiry.“ and born there about 1600. He was a disciple of Coperario. In 1625, he became a gentleman of the chapel royal; and was afterwards appointed one of the private music to Charles f. In 1653, were published his” Ayres and Dialogues," &c. folio, with a preface by himself, and commendatory verses by the poet Waller, Edward and John Phillips, nephews of Milton, and others. In the preface, speaking of the Italians, he acknowledges them in general to be the greatest masters of music; yet contends, that this nation has produced as able musicians as any in Europe. He censures the fondness of his age for songs in a language which the hearers do not understand; and, to ridicule it, mentions a song of his own composition, printed at the end of the book, which is nothing but an index, containing the initial words of some old Italian songs or madrigals: and this index, which read together made a strange medley of nonsense, he says, he set to a varied air, and gave out that it came from Italy, by which it passed for an Italian song. In the title-page of this book is a very fine engraving of the author’s head by Faithorne.

, a young lady of considerable poetical talent, was born Feb. 26, 1722. Her father, at thistime was gardener to judge Blencowe, at Marston St. Lawrence, in Northamptonshire. She was brought up under the care of a pious and sensible mother, who died a few years before her. The little education which she received, consisted wholly in being taught to read and write, and it is said that she was for some time cook-maid in a gentleman’s family: with all these disadvantages, however, she began at a very early age to compose verses, at first with the approbation of her parents, who afterwards, imagining an attention to poetry would be prejudicial to her, endeavoured by every possible means to discountenance such pursuits. These, however, were ineffectual, and she was at last left to follow her inclination. She died the 12th of November, 1746, at Brackley; and after her death two volumes of her Poems were printed in 8vo, in. 1748 and 1751, by subscription, the proposals for which were drawn up by Mr. Garrick. Mr. Hawkins Browne was editor of the second volume. Our late amiable poet and critic, Cowper, had a high opinion of Mrs. Leapor’s poetry.

, an English dramatic poet, was the son of Dr. Richard Lee, who had the living of Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, where he died in 1684. He was bred at Westminster-school under Dr. Busby, whence he removed to Trinity-college, in Cambridge, and became scholar upon that foundation in 1668. He proceeded B. A. the same year; but, not succeeding to a fellowship, quitted the university, and came to London, where be made an unsuccessful attempt to become an actor in 1672. The part he performed was Duncan in sir William Davenant’s alteration of Macbeth. Cibber says that Lee “was so pathetic a reader of his own scenes, that I have been informed by an actor who was present, that while Lee was reading to major Mohun at a rehearsal, Mohun, in the warmth of his admiration, threw down his part, and said, Unless I were able to play it as well as you read it, to what purpose, should I undertake it! And yet (continues the laureat) this very author, whose elocution raised such admiration in so capital an actor, when he attempted to he an actor himself, soon quitted the stage in an honest despair of ever making any profitable figure there.” Failing, therefore, in this design, he had recourse to his pen for support; and composed a tragedy, called “Nero Emperor of Rome,” in 1675; which being well received, he produced nine plays, besides two in conjunction with Dryden, between, that period and 1684, when his habits of dissipation, aided probably by a hereditary taint, brought on insanity, and in November he was taken into Bedlam, where he continued four years under care of the physicians. In April 1688, he was discharged, being so much recovered as to be able to return to his occupation of writing for the stage; and he produced two plays afterwards, “The Princess of Cleve,” in 1689, and The Massacre of Paris,“in 1690, but, notwithstanding the profits arising from these performances, he was this year reduced to so low an ebb, that a weekly stipend of ten shillings from the theatre royal was his chief dependence. Nor was he so free from his phrenzy as not to suffer some temporary relapses; and perhaps his untimely end might be occasioned by one. He died in 1691 or 1692, in consequence of a drunken frolic, by night, in the street; and was interred in the parish of Clement Danes, near Temple-Bar. He is the author of eleven plays, all acted with applause, and printed as soon as finished, with dedications of most of them to the earls of Dorset, Mulgrave, Pembroke, the duchesses of Portsmouth and Richmond, as his patrons. Addison declares, that among our modern English poets there was none better turned for tragedy than Lee, if, instead of favouring his impetuosity of genius, he had restrained and kept it within proper bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully suited to tragedy, but frequently lost in such a cloud of words, that it is hard to see the beauty of them. There is infinite fire in his works, but so involved in smoke, that it does not appear in half its lustre. He frequently succeeds in the passionate parts of the tragedy, but more particularly where he slackens his efforts, and eases the style of those epithets and metaphors with which he so much abounds. His” Rival Queens“and” Theodosius“still keep possession of the stage. None ever felt the passion of love pore truly; nor could any one describe it with more tenderness; and for this reason he has been compared to Ovid among the ancients, and to Otway among the moderns. Dryden prefixed a copy of commendatory verses to the” Rival Queens“and Lee joined with that laureat in writing the tragedies of” The duke of Guise“and” CEdipus.“Notwithstanding Lee’s imprudence and eccentricities, no man could be more respected by his contemporaries. In Spence’s” Anecdotes" we are told that ViU liers, duke of Buckingham, brought him up to town, where he never did any thing for him; and this is said to have contributed to bring on insanity.

Though Lely’s talents, as an artist, do not entitle him to hold a rank equal to that filled by his great predecessor, Vandyke, yet they justly claim very great respect and admiration. He fell short of Vandyke in two very essential parts of portraiture, viz. taste and expression. It is in parts only that he wrought with taste in the ringlets of the hair, for instance seldom in the actions of his figures, and scarcely ever in the tout- ensemble of his pictures. As to the expression of his portraits, it is almost entirely described, at least in those of his females, by what the poet Las said, that he

, whose proper name was R. Jehudah Arie, was born at Modena about 1574 was for a considerable time chief of the synagogue, and esteemed a good poet both in Hebrew and Italian. He was author of a valuable work on the ceremonies and customs of the Jews, which is held in estimation by the learned of all nations. It is entitled “Istoria de Riti Hebraici vita et Osservanze de gli Hebre'i di questi Tempi;” the best edition of which is that of Venice, 1638. It was translated into the French language in 1674, by Richard Simon, with supplements relating to the sects of the Karaites^and Samaritans. He intended to have given an Italian translation of the Old Testament, but the inquisition laid its commands on him to desist. His Hebrew and Italian dictionary, entitled “The Mouth of the Lion,” was published at Venice in 1612, and was afterwards reprinted in an enlarged form at Padua, in 1640. Leo died at Venice in 1654.

, a poet of Scotland, who flourished in the thirteenth century, is familiarly known by the name of Thomas the Rhymer. The history of his life is involved in much obscurity. What has been unravelled may be seen in our authority. He was a prophet as well as a poet. His merit in the former character may be disputed, but of his poetical talents, Mr. Walter Scott has enabled the public to judge, by giving an excellent edition of his metrical romance of “Sir Tristrem,” published in 1804, and very ably illustrated with notes, &c. by Mr. Scott, who has in this work shown that the most arduous labours of the antiquary are not incompatible with the genius and spirit of the poet.

, a celebrated Dutch printer, was born in 1610 of an illustrious family at Geneva, which removed to Holland, where his press became famous for the number of beautiful and accurate editions which issued from it. He was also esteemed an excellent poet; and his daughter, Catherine Lescaille, who died June 8, 1711, was so much admired for her poetical talents, as to be called the Dutch Sappho, and the tenth Muse. A collection of her Poems was printed in 1728, with the following tragedies: Genseric, Wenceslaus, Herod and Mariamne, Hercules and Deianira, Nicomedes, Ariadne, Cassandra, &c. which, although they are not written according to the ordinary rules of the drama, frequently discover marks of superior genius. James Lescaille was honoured with the poetic crown by the emperor Leopold in 1663, and died in 1677.

