WOBO: Search for words and phrases in the texts here...

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

To young connoisseurs, and in general to his inferiors in taste and science, who sought his assistance, he was an active and zealous patron, sparing neither his interest nor his exertions to promote their views.

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

Trapezuntius appears to have met with some reverse after this controversy, for in 1549 he was again at Venice, supplicating the aid of the State, and was in consequence appointed professor of the belles-lettres. While in this office he wrote his Art of Rhetoric, dedicated to the Venetians, which appeared under the title of “Rhetorica Trapezuntina,” but was not printed until 1470, at Venice, in folio, and then only the first book. In 1464 and 1465, he took a voyage to Crete, and another to Constantinople. On his return, being informed that one of his scholars was now pope, under the name of Paul II. he went to Rome, in hopes of being well received; but all he received was an order to be imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo, where he remained for four months, and was afterwards under confinement in his house. The most probable cause of this treatment was his having returned to Rome without leave; but this is merely conjecture; the pope, however, at length condescended to forgive him, and he remained at Rome much respected. In his latter years his faculties began to decay, and before his death, which took place in 1484, in the ninetieth year of his age, all traces of memory and understanding were gone.

His son, Theodore, was educated, by the advice of Beza^ who was his godfather, and he made a vast progress in learning. The testimony which was given him in 1600, when he went to see foreign universities, represents him as a person of very great hopes. He confirmed this character + all the learned men under whom he studied, or with whom hee became acquainted during the course of his travels, and these comprized most of the eminent men on the contii w > in England. He returned to Geneva in 1606, and gave such proofs of his learning that he was the same year chosen professor of the Hebrew language. In 1607 he married Theodora Rocca, a woman of great merit in all respects, sister to the first syndic of the commonwealth, and grand-daughter to the wife of Theodore Beza, at whose house she had been educated, and whose goddaughter she was. He was chosen minister in December 1605, and created rector of the university in 1610. In 1614 he was requested to read some lectures in divinity besides those on the Hebrew language, on account of the indisposition of one of the professors; and when the professorship of divinity became vacant in 1618, he was promoted to it, and resigned that of Hebrew. The same year he was appointed by the assembly of pastors and professors to answer the Jesuit Colon, who had attacked the French version of the Bible in a book entitled “Geneve Plagiaire.'” This he did in his “Coton Plagiaire,” which was extremely well received by the public. At the same time he was sent with Diodati from the church of Geneva to the synod of Dorr.,' where he displayed his great knowledge in divinity, and a moderation which was highly applauded. He had permission to go to the duke of Rohan for some months in 1632, and fully answered the expectation of that nobleman, who shewed him afterwards great esteem, which he returned by honouring the duke’s memory with an oration, whicij he pronounced some days after the funeral of that great man in 1638. He carried on a very extensive correspondence in the reformed countries, where he gained the friendship of the most learned men, and of several princes and great lords. He had much facility in composing oration:* and Latin verses, and his conversation was highly instructive, for he had joined to the study of divinity and of several languages, the knowledge of the law, and of other sciences, and of sacred and profane history, especially with regard to the two last centuries, particulars of which he frequently introduced, and applied when in company. In 1655 he was appointed by the assembly of pastors to confer and concur with John Dury in the affair of the rennion between the Lutherans and the reformed, on which subject he wrote several pieces. He died of a fever on the 19th. of November, 1657, having survived all the foreign divines who were present at the synod of Don. He was an open and sincere man, zealous for religion and the service of the churches, a great enemy to vices, though very mild towards persons. His advice was highly esteemed both for the civil government, and in the two ecclesiastical bodies, and by strangers, a great number of whom consulted him. He left, among other children, Lewis Tronchin, who was a minister of the church of Lyons, and was chosen four years after to fill his place in the church and professorship of divinity at Geneva. He died in 1705. He was esteemed one of the ablest divines of his time, and a man of great liberality of senti ment. He was well known to, and corresponded with our archbishops Tillotson and Tenison, and the bishops Compton, Lloyd, and Burnet, who gives him a very high character in his Tour through Switzerland.

, an ancient Greek poet, as we learn from Suidas, was an Egyptian; but nothing can be determined concerning his age. Some have fancied him older than Virgil, but without the least colour of probability. Others have made him a contemporary with Quintus Calaber, Nonnus, Coluthus, and Musæus, who wrote the poem on Hero and Leander, because they fancied a resemblance between his style and theirs; but this is a precarious argument, nor is it better known when these authors lived. All therefore that can be reasonably supposed concerning the age of Tryphiodorus is, that he lived between the reigns of Severus and Anastasius; the former of whom died at the beginning of the third century, and the latter at the beginning of the sixth.

When the dispute arose between Great Britain and the American colonies, the dean was an attentive observer of the contest, examining the affair with a very different eye from that of a party-man, or an interested merchant, and discovered, as he conceived, that both sides would be benefited by an absolute separation. The more he thought on this subject, the more he was persuaded that extensive colonies were an evil rather than an advantage to any commercial nation. On this principle, therefore, he published his “Thoughts upon the Dispute between the Mother Country and America.” He demonstrated, that the latter 1 could, not be conquered, and that, if it could, the purchase would be dearly bought. He warned this country against commencing a war with the colonies, and advised that they should be left to themselves. This advice startled all parties, and by all the dean was considered as a sort of madman, who had rambled out of the proper line of his profession to commence political quack. Our author, however, went on vindicating and enforcing his favourite system, in spite of all the obloquy with which it was treated both in the senate and from the press. As the war proceeded, some intelligent persons began to see more truth and reason in his sentiments, and time, perhaps, may be thought to have demonstrated that he was right. He printed several essays in the newspapers under the title of Cassandra.

Dr. Tucker was esteemed an excellent Greek and Latin scholar. “The purity of his Latin pen,” says Fuller, “procured his preferment. He was an able divine, a person of great gravity and piety, and well read in curious and critical authors.” His publications are, 1. “Charisma, sive Donum Sanationis, seu Explicatio totius qusestionis de mirabilium sanitatum gratia, &c.” Lond. 1597, 4to. This is the work which, Prince says, introduced him to the favour of queen Elizabeth. It is a historical defence of the power of our kings in curing what is called the king’s evil. Deirio, the Jesuit, answered it, and “with him,” say Wood and Prince, “are said to agree most fanaticks,” and we may add, most persons of common sense. Tucker was, if we mistake not, the first who wrote in defence of the royal touch, and Carte, the historian, the last, or perhaps the celebrated Whiston, who has a long digression on the subject in his life. 2. “Of the Fabrick of the Church and Church-men’s Living,” Lond. 1604, 8vo. This appears’ to have been written to obviate the scruples of some of the puritan party. The subjects treated are: I. “Of parity and imparity of gifts; of competency and incompetency of men’s livings; and of the reward of men’s gifts or maintenance, so called; of parity and imparity of men’s livings, which ariseth out of the equality or inequality of men’s gifts, and of preferments so called; of singularity and plurality of beneh'ces, and of the cause thereof, viz. dispensations; of the friends and enemies of pluralities; and of supportance and keeping of the fabrick of the church upright, in which he vindicates the hierarchy and constitution of the church of England against the enemies thereof, who are for reducing all to a parity and equality.” 3. “Singulare Certamen cum Martino Becano Jesuita,” Lond. 1611, 8vo, in defence of James I. against Becan and Bellarmin.

Mr. Tull had a son, John, who in his early years travelled to France, Italy, and other parts of the continent. On his return, being a good mechanic, he was led to various inventions, which had various success. He was, among other schemes, the first who introduced post-chaises, and posttravelling by them, in England, for which he obtained a patent in 1737. He then appears to have gone into the army, and was an officer in the train of artillery, and aidde-camp to general James Campbell, who fell at the battle of Fontenoy, where Mr. Tull attended him. After his return he resumed his schemes, one of which was the bringing of fish to London by land-carriage. This he introduced in July and August 1761; but, failing for want of capital, he was arrested, and died in prison in 1764.

, an ancient historian, of the eleventh century, was an Anglo-Saxon, of a good family in Lincolnshire. When a young man, he was delivered by the people of Lindsay, as one of their hostages, to William the Conqueror, and confined in the castle of Lincoln. From thence he made his escape to Norway, and resided several years in the court of king Olave, by whom he was much caressed and enriched. Returning to his native country, he was shipwrecked on the coast of Northumberland, by which he lost all his money and effects, escaping death with great difficulty. He then travelled to Durham; and applying to Walter, bishop of that see, declared his resolution to forsake the world, and become a monk; in which he was encouraged by that pious prelate, who committed him to the care of Aldwine, the first prior of Durham, then at Jarrow. From that monastery he went to Melross; from thence to Wearmouth, where he assumed the monastic habit; and lastly returned to Durham, where he recommended himself so much to the whole society, by his learning, piety, prudence, and other virtues, that, on the death of Aidwine, in 1087, he was unanimously chosen prior, and not long after was appointed by the bishop archdeacon of his diocese. The monastery profited greatly by his prudent government; the privileges were enlarged, and revenues considerably increased by his influence; and he promoted many improvements in the sacred edifices. In this office he spent the succeeding twenty years of his life, sometimes residing in the priory, and at other times visiting the diocese, and preaching in different places. At the end of these twenty years, he was, in 1107, elected bishop of St. Andrew’s and primate of Scotland, and consecrated by archbishop Thomas, at York, Aug. 1, 1109. Dissentions arising between our archbishop and the king of Scotland, the prelate’s anxiety and distress of mind brought on a decline of health, under which he obtained permission to return to England; and came back to Durham in 1115, where he resided little more than two months before his death. Stevens, in the “Monasticon,” says that he returned to Durham after the death of king Malcolm and his queen; and Spotiswood, in his “Church History,” that he died in Scotland, and was thence conveyed to and buried at Durham, in the Chapter-house, between bishops Walcher and William.

By his wife Alice, daughter of William Piper of Canter* bury, whom he married in 1524, which, according to Wood, must have been when he was at Oxford, he had three sons. The first, Lawrence, was a fellow of All Souls college, and bachelor of civil law, and an ingenious poet, but ventured no farther than some encomiastic verses prefixed to books. He lived and probably died on his father’s estate at Hardacre in Kent. He had a brother John, who also wrote verses prefixed to books; and a third, Thomas, of whom Wood has given us some farther particulars, although perhaps they are not very interesting. He was born in Canterbury, and admitted scholar of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, in 1560, and probationer fellow in 1564, being then bachelor of arts. He afterwards proceeded in arts, and then studied medicine, and in 1581 took his doctor’s degree, and practised at Lewes in Sussex, under the patronage of Thomas lord Buckhurst. He died in 1613, aged seventy, and was buried in the chancel of St. Anne’s church, Lewes. He wrote and translated many tracts, enumerated by Wood, but of very little value. He was an admirer of the mysterious philosophy of John Dee. Among his other publications tie completed Phaer’s translation of the Æneid, with Maphaeus’s thirteenth book, in 1583; translated Lhuyde’s “Breviary of Britayne, &q.;” and was editor of his father’s work “De rebus Albionicis,” which he dedicated to lord Buckhurst. He also wrote some contemptible rhirnes, then called poetry.

Twyne, who was an indefatigable collector of every document or information respecting the history and antiquities of Oxford, produced the first regular account of it, which was published in 1608, under the title of “Antiquitatis Academioe Oxoniensis Apologia, in tres libros divisa,” Oxon. 4to. The chief object of this work was to refute what Kaye or Caius had asserted in his history of Cambridge on the antiquity of that university, proving it to be 1267 years older than Oxford. So absurd an assertion would scarcely now be thought worthy of a serious answer, but Twyne was an enthusiast on the question, and mere antiquity was thought preferable to every other degree of superiority. He therefore produced his “Apologia,” in which he revives and endeavours to prove that Oxford was originally founded by some Greek philosophers, the companions of Brutus, and restored by King Alfred in 870. Smith, in his history of University college, has very ably answered his principal arguments on this question, which indeed has nothing more than tradition on its side. He was a young man when he wrote this book, and intended a new edition; but his interleaved copy for this purpose, with his additions, &c. was unfortunately lost in a fire at Oxford, which happened some time after his death. He left, however, several volumes of ms collections to the university, of which Wood availed himself in his history.

, was an eminent mathematician irt Italy, in the end of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, but no particulars are known of his life, nor when he died. The following occur in catalogues as his works: 1. “Mechanica,” Pis. 1577, fol. and Yen. 1615. 2. “Pianisphaeriorum universalium Theorica,” Pis. 1579, fol. and Col. 1581, 8vo. 3. “Paraphrasis in ArchimedisSquiponderantia,” Pis. 1588, fol. 4. Perspectiva,“ibid. 1600, fol. 5.” Problemata Astronomica,“Ven. 1609, fol. 6.” De Cochlaea," ibid. 1615, fol.

, a classical scholar and editor, was the fourth son of a gentleman of Cheshire, and born at Wimslow, in that county, December 10, 1670. He was educated at Eton, and became a fellow of King’s college, Cambridge, where he proceeded B. A. 1697, and M. A. 1701. He afterwards, at the request of Dr. Newborough, the head master, returned to Eton, where he was tutor to the famous sir William Wyndham, and was an assistant teacher at the school. He married the daughter of Mr. Proctor, who kept a boarding-house at Eton, but afterwards removed to Ilminster, in Somersetshire, upon the invitation of several gentlemen of the county, and particularly of the earl Powlett, to whom he was afterwards chaplain, and aii whose sons were under his tuition at Taunton. He remained a few years at Ihninster, and taught the learned languages there till he was elected to the care of the free grammarschool in Taunton: which he conducted with the highest reputation, and raised to be the largest provincial school at that time ever known in England. The number of his pupils amounted to more than 200; and many of them were from the first families in the West of England. He served for many years the church of Bishop’s-Hull, in which parish the school is situated. So early as 1711 he was in possession of the rectory of Brimpton, near Yeovil, in the presentation of the Sydenham family. In 1712 he was presented by sir Philip Sydenham to the rectory of Alonksilver, 14 miles from Taunton. He died August 13, 1749, aged seventy-nine.

Mr. Upton’s chief publication was an edition of Arrian’s “Epictetus,” printed at London, 1739 41, 2 vols. 4to. This Harwood accounts the most perfect edition that ever was given of a Greek ethical writer. There is his own copy of this edition in the possession of a gentleman of Exeter college, with his curte secundtf, written by him in the margins, and they are very copious and frequent. In 1758 he published an excellent edition of Spencer’s “Fairie Queene,” with a glossary and notes, explanatory and critical, 2 vols. 4to; and “Observations on Shakspeare,” of which Dr. Johnson, in his preface to his edition of that hard, gives no vry favourable opinion, nor indeed a just one.

, one of those pontiffs who deserve some notice on account of his learning, and attention to the interests of literature, was born at Florence in 1568. His family name was Maffei Barbarini, and his family was of the most ancient and honourable. His father dying while Maffei was an infant, he was entrusted to the care of his uncle Francis, a prothonotary of the Roman court, who sent for him to Rome, and placed him for education in the Jesuits’ college. Here he made great proficiency in classical studies under Tursellino and Benci, and was particularly distinguished for his taste for poetry. But as his uncle intended him for active life, he took him from his beloved studies, and sent him to Pisa, where he might acquire a knowledge of the law, so neoessary then to those who would rise to preferment; and here he applied with such diligence, that in his twentieth year the degree of doctor was deservedly conferred upon him. He then returned to Rome, where his uncle received him with the greatest kindness, and having always treated him as his son, bequeathed him, on his death, which happened soon after, a handsome fortune, as his sole heir. His first patron was cardinal Farnese, and by his interest and his own talents he soon passed through the various gradations of preferment which led, in 1606, to the rank of cardinal, bestowed on him by Paul V. In 1623, while cardinal legate of Bologna, he was elected pope, and took the name of Urban VIII. It is not our intention to detail the historical events in which he was concerned. The errors in his government, which were fewer than might have been expected in one so zealous for the church, arose from two circumstances, his early attachment to the Jesuits, and his nepotism, or family partiality. The latter was so powerful, that he bestowed on his relations red hats and temporal employments with a very liberal hand, and often entrusted the management of affairs to them; and the chief errors of his pontificate were imputed to them by the candid, although he only was blamed by the people at large. As a mjjn of learning, and a patron of learned merr, he has generally been praised; but he was no antiquary, and was justly censured for having destroyed some Roman antiquities, which the barbarous nations had spared when masters of Rome; and this gave occasion to the famous pasquinade, “Quod non fecerunt Barbari, fecerunt Barherini.” He wrote many Latin poems in an elegant style, of which an edition was published at Paris in 1642, fol. and a very beautiful one at Oxford, in 1726, 8vo, edited by Joseph Brown, M. A. of Queen’s college, and afterwards provost of that college, with a life and learned notes. Urban’s patronage of learned men was very liberal, and he received those of all nations with equal respect. Among others he extended his patronage to Ciampolo, Cesarini, Herman Hugo, and to Dempster and Barclay, two learned Scotchmen. The latter has celebrated him in his “Argenis” under the name of Ibburranis, the transposition of Barberini. Urban published a remarkable edition of the Romish breviary, aud several bulls and decrees which are in “Cherubini bullarium.” Among the most noticeable is that which abolishes the order of female Jesuits, and certain festivals; and others which relate to image worship; those by which, in compliance with the Jesuits, he condemns Jansenius; and that by which the title of eminence was conferred upon the cardinal-legates, the three ecclesiastical electors, and the grand master of Malta. Among his foundations was the college “De propaganda fide.” In the article of cardinals he was profuse, for he created no less than seventy-four. He died July 29, 1644, and was buried in St. Peter’s, in the stately tomb erected by his own orders by the celebrated Bernini.

