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

, was a learned and celebrated doctor of the society of the Sorbonne, canon and theologal of Paris, and made bishop of Vabres, in 1645. He died January 11, 1668. He distinguished himself by his preaching, and by several works on Grace, in which he forcibly refutes Jansenius, though he defends the doctrine of efficacious Grace, but in another sense. He also left a Latin translation of the “Pontifical of the Greek Church,” with learned notes, 1643, fol. some Latin Poems, Paris, 1623, 4to “Hymns for the Feast of St. Louis,” in the Paris Breviary; “De Consensu Hierarchies et Monarchies,” Paris, 1640, 4to; and many other works. Susannah Habert, his aunt, married Charles du Jardin, an officer under Henry III. and became a widow at twenty-four. This lady was considered as a prodigy of genius; she understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, philosophy, and even divinity, which gained her a great reputation among the learned. She died 1633, in the convent of Notre Dame de Grace, at Paris, where she had lived rffear twenty years, leaving several works in ms. in the hands of her nephew.

, a pious and learned doctor of the society of the Sorbonne, was born at Blois, in 1636. He was successively grand vicar of Lu^on, Auxerre, Verdun, and Chalons-sur-Marne; in all which dioceses he was universally esteemed for his virtue, learning, and zealous support of ecclesiastical discipline. He afterwards retired to the Sorbonne, and employed the rest of his life in deciding cases of conscience, and died there April 7, 1718. M. Habert left a complete System of Divinity, 7 vols. 12mo, much valued for accuracy and solidity; but the additions made to it since his death were not acceptable to his church, and were complained of by Feneion, as inclining to Jansenianism. He published in his life-time a defence of this system, and “La Pratique de la Penitence,” 12mo, best known by the title of “Pratique de Verdun,” of which there have been many additions.

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

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

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

Our author wrote also “Observations upon History,” Loud. 1641, 8vo, consisting of some particular pieces of history in the reigns of Henry II. Richard I. &c. interspersed with political and moral reflections, similar to what he had introduced in his larger history, or “History of Edward IV.” 1640, fol. which, as Wood asserts, was both written and published at the desire of Charles I. He also insinuates that Habington <c did run with the times, and was not unknown to Oliver the Usurper," but we have no evidence of any compliance with a system of political measures so diametrically opposite to those which we may suppose belonged to the education and principles of a Roman catholic family. It is, indeed^ grossly improbable that he should have complied with Cromwell, who was as yet no usurper, and during the life of his royal master, whose cause was not yet desperate. Of his latter days we have no farther account than that he died Nov. 13, 1645, and was buried at Hendlip, in the family vault. He left a son, Thomas, who dying without issue, bequeathed his estate to sir William Compton.

His poems are distinguished from those of most of his contemporaries, by delicacy of sentiment, tenderness, and a natural strain of pathetic reflection. His favourite subjects, virtuous love and conjugal attachment, are agreeably varied by strokes of fancy and energies of affection. Somewhat of the extravagance of the metaphysical poets is occasionally discernible, but with very little affectation of learning, and very little effort to draw his imagery from sources with which the muses are not familiar. The virtuous tendency and chaste language of his poems form no inconsiderable part of their merit, and his preface assures us that his judgment was not inferior to his imagination, They were introduced into the late edition of the English Poets, and have since been printed separately.

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

When rector of St. Andrew’s, having soon after the restoration, received notice of the interment of a dissenter belonging to his parish, he got the burial-office by heart. As he was a great master of elocution, and was himself always affected with the propriety and excellence of the composition of that service, he delivered it with such emphasis and grace as touched the hearts of every one present, and especially of the friends of the deceased, who unanimously declared they had never heard a finer discourse. But their astonishment was great, when they were told that it was taken from our liturgy, a book which, though they had never read, they had been taught to regard with contempt and detestation. This story, but without the name of Dr. Hacket, for which we are indebted to Mr. Granger, is circumstantially told in bishop Sprat’s excellent “Discourse to his Clergy,” 1695. The worthy bishop Bull, when a parish priest, is known to have practised the same honest art with like success, in using other offices of the liturgy.

In 1625 he was named by the king himself to attend an ambassador in to Germany; but was dissuaded from the journey by being told, that on account of his severe treatment of the Jesuits in his “Loyola,” he might be in danger, though in an ambassador’s train. In 1628, he commenced D. D. and in 1631 was made archdeacon of Bedford, to which charge he usually went once in a year, and frequently exhorted his clergy “to all regular conformity to the doctrine and discipline by law established, without under or overdoing, asserting in his opinion, that puritanism lay on both sides; whosoever did more than the church commanded, as well as less, were guilty of it; and that he only was a true son of the church, who broke riot the boundals of it either way.” His church of St. Andrew being old and decayed, he undertook to rebuild it, and for that purpose got together a great sum of money in stock and subscriptions; but, upon the breaking out of the civil war, this was seized by the parliament, as well as what had been gathered for the repair of St. Paul’s cathedral. In March 1641, he was one of the sub-committee appointed by the house of lords to consult of what was amiss and wanted correction in the liturgy, in hopes by that means to dispel the cloud hanging over the church. He delivered a masterly speech against the bill for taking away deans and chapters, which is published at length in his life by Dr. Plume. In March 1642 he was presented to a residentiary’s place in St. Paul’s, London; but the troubles coming on, he had no enjoyment of it, nor of his rectory of St. Andrew’s. Besides, some of his parishioners there having articled against him at the committee of plunderers, his friend Seltlen told him it was in vain to make any defence; and advised him to retire to Cheam, where he would endeavour to prevent his being molested. He was disturbed here by the earl of Essex’s army, who, marching that way, took him prisoner along with them; but he was soon after dismissed, and from that time lay hid in his retirement at Cheam, where we hear no more of him, except that in 1648-9, he attended in his last moments Henry Rich, earl of Holland, who was beheaded for attempting the relief of Colchester.

After the restoration of Charles II. he recovered all his preferments, and was offered the bishopric of Gloucester, which he refused; but he accepted shortly after that of Lichfield and Coventry, and was consecrated December 22, 1661. The spring following he repaired to Lichfield, where, finding the cathedral almost battered to the ground, he rebuilt it in eight years, in a very magnificent style, at the expence of 20,000l. of which he had 1000l. from the dean and chapter; and the rest was of his own charge, or procuring from benefactors. He laid out lOOOl. upon a prebendal house, which he was forced to live in, his palaces at Lichfield and Ecclestiall having been demolished during the civil war. He added to Trinity college, in Cambridge, a building called Bishop’s hostel, which cost him 1200l. ordering that the rents of the chambers should be laid out in books for the college library. Besides these acts of munificence, he left several benefactions by will; as 50l. to Clare-hall, 50l. to St. John’s college, and all his books, which cost him about 1500l. to the university library. He died at Lichfield, October 21, 1670, and was buried in the cathedral, under a handsome tomb, erected by his eldest son sir Andrew Hacket, a muster in chancery: he was twice married, and had several children by both his wives.

He published only the comedy of “Loyola” above-mentioned, and “A Sermon preached before the king, March 22, 1660;” but, after his decease, “A Century of Sermons upon several remarkable subjects” was published by Thomas Plume, D. D. in 1675, folio, with his life. His sermons are rather too much in the quaint style of bishop Andrews. In 1693 appeared his “Life of archbishop Williams,” folio, of which an abridgement was published in 1700, 8vo, by Ambrose Philips. He intended to have written the life of James I. and for that purpose the lordkeeper Williams had given him Camden’s ms notes or annals of that king’s reign; but, these being lost in the confusion of the times, he was disabled from doing it. According to his biographer, Dr. Plume, he was zealous against popery, and all separation from the church of England. In the dispute between the Calvinists and the Arzmuians he was ever very moderate; but being bred under bishop Davenant and Dr. Samuel Ward in Cambridge, adhered to their sentiments. He was exemplary in his behaviour, chearful in conversation, hospitable, humble, and affable, though subject to great eruptions of anger, but at the same time very placable and ready to be appeased, and of too generous a nature to be vindictive. When he was a bishop he desired to hold nothing in commendam; he renewed all his leases for years, and not for lives, and upon very moderate fines, and spent a very considerable share thereof in the repair of his cathedrals and acts of charity. In his younger years he had been much addicted to School learning, which was then greatly studied in the university; but he afterwards grew weary of it, and professed " that he found more shadows and names than solid juice and substance in it, and would much dislike their horrid and barbarous terms, more proper for incantation than divinity; and became perfectly of Beatus Rhenanus’s mind, that the schoolmen were rather to be reckoned philosophers than divines; but if any pleased to account them such, he had much rather, with St. John Chrysostom, be styled a pious divine, than an invincible or irrefragable one with Thomas Aquinas, or our own countryman Alexander Hales. For knowledge in the tongues, he would confess he could never fix upon Arabian learning the place was siticulosa regio, a dry and barren land, where no water is and he being discouraged in his younger years, by such as had plodded most in it; and often quarrelled with his great friend Salmasius, for saying he accounted no man solidly learned without skill in Arabic and other eastern languages. Our bishop declared his mind otherwise, and bewailed that many good wits of late years prosecuted the eastern languages so much as to neglect the western learning and discretion too sometimes. Mr. Selden and bishop Creighton had both affirmed to him, that they should often read ten pages for one line of sense, and one word of moment; and did confess there was no learning like to what scholars may find in Greek authors, as Plato, Plutarch, &c. and himself could never discern but that many of their quotations and proofs from them were, in his own words, iucerta, et inexplorata.

, a Lutheran divine, and eminent oriental scholar, was born in 1607, at Weimar. Becoming early attached to the study of sacred philology, he endeavoured to acquire a knowledge of the Oriental languages as necessarily connected with it, and therefore, after attending the philosophical and theological schools of Jena for seven years, he went to Altdorf, to profit hy the instructions of Schwenter, who was then esteemed one of the ablest Orientalists. From Altdorf he removed to Helmstadt, where he applied to his theological studies under Calixtus, Horneius, and others, and on his return to Altdorf in 1636 was the first who gave lessons in public on the Oriental languages in that place. In 1654 he became professor of theology, and in both situations evinced great talents and persevering industry. No man in his time was better skilled in the Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldean, and Arabic, and being the first who attempted to teach these languages, he wished to assist his students by proper elementary books, but the German press at that time was so deficient in the requisite types, that he must have abandoned his design if Jodocus Schmidmaier, an advocate at Nuremberg, had not established a printing-office properly supplied with Oriental characters; and at this place Hackspan was enabled to print his valuable works. He died of a decline in 1659. His principal writings are,

, an eminent scholar, and one of the revivers of the learned languages in England, was descended from a good family in Buckinghamshire, and born in 1516. He was educated at Eton school, under Dr. Richard Cox, afterwards bishop of Ely, and was thence elected to King’s college, in Cambridge; where he greatly distinguished himself by his parts and learning, and particularly by writing Latin in an elegant, but, as Mr. Warton thinks, not a very pure style. He studied also the civil law, of which he became doctor; and read public lectures in it in 1547, and the two years following, and was so much approved, that upon a vacancy in the professor’s chair in 1550, the university employed the celebrated Ascham to write to king Edward VI. in his favour. He was accordingly appointed professor, and was also for some time professor of rhetoric and orator of the university. During king Edward’s reign, he was one of the most illustrious promoters of the reformation; and therefore, upon the deprivation of Gardiner, was thought a proper person to succeed him in the mastership of Trinity-hall. In September 1552, through the earnest recommendation of the court, though not qualified according to the statutes, he was chosen president of Magdalen college in Oxford; but, in October 1553, upon the accession of queen Mary, he quitted the president’s place for fear of being expelled, or perhaps worse used, at Gardiner’s visitation of the said college. He is supposed to have lain concealed in England all this reign; but, on the accession of Elizabeth, was ordered by the privy council to repair to her majesty at Hatfield in Hertfordshire, and soon after was constituted by her one of the masters of the court of requests. Archbishop Parker also made him judge of his prerogative-­court. In the royal visitation of the university of Cambridge, performed in the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, he was one of her majesty’s commissioners, as appears by the speech he then made, printed among his works. In 1566 he was one of the three agents sent to Bruges to restore commerce between England and the Netherlands upon the ancient terms. He died Jan. 21, 1571-2, and was buried in Christ Church, London, where a monument was erected to his memory, but was destroyed in the great fire of London. He was engaged, with sir John Cheke, in turning into Latin and drawing up that useful code of ecclesiastical law, published in 1571, by the learned John Fox, under this title, “Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum,” in 4to. He published, in 1563, a letter, or answer to an epistle, directed to queen Elizabeth, by Jerom Osorio, bishop of Silva in Portugal, and entitled “Admonitio ad Elizabetham reginam Angliæ,” in which the English nation, and the reformation of the church, were treated in a scurrilous manner. His other works were collected and published in 1567, 4to, under the title of “Lucubrationes.” This collection contains ten Latin orations, fourteen letters, besides the above-mentioned to Osorio; and also poems. Several of his original letters are in the Harleian collection; and his poems, “Poemata,” containing a great number of metrical epitaphs, were separately published with his life in 1576. Many of our writers speak in high terms of Haddon, and not without reason; for, through, every part of his writings, his piety appears equal to his learning. When queen Elizabeth was asked whether she preferred him or Buchanan? she replied, “Buchananum omnibus antepono, Haddonum nemini postpono.”

, professor of medicine in the university of Vienna, was born at Leyden in 1704, and educated under the celebrated Boerhaave. After having received the degree of M. D. at his native place, he settled at the Hague, where he practised with success for nearly twenty years. Baron Van Swieten being acquainted with the extent of his talents, invited him to remove to Vienna, with the view of uniting with him in the proposed plan of reform, which he had prevailed on the empress to support, in the medical faculty of that capital. De Haen accordingly repaired to that city in 1754; and his merits were found fully equal to the expectations that had been formed of them. At the express command of Maria Theresa, he undertook a system of clinical education, in the hospital which he superintended, as the most advantageous method of forming good physicians: the result of this duty was the collection of a great number of valuable observations, which were published in the successive volumes of the work entitled “Ratio Medendi in Nosocomio Practico,” Vienna, 1757, which amounted ultimately to sixteen. He died Sept. 5, 1776, at the age of seventy-two.

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

About this time (1729), he came to London with the Danish ambassador, baron Stoelenthal, and here he composed some of his most beautiful odes, and his best songs. In 1733 he was appointed secretary of the English factory at Hamburgh, which united him with our countrymen, whom he always esteemed. In 1734 he married the daughter of an English taylor, of the name of Butler, a step which does not seem to have added to his happiness. In 1738 he published the first volume of his “Fables,” an original work, which contributed much to his reputation. In 1740, he composed the beautiful satire of “The Philosopher;” in 1741, the sublime picture of the “Sage;” in 1742, the Universal Prayer, from the Paraphrase of Pope; and, in 1743, his celebrated poem on “Happiness.” This last piece is equally favourable to his opinions and his poetical talents. His modest muse does not succeed in sublime descriptions, or the dithirambic flights: it has more of the elegance that pleases, than the splendour that dazzles; more Socratic wisdom, than oriental sublimity. His Moral Poems are like the Sermones of Horace. His “Considerations on some of the Attributes of God” contains the sublimest passages of Scripture “The Prattler” is a dialogue full of familiar descriptions of human life */ The Letter to a Friend“is an instructive commentary on the” Nil Adrnirari" of Horace. Various other pieces followed; but, in 1750, he first excited the gaiety of his nation, by mixing sports and graces with the solemn poetry of the Germans. His odes and songs are highly pleasing. Nature, sprightliness, simplicity, enthusiasm, and harmony, unite to render them seductive: for spirit and elegance, he may be said to resemble our own Prior.

The second edition of his “Moral Poems” appeared in 1752, with a considerable supplement, and many new epigrams. In 1754, was published an enlarged edition of his songs, with a translation of two discourses, on the songs of the Greeks, by Ebert. In this year he died of a dropsy, aged only forty-seven. His works have gone through so many editions, that they may be considered as perpetuating his reputation, and placing him among the standard poets of his country. He had a brother, Christian Lewis Hagedorn, who was born at Hamburgh in 1717, and died at Dresden in 1780, counsellor of legation and director of the academy of arts in Saxony. He wrote a work entitled “Meditations on Painting,” one of the few which the Germans think have not been equalled by their neighbours “Lettre a un Amateur de Peinture,” 1755, and many pieces in the Leipsic Journal entitled “The Library of the Fine Arts,” to the progress of which arts in Saxony he contributed greatly.

, ayoungrnan of extraordinary talents, was born at Bergen, in the duchy of Hanover, in 1692. He soon acquired an extensive knowledge of the learned languages, and when he was only fourteen years of age, he pronounced, at the university of Halle, a Latin harangue on the origin of the monastery of Bergen, which was printed with some other pieces. In 1703, he published a continuation of the “Chronicon Bergense” of Meibomius; and, in 1711, printed two “Dissertations;” one on “Henry the Fowler,” the other on the kingdom of Aries, which do him great honour. After giving public lectures for some years at Halle, he was appointed professor of history at Helmstadt, though but twenty-four years old, and afterwards was made counsellor, historiographer, and librarian to his Britannic majesty at Hanover. He died in 1729, leaving the first four volumes of a “History of the Empire; 17 and” Collectio Monumentorum veterum et recentium ineditorum," 2 vols. 8vo, &C.

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

Du Haillan died at Paris, Nov. 23, 1610. Dupleix remarks, that he was originally a protestant, but changed his religion, in order to ingratiate himself at court. His dedications and prefaces indeed shew, that he was not very disinterested either as to fame or fortune. He displays his labours too ostentatiously, and the success of his books, their several editions, translations, &c. and he too palpably manifests that species of puffing quackery which disgraces the literary character.

, a learned English divine, was the son of a merchant in Exeter, and born there in 1579. After a proper education in classical literature, he was admitted of St. Alban’s-hall, in Oxford, in 1595, where he became so noted a disputant and orator, that he was unanimously elected fellow of Exeter college at two years standing. He then studied philosophy and divinity, and having received holy orders, travelled abroad. In 1610 he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, and in 1611 took his degrees in divinity. He was afterwards made chaplain to prince Charles, and archdeacon of Surrey, in 1616; but never rose to any higher dignity, on account of the zealous opposition he made to the match of the infanta of Spain with the prince his master. Wood relates the story thus: After Hakewill had written a small tract against that match, not without reflecting on the Spaniard, he caused it to be transcribed in a fair hand, and then presented it to the prince. The prince perused it, and shewed it to the king; who, being highly offended at it, caused the author to be imprisoned, in August 1621; soon after which, being released, he was dismissed from his attendance on the prince. He was afterwards elected rector of Exeter college, but resided very little there, although he proved a liberal benefactor to the college; for, the civil war breaking out, he retired to his rectory of Heanton near Barnstaple in Devonshire, and there continued to the time of his death in 1649. He wrote several things, enumerated by Wood; but his principal work, and that for which he is most known, is “An Apology or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, proving that it doth not decay, &c.” in four books, 1627. To which were added two more in the third edition, 1635, in folio.

He had a brother John, who was mayor of Exeter in 1632; and an elder brother William, who was of Exeter college, and removed thence to Lincoln’s-inn, where he arrived at eminence in the study of the common law. He was always a puritan, and therefore had great interest with the prevailing party in the civil war. He published some pieces in his own way; and, among the rest, “The Liberty of the Subject against the pretended Power of Impositions, &c. 1641,” 4to.

, an eminent naval historian, was descended from an ancient family at Eyton or Yetton, in Herefordshire, and born about 1553. He was trained up at Westminster school; and, in 1570, removed to Christ church college in Oxford. While he was at school, he used to visit his cousin Richard Hakluyt, of Eyton, esq. at his chambers in the Middle Temple, a gentleman well known and esteemed, not only by some principal ministers of state, but also by the most noted persons among the mercantile and maritime part of the kingdom, as a great encourager of navigation, and the improvement of trade, arts, and manufactures. At this gentleman’s chambers young Hakluyt met with books or' cosmography, voyages, travels, and maps; and was so pleased with them, that he resolved to direct his studies that way, to which he was not a little encouraged by his cousin. For this purpose, as soon as he got to Oxford, he made himself master of the modern as well as ancient languages; and then read over whatever printed or written discourses of voyages and discoveries, naval enterprizes, and adventures of all kinds, he found either extant in Greek^ Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, or English. By such means he became so conspicuous in this new branch of science, that he was chosen to read public lectures on naval matters at Oxford, and was the first who introduced maps, globes, spheres, and other instruments of the art, into the common schools. The: zeal and knowledge he displayed made him acquainted with and respected by the principal sea-commanders, merchants, and manners of our nation; and^ though it was but a few years after that he went beyond sea, yet his fame travelled thither long before him. He held a correspondence with the learned in these matters abroad, as with Ortelius, the king of Spain’s cosmographer, Mercator, &c.

In 1582, he published a small “Collection of Voyages and Discoveries;” in the epistle dedicatory of which to Mr. Philip Sidney it appears, that his lecture upon navigation above mentioned was so well approved of by sir Francis Drake, that the latter made some proposals to continue and establish it in Oxford. The same year, he was much encouraged by secretary Walsingham to pursue the study of cosmography, and to persevere in the same commendable collections and communications. The secretary also gave him a commission to confer with the mayor and merchants of Bristol, upon the naval expedition they were undertaking to Newfoundland; and incited him to impart to them such intelligence as he should think useful. Hakluyt readily complied, and in acknowledgment of the services he had done them, the secretary sent him a very polite letter, which is printed in the third volume of his voyages in folio.

About 1584, he attended sir Edward Stafford as his chaplain, when that gentleman went over ambassador to France; and continued there some years with him, and during his absence, being then master of arts and in orders he was made a prebendary of Bristol. While at Paris, he contracted an acquaintance with all the eminent mathematicians, cosmographers, and other persons of a similar taste with himself. He inquired after every thing that had any relation to our English discoveries; and prevailed with some to search their libraries for the same. At last, having met with a narrative in ms. containing “The notable History of Florida,” which had been discovered about twenty years before by captain Loudonniere and other French adventurers, he procured the publication of it at Paris at his own expence in 1586; and in May 1587, he published an English translation of it, which he dedicated after the example of the French editor, to sir Walter Raleigh. The same year he published a new edition of Peter Martyr’s book, entitled “De Orbe Novo,” illustrated with marginal notes, a commodious index, a map of New England and America, and a copious dedication, also, to sir Walter Raleigh; and this book he afterwards caused to be translated into English.

Hakluyt returned to England in the memorable year 1588, and applied himself to methodize the naval history of England more accurately and more extensively than had ever yet been attempted, in which he was, as usual, encouraged by sir Walter Raleigh. He applied himself also to collect, translate, and digest, all voyages, journals, narratives, patents, letters, instructions, &c. relating to the English navigations, which he could procure either in print or ms.; and towards the end of 1589 he published these collections in one volume folio, with a dedication to sir Francis Walsingham, who was a principal patron and promoter of the work. About 1594 he entered into the state of matrimony, which did not divert him from going on with his collections of English voyages, till he had increased them to three volumes folio: and, as he was perpetually employed himself, he did not cease to invite others to the same useful labours. Thus, Mr. John Pory, whom he calls his honest, industrious, and learned friend, undertook, at his instigation, and probably under his inspection, to translate from the Spanish “Leo’s Geographical History of Africa,” which was published at London, 1600, in folio. Hakluyt himself appeared in 1601, with the translation of another history, written by Antonio Galvano in the Portuguese tongue, and corrected and amended by himself. This history was printed in 4to, and contains a compendious relation of the most considerable discoveries in various parts of the universe from the earliest to the later times.

In 1605 he was made a prebendary of Westminster; which, with the rectory of Wetheringset in Suffolk, is all the ecclesiastical promotion we find he obtained. About this time the translation of Peter Martyr’s “History of the West Indies” was undertaken, and first published by Mr. Lock, at the request and encouragement of our, author: for, besides his own publications of naval history, far superior to any thing of the like kind that had ever appeared in this kingdom, he was no less active in encouraging others to translate and familiarize among us the conquests and discoveries of foreign adventurers. This, and the spirit with which he also animated those of his countrymen who were engaged in naval eriterprizes, by his useful communications, gained the highest esteem and honour to his name and memory, from mariners of all ranks, in the most distant nations no less than his own. Of this there are several instances; and particularly in those northern discoveries made at the charges of the Muscovy merchants in 1608, under captain W. Hudson: when among other places there denominated, on the continent of Greenland, which were formerly discovered, they distinguished an eminent promontory, lying in 80 degrees northward, by the name of Hakluyt’s Headland. In 1609 he published a translation from the Portuguese of an history of Virginia, entitled “Virginia richly valued, by the description of the rpaine land of Florida, her next neighbour, &c.” and dedicated to the right worshipful counsellors, and others the chearful adventurers for the advancement of that Christian and noble plantation of Virginia.

In 1611 we find Edmund Hakluyt, the son of our author, entered a student of Trinity college, Cambridge. In the same year, the northern discoverers, in a voyage to Peckora in Russia, called a full and active current they arrived at, by the name of Hakluyt’s River; and, in 1614, it appears that the banner and arms of the king of England were erected at Hakluyt’s Headland above-mentioned. Our historian died November 23, 1616, and was buried in Westminster-abbey. His ms remains, which might have made another volume, falling into the hands of Mr. Purchas, were dispersed by him throughout his “Pilgrimage,” printed 1613 1625, in 5 vols. fol. His own work, having become uncommonly scarce, was lately reprinted in five handsome quarto volumes, with some valuable additions.

the historian of China, was born at Paris, Feb. 1, 1674, and entered into the society of the Jesuits. In 1708 he was removed to one of their houses in Paris, where he was employed in collecting and publishing the letters received from their missionaries abroad. He was also secretary to father Tellier, the king’s confessor, and director of the corporation of artisans. In the latter part of his life he was much afflicted with the ague, but bore it with great resignation. He was a man of an amiable temper, and of great zeal in his profession. He died at Paris, Aug. 18, 1743. He published various complimentary Latin poems, and some pious works; but was principally known for his share in the *' Lettres edifiantes et curieuses,“or correspondence from the Jesuit missionaries, which he published from collection 9th to the 26th; and for his” Description geographique, historiqae, chronologique, et physique de Tempire de la Chine, et de la Tartarie Chinoise," Paris, 1735, 4 vols. fol. which has been often reprinted, and considered as the most ample history we have of the Chinese empire. It was translated into English soon after its appearance, by persons employed by Cave, the printer, and another translation having been attempted at the same time, occasioned a controversy, the particulars of which may amuse the reader.

, a most learned lawyer, an$ upright judge, was born at Alderley, in Gloucestershire, November J, 1609. His father was a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, a man of such tenderness of conscience, as to withdraw from his profession because unwilling to tamper with truth in giving that colour to pleadings which barristers call doing their best for their client;" and this, with some other practices, customary in those days, appearing unworthy of his character, he retired to his estate in the country, where he died in 1614, at which time his son was but five years old. His wife having died two years before, their son was committed to the guardianship of Anthony Kingscot, esq. to whom he was related, and by whom, for grammatical learning, he was placed under the care of Mr. Staunton, vicar of Wotton-under-Edge, a noted puritan. In 1626 he was admitted of Magdalen-hall, Oxford, under the* tuition of Obadiah Sedgwick, another puritan, where he laid the foundation of that learning and knowledge, on which he afterwards raised so vast a superstructure. Here, however, he fell into many levitres and exr travagances, and was preparing to go along with his tutor, who went chaplain to lord Vere into the Low Countries, with a resolution of entering himself into the prince of Orange’s army, when he was diverted from this design by being engaged in a law-suit with sir William Whitmore, who laid claim to part of his estate. Afterwards, by the persuasions of Serjeant Glanville, who happened to be his counsel in this case, and had an opportunity of observing his capacity, he resolved upon the study of the law, and was admitted of Lincoln’s Inn, November 8, 1629. Sensible of the time he had lost in frivolous pursuits, he nowstudied at the rate of sixteen hours a day, and threw aside all appearance of vanity in his apparel. He is said, indeed, to have neglected his dress so much, that, being a strong and well-built man, he was once taken by a pressgang, as a person very fit for sea-service; which pleasant mistake made him regard more decency in his cloaths for the future, though never to any degree of extravagant finery. What confirmed him still more in a serious and regular way of life, was an accident, which is related to have befallen one of his companions. Hale, with other young students of the inn, being invited out of town, one of the company called for so much wine, that, notwithstanding all Hale could do to prevent it, he went on in his excess till he fell down in a fit, seemingly dead, and was with some difficulty recovered. This particularly affected Hale, in whom the principles of religion had been early implanted, and therefore retiring into another room, and, falling down upon his knees, he prayed earnestly to God, both for his friend, that he might be restored to life again, and for himself, that he might be forgiven for being present and countenancing so much excess: and he vowed to God, that he would never again keep company in that manner, nor drink a health while he lived. His friend recovered; and from this time Mr. Hale forsook all his gay acquaintance, and divided his whole time between the duties of religion and the studies of his profession. Noy, the attorney-general, who was one of the most eminent men of his profession, took early notice of him, directed him in his studies, and discovered so much friendship for him, that Mr. Hale was sometimes called Young Noy.