According to Mr. Blount, Lilly was deserving of the highest encomiums. He styles him, in his title-page, “the only rare poet of that time, the witty, comical, facetiously quick and unparalleled John Lilly” and in his epistle dedicatory, says, “that hep sate at Apollo’s table that Apollo gave him a wreath of his own bayes without snatching, and the lyre he played on had no borrowed strings.” If, indeed, what has been said with regard to his reformation of the English language had been true, he certainly would have had a claim to the highest hor ours from his countrymen; but those eulogiums are far from well founded, since his injudicious attempts at improvement produced only the most ridiculous affectation. The style of his Euphues exhibits the absurdest excess of pedantry, to which nothing but the most deplorable bad taste could have given even a temporary approbation. Lilly was the author of a famous pamphlet against Martin Mar-prelate and his party, well known to collectors, entitled “Pap with a Hatchet, alias a fig for my godson, &c.” published about 1589, and attributed to Nashe, but was certainly Lilly’s. His prose work, or rather his two prose works intended to reform the English language, were entitled “Euphues and his England,” Lond. 1580, and “Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit,” 1581. Some differences of opinion as to the times of publishing these, may be found in our authorities.

Lily’s works are, 1. “Brevissima institutio, seu ratio grammatices cognoscendi,” Lond. 1513; reprinted often, and used at this day, and commonly called “Lily’s Grammar.” The English rudiments were written by Dr. Colet, and the preface to the first edition, by cardinal Wolsey. The English syntax was written by Lily; also the rules for the genders of nouns, beginning with Propria quse maribus; and those for the preter-perfect tenses and supines, beginning with “As, in prsesenti.” The Latin syntax was chiefly the work of Erasmus. See Ward’s preface to his edition of Lily’s grammar, 1732. 2. “In senigmatica Bossi Antibossicon primum, secundum, tertium, ad G. Hormannum,” Lond. 1521, 4to. 3. “Poemata varia,” printed with the former. 4. “Apologia ad R. Whyttingtonum.” 5. “Apologia ad Joan. Skeltonum,” in answer to some invectives of that poet. 6. “De laudibus Deipari Virginis.” 7. “Super Philippi archiducis appulsu.” 8. “De Caroli quinti Caesaris adventu panegyricum.” Some other pieces are attributed to him on doubtful authority.

, an ancient Scotch poet, descended from a noble family, was born in 1490, at Garmylton in Hadingtonshire, and received his early education probably at the neighbouring school of Coupar. In 1505 he was sent to the university of St. Andrew’s, which he is supposed to have left in 1509. He then entered into the service of the court, where, in 1512, he was an attendant, or page of honour to James V. then an infant. In this situation he continued until 1524, when, by the intrigues of the queen mother, the young king was deprived of his servants, Bellenden, Lindsay, and others, for whom he seems always to have entertained a just regard, and whom he dismissed with a pension, the payment of which his majesty was studious to enforce, while his means were few, and his power was little. From 1524 to 1528, Lindsay was a witness of the confusions and oppressions arising from the domination of the Douglasses over both the prince and his people. From that thraldom the king, at the age of sixteen, made his escape, by his own address and vigour, in July of 1528, after every other exertion had failed. Lindsay had now liberty and spirits to support him in the cultivation of his muse, and about the end of the year just mentioned, produced his “Dreme.” In the following year he presented his “Complaynt” to the king, and in 1530 he was inaugurated lion king of arms, and incidentally became a knight. In December of this year he published his satire on the clergy, called “The Complaynt of the Papingo.”

In 1548 he was sent, as lion herald, to Christian, king of Denmark, to solicit ships, for protecting the Scottish coasts against the English, and to negociate a free trade, particularly in grain: the latter purpose only was accomplished, but at Copenhagen, Lindsay had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the literati of Denmark. He at length returned to his usual occupations, and was probably no more employed in such distant embassies. About this time he published the most pleasing of all his poems, “The Historic and Testament of Squire Meldrum.” In 1553 he finished his last and greatest work, “The Monarchic.” When he died, seems a matter of great uncertainty. His latest and best-informed biographer is inclined to place his death in or about 1557; but others say that he lived till 1567. It is rather singular that a man of so much celebrity, a great public officer, one of the reformers, or who at least contributed to the reformation, and the most popular poet of his time, should have died in such obscurity, without even a tradition as to when or where he was buried. Little of his personal character can now be known, but what is to be gleaned from his writings. Hfc entered with great zeal into the religious disputes of his time, but is supposed to lean rather to the Lutheran than Calvinistic principles of reformation; his satires, however, were powerfully assisting in exposing the vices of the clergy, and produced a lasting etiect on the minds of the people. We shall not enter very minutely into his character as a poet. In his works, says Mr. Ellis, we do not often find either the splendid diction of Dunbar, or the prolific imagination of Gawin Douglas. Perhaps, indeed, the “Dream” is his only composition which can be cited as uniformly poetical; but his various learning, his good sense, his perfect knowledge of courts, and of the world, the facility of his versification, and above all, his peculiar talent of adapting himself to readers of all denominations, will continue to secure to him a considerable share of that popularity, for which he was originally indebted to the opinions he professed, no less than to his poetical merit. The most ample information respecting Lindsay, his personal history, and works, may be found in the very accurate edition of the latter published in 1806, by George Chalmers, esq. in 3 vols. 8vo. It has been justly remarked that if the learned editor had executed no more than the glossary prefixed to this edition, he would have been amply entitled to the gratitude both of English and Scotch scholars. A more elaborate, learned, and satisfactory production of the kind has certainly not appeared since that of Ruddiman.

, an eminent historical painter, was born at Florence, probably about the beginning of the fifteenth century, as he was a scholar of, and of course nearly contemporary with, Massaccio. At the age of sixteen, being entered a noviciate in the convent of Carmelites at Florence, he had there an opportunity of seeing that extraordinary artist at work upon the astonishing frescoes with which he adorned the chapel of Brancacci, in the church there; and being eager to embrace the art, such was his success, that after the death of his master, it was said by common consent, that the soul of Massaccio still abode with Fra. Filippo. He now forsook the habit of his convent, and devoted himself entirely to painting; but his studies were for a time disturbed by his being unfortunately taken, while out on a party of pleasure, by some Moors, and carried prisoner to Barbary; where he remained in slavery eighteen months. But having drawn, with a piece of charcoal, the portrait of his master upon a wall, the latter was so affected by the novelty of the performance, and its exact resemblance, that, after exacting a few more specimens of his art, he generously restored him to his liberty. On his return home he painted some works for Alphonso, king of Calabria. He employed himself also in Padua; but it was in his native city of Florence that his principal works were performed. He was employed by the grand duke Cosmo di Medici, who presented his pictures to his friends; and one to pope Eugenius IV. He was also employed to adorn the palaces of the republic, the churches, and many of the houses of the principal citizens; among whom his talents were held in high estimation. He was the first of the Florentine painters who attempted to design figures as large as life, and the first who remarkably diversified the draperies, and who gave his figures the air of antiques. It is to be lamented that such a man should at last perish by the consequences of a guilty amour he indulged in at Spoleto; where he was employed at the cathedral to paint the chapel of the blessed virgin. This is differently told by different writers, some saying that he seduced a nun who sat to him for a model of the virgin, and others that the object of his passion was a married woman. In either case, it is certain that he was poisoned by the relations of the lady whose favours he was supposed to enjoy. Lorenzo di Medici erected a marble tomb in the cathedral to his memory, which Politian adorned with a Latin epitaph. His son Lippi Filippo, was renowned for excellent imitations of architectural ornaments. He died in 1505, at the age of forty-five. There was also a Florentine painter, Lorenzo Lippi, born in 1606, and likewise a great musician and a poet. In the latter character he published “II Malmantile racquistato,” which is considered as a classical work in the Tuscan language. He died in 1664.