, author of the heretical sect called Valeutinians, was an Egyptian, and, according to Danaeus, was educated at Alexandria. He aspired to the episcopal dignity; but being set aside by another, who was afterwards martyred, he formed the design to oppose the true doctrine of Christ. He came to Rome A.D. 140, during the pontificate of Hyginus, and there created great disturbances. In 143, he was censured by the church, and excluded the congregation; which was so far from humbling him, that he retired into Cyprus, where he propagated his erroneous doctrines with still greater boldness: He was learned, eloquent, and had studied the Grecian language, particularly the Platonic philosophy. Thus, from nice and witty, or sophistical, distinctions, mixing the doctrine of ideas, and the mysteries of numbers with the Theogony of Hesiod, and the Gospel of St. John, which was the only one received by him, he formed a system of religious philosophy, not very different from that of Basilides and the Gnostics, and in some respects more absurd than either. The rise of his heresy was in the reign of Adrian. Fleury places it A. D. 143, as do Danasus, Tillemont, and Echard. Valentine himself died A.D. 160. His errors spread at Rome, in Gaul, and Syria, but particularly in the Isle of Cyprus and Egypt, and continued until the fourth century. Bishop Hooper, in his tract “De Haeresi Valentiniana,” has deduced this heresy from the Egyptian mysteries. Irenseus was the principal writer against Valentinus, to whom may be added Tertullian, Clemens Alexandriuus, &c. and among the moderns, Buddeus “Dissert. de hreresi Valentiniana.” The author of this heresy is said to have at last abjured his errors, and was received into the church again, but we have no farther account of his personal history.

, an eminent French naturalist, was bora at Rouen, Sept. 17, 1731, and had his classical education in the Jesuits’ college there, where he was principally distinguished for the proficiency he made in the Greek language. He afterwards became a pupil of the celebrated anatomist Lecat, and after studying pharmacy came to Paris in 1750. His father, who was an advocate of the parliament of Normandy, intended him for the bar, but his predilection for natural history was too strong for any prospects which that profession might yield. Having obtained from the duke d'Argenson, the war minister, a kind of commission to travel in the name of the government, he spent some years in. visiting the principal cabinets and collections of natural history in Europe, and in inspecting the mines, volcanos, and other interesting phenomena of nature. On his return to Paris in 1756, he began a course of lectures on natural history, which he regularly continued until 1788, and acquired so much reputation as to be admitted an honorary member of most of the learned societies of Europe, and had liberal offers from the courts of Russia and Portugal to settle in those countries; but he rejected these at the very time that he was in vain soliciting to be reimbursed the expences he had contracted in serving his own nation. He appears to have escaped the revolutionary storms, and died at Paris Aug. 24, 1807, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He first appeared as an author in 1758, at which time he published his “Catalogue d‘un cabinet d’histoire naturelle,” 12mo. This was followed next year by a sketch of a complete system of mineralogy; and two years after by his “Nouvelle exposition du regne minerale,” 2 vols. 8vo, reprinted in 1774; but his greatest work, on which his reputation is chiefly built, was his “Dictionnaire raisonne” universe! d'histoire naturelle," which has passed through many editions both in 4to and 8vo, the last of which was published at Lyons in 1800, 15 vols. 8vo.

< f That Van wants grace, who never wanted wit.“In the same year, 1693, he brought out his comedy of” Æsop,“which was acted at Drury-Lane, and contains much general satire and useful morality, but was not very successful.” The False Friend,“his next comedy, came out in 1702. He had interest enough to raise a subscription of thirty persons of quality, at 100l. each, for building a stately theatre in the Hay-Market; on the first stone that was laid of this theatre were inscribed the words Little Whig, as a compliment to a celebrated beauty, lady Sunderland, second daughter of the duke of Marlborough, the tast and pride of that party. The house being finished in 1706, it was put by Mr. Betterton and his associates under the management of sir John Vanbrugh and Mr. Congreve, in hopes of retrieving their desperate fortunes; but their expectations were too sanguine. The new theatre was opened with a translated opera, set to Italian music, called” The Triumph of Love,“which met with a cold reception.” The Confederacy“was almost immediately after produced by sir John, and acted with more success than so licentious a performance deserved, though less than it was entitled to, if considered merely with respect to its dramatic merit. The prospects of the theatre being unpromising, Mr. Congreve gave up his share and interest wholly to Vanbrugh,” who, being now become sole manager, was under a necessity of exerting himself. Accordingly, in the same season, he gave the public three other imitations from the French; viz. 1. “The Cuckold in Conceit.” 2. “Squire Treeloby;” and, 3. “The Mistake.” The spaciousness of the dome in the new theatre, by preventing the actors from being distinctly heard, was an inconvenience not to be surmounted; and an union of the two companies was projected. Sir John, tired of the business, disposed of his theatrical concerns to Mr. Owen Swinney, who governed the stage till another great revolution occurred. Our author’s last comedy, “The Journey to London,” which was left imperfect, was finished to great advantage by Mr. Cibber, who takes notice in the prologue of sir John’s virtuous intention in composing this piece, to make amends for scenes written in the fire of youth. He seemed sensible indeed of this, when in 1725 he altered an exceptionable scene in “The Provoked Wife,” by putting into the mouth of a woman of quality what before had been spoken by a clergyman; a change which removed from him the imputation of prophaneness, which, however, as well as the most gross licentiousness, still adheres to his other plays, and gave Collier an irresistible advantage over him in the memorable controversy respecting the stage.

, a most illustrious portraitpainter, whose works, lord Orford remarks, are so frequent in England, that the generality of our people can scarcely avoid thinking him their countryman, was born at Antwerp, March 22, 1598-9. His father was a merchant, and his mother, Cornelia Kersboom, was an admired flower-painter. He was first placed with Van Balen, who had studied at Rome, but afterwards with Rubens, under whom he made such progress as to be able to assist in the works from which he learned. While at this excellent school, the following anecdote is told of him: Rubens having left a picture unfinished one night, and going out contrary to custom, his scholars took the opportunity of sporting about the room; when one, more unfortunate than the rest, striking at his companion with a maul-stick^ chanced to throw down the picture, which not being dry acquired some damage. Vandyck, being at work in the next room, was prevailed on to repair the mischief; and when Rubens came next morning to his work, first going at a distance to view his picture, as is usual with painters, and having contemplated it a little, he cried out suddenly, that he liked the piece far better than he did the night before.

, usually styled the most learned of all the Romans, was born in the year of Rome 638, or 28 B.C. His immense learning made him the admiration of his time; which yet was the most flourishing for arts and glory that Rome ever knew. He was an intimate friend of Cicero; and his friendship was confirmed and immortalized by a mutual dedication of their learned works to each other. Thus Cicero dedicated his “Academic Questions” to Varro; and Varro dedicated his “Treatise on the Latin tongue” to Cicero, who, in a letter in which he recommends him as questor to Brutus, assures the commander, that he would find him perfectly qualified for the post, and particularly insists upon his good sense, his indifference to pleasure, and his patient perseverance in business. To these virtues he added uncommon abilities, and large stores of knowledge, which qualified him for the highest offices of the state. He attached himself to the party of Pompey, and in the time of the triumvirate was proscribed with Cicero: and, though he escaped with his life, he suffered the loss of his library, and of his own writings; a loss which would be severely felt by one who had devoted a great part of his hfe to letters. Returning, at length, to Rome, he spent his last years in literary leisure. He died in the 727th year of the city. His prose writings were exceedingly numerous, and treated of various topics in antiquities, chronology, geography, natural and civil history, philosophy, and criticism. He was, besides, a poet of some distinction, and wrote in almost every kind of verse. He is said to have been eighty when he wrote his three books “De Re Rustica,” which are still extant. Five of his books “De Lingua Latina,” which he addressed to Cicero, are also extant, and some fragments of his works, particularly of his “Menippean Satires,” which are medleys of prose and verse. Scaliger has likewise collected some of his epigrams from among the “Catalecta Virgilii. The first edition of Varro” De Lingua Latina“is a quarto, without date or place, but supposed to be Rome, 1471. There is a second, at Venice, 1474, 4to, and a third at Rome, 1474, fol. His whole works, with the notes of Scaliger, Turnebus, &c. were printed by Henry Stephens, 1573, 8vo, reprinted 1581; but the former edition is in greatest request among the curious, on account of a note of Scaliger' s, p. 212, of the second part, which was omitted in the subsequent editions. Varro” De Re Rustica“is inserted among the” Auctores de Re Rustica." The use which Virgil makes of this work in his Georgics entitles it *o some respect; and it is amusing as giving us a notion of the agriculture of his time, and the method of laying out gardens, and providing the luxuries of the table, in which the Romans were particularly extravagant. It contains many absurdities, however, and many of those remarks and pieces of information which would now be thought a disgrace to the meanest writer on agriculture. The rev. T. Owen, of Queen’s college, Oxford, and rector of Upper Scudamore, in Wiltshire, published a good translation of this work in 1800, 8vo.

Vatablus was an excellent Greek scholar, and translated some parts of Aristotle’s works. He also assisted Clement Marot in his poetical translation of the Psalms, by giving him a literal version from the Hebrew. He had the credit of being the restorer of the study of the Hebrew language in France, and taught many able scholars, particularly Brentius and Mercerus (see Mercier), who both succeeded him in his professorship. He died March 16, 1547.

, or Lope-Felix de Vega Carpio, a celebrated Spanish poet, was born at Madrid, Nov. 25, 1562. He informs us that his father was a poet, but what he was besides, or the time of his death, is not known. It appears that he was an orphan when at school, about thirteen or fourteen years old, and was then impelled by so restless a desire of seeing the world, that he resolved to escape; and having concerted his project with a schoolfellow, they actually put it in execution, but were soon brought back to Madrid. Before this time, according to his own account, he had not only written verses, but composed dramas in four acts, which, as he tells us, was then the custom. Upon his return to Madrid, however, he abandoned this mode of composition, and ingratiated himself with the bishop of Avila by several pastorals, and a comedy in three acts, called “La Pastoral de Jacinto,” which is said to have formed an epoch in the annals of the theatre, and a prelude to the reform which Lope was destined to introduce.

a Dutch painter of great eminence, was descended of a considerable family in Leyden, and born in 1556. He was carefully educated by his parents in the belles lettres, and at the same time learned to design of Isaac Nicolas. In his fifteenth year, when the civil wars obliged him to leave his country, he retired to Liege, finished his studies, and there gave the first proofs of his talents. He was particularly known to cardinal Groosbeck, who gave him letters of recommendation when he went to Rome, where he was entertained by cardinal Maduccio. His genius was so active, that he at once applied himself to philosophy, poetry, mathematics, and painting, the latter under Frederico Zuchero. He acquired an excellence in all the parts of painting, especially in the knowledge of the chiar-oscuro, and he was the first who explained to the Flemish artists the principles of lights and shadows, which his disciple Rubens afterwards carried to so great a degree of perfection. He lived at Rome seven years, during which time he executed several fine pictures; and then, passing into Germany, was received into the emperor’s service. After this the duke of Bavaria and the elector of Cologn employed him: but all the advantages he got from the courts of foreign princes could not detain him there. He had a desire to return into the Low Countries, of which Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, was then governor. He drew the prince’s picture in armour, which confirmed his reputation in the Netherlands. After the death of that prince, Venius returned to Antwerp, where he adorned the principal churches with his paintings. The archduke Albert, who succeeded the prince of Parma in the government of the Low Countries, sent for him to Brussels, and made him master of the mint, a place which took up much of his time; yet he found spare hours for the exercise of his profession. He drew the archduke and the infanta Isabella’s portraits at large, which were sent to James L of Great Britain: and, to shew his knowledge of polite learning, as well as of painting, he published several treatises, which he embellished with cuts of his own designing. Among these are, 1. “Horatii Emblemata,” Antwerp, 1607, 4to, often reprinted, but this edition has the best plates. 2. “Amoris divini emblemata,” Antwerp, 1615, 4to. 3. “Amorum emblemata,” ibid. 1608, 4to. 4. “Batavorum cum Romanis bellum, &c.” ibid. 1612, 4to, &c. Venius died at Brussels, 1634, in his seventy-eighth year. He had two brothers; Gilbert, who was an engraver; and Peter, a painter; but his greatest honour was his having Rubens for a pupil.

As to the character of this great man, Clarendon says, he was “of a noble and generous disposition, and of such other endowments as made him very capable of being a great favourite with a great king. He understood the arts of a court, and all the learning that is possessed there, exactly well. By long practice in business, under a master that discoursed excellently, and surely knew all things wonderfully, and took much delight in indoctrinating his young unexperienced favourite, who (he knew) would always be looked upon as the workmanship of his own hands, he bad obtained a quick conception and apprehension of business, and had the habit of speaking very gracefully anci pertinently. He was of a most flowing courtesy and affability to all men who made any address to him, and so desirous to oblige them that he did not enough consider the value of the obligation, or the merit of the person he chose to oblige; from which much of his misfortune resulted. He was of a courage not to be daunted, which was manifested in all his actions, and in his contests with particular persons of the greatest reputation; and especially in his whole demeanour at the Isle of Rhee, both at the landing and upon the retreat; in both which no man was more fearless, or more ready to expose himself to the highest dangers. His kindness and affection to his friends was so vehement, that they were as so many marriages for better or worse, and so many leagues offensive and defensive: as if he thought himself obliged to love all his friends, and to make war upon all they were angry with, let the cause be what it would. And it cannot be denied, that he was an enemy in the same excess $ and prosecuted those he looked upon as enemies with the utmost rigour and animosity, and was not easily induced to a reconciliation. His single misfortune was, which was indeed productive of many greater, that he had never made a noble and a worthy friendship with a man so near his equal, that he would frankly advise him for his honour and true interest against the current, or rather the torrent, of his passions; and it may reasonably be believed, that, if he had been blessed with one faithful friend, who had been qualified with wisdom and integrity, he would have committed as few faults, and done as transcendant worthy actions, as any man who shined in such a sphere in that age in Europe; for he was of an excellent disposition, and of a mind very capable of advice and counsel; he was in his nature just and candid, liberal, generous, and bountiful; nor was it ever known, that the temptation of money swayed him to do an unjust or unkind thing. If he had an immoderate ambition, with which he was charged, it doth not appear that it was in his nature, or that he brought it with him to the court, but rather found it there. He needed no ambition, who was so seated in the hearts of two such masters.” This is the character which the earl of Clarendon has thought fit to give the duke; and if other historians have not drawn him in colours quite so favourable, yet they have not varied from him in the principal features.

The fame he had so justly acquired involved him now in a literary correspondence with the most eminent men of his time, who were desirous of his communications, and he soon became an authority in what regarded the Greek language. This, however, he did not permit to give any serious interruption to his studies; and the value he set on his time and labour appeared in the offence he took at the conduct of the academy. He had communicated several memoirs, of which they published only extracts, and therefore he desisted for several years from making any farther communications. His next publication was an edition of the pastoral of Longus, which appeared in 1778, and would have been an enormous volume if one of his learned friends had not prevailed on him to retrench half of his remarks, and even then its “superfluity of erudition” was objected to; “a charge,” says his biographer, “which did no injury to that species of reputation of which M. de Villoison was ambitious.”

Never was an eulogium more just. Nor did these serious and habitual occupations of his mind preclude its more lively excursions. In all those instances, at Westminster of periodical occurrence, when the talents of the masters are called frib, to give example and encouragement to the scholars, Pi prologues and epilogues at the plays, exercises and epigrams at the elections, &c. the compositions of Vincent were sure to be distinguished. He had not, indeed, nor did he rlatter himself that he had. that strong and original determination to poetry, which is denominated genius; but he possessed that lively relish for its genuine beauties, which, a-sisted by a familiar and exact knowledge of the best models, will always qualify a strong and versatile iniinl to think poetically, and to express its thoughts, always witn propriety, often with felicity. In many different styles he proved his talent for Latin composition in verse and prose; and what he produced of any kind, it was not easy to surpass. On these multifarious objects was his assiduity employed throughout the seventeen years in which he continued under-master.

