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, one of the greatest musicians of this country, or of Europe, in his time, flourished about the middle of the sixteenth century. He is said to have been organist of the royal chapel to king Henry VIII. king, Edward VI. queen Mary, and queen Elizabeth; but the inscription on his grave-stone warrants no such assertion. In the two reigns of Edward VI. and queen Mary, he was simply a gentleman of the chapel, and served for sevenpence halfpenny a day; but under Elizabeth, he and Bird were gentlemen of the chapel and organists. The studies of Tall is seem to have been wholly devoted to the service of the church, for his name is not to be found to any musical compositions of songs, ballads, madrigals, or any of those lighter kigds of music framed with a view to private recreation. Of the many disciples who had profited by his instruction, Bird seems to have possessed the greatest share of his affection, one proof of which was a joint publication by them of one of the noblest collections of hymns and other compositions for the service of the church that ever appeared in any age or country. This was printed by Vautrollier in 1575, with the title of “Cantiones qua? ab argumento sacrae vocantur quinque et sex partium, Autoribus Thomas T-allisio et Gulielmo Birdo, Anglis, sefenissimse reginee majestati a privato sacello generosis et organistis,” and was published under the protection of a patent of queen Elizabeth, the first of the kind that had ever been granted.

Though it has been commonly said that Tallis was organist to Henry VIII. and the three succeeding princes his descendants, it may well be doubted whether any \-ayman were employed in that office till the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, when Tallis and Bird were severally appointed organists of the royal chapel. Notwithstanding he was a diligent collector of musical antiquities, and a careful peruser of the works of other men, the compositions of Tallis, learned and elegant as they are, are so truly original, that he may justly be said to be the father of the cathedral style; and, though a like appellation is given by the Italians to Palestrina, it is much to be questioned, considering the time when Tallis flourished, whether he could derive the least advantage from the improvements of that great man. Perhaps he laid the foundation of his studies in the works of the old cathedralists of this kingdom, and probably in those of the German musicians, who in his time had the pre-eminence of the Italians; and that he had an emulation to excel even these, may be presumed from the following particular. John Okenheim, a native of the Low Countries, and a disciple of Iodocus Pratensis, had made a composition for no fewer than thirty-six voices, which, Glareanus says, was greatly admired. Tallis composed a motet in forty parts, the history of which stupendous composition, as far as it can now be traced, i< ^iven by sir John Hawkins. Notwithstanding his supposed attachment to the Romish religion, it seems that Tallis accommodated himself and his studies to the alterations introduced at the reformation. With this view, he set to music those several parts of the English liturgy, which at that time were deemed the mojt proper to be sung, namely, the two morning services, the one comprehending the “Veriite Exultemus,” “Te Deum,” and “Benedictus” and the other, which is part of the communion-office, consisting of the “Kyrie Eleison,” “Nicene Creed,” and “Sanctus:” as also the evening service, containing the “Magnificat,” and “Nunc dimittis.” All these are comprehended in that which is called Tallis’s first service, as being the first of two composed by htm. He also set musical notes to the Preces ftnd Responses, and composed that Litany which for its excellence is sung on solemn occasions in all places where the choral service is performed. As to the Preces of Tallis in his first service, they are no other than those of Marbeck in his book of Common-prayer noted: the Responses are somewhat different in the tenor part, which is supposed to contain the melody; but Tallis has improved them by the addition of three parts, and has thus formed a judicious contrast between the supplications of the priest and the suffrages of the people as represented by the choir. The services of Tallis contain also chants for the “Venite Kxultemus,' 1 and the” Creed of St. Athanasius:" these are tunes that divide each verse of the psalm or hymn according to the pointing, to the end that the whole may be sung alternately by the choir, as distinguished by the two sides of the dean and thfe chanter. Two of these chants are published in Dr. Boyce’s Cathedral Music, vol. I. The care of selecting from the Common-prayer the offices most proper to be sung was a matter of some importance, especially as the rubric contains no directions about it; for this reason it is supposed that the musical part of queen Elizabeth’s liturgy was settled by Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, who was not only a great divine, an excellent canonlawyer and ritualist, and a general scholar, but also a skilful musician. Besides the offices above-mentioned, constituting what are now termed the Morning, Communion, and Evening Services, in four parts, with the Preces, Responses, and Litany, Tailis composed many anthems. He died Nov. 23, 1585, and was buried in the parishchurch of Greenwich in Kent; where there is a brass plate for him in the chancel; the inscription on which was repaired by dean Aldrich, and may be seen in Strype’s Stow, but no memorial now remains,

, a gentleman who deserves to be recorded among the benefactors to literature, was great grandson to sir Richard Tancred, who was knighted for his services and severe sufferings during the rebellion. This sir Richard was the son of Charles Tancred, esq. who purchased the manor and rectory of Whixley, anciently Qnixley, situated between York and Aidborough. Christopher Tancred, the subject of this article, died in 1754 unmarried, and left his house and estate at Whixley for the maintenance of twelve decayed gentlemen who have borne arms in the service of their country, each of whom receive twenty-two guineas annually, and a separate apartment is assigned to each of them, but the whole dine in common. He also founded four medical exhir bitions at Caius college; four in divinity at Christ’s college, Cambridge, and four law studentships at Lincoln’sJnn, of which he was a bencher. These were originally of the yearly value of 50l., but are now 100l. each. The trustees in this foundation are the masters of Caius and Christ’s college, the president of the college of Physicians, the treasurer of Lincoln’s-Inn, the master of the Charterhouse, the president of Christ’s hospital, and the governor of Greenwich hospital. These exhibitions continue for about eight years, three years after taking the degree of M. A. or M. B. and after being called to the bar; and a Latin oration is spoken annually, by one of the exhibitioners and students, in commemoration of their liberal benefactor.

, an excellent antiquary, was the son of a father of both his names, vicar of Market Lavington in Wilts, and was born in 1674. He became a student in Queen’s-college, Oxford, in Michaelmas-term, 1689; admitted clerk in that house, 1690; B. A. 1693; entered into holy orders at Christmas, 1694; and became chaplain of All-souls-college in January following; chosen fellow of the same, 1697; chancellor of Norfolk, and rector of Thorpe near Norwich in 1701. He was installed prebendary of Ely, Sept. 10, 1713, (which he quitted in 1723); made archdeacon of Norfolk, Dec. 7, 1721 canon of Christ-church, Feb. 3, 1723-4; and prolocutor of the lower house of convocation, which was convened anno 1727. To this honour he was unanimously elected on account of his great abilities, however contrary to his own inclinations; and was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph, Jan. 23, 1732. Bishop Tanner died at Christ-church, Oxford, Dec. 14, 1735; and was buried in the nave of that cathedral, near the pulpit; without any funeral pomp, according to his own direction. He ordered his body to be wrapped up in the coarsest crape, and his coffin to be covered with serge, not cloth: the pall-bearers to have each of them one of Baskett’s folio bibles; the underbearers a Sherlock upon Death; to the dean of Christchurch, he left five pounds; to the eight canons five shillings each; eighty pounds to buy coats for eighty poor men; and one hundred pounds to the college, towards their library then building. A monument to his memory is affixed to one of the pillars, with an inscription. Another in>cription, and a translation of it, may be seen in the “Anecdotes of Bowyer.” He was thrice married, first, to Rose, eldest daughter of Dr. Moore, bishop of Ely, and by <her, who died March 15, 1706, aged twenty-five, he had a daughter who died in her infancy; secondly, to Frances, daughter of Mr. Jacob Preston, citizen of London. She died June 11, 1718, aged forty, and left two daughters, who both died young, and his son and heir, the rev. Thomas Tanner, who died in 1760, at that time precentor of St. Asaph, rector of Kessingland, and vicar of Lowestoff. The bishop married, thirdly, in 1733, Miss Elizabeth Scottow, of Thorpe, near Norwich, with a fortune of 15,000l. She survived him, and married Robert Britiffe, esq. recorder of Norwich, and M. P. She died in 1771.

Bishop Tanner’s character seems to have descended to posterity without any blemish. His virtues are acknowledged by his contemporaries, and of his learning as an antiquary, which was very extensive, he was most readily communicative to all who were engaged in publications of that nature. He had a considerable hand in the second edition of Wood’s “Athemr,” but appears to have given offence to some of Wood’s friends, by softening certain of his prejudices as well as his coarse language. This produced something like a controversy, which the reader may find detailed in the life of A. Wood, prefixed to his “Annals,” or in the preface to the new edition of the “Athenac,” by Mr. Bliss. Of the publications more particularly belonging to himself, the first appeared before he was twenty years old. It formed an excellent compendium of our religious houses, setting forth, when and by whom they were founded, their dedications, orders, and value; and v\as entitled, “Notitia Monastica, or a short History the Religious Houses in England and Wales,” 1695, 8vo. This was so favourably received that it became very scarce, and at the request of his friends he set about revising and enlarging it in 1715, but the duties of his station, and afteruarcls his infirmities, prevented him from leaving it quite complete. It appeared, however, under the care of the rev. John Tanner, his brotht-r, in 1744, folio, under the title of “Notitia Monastica; or an Account of all the Abbies, Priories, and House* of Friers, heretofore in England and Wales; and also of all the Colleges and Hospitals founded before A. D. 1511. By the right rev. Dr. Thomas Tanner, late lord bishop of St. Asaph. Published by John Tanner, A. M. vicar of Lowestoft in Suffolk, and precentor of the cathedral church of St. Asaph.” Of this a much improved edition was published in 1787, by Mr. Nasmith; but the greater part of the impression having been consumed in Mr. Nichols’s fire, it now ranks among scarce books. His “Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica,” which employed him forty years, was published in 1748, folio, with a posthumous preface by Dr. Wilkins. He left large collections for the county of Wilts, and large notes on Richard Hegge’s Legend of St. Cuthbert, 1663. His immense and valuable collections are now in the Bodleian library at Oxford. His portrait was engraved by Vertue in 1736, at the expence of the Society of Antiquaries. The portrait prefixed to the “Notitia,” is inscribed, “Reverendus admodum Thomas Tanner, Asaphensis Episcbpus, PilmaevEB Antiquitatis Cultor. G. Vertue sculp. 1743.” This print was a copy of that engraved by Vertue, with some difference in the decoration, and this addition to the inscription: “Hoc ectypum fratris sui dignissimi antiquis moribus ornati posteris sacratum esse voluit Soc. Ant. Lond. 1736.”

The first book of solos by Tartiui, was published at Amsterdam, in 1734, the second at Home, in 1745; and Dr, Burney relates that he possesses the third, sixth, seventh, and ninth of his publications, besides two books printed in England, amounting to upwards of fifty solos, exclusive of manuscripts. His concertos amount to two hundred but a surreptitious copy of two sets having appeared ic- Hoilaud, he would never own them. Of taese, which are yet supposed to be certainly genuine, six were composed in his first manner, and six after 1744, when he had improved his style. But his most celebrated work is his “Traitato di Musica,” or treatise on music, in which, though his system, as to the scientific parr, has since been confuted, he appears as one of the most ingenious theorists of this century. It was published in 1754, in 4to. He published, in 1767, “Dissertazione de‘ principi dell’ Armenia Musicale, contenuta nel Diatonico genere,” another theoretical work. Tartini was so ambitious of being thought a follower of Corelli’s precepts and principles, that, after his own reputation was in its zenith, he refused to teach any other music to his disciples, till they had studied the opera quinta y or solos of Corelli. His musical character is thus drawn by the very able judge to whose account we have already referred: “Tartini, on a recent examination of his works, seems, to my feelings and conceptions, to have had a larger portion of merit, as a mere instrumental composer, than any other author who flourished during the first fifty or sixty years of the present century. Though he made Corelli his model in the purity of his harmony, and simplicity of his modulation, he greatly surpassed that composer in the fertility and originality of his invention; not only in the subjects of his melodies, but in the truly cantabile manner of treating them. Many of his adagios want nothing but words to be excellent, pathetic, opera songs. His allegros are sometimes difficult; but the passages fairly belong to the instrument for which they were composed, and were suggested by his consummate knowledge of the fingerboard, and powers of the bow. He certainly repeats his passages, a- d adheres to his original motive, or theme, too much for the favourite desultory style of the present times; but it must be allowed that, by his delicate selection and arrangement of notes, his passages are always good; play them quick, or play them slow, they never seem unmeaning or fortuitous. Indeed, as a harmonist, he was, perhaps, more truly scientific than any other composer of his time, in the clearness, character, and precision of his bases; which were never casual, or the effect of habit, or auricular prejudice and expectation, but learned, judicious, and certtin.”

, surnamed Firmanus, because he was a native of Firmum, a town in Italy, flourished at the same time with Cicero, and was one of his friends. He was a mathematical philosopher, and therefore was thought to have great skill in judicial astrology. He was particularly famous by two horoscopes which he drew, the one the horoscope of Romulus, and the other of Rome. Plutarch says, “Varro, who was the most learned of the Romans in history, had a particular friend named Tarrantius, who, out curiosity, applied himself to draw horoscopes, by means of astronomical tables, and was esteemed the most eminent in his time.” Historians controvert some particular circumstances of his calculations but all agree in conferring on him the honorary title Prince of astrologers.

, a very ingenious artist, in the modelling department, was born in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, of obscure parents, and began life as a country stonemason, without the expectation of ever rising higher. Going to Glasgow on a fair-day, to enjoy himself with his companions, at the time when the Foulis’s were attempting to establish an academy for the fine arts in that city, he saw their collection of paintings, and felt an irresistible im^ pulse to become a painter. He accordingly removed to Glasgow; and in the academy acquired a knowledge of drawing, which unfolded and improved his natural taste. He was frugal, industrious, and persevering; but he was poor, and was under the necessity of devoting himself to stone-cutting for his support; not without the hopes that he might one day be a statuary if he could not be a painter. Resorting to Dublin for employment, he became known to Dr. Quin, who was amusing himself in his leisure hours with endeavouring to imitate the precious stones in coloured pastes, and take accurate impressions of the engravings that were on them.

Dr. Quin, in looking out for an assistant, soon discovered Tassie to be one in whom he could place perfect confidence. He was endowed with fine taste; he was modest and unassuming; he was patient; and possessed the highest integrity. The doctor committed his laboratory and experiments to his care. The associates were fully successful and found themselves able to imitate all the gems, and take accurate impressions of the engravings. As the doctor had followed the subject only for his amusement, when the discovery was completed, he encouraged Mr. Tassie to repair to London, and to devote himself to the preparation and sale of those pastes as his profession. Accordingly, m 1766, he arrived in the metropolis; but he was diffident and modest to excess; very unfit to introduce himself to the attention of persons of rank and of affluence; besides, the number of engraved gems in Britain was small; and those few were little noticed. He long struggled under difficulties which would have discouraged any one who was not possessed or' the greatest patience, and the warmest attachment to the subject. But he ^gradually emerged from obscurity, obtained competence, and what to him was more, he was able to increase his collection, and add higher degrees of perfection to his art. His name soon became respected, and the first cabinets in Europe were open for his use; and he uniformly preserved the greatest attention to the exactness of the imitation and accuracy of the engraving, so that many of his pastes were sold on the continent by the fraudulent for real gems. His taste led him to be peculiarly careful of the impression and he uniformly destroyed those with which he was in the least dissatisfied. The art has been since practised by others; anci many thousauds of pastes have been sold as Tassie’s, which he would have considered as injurious to his fame. Of the fame of others he was not envious; for he uniformly spoke with frankness in praise of those who executed them well, though they were endeavouring to rival himself.

To the ancient engravings he added a numerous collection of the most eminent modern ones; many of which approach in excellence of workmanship, if not in simplicity of design and chastity of expression, to the most celebrated of the ancients. Many years before he died he had a commission from the empress Catherine of Russia, for above 15,000 different engravings, which being executed in the best and most durable manner, were arranged in elegant cabinets, and were placed in the apartments of the palace of Czarsk Zelo. In executing this commission, Mr. Tassie availed himself of all the advantages which the improved state of chemistry, the various ornamental arts, and the knowledge of the age, seemed to afford. The impressions were taken in a beautiful white enamel composition, which is not subject to shrink, or form air-bladders; which emits fire when struck with steel, and takes a fine polishand which shews every stroke and touch of the artist in higher perfection than any other substance. When the colours, mixed colours, and nature of the respective originals, could be ascertained, they were imitated as completely as. art-tan imitate them: insomuch that many of the paste intaglios and cameos in this collection are such faithful imitations, that artists themselves have owned they could hardly be distinguished from the originals. And when the colour and nature of the gems could not be authenticated, the pastes were executed in agreeable, and chit- fly transparent colours: constant attention l>t:ing bestowed to preserve the outlines, extremities, attributes, and inscriptions. It was the learned Mr. Raspe (from whom this account is taki n), who arranged this great collection, and made out the dc srnptsve i at; iogue. (See “A Descriptive Catalogue,” &c. 2 vols. 4-to, 1791.)

Toward the end of his third year, Bernardo his father was obliged to follow the prince of Salerno into Germany, which journey proved the source of all the sufferings of Tasso and his family. The occasion was this Don Pedro of Toledo, viceroy of Naples for the emperor Charles V, had formed a design to establish the inquisition in that city. The Neapolitans, alarmed at this, resolved to send a deputation to the emperor, and made choice of the prince of Salerno, who seemed most able, by his authority and riches, to oppose the viceroy. The prince having consented, Bernardo Tasso accompanied him into Germany; but, before his departure, committed the care of his son to a man of learning; under whom, at three years of age, they tell us, he began to study grammar; and, at four, was sent to the college of the Jesuits, where he made so rapid a progress, that at seven he was pretty wellacquainted with the Latin and Greek tongues; at the same age he made public orations, and composed some pieces of poetry, of which the style is said to have retained nothing of puerility.

The success the prince of Salerno met with in his embassy greatly increased his credit amongst the Neapolitans, but entirely ruined him with the viceroy, who so much, exasperated the emperor against the prince of Salerno, that Ferrante, finding there was no longer any security for him at Naples, and having in vain applied to gain an audience of the emperor, retired to Rome, and renounced his allegiance to Charles V. Bernardo Tasso would not abandon his patron in his ill fortune; neither would he leave his son in a country where he himself was soon to be declared an enemy; and foreseeing he should never he able to return thither, he took Torquato with him to Rome.

As soon as the departure of the prince of Salerno was known, he, and all his adherents, were declared rebels to the state; and Torquato Tasso, though but nine years of age, was included by name in that sentence. Bernardo, following the prince of Salerno into France, committed his son to the care of his friend and relation Maurice Cataneo, a person of great ability, who assiduously cultivated the early disposition of his pupil to polite literature. After the death of Sanseverino, which happened in three or four years, Bernardo returned to Italy, and engaged in the service of Guglielmo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, who had given him a pressing invitation. It was not long before Ije received the melancholy news of the decease of his wife Portia, which determined him to send for his son, that they might be a mutual support to each other in their affliction. He was now his only child, for his wife, before her death, had married his daughter to Martio Sersale, a gentleman of Sorrento. He was greatly surprised, on his son’s arrival, to see the vast progress he had made in his studies. Although but twelve years of age, he had, according to the testimony of the writers of his life, entirely completed his knowledge in the Latin and Greek tongues: he was well acquainted with the rules of rhetoric and poetry, and completely versed in Aristotle’s ethics. Bernardo soon determined to send him to the university of Padua, to study the laws, in company with the young Scipio Gonzaga, afterwards cardinal, nearly of the same age as himself. With this nobleman Tasso, then seventeen years of age, contracted a friendship that never ended but with hi life. He prosecuted his studies at Padua with great diligence and success: at the same time employ ing his leisure hours upon philosophy and poetry, he soon gave a public proof o/ his talents, by his poem of f< Rinaldo,“which he published in the eighteenth year of his age. This poem, which is of the romance kind, is divided into twelve books in ottava rima, and contains the adventures of Rinaldo, the famous Paladin of the court of Charlemain, who makes so principal a figure in Ariosto’s work, and the first achievements of that knight for the love of the fair Clarice, whom he afterwards marries. The action of this poem precedes that of the” Orlando Furioso.“It was composed in ten months, as the author himself informs us in the preface, and was first printed at Venice in 1562. Paolo Beni speaks very highly of this performance, which undoubtedly is not unworthy the early efforts of that genius which afterwards produced the” Jerusalem."

Tasso’s father saw with regret the success of his son’s poem: he was apprehensive, and not without reason, that the charms of poetry would detach him from those more solid studies-which he judged were most likely to raise him in the world: and he knew well, by his own experience, that the greatest skill in poetry will not advance a man’s private fortune. He was not deceived in his conjecture; Torquato, insensibly carried away by his predominant passion, followed the examples of Petrarch, Boccace, Ariosto, and others, who, contrary to the remonstrances of their friejids, quitted the severer studies of the law for the more pleasing entertainment of poetical composition. In short, he entirely gave himslf up to the study of poetry and philosophy. His first poem extended his reputation through all Italy; but his father was so displeased with his conduct that he went to Padua o'n purpose to reprimand him. Though he spoke with great vehemence, and made use of several harsh expressions, Torquato heard him without interrupting him, and his composure contributed not a little to increase his father’s displeasure. (t Tell me,“said Bernardo, lt of what use is that vain philosophy, upon which you pride yourself so much?” “It has enabled me,” said Tasso modestly, “to endure the harshness of your reproofs.” The resolution Tasso had taken to devote himself to the Muses was known all over Italy; the principal persons of the city and college of Bologna invited him thither' by means of Pietro Donato Cesi, then vice-legate, and afterwards legate. But Tasso had not long resided there, when he was pressed by Scipio Gonzaga, elected prince of the academy established at Padua, under the name of Etherei, to return to that city. He could not withstand this solicitation; and Bologna being at that time the scene of civil commotion, he was the more willing to seek elsewhere for the repose he loved. He was received with extreme joy by all the academy, and being incorporated into lhat society, at the age of twenty years, took upon himself the name of Pentito; by which he seemed to show that he repented of all the time which he had employed in the study of the law. In this retreat he applied himself afresh to philosophy and poetry, and soon became a perfect master of both; it was this happy mixture of his studies that made him an enemy to all kinds of licentiousness. An oration was made one day in the academy upon the nature of love; the orator treated his subject in a very masterly manner, but with too little regard to decency in the opinion of Tasso, who, being asked what he thought of the discourse, replied, “that it was a pleasing poison.”

Here Tasso formed the design of his celebrated poem, ie Jerusalem Delivered:“he invented the fable, disposed the different parts, and determined to dedicate this work to the glory of the house of Este. He was greatly esteemed by Alphonso II. the last duke of Ferrara, that great patron of learning and learned men, and by his brother, cardinal Luigi. There was a sort of contest between these two brothers, in relation to the poem: the cardinal imagined that he had a right to he the Maecenas of all Tasso‘ s works, as ’fRinaldo,” hi? first piece, had been dedicated to him: the duke, on the other bane), thought that, as his brother had already received his share pf honour, he ought not to be offended at seeing the name qf Alphonso at the head of the “Jerusalem Delivered.” Tasso for three or four years Suspended his deterrainatipn: at length, being earnestly pressed by both the brothers to take up his residence in Ferrara, he suffered himself to be prevailed upon. The duke gave him an apartment in his palace, where he lived in peace and affluence, and pursued his design of completing his “Jerusalem,” which be riov resolved to dedicate to Alphonso. The duke, who was desirous of fixing Tasso near him, had thoughts of marrying hiin advantageously, but he always evaded any proposal of that kind: though he appeared peculiarly devoted to Alphonso, yet he neglected not to pay his court to the cardinal.

The name of M asso now became famous through all Europe: and the caresses he received from Charles IX. in a journey he made to France with cardinal Luigi, who went thither in quality of legate, show that his reputation was not confined to his own country. The cardinal’s legation being finished, Tasso returned to Ferrara, where he applied himself to finish his “Jerusalem,” and in the mean time published his “Aminta,” a pastoral comedy, which was received with universal applause. This performance was looked upon as a master- piece in its kind, and is toe original of the “Pastor Fido” and “Filli di Sciro.” It was not easy to imagine that Tasso could so well paint the effects of love, without having himself felt that passion: it began to be suspected that, like another Ovid, he had raised his desires too high, and it was thought that in many of his verses he gave hints of that kind. There were at the duke’s court three Leonoras, equally witty and beautiful, though of different quality. The first was Leonora of Este, sister to the duke, who having refused the most advantageous matches, lived unmarried with Lauretta, duchess of Urbino, her elder sister, who was separated from her husband, and resided at her brother’s court. Tasso had a great attachment to this lady, who, on her side, honoured him with her esteem and protection. She was wise, generous, and not only well read in elegant literature, but even versed in the more abstruse sciences. All these perfections were undoubtedly observed by Tasso, who was one of the most assiduous of her courtiers and it appearing by his verses that he was touched with the charms of a Leonora, they tell us that we need not seek any further for the object of his passion.

The second Leonora that was given him for a mistress was the countess of San Vitale, daughter of the count of Sala, who lived at that time at the court of Ferrara, and passed for one of the most accomplished persons in Italy. Those who imagined that Tasso would not presume to lift his eyes to his master’s sister, supposed that he loved this lady. It is certain that he had frequent opportunities of discoursing with her, and that she had frequently been the subject of his verses. The third Leonora was a lady in the service of the princess Leonora of Este. This person was thought by some to be the most proper object of the poet’s gallantry. Tasso, several times, employed his muse in her service: in one of his pieces he confesses that, considering the princess as too high for. his hope, he had fixed his affection upon her, as of a condition more suitable to his own. But if any thing can be justly drawn from this particular, it seems rather to strengthen the opinion, that his desires, at least at one time, had aspired to a greater height. It appears, however, difficult to determine with certainty in relation to Tasso' s passion; especially when we consider the privilege allowed to poets: though M. Mirabuud makes no scruple to mention it as a circumstance almost certain, and fixes it without hesitation on the princess Leonora. Tasso, himself, in several of his poems, seems to endeavour to throw an obscurity over his passion. In the mean while Tasso proceeded with his <c Jerusalem," which he completed in the thirtieth year of his age; but this poem was not published by his own authority; it was printed against his will, as soon as he had finished the last book, and before he had time to give the revisals and corrections that a work of such a nature required. The public had already seen several parts, which had been sent into the world by the authority of his patrons. The success of this work was prodigious: it was translated into the Latin, French, Spanish, and even the oriental languages, almost as soon as it appeared-, and it may be said, that no such performance ever before raised its reputation to such a height in so small a space of time. But the satisfaction which Tasso must have felt, in spite of all his philosophy, at the applause of the public, was soon disturbed by a melancholy event. Bernardo Tasso, who spent his old age in tranquillity at Ostia upon the P<>, the government of which place had been given him by the duke of Mantua, fell sick. As soon as this news reached his son, he immediately went to him, attended him with the most filial regard, and scarce ever stirred from his bedside during the whole time of his illness: but all these cares were ineffectual; Bernardo, oppressed with age, and overcome by the violence of his distemper, paid the unavoidable tribute to nature, to the great affliction of Torqua:o. The duke of Mantua, who had a sincere esteem lor Bernardo, caused him to be interred, with much pomp, in the church of St. Egidius at Mantua, with this simple inscription on his tomb:

This death seemed to forebode other misfortunes to Tasso; for the remainder of his life proved almost one continued series of vexation and affliction. About this time a swarm of critics began to attack his “Jerusalem,” and the academy della Crusca, in particular, published a criiicisnii of his poem, in which they scrupled not to prefer the rhapsodies of Pulci and Boyardoto the “Jerusalem Delivered.” During Tasso’s residence in the duke’s court, he had contracted an intimacy with a gentleman of Ferrara, and having entrusted him with some transactions of a very delicate nature, this person was so treacherous as to speak of them again. Tasso reproached his friend with his indiscretion, who received his expostulation in such a manner, that Tasso was so far exasperated as to strike him: a challenge immediately ensued: the two opponents met at St. Leonard’s gate; but, while they were engaged, three brothers of Tasso’s antagonist came in and basely fell all at once upon Tasso, who defended himself so gallantly that he wounded two of them, and kept his ground against the others, till some people came in and separated them. This affair made a great noise at Ferrara: nothing was talked of but the valour of Tasso; and it became a sort of proverb, “That Tasso with his pen and his sword was superior to all men.” The duke, being informed of the quarrel, expressed great resentment against the four brothers, banished them from his dominions, and confiscated their estates; at the same time he caused Tasso to be put under arrest, declaring he did it to screen him from any future designs of his enemies. Tasso was extremely mortified to see himself thus confined; he imputed his detention to a very different cause from what was pretended, and feared an ill use might be made of what had passed, to ruin him in the duke’s opinion.