, LL. D. an English divine and poet, was educated upon the royal foundation at Etonschool, where, under the care of that learned and excellent master. Dr. Snape, his school-exercises were much admired, and when his turn came, he was elected to King’s college, Cambridge, in 1716, with equal applause. Here he took his degrees of A. B. 1720, A.M. 1724, and LL.D. 1728. Having some talent for poetry, he had not been long at the university, before he diverted a school-fellow, whom he had left at Eton, with a humourous poem on the subject of his various studies, and the progress he had made in academical learning, which was followed by his more celebrated one “on a spider.” Dr. Morell, the editor of his “Discourses,” and his biographer, procured a genuine copy of them, as transcribed by a gentleman then at Eton school from the author’s own writing, with such remains as could be found of a Pastoral Elegy, written about the same time by Mr. Littleton, on the death of R. Banks, scholar of the same college. The two former are now correctly printed in the edition of Dodsley’s Poems of 1782, edited by Isaac Reed. Dr. Morell found also a poetical epistle sent from school to Penyston Powney, esq.; but as this was scarcely intelligible to any but those who were then at Eton, he has not printed it. In 1720 Mr. Littleton was recalled to Eton as an assistant in the school; in which office he was honoured and beloved by his pupils, and so esteemed by the provost and fellows, that on the death of the rev. Mr. Malcher, in 1727, they elected him a fellow, and presented him to the living of Mapledurham, in Oxfordshire. He then married a very amiable woman, Frances, one of the daughters of Barnham Goode, who was under-master of Eton school. In June 1730, he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to their majesties. Though an admired preacher and an excellent scholar, he seems to have been little ambitious of appearing in print. He died of a fever in 1734, and was buried in his own parish church of Mapledurham, leaving behind him a widow and three daughters; for whose benefit, under the favour and encouragement of queen Caroline, his “Discourses” were first printed by Dr. Morell, with an account of the author, from which the above particulars are taken. Dr. Burton, Mr. Littleton’s successor in the living of Mapledurham, afterwards married his widow, as we have noticed in his Jife. 1 -.;.

, a learned English writer in the seventeenth century, was son of Mr. George Lloyd, minister of Wonson or Wonsington near Winchester, and grandson of Mr. David Lloyd, vicar of Lockford near Stockbridge in Hampshire. He was born at Hoi ton in Flintshire in 1634, and educated at Wykeham’s school near Winchester, and admitted a scholar of Wadham college, Oxford, from Hart-hall, October 20, 1653. He afterwards became a fellow of Wadham, and July 6, 16.58, took the degree of roaster of arts. In 1665, when Dr. Blandford, warden of that college, became bishop of Oxford, our author was appointed chaplain to him, being about that time rector of St. Martin’s church in Oxford, and continued with the bishop till he was translated to the see of Worcester in 1671. The year following, the rectory of St. Mary Newington, in Surrey, falling void, the bishop of Worcester presented Mr. Lloyd to it, who kept it to his death, which happened Nov. 27, 1680. He was interred in the chancel of the church there, leaving behind him the character of an harmless quiet man, and an excellent philologist. His “Dictionarium Historicum,” &c. although now obsolete, was once reckoned a valuable work. The first edition was published at Oxford in 1670, folio. The second edition was printed at London in 1686, folio, under the fMlowing title: “Dictionarium Historicum, geographicum, poeticum, gentium, hominum, deorum gentilium, regionum, insularum, locorum, civitatum, aequorum, fluviorum, sinuum, portuum, promontoriorum, ac montium, antiqua recentioraque, ad sacras & profanas historias, poetarumque fabulas intelligendas nccessaria, Nomina, quo decet erdine, complectens & illustrans. Opus admodum utile & apprime necessarium; a Carolo Stephano inchoatum; ad incudem vero revocatum, innumerisque pene locis auctum & emaculatum per NicolaumV.Lloydium, Collegii Wadhami in celeberrima Academia Oxoniensi Socium. Editio novissima.” He left several unpublished Mss. consisting principally of commentaries and translations. He had a younger brother, John, somewhat of a poet, who appears to have shared the friendship and esteem of Addison.

, a modern poet, was born in Westminster in 1733. His father, Dr. Pierson Lloyd, was second master of Westminster-school, afterwards chancellor of York, and portionist of Waddesdon in Bucks. His learning, judgment, and moderation, endeared him to all who partook of his instructions during a course of almost fifty years spent in the service of the public at Westminster-school. He had a pension from his majesty of 500l. conferred upon him in his old age, which was ordered to be paid without deduction, and which he enjoyed until his death, Jan. 5, 1781.

The “Actor” was his most favoured piece, and which. he never surpassed; but it sunk before the “Rosciad.” The rest of his poems are effusions addressed to friends on subjects which relate principally to himself, and with a distinction which friends only would think valuable. Mr. Wilkes’s character of Lloyd represents him as “mild and affable in private life, of gentle manners, and very engaging in conversation. He was an excellent scholar, and an easy natural poet. His peculiar excellence was the dressing up an old thought in a new, neat, and trim mantier. He was contented to scamper round the foot of Parnassus on his little Welsh poney, which seems never to have tired. He left the fury of the winged steed and the daring heights of the sacred mountain to the sublime genius of his friend Churchill.” Although Lloyd followed Churchill in some of his prejudices, and learned to rail at colleges, and at men of prudence, we find him generally good-tempered and playful. His satire is seldom bitter, and probably was not much felt. Having consented to yield the palm to Churchill, the world took him at his word, and his enemies, if he had any, must have been, those who were very easily provoked.

, a man of much literary industry, and known for half a century as a translator, was born in 1698. Of his early history we find no particulars recorded. He appears to have been acquainted with Pope, and to have been respected by that poet, doubtless, on account of his amiable and inoffensive character, which procured him, among the wits of that time, the name of the Lamb. The only time he ever deviated from the gentleness of this animal was when Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, abused his poetry to his face. On this provocation Mr. Lockman proved his relationship to the genus irritabile, by retorting, with a quickness not usual to him, “It may be so; but thank God! my name is not at full length in the Dunciad.” Mr. Lockman’s poetical talents were certainly not very extensive, as the greatest part of his effusions are only a few songs, odas, &c. written on temporary subjects, and set to music for Vauxhall and other places of public entertainment. Mr. Reed, however, found two pieces of the dramatic kind, both of them designed to be set to music; but only the second of them, he thinks, was ever performed, viz. 1. “Rosalinda, a musical drama, 1740,” 4to. 2. “David’s Lamentations, an oratorio;” which we believe were not successful.

, a dramatic poet, descended from a family which had its residence in Lincolnshire; but whether the doctor himself was born there, seems not very easy to be ascertained. Langbaine and Jacob, and, after them, Wincop and Chetwood, who, in the general, are little more than copiers, say that he was educated at Cambridge, but Wood informs us, that it was at Oxford, where he made his first appearance about 1573, and was afterwards a scholar under the learned Dr. Hobye, of Trinitycollege. Here he made very considerable advances in learning, dedicating his leisure time to the reading the poets of antiquity; and, having himself a turn to poetry, especially of the satirical kind, he became known by various compositions of that nature, which obtained him no 1 inconsiderable reputation as a wit and poet. Mr. Lodge, however, sensible how seldom the study of poetry yields a competent provision to its professors, after having taken one degree in arts, applied himself, with great assiduity, to the more profitable study of physic, and for further improvement went abroad. After staying a sufficient time at Avignon to be entitled to the degree of doctor in that university, he returned, and, in the latter end of queen Elizabeth’s reign, was incorporated in the university of Cambridge. He afterwards settled in London, where, by his skill and interest with the Roman Catholic party, in which persuasion, it is said, he was brought up, he attained great practice. In what year Dr. Lodge was born does not evidently appear; but be died in 1625, and had tributes paid to his memory by many of his contemporary poets, who have characterized him as a man of very considerable genius.