Two most sagacious and diligent inquirers, M. D'Anville and Major Kennel, had already traced“Nearehus down the Indus, and up the Persian Gulf; but the whole intermediate line, extending through ten degrees of longitude direct, besides the sinuosities of 4he coast, they had, from whatever cause, abandoned altogether; though, as Dr. Vincent observes,” the merit of the commander depends upon the difficulties he surmounted, in this part of his voyage more especially; and the clearing up of the geographical obscurity was an object worthy of the talents of two such masters of the science."

When sentence of death was pronounced on this unhappy sovereign, Mr. Vines came with the other London ministers to offer their services to pray with his majesty the morning before his execution. The king thanked them, but declined their services. Vines was an admirable scholar; holy and pious in his conversation, and indefatigable in his labours, which wasted his strength, and brought him into a consumption when he had lived but about fifty -six years. He was a very painful and laborious minister, and spent his time principally amongst his parishioners, in piously endeavouring “to make them all of one piece, though they were of different colours, and unite them in judgment who dissented in affection.” In 1654 he was joined in a commission to eject scandalous and ignorant ministers and schoolmasters in London. He died in 1655, and was buried Feb. 7, in the parish-church of St. Lawrence Jewry, which having been consumed in the general conflagration of 1666, no memorial of him is there to be traced. His funeral-sermon was preached Feb. 7, by Dr. Jacomb, who gave him his just commendation. He was a perfect master of the Greek tongue, a good philologist, and an admirable disputant. He was a thorough Calvinist, and a bold honest man, without pride or flattery. Mr. Newcomen calls him “Disputator acutissimus, Concionator felicissimus, Theologus eximius.” Many funeral poems and elegies were made upon his death.

We cannot however imagine, that such an extraordinary gemus could lie long inactive and unexerted. It is related that, in the warmth of early youth, he formed a noble design of writing an heroic poem, “On the wars of Rome;” but, after some attempts, was discouraged from proceeding by the roughness and asperity of the old Roman names, which not only disgusted his delicate ear, but, as Horace expresses it, “quse versu dicere non est.” He turned himself, therefore, to pastoral; and, being captivated with the beauty and sweetness of Theocritus, was ambitious to introduce this new species of poetry among the Romans. His first performance in this way is supposed to have been written the year before the death of Julius Caesar, when the poet was in his twenty-fifth year: it is entitled “Alexis.” Possibly “Palaemon” was his second, which is a close imitation of the fourth and fifth Idylls of Theocritus. Dr. Warton places “Silenus” next: which is said to have been publicly recited on the stage by Cytheris, a celebrated comedian. Cicero, having heard this eclogue, cried out in an extasy of admiration, that the author of it was “magna3 spes altera Romae;” esteeming himself, say the commentators, to be the first. But the words may be understood in a very different sense, and more honourable to Cicero. The subject of this eclogue, we should remember, was an account of the Epicurean philosophy, both natural and moral, which had been but lately illustrated by Lucretius, an author, of whom Cicero was so eminently fond, as to revise and publish his work. Upon hearing therefore the beautiful verses of Virgil upon the same subject, Cicero exclaimed to this purpose: “Behold another great genius rising up among us, who will prove a second Lucretius.” Dr. Warton at least has suggested this very ingenious and natural interpretation. Virgil’s fifth eclogue is composed in allusion to the death and deification of Cassar. The battle of Philippi, in the year 7 12, having put an end to the Roman liberty, the veteran soldiers began to murmur for their pay; and Augustus, to reward them, distributed among them the lands of Mantua and Cremona. Virgil was involved in this common calamity, and applied to Varus and Pollio, who warmly recommended him to Augustus, and procured for him his patrimony again. Full of gratitude to Augustus, he composed the “Tityrus,” in which he introduces two shepherds; one of them complaining of the distraction of the times, and of the h.avock the soldiers made among the Mantuan farmers; the other, rejoicing for the recovery of his estate, and promising to honour the person who restored it to him as a god. But our poet’s joy was not of long continuance: for we are told, that, when he returned to take possession of his farm, he was violently assaulted by the intruder, and would certainly have been killed by him, if he had not escaped by swimming hastily over the Mincio. Upon this unexpected disappointment, melancholy and dejected, he returned to Rome, to renew his petition; and, during his journey, seems to have composed his ninth eclogue. The celebrated eclogue, entitled “Pollio,” was composed in the year 714, upon the following occasion. The consul Pollio on the part of Antony, and Maecenas on the part of Caesar, iiad made up the differences between them; by agreeing, that Octavia, half sister to Caesar, should be given in marriage to Antony. This agreement caused an universal joy; and Virgil, in this eclogue, testified his. Octavia was with child by her late husband Marcellus at the time of this marriage; and, as the Sibylline oracles had foretold, that a child was to be born about this time who should rule the world and establish perpetual peace, the poet ingeniously supposes the child in Octavia’s womb to be the glorious infant, under whose reign mankind was to be happy, the golden age to return from heaven, and fraud and violence to be no more. In this celebrated poem, the author with great delicacy at the same time pays his court to both the chiefs, to his patron Pollio, to Octavia, and to the unborn infant. It is dedicated to Pollio by name, who was at that time consul, and therefore we are sure of the date of this eclogue, as it is known he enjoyed that high office in the year 714. In the year 715, Pollio was sent against the Parthini, a people of Illyricum; and during this expedition Virgil addressed to him a beautiful eclogue, called “Pharmaceutria.” His tentti and last eclogue is addressed to Gallus. These were our poet’s first productions; and we have been the more circumstantial in our account of some of them, as many particulars of his life are intimately connected with them.

He is supposed to have been in his forty-fifth- year when he began to write the “Æneid;” the design of which is thus explained by an able master in classical literature. Augustus being freed from his rival Antony, the government of the Roman empire was to be wholly in him; and though he* chose to be called their father, he was, in every thing but the name, their king. But the monarchical form of government must naturally displease the Romans: and therefore Virgil, like a good courtier, seems to have laid the plan of his poem to reconcile them to it. He takes advantage of their religious turn, and of some old prophecies that must have been very flattering to the Roman people, as promising them the empire of the whole world. He weaves these in with the most probable account of their origin, that of being descended from the Trojans. He shews, that ^neas was called into their country by the express order of the gods; that there was an uninterrupted succession of kings from him to Romulus; that Julius Ca;sar was of this royal race, and that Augustus was his sole heir. The result of which was, that the promises made to the Roman people in and through this race, terminating in Augustus, the Romans, if they would obey the gods, and be masters of the world, were to yield obedience to the new establishment under that prince. The poem, therefore, may very well be considered as a political work: Pope used to say, “it was evidently as much a party-piece, as Absalom and Achitophel:” and, if so, Virgil was not highly encouraged by Augustus and Maecenas for nothing. The truth is, he wrote in defence of the new usurpation of the state; and all that can be offered in his vindication, which however seems enough, is, that the Roman government could no longer be kept from falling into a single hand, and that the usurper he wrote for was as good a one as they could have. But, whatever may be said of his motives for writing it, the poem has in all ages been highly applauded. Augustus was eager to peruse it before it was finished; and entreated him by letters to communicate it. Macrobius has preserved to us part of one of Virgil’s answers to the emperor, in which the poet excuses himself; who, however, at length complied, and read himself the sixth book to the emperor, when Octavia, who had just lost her son Marcellus, the darling of Rome, and adopted son of Augustus, made one of the audience. Virgil had artfully inserted that beautiful lamentation for the death of young Marcellus, beginning with “O nate, ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum” but suppressed his name till he came to the line “Tu Marcellus eris:” upon hearing which Octavia could bear no more, but fainted away, overcome with surprise and sorrow. When she recovered, shfc made the poet a present of ten sesterces for every line, which amounted in the whole to above 2OOO/.

But of whatever detriment his Pelagian history might be to him in Holland, it procured him both honour and profit from England, where it was by some exceedingly well received. Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, whose great object was to establish Arminianism, admired Vossius’s work so much, that he procured him a prebend in the church of Canterbury, while he resided at Leyden; but he afterwards, in 1629, came over to be installed, took a doctor of law’s degree at Oxford, and then returned. While at Oxford he discovered and encouraged the talents of Dr. Pocock, as we have already noticed in our account of that celebrated orientalist. In 1630, the town of Amsterdam having projected the foundation of an university, cast their eyes upon Vossius, as one likely to promote its reputation and credit. The literati, magistrates, and inhabitants of Leyden, complained loudly of this design, as injurious to their own university; which, they said, 'had had the preference assigned to it above all the other towns of Holland, because Leyden had sustained in 1574 a long siege against the Spaniards; and they were still more averse to it, on account of their being likely to lose so great an ornament as Vossius. Amsterdam, however, carried its purpose into execution; and Vossius went thither, in 1633, to be professor of history. He died there in 1649, aged seventy-two years; after having written and published as many works as, when they came to be collected and printed at Amsterdam in 1695 and the five following years, amounted to 6 vols. in folio. The principal of them are, “Etymologicon Linguae Latinae;” “De Origine & Progressu Idololatriae;” “De Historicis Græcis;” “De Historicis Latinis;” “De Arte Grammatica;” “De vitiis sermonis & glossematis Latino-Barbaris;” “Institutiones Oratoriae;” “Institutiones Poetica;” “Ars Historica,” the first book of the kind ever published; “De quatuor artibus popularibus, Grammatice, Gymnastice, Musice, & Graphice;” “De Philologia;” “De universa Matheseos natura & constitutione;” “De Philosophia;” “De Philosophorum sectis;” “De veterum Poetarum temporibus.” Most of these, particularly his account of the Greek and Latin historians, poets, have always been considered as works of authority and accuracy. He was an indefatigable student, and wrote with considerable rapidity. Granger, in an anecdote perhaps not worth repeating, says that our wonder at the number of Vossius’s works will be somewhat abated when we consider the following circumstance in a ms. of Mr. Ashmole, in his own museum. He says he had it from Dr. John Pell. “Gerard Vossius wrote his Adversaria on one side of a sheet of paper, and joined them together, and would so send them to the press, without transcribing.” Our wonder may be more rationally abated by considering that he employed the greater part of the day and even of the night in study, and was a most scrupulous ceconomist of time. When his friends came to pay him visits, he never allowed any of them more than a quarter of an hour. On one occasion, when Christopher Schrader, who knew his custom, had staid out his quarter, and was about to leave him, Vossius kept him another quarter, after which he pointed to the hour-glass which was always before him, and said, “You see how much time I have given you.”

M. des Maizeaux, in his life of St. Evremond, has recorded several particulars relative to the life and character of Isaac Vossius, which are certainly not of a very favourable cast. St. Evremond, he tells us, used to spend the summers with the court at Windsor, and there often saw Vossius; who, as St. Evremond described him, understood almost all the languages in Europe, without being able to speak one of them well; who knew to the very bottom the genius and customs of antiquity, yet was an utter stranger to the manners of his own times. He expressed himself in conversation as a man would have done in a commentary upon Juvenal or Petronius. He published books to prove, that the Septuagint version was divinely inspired; yet discovered, in private conversation, that he believed no revelation at all: and his manner of dying, which was far from being exemplary, shewed that he did not. Yet, to see the frailty of the human understanding, he was in other respects the weakest and most credulous man alive, and ready to swallow, without chewing, any extraordinary and wonderful thing, though ever so fabulous and impossible. This is the idea which St. Evremond, who knew him well, has given of him. If any more proofs of his unbelief are wanting, Des Maizeaux has given us them, in a note upon the foregoing account of St. Evremond. He relates, that Dr. Hascard, dean of Windsor, with one of the canons, visited Vossius upon his death-bed, and pressed him to receive the sacrament; but could not prevail, though they begged of him at last, that, “if he would not do it for the love of God, he would at least do it for the honour of the chapter.” Des Maizeaux relates another fact concerning Vossius, which he received from good authority; namely, that, when Dr. Hascard pressed him to take the sacrament, he replied, “I wish you would instruct me how to oblige the farmers to pay me what they owe me: this is what I would have you do for me at present.” Such sort of replies are said to have been common with him; and that once, when a brother of his mother was sick, and a minister was for giving him the communion, he opposed it, saying, “this is a pretty custom enough for sinners; but my uncle, far from being a sinner, is a man without vices.” As to his credulity and propensity to believe in the most implicit manner any thing singular and extraordinary, Mons. Renaudot, in his dissertations added to “Anciennes Relations des Indes & de la Chine,” relates, that Vossius, having had frequent conferences with the father Martini, during that Jesuit’s residence in Holland for the printing his “Atlas Chinois,” made no scruple of believing all which he told him concerning the wonderful things in China; and that he even went farther than Martini, and maintained as a certain fact the antiquity of the Chinese accounts above that of the books of Moses. Charles II. who knew his character well, used to call him the strangest man in the world for “there is nothing,” the king would say, “which he refuses to believe, except the Bible;” and it is probable, that the noble author of the “Characteristics” had him in his eye while he was writing the following paragraph. “It must certainly be something else than incredulity, which fashions the taste and judgment of many gentlemen, whom we hear censured as Atheists, for attempting to philosophize after a newer manner than any known of late. I have ever thought this sort of men to be in general more credulous, though after another manner, than the mere vulgar. Besides what I have observed in conversation with the men of this character, I can produce many anathematized authors, who, if they want a true Israelitish faith, can make amends by a Chinese or Indian, one. If they are short in Syria or the Palestine, they have their full measure in America or Japan. Histories of Incas or Iroquois, written by friers and missionaries, pirates and renegadoes, sea-captains and trusty travellers, pass for authentic records, and are canonical with the virtuosos of this sort. Though Christian miracles may not so well satisfy them, they dwell with the greatest contentment on the prodigies of Moorish and Pagan countries.” This perfectly corresponds with the nature and character of Isaac Vossius, although lord Shaftesbury might have more than one in his eye when he wrote it.

, a very learned man, whom some have confounded with John Gerard Vossius, was born in the diocese of Liege, some say at Berchloon, and others at Hasselt, but he does not appear to have been related to the family of Gerard. He was an ecclesiastic of the church of Rome, employed in some considerable offices under the popes, and died at Liege in 1609. He published a Latin commentary upon “Cicero in Somnium Scipionis,” at Rome, 1575; and all the works of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Ephrem Syrus, and some pieces of John Chrysostom and Theodoret, with Latin versions and notes.

, one of the earliest reformers of the church from Popery, but erroneously said to be the founder of that body of reformed Christians called the Waldenses, was an opulent merchant of Lyons in the twelfth century. The first time when he appears to have opposed the errors of the religion in which he was educated, was about 1160, when the doctrine of transubstantiation was confirmed by pope Innocent III. with the addition that men should fall down before the consecrated wafer and worship it as God. The absurdity of this forcibly struck the mind of Waldo, who opposed it in a very courageous manner. It does not appear, however, that he had any intention of withdrawing himself from the communion of the Romish church, or that in other respects he had any very serious notions of religion. The latter appears to have been produced first by the sudden death of a person with whom he was in company. This^lett very serious impressions on his mind, and he betook himself to reading the scriptures. At that time the Latin vulgate Bible was the only edition of the Scriptures in Europe; but that language was accessible to few. Waldo, however, from his situation in life, had had a good education, and could read this volume. “Being somewhat learned,” says Reinerius, “he taught the people the text of the New Testament.” He was also now disposed to abandon his mercantile pursuits, and distributed his wealth to the poor as occasion required, and while the latter flocked to him to partake of his alms, he also attended to their spiritual instruction, and either translated, or procured to be translated the four gospels into French; and thus the inhabitants of Europe were indebted to him for the first translation of the Bible into a modern tongue, since the time that the Latin had ceased to be a living language.

He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a monument erected by his son’s executors, for which Rymer wrote the inscriptions on* four sides. He left several children by his second wife; of whom, his daughter was married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son^ was disinherited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting common understanding. Edmund, the second son, inherited the estate, and represented Agmondesham in parliament, but at last tufned Quaker. William, the third son, was a merchant in London. Stephen, the fourth, educated at New college, Oxford, was an able civilian, and died Feb. 22, 1707, while the articles for the unio of the British kingdoms, which he had contributed to frajiie and improve, were under parliamentary consideration. There is said to have been a fifth, but we have no account of him. Wai* ler’s descendants still reside at Be-aconsfield, in the greatest affluence.