Though writers have left us very much in the dark with regard to the real motives that induced the duke to keep Tasso in confinement, yet, every thing being weighed, it seems highly probable that the affair of a delicate nature, said to have been divulged by his friend, must have related to the princess Leonora, the duke’s sister : and indeed it will be extremely difficult, from any other consideration, to account for the harsh treatment he received from a prince, who had before shown him such peculiar marks of esteem and friendship. However, Tasso himself had undoubtedly secret apprehensions that increased upon him every day, while the continual attacks which were made upon his credit as an author, not a little contributed to heighten his melancholy. At length he resolved to take the first opportunity to fly from his prison, for so he esteemed it, which after about a year’s detention he effected, and retired to Turin, where he endeavoured to remain concealed; but notwithstanding all his precautions, he was soon known, and recommended to the duke of Savoy, who received him into his palace, and showed him every mark of esteem and affection. But Tasso’s apprehensions still continued; he thought that the duke of Savoy would not refuse to give him up to the duke of B'errara, or sacrifice the friendship of that prince to the safety of a private person. Full of these imaginations he set out for Rome, alone and unprovided with necessaries for such a journey. At his arrival there he went directly to his old friend Mauritio Cataneo, who received him in such a manner as entirely to obliterate for some time the remembrance of the fatigue and uneasiness he had undergone. He was not only welcomed by Cataneo, but the whole city of Rome seemed to rejoice at the presence of so extraordinary a person. He was visited by princes, cardinals, prelates, and by all the learned in general. But the desire of revisiting his native country, and seeing his sister Cornelia, soon made him uneasy in this situation. He left his friend Mauritio Cataneo one evening, without giving him notice; and, beginning his journey on foot, arrived by night at the mountains of Veletri, where he took up his lodging with some shepherds: the next morning, disguising himself in the habit of one of these people, he continued his way, and in four days time reached Gaieta, almost spent with fatigue: here he embarked on board a vessel bound for Sorrento, at which place he arrived in safety the next day. He entered the city and went directly to his sister’s house: she was a widow, and the two sons she had by her husband being at that time absent, Tasso found her with only some of hr i <-n:ale attendants. He advanced towards her, without discovering himself, and pretending he came with news from her brother, gave her a letter which he had prepared for that purpose. This letter informed her that her brother’s life was in great danger, and that he begged her to make use of all the interest her tenderness might suggest to her, in order to procure letters of recommendation from some powerful person, to avert the threatened misfortune. For further particulars of the affair, she was referred to the messenger who brought her this intelligence.The lady, terrified at the news, earnestly entreated him to give her a detail of her brother’s misfortune. The feigned messenger then gave her so interesting an account of the pretended story, that, unable to contain her affliction, she fainted away. Tasso was sensibly touched at this convincing proof of his sister’s affection, and repented that he had gone so far: he began to comfort her, and, removing her fears by little and little, at last discovered himself to her. Her joy at seeing a brother whom she tenderly loved, was inexpressible after- the first salutations were over, she was very desirous to know the occasion of his disguising himself in that manner. Tasso acquainted her with his reasons, and, at the same time, giving her to understand, that he would willingly remain with her unknown to the world, Cornelia, who desired nothing further than to acquiesce in his pleasure, sent for her children and some of her nearest relations, whom she thought might be entrusted with the secret. They agreed that Tasso should pass for a relation of theirs, who came from Bergamo to Naples upon his private business, and from thence had come to Sorrento to pay them a visit. After this precaution, Tasso took up his residence at his sister’s house, where he lived for some time in tranquillity, entertaining himself with his two nephews Antonio and Alessandro Sersale, children of great hopes. The princess Leonora of Este, however, who was acquainted with the place of his retreat, invited him to return to Ferrara, which he did in company with Gualingo, ambassador from the duke to the pope. Concerning the motive of Tasso’s return to Ferrara, some authors think that, weary of living in obscurity, he had resolved to throw himself upon the duke’s generosity. This opinion seems indeed drawn from Tasso’s own words in a letter written by him to the duke of Urbino, in which he declares, “that he had endeavoured to make his peace with the duke, and had for that purpose written severally to him, f the duchess of Ferrara, the duchess of Urbino, and the princess Leonora; yet never received any answer but from the last, who assured him it was not in her power to render him any service.” We see here that Tasso acknowledges himself the receipt of a letter from the princess; and in regard to what he says to be the purport of it, it is highly reasonable to suppose, that he would be very cautious of divulging the real contents to the duke of Urbino, when his affairs with that lady were so delicately circumstanced. This apparent care to conceal the nature of his correspondence with her, seems to corroborate the former suppositions of his uncommon attachment to her; and when all circumstances are considered, it seems more than probable that he returned to Ferrara at the particular injunction of Leonora.

He then went to Mantua, where he found duke Guglielmo in a decrepid age, and little disposed to protect him against the duke of Ferrara: the prince Vincentio Gonzaga received him indeed with great caresses, but was too young to take him under his protection. From thence he went to Padua and Venice, but carrying with him in every part his fears of the duke of Ferrara, he at last had recourse to the duke of Urbino, who shewed him great kindness, but perhaps was very little inclined to embroil himself with his brother-in-law, on such an account: he advised Tasso rather to return to P'errara, which counsel he took, resolv ing once more to try his fortune with the duke. Alphonso, it may be, exasperated at Tasso’s flight, and pretending to believe that application to study had entirely disordered his understanding, and that a strict regimen was necessary to restore him to his former state, caused him to be strictly confined in the hospital of St. Anne. Tasso tried every method to soften the duke and obtain his liberty; but the duke coldly answered those who applied to him, “that instead of concerning themselves with the complaints of a person in his condition, who was very little capable of judging for his own good, they ought rather to exhort him patiently to submit to such remedies as were judged proper for his circumstances.” This confifiement threw Tasso into the deepest despair; he abandoned himself to his misfortunes, and the methods that were made use of for the cure of his pretended madness had nearly thrown him into an absolute delirium. His imagination was so disturbed that he believed the cau&e of his distemper was not natural; he sometimes fancied himself haunted by a spirit, that continually disordered his books and papers; and these strange notions were perhaps strengthened by the tricks that were played him by his keeper. This second confinement of Tasso was much longer than the first; but after seven years confinement, his release was procured by Vincentio Gonzaga, prince of Mantua, who took him with him to Mantua. It is said that the young prince, who was naturally gay, being desirous to authorize his pleasures by the example of a philosopher, introduced one day into Tasso’s company three sisters, to sing and play upon instruments: these ladies were all very handsome, but not of the most rigid virtue. After some short discourse, he told Tasso, that he should take two of them away, and would leave one behind, and bade him take his choice. Tasso answered “that it cost Paris very dear to give the preference to one of the goddesses, and, therefore, with his permission, he designed to retain the three.” The prince took him at his word, and departed; when Tasso, after a little conversation, dismissed them all handsomely with presents.

At last, weary of living in a continual state of dependence, he resolved to retire to Naples, and endeavour to recover his mother’s jointure, which had been seized upon by her relations when he went into exile with his father Bernardo. This appeared the only means to place him in the condition of life he so much desired. He applied to his friends, and having procured favourable, letters to the viceroy, he took leave of the duke of Mantua and repaired to Bergamo, where he stayed some time, and thence went to Naples. While here, dividing his time between his studies and the prosecution of his law-suit, the young count of Palena, by whom he was highly esteemed, persuaded him to take up his residence with him for some time; but in this affair he had not consulted the prince of Conca, his father, who, though he had a value for Tasso, yet could not approve of his son’s receiving into his house the only person that remained of a family once devoted to the prince of Salerno. A contention being likely to ensue, on this account, between the father and son, Tasso, with his usual goodness of disposition, to remove all occasion of dispute, withdrew from Naples, and retired to Bisaccio with his friend Manso, in whose company he lived some time with great tranquillity.

In this place Manso had an opportunity to examine the singular effects of Tasso’s melancholy; and often disputed with him concerning a familiar spirit, which he pretended to converse with. Manso endeavoured, in vain, to persuade his friend that the whole was the illusion of a disturbed imagination; but the latter was strenuous in maintaining the reality of what he asserted; and, to convince Manso, desired him to be present at one of those mysterious conversations. Manso had the complaisance to meet him the next day, and while they were engaged in discourse, on a sudden he observed that Tasso kept his eyes fixed upon a window, and remained in a manner immovable: he called him by his name, several times, but received no answer: at last Tasso cried out, “Theer is the friendly spirit who is come to converse with me: look, and you will be convinced of the truth of all that I have said.” Manso heard him with surprize: he looked, but saw nothing except the sun-beams darting through the window: he cast his eyes all over the room, but could perceive nothing, and was just going to ask where the pretended spirit was, when he heard Tasso speak with great earnestness, sometimes putting questions to the spirit, and sometimes giving answers, delivering the whole in such a pleasing manner, and with such elevated expressions, that he listened with admiration, and had not the least inclination to interrupt him. At last, this uncommon conversation ended with the departure of the spirit, as appeared by Tasso’s words; who turning toward Manso, asked him if his doubts were removed. Manso was more amazed than ever; he scarce knew what to think of his friend’s situation, and waved any further conversation on the subject.

At the approach of winter they returned to Naples, when the prince of Palena again pressed Tasso to reside with him; but Tasso, who judged it highly unadvisable to comply with his request, resolved to retire to Rome, and wait there the issue of his law-suit. He lived in that city about a year in high esteem with pope Sixtus V; when, being invited to Florence by Ferdinando, grand duke of Tuscany, who had been cardinal at Rome when Tasso first resided there, and who now employed the pope’s interest to procure a visit from him, he could not withstand such solicitations, but went to Florence, where he met with a most gracious reception. Yet not all the caresses he received at the duke’s court, nor all the promises of that prince, could overcome his love for his native country, or lessen the ardent desire he had to lead a retired and independent life. He therefore took his leave of the grand duke, wbo would have loaded him with presents; but Tasso, as usual, could be prevailed upon to accept of no more than was necessary for his present occasions. He returned to Naples by the way of Rome, and the old prince of Conca dying about this time, the young count of Palena prevailed upon Tasso, by the mediation of Manso, to accept of an apartment in his palace. Here he applied himself to a correction of his Jerusalem, or rather to compose a new work entitled “Jerusalem Conquered,” which he had begun during his first residence at Naples. The prince of Conca, being jealous lest any one should deprive him of the poet and poem, caused him to he so narrowly watched that Tasso observed it, and being displeased at such a proceeding, left the prince’s palace, and retired to his friend Manso’s, where he lived master of himself and his actions; yet he still continued upon good terms with the prince of Conca.

Manso’s garden commanded a full prospefct of the sea. Tasso and his friend being one day in a summer-house with Scipio Belprato, Manso’s brother-in-law, observing the waves agitated with a furious storm, Beiprato said, “that he was astonished at the rashness and folly of men who would expose themselves to the rage of so merciless an element, where such numbers had suffered shipwreck.” “And yet,” said Tasso, “we every night go without fear to bed, where so many die every hour. Beheve me, death will rind us in all parts, and those places that appear the least exposed are not always the most secure from his attacks.” While Tasso lived with his friend Manso, cardinal Hippolito Aldobrandirii succeeded to the papacy by the name of Clement VIII. His two nephews, Cynthio and Pietro Aldobrandini, were created cardinals: the first, afterwards called the cardinal of St. George, was the eldest, a great patron of science, and a favourer of learned men: he had known Tasso when he resided last at Rome, and had the greatest esteem for him; and now so earnestly invited him to Rome, that he could not peluse, but once more abandoned his peaceful retreat;it Naples. As in consequence of the confines of the ecclesiastical state being infested with banditti, travellers, for security, used to go together in large companies, Tasso joined himself to one of these; but when they came within sight of Mola, a little town near Gaietu, they received intelligence that Sciarru, a famous captain of robbers, was near at hand with a great body of men. Tasso was of opinion, that they should continue their journey, and endeavour to defend themselves, if attacked: however, this advice was overruled, and they threw themselves for safety into Mola, in which place they remained for some time in a manner blocked up by Sciarra. But this outlaw, hearing that Tasso was one of the company, sent a message to assure him that he might pass in safety, and offere.i himself to conduct him wherever he pleased. Tasso returned him thanks, but declined accepting the offer, not choosing, perhaps, to rely on the word of a person of such character. Sciarra upon this sent a second message, by which he informed Tasso, that, upon his account, he would withdraw his men, and leave the ways open. He accordingly did so, and Tasso, continuing his journey, arrived without any accident at Rome, where he was most graciously welcomed by the two cardinals and the pope himself. Tasso applied himself in a particular manner to cardinal Cynthio, who had been the means of his coming to Rome; yet he neglected not to make his court to cardinal Aldobrandini, and he very frequently conversed with both of them. One day the two cardinals held an assembly of several prelates, to consult, among other things, of some method to put a stop to the license of the pasquinades. One proposed that Pasquin’s statue should be broken to pieces and cast into the river. But Tasso' s opinion being asked, he said, “it would be much more prudent to let it remain where it was; for otherwise from the fragments of the statue would be bred an infinite number of frogs on the banks of the Tyber, that would never cease to croak day and night.” The pope, to whom cardinal Aldobrandini related what had passed, interrogated Tasso upon the subject. “It is true, holy father,” said he, “such was my opinion; and I shall add moreover, that if your holiness would silence Pasquin, the only way is to put such people into employments as may give no occasion to any libels or disaffected discourse.”

At last, being again disgusted with the life of a courtier, he obtained permission to retire to Naples to prosecute his law-suit. At his arrival there, he took up his lodging in the convent of St. Severin, with the fathers of St. Benedict. Thus was Tasso once more in a state of tranquillity and retirement, so highly agreeable to his disposition; when cardinal Cynthio again found means to recall him, by prevailing on the pope to give him the honour of being solemnly crowned with laurel in the capitol. Though Tasso himself was not in the least desirous of such pomp, yet he yielded to the persuasion of others, particularly of his dear friend Manso, to whom he protested that he went merely at his earnest desire, not with any expectation of the promised triumph, which he had a secret presage would never be. He was greatly affected at parting from Manso, and took his leave of him as of one he should never see again. In his way he passed by Mount Cassino, to pay his devotion to the relics of St, Benedict, for whom he had a particular veneration. He spent the festival of Christmas in that monastery, and thence repaired to Rome, where he arrived in the beginning of 1595. He was met at the entrance of that city by many prelates and persons of distinction, and was afterward introduced, by the two cardinals, Cynthio and Pietro, to the presence of the pope, who was pleased to tell him, “that his merit would add as much honour to the laurel he was going to receive, as that crown had formerly given to those on whom it had hitherto been bestowed.”

Though he had only completed his fifty- first year, his studies and misfortunes had brought on a premature old age. Being persuaded that his end was approaching, he resolved to spend the few days he had yet to live in the monastery of St. Onuphrius. He was carried thither in cardinal Cynthio’s coach, and received with the utmost tenderness by the prior and brethren of that order. His distemper was now so far increased, and his strength so exhausted, that all kind of medicine proved ineffectual. On the 10th of April he was taken with a violent fever, occasioned perhaps by having eat some milk, a kind of aliment he was particularly fond of. His life now seemed in imminent danger: the most famous physicians in Rome tried all their art, but in vain, to relieve him: he grew worse and worse every day. Rinaldini, the pope’s physician, and Tasso’s intimate friend, having informed him that his last hour was near at hand, Tasso embraced him tenderly, and with a composed countenance returned him thanks for his tidings; then looking up to Heaven, he “acknowledged the goodness of God, who was at last pleased to bring him safe into port after so long a storm.” From that time his mind seemed entirely disentangled from earthly affairs: he received the sacrament in the chapel of the monastery, being conducted thither by the brethren. When he was brought back to his chamber, he was asked where he wished to be interred; he answered, in the church of St. Onuphrius: and being desired to leave some memorial of his will in writing, and to dictate himself the epitaph that should be engraven on his tomb, he smiled and said, “that in regard to the first, he had little worldly goods to leave, and as to the second, a plain stone would suffice to cover him.” He left cardinal Cynthio his heir, and desired that his own picture might be given to Giovanni Baptista Manso, which had been drawn by his direction. At length having attained the fourteenth day of his illness, he received the extreme unction. Cardinal Cynthio hearing that he was at the last extremity, came- to visit him, and brought him the pope’s benediction, a grace never conferred in this manner but on cardinals and persons of the first distinction. Tasso acknowledged this honour with great devotion and humility, and said, “that this was the crown he came to receive at Rome.” The cardinal having asked him “if he had any thing further to desire,” he replied, “the only favour he had now to beg of him, was, that he would collect together the copies of all his works (particularly his” Jerusalem Delivered,“which he esteemed most imperfect) and commit them to the flames: this task, he confessed, might be found something difficult, as those pieces were dispersed abroad in so many different places, but yet he trusted it would not be found altogether impracticable.” He was so earnest in his request, that the cardinal, unwilling to discompose him by a refusal, gave him such a doubtful answer as led him to believe that his desire would be complied with. Tasso then requesting to be left alone, the cardinal took his farewel of him with tears in his eyes, leaving with him his confessor and some of the brethren of the monastery. In this condition he continued all night, and till the middle of the next day, the 25th of April, being the festival of St. Mark; when, finding himself fainting, he embraced his crucifix, uttering these words: In manus tuas, Domine but expired before he could finish the sentence. Tasso was tall and well-shaped, his complexion fair, fyut rather pale through sickness and study; the hair of his head was of a chesnut colour, but that of his beard somewhat lighter, thick and bushy; his forehead square and high, his head large, and the tore part of it, towards the end of his life, altogether bald; his eye-brows were dark; his eyes full, piercing, and of a clear blue; his nose large, his lips thin, his teeth well set and white; his neck well proportioned; his breast full; his shoulders broad, and all his limbs more sinewy than fleshy. His voice was strong, clear, and solemn; he spoke with deliberation, and generally reiterated his last words: he seldom laughed, and never to excess. He was very expert in the exercises of the body. In his oratory, he used little action, and rather pleased by the beauty and force of his expressions, than by the graces of gesture and utterance, that compose so great a part of elocution. Such was the exterior of Tasso: as to his mental qualities, he appears to have been a great genius, and a soul elevated above the common rank of mankind. It is said of him, that there never was a scholar more humble, a wit more devout, or a man more amiable in society. Never satisfied with, his works, even when they rendered his name famous throughout the world; always satisfied with his condition, even when he wanted every thing; entirely relying on Providence and his friends; without malevolence towards his greatest enemies; only wishing for riches that he might be serviceable to others, and making a scruple to receive or keep auy thing himself that was not absolutely necessary. So blameless and regular a life was ended by a peaceable death, which carried him off in 1595, in the fifty-second year of his age.

As to his works, we have mentioned his principal his “Rinaldo,” “Aminta,” and “Gierusalemme liberate,” an epic poem in twenty-four books. This poem had been published in an imperfect state, through the importunity and authority of some of his noble patrons, but the first complete edition of it appeared at Ferrara in 1581, 4to. The critics falling upon this work, he proposed to give a new and corrected edition of it, or, more properly speaking, to write it over again, which he did, and published at Home, under the title of “Gierusalemme conquistata,” in 1593, 4to. But the poem, thus accommodated to the taste and humour of his critics, was not received by the world at large with the same applause as the first edition had been, which is the only one now read. Many writers, especially among the Italians, have compared Tasso to Virgil; and their partiality has, perhaps, made Boileau criticize him more severely than he would otherwise have done: he calls Tasso' s verses tinsel, when compared with the gold of Virgil; and censures the simple judgment of those, who prefer “le clinquant du Tasse a tout Tor de Virgile,” In the mean time some virtuosi of Italy have made it a question for a long while, whether Ariosto does not deserve the precedency of Tasso: a comparison which more judicious critics think never ought to have been instituted; and Tiraboscbi says we may as well compare Virgil’s Æneid with Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Tasso’s “Jerusalem” is regularly epic in its whole construction, and ranks deservedly among the few of that species of composition, ancient or modern, which all ages will probably admire. A little too much of the marvellous, one or perhaps two of the episodes, and part of his machinery, are the only subjects to which the most rigid criticism has ventured to object. Where some of his defects, some of his conceits, are visible, they have been referred to his age, but these are not frequent, and it seems generally acknowledged that while he is inferior to Homer, in simplicity and fire, to Virgil, in tenderness, and to Milton, in daring sublimity of genius, he yields to no other in any poetical talents.

, an Italian poet of great fame, was born at Modeua, in 1565. He was early left an orphan, and exposed to many difficulties, yet he cultivated the knowledge of the learned languages with great assiduity, and, in 1597, entered into the service of cardinal Ascanio Colonna, as his secretary. With him he went into Spain; and, after the death of that patron, contrived to be introduced into the court of Charles Emanuel duke of Savoy. Not agreeing with the prince cardinal, son of the duke, he retired, after a time, and sought an asylum with cardinal Ludovisio, who gave him a pension of 400 Iloman crowns, and apartments in his palace. After the death of this cardinal, he had recourse at length to his natural sovereign Francis I. d'Este, duke of Modena, from whom he received an honorary salary. He died in 1635, and was buried in N St. Peter’s. He was a member of the academy of the Umoristi. His character was lively and agreeable, notwithstanding his turn for satire.

His son, Nahum, at the age of sixteen, was admitted of Dublin college, but does not appear to have followed any profession. It is observed by Warburton, in the notes to the Dunciad, that he was a cold writer, of no invention, but translated tolerably when befriended by Dryden, with whom he sometimes wrote in conjunction. He succeeded Shad well as poet-laureat, and continued in that office till his death, which happened Aug. 12, 1715, in the Mint, where he then resided as a place of refuge from the debts which he had contracted, and was buried in St. George’s church. The earl of Dorset was his patron; but the chief use he made of him was to screen himself from the persecutions of his creditors. Gildon speaks of him as a man of great honesty and modesty; but he seems to have been ill qualified to advance himself in the world, A person who died in 1763, at the age of ninety, remembered him well, and said he was remarkable for a down-cast look, and had seldom much to say for himself. Oidys also describes him as a free, good-natured, but intemperate companion. With these qualities it will not appear surprising that he was poor and despised. He was the author of nine dramatic performances, and a great number of poems; but is at present better known for his version of the Psalms, in which he joined with Dr. Brady, than any other of his works. His miscellaneous poems are enumerated in Gibber’s <c Lives,“and by Jacob, who says Tate’s poem on the Death of queen Anne, which was one of the last, is” one of the best poems he ever wrote.“His share in the” Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel“is far from inconsiderable; and may be seen in the English Poets. He published also” Memorials for the Learned, collected out of eminent authors in history,“&c. 1686, 8vo and his” Proposal for regulating of the Stage and Stage Plays," Feb. 6, 1698, is among bishop Gibson’s Mss. in the Lambeth library.

, an ancient Greek writer of Alexandria, is supposed to have lived in the third century, but this is uncertain. According to Suidas, who calls him Statius, he embraced Christianity in the latter part of his life, and became a bishop. He wrote a book “Upon the Sphere,” which seems to have been nothing more than a commentary upon Aratus. Part of it is extant, and has been translated into Latin by father Petavius, under the title of “Isagoge in phænomena Arati.” He wrote also a romance, probably from its licentiousness when he was a heathen, entitled, “Of the Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe,” in eight books, which were first published in JLatin only, at Basil, 1554. This Latin version, made by Annibal Cruceius of Milan, was republished by Commelinus, with the Greek, at Heidelberg, 1608, 8 vo, with Longus and Parthenius, writers of the same class: after which, a more correct edition of the Greek was given by Salmaaius at Leyden, 1640, in 12mo, with Cruceius’ s version. The best edition is that of Boden, Gr. and Lat. Leipsic, 1776, 8vo.

, an eminent German critic, was born at Wonscisch in Franconia, about 1565. His father, who was a tradesman of the lower order, died while Taubman was a child, and his mother married a taylor, who, however, had sense enough to discern the boy’s capacity, and resolved to bring him up to letters. For that purpose he sent him to Culmbach, a town of Franconia, to school, where he remained until he was sixteen years of age, and made an uncommon progress in literature. The circumstances of his parents, however, were so very indifferent, *hat they were unable to furnish him with much, and it is said that he was frequently constrained to beg his bread from door to door. While he was at this school his mother died, and his father-in-law married another wife, who proved very kind to one now become an orphan in every way.