While pursuing his studies, he not only kept the hours of the hall constantly in term-time, but seldom put himself out of commons in vacation -time, and continued to pursue his studies with unwearied diligence. Not being satisfied with the law-books then published, he was very diligent in searching records; and with collections out of the books he read, together with his own learned observations, he made a most valuable common-place book. Selden soon found him out, and took such a liking to him, that he not only lived in great friendship with him, but left him at his death one of his executors. Selden also prescribed to him a more enlarged pursuit of learning, which he had before confined to his own profession; so that he arrived in time to a considerable knowledge in the civil law, in arithmetic, algebra, and other mathematical sciences, as well as in physic, anatomy, and surgery. He was also very conversant in experimental philosophy, and other branches of philosophical learning; and in ancient history and chronology. But above all, he seemed to have made divinity his chief study, so that those who read some of his works, might naturally think that he had studied nothing else.

It was by indefatigable application that he acquired so great an extent of knowledge. He rose early, was never idle, and scarce ever held any discourse about the passing events of the day, except with some few in whom he confided. He entered into no correspondence, unless on necessary business or matters of learning, and spent very little time at his meals. He never went to public feasts, and gave no entertainments but to the poor, literally following our Saviour’s direction, of feasting none but these. He always rose from dinner with an appetite, and able to enter with an unclouded mind on any serious employment that might present itself.

Some time before the civil wars broke out, he was called to the bar, and began to make a figure in the world; but, observing how difficult it was to preserve his integrity, and yet live securely, he resolved to follow those two maxims of Pomponius Atticus, who lived in similar times; viz. “To engage in no faction, nor meddle in public business, and constantly to favour and relieve those that were lowest.” He often relieved the royalists in their necessities, which so ingratiated him with them, that he became generally employed by them in his profession. He was one of the counsel to the earl of Strafford, archbishop Laud, and king Charles himself 5 as also to the duke of Hamilton, the earl of Holland, the lord Capel, and the lord Craven. Being esteemed a plain honest man, and of great knowledge in the law, he was equally acceptable to the presbyterians and the loyalists. In 1643 he took the covenant, and appeared several times with other lay -persons among the assembly of divines. He was then in great esteem with the parliament, and employed by them in several affairs, particularly in the reduction of the garrison at Oxford; being as a lawyer added to the commissioners named by the parliament to treat with those appointed by the king. In that capacity he was instrumental in saving the university, by advising them, especially the general Fairfax, to preserve that seat of learning from ruin. Afterwards, though no man more lamented the murder of Charles I. he took the oath called “The Engagement;” and, January 1651-2, was one of those appointed to consider of the reformation of the law. Cromwell, who well knew the advantage it would be to have the countenance of such a man as Hale to his courts, never left importuning him, till he accepted the place of one of the justices of the common bench, as it was called; for which purpose he was by writ made serjeant at law January 25, 1653-4. In that station he acted with great integrity and courage. He had at first serious scruples concerning the authority under which he was to act and, after having gone two or three circuits, he refused to sit any more on the crown side that is, to try any more criminals*. He had indeed so carried himself in some trials, that the powers then in being were not unwilling he should withdraw himself from meddling any farther in them; of which Burnet gives the following instance. Soon after he was made a judge, a trial was brought before him, upon the circuit at Lincoln, concerning the murder of one of the townsmen who had been of the king’s army, and was killed by a soldier of the garrison there. He was in the field with a fowling-piece on his shoulder, which the soldier seeing, he came to him, and said, he was acting

and execution is done accordingly, the but that it was necessary to decide the

to sit on the crown side at the assizes, property.“against an order the protector had made, viz.” That none who had been of the king’s party should carry arms;“and so would have forced the piece from him. But the other not regarding the order, and being the stronger man, threw down the soldier, and having beat him, left him. The soldier went to the town, and telling a comrade how he had been used, got him to go with him, and help him to be revenged on his adversary. They both watched his coming to town, and one of them went to him to demand his gun; which he refusing, the soldier. struck at him as they were struggling, the other came behind, and ran his sword into his body, of which he presently died. It was in the time of the assizes, so they were both tried. Against the one there was no evidence of malice prepense, so he was only found guilty of manslaughter, and burnt in the hand; but the other was found guilty of murder: and though colonel Whaley, who commanded the garrison, came into the court, and urged that the man was killed only for disobeying the protector’s order, and that the soldier was but doing his duty; yet the judge regarded both his reasonings and threatenings very little, and therefore not only gave sentence against him, but ordered the execution to be so suddenly done, that it might not be possible to procure a reprieve. On another occasion he displayed both his justice and courage in a cause in which the protector was deeply concerned, and had therefore ordered a jury to be returned for the trial. On hearing this, judge Hale examined the sheriff about it, and having discovered the fact, shewed the statute which ordered all juries to be returned by the sheriff or his lawful officer, and this not being done, he dismissed the jury, and would not try the cause. The protector was highly displeased with him, and at his return from the circuit (for this happened in the country) told him in great anger, that” he wa not fit to be a judge.“Hale replied only, with inimitable aptness of expression, that” it was very true."

When Cromwell died, he not only excused himself from accepting the mourning that was sent him, but also refused the new commission offered him by Richard; alleging, that “he could act no longer under such authority.” He did not sit in Cromwell’s second parliament in 1655;but in Richard’s, which met in January 1658-9, he was one^of the burgesses for the university of Oxford. In the healing parliament in 1660, which recalled Charles II, he was elected one of the knights for the county of Gloucester; and moved, that a committee might be appointed to look into the propositions that had been made, and the concessions that had been offered by Charles I. during the late war, that thence such propositions might be digested as they should think fit to be sent over to the king at Breda. The king upon his return recalled him in June by writ, to the degree of serjeant-at-law; and upon settling the courts in Westminster-hall, constituted him in November chief baron of the exchequer. When chancellor Clarendon delivered him his commission, he told him that “if the king could have found out an honester and fitter man for that employment, he would not have advanced him to it; and that he had therefore preferred him, because he knew none that deserved it so well.” As he knew it was usual for persons in his present station to be knighted, he endeavoured to avoid that honour, by declining for a considerable time all opportunities of waiting on the king; which Clarendon observing, sent for him upon business one day, when the king was at his house, and told his majesty, “there was his modest chief-baron,' 1 on which he was unexpectedly knighted. He continued eleven years in this place, and very much raised the reputation and practice of the court by his impartial administration of justice, and by his cautious diligence, and great exactness in trials. This gave occasion to the only complaint that was made of him,” that he did not dispatch matters quick enough;" but on the other hand his deliberation had this good effect, that causes tried before him were seldom if ever tried again.

He would never receive private addresses or recommendations from any persons of whatever rank, in any matter in which justice was concerned. One of the first peers in England went once to his chamber, and told him, “that having a suit in law to be tried before him, he was come to acquaint him with it, that he might the better understand it when it should be heard in court.” Judge Hale interrupted him, and said, “he did not deal fairly to com-e to his chamber about such affairs, for he never received any information of causes but in open court, where both parties were to be beard alike,” and therefore he would not suffer him to go on. The nobleman complained of this to the king, as a rudeness that was not to be endured; but his majesty bid him “content himself that he was no worse used,” and added, “he verily believed Hale would have used himself no better, if he had gone to solicit him in any of his own causes.” Two other stories are told to prove his strict integrity, one of a gentleman who sent him a buck for his table, and the other of the dean and chapter of Salisbury, who made him a present of six sugar-loaves, and as the gentleman and the dean and chapter had causes pending before him, he insisted on paying for these articles before he would try them. Too much, however, has been made of these stories, for it was proved that both presents were compliments which the parties had been accustomed to pay to the judges for the time being on the circuit. So many are the testimonies to judge Hale’s integrity, that it cannot stand in need of such petty supports as these.

Judge Hale, probably in consequence of his rule of favouring and relieving those that were lowest, and perhaps owing to the connections he had formed in early life, was now very charitable to the nonconformists, and screened them as much as possible from the severities of the law. He thought many of them had merited highly in the affair of the king’s restoration, and at least deserved that the terms of conformity should not have been made stricter than they were before the war. In 1671 he was promoted to the place of lord chief justice of England, and behaved in that high station with his usual strictness, regularity, and diligence; but about four years and a half after this advancement, he was attacked by an inflammation in the diaphragm, which in two days time broke his constitution to that degree that he never recovered; for his illness turned to an asthma, which terminated in a dropsy. Finding himself unable to discharge the duties of his function, he petitioned in January 1675-6, for a writ of ease; which being delayed, he surrendered his office in February. He died December 25th following, and was interred in the church-yard of Alderley, among his ancestors; for he did not approve of burying in churches, but used to say, “That churches were for the living, and church-yards for the dead.” He was twice married, having by his first wife ten children, all of whom he outlived except his eldest daughter and youngest son. The male line of the family became extinct in 1784, by the death of his great grandson, Matthew Haje, esq. barrister at law. To enter more minutely into the character of this great and good man would be to enlarge this article beyond all reasonable bounds. The testimonies to the excellence of his character are numerous. Whoever knew him spoke well of him. One enemy only, Roger North (in his Life of the Lord Keeper North) has endeavoured to lessen the respect due to sir Matthew Hale’s character; but in so doing, it has been justly remarked, has degraded his own. Sir Matthew was, for the brightness and solidity of his genius, the variety and elegance of his learning, and the politeness of his manners, the delight and envy of his contemporaries. His knowledge in divinity and humanity was a radicated habit: and there was scarce ever any appeal from his judgment as a casuist or a critic. Biirnet’s Life of Hale cannot be too often read.

He was the author of several things which were published by himself; namely, 1. “An Essay touching theGravitation or Non -gravitation of Fluid Bodies, and the Reasons thereof.” 2. “Difficiies Nugse, or observationstouching the Torricellian Experiment, and the various solutions of the same, especially touching the weight and elasticity of the air.” 3. “Observations touching the Principles of natural motion, and especially touching rarefaction and condensation.” 4. “Contemplations moral and divine.” 5. “An English Translation of the Life of Pomponius Atticus, written by Corn. Nepos; together with observations political and moral.” 6. “The Primitive Origination of Mankind considered and explained according to the Light of Nature, &c.” He left also at his decease other works, which were published namely, 1. His “Judgment of the Nature of true Religion, the Causes of its Corruption, and the Church’s Calamity by men’s addition and violences, with the desired Cure.” 2. “Several Tracts; as a f Discourse of Religion under three heads’,” &c. 3. “A Letter to his Children, advising them how to behave in their speech.” 4. “A Letter to one of his sons after his recovery from the small-pox/' 5.” Discourse of the Knowledge of God and of ourselves, first by the light of nature; secondly, by the sacred Scriptures.“All these, under the title of his” Moral and Religious Works,“were published by the rev. Thomas Thirlwall, 1805, 2 vols. 8vo, with his life by bishop and an appendix to it. Of his law tracts, one only was printed in his life-time, viz.:” London Liberty, or an argument of Law and Reason,“1650, which was reprinted in 1682, under the title of” London’s Liberties, or the opinions of those great lawyers, lord chief justice Hale, Mr. justice Wild, and serjeant Maynard, about the election of mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, and common councel of London, and concerning their charter.“In 1668 he wrote a preface to Rolle’s” Abridgment," which he published with the whole of that work.

After his death, appeared, 1. “The Pleas of the Crown, or a Methodical Summary,” 1678, 8vo, continued by Jacob and reprinted in 1716. To this edition is often annexed “The Treatise of Sheriffs 7 Accounts,” and “The Trial of the Witches.” It must not be concealed that this otherwise learned and sagacious man was so far prejudiced by early opinions, as to believe in witchcraft, and to preside on the trials of some persons accused of it. The “Pleas” has passed through seven editions, the last of which was in 1773. It was not, however, considered by the author as a complete work, but intended as a plan for his “Historia Placitorum Coronse,” of which hereafter. 2. “Treatise shewing how useful, &c. the inrolling and registering of all conveyances of land,” 1694, 4to, reprinted with additions in 1756. 3. “Tractatus de Successionibus apud Anglos, or a treatise of Hereditary Descents,” 1700, and 1735, 8vo. This forms a chapter in his “History of the Common Law.” 4. “A treatise on the original Institution, &c. of Parliaments,” 1707, republished by Francis Hargrave, esq. in 1796, 4to, under the title of “Hale’s Jurisdiction of the House of Lords,” with an introductory preface, including a narrative of the same jurisdiction, from the accession of James I. 5. “Analysis of the Law,” without date, but seems to have been only a design for a, 6. “History of the Common Law of England, in twelve chapters,” 1713, 8vo, a fourth and fifth edition of which were published in 1779 and 1794, 2 vols. 8vo, by Mr. serjeant Runnington. 7. “Historia Placitorum Coronie, or History of the Pleas of the Crown,” 1739, 2 vols. folio, edited by Sollom Emlyn, esq. and again in 1772, by George Wilson, esq. 2 vols. 8vo, and lastly in the same size, in 1800, by Thomas Dogherty, esq. There are a few other tracts and opinions published by Mr. Hargrave and other law writers in their collections. Sir Matthew Hale by his will bequeathed to the society of Lincoln’s-inn his ms books, of inestimable value, which he had been near forty years in gathering with great industry and expence. “He desired they should be kept safe and all together, bound in leather, and chained; not lent out or disposed of: only, if any of his posterity of that society should desire to transcribe any book, and give good caution to restore it again in a prefixed time, they should be lent to him, and but one volume at a time:” They are,“says he,” a treasure not fit for every man’s view; nor is every man capable of making use of them."

, an eminent scholastic divine of the thirteenth century, is supposed by some to have been a native of Gloucestershire, but others think he was a native of Hales in Norfolk. He was educated probably at Oxford, whence he went to the university of Paris, studied divinity and the canon law, and excelled so in both as to be called the “Irrefragable Doctor,” and the “Fountain of Life.” Nothing indeed can exceed the encomiums bestowed upon him in extravagance, although he appears to have been a good man, and well versed in the learning of his time. In 1222 he entered into the order of the Friars Minims, and took up his principal residence at Paris, where he died August 27, 1245. By order of Innocent IV. he wrote a commentary on the four books of sentences, or “Sum of Divinity,” printed at Nuremberg, 1482, and often reprinted; but there is a commentary on the sentences printed at Lyons in 1515, with his name to it, which is not his and Dupin is inclined to think that the “Sum of the Virtues,” Paris, 1509, and the “Destructorium Vitiorum,” Nuremberg, 1496, and Venice, 1582, are improperly attributed to his pen. Other works are enumerated by Dupin, of which doubts may be entertained, and many of his Mss. are said to be lost, but neither the authenticity of the one, or the loss of the other, "will now be thought matters of much interest or regret.

, a learned Englishman, was the younger son of Thomas Hales, of Hales’-place, at Halden in Kent, and was liberally educated, although at no university. He became an excellent scholar in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, and was well skilled in the municipal laws and antiquities. In the reign of Henry VIII. he was clerk of the ha,naper for several years^ and in 1548 was appointed a commissioner to inquire into inclosures, decayed houses, and the unlawful converting of arable land into pasture, for the counties of Oxfordj, Berks, &c. On this occasion he made an excellent charge, which is printed at length by Strype. He obtained a good estate in Warwickshire and elsewhere, upon the dissolution of the monasteries, and founded a free-school at Coventry. For the use of the scholars there, he wrote “Introductiones ad Grammaticam,” Latin and English. He was also the author of the “High way to Nobility,” Lond. 4to; and translated into English “Plutarch’s Precepts for the preservation of good health,” Lond. 1543, 8vo. Being a zealous protestant, he went abroad during queen Mary’s reign, and took every pains to compose the unhappy differences that took place among the English exiles at Francfort. On the accession of queen Elizabeth, he distinguished his loyalty in “An Oration to Queen Elizabeth at her first entrance to her reign,” which was, however, not spoken, but delivered in manuscript to the queen. He also wrote a treatise in favour of the succession of the house of Suffolk to the crown on the demise of Elizabeth, who was so displeased with it, as to commit the author to the Tower. It was answered by Lesley, bishop of Ross. Mr. Hales, whose imprisonment was probably of no long duration, died Jan. 28, 1572, and was buried in the church of St. Peter le Poor, Broad-street, London. Some of his. Mss. are in the Harleian collection.

, an eminent divine and critic, usually distinguished by the appellation of The Ever Memorable, was the fourth son of John Hales, of High Church, near Bath, in Somersetshire, by Bridget his wife, one of the Goldsburghs of Knahill, in Wiltshire. He was born April 19, 1584, at Bath, where his father then resided, but according to his register at Corpus college, Oxford, at Highchurch. His parents, who are stated to have been of “genteel quality,” placed him to school at Mells and Killmaston,'in Somersetshire, until fit for the university, in which he was entered of Corpus college April 16, 1597, but being then under age, was not sworn till April 17> 1599. He continued at this college until he toolc his bachelor’s degree in arts July 9, 1603, and had distinguished himself in the interval by equal diligence and proficiency in his studies. The reputation he thus acquired engaged the attention of sir Henry Savile, then warden of Mertoncollege, who being always desirous of increasing the number of its learned members, persuaded him to remove; and accordingly he was chosen probationer of Merton in September, and admitted fellow Oct. 13, 1606. He proceeded to his master’s degree in 1609. He had not been long in this station before the warden availed himself of his assistance in preparing his edition of St. Chrysostom’s works, and found him a very able coadjutor, as he was an excellent Greek scholar. His reputation indeed for skill in this language was such as to procure him the place of lecturer in Greek in the college.

On the death of sir Thomas Bodley, Jan. 28, 1613, he was appointed by sir Henry Savile to deliver the funeral oration at Merton -college, where sir Thomas was buried; and this was published the same year at Oxford, “Oratio funebris habita in collegio Mertonensi, a Johanne Halesio, magistro in artibus, et ejusdem collegii socio, anno 1613; Martii 29, quo die clarissimo equiti D. Thoniae Bodleio funus ducebatur,” 4to. It is reprinted in Bates’s “Vitae selectorum.”

On May 24 of this year, Mr. Hales quitted his fellowship at Merton, and was admitted fellow of Eton college. He was then in orders, and had acquired fame as a preacher. In 1616 he held a correspondence with Mr. Oughtred, as appears by a letter of his to that excellent mathematician, printed in the General Dictionary, hi 1618 he accompanied sir Dudley Carlton, ambassador to the Hague, as his chaplain, by which means he procured admission into the synod of Dort, though he was not properly a member. This indeed seems to have been his principal view in accompanying sir Dudley, who, besides his brother the bishop of Llandaff, first English commissioner, recommended him to Bogerman, president of the synod, and some other leading men. Ail this afforded him a favourable opportunity of collecting that information respecting the proceedings of the synod, which was afterwards published in his “Golden Remains.” The effect of these proceedings on his own mind was, that he became a convert to Arminianism. His friend Mr. Faringdon. informs us that “in his younger days he was a Calvinist, but that some explanation given by Episcopius* of the text in St. John iii. 16, induced him, as he said, to” bid John Calvin good night.“It does not appear, however, from his sermons, that he became a decided anti-predestinarian, although he pleads strongly for a toleration between the two parties, and thinks they may remain in Christian charity with each other. It is more remarkable that he should be induced by the arguments advanced in this synod, to think with indifference of the divinity of Jesus Christ as a necessary article of faith. This, however, seems obvious from some passages in his” Tract on Schism;“and such was his free and open manner both of talking and writing on these subjects, that he soon incurred the suspicion of inclining to Socinianism. Dr. Heylin went so far as to attribute two works to him, published with fictitious names, which have been since printed in the” Phoenix;" but it has been proved that they were written by Socinian authors. His biographers, however, all allow that he may be classed among those divines who were afterwards called Latitudinarians. He returned from the synod Feb. 8, 1619.

About 1636 he wrote his tract on “Schism” for the use of his friend Chilling-worth, in which, as already noticed, he expresses his sentiments on liturgies, forms of worship, &c. in exact conformity with those who are for dispensing with all obligations of the kind in established churches. Being informed that archbishop Laud was displeased with it, he drew up a vindication of himself in a letter addressed to his grace, who in 1638 sent for him to Lambeth, and after a conference of several hours, appears to have been reconciled to him. Of this conference we have a curious account by Dr. Heylin, in his “Cyprianus Anglicus,” some particulars of which have been eagerly contested by Des Maizeaux, in his Life of Hales. What seems most clear is, that Hales made some kind of declaration to the^ archbishop, purporting that he was a true son of the church of England, both in doctrine and discipline, which certainly implies a change or intended change of opinion, unless we allow to the writer of his life in the Biographia Britannica, that “a true son of the church,” or an “or­* Such is the story given by all his 87 and 92, we shall see more reasor. biographers; but if we consult his to think that he was influenced by the Letters in the” Golden Remains,“p. opinions of Martinius. thodox son of the church,” were phrases used, not in opn ^ition to heretics, but to puritans. In either way, the archbishop appears to have been satisfied, and informed Mr. liuies that he might have any preferment he pleased. Hales at this time modestly declined the offer, but the year following was presented by the archbishop at a public dinner, with a canonry of Windsor, in which he was installed June 27, 1639. With respect to the letter above-r ttientioned, which he wrote to the archbishop, it is said to have been first published by Dr. Hare in the seventh edition of his pampnlet entitled “Difficulties and Discouragements which attend the study of the Scriptures in the way of private judgment.” Des Maizeaux says it was probably found among the papers of archbishop Laud, which after the restoration were taken from Prynne; but this conjecture is erroneous; it was found in the house of Mrs. Powney, where Mr. Hales died, and there are even some reasons for doubting whether it was ever sent to the archbishop, although this is certainly not improbable. The original is at Eton, and appeared in print before it fell into the hands of Dr. Hare, the author of “Difficulties and Discouragements,” if indeed Dr. Hare was that author, which has been questioned.

In 1642 his tract on “Schism” was printed* without his consent, as favouring the disorganizing principles then prevailing, a clear proof that its tendency before had not been mistaken; but this procured our author no favour; for the same year he was ejected from his stall at Windsor. About the time of archoishop Laud’s death, in 1644, Mr. Hales retired from his lodgings in the college to a private chamber at Eton, where he remained for a quarter of a year unknown to any, and spent in that time only sixpence a week, living upon bread and beer; and as it was his custom formerly to fast from Tuesday night to Thursday night, now in his retirement he abstained during the same time from his bread and beer; and when he iieard of the archbishop’s murder, he wished that his own head had been taken off instead of his grace’s. Another account

* It was published with the title " A printed in the same year R. C. i.e.

supposed, to be Richard Bishop, who worth reviving. forms us that he was bursar about the time when the contest began between the king and parliament, and when both armies had sequestered the college rents, so that he could not get any to pay wages to the servants, or to buy victuals for the scholars. But after nine weeks hiding himself to preserve the college writings and keys, he was forced to appear. The old woman that concealed him demanded but six-pence a week for his brown bread and beer, which was all his meat, and he would give her twelve-pence. This concealment was so near the college or highway, that he used to say, “those who searched for him might have smelt him if he had eaten garlick.”

He continued in his fellowship at Eton, although he refused the covenant, but was ejected upon his refusal to take the engagement “to be faithful to the Common-wealth of England, as then established without a king, or a house of lords.” His successor, a Mr. Penwarn, or Penwarden, kindly offered him half the profits of his fellowship; but Mr. Hales refused to accept it, saying, if he had a right to any part, he had a right to the whole. Both Wood and Des Maizeaux have misrepresented this expression, which we give on the authority of Mr. Montague, one of his executors. About the same time he refused a liberal offer from a gentleman of the Sedley family, in Kent, of 100l. his board, and servants to attend him. In this spirit of independence he retired to the house of a Mrs. Salter, at Rickings, near Colebrook, accepting of a smaller salary of 50l. with his diet, to instruct her son. Here he also officiated as chaplain, performing the service according-to the liturgy of the church of England, in company with Dr. Henry King, the ejected bishop of Chichester, who was in the same house. But this retirement was soon disturbed by an order from the ruling powers, prohibiting all persons from harbouring malignants, or royalists; and although Mrs. Salter assured Mr. Hales that she was prepared to risk the consequences, he would not suffer her to incur any danger upon his account, but retired to the house of Hannah Dickenson, in Eton, whose husband had been his servant, and who administered the humble comforts she could afford with great care and respect. But being now destitute of every means of supporting himself, ne was obliged to sell (not the whole, as Wood says, but) a part of his valuable library to Cornelius Bee, a bookseller in London, for 700l. which, Walker informs us, and the fact seems to be confirmed by Dr. Pearson in his preface to the “Golden Remains,” he shared with several ejected clergymen, scholars, and others.

We shall now relate a story which has appeared in the various accounts of his life, and which is at least interesting-, but in most particulars questionable. It is thus related,: “His friend Mr. Faringdon” (See Faringdon) “coming to see Hales some few months before his death, found him in very mean lodgings at Eton, but in a temper gravely ch earful, and well becoming a good man under such circumstances. After a slight and homely dinner, suitable to their situation, some discourse passed between them concerning their old friends, and the black and dismal aspect of the times; and at last Hales asked Faringdon to walk out with him into the church-yard. There this unhappy man’s necessities pressed him to tell his friend that he had been forced to sell his whole library, save a few books which he had given away, and six or eight little books of devotion which lay in his chamber; and that for money, he had no more than what he then shewed him, which was about seven or eight shillings; and ‘ besides,’ says he, < I doubt I am indebted for my lodging.‘ Faringdon, it seems, did not imagine that it had been so very low with him, and therefore was much surprised to hear it; but said that ’ he had at present money to command, and to-morrow would pay him fifty pounds, in part of the many sums he and his wife had received of him in their great necessities, and would pay him more as he shoukl want it.‘ But Hales replied, < No, you don’t owe me a penny; or if you do, I here forgive you; for you shall never pay me a penny. I know you and yours will have occasion for much more than what you have lately gotten; but if you know any other friend that hath too full a purse, and will spare me some of it, I will not refuse that.‘ To this Hales added, ’ When I die, which I hope is not far off, for I am weary of this uncharitable world, I desire you to see me buried in that place in the church-yard,‘ pointing to the place. l But why not in the church-/ said Faringdon, * with the provost (sir Henry Savile), sir Henry Wotton, and the rest of your friends and predecessors?’ ‘ Because,’ says he, * I am neither the founder of it, nor have I been a benefactor to it, nor shall I ever now be able to be Sq.'” Dr. Walker, who relates this story, informs us of the persons from whom he received it; but it is now unnecessary to trace a narrative so flatly contradicted by Mr. Hales’s will, in which we find him bequeathing a very considerable property, and a very considerable part of his library, and indeed leaving such friendly legacies as are wholly inconsistent with the circumstances of a man reduced to a few shillings, and in debt for his lodging.

His last illness was of short duration, nor did it appear serious to his friends, with whom he conversed as freely as if in perfect health, within half an hour of his death. Mr. Montague, to whom he had been talking, left the room for about that time, and found him dead on his return. During this sickness, being aware that he was suspected of holding opinions adverse to the faith of the church of England, he made a declaration of his belief to his pupil, Mr. Salter, and appears to have recanted, if ever he held, opinions unfavourable to the doctrine of the Trinity. Mr. Salter made a memorandum of this from his mouth, which was long in possession of that family, as Mr. Fulman, when collecting materials for Hales’ s life, was credibly assured, both by Mr. Salter and by Mr. Montague. There is an article indeed in his “Remains” which seems to confirm this point, entitled his “Confession of the Trinity,” and may probably be the manuscript which Mr. Salter penned.