In our authorities are other proofs of his innocence in this matter; but we presume it cannot be denied that he had been of service to the republican government by this peculiar talent. He had always joined with them, and in 1653 he had the sequestered living of St. Gabriel, Fenchurch- street, granted to him. The same year he published in 4to, Truth tried; or, Animadversions on the Lord Brooke’s Treatise of the nature of Truth'.“His mother dying this year, he became possessed of a handsome fortune. In 1644 he was appointed one of the scribes or secretaries to the assembly of divines at Westminster, to whose conduct and views he gives a very different colouring from what we meet with in most of the publications of that time.” The parliament,“he asserts,” had a great displeasure against the order of bishops, or rather not so much against the order, as the men, and against the order for their sakes; and had resolved upon the abolition of episcopacy as it then stood, before they were agreed what to put instead of it; and did then convene this assembly to consult of some other form to be suggested to the parliament, to be by them set up, if they liked it, or so far as they should like it. The divines of this assembly were, for the generality of them, conformable, episcopal men, and had generally the reputation of pious, orthodox, and religious protestants; and (excepting the seven independents, or, as they were called dissenting brethren) I do not know of any nonconformist among them as to the legal conformity then required. Many of them were professedly episcopal, and, I think, all of them so episcopal, as to account a well-regulated episcopacy to be at least allowable, if not desirable and advisable; yet so as they thought the present constitution capable of reformation for the better. When I name the divines of this assembly, I do not include the Scots commissioners, who, though they were permitted to be present there, and did interpose in the debates, as they saw occasion, yet were no members of that assembly, nor did vote with them, but acted separately in behalf of the church of Scotland, and were zealous enough for the Scots presbytery, but could never prevail with the assembly to declare for it. On the other hand, the independents were against all united church government of more than one single congregation, holding that each single congregation, voluntarily agreeing to make themselves a church, and choose their own officers, were of themselves independent, and not accountable to any other ecclesiastical government, but only the civil magistrate, as to the public peace; admitting indeed that messengers from several churches might meet to consult in common, as there might be occasion, but without any authoritative jurisdiction* Against these, the rest of the assembly was unanimous, (and the Scots commissioners with them) that it was lawful by the word of God for divers particular congregations (beside the inspection of their own pastor and other officers) to be united under the same common government; and such communities to be further subordinate to provincial and national assemblies; which is equally consistent with episcopal and presbyterian principles. But whether with or without a bishop or standing president of such assemblies, was not determined or debated by them. When any such point chanced to be suggested, the common answer was, that this point was not before them, but was precluded by the ordinance by which they sat; which did first declare the abolition of episcopacy (not refer it to their declaration), and they only to suggest to the parliament somewhat in the room of that so abolished, And this is a true account of that assembly as to this point (and when as they were called presbyterians, it was not in the sense of anti-episcopal, but anti-independents), which I have the more largely insisted on, because there are not many now living who can give a better account of that assembly than I can. To this may be objected their agreement to the covenant, which was before I was amongst them. But this, if rightly understood, makes nothing against what I have said. The covenant, as it came from Scotland, and was sent from the parliament to the assembly, seemed directly against all episcopacy, and for setting up the Scots presbytery just as among them. But the assembly could not be brought to assent to it in those terms, being so worded as, to preserve the government of the church of Scotland, and to reform that of England, and so to reduce it to the nearest uniformity. But before the assembly could agree to it, it was thus mollified, to preserve that of Scotland (not absolutely, but) against the common enemy; and to reform that of England (not so as it is in Scotland, but) according to the word of God, and the exarnpleof the best reformed churches; and to endeavour the nearest uniformity; which might be as well by reforming that of Scotland, as that of England, or of both. And whereas the covenant, as first brought to them, was against popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, profaneness, &c. they would by no means be persuaded to admit the word prelacy, as thus standing absolute. For though they thought the English episcopacy, as it then stood, capable of reformation for the better in divers things, yet to engage indefinitely against all prelacy, they would not agree. After many days debate on this point (as I understood from those who were then present) some of the parliament, who then pressed it, suggested this expedient, that by prelacy they did not understand all manner of episcopacy or superiority, but only the present episcopacy, as it now stood in England, consisting of archbishops, bishops, and their several courts and subordinate officers, &c. And that if any considerable alteration were made in any part of this whole frame, it was an abolition of the present prelacy, and as much as was here intended in these words; and that no more was intended but a reformation of the present episcopacy in England. And in pursuance of this it was agreed to be expressed with this interpretation; prelacy, that is, church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, arch-deacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy. And with this interpretation at length it passed; and the Scots commissioners in behalf of their church agreed to those amendments. I know some have been apt to put another sense upon that interpretation; but this was the true intendment of the assembly, and upon this occasion."

, D. D. and F. R, S. was an English Benedictine monk, and a Roman catholic bishop also senior bishop and vicar apostolic of the western district, as well as doctor of theology of the Sorbonne. He died at Bath in 1797, in the seventy-sixth year of his age; and the forty-first of his episcopacy. He was the last survivor of those eminent mathematicians who were concerned in regulating the chronological style in England, which produced a change of the style in this country in 1752. Besides some ingenious astronomical essays in the Philosophical Transactions, he printed several separate works, both on mathematics and theology; as, 1. “Analyse cles Mesures des Rapports et des Angles,” 1749, 4to, being an extension and explanation of Cotes’ s '“Harmonia Mensurarum.” 2. “Theorie du monument des Aspides,” 1749, 8vo. 3. “De inaequalitatibus motuum Lunarium,” 1758, 4to. 4. “An Explanation of the Apocalypse, Ezekiel’s Vision,” &c. By the fire at Bath in the time of the riots, 1780, several valuable manuscripts which he had compiled in the course of his life and travels through many countries, were irretrievably lost.

Burnet says of him: “He was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among them, and was indeed, in all points of controversy, almost wholly a protestant. But he had senses of his own, by which he excused his adheiing to the church of Rome, and maintained, that with these he could continue in the communion of that church without sin, &c. He was an honest and able man, much practised in intrigues, and knew well the methods of the Jesuits and other missionaries.”

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

Living, while in London, in the parish of St. Dunstan in the West, of which Dr. John Donne, dean of St. Paul’s, was vicar, he became of course a frequent hearer of that excellent preacher, and at length, as he himself expresses it, his convert. Upon his decease, in 1631, sir H. Wotton requested Walton to collect materials for a life of the doctor, which sir Henry had undertaken to write; but, sir Henry dying before he had completed the life, Walton undertook it himself; and in 1640 finished and published it, with a collection of the doctor’s sermons, in folio. Sir H. Wotton dying in 1639, Walton was importuned by King to undertake the writing of his life also and it was finished about 1644. The precepts of angling, that is, the rules and directions for taking fish with a hook and line, till Walton’s time, having hardly ever been reduced to writing, were propagated from age to age chiefly by tradition; but Walton, whose benevolent and communicative temper appears in almost every line of his writings, unwilling to conceal from the world those assistances which his long practice and experience enabled him, perhaps the best of any man of his time, to give, in 1653 published in a very elegant manner his K Complete Angler, or Contemplative Man’s Recreation,“in small 12mo, adorned with exquisite cuts of most of the fish mentioned in it. The artist who engraved them has been so modest as to conceal his name; but there is great reason to suppose they are the work of Lombart, who is mentioned in the” Sculptura“of Mr. Evelyn; and also that the plates were of steel.” The Complete Angler“came into the world attended with en. comiastic verses by several writers of that day. What reception in general the book met with may be naturally inferred from the dates of the subsequent editions; the second came abroad in 1655; the third in 1664; the fourth in 1668, and the fifth and last in 1676, Sir John Hawkins bad traced the several variations which the author from time to time made in these suhsequent editions, as well by adding new facts and discoveries as by enlarging on the more entertaining parts of the dialogue. The third and fourth editions of his book have several entire new chapters; and the fifth, the last of the editions published in his life-time, contains no less than eight chapters more than the first, and twenty pages more than the fourth. Not having the advantage of a learned education, it may seem unaccountable that Walton so frequently cites authors that have written only in Latin, as Gesner, Cardan, Aldrovandus, Rondeletius, and even Albertus Magnus; but it may be observed, that the voluminous history of animals, of which the first of these was author, is in effect translated into English by Mr. Edward Topsel, a learned divine, chaplain, as it seems, in the church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, to Dr. Neile, dean of Westminster: the translation was published in 1658, and, containing in it numberless particulars concerning frogs, serpents, caterpillars, and other animals, though not of fish, extracted from the other writers above-named, and others, with their names to the respective facts, it furnished Walton with a great variety of intelligence, of which in the later editions of his book he has carefully availed himself: it was therefore through the medium of this translation alone that he was enabled to cite the other authors mentioned above; vouching the authority of the original writers, as he elsewhere does sir Francis Bacon, whenever occasion occurs to mention his natural history, or any other of his works. Pliny was translated to his hand by Dr. Philemon Holland; as were also Janus Dubravius” de Piscinis & Piscium natura,“and Lebault’s” Maison Rustique,“so often referred to by him in the course of his work. Nor did the reputation of” The Complete Angler“subsist only in the opinions of those for whose use it was more peculiarly calculated; but even the learned, either from the known character of the author, or those internal evidences of judgment and veracity contained in it, considered it as a work of merit, and for various purposes referred to its authority. Dr. Thomas Fuller, in his” Worthies,“whenever he has occasion to speak of fish, uses his very words. Dr. Plot, in his” History ofMaffordshire,“has, on the authority of our author, related two of the instances of the voracity of the pike, and confirmed them by two other signal ones, that had then lately fallen out in that county. These are testimonies in favour of Walton’s authority in matters respecting fish and fishing; and it will hardly be thought a diminution of that of Fuller to say, that he was acquainted with, and a friend of, the person whom he thus implicitly commends. About two years after the restoration, Walton wrote the life of Mr. Richard Hooker, author of the” Ecclesiastical Polity:“he was enjoined to undertake this work by his friend Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, who, by the way, was an angler. Bishop King, in a letter to the author, says of this life,” I have often seen Mr. Hooker with my father, who was afterwards bishop of London, from whom, and others at that time, I have heard of the most material passages which you relate in the history of his life.“Sir William Dugdale, speaking of the three posthumous books of the” Ecclesiastical Polity,“refers the reader” to that seasonable historical discourse lately compiled and published, with great judgment- and integrity, by that much-deserving person Mr. Isaac Walton."

In 1624 he was rector of Much-Munden, in Hertfordshire. He is said also to have been chaplain extraordinary to the king, and to have served in convocation. As he was an enemy to Arminianism, and in other respects bore the character of a puritan, he was nominated one of the committee for religion wlfich sat in the Jerusalem chamber in 1640, and also one of the assembly of divines, but never sat among them, which refusal soon brought on the severe persecution which he suffered. On the breaking out of the rebellion he added to his other offences against the usurping powers, that unpardonable one of joining with the other heads of houses in sending the college plate to the king. He was likewise in the convocation-house when all the members of the university there assembled, many of them men in years, were kept prisoners in the public schools in exceeding cold weather, till midnight, without food or fire, because they would not join in what the republican party required. After this, Dr. Ward was deprived of his mastership and professorship, and plundered and imprisoned both in his own and in St. John’s college. During his confinement in St. John’s he contracted a disease which is said to have put an end to his life, about six weeks after his enlargement; but there seems some mistake in the accounts of his death, which appears to have taken place Sept. 7, 1643, when he was in great want. He was buried in the chapel of Sidney-Sussex college. Of this house he had been an excellent governor, and an exact disciplinarian, and it flourished greatly under his administration. Four new fellowships were founded in his time, all the scholarships augmented, and a chapel and a new range of buildings erected. Dr. Ward was a man of great learning as well as piety, of both which are many proofs in his correspondence with archbishop Usher, appended to the life of that celebrated prelate. Fuller, in his quaint way, says he was “a Moses (not only for slowness of speech) but otherwise meekness of nature. Indeed, when in my private thoughts I have beheld him and doctor Collins (disputable whether more different or more eminent in their endowments) I could not but remember the running of Peter and John to the place where Christ was buried. In which race John came first, as the youngest and swiftest, but Peter first entered into the grave. Dr. Collins had much the speed of him in quicknesse of parts, but let me say (nor doth the relation of a pupil misguide me) the other pierced the deeper into underground and profound points of divinity.”

, an eminent antiquary, was descended from the ancient family of De Ware, or De Warr in Yorkshire, the only remains of which are, or lately were, in Ireland. His grandfather, Christopher Ware, was an early convert to the protestant religion in the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, and that principally by the arguments and persuasion of Fox, the celebrated martyrologist. His father James, who was liberally educated, was introduced to the court of queen Elizabeth, where he soon because noticed by the ministers of state, and in 1588 was sent to Ireland as secretary to sir William Fitz-Wiiliams, the lord deputy. He had not filled this office long before he was made clerk of the common pleas in the exchequer, and afterwards obtained the reversion of the patent place of auditor general, a valuable appointment, which remained nearly a century in his family, except for a short time during the usurpation; and his income having enabled him to make considerable purchases in the county and city of Dublin, &c. his family may be considered as now removed finally to Ireland. While on a visit ui E;i^l md, James I. bestowed on him the honour of knighthood, and as a particular mark of favour, gave his eldest son the reversion of the office of auditor general. He also sat in the Irish parliament which began May 1613, for the borough of Mallow in the county of Cork. He died suddenly, while walking the street in Dublin, in 1632. By his lady, Mary, sister of sir Ambrose Briden, of Maidstone in Kent, he had five sons and five daughters. His eldest son, the subject of this article, was born in Castlestreet, Dublin, Nov. 26, 1594, and discovering early a love of literature, his father gave him a good classical education as preparatory to his academical studies. In 1610, when sixteen years of age, he was entered a fellow commoner in Trinity college, Dublin, under the immediate tuition of Dr. Anthony Martin, afterwards bishop of Meath, and provost of the college; but his private tutor and chamber-fellow was Dr. Joshua Hoyle, an Oxford scholar, and afterwards professor of divinity. Here Mr. Ware applied to his studies with such success, that he was admitted to his degree of M. A. much sooner than usual.

Dr. Warner is said to have declared that he wrote his “Ecclesiastical History,” and his “Dissertation on the Common Prayer,” three folio volumes, both the original and corrected copies, with one single pen, which was an old one when he began, and when he finished was not worn out. We are likewise told that a celebrated countess begged the doctor to make her a present of it, and he having complied, her ladyship had a gold case made with a short history of the pen engraved upon it, and placed it in her cabinet of curiosities. This foolish story, for such it probably is, reminds us of a similar one related of the pious Matthew Henry, who is said to have written the whole of his commentary on the Bible, 5 vols. fol. with one pen. Mr. Henry is also said to have made this declaration in public. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Henry never wrote the whole of his commentary, nor lived to see it completed, and consequently could have made no such declaration.

His last publication was an edition of the “Juvenile Poems of Milton,” with notes, the object of which was “to explain his author’s allusions, to illustrate, or to vindicate his beauties, to point out his imitations, both of others and of Himself, to elucidate his obsolete diction, and by the adduction and juxtaposition of parallels gleaned both from his poetry and prose, to ascertain his favourite words, and to shew the peculiarities of his phraseology.” The first edition of this work appeared in 1785, and the second in 1791, a short time after his death* It appears that he had prepared the alterations and additions for the press some time before. It was indeed ready for the press in 1789, and probably begun about that time, but was not completed until after his death, when the task of correcting the sheets devolved upon his brother. His intention was to extend his plan to a second volume, containing the “Paradise Regained,” and “Sampson Agonistes;” and he left notes on both. He had the proof sheets of the first edition printed only on one side, which he carefully bound. They are still extant, and demonstrate what pains he took in avoiding errors, and altering expressions which appeared on a second review to be weak or improper. The second edition of Milton was enriched by Dr. Charles Burney*s learned remarks on the Greek verses, and by some observations on the other poems by Warburton, which were

For almost half a century symptoms of disaffection to the mother country had been so visible in the New England provinces, that as far back as 1734, the celebrated bishop Berkeley had predicted a total separation of North America from Great Britain. That prelate, when a private clergyman, had lived three years in Rhode-Island, and was an attentive and sagacious observer of the mariners and principles of the people, among whom he perceived the old leaven of their forefathers fermenting even then with great violence. The middle and southern provinces, however, were more loyal, and their influence, together with perpetual dread of the French before the peace of 1763, put off the separation to a more distant day than that at which, we have reason to believe, the bishop expected it to take place. Virginia, the most loyal of all the colonies, had long been in the habit of calling itself, with a kind of proud pre-eminence, “his Majesty’s ancient dominion,” and it was with some difficulty that the disaffected party of New England could gain over that province, when the time arrived for effecting their long-meditated revolt. At last, however, they succeeded, and we find Mr. Washington a delegate from Virginia in the Congress, which met at Philadelphia Oct. 26, 1774. As no American united in so high a degree as he did, military experience with an estimable character, he was appointed to the command of the army which had assembled in the New England provinces, to hold in check the British army which was then encamped under general Gage at Boston.