In 1582, George- Frederic, marquis of Brandenburg, having founded a college at Heilbrun, a town of Suabia, collected the promising youth out of all his states, and Taubman among the rest, whose great capacity recommended him to public notice; and who, besides his skill in the Latin and Greek authors, had acquired much fame by his poetry. After staying ten years at Heilbrun, he went in 1592 to Wittemberg, where he soon distinguished himself; and Frederic William, the prince of Saxony, conceived so high an esteem for him, as often to admit him into his company. The professorship of poetry and the belles lettres becoming vacant in 1595, the university asked it of the court for Taubman, who accordingly took possession of it in October that year, and held it, with great honour to himself, and advantage to the public, as long as he lived. He died of a fever in 1613, leaving five children and a wife, whom he had married in 1596. He was one of those few happy men who had qualities to make himself beloved as well as admired. His very great learning procured him the admiration of mankind; and the liveliness of his disposition, and many private virtues, secured to him their esteem and affection,

, a writer famous among the mystical devotees, flourished in the fourteenth century. We have no certain account of the year or place of his birth, He was born in Germany, and became a monk of the Dominican order, and acquired great skill in philosophy and school-divinity; but he applied himself principally to mystical divinity; and as it was believed that he was favoured with revelations from heaven, he was styled the illuminated, divine. He had great talents for preaching, and there was no preacher in that age more followed than he. He reproved with great zeal and great freedom the faults of every body; and this made him odious to some monks, whose persecutions of him he bore patiently. He submitted witii the same resolution to other trials, and it was thought that he was thus visited by God, that he might not grow proud of the extraordinary gifts which he had received from heaven. The two principal cities in which he preached, were Cologne and Strasburg. He died in the latter after a long sickness, May 17, 1361, and was honourably interred there in the academical college, near the winter-auditory. He wrote several books; concerning which different judgments have been formed; some catholics have censured them, and some protestants have commended them. Among the latter, we may mention our Dr. Henry More, who exceedingly admired Taulerus’swork entitled “Theologia Germanica,” which Luther also praises. This was first translated from the German into Latin by Surius, and then by Sebastian Castalio, and went through a great many editions from 1518 to 1700, when it was printed in French at Amsterdam.

, of Beryta, who flourished under the reign of Antoninus Pius, is mentioned as a Platonist of some note. Among his pupils was Aulus Gellius, who has preserved several specimens of his preceptor’s method of philosophising. He examined all sects, but preferred the Platonic: in which he had at least the merit of avoiding the infection of that spirit of confusion, which at this period seized almost the whole body of the philosophers, especially those of the Platonic school. In a work which he wrote concerning the differences in opinion among the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics, he strenuously opposed the attempts of the Alexandrian philosophers, and others, to combine the tenets of these sects into one system. He wrote several pieces, chiefly to illustrate the Platonic philosophy. He lived at Athens, and taught, not in the schools, but at his table. A. Gellius, who was frequently one of his guests, gives the following account, in his “Noctes Atticae,” of the manner in which they were conducted “Taurus, the philosopher, commonly invited a select number of his friends to a frugal supper, consisting of lentils, and a gourd, cut into small pieces upon an earthen dish; and during the repast, philosophical conversation, upon various topics, was introduced. His constant disciples, whom he called his family, were expected to contribute their share towards the small expence which attended these simple repasts, in which interesting conversation supplied the place of luxurious provision. Every one came furnished with some new subject of inquiry, which he was allowed in his<turn to propose, and which, during a limited time, was debated. The subjects of discussion, in these conversations, were not of the more serious and important kind, but such elegant questions as might afford an agreeable exercise of the faculties in the moments of convivial enjoyment; and these Taurus afterwards frequently illustrated more at large with sound erudition.”

On the accession of king Edward, Taverner, although a layman, had a special licence in 1552 to preach throughout the king’s dominions. Good preaching was at that time so very scarce, that not only the king’s chaplains were obliged to make circuits round the country to instruct the people, and to fortify them against popery, but even laymen, who were scholars, were employed for that purpose. From this however he was obliged to desist when queen Mary came to the throne, and therefore retired to Norbiton hall, near Kingston in Surry, where he lived quietly during the whole of her reign. As soon as Elizabeth became queen, to whom he presented a congratulatory epistle in Latin upon that happy occasion, he resumed his preaching in Oxford and elsewhere. Her majesty had a high respect for him, and besides offering him knighthood (which Tanner thinks he accepted), put him into the commission of the peace for the county of Oxford. Here numerous concerns were intrusted to him, and in 1569, he was made high sheriff of the county. His zeal was still warm against popery, probably owing to the frightful effects of popish bigotry which he had witnessed in Mary’s reign, and notwithstanding his new office, he continued his preaching. Even while high sheriff, he appeared in St. Mary’s pulpit, with his gold chain about his neck, and his sword by his side, and is said to have begun one of his sermons in the following words “Arriving at the mount of St. Mary’s, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some fine biskets, baked in the oven of charity, and carefully conserved for the chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation.” This style was much admired in his days even by the generality of the scholars, and indeed such alliteration was long afterwards a favourite both with speakers and hearers. He also endeavoured to promote the reformation by his writings and translations; of which, besides his Bible, we have the following list: 1. “The sum and pith of CL Psalms of David, reduced into a form of prayers and meditations, with certain other godly orisons,” Lond. 1539, 8vo. 2. “The Epistles and Gospels, with a brief postill upon the same, from Advent to Low Sunday; and from Easter to Advent,” Lond. 1540, two parts, 4to. 3. “Fruit of Faith, contain* ing all the prayers of the patriarchs, &c. in the Old and New Testament,” ibid, 1582, 12mo. 4. “The Garden of Wysdome, &c. containing the sayings of princes, philosophers, &c.” 1539, 2 books. 5. “Flores aliquot sententiarum ex variis scriptoribus,” translated from Erasmus. 6. “Catonis Disticha Moralia,” Lond. 1553, 8vo, 1555, 4to. 7. “In Mimum Publianum lib. 1,” 1562. 8. “Catednsmus fidei.” 9. “Proverbs or adagies gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus,” 1515. His translations were, “Grostete’s Prayers on the Psalms” “Confession of the Germans, with the apology of Melancthon,” and some tracts from Erasmus.

, a Frenchman, famous for his travels, was born at Paris in 1605. His father, who was a native of Antwerp, settled at Paris, and traded very largely in geographical maps, so that the natural inclination which Tavernier had for travelling was greatly increased, by the conversations which daily passed in his father’s house, concerning foreign countries. He began to gratify his passion so early, that, at the age of two and twenty years, he had seen the finest countries of Europe, France, England, the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. During the space of forty years he travelled six times into Turkey, Persia, and the East Indies, and by all the different routes he could take. In the course of these peregrinations, he gained a great estate by trading in jewels; and, being ennobled by Louis XIV. purchased the barony of Aubonne, near the lake of Geneva, in 1668. He had collected a great number of observations, but he had not learned either to speak or write well in French; for which reason he was forced to employ others in drawing up his relations. M. Chappuseau, with whom he lodged at Geneva, lent him his pen for the two first volumes of his travels; and M. Chapelle for the third. They have frequently been printed, and contain several curious particulars; yet not without some fables, which were told him purely to impose upon his simplicity. He is charged also with stealing from others to fill up his own accounts: thus Dr. Hyde, having cited a very long passage from Tavernier, tells us that “he had taken it like a downright plagiary from a book printed at Lyons, 1671, in 8vo, and written by father Gabriel de Chinon, who had lived in Persia thirty years.”

Tavernier' s affairs became embarrassed at the latter end of his life, by reason of the mismanagement and ill conduct of a nephew, who had in the Levant the direction of a car^o purchased in France for 222,000 livres, and which should have produced above a million. Tavernier therefore undertook a seventh journey into the East, to rectify this disorder; for which purpose he sold his barony of Aubonne in 1687 to the marquis Du Quesne, but he died, on his way, at Moscow, in July 16*9, aged eighty-four years. He was of the Protestant religion. Several parties, among which were the Dutch and the Jesuits, were offended at certain things inserted in his travels, and he has been abused in print on that account. He has one chapter where he considers the conduct of the Hollanders in Asia; and is very severe upon the directors of their East India company, by. whom he represents himself to have suffered: but he declares at the beginning that he does not blame the conduct of the Dutch in general. The first edition of his “Travels” was printed at Paris, 1676 79, 3 vols. 4to. That most common is in 6 vols. 12mo.

His distinguished abilities as a mathematician had now recommended him particularly to the esteem of the Royal Society, who, in 1714, elected him to the office of secretary. In the same year, he took the degree of doctor of laws, at Cambridge. In 1715, he published his “Methodus incrementorum,” and a curious essay in the Philosophical Transactions, entitled, “An Account of an Experiment for the Discovery of the Laws of Magnetic Attraction;” and, besides these, his celebrated work on perspective, entitled “New Principles of Linear Perspective: or the art of designing, on a plane, the representations of all sorts of objects, in a more general and simple method than has hitherto been done.' 7 This work has gone through several editions, and received some improvements from Mr. Colson, Lucasian professor at Cambridge. In the same; year Taylor conducted a controversy, in a correspondence with Raymond count de Montmort, respecting the tenets of Malbranche, which occasioned him to be noticed afterwards in the eulogium pronounced on that celebrated metaphysician. In 1716, by invitation from several learned men, to whom his merits were well known, Dr. Taylor visited Paris, where he was received with every mark of respect and distinction. Early in 1717, he returned to London, and composed three treatises, which are in the thirtieth volume of the Philosophical Transactions. But his health having been impaired by intense application, he was now advised to go to Aix-la-chapelle, and resigned his office of secretary to the Royal Society. After his return to England in 1719, it appears that he applied his mind to studies of a religious nature, the result of which were found in some dissertations preserved among his papers,” On the Jewish Sacrifices,' 7 &c. He did not, however, neglect his former pursuits, but amused himself with drawing, improved his treatise on linear perspective, and wrote a defence of it against the attacks of J. Bernoulli!, in a paper which appears in the thirtieth volume of the Philosophical Transactions, Bernouilli objected to the work as too abstruse, and denied the author the merit of inventing his system. It is indeed acknowledged, that though Dr. B. Taylor discovered it for himself, he was not the first who had trod the same path, as it had been done by Guido Ubaldi, in a book on perspective, published at Pesaro in 1600. The abstruseness of his work has been obviated by another author, in a work entitled, “Dr. Brook Taylor’s method of Perspective made easy, both in theory and practice, &c. by Joshua Kirby, painter;” and this publication has continued to be the manual both of artists and dilettanti. Towards the end of 1720, Dr. Taylor visited lord Bolingbroke, near Orleans, hut returned the next year, and published his last paper in the Philosophical Transactions, which described, “An Experiment made to ascertain the Proportion of Expansion in the Thermometer, with regard to the Degree of Heat.”

Dr. Brook Taylor was twice married, and both times so unfortunate as to lose his wife after a very short period. The first lady was a Miss Bridges, of Wallington in Surry, to whom he was united in 1721. As this lady, though of a good family, had little fortune, his marriage with her occasioned a rupture with his father, which lasted till after the birth of a son, who unhappily did not* long survive. He became a widower in 1723. The two following years he resided with his father at Bifrons; and, in 1725, formed a new marriage with the daughter of John Sawbridge, esq. ofOlantighin Kent. In 1729, he succeeded to his father’s estate at Bifrons, but in the following year had the misfortune to lose his second wife in child-bed; a blow which, in the impaired state of his health, he was unable to sustain. His remaining days were days of imbecility and sorrow, and he survived little more than a year. On the 29th of December, 1731, he died of a decline, in the forty-sixth year of his age, and was buried at St. Anne’s, Soho.

In the interval between 1721 and his death, he appears to have been in part disabled by ill health, and in part diverted by other objects from severe study. “A Treatise on Logarithms,” addressed to his friend lord Paisley, afterwards lord Abercorn, is almost the only fruit of his labour which has been found to belong to that period; and 'this has never been published. After the loss of his second wife, he seems to have endeavoured to divert his mind by study; and an essay, entitled “Contemplatio Philosophica,” printed, but not published, by his grandson, sir William Young, in 1793, was probably written at this time, and for this purpose. It was the effort of a strong mind, and affords a most remarkable example of the close logic of the mathematician, applied to metaphysics. The effort, however, was Tain, and equally vain were the earnest endeavours of his friends to amuse and comfort him by social gratifications. Dr. Taylor is proved by his writings to have been a finished scholar, and a profound mathematician: he is recorded to have been no less a polished gentleman, and a sound and serious Christian. It is said of him, that “he inspired partiality on his first address; he gained imperceptibly on acquaintance; and the favourable impressions which he made from genius and accomplishments, he fixed in further intimacy, by the fundamental qualities of benevolence and integrity.” His skill in drawing is also commended in the highest terms. “He drew figures,” says his biographer, “with extraordinary precision and beauty of pencil. Landscape was yet his favourite branch of design. His original landscapes are mostly painted in water-colours, but with all the richness and strength of oils. They have a. force of colour, a freedom of touch, a varied disposition of planes of distance, and a learned use of aerial as well as linear perspective, which all professional men who have seen these paintings have admired. Some pieces are compositions; some are drawn from nature: and the general characteristic of their effect may be exemplified, by supposing the bold fore-grounds of Salvator Rosa to be backed by the ession of distances, and mellowed by the sober harmony which distinguishes the productions of Caspar Poussin. The small figures, interspersed in the landscapes, would not have disgraced the pencil of the correct and classic Nicolas.”

, a very learned and celebrated prelate, the son of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor, was born in the parish of the Holy Trinity in Cambridge, where his fatin T was in the humble station of a barber: and was baptised Aug. 15, 1613. He was educated from the age of three to that of thirteen at Perse' s free-school in Cambridge, and then entered a sizer of Caius-college, in August 1626, under Mr. Bachcroft. In this society he took his degree of bachelor in 1631, and bishop Rust says, that as soon as he was graduate, he was chosen fellow. The improvement which he made in his infancy was now followed up with increasing assiduity; and to such an extent had he carried his theological studies, as to be thought worthy of admission, like Usher, into holy orders before he had attained the age of twenty-one. About the same time he took his degree of master of arts, and removed to London, where, being requested by his chamber-fellow, Mr. Risden, to supply his turn, for a short time, at the lecture in St. Paul’s cathedral, his talents attracted the attention of archbishop Laud, who preferred him to a fellowship at All Souls college, Oxford, “where he might have time, books, and company, to complete himself in those several parts of learning into which he had made so fair an entrance.” Into this fellowship he was admitted in January 1636; but, as Wood remarks, it was an arbitrary act, contrary to the statutes.

While in Wales, he was obliged to maintain himself and family by keeping school, at Newton, in Carmarthenshire, where he was assisted by Mr. William Wyatt of St. John’s college, Oxford, and they jointly produced, in 164-7, “A new and easie institution of Grammar,” London, 12mo. This scarce little volume has two dedications, one in Latin to lord Hatton by Wyatt, the other in English, by Taylor, addressed to lord Hatton’s son. The eminence of Dr. Taylor’s learning, and the integrity of his principles procured him scholars, who, as his biographer says, “having, as it were, received instruction from this prophet in the wilderness, were transplanted to the universities.” He found also a generous patron in Richard Vaughan, earl of Carbery, who resided at Golden Grove, the seat of his ancestors, in the parish of Llanfihangel Aberbythick, near Llandillo Fawr, in Carmarthenshire. Into this hospitable family he was received as chaplain, and had a stipend allotted him, as he himself intimates in his dedication to lord Carbery, prefixed to his “Course of Sermons.” It would appear that persecution had followed him into Wales, before he obtained his present comfortable asylum, but in what manner or to what extent is not known.

The first production of the quiet he now enjoyed, was his “Liberty of Prophecy ing,” 1647, 4to, written in behalf of the clergy of the church of England, who were now generally excluded from their benefices, and forbidden to minister according to her liturgy. This was republished in 1650, along with his preceding works, and with the addition of the “Life of Christ,” in 2 vols. 8vo. Of his “Liberty of Prophecying,” his biographer remarks that there are few writings in which learning and modesty, charity and argument, are more happily blended. His next production was “The Great Exemplar,” the purpose of which he states to be, “to advance the necessity, and to declare the manner and parts of a good life; to invite some persons to the consideration of all the branches of it, by intermixing something of pleasure with the use; and others by such portions, as would better entertain them than a romance.” In 1650 he published one of his most popular and standard works, “The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living,” of which the twenty. eighth edition was published in 1810. In Oct. 1650, he lost his valuable patroness the countess of Carbery, and delivered a funeral sermon on that melancholy occasion, which was published the same year.

In 1657 Dr. Taylor collected several of his smaller pieces, with collateral improvements, into a folio volume, and published them under the title of “A collection of Polemical and Moral Discourses;” adding two hitherto unpublished, a “Discourse on Friendship,” and “Two letters to persons changed in their Religion.” The former was addressed^ Mrs. Katherine Philips, and is in point of style and sentiment one of the best of Taylor’s pieces, who is never more excellent than when on subjects of morals. This volume reached a third edition in 1674, but consists of somewhat different materials, and has a different title, being now called “Symbolum Theologicum, &c.”

In the autumn of 1661, bishop Taylor, foreseeing a vacancy in the deanery of Connor, wrote to Cambridge for some able person, who might fill that dignity, and the proposition being made to Dr. George Rust, he was preferred as soon as the vacancy took place (See Rust); and thus a friendship commenced between these two great men, which continued with mutual warmth and admiration till it was interrupted by death. Dr. Rust was the survivor, and succeeded bishop Taylor in the see of Dromore, and preached his funeral sermon. In 1662-3, bishop Taylor published “Three Sermons” which he had preached at Christ’s church, Dublin “Eleven Sermons,” preached since the restoration and his “Discourse on Confirmation” In July 1663, he preached the funeral sermon of Dr. John Bramhall, archbishop of Armagh, from whose hands he had received confirmation. This was published, and contains a well-drawn character of the primate. In the same year, at the request of the bishops of Ireland, he published “A Dissuasive from Popery, addressed to the people of Ireland.” This work went through several editions, and some answers being published by the popish party, he wrote a second part of his “Dissuasive,” which however, did not appear until after his death. He had also began a discourse on the beatitudes, when he was attacked by a fever, which proved fatal in ten days. He died at Lisburn, August 13, 1667, and was interred in the choir of the cathedral of Dromore. Dr. Rust, as we have already observed, preached his funeral sermon, and entered largely into his character. He was indisputably, as Dr. Rust represents him, a man of the acutest penetration and sagacity, the richest and most lively imagination, the solidest judgment, and the profoundest learning. He was perfectly versed in all the Greek and Roman writers, and was not unacquainted with the refined wits of later ages, whether French or Italian. His skill was great, both in civil and canon law, in casuistical divinity, in fathers, and ecclesiastical writers ancient and modern. He was a man of the greatest humility and piety: it is believed, says Dr. Rust, that he spent the greatest part of his time in heaven, and that his solemn hours of prayer took up a considerable portion of his life. He was indeed a great devotee, and had in him much of natural enthusiasm. Dr. Rust concludes his character with observing, that “he had the goodhumour of *a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the aruter.ess of H schoolman, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom of a chancellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the rrnson of an angel, and the piety of a saint. He had devotion enough for a cloister, learning enough for an university, and wit enough for a college of virtuosi; and had his parts and endowments been parcelled out among his clergy that he left In-hind him, it would, perhaps, have made one of the otst dioceses in the world.” Yet amidst the blaze of this panegyric, we must not forget that dispassionate criticism will assign as bishop Taylor’s highest excellence, his powers of moral suasion. He is always seen to most advantage as a moral writer, and his genius is every where inspired and invigorated by a love of what is good. Nor must it be forgot that he was one of the refiners of our language. His biographer has justly said that “English prose was in his time in a progressive state. It had been advanced very far by the genius of Sidney and the wisdom of Hooker; but the pedantry of the reign of James had done much to eclipse its lustre. In Taylor it broke out from its obscurity with energy and brightness. His polemical discourses exhibit a specimen of English composition superior to any that had gone before.”

, usually called the Water- Poet, from his being a waterman as well as a poet, and certainly more of the former than the latter, was born in Gloucestershire about 1580. Wood says he was born in the city of Gloucester, and went to school there, but he does not appear to have learned more than his accidence, as appears by some lines of his own. From this school he was brought to London, and bound apprentice to a waterman, whence he“was either pressed or went voluntarily into the naval service, for he was at the taking of Cadiz un;ler the earl of Essex, in 1596, when only sixteen years old, and was afterward* in Germany, Bohemia, Scotland, as may be collected from various passages in his works. At home he was many years collector, for the lieutenant of the Tower, of the wines which were his fee from all ships which brought them up the Thames; but was at last discharged because he would not purchase the place at more than it was worth. He calls himself the” King’s Water Poet,“and the” Queen’s Waterman," and wore the badge of the royal arms. While * waterman, he very naturally had a great hatred to coaches, and besides writing a satire against them, he fancied that the watermen were starving for want of employment, and presented a petition to James I. which was referred to certain commissioners, of whom sir Francis Bacon was one, to obtain a prohibition of all play-houses except those on the Bank-side, that the greater part of the inhabitants of London, who were desirous of seeing plays, might be compelled to go by water. Taylor himself is said to have undertaken to support this singular petition, and was prepared to oppose before the commissioners the arguments of the players, but the commission was dissolved before it came to a hearing.

He died in 1654, aged seventy-four, as Wood was informed by his nephew, a painter of Oxford, who gave his portrait to the picture-gallery there in 1655. This nephew’s own portrait, also by himself, is on the staircase. His works were published under the title of “All the Workes of John Taylor the water-poet, being sixty and three in number, collected into one volume by the author, with sundry new additions; corrected, revised, and newly imprinted,” 1630, folio. These pieces, which are not destitute of natural humour, abound with low jingling wit, which pleased and prevailed in the reign of James I. and which too often bordered upon bombast and nonsense. He was countenanced by a few persons of rank and ingenuity; but was the darling and admiration of numbers of the rabble. He was himself the father of some cant words, and he has adopted others which were only in the mouths of the lowest vulgar. From the date of this volume it is evident that it does not contain those “pasquils” and satires which Wood says he wrote at Oxford, and which perhaps it might have been unsafe to avow, or re-publish, as he did not survive the times of the usurpation. Five articles, however, whose titles may be seen in the “Bibliotheca Angb-Poetica,” were published between 1637 and 1641. One of them is the life of old Par, printed in 1635, when Par is said to have been living at the age of one hundred and fifty-two.

He died March 5, 1761, having gone to bed as well as usual the night before, only complaining a little of a pressure on his stomach. Of his writings, the first he published was “A prefatory Discourse to a Narrative of Mr. Joseph Rawson’s Case;” who was excluded from communion with the congregational church at Nottingham, for asserting the unity and supremacy of God the Father. In 1740, “The Scripture doctrine of Original Sin,” in which that doctrine is denied. This has gone through three editions. In 1745, “A Paraphrase on the Romans” republished by bishop Watson in his “Tracts,” and recommended by Dr. Bentham in his “Reflections on the study of Divinity;” and the same year, “A Scripture Catechism with Proofs.” In 1750, “A Collection of Tunes in various Airs, with a Scheme for supporting the spirit and practice of Psalmody in congregations.” In 1751, “The Importance of Children; or, Motives to the good Education of Children.” In 1753, “The Scripture Doctrine of Atonement.” In 1754, his great work, the labour of his whole life, “An Hebrew English Concordance,” in 2 vols. folio, which will remain a lasting monument of his indefatigable industry and critical skill. The same year, “The Lord’s Supper explained upon Scripture principles.” In 1755, “The Covenant of Grace in defence of infant baptism.” In 1757, “A Charge delivered at the ordination of Mr. Smithson.” In 1756, “A Sermon,” preached at the opening of the new chapel in Norwich. In 1759, “An Examination of Dr. Hutcheson’s Scheme of Morality.” His last performance, in 1760, was “A Sketch of Moral Philosophy;” which he drew up for the use of his own pupils, and as introductory to “Wollaston’s Religion of Nature.”

From his first settling at Warrington as tutor, he spent all his leisure hours in reviewing his “Concordance,” collating passages in an alphabetical order, and correcting the English translation. He had made a considerable advance in this useful work, when death seized him. Dr. Taylor somposed, and fairly transcribed, a number of discourses On moral, critical, and practical subjects, sufficient to make four volumes in 8vo, which he designed for the press, and intended to be published after his death: and accordingly his “Scheme of Scripture Divinity” was afterwards published by his son. Dr. Taylor deviated very early from the orthodox system, at first adopting the sentiments of Dr. Clarke on the subject of the Trinity, but became at last a Socinian, which Dr. Clarke was not. Gilbert Wakefield gives a singular character of Dr. Taylor: “The reader,” says Wakefield, “who is acquainted with the writings of this very learned, liberal, and rational divine, cannot fail to be impressed with sentiments highly favourable to the gentleness and forbearance of their author: for even the meekness of Christianity itself is exhibited in his prefaces and occasional addresses to the reader. But he was, in reality, a very peevish and angry disputant in conversation, and dictatorial even to intolerance. So imperfect a judgment may be formed of the mildness or asperity of any author from the correspondent quality of his writings.” But an authority, equally valid with that of Mr. Wakefield, praises Dr. Taylor’s “agreeable deportment in society, free from pedantry and superciliousness, and marked by kindness and affability;” yet Mr. Wakefield’s character of him is a curious document, as affording a perfect contrast to his own.

, a learned critic and philologist, was born at Shrewsbury, and baptised at St; Alkmund’s church June 22, 1704. His father followed the humble occupation of a barber, and his son wasdesigned for the same business but a strong passion for letters, which early displayed itself, being providentially fostered by the generous patronage of a neighbouring gentleman, enabled young Taylor to fill a far higher station in society than that to which he was entitled by his birth. The steps which led to this happy change in his situation are worthy of notice. Taylor, the father, being accustomed to attend Edward Owen, of Condover, esq. in his capacity of a barber, that gentleman used to inquire occasionally into the state of his family, for what trade he designed his son, &c. These inquiries never failed to produce a lamentation from the old man, of the untoward disposition of his son Jack, “whom,” said he, “I cannot get to dress a wig or shave a beard, so perpetually is he poring over books.” Such complaints, often repeated, at length awakened the attention of Mr. Owen, who determined to send him to the university, chiefly at his own expence. St. John’s in Cambridge, which has an intimate connection with the free-school of Shrewsbury, naturally presented itself as the place of his academical education; and Mr. Taylor was doubtless assisted by one of the exhibitions founded in the college for the youth of that school. Under this patronage he pursued his studies in the university, and regularly took his degrees, that of B. A. in 1727, and of M. A. in 1731, and in the preceding year was chosen fellow. Thus employed in his favourite occupations, the periods of his return into his native country were the only times which threw a transient clouJ over the happy tenor of his life. On such occasions he was expected to visit his patron, and to partake of the noisy scenes of riotous jollity exhibited in the hospitable mansion of a country gentleman of those days. The gratitude of young Taylor taught him the propriety of making these sacrifices of his own comfort; but it could not prevent him from sometimes whispering his complaints into the ears of his intimate friends. A difference of political opinion afforded a more serious ground of difference. A great majority of the gentry of Shropshire was at that period strenuous in their good wishes for the abdicated family. Though educated at Cambridge, Taylor retained his attachment to toryism, but did not adopt all its excesses; and he at length forfeited the favour of his patron, without the hopes of reconciliation, hy refusing to drink a Jacobite toast on his bare knees, as was then the custom. This refusal effectually precluded him from all hopes of sharing in the great ecclesiastical patronage at that time enjoyed by the Condover family, and inclined him, perhaps, to abandon the clerical profession for the practice of a civilian. But however painful to his feelings this quarrel with his benefactor might prove, he had the consolation to reflect that it could not now deprive him of the prospect of an easy competence. His character as a scholar was established in the university; he was become a fellow and tutor of his conege; and on the 30th of Jan. 1730, he was appointed to deliver the Latin oration then annually pronounced in St. Mary’s before the university on that solemn anniversary; and at the following commencement he was selected to speak the music speech, both of which were printed. This last performance, of which but two instances occur in the last century, viz. 1714 and 1730, was supposed to require an equal share of learning and genius: for, besides a short compliment in Latin to the heads of the university, the orator was expected to produce a humourous copy of English verses on the fashionable topics of the day, for the entertainment of the female part of his audience: and in the execution of this office (derived like the Terras filius of Oxford, from the coarse festivities of a grosser age) sometimes indulged a licentiousness which surprises one on perusal. The music speech of Mr. Taylor is sufficiently free; and, though it does some credit to his poetical talents, is not very civil to his contemporaries of Oxford, (whom he openly taxes with retaining their fellowships and wives at the expence of their oaths) or to the members of Trinity college, in his own university, whom he ironically represents as the only members of Cambridge who could wipe off the stigma of impoliteness imputed to them by the sister university. This speech was printed by his young friend and fellow collegian Mr. Bowyer, and the publication concludes with an ode designed to have been set to music. These were not the only effusions of Mr. Taylor’s muse, for in the Gent. Mag. 1779, p. 365, are some verses by him on the marriage of Lady Margaret Harley to the duke of Portland, and others reprinted by Mr. Nichols.