, a Scotch divine and poet, was born about the beginning of 1747-8, at Soutra, in the parish of Fala, on the southern extremity of Mid- Lothian, where his father rented a small farm. He appears to have been taught the first rudiments of learning at the school of Musselburgh, near Edinburgh; and here, as well as at home, was zealously instructed in the principles of the Calvinistic system of religion, as professed by the seceders, a species of dissenters from the established church of Scotland. In 1762, he entered on the usual courses of study at the university of Edinburgh, where he made uncommon proficiency in the learned languages, but discovered no great inclination for mathematics, or metaphysics, although he took care not to be so deficient in these branches as to incur any censure, or create any hindrance to his academical progress. His turn being originally to works of imagination, he found much that was congenial in a course of lectures then read by professor John Stevenson, on Aristotle’s Art of Poetry, and on Longinus; and while these directed his taste, he employed his leisure hours in acquiring a more perfect knowledge of Homer, whose beauties he relished with poetical enthusiasm. The writings of Milton, and other eminent poets of the English series, became likewise his favourite studies, and the discovery of

, a celebrated Russian poet, the great refiner of his native tongue, was the son of a person who trafficked in fish at Kolmogori: he was born in 1711, and was fortunately taught to read; a rare instance for a person of so low a station in Russia. His natural genius for poetry was first kindled by the perusal of a metrical translation of the Song of Solomon, by Polotski, whose rude compositions, perhaps scarcely superior to our version of the Psalms by Sternhold and Hopkins, inspired him with such an irresistible passion for the muses, that he fled from his father, who was desirous of compelling him to marry, and took refuge in the Kaikonospaski monastery at Moscow; there he had an opportunity of indulging his taste for letters, and of studying the Greek and Latin languages. In this seminary he made so considerable a progress in polite literature, as to be noticed and employed by the Imperial academy of sciences. In 1736 he was sent at the expence of that society, to the university of Marburgh in Hesse Cassel, where he became a scholar of the celebrated Christian Wolf, under whom he studied universal grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. He continued at Marburgh four years, during which time he applied himself with indefatigable diligence to chemistry, which he afterwards pursued with still greater success, under the famous Henckel, at Freyberg, in Saxony. In 1741 he returned into Russia; was chosen in 1742 adjunct to the Imperial academy; and in the ensuing year, member of that society, and professor of chemistry. In 1760 he was appointed inspector of the seminary, then annexed to the academy; in 1764 he was gratified by the late empress Catherine with the title of counsellor of state; and died April 4 that year, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. Lomonozof excelled in various kinds of composition; but his chief merit, by which he bears the first rank among the Russian writers, is derived from his poetical compositions, the finest of which are his odes. The first was written in 1739, while he studied in Germany, upon the taking of Kotschin, a fortress of Crim Tartary, by marshal Munich. The odes of Lomonozof are greatly admired for originality of invention, sublimity of sentiment, and energy of language; and compensate for the turgid style, which in some instances have been imputed to them, by that spirit and fire which are the principal characteristics in this species of composition. Pindar was his great model; and if we may give credit to Levesque, a gentleman well versed in the Russian tongue, he has succeeded in this daring attempt to imitate the Theban bard, without incurring the censure of Horace: “Pindarum quisquis studet emulari,” &c. In this, as well as several other species of composition, he enriched his native language with various kinds of metre, and seems to have merited the appellation bestowed upon him, of the Father of Russian Poetry. A brief recapitulation of the principal works of Lomonozof, which were printed in 3 vols. 8vo, will serve to shew the versatility of his genius, and his extensive knowledge in various branches of literature.

And fill their critic with a poet’s fire

, the reputed author of “The Visions of Pierce Plowman,” is considered as one of our most ancient English poets, and one of the first disciples of Wickliff. He was a secular priest, born at Mortimer’s Cleobury, in Shropshire, and was a fellow of Oriel college, Oxford. According to Bale, he completed his work in 1369, when John Chichester was mayor of London. It is divided into twenty parts (passus, as he styles them), and consists of many distinct visions, which have no mutual dependance upon each other, but form a satire on almost every occupation of lite, particularly on the Romish clergy, in censuring whom his master Wickliff had led the way. The piece abounds with humour, spirit, and imagination; all which are drest to great disadvantage in a very uncouth versification and obsolete language. It is written without rhyme, an ornament which the poet has endeavoured to supply, by making every verse to consist of words beginning with the same letter. This practice has contributed not a little to render his poem obscure and perplexed, exclusive of its obsolete style; for, to introduce his alliteration, he must have been often necessarily compelled to depart from the natural and obvious way of expressing himself. Dr. Hickes observes, that this alliterative versification was drawn by Langelande from the practice of the Saxon poets, and that these visions abound with many Saxonisms. As he did not follow the example of Gower and Chaucer, who sought to reform the roughness of their native tongue, by naturalizing many new words from the Latin, French, and Italian, and who introduced the seven-lined stanza from Petrarch and Dante into our poetry, the inquirer into the original of our language will find in him a greater fund of materials to elucidate the progress of the Saxon tongue.

In the introduction to the vision, the poet (shadowed by the name and character of Peter or Pierse, a plowman) represents himself as weary of wandering, on a May-morning, and at last laid down to sleep by the side of a brook; where, in a vision, he sees a stately tower upon a hill, with a dungeon, and dark dismal ditches belonging to it, and a very deep dale under the hill. Before the tower a large field or plain is supposed, filled with men of every rank or occupation, all being respectively engaged in their several pursuits; when suddenly a beautiful lady appears to him, and unravels to him the mystery of what he had seen. Before every vision the manner and circumstances of his falling asleep are distinctly described; before one of them in particular, P. Plowman is supposed, with equal humour and satire, to fall asleep while he is bidding his beads. In the course of the poem, the satire is carried on by means of several allegorical personages, such as Avarice, Simony, Conscience, Sloth, &c. Selden mentions this author with honour; and by Hickes he is frequently styled, “Celeberrimus il-le Satyrographus, morum vindex acerrimus,” Sue. Chaucer, in the “Plowman’s Tale,” seems to have copied from our author. Spenser, in his Pastorals, seems to have attempted an imitation of his visions; and Milton is considered as under some obligations to him. The memory of this satire has been of late years revived by Percy, Warton, and Ellis, in whose works more ample information may be found than it is necessary to admit in a work professedly biographical. Perhaps indeed it does not belong to our department, since some of the most profound of our poetical critics have considered it as anonymous; Mr Tycwhitt remarks that in the best Mss. the author is called William, without any surname, and the name of Robert Longland, or Langlande, rests upon the authority only of Crowley, its earliest editor. Three of Crowley’s editions were published in 1550, doubtless owing to its justifying the Reformation then begun under king Edward, by exposing the abuses of the Romish church. There is also an edition printed in 1561, by Owen Rogers, to which is sometimes annexed a poem of nearly the same tendency, and written in the same metre, called “Pierce the Plowman’s Crede,” the first edition of which, however, was printed by Wolfe in 1553. Of both these works, new editions have recently been announced.

, an eminent Italian poet, was born at Home, Oct. 12, 1680. He was in his twenty-second year received into the society of the Jesuits, among whom he had been educated, but owing to bad health, was obliged to quit them, and after much consideration, and a conflict with his taste, which was decide.ily for polite literature, he studied and practised the law for some time, until iiis inclination for more favourite studies returning, he entered, in 1705, into the academy of the Arcadi, the chief object of which was the reformation of the bad taste which had infected Italian poetry. He is said to have excelled in melo-dramas, or pieces on religious subjects, adapted to being sung, written in the Latin language; and has been denominated the Michael Angelo of Italian poets, on account of the boldness and energy of his expressions. In 1728, on the death of Crescembini, he was chosen president of the academy, and besides founding five academical colonies in the neighbouring towns, instituted a private weekly meeting of the Arcadi, at which the plays of Plautus or Terence, in the original language, were performed by youths trained for the purpose But the want of a regular profession, and his constant attendance to these pursuits, often deranged his finances; and he appears not to have acquired permanent patronage until cardinal Borghese enrolled him among his noble domestics, and paid him liberally. In 1741, he took up his residence in the Borghese palace, where he died in June 1743. His Italian poems, which are much admired, have been printed at Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples, &c. and in many of the collections. His Latin “Sacred Dramas” were separately published at Rome; and his other Latin poetry, among those of the academicians of the Arcadi.

Ronsard, the poet, out of envy, published a satire, or satirical sonnet, against him, under the title of “LaTruelle crosse'e,” the Trowel crosier'd. De Lorme revenged himself, by causing the garden-door of the Thuilleries, of which he was governor, to be shut against the poet; and Ronsard, with a pencil, wrote upon the gate these three words: “Fort, reverent, habe.” De Lorme, who understood little Latin, complained of this inscription, as levelled at him, to queen Catharine de Medicis, who, inquiring into the matter, was told by Ronsard, that, by a harmless irony, he had made that inscription for the architect when read in French; but that it suited him still better in Latin, these being the first words abbreviated of a Latin epigram of Ausonius, which begins thus: “Fortunam reverenter habe.” Ronsard added that he only meant that De Lorme should reflect on his primitive grovelling fortune, and not to shut the gate against the Muses. De Lorme died in 1557; leaving several books of architecture, greatly esteemed. These are, 1. “Nouvelles Inventions pour bien bastir & a petit frais,” Paris, 1561, folio, fifty-seven leaves. 2. “Ten Books of Architecture,” 1568, folio.