He died May 19, 1656, aged seventy-two, and was buried, according to his own desire, in Eton church-yard, where a monument was erected over his grave by Mr. Peter Curwen. In person, he was of an ingenuous and open countenance, sanguine, cheerful, and vivacious; his body was well proportioned, and his motion quick and sprightly. As to the excellence of his character, all writers seem agreed. Whatever his errors, he was esteemed a good man by those who knew him, and an able writer, as appears by the testimonies of lord Clarendon, lord Say and Sele, Dr. Pearson, bishop of Chester, Dr. Heylin, Andrew Marvel, Wood, Sailing-fleet, and others, quoted by sir David Dalrymple lord Hailes, in his fine edition of Hales’s works, and in the Biographia Britannica. “They,” says lord Hailes, “who are acquainted with the literary and political history of England, will perceive that the leading men of all parties, however different and discordant, have, with a wonderful unanimity, concurred in praise of the virtues and abilities of the ever memorable Mr. John Hales of Eton.”

We do not find that Hales ever suffered any thing to be published in his life-time, except his oration at the funeral of sir Thomas Bodley. Bishop Pearson says, that “while he lived, none was ever more solicited and urged to write, and thereby truly teach the world, than he; but that none was ever so resolved, pardon the expression, so obstinate against it.” In 1659, however, there appeared a collection of his works with this title, “Golden Remains of the ever-memorable Mr. John Hales of Eton college, &c.” which was enlarged with additional pieces in a second edition of 1673. This collection consists of sermons, miscellanies, and letters; all of them written upon particular occasions. In 1677 there appeared another collection of his works, entitled “Several Tracts by the ever-memorable Mr. John Hales, &c.” The 1st of which is, “Concerning the. Sin against the Holy Ghost;” 2. “Concerning the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and whether the Church may err in Fundamentals;” 3. “A Paraphrase on the 12th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew;” 4. “Concerning the power of the Keys, and auricular Confession;” 5. “Concerning Schism and Schismatics;” and some short pieces entitled “Miscellanies.” There is no preface nor advertisement to this volume, which seems to have been put out by the editor, who was thought to be sir Robert Filmer, with caution: but it is finely and correctly printed, with a portrait of Mr. Hales. To these volumes of posthumous works we must add the letter to archbishop Laud, mentioned before, which was printed in 1716. In 1765 lord Hailes edited a beautiful edition of his whole works, 3 vols. 12mo, with a very few alterations of obsolete words, and corrections in spelling, &c. Dr. Johnson blamed him for taking these liberties. We are more inclined to blame him for omitting bishop Pearson’s preface to the “Golden Remains,” with Faringdon’s Letter, which give a particular value to the edition of 1673. On the other hand, lord Hailes has added some letters and other articles which enhance the merit of his labours.

It remains to be mentioned, that Wood informs us that Mr. Hales not only associated with, and was respected by the wits of his time, sir John Suckling, sir William Davenant, Ben Jonson, &c. but would sometimes divert himself with writing verses; and that he had a talent for poetry he thinks appears from sir John Suckling’s tioning him in his “Session of Poets:”

“Hales, set by himself, most gravely did smile To see them about nothing keep such a coil. Apollo had spied him, but knowing his mind, Past by, and called Falkland that sat just behind.” But there is no proof that Mr. Hales of Eton was meant here, and still less proof of a letter in verse by sir John Suckling having been written to Mr. Hales at Eton, and beginning“” Sir, whether these lines do find you out," &c. It has more the appearance of one written to some person, at Oxford or Cambridge, than at Eton.

Mr. Faringdon had collected materials with a view to the life of Mr. Hales, which, Mr. Zouch informs us, were on his demise consigned to the care of Isaac Walton, by Mr. Fulman of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, who had proposed to finish the work, and on that occasion had applied for the assistance of Mr. Walton. Mr. Zouch adds, that “the result of this application is not known.” Having, however, by the kindness of Henry Ellis, esq. of the British museum, had access to a transcript of Mr. Fulman’s Mss. in Corpus college, as far as they regard the project of writing Hales’s life, we are enabled to say that it was a Mr. Milington, and not Mr. Fulman, who sent Faringdon’s materials to Mr. Walton, and that the latter gave Fulman every information in his power. By the same Mss. we have been enabled to correct many mistakes in Des Maizeaux’s life of Haiti, as well as in those in the General Dictionary, and Biographia Britannica.

, an eminent natural philosopher, particularly distinguished by his experiments on the physiology of plants, was the sixth son of Thomas Hales, esq. of Beakeborn, or Beckesbourn, Kent, and grandson of sir Robert Hales, bart. of Beckesbourn, where he was born, Sept. 17, 1677, and was admitted a pensioner of Bene't college, Cambridge, under the tuition of Mr. Moss, June 19, 1696, where, after taking his first degree in arts, he was admitted a fellow, Fob. 25, 1702-3. He proceeded M. A. at the next commencement, and was admitted B. D. in 1711. The degree of D. D. was conferred on him by the university of Oxford in 1733. Botany and anatomy formed his studies of relaxation while at Cambridge, his companion in which was the celebrated antiquary Dr. Stukeley. He was advanced successively to the perpetual curacy of Teddington, Middlesex, and to the livings of Portlock, Somersetshire, and Farringdon, Hampshire. He married Mary, the daughter and heiress of Dr. Henry Newce of Much-Hadham, in the county of Hertford, and rector of Halisham in Sussex. This lady died at the end of two years, leaving no issue, nor did he ever marry strain. He resided to the end of his life at Teddington, wliere he was visited by persons of rank and taste, amongst others by Frederick late prince of Wales, after whose death Dr. Hales was made clerk of the closet to the princess dowager, who always entertained a high respect for him, and after his decease erected a handsome monument to his memory in Westminster-abbey, near that of Handel. On this is liis bust in a large medallion, supported by a female figure representing Botany, accompanied by Religion. The epitaph is in Latin. He refused a canonry 01 Windsor, that he migbt continue to devote himself to his parochial duties, and his favourite scientific pursuits; and as piety, truth, and virtue were the principles of his character, he lived in universal esteem to the age of eighty-four, dying at Teddington, January 4, 1761, where he was buried, under the church tower, which he had rebuilt at his own expence.

Dr. Hales, having been elected a fellow of the royal society in 1717, communicated to that learned body his first essay in Vegetable Physiology, containing an account of some experiments concerning the effect of the sun’s heat in raising the sap. In 1727 appeared the first edition of his “Vegetable Staticks,” in 8vo, illustrated by plates, of which a second edition was published in 1731, followed afterwards by several others. This work was translated into French by Buffon in 1735, and into Italian by a Neapolitan lady named Ardinghelli, in 1756. There are also German and Dutch editions. The original book was, in fact, the first volume of a work entitled “Statical Essays,” of which the second, relating to the circulation of the blood in animals, was called “Hemastaticks,” and came out in 1733. In this the subject of the urinary calculus also is treated chemically and medically. With a laudable view of preventing as well as curing, the sufferings and crimes of his fellow-creatures, this good man published anonymously “a friendly admonition to the drinkers of gin, brandy, and other spirituous liquors,” which has often been reprinted and distributed gratis, by those who consider the temporal and eternal interests of their fellow subjects rather than the increase of the revenue. His invention of a ventilator for mines, prisons, hospitals, and the holds of ships, laid before the royal society in 1741, and applied also to the ventilation and consequent preservation of corn in granaries, has proved one of the most extensively useful contrivances for the preservation of health and human life. His philosophy was not a barren accumulation for the ignorant to wonder at, or for its professor to repose on in sottish self-sufficiency and uselessness; but an inexhaustible bank, on which his piety and his benevolence were continually drawing. Such philosophy and such learning alone entitle their possessors to authority or respect, and such are the best fruits of religion. In this instance at least they were duly honoured, both at home and abroad. The fame of Hales was widely diffused throughout the learned world, of which he received a most distinguished testimony, in being elected one of the eight foreign members of the French academy of sciences, in 1753, in the place of sir Hans Sloane, who died that same year. In 1732 he had been appointed, by the British government, a trustee for settling a colony in Georgia. He was well acquainted with Mr. Ellis, and other naturalists of his day, with whose views and pursuits of all kinds he ardently concurred; but it does not appear that his foreign correspondence was extensive. His name does not occur among the correspondents of Haller, who nevertheless held him in the highest estimation, as a philosopher and a man. As a vegetable physiologist, Dr. Hales is entitled to the highest honour. His experiments and remarks led the way to those of Du Hamel, Bonnet, and all that have followed. His accuracy of observation, and fidelity of relation, have never been impeached, and his ideas in physics, in many instances, went before the knowledge of his day, and anticipated future discoveries: such are his observations relative to airs, and to vegetable secretions. One of his more able successors in the study of vegetable physiology has doubted the accuracy of one of his plates only, tab. 11, in which three trees, having been united by engrafting their branches, the intermediate one, by the earth being removed from its roots, is left hanging in the air, but an experiment of the late Dr. Hope’s at Edinburgh, upon three willows, of which Dr. Smith was an eye-witness, and which was conducted with success in imitation of this of Hales, puts his account beyond all doubt whatever.

, a Polander, of the seventeenth century, whose original name was Albert Bobowski, was born a Christian;but, being taken by the Tartars while a child, was sold to the Turks, who educated him in their religion. He acquired the knowledge of seventeen languages, among the rest, of the French, English, and German, having had part of his education in these countries; and became interpreter to the grand seignior. He translated into the Turkish language the catechism of the church of England, and all the Bible. He composed a Turkish grammar and dictionary, and other things which were never printed. His principal work is, “A Treatise upon the Liturgy of the Turks, their pilgrimages to Mecca, their circumcision, and manner of visiting the sick,” which he was induced to write by Dr. Smith, chaplain to the English embassy at the Porte, and who gave the ms. to Dr. Hyde, by whom it was published in Latin, in the appendix of the “Itinera muncli ab Abrahamo Peritsol,” Oxford, 1691. His death, which happened in 1675, prevented the execution of a design which he had formed of returning to the Christian religion. He is supposed to have furnished Ricaut, the consul of Smyrna, with some materials for his book entitled “The State of the Ottoman Empire.”

, a learned English lady, the daughter of Mr. Robert Murray of the Tullibardin family, and allied by the mother’s side to the Perth family, was born in London, Jan. 4, 1622. Her father was preceptor to Charles I. and afterwards provost of Eton college, and her mother was subgoverness to the duke of Gloucester and the princess Elizabeth. Anne was instructed by her parents in every polite and liberal science; but theology and physic were her favourite studies. She became so particularly versed in the latter art, and in the practice of surgery, that she was consulted by the first personages in the kingdom: and the reputation of her skill was also diffused over Holland, whence many persons came for her advice. She was a faithful royalist, and a sufferer in the cause of Charles. On March 2, 1656, she was married to sir James Halket, a worthy and amiable man, to whom she bore four children, one of which, Robert, her eldest son, only survived. During her first pregnancy she wrote, mder the apprehension that she should not survive her delivery, a tract, containing excellent instructions, entitled “The Mother’s Will to the Unborn Child.” She was fourteen years a wife, and twenty-eight a widow. She was an acute theologian and a profound student. Her learning, simplicity, unaffected piety, exemplary conduct, and sweetness of manners, conciliated universal respect and esteem. She left twenty-one volumes, principally on religious subjects, some in folio, and others in quarto, from which a volume of “Meditations” was printed at Edinburgh in 1701. She died April 22, 1699.

, a learned, but not very accurate editor, was the son of the rev. Henry Hall, of Kirkbridge in Cumberland, where he was born in 1679. He received the rudiments of learning at Carlisle, whence he was removed to Queen’s college, Oxford, and admitted battiler July 7, 1696, but for some reason was not matriculated till Nov. 18, 1698. He took his bachelor’s degree in 1701, and that of master in 1704, having just entered into holy orders; and was elected fellow of his college, April 18, 1706. In 1719, upon the death of Dr. Hudson, keeper of the Bodleian library, he became a candidate for that office, and it appears that Dr. Hudson, a little time before his death, expressed a wish that Mr. Hall should be his successor; but his endeavours failed. Dr. Hudson, at the time of his death, had nearly finished his edition of Josephus; and by Mr. Hall’s exertions it was soon published. Shortly after, he married Dr. Hudson’s widow. On April 8, 1720, he was instituted to the rectory of Hampton Poyle, in Oxfordshire, at the presentation of his college; and in the following year took his degrees in divinity. He died at Garford, in Berkshire, and was buried at Kingston, in that county, April 6, 1723.

Dr. Hall, by his literary labours, deserved far more attention than he acquired. He had a quick apprehension, and his judgment was clear and penetrating; but it was his misfortune never to compare or revise the manuscripts he had once transcribed. His edition of “Leland de Scriptoribus” is very erroneously printed, and in some parts are great omissions, from his negligence. This was his first publication, and appeared in 2 vols. 8vo, Oxford, 1709. From a letter of bishop Tanner, we learn that he originally designed to publish Leland’s work only, and not what he afterwards completed in his “Bibliotheca;” and that he was at first somewhat concerned to find himself anticipated, although he allows Mr. Hall’s fitness for the task. Mr. Hail published also “N. Triveti Annales,” 1718, 3vo, the “Continuatio” of the same, 1722, 8vo; and drew up the account of Berkshire for the “Magna Britannia,” but was not, as reported, the author of the account of Cumberland in that work.

, an English lawyer and historiographer, was the son of John Halle of Northall in Shropshire, by Catherine his wife, daughter and heir of Thomas Gedding, and was descended from sir Francis Van Halle, knight of the garter in the time of Edward III. who was the son of Frederic Van Halle, of the Tyrol, in Germany, natural son of Albert king of the Romans and archduke of Austria. He was born, probably about the last year of the fifteenth century, in the parish of St. Mildred’s, London. He was educated at Eton, whence in 1544 he was sent to King’s college, Cambridge, where he continued until he became a junior fellow. He afterwards studied at Gray’s-inn, and resided there until he was made a judge in the sheriffs’ court. Wood, however, says that he went to Oxford about 1518, when cardinal Wolsey founded certain lectures there; and adds that, that being the common mart of learning, no person of ingenuity or curiosity thought themselves complete until they had been there. But Mr. Baker of St. John’s, in a letter to Hearne, seems to think this doubtful, as he is not to be traced from Gray’s-inn to Oxford.

After he had been called to the bar, he became first one of the common Serjeants, and then under-sheriff of the city of London, in both which offices he gave much satisfaction. In 1533 he was appointed summer reader of Gray’s-inn, and in 1540 double reader in Lent, and one of the judges of the sheriffs’ court. About the same time, according to Fox, he was a member of the house of commons, and was one of those who supported the bill for establishing the Six Articles by which popery was in a great measure upheld. He died in 1547, and was buried, but without any memorial, in the church of St. Bennet Sherehog, London. He wrote “The Union of the Houses of York and Lancaster,” Lond. 1548, folio. This was continued only to the reign of Henry VIII. 1532. The continuation to the latter end of that king’s reign in 1546, he left in manuscript, which falling into the hands of Grafton, he completed it, and printed it in 1550. In 1555 it was prohibited by proclamation. A third edition was printed in Lond. 1809, 4to, by the booksellers, who have reprinted the whole of the English Chronicles, with a care and at an expence which cannot be too highly commended.

, a learned English divine, was born in London in 1716. Of his parents little is known. His father is said to have occasionally resided at an old house at Poplar, which had a large hanging garden and a building at the bottom, and this, tradition reported, had been the laboratory of sir Richard Steele. The subject of this memoir was sent early to Eton, admitted on the foundation in 1729; and elected to King’s college, Cambridge, in 1735, where of course he became a fellow in 1738, and took the degrees in arts. Being recommended by Dr. Chapman to archbishop Potter, his grace appointed him his librarian at Lambeth in 1748, on the resignation of Mr. Jones. In that station he continued till the death of his patron in 1749; when archbishop Herring, who succeeded to the primacy, being sensible of his merit, not only continued him in that office, but, on his taking orders, appointed him one of his chaplains; and, in April 1750, collated him to the rectory of Harbledown (vacant by the promotion of Mr, Thomas Herring to the rectory of Chevening); in November 1752, the archbishop collated him also to the vicarage of Herne, which he held by dispensation; to which his grace afterwards added the sinecure rectory of Orpington, in the deanery of Shoreham, one of his peculiars. In 1756, Mr. Hall vacated Herne, on being presented to the vicarage of East Peckham by the dean and chapter of Canterbury, by whom he was much esteemed, having greatly assisted their auditor in digesting many of the records, charters, &c. preserved in their registry. In return, the late Dr. Walwyn (one of the prebendaries, who vacated that vicarage) was called by the archbishop to the rectory of Great Mongeham, void by the death of Mr. Byrch. On the death of archbishop Herring in 1757, he resigned the librarianship of Lambeth, and from that time resided chiefly at Harbledown, in a large house, which he hired, afterwards the seat of Robert Mead Wilmot, esq. Soon after the death of archbishop Herring, Mr. Hall was presented by his executors to the treasurership of the cathedral of Wells, one of his grace’s options. He was also at first a competitor for the precentorship of Lincoln, an option of archbishop Potter (which Dr. Richardson gained in 1760 by a decree of the house of lords); but soon withdrew his claim, well grounded as it seemed. His learning and abilities were great, but not superior to his modesty; and by his singular affability he obtained the love and esteem of all who knew him. His charitable attention to his poor parishioners, especially when they were ill, was constant and exemplary. At archbishop Seeker’s primary visitation at Canterbury, in 1758, Mr. Hall was “pitched upon” (his grace’s official expression) to preach before him at St. Margaret’s church, which he did from Acts xvii. 21. He died a bachelor, at Harbledown, Nov. 2, 1763, in the fortyseventh year of his age, after a short illness, occasioned by a violent swelling in the neck, which could not be accounted for by the eminent physicians who attended him. He was buried under the communion-table, at Harbledown -church, without any epitaph.

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

, a very eminent, pious, and learned English prelate, was born July 1, 1574, in Bristow-park, within the parish of Ashby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire. His father was an officer to Henry earl of Huntingdon, then president of the North, and under him had the government of that town, which was the chief seat of the earldom. His mother was of the family of the Bembridge’s, and according to his own account, a woman of great piety. His parents had twelve children, and therefore, although disposed to bring up Joseph for the church, were inclined from motives of oeconomy to confine his education to the care of a private tutor. But Mr. Gilby, fellow of Emanuel college, hearing of this design, represented its disadvantages in such a manner to Mr. Hall’s eldest son, that the latter importuned his father that Joseph might be sent to the university, and generously offered to sacrifice part of his inheritance, rather than prevent his brother from enjoying the advantages of academical education. His father, struck with this mark of brotherly affection, declared that, whatever it might cost him, Joseph should be sent to the university.

He was accordingly removed to Cambridge at the age of fifteen, and admitted of Ernanuel college, of which he was chosen scholar, and took the degree of bachelor of arts. His residence, however, was not without its difficulties. In 1591, as his expences began to be felt in so large a family, he was recalled to fill the office of schoolmaster at Ashby de la Zouch, and would have been prevented from ever returning to college, had not Mr. Edmund Sleigh of Derby, an uncle by marriage, offered to defray half the expences of his residence at Cambridge, until he should attain the degree of master of arts; and this he liberally performed. Another difficulty still presented itself. In 1395, his rholar&hip exnir*^ a^rj +h Q statutes of the college permitting only one person of a county to become fellow, he was about to leave the university a second time, when the earl of Huntingdon prevailed on his countryman and tutor, Mr. Gilby, to resign his fellowship, on promise of being made his lordship’s chaplain, and receiving higher promotion Mr. Gilby consented, and the days of examination for the fellowship were appointed; but before two of the three days of trial had expired, news was brought of the sudden death of the earl, by which event Mr. Gilby was likely to be deprived of the conditions on which he resigned. Alarmed at this, our author, with very honourable feeling, went to the master of the college, Dr. Chaderton, and stated the case, offering at the same time to leave college, and hoping that Mr. Gilby could be re-admitted. The latter, however, he was told, could not take place, as the fellowship had been declared void, and the election must proceed whether he continued to be a candidate or not. Mr. Hall accordingly went to the third examination, and was unanimously chosen.

Soon after his entering into the church, he was recommended by Dr. Chaderton to the lord chief justice Popham, to be master of Tiverton -school in Devonshire, then newly founded by Mr. Blundel; but he had scarcely accepted the appointment, when lady Drury of Sufteld offered him the rectory of Halsted near St. Edmundsbury, which induced him to relinquish the school. Two years after his settlement at this place, he married a daughter of sir George Winniff of Bretenham. In 1605, he accompanied sir Edmund Bacon to the Spa, where he composed his “Second Century of Meditations,” the first having been published before he set out. At Brussels he entered into a conference with Coster the Jesuit, and confirmed his own religious persuasion by what he had occasion to see of the practices and actual state of the Romish church, which he states as the principal object that induced him to take this journey. About a year and a half after, happening to be in London, he was invited to preach before prince Henry at Richmond palace, which he performed so much to his highness’ s satisfaction, that he made him one of his chaplains f,

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

read bishop Hail’s Meditations and he was collated to the archdeaconry of

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

and still fewer that his poems were Wood’s Ath. vpl. I. Fasti. 155. Halsted, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the incumbent, who assured him that with such a deduction it was an incompetent maintenance, and that he had been obliged to write books in order to be able to buy some. These arguments not prevailing, he was about to resign Halsted, when Edward lord Denny, afterwards earl of Norwich, gave him the donative of Waltham Holy Cross in Essex. About the same time (1612) he took the degree of doctor in divinity.

He now returned home, and resumed his professional duties, happy in having overcome his perplexities, an in the acquisition of a new patron, whom he valued so highly as to refuse the prince’s invitation to reside near his person, and in the road to higher preferment. He was afterwards made a prebendary of the collegiate church of Wolverhampton, a very small endowment, but acceptable to our author from the prospect it afforded of public usefulness; and after many law-suits he was the means of recovering some revenues belonging to the church which had been unjustly withheld. He is said by all his biographers to have retained the living of Waltham for twenty-two years, and this assertion is founded on his own words in his “Specialities;” but as he expressed the time in numerals, there may be a mistake in the printing, for if he remained at Waltham twenty -two years, he must have kept that living after he was bishop of Exeter, which is not very probable, especially as we find there were three incumbents on the living of Waltham before 1637.

In 16)6 he attended the embassy of James Hay, viscount Doncaster, into France, and during his absence king James performed a promise he had made before his setting out, of conferring upon him the deanery of Worcester. In the following year he accompanied his majesty into Scotland as one of his chaplains; but on his return it was insinuated to the king that Dr. Hall leaned too much to the presbyterian interpretation of the five points , the discussion of which at that time occupied the attention of the protestant world: on this he was required to give his opinion in writing, with which the king was so well satisfied, and found himself s* much of his way of thinking, that he commanded it to be read in the university of Edinburgh. In 1618 he was sent to the synod of Dort, which was summoned by the states-general, and consisted of the most eminent divines deputed from the United Provinces, and churches of England, Scotland, Switzerland, &c. and its objectwas to decide the controversy between the Calvinists and Arminians respecting the five points. Dr. Hairs companions on this mission were Dr. Carleton, bishop of Landaff, and afterwards of Chichester, Dr. Davenant, master of Queen’s college, Cambridge, and Dr. Ward, master of Sidney; but the state of his health requiring his return after about two months, his place was supplied by Dr. Goad. During his short residence, however, he preached a Latin sermon before the synod, and on his departure, among other honourable testimonies of their esteem, received from them, a rich gold medal which is painted suspended on his breast in the fine portrait now in Emanuel college. It appears by his treatise entitled “Via Media,” that he was not extremely rigid with respect to all the five points; but his was not an age for moderation, and no party sought a middle way.

In 1624 he refused the bishopric of Gloucester, but in 1627 accepted that of Exeter, to which he was consecrated Dec. 23, holding with it in commendam the rectory of St. Breock in Cornwall. At this time he appears again to have lain under the suspicion of being a favourer of the puritans. What he says in his defence is worthy of notice. “I entered upon that place (the bishopric) not without much prejudice and suspicion on some hands; for some who sat at the stern of the church, had me in great jealousy for too much favour of puritanism. I soon had intelligence who were set over me for spies; my ways were curiously observed and scanned. Some persons of note in the clergy, finding me ever ready to encourage those whom I found conscionably forward and painful in their places, and willingly giving way to orthodox and peaceable lecturers, in several parts of my diocese, opened their mouths against me, both obliquely in the pulpits, and directly at the court, complaining of my too much indulgence to persons disaffected, and my too much liberty of frequent lecturings within my charge. The billows went so high, that I was three several times upon my knees to his majesty, to answer these great criminations; and what contest I had with some graat lords concerning these particulars, it would be too long to report: only this, under how dark a cloud I was here upon, I was so sensible, that I plainly told the lord archbishop of Canterbury (Laud) that rather than I would be obnoxious to these slanderous tongues of his misinformers, I would cast off my rochet; I knew I went right ways, and would not endure to live under undeserved suspicion.”

It must be allowed that the religious principles which he inculcated from the pulpit and the press, were much more consonant to what the puritans maintained, than the lax Arminianism for which Laud contended, but at the same time bishop Hall’s zeal for episcopacy was not inferior to that of any supporter of the church. Few men, indeed, wrote more, or suffered more, in the cause. He published, even when publishing became hazardous, several able treatises in defence of the liturgy and church discipline; and was the powerful antagonist of Marshall, Calamy, Young, Newcomen, and Spurstow, who wrote a celebrated book called Smectymnuus (a title made up of their initials, Christian and surname), and all this he boldly ventured, when the republican party had possessed themselves of the fortresses of civil and ecclesiastical government, and were about to substitute power for argument; nor was it long before they made him experience the dangers of a high station in the church.

On the 15th of November, 1641, he was translated, by the little power now left to the king, to be bishop of Norwich; but on the 30th of December following, having joined with the archbishop of York, and eleven other prelates, in a protest against the validity of such laws as should be made during their compelled absence from parliament, he was ordered to be sent to the Tower with his brethren on the 30th of January, 1641-2. Shortly after, they were impeached by the commons of high treason, and on their appearance in parliament were treated with the utmost rudeness and contempt. The commons, however, did not think fit to prosecute the charge of high treason, having gained their immediate purpose by driving them from the house of lords, and he and his brethren were ordered to be dismissed; but upon another pretext they were again sent to the Tower, and it was not until June following that he was finally released on giving bail for 5000l. He immediately returned to Norwich, and being received with rather more respect than could be hoped for in the then state of popular opinion, he resumed his functions, frequently preaching, as was his custom, to crowded audiences, and enjoying the forbearance of the predominant party till the beginning of April, 1643, when the destruction of the church could no longer be delayed. About this time, the ordinance for sequestering notorious delinquents having passed, and our prelate being included by name, a distinction which his writings and his popularity had merited, all his rents were stopped, even the half-year then due; and a few days after, the sequestrators entered his palace, and began the work of devastation with unfeeling brutality, seizing at the same time all his property real and personal. Some notion of their proceedings may be formed from his own brief account.

“The sequestrators sent certain men appointed by them (whereof one had been burned in the hand) to appraise all the goods that were in my house; which they accordingly executed with all diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of trenchers, or my children’s pictures out of their curious inventory: yea, they would have apprized our very wearing-apparel, had not some of them declared their opinion to the contrary. These goods, both library and household-stuff of all kinds, were appointed to be exposed to public sale; but in the mean time, Mrs. Goodwin, a religious good gentlewoman, whom yet we had never known or seen, being moved with compassion, very kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators the whole sum at which the goods were valued; and was pleased to leave them in our hands, for our use, till we might be able to re-purchase them. As for the books, several stationers looked on them, but were not forward to buy. At last Mr. Cooke, a worthy divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators, to pay them the whole sum whereat they were set; which was afterwards satisfied out of that poor pittance which was allowed me for my maintenance.”