The learned world at Cambridge was at that time divided into two parties: the polite scholars and the philologists. The former, at the head of which were Gray, Mason, &c. superciliously confined all merit to their own circle, and looked down with fastidious contempt on the rest of the world. It is needless to observe that Dr. Taylor belonged to the latter class. Dr. Kurd, a member of the former, a writer of celebrity, and eminent for his attachment to Warburton, of whose “school” he was a distinguished disciple, in a most unjustifiable pamphlet, published the same year, 1755, and directed against the amiable and modest Jortin , steps out of his way to express his contempt of Taylor, which was but the prelude to a more severe attack from Warburton himself. Our author in his Elements bad expressed his opinioa that the persecutions which the first Christians experienced from the Roman emperors proceeded not from any peculiar disapprobation of their tenets, but from a jealousy entertained of their nocturnal assemblies. In expressing this opinion, Taylor did not mention, and perhaps did not even think of Warburton: but as the latter in his Divine Legation had derived these persecutions from another source, the absurdities of Pagan religion and the iniquities of Pagan politics; the holding, and much more the publishing, of a contrary notion by any contemporary was too great an offence for that haughty dogmatist to pass with impunity. His prefaces and notes were, as was wittily observed of him, the established places of execution for the punishment of all who did not implicitly adopt liis sentiments, and having occasion soon after (in 1758) to publish a new edition of that celebrated work, he seized that opportunity to chastise Taylor, with all the virulence, wit, and ingenuity of distortion, which he could command.

An attack so insolent and unprovoked could not injure the established character of Dr. Taylor, or ruffle his temper, and he wisely abstained from taking any notice of it. There appeared however in 1758 a pamphlet, entitled “Impartial Remarks upon the preface of Dr. Warhurton, in which he has taken uncommon liberties with the character of Dr. Taylor;” but it is said to be a poor performance, the only information which it contains being the anecdote in the preceding note as to the real origin of the dispute. Taylor seems at this time to have been better employed than in controversy, as the second volume of his “Demosthenes” appeared in May 1757, and in the following July he was made a canon residentiary of St. Paul’s. For this appointment, which was the summit of his preferment, he was indebted to his steady and active patron lord Granville, who was now a member of administration. In consequence of this dignity, he resigned the office of registrar, in 1758, and quitted Cambridge to reside in London. Here he still proceeded to collect and arrange the materials for the first volume of his Demosthenes, but the expectations of the learned were frustrated by his death, which took place on the 14th day of April, 1766, at his house in Amen Corner, Paternoster Row. He was buried in the vault under St. Paul’s, under the litany desk, where is an epitaph.

As Dr. Taylor had been for many years in the receipt of an ample, and even splendid income, it might have been expected that he should die in affluent circumstances. But this was by no means the case. He lived in a handsome style, and expended a large sum of money in books. His library at the time of his death was large and valuable. This, with the residue of his fortune, for the support of an exhibition at St. John’s, he bequeathed to the school where he had received his education reserving, however, to his friend and physician Dr. Askew all his Mss. and such of his printed books as contained his marginal annotations. The use which Askew made of this bequest has been severely censured. The latter clause was enforced with the utmost rigour, so as to include a vast number of books, which the testator intended to form part of his donation to the schools; and Dr. Askew is thought to have been still more reprehensible in putting into Reiske’s hands the indigested and unfinished mass of papers belonging to Taylor’s proposed first volume, who printed them just as he had received them, and then attacked the critical skill of their author.

, an able English antiquary, who is introduced by Anthony Wood with an alias Domville or D'Omville, we know not why, was the son of Syivanus Taylor, one of the commissioners for ejecting those of the clergy, who were called “scandalous and insufficient ministers,” and one of the pretended high court of justice for the trial of Charles I. Silas was born at Harley near Muchweniock in Shropshire, July 16, 1624, and after some education at Shrewsbury and Westminster-schools, became a commoner of New-Inn-hall, Oxford, in 1641. He had given proof of talents fit to compose a distinguished scholar, both in the classics and mathematics, when his father took him from the university, and made him join the parliamentary army, in which he bore a captain’s commission. When the war was over, his father procured him to be made a sequestrator of the royalists in Herefordshire, but although he enriched himself considerably in this office, and had a moiety of the bishop’s palace at Hereford settled on him, he conducted himself with such kindness and moderation as to be beloved of the king’s party. At the restoration, he of course lost all he had gained as the agent of usurpation, but his mild behaviour in that ungracious office was not forgot, and by the interest of some whom he had obliged, he was appointed commissary of ammunition, &c. at Dunkirk, and about 1665 was made keeper of the king’s stores and storehouses for shipping, &c. at Harwich. The profits of this situation were probably not great, for he was much in debt at the time of his death, which occasioned his valuable collections and Mss. to be seized by his creditors, and dispersed as of no value. He died Nov. 4, 1678, and was buried in the chancel of the church of Harwich.

He appears to have been an early inquirer into the antiquities of his country, and while in power ransacked the libraries of the cathedrals of Hereford and Worcester for valuable Mss., among which was the original grant of king Edgar, whence the kings of England derive their sovereignty of the seas. This was printed in Selden’s “Mare clausum.” He left large materials for a history of Herefordshire, which Dr. Rawliuson understood to have been deposited in lord Oxford’s library; but in the Harleian catalogue we find only part of his history of Herefordshire at the end of ms. 6766, and extracts from Doomsday, >fo. 6356. Mr. Dale, who published a “History of Harwich” from Taylor’s papers, in 1730, speaks of these collections as being lately, if not now, in the hands of sir Edward Harley of Brompton-Brian, grandfather of the first earl of Oxford. The only work Taylor published, was the “History of Gavelkind, with the etymology thereof; containing also an assertion, that our English laws are, for the most part, those that were used by vthe ancient Brytains, notwithstanding the several conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans. With some observations and remarks upon many especial occurrences of British and English history. To which is added, a short history of William the conqueror, written in Latin by an anonymous author in the time of Henry I.” Lond. 1663, 4to. In this work he carries both the name and custom of Gavelkind further back than was done by his predecessor on the same subject, Sornner. In all material points he confirms the opinion of Somner, who answers his objections in marginal notes on a copy of his book, which, with a correct copy of his own, is in Canterbury library. Taylor’s work we should suppose of great rarity, as no copy occurs in Mr. Cough’s collection given to Oxford, or in that sold in London. Wood says, that Taylor wrote many pamphlets before the restoration, but as they were without his name, he did not think proper to acknowledge them. He speaks also of Taylor’s abilities not only in the theory, but practice of music, and as a composer of anthems, and the editor of “Court Ayres, &c.” 1655, 8vo, printed by John Playford. His name, however, seems to have escaped the attention of our musical historians.

, a modern philosopher, was born at Naples in 1508, and received the first part of his education at Milan, where he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages. After passing two years at Rome, where he made great proficiency in polite learning, he removed to Padua, and applied with indefatigable assiduity to the study of mathematics and philosophy. He very judiciously employed mathematical learning in explaining and establishing the laws of physics, and was particularly successful in investigating truths before unknown in the doctrine of optics. Accustomed to mathematical accuracy, he grew dissatisfied with the conjectural explanation of natural appearances given by Aristotle, and expressed great surprise that this philosopher should have been, for so many ages, followed in his numerous errors by so many learned men, by whole nations, and almost by the whole human race. He pursued his researches with great ingenuity as well as freedom, and wrote two books “On Nature,” in which he attempted to overturn the physical doctrine of the Peripatetic school, and to explain the phenomena of the material world upon new principles. When this treatise was first published at Rome, it obtained great and unexpected applause, and Telesius was prevailed upon by the importunity of his friends at Naples, to open a school of philosophy in that city. The Telesian school soon became famous, not only for the number of its pupils, but for the abilities of its professors, who distinguished themselves by their bold opposition to the doctrines of Aristotle, and by the judicious manner in which they distributed their labours, in order to enlarge the boundaries of natural knowledge. The founder of the school was highly esteemed by all who were desirous of studying nature rather than dialectics; and he was patronized by several great men, particularly by Ferdinand duke of Nuceri. But his popularity soon awakened the jealousy and envy of the monks, who loaded him and his school with calumny, for no other offence than that he ventured to call in question the authority of Aristotle. The vexations which he suffered from this quarter brought on a bilious disorder, which, in 1588, terminated in his death.

Although, during the life of Telesius, his innovations were patiently borne, both in Rome and Naples, after his death his writings were proscribed in the Index Expurgatorius of the inquisition. Notwithstanding which, his philosophy continued to have many admirers, and his works were republished at Venice in 1590, by his friend Antonius Persius, who also wrote a compendium of his philosophy in the vernacular tongue. Besides his principal work, De Natura Rerum, “On the Nature of Things,” he wrote on the air, the sea, comets, the milky way, the rainbow, colours, respiration, sleep, and other subjects. Lord Bacon has given a brief explanation of the philosophy of Telesius.

The physical system, which Telesius attempted to substitute in the room of the subtleties and fictions of the Stagyrite, was founded upon the Parmenidean doctrine, that the first principles in nature, by means of which all natural phenomena are produced, are cold and heat. The sum of his theory is this matter, which is in itself incapable of action, and admits neither of increase nor diminution, is acted upon by two contrary incorporeal principles, heat and cold. From the perpetual opposition of these, arises the several forms in nature; the prevalence of cold in the lower regions producing the earth and terrestrial bodies; and that of heat in the superior, the heavens and celestial bodies. All the changes of natural bodies are owing to this conflict; and according to the degree in which each principle prevails, are the different degrees of density, resistance, opacity, moisture, dryness, &c. which are found in different substances. In the heavens heat has its fixed residence, without any opposition from the contrary principle: and within the earth, and in the abyss of the sea, cold remains undisturbed, heat not being able to penetrate thither. At the borders of each of these regions, that contest between the opposite principles begins, which is carried on through all the intermediate space. All animal and vegetable life is from God. This system, which Telesius evidently borrowed from Parmenides, is but a baseless fabric raised upon a fanciful conversion of mere attributes and properties into substantial principles, and did not long survive its author, who would have deserved credit for the boldness of his attack upon the principles of Aristotle, had he avoided constructing a new system of natural philosophy, liable to the same objection which he had brought against that of Aristotle.

, one of the heroes of Swiss liberty, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, a man of property, and of good, though not distinguished family, was an inhabitant of the village of Burgeln in the country of Uri. In 1307 he was one of the persons engaged in the conspiracy against the Austrian government. The bailiff, or governor, Herman Gesler, either from a suspicious disposition, or having received some intimation of an impending insurrection, resolved to ascertain who would most patiently submit to his dominion. For this purpose he is said to have raised a hat upon a pole,* as an emblem of liberty, and commanded Tell, among others, to pay obeisance to it. “The youth Tell,” says Muller, “a friend to freedom, disdained to honour in a servile manner, and on an arbitrary command, even its emblem.” Then it was that, according to the current story, Tell was commanded by Gesler to shoot an arrow at an apple placed on the head of his own son; and, though reluctant, compelled to do it, bv the menace of immediate death, both to him and the infant if be should refuse. Tell cleft the apple without hurting the child but could not refrain from informing the tyrant that, had his aim proved less fortunate, he had another arrow in reserve, which he should have directed to the heart of his oppressor. By this manifestation of his courage and sentiments, he induced the bailiff to confine him; who, afterwards, mistrusting the friends and relations of Tell, resolved to carry him out of the country of Uri, across the lake of Lucern; though contrary to the acknowledged privileges of his countrymen. On the lake, as they were crossing, a violent storm arose; and Gesler, who knew Tell to be very skilful in the management of a boat, ordered his fetters to be taken off, and the helm committed to him. Taking advantage of this circumstance, Tell steered the boat close to a rock, leaped upon a flat part of it, scrambled up the precipice, and escaped. Gesler also escaped the danger of the water, but, landing near Kusnacht, fell by an arrow from the bow of Tell, whose skill he thus proved a second time, to his cost. Gesler thus perished by the indignation of a private man, without any participation of the people, and before the day appointed for their insurrection. Tell retired to Stauffacher, in the canton of Schwitz, and on the new year’s day ensuing, all the Austrian governors were seized and sent out of the country. In 1354, forty-seven years after this event, Tell is supposed to have lost his life in an inundation at Burgeln.

A chapel has been erected by his countrymen on the spot where he resided, and another on the rock where he landed: but, from the simplicity of the people, and of the times in which he lived, no particular honours or emoluments were assigned to his progeny, who appear to have lived in obscurity. The last male of his race, of whom we have any account, was John Martin Tell, of Attinghausen, who died in 1684. His descent in the female line became extinct in 1720. Crasser, a Swiss writer, long ago remarked the resemblance between the incident of the apple, as commonly related of Tell, and that told of Tocco, a Dane, by Saxo Grammaticus and from this coincidence, some have supposed the latter, at least, to be fictitious this, however, does not amount to a proof. It is possible, though perhaps not probable, that it may have happened twice.

, marquis de Louvois, by which title he is generally known, was born at Paris, January 18, 1641. He was the son of Mit-hel le Teilier, secretary of state, and afterwards chancellor of France, and keeper of the seals. The great credit and power of the father gave an early introduction to the son into the offices of slate, and he was onlv twenty- three when the reversion of the place of war-minister was assigned to him. His vigilance, activity, and application, immediately marked him as a man of superior talents for business; and two years afterwards, in 1666, he succeeded his father as secretary of state. In 1668 he was appointed post-mastergeneral, chancellor of the royal orders, and grand vicar of the orders of St. Lazarus and Mount Carmel; in all which places he fully justified the first conception of his talents. By his advice, and under his care, was built the royal hospital of invalids; and several academies were founded for the education of young men of good families in the military line. After the death of Colbert, in 1683, Louvois was appointed superintendant of buildings, arts, and manufactures. Amidst this variety of occupations, to which his genius proved itself fully equal, he shone most particularly in the direction of military affairs. He established magazines, and introduced a discipline which was felt with advantage in every department of the army. He several times acted in person as grand master of the ordnance, and in that branch of duty signalized his judgment and energy no less than in every other. The force of his genius, and the success of his most arduous undertakings, gained him an extreme ascendant over the mind of Louis XIV. but he abused his power, and treated his sovereign with a haughtiness which created disgust and hatred in all who saw it. One day, on returning from a council, where he had been very ill received by the king, he expired in his own apartment, the victim of ambition, grief, and vexation. This happened when he was no more than fifty-one, on the 16th of July, 1691.

Louvois, with all his talents, was not regretted either by the king or the courtiers. His harsh disposition, and very haughty manners, had irritated every one against him. He may also be reproached for the cruelties exercised in the Palatinate, and for other sanguinary proceedings. He wished not to be outdone in any severities. “If the enemy burns one village within your government,” said he, in a letter to the marshal de Bouflers, “do you burn ten in his.” Yet, notwithstanding every exception which may justly be made to his character, his talents were of more advantage than his faults were of injury to his country. In no one of his successors was found the same spirit of detail, united with complete grandeur of views; the same promptitude of execution in defiance of all obstacles; the same firmness of discipline, or the same profound secrecy in design. Yet he did not support ill fortune with the same firmness as his master. When the siege of Coni was raised, he ca ned the news to Louis XIV. with tears in his eyes. “You are easily depressed,” said the king “it is not difficult to perceive that you are too much accustomed to success. I, who have seen the Spanish troops within the walls of Paris, am not so easily cast down.” His sudden death is mentioned by madame de Sevigne, in her letters, in her own characteristic style. “He is dead, then; this great minister, this man of so high consideration; whose Moi (as M. Nicole says) was of such extent; who was the centre of so many affairs. How much business, how many designs, how many secrets, how many interests to develope How many wars commenced, how many fine strokes 6f chess to make and to manage Oh, give me but a little time I would fain give check to the duke of 'Savoy, check-mate to the prince of Orange. No, no not a moment. Can we reason on this strange event No, truly we must retire into our closets, and there reflect upon it”

, otherwise called Molyn, and Pietro Mulier, another artist of note, was born at Haerlem in 1637, and according to some authors, was the disciple of Snyders, whose manner he at first adopted, and painted huntings of different animals, as large as life, with singular force and success. He afterwards changed both his style and subjects, and delighted to paint tempests, storms at sea, and shipwrecks, which he executed admirably, and therefore got the name, by which he is generally known, of Tempesta. After travelling through Holland he went to Rome, and having changed his religion from protestantism to popery, became greatly caressed as an artist, and received the title of cavaliere. After passing some years at Rome he visited Genoa, where he was likewise highly honoured, and fully employed, but appears to have lost all sense of principle or shame; for, in order to marry a Genoese lady, he caused his wife, whom he had left at Rome, to be murdered. This atrocious affair being discovered, he was sentenced to be hanged, but by the intervention of some of the nobility, who admired his talents, his sentence would probably have been changed to perpetual imprisonment. From this, however, he contrived to escape, after being confined sixteen years, and died in 1701, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. It was from this crime that he obtained the name of Pietro Mu­Lier, or de Mulieribus. His pictures are very rare, and held in great estimation, and those he painted in prison are thought to be of very superior merit. He executed also, by the graver only, several very neat prints, in a style greatly resembling that of Vander Velde. They consist chiefly of candle-light pieces, and dark subjects.

His travels extended to France, Holland, Flanders, and Germany; during which he acquired a facility in speaking and reading those modern languages, which then formed a necessary accomplishment in a statesman. In 1654, on his return, he married the above-mentioned Mrs. Osborn, and passed his time for some years with his father and family in Ireland, improving himself in the study of history and philosophy, and cautiously avoiding any employment during the usurpation. At the restoration, in 1660, he was chosen a member of the convention in Ireland, and first distinguished himself by opposing the poll-bill, a very unpopular ministerial measure; which he did with so much independence of spirit, as to furnish a presage of his future character. In the succeeding parliament, in 1661, he was chosen, with his father, for the county of Carlow, where he distinguished himself by voting and speaking indifferently, as he approved or disapproved their measures, without joining any party. In 1662 he was chosen one of the commissioners to be sent from that parliament to the king, and took this opportunity of waiting on the lord lieutenant, the duke of Ormond, then at London, and seems at the same time to have now formed the design of quitting Ireland altogether, and residing in England. It was necessary, however, to return to Ireland, where on a second interview with the duke of Ormond, then at Dublin, the duke made extraordinary professions of respect for him, complaining, with polite irony, that he was the only man in Ireland who had never asked him any thing: and when he found him bent on going to England, insisted on giving him letters of recommendation to Clarendon, the lord chancellor, and to Arlington, secretary of state.

This recommendation was effectual with both these statesmen, as well as with the king, although he was not immediately employed. Sir William Templew^s nev.er forgetful of this obligation he constantly kept np a Correspondence with the duke of Ormond, and afterwards zealously defended him against the attempt of the earl of Essex to displace him from the government of Ireland. In the mean time, during his interviews with lord Arling­‘ton, who seems to have had his promotion at heart, he took occasion to hint to his lordship, that if his majesty thought him worthy of any employment abroad, he should be happy to accept it; but begged leave to object to the northern climates, to which he had a great aversion. Lord Arlington expressed his regret at this, because the place of envoy at Sweden was the only one then vacant. In 1665, however, about the commencement of the first Dutch, war, lord Arlington communicated to him that his majesty wanted to send a person abroad upon an affair of great importance, and advised him to accept the offer, whether in all respects agreeable or not, as it would prove an introduction to his majesty’s service, This business was a secret commission to the bishop of Munster, for the purpose of concluding a treaty between the king and him, by which the bishop should be obliged, upon receiving a certain sum of money, to join his majesty immediately in the war with Holland. Sir William made no scruple to accept this commission, which he executed with speed and success, and in the most private manner, without any train or official character. In July he began his journey to Qoesvelt, and not long after it was known publicly, that he had in a very few days concluded and signed the treaty there, in which his perfect knowledge in Latin, which he had retained, was of no little advantage to him, the bishop. conversing in no other language. After signing the treaty, he went to Brussels, saw the first payment made, and received the news that the bishop was in the fielfl, by which this negotiation began first to be discovered;, but no person suspected ’the part he had in it; and he continued privately at Brussels till it was whispered to the marquis Castel-Rodrigo the governor, that he came upon some particular errand (-which he was then at liberty to own). The governor immediately sent to desire his acquaintance, and that he might see him in private, to which he easily consented. Soon after a commission was sent him to be resident at Brussels, a situation which he had long contemplated with pleasure, and his commission was accompanied with a baronet’s patent. Sir William now sent for his family (April 1666); but, before their arrival, was again ordered to Munster, to prevent the bishop’s concluding peace with the Dutch, which he threatened to do, in consequence of some remissness in the payments from England, and actually signed it at Cleve the very night sir William Temple arrived at Munster. On. this he returned to Brussels; and before he had been there a year, peace with the Dutch was concluded at Breda. Two months after this event, his sister, who resided with him at Brussels, having an inclination to see Holland, he went thither with her incognito, and while at the Hague, became acquainted with the celebrated Pensionary De Witt.

In 167'3, the king, becoming weary of the second Dutch war, and convinced of its unpopularity, sent for sir William Temple, and wished him to go to Holland, with the offer of the king’s mediation between France and the confederates then at war, which was not long after accepted; and in June 1674, lord Berkley, sir William Temple, and sir Lioline Jenkins, were declared ambassadors and mediators, and Nimeguen appointed, by general consent, as the place of treaty. During sir William’s stay at the Ha^ne, the prince of Orange, who was fond of speaking English, and of English habits, constantly dined and supped once or twice a week at his house, feir William insensibly acquired his Highness’s confidence, and had a considerable hand in his marriage with the princess Mary, of which he has said so much in his " Memoirs. 77 One instance of his employing his influence with the prince, he used to reckon amongst the good fortunes of his life. Five Englishmen happened to be taken and brought to the Hague whilst he was there, and in the prince’s absence, who were immediately tried, and condemned by a council of war, for deserting their colours: some of his servants had the curiosity to visit their unfortunate countrymen, and came home with a deplorable story, that, by what they had heard, it seemed to be a mistake; and that they were all like to die innocent; but, however, that it was without remedy, that their graves were digging, and they were to be shot next morning. Sir William Temple left nothing unattempted to prevent their sudden execution; and sent to the officers to threaten them, that he would complain first to the prince, and then to the king, who, he was sure, would demand reparation, if so many of his subjects suffered unjustly: but nothing would move them, till he made it his last request to reprieve them one day, during which the prince happened to come within reach of returning an answer to a message he sent, and they were released. The first thing they did was to go and look at their graves; and the next, to come and thank sir William Temple upon their knees.

In July 1676, he removed his family to Nimeguen, where he passed that year without making any progress in the treaty, which, owing to various ircumstances, was then at a stand; and, the year after, his son was sent over with letters from the lord treasurer, to order him to return and succeed Mr. Coventry in his place of secretary of state, which the latter made some difficulty of resigning, unless he had leave to name his successor, which the king refused. Sir William Temple, who was not ambitious of the change at this time, requested his majesty would defer it until all parties were agreed, and the treaty he was then concerned in concluded. This business, however, required his presence in England, and he did not return to Nimeguen that year. About the same time the prince of Orange came over and married the lady Mary, which seems to have occasioned a coolness between sir William Temple and lord Arlington, the latter being offended at sir William’s intimacy with the lord treasurer Osborn, who was related to lady Temple, they two being the only persons intrusted with the affair of the marriage.

In the mean time, in 1678, the king, finding that affairs were riot likely to come to any conclusion with France, sent for sir William Temple to the council, and told him, that he intended he should go to Holland, in order to form a treaty of alliance with the States; and that the purpose of it should be, like the triple league, to force both France and Spain to accept of the terms proposed. Temple was sorry to find this act of vigour qualified by such a regard to France, and by such an appearance of indifference and neutrality between the parties. He told the king, that the resolution agreed on, was to begin the war in conjunction with all the confederates, in case of no direct and immediate answer from France; that this measure would satisfy the prince, the allies, and the people of England; advantages which couid not be expected from such an alliance with Holland alone; that France would be disobliged, and Spain likewise; nor would the Dutch be satisfied with such a faint imitation of the triple league, a measure concerted when they were equally at league with both parties. For these reasons sir William Temple declined the employment; and Lawrence Hyde, second son of the chancellor Clarendon, was sent in his place; and although the measure was not palatable to the prince, the States concluded the treaty in the terms proposed by the king. Just afterwards we find the king a little out of humour with sir William Temple; and when the parliament would not pass the supplies without some security against the prevalence of the popish party, the king thought proper to reproach Temple with his popular notions, as he termed them; and asked him how he thought the House of Commons could be trusted in carrying on the war, should it be entered on, when in the very commencement they made such declarations? Sir William, however, was not daunted by this reproach; and when the king, thwarted by his parliament, began to lend an ear to the proposals of the king of France, who offered him great sums of money, if he would consent to France’s making an advantageous peace with the allies, sir William, though pressed by his majesty, refused to have any concern in so dishonourable a negociation. He informs us that the king said, there was one article proposed, which so incensed him, that as long as he lived, he should never forget it What it was, sir William does not mention; but dean Swift, who was the editor of his works, informs us, that the French, before they would agree to any payment, required as a preliminary, that king Charles should engage never to keep above 8000 regular troops in Great Britain!