, a French poet, who flourished about the middle of the thirteenth century, was the author of the “Roman de la Rose,” a poem much in request in the middle ages, and known in this country by Chaucer’s translation. It was left unfinished by Lorris, and was completed in the next century by John de Meuu. The part by Lorris, though the shortest, is by much the most poetical, abounding in rich and elegant description, and in lively portraiture of allegorical personages. The early French editions of this poem are of great rarity and value, and are enumerated by Brunei, and other bibliographers. Of the author nothing is known.

, surnamed Secundus, a distinguished modern Latin poet, was nephew to a celebrated abbot of the monastery of Solitaire, in the county of Hanau, in Germany, who in 1543 established the protestant religion in his society, and died in 1567. He was born Nov. 2, 1528, at Solitaire, received the early part of his education at a convent in his native place, and pursued his tnaturer studies at Francfort, Marpurg, and Wittemburg, at which last place he contracted an intimacy with Melancthon and Camerarius. During the war in Saxony in 1546, when Melancthon and his colleagues were obliged to leave Wittemburg, Lotich being in great perplexity what to do, at length entered, among the troops of John Frederic, elector of Saxony, with some of his fellow-students; but in 1548 we find him again at Erfurth, and afterwards at Wittemburg, pursuing his studies. In 1550 he visited France with some young persons to whom he was governor, and he continued there nearly four years. He afterwards went to Italy, where he had nearly been destroyed by poison prepared for another purpose: he recovered from the effects of it, but was subject to frequent relapses, one of which carried him off in the year 1560. He had taken his degree of doctor of physic at Padua, and in 1557 was chosen professor in that science at Heidelberg. In this situation he was honoured with the friendship of the elector-palatine, and by the excellence of his disposition, and the singular frankness and sincerity of his character, rendered himself universally beloved. A collection of his Latin poems was published in 1561, the year after his decease, with a dedicatory epistle by Joachim Camerarius, who praises him as the best poet of his age. This has been often reprinted, but a complete and correct edition of all his works was published at Amsterdam in 1754, 2 vols. 4to, by Peter Burman, nephew of the celebrated writer of those names. Lotich had a younger brother Christian, likewise a poet, and educated by his uncle, the abbot. A collection of his poems was published in 1620, along with those of his relation John- Peter Lotich, a physician of eminence, and grandson of the above- mentioned Christian, who exercised his profession at Minden and at Hesse, and became professor of medicine at Rintlen in Westphalia. He died very much regretted in 1652. His principal works are, “Conciliorum et Observationum Medicinalium;” “Latin Poems;” “A Commentary on Petronius,” and “A History of the Emperors Ferdinand II. and III.” in four volumes, is attributed to him.

, a French poet, was born in 1642, of a respectable family at Toulouse. He was originally secretary of the embassy to M. de St. Remain, ambassador in Switzerland, and went to Siam, 1687, as envoy extraordinary from the French king. On his return to France, he was entrusted with a secret commission in SpaVi and Portugal, s-trpposed to have had for its object the detachment of those two courts from the alliance which had produced the revolution in England; but his design transpiring, he was arrested at Madrid, and with difficulty obtained his liberty. M. dela Loubere attached himself afterwards to the chancellor de Pontchartrain, and travelled with his son. He was admitted into the French academy in 1693, and that of the belles lettres in 1694; and retired at last to Toulouse, where he married at sixty, established the Floral Games, and died March 26, 1729, aged eightyseven. His works are, Songs, Vaudevilles, Madrigals, Sonnets, Odes, and other poetical pieces; an account of his voyage to Siam, 2 vols. 12rno, and a treatise “de la Resolution des Equations,” 1729, 4 to. &c. Of his voyage to Siam, there is an English translation, published in 1693, folio. It is the only one of his productions now in request. There is reason to think he was not much admired by some of the academicians. It being by means of M. de Pontchartrain that he was admitted into the French academy, Fontaine said,

, an elegant poet of the seventeenth century, was the eldest son of sir William Lovelace of Woolwich, in Kent, and was born in that county about 1618. He received his grammar-learning at the Charterhouse; and, in 1634, bt came a gentleman-commoner of Gloucester hall, Oxford, being then, as Wood observes, “accounted the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly tieponmerit, which made him then, and especially after, when he retired to die great city, much admired and adored by the female sex.” In 1636 he was created M. A. and, leaving the university, retired, as Wood phmses it, in great splenlour to the court; where being taken into the favour of lord Goring he became a soldier, and was fir.it an ensign, and aiterwards a captain. On the pacification at Berwick he returned to his native country, and took possession of his estate, worth about five hundred pounds per annum; and, about the same time, was deputed by the county to deliver the Kentish petition to the House of Commons, which Diving offence, he was ordered into custody, and confined in the Gate-house, whence he was released on giving bail of 40,000*. not to go beyond the lines of communication without a pass from the Speaker. During the time of his confinement to London he lived beyond the income of his estate, chiefly to support the credit of the royal cause; and, in 1646, he formed a regiment for the service of the French king, was colonel of it, and wounded at Dunkirk. In 1648 he returned to England with his brother, and was again committed prisoner to Peter-house in London, where he remained till after the king’s death. At that period he was set at liberty, but, “having then consumed all his estate be grew very melancholy, which at length brought him into a consumption, became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, went in ragged cloaths (whereas when he was in his glory he wore cloaths of gold and silver), and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of servants.” He died in a very poor lodging in Gunpowder-alley, near Shoe-lane, in 1658, and was buried at the west end of St. Bride’s church, tyis pieces, which are light and easy, had been models in their way, were their simplicity but equal to their spirit; but they were the offspring of gallantry and amusement, and seldom received a requisite degree of polish. Under the name of Lucasta, which is the title to his poems, contained in two volumes (the latter published by his brother Dudley Posthumus Lovelace, in 1659), he compliments a Miss Lucy Sacheverel, a lady, according to Wood, of great beauty and fortune, whom he was accustomed to call *' Lux Casta.“On the report of Lovelace’s death of his wounds, at Dunkirk, she married. Winstanly has, and not improperly, compared him to sir Philip Sidney. He wrote also two plays,” The Scholar,“a comedy, and” The Soldier," a tragedy.

, a modern poet whose personal history has been neglected, was, according to the preface to his poems, “a gentleman of fortune, who passed the greater part of his years in the neighbourhood of Hampton, in Middlesex, where he lived greatly beloved by those who best knew him. He was an admirable scholar, of very amiable manners, and of universal benevolence, of which all his writings bear strong testimony. The little pieces which compose (his works) were chiefly written on such incidents as occasionally arose in those societies of intimate acquaintance which he most frequented. After his death, which happened in 1775, his poems being dispersed in the hands of different friends, to whom they had been given by himself, many people expressed to his only brother, Anthony, Lovibond Collins, esq. a wish to have them collected together, and preserved. This gentleman, equally zealous for the reputation of a brother he affectionately loved, hath put into the editor’s hands those pieces he hath selected for that purpose.”