This “poor pittance” had at first the appearance of liberality, for when he applied to the committee of sequestrators at Norwich, they were either so ashamed of what they had been compelled to do, or entertained so much respect for his character, as to agree that he should have 400l. a-year out of the revenues of the bishopric. But their employers at the seat of government disdained to vary their proceedings by such an act of generosity, and the Norwich committee were told that they had no power to allow any such thing, but if his wife needed a maintenance. upon her application to the lords and commons she might receive a fifth part. After long delays, this was granted; but the sequestrators produced such confused accounts, that the bishop could never ascertain what a fifth part meant, and was obliged to take what they offered. And that even this pittance might wear the appearance of insult and persecution, after they had cut off all his resources they demanded assessments and monthly payments for the very estates they had seized, and levied distresses upon him in spite of every assurance that he had given up all. They even commanded him to find the arms usually furnished by his predecessors, although they had deprived him of all power over his diocese.

While he remained in his palace, he was continually exposed to the insolence of the soldiery and mob, who were plundering and demolishing the windows and monuments of the cathedral. At length he was ordered to leave his house, and would have been exposed to the utmost extremity, had not a neighbour offered him the shelter of his humble roof. Some time after, but by what interest we are not told, the sequestration was taken off a small estate which he rented at Higham near Norwich, to which he retired. His sufferings had not damped his courage, as in 1644 we find him preaching in Norwich, wherever he could obtain the use of a pulpit, and, with yet more boldness, in the same year he sent “A modest offer of some meet considerations,” in favour of episcopacy, addressed to the assembly of divines. During the rest of his life he appears to have remained at Higham unmolested, performing the duties of a faithful pastor, and exercising such hospitality and charity as his scanty means permitted. He died Sept. 8, 1656, in the eighty-second year of his age, and was buried in the church-yard of Higham without any memorial. In his will he says, “I leave my body to be buried without any funeral pomp, at the discretion of my executors, with this only monition, that I do not hold God’s house a meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints.” His wife died in 1647. He left a family behind, according to Lloyd, of whom Robert, the eldest son, was afterwards a clergyman and D. D. and archdeacon of Cornwall, and George was bishop of Chester.

, son of the preceding, was born at Waltham Holy Cross in 1612, while his father was rector there, and was admitted commoner of Exeter college, Oxford, in 1628. After taking his degrees and obtaining a fellowship, he was in 1639 collated to a prebend of Exeter. In 1641 he was made archdeacon of Cornwall on the resignation of his brother Robert, and had also the rectory of Minhinnet in that county, but was sequestered by the usurping powers, and although he would have kept a school for his subsistence, was not suffered even that resource. On the restoration, he was first made canon of Windsor, and afterwards bishop of Chester, with which he held Wigan in Lancashire, a living that was for several turns presented to the bishops of Chester. His death, on Aug. 23, 1668, was occasioned by a wound received by a knife, which happened to be in his pocket, when he fell from the mount in his garden at Wigan. He published some sermons, and a treatise entitled “The Triumphs of Rome over despised Protestancy,” Lond. 1655. He was a considerable benefactor to Exeter college.

, a Roman catholic writer, was educated at Christ’s college, Cambridge, which his principles obliged him to leave about 1572. He then went to Doway, and thence to Italy, where he resumed his studies and took his degree of D. D. Returning afterwards to Doway, he obtained a professorship and some preferment. He died in 1604-. He wrote some books of controversy; but is chiefly worthy of notice now, as the author of that “Life of bishop Fisher” which goes under the name of Bailey. He left it in manuscript at his death, and it was long preserved as a choice rarity in the library of the English Benedictines at Dieuward in Lorraine; but several transcripts getting abroad, one fell into the hands of Thomas Bailey, D. D. a son of Bailey, or Bayly, bishop of Bangor. This Dr. Bailey, who was a Roman catholic, sold it to a bookseller, by whom it was printed at London in 1655, under the editor’s name. In 1739 another edition was published at London, 12mo, edited by Coxeter. It is valued as a narrative of considerable interest and authenticity.

, a learned nonconformist, was born at Worcester July 22, 1610, and after being educated in grammar at the king’s school there, under Mr. Henry Bright, was entered at Baliol-college in 1624, whence he soon removed to Pembroke, and had for his tutor a Mr. Thomas Lushington, a man eminent for learning. After taking his first degree in arts, he returned home, and for a while taught a private school, and preached at King’sNortou. About this time Wood says he began to adhere to the puritans, but he adds, “was so rigid in his persuasion that he was disliked by the brethren.” This perhaps may he gathered from his works, some of which were written in opposition to unlicensed preachers, fifth-monarchy men, and other extravagancies of the times. He was afterwards master of the free-school at KingVNorton, and curate of the place, the only preferments he had. He appears to have been a man of retired and studious habits, and although averse to episcopacy and the ceremonies, free from turbulence or open interference in the commotions of the times. He died April 13, 1665, and was buried at KingVNorton, to the school of which he was a bountiful benefactor in the establishment of a library there, as well as to the library of Birmingham school. Among his works are many controversial tracts enumerated by Wood, commentaries on some parts of the Scriptures, and some translations, adapted apparently for the use of schools, from Ovid.

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

, one of the most eminent physicians and philosophers of the eighteenth century, was born at Berne, Oct. 16, 1708. He was the son of Nicholas de Haller, an advocate of considerable distinction in his profession, who had a numerous family. Albert was the youngest of five sons. From the commencement of his education, he discovered a great capacity for literature of every kind; to forward the progress of his studies, his father took into his family a private tutor, named Abraham Billodz; but such was the discipline employed by this pedagogue, that the accidental sight of him at any subsequent period of life, excited in Haller those painful recollections, of which all may have some idea who have been tutored with rigid severity. The progress of Haller’s studies, however, at the earliest periods of life, was rapid almost beyond belief. When other children were beginning only to read, he was studying Bayle and Moreri, and at nine years of age he was able to translate Greek, and was beginning to learn Hebrew. Not long after this, however, the course of his education was somewhat interrupted by the death of his father, which happened when he was in the thirteenth year of his age. After this he was sent to the public school at Berne, where he exhibited many specimens of early and uncommon genius. He was distinguished for his knowledge in the Greek and Latin languages, but principally for his poetical genius; and his essays of this kind, which were published in the German language, were read and admired throughout the whole empire.

In the sixteenth year of his age he began the study of medicine at Tubingen, under those eminent teachers Duvernoy and Camerarius; and continued there for the space of two years, when the reputation of the celebrated Boerhaave drew him to Leyden. Nor was this distinguished teacher the only man from whose superior abilities he had there an opportunity of profiting. Ruysch was still alive, and Albinus was rising into fame. Animated by such examples, he spent all the day, and the greatest part of the night, in the most intense study; and the proficiency which he made gained him universal esteem, both from his teachers and fellow-students. From Holland, in 1727, he came to England, where, however, his stay was but short, it being his intention rather to visit the illustrious men of that period than to prosecute his studies at London, and he formed connections with some of the most eminent of them. He was honoured with the friendship of Douglas and Cheselden, and he met with a reception proportioned nis merit from sir Hans Sloane, president of the royal society. After his visit to Britain he went to France, and ere, under those eminent masters, Winslow and Le Bran, with the latter of wbom he resided during his stay in Paris, be had opportunities of prosecuting anatomy which he bad not before enjoyed. But the zeal of our youno-ana. tomist was greater than the prejudice* of the people at that period, even in the enlightened city of Paris, could admit of. An information being lodged against him to the police, for dissecting dead bodies, he was obliged to make a precipitate retreat to Basil, where he became a pupil to the celebrated Bernoulli!.

Thus improved and instructed by the lectures of the most distinguished teachers of that period, by uncommon natural abilities, and by unremitting industry, he returned to Berne in the twenty-sixth year of his age. Not long after this, he offered himself a candidate, first for the office of physician to an hospital, and afterward for a professorship. But neither the character which he acquired before he left his native country, nor the fame which he had accumulated abroad, were sufficient to combat the interest opposed to him. He was disappointed in both; and it was even with difficulty that he obtained in the following year the appointment of keeper to a public library at Berne. The exercise of this office, however, although ill suited to his great abilities, was agreeable to him, as it afforded him an opportunity for that extensive reading by which he has been so justly distinguished; nor did this neglect of his merit diminish his ardour, or detract from his reputation either at home or abroad. He was soon after nominated a professor in the university of Gottingen, by king George II. The duties of this important office, which he discharged with no less honour to himself than advantage to the public, afforded him an ample field for the exertion of those great talents he possessed. Extensively acquainted with the sentiments of others respecting the ceconomy of the human body, struck with the diversity of opinions which they held, and sensible that the only means of investigating truth was by careful and candid experiment, he undertook the arduous task of exploring the phenomena of human nature from the original source. In these pursuits he was no less industrious than successful, and there was hardly any function of the body on which his experiments did not reflect either a new or a stronger light. Nor was it long necessary for him, in this arduous undertaking, to labour alone. The example of the preceptor inspired his pupils with the spirit of industrious exertion. Zinn, Zimmerman, Caldani, and many others, laboured with indefatigable industry to prosecute and to perfect the discoveries of their great master. And the mutual exertions of the teacher and his students not only tended to forward the progress of medical science, but placed the philosophy of the human body on a more sure, and an almost entirely new basis.

But the labours of Dr. Haller during his residence at Gottingen, were by no means confined to any one department of science. He was not more anxious to be an improver himself, than to instigate others to similar pursuits. To him, the anatomical theatre, the school of midwifery, the chirurgical society, and the royal academy of sciences at Gottingen, owe their origin. Such distinguished merit could not fail to meet with a suitable reward from the sovereign under whose protection he then taught. The king of Great Britain not only honoured him with every mark of attention which he himself could bestow, but procured him also letters of nobility from the emperor. The title, however, of baron de Haller, he never assumed, although it was often bestowed on him. On the death of Dillenius he had an offer of the professorship of botany at Oxford the states of Holland invited him to the chair of the younger Albinus and the king of Prussia was anxious that he should be the successor of Maupertuis at Berlin. Marshal Keith wrote to him in the name of his sovereign, offering him the chancellorship of the university of Halle, vacant by the death of the celebrated Wolff. Count Orlowr invited him to Russia, in the name of his mistress, the empress, offering him a distinguished place at St. Petersburgh. The king of Sweden conferred on him an unsolicited honour, by raising him to the rank of knighthood, of the order of the polar star; and the late Joseph II. emperor of Germany, honoured him with a personal visit.

Thus honoured by sovereigns, revered by men of literature, and esteemed by all Europe, he had it in his power to have held the highest rank in the republic of letters. Yet, declining all the tempting offers which were made to him, he continued at Gottingen, anxiously endeavouring to extend the rising fame of that medical school. But after seventeen years residence there, an ill state of health rendering him less fit for the duties of the important office which he held, he solicited and obtained permission from the regency of Hanover to return to his native city of Berne. His fellow-citizens, who might at first have fixed inm among themselves, with no less honour than advantage to their city, were now as sensible as others of his superior merit. A pension was settled upon him for life, and he was nominated at different times to fill the most important offices in the state. These occupations, however, did not diminish his ardour for useful improvements. He was the first president, as well as the greatest promoter, of the economical society at Bern; and may he considered as the father and founder of the orphan hospital of that city. Declining health at length restrained his exertions in the more active scenes of life, and for many years he was confined entirely to his own house. But even this could not put a period to his studies; he continued his favourite employment of writing till within a few days of his death, and preserved his senses and composure to the last moment, meeting death with the calmness of a philosopher, and what is transcendently superior, the lively faith of a Christian. His last words were addressed to the physician who attended him. “My friend,” said he to M. Rosselet, u the artery no longer beats," and immediately he expired, at the age of sixty-nine years, on the 12th of December, 1777.

The personal character of this extraordinary man is universally acknowledged to deserve the highest praise. In conversation he was most agreeable. His elocution was free, strong, and concise; and his knowledge remarkably diversified. His immense reading, fertile and faithful memory, and sound judgment, gave satisfaction to men of all dispositions. He was superior to the affectation of wit, and equally disdained to make a parade of his knowledge. His disposition was gentle, and his heart replete with sensibility. All his writings are expressive of his love of virtue. Ever pure in his own morals, he beheld with regret the neglect of them in others; and sincerely lamented the influence which irregularities in private life seemed likely to produce on the manners of the state.

But his religious principles form his highest honour. Religion was the object of his most serious inquiries, even from his earliest youth, at which period it was his happiness to enjoy a religions education. His comprehensive mind, ever capable of a just mode of thinking, had beeo happily impressed with the grand idea of a God, the great origin of all beings, and with the belief of eternity, “that ancient source as well as universal sepulchre of worlds and ages, in which the duration of this globe is lost as that of a day, and the life of map. as a moment.” Persuaded of a future life, he waited with confidence for that consummation which shall dissipate the mists of human wisdom, and display to us the universe such as it actually is, by the light of a new luminary, emanating from the Divinity himself. It was impossible that a spirit thus elevated, and constantly employed in researches after truth, could neglect to inquire into that most important one, the religion of his ancestors and of his country. Convinced of the reality of revelation, by diligently studying the scriptures, he could not behold with indifference any attacks on this fundamental law, this strongest bond of society; and at a time when other illustrious men prostituted their fame and talents in making dangerous attacks upon religion, he thought it his duty to enter the lists as her avowed champion and defender.

It has been usual for modern infidels to associate with themselves, if at all possible, men of eminent literary talents, and it must be confessed, they have been often too successful, especially with medical professors and practitioners, but Haller disdained such an association. Of this we have a remarkable proof which occurred soon after he had published his discoveries relative to irritability. On this property of animated matter, the unprincipled La Mettrie, the Dr. Sangrado of his day, laid the foundation of a system of materialism; and he had the impudence to dedicate it to Haller, declaring that to him he owed the acquisition of the great truths which it contained. Haller considered what La Mettrie meant for jocularity, as a serious insult; and observed, with horror, that he was held up to Europe as a favourer of materialism, or at least as the inventor of principles which served as a basis for that doctrine. Neither the respect which he had constantly declared for Christianity, in all his works, nor his mode of life, so conformable to the precepts of the Gospel, seemed sufficient to secure him against this imputation. He complained of it bitterly, and La Mettrie, in his answer, assumed the same tone; and Haller had prepared to publish a long and serious refutation of the charge, when he was informed of the death of his antagonist, and discovered, that, deceived by an excess of delicacy, which was, doubtless, laudable, he alone had been made the dupe of La Mettrie’s irony.

Another trait of his character may here be introduced, which is of more importance than the institutors of wanton experiments are disposed to allow. His humanity must have suffered in making experiments which could not be conducted without subjecting a great number 'of animals to most excruciating pains. This would have been purchasing an useless fact at too great a price. Haller perceived it, and the compassion he felt for the victims of his researches is often apparent in the narrative of his experiments. We behold him impressed with a kind of remorse, and omitting no occasion of expatiating on the utility which may be derived from them to mankind. He even seems desirous to believe that these animals suffer no pain, and is unwilling to renounce the opinion of Descartes. To such dilemmas may the best of men be reduced, when, from whatever motive, they are performing an action in itself wrong. We are willing, however, to believe, that he was as sparing as possible in such experiments.

In person Haller was tall and majestic, and of a serious and expressive countenance; he had at times an open smile, always a pleasing tone of voice, usually low, and seldom elevated, even when he was most agitated. He was fond of unbending himself in society, and was on those occasions remarkably cheerful, polite, and attentive; he would converse with the ladies on fashions, modes of dress, and other trifles, with as much ease as if he had never secluded himself from the world. Mr. Bonnet informed Mr. Coxe that Haller wrote with equal facility the German, French, and Latin tongues; that he was so well acquainted with all the European languages, except the Russian, Polish, and Hungarian, as to speak with the natives in their respective idioms. When he conversed on any science or subject of literature, his knowledge was so extensive, that he seemed to have made that his particular study. His profound erudition in every branch of science is well known to all who are conversant with his works: but the variety of his information, and the versatility of his talents, are thus delineated by Tscharner Lobrede, who was his particular friend “He possessed a fundamental knowledge of natural history was well read in history, both ancient and modern, universal and particular; and uncommonly versed in the state of agriculture, manufactures, trade, population, literature, and languages of the respective nations of Europe he had read with attention the most remarkable voyages and travels and was particularly conversantin the late discoveries which tend to illustrate the geography of the globe. He had even perused many thousand novels and plays; and possessed such an astonishing memory, that he could detail their contents with the utmost precision. As it was his custom to make extracts, and to give his opinion of every book which came into his hands, as well for his own private use, as for the Gottingen Review (in which his department embraced history, medicine, anatomy, natural history, and several miscellaneous works, especially those which appeared in Italy), he read most new publications; and so eager was he usually in the perusal, that he laid them upon the table even when he was at dinner, occasionally looking into them, and marking those parts with a pencil which he afterward extracted or commented upon. He was accustomed to make his remarks on small pieces of paper, of different sizes, which he placed in order and fastened together; a method he learned from Leibnitz.” It may be added, as one weakness in this great character, that he was always impatient under sickness, as well from his extreme susceptibility of pain, as because he was precluded in that situation from his literary occupations. He was fond, therefore, of taking violent remedies, more calculated to remove the immediate effects of pain, and to check his disorder, than to cure it radically. In his latter years he accustomed himself to opium, which, Zimmerman informs us, he took in so large a dose as eight grains, and which operated as a temporary palliative, but increased his natural impatience. This restlessness of temper, which occasionally disturbed his tranquillity even in his younger clays, and in the full flow of his health and spirits, was considerably heightened by the advances of age, and the disorders which shattered his frame toward the close of his days.

In his youth, during a residence of some time at Bienne in 1723, he composed several pieces in the epic, dramatic, and lyric styles, his genius being awakened by the romantic scenery of the country to poetical enthusiasm. At this period he was so entirely absorbed in his favourite study, that on a fire breaking out in the house in which he lived, he rushed into his apartment, and rescued his poetry from the flames, leaving his other papers, with little regret, to destruction. Afterward, when a more mature age had ripened his judgment, he was frequently heard to say that he had preserved from the flames those composition^ which he then thought the finest productions of human genius, in order at a future period to consign them to destruction, as unworthy of his pen. In the sequel, however, he was more successful in his poetical effusions. In 1729 he composed his poem “On the Alps,” on which critics have been highly lavish of praise. He likewise wrote some ethic epistles on the “The Imperfection of human Virtue, on Superstition and Infidelity, the origin of Evil, and on the vanity of Honour;” also various “Satires,” “Doris 3” a pastoral on his first wife, and his much admired “Elegy on her death.” It is a convincing proof of Haller’s versatile genius and extraordinary mental powers, that be should have so eminently excelled in poetry, which, except in his early youth, he never considered otherwise than as an amusement, either to soothe him under afflictions, or to console him for the envy and neglect of his contemporaries. The soundest German critics place Haller among the most eminent of their poets: and consider sublimity as the grand characteristic of his writings. They acknowledge that he improved the harmony and richness of his native tongue; that he possessed the highest powers of invention and fancy; great originality both in his ideas and language; that he is the true colourist of nature that he sounded the depths of metaphysical and moral science and that he equally excels in picturesque descriptions, in soft and delightful imagery, in elevated sentiments, and philosophical precision. A few supercilious critics have reproached his poetry with occasional obscurities, and accuse him of having introduced a new language affectedly averse to the common modes of diction; but twenty-two successive editions of his German poems, and the translation of them into the principal languages of Europe, prove that they possess the great aim of poetry, that of pleasing and interesting the reader.

To his other writings he added, in the German tongue, “Letters to his Daughter, on the truth of the Christian Revelation,” which have been translated into English. He published also an extract from Ditton’s “Truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” which he acknowledges to have first cleared any doubts he might entertain on that subject. He avows at the same time tflat he received infinite satisfaction from the study of the New Testament, because he was never more certain of holding converse with the Deity than when he read his will in that divine book. In 1775 he published, in German, “Letters concerning several late attempts of Free-thinkers yet living, against Revelation.” His own religious principles, it has been already remarked, were fixed; and having imbibed the system of Calvin, this was supposed to have occasioned some uneasiness and anxiety to him on his death, but he finally obtained consolation.

His scientific works form an imperishable monument to his memory. The most of his various dissertations on anatomical and physiological subjects, published during his residence at Gottingen, were collected, revised, and reprinted in 1751, under the title of“Opuscula Anatomica, de respiratione, de rnonstris, aliaque minora, quae recensuit, emendavit, auxit. Addidit alia inedita, et novas icones,” Gottingae, 8vo. The principal publications within the period just mentioned were, his great work on the botany of Switzerland, the first edition of which appeared in 1742, under the title of “Enurneratio methodica Stirpium Helvetise indigenarum, &c.” folio which, after undergoing considerable corrections and augmentations, was given under its perfect form, entitled “Historia Stirpium Helvetiae indigenarum,” in 1768, 3 vols. folio, with many plates. This admirable work, which was the most copious then published, was remarkably accurate in specific distinctions, and very full upon the economical and medicinal uses of the plants. The arrangement was peculiar to himself, and he shewed an unwillingness to adopt the improvements of Linnæus. His “Commentarii ad Hermanni Boerhaave Praelectiones Academicas, &c.” appeared in seven successive volumes, 8vo, between 1739 and 1744. Immediately after the death of his venerable preceptor Boerhaave in 1738, Haller undertook to publish his “Prelections,” from a ms copy of his own, collated with others. In 1743, he began to publish fasciculi of anatomical plates in folio, particularly relative to the blood-vessels in situ, which are among the most valuable of these helps to the study of the human frame. They were entitled “Iconum Anatomicarum, quibus praecipuae partes corporis humani delineate continentur, Fascic.” The plates amount to thirty-six in number. The first edition of his excellent little work “PrimsB Lmese Physiologic in usum Praelectionum Academicarum” was published in 1747, 8vo. It passed through many subsequent editions, and several translations, and is an outline of the system afterwards developed in his larger work. In 1751 he published at Amsterdam another work of great labour and research, viz. an edition of Boerhaave’s “Methodus Studii Medici,” with so many additions, that by much the greater part was his own; it may be considered as a prelude to his later “Bibliothecae.” He delivered two academical discourses in 1752, in which he proposed his peculiar opinions respecting the properties of sensibility and irritability in living bodies; they were written in French (of which language he had a perfect commarjd), under the title of “Dissertation sur les parties sensibles et irritables des Animaux,” Lausanne, 12mo. Besides these works, he printed a catalogue of plants growing in the botanic garden, and in the district, of Gottingen; observations made in a journey to the Hercynian forest in 1738, and an “Iter Helveticum, anni 1739;” and likewise a number of botanical papers, which were collected in his “Opuscula Botanica,” 1749, 8vo, or contained in the memoirs of the Gottingen academy, and other periodical works.

In 1755 he published his “Opuscula Pathologica, quibus sectiones cadaverum morbosorum potissimum continentur,” at Lausanne, 8vo. In the following year he printed “Deux Memoires sur le Mouvement du Sang, et sur les Effets de la Saignee, &c.” and a continuation of his inquiries respecting irritability and sensibility, entitled “Memoires sur la nature sensible et irritable des partes du Corps Animal,” Lausanne, 4 vols. 12mo. He likewise sent to the press a collection of theses, under the title of “Disputationes Chirurgicae selects,” ibid. 1755 6, in 5 vols. 4to. Soon afterwards, his great work, “Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani,” began to make its appearance: the first volume, in 4 to, having been published at Lausanne in 1757, and the eighth and last in 1766. Such a vast collection of well-authenticated facts, with so much accurate description and truly scientific argumentation, so well arranged, was never perhaps brought together upon any subject; and of this the author’s own discoveries made a very conspicuous part. His other anatomical writings are principally comprised in his “Opera anatomica minora,” in 1762 68, 3 vols. 4to. He had published in 1758, “Deux Memoires sur la Formation du Cceur dans le Poulet, &c.” containing the result of three years’ experiments at Berne, in which he traced, hour after hour, the developement of the parts of the chick in ovo, and especially of the heart. There are besides many separate tracts, which it would be tedious to enumerate.

Haller was three times married first to Marianne Wytsen, in 1731, who died in 1736; secondly to Elizabeth Buchers, in 1738, who died in childbed the same or the following year; both natives of Berne; and lastly in 1739, to Amelia Frederica Teichmeyer, a German lady, who survived him. He left eight children, four sons and four daughters, all of whom he lived to see established. His eldest son, Gotlieb Emmanuel, who was born in 1735, followed his father’s example in dedicating himself to the service of his country, and to the pursuits of literature, He was elected member of the great council, and obtained various employments under government, particularly the baillage of Nyon, in which situation he died in 1786. He distinguished himself as an author by various publications tending to illustrate the history and literature of Swisserland, and particularly by his “Swiss Library,” in 6 vols. 8vo, of which he lived to publish only the first Another valuable work of his was entitled " Cabinet of Swiss Coins and Medals.

, a dissenting clergyman, was born at Exeter in 1692, and educated under the care of Mr. Pierce, who was assistant to his father Mr. Hallet, minister of a congregation of protestant dissentars in that city. Joseph was ordained in 1713, and in 1722 he succeeded his father as joint-minister with Mdf. Pierce. Prior to this event he had engaged in the controversy, then warmly carried on in the west of England, concerning the Trinity; and in 1720, adopted the principles of Dr. Clarke, which he demonstrated in a treatise entitled “The Unity of God not inconsistent with the Divinity of Christ; being remarks upon Dr. Waterland’s Vindication, relating to the Unity of God, and the Object of Worship.” He published other pieces on the same subject; but his reputation is chiefly founded on his work entitled “A free and impartial Study of the Holy Scriptures recommended, being notes on some peculiar texts, with discourses and observations,” 1729 1736, 3 vols. published at different times. Our author published many other works, which being of the controversial kind, are now forgotten. Those which merited most general approbation were his “Discourse of the nature, kinds, and numbers of our Saviour’s Miracles” his “Immorality of the Moral Philosopher,” and his “Consistent Christian,” against the infidel writers, Woolston, Morgan, and Chubb. Mr. Hallet died in 1744.

, an eminent English philosopher and astronomer, was born at Haggerston, in the parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, near London, October 29, 1656. His father, a wealthy soap-boiler in Winchester-street, put him to St. Paul’s school, under the learned Dr. Thomas Gale, but his h'rst tutor is said to have been his father’s apprentice, who taught him writing and arithmetic at nine years old. At school he not only excelled in all parts of classical learning, but made such uncommon progress in mathematics, that, as Wood says, he had perfectly learnt the use of the celestial globe, and could make a complete dial; and we are informed by Halley himself, that he observed the change of the variation of the magnetic needle at London, in 1672, that is, one year before he left school. In 1673 he was entered a commoner of Queers-college, in Oxford, where he applied himself to practical and geometrical astronomy, in which he was greatly assisted by a curious apparatus of instruments which his father, willing to encourage his son’s genius, had purchased for him. At nineteen he began to publish new observations and discoveries, and continued to do so to the end of a very long life; nor did he distinguish himself less in the practical part of the science. Several observations made by him concerning a spot in the sun, seen at Oxford in July and August 1676, were published, with others by Flamsteed upon the same subject, in the Philosophical Transactions. By these the motion of the sun round its own axis, a phenomenon till then not well ascertained, was finally determined. The same year he likewise observed there, on Aug. 21, a.n occultation of Mars by the Moon, which he made use of afterwards, with others, in settling the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope against the objections of the French astronomers.

He had from his first admission into college, pursued a general scheme for ascertaining the true places of the fixed stars, and thereby correcting the errors of Tycho Brahe. His original view was to carry on the design of that first restorer of astronomy, by completing the catalogue of those stars from his own observations; but upon farther inquiry, finding this province taken up by Hevelius and Flamsteed, he dropped that pursuit, and formed another; which was, to perfect the whole scheme of the heavens by the addition of the stars which lie so near the south pole that they could not be observed by those astronomers, as never rising above the horizon either at Dantzick or Greenwich. With this view he left the university, before he had taken a degree, and applied himself to sir Joseph Williamson, then secretary of state, and to sir Jonas Moore, surveyor of the ordnance, both encouragers of these studies; who, applauding his purpose, mentioned it to Charles II. The king was much pleased with the plan, and immediately recommended him to the East India Company, who readily promised to supply him with every convenience, and to carry him to St. Helena, then in their possession by a grant from the crown, which he had been told was a proper situation for his design. Accordingly he embarked for that island November 1676, and arriving there safely in three months, began his task; but the frequent fogs which hover over the island made it much more difficult than he expected, and it was only by embracing every opportunity which offered during his abode on the island, that he was enabled to execute his purpose. He ascertained the position of 350 Stars, and published an account of his labours in 1676, under the title of “Catalogus Stellarum Australian.” In honour of his royal patron, he formed a new southern constellation, to which he gave the name of “Kobur Carolinum,” or the “Royal Oak.” During his stay at St. Helena, he had an opportunity of observing the transit of Mercury over the sun’s disk; an observation of some importance, because it could not be completely made in Europe, the sun not being risen in that country at the beginning of the transit. Having returned to England November 1678, the king, greatly satisfied, gave him, at his own request, a letter of mandamus to the university of Oxford for the degree of M. A. the words of which are, that “his majesty has received a good account of his learning as to the mathematics and astronomy, whereof he has gotten a good testimony by the observations he has made during his abode in the island of St. Helena.” This letter was dated November 18, and the same month he was also chosen fellow of the royal society. Indeed his catalogue of these southern stars merited particular honour; it was an entirely new acquisition to the astronomical world, and might not unaptly be called “Ccelum Australe eo usque incognitum;” and thence he acquired a just claim to the title, which by Flamsteed was not long after given him, the Southern Tycho.