In 1679 he went back to Nimeguen, where the French delayed signing the treaty to the last hour; and after he had concluded it, he returned to the Hague, from whence he was soon sent for to enter upon the secretary’s place, which Mr. Coventry was at last resolved to part with and my lord Sunderland, who was newly come into the other, pressed him with much earnestness to accept. He very unuillingly obeyed his majesty’s commands to come over, as he had long at heart a visit he had promised to make the great duke, as soon as his embassy was ended; having begun a particular acquaintance with him in England, and kept up a correspondence ever since. Besides, having so ill succeeded in the designs (which no man ever more steadily pursued in the course of his employments) of doing his country the best service, and advancing its honour and greatness to the height of which he thought it capable, he resolved to ask leave of the king to retire. At this time, indeed, no person could engage in public affairs with a worse prospect; the Popish plot being newly broke out, and the parliament violent in the persecution of it, although it is now generally allowed to have been an absurd imposture. On these accounts, although the king, who, after the removal of the lord treasurer Danby, whom the parliament sent to the Tower, had no one with whom he could discourse with freedom on public affairs, sir William, alarmed at the universal discontents and jealousies which prevailed, was determined to make his retreat, as soon as possible, from a scene which threatened such confusion. Meanwhile, as he could not refuse the confidence witfi which his master honoured him, he represented to the king, that, as the jealousies of the nation were extreme, it was necessary to cure them by some new remedy, and to restore that mutual confidence, so requisite for the safety both of the king and people; that to refuse every thing to the parliament in their present disposition, or to yield every thing, was equally dangerous to the constitution, as well as to public tranquillity; that if the king would introduce into his councils such men as enjoyed the confidence of his people, fewer concessions would probably be re-. quired; or if unreasonable demands were made, the king, under the sanction of such counsellors, might be enabled, with the greater safety, to refuse them; and that the heads of the popular party, being gratified with the king’s favour, wouldprobably abate of that violence by which they endeavoured at present to pay court to the multitude.

The king assented to these reasons; and, in concert with Temple, laid the plan of a new privy-council, without whose advice he declared himself determined for the future to take no measure of importance. This council was to consist of thirty persons, and was never to exceed that number. Fifteen- of the chief officers of the crown were to be continued, who, it was supposed, would adhere to the king, and, in case of any extremity, oppose the exorbitances of faction. The other half of the council was to be'composed, either of men of character, detached from the court, or of those who possessed chief credit in both Houses. The experiment seemed at first to give some satisfaction to the people; but as Shaftesbury was made president of the council, contrary to the advice of sir William Temple, the plan upon the whole was of little avail. Temple oftea joined them, though he kept himself detached from public business. When the bill was proposed for putting restrictions on the duke of York, as successor to the throne, Shaftesbury thought them insufficient, and was for a total exclusion; but sir William Temple thought them so rigorous as even to subvert the constitution; and that shackles, put upon a Popish successor, would not afterwards be easily cast off by a Protestant.

In 1680, when the council was again changed, sir William gradually withdrew himself, for reasons which he has assigned in the third part of his Memoirs; but soon after the king sent for him again, and proposed his going ambassador into Spain, and giving credit to an alliance pretended to be made with that crown, against the meeting of the parliament; but when his equipage was almost ready, the king changed his mind, and told him, he would have him defer his journey till the end of the session of parliament, of which he was chosen a member for the university of Cambridge, and in which the factions ran so high, that he saw it impossible to bring them to any temper. The duke of York was sent into Scotland: that would not satisfy them, nor any thing but a bill of exclusion, against which he always declared himself, being a legal man, and said, his endeavours should ever be to unite the royal family, but that he would never enter into any counsels to divide them. This famous bill, after long contests, was thrown out, and the parliament dissolved; and it was upon his majesty’s taking this resolution without the advice of his privy-council, contrary to what he had promised, that sir William Temple spoke so boldly there, and was so ill-used for taking that liberty, by some of those friends who had been most earnest in promoting the last change. Upon this he grew quite tired with public business, refused the offer he had of serving again for the university in the next parliament, that was soon after called and met at Oxford, and was even uneasy with the name of a privy-counsellor, but this he soon got rid of; for the duke being returned, and all the councils changed, lord Sunderland’s, Essex’s, and sir William Temple’s names were by the king’s order all struck out of the council-book together. On this occasion he informed his majesty that he would live the rest of his life as good a subject as any in his kingdom, but never more meddle with public affairs. The king assured him that he was not at all angry, and ever after received his visits, when he came into the neighbourhood of Sheen, with respect: nor was less attention shewn to sir William by king James, who used to address his conversation to him the moment he saw him enter the room of the palace at Richmond.

After this retirement, which occurred in 1685, sir William Temple continued a year at Sheen, and, having purchased a small seat called Moor-Park, near Farnham in Surrey, which he preferred for its retirement, and the healthy and pleasant situation, and being much afflicted with the gout, and broken with age and infirmities, he resolved to pass the remainder of his life there; and in November 16 86, in his way thither, waited on king James, then at Windsor, and begged his favour and protection to one that would always live a good subject, but, whatever happened, never enter again upon any public employment; and desired his majesty never to give credit to whatever he might hear to the contrary. The king, who used to say sir William Temple’s character was always to be believed, promised him what he desired, made him some reproaches for not coming into his service, which he said was his own fault, and kept his word as faithfully to sir William Temple, as he did to his majesty during the turn of affairs that soon after followed by the prince of Orange’s coming over, which is said to have, been so great a secret to him, that he was not only wholly unacquainted with it, but one of the last men in England that believed it.

At the time of this revolution in 1688, Moor Park growing unsafe by lying in. the way of both armies, he went back to the house he had given up to his son at Sheen, whom he would not permit to go and meet the prince of Orange at his landing, as this might appear a breach of his engagement, never to join in any measure that seemed to divide the royal family. After king James’s abdication, and the prince’s arrival ut Windsor, however, sir William Temple went to wait upon his highness, along with his son. On this occasion the prince pressed him to enter into his service, and to be secretary of state; said, it was in kindness to him that he had not been acquainted with his design; came to him two or three times at Sheen, and several of his friends made him very uneasy, in urging how much the prince. (who was his friend), his country, and his religion, must suffer by his obstinate refusal to engage in their defence; add ing, that his conduct would give the world an unfavourable opinion of this great undertaking, and make them mistrust some bad design at the bottom, which a man of his truth and honour did not care to be concerned in. Sir William, however, continued unshaken in his resolutions, although very sensible of the trouble and uneasiness the prince and all his friends expressed; and was the more anxious to return to his retirement at Moor Park, about the end of 1689, that he might be less exposed to similar solicitations.

Sir William Temple died towards the end of 1700, in his seventy-second year, at Moor Park; where, according to express directions in his will, his heart was buried in a silver box, under the sun-dial in his garden. This sun-dial, we are told, was opposite to the window whence he used to contemplate and admire the works of nature with his sister, the ingenious lady Giffard who, as she shared and eased the fatigues of his voyages and travels during his public employments, was the chief delight and comfort of his retirement in old age, as he had the misfortune to lose his lady in 1694. As to his person, his stature was above the middle size: he was well-set and well-shaped; his hair chesnut brown, his face oval, his forehead large, a quick piercing eye, and a sedate and philosophical look. Those who have endeavoured to set sir William’s character in the best light, have allowed him to have had some tincture of vanity and spleen. Bishop Burnet has painted him most unfavourably, allowing him to possess a true judgment in all affairs, and very good principles with relation to government, but in nothing else. The bishop adds, that “he seemed to think, that things were as they are from all eternity; at least, he thought religion was fit only for the mob. He was a great admirer of the sect of Confucius in China, who were atheists themselves, but left religion to the rabble. He was a corrupter of all that came near him: and he delivered himself up wholly to study, ease, and pleasure.” Burnet’s dislike to sir William Temple seems, therefore, to have arisen from a very sufficient cause; from his holding and propagating irreligious principles; but this, others have not only doubted, but peremptorily denied, and have cited his beautiful letter to lady Essex, as a proof of his piety. Burnet, however, we perceive, allows him to have been a great statesman; and, in the very next words to those just cited, refers his reader for “an account of our affairs beyond sea, to his letters; in which,” says Burnet, “they are very truly and fully set forth.”

Sir William Temple was not only a very able statesman and negotiator, but also a polite and elegant writer. As many of his works have been published, at different times, as amount to two volumes in folio; which have also been printed more than once in octavo. His “Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands,” were published in one volume, 8vo, in 1672. His “Miscellanea,” consisting of ten tracts upon different subjects, were originally published in two volumes, 8vo. One of these tracts is upon ancient and modern learning; and what he advanced there, as it in some measure gave occasion to, so it involved him in, the controversy, which was soon after agitated here in England, concerning the superiority of the ancients and the moderns, His “Memoirs” also, of what had passed in his public employments, especially those abroad, make a very interesting part of his works. They were written in three parts; the first of which began with his journey to Munster, contained chiefly his negotiations of the triple alliance, and ended with his first retirement from public business, in 1671, a little before the second Dutch war. He began the second part with the approaches of the peace between England and Holland, in 1673, and concluded it with his being recalled from Holland in February 1678-9, after the conclusion of that of Nimeguen. The third part contains what passed from this peace to sir William’s retirement. The second part of these “Memoirs” was published in his life-time, and, it is believed, with his consent; though it is pretended that they were written only for the use of his son, and sent into the world without his knowledge. The third part was published by Swift, in 1709, many years after his death. The first part was never published at all; and Swift, in the preface to the third, tells us, that “Sir William often assured him he had burnt those Memoirs; and for that reason was content his letters during his embassies at the Hague and Aix-la-Chapelle (he might have added Minister) should be printed after his death, to supply that loss. What it was,” continues Swift, “that moved sir William Temple to burn those first Memoirs, may, perhaps, be conjectured from some passages in the second part formerly printed. In one place the author has these words: ‘ My lord Arlington, who made so great a figure in the former part of these Memoirs, was now grown out of all credit,’ &c. In other parts he tells us, ‘ That that lord was of the ministry which broke the triple-alliance, advised the Dutch war and French alliance; and, in short, was at the bottom of all those ruinous measures which the court of England was then taking; so that, as I have been told from a good hand, and as it seems very probable, he could not think that lord a person fit to be celebrated for his part in forwarding that famous league, while he was secretary of state, who had made such counterpaces to destroy it.’”

In 1693, sir William published an answer to a scurrilous pamphlet, entitled “A Letter from Mr. du Cros to the lord ———.” This Du Cros bore very impatiently the character which sir William had given him in the second part of his “Memoirs,” and wrote the above letter to abuse him for it. In 1695, he published “An Introduction to the History of England:” in which some few mistakes have been discovered, as his speaking of William the Conqueror abolishing the trial of camp-fight, or duel, who, on the contrary, introduced it. Not long after his death, Dr. Swift, then domestic chaplain, to the earl of Berkley, who lived many years as an amanuensis in sir William Temple’s family, published two volumes of his “Letters,” containing an account of the most important transactions that passed in Christendom, from 1667 to 1672; and, in 1703, a third volume, containing “Letters to king Charles II, the prince of Orange, the chief ministers of state, and other persons,” in octavo. The editor informs us, that these papers were the last of this or any kind, about which he had received his particular commands; and that they were corrected by himself, and transcribed in his life-time. The whole of his works were handsomely reprinted in 4 vols. 8vo, in 1814. Sir William Temple had one son, John Temple, esq. a man of great abilities and accomplishments, and who, soon after the Revolution, was appointed secretary at war by king William; but he had scarce been a week in that office, when he drowned himself at London-bridge. This extraordinary affair happened the 14th of April, 1689, when Mr. Temple, having spent the whole morning at his office, took a boat about noon, as if he designed to go to Greenwich; when he had got a little way, he ordered the waterman to set him ashore, and then finishing some dispatches which he had forgot, proceeded. Before he threw himself out, he dropped in the boat a shilling for the waterman, and a note to this effect:

It was thought, at first, that he meant by this, his incapacity for the secretaryship at war, which he had asked the king leave to resign the day before; but the fact was, that he had been melancholy for some months before, and the great prejudice to the king’s affairs, mentioned in his note, could not be occasioned by mistakes committed in a place in which he had yet done little or nothing. Another cause of his melancholy is assigned, which carries more probability. General Richard Hamilton being upon suspicion confined in the Tower, Mr. Temple visited him sometimes upon the score of a former acquaintance: when discoursing upon the present juncture of affairs, and how to prevent the effusion of blood in Ireland, the general said, “That the best way was, to send thither a person in whom Tyrconnel could trust; and he did not doubt, if such a person gave him a true account of things in England, he would readily submit.” Mr. Temple communicated khis overture to the king, who approving of it, and looking upon general Hamilton to be the properest person for such a service, asked Mr. Temple whether he could be trusted? Temple readily engaged his word for him, and Hamilton was sent to Ireland; but, instead of discharging his commission and persuading Tyrconnel to submit, he encouraged him as much as possible to stand out, and offered him his assistance, which Tyrconnel gladly accepted. Mr. Temple contracted an extreme melancholy upon Hamilton’s desertion although the king assured him he was convinced of his innocence. Mr. Temple had married Mademoiselle Du Plessis Rambouillet, a French lady, who had by him two daughters, to whom sir William bequeathed the bulk of his estate but with this express condition, that they should not marry Frenchmen “a nation,” says Boyer, “to whom sir William ever bore a general hatred, upon account of their imperiousness and arrogance to foreigners.”

, M. D. the son of an eminent attorney at Dorchester in the county of Dorset, by Mary, daughter of Robert Haynes, was born‘ March 17, 1711, and was educated at the Charter-house (not on the foundation), whence he proceeded to Trinity-colk’ge, Cambridge, and there took his degree of B. A. with distinguished reputation. During his residence at Cambridge, by his own inclination, in conformity with that of his parents, he applied himself to the study of divinity, with a design to enter into holy orders; but alter some time, from what cause we know not, he altered his plan, and applied himself to the study of physic. In 1736 he went to Leyden, where he attended the lectures of Boerhaave, and the professors of the other branches of medicine in that celebrated university, for the space of two years or more. About the beginning of 1739, he returned to London, with a view to enter on the practice of his profession, supported by a handsome allowance from his father. Why he did not succeed in that line was easy to be accounted for by those who knew him. He was a man of a very liberal turn of mind, of general erudition, with a large acquaintance among the learned of different professions, but of an indolent, inactive disposition; he could not enter into juntos with people that were not to his liking; nor cultivate the acquaintance to be met with at tea-tables; but rather chose to employ his time at home in the perusal of an ingenious author, or to spend an attic evening in a select company of men of sense and learning. In this he resembled Dr. Armstrong, whose limited practice in his profession was owing to the same cause. In the latter end of 1750 he was introduced to Dr. Fothergill (by Dr. Cuming,) with a view of instituting a Medical Society, in order to procure the earliest intelligence of every improvement in physic from every part of Europe *. At the same period he tells his friend, “Dr. Mead has very generously offered to assist me with all his interest for succeeding Dr. Hall at the (Charter-house, whose death has been for some time expected. Inspired with gratitude, I have ventured out of my element (as you will plainly perceive), and sent him an ode.” Dr. Tern pieman’s epitaph on lady Lucy Meyrick (the only English copy of verses of his writing that we know of) is printed in the eighth volume of the “Select Collection of Miscellany Poems,” 1781. In. 1753 he published the first volume of “Curious Remarks and Observations in Physic, Anatomy, Chirurgery, Chemistry, Botany, and Medicine, extracted from the History and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris;” and the second volume in the succeeding year. A third was promised, but we believe never printed. It appears indeed that if he had

It may not be improper to distinguish Dr. Templeman from Mr. Thomas Templeman, the author of “Engraved Tables, containing calculations of the number of square feet and people in the several kingdoms of the World;” who was a writing-master in the town of St. Edmund’s Bury, where he died May 2, 1729. Both are often confounded, and the latter often appears in quotations with the doctor’s degree of the former.

, a lady of considerable talents, took the habit of a religious at the monastery of Montfleuri, near Grenoble. Becoming tired of that mode of life, she went to Paris, where she lived in the world, and solicited a bull from the pope to authorize this unusual proceeding. With cardinal Lambertini, afterwards Benedict XIV. she was on good terms, and he gave her no molestation. Her house at Paris was the general meeting of all who had wit, or wished to have the credit of it. The gaiety of her society was, however, disturbed by some unfortunate adventures particularly by the death of La Fresnaye, a counsellor of state, who was killed in her apartment. Mademoiselle Tencin was prosecuted as concerned in the murder, and was confined first in the Chatelet, and afterwards in the Bastille; but was at length discharged as innocent. She died at Paris in 1749, being then a good deal advanced in years. She appeared as an author in several instances, and produced, 1. “Le Siege de Calais,” a romance of considerable delicacy and genius, though not without faults. 2. “Memoires de Comminges,” 12mo, another novel which has had its admirers. A nephew of M. de Tencin, M. Pont-de-veste, had some share in both these productions. 3. “Les Malheurs de l'Amour,” a novel, in which some have supposed that she describes a part of her own history. 4. “Anecdotes of Edward II.” a posthumous work, published in 1776. All her works were published at Paris in 1786, in seven small volumes, 12 mo.

, a Flemish painter, was born at Antwerp, in 1582, and received the first rudiments of his art from the famous Rubens, who considered him, at length, as his most deserving scholar. On leaving Rubens, he began to be much employed; and, in a little time, was in a condition to take a journey to Italy. At Rome he fixed himself with Adam Elsheimer, who was then in great vogue; of whose manner he became a thorough master, without neglecting at the same time the study of other great masters, and eiKleavouring to penetrate into the deepest mysteries of their practice. An abode of ten years in Italy enabled him to become one of the first in his style of painting; and a happy union in the schools of Rubens and Elsheimer formed in him a manner as agreeable as diverting. When Teniers returned to his own country, he entirely employed himself in painting small pictures, filled with figures of persons drinking, chemists, fairs, and merrymakings, with a number of country men and women. He spread so much taste and truth through his pictures, that few painters have ever produced a juster effect. The demand for them was universal; and even his master Rubens thought them an ornament to his cabinet, which was as high a compliment as could be paid them. Teniers drew his own character in his pictures, and in all his subjects every thing tends to joy and pleasure. He was always employed in copying after nature, whatsoever presented itself; and he accustomed his two sons to follow his example, and to paint nothing but from that infallible model, by which means they both became excellent painters. These are the only disciples we know of this David Tenters, styled the elder, who died at Antwerp in 1649, aged sixty-seven.

, son of the preceding, was born at Antwerp in 1610, and was nick-named “The Ape of Painting;” for there was no manner of painting that he could not imitate so exactly, as to deceive even the nicest judges. He improved greatly on the talents and merit of his father, and his reputation introduced him to the favour of the great. The archduke Leopold William made him gentleman of his bedchamber; and all the pictures of his gallery were copied by Teniers, and engraved by his direction. Teniers took a voyage to England, to buy several pictures of the great Italian masters for count Fuensaldegna, who, on his return, heaped favours on him. Don John of Austria, and the king of Spain, set so great a value on his pictures, that they built a gallery on purpose for them. Prince William of Orange honoured him with his friendship; Rubens esteemed his works, and assisted him with his advice. In his thirty* fifth year he was in his zenith of perfection. His principal talent was landscape, adorned with small figures. He painted men drinking and smoking, chemists, and their laboratories, country fairs, and the like: his small figures are superior to his large ones. The distinction between the works of the father and the son is, that in the son’s you discover a finer touch and a fresher pencil, and a greater choice of attitudes, and a better disposition of figures. The father retained something of the tone of Italy in his colouring, which was stronger than the son’s, but his pictures have Jess harmony and union; besides, the son used to put at the bottom of his pictures, “David Teniers, junior.” He died at Antwerp in 1694, aged eighty-four. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, that the works of this artist are worthy the closest attention of a painter who desires to excel in the mechanical knowledge of his art. His manner of touching, or what we call handling, has perhaps never been equalled: there is in his pictures that exact mixture of softness and sharpness, which is difficult to execute. His brother Abraham was a good painter; equal, if not superior, to his father and brother in the expression of his characters, and knowledge of the chiaro-scnro, though inferior in the sprightliness of his touch, and the lightness of his pencil.

In 1674, the parishioners of St. Peter’s Manscroft, in Norwich, chose him their upper minister, with a salary of 100l. a year. In 1678 he published his “Discourse of Idolatry,” and the year following, some unpublished remains of lord Bacon, under the title “Baconiana,” with a preface giving an excellent analysis of his lordship’s works. In 1680 he took his degree of D. D. and in October of the same year, was presented by Charles II. being then one of his majesty’s chaplains, to the vicarage of St. Martin’s in the Fields. Here he continued the measures which Dr. Lloyd his predecessor had adopted to check the growth of popery, and became the founder of our parochial charity-schools. He also founded a library. Dr. Kennet says that in this office, Dr. Tenison did as much good as perhaps it was possible for one man to do, and the writer of his Hie assures us that there were not above two persons in his parish who turned Roman catholics while he was vicar. Indeed this large and important cure extending to Whitehall, and the whole court, rendered an unusual portion of courage and perseverance necessary in watching the proceedings of the popish party, who had too many friends in the highest station. Dr. Tenison, however, undauntedly took his share in the controversy which their conduct produced, and was soon marked as an antagonist not to be despised. In 1681 he preached and published “A Sermon of Discretion in giving- alms,” which being attacked by Andrew Pulton, who was at the head of the Jesuits in the Savoy, Dr. Tenison wrote a defence of it. In June 1684 an attempt was made to entrap him into an obscure house, on pretence of his receiving there some information respecting the murder of sir Edmondbury Godfrey; but by the precaution he taok, this design, whatever it might be, was defeated. In this year he published “The difference between the protestant aad the Socinian methods,” in answer to a book written by a papist entitled " The Protestant’s plea fora Socinian/ 1 In the mean time, in 1683, he had rivalled that party in their grace of charity, by distributing upwards of 300l. for the relief of his poor parishioners during the hard frost. He also now completed the designs before mentioned, of endowing a charity-school, and setting up a public library, both which still exist.

In the succeeding reign, Dr. Tenison is said to have acquired favour at court, on account of his moderation towards the dissenters. He was one of those who dwelt fondly on the hopes of a comprehension, as it was called, to be effected partly by a review of the Liturgy. Immediately after the revolution, he was promoted to be archdeacon of London, and was appointed one of the commissioners to prepare matters towards reconciling the dissenters for the convocation. He even wrote a defence of it, entitled “A Discourse on the Ecclesiastical commission, proving it agreeable to the word of God, useful to the convocation, &c.” 1689, 4to, but he soon found the main object to be unattainable, neither party being satisfied with the proposed alterations in the liturgy. It was this endeavour to conciliate the dissenters which is said to have induced queen Mary to solicit that he might have the bishopric of Lincoln, to which he was accordingly nominated Nov. 25, 1691, and consecrated at Lambeth, Jan. 10 following. The writer of his life, in 8vo, tells us that the earl of Jersey, then master of the horse to her majesty, endeavoured as much as possible to prejudice Dr. Tenison in her majesty’s opinion, in order to gain her interest for his friend Dr. John Scott, rector of St. Giles’s in the fields; and represente*d to her majesty, who was speaking of Dr. Tenison in terms of respect, that he had preached a funeral sermon, in which he had spoken favourably of Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn, one of king Charles lid’s mistresses. “What then” said the queen, “I have heard as much. This is a sign, that that poor unfortunate woman died penitent; for if I can read a man’s heart through his looks, had she not made a truly pious and Christian end, the doctor could never have been induced to speak well of her.”

He had not been seated in this see above two years, when, upon the death of Dr. Marsh, he was offered the archbishopric of Dublin; but he made it the condition of his acceptance, that the impropriations belonging to the estates then forfeited to the crown, should be all restored to the respective parish churches. The king thought this very reasonable, but the difficulties were found so great that it never could be carried into execution; and instead of being translated into Ireland, bishop Tenison was raised in 1694, upon the death of Dr. Tillotson, to the see of Canterbury. Dr. Kennet observes, that upon the death of archbishop Tillotson, “it was the solicitous care of the Court to fill up the see of Canterbury. The first person that seemed to be offered to the eye of the world, was Dr. Stillingfleet, bishop of Worcester; but his great abilities had raised some envy and some jealousy of him: and, indeed, his body would not have borne the fatigues of such a station. Even the bishop of Bristol, Dr. John Hall, master of Pembroke college, Oxford, was recommended by a great party of men, who had an opinion of his great piety and moderation. But the person most esteemed by their majesties, and most universally approved by the ministry, and the clergy, and the people, was Dr. Tenison, bishop of Lincoln, who had been exemplary in every station of his life, had restored a neglected large diocese to somo discipline and good order, and had before, in the office of a parochial minister, done as mu^h good as, perhaps, was possible for any one man to do. It was with great importunity, and after rejecting better offers, that he was prevailed with to take the bishopric of Lincoln; and it was with greater reluctancy, that he now received their majesties’ desire and command for his translation to Canterbury. Burnet speaks much to the same purpose, although his opinion of Dr. Tenison seems never to have been very high; and adds, that at this time” he had many frieods, and no enemies."

Soon after his promotion to the archbishopric, queen Mary was seized with the small pox, which proved fatal, and at her desire archbishop Tenison attended her during her illness, was present at her death, and preached a fr.nrral sermon, which is said to have given seme offence, and was severely censured in a letter to his grace by Dr. Ken, the deprived bishop of Bath and Wells, who maintained that the archbishop was guilty of neglect of duty in not having represented to her majesty when on her death-bed “the great guilt she lay under by her conduct at the revolution.” Of this letter, Dr. Tenison took no notice, for which few will now blame him. A “Defence of his Sermon” was afterwards published by his friend Dr. John Williams. But if Dr. Tenison failed in bringing the queen to repentance for “the revolution,” he is said to have produced some good effects on the king’s disposition. When the queen died, William was deeply affected, and impressed with very serious notions, which, we are told, Dr. Tenison encouraged, and in one instance (the king’s illicit connection with lady Villiers) urged the heinousness of that crime with such power, that, if we may believe Whiston, his majesty promised never to see that lady more. The archbishop is also said to have been instrumental in healing some differences in the royal family, especially respecting the settlement of the princess Anne of Denmark.