Dr. Waterland was one of the ablest defenders of the doctrine of the Trinity in his day, not perhaps always the most temperate, for he appears to have occasionally lost his temper amidst the rude attacks of some of his antagonists, but in general he adhered closely to his argument, and avoided personalities. As Arianism was the chief object of his aversion, it was some times retorted that he too had departed from the* creed of his church by inclining towards Arminianism. His character was drawn at great length by the rev. Jeremiah Seed, in a funeral sermon, preached Jan. 4, 1740-1, the Sunday after his interment. “His head,” says Mr. Seed, “was an immense library, where the treasures of learning were ranged in such exact order, that, whatever himself or his friends wanted, he could have immediate recourse to, without any embarrassment. A prodigious expence of reading, without a confusion of ideas, is almost the peculiar characteristic of his writings. His works, particularly those upon our Saviour’s Divinity, and the Importance of the doctrine, and the Eucharist, into which he has digested the learning of all preceding ages, will, we may venture to say, be transmitted to, and stand the examination of, all succeeding ones. He has so thoroughly exhausted every subject that he wrote a set treatise upon, that it is impossible to hit upon any thing which is not in his writings, or to express that more justly and clearly, which is there.”

, an excellent printer, was born at Aberdeen, where his father was an eminent merchant during the reign of Charles II. and in 1695 set up a printinghouse in Edinburgh, which reduced him to many hardships, being frequently prosecuted before the privy-council of Scotland for printing in opposition to a patent granted to one Mr. Anderson some years before. In 1711, however, Mr. Watson, in conjunction with Mr. Freebairn, obtained a patent from queen Anne, and they published several learned works; and some of them were printed on very elegant types, particularly a Bible, in crown 8vo, 1715, a matchless beauty, and another in 4to. He wrote also a curious “History of Printing,” in Scotland, which is prefixed to his “Specimens of Types,” a rare little volume, printed in the early part of the last century. He died at Edinburgh, Sept. 24, 1722.

, the historian of Halifax, was eldest son of Legh Watson by Hester daughter and at last heiress of John Yates, of Svvinton in Lancashire, and was born at Lyrne-cum-Hanley, in the parish of Prestbury, in Cheshire, March 26, 1724. Having been brought up at the grammar-schools of Eccles, Wigan, and Manchester, all in Lancashire, he was admitted a commoner in BrazenNose-college, Oxford, April 7, 1742. In Michaelmasterm, 1745, he took the degree of B. A. June 27, 1746, he was elected a fellow of Brazen-Nose college, being chosen into a Cheshire fellowship, as being a Prestburyparish man. On the title of his fellowship he was ordained a deacon at Chester by bishop Peploe, Dec. 21, 1746. After his year of probation, as fellow, was ended, and his residence at Oxford no longer required, he left the college; and his first employment in- the church was the curacy of Runcorn, in. Cheshire here he stayed only three months, and removed thence to Ardwick, near Manchester, where he was an assistant curate at the chapel there, and private tutor to the three sons of Samuel Birch, of Ardwick, esq. During his residence here, he was privately ordained a priest at Chester, by the above bishop Peploe, JMay 1, 1748, and took the degree of M. A. at Oxford, in act- term the same year. From Ardwick he removed to Halifax, and was licensed to the curacy there, Oct. 17, 1750, by Dr. Matthew Hutton, archbishop of York. June 1, 1752, he married Susanna, daughter and heiress of the late rev. Mr. Allon, vicarof Sandbach, in Cheshire, vacating thereby his fellpwship at Oxford. Sept. 3, 1754, he was licensed by the above Dr. Hutton, on the presentation of George Legh, LL. D. vicar of Halifax, to the perpetual curacy of Ripponden, in the parish of Halifax. Here he rebuilt the curate’s house, at his own expence, laying out above 400l. upon the same, which was more than a fourth part of the whole sum he there received; notwithstanding which, his unworthy successor threatened him with a prosecution in the spiritual court, if he did not allow him ten pounds for dilapidations, v^hich, for the sake of peace, he complied with. Feb. 17, 1759, he was elected F. S. A. After his first wife’s death, he was married, July 11, 1761, at Ealand, in Halifax parish, to Anne, daughter of Mr. James Jaques, of Leeds, merchant. August 17, 1766, he was inducted to the rectory of Meningsby, Lincolnshire, which he resigned in 1769, on being promoted to the rectory of Stockport, in Cheshire, worth about 1500l. a year. His presentation to this, by sir George Warren^ bore date July 30, 1769, and he was inducted thereto August the 2d following. April 11, 1770, he was appointed one of the domestic chaplains to the right hon. the earl of Dysart. April 24, 1770, having received his dedimus for acting as a justice of the peace in the county of Chester, he was sworn into that office on that day. Oct. 2, 1772, he received his dedimus far acting as a justice of peace for tfie county of Lancaster, and was sworn in accordingly. His principal publication was “The History of Halifax,” 1775, 4to, whence these particulars are chiefly taken. He died March 14, 1783, after finishing for the press, in 2 vols. 4to, “A History of the ancient earls of Warren and Surrey,” with a view to represent his patron sir George Warren’s claim to those ancient titles; but it is thought by a very acute examiner of the work and judge of the subject, that he has left the matter in very great doubt.

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

The passage thus elegantly alluded to is as follows “Our next observation shall be made upon that remarkably kind providence which brought the doctor into sir Thomas Abney’s family, and continued him there till his death, a period of no less than thirty-six years. In the midst of his sacred labours for the glory of God, and good of his generation, he is seized with a most violent and threatening fever, which leaves him oppressed with great weakness, and puts a stop at least to his public services for four years. In this distressing season, doubly so to his active and pious spirit, he is invited to sir Thomas Abney’s family, nor ever removes from it till he had finished his days. Here he enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of the truest friendship. Here, without any care of his own, he had every thing which could contribute to the enjoyment of life, and favour the unwearied pursuits of his studies. Here he dwelt in a family, which for piety, order, harmony, and every virtue, was an house of God. Here he had the privilege of a country recess, the fragrant bower, the spreading lawn, the flowery garden, and other advantages, to sooth his mind and aid his restoration to health; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return to them with redoubled vigour and delight. Had it not been for this most happy event, he might, as to outward view, have feebly, it may be painfully, dragged on through many more years of languor, and inability for public service, and even for profitable study, or perhaps might have sunk into his grave under the overwhelming load of infirmities in the midst of his days; and thus the church and world would have been deprived of those many excellent sermons and works, which he drew up and published during his long residence in this family. In a few years after his coming thither, sir Thomas Abney dies: but his amiable consort survives, who shews the doctor the same respect and friendship as before, and most happily for him, and great numbers besides, for, as her riches were great, her generosity and munificence were in full proportion: her thread of life was drawn out to a great age, even beyond that of the doctor’s, and thus this excellent man, through her kindness, and that of her daughter,-the present (1780) Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who in a like degree esteemed and honoured him, enjoyed all the benefits and felicities he experienced at his first entrance into this family, till his days were numbered and finished, and, like a shock of corn in its season, he ascended into the regions of perfect and immortal life and joy.”

His execution took place May 12, 1641, in the fortyninth year of his age. Though his death, says Hume, wa loudly demanded as a satisfaction to justice, and an atonement for the many violations of the constitution, it may be safely affirmed, that the sentence by which he fell was an enormity greater than the worst of those which his implacable enemies prosecuted with so much cruel industry. The people in their rage had totally mistaken the proper object of their resentment. All the necessities, or, more properly speaking, the difficulties with which the king had been induced to use violent expedients for raising supply, were the result of measures previous to Stafford’s favour: and if they arose from ill conduct, he at least was entirely innocent. Even those violent expedients themselves which occasioned the complaint that the constitution was subverted, had been, all of them, conducted, so far as appeared, without his counsel or assistance. And whatever his private advice might be, this salutary maxim he failed not, often, and publicly, to inculcate in the king’s presence, that, if any inevitable necessity ever obliged the sovereign to violate the laws, this license ought to be practised with extreme reserve, and as soon as possible a just atonement be made to the constitution for any injury that it might sustain from such dangerous precedents. The first parliament after the Restoration reversed the bill of attainder; and even a few weeks after Stafford’s execution, this very parliament remitted to his children the more severe consequences of his sentence, as if conscious of the violence with which the prosecution had been conducted.

He published “De Ratione et Methodo legendi Historias Dissertatio,” Oxon. 1625, in 8vo. This was an useful work, and the first regular attempt to investigate the subject on proper principles. It long went through several editions, with the addition of pieces upon the same subject by other hands: but the best is that translated into English, with this title, “The Method and Order of reading both Civil and Ecclesiastical Histories; in which the most excellent historians are reduced into the order in which they are successively to be read; and the judgments of learned men concerning each of them subjoined. By Degory Whestre, Camden reader of history in Oxford. To which is added, an appendix concerning the historians of particular nations, ancient and modern. By Nicolas Horseman. With Mr. Dodwell’s invitation to gentlemen to acquaint themselves with ancient history. Made English, and enlarged by Edmund Bohun, esq.” Loud. 1698, in 8vo.

Dr. White’s next publication was an edition of the Greek Testament, “Novum Testamentum, Greece. Lectiones variantes, Griesbachii judicio, iis quas Textus receptus exhibet, anteponendas vel eequiparandas, adjecit Josephus White,” &c. 2 vols. cr. 8vo, 1808. This edition is particularly valuable for the ready and intelligible view it affords, first, of all the texts which in Griesbach’s opinion ought either certainly or probably to be removed from the received text; secondly, of those various readings which the same editor judged either preferable or equal to those of the received text; thirdly, of those additions which, ou the authority of manuscripts Griesbach considers as fit to be admitted into the text. From this Dr. White observes that it may be seen at once by every one how very little, after all the labours of learned men, and the collation of so many manuscripts, is liable to just objection in the received text. As a kind of sequel, and printed in the same form, he published in 1811, “C risers Griesbachianse in. Novum Testamentum Synopsis,” partly with a view to familiarize the results of Griesbach’s laborious work, by removing from them the obscurity of abbreviations, but principally, as he says himself, to demonstrate, by a short and easy proof, how safe and pure the text of the New Testament is, in the received editions, in all things that affect our faith or duty, and how few alterations it either requires or will admit, on any sound principles of criticism.

No farther steps were taken against the author of “Man-r ners;” the whole process, indeed, was supposed to be intended rather to intimidate Pope than to punish Whitehead; and it answered that purpose: Pope became cautious, “willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,” and Whitehead for some years remained quiet. The noise, however, which this prosecution occasioned, and its failure as to the main object, induced Whitehead’s enemies to try whether he might not be assailed in another way, and rendered the subject of odium, if not of punishment. In this pursuit the authors of some of the ministerial journals published a letter from a Cambridge student who had been expelled for atheism, in which it was intimated that Whitehead belonged to a club of young men who assembled to encourage one another in shaking off what they termed the prejudices of education. But Whitehead did not suffer this to disturb the retirement so necessary in his present circumstances, and as the accusation had no connection with his politics or his poetry, he was content to sacrifice his character with respect to religion, which he did not value, in support of the cause he had espoused. That he was an infidel seems generally acknowledged by all his biographers; and when he joined the club at Mednam Abbey, it mustbe confessed that his practices did not disgrace his profession.

will want nothing else to excite abhorrence; but Churchill has taken too many liberties with truth to be believed without corroborating evidence. Besides, we are to consider what part of Whitehead’s conduct excited this indignation. Paul’s great and unpardonable crime, in Churchill’s eyes, was his accepting a place under government, and laying aside a pen, which, in conjunction with Churchill’s, might have created wonders in the political world. Churchill could not dislike him because he was an infidel and a man of pleasure. In point of morals, there was surely not much difference in the misfortune of being born a Whitehead or a Churchill.

He was interred in the parish church of Croydon, where a monument was erected, with an inscription to his memory. He is described as being in person of a middle stature, a grave countenance, and brown complexion, black hair and eyes. He wore his beard neither long nor thick. He was small-boned, and of good agility, being straight and weli shaped in all his limbs, to the light habit of his body, which began somewhat to spread and fill out towards his latter years. His learning seems to have been confined to the Latin language, as Hugh Broughton often objected to him, nor does he appear to have been much skilled in the deeper points of theology; but he was an admired and diligent preacher, and took delight in exercising his talent that way; it was, however, in ecclesiastical government that his/brte lay, in the administration of which he was both indefatigable and intrepid. It is by his conduct in this that his character has been estimated by posterity, and has been variously estimated according to the writer’s regard for, or aversion to, the constitution of the church of England.

, famous for his embassies and his writings, was a Hollander, and born in 1598; but it is not certain at what place, though some have mentioned Amsterdam. He left his country very young, and went and settled in France, where he applied himself diligently to political studies, and sought to advance himself by political services. Having made himself known to the elector of Brandenburg, this prince appointed him his resident at the court of France, about 1626 and he preserved this post two- and-thirty years, that is, till 1658. Then he fell into disgrace with cardinal Mazarin, who never had much esteem for him, and particularly disliked his attachment to the house of Conde. The cardinal accused him of having sent secret intelligence to Holland and other places; and he was ordered to leave the court and the kingdom: but, before he set out, he was seized and sent to the Bastille. M. le Teilier wrote at the same time tp the elector of Brandenburg, to justify the action; which he did by assuring him that his minister was an intelligencer in the pay of several princes. The year after, however (1659), he was set at liberty, and escorted by a guard to Calais; whence he passed over to England, and thence to Holland. There De Witt, the pensionary, received him affectionately, and protected him powerfully: he had indeed been the victim of De Witt, with whom he had carried on a secret correspondence, which was discovered by intercepted letters. He reconciled himself afterwards to France, and heartily espoused its interests; whether out of spite to the prince of Orange, or from some other motive; and the count d'Estrades reposed the utmost confidence in him. JFor the present, the duke of Brunswic-Liwienburg made him his resident at the Hague; and he was appointed, besides this, secretary-interpreter of the States General for foreign dispatches.

In 1762 he began to engage in political discussion. In March of that year he published “Observations on the papers relative to the rupture with Spain, laid before both houses of parliament on Friday, Jan. 29, 1762.” As much of his information on this subject was supplied by lord Temple (who, with Mr. Pitt, had retired from the cabinet in consequence of a negative being put upon their proposition for an immediate war with Spain) the success of this pamphlet is little to be wondered at. As he did not put his name to it, it was ascribed to Dr. Douglas, or Mr. Manduit, by the sly suggestions of the real author. In the beginning of June following he commenced his celebrated paper called “The North Briton.” The purpose of this was ostensibly to expose the errors of the then ministry, and hold them up to public contempt, but really, to give the author that sort of consequence that might lead to advantages which his extravagant mode of living had by this time rendered necessary. We have his own word that he had determined to take advantage of the times and to make his fortune, and that he soon formed an idea of what would silence and satisfy him. “If government,” says he, “means peace or friendship with me, I then breathe no longer hostility. And, between ourselves, if they would send me ambassador to Constantinople, it is all I should wish.” Again, “It depends on them (the ministry) whether Mr. Wilkes is their friend or their enemy It he starts as the latter, he will lash them with scorpions, and they <ire already prepared; I wih, however, we may be friends; and I had rattier follow the plan I had marked out in my letter from Geneva/' alluding to the embassy to Constantinople. In a subsequent letter he says,” If the ministers do not find employment for me, I am disposed 10 find employment for them." In these extracts we have anticipated the order of time, for they were written in 1764, when he was an exile, but they are necessarily introduced here to unfold the real character of Mr. Wilkes, and to determine to what species of patriots he belonged. We see nt the same time here how very near the most popular character of the age was to dropping into comparative obscurity, and at what a cheap rate the ministry might have averted the hostility of Wilkes, and all its consequences, which we have always considered as more hurtful than beneficial to his country.

We have already mentioned in our account of lord Camden how very popular this decision made him throughout the kingdom, and the same enthusiasm made it be considered as a complete triumph on the part of Mr. Wilkes, who, however, perhaps, thought differently of it, conscious that he had other battles to fight in which he might not be so ably supported. On Jan. liJ, 1764, he was expelled from the House of Commons; and on Feb. 21 was convicted in the court of King’s Bench for re- publishing the 46 North Briton, No. 45,“and also upon a second indictment, for printing and publishing an <; Essay on Woman.” This was an obscene poem which he printed at his private press, but can scarcely be said to have published it, as he printed only a very small number of copies (about twelve) to give away to certain friends. The great offence was (and this was complained of in the House of Lords), that he had annexed the name of bishop Warburton to this infamous poem, and it was hoped, by the ministry, that holding Mr. Wilkes forth as a profligate, might cure the public of that dangerous and overpowering popularity they were about to honour him with. But this was another of their erroneous calculations.- The populace at this time, at least the populace of London, were more anxious about general warrants, which might affect one in ten thousand, than about morals, which are the concern of all; and even some of the better sort could see no immediate connection between Wilkes’s moral and political offences.