In 1679 he was appointed by the royal society to go to Dantzick, for the satisfaction of Hevelius the consul, to adjust a dispute between him and our Hooke, about the preference of plain or glass sights in astroscopical instruments. He set out May 14 of this year, with a letter recommendatory from the society, and arrived at that city on the 26th. He waited on the consul immediately, and after some conversation, agreed to enter upon the business of his visit that same night; on which, and every night afterwards, when the sky permitted, the two astronomers made their observations together till July 18, when Halley left Dantzick, and returned to England. Here he continued till the latter end of the following year, 1680; when he set out upon what is usually called the grand tour, accompanied by the celebrated Mr. Nelson, who had been his school-fellow, and was his friend. They crossed the water in December to Calais; and in the mid-way thence to Paris, Haliey had, first of any one, a sight of the remarkable comet as it then appeared a second time that year in its return from the sun. He had the November before seen it in its descent, and now hastened to complete his observations upon it, in viewing it from the royal observatory of France. That building had been finished not many years before; and Halley’s design in this part of his tour was to settle a friendly correspondence between the two royal astronomers of Greenwich and Paris; embracing in the mean time every opportunity of improving himself under so great a master as Cassini, as he had done before under Hevelius. From Paris he went with his fellow-traveller, by the way of Lyons, to Italy, where he spent a great part of the year 1681; but his affairs then calling him home, he left Mr. Nelson at Rome, and returned to England, after making some stay a second time at Paris.

Soon after his return to England, he married the daughter of Mr. Tooke, auditor of the Exchequer; and took a house at Islington, where he immediately set up his tube and sextant, and eagerly pursued his favourite study. In 1683 he published his “Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Compass,” in which he supposes the whole globe of the earth to be one great magnet, having four rnagnetical poles or points of attraction, two near the north and two near the south pole. The same year also he entered early upon a new method of finding out the longitude by a most accurate observation of the moon’s motion. His pursuits are said to have been interrupted about this time by the death of his father, who having suffered greatly by the fire of London, as well as by a second marriage, into which he had imprudently entered, was found to have wasted his fortune. He soon, however, resumed his usual occupations; for, January 1684, he turned his thoughts to the theory of the planetary motions; and gravity occurred to him, as it bad done to Dr. Hooke, as the probable cause. But he could not satisfy himself as to the law according to which this power diminishes, and therefore first applied to Dr. Hooke and sir Christopher Wren; who not affording him any assistance, he went to Cambridge to Newton, who supplied him fully with what he had so ardently sought. But Halley having now found an immense treasure, could not rest till he had prevailed with the owner to enrich the public with it, and to this interview the world is in some measure indebted for the celebrated “Principia” of Newton, which were published in 1686; and Halley, who had the whole care of the impression by the direction of the royal society, presented it to James II, with a discourse of his own, giving a general account of the astronomical part of that book. He also wrote some very elegant verses in Latin, which are prefixed to the “Principia.”

In 1685 he became clerk to the royal society, and seems, for several years about that period, to have been the principal person employed in drawing up the “Philosophical Transactions.” In 1687 he undertook to explain the cause of a natural phenomenon, which had till then baffled the researches of the ablest geographers. The Mediterranean Sea is observed not to swell in the least, although there is no visible discharge of the prodigious quantity of water which runs into it from nine large rivers, besides several small ones, and the constant setting-in of the current at the mouth of the Streights. His solution of this difficulty gave so much satisfaction to the society, that he received orders to prosecute these inquiries, in the course of which, having shewn by the most accurate experiments, how that great increase of water was actually carried off in vapours raised by the action of the sun and wind upon the surface, he proceeded with the like success to point out the method used by nature to return the said vapours into the sea. This circulation he supposes to be carried on by the winds driving these vapours to the mountains; where, being collected, they form springs, which uniting, becomte rivulets or brooks, and many of these again meeting in the valleys, grow into large rivers, emptying themselves at last into the sea; thus demonstrating in the most beautiful manner the way in which the equilibrium of receipt and expence is continually preserved in the universal ocean. In 1698 he was candidate for the Savilian professorship at Oxford, but lost it by the intervention of bishop Stillingtteet, who refused to recommend him, on account of his opinions, which were considered as unfavourable to Christianity. We shall find, however, that he was afterwards elected*.

* Whiston, in the Memoirs of his ley should talk with him about it, which own Life, tells us from Dr. Bentlev, he did. But Halley was so sincere in that Halley “being thought of for sue-his infidelity, that he would not so cessor to the mathematical chair at Ox-much as pretend to believe the Chrisford, bishop Stilling&eet was desired tiau religiou, though he thereby was to recommend him at courti; but, hear-likely to lose a professorship; which ing that he was a sceptic and a ban-he did accordingly, and it was the terer of religion, the bishop scrupled given to Dr. Gregory.” fco be concerned, till his chaplain Bent. which, though it was well received both at home and abroad, he found upon a review liable to great and insuperable objections. Yet the phenomena of the variation of the needle, upon which it is raised, being so many certain and indisputed facts, he spared no pains to possess himself of all the observations relating to it, he could possibly come at. To this end he procured an application to be made to king William, who appointed him commander of the Paramour Pink, August 19, 169S; with express orders to seek by observations the discovery of the rule of the variations, and, as the words of his commission run, “to call at his majesty’s settlements in America, and make such farther observations as are necessary for the better laying down the longitude and latitude of those places, and to attempt the discovery of what land lies to the south of the Western ocean.” He set out on this attempt November 24th following, and proceeded so far as to cross the line; but his men growing sickly and untractable, and his first lieutenant mutinying, he returned home in June 1699. After getting his lieutenant tried and cashiered, he sailed September following, a second time, having the same ship with another of less bulk, of which he had also the command. He traversed the vast Atlantic Ocean from one hemisphere to another, as far as the ice would permit him to go; and, in his way back touched at St. Helena, the coast of Brazil, Cape Verd, Barbadoes, Madeiras, the Canaries, the coast of Barbary, and many other latitudes, arriving in England in September 1700. Having thus furnished himself with a competent number of observations, he published in 1701, “A General Chart, shewing at one view the Variation of the Compass in all those seas where the English navigators were acquainted;” and was the first who laid a sure foundation for the discovery of the law or rule whereby the said variation changes all over the world. In 1775 the original journals of Dr. Halley’s two voyages were published by Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, in a thin quarto volume, but they are not of much value, and were obviously never intended for publication by Dr. Halley himself.

Halley had been at home little more than half a year, en he went in the same ship with another express commission from the king, to observe the course of the tides in cry part of the British channel at home, and to take the wigitude and latitude of the principal head-lands, in order to lay down the coast truly. These orders were executed with his usual expedition and accuracy; and soon after his return he published, in 1702, a large map of the Britisli channel. The emperor of Germany having resolved to make a convenient and safe harbour for shipping in that part of his dominions which borders upon the Adriatic, Halley was sent this year by queen Anne to view the two ports on the Dalmatian coast, lying to that sea. He embarked November 27, went over to Holland, and passing thence through Germany to Vienna, proceeded to Istria, with a view of entering upon the execution of the emperor’s design; but, some opposition being given to it by the Dutch, it was laid aside. The emperor, however, presented him with a rich diamond ring from his finger, and gave him a letter of high commendation, written with his own hand, to queen Anne. He was likewise received with great respect by the king of the Romans, by prince Eugene, and the principal officers of that court. Presently after his arrival in England, he was dispatched again upon the same business; and, passing through Osnaburgh and Hanover, arrived at Vienna, and was presented the same evening to the emperor, who directly sent his chief engineer to attend him to Istria.

He returned to England November 1703; and, Wallis being deceased a few weeks before, Halley was appointed Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford in his room, and had the degree of LL. D. conferred upon him by that university. He was scarcely settled at Oxford when Aidrich, dean of Christ Church, engaged him to translate into Latin from the Arabic “Apollonius de Sectione llationis.” At the same time, from the account given of them by Pappus, he restored the two books, which are lost, of the same author, “De Sectione Spatii;” and the whole was published by him in one. volume, 8vo, at Oxford, 1706. Afterwards he took a share with his colleague, Dr. David Gregory, in preparing for the press the same Apollonius’s “Conies;” and ventured to supply the whole 8th book, which is lost, of the original. He likewise added Serenus on the “Section of the Cylinder and Cone,” printed from the original Greek, with a Latin translation, and published the whole, 1710, in folio; not to mention, that in the midst of all these publications the “Miscellanea Curiosa,” in 3 vols. 8vo, had come out under his direction in 1708. Jn 1713 he succeeded Dr. (afterwards sir) Haas Sloane, in the post of secretary to the royal society; and, upon the death of Flamsteed in 1719, was appointed to succeed him at Greenwich by George I. which made Halley, that he might be more at liberty for the proper business of his situation, resign the post of secretary to the royal society in 1721.

Upon the accession of king George II. his consort queen Caroline thought proper to make a visit at the royal observatory; and, being pleased with every thing she saw, took notice that Dr. Halley had formerly served the crown as a captain in the navy; and she soon after obtained a grant of his half-pay for that commission, which he enjoyed from that time during his life. An offer was also made him of being appointed mathematical preceptor to the duke of Cumberland; but he declined that honour in consideration of his advanced age, and because he deemed the ordinary attendance upon that employment not consistent with the performance of his duty at Greenwich. In August 1729 he was admitted as a foreign member of the academy of sciences at Paris. About 1737 he was seized with a paralytic disorder in his right hand, which, it is said, was the first attack he ever felt upon his constitution: however, he came as usual once a week till within a little while before his death, to see his friends in town on Thursday, before the meeting of the royal society. His paralytic disorder increasing, his strength gradually wore away, and he came at length to be wholly supported by such cordials as were ordered by his physician Dr. Mead. He expired as he sat in his chair, without a groan, January 14, 1741-2, in his eighty-sixth year, and was interred at Lee, near Blackheath.

Dr. Halley was of a middle stature, inclining to tallness, of a thin habit of body, and fair complexion, and always spoke and acted with an uncommon degree of sprightliness and vivacity. He was of an ardent and glowing temper, of a generous and friendly disposition, and of great candour, He retained his good spirits to the last, and used to say “that a studious life generally contributes to make a long one, by keeping a man out of harm’s way.” That he was, with all his learning and amiable qualifications, an infidel in religions matters, seems as generally allowed as it appears unaccountable. It must, however, be deeply regretted that he cannot be numbered with those illustrious characters who thought it not beneath them to be Christians, with Bacon and Milton, Boyle, Locke, and Newton.

, a celebrated French bishop, was born in 1595. He rose to be doctor and professor of the Sorboune, archdeacon of Dinan, prebendary of Chartres, syndic of the faculty of divinity at Paris, and, at length, bishop of Cavaillon in 1656. He travelled into Greece, Italy, and England. Urban VIII. had so great a value for him, that he twice nominated him to the bishopric of Toul; and wishing to create two cardinals, one of which should be a Frenchman, the other a Spaniard, proposed him, with father de Lugo, for that dignity; but a strong faction, and some reasons of state, placed the hat designed for M. Hallier on the head of the commander of Valencey. M. Hallier appeared with great distinction, as proctor, at the assembly of the French clergy, 1645, in which the rules concerning the regulars were revived, which he explained by a learned “Commentary.” On his second visit to Kome in 1652, he solicited, both by personal application and by writing, the condemnation of the five famous propositions of Jansenius, and obtained the bull “Cum occasione” against them. He died in 1659, worn out with sickness and infirmities, aged sixty -four. His principal works are, “Defence of a censure of the faculty of theology at Paris respecting the Bishops of England against the Jesuits;” “Treatise on the Hierarchy;” and a “Treatise on Elections and Ordinations,” 1636, folio; by which he acquired great reputation, both at Rome and in France. He wrote also various pieces against the five propositions of Jansenius, which, in the estimation of his church, discover profound learning, and abound with very strong and solid reasoning. They are all in Latin.

, a learned English prelate, was born at Mansfield in Derbyshire, Jan. 18, 1733. He was the eldest son of Mr. Samuel Hallifax, apothecary, by Hannah, daughter of Mr. Jebb, of Mansfield, by which alliance our author became first cousin of the late sir Richard, and Dr. John Jebb. He was admitted of Jesus college, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself in his academical exercises, and he was in the list of wranglers, as they are called, and obtained the chancellor’s gold medal forclassical learning, and some prize dissertations. He proceeded A. B. in 1744, and A.M. in 1747, and afterwards removed to Trinity Hall (where are only two fellowships in divinity), and proceeded LL.D. in 1761. In Nov. 1765 he was presented to the rectory of Chaddington, in Buckinghamshire, and in 1768 was elected professor of Arabic in the university of Cambridge, which he resigned in 1770 on being made regius professor of civil law. In February 1774 he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to his majesty; in 1775 was created D. D. by royal mandate, and on the death of Dr. Topham succeeded him as master of the faculties in Doctors Commons. From Mrs. Galley, relict of Dr. Galley, prebendary of Gloucester, he received, without any solicitation on his part, but merely as a reward for his eminent services in the cause of religion, the valuable rectory of Warsop, in Nottinghamshire, in 1778. In 1781 he was advanced to the see of Gloucester, and thence was translated to the see of St. Asaph in 1787, being the first English bishop that was translated to that see, and the second that was translated to a bishopric in North Wales. He died of the stone, March 4, 1790, when only fifty-seven years of age. He married one of the daughters of Dr. Cooke, provost of King’s college, Cambridge, who wrote the elegant epitaph on his monument in the church of Warsop, where bishop Hallifax was buried at his own desire, near a favourite son who was interred there. By his wife he left another son and six daughters.

Bishop Hallifax published at various times, fourteen sermons, preached on occasional subjects; an “Analysis of the Roman Civil Law compared with the Laws of England, being the heads of a course of lectures publicly read in the university of Cambridge,” 1774, 8vo; Twelve Sermons on the Prophecies concerning the Christian Religion, and in particular concerning the church of Papal Home, preached in Lincoln’s Inn chapel, at bishop Warburton’s lecture," 1776, 8vo. He published also an excellent analysis of bishop Butler’s Analogy annexed to a charge of that prelate and was the editor of Dr. Ogden’s Sermons. He was a man of great ability, an excellent civilian, and a very acute and elegant public speaker.

, a learned Jesuit, born at Liege in 1572, acquired great reputation by his critical knowledge of the learned languages, and of ecclesiastical history. He was also an admired preacher in his day. He died in 1656. His principal works are; 1. “Anthologia poetica, Gr. Lat.” Douay, 1617, 12mo; and 2. “Illustrium ecclesiae orientalis Scriptorum Vitae et documenta,” Douay, 1633, and 1636, 2 vols. fol. comprising the lives of the eminent men of the first and second age of the Eastern church. He wrote the lives of some other eminent ecclesiastics and saints, which are inserted in the “Acta Sanctorum,” and other collections.

, a portrait painter of great celebrity, was born at Mechlin in 1584. He was a pupil of C. Van Mander, and by a careful observation of nature obtained that accurate knowledge of the structure of the human frame, which is so useful in his art. No man ever set the features of a face together with more truth than Frank Hals, or with a readier pencil; and he did it with great truth and spirit also of colour, as well as of execution. He avoided the laboured mode of finish so much admired among his countrymen at the time, and gave his portraits much expression and animation of countenance, particularly of a gay and humourous nature. A decided character of individual nature is remarkable in his portraits, and is not found in an equal degree in any other painter. If he had joined to this most difficult part of the art, a patience in finishing what he had so correctly planned, he might justly have claimed the place which Vandyke, all things considered, so justly holds as the first of portrait painters. This last mentioned artist was so delighted with his works, that he went to Haerlem, where he resided, for no other purpose than to pay him a visit. He introduced himself as a gentleman on his travels, who wished in haste to have his portrait painted. Hals was hurried from the tavern, where he usually passed his leisure time, seized the first canvas he could find, and began his labour. In a short time he had proceeded so far, that he asked Vandyke to look at what he had done, who expressed himself as very well pleased with it, at the same time saying that he thought such work so easy, he was persuaded he could do it himself. Taking the palette and pencils, he desired F. Hals to sit down, and in a quarter of an hour shewed him the portrait. The moment he saw it he recognized his visitor, and embraced him with transport. Vandyke endeavoured to prevail upon Hals to accompany him to England, engaging to enrich him but he was not able to succeed Hals declaring that his happiness consisted in the enjoyment of his friends and his bottle, and while he possessed these he was satisfied with his condition. For his treatment of Brouwer, see our account of that artist. He died in 1666, at the age of eighty-two. He had a brother, Dirk Hals, a painter of animals, merry-makings, conversations, feasts, and subjects of drollery, to whom, however, as an artist, he was far superior in all the better qualities of art: yet Dirk’s works gained him much reputation, and he practised with great success till he was sixty-seven years old, when he died in 1656.

, a pious Scotch divine, and professor of divinity in the university of St. Andrew’s, was born at Duplin in the parish of Aberdalgy, near Perth, Dec. 25, 1674. His father had been minister of that parish, from which he was ejected after the restoration, for nonconformity. He died in 1682, and as the country was still unsafe for those who professed the presbyterian religion, his mother went over to Holland with her son, then about eight years old. During their stay there, he was educated at Erasmus’s school, and made great proficiency in classical literature. On his return to Scotland in 1687, he resumed his studies, and was also sent to the university. When he had finished his philosophical course there, he entered upon the study of divinity; and being, in June 1699, licensed to preach, he was in May 1700, appointed minister of the parish of Ceres, in which he performed the part of a zealous and pious pastor; but his labours proving too many for his health, the latter became gradually impaired. In April 1710, he was appointed by patent from queen Anne, professor of divinity in the college of St. Leonard at St. Andrew’s, through the mediation of the synod of Fife. On this occasion he entered on his office an inaugural oration, in qua, post exhibitam rationem suscepti muneris, examinatur schedula nupera, cui titulus ' Epistola Archimedis ad Regem Gelonem Albae Graecae reperta anno serae Christianas 1688, A. Pitcarnio, M. D. ut vulgo creditur, auctoreV Pitcairn’s reputation as a deist was at that time very common in Scotland, however justly he may have deserved it; and Mr. Halyburton’s attention had been much called to the subject of deism as revived in the preceding century. He did not, however, enjoy his professorship long, dying Sept. 23, 1712, aged only thirty-eight. It does not appear that he published any thing in his life-time; but soon after his death two works were published, which still preserve his memory in Scotland. 1. “The Great Concern of Salvation,” 1721, 8vo. 2. “Ten Sermons preached before and after the celebration of the Lord’s Supper,” 1722. But the work which proves his ability as a controversial writer, and the great extent of his reading, although it is less known than the preceding, is his “Natural Religion insufficient; and Revealed necessary to man’s happiness,” Edinburgh, 1714, 4to. This was written in confutation of the deism of lord Herbert and Mr. Blount. In this elaborate performance he largely and distinctly shews that the light of nature is greatly defective, even with respect to the discoveries of a Deity, and the worship that is to be rendered to him with respect to the inquiry concerning man’s true happiness with respect to the rule of duty, and the motives for enforcing obedience, &c. Dr. Leland says that “whosoever carefully examines what this learned and pious author has offered on these several heads, will find many excellent things; though the narrowness of his notions in some points has prejudiced some persons against his work, and hindered them from regarding and considering it so much as it deserves.”

, professor of chemistry and of the practice of medicine in the university of Jena, was born in that city, December 21, 1697, his father being professor of mathematics in the same university. From his earliest years he had evinced a disposition to the study of anatomy, and was accustomed to steal from his parents, whf> destined him for the church, to attend the lectures of Slevoight on that subject. After the death of his father he relinquished even the study of the mathematics, to which he had applied himself during several years, and gave up his attention exclusively to medical pursuits. In 1721 he took the degree of M. D. and in 1726 was appointed professor; and he held the chair of the practice of medicine at the time of his death, which occurred June 22, 1755.

Hamberger is entitled to the merit of having illustrated physiology by the doctrines of philosophy, and of having rendered both more popular than they had ever before been in Germany; but in the dispute with the celebrated Haller, in which the publication of his hypothesis concerning respiration involved him, and which was carried on with considerable asperity, he was altogether in error; he lived long enough, indeed, to be convinced of the weakness of his hypothesis, which he avowed to his friends. It was contained in a dissertation, “De Respirationis mechanismo et usu genuino,” published in 1727. His other principal works are, 1. “Elementa Physices, methodo Mathematica in usum auditorum conscripta,” Jense, 1727, 8vo. 2. “Disputatio de Venaesectione, quatenus motum sanguinis mutat,” ibid. 1729. 3. “Dissertation stir la mechanique des Secretions dans le corps humain,” Bourdeaux, 1746. This dissertation obtained a prize from the academy of that city. 4. “Physiologia Medica, seu do actionibus corporis humani sani doctrina,” Jense, 1751, 4to. 5. “Elementa Physiologiae Medicse, &c.” 1757, an abridgment of the preceding for students: and 6. “Metfiodus medendi Morbos, cum prafatione de prsestantia Theorise Hambergeri, prae ceteris,” ibid. 1763, published by professor Baldinger.

, a very learned French philosopher and divine, was born at Vire in Lower Normandy, 1624. He passed through his first studies at Caen, and his course of rhetoric and philosophy at Paris. At eighteen he wrote a treatise, in which he explained, in a, very simple manner, and by one or two figures, Theodosius’s three books upon spherics; to which he added a tract upon trigonometry, extremely short, yet perspicuous, and designed as an introduction to astronomy. In one of his latter works he observes, that he was prompted by the vanity natural to a young man to publish this book: but, as Fontenelle remarks, there are few persons of that age capable of such an instance of vanity. At nineteen he entered himself in the congregation of the oratory, where he continued ten years, and left it in order to be curate of Neuilli upon the Marne. He applied in the mean time intensely to study, and acquired much reputation' by publishing works upon astronomy and philosophy. In 1666, Colbert proposed to Lewis XIV. a scheme, which was approved by his majesty, for establishing a royal academy of sciences; and appointed our author secretary of it. In 1668, he attended M. Colbert de Croissy, plenipotentiary for the peace at Aix la Chapelle; and, upon the conclusion of it, accompanied him in his embassy to England, where he formed an acquaintance with the most eminent persons of this nation, particularly with Boyle, Hay, and Willis. Thence he went over to Holland, and returned to France, having made a great number of useful observations in his travels. In 1678 his “Philosophia Vetus etNova, ad usum scholae aceommodatain regia Burgundia pertractata,” was printed at Paris in 4 vols. 12mo; and, in 1681, enlarged and reprinted there in six. This work, which was done by the order of M. Colbert, contains a judicious collection of the ancient and modern opinions in philosophy. Several years after its publication, the Jesuits carried it to the East-Indies, and taught it with success; and father Bovet, a missionary in China, wrote to Europe, that when his brethren and himself engaged in drawing up a system of philosophy in the Tartarian language for the emperor, one of their chief aids was Du Hamel’s “Philosophia e't Astronomia;” and they were then highly valued, though the improvements in philosophy since his time have rendered them of little use. In 1697 he resigned his place of secretary of the royal academy of sciences, which by his recommendation he procured for M. de Fontenelle. He had some years before this devoted himself to divinity, and published various works in that science. However, he did not entirely resign his former studies, but published at Paris, in 1698, “Regiae Scientiarum Academiae Historia,” 4to, in four books; which, being much liked, he afterwards augmented with two books more. It contains an account of the foundation of the royal academy of sciences, and its transactions, from 1666 to 1700, and is now the most useful of any of his works relating to philosophy; as perhaps the most useful which he published in theology is his last work printed at Paris, 1706, in folio, and entitled “Biblia Sacra Vulgatae editionis, una cum selectis ex optimis quib usque interpretibus notis, prolegomenis, novis tabulis chronologicis et geographicis.”

He died at Paris August 6, 1706, without any sickness, and of mere old age, being almost eighty-three. Though he had quitted his cure at Neuilli in 1663, yet he went every year to visit his old flock and the day he spent there was kept as an holy-day by the whole village. He was highly esteemed by the most eminent prelates of France, though he enjoyed but very small preferments. He was a man of great modesty, affability, piety, and integrity; he was disinterested, averse to all contests, and exempt from jealousy and affectation. He wrote Latin with remarkable purity and elegance.

, an eminent French writer on rural ceconomy and vegetable physiology, was born at Paris in 1700. Being a member of the academy of sciences, he published in the memoirs of that body in 1728, “his first ceconomical essay, on a kind of parasitical fungus which infests the roots of the cultivated saffron, and is fatal to them. In the same year he published in that work his first treatise on a much more important subject, the propagation of trees by grafting, where he hazarded some physiological opinions, and entered on a course of experiment and observation, subsequently pursued to an extent which has been of great service to science, and has justly rendered his name famous. He continued from time to time to communicate to the academy various papers relative to these matters. In 1750 he began to publish in 12mo, his” Traite de la Culture des Terres,“which was continued in following years till 1761, when the sixth volume came out. Our English writer Tull was his first guide, but he subsequently profited widely by the experience of himself and of various other people, aided by his physiological sagacity, of which he made a far more cautious use than is general with farming philosophers, and deserves to be reckoned the father of intelligent agriculture in France. His” Elements d'Agriculture," in 2 vols. 12mo, published in 1764, may be considered as a sequel to the preceding work. These two volumes have been translated into German, Spanish, and English. Du. Hamel wrote also on the cultivation and preparation of Madder, in 1757, 4to.

A more splendid and extensive work of our author was published in 1755, making 2 vols. 4to, entitled “Traité des Arbres et Arbustes qui se cultiventen France en pleine terre.” Having been made inspector of the marine, he undertook to investigate all that concerned the cultivation and preservation of timber, and in this work extended his views to the treatment and botanical discrimination of all trees and shrubs capable of bearing the climate of France. Hence a number of American species became first known to his countrymen, and even to other nations by his means. Haller reckons that this work treats of a thousand species and varieties. They are arranged alphabetically, according to their Latin generic names, and he took for the basis of the work the nomenclature of Tournefort. It is to be regretted that he did not regularly adopt the Linnaean nomenclature as to species, which had appeared two years before in the “Species Plautarum,” a work he occasionally cites; but he was not enough of a practical botanist to feel its transcendant utility. His most eminent and important work, the “Physique des Arbres,” came out in 1758, in 2 vols. 4to, with numerous copper-plates; and on this his merit as a physiologist securely rests. In it he has collected and revised all that had been done before him, especially by Malpighi, Grew, Hales, and Bonnet, as well as his own preceding experiments and remarks. The great merit of this work consists in its details respecting the structure and anatomy of plants, and the physiology of their different organs.

In 1760 he published another valuable practical volume in 4to, with plates, entitled “Des Semis et Plantations des Arbres, et de leur Culture.” This had an especial view to the great national object of improving the forests of the kingdom, highly important in a country where so much wood is continually used for fuel, and so little, in proportion to some other countries, naturally produced. The author laudably takes advantage of the panic with which his countrymen are every now and then seized, of a scarcity of fuel, to excite their attention to the means he would recommend for the prevention of so dreadful an evil, and his book is a mine of practical information for the woodman, the planter, and the gardener, of the first authority and value. The same subject is followed up in 2 vols. 4to, published in 1764, under the title of “De l'exploitation des Bois, ou moyen de tirer parti des taillis demi futayes et hautes futayes;” and in 1767 appeared another 4to volume, “Du transport, de la conservation, et de la force du Bois,” full of practical information relative to the properties, qualities, and uses of different woods, intermixed with physiological remarks, as in the preceding performances of this excellent writer, who published also in 1764, upon the art of refining sugar, in folio, and in 1765, on the preservation of grain, in 12mo. His most splendid work was printed at Paris in 1768, in 2 vols. 4to, with fine coloured plates. Its title is “Traite des Arbres fruitiers.” In this the varieties of fruit-trees are elegantly distinguished by figures and descriptions, and their treatment illustrated with the usual science of the author.