In 1700, his grace obtained a commission, authorizing him, jointly with the archbishop of York, and four other prelates, viz. Burnet of Salisbury, Lloyd of Worcester, Patrick of Ely, and Moor of Norwich, to recommend to his majesty, proper persons for all the ecclesiastical preferments in his gift, above the value of 20l. per aim. in the book of first fruits and tenths. He continued in the same favour at court until the death of king William, whom he constantly attended in his illness, and prevailed with him to put the last hand to a bill for the better security of the protestant succession. In consequence of his station, he had the honour of crowning queen Anne, but did not enjoy much favour at her court. During the first three years of her reign he steadily opposed the bill to prevent occasional conformity. At the same time he was not neglectful of what concerned the welfare of the established church, and engaged Dr. White Kennet, afterwards bishop of Peterborough, to write “The case of Impropriations, &c.” in consequence of the queen’s having given the first fruits for augmenting the maintenance of the poorer clergy. In 1705, he wrote a letter to the princess Sophia, acquainting her with his own zeal in particular, and that of her friends, for the security of the Hanover succession, to which he received an answer, in which her highness gave some intimation of her desire to come to England at that juncture. This letter of hers was published some time after, together with one from sir Rowland Gwynn to the earl of Stamford, upon the same subject of the princess’s coming over; which last being voted by both houses to be a scandalous libel, tending to create misunderstandings between her majesty and the princess Sophia, the publisher, Charles Gildon, was fined \00l. by the court of queen’s bench. But notwithstanding that our archbishop’s zeal in this matter could not be very agreeable to her majesty, who was always averse to the notion of a visit from the electress, yet in April 1706 he was nominated first commissioner in the treaty of union between England and Scotland. The same year, he concurred with the majority of the lords in their resolution against those who insinuated that “the church was in danger.”

On the death of queen Anne he was appointed one of the three officers of state in whose hands were lodged, by authority of parliament, one of those instruments empowering her successor, if abroad at the time of her demise, to appoint such regents as he should think proper, to continue the administration in his name till his arrival. He bad afterwards the honour of crowning George I. and of being admitted to a private conference with him. This was, however, his last attendance on that prince, as his infirmities, and particularly frequent attacks of the gout, rendered it necessary for him to live as retired as possible at his palace at Lambeth, where he died Dec. 14, 1715, in the seventyninth year of his age. He was interred privately in the chancel of the church of Lambeth, and in the same vault 'with his wife, who died the preceding year, leaving him without issue. By his will he bequeathed very large sums to charitable purposes, and proved a liberal benefactor to Bene't college, Cambridge, the library of St. Paul’s cathedral, the society for the propagation of the gospel, queen Anne’s bounty, Bromley college, &c. The residue of his fortune, which was very considerable, he ordered to be equally divided among the children of his kinsmen, Dr. Edward Tenison (afterwards bishop of Ossory), Mr. Richard Tubby, and Mr. George Fage.

The author of the “Memoirs of his Life” says, he was a prelate “who, through the whole course of his life, always practised that integrity and resolution he first set out with; nor was he influenced by the changes of the age he lived in, to act contrary to the pure and peaceable spirit of the gospel, of which he was so bright an ornament.” He adds, that he was “an exact pattern of that exemplary piety, chanty, steadfastness, and ^ood conduct requisite in a governor of the church.” Dr. Richardson, in his edition of Godwin’s Lives of the Bishops, at first brought a serious charge against Dr. Tenison for neglecting the fairest opportunity of introducing the ecclesiastical polity of the church of England into the kingdom of Prussia; but he was afterwards so fully convinced of the injustice of this charge, as to alter the page of his work in which it was brought forward, and lay the blame upon those to whom it more properly belonged. Swift appears to have spoken with great disrespect of archbishop Tenison, for which no better reason can be given than his prejudices against the whigs, to which party Tenison was supposed to belong; and is said to have furnished some hints for Steeled memorable “Crisis,” for which the latter was expelled the House of Commons. The archbishop, however, had admirers in many of his contemporaries, especially Dr. Garth, who has introduced him in the 2nd canto of the Dispensary, with a handsome compliment, in the form of a complaint from Envy:

, a Dutch painter, was born in 1608,atZwol, nearOveryssel. He learned the art of painting under his father, who had passed some years at Rome. He travelled over the chief part of Europe, and was every where much encouraged. His subjects were usually conversations, persons employed in games, or in humorous adventures. His colouring is lively, and his pictures highly finished. But he is not thought equal either to Mieris or Gerard Dow, in the same style. He died in 1681, at the age of seventy-three.

, was a Latin poet and grammarian, whose age is not exactly known, unless he was the Posthumus Terentianus to whom Longinus dedicated his admirable treatise on the sublime, and whom Martial celebrates as praefect of Syene, in Egypt. Both these things are uncertain, but both have been affirmed by Vosius, and others. Some have also called him a Carthaginian; that he was a Moor, he himself tells us, and thence he is called Maurus. Certain it is, that he was earlier than St. Augustin, who quotes him, Da Civ. Dei, vi. 2. He wrote a most elegant poem in various measures, “De literis, syllabis, pedibus, et metris,” addressed to his son Bassinus, and his son-in-law Novatemus, which gives a truly pleasing impression of his genius, and admirably exemplifies the precepts it delivers. This poem is still extant, having been found in a monastery at Bobbio, in the Milanese, by G. Merula. It was first published by him at Milan, with Ausonius, in 1497; afterwards by Janus Parrhasius, and Nic. Brissaeus; then by Jacobus Micyllus, at Francfort, 1584, in 8vo. It appeared also in the “Grammatici veteres,” of Putschius, published at Hanau, in 1605, 4to; and in the “Corpus omnium veterum Poetarum Romanorum,” Geneva, 1611, 2 vols. 4to.

, or Terence, an ancient dramatic writer among the Romans, was a native of Carthage, and born in the year of Rome 560. He was brought early to Rome, among other slaves, and fell into the hands of a generous master, Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, who was so taken with his uncommon parts, that he gave him first a good education, and afterwards his liberty. He received his name, as well as his liberty, from Terentius Lucanus, as the custom was; and thus, by a singular fatality, says madam Dacier, while he has immortalized the name of his master, he has not been able to preserve his own. His merit soon recommended him to the acquaintance and familiarity of the chief nobility; and such was his friendship with Scipio and Laelius, that his rivals and enemies took occasion from thence to say that his plays were composed by these noblemen. Suetonius relates a story from Cornelius Nepos, which may seem to confirm such a surmise: it is, that on the 1st of March, which was the feast of the Roman ladies, Laelius being desired by his wife to sup a little sooner than ordinary, he prayed her not to disturb him; and that, coming very late to supper that night, he said he had never composed any thing with more pleasure and success; when, being asked by the company what it was, he repeated some verses out of the third scene of the fourth act in the “Heautontimorumenos.” Terence takes notice of this report in his prologue to the “Adelphi,” and does not offer to refute it; but Suetonius says that he forbore, in complaisance to his patrons, who might possibly not be displeased with it; and, indeed, in the prologue to the “Heautontimorumenos,” Terence desired the auditors not to credit the slanderous reports of his brother writers. It is very possible that Scipio and Lselius might sometimes amuse themselves with composing a scene or two lor a poet, with whom they conversed so familiarly; but the plays were certainly Terence’s.

After this, Terence went into Greece, where he stayed about a year, in order, as it is thought, to collect some of Menander’s plays. He fell sick on his return from thence, and died at sea, according to some; at Stymphalis, a town in Arcadia, according to others. From the above account, we cannot have lost above one or two of Terence’s plays; for it is impossible to credit what Suetonius reports from one Consemius, an unknown author, namely, that Terence was returning with above an hundred of Menander’s plays, which he had translated, but that he lost them by shipwreck, and died of grief for the loss. Terence was of a middle size, very slender, and of a dark complexion-. He left a daughter behind him, who was afterwards married to a Roman knight. He left also a house and gardens on the Appian way, near the Villa Martis, so that the notion of his dying poor is very improbable. If he could be supposed to have reaped no advantages from the friendship of Scipio and Lselius, yet his plays must have brought him in considerable sums. He received eight thousand sesterces for his “Eunuch,” which was acted twice in one day; a piece of good fortune which perhaps never happened to any other play, for plays with the Romans were never designed to serve above two or three times. There is no doubt that he was well paid for the rest; for it appears from the prologue to the “Hecyra,” that the poets used to be paid every time their play was acted. At this rate, Terence must have made a handsome fortune before he died, for most of his plays were acted more than once in his life- time. It would be endless to mention the testimonies of the ancients in his favour, or the high commendations hestowed upon him by modern commentators and critics. Menander was his model, and from him he borrowed many of his materials. He was not content with a servile imitation of Menander, but always consulted his own. genius, and made such alterations as seemed to him expedient. His enemies blamed his conduct in this; but in the prologue to the “Andria,” he pleads guilty to the charge, and justifies what he had done by very sufficient reasons. The comedies of Terence were in great repute among the Romans; though Plautus, having more wit, more action, and more vigour, was sometimes more popular upon the stage. Terence’s chief excellence consists in these three points, beauty of characters, politeness of dialogue, and regularity of scene. His characters are natural, exact, and finished to the last degree; and no writer, perhaps, ever came up to him for propriety and decorum in this respect. If he had laid the scene at Rome, and made his characters Roman, instead of Grecian; or if there had been a greater variety in the general cast of his characters, the want of both which things have been objected to him; his plays might have been more agreeable, might have more affected those for whose entertainment they were written; yet in what he attempted he has been perfectly successful. The elegance of iiis dialogue, and the purity of his diction, are acknowledged by all: by Caesar, Cicero, Paterculus, and Quintilian, among the ancients; and by all the moderns. If Terence could not attain all the wit and humour of Menander, yet he fairly equalled him in chasteness and correctness of style.

The moderns have been no less united in their praise of the style of Terence. Erasmus says, that “the purity of the Roman language cannot be learned from any ancient author so well as from Terence; and many have given it as their opinion, that the Latin tongue cannot be lost while the comedies of Terence remain. This Roman urbanity and purity of diction shews Terence to have been made a slave very young, and his education to have been wholly Roman, since otherwise his style could never have been so free from the tincture of his African origin. Regularity of scene, or proper disposition and conduct of the drama, is a third excellence of Terence. His scene, as Congreve, who calls him the correctest writer in the world, has well observed, always proceeds in a regular connection, the per s ons going off and on for visible reasons, and to carry on the action of the play, and, upon the whole, the faults and imperfections are so few, that they scarcely deserve to be mentioned. Scaliger said, there were not three in the whole six plays: and the comica vis, which Caesar wishes for him, would probably have suited our taste less than his present delicate humour and wit. Madam Dacier has observed, that” it would be difficult to determine which of his six plays deserves the preference, since they have each of them their peculiar excellencies. The “Andria” and “Adelphi,” says she, “appear to excel in characters and manners; the” Eunuch“and” Phormio,“in vigorous action and lively intrigue; the” Heautontimorumenos’ 1 and “Hecyra,” in sentiment, passion, and simplicity of style."

, brother to the preceding, was born at Lyons in 1670, and educated at the house of the oratory at Paris, which he quitted very soon. He afterwards entered into it again, and then left it finally, a proof of unsteadiness, at which his father was so angry, having resolved to breed up all his sons to the church, that he reduced him by his will to a very moderate income; which, however, John bore without complaining. He went to Paris, and obtained the acquaintance of the abbe* Bignon, who became his protector and patron, and procured him a place in the academy of sciences in 1707. In 1721, he was elected a professor in the college royal. When the disputes about Homer between La Motte and madam Dacier were at their height, he thought proper to enter the lists, and wrote “Une Dissertation contre Plliade,” in 2 vols. 12mo, which did very little credit to his taste or judgment. He had, however, better success in his “Sethos,” which, as a learned and philosophical romance, has considerable merit. It has been translated into English. Another work of Terrasson is J< A French Translation of Diodorus Siculus, with a preface and notes," which has been much commended.

He died Sept. 15, 1750, with the reputation of having been one of the best practical philosophers of his age. According to D'Alembert, in his “History of the Members of the French Academy,” he was absent, simple, totally ignorant of the world, with much learning, and original wit and humour. He suddenly became very rich, by the Mississippi-scheme, in favour of which he wrote a pamphlet of “Reflexions;” but was neither affected by his sudden riches, nor by the sudden ruin which followed. He said he had now got rid of many difficulties in which wealth had involved him, and he should enjoy the comfort and convenience of living on a little. At the latter end of his life he totally lost his memory, and when any question was asked him, he said, “Inquire of Mrs. Luquet, my housekeeper;” and even when the priest, who confessed him in his last illness, interrogated him concerning the sins which he had committed, he could get no other answer from him than “Ask Mrs. Luquet.”

, brother of the two preceding, was born October 5, 1680, at Lyons. At the age of eighteen, he was sent by his fatherto the house of the oratory at Paris, where he immediately devoted himself to the study of scripture and the fathers, and taught afterwards in different houses of his order, chiefly at Troyes, where he spoke a funeral oration for the dauphin, son of Louis XIV. in the Franciscan church. Notwithstanding the success which attended this first essay of his talents for the pulpit, he did not cui.tinue to preach, but only delivered exhortations in the seminaries. But after his brother’s death, being solicited to supply several pulpits where the deceased had engaged himself, he soon acquired a degree of reputation superior to that which AnJrew Terrassoit had enjoyed. He preached at Paris during five years, and, among other occasions, a who;e Lt nt in the metropolitan church, to a very numerous congregation. Various circumstances, particularly his attachment to the Jansenists, obliged him afterwards to quit buh the congregation oi the oratory and the pulpit at the same time; but M. de Caylus, bishop of Auxerre, made him curate of Treigny in 1735. Persecution, however, still following him, he was sent to the Bastille, which he quitted in 1744, to be confined with the Minimes at Argenteuil. At length, when his weakened faculties made him considered as useless to his party, he was set at liberty, and died at Pnris in the bosom of his family, Jan. 2, 1752, leaving “Sermons,” 4 vols. 12mo, and an anonymous book entitled, “Lettres stir la Justice Chretienne,” which has been censured by the Sorbonne.

, the iirst Latin writer of the primitive church whose writings are come clown to us, was an African, and born at Carthage in the second century. His father was a centurion in* the troops which served under the proconsul of Africa. Tcrtullian was at first an heathen, and a man, as he himself owns in various parts of his works, of loose manners; but afterwards embraced the Christian religion, though it is not known when, or upon what occasion. He flourished chiefly under the reigns of the emperor Severus and Caracalla, from about the year 194 to 216 and it is probable that he lived several years, since Jerome mentions a report of his having attained to a decrepit old age. There is no passage in his writings whence it can be concluded that he was a priest; but Jerome affirms it so positively, that it cannot be doubted. He had great abilities and learning, which he employed vigorously in the cause of Christianity, and against heathens and heretics; but towards the latter part of his life quitted the church to follow the Montanists, which is the reason why his name has not been transmitted to us with the title of saint. The cause of his separation is not certainly known. Baronius has attributed it to jealousy, because Victor was preferred before him to the see of Rome; Pamelius hints at his disappointment, because he could not get the bishopric of Carthage; and Jerome says, that the envy which the Roman clergy bore him, and the outrageous manner with which they treated him, exasperated him against the church, and provoked him to quit it. What perhaps had as much weight as any of these reasons was the extraordinary austerity, which the sect of Montanus affected, which suited his monastic turn of mind. Whatever the cause, he not only joined them, but wrote in their defence, and treated the church from which he departed, with unbecoming contempt. Error, however* says a modern ecclesiastical historian, is very inconstant; for Tertullian afterwards left the Montanists, or nearly so, and formed a sect of his own, called Tertullianists, who continued in Africa till Augustine’s time, by whose labours their existence, as;i distinct body, was brought to a close. The character of Tertullian is very strongly delineated by himself in his own writings if there bad been any thing peculiarly Christian, which he had learned from the Montanists, his works must have shown it; but the only change discoverable is, that he increased in his austerities. He appears to have been married, and lived all his life, without separating from his wife upon his commencing priest, if, indeed, he did not marry her after. The time of his death is no where mentioned.

Many historians have spoken highly of the abilities and learning of this father, particularly Euscbius, who says that he was one of the ablest Latin writers, and particularly insists upon his being thoroughly conversant in the Roman laws; which may incline us to think that, like his scholar, Cyprian, he was bred to the bar. Cyprian used every day to read part of his works, and, when he called for the book, said, “Give me my master,” as Jerome relates. Lactantius allows him to have been skilled in all kinds of learning, yet censures him as an harsh, inelegant, and abstruse writer. Jerome, i n his Catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, calls him a man of a quick and sharp wit; and says, in his epistle to Magnus, that no author had more learning and subtlety; but in other places he reprehends his errors and defects; and, in his apology against Ruffinus, “commends his wit, but condemns his heresies.” Vicentius Lirinensis gives this character of him: “Tertullian was,” says he, “among the Latins, what Origen was among the Greeks; that is to say, the first and most considerable man they had. For who is more learned than he r who more versed both in ecclesiastical and profane knowledge? Has he not comprised in his vast capacious mind all the philosophy of the sages, the maxims of the different sects, with their histories, and whatever pertained to them? Did he ever attack any thing which he has not almost always either pierced by the vivacity of his wit, or overthrown by the force and weight of his reasonings? And who can sufficiently extol the beauties of his discourse, which is so well guarded and linked together by a continual chain of arguments, that he even forces the consent of those whom he cannot persuade? His words are so many sentences; his answers almost so many victories.”

Of the moderns, Malebranche says, “Tertullian was a man of profound learning; but he had more memory than judgment, greater penetration and extent of imagination than of understanding. There is no doubt that he was a visionary, and had all the qualities I have attributed to visionaries. The respect he had for the visions of Montamis, and for his prophetesses, is an incontestable proof of the weakness of his judgment. His fire, his transports, his enthusiasms upon the most trifling subjects, plainly indicate a distempered imagination. What irregular motions are there in his hyperboles and figures! How many pompous and magnificent arguments, that owe all their force to their sensible lustre, and persuade many merely by g'ddying and dazzling the mind.” He then gives examples out of his book “De Paliio;” and concludes with saying, that “if justness of thought, with clearness and elegance of expression, should always appear in whatever a man writes, since the end of writing is to manifest the truth, it is impossible to excuse this author; who, by the testimony of even Salmasius, the greatest critic or our times, has laid out all his endeavours to become obscure; and has succeeded so well in what he aimed at, that this commentator was almost ready to swear, no man ever understood him perfectly.”

Balzac thus expresses his sentiments of Tertullian in a letter to his editor, Rigaltius: “I expect,” says he, “the Tertullian you are publishing, that he may learn me that patience, for which he gives such admirable instructions. He is an author to whom your preface would have reconciled me, if I bad an aversion for him; and if the harshness of his expressions, and the vices of his age, had dissuaded me from reading him: but I have had an esteem for him a long time; and as hard and crabbed as he is, yet he is not at all unpleasant to me. I have found in his writings that black light, which is mentioned in one of the ancient poets; and I look upon his obscurity with the same pleasure as that of ebony which is very bright and neatly wrought. This has always been my opinion; for as the beauties of Africa are no less amiable, though they are not like ours, and as Sophonisba has eclipsed several Italian ladies, so the wits of that country are not less pleasing with this foreign sort of eloquence; and I shall prefer him to a great many affected imitators of Cicero. And though we should grant to nice critics that his style is of iron, yet they must likewise own to us, that out of this iron he has forged most excellent weapons: that he has defended the honour and innocence of Christianity; that he has quite routed the Valentinians, and s truck Man-ion to the very heart.” Our learned counryman, Dr. Cave, has likewise shewn himself, still more than Balzac, an advocate for Tertullian’s style; and, with submission to Lactuntius, who (as we have seen above) censured it as harsh, inelegant, and obscure, affirms, that “it has a certain majesty peculiar to itself, a sublime and noble eloquence seasoned abundantly with wit and satire, which, at the same time that it exercises the sagacity or.” a reader, highly entertains and pleases him.“The style, however, of Tertullian, is a matter of less consequence than those other merits which give him a rank among the fathers: but in this respect it seems difficult which of the two were predominant, his virtues or his defects. He was endued with a great genius, but seemed deficient in point of judgment. His piety was warm and vigorous, but at the same time melancholy and austere, and his credulity and superstition, learned as he was, were such as could only have been expected from the darkest ignorance. He placed religion too much in austere observances; and in this respect, the littleness of his views appears conspicuous in the very first tract in the volume of his works,” De Pailio," the purport of which is to recommend a vulgar and rustic kind of garment for Christians in the place of the Roman toga; hut a more remarkable instance is given of his absurd scrupulosity about such trifles, in which he warmly approves the conduct of a Christian soldier who refused to wear a crown of laurel which his commander had given him with the rest of the regiment, and was punished for his disobedience. Upon the whole, although his works throw some light on the state of Christianity in his time, they contain very little matter of useful instruction.

The principal editors of this father, who have given. editions of his works in one collected body, are Rhenanus, Pamelius, and Rigaltius. Rhenanus first published them at Basil in 1521, from two manuscripts which he had procured from two abbeys in Germany, As this editor was well versed in all parts of learning, and especially in-ecclesiastical antiquity, so none have laboured more successfully than he in the explication of Tertullian; and Rigaltius has observed, with reason, that he wanted nothing to have made his work complete, but more manuscripts: and though, says Du Pin, his notes have been censured by the Spanish inquisition, and put at Rome into the Index expurgatorius, yet this should not diminish the esteem we ought to have for him. Rhenanus’s edition had been printed a great number of times, when Pamelius published Tertulliau with new commentaries, at Antwerp, in 1579; and although this editor has been blamed for digressing too much to things foreign to his points, yet his notes are useful and learned. His edition, as well as Rhenanus’s, has been printed often, in various places. After these, the learned Rigaltius produced his edition in 1634, which is far preferable to either of the former; for, having some manuscripts, and other advantages which the former editors wanted, he has given a more correct text. He has also accompanied it with notes, in which he has explained difficult passages, cleared some ancient customs, and discussed many curious points of learning. The greatest objection to this editor has been made by the Roman catholics, who say that he has occasionally made observations not favourable to the present practice of the church: but, says Du Pin, “whatever exceptions may be made to his divinity, his remarks relating to grammar, criticism, and the explication of difficult passages, are excellent.” A new edition of Tertullian was begun at Halle, by Semler, in 1770, and six parts published in small 8vo; and the same was reprinted with a view to be continued by Oberthur, in 1780 81, 2 vols. 8vo, but neither the one nor the other have been completed. Detached pieces of Tertullian have been edited by very learned critics. Salmasius bestowed a very voluminous comment upon his small piece “De Pallio,” the best edition of which is that of Lcyden, 1656, in 8vo; but some so under-rate it as to think that its principal value is a fine print of Salmasius, placed at the beginning of it. His “Apologeticus,” as it has been most read, so it has been the oftenest published of all this father’s works. This apology for Christianity and its professors was written about the year 200, in the beginning of the persecution under the emperor Severus. It is commonly believed that he wrote it at Rome, and addressed it to the senate: but it is more probable that it was composed in Africa, as, indeed, he does not address himself to the senate, but to the proconsul of Africa, and the governors of the provinces. The best edition of it is that by Havercamp, at Leyden, 1718, 8vo.

, an Italian painter and engraver, was born at Lucca in 1611. It is thought that he began his studies in his native city, but he was impatient to see Rome, where he became a disciple of Dominichino. He was so attached to the pursuit of his profession,that while he was copying the antiques at Rome he forgot to provide for his own subsistence. He was relieved from great wretchedness by the compassion of Sandrart, who recommended him effectually to prince Giustiniani, and other patrons. He was unfortunately drowned in the Tiber, at the age of thirty-nine, in 1650, endeavouring to recover hrts hat, which had been blown into the river.

, a learned Portuguese Dominican, was born in 1543. He was prior of the convent at Santaren, 1578, when king Sebastian undertook the African expedition in which he perished. Cardinal Henry, who succeeded him, dying soon after, Texeira joined the friends of Anthony, who had been proclaimed king by the people, and constantly adhered to him. He accompanied this prince into France, 1581, to solicit help against Philip II. who disputed the crown with him. Though Anthony’s almoner, he was honoured with the title of preacher and counsellor to Henry III; and after the death of that monarch, attached himself to Henry IV“. with whom he became a great favourite. He died about 1620. Texiera’s works clearly discover his hatred of the Spaniards, and his aversion to Philip II. who took Portugal from prince Anthony. It is asserted, that as he was preaching one day on the love of our neighbour, he said,” We are obliged to love all men of whatever religion, sect, or nation, even Castilians.“His political, historical, and theological writings are very numerous.” De Portugallioe ortu,“Paris, 1582, 4to, 70 pages, scarce. A treatise” On theOrifi'tmme,“1598, 12mo;” Adventures of Don Sebastian," 8vo.

In geometry, it has been said, he was a considerable inventor, as well as an improver; particularly in triangles. And all the writers agree that he was the first, even in Egypt, who took the height of the pyramids by the shadow. His knowledge and improvements in astronomy were very considerable. He divided the celestial sphere into five circles or zones, the arctic and antarctic circles, the two tropical ci ivies, and the equator. He observed the apparent- diameter of the sun, which he made equal to half a degree and formed the constellation of the Little Bear. He observed the nature and course of eclipses, and calculated them exactly; one in particular, memorably recorded by Herodotus, as it happened on a day of battle between the Medes and Lydians, which, Laertius says, he had foretold to the lonians. And the same author informs us that he divided the year into 365 days. Plutarch not only confirms his general knowledge of eclipses, but that his doctrine was, that an eclipse of the sun is occasioned by the intervention of the moon, and that an eclipse of the moon is caused by the intervention of the earth.

His morals were as just as his mathematics well grounded, and his judgment in civil affairs equal to either. He was very averse to tyranny, and esteemed monarchy little better in any shape. Diogenes Laertius relates, that walking to contemplate the stars, he fell into a ditch; on which a good old woman, that attended him, exclaimed, “How canst thou know what is doing in the heavens, when thou seest not what is at thy feet?” He went to visit Croesus, who was marching a powerful army into Cappadocia, and enabled him to pass the river Halys without making a bridge. Thales died soon after, at above ninety years of age, it is said, at the Olympic games, where, oppressed with heat, thirst, and a load of years, he, in public view, sunk into the arms of his friends.

He had great interest with several succeeding emperors. Constantius elected him into the senate in the year 355, ordered a brazen statue to be erected to him in 361, and pronounced his philosophy “the ornament of his reign.” Julian made him prefect of Constantinople in the year 362, and wrote letters to him, some of which are still extant. Jovian, Valens, Valentinian, and Gratian, shewed him many marks of esteem and affection, and heard him with pleasure haranguing upon the most important subjects. Valens in particular, who was inclined to favour the Arians, suffered himself to be diverted byThemistius from persecuting the orthodox; who represented to him the little reason, there was to be surprised at a diversity of opinions among the Christians, when that was nothing in comparison of the differences among the heathens; and that such differences ought never to terminate in sanguinary measures; and by such arguments he is said to have procured universal toleration. Though himself a confirmed heathen, he maintained correspondences and friendship with Christians, and particularly with Gregory of Nazianzen, who, in a letter to him, still extant, calls him “the king of language and composition.” Lastly, the emperor Theodosius made him again prefect of Constantinople in the year 384; and, when he was going into the west, placed his son Arcadius with him as a pupil. He lived to a great age; but the precise time of his death is not recorded. He has Sometimes been confounded with another Themistius, who was much younger than he, a deacon of Alexandria, and the founder of a sect among Christians.