By the death of Dr. Willan the profession was deprived of one of its bright ornaments, and of its zealous and able improvers; the sick, of a humane, disinterested, and discerning physician; and the world of an estimable and upright man, while in all the relations of domestic life, indeed, he was an object of general esteem and attachment.

Some time after the death of his wife, he married in 1701, as his second, Jane, the widow of Mr. Francis Barkstead, and the daughter of one Guill, a French refugee; by her also he had a very considerable fortune, which he devoted to the purposes of liberality. Of his political sentiments, we Jearn only, that he was an enemy to the bill against occasional conformity, and a staunch friend to the union with Scotland. When on a visit to that country in 1709, he received a diploma for the degree of D. D. from the university of Edinburgh, and another from Glasgow, Qne of his biographers gives us the following account of his conduct on this occasion. “He was so far from seeking or expecting thjs honour, that he was greatly displeased with the occasion of it, and with great modesty he entreated Mr. Carstairs, the principal of the college at Edinburgh, to prevent it. But the dispatch was made before that desire of his could reach them. I have often heard Jiim express his dislike of the thing itself, and much more his distaste at the pfficious vanity of some who thought they had much obliged him when they moved for the procuring it; and this, not that he despised the honour of being a graduate in form in that profession in which he was now a truly reverend father; nor in the least, that he refused to receive any favours from the ministers of the church gf Scotland, for whom he preserved a very great esteem, and on many occasions gave signal testimonies of his respect; but he thought it savoured of an extraordinary franity? that the English presbyterians should accept a nominal distinction, which the ministers of the church of Scotland declined for themselves, and did so lest it should break in upon that parity which they so severely maintained; which parity among the ministers of the gospel, the presbyterians in England acknowledged also to be agreeable to that scripture rule, ‘ Whosoever will be greatest among you let him be as the younger,’ Luke xxii. 26 and Matt, xxiii. 8, `Be ye not called Rabbi,' of which text a learned writer says, it should have been translated, `Be ye not called doctors’ and the Jewish writers and expositors of their law, are by some authors styled Jewish Rabbins, by others, and that more frequently, doctors, &c. &c.” Our readers need scarcely be told that this is another point on which Dr. Williams differs much from his successors, who are as ambitious of the honour of being called doctor, as he was to avoid it.

, a celebrated natural historian, was the only sort of sir Francis Willughby, knt, and was born in 1635. His natural advantages, with regard to birth, talents, and fortune, he applied in such a manner as to procure to himself honours that might more truly be called his own. He was addicted to study from his childhood, and was so great an ceconomist of his time, that he was thought by his friends to have impaired his health by his incessant application, By this means, however, he attained great skill in all branches of learningand got deep insight into the most abstruse kinds of knowledge, and the most subtle parts of the mathematics. But observing, in the busy and inquisitive age in which he lived, that the history of animals was in a great measure neglected by his countrymen, he applied himself particularly to that province, and used all diligence to cultivate and illustrate it. To prosecute this purpose more effectually, he carefully read over what had been written by others on that subject; and in 1660, we find him residing at Oxford for the benefit of the public library. But he had been originally a member of Trinity college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of A. B. in 1656, and of A. M. in 1659. After leaving Oxford, he travelled, in search of natural knowledge, several times over his native country; and afterwards to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Low-Countries, attended by his ingenious friend Mr. John Ray, and others; in all which places, says Wood, he was so inquisitive and successful, that not many sorts of animals, described by others, escaped his diligence. He died July 3, 1672, aged only thirty-seven; to the great loss of the republic of letters, and much lamented by those of the Royal Society, of which he was an eminent member and ornament. He left to Mr. Ray the charge of educating his two infant sons, with an annuity of 70/, which constituted ever after the chief part of Ray’s income. A most exemplary character of him may be seen iti Ray’s preface to his “Ornithology;” whence all the particulars are concisely and elegantly summed up in a Latin epitaph, on a monument erected to his memory in the church of Middleton in Warwickshire, where he is buried with his ancestors. His works are, “Ornithologiae libri tres: in quibus aves omnes hactenus cognitse in methodum naturis suis convenientem redactoe accurate describuntur, descriptiones iconibus elegantissimis, & vivarnm avium simillimis atri incisis illustrantur,” 1676, folio. This was prepared for the press, corrected and digested into order, by Hay, afterwards by him also translated into English, with an appendix, and figures engraved at the expense of Mr. Willaghby, but of inferior merit, 1673, folio. 2. “Historiae Piscium libri quatuor, &c.” 1686, folio. This was revised and digested by Ray, with engravings of many species, not then known in England. 3. “Letter containing some considerable observations about that kind of wasps called Ichneumones, &c. dated Aug. 24, 1671.” See the Phil. Trans. N* 76. 4. “Letter about the hatching a kind of bee lodged in old willows, dated July 10, 1671.” Trans. N fl 47. 5. “Letters of Francis Wiilughby, esq.” added to “Philosophical Letters between the late learned Mr. Ray and several of his correspondents,” 8vo, By William Derham.

In 1768, bishop Warburton, who had the highest opnion of sir Eardley, requested him to become one of the first trustees of his lectureship at Lincoln’s-inn chapel, along with lord Mansfield and Mr. Yorke; and this being complied with, in 1769, sir Eardley requested his assistance and advice on the occasion of one of his sons preparing himself for the church. The bishop complied, and sent him the first part of some “Directions for the study of Theology,” which have since been printed in Warburton’s works, being given to his editor, Dr. Hurd, by the son to whom they were addressed, the late John Eardley Wilmot, esq. Circumstances afterwards induced this son to go into the profession of the law, on which sir Eardley, in 1771, made the following indorsement on the bishop’s paper. “These directions were given me by Dr. Warburton, bishop of Gloucester, for the use of my son, when he proposed to go into orders; but, in the year 1771, he unfortunately preferred the bar to the pulpit, and, instead of lying upon a bed of roses, ambitioned a crown of thorns. Digne puer meliore flamma /” This shews how uniform sir Eardley was, from his earliest youth, in his predilection for the church, a predilection which probably influenced, more or less, every act of his life. It was about this time, viz. 1769, that sir Eardley presided in the memorable cause of Mr. Wilkes against lord Halifax and others, a period of great heat and violence, both in parliament and in the nation; but he was so entirely free from all political bias, that his conduct gave universal satisfaction. It was an action of trespass for false imprisonment, damages laid at 20,000l.; Mr. Wilkes having been taken up and confined in the Tower, and his papers seized and taken away, by virtue of a general warrant from lord Halifax, one of his majesty’s secretaries of state. Sir Eardley’s speech is published in his Life, and does great credit to his impartiality. The jury gave 4000l. damages.

, an English historian, was the son of Richard Wilson, of Yarmouth, in the county of Norfolk, gentleman; and was born in that county, 1596. In 1609 he went to France, where he continued almost two years; and upon his return to England was placed with sir Henry Spiller, to be one of his clerks in the exchequer office; in whose family he resided till having written some satirical verses upon one of the maid-servants, he was dismissed at lady Spiller’s instigation. In 1613 he took a lodging in Holborn, where he applied himself to reading and poetry for some time; and, the year after, was taken into the family of Robert earl of Essex, whom he attended into the Palatinate in 1620; to the siege of Dornick, in Holland, in 1621 to that of Rees in 1622 to Arnheim, in 1623 to the siege of Breda in 1624 and in the expedition to Cadiz in 1625. In 1630 he was discharged the earl’s service, at the importunity of his lady, who had conceived an aversion to him, because she had supposed him to have been against the earl’s marrying her. He tells us, in his own life, that this lady’s name, before she marrie,d the earl, was Elizabeth Paulet; that “she appeared to the eye a beauty, full of harmless sweetness; that her conversation was affable and gentle; and, as he was firmly persuaded, that it was not forced, but natural. But the height of her marriage and greatness being an accident, altered her very nature; for,” he says, “she was the true image of Pandora’s box,” nor was he much mistaken, for this lady was divorced for adultery two years after her marriage. In 1631 he retired to Oxford, and became gentlman commoner of Trinity college, where he stayed almost two years, and was punctual in his compliance with the laws of the university. Then he was sent for to be steward to the earl of Warwick, whom he attended in 1637 to the siege of Breda. He died in 1652, at Felstead, in Essex, and his will was proved in October of that year. The earl and countess of Warwick received from him the whole of his library, and 50l. to be laid out in purchasing a piece of gold plate, as a memorial, particularly applying to the Jatter, “in testimony,” as he adds, “of my humble duty and gratitude for all her noble and 1 undeserved favours to me.” Gratitude seems to have been a strong principle with Wilson, as appears from his life, written by himself, and printed in Peck’s “Desiderata.” Wood’s account of him is, that “he had little skill in the Latin tongue, less in the Greek, a good readiness in the French, and some smattering in the Dutch. He was well seen in the mathematics and poetry, and sometimes in the common law of the nation. He had composed some comedies, which were acted at the Black Friars, in London, by the king’s players, and in the act-time at Oxford, with good applause, himself being- present; but whether they are printed I cannot yet tell; sure lam, that I have several specimens of his poetry printed in divers books. His carriage was very courteous and obliging, and such as did become a wellbred gentleman. He also had a great command of the English tongue, as well in writing as speaking; and, had he bestowed his endeavours on any other subject than that of history, they would without doubt have seemed better. For, in those things which he hath done, are wanting the principal matters conducing to the completion of that” faculty, viz. matter from record, exact time, name, and place, which, by his endeavouring too much to set out his bare collections in an affected and bombastic style, are much neglected.“The history here alluded to by Wood, is” The Life and Reign of king James I.“printed in London in 1653, folio; that is, the year after his death and reprinted in the 2d volume of” -The complete History of England,“in 1706, folio. This history has been severely treated by many writers. Mr. William Sanderson says, that,” to give Wilson his due, we may find truth and falsehood finely put together in it.“Heylin, in the-general preface to his” Examen,“styles Wilson’s history” a most famous pasquil of the reign of king James; in which it is not easy to judge whether the matter be more false, or the style more reproachful to all parts thereof.“Mr. Thomas Fuller, in his” Appeal of injured Innocence,“observes, how Robert earl of Warwick told him at Beddington, that, whenWilson’s book in manuscript was brought to him, his lordship expunged more than an hundred offensive passages: to which Mr. Fuller replied,” My lord, you have done well; and you had done better if you had put out a hundred more.“Mr. Wood’s sentence is,” that, in our author’s history, may easily be discerned a partial presbyterian vein, that constantly goes through the whole work: and it being the genius of those people to pry more than they should into the courts and comportments of princes, they do take occasion thereupon to traduce and bespatter them. Further also, our author, having endeavoured in many things to make the world believe that king James and his son after him were inclined to Popery, and to bring that religion into England, hath made him subject to many errors and misrepresentations.“On the other band, archdeacon Echard tells us, that” Wilson’s History of the life and reign of king James, though written not without some prejudices and rancour in respect to some persons, and too much with the air of a romance, is thought to be the best of that kind extant:“and the writer of the notes on the edition of it in the” Complete History of England“remarks, that, as to the style of our author’s history,” it is harsh and broken, the periods often obscure, and sometimes without connection; faults, that were common in most writers of that time. Though he finished that history in the year 1652, a little before his death, when both the monarchy and hierarchy were overturned, it does not appear he was an enemy to either, but only to the corruptions of them; as he intimates in the picture he draws of himself before that hook."

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

* When about to visit that country in perhaps I make the time shorter than his official capacity, he called on Dr. it was. Such conversation I shall not Johnson and in the course of con- have again till I come back to the reversation lamented that he should be gions of Literature, and there Windunder the necessity of sanctioning ham is inter stellas luna. minores.“Alpractices of which he could not ap- though e have said that illness was prove.” Don't be afraid, sir,“said the cause of Mr. Windham’s resignathe tioctor, with a pleasant smile, tion, his biographer affords some rea­”you will soon in -ke a very pretty son to think that it really arose from rascal.“Dr. Johnson in a letter to the conscientious scruples which Dr. Dr. Bruckle.-'by, written an Ashbourne Johnson thought might soon vanish, in 1784 says:” Mr. Wjiuiham has and that it was owing to his being been here to see me he came, [ dissatisfied with some part of the lord think, forty miles ou of his Vay, lieutenaut’s conduct, and staid about a day aud a half; Although from the time of his coming into parliament, he usually voted with the opposition of that day, he never was what is called a thorough party-man, frequently deviating from those to whom he was in general attached, when, in matters of importance, his conscience directed him to take a different course from them; on which account his virtues and talents were never rightly appreciated by persons of that description, who frequently on this ground vainly attempted to undervalue him. After thq rupture between Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke, in consequence of the French revolution, Mr. Windham attached himself wholly to the latter, with whom he had for many years lived in the closest intimacy; and of whose genius and virtues he had always the highest admiration. Being with him thoroughly convinced of the danger then impending over his country from the measures adopted by certain classes of Englishmen, in consequence of that tremendous convulsion, he did not hesitate to unite with the duke of Portland, lord Spencer, and others, in accepting offices under the administration in which Mr. Pitt then presided. On this arrangement Mr. Windham was appointed secretary at war, with a seat in the cabinet, an honourable distinction which had never before been annexed to that office. This station he continued to fill with the highest reputation from that time (17S4) till 1801, when he, lord Spencer, lord Grenville, and Mr. Pitt, resigned their offi-r ces; and shortly afterwards Mr. Addington (now lord viscount Sidmouth) was appointed chancellor of the exchequer and first lord of the treasury. On the preliminaries of peace with France being acceded to by that statesman aod his coadjutors, in 1801, Mr. Windham made his celebrated speech in parliament, which was afterwards (April 1802) published, with an Appendix, containing a character of the Usurper of the French throne, which will transmit to posterity the principal passages of his life up to that period, in the most lively colours. On Mr. Addington being driven from the helm, in 1805, principally by the battery of Mr, Windham’s eloquence, a new administration was again formed by Mr. Pitt, which was dissolved by his death, in 1806; and shortly afterwards, on lord Grenville’s accepting the office of first lord of the Treasury, Mr. Windham was appointed secretary of state for the war department, which he held till his majesty in the following year thought fit to constitute a new administration. During this period he carried into a law his bill for the limited service of those who enlist in our regular army; a measure which will ever endear his name to the English soldiery. But it is not our purpose to detail the particular measures which either originated from him, or in which he took a part. This indeed would be impossible within any prescribed limits; and would involve the history of perhaps the whole of the war. It may suffice to notice that his genius and talents were universally acknoxvledged. He was unquestionably not inferior, in many respects, to the most admired characters of the age that is just gone by. He had been in his earlier years a very diligent student, and was an excellent Greek and Latin scholar. In his latter years, like Burke and Johnson, he was an excursive reader, but gathered a great variety of knowledge from different books, and from occasionally mixing, like them, with very various classes and descriptions of men. His memory was most tenacious. In his parliamentary speeches his principal object always was to convince the understanding by irrefragable argument, which he at the same time enlivened by a profusion of imagery, drawn sometimes from the most abstruse parts of science, but oftener from the most familiar objects of common life. But what gave a peculiar lustre to whatever he urged, was his known and uniform integrity, and a firm conviction in the breasts of his hearers, that he always uttered the genuine and disinterested sentiments of his heart. His language, both in writing and speaking, was always simple, and he was extremely fond of idiomatic phrases, which he thought greatly contributed to preserve the purity of our language. He surveyed every subject of importance with a philosophic eye, and was thence enabled to discover and detect latent mischief, concealed under the plausible appearance of public advantage. Hence all the clarnourers for undefined and imaginary liberty, and all those who meditate the subversion of the constitution under the pretext of Reform, shrunk from his grasp; and persons of this description were his only enemies. But his dauntless intrepidity, and his noble disdain of vulgar popularity, held up a shield against their malice; and no fear of consequences ever drove him from that manly and honourable course, which the rectitude and purity of his mind induced him to pursue. As an orator, he was simple, elegant, prompt, and graceful. His genius was so fertile, and his reading so extensive, that there were few subjects on which he could not instruct, amuse, and persuade. He was frequently (as has justly been observed) “at once entertaining and abstruse, drawing illustrations promiscuously from familiar life, and the recondite parts of science; nor was it unusual to hear him through three adjoining sentences, in the first witty, in the second metaphysical, and in the last scholastic.” But his eloquence derived its principal power from the quickness of his apprehension, and the philosophical profundity of his mind. In private life no man perhaps of any age had a greater number of zealous friends and admirers. In addition to his extraordinary ta-^ lents and accomplishments, the grace and happiness of his address and manner gave an irresistible charm to his conversation; and few, it is believed, of either sex (for his address to ladies was inimitably elegant and graceful) ever partook of his society without pleasure and admiration, or quitted it without regret. His brilliant imagination, his various knowledge, his acuteness, his good taste, his wit, his dignity of sentiment, and his gentleness of manner (for he never was loud or intemperate) made him universally admired and respected. To crown all these virtues and accomplishments, it mav be added, that he fulfilled all the duties. of life, the lesser as well as the greatest, with the most scrupulous attention; and was always particularly ardent in vindicating the cause of oppressed merit. But his best eulogy is the general sentiment of sorrow which agitated every bosom on the sudden s and unexpected stroke which terminated in his death. During the nineteen days of his sickness, his hall was daily visited by several hundred successive inquirers concerning the state of his health; and that part of Pall Mall in which his house was situated, was thronged with carriages filled with ladies, whom a similar anxiety brought to his door. Every morning, and also at a late hour every evening, when his physicians and surgeons attended, several apartments in his house were filled with friends, who anxiously waited to receive the latest and most accurate accounts of the progress or abatement of his disorder. This sympathetic feeling extended almost through every class, and even reached the throiio, for his majesty frequently inquired concerning the state of his health, pronouncing on him this high eulogy, that “he was a genuine patriot, and a truly honest man.” Of the fatal malady which put an end to his invaluable life, erroneous accounts have been published, but the fact was, that on the 8th of July 1809, Mr. Windham, returningon foot at twelve o'clock at niiht from the house of a friend, as he passed by the end of Conduit-street, saw a house on fire, and instantly hastened to the spot, with a view to assist the sufferers; and soon observed that the house of the Hon. Mr. Frederic North was not far distant from that which was then on fire. He therefore immediately undertook to save his friend’s library, which he knew to be very valuable. With the most strenuous activity he exerted himself for four hours, in the midst of rain and the playing of the fire-engines, with such effect that, with the assistance of two or three persons whom he had selected from the crowd assembled on this occasion, he saved four parts out of five of the library; and before they could empty the fifth book room, the house took fire. The books were immediately removed, not to Mr. Windham’s house, but to the houses of the opposite neighbours, who cook great care of them. In removing same heavy volumes he accidentally fell, and suffered a slight contusion on his hip, of which, however, he unfortunately took no notice for some months, when an indolent encysted tumour was formed, which, after due consultation, it was judged proper to cut out. The operation was accordingly performed apparently with success on May 17, 1810, but soon after unfavourable symptoms came on, and terminated fatally June 4, to the unspeakable regret of all who knew him.