, a celebrated Roman poet, was a native of Cordova, in Spain, where he was born Nov. lh> in the year 37. His father Annseus Mela, a Roman knight, a man of distinguished merit and interest in his country, was the youngest brother of Seneca the philosopher; and his mother, Acilia, was daughter of Acilius Lucanus, an eminent orator, from which our author took his name. When only eight months old he was carried to Rome and carefully educated under the ablest masters in grammar and rhetoric, a circumstance which renders it singular that critics have endeavoured to impute the defects in his style to his being a Spaniard; but it is certain that his whole education was Roman. His first masters were Palaemon, the grammarian, and Flavius Virginius, the rhetorician. He then studied under Cornutus, from whom he imbibed the sentiments of the stoic school, and probably derived the lofty and free strain by which he is so much distinguished. It is said he completed his education at Athens. Seneca, then tutor to the emperor Nero, obtained for him the office of quaestor: he was soon after admitted to the college of augurs, and considered to be in the full career of honour and opulence. He gave proofs of poetical talents at a very early age, and acquired reputation by several compositions; a circumstance peculiarly unfortunate for him, as it clashed with the vanity of the emperor, who valued himself on his powers as a poet and musician. On one occasion Lucan was so imprudent as to recite one of his own pieces, in competition with Nero; and as the judges honestly decided in favour of Lucan, Nero forbad him to repeat any more of his verses in public, and treated him with so much indignity that Lucan no more looked up to him with the respect due to a patron and a sovereign, but took a part in the conspiracy of Piso and others against the tyrant; which being discovered, he was apprehended among the other conspirators. Tacitus and other authors have accused him of endeavouring to free himself from punishment by accusing his own mother, and involving her in the crime of which he was guilty. Mr. Hayley has endeavoured to rescue his name from so terrible a charge; and it is more likely that it was a calumny raised by Nero’s party to ruin his reputation. Be this as it may, his confessions were ofno avail, and no favour was granted him but the choice of the death he would die; and he chose the same which had terminated the life of his uncle Seneca. His veins were accordingly opened; and when he found himself growing cold and faint through loss of blood, he repeated some of his own lines, describing a wounded soldier sinking in a similar manner. He died in the year 65, and in the twentyseventh year of his age. Of the various poems of Lucan, none but his Pharsalia remain, which is an account of the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, but is come down to us in an unfinished state. Its title to the name of an epic poem has been disputed by those critics, who, from the examples of Homer and Virgil, have maintained that machinery, or the intervention of supernatural agency, is essential to that species of composition. Others, however, have thought it rather too fastidious to refuse the epic name to a poem because not exactly conformable to those celebrated examples. Blair objects, tliat although Lucan’s subject is abundantly heroic, he cannot be reckoned happy in the choice of it, because it has two defects, the one its being too near the times in which he lived, which deprived him of the assistance of fiction and machinery; the other that civil wars, especially when as fierce and cruel as those of the Romans, present too many shocking objects to be fit for epic poetry, gallant and honourable achievements being a more proper theme for the epic muse. But Lucan’s genius seems to delight in savage scenes, and he even goes out of his way to introduce a long episode of Marius and Sylla’s proscriptions, which abounds with all the forms of atrocious cruelty. On the merits of the poetry itself there are various opinions. Considered as a school book, Dr. Warton has classed it with Statins, Claudian, and Seneca the tragedian, authors into whose works no youth of genius should ever be suffered to look, because, by their forced conceits, by their violent metaphors, by their swelling epithets, by their want of a just decorum, they have a strong tendency to dazzle and to mislead inexperienced minds, and tastes unformed, from the true relish of possibility, propriety, simplicity and nature. On the other hand it has been said, that although Lucan certainly possesses neither the fire of Homer, nor the melodious numbers of Virgil, yet if he had lived to a maturer age, his judgment as well as his genius would have been improved, and he might have claimed a more exalted rank among the poets of the Augustan age. His expressions are bold and animated; his poetry entertaining; and it has been asserted that he was never perused without the warmest emotions, by any whose minds were in unison with his own.

Lucan first appeared from the press of Sweynheym and Pannartz, in 1469, a folio, of which only 275 copies were printed, and not above three have been seen in this country, one at Dr. Askew’s sale, one is in lord Spencer’s collection, and a third in the Bodleian. The best editions of more modern times are: that of Grotius, Antwerp, 1614, 8vo, reprinted 1619 and 1626; the Variorum, Leyden, 1658, 8vo; that of Oudendorp, Leyden,' 1728, 4 to of Burmann, ibid. 1740, 4to; of Bentley, at the Strawberryhill press, 1760, 4to; and that by Didot, Paris, 1795, fol. edited by Renouard, a superb as well as accurate edition. We have three English translations by Gorges, May, and Rowe, all of indifferent merit, but the classical scholar will be better pleased to hear that there are in the British Museum, no less than five editions of this poet enriched with the ms notes of the celebrated Bentley.

, an ancient Latin poet, and a Roman knight, was born at Suessa, in the county of the Aurunci, about the year 148 B. C. He served under Scipio Africanus in the war with the Numantines, and was very much esteemed by him and Laelius. He wrote thirty books of “Satires,” in which he lashed several persons of quality by name, and with great severity; and if he was not the inventor of that kind of poem, he certainly was the first considerable satirist among the Romans. Horace says,

, a celebrated Roman poet and philosopher, born about the year 96 B. C. was sent at an early age to Athens, where, under Zeno and Pheodrus, he imbibed the philosophical tenets of Epicurus and Empedocles, and afterwards explained and elucidated them in his celebrated work, entitled “De Rerum Natura.” In inis poem the writer has not only controverted all the popular notions of heathenism, but even those points which are fundamental in every system of religious faith, the existence of a first cause, by whose power all things were and are created, and by whose providence they are supported and governed. His merits, however, as a poet, have procured him in all ages, the warmest admirers; and undoubtedly where the subject admits of elevated sentiment and descriptive beauty, no Roman poet has taken a loftier flight, or exhibited more spirit and sublimity; the same animated strain is supported almost throughout entire books. His poem was written and finished while he laboured under a violent delirium, occasioned by a philtre, which the jealousy of his mistress or his wife had administered. The morality of Lucretius is generally pure, but many of his descriptions are grossly licentious. The best editions are those of Creech, Oxon. 1695, 8vo; of Havercamp, Lugd. Bat. 1725, 4to, and of the celebrated Gilbert Wakefield, Lond. 3 vols. 4to, which last is exceedingly rare, on account of the v fire which destroyed the greater part of the impression. Mr. Good, the author of the best translation of Lucretius, published in 1805, has reprinted Waketield’s text, and has given, besides elaborate annotations, a critical account of the principal editions and translations of his author, a history of the poet, a vindication of his character and philosophy, and a comparative statement of the rival systems of philosophy that flourished in the time of Lucretius, to whom Mr. Good traces the inductive method of the illustrious Bacon, part of the sublime physics of sir Isaac Newton, and various chemical discoveries of our own days, perhaps a little too fancifully, but with great ingenuity and display of recondite learning.

Lulli, says Dr. Burney, was a fortunate man to arrive in a country where music had been so little cultivated, that he never had any rival, nor was there throughout the whole kingdom of France an individual who had the courage to doubt of his infallibility in his art. He was fortunate in so magnificent a patron, and still more fortunate in a lyric poet, who could interest an audience by all the powers of poetry, by the contexture of his fables, and variety and force of his characters. Lulli was rough, rude, and coarse in his manners, but without malice. His greatest frailties were the love of wine and money. There was found in his coffer 630,000 livres in gold, an exorbitant sum for the time in which he lived.

, a Greek poet and grammarian, was a native of Chalcis, in Eubcea, and according to Ovid, was killed by a shot with an arrow. He flourished about 304 years before Christ, and wrote a poem entitled “Alexandra,” or Cassandra, containing a long course of predictions, which he supposes to be made by Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy. This poem has created a great deal of trouble to the learned, on account of its obscurity, which procured him the title of “the tenebrous poet.” Suidas has preserved the titles of twenty tragedies of his composing; and he is reckoned in the number of the poets who were called the Pleiades, and who flourished under Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. The best edition of “Lycophron,” is that at Oxford, 1697, by Dr. (afterwards archbishop) Potter; re-printed therein 1701, folio. A few years ago, the rev. Henry Meen, B. D. published “Remarks” on the “Cassandra,” which are highly judicious, and his conjectures in illustration of the obscurities of Lycophron, plausible and happy.

, an ancient English poet, is recorded as one of the immediate successors of Chaucer. The few dates that have been recovered of his history are, that he was ordained a sub-deacon in 1339; a deacon in 1393, and a priest in 1397; from these it has been surmised that he was born about 1375, that is, twenty-five years before the death of Chaucer. There is a note of Wanley’s in the Harleian Catalogue (2251. 3.) which insinuates as if Lydgate did not die till 1482. This Dr. Percy thinks too long a date; he was, however, living in 1446, since in his “Philomela” he mentions the death of Henry duke of Warwick, who died that year. Some authorities place his death in 1461, and this date Mr. Ellis thinks is not improbable.