, the great preserver of Athens at the time of the Persian invasion, owed no part of his celebrity or influence to the accident of his birth. He was born about 530 B. C. his father being Neocles, an Athenian of no illustrious family, and his mother an obscure woman, a Thracian by birth (according to the best authorities), and not of the best character. His disposition was naturally vehement, yet prudent; and Plutarch says that he was pronounced Y er y early by his preceptor, to be a person who would bring either great good or great evil to his country. Some of the ancients have said that he was dissolute in his youth, and for that reason disinherited; but this is positively denied by Plutarch. His ardent but honourable ambition was soon discovered; and contributed to put him on bad terms with Aristides, and some other leading men. He pushed himself forward in public business, and seeing that it was necessary for Athens to become a maritime power, persuaded the people to declare war against JEgina, and to build an hundred triremes. In these ships he exercised the people, and thus t>ave them those means of defence and aggrandizement which they afterwards employed with so much success. Yet it happened that he had no opportunity of distinguishing his military talents in his youth, being forty years of age at the time of the battle of Marathon; after which he was frequently heard to say “that the trophies of Miltiades disturbed his rest.” As a judge, he was strict and severe; in which office, being asked by Simonides to make some stretch of power in his behalf, he replied, “Neither would you be a good poet if you transgressed the laws of numbers, nor should 1 be a good judge, if I should hold the request of any one more, sacred than the laws.” Themistocles had so much credit with the people, as to get his rival Atistides banished by ostracism. In the Persian war, it was he who first interpreted the wooden walls mentioned by the oracle, to mean the Athenian ships: by his contrivance the fleet of Xerxes was induced to fight in a most disadvantageous situation off Sulamis, where it suffered a total defeat. For his whole conduct in this action he gained the highest honours, both at home and in Sparta. This was in 480, ten years after the battle of Marathon.

, a miscellaneous writer and critic, was born at Sittingbourn in Kent, in which place his father was an eminent attorney. His grammatical learning he received at Isleworth in Middlesex, and afterwards applied himself to the law; but, finding that pursuit tedious and irksome, he quitted it for the profession of poetry. According to the editors of the “Biog. Dramatica,” his first appearance in this profession was not much to his credit. One Henry Mestayer, a watchmaker, had written a play, which he submitted to the correction of Theobald, who formed it into a tragedy, and procured it to be acted and printed as his own. This compelled the watchmaker to publish his own performance in 1716, with a dedication to Theobald. The editors of the Biog. Dram, who appear to have examined both pieces, observe that Theobald, although unmercifully ridiculed by Pope, never appeared so despicable as throughout this transaction. “We had seen him before only in the light of a puny critic:” But here the fell attorney prowls for prey.“Theobald engaged in a paper called” The Censor,“published in Mist’s” Weekly Journal;“and, by delivering his opinion with too little reserve concerning some eminent wits, exposed himself to their resentment. Upon the publication of Pope’s Homer, he praised it in the most extravagant terms; but afterwards thought proper to retract his opinion, and abused the very performance he had before affected to admire. Pope at first made \ lie*, a.d tin* Jhto of his” Dunciad;“but afterwards thought proper to disrobe him of that dignity, and bestow it upon another. In 1726, Theobald published apiece in 8vo, called” Shakespear Restored:“of this, it is said, he was so vain as to aver, in one of Mist’s” Journals,“ct that to expose any errors in it was impracticable;” and, in another, *; that whatever care might for the future be taken, either by Mr. Pope, or any other assistants, he would give above five hundred emendations, that would escape them all.“During two whole years, while Pope was preparing his edition, he published advertisements, requesting assistance, and promising satisfaction to any who would contribute to its greater perfection. But this restorer, who was at that time soliciting favours of him by letters, wholly concealed that he had any such design till after its publication; which he owned in the” Daily Journal of Nov. 26, 1728.“Theobald was not only thus obnoxious to the resentment of Pope, but we find him waging war with Mr. Dennis, who treated him with more roughness, though with less satire. Theobald, in” The Censor,“N 33, calls Dennis by the name of Furius. Dennis, to resent this, in his remarks on Pope’s Homer, thus mentions him:” There is a notorious idiot, one Hight Whacum; who, from an under-spur-leather to the law, is become an understrapper to the playhouse, who has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid, by a vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor." Such was the language of Dennis, when inflamed by contradiction.

which he calls a marvellous line of Theobald, “unless,” says he, “the play, called * The Double Falshood,' be (as he would have it thought) Shakspeare’s; but, whether this is his or not, he proves Shakspeare to have written as bad.” The argument* which Theobald uses to prove the play to be Shakspeare’s, are indeed, far from satisfactory, and it was afterwards Dr. Farmer’s opinion that it was Shirley’s. It was, however, vindicated by Theobald, who was attacked again in “The Art of Sinking in Poetry.” Theobald endeavoured to prove false criticisms, want of understanding Shakspeare’s manner, and perverse cavilling in Pope: he justified himself and the great dramatic poet, and attempted to prove the tragedy in question to be in reality Shakspeare’s, and not unworthy of him. Theobald, besides his edition of Shakspeare’s plays, in which he collated the ancient copies, and corrected with great pains and ingenuity many faults, was the author of several dramatic pieces. Not less than twenty, printed or acted, are enumerated in the “Biographia Dramatica.” He was also concerned in various translations, and at his death in Sept. 1744, had made some progress in an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher.

As the name is not very common, it may be necessary to mention a later writer, a John Theobald, who had the degree of a doctor of physic, but does not appear to have been of the London college of physicians. He published a little volume of poetry in 1753, called “Musa Panegyrica,” and died May 17, 1760. Amongst many other performances, he produced a translation of Merope, translated from Voltaire, 1744, 8vo.

His not meeting with the encouragement he expected in his own country, was in all probability the reason that induced Theocritus to leave Syracuse for the more friendly climate of Alexandria, where Ptolemy Philadelphus then reigned in unrivalled splendour, the treat encourager of arts and sciences, and the patron of learned men. In his voyage to Egypt he touched at Cos, an island in the Archipelago not far from Rhodes, where he was honourably entertained by Phrasidamus and Antigenes, who invited him into the country to celebrate the festival of Ceres, as appears by the seventh Idyllium. There is every reason to imagine that he met with a more favourable reception at Alexandria, than he had experienced at Syracuse, from his encomium on Ptolemy, contained in the 17th Idy Ilium; where he rises above his pastoral style, and shows that he could upon occasion (as Virgil did afterwards) exalt his Sicilian Muse to a sublimer strain, paulo majora: he derives the race of Ptolemy from Hercules, he enumerates his many cities, he describes his great power and immense riches, but above all he commemorates his royal munificence to the sons of the Muses. Towards the conclusion of the 14th Idyllium, there is a short, but very noble panegyric on Ptolemy: in the 15th Idyllium he celebrates Berenice, the mother, and Arsinoe, the wife of Ptolemy. Little else of this poet’s life can be gathered from his works, except his friendship with Aratus, the famous author of the * 4 Phenomena;" to whom he addresses his sixth Idyllium, and whose amours he describes in the seventh. It is mentioned by all his biographers, that he red an ignominious death, and they derive their infuniiation from a distich of Ovid in his Ibis,

Sic auiniae laqueo sit via clausa tux. But it does not appear, that by the Syracusan poet, Ovid means Theocritus; more probably, as some commentators on the passage have supposed, Empedocles, who was a poet and philosopher of Sicily, is the person pointed at: others mink that Ovid by a small mistake or slip of his memory might confound Theocritus the rhetorician of Chios, who was executed by order of king Aritigonus, with Theocritus the poet of Syracuse.

king of Corsica, baron Niewhoff, grandee of Spain, baron of England, peer of France, baron of the holy empire, prince of the Papal throne for thus he styled himself; “a man whose claim to royalty,” says lord Orford, “was as indisputable, as the most ancient titles to any monarchy can pretend to be;” was born at Metz about 1696. The particulars of his eventful history are thus related. In March 1736, whilst the Corsican mal-contents were sitting in council, an English vessel from Tunis, with a passport from our consul there, arrived at a port then in the possession of the roal-contents. A stranger on board this vessel, who had the appearance of a person of distinction, no sooner went on shore, but was received with singular honours by the principal persons, who saluted him with the titles of excellency, and viceroy of Corsica. His attendants consisted of two officers, a secretary, a chaplain, a few domestics and Morocco slaves. He was conducted to the bishop’s palace; called Himself lord Theodore; whilst the chiefs knew more about him than they thought convenient to declare. From the vessel that brought him were debarked ten pieces of cannon, 4000 fire-locks, 3000 pair of shoes, a great quantity of provisions, and coin to the amount o 200,000 ducats. Two pieces of cannon were placed before his door, and he had 400 soldiers posted for his guard, He created officers, formed twenty-four companies of soldiers, distributed among the mal-contents the arms and shoes he had brought with him, conferred knighthood on one of the chiefs, appointed another his treasurer, and professed the Roman Catholic religion. Various conjectures were formed in different courts concerning him. The eldest son of the pretender, prince Ragotski, the duke de Ripperda, comte de Bonneval, were each in their turns supposed to be this stranger; all Europe was puzzled but the country of this stranger vas soon discovered he was, in fact, a Prussian, well known by the name of Theodore Antony, baron of Niewhoff.

In the beginning of November, he assembled the chiefs; and declared, that he would not keep them longer in a state of uncertainty, their fidelity and confidence demanding of him the utmost efforts in their favour; and that he had determined to find out in person the succours he had so long expected. The chiefs assured him of their determined adherence to his interests. He named the principal among them to take the government in his absence, made all the necessary provisions, and recommended to them union in the strongest terms. The chiefs, to the number of forty-seven, attended him with the utmost respect, on the day of his departure, to the water-side, and even on board his vessel; where, after affectionately embracing them, he took his leave, and they returned on shore, and went immediately to their respective posts which he had assigned them; a demonstrative proof this, that he was not forced out of the island, did not quit it in disgust, or leave it in a manner inconsistent with his royal character. Thus ended the reign of Theodore, who arrived in a few days disguised in the habit of an abbé at Livonia, and thence, after a short stay, conveyed himself nobody knew whither. The next year, however, he appeared at Paris; was ordered to depart the kingdom in forty-eight hours; precipitately embarked at Rouen, and arrived at Amsterdam, attended by four Italian domestics; took up his quarters at an inn; and there two citizens arrested him, on a claim of 16,000 florins. But he soon obtained a protection, and found some merchants, who engaged to furnish him with a great quantity of ammunition for his faithful islanders. He accordingly went on board a frigate of fifty-two guns, and 150 men; but was soon afterwards seized at Naples in the house of the Dutch consul, and sent prisoner to the fortress of Cueta. This unhappy king, whose courage had raised him to a throne, not by a succession of bloody acts, but by the free choice of an oppressed nation, for many years struggled with fortune; and left no means untried, which policy could attempt, to recover his crown. At length he chose for his retirement this country, where he might enjoy that liberty, which he had so vainly endeavoured to fix to his Corsicans: but his situation here, by degrees, grew wretched; and he was reduced so low, as to be several years before his death, a prisoner for debt in the King’s-bench.

who died in this parish Dec. 11,

Bestow‘d a kingdom, and deny’d him bread. Theodore had a son, known by the name of colonel Frederick, who, after following his father into England, entered into the army in foreign service, but appears to have been disappointed in his hopes of rising, or acquiring even a competence, and after sustaining many distresses, without timely relief, put an end to his life, by a pistol, near the gate of Westminster Abbey, Feb. 1, 1797. He was a man of gentleman-like manners, and accomplishments, x and much regretted by those who knew him intimately. He was interred in the church-yard of St. Anne’s Soho, by the side of his father. He published in 17G8, “Memuires pour servir a l'Histoire de Corse,” 12mo, of which there is an English translation and, “A Description of Corsica, with an account of its temporary union to the crown of Great Britain, &c.” 8vo.

, so called from his being bishop of Mopsuestia, a city in Cilicia, was educated and ordained priest in a monastery, and became one of the greatest scholars of his time, and had the famous Nestorius for a disciple. He died in the year 429, or 430. This bishop wrote a great number of learned works, of which are now only extant, “A Commentary on the Psalms,” which is in father Corder’s “Catena,” the authenticity of which was verified, in one of his dissertations by the duke of Orleans, who died in 1752, at Paris, one of the most learned princes Europe has produced. Theodore left also a “Commentary” in ms. on the twelve minor prophets; and several “Fragments,” enumerated hy Dupin, which are printed in the “Bibliotheca” of Photius. Those parts of his works supposed to contain the distinction of two persons in Christ, the letter from Ibas, bishop of Edossa, who defended him, and the anathemas published by the celebrated Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, against St. Cyril, in favour of Theodore of Mopsuestia, occasioned no little disturbance in the church. This dispute is called the affair of the “Three Chapters,” and was not settled till the fifth general council, in the year 553, when he and his writings were anathematized. His confession of faith may be found in father Garnier’s Dissertations on Marius Mercator.

, an illustrious writer of the church, was born at Antioch about the year 386, of parents who were both pious and opulent. His birth has been represented as accompanied with miracles before and after, according to his own account, in his “Religious History;” in which he gravely informs us, that it was by the prayers of a religious man, called Macedonius, that God granted his motirer to conceive a son, and bring him into the world. When the holy anchorite promised her this blessing, she engaged herself on her part to devote him to God; and accordingly called him Theodoretus, which signifies either given by God, or devoted to God. To promote this latter design, he was sent at seven years of age to a monastery, where he learned the sciences, theology, and devotion. He had for his masters Theodore of Mopsuestia, and St. John Chrysostom, and made under them a very uncommon progress. His learning and piety becoming known to the bishops of Antioch, they admitted him into holy orders; yet he did not upon that account change either his habitation or manner of living, but endeavoured to reconcile the exercises of a religious life with tha function of a clergyman. ' After the death of his parents, he distributed his whole inheritance to the poor, and reserved nothing to himself. The bishopric of Cyrus becoming vacant about the year 420, the bishop of Antioch ordained Theodoret against his will, and sent him to govern that dumb. Cyrus was a city of Syria, in the province of Euphratesia, an unpleasant and barren country, but very populous. The inhabitants commonly spake the Syriac to;ig.e, Tew of them understanding Greek; they were almost all poor, rude, and barbarous; many of them were engaged in profane superbtitions, or in such gross errors as shewed them to be rather Heathens than Christians. The learning and worth of Theodoret, which were really very great, seemed to qualify him for a better see; yet he remained in this, and discharged all the offices of a good bishop and good man. He was afterwards engaged in the Nestorian dispute, very much against his will; but at length retired to his see, spent his life in composing books, and in acts of piety and charity, and died there in the year 457, aged seventy and upwards. He wrote “Commentaries upon the Holy Scriptures” an “Ecclesiastical History” a “Religious Histor\ T” containing the lives and praises of thirty monks, and several other things, which are still extant.

Great encomiums have been bestowed upon this writer, particularly by Dupin, who asserts that “Of all the fathers who have composed works of different kinds, Theodoret is one of those who has succeeded the very best in every kind. Some have been excellent writers in matters of controversy, but bad interpreters of Scripture; others have been good historians, but bad divines; some have had good success in morality, who have had no skill in doctrinal points; those who have applied themselves to confute Paganism by their own principles and authors, have usually Lad little knowledge in the mysteries of our religion; and lastly, it is very rare for those. who have addicted themselves to works of piety to be good critics. Theodoret had all these qualities; and it may be said, that he has equally deserved the name of a good interpreter, divine, historian, writer in controversy, apologist for religion, and author of works of piety. But he hath principally excelled in his compositions on Holy Scripture, and has outdone almost all other commentators, according to the judgment of the learned Phqtius. His style, says that able critic, is veryproper for a commentary; for he explains, in just and significant terms, whatsoever is obscure and difficult in the text, and render* the mind more fit to read and understand it by the elegance of his style. He never wearies his reader with long digressions, but on the contrary labours to instruct him clearly, neatly, and methodically, in every thing that seems hard. He never departs from the purity and elegance of the Attic dialect, unless when he is obliged to speak of abstruse matters, to which the ears are not accustomed: for it is certain that he passes over nothing that needs explication; and it is almost impossible to find any interpreter who unfolds all manner of difficulties better, and teaves fewer things obscure. We may find many others who write elegantly and explain clearly, but we shall find few who have forgotten nothing which needed illustration, without being too diffuse, and without running out into digressions, at least such as are not absolutely necessary to clear the matter in hand. Yet this is what Theodoret has observed throughout his commentaries, in. which he hath opened the text admirably well by his accurate inquiries.” Other writers, however, have not expressed so high an opinion of Theodoret. Beausobre, in his History of the Manichees, says that “Theodoret is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable of the fathers. He is learned; he reasons well, especially in his dialogues against the Greek heresies of his times: he is a good literal interpreter of the Scriptures. I cannot help admiring his prudence and moderation, when I consider that he ended his Ecclesiastical History at the time when the Nestorian quarrels, in which he was so deeply interested, began. But, I fear, his zeal against heretics imposed upon him almost as much, as his admiration for the heroes of the ascetic life, with whom he was charmed. Monasteries have undoubtedly sent forth great men into the world, but these disciples of the monks contracted there in their youth a superstitious disposition, which is hardly ever thrown off; and the weak side of this able man seems to have been an excessive credulity.” In truth, Theodoret surpasses all other writers in admiration of monastic institutions, and is credulous beyond measure in subjects of that nature. Yet he was undoubtedly one of the most learned and best men in the Eastern church. His pacific conduct displeased the bigots, during the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies, and because he inclined to healing methods, he was condemned at one of the synods, and was not without difficulty reinstated. “His works,” says Milner, “are large, on a variety of subjects; but they speak not for him equally with his life; and it will be sufficient to say, that his theology, with a stronger mixture of superstitioiij was of the same kind as that of Chrysostom. But his spirit was humble, heavenly, charitable; and he seems to have walked in the iaith, hope, and love of the gospel, a shining ornament in a dark age and country.”

, called Tripolites, or of Tripoli, was a celebrated mathematician, who flourished, as Saxius seems inclined to think, in the first century. He is mentioned by Suidas, as probably the same with Theodosius, the philosopher of Bythinia, who, Strabo says, excelled in mathematics. He appears to have cultivated chiefly that part of geometry which relates to the doctrine of the sphere, on which he wrote three books containing fifty-nine propositions, all demonstrated in the pure geometrical manner of the ancients, and of which Ptolomy as well as all succeeding writers made great use. These three books were translated by the Arabians out of the Greek into their own language, and from the Arabic the work was again translated into Latin, and printed at Venice. But the Arabic rersion being very defective, a more complete edition was published in Greek and Latin at Paris, in 1558, by John Pena (See Pena) professor of astronomy. Theodosius’s works were also commented upon by others, and lastly by De Chales, in his “Cursus Mathematicus.” But that edition of Theodosius’ s spherics which is now most in use, was translated and published by our countryman the learned Dr. Barrow, in 1675, illustrated and demonstrated in anew and concise method. By this author’s’ account, Theodosius appears not only to he a great master in this more difficult part of geometry, but the first considerable author of antiquity who has written on thai subject. Theodosius also wrote concerning the celestial houses; and of dnys and nights; copies of which, in Greek, are in the king’s library at Paris, and of which there was a Latin edition, published by Peter Dasypody in 1572.

, of Alexandria, a celebrated Greek philosopher and mathematician, flourished in the fourth century, about the year 380, in the time of Theodosius the Great; but the time and manner of his death are unknown. His genius and disposition for the study of philosophy were very early improved by a close application to study; so that he acquired such a proficiency in the sciences as to render his name venerable in history; and to procure him the honour of being president of the famous Alexandrian school. One of his pupils was the celebrated Hypatia, his daughter, who succeeded him in the presidency of the school; a trust, which, like, himself, she discharged with the greatest honour and usefulness. (See Hypatia.)

The study of nature led Theon to many just conceptions concerning God, and to many useful reflections in the science of moral philosophy; hence, it is said, he wrote with great accuracy on divine providence. And he seems to have made it his standing rule, to judge the truth of certain principles, or sentiments, from their natural or necessary tendency. Thus, he says, that a full persuasion, that the Deity sees every thing we do, is the strongest incentive to virtue; for he insists, that the most profligate have power to refrain their hands, and hold their tongues, when they think they are observed, or overheard, by some person whom they fear or respect. “With how much more reason then,” says he, “should the apprehension and belief that God sees all things, restrain men from sin, and constantly excite them to their duty?” He also represents this belief concerning the Deity as productive of the greatest pleasure imaginable, especially to the virtuous, who might depend with greater confidence on the favour and protection of Providence. For this reason, he recommends nothing so much as meditation on the presence of God; and he recommended it to the civil magistrate, as a restraint on such as were profane and wicked, to have the following inscription written in large characters at the corner of every street: “God sees thee, O sinner.”

, an historian who may be ranked among those to whom Russia is chiefly indebted for the introduction of polite literature, was the son of a burgher of Kiof; born in that city, June 9, 1681, and baptised by the name of Elisha. Under his uncle, Theophanes, rector of the seminary in the Bratskoi convent at Kiof, he commenced his studies, and was well grounded in the rudiments of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew tongues. Though his uncle died in 1692, he completed his education in that seminary; and in 1698, in the eighteenth year of his age, he travelled into Italy. He resided three years at Rome, where, beside a competent knowledge of Italian, he acquired a taste for the fine arts, and improved himself in philosophy and divinity. Upon his return to Kiof he read lectures on the Latin and Sclavonian art of poetry in the same seminary in which he had been educated: and, with the monastic habit, assumed the name of Theophanes. Before he had attained the twenty-fifth year of his age he was appointed praefect, the second office in the seminary, and professor of philosophy. In 1706 he distinguished himself hy speaking a Lain oration before Peter the Great; and still more by a sermon, which in 1701) he preached before the same monarch after the battle of Pultawa. Having once attracted the notice, he soon acquired the protection of Peter, who was so captivated with his great talents, superior learning, and polite address, as to select him for a companion in the ensuing campaign against the Turks; a sure prelude to his future advancement. In 1711 Theophanes was nominated abbot of Bratskoi, rector of the seminary, and professor of divinity. His censures against the ignorance and indolence of the Russian clergy, and his endeavours to promote a taste for polite literature among his brethren, rendered him a fit instrument in the hands of Peter for the reformation of the church, and the final abolition of the patriarchal dignity. He was placed at the head of the synod, of which ecclesiastical establish* merit he himself drew the plan; was created bishop of Plescof; and, in 1720, archbishop of the same diocese; soon after the accession of Catharine he was consecrated archbishop of Novogorod, and metropolitan of all Russia; and died in 1736. Beside various sermons and theological disquisitions, he wrote a treatise on rhetoric, and on the rules for Latin and Sclavonian poetry; he composed verses in the Latin language; and was author of a “Life of Peter the Great,” which unfortunately terminates with the battle of Pultawa. in this performance the prelate has, notwithstanding his natural partiality to his benefactor, avoided those scurrilous abuses of the contrary party, which frequently disgrace the best histories; and has been particularly candid in his account of Sophia. Peter, from a well-grounded experierce, had formed such a good opinion of the talents of Theophanes, as to employ him in composing the decrees which concerned theological questions, and even many that related to civil atf'airs. Theophanes may be said not only to have cultivated the sciences, and to have promoted them during his life, but likewise to have left a legacy to his cou itrymen, for their further progress after hi-, decease, by maintaining in his episcopal palace fifty hoys, who>e education he superintended under his an>piccs they were instructed in foreign languages, and in various branches of polite knowledge, which had teen hitherto censured by many as profane acquisitions thus transmitting the rays of learning to illuminate future ages and a distant posterity.

, a celebrated French poet, surnamed Viaud, was born about 1590, at Clerac in the diocese of Agen, and was the son of an advocate of Bousseres SainteRadegonde, a village near Aquillon. Having come early to Paris, he was admired for his genius and fancy, and was the first who published French works with verse and prose intermixed. But his impiety and debaucheries obliged him to go into England in 1619, whence his friends procured his recall, and he turned Catholic. This change, however, did not make him more regular in his conduct, and he was at last burnt in effigy for having published in 1622, “Le Parnasse Satyrique.” Being arrested at the Chatelet, he was placed in the same dungeon of the Coneiergerie where Ravaillae had been confined; but, on his protestations of having had no share in the above mentioned publication, received only a sentence of banishment. He died September 25, 1626, in the Hotel de Montmorenci at Paris, leaving a collection of “Poems” in French, containing “Elegies, Odes, Sonnets, &c.;” a treatise “on the Immortality of the Soul,” inverse and prose; “Pyrame et Thisbe,' 4 a tragedy; three” Apologies;“some” Letters,“Paris, 1662, 12mo; his” New Works,“Paris, 1642, 8vo;” Pasiphae," a tragedy, 1628, &c.

, a celebrated patriarch of Alexandria, who succeeded Timotheus about 385, has the credit of having completely destroyed the remains of idolatry in Egypt, by pulling down the temples and idols of the false deities; and he also terminated happily the disputes which had arisen between Evagrius and Flavianus, both ordained bishops of Antioch. He zealously defended the faith of the Catholic church; but quarrelling afterwards with Chrysostom, caused him to be deposed, and refused to place his name in the Dyptics. Of this violence and injustice Dupin thinks he never repented but some compunction he felt at last, on account of his other failings, for on his death-bed, reflecting on the long penitence of St. Arsenius, he exclaimed, “How happy art thou, Arsenius, to have had this hour always before thine eyes.” We have some of this patriarch’s works in the Library of the fathers, which seem of very little value. Dupin says, he knew better how to manage a court-intrigue than to solve a point in divinity.

, of Antioch, a writer and bishop of the primitive church, was educated a heathen, and afterwards converted to Christianity. Some have imagined that he is the person to whom St. Luke dedicates the “Acts of the Apostles;” but this is impossible, as he was not ordained bishop of Antioch till the year 170, and he governed this church twelve or thirteen years, at the end of which be died. He was a vigorous opposer of certain heretics of his time, and composed a great number of works, all of which are lost, except three books to Autolycus, a learned heathen of his acquaintance, who had undertaken to vindicate his own religion against that of the Christians. The first book is properly a discourse between him and Autoly* cus, in answer to what this heathen had said against Christianity. The second is to convince him of the falshood of his own, and the truth of the Christian religion. In the third, after having proved that the writings of the heathens are full of absurdities and contradictions, he vindicates the doctrine and the lives of the Christians from those false and scandalous imputations which were then brought against them. Lastly, at the end of his work, he adds an historical chronology from the beginning of the world to his own time, to prove, that the history of Moses is at once the most ancient and the truest; and it appears from this little epitome, that he was well acquainted with profane history. In these books are a great variety of curious disquisitions concerning the opinions of the poets and philosophers, but few things in them relating immediately to the doctrines of the Christian religion, the reason of which is, that having composed his woiks for the conviction of a Pagan, he insisted rather on the external evidences of Christianity, vis better adapted, in his opinion, to the purpose. His style is elegant, and he was doubtless a man of considerable parts and learning. These boots were published, with a Latin version, by Conradus Gesner, at Zurich, in 154-6. They were afterwards subjoined to Justin Martyr’s works, printed at Paris in 1615 and 1636; then published at Oxford, 1684, in 12mo, under the inspection of Dr. Fell; and, lastly, by Jo. Christ. Wolfius, at Hamburgh, 1723, in 8vo. It has been said, that this Theophilus of Antioch was the h'rst who applied the term Trinity to express the three persons in the Godhead.