Du Hamel was associated to the chief learned societies of Europe, lived in high respect and esteem, and died at Paris in 1782, when he was dean of the academy of sciences. Besides the above works, he wrote on the management of rope-yards and fisheries, and on naval architecture.

, a learned Lutheran divine, was born at Osnabrug, in 1525, and began to publish his opinions at Camen; but being driven from thence, was received by the canons at Bilefeldt,~ and taught the youth there according to Luther’s catechism. His enemies having obliged him to retire to Rostock, he took a doctor of divinity’s degree, and attended the conference at Antwerp in 1567, by desire of the prince of Orange. He was appointed superintendant of the churches in the duchy of Brunswick, that they might be regulated according to the confession of Augsburg; and at last, superintendant-general of the county of Oldenburg, 1593; where he died June 27, 15L5. His principal works are, 4 * Commentaria in Pentateuchum,“Dilingae, 1563, fol.; Cbronicum Dldenburgicum,”.&c. and “Opera Genealogico-Historica de Westphalia et Saxonia inferiori,” 1711, 4to, new edit.

, of whom some notice has been taken in our account of Grammont, was of an ancient Scotch family, but born in Ireland, whence with his family he passed over to France, as followers of the fate of Charles the Second. At the Restoration he again returned to England, but was a second time compelled to leave this country at the revolution. He was an elegant and accomplished character, and was for many years the delight and ornament of the most splendid circles of society, by his wit, his taste, and above all, his writings. His works have been often published, particularly in 6 vols. 12mo, 1749, and in 3 vols. 8vo, 1805, and consist of pieces of poetry, fairy-tales, and “Memoirs of the Count de Grammont,” all of which are excellent in their kind. The Fairy Tales were intended as a refined piece of ridicule on the passion for the marvellous, which made the Arabian Nights Entertainments so eagerly read at their first appearance. The “Memoirs of Grammont” will always excite curiosity, as giving a striking and too faithful detail of the dissolute manners of Charles II. 's court. Count Hamilton died at St. Germain’s, in 1720, aged seventy-four.

, an excellent painter, descended from the ancient family of the Hamiltons of Murdieston, originally of Fife, but now of Lanarkshire, in Scotland, was born at Lanark, and having discovered from his infancy a great predilection for historic painting, went young to Rome, where he became the scholar of Augustine Massuchi. With the exception of a few occasional visits to Britain, he resided the whole of his life at Rome, where he died in 1797. He had not perhaps the genius of an inventor; but the advantages of liberal education, and of a classic taste in the choice of his subjects, and the style at which he always, and often successfully, aimed, made him at least equal to his most celebrated contemporaries. Some of the subjects which he painted from the Iliad bear ample evidence of this. Achilles grasping the body of Patroclus, and rejecting the consolation of the Grecian chiefs, and Hector tied to his chariot, have something of Homeric sublimity and pathos; the moment chosen is the crisis of the fact, and the test of the hero’s character. But in this last he is not always happy, as in Achilles dismissing Briseis, where the gesticulation of an actor supplants the expression of the man. Of his women the Briseis in the same subject is the most attractive. Neither his Andromache mourning over Hector, nor the Helen in the same, or the scene with Paris, reach our ideas of the former’s dignity and anguish, or the form and graces of the latter. Indeed, what idea can be supposed to reach that beauty, which, in the confession of age itself, deserved the ten years’ struggle of two nations And yet, in the subject of Paris, those graces and that form are to be subordinate to the superior ones of Venus. He would rank with the first names in art, who from such a combination should escape without having provoked the indignation, contempt, or pity of disappointed expectation.

Though he was familiar with the antique, the forms of Hamilton have neither its correctness nor characteristic purity; something of the modern eclectic principle prevails in his works, and his composition is not seldom as much beholden to common-place ornamental conceits and habits, as to propriety. Though solicitous about colour, he was no colourist; he should have disdained what the grandeur of his subjects rejected, and contented himself with negative hues, and grave and simple tones, instead of the clammy greys, harsh blues, and sordid reds, the refuse of the Roman and Bolognese schools, that cut his breadth and dim his chiaroscuro.

A considerable part of the latter periods of this artist’s life was dedicated to the discovery of antique monuments. He opened scavos in various places of ttye Roman state, at Centumcellue, Velletri, Ostia* and above all at Tivoli, among the ruins of Adrian’s Villa; and it must be owned that the success which attended most of his researches made amply up to art in general for the loss which painting perhaps may have suffered by the intermission of his practice and example. In the collection of the Museo Clementino, next to the treasures of Belvedere, the contributions of Hamilton in statues, busts, and basso relievos, were by far the most important to the progress of art and classic learning; and the best collections scattered over Russia, Germany, and this country, owe many of their principal ornaments to his discoveries. Nor was he less attentive to modern art; he published his “Schola Italica Picture” to trace the progress of its styles from Lionardo da Vinci to the successors of the Caracci. It yet remains to be said Hamilton, that however eminent his talents or other qualities were, they were excelled by the liberality, benevolence, and humanity of his character.

, earl of Orkney, a brave officer, was the fifth son of William earl of Selkirk, and very early embraced the profession of arms. In March 1689-90 he was made a colonel, and distinguished himself with particular bravery at the battle of the Boyne, under king William, July 1, 1690; and those of Aghrim, July 12, 1691; of Steinkirk, Aug. 3, 1692, and of Lauden, July 19, 1693. Nor did he appear to less advantage at the sieges of Athlone, Limerick, and Namur. His eminent services in Ireland and Flanders through the whole course of the war, recommended him so highly to the favour of William III. that on Jan. 10, 1695-6, he was advanced to the dignity of a peer of Scotland, by the title of earl of Orkney. His lady, likewise, whom he married in 1695, and who was the daughter of sir Edward Villiers, knight-marshal, and a special favourite with the king, received a grant under the great seal of Ireland, of almost all the private estates of the abdicated king James, of very considerable value. Upon the accession of queen Anne, the earl of Orkney was promoted to the rank of majorgeneral March 9, 1701-2, to that of lieutenant-general Jan. 1, 1703-4, and in February following was made knight of the thistle. In 1704 his lordship was at the battle of Blenheim, which was crowned with so important a victory in favour of the allies; and he made prisoners of war a body of 1300 French officers and 12,000 common soldiers, who had been posted in the village of Blenheim. In July 1705, he was detached with 1200 men to march before the main body of the army, and to observe the march of a great detachment of the enemy, which marshal Villars had sent off to the Netherlands, as soon as he found the march of the allies was directed thither; and his lordship used such expedition, that he seasonably reinforced the Dutch, and prevented marshal Villeroy’s taking the citadel of Liege, about which his troops were then formed. The next month his lordship marched with fourteen battalionsof foot, and twenty-four squadrons of horse, to support the passage over the Dyle, which was immediately effected. In July 1706, he assisted at the siege of Menin; and on Feb. 12, 1706-7, was elected one of the sixteen peers for Scotland, to sit in the first parliament of Great Britain after the union. The same year he again served under the duke of Marlborough in Flanders; being in the latter end of May detached with seven battalions of foot from Meldart to the pass of Louvain, in order to preserve the communication with it, and on that side of Flanders; which his lordship did, and abode there during the time of the allied army’s encamping at Meldart. When they decamped on Aug. 1, to Nivelle, within two leagues of the French army, and a battle was expected, the earl, with twelve battalions of foot, and thirty squadrons of horse and dragoons, and all the grenadiers of the army, advanced a little out of the front of it, and lay all night within cannon-shot of the enemy; and the next morning charged their rear in their retreat for above a league and a half, and killed, disabled, and caused to desert, above 4000 of them. In the beginning of September following his lordship was again detached with another considerable body of troops to Turquony, under a pretence of foraging by the Scheld, but really with the design of drawing the enemy thither from Tournay to battle, and getting between them and the city. In November 1708, the earl commanded the van of the army at the passing of the Scheld; and in June the year following, assisted at the siege of Tournay, and took St. Amand and St. Martin’s Sconce; and on Aug. 20, was detached from the camp at Orchies towards St. Guilliampass, on the river Heine, towards the northward of Moms, in order to attack and take it, for the better passage of the army to Mons; and on the 30th of that month, was present at the battle of Malplaquet. In 1710 he was sworn of the privy-council; and made general of foot in Flanders, and in 1712 colonel of the royal regiment of foot-guards called the fuzileers, and served in Flanders under the duke of Ormond. In October, 1714, his lordship was appointed gentleman extraordinary of the bed-chamber to king George I. and on Dec. 17 following, governor of Virginia. He was likewise afterwards constable, governor and captain of Edinburgh castle, lord-lieutenant of the county of Clydesdale, and field-marshal. He died in London, at his house in Albemarle-street, Jan, 29, 1736-7.

, bishop of Ossory, and an eminent mathematician, was born in the county of Dublin, March 26, 1729. He entered of Trinity-college, Dublin, Dublin, Nov. 17, 1742, and in 1751 was elected a fellow that college. In 1758 he published his treatise on conic ions, < De Sectionibus Conicis," and in 1759 was elected Erasmus Smith’s professor of natural philosophy. In 1764 he resigned his fellowship, having accepted a college living; and in 1767 obtained the living of St. Anne’s, Dublin, which in the following year he resigned at the proposal of the primate Robinson, for the deanery of Armagh. In 1772 he married an Irish lady of good family of the name of Wood. In 1796 he was consecrated 'bishop of Clonfert, having been recommended to that dignity without his solicitation or knowledge; and in 1799 was removed to the see of Ossory, where he continued till his death, Dec. 1, 1805.

, usually reckoned the first Scotch reformer, is said by all the Scotch ecclesiastical writers to have been of royal descent, as by his father, he was nephew to James Hamilton, earl of Arran, and by his mother, nephew to John Stewart, duke of Albany: Mackenzie, however, who cannot be suspected of any wish to degrade his countryman, maintains that his father was only a bastard brother of the earl of Arran, and his mother a bastard sister of the duke of Albany. Whatever truth there may be in this, it appears that he had great family interest, and being possessed of uncommon abilities, was intended for the higher offices in the church, had he not become its decided enemy. He was born in 1503, and after completing the usual course of studies at the university of St. Andrew’s, went to Germany, where he was, according to Dempster, made a professor in the university of Marpurg, which was newly erected by Philip, Landgrave of Hesse. During his residence abroad he imbibed the opinions of Luther, Melanchthon, and other reformers; and on his return to his own country, where he had been made abbot of Ferme, or Feme, in Ross-shire, he spared no pains in exposing what he considered as the corruptions of the Church of Rome, and the many errors, both in doctrine and practice, that had crept into the Christian religion.

In this employment he was both zealous and successful^ for he was a young man of great learning, of a courteous disposition, and unblameable in private life. This alarmed the clergy, who, under pretence of conferring with him, enticed him to St. Andrew’s, at that time the principal seat of the dignified clergy, where after repeated disputation, in which some of the clergy appeared to lean to his opinions, he was one night suddenly apprehended in his bed, and carried prisoner to the castle. The next day he was presented before the archbishop of St. Andrew’s, James Beton, assisted by the archbishop of Glasgow, the bishops of Brechin, Dunkeld, and Dumblaine, with a number of abbots, priors, and doctors, before whom he was accused of the following articles: 1. That the corruption of sin remains in children after baptism. 2. That no man by the power of his free-will can do any thing that is truly good. 3. That no man is without sin altogether, so long as he liveth. 4. That every true Christian may know himself to be in a state of grace. 5. That a man is not justified by works, but by faith only. 6. That good works make not a good man, but that a good man doeth good works, as it is the good tree which bringeth forth good fruit, not the fruit that maketh the tree good. 7. That faith, hope, and charity, are so linked together, that he who hath one hath all, and he who lacketh one lacketh all. 8, That remission of sin is not purchased by any actual penance.

In his defence he maintained the first seven of these articles to be undoubtedly true, and sound doctrine, and as such they appear to have been afterwards adopted by Calvin, and, in substance, make part of that system known by his name, and incorporated in the national creed of Scotland. The rest of the articles, Mr. Hamilton allowed, were disputable points, but such as he could not condemn, unless he saw better reasons than had been offered. They were all condemned, however, as heretical, and on the 1st of March, 1527, sentence was pronounced against him, declaring him a heretic, and giving him over to the secular power, to suffer the punishment due to heretics, which was burning alive. On the same day the secular power pronounced its sentence, which was immediately executed with every circumstance of savage barbarity, which, all historians agree, he bore with firmness and invincible constancy to the principles he had professed. The place of execution was the gate of St. Salvador’s college.

A circumstance accompanied his execution which made a deep impression on the people. One friar Campbell, who had often conferred with him, and appeared to be convinced by his arguments, now molested him much when tied to the stake. Hamilton exclaimed “Wicked man, thou knowest that I am not an heretic, and that it is the truth of God for which I suffer. So much thou didst confess to me in private, and thereupon I appeal thee to answer before the judgment-seat of Christ.” This Campbell died raving mad a short time after, when the people began to compare his end with that of the martyr’s, and upon inquiring more closely into the cause of the latter’s death, became many of them converts to his doctrines. One Lindsay, an intimate friend of the archbishop, said, “My lord, if ye burn any more, except ye follow my counsel, ye will utterly destroy yourselves if ye will burn them, let them be burned in hollow cellars, for the smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamilton hath infected as many as it blew upon.” It is certain that his unjust and precipitate execution raised a general clamour against the churchmen, for condemning such a man because he maintained doctrines some of which they could not prove to be heretical, and others of them were proposed only as theological problems to be disputed among divines. He was only twenty-three years of age when he suffered, and his youth and excellent character undoubtedly weighed much with the people. and is published in Fox’s “Acts and Monuments.” It is a very ingenious explanation and defence of the doctrines of justification, free-will, election, &c. and has not in closeness of reasoning and aptness of quotation been exceeded by any divines of the Calvinistic persuasion in later times. If we consider his extreme youth and the age in which he wrote, it will yet appear a more extraordinary composition.

, “a skilful physician, was born at Edinburgh, Dec. 6, 1721, and educated at the high school there. He was afterwards apprenticed to Mr. William Edmonston, a surgeon and apothecary at Leith, and after continuing in that station three years, studied* medicine at the university of Edinburgh. In 1741, he went as surgeon’s mate on board the Somerset, and for some time had the care of the military hospital at Port Mahon. In 1744, he was appointed surgeon to the Wolf sloop of war. The four following years were divided between his occupations at sea, and his attendance upon the lectures of Drs. Hunter and Smellie in London. In 1748, he went to Lynn in Norfolk, invited thither by his brother, a merchant in that town. He afterwards accepted an offer of settling at Lynn; and in 1766, having received the degree of M. D. from the university of St. Andrew’s, he succeeded to the practice of Dr. Lidderdale, who died about that time. In this situation he continued to the time of his death, which happened Nov. 9, 1793. As he was of an inquisitive and industrious turn of mind, the time that could be spared from his practice he employed in endeavouring to make improvements in his profession, and of his success several valuable monuments remain. He was a frequent, correspondent of the royal societies of London and Edinburgh. In 1791, he published a” Treatise on the Scrofula,“which has been well received. He invented a machine for reducing dislocated shoulders, and an apparatus for keepiug the ends of fractured bones together, to prevent lameness and deformity from those accidents. In 1801, was published a posthumous work, entitled” Observations on the marsh remittent fever; also on the water canker, or cancer aquaticus of Van Swieten, with some remarks on the leprosy," 8vo. Prefixed to this volume is an account of the author, from which we have extracted the preceding sketch.

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

Among the revivers of his fame, professor Richardson, and lord Woodhouslee, are entitled to the highest respect. The latter, in his elaborate life of lord Kames, says, “With the elegant and accomplished William Hamilton of Bangour, whose amiable manners were long remembered with the tenderest recollection by all who knew him, Mr. Home (lord Kames) lived in the closest habits of friendship. The writer of these memoirs has heard him dwell with delight on the scenes of their youthful days; and he has to regret, that many an anecdote to which he listened with pleasure, was not committed to a better record than a treacherous memory. Hamilton’s mind is pictured in his verses. They are the easy and careless effusions of an elegant, fancy and a chastened taste; and the sentiments they convey are the genuine feelings of a tender and susceptible heart, which perpetually owned the dominion of some favourite mistress; but whose passion generally evaporated in song, and made no serious or permanent impression. His poems had an additional charm to his contemporaries, from being commonly addressed to his familiar friends of either sex, by name.”

It appears from Hamilton’s letters, that he communicated his poems to his friends for their critical remarks, and was easily induced to alter or amend them by their advice. He had sent the piece entitled “Contemplation*” one of the most laboured of his productions, to Mr. Home, who suggested some alterations. In a letter from Hamilton, in July 1739, he says, “I have made the corrections on the moral part of Contemplation, and in a post will send it to Will. Crawford, who has the rest, and will transmit it to you. I shall write to him fully on the subject.” It is pleasing ^to remark, that the Will. Crawford here mentioned, was the author of the beautiful pastoral ballad of Tweed-side, which, with the aid of its charming melody, will probably live as long as the language is understood. Hamilton may be reckoned among the earliest of the Scotch poets who wrote English verse with propriety and taste, and with any considerable portion of the poetic spirit. Thomson, Mallet, and he, were contemporaries. “The poems of Hamilton,” says professor Richardson, “display regular design, just sentiments, fanciful invention, pleasing sensibility, elegant diction, and smooth versification, His genius was aided by taste, and his taste was improved by knowledge. He was not only well acquainted with the most elegant modern writers, but with those of antiquity. Of these remarks, his poem entitled c Contemplation, or the Triumph of Love,' affords sufficient illustration.”

, a statesman of some note, was the only son of William Hamilton, esq. an advocate of the court of session in Scotland, who after the union came to London, and was admitted to the English bar. His son was born in Lincoln’s-inn Jan. 28, 1728-9, and was educated at Winchester school, and at Oriel college, Oxford, where he was admitted a gentleman commoner, March 1, 1744-5. During his residence at Oxford, it is supposed he wrote those poems which were printed in 1750, 4to> for private distribution only, but have lately been published by Mr. Malone. On leaving Oxford, he became a member of Lincoln’s-inn, with a view to study the law; but on his father’s death in 1754, he betook hifnself to a political life, and in the same year was chosen, member of parliament for Petersfield in Hampshire. His first effort at parliamentary eloquence was made Nov. 13, 1755, when, to use the words of Waller respecting Denham, “he broke out, like the Irish rebellion, threescore thousand strong-, when nobody was aware, or in the least suspected it.” Certainly no first speech in parliament ever produced such an effect, or acquired such eulogies, both within and without the house of commons. Of this speech, however, no copy remains. For many years it was supposed to have been his only attempt, and hence the familiar name of Single-speech was fixed upon him; but he spoke a second time, Feb. 1756, and such was the admiration which followed this display of his talents, that Mr, P\>jc, then one of the principal secretaries of state, procured him to be appointed, in April of the same year, one of the lords of trade. At this board he sat five years without ever exerting his oratorical talents; and in 1761 accepted the office of principal secretary to George earl of Halifax, then appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. In the Irish parliament, as he filled an office of responsibility, it was necessary for him to support the measures of administration; and accordingly in 1761 and 1762, he made five speeches on various occasions, which fully gratified the expectations of his auditors. Mr. Hamilton continued secretary to the succeeding lord lieutenant, Hugh earl of Northumberland, in 1763, but it is believed his exertions in that session were less splendid and less frequent; and before it concluded, on some disgust he resigned his office. On his return to England, and for a long time afterwards, he meditated taking an active part in the political warfare of the house of commons, but he never again addressed the chair, though he was chosen into every new parliament that was summoned from that time till May 1796, a little before his death. In this period, the only office hg filled was that of chancellor of the exchequer in Ireland, which he held from Sept. 1763 to April 1784. During this interval he was one of those on whom common rumour bestowed the authorship of Junius’s letters, and perhaps never was any rumour so completely devoid of a probable foundation. He died at his house in Upper Brook-street, July 16, 1796, and was buried in the chancel vault of the church of St. Martin in the Fields. In 1803, Mr. Malona published his works under the title of “Parliamentary Logic; to which are subjoined two Speeches delivered in the House of Commons in Ireland, and other pieces,” 8vo f with a life of the author prefixed. These speeches give us but a faint idea of the splendid abilities which once so enraptured his hearers, nor does his poetry entitle him to rank above the elegant versifiers of his time. His Parliamentary Logic“is a performance of a more singular cast. It consists of a string of maxims, or rules, for managing a debate in parliament, in which the author appears serious, else we should have supposed parliamentary logic” to imply a ridicule on the language of that house. These maxims, however, seem admirably qualified to make a partizan; although we much doubt whether they have a tendency to make that more valuable character, an honest man.

, a gentleman of great eminence in the literary and political world, was born in Scotland in 1730. He was of a branch of the family of Hamilton, which was considerably reduced in circumstances at the time of his birth; he himself having repeatedly declared to his friends in Naples, that “he was condemned to make his way in the world with an illustrious name and a thousand pounds.” He was not, however, doomed to spend many years of his youth in such narrow circumstances; as in 1755 he married a young lady of amiable character, with whom he received a fortune of 5000l. a year. The active and important part of his life began from the moment in which he entered the diplomatic line; and we may consider it as a circumstance peculiarly fortunate for the literary world, that he was destined to remain nearly the rest of his life in a country truly classical, in regard to the fine arts and natural history; pursuits for which he had early evinced the greatest predilection.

Mr. Hamilton was appointed ambassador to the court of Naples in 1764; and from that time to 1800, in which he was recalled, it may be said, with the strictest justice, that he did much more for the advancementof the fine arts, natural history, and antiquities, than any individual or corporation in that metropolis; perhaps, or even the government itself. In Naples the state of those branches of knowledge, which constituted Mr. Hamilton’s pursuits, was at this time very low, and as far as early and intense application may be considered proofs of a predominant passion, it appears that the objects of natural history chiefly engaged his attention. In a short period from his arrival, he had already collected a vast number of articles connected with this science, and had thus formed a valuable cabinet, of which, according to the expression of one of his friends, “he could be himself the ablest demonstrator.” Between 1764, and the middle of 1767, he visited Vesuvius no less than twenty-two times, and had as often observed the different spots around Naples affected by volcanic eruptions; and it was universally remarked by those who had the pleasure, to accompany him in these excursions, that he was the best and most instructive “Cicerone” that could possibly be found for such occasions. He also visited Mount Etna, and the Eolian islands, places which had not been examined with such attention before. The phenomena which their surface presented to his view did not satisfy his curiosity: he observed the interior parts of the soil, and every minute circumstance that attended the operations of nature: not one of the different substances which had ever issued from these volcanoes was left unnoticed. In all his excursions he was constantly accompanied by an artist of great merit, Mr. Fabris, who drew plans and delineated such objects as were most interesting and striking.

These observations, though since reduced to systematic, works, were first communicated in partial letters to the royal society, from 1766 to 1779; in whose Transactions for the above years, and also in the Annual Register, these letters are preserved; the perusal of which will amply gratify those who are fond of curious incidents, and personal anecdotes relating to the subject of this memoir, The works themselves were two: viz. “Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and other Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies,” which appeared in 1772, London, 8vo, and the “Campi PhJegraei,” published at Naples in 1776, in 2 vols folio. In the former his chief position was, “that volcanoes lie dormant for several years, nay even for centuries.” “When 1 arrived,” says he, “at Naples, Vesuvius was quiet, very seldom was smoke visible on its top; in the year 1766, it seemed to take fire, and has never since been, three months without either throwing up red hot stones, or disgorging streams of lava; nor has its crater been ever free from smoke. At Naples, when a lava appears, and not till then, it is styled an eruption; whereas I look upon the five nominal eruptions I have been witness to, from March 1766 to May 1771, as in effect but one continued eruption. It is certain, that by constant attention to the smoke that issues from the crater, a very good guess may be given as to the degree of fermentation within the volcano. By this alone 1 foretold the two last eruptions; and by another very simple observation, I pointed out, some time before, the very spot from whence the lava has issued. When the cone of Vesuvius was covered with snow, I remarked a spot on which it would not lie.”

The “Campi Phlegraei” were chiefly calculated to exhibit the view of the several spots already described. The drawings, by Mr. Fabris, were coloured with surprising art and great force of expression, and represented nature with the utmost accuracy and truth. Each plate was accompanied by concise and perspicuous explanations in English, and French. In the first volume, a large map was Also exhibited of the gulph of Naples and the country contiguous, which is unrivalled for its beauty and splendour. And in the author’s letter to sir John Pringle, dated Naples, May 2, 1776 (which may be considered as a dedication of the Work to the royal society), some additional observations on the subject were communicated, which had not been inserted either in the partial letters to the late Mr. Maty, or in the 8vo edition of them in 1772. In short, the publication was so accurate, so splendid, and so magnificent, as to have excited a surprise how such an invaluable performance could make its appearance in the south of Italy.

A new phenomenon, however, occurred after this publication, which was too striking not to excite a peculiar attention in our ingenious naturalist, and not to engage him in a new work. We allude to the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, on the 8th of August, 1779, and to the “Supplement” to the “Campi Phiegraei,” to which it gave rise. As was his custom, Mr. Hamilton had communicated a description of that wonderful event to the royal society, which was printed in the first part of the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1780. He afterwards, however, as he had done with his former ones, collected these observations, and formed of them a regular work. In the year of the great eruption, he published in Naples, a fine edition of the above-mentioned book, beautifully illustrated by coloured prints, from the drawings of the same artist, Peter Fabris; the drawings and illuminations being likewise copied from nature, under his own inspection.

In the science of antiquities, so early as 1765, he had promoted the publication of the magnificent and elegant ttrork, “Antiquites Etrusques, Grecques,etRomaines, tire*es du Cabinet de Mr. Hamilton;” a fine collection of designs from Etruscan, Greek, and Roman vases, which was received with the greatest satisfaction by the lovers of antiquity and the arts. The design of this work was professedly the advancement of the arts. It was intended to shew on what system the ancients gave their vases that elegance so generally acknowledged and admired, and how they were able to assign the exact measures of their proportion; and to establish certain principles for the artist who would perform something in the same way. It was, in short, a most valuable present to the learned and to artists, and above all to manufacturers of earthen ware and china, and of vase in silver, glass, &c. who found here an infinite variety of beautiful models, most of which had been until then unknown; and indeed it may be observed, that since that period our articles of the above description are universally formed with more beauty, taste, and elegance; qualities in which we as yet remain unequalled by any other country.

We are informed in the abbe Winkelman’s Letters, that the above-mentioned work was intended to be comprised in four large folio volumes. Of these, the two former only appeared at the stated time. The two latter volumes (as we are informed by a note in the last edition of the Letters of Winkelnian) were published in Naples in 1775; but the writer of this article has never been able to procure a sight of them, or even to gain the least information on the subject. The two former volumes were reduced to a smaller size, and republished at Paris, by Mr. David, in 1787, in five 8vo volumes. The adventurer D‘Hancarville, editor of the work, as we are told by Winkelman, expected, by that publication, to acquire a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. It is not probable that he ever realized this expectation, but we know from D’Hancarville himself, that Mr. Hamilton allowed him to reap the emolument which might arise from the work. Of the particulars of which, he himself says, that “long since Mr. Hamilton had taken pleasure in collecting those precious monuments, and had afterwards trusted them to him for publication, requiring only some elegance in the execution; and the condition, that the work should appear under the auspices of his Britannic majesty.” “It answers no purpose to have of the ancient vases that general and vague idea which is given of them by the books of Caylus, or Montfaucon. There are few antiquaries and scholars who have not entertained a wish to see such a collection executed with care and precision. They can now compare the present with that of cardinal Gualtieri, reported by Montfaucon, and with all the others which have hitherto appeared. Mr. Hamilton, justly apprehensive that the vases, already destined for England, might be damaged in their way, has resolved to have them engraved at Naples.”