, an eminent Greek scholar, was the son of Francis Winterton of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, A. M. where he was born. That he was an excellent Greek scholar appears from many of his productions in that language, which entitled him to be a competitor, though an unsuccessful one, in 1627, for the Greek professorship at Cambridge, on the death of Andrew Downes, with four other candidates, who all read solemn lectures in the schools on a subject appointed them by the electors. He was educated at KingVcollege, Cambridge, where he had the misfortune, during the early part of his residence, to be somewhat disordered in his intellects; but, recovering, he took to the study of physic, and was allowed to excel all of that profession in his time. In 1631 he 'published the first book of Hippocrates’s Aphorisms in a Greek metrical version at Cambridge, in quarto, and the year following the whole seven books together, in the same manner. In 1633, by the advice of Dr. John Collins, regius professor of physic, he published an edition of the Aphorisms in octavo at Cambridge, with Frere’s Latin poetical translation, and his own Greek version, with a Latin prose translation by John Heurnus of Utrecht. At the end is annexed a small book of epigrams and poems, composed by the chiefest wits of both universities, but chiefly of Cambridge, and of KingVcollege in particular. In 1631 he printed, in octavo, at Cambridge, a translation of “Gerard’s Meditations,” whicfi went through six editions in about nine years. In 1632 he published likewise at Cambridge, in octavo, Gerard’s “Golden Chain of Divine Aphorisms.” He published also, for the use of Etonschool, an edition of “Dionysius de situ Orbis,” with some Greek verse* at the end of it, addressed to the scholars, and exhorting them to the study of geography. This was reprinted at London in 1668, 12mo. In the above year (1632), he translated “Drexelius on Eternity,” which was printed at Cambridge. In the preface to this, he has some sentiments which shew that he was of a pious but somewhat singular turn of mind. In 1634, being M. D. he was nominated by the king his professor of physic for forty years, if he should live so long. The year following he published at Cambridge in octavo an edition of the “Minor Greek Poets,” with observations upon Hesiod. This has passed through many editions. His advancement to the professorship appears to have interrupted his employment as an author; but he did not survive that honour long, dying in the prime of life Sept. 13, 1636. He vva^ buried at the east end of King’s- college chapel, but without any memorial. After his death was published a translation by him of Jerome Zanchius’s “Whole Duty of the Christian Religion,” Lorid. 1659, 12mo. He appears to have contributed his assistance in the publication of many learned works, which have escaped our research. His character was that of an industrious and judicious scholar, an able physician, and a just and upright man.

, an eminent physician, was the son of Dr. Clifton Wintringham, also a physician, who died at York, March 12, 1748, and was an author of reputation, but rather of the mechanical school, as appears by his first publication, “Tractatus de Podagra, in quo de ultimis vasis et liquidis et succo nutritio tractatur,” York, 1714, 8yo. In this he assigns, as the causes of the gout, a certain acrimonious viscosity in the nervous fluid? the rigidity of the fibres, and a straitness in the diameter of the vessels that are near the joints. His second publication was entitled “A Treatise of endemir-diseases,” ibid. 1718, 8vo, which was followed by his most important publication, “Commentarium nosologicum morbos epidemicos et aeris variationes in urbe Eboracensi, locisque vicinis, ab anno 1715 ad anni 1725 finem grassantes complectens,” Lorn!. 1727, 1733, 8vo. This last edition was edited by his son, He published also “An experimental inquiry on some parts of the animal structure,” ibid. 1740, 8vo, and “An inquiry into the exility of the vessels of a human body,” ibid. 1743, 8vo.

After he had remained some time in his own country, certain malicious advisers, under the mask of friendship, pretending that nothing was to be got by learning, endeavoured to persuade his father to put him to some mechanic trade; but our poet, finding that country occupations were not fitted to his genius, determined, on some slight gleam of hope, to try his fortune at court, and therefore entered himself as a member of Lincoln’s-inn. The world now opened upon him in characters so different from his expectations, that, having been probably educated in puritanical principles, he felt that disgust which perhaps made him a satirist for life. The first thing which appeared to fill him with dislike and anger, was the gross flattery and servility which seemed necessary to his advancement. If, however, his manners did not procure him favour with the courtiers, his talents obtained him the acquaintance and friendship of many men of genius. William Browne, the pastoral poet, who was of the Inner Temple, was an early familiar of his. And some of his verses having got abroad, began to procure the name of a poet for himself. His “Philarete’s Complaint, &c.” formed a part of his “Juvenilia,” which are said to have been his earliest compositions. He also wrote elegies in 1612 on that general subject of lamentation, the death of prince Henry.

, an able physician and botanist, was born in 1741, at Wiliington in Shropshire, where his father was an apothecary. After being initiated in pharmacy and medicine under his father, he was sent to the university of Edinburgh, where he studied the usual time, and took the degree of doctor of physic in 1766. Not long after he left the university, he settled at Stafford, where meeting with little encouragement, he removed in 1774 to Birmingham; and here his abilities were soon called into action; and in a few years his practice became very extensive, and having a studious turn, he devoted those hours which remained after the business of the day, to philosophical and scientific pursuits. In 1776 he published, in 2 vols. 8vo, the first edition of his “Botanical Arrangement;” a work which, at that time, could be considered as little more than a mere translation from Linnæus of such genera and species of plants as are indigenous in Great Britain and in which Ray’s “Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum,” and Hudson’s “Flora Angiica,” could not fail to afford him great assistance; but, in the course of the two other editions of it (the last of which, in 4 vols. 8vo, was published in 1796), this “Arrangement” has been so mucii improved and enlarged, as to have become, in a great measure, an original work; and certainly, as a national Flora^ it must be allowed to be a very elaborate and complete, performance. Botany, however, did not engross all ouf author’s attention: many of his leisure hours he devoted to chemistry and mineralogy. In 1783, he translated Bergman’s “Sciagraphia Regni Mineralis,” under the title of “Outlines of Mineralogy;” and, before and since that time, he addressed!to the Koyal Society several communications relative to those branches of knowledge. Thus, in 1773, we find inserted in the Philosophical Transactions his experiments on different kinds of marie found in Staffordshire. In the same Transactions for 1782, his analysis of the toad-stone, a fossil met with in Derbyshire. In the same work for 1784, his experiment on the terra ponderosa. And lastly, in 1798, his analysis of a hot mineral spring in Portugal. Amidst these diversified pursuits he did not relax in his professional studies. In 1779, he published an “Account of the Scarlet Fever and Sore Throat” and, in 1785, appeared his account of the fox-glove; wherein he laid before the public a very satisfactory body of evidence in favour of the diuretic virtues of this vegetable in various kinds of dropsies. From early life Dr. Withering was of a slender and delicate habit of body; and, not. long after his first establishment in practice, he became subject to attacks of peripneumony. By these repeated attacks his lungs were at length so much injured, and his whole frame so much debilitated, that he found it necessary to repair to a warmer climate. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1793, he made a voyage to Lisbon, where he passed the winter, returning to England the following spring. Thinking he had received benefit from the climate of Portugal, he made a second voyage to Lisbon the following winter, and returned home again 1795. While he was in Portugal, he analyzed the hot mineral waters, called the Caldas. This analysis was published in the Memoirs of the royal academy of sciences at Lisbon; and since in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London. After his return from his last voyage to Lisbon, his health remained in a very fluctuating state, sometimes so tolerable as to allow going out in a carriage; at other times, so bad as to contine him to his room. In this manner his existence was protracted until Sept. 1799, when he removed from Edgbaston-hall, where he had resided (under a lease granted by the late lord Calthorpe) for several years, to a house. which he had recently purchased, and had named the Larches, and where he died Oct. 6, 1799. To the distinguished rank which he held in *he medical profession, Dr. Withering was raised wholly by personal merit. He possessed great clearness of discernment, joined with a most persevering application. He was of a humane and mild disposition. With his family and among his friends he was cheerful and communicative; but with the world at large, and even in his professional character, he. was shy and reserved.

As to his religious sentiments, although he was an advocate for toleration, he invariably asserted the principle of conformity to the sound and apostolic establishments of the land. His practice, even when very infirm, was to attend divine service in his parish church, to read or pro-? cure some friend to read a sermon and prayers to his family and domestics every Sunday evening. He never spoke an unkind word to his servants, and there was hardly an instance known of any one quitting his service for that of another master. He never complained, nor uttered a peevish expression under the greatest privations and the most severe pain. His funeral was, by his own desire,' as his life had been, without parade or ostentation, and the monumental stone declares no more than the name and age of him whose mortal reliques lie near it.

Sir Henry was the only son of the second marriage of his father Thomas Wotton, esq. with Eleanora, daughter of sir William Finch, of Eastwell in Kent (ancestor to lord Winchelsea), and widow of Robert Morton, of the same county, esq. He was educated first under private tutors, and then sent to Winchester-school whence, in 1584, he was removed to New- college in Oxford. Here he was entered as a gentleman-commoner, and had his chamber in Hart-hall adjoining; and, for his chamber-fellow, Richard Baker, his countryman, afterwards a knight, and author of the well known “Chronicle” which goes by his name. Wotton did not continue long there, but went to Queen’s-college, where he became well versed in logic Uid philosophy-, and, being distinguished for his wit, was solicited to write a tragedy for private acting in that society, The name of it was “Tancredo” and Walton relates, “that it was so interwoven with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those humours, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent, so performed, that the gravest of the society declared^ he had in a slight employment given an early and solid testimony of his future abilities.” In 1588 he supplicated the congregation of regents, that he might be admitted to the reading of any of the books of Aristotle’s logic, that is, be admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts; but “whether he was admitted to that or any other degree doth not appear,” says Wood, ^from the university registers;“although Walton tells us, that about his 20th year he proceeded master of arts, and at that time read in Latin three lectures de oculo, on the blessing of sight, which he illustrated by some beautiful passages aud apt reflexions. In 1589 he lost his father, and was left with no other provision than a rent-charge of 100 marks a-year. Soon after, he left Oxford, betook himself to travel, and went into France, Germany, and Italy. He stayed but one year in France, and part of that at Geneva; where he became acquainted with Beza and Isaac Casaubon. Three years he spent in Germany, and five in Italy, where both in Rome, Venice, and Florence, he cultivated acquaintance with the most eminent men for learning and all manner of fine arts; for painting, sculpture, chemistry, and architecture; of all which he was an amateur and an excellent judge. After having spent nine years abroad, he returned to England highly accomplished, and with a great accumulation of knowledge of the countries through which he had passed. His wit and politeness so effectually recommended him to the earl of Essex that he first admitted him into his friendship, and afterwards made him one of his secretaries, the celebrated Mr. Henry Cuff being the other. (See Cuff.) He personally attended all the councils and employments of the earl, and continued with him till he was apprehended for high treason. Fearing now lest he might, from his intimate connexion, be involved in his patron’s ruin, he thought proper to retire, and was scarcely landed in France, when he heard that his master Essex was beheaded, and his friend Cuff hanged. He proceeded to Florence, and was received into great confidence by the grand duke of Tuscany. This place became the more agreeable to him, from his meeting with signor Vietta, a gentleman of Venice, with whom he had been formerly intimately acquainted, and who was now the grand duke’s secretary. It was during this retreat that Mr. Wotton drew up his” State of Christendom, or a most exact and curious discovery of many secret passages, and hidden myteries of the times." This was first printed, a thin fol. in 1657, and afterwards in 1677, with a small alteration in the title. It was here also that the grand duke having intercepted letters which discovered a design to take away the life of James VI. of Scotland, dispatched Wouon thither to give him notice of it. Wotton was on this account, as well as according to his instructions, to manage this affair with all possible secrecy: and therefore, having parted from the duke, he took the name and language of an Italian; and to avoid the line of English intelligence and danger, he posted into Norway, and from that country to Scotland, He found the king at Stirling, and was admitted to him under the name of Octavio Baldi. He delivered his message and his letters to the king in Italian: then, stepping up and whis^ pering to his majesty, he told him he was an Englishman, requested a more private conference with him, and that he might be concealed during his stay in Scotland. He spent about three months with the king, who was highly entertained with him, and then returned to Florence, where, after a few months, the news of queen Elizabeth’s death, and of king James’s accession to the crown of England, arriyep!.

Such were the appointments which Wotton obtained, but in 1539 he had refused a bishopric, and it is said that he refused the see of Canterbury, so that whatever he might be as a courtier, he was an unambitious ecclesiastic. His talents indeed were better suited to political negociation, and accordingly he was often employed on foreign embassies. His first service abroad is thought to have been his embassy to Cleves in 1539, in order to carry on the treaty of marriage between Henry and the lady Anne; and it fell to his lot afterwards to acquaint the duke of Cleves with Henry’s repudiation of his sister. In 1546 he was one of the commissioners who met at Campe, a small place between Ardres and Guisnes, in order to negociate peace between England, Scotland, and France. In September following he obtained the royal dispensation for non-residence on his preferments, being then the king’s ambassador in France, and was there at the death of Henry, by whose will he was appointed one of the executors to whom, during the minority of his son Edward VI. he entrusted the government of the kingdom.