He was, says Warton, who of all our modern critics has considered him with most attention, a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Bury in Suffolk. After a short education at Oxford, he travelled into France and Italy; and returned a complete master of the language and the literature of both countries. He chiefly studied the Italian and French poets, particularly Dante, Boccaccio, and Alain Chartier; and became so distinguished a proficient in polite learning, that he opened a school in his monastery, for teaching the sons of the nobility the arts of versification, and the elegancies of composition. Yet, although philology was his object, he was not unfamiliar with the fashionable philosophy: he was not only a poet and a rhetorician, but a geometrician, an astronomer, a theologist, and a disputant. Mr. Warton is of opinion that he made considerable additions to those amplifications of our language, in which Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve, led the way; and that be is the first of our writers whose style is clothed wjth that perspicuity in which the English phraseology appears at this day to an English reader.

, an elegant English writer, was the eldest son of sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley, in Worcestershire, bart. and was born in 1709. He came into the world two months before the usual time, and was imagined by the nurse to be dead, but upon closer inspiection was found alive, and with some difficulty reared. At Eton school, where he was educated, he was so much distinguished that his exercises were recommended as models to his school-fellows. From Eton he went to Christ Church, where he retained the same reputation of superiority, and displayed his abilities to the public in a poem on Blenheim. He was a very early writer, both in verse and prose; his “Progress of Love,” and his “Persian Letters,” having both been written when he was very young. After a short residence at Oxford, he began his travels in 1728, and visited France and Italy. From Rome he sent those elegant verses which are prefixed to the works of Pope, whom he consulted in 1730 respecting his four pastorals. Pope made some alterations in them, which may be seen in Bowles’s late edition of that poet’s works (vol. IV. p. 139). We find Pope, a few years afterwards, in a letter to Swift, speak thus of him: He is “one of those whom his own merit has forced me to contract an intimacy with, after I had sworn never to love a man more, since the sorrow it cost me to have loved so many now dead, banished, or unfortunate, I mean Mr. Lyttelton, one of the worthiest of the rising generation,” &c. In another letter Mr. Lyttelton is mentioned in a manner with which Dr. Warton says he was displeased .

Mr. Lyttelton now stood in the first rank of opposition; and Pope, who was incited, it is not easy to say how, to increase the clamour against the ministry, commended him among the other patriots. This drew upon him the reproaches of Mr. Henry Fox, who, in the House of Commons, was weak enough to impute to him as a crime his intimacy with a lampooner so unjust and licentious. Lyttelton supported his friend, and replied, “that he thought it an honour to be received into the familiarity of so great a poet.” While he was thus conspicuous, he married (1741) Miss Lucy Fortescue, sister to Matthew lord Fortescue, of Devonshire, by whom he had a son, Thomas, and two daughters, and with whom he appears to have lived in the highest degree of connubial felicity: but human pleasures are short; she died in childbed about six years afterwards (1747); and he solaced his grief by writing a “Monody” to her memory, without, however, condamning himself to perpetual solitude and sorrow; for soon after he sought to find the same happiness again in a second marriage with the daughter of sir Robert Rich (1749); but the experiment was unsuccessful, and he was for some years before his death separated from this lady. “She was,” says Gilbert West in a letter to Dr. Doddridge, “an intimate and dear friend of his former wife, which is some kind of proof of her merit; I mean of the goodness of her heart, for that is the chief merit which Mr. Lyttelton esteems; and I hope she will not in this disappoint his expectations; in all other points she is well suited to him; being extremely well accomplished in languages, music, painting, &c. very sensible, and well bred.” This lady died Sept. 17, 1795.

Lord Lyttelton’s literary character has been so long established that it is unnecessary to add much on the subject. His Miscellaneous Works have been often reprinted, and, although in some of them rigid criticism may find objections, cannot be read without pleasure and advantage. His “History of Henry II.” is also now a standard work, valuable both for matter and style. His “^Persian Letters,” written when a very young man, are included among his miscellaneous works, but Dr. Warton informs us that he had intended to discard them, as there were principles and remarks in them that he wished to retract and alter. The reader finds them, however, as originally published, and they contain many shrewd remarks and just ridicule on the manners of the times. His juvenile pieces were not always his worst. Dr. Warton remarks that his Observations on the life of Cicero contain perhaps a more dispassionate and impartial character of that great orator than is exhibited in the panegyrical volumes of Middleton. It may here be noticed that some of his letters to Warton Occur in Wooll’s Life, by which we learn that lord Lyttelton made him his chaplain in 1756. As a poet, we do not find among critics any wide departure from Dr. Johnson’s opinion. Lord Lyttelton’s poems are to be praised chiefly for correctness and elegance of versification and style. His “Advice to Belinda,” though for the most part written when he was very young, contains, Dr. Johnson says, “much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously expressed, and shows a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry which cultivation might have raised to excellence.” As far, however, as this implies that lord Lyttelton did not cultivate his powers, we are inclined to think our great critic in error. Lord Lyttelton was very early a poet, and appears to have not only valued his talent, but acquired his first reputation from the exercise of it. He was very early a critic too, as appears by his account of Glover’s “Leonidas,” printed in 1737, and few men were oftener consulted by young poets in the subsequent part of his life. Mickle may be instanced as one whose first pieces were carefully perused and corrected by him, and although Mickle was disappointed in the hopes he entertained from him as a patron, he often owned his obligations to him as a critic. Lord Lyttelton’s was the patronage of kindness rather than of bounty. He courted the acquaintance and loved the company of mn of genius and learning, with whom his correspondence also was extensive, but he had little of his own to give away, and was so long of the party in opposition to ministers, as to have very little state interest.

, an ancient Latin poet, was born at Verona, and flourished about the year 24 B. C. Eusebius relates, that he died a few years after Virgil. Ovid speaks of a poem by him, on the nature and quality of birds, serpents, and herbs; which, he says, Macer, being then very old, had often read to him, and he is said also to have written a supplement to Homer; but the work by which his name is chiefly known, first printed at Naples in 1477, 4to, and often since under the title “De virtutibus Herbarum,” is unquestionably spurious, and the production of a much later writer. By some it is ascribed to Odo or Odobonus, a French physician of the ninth century. This barbarous poem is in Leonine verse, and various manuscripts of it are in our public libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, the British Museum, &c. It was, according to Dr. Pulteney, in common use in Enprland before the sera of printing, and was translated into English by John Lelamar, master of Hereford-school, who lived about 1473. Even Linacre did not disdain to employ himself on this work, as in “Macer’s Herbal practysed by Dr. Lin aero, translated out of Latin into English.” Lond. 1542, 12mo. This jejune performance, adds Dr. Pulteney, which is writ-r ten wholly on Galenical principles, treats on the virtues of not more than eighty eight simples.

, was a name assumed by a modern poet, whose true name was John Salmon; or, as some say, given to him on account of his excessive thinness, from the Latin adjective macer. It became, however, the current appellation of himself and Charles, his brother, who was also a writer of some celebrity, preceptor to Catherine of Navarre, sister of Henry IV, and who perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Some have called Macrinus the French Horace, on account of his talents for poetry, particularly the lyric kind. He was born at Loudon, where he died in 1557, at an advanced age. He wrote hymns, naeniae, and other works, which appeared from 1522 to 1550: and was one of those who principally contributed to restore the taste for Latin poetry. Varillas relates a story of his drowning himself in a well, in despair, on being suspected of Lutheranism. But this, like most anecdotes of the same writer, is a matter of invention rather than fact.