Part of the vases which gave rise to D'Hancarville’s work, is that precious collection which is now seen in one of the rooms of the British Museum, and which formerly belonged to the senatorial house of Porcinari, in Naples. Mr. Hamilton purchased it from the proprietors in. 1765, and it still is a matter of surprise with the greatest of our artists, that it was ever suffered to go out of its native land. In Naples, however, it never occasioned any surprise; as it is there known, that full rive years before the purchase, the same valuable property, through the means of the famous Theatin lather Paciaudi, had been offered to the count of Caylus; and, in fact, the best-informed Neapolitans were fully convinced that it was much better that such precious monuments should be in the power of some active nation, in which they might be put to the best use, than to remain in their own country, where they would have been forever useless. About the same time (in 1767), the British Museum received from Mr. Hamilton two other valuable presents: 1st. A complete collection of every sort of matter produced by Mount Vesuvius, by which he thought it might be proved that “many variegated marbles and many precious stones are the produce of volcanos, and that there have been volcanos in many parts of the world, where at present there are no traces of them visible.” 2. Two very scarce and interesting books, respecting the formation of the celebrated new mountain at Pozzuolt, published at Naples, a few months after the event, in 1538: the one written by Marc Antony delli Falconi; and the other by Peter James di Toledo.

Among the several persons whom Mr. Hamilton honoured with his patronage at Naples, we shall only mention the celebrated engraver, Morghen; as it was owing to his encouragement that this eminent artist, in 1769, published that elegant collection of views at Pozzuoli and other spots in the neighbourhood of Naples. It is pleasing to say that Mr. Morghen soon evinced his gratitude towards his patron, and the nation to which the latter belonged the collection was dedicated to the Society of arts in London and the greatest part of the views were inscribed to some individuals of our nobility who then happened to be in Naples. Ever since the year 1770, Mr. Hamilton had established a regular correspondence with various intelligent persons 4n the several provinces of the kingdom, concerning such monuments of arts or antiquities as might happen to be found near their respective residences, and which might answer his further purposes. This correspondence was carried on with a peculiar activity in the province of Campania, that province being indeed the spot in which the greatest number of ancient vaseshas been found, and which for this reason is thought to have possessed the chief manufactures of that article.

Whilst at this period Mr. Hamilton so successfully indulged in scientific and literary pursuits, he had no opportunity of exerting himself to any advantage in his public and diplomatic capacity, nothing of importance being then in agitation in the political world; and, with regard to private connexions, it is still in the remembrance of his old friends, that, till he became acquainted with some congenial characters, he found himself, in the midst of an immense metropolis, as insulated as if he had been in a village. Of his domestic life, about this period, we fortunately have an account from the celebrated secretary of the French academy, Duclos, from which we shall here give an extract, the more properly, as, with the alteration of time and place, it is his characteristic picture in every part of his life. “Mr. Hamilton,” says he, “was in the habit of taking his dinner at home with a select number of friends, among whom I had the honour of being admitted. He had also a weekly party of the most distinguished persons of Naples. In these parties, a concert was sometimes given, in which Miss Hamilton played on the harpsichord so eminently, that her talents were acknowledged in a town decidedly superior in musical science to the rest of Italy. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton are the happiest couple I ever saw. Both still in the vigour of youth, with good hearts and cultivated minds, and tenderly attached to each other, they presented to me the image of a patriarchal life. The lady, mistress of a considerable fortune, enjoys the pleasure of making that of her husband, who had nothing of his own but an illustrious name. The gentleman, duly sensible of what he owes to a beloved wife, is highly pleased to acknowledge it, and the sentiment of his gratitude increases the happiness of his situation.”

The twelve years which elapsed from 1772 to 1784, formed a remarkable epoch in Mr. Hamilton’s life, with respect to his advancement and domestic affairs. On the S Au f Januar >"> 1772 > he was created knight of the bath. About 1775, he lost his only daughter. In 1782, he likewise lost his lady. And in 1784, after twenty years’ absence, he visited his native country. He had been made a tellow of the royal society in 1766.

This time, however, was equally well employed in the service of the sciences; for, in 1779, he repeated his visits to Mount Vesuvius, and published the Supplement already mentioned; in February 1783, he undertook the journey to Calabria, to observe the phenomena produced by the dreadful earthquake which just before had desolated that beautiful province, and of which he subsequently gave an account, in a letter to sir Joseph Banks, inserted in the Transactions of the Royal Society;“and, so early as 1777, he wrote an excellent memoir on the discoveries until then made in Pompeii; which memoir, accompanied with 13 beautiful plates, was inserted in the fourth volume of the” Archaeologia,“and by which we are informed,” that the city was supposed to have been a mile in length, and about three miles and a half round; that only one hundred yards of a principal street, supposed to run through the whole city, had then been cleared; that the width of the horse-way was said to be in general ten feet eight inches English, and the elevated foot-way on each side, about three feet wide that the plan of most of the houses was a square court, with a fountain in the middle, and small rooms round, communicating with that court; and that fragments of large panes of glass were found there, shewing that the ancients of this period knew well the use of glass for windows."

His most truly meritorious labours, however, at the close of the above mentioned period, were those which had in view the unrivalled museum of Portici; an object which lad not yet been accessible to his researches. The history of the discovery of Herculaneum, and of the Royal museum to which it gave rise, is too well known to require any detailed notice in this place: it is equally alien to our purpose to relate the several tardy and unsuccessful measures which the government took to illustrate that unrivalled establishment; and we shall only notice the ancient manuscripts in the Museum, which are immediately connected with our subject. It is known that about eight hundred objects of this kind had been found in the several excavations of Herculaneum; and that on application being made to Mr. Assemanni of the Vatican, on the subject, this learned man had recommended an able, industrious, and indefatigable Piarist monk, named Father Anthony Piaggi, who possessed the art of completely unfolding the'deca3ed manuscripts. Some successful trials were made: a work on the philosophy of Epicurus, another on morals, a third on rhetoric, and a fourth on music, were brought to light: and of the last, the author of which was a Greek named Philodemus, thirty-eight full columns were happily copied. Father Anthony’s services were still more beneficial; he instructed in his art a pupil named Merli, afterwards as able as himself. Neither of them, however, persevered in their tasks: they complained of the supineness of the ministry, and of their own scanty allowance.

Among the papers left by sir William at his death, are found more than fifty memoirs directed by Father Anthony to the marquis of Sambuca, soliciting his patronage for the great work of the manuscripts, to which solicitations that minister seemed to be deaf. Numberless other memoirs of the kind were also presented to several persons in the royal service, and they met with no better success. The consequence was, that Father Anthony at last put himself under the protection of sir William, and tendered his services for any information which the latter might wish concerning the Museum. The propriety of accepting this offer may be questioned. It was considered, however, by one who was not particularly acquainted with the administration of the establishment, as too important not to meet with an immediate compliance: a treaty was concluded, that sir William should grant to Father Anthony a pension of 600 ducats a year (100l.), and the latter should regularly send to him every week a sheet of original information; and in order to elude any ministerial inquisition, it was also agreed that the correspondence should be carried on in cyphers. This correspondence lasted till the death of Father Anthony in 1798; and, if we except a want of delicacy, and perhaps also a breach of trust in the monk, we may presume that, in the main object, it proved satisfactory to both parties: sir William was indeed so satisfied, that, some years after the commencement of the treaty, he procured for Father Anthony an additional pension, of the same sum of 600 ducats a year (100l.), from his royal highness the Prince of Wales; and Father Anthony, on his side, seemed also so sensible of the favours he had received, that on his death, he bequeathed all his manuscripts and papers of every kind to his patron.

In 1791, sir William was appointed a privy counsellor; and in the same year he married Miss Harte, the present lady Hamilton. About the same time also, in order to give a further illustration to his favourite doctrine respecting the constant state of eruption of Mount Vesuvius, he charged a Dominican friar at Resina, to compile for hit use, a daily calendar of the several phenomena of that mountain; a compilation which, most probably, will also be found among his papers.

In December 1798, when the French attacked the kingdom of Naples, he accompanied his Sicilian majesty to Palermo, from whence, towards the close of 1800, he was recalled to England: where he died April 6, 1803, in the 72d year of his age.

During the short interval between his arrival in England and his death, this respectable philosopher and naturalist was occupied in ordering and classifying his numerous manuscripts, which had been conveyed from Naples to Palermo, at the time of his removal; and from the latter place to London, on his return to England. These manuscripts consisted of eight large boxes; four of which contained his correspondence with Father Anthony, and the other four, the valuable papers which the latter had bequeathed to him. Jt was his intention, alter a due arrangement, to favour the public with two works collected from their contents, one of which was to exhibit a series of original observations on the best monuments of art in the Museum of Portici; and the other, a series of historical anecdotes concerning its literary and economical administration, from its first establishment, of both which there is a prospect of publication.

, an historical painter, the son of a Scotch gentleman who resided many years at Chelsea, as deputy to Mr. Robert Adams, the celebrated architect, when clerk of the works to that college, was born in 1750, and sent to Italy, when very young, under the patronage of Mr. Adams. He was there some time under the tuition of Zucchi, the painter of arabesque ornaments at Rome, and although Mr. Edwards thinks he was then too young to receive any material benefit from this tour, it served at least to increase his early taste for the art, and he caught a pleasant manner of painting, much in the style of his master. When he returned to England he became a pupil in the royal academy, and by attention to his studies, acquired considerable employment. He practised in many different ways, mostly history, and frequently arabesque, of which latter kind he executed some decorations at the seat of the late earl of Bute at High Cliff, Hampshire. He sometimes painted portraits, but his manner was not well adapted to that branch, yet his portrait of Mrs. Siddons in the character of lady Randolph (now in the possession of Samuel Whitbread, esq.) was allowed to have great merit. He was much employed by the late alderman Boydell, for his Shakspeare, and by Macklin for his edition of the Bible and of the Poets. In the former his “Woman of Samaria 7 ' deserves much praise. One of his most capital works was a picture of the” Queen of Sheba entertained at a banquet by Solomon," a design for a window in Arundel castle. His manner of painting was light, airy, and pleasant, and he excelled in ornaments to which he gave a propriety, richness, and a classic air. His coloured drawings imitate the fulness of his oil-paintings with more freshness, and, without much labour, are finished with taste. He was elected associate of the royal academy Nov. 8, 1784, and royal academician, February 10, 1789. He died in the vigour though not in the bloom of life, Dec. 2, 1801, of a violent fever of only three days 1 duration, deeply lamented by his friends, and regretted by the public. He was a man of great affability and gentle manners; his politeness covered no insincerity, nor his emulation envy. He was one of the few artists we have personally known who spoke with high respect of his brethren, and was equally respected by them for his amiable temper.

, descended from a family long situated at Somersham-place, in Huntingdonshire, was born in 16u3, and educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge. He was a commissioner of the navy, a good speaker in parliament, had the name of “silver-tongued Hammond” given him by lord Bolingbroke, and was a man of note among the wits, poets, and parliamentary writers, in the beginning of the last century. A volume of “Miscellany Poems,” was inscribed to him, in 1694, by his friend Mr. Hopkins; and in 1720 he was the editor of “A new Miscellany of Original Poems,” in which he had himself no small share. His own pieces, he observes in his preface, “were written at very different times, and were owned by him, lest in a future day they should be ascribed to other persons to their prejudice, as the ‘ Ode on Solitude’ has been, in wrong, to the earl of Roscommon, and as some of the rest have been to others.” He was the intimate friend of Mr. Moyle, and wrote the “Account of his Life and Writings,” prefixed to his works in 1727. Their acquaintance began, through sir Robert Marsham, in the latter end of 1690, soon after Hammond’s return from a short tour into Holland and some parts of Flanders. The places of resort for wits at that period were May n waring' s coifee-house in Fleet-street, and the Grecian near the Temple; where Moyle, having taken a disgust against the clergy, had several friendly disputes with Hammond, and at the same place had a share with Trenchard in writing the argument against a standing army. In Moyle’s works are three valuable letters to Hammond; a copy of verses, by Hammond, to Moyle; another, by Hopkins, to the same; and a third, by Hopkins, to Hammond. Mr. Hammond is said to have married Susanna, a sister of Mr. Walpole, afterwards the celebrated minister of state; but that Mr. Hammond was a different person. Our author married a Miss Clarges, and died in 1738, as Winston informs us, in the Fleet-prison, where he was confined for debt, and so preserved what he had not spent of his estate for his eldest son. His second son is the subject of the following article.

, well remembered as a man esteemed and caressed by the elegant and great, was the second son of Anthony Hammond mentioned above: he was born about 1710, and educated at Westminster-school; but it does not appear that he was of any university, although Mr. Cole claims him for Cambridge, but without specifying his college. When about eighteen, he was introduced to the earl of Chesterfield, and from a conformity of character, manners, and inclinations, soon became particularly attached to his lordship. He was equerry to the prince of Wales, and seems to have come very early into public notice, and to have been distinguished by those whose patronage and friendship prejudiced mankind at that time in favour of those on whom they were bestowed; for he was the companion of Cobham, Lyttelton, and Chesterfield. He is said to have divided his life between pleasure and books; in his retirement forgetting the town, and in his gaiety losing the student. Of his literary hours all the effects are exhibited in his memorable “Love Elegies,” which were written very early, and his “Prologue” not long before his death. In 1733, he obtained an income of 400l. a year by the will of Nicholas Hammond, esq. a near relation. In 1741 he was chosen into parliament for Truro in Cornwall, probably one of those who were elected by the prince’s influence; and died June 2, 1742, at Stowe, the famous seat of the lord Cobham. His mistress long outlived him, and, in 177D, died unmarried, bed-chamber woman to the queen. The character which her lover bequeathed her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtship, yet it was her own fault that she remained single, having had another very honourable offer. The “Elegies” were published after his death; and while the writer’s name was remembered with fondness, they were read with a resolution to admire them. The recommendatory preface of the editor, who was then believed, and is affirmed by Dr. Maty, to be the earl of Chesterfield, raised strong prejudices in their favour; but Dr. Johnson is of opinion that they have neither passion, nature, nor manners, and Dr. Beattie was informed on very good authority that Hammond was not in love when he wrote his “Elegies.”

, a learned English divine, was born at Chertsey in Surrey, August 18, 1605; and was the youngest son of Dr. John Hammond, physician to Henry prince of Wales, svho was his godfather, and gave him his own name. In his infancy he was remarkable for sweetness of temper, the love of privacy, and a devotional turn. He was educated at Eton-school, and sent to Magdalen-college, Oxford, in 1618; of which, after taking his degrees in a regular way, he was elected fellow in July 1625. During the whole of his residence here, he generally spent thirteen hours every day in study; in the course of which he not only went through the usual academic studies, but read almost all the classics, writing emendations, critical remarks, &c. as he proceeded. Having applied himself also with great diligence to the study of divinity, he was admitted to holy orders in 1629, and soon, after took the degree of bachelor of divinity. In 1633 he was presented to the rectory of Penshurst in Kent, by Robert Sidney earl of Leicester. That nobleman, happening to be one of his auditors while he was supplying a turn at court for Dr. Frewen, the president of his college, and one of his majesty’s chaplains, was-so deeply affected with the sermon, and conceived so high an opinion of the preacher’s merit, that he conferred on him this living, then void, and in his gift. Upon this he quitted his college, and went to his cure, where he resided as long as the times permitted him, punctually performing every branch of the ministerial function in the most diligent and exemplary manner. In 1639 he took the degree of D. D.; in 1640, was chosen one of the members of the convocation, called with the long parliament, which began that year; and, in. 1643, made archdeacon of Chichester by the unsolicited favour of Dr. Brian Duppa, then bishop of Chichester, and afterwards of Winchester. The same year also he was named one of the assembly of divines, but never sat amongst them.

In the beginning of the national troubles he continued undisturbed at his living till the middle of July 1643; but, joining in the fruitless attempt then made atTunbridge in favour of the king, and a reward of 100l. being soon after promised to the person that should produce him, he was forced to retire privily and in disguise to Oxford. Having procured an apartment in his own college, he sought that peace in retirement and study which was no where else to be found. Among the few friends he conversed with was Dr. Christopher Potter, provost of Queen’s college; by whose persuasion it was, that he published his “Practical Catechism,” in 1644. This was one of the most valuable books published at that time; but great objections were raised against it by fifty-two ministers within the provincQ, of London; and especially by the famous Francis Cheynell, on account of its containing Arminian tenets. Hammond, however, defended his book, and the same year and the following, published several useful pieces, adapted to the times. In December of the same year he attended as chaplain the duke of Richmond and earl of Southampton; who were sent to London by Charles I. with terms of peace and accommodation to the parliament; and when a treaty was appointed at Uxbridge, he appeared there as one of the divines on the king’s side, where he managed, greatly to his honour, a dispute with Richard Vines, one of the presbyterian ministers sent by the parliament.

A few days after the breaking of this treaty, a canonry of Christ Church in Oxford becoming vacant, the king bestowed it upon him about March 1645; and the university chose him their public orator. His majesty also, coming to reside in that city, made him one of his chaplains in ordinary: notwithstanding all which employments, he did not remit from his studies, or cease to publish books, principally contrived to do service in the times when they were written. When Oxford surrendered, his attendance as cbaplain was superseded; but when the king came into the power of the army, he was permitted to attend him again, in his several confinements and removes of Woburn, Caversham, Hampton-court, and the Isle of Wight: at which last place he continued till Christmas, 1647, when all his majesty’s servants were removed from him. He then returned again to Oxford, where he was chosen sub-dean of Christ Church in which office he continued till March 30, 1648, and was then forcibly turned out of it by the parliamentary visitors. The accusations against him were, his refusing to submit to the visitors’ power; his being concerned in drawing up the reasons which were presented to the convocation against the authority of that visitation; and his refusing to publish the visitors’ orders for the expulsion of several of the members of Christ Church. Instead, however, of being commanded immediately to quit Oxford, as others were, a committee of parliament voted him and Dr. Sheldon to be prisoners in that place, where they continued in restraint for about ten weeks. During this confinement he began his “Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament;” the ground-work of which is said to be this. Having written in Latin two large volumes of the way of interpreting the New Testament, with inference to the customs of the Jews, and of the first heretics in the Christian church, and also of the heathens, especially in the Grecian games and, above all, of the importance of the Hellenistical dialect he began to consider, that it might be more useful to the English render, to write in our vulgar language, and set every observation in its natural order, according to the direction of the text. And having some years before collated several Greek copies of the New Testament, and observed the variation of our English from the original, and made an entire translation of the whole for his own private use, he cast his work into that form in which it now appears. It came out first in 1653; in 1656, with additions and alterations; and, in 1698, Le Clerc put out a Latin translation of it, viz. of the “Paraphrase and Annotations,” with the text of the Vulgate, in which he has intermixed many of his own animadversions, explained those points which Dr. Hammond had but slightly touched, and corrected many of his mistakes.

From Oxford he was removed to the house of sir Philip Warwick at Clapham in Bedford shire. The trial of king Charles drawing on, and Dr. Hammond being in no other capacity to interpose than by writing, he drew up an address to the general and council of officers, which he published under this title: “To the right honourable the lord Fairfax, and his council of war, the humble Address of Henry Hammond.” It is unnecessary to add that this produced no effect, as his majesty’s doom was fixed. Dr. Hammond’s grief for the death of his royal master was extreme; but, as soon as he had in some measure recovered his spirits, he resumed his studies, and published several pieces. The rigour of his restraint being taken off in the beginning of 1649, he removed to Westwood in Worcestershire, the seat of the loyal sir John Packington, from whom he received a kind invitation; and here spent the remainder of his days. In 1651, when Charles II. came into those parts, he waited upon him, and received a letter from his own hand of great importance, to satisfy his loyal subjects concerning his adherence to the religion of the church of England. In 1653 he published, as already observed, his great work on the New Testament, and went on applying antidotes to the distempers of the church and state, and opposing the absurd tenets of the sectaries, particularly those of the anabaptists. Afterwards he undertook a “Paraphrase and Commentary on all the books of the Old Testament;” of which he published the Psalms, and went through a third part of the book of Proverbs. His want of health only hindered him fromproceeding farther: for that strength of body which had hitherto attended his indefatigable mind, beginning to fail him about 1654, he was attacked by a complication of disorders, the stone, the gout, the colic, and the cramp; but the stone put an end to his life. While Charles II. was designing him for the bishopric of Worcester, and he was preparing to go to London, whither he had been invited by the most eminent divines, he was seized with a sharp fit of the stone the 4th of April, of which he died the 25th of the same month, 1660.

Dr. Hammond was a very handsome man, well-made, and of a strong and vigorous constitution; of a clear and florid complexion, his eye remarkably quick and sprightly, and in his countenance there was a mixture of sweetness and dignity. He had a free, graceful, and commanding eloquenee. King Charles I. said of him, that he was the most natural orator he ever heard. He had not, however, a technical memory, and used to complain that it was harder for him to get ope sermon by heart than to pen twenty. He was of a very kind, social, benevolent, and friendly disposition; extremely liberal to the poor, to whom he rendered his bounty more valuable by his manner of bestowing it. “Misery and want,' 7 says his excellent biographer,” wherever Dr. Hammond met with them, sufficiently endeared the object. His alms were as exuberant as his love; and in calamities, to the exigence he never was a stranger, whatever he might be to the man that suffered.“Among other evidences which Hammond gave of his benevolence, Dr. Fell informs us, that, when he saw a man honest and industrious, he would trust him with a sum, and let him pay it again at such times and in such proportions as he found himself able; all this accompanied by an inquiry into his condition, and advice as to the better disposal of the money, closing his discourse with prayer, and dismissing the object of his benevolence with the utmost kindness. To persons of rank and fortune his advice was, to” treat their poor neighbours with such a cheerfulness, that they may be glad to have met with them."

Dr. Hammond was a man of great temperance; his diet was of the plainest kind, and he frequently practised fastng. He seldom went to bed until midnight, or remained in it beyond five or six o'clock. By these means he was enabled to endure cold and fatigue, and in the severest weather sat at a distance from a fire. His studious industry was unceasing. He not only avoided, but had a strong aversion to idleness. “To be always furnished with somewhat to do” he considered as the best expedient both for innocence and pleasure, saying, that no burthen was more heavy, or temptation more dangerous, than to have time lie on one’s hand.“His piety was fervent, and from his youth he spent much of his time in secret devotion. Bishop Burnet says of him, that” his death was an unspeakable loss to the church; for as he was a man of great learning, and of most eminent merit, he having been the person that during the bad times had maintained the cause of the church in a very singular manner; so he was a very moderate man in his temper, though with a high principle, and would probably have fallen into healing counsels. He was also much set on reforming abuses, and for raising the clergy to a due sense of the obligations they lay under."

, of Hamden, in Buckinghamshire, a celebrated political character in the reign of Charles I. was born at London in 1594. He was of as ancient (Whitlocke says the ancientest) extraction as any gentleman in his county; and cousin-german to Oliver Cromwell, his father having married the protector’s aunt. In 1609 he was sent to Magdalen college in Oxford whence, without taking any degree, be removed to the inns of court, and made a considerable progress in the study of the law. Sir Philip Warwick observes, that “he had great knowledge both in scholarship and the law.” In his entrance into the world, he is said to have indulged himself in all the licence of sports, and exercises, and company, such as were used by men of the most jovial conversation; but afterwards to have retired to a more reserved and austere society, preserving, however, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity. In the second parliament of king Charles, which met at Westminster, February 1625-6, he obtained a seat in the house of commons, as he also did in two succeeding parliaments; but made no figure till 1636, when he became universally known, by a solemn trial at the king’s bench, on his refusing to pay the ship-money. He carried himself, as Clarendon tells us, through this whole suit with such singular temper and modesty, that he obtained more credit and advantage by losing it, than the king did service by gaining it. From this time he soon grew to be one of the most popular men in the nation, and a leading member in the long parliament. “The eyes of all men,” says the same writer, “were fixed upon him as their pater patrite, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it.” After he had held the chief direction of his party in the house of commons against the king, he took up arms in the same cause, and was one of the first who opened the war by an action at a place called Brill, a garrison of the king’s, on the edge of Buckinghamshire, about five miles from Oxford. He took the command of a regiment of foot under the earl of Essex, and shewed such skill and bravery, that, had he lived, he would; probably, soon have been raised to the post of a general. But he was cut off early by a mortal wound, which he received in a skirmish with prince Rupert, at Chalgrove-field, in Oxfordshire, where, it is generally reported, he was shot in the shoulder with a brace of bullets, which broke the bone, June 18, 1643; and, after suffering much pain and misery, he died the 24th, an event which affected his party nearly as much as if their whole army had been defeated . “Many men observed,” says Clarendon, “that the field in which this skirmish was, and upon which Hampden received his deathwound, namely, Chalgrove-field, was the same place in which he had first executed the ordinance of the militia, and engaged that county, in which his reputation was very great, in this rebellion: and it was confessed by the prisoners that were taken that day, and acknowledged by all, that upon the alarm that morning, after their quarters were beaten up, he was exceeding solicitous to draw forces together to pursue the enemy; and, being a colonel of foot, put himself amongst those horse as a volunteer, who were first ready, and that, when the prince made a stand, all the officers were of opinion to stay till their body came up, and he alone persuaded and prevailed with them to advance: so violently did his fate carry him to pay the mulct in the place where he had committed the transgression about a year before. This was an observation made at that time;” but lord Clarendon does not adopt it as an opinion of his own.

Hampden, if we form our judgment of him only from the account of those who were engaged in the opposite party to him, was, perhaps, one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived; and is thus delineated by the noble historian already quoted. “He was a man of much greater cunning, and it may be of the most discerning spirit, and of the greatest address and insinuation to bring any thing to pass which he desired, of any man of that time, and who laid the design deepest. He was not a man of many words, and rarely began the discourse, or made the first entrance upon any business that was assumed, but a very weighty speaker; and after he had heard a full debate, and observed how the house was like to be inclined, took up the argument, and shortly, and clearly, and craftily, so stated it, that he commonly conducted it to the conclusion he desired. He was of that rare affability and temper in debate, and of thatseeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information and instruction; yet he had so subtle a way, and under the notion of doubts insinuating his objections, that he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them. And even with them who were able to preserve themselves from his infusions, and discerned those opinions to be fixed in him with which they could not comply, he always left the character of an ingenuous and conscientious person. He was, indeed, a very wise man, and of great parts, and possessed with the most absolute spirit of popularity, and the most absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I ever knew. For the first year of the parliament he seemed rather to moderate and soften the violent and distempered humours than to inflame them. But wise and dispassionate men plainly discerned, that that moderation proceeded from prudence, and observation that the season was not ripe, rather than that he approved of the moderation and that he begot many opinions and notions, the education whereof he committed to other men so far disguising his own designs, that he seemed seldom to wish more than was concluded. And in many gross conclusions, which would hereafter contribute to designs not yet set on foot, when he found them sufficiently backed by a majority of voices, he would withdraw himself before the question, that he might seem not to consent to so much visible unreasonableness; which produced as great a doubt in some as it did approbation in others of his integrity. After he was among those members accused by the king of high treason, he was much altered; his nature and carriage seeming much fiercer than it did before: and without question, when he first drew his sword, he threw away the scabbard. He was very temperate in diet, and a supreme governor over all his passions and affections; and had thereby a great power over other men’s. He was of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle and sharp and of a personal courage equal to his best parts so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend and as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could deserve to be. And therefore his death was no less pleasing to the one party than it was condoled in the other. In a word, what was said of Cinna might well be applied to him: he had ahead to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute, any mischief, or,‘-’ as the historian says elsewhere,” any good." Thus is Hampden described by Clarendon, agreeably to the notions usually formed of his character after the restoration; which was that of a great, rather than a good man. But as the characters of statesmen, commanders, or men acting in a public capacity, always vary with the times and fashions of politics, at the revolution, and since, he has been esteemed a good man as well as a great.