, a man of taste and learning, was born Nov. 28, 1701, in the parish of St. Botolph, Aldersgate. His father, sir Daniei Wray, was a London citizen, who resided in Little Britain, made a considerable fortune in trade (as a soap-boiler), and purchased an estate in Essex, near Ingatestone, which his son possessed aftr r him. Sir Daniel served the office of sheriff for that county, and was knighted in 1708 on presenting a loyal address to queen Anne. His son was educated at the Charter-house, and was supposed in 1783 to have been the oldest survivor of any person educated there. In 1718 he went to Queen’s college, Cambridge, as a fellow commoner. He took his degree of B. A. in 1722, after which he made the tour of Italy, accompanied by John, earl of Morton, and Mr. King, the son of lord chancellor King, who inherited his title. How long he remained abroad between 1722 and 1728 is not precisely ascertained, except by the fact that a cast in bronze, by Pozzo, was taken of his profile, in 1726, at Home. It had this inscription upon the reverse, “Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum,” which line is said to have been a portrait of his character, as he was in all his pursuits a man of uncommon diligence and perseverance. After his return from his travels, he became M.A.-in 1728, and was already so distinguished in philosophical attainments, that he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society in March 1728-9. He resided however generally at Cambridge, though emigrating occasionally^ to London, till 1739, or 1740, in which latter year, January 1740-41, he was elected F. S. A. and was more habitually a resident in town. In 1737 commenced his acquaintance and friendship with the noble family of Yorke; and in 1745, Mr. Yorke, afterwards earl of Hardwicke, as teller of the exchequer, appointed Mr.Wray his deputy teller, in which office he continued until 1782, when his great punctuality and exactness in any business he undertook made the constant attendance of the office troublesome to him. He was an excellent critic in the English language; an accomplished judge of polite literature, of virtft, and the fine arts; and deservedly a member of most of our learned societies; he was also an elected trustee of the British Museum. He was one of the writers of the “Athenian Letters” published by the earl of Hardwicke; and in the first volume of the Archaeologia, p. 128, are printed “Notes on the walls of antient Rome,” communicated by him in 1756; and “Extracts from different Letters from Rome, giving an Account of the Discovery of a most beautiful Statue of Venus, dug up there 1761.” He died Dec. 29, 1783, in his eighty. second year, much regretted by his surviving friends, to whose esteem he was entitled by the many worthy and ingenious qualities. which he possessed. Those of his heart were as distinguished as those of his mind; the rules of religion, of virtue, and morality, having regulated his conduct from the beginning to the end of his days. He was married to a lady of merit equal to his own, the daughter of Barrel, esq. of Richmond. This lady died at Richmond, where Mr.Wray had a house, in May 1803. Mr. Wray left his library at her disposal and she, knowing his attachment to the Charter-house, made the governors an offer of it, which was thankfully accepted and a room was fitted up for its reception, and it is placed under the care of the master, preacher, head schoolmaster, and a librarian. The public at large, and particularly the friends of Mr. Wray, will soon be gratified by a memoir of him written by the lare George Hardinge, esq. intended for insertion in Mr. Nichols’s “Illustrations of Literature.” This memoir, of which fifty copies have already been printed for private distribution, abounds with interesting anecdotes and traits of character, and copious extracts from Mr. Wray’s correspondence, and two portraits, besides an engraving of the cameo.

, eldest son of the preceding, was born Aug. 20, 1629, at Peter- house, Cambridge, ut which time his father was master of that college. His first education was in that university, heing admitted of St. Peter’s-college in 1642, whence he removed to Oxford, where he was a student, not in a college or hall, but in a private house, as he could not conform to the principles or practises of the persons who then had the government of the university. At the restoration' he was elected burgess of St. Michael in Cornwall, in the parliament which began May8, 1661, and was appointed secretary to the earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England, who visiting the university of Oxford, of which he was chancellor, in Sept. 1661, Mr. Wren was there created master of arts. He was one of the first members of the Royal Society, when they began their weekly meetings at London, in 166O. After the fall of his patron, the earl of Clarendon, he became secretary to James duke of York, in whose service he continued till his death, June 11, 1672, in the fortythird year of his age. He was interred in the same vault with his father, in the chapel of Pembroke- hall, Cambridge. He wrote, 1. “Considerations on Mr. Harrington’s Commonwealth of Oceana, restrained to the first part of the preliminaries, London, 1657,” in 8vo. To this book is prefixed a long letter of our author to Dr. John Wilkins, warden of Wadham-college in Oxford, who had desired him to give his judgment concerning Mr. Harrington’s “Oceana.” Harrington answered this work in the first book of his “Prerogative of popular government,” 1658, 4to, in which he reflects on Mr. Wren as one of those virtuosi, who then met at Dr. Wilkins’ a lodgings at Wad ham- college, the seminary of the Royal Society, and describes them as an assembly of men who “had an excellent fcculty of mag^ nifying a louse, and diminishing a commonwealth.” Mr. Wren replied in 2, “Monarchy asserted; or, the State of Monarchical and Popular Government, in vindication of the considerations on Mr. Harrington’s * Oceana,' London, 1659,” in 8vo. Harrington’s rejoinder was an indecent piece of buffoonery, entitled “Politicaster i or, a Comical Discourse in^answer to Mr. Wren’s book, entitled ‘ Monarchy asserted, &c.’” 1659, 4to. Sir Edward Hyde, after^ wards earl of Clarendon, in a letter to Dr. John Barwick, dated at Brussels the 25th of July, 1659, and printed in the appendix to the doctor’s “Life,” was very solicitous, that Mr. Wren should undertake a confutation of Hobbes’s “Leviathan:” “I hope,” says he, “it is only modesty in Mr. Wren, that makes hirn pause upon undertaking the work you have recommended to him; for I dare swear, by what I have seen of him, he is very equal to answer every part of it: I mean, every part that requires an answer. Nor is there need of a professed divine to vindicate the Creator from making man a verier beast than any of those of the field, or to vindicate scripture from his licentious interpretation. I dare say, he will find somewhat in Mr. Hobbes himself, I mean, in his former books, that contradicts what he sets forth in this, in that part in which he takes himself to be most exact, his beloved philosophy. And sure there is somewhat due to Aristotle and Tuily, and to our universities, to free them from his reproaches; and it is high time, if what I hear be true, that some tutors read his Leviathan, instead of the others, to their pupils. Mr. Hobbes is my old friend, yet I cannot absolve him from the mischiefs he hath done to the king, the church, the laws, and the nation; and surely there should be enough to be said to the politics of that man, who, having resolved all religion, wisdom, and honesty, into an implicit obedience to the laws established, writes a book of policy, which, I may be bold to say, must be, by the established laws of any kingdom or province in Europe, condemned for impious and seditious: and therefore it will be very hard if the fundamentals of it be not overthrown. But I must ask both yours and Mr. Wren’s pardon for enlarging so much, and antedating those animadversions he will make upon it.”

He left a son, James Wright, known to dramatic antiquaries, as one of the earliest historians of the stage, and perhaps one of the first collectors of old plays after Cartwright, whbse collection was at Dulwich-college. His work on this subject, which is extremely scarce, is entitled “Historia Histrionica; an historical account of the English stage, shewing the ancient use, improvement, and perfection, of dramatic representations in this nation. In a dialogue of plays and players,” Lond. 1699, 8vo. It was-first brought forward by Oldys, who quoted it in his life of Alleyn the player in the Biographia Britannica, By Warburton’s recommendation it was prefixed to Dodsley’s “Old Plays,” but the preface has been omitted which Warton says is a sensible one, and certainly points out the only use of most old plays, 'as exhibiting the manners of the times. Wright wrote likewise “Country conversations, being an account of some discourses that happened on a visit to the country last summer, on divers subjects; chiefly, of the modern comedies, of drinking, of translated verse, of painting and painters, of poets and poetry,” Lond. 1694, 12mo. He appears also to have been a skilful antiquary, and had formed a very curious collection, which was unfortunately consumed in a fire in the Middle Temple in 1698. Among his Mss. was an excellent transcript of Leland’s “Itinerary,” of the age of queen Elizabeth, and consequently made before the present mutilations and corruptions. On this he had much correspondence with Hearne. His other works were, 1. “A poem, being an Essay on the present ruins of St. Paul’s cathedral,” Lond. 1663, 4to. 2. “History and Antiquities of the county of Rutland,” ibid. 1634, fol. soon followed by “Additions” in 1687, and “Farther Additions,” 1714. This is a work of much labour and research, although not perfect. '6. “A new der scription of the city of Paris, in two parts, out of the French,” ibid. 1687, 8vo. 4. “Verses anniversary to the venerable memory of his ever honoured father, &c.” 1690, 8vo. 5. “Monasticon Anglicanum, &c.” an accurate epitome in English of Dugdale’s “Monasticon,” ibid. 1693, fol. 6. “Three poems of St. Paul’s cathedral, viz. The Ruins (mentioned above), The re-building, The Choir,” 1697, fol. 7. “Phcenix Paulina, a poem on St. Paul’s cathedral,” 1709, 4to. 8. “Burley on the hill, a poem,” 4to, no date, but reprinted in his last additions to his Rutlandshire. Hearne, who knew and respected Wright, informs us, that he wrote strictures on Wood’s “Athenæ,” but that they remained in manuscript. Wright, a few years before his death, gave Hearne a complete catalogue of his works, which on application he had refused to Wood, “as an injudicious biographer.”

, commonly called Wright of Derby, a very distinguished painter, was born at Derby, September 3, 1734. His father was an attorney there. In early life, he gave indications of a taste for mechanics, and those habits of attentive observation, which generally lead to perfection in the fine arts. In 1751, he came to London, and was placed with Hudson, the most eminent portraitpainter of the day, and who, lord Orford tells us, pleased the country gentlemen with “his honest similitudes, fair tied wigs, blue velvet coats, and white sat tin waistcoats, which he bestowed liberally on his customers.” Wright used to lament that he could not receive much instruction from this master, but it is certain he at this time painted both portraits and historical pieces in a very capital style, of which his “Blacksmith’s forge,” “Air-pump, &c.” are proofs. In 1773, after marrying, he visited Italy, and made great advances in his profession. In 1775, he returned to England, and settled for two years at Bath, after which his residence was entirely at Derby.

, an illustrious philosopher, soldier, and historian, was an Athenian, the son of Gryllus, a person of high rank, and was born in the third year of the eightysecond Olympiad, or B. C. 450. Few particulars of his early life are known. Laertius tells us, that meeting Socrates in a narrow lane, after he was pretty well grown up, he stopped the philosopher with his staff; and asked him, “Where all kinds of meats were to be sold ?” To which Socrates made a serious answer: and then demanded of him, “Where it was that men were made good and virtuous?” At which Xenophon pausing, “Follow me, then,” said Socrates, “and learn:” from which time he became the disciple of that father of ancient wisdom.

After he had executed the high office of lord high chancellor about seventeen years, in times and circumstances of accumulated difficulty and danger, he was, in April 1754, advanced to the rank of an earl of Great Britain, with the titles of viscount Royston, and earl of Hardwicke. This favour was conferred unasked, by his sovereign, who treated him through the whole of his reign with particular esteem and confidence, and always spoke of him in a manner which shewed that he set as high a value on the man as on the minister. His resignation of the great seal, in November 1756, gave ah universal concern to the nation, however divided at that time in other respects. But he still continued to serve the public in a more private station; at council, at the House of Lords, and upon every occasion where the course of public business required it, with the same assiduity as when he rilled one of the highest offices in the kingdom. He always felt and expressed the truest affection and reverence for the laws and constitution of his country: this rendered him as tender of the just prerogatives invested in the crown, for the benefit of the whole, as watchful to prevent the least incroachment upon the liberty of the subject. The part which he acted in planning, introducing, and supporting, the “Bill for abolishing the heritable Jurisdictions in Scotland,” and the share which he took, beyond what his department required of him, in framing and promoting the other bills relating to that country, arose from his zeal to the Protestant succession, his concern for the general happiness and improvement of the kingdom, and for the preservation of this equal and limited monarchy which were the governing principles of his public conduct through life. And these, and other bills which might be mentioned, were strong proofs of his talents as a legislator. In judicature, his firmness and dignity were evidently derived from his consummate knowledge and talents; and the mildness and humanity with which he tempered it, from the most amiable disposition. He was wonderfully happy in his manner of debating causes upon the bench. His extraordinary dispatch of the business of the court of chancery, increased as it was in his time beyond what had been known in any former, was an advantage to the suitor, inferior only to that arising from the acknowledged equity, perspicuity, and precision, of his decrees. The manner in which he presided in the House of Lords added order and dignity to that assembly, and expedition to the business transacted there. His talents as a speaker in the senate as well as on the bench, were universally admired: he spoke with a natural and manly eloquence, without false ornaments or personal invectives; and, when he argued, his reasons were supported and strengthened by the most apposite cases and examples which the subject would allow. His manner was graceful and affecting; modest, yet commanding his voice peculiarly clear and harmonious, and even loud and strong, for the greater part of his time. With these talents for public speaking r the integrity of his character gave a lustre to his eloquence, which those who opposed him felt in the debate, and which operated most powerfully on the minds of those who heard him with a view to information and convictions, is<

In 1731 he returned to Venice, and his place at court was entirely supplied by Metastasio, but the salaries of poet and historiographer were still continued to him. Zeno corresponded with the learned of Italy, and other countries; was an able antiquary, and had made an excellent collection of literary anecdotes. His candour, sincerity, affability, and other amiable qualities, rendered him universally esteemed, and highly agreeable in society. He died at Venice, November 11, 1750, in the eighty-second year of his age, and was buried at the convent of the Dominicans of the strict observance, to whom he had left his library. He is universally allowed to have possessed great talents for dramatic poetry, and is the first Italian poet who gave his countrymen good rules for tragedy, and taught them to consider music only as an embellishment. He discovers genius, spirit, and feeling; but his style, as has been remarked, is far inferior to that of Metastasio. Zeno also left a great number of works on Antiquities, &c. “Dissertationi Vossiani,” 3 vols. 8vo “Letters,” Venice, 1752, 2 vols. 4to.

Some Moravian writers, however, while they effectually refuted the calumnies against the brethren as a community or sect, very candidly acknowledged that the extravagant expressions and practices of some individuals among them, were indeed indefensible. “It may not be improper to ob-> serve,” says Mr. LaTrobe, in the preface to his translation of Spangenberg’s Exposition of Christian doctrine, “that although the brethren have been very falsely traduced by their adversaries, and by misinformed people, who meant well, and that particularly the writings of the late count Zinzendorf have been used to prove, that the church, of which he was an eminent and the most distinguished minister, held the errors of the most fanatic, yea wicked heretics; and his writings have been, for this purpose, mutilated, falsely quoted, and translated; and, although the extravagant words and actions of individuals have been unjustly charged upon the whole body; yet it were t.o be wished that there had been no occasion given, at a certain period, to accuse the brethren of improprieties and extravagance in word or practice.” Again, speaking of count Zinzendorf, he says, " He commonly delivered two or three discourses in a day, either publicly or to his family, which was generally large; and what he then uttered, was attended with a striking effect upon those who heard him. He spoke in the strictest sense extempore; and according to the state of the times in which, and the persons to whom he spbke. These discourses were commonly taken -down as he uttered therri; and the love and admiration of his brethren were so great, that they urged the publication of these discourses. His avocations were such, that he did not spend time sufficient in the revision; some were not at all revised by him, and some very incorrectly and falsely printed. Hence doctrines, of which he never thought, were deduced from his writings, and some of his transient private opinions laid to the charge of the whole brethren’s church. 1 do not, and cannot, attempt to defend such publications, but relate the real state of the case.

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

On the death of Dr. Gerard Langbaine, he offered himself as a candidate against Dr. Wallis for the place of custos archivorum to the university, but was unsuccessful. (See Wallis.) On the restoration he was reinstated in his post of judge of the admiralty, and was made one of the commissioners for regulating the university, but did not survive that year, dying at his apartments in Doctors’ Commons, March 1, 1660. He was interred at Fulham church, Middlesex, near the grave of his eldest daughter, sometime the wife of William Powell, alias Huison, esq. Wood says, “He was an exact artist, a subtle logician, expert historian, and for the knowledge in the practice of the civil law, the chief person of his time, as his works, much esteemed beyond, the seas (where several of them are reprinted) partly testify. He was so well versed in the statutes of the university, and controversies between the members thereof and the city, that none after (Bryan) Twine’s death went beyond him. As his birth was noble, so was his behaviour and discourse; and as he was personable and handsome, so he was naturally sweet, pleasing, and affable.”

, an Italian painter, was born at St. Angelo in Vado, in the duchy of Urbino, in 1529;. and was initiated in his art by his father, who was an ordinary painter. At fourteen years of age he was carried to Home, and placed under Pietro Calabro, whose wife was so covetous, that she almost starved him, and forced him to look out for another master. However, he went to no other, but contented himself with contemplating Raphael’s works and the antique sculptures: he improved himself alsogreatly by the study of anatomy. He excelled chiefly in a florid invention, a genteel manner of design, and in the good disposition and teconomy of his pieces but was not so much admired for his colouring, which was generally unpleasant, and rather resembled the statues than the* life. He never worked out of Italy: Rome, Tivoli, Florence, Caparola, and Venice, were the places where he distinguished himself; but he left many pieces unfinished, being snatched away in his prime in 1566.

After an edict so favourable, the doctrines of Zuinglius, which most of the pastors had before embraced, were preached under the name of Evangelical Truth in almost all the churches of the canton of Zurich; but, because the outward worship was contrary to their doctrines, images still remaining, and mass being celebrated, and they durst not abolish it without authority, Zuinglius, to complete his design, engaged the senate to call a new assembly in October the same year, when the bishops of Constance, Coine, and Basil, with the university of the latter city, and the twelve cantons of Switzerland, were invited to send their deputies. The senate assembled upon the day appointed, debates were held upon the points in question; and the result was an edict, by which the priests and monks were forbidden to make any public processions, to carry the holy sacrament, or to elevate it in the church, that it might be worshipped: reliques were taken out of the churches, and it was forbidden to play upon organs, to ring the bells, to bless palm-branches, salt, waters, or tapers, and to administer the supreme unction to the sick.