The civil wars being now at an end, Augustus returned to Rome; and after he had triumphed according to custom, he began to talk of restoring the commonwealth. Whether he was in earnest, or did it only to try the judgment of his friends, we do not presume to determine however he consulted Mæcenas and Agrippa about it. Agrippa advised him to it but Mæcenas dissuaded him, saying, that it was not only impossible for him to live in safety as a private man, after what had passed, but that the government would be better administered, and flourish more in his hands than if he was to deliver it up to the senate and people. The author of the “Life of Virgil” says that Augustus, “wavering what he should do, consulted that poet upon the occasion.” But this life is not of sufficient authority; for, though it has usually been ascribed to Servius or Donatus, yet the critics agree, that it was not written by either of them. Augustus, in the mean time, followed Mæcenas’s advice, and retained the government and from this time Mæcenas indulged himself, at vacant hours, in literary amusements, and the conversation of the men of letters. In the year 734 Virgil died, and left Augustus and Mæcenas heirs to his possessions. Mæcenas was excessively fond of this poet, who, of all the wits of the Augustan age, stood highest in his esteem; and, if the “Georgics” and the “Æneid” be owing to the good taste and encouragement of this patron, as there is some reason to think, posterity cannot commemorate him with too much gratitude. The author of the “Life of Virgil” tells us that the poet “published the Georgics in honour of Mæcenas, to whom they are addressed” and adds, that “they were recited to Augustus four days together at Atella, where he rested himself for some time, in his return from Actium, Mæcenas taking upon him the office of reciting, as oft as Virgil’s voice failed him.” Horace may be ranked next to Virgil in Mæcenas’s good graces we have already mentioned how and what time their friendship commenced. Propertius also acknowledges Mæcenas for his favourer and protector nor must Varius be forgot, though we have nothing of his remaining; since we find him highly praised by both Virgil and Horace. He was a writer of tragedies: and Quintilian thinks he may be compared with any of the ancieats. In a word, Mæcenas’s house was a place of refuge and welcome to all the learned of his time-, not only to Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius, but to Fundanius, whom Horace extols as an admirable writer of comedies: to Fuscus Aristius, a noble grammarian, and Horace’s intimate friend to Plotius Tucca, who assisted Varius in correcting the “Æneid” after the death of Virgil to Valgius, a poet and very learned man, who, as Pliny tells us, dedicated a book to Augustus “De usu Herbarum;” to Asinius Pollio, an excellent tragic writer, and to several others, whom it would be tedious to mention. All these dedicated their works, or some part of them at least, to Mæcenas, and repeatedly celebrated his praises in them; and we may observe further, what Plutarch tells us, that even Augustus himself inscribed his “Commentaries” to him and to Agrippa.

Mæcenas continued in Augustus’s favour to the end of his life, but not uninterruptedly. Augustus had an intrigue with Mæcenas’s wife and though the minister bore this liberty of his master’s very patiently, yet there was once a coldness on the part of Augustus, although not of long continuance. Mæcenas died in the year 745, as is supposed, at an advanced age. He must have been older than Augustus, because he was a kind of tutor to him in his youth. Horace did not probably long survive him, as there is no elegy of his upon Mæcenas extant, nor any account of one having ever been written, which would probably have been the case, had Horace survived him any time. Sanadon, the French editor of Horace, insists that ths poet died before his patron and that the recomme,ndation of him to Augustus was found only in Mæcenas’s will, which had not been altered.

There were other men of considerable eminence in Italy of the same name, among whom we may enumerate, a brother of the preceding, Bartholomew Maggi, a physician at Bologna, who wrote a treatise in Latin, “On the Cure of Gun-shot Wounds,” Bologna, 1552, 4to; VlN­Cent Maggi, a native of Brescia, and celebrated professor of ethics at Ferrara and Padua, author of several works Francis Maria Maggi, who published “Syntagmata linguarum Georgia,” Romae, 1670, folio; and lastly, Charles Maria Maggi, an Italian poet of the seventeenth century, and one of the restorers of good taste in Italy, after the barbarous ravages of the school of Marini. He was born at Milan in 1630, and was secretary to the senate of that city. He died in 1690, and his works were published in the following year by Muratori, at Milan, in 4 vols. 12mo. This poet is mentioned with very high encomiums in the letters between Mrs. Carter and Miss Talbot. The dowager lady Spencer also, when resident at Pisa, published a “Scelta” of his works; and in 1811, “The Beauties” of C. M. Maggi, “paraphrased,” were published by Mariane Starke.

, a French poet of the seventeenth century, was bred up as an advocate, and for some time followed that profession at Lyons. He then became a dramatic writer, and produced several pieces, of which the least bad is a tragedy called Artaxerxes; this has some plot, good sentiments, and characters tolerably supported. He then conceived the extraordinary project of writing an encyclopaedia in verse, which was to consist of ten volumes, each containing twenty thousand verses. Being asked, after some time, when this work would be finished “Very soon,” said he, “I have now only a hundred thousand verses to write.” His project, however, was cut off, notwithstanding this near approach to its conclusion, as he was murdered by thieves at Paris, in 1662. His verses were bad enough to account for his facility in producing them, yet he was a friend of Moliere. A part of his great work appeared in folio in 1663, with the magnificent title of “Science Universelle.” The preface was still more pompous: “Libraries,” says he, “will hereafter be for ornament only, not use.” Yet how few contain this wonderful work!

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

, an early French poet, was born at Bavai, in Hainault, in 1473, and died, according to some authors, in 1524, according to others, towards 1548. He is the author of an allegorical poem entitled “Les trois Contes de Cupidon et d'Atropos, dont le premier fut invente par Seraphin, Poete Italien; le 2 et le 3 de Maitre Jean le Maire,” Paris, 1525, 8vo. Several other poems by him are extant, all indicating a lively imagination, wit, and facility of writing, but with little correctness, taste, or delicacy. Some of his productions are not even decent. He wrote also, “Les Illustrations des Gaules, et singularites de Troyes,” 1512, folio. And a panegyric on Margaret of Austria, entitled “La Couronne Marguaritique,” printed at Lyons, in 1546, in which he reports some curious traits of the wit and repartee of that princess.

, a French poet of later times, was born at Besan^on, in 1604, and was gentleman in waiting to the duke of Montmorency, under whom he signalized himself in two battles against the Hugonots. His patron settled upon him a pension of 15,000 livres but, not contented with that, he complained heavily that the poets of his time received praises and incense, like the deities of antiquity, but nothing that could support life. He was in truth a lover of good cheer, and would have been more pleased with presents of wine, or delicacies for the table, than crowns of laurel, or any unsubstantial honour. His remonstrances were not ineffectual. He received many presents from the duke de Longueville, and favours in, great number from cardinal Richelieu, the count of Soissons, and cardinal la Valette. He married in 1648, and retired to Besangon, where he principally resided from that time, though he lost his wife in about ten years. He had some talent for negotiation, and conducted the business of a suspension of arms for Franche Comte with such success, that the emperor rewarded him in 1668, by reestablishing an ancient claim to nobility that had been in his family. He died in 1686, at the age of eighty-four. Mairet was never rich, yet led a life of ease and gratification. He very early began to write. His first tragedy of “Chryseide,” was written at sixteen “Sylvia,” at seventeen “Sylvianire,” at twenty-one “The Duke de Ossane,” at twenty-three “Virginia,” at twenty-four and “Sophonisba,” at twenty-five. He wrote in all, 1. Twelve tragedies, which, though they have some fine passages, abound in faults, and are written in a feeble style of versification. Corneille had not yet established the style of the French drama. On the Sophonisba of Mairet, Voltaire has formed another tragedy of the same name. 2. A poem, entitled “Le Courtisan solitaire,” a performance of some merit 3. Miscellaneous poems, in general moderate enough. 4. Some criticisms against Corneille, which were more disgraceful to the author than to the person attacked. His Sophonisba, however, was preferred to that of Corneille, but then that drama is by no means esteemed one of the happiest efforts of the great tragic poet.

, a poet and mathematician, but less known in the latter character, was born at Mons in Kainault, in 1581, and entered into the order of the Jesuits. He taught philosophy at Pont-a-Mousson, whence he went to Poland, where he was appointed professor of mathematics, and afterwards filled the same office at Doway. His reputation induced Philip IV. to give him an invitation to Madrid, as professor of mathematics in his newly-founded college, which he accepted, but died on his way to Vittoria, Nov. 5, 1630. His Latin poems were printed at Antwerp in 1634, and have been praised for purity of style, and imagery. Of his mathematical works one is entitled “Oratio de Laudibus Mathematicis,” in which he treats of the phenomena of the newly-discovered Dutch telescope. The others are, “Institutions of Practical Arithmetic;” the “Elements of Geometry” “A Paraphrase on the Dialectics of Aristotle” and “Commentaries on the first six Books of Euclid.”

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

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

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