, the greatest musical composer of his time, or perhaps of any time or country, was born at Halle, in the duchy of Magdeburgh, February 4, 1684, by a second wife of his father, who was an eminent physician and surgeon of the same place, and then above sixty years of age. From his very childhood he discovered such a propensity to music, that his father, who always intended him for the civil law, took every method to oppose this inclination, by keeping him out of the way of, and strictly forbidding him to meddle with, musical instruments of any kind. The son, however, found means to get a little clavicord privately conveyed to a room at the top of the house; and with this he used to amuse himself when the family was asleep. While he was yet under seven years of age, he went with his father to the duke of Saxe Weisenfels, where it was impossible to keep him from harpsichords, and other musical instruments. One morning, while he was playing on the organ, after the service was over, the duke was in the church; and something in his manner of playing affected his highness so strongly, that he asked his valet-de-chambre (who was Handel’s brother-in-law) who it was that he heard at the organ? The valet replied, that it was his brother. The duke demanded to see him; and after making proper inquiries about him, expostulated very seriously with his father, who still retained his prepossessions in favour of the civil law. He allowed that every father had certainly a right to dispose of his children as he should think most expedient; but that in the present instance he could not but consider it as a sort of crime against the public and posterity to rob the world of such a rising genius. The issue of this conversation was, not only a toleration for music, but consent also that a master should be called in to forward and assist him.

The first thing his father did at his return to Halle, was to place him under one Zackau, organist to the cathedral church, a person of great abilities in his profession, and not more qualified than inclined to do justice to any pupil of promising hopes. Handel pleased him so much, that he never thought he could do enough for him. He was proud of a pupil who already began to attract the attention of the public; and glad of an assistant who by his extraordinary talents was capable of supplying his place whenever he had a mind to be absent. If it seem strange to talk of an assistant at seven years of age, it will appear stranger that at nine Handel began to compose the church service for voices and instruments, and from that time was accustomed to compose a service every week for three years successively. Having far surpassed his master, the master himself confessing it, and made all the improvement he could at Halle, it was agreed he should go to Berlin in 1698, where the opera was in a flourishing condition under the encouragement of the elector of Brandenburg, afterwards king of Prussia. Handel had not been long at this court before his abilities became known to the sovereign, who frequently sent for him, and made him large presents. He farther offered to send him to Italy, where he might be formed under the best masters, and have opportunities of hearing and seeing all that was excellent in the kind; but his father refused this offer from a spirit of independence. During his stay at Berlin, he became acquainted with two Italian composers, Buononcini and Attilio; the same who afterwards came to England while Handel was here, and were at the head of a formidable opposition against him.

Next to the opera of Berlin, that of Hamburgh was in the highest request and thither it was resolved to send him, with a view to improvement but his father’s death happening soon after, and his mother being left in narrow circumstances, he thought it necessary to procure scholars, and obtain some employment in the orchestra; and by this means was enabled to prove a great relief to her. He had a dispute at Hamburgh with one of the masters, in opposition to whom he laid claim to the first harpsichord, which was determined in his favour. The honour, however, had like to have cost him dear; for his antagonist so resented his being constrained to yield to such a stripling competitor, that, as they were coming out of the orchestra, he made a push at him with a sword, which had infallibly pierced his heart, but for the friendly score which he carried accidentally in his bosom. “Had this happened,” says his historian, “in the early ages, not a mortal but would have been persuaded that Apollo himself interposed to preserve him in the form of a music-book.” Dr. Burney, however, has subdued this flourish a little, by informing us that the sword broke against a metal button. t

From conducting the performance he became composer to the Chouse; and “Almeria,” his first opera, was composed when he was not much above fourteen years of age. The success of it was so great, that it ran for thirty nights without interruption; and this encouraged him to compose others, as he did also a considerable number of sonatas during his stay at Hamburgh, which was about four or five years. He contracted an acquaintance at this place with many persons of note, among whom was the prince of Tuscany, brother to the grand duke. The prince, who was a great lover of the art for which his country was famous, would often lament Handel’s not being acquainted with the Italian music; shewed him a large collection of it,; and was very desirous he should return with him to Florence. Handel plainly answered, that he could see nothing in the music answerable to the prince’s character of it; but, on the contrary, thought it so very indifferent, that the singers, he said, must be angels to recommend it. The prince smiled at the severity of his censure, yet pressed him to return with him, and intimated that no convenience should be wanting. Handel thanked him for the offer of a favour which he did not chuse to accept; for he resolved to go to Italy on a speculation of his own, as soon as he could raise a sum sufficient for the purpose. He had in him from his childhood a strong spirit of independence, which was never known to forsake him in the most distressful seasons of his life; and it is remarkable that he refused the greatest offers from persons of the first distinction, because he would not be cramped or confined by particular attachments.

Soon after, he went to Italy, and Florence was his first destination; where at the age of eighteen, he composed the opera of “Rodrigo,” for which he was presented with 100 sequins, and a service of plate. This may serve to shew what a reception he met with at a place where the highest notions were conceived of him before he arrived. Vittoria, a celebrated actress and singer, bore a principal part in this opera. She was a fine woman, and had been some time in the good graces of his serene highness; yet Handel’s youth and comeliness, joined with his fame and abilities in music, had raised emotions in her heart, which, however, we do not find that Handel in the least encouraged. After about a year’s stay at Florence, he went to Venice, where he was first discovered at a masquerade, while he was playing on a harpsichord in his vizor. Scarlatti happened to be there, and affirmed it could be no one but the famous Saxon or the devil. Being earnestly importuned to compose an opera, he finished his “Agripjpina” in three weeks; which was performed twenty-seven nights successively, and with which the audience were enraptured. From Venice he went to Rome, where his arrival was no sooner known than he received polite messages from persons of the first distinction. Among his greatest admirers was the cardinal Ottoboni, a man of reiined taste and princely magnificence; at whose court he met with the famous Corelli, with whom he became well acquainted. Attempts were made at Rome to convert him to Popery; but he declared himself resolved to die a member of that communion, whether true or false, in which he had been born and bred. From Rome he went to Naples; and after he quitted Naples, made a second visit to Florence, Rome, and Venice. The whole time of his abode in Italy was six years; during which he had composed a great deal of music, and some in almost every species of composition. These early fruits of his studies would doubtless be great curiosities, could they be met with.

He now returned to his native country, but could not prevail on himself to settle while there was any musical court which he had not seen. He accordingly visited Hanover, where he met with Steffani, with whom he had been acquainted at Venice; and who was then master of the chapel to George I. when elector of Hanover. There also was a nobleman who had taken notice of him in Italy, and who afterwards did him great service when he came to Kngland for the second time, baron Kilmansegge, who now introduced him at court, and so well recommended him to his electoral highness, that he immediately offered him a pension of 1500 crowns per annum, as an inducement to stay. Handel excused his not accepting this high favour, because he had promised the court of the elector palatine, and had also thoughts of going to England, whither he had received strong invitations from the duke of Manchester. On this he obtained leave to be absent for a twelvemonth or more at a time, and to go whithersoever he pleased; and on these conditions he thankfully accepted the pension.

After paying a visit to his mother, who was now extremely old and blind, and to his old master Zackau, he set out for Dusseldorp. The elector was highly pleased with him, and at parting made him a present of a fine set of wrought plate for a dessert. From Dusseldorp he made the best of his way through Holland; and embarking for England, he arrived at London in the winter of 1710, where he was soon introduced at court, and honoured with marks of the queen’s favour. Many of the nobility were impatient for an opera from him on which he composed “Rinaldo,” which succeeded so wonderfully, that his engagements at Hanover became the subject of much concern. He returned however thither in about a twelvemonth; for besides his pension, Steffani had resigned to him the mastership of the chapel; but in 17 12 he obtained leave of the elector to visit England again, on condition that he returned within a reasonable time. The poor state of music here, and the wretched proceedings at the Haymarket, made the nobility desirous that he might be employed in composing for the theatre. To their applications the queen added her own authority; and as an encouragement, settled on him for life a pension of 20O/, per annum. All this induced Handel to forget his obligations to Hanover; so that when George I. came over at the death of the queen, in 1714, conscious how ill he had deserved at his hands, he durst not appear at court. It happened, however, that his noble friend baron Kilmansegge was here; and he, with others of the nobility, contrived the following scheme for reinstating him in his majesty’s favour. The king was persuaded to form a party on the water; and Handel was desired to prepare some music for that occasion. This, which has since been so justly celebrated under the title of the “Water Music,” was performed and conducted by himself, unknown to his majesty, whose pleasure on hearing it was equal to hig surprize. Upon his inquiring whose it was, the baron produced the delinquent, and presented him to his majesty, as one that was too conscious of his fault to attempt an excuse for it. Thus Handel was restored to favour, and his music honoured with the highest approbation; and as a token of it, the king was pleased* to add a pension foe life of 200l. a year to that which queen Anne had before given him. Some years after, when he was employed to teach the young princesses, another pension was added to the former by her late majesty.

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

The academy being now firmly established, and Handel appointed principal composer, all things went on prosperously for a course of ten years. Handel maintained an absolute authority over the singers and the band, or rather kept them in total subjection. What, however, they regarded for some time as legal government, at length appeared to be downright tyranny; on which a rebellion commenced, with Senesino at the head of it, and all became tumult and civil war. Handel perceiving that Senesino was grown less tractable and obsequious, resolved to subdue him. To manage him by gentle means he disdained; yet to controul him by force he could not, Senesino’s interest and party being too powerful. The one, therefore, was quite refractory, the other quite outrageous. The merits of the quarrel are not known; but, whatever they were, the nobility would not consent to his design of parting with Senesino, and Handel had resolved to have no farther concerns with him. And thus the academy, after it had gone on in a flourishing state for above nine years, was at once dissolved.

Handel still continued at the Haymarket, but his audience gradually sunk away. New singers must be sought, and could not be had any nearer than Italy, to which, however, he was obliged to go, and returning with several singers, he carried on the opera for three or four years without success. Many of the nobility raised a new subscription for another opera at Lincoln’s-inn-fields, and sent for Farinelli and others; and in short, the opposition was so strong, that in spite of his great abilities, his affairs declined, and his fortune was not more impaired than his health and his understanding. His right arm was become useless to him from a stroke of the palsy; and his senses were greatly disordered at intervals for a long time. In this unhappy state, it was thought necessary that he should go to the vapour-baths at Aix-la-Chapelle; and thence he received a cure, which from the manner, as well as quickness of it, passed with the nuns for a miracle.

Soon after his return to London, in 1736, his “Alexander’s Feast” was performed at Covent-garden, and applauded; and several other attempts were made to reinstate him, but they did not prevail; the Italian party were too powerful; so that in 174-1 he went to Dublin, where he was well received, and began to repair his fortune. At his return to London in 1741-2, the minds of most men were disposed in his favour, and the aera of his prosperity returned. He immediately began his oratorios in Coventgarden, which he continued with uninterrupted success and unrivalled glory, till within eight days of his death. The last was performed on the 6th, and he expired on the 13th of April, 1759. He was buried in Westminster-abbey, where by his own order, and at his own expence, a monument is erected to his memory.

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

The figure of Handel was large, and he was somewhat corpulent and unwieldy in his motions, and his general cast of countenance seemed rather heavy and sour; yet, when animated in conversation, his visage was full of fire and dignity, and such as impressed ideas of superiority and genius; and when he smiled, there was an uncommon sudden flash of intelligence, wit, and good-humour beaming in his countenance. Though he was generally rough and peremptory in his manners and conversation, he was totally devoid of ill-nature or malevolence; indeed, there was an original humour and pleasantry in his most lively sallies of anger or impatience, which, with his broken English, were extremely risible. His natural propensity to wit and humour, and happy manner of relating common occurrences in an uncommon way, enabled him to throw persons and things into very ridiculous attitudes. Had he been as great a master of the English language as Swift, his bon-mots would have been as frequent, and somewhat of the same kind.

Handel, with many virtues, was addicted to no vice that was injurious to society. Nature, indeed, required a great supply of sustenance to support so huge a mass, and he was rather Epicurean in the choice of it; but this seems to have been the only appetite which he allowed himself to gratify; and though he was frequently rough in his language, and in the habit of swearing, a' vice then much more in fashion than at present, he became more regular during the last years of his life, and constantly attended public prayers twice a day, winter and summer, both in London and Tunbridge.

It has been said of him, that out of his profession he was ignorant and dull, but, if the fact was as true as it is severe, it must be allowed in extenuation, that to possess a difficult art in the perfect manner in which he did, and to be possessed by it, seems a natural consequence, and all that the public had a right to expect, as he pretended to nothing more. So occupied and absorbed was Handel by the study and exercise of his profession, that he had little time to bestow, either on private amusements or the cultivation of friendship. Indeed, the credit and reverence arising from these, had Handel possessed them, would have been transient, and confined to his own age and acquaintance; whereas the fame acquired by silent and close application to his professional business is universal. Dr. Burney thinks it probable that his name, like that of many of his brethren, will long survive his works. The most learned man can give us no information concerning either the private life or compositions of Orpheus, Amphion, Linus, Olympus, Terpander, or Timotheus, yet every school-boy can tell us that they were great musicians, the delight of their several ages, and many years after, of posterity. Though totally free from the sordid vices of meanness and avarice, and possessed of their opposite virtues, charity and generosity, in spite of temporary adversity, powerful enemies, and frequent maladies of body, which sometimes extended to intellect, Handel died worth upwards of 20,000l.; which, except 1000l. to the fund for decayed musicians and their families, he chiefly bequeathed to his relations on the continent.

, a learned German professor, was born February 16, 1633, at Breslaw. Some theses which he maintained did him so much honour, that he was invited to Gotha, where he was made professor of morality, politics, and history; and appointed afterwards professor of history, politics, and rhetoric, at Breslaw, 1661 librarian of the Elizabeth library, in the same city, 1670 - y patron of the college of Elizabeth, 1631 and in 1688, teacher and inspector of all the schools of the Augsburg confession in that country. He died at Breslaw, April 24, 1709. He wrote many works which established his reputation among his countrymen as an acute critic and profound scholar. His principal performance, and that for which he is most esteemed among scholars, is his book “De Romanarum rerum Scriptoribus,” 2 vols. 4to, 1669, 1675, to which was added another, “De By z an tin arum rerum Scriptoribus Grsecis,” 1677, 4to. His other publications, also on history and antiquities, are in considerable repute.

, an English divine of a very mixed character, was son to Thomas Hanmer of Porkington, in Shropshire, where he was born in 1543, though Fuller says he was born in Flintshire. He became chaplain of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, where he took a degree in arts in April 1567. He afterwards was presented to the living of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, during his holding of which his conduct was such as to bring great odium on him. Out of avarice he tore away the brass plates from the gravestones and monuments, and sold them; and he also appears by Fleetwood’s Diary to have paid very little regard to his oath in a court of justice. In 1581 or 1582, betook his degrees in divinity, and in Nov. 4th, 1583, was presented to the vicarage of Islington, which he resigned in 1590. Two or three years afterwards he resigned Shoreditch, went to Ireland, and at length became treasurer to the church of the holy Trinity, in Dublin, which he kept until his death in 1604. Weever says he committed suicide; and there is still a tradition to this effect among the inhabitants of Shoreditch parish. Whatever his errors, he was esteemed an exact disputant, and a good preacher; an excellent Greek scholar, and well versed in ecclesiastical and civil history. Besides some tracts against the Jesuits, he published “A Chronography,” &c. Lond. 1585, folio, which Harris says was added to his translation of “The Ancient Ecclesiastical Histories of the first 600 years after Christ, originally written by Eusebius, Socrates, and Evagrius,” 1576, folio, reprinted 1585. With this were printed the lives of the prophets and apostles, &c. by Dorotheus, bishop of Tyre; the Ephemeris of the Saints of Ireland; and “The Chronicle of Ireland, in two parts,” the third part of which was published in 1633, at Dublin, fol. He published also, “A Sermon on the Baptising of a Turk,” preached in the collegiate church of St. Katherine, 1586, 8vo.

, a distinguished statesman and polite writer, was born about 1676, and had his education at Westminster-school, and Christ-church, Oxford. When he arrived at years of maturity, he was chosen knight of the shire for the county of Suffolk, and sat in parliament near thirty years, either as a representative for that county, or for Flintshire, or for the borough of Thetford. In this venerable assembly he was soon distinguished; and his powerful elocution and unbiassed integrity drew the attention of all parties. In 17 13 he was chosen speaker of the house of commons; which office, difficult at all times, but at that time more particularly, he discharged with becoming dignity. All other honours and emoluments he declined. Having withdrawn himself by degrees from public business, he spent the remainder of his life in an honourable retirement amongst his books and friends; and there prepared an elegant and correct edition of the works of Shakspeare. This he presented to the university of Oxford; and it was printed there 1744, in 6 vols. 4to, with elegant engravings, by Gravelot, at the expence of sir Thomas. He died at his seat in Suffolk, April 5, 1746.

, a celebrated Lutheran divine, was born March 1, 1595, at Blaxen in the county of Oldenburg, into which county, and Delmenhorst, his ancestors had introduced Lutheranism. He was professor of morality, afterwards of divinity and oriental languages at Marpurg, and, lastly^ superintendant of the churches of Lubec, where he died February 17, 1671. His principal works are, “Scutum Catholic veritatis,” against the Jesuit Thomas Henrici an “Examination of the Jesuit Becan’s Manual” a “Hebrew Grammar” “Expositio Epistolse Pauli ad Ephesios,” Marpurg, 1631, 4to “Synopsis Theologiae” “Irenicum Catholico Evangelicum” “De Justificatione Hominis,” &c. His son, Philip Lewis Hanneken, who died professor of divinity at Wittemberg, June 16, 1706, has also left several works on the Scriptures.

, an historical and portrait painter, was born at the Hague in 1611, and as some writers report, was a disciple of Vandyke; But with more probability, was a disciple of Hubert Kavestein. However, he formed his taste, and his manner of penciling, by studying and copying the works of Vandyke, observing particularly the airs of the heads, which he very happily imitated; and in the tints of his carnations he had somewhat so extremely soft and delicate, as to give them an appearance little inferior to those of Vandyke. Several of Hannetnan’s copies after that illustrious painter’s works shewed such exactness, and at the same time such a freedom of hand, that they are frequently mistaken for originals. Although he was usually employed in portrait-painting, yet he sometimes designed historical and allegorical subjects. Of the latter kind there is^a large picture in the hall of the States of Holland, representing Peace, under the figure of a beautiful woman seated on a throne, holding a dove on her knees, and crowned with wreaths of laurel by two genii. The composition is rich, and it is painted with a great deal of force; the carnations approaching very near to the tints of Vandyke. He came to England in the reign of Charles I. and continued here for sixteen years, and, at his return to the Hague, became the favourite painter of the princess Mary of Orange. There is a picture of her, and the prince in armour, at lord Stratford’s at Wentworth castle, painted, as lord Orford thinks, by him; there are also portraits by him at Windsor, Worksop, and other places. He died about 1680.

, a Carthaginian general, who was employed to sail round Africa, entered the ocean by what is now called the Strait of Gibraltar; discovered several countries, and would have continued his voyage, had he not been in want of provisions. The “Periplus of Hanno,” ascribed to him, was published in Greek by Gelenius, 1533, and there is a good edition of it in Greek and Latin, with notes, Leyden, 1674, 12mo. It is also inserted in the “Geographi Veteres,” Oxford, 4 vols. 8vo, but some suppose this work is of much later date than the time of Hanno, there being reason to suppose he was the famous Carthaginian general who carried on the war against Agathocles, when Carthage was in its most flourishing state. It has been translated into Italian by Romusio, into Spanish by Campomanes, into French by Bougainville, and in I7U7 into English by the learned Mr. Falconer of Corpus college, Oxford, who has ably defended the authenticity of the work against Dodwell and other writers.

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

, a benevolent and amiable character, was born at Portsmouth in 1712. He was at a very early age bound apprentice to a merchant at Lisbon, and afterwards connected himself with a mercantile house at Petersburgh, in consequence of which he was induced to travel into Persia. On leaving Russia with an independent fortune, he returned to his own country, and passed the remainder of his life as a private gentleman, honourably to himself and useful to the world. In 1753, he published an account of his travels through Russia into Persia, and back again through Russia, Germany, and Holland. To this work also was added an account of the revolutions of Persia during the present century. His other publications are very numerous; most of them were well received, and all of them calculated to prove him an excellent citizen and liberal-minded man. The institution of the Marine Society, justly attributed to his activity and benevolence, was the favourite object of Mr. Han way’s care; and in 1758, he was also particularly instrumental in the establishment of the Magdalen charity. His public spirit, and, above all, his disinterestedness, were so conspicuous, that a deputation of the principal merchants in London waited upon the earl of Bute, when prime minister, and represented to him that an individual like Mr. Hanway, who had done so much public good to the injury of his private fortune, was deserving of some signal mark of the public esteem. He was accordingly made a commissioner of the navy, a situation which he held more than twenty years, and, when he resigned, he was allowed to retain the salary for life, on account of his known exertions in the cause of universal chanty. To enumerate the various instances in which the benevolent character of his heart was successfully exerted, would be no easy task. Sunday-schools in a great measure may look upon' Mr. Hanway as their father; the chimney-sweepers’ boys are much indebted to his humanity; and perhaps there never was any public calamity in any part of the British empire which he did not endeavour to alleviate. So greatly and so universally was he respected, that when he died, in 1786, a subscription of many hundred pounds was raised to erect a monument to his memory. The great character of his numerous works is a strong masculine spirit of good sense, and a very chaste simplicity. In his private life he was remarkable for the strictest integrity of conduct, and for a frankness and candour which naturally inspired confidence. The number of his publications amounted to almost seventy, a catalogue of which is annexed to his Life by Mr. Pugh, a work highly edifying and entertaining.

, a learned Dutch catholic divine, and called in that language Van der Haer, was born at Utrecht in 1550, and after the usual course of academical instruction, taught rhetoric at Douay, and travelled afterwards into Germany, Italy, and Muscovy. He accompanied father Pousse vin, who was sent there by the pope as nuncio. On his return, he was made canon of Bois-Ie-duc, then of Namur, and Louvain, at which last place he died, January 12, 1632. His principal works are, “Biblia sacra expositionibus priscorum Patrum litteralibus *t mysticis illustrata,” Antwerp, 1630, folio; “Catena aurea in IV Evangelia,” 1625, 8vo; “Annales Ducum Brabantiae, ac tumultuum Belgicorum” an abridgment of the “Lives of the Saints,” taken chiefly from Surius, 8vo and “A Chronology,” Antwerp, 1614, 4to, &c.

, a French dramatist of the seventeenth century, remarkable for the fertility of his pen, wrote an incredible number of pieces for the theatre, som say six hundred, and some even more. Of these, however, no more remain than thirty-four, which were published by himself in six volumes, 8vo, Paris, 1625 1628. Among these the only tolerable piece is “Marianne,” so good, indeed, that his readers will wonder how it came there. All his boast was a remarkable facility in writing; it was said that he would write two thousand lines in twenty-four hours: in three days his play was composed, and acted. He certainly had considerable talents, but, as he was very necessitous, and compelled to write against time, his abilities had not fair scope. He was the first French dramatist who introduced the custom of being paid for his pieces. He died at Paris in 1630.

, one of our old English historians, descended from a reputable northern family, was born in 1373, and at the age of twelve was admitted into the family of sir Henry Percy, eldest son to the earl of Northumberland, familiarly known by the name of Harry Hotspur, on account of his impatient spirit. He was one of the most esteemed warriors of his time, active and enterprising, had a large vassalry, numerous partizans, and unlimited authority. His household, as lord of the east march of England, was constantly held at Berwick^ upon-Tweed. Harding, it appears, was with his patron, as a volunteer, in the battles of Homildon and Cokelawe. After the death of Percy, he enlisted under the banners of sir Robert Umfravile, with whom he had fought at Horoildon, and who was connected with the Percies by the ties of affinity as well as those of arms. In 1405, when king Henry IV. reduced the fortresses of lord Bardolph and the earl of Northumberland, sir Robert Umfravile’s services in the expedition were rewarded with the castle of Warkworth, under whom Harding became the constable. How long he remained at Warkworth does not appear, but his knowledge of Scottish geography seems soon to have engaged him in the secret service of his country, In 1415 we find him attendant on the king at Harfleur, and his journal of the march which preceded the memorable battle of Agincourt forms one of the most curious passages among the additions to the late reprint of his Chronicle. In 1416 he appears to have accompanied the duke of Bedford to the sea-fight at the mouth of the Seine. In 1424 he was at Rome, and employed partly in inspecting “the great Chronicle of Trogus Pompeius;” but soon after he was again employed in collecting documents for ascertaining the fealty due from the Scottish kings, which seems to have been attended with some personal danger. He has even been accused of forging deeds to answer his royal master’s purpose; but the truth of this charge cannot now be ascertained.

Actively as Harding was engaged in public life, he found time to gather materials lor his “Chronicle,”, and appears to have finished the first composition of it toward the latter en4 of the minority of king Henry VI. The Lansdowne manuscript closes with the life of sir Robert Umfravile, who died, according to Dugdale, Jan. 27, 1436, and under whom Harding seems to have lived in his latter years as constable of Kyme castle in Lincolnshire. Of the rewards which he received for his services, we find only a grant for life often pounds per annum out of the manor or alien preceptory of Wyloughton in the county of Lincoln, in the eighteenth year of Henry VI.; and in 1457 he had a pension of twenty pounds a year for life by letters patent, charged upon the revenues of the county of Lin., coin. During his latter days he appears to have re-composed his “Chronicle” for Richard duke of York, father to king Edward IV. who was slain in the battle of Wakefield, Dec. 31, 1460. It was afterwards presented to king Edward IV. himself. The history comes no lower than the flight of Henry VI. to Scotland, but from “the excusacion” touching his “defaultes,” in which the q‘ueen’is mentioned, it is evident that Harding could not have finished his work before 1465. How long he survived its completion is unknown, but he must then have been at least eighty-seven years of age. His “Chronicle of England unto the reign of king Edward IV.” is in verse, and as a metrical composition is beneath criticism, but, as a record of facts, is highly interesting to the English historian and antiquary. It was first printed by Grafton in 1543, with a continuation by the same, to the thirty-fourth year of Henry VIII. This has been long ranked among the most rare and expensive of our Chronicles, but those who prefer use to mere antiquity, will set a higher value on the edition printed in 1812 by the booksellers of London, Henry Ellis, esq. the learned editor of this edition, has prefixed a biographical and literary preface, to which the preceding account is much indebted, and has carefully collated Harding' s part of the “Chronicle” with two manuscripts of the author’s own time, the Lansdowne and the Harleian, both which are in the British Museum; and Grafton’s addition has been collated with his duplicate edition.^ It is noticed by Mr. Ellis as a very singular fact, that there should be two editions of Harding, both printed by Grafton in the month of January 1543, differing in almost every page, and one, in Grafton’s own portion of the work, containing (in the reign of Henry VIII.) no less than twenty-nine pages more than the other.

, a popish divine of considerable note, and the antagonist of bishop Jewel, was born at Comb-Martin in Devonshire, 1512. His school education was first at Barhstaple, and afterwards at Winchester, whence he was removed to New-college, Oxford, and after two years’ probation, was chosen fellow there in 1536. In 1542, having completed his degrees in arts, he was chosen Hebrew professor of the university by Henry VIII. and, fcis religion probably kept pace with the king’s, but Edward no sooner ascended the throne, than Harding became a zealous protestant. He was afterwards chaplain to the duke of Suffolk, father of Jane Grey, and had the honour to instruct this young lady in the protestant religion; but, on the accession of queen Mary, he immediately became a confirmed papist, and was chaplain and confessor to Gardiner bishop of Winchester. There is a curious epistle preserved by Fox, said to be written by lady Jane to Harding on his apostacy, which, Burnet observes, “is full of Jife in the thought, and zeal in the expression.” In 1554, he proceeded D. D. at Oxford, and was the year after made treasurer of the cathedral of Salisbury, as he had been a little before prebendary of Winchester. When Elizabeth came to the crown, being deprived of his preferment, he left the kingdom; and, having fixed his abode at Louvain in Flanders, he became, says Wood, “the target of popery,” in a warm controversy with bishop Jewel, respecting ordination, against whom, between 1554 and 1567, he wrote seven pieces. He died at Louvain Sept. 16, 1572, and was buried in the church of St. Gertrude, with an epitaph, given at length by Pits. He was undoubtedly a man of parts and learning, and not an inelegant writer. Humphrey, in his “Life of Jewel,” comparing himwith his adversary, says, “in multis pares sunt, & arnbo doctrinae & eloquentiae gloria praecellentes.”