, a celebrated philosopher, was a native of Kresium, a maritime town in Lesbos, aud was born in the second year of the 102 olympiad, or B.C. 371. After some education under Alcippus in his own country, he was sent to Athens, and there became a disciple of Plato, and after his death, of Aristotle, under both whom he made great progress both in philosophy and eloquence. It was on account of his high attainments in the latter, that instead of Tyrtamus, which was his original name, he was called Theophrastus. During his having charge of the Peripatetic school, he had about two thousand scholars; among whom were, Nicomachus, 1 the son of Aristotle, Erasistratus, a celebrated physician; and Demetrius Phalereus. His erudition and eloquence, united with engaging manners, recommended him to the notice of Cassander and Ptolemy, who invited him to visit Egypt. So great a favourite was he among the Athenians, that when one of his enemies accused him of teaching impious doctrines, the accuser himself escaped with difficulty the punishment which he endeavoured to bring upon Theophrastus.

Theophrastns is highly celebrated for his industry, learning, and eloquence and for his generosity and public spirit. He is said to have twice freed his country from the oppression of tyrants. He contributed liberally towards defraying the expence attending the public meetings of philosophers, which were held, not for the sake of show, but for learned and ingenious conversation. In the public schools, he commonly appeared, as Aristotle had done, in an elegant dress, and was very attentive to the graces of elocution. He lived to the advanced age of eighty -five; towards the close of his life, he grew exceedingly infirm, and v\us carried to the school on a conch. He expressed great regret on account of the shortness of life, and com* plained that nature had given long life to certain animals, to whom it is of little value, as stags and crows, and had denied it to man, who, in a longer duration, might have been able to attain the summit of science, but now, as soon as he arrives within sight of it, it is taken away. His last advice to his disciples was, that since it is the lot of man to die as soon as he begins to live, they would take more pains to enjoy life as it passes, than to acquire posthumous fame. These reflections, and this advice, do not appear to correspond with the character usually bestowed on this philosopher.

In his botanical works, “The History of Plants,” and the “Causes of Plants,” which have come down to us almost entire, he mentions, and endeavours to describe, about 500 species; but his descriptions are very imperfect and doubtful, although Sprengel, in his *' Historia Rei Herbaria?,“has bestowed uncommon pains in endeavouring to ascertain them, These works were first published in the fourth volume of the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Ven. 14-97, and have been since reprinted separately, particularly by Bodseus, 1644. There is an edition of his entire works by Heinsius, 1613, folio; and there are editions of his tracts,” De Igne,“” De Ventis,“&c. But the work of Theophrastus most generally known, and oftenest reprinted, is his” Characters," which give him the merit of having been the first who drew characters from common life, and with somewhat of what we might call modern humour. Of this entertaining work the most ancient editions contained only fifteen chapters, to which Camotius, in the Aldine edition of 1551, added eight, and the remaining five were discovered in a ms. at Heidelberg, by Marquard Freher, from whose copy Casaubon inserted them in his second edition of 1659, which, however, is the least correct of the two. The best since are those of Needham, Cambridge, 1712, 8vo Pauw, 1737, 8vo; Newton, 1757, Qxou. Fischer, Cobourg, 1763, 8vo; Goezius, Nurimberg, 179&, 8vo and Coray, Paris, 1799, 8vo. There are translations of this work into almost every European language.

, an ancient Greek poet, is entitled to some notice as the reputed inventor of tragedy. He was a native of mount Icaria in Attica, and flourished in the sixth century B. C. He introduced actors into his tragedies, who recited some lines between each verse of the chorus, whereas, till that time, tragedies had been performed only by a company of musicians and dancers, who sang hymns in honour of Bacchus while they danced. Thespis wrote satirical pieces also, and Horace says that this poet carried his actors about in an open cart, where they repeated their verses, having their faces besmeared with wine-lees, or, according to Suidas, with white-lead and vermillion. His poems are lost.

, librarian to the king of France, and a celebrated writer of travels, was born at Paris in 1621, and had scarcely gone through his academical studies, when he discovered a strong passion for visiting foreign countries. At first he saw only part of Europe; but accumulated very particular informations and memoirs from those who had travelled over other parts of the globe, and out of those composed his “Voyages and Travels.” He laid down, among other things, some rules, together with the invention of an instrument, for the better finding out of the longitude, and the declination of the needle; which, some have thought, constitute the most valuable part of his works. Thevenot was likewise a great collector of scarce books in all sciences, especially in philosophy, mathematics, and history; and in this he may be said to have spent his whole life. When he iiad the care of the king’s library, though it is one of the best furnished in Europe, he found two thousand volumes wanting in it, which he had in his own. Besides printed books, he brought a great many manuscripts in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Turkish, and Persic. The marbles presented to him by Mr. Nointel, at his return from his embassy to Constantinople, upon which there are bas-reliefs and inscriptions of almost two thousand years old, may be reckoned among the curiosities of his library. He spent most of his time among his books, without aiming at any post of figure or profit; he had, however, two honourable employments; for he assisted at a conclave held after the death of pope Innocent X. and was the French king’s envoy at Genoa. He was attacked with a slow fever in 1692, and died October the same year at the age of seventy-one. According to the account given, he managed himself very improperly in this illness: for he diminished his v strength by abstinence, while he should have increased it with hearty food and strong wines, which was yet the more necessary Oh account of his great age. “7'hevenot’s Travels into the Levant, &c.” were published in English, in 1687, folio; they had been published in French, at Paris, 1663, folio. He wrote also “L'Art de nager,” the Art of Swimming, 12 mo, 1696.

, an excellent engraver, was born in 1758, at Pattrington, in Holderness, in the East Riding of York, where his father was an innkeeper. At a proper age he was placed as an apprentice to a cooper, at which business, on the expiration of his apprenticeship, he worked some time. During the American war he became a private in ifie Northumberland militia; at the conclusion of which, in 1783, he came to settle at Hull, where he commenced engraver of shop-bills, cards, &c. One of his fust attempts was a card for a tinner and brazier, executed in a very humble style. He engraved and published a plan of Hull, which is dated May 6, 1784, and afterwards solicited subscriptions for two views of the dock at that place, which, it is thought, he shortly after published. He also engraved, while there, a head of Harry Rowe, the famous puppet-showman of York, after a drawing by J. England. Another account says, that an engraving of an old woman’s head, after Gerard Dow, was his first attempt, and appeared so extraordinary, that on the recommendation of the hon. Charles Fox, the duchess of Devonshire, and lady Duncannon, he was appointed historical engraver to the prince of Wales. In 1788, the marquis of Carmarthen, whose patronage he first obtained by constructing a very curious camera obscura, wrote him a recommendatory lelter to Alderman Boy dell, who immediately offered him 300 guineas to engrave a plate from Northcote’s picture of Edward V. taking leave of his brother the duke of York. He afterwards engraved, for Boydell, a number of capital plates from the Shakespeare gallery,and from the paintings by sir Joshua Reynolds, Shee, Westall, Smirke, Fuseli, Northcote, Peters, &c. all which are very extraordinary specimens of graphic excellence, and have been highly and deservedly approved by the connoisseur, and well received by the public. Of Boydell’s Shakspeare, nineteen of the large plates are from his hand. He had received very little instruction, but depended solely on native genius, aided by an intense application, by which \\e suddenly arrived at great excellence in the art. Almost at the outset of his career he became connected with Messrs. Boydell by extensive engagements on their Shakspeare, a work which will long bear ample testimony to his rare merit and talents. The distinguishing characteristics of his practice consisted in most faithfully exhibiting the true spirit and style of each master; a most minute accuracy, a certain polish, and exquisite delicacy of manner; with the appropriate character given to all objects, while a mildness of tone and perfect harmony pervaded the whole piece. The Cardinal Wolsey entering Leicester Abbey, from Westall, is certainly the greatest effort of his skill, and is, by many of the bestinformed connoisseurs and artists, held to be a first-rate specimen in that style of engraving. This ingenious artist died in July 1802, at Stevenage in Hertfordshire.

, or Theodoric de Niem, a native of Paderborn in Westphalia, who was under- secretary at Rome to Gregory XL Urban VI. &c. attended John XXIIL to the council of Constance, as writer of the Apostolical Letters, and abhreviator; but after that pontiff’s flight, wrote a very violent invective against him, and died about 1417, leaving the following works: “A History of the Schism,” which is very curious, and ends in 1410, Norernberg, 1592, fol.; a book concerning “The Privileges and Rights of the Emperors in the Investitures of Bishops,” printed in “Schardii Syntagma de Imperiali Jurisdictione,” Argent. 1609, fol.; “A History of John XXIII.” Francfort, 1620, 4to; and “A Journal of the Council of Constance.” This fcuthor’s style in Latin is dry and unpleasant, but very forcible, and his narrations are accurate and faithful. Some attribute to him the treatise “On the necessity of Reformation in the Church, both with respect to its head and its members,” which others give to Peter d'Ailli.

“The History of Perukes” is one of his most known and curious books. He designed it againat those ecclesiastics who were not contented to wear their own hair. The year 1621) (says he) is the epoch of perukes in France. He maintains, that no clergyman wore a peruke before 1660, and pretends that there is no instance of it in antiquity. He observes, that cardinal de Richelieu was the first who wore a calot and that the bishop of Evreux having prefixed to the life of St. Francis de Sales (which he presented to pope Alexander VIII.) a print wherein that saint appeared with a leather cap on, the pope had much ado to accept that book, attended with such an irregularity. M. Thiers exclaims against those ecclesiastics, who powder their perukes, and wear them of a different colour from their own hair. He answers the arguments that may be alledged in favour of the clergy. As for what concerns their beard and their bands, he says, no ecclesiastic wore a band before the middle of last century. There have been many variations about their beard. Sometimes shaving was looked upon as a kind of effeminacy, and a long beard appeared very suitable with the sacerdotal gravity; and sometimes a venerable beard was accounted a piece of pride and stateliness. When cardinal d'Angennes was about to take possession of his bishopric of Mans in 1556, he wanted an express order from the king to be admitted with his long beard, which he could not resolve to cut. M. Thiers acknowledges those variations about the beard; but he maintains that the discipline has been constant and uniform as to perukes; and therefore, he says, they ought to be laid aside, and beseeches the pope and the king to suppress such a novelty. Among his other works are, 2. “Traité des Superstitions qui regardent les Sacremena,” 4 vols. 12mo, a book esteemed agreeable and useful by those of his own communion. 3. “Traité de I'exposiiioii. du Saint Sacrement de PAutel,” 1663, 12mo. Some have esteemed this his best production. Many other articles are enumerated by his biographers, but few of them interesting in this country.

, LL. D. a very ingenious and learned English critic, was the son of Mr. Thirlby, vicar of St. Margaret’s in Leicester, and born about 1692. He received his education first at the free-school of Leicester, under the rev. Mr. Kiiby, then head usher, from which school he was sent in three years to Jesus college, Cambridge, and shewed early in life great promise of excellence. From his mental abilities no small degree of future eminence was presaged: but the fond hopes of his friends were unfortunately defeated by a temper which was naturally indolent and quarrelsome, and by an unhappy addiction to drinking. Among his early productions of ingenuity was a Greek copy of verses on the queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon. In 1710 he published “The university of Cambridge vindicated from the imputation of disloyalty it lies under on account of not addressing; as also from the malicious and foul aspersions of Dr. Bentley, late master of Trinity college, and of a certain officer and pretended reformer in. the said university,” Lond. 1710. This was followed in 1712 by “An answer to Mr. Whiston’s seventeen suspicions concerning Athanasius, in his Historical Preface ,” and by two other pamphlets on the same subject. He obtained a fellowship of his college by the express desire of Dr. Charles Ashton, who said“he had had the honour of studying with him when young;” though he afterwards spoke very contemptuously of him as the editor of “Justin Martyr,” which appeared in 1723, in folio; and the dedication to which has always been consid-‘M’ed as a masterly production, in style particularly. After Thirlby’s publication of Justin, Dr. Ashton, perhaps to shew him that he had not done all that might have been done, published, in one of the foreign journals, “Some emendations of faulty passages,” which when Thirlby he said, slightingly, that “any man who would, might have made them, and a hundred more.” Thus far MI. Thirlby went on in the study of divinity; hut his versatility led him to try the round of the other learned professions. His next pursuit was physic, and for a while he was called “Doctor.” While he was a nominal physician, he lived some time with the duke of Chandos, as librarian, and is reported to have affected a perverse and indolent independence, so as capriciously to refuse his company when) it was desired. It may be supposed they were soon weary of each other.

Tbirlby then studied the civil law, in which he lectured while the late sir Edward Walpole was his pupil; but he was a careless tutor, scarcely ever reading lectures. The late learned Dr. Jortin, who was one of his pupils, was very early in life recommended by him to translate some of Eustathius’s notes for the use of “Pope’s Homer,” and complained “that Pope having accepted and approved his. performance, never testitied any curiosity or desire to see him.” The civil law displeasing him, he applied to common law, and had chambers taken for him in the Temple by his friend Andrew Reid, with a view of being entered of that society, and being called to the bar; but of this scheme he likewise grew weary. He came, however, to London, to the bouse of his friend sir Edward Walpole, who procured for him the office of a king’s waiter in the port of London, in May 1741, a sinecure place worth about \00l. per annum. While he was in sir Edward’s house he kept a miscellaneous book of memorables, containing whatever was said or done amiss by sir Edward or any part of his family. The remainder of his days were passed in private lodgings, where he lived in a very retired manner, seeing only a few friends, and indulging occasionally in excessive drinking, being sometimes in a state of intoxication for five or six weeks together; and, as is uual with such men, appeared to be so even when sober; and in his cups he was jealous and quarrelsome* An acquaintance who found him one day in the streets haranguing the crowd, and took him home by gentle violence, was afterwards highly esteemed by Thirlby for not relating the story. He contributed some notes to Theobald’s Shakspeare; and afterwards talked of an edition of his own. Dr. Jortin undertook. to read over that poet, with a view to mark the passages where he had either imitated Greek and Latin writers, or at least had fallen into the same thoughts and expressions. Thirlby, however, dropped his design; but left a Shakspeare, with some abusive remarks on Warburton in the margin of the first volume, and a very few attempts at emendations, and those perhaps all in the first volume. In the other volumes he had only, with great diligence, counted the lines in every page. When this was told to Dr. Jortin, “I have known him,” said he, “amuse himself with still slighter employment: he would write down all the proper names that he could call into his memory.” His mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to catch any employment that might produce attention without aqxiety. The copy, such as it was, became the property of sir Edward Walpole, to whom he bequeathed all his books and papers, and who lent it to Dr. Johnson when he was preparing his valuable edition of “Shakspeare” for the press; accordingly the name of Thin by appears in it as a commentator. He died Dec. 19, 1753. One of Dr. Thirlby’s colloquial topics may be quoted, as in it he seems to have drawn his own character, with one of those excuses for which self-conceit is never at a loss. “Sometimes,” said he, “Nature sends into the world a man of powers superior to the rest, of quicker intuition, and wider comprehension; this man has all other men for his enemies, and would not be suffered to live his natural time, but that his excellencies are balanced by his failings. He that, by intellectual exaltation, thus towers above his contemporaries, is drunken, or lazy, or capricious; or, by some defect or other, is hindered from exerting his sovereignty of mind; he is thus kept upon the level, and thus preserved from the destruction which would be the natural consequence of universal hatred.”

, a member of the French academy, was born in 1732, at Clermont in Auvergne, the country of the celebrated Pascal. He received from his mother a severe, and almost a Spartan education. The three children of that estimable woman were brought up chiefly under her own eyes. His two elder brothers died, the one in 1748, the other in 1755, both young men, and both having signalized themselves in literature. Joseph, the eldest, had produced a comedy; and John, the second, excelled in Latin poetry. The death of his second brother, impressed Antony very early with a strong sense of the vanity of worldly cares; and with a profound piety ^ which enhanced the value of his character. He had a decided taste for poetry, but was designed for the bar. In obedience to the wish of his mother, he went to Clermont, to follow a study repugnant to his taste; but going with her to Paris, when John was at the point of death, his friends offered him a professorship in the qoliege of Beauvais. This, therefore, he accepted, as more congenial to his feelings, though less splendid in appearance, than the profession for which he had been designed. He was soon in high estimation for his talents as a poet and an orator; and M. Watelet, a rich man, and a man of letters, offered him a pension as a tribute to his merit; but he chose, with becoming pride, to owe his subsistence to hi own talents, rather than to the generosity of any one: He was afterwards secretary to the duke de Praslin, minister for foreign affairs; secretary to the Swiss cantons (an independent place in the government); and finally secretary to the duke of Orleans. He was also a member of the academy, tho-ugh it is said that he once refused to be chosen, when he found that he was proposed chiefly out of pique to another candidate, M. Marmontel. Without any fortune but his pension from the court, and the trifling reward he received for his assiduous attendance at the academy, he continued to reside at Paris; and latterly, with a sister* who superintended his domestic concerns. But, his health being impaired by excessive application, he was obliged to seek the more favourable climate of Nice, where for a time he recovered the use of all his powers. But his lungs had always been weak, and being seized also with a fever, he died September 17, 1785, in the ho,use of the archbishop of Lyons, and was buried at the neighbouring village of Qulins. At the time of his death he was employed in writing a poem on the czar Peter the Great, styled the “Pe*treade,” which has never been published.

“Perception is a passive affection, produced by some external object, either in the intellectual sense, or in the inclination of the will. Essence is that without which a thing cannot be perceived. God is not perceived by the intellectual sense, but by the inclination of the will: for creatures affect the brain; but God, the heart. All creatures are in God: nothing is exterior to him. Creation is extension produced from nothing by the divine power. Creatures are of two kinds, passive and active; the former is mattr r; the latter, spirit. Matter is dark and cold, and capable of being acted upon by spirit, which is light, warm, and active. Spirit may subsist without matter, but desires a union with it. All bodies consist of matter and spirit, and have therefore some kind of life. Spirit attracts spirit, and thus sensibly operates upon matter united to spirit. This attraction in man is called love; in other bodies, sympathy. A finite spirit may be cgnsidcred as a limited sphere in which rays, luminous, warm, and active, flow from a centre. Spirit is the region of the body to which it is united. The region of finite spirits is God. The human soul is a ray From the divine nature; whence it desires union with God, who is love. Since the essence of spirit consists in action, and of body in passion, spirit may exist without thought: of this kind are light, ether, and other active principles in nature.” Fortunately, says a very judicious writer, this jargon is as unintelligible as the categories of Kant, and the blasphemies of Spinosa.

, known to the world by the name of Corinna, with which Dryden flattered her, was born in 1675; and, after a life of ill health and various disappointments, died Feb. 3, 17 3O, in her fifty-sixth year, and was buried in the church of St. Bride. Among her other misfortunes, she laboured under the displeasure of Pope, whom she had offended, and who took care to place her in his “Dunciad.” He once paid her a visit, in company with Henry Cromwell, esq. whose letters, by some' accident, fell into her hands, with some of Pope’s answers. As soon as that gentleman died, Curl I found means to wheedle them from her, and immediately committed them to the press; which so enraged Pope, that he never forgave her. Corinna, considered as an author, has very few; claims to notice: she had not so much wit as Mrs. Behn or J Mrs. Manley, nor so happy a gift at intellectual painting; but her poetry was once thought soft and delicate, and her letters sprightly and entertaining. Her poems were published after her death, by Curll; and two volumes of letters (under the title of “Pylades and Corinua,”) which passed between her and a Mr. Gwynnet, who was to have been her husband, but died before matters could be accomplished. In this last publication she gives an account of her own life, which has been abridged in Gibber’s “Lives,” and other collections but which Mr. Malone has proved such a tissue of improbabilities and falsehoods, that a mere reference to it may be thought sufficient

The bishop added one to the many instances of men who have been peculiarly fortunate in their first marriage, and, deeply concerned at its dissolution, seeking consolation in a second. Such consolation did his lordship seek in a second marriage with lady Elizabeth Yates, relict of sir Joseph Yates, late one of the judges of the court of King’sbench, to whom he was married, by special licence, on the 12th of January, 1775, at Westminster-abbey. In this union, he was as happy as the great disparity of age" would permit. Though twice married, he had no issue; but each of his ladies brought him a son and a daughter by their former husbands, and to these he shewed a parental affection.

It is somewhat singular that there were three prelates of the same names, John Thomas, who ran their course nearly together; Dr. John Thomas, successively bishop of Peterborough and Salisbury, who died in 1766; Dr. John Thomas, successively bishop of Peterborough, Salisbury, and Winchester, who died in 1781 , and the subject of the preceding article.

, a learned writer of the sixteenth century, was born in Wales, and was at least of Welsh extraction, and educated at Oxford. Wood says that one of both his names was, in 1529, admitted bachelor of canon law, but does not say that it was this person. In 1544, being obliged to quit the kingdom on account of some misfortune, he went to Italy, and in 1546 was at Bologne, and afterwards ai Padua. In 151-9, he was again in London, and on account of his knowledge of modern languages, was made clerk of the council to king Edward VI. who soon after gave him a prebend of St. Paul’s, and the living of Presthend in South Wales. According to Strype, he acted very unfairly in procuring the prebend, not being a spiritual person; and the same objection undoubtedly rests against his other promotion. On the accession of queen Mary, he was deprived of his employment at court, and is said to have meditated the death of the queen; but Bale says it was Gardiner whom he formed a design of murderiug. Others think that he was concerned in Wyat’s rebellion. It is certain that for some of these charges, he was committed to the Tower in 1553, together with William Winter and sir Nicholas Throgmorton. Wood says, “He was a man of a hot fiery spirit, had sucked in damnable principles by his frequent conversations with Christopher Goodman, that violent enemy to the rule of women.” It appears that he had no rule over himself, for about a week after his commitment, he attempted suicide, but the wound not proving mortal, he was arraigned at Guildhall, May 9, 1553, and hanged at Tyburn, on the 18th.

, bishop of Worcester, was son of Mr. John Thomas, a linen-draper in the city of Bristol, who lived in a house of his own on the bridge in that town, where the bishop was born on Thursday, February 2, 1613, and baptized there in St. Nicholas’s church, on the Friday following. He was of a very ancient and noble family, as appears by a pedigree taken out of the Heralds’ -office by William Thomas lord bishop of Worcester in 1688, to prove his right to the Herbert arms. His mother was Elizabeth Blount, descended from the Blounts of Eldersfield, in the county of Worcester. His grandfather, William Thomas, was recorder of Carmarthen, where he and his family had for a long time lived in great credit; and the earl of Northampton, then lord president of Wales, gave him this character, “that he was the wisest and most prudent person he ever knew member of a corporation:” this gentleman, after the death of their son, undertook the care of his grandson; which trust he executed with the greatest care and attention, placing him under the tuition of Mr. Morgan Owen, master of the public school at Caermarthen, afterwards bishop of Landaff: here he continued till he went to St. John’s college, Oxford, in the sixteenth year of his age, in Michaelmas term, 1629; from hence he removed to Jesus college, where he tqok his degree of B, A. 1632, and soon after was chosen fellow of the college, and appointed tutor by the principal. Here, according to the fashion of the times, he studied much school philosophy and divinity, epitomizing with his own hand all the works of Aristotle: he took his degree of M.A. Feb. 12, 1634, was ordained deacon by John Bancroft, bishop of Oxford, at Christ Church, June 4, 1637, and priest in the year following at the same place, and by the same bishop. Soon, after he was appointed vicar of Penbryn, in Cardiganshire, and chaplain to the earl of Northumberland, who presen ed him to the vicarage of Laugharn, with the rectory of Lansedurnen annexed. This presentation being disputed, he determined to give it up; but the earl encouraged him to persevere, assuring him that he would be at all the expence and trouble: in consequence of which, the dispute was soon ended, and Mr. Thomas instituted: here he determined to reside, having no other thought but how best to perform his duty; and that he might be more fixed, and avoid the inconveniences of a solitary single life, he resolved to marry. The person he chose was Blanch Samyne, daughter of Mr. Peter Samyne, a Dutch merchant in Lime-street, London, of an ancient and good family, by whom he had eight children; William, who died young, Peter, John, Blanch, Bridget, William, Sarah, and Elizabeth. Here he religiously performed every duty of a parish priest, esteeming his employment not a trade, but a trust, till about 1644, a party of the parliament horse came to Langharn, and inquired whether that popish priest Mr. Thomas was still there, and whether he continued reading the liturgy, and praying for the queen; and one of them adding, that he should go to church next Sunday, and it' Mr. Thomas persevered in praying for that drab or the whore of Babylon, he would certainly pistol him. Upon this, Mr. Thomas’s friends earnestly pressed him to absent himself; but he refused, thinking it would be a neglect of duty. He no sooner began the service, than the soldiers came and placed themselves in the next pew to him, and when he prayed for the queen, one of them snatched the book out of his hand, and threw it at his head, saying, “What do you mean by praying for a whore and a rogue?” The preacher bore it with patience and composure; but the soldier who had committed the affront was instantly seized with such anxiety and compunction, that his companions were forced to carry him away. Mr. Thomas continued the service, and delivered the sermon with his usual emphasis and 'propriety; and when he returned to his house, he there found the soldiers ready to beg his pardon, and desiring his prayers to God for them. When this happened, he was about thirty-three years old. Soon after, the parliament committee deprived him of the living of Laugharn; and though a principal member of that body had been his pupil and particular friend, yet he refused to shew him any favour, saying, “If he was his father, he would do him no service unless he would take the covenant.” From this time till the restoration, Mr. Thomas endured great hardships, being a sufferer to the amount of above fifteen hundred pounds, and, for the support of his family, obliged to teach a private school in the country; and though his friends often made him liberal presents, yet his wiie and numerous family were frequently in want of common necessaries.

At the restoration Mr. Thomas was re-instated in his living, and by the king’s letters patent made chanter of St, David’s. In this year he took his doctor’s degree in divinity, carrying with him a letter from the chancellor, who said thus of him: “I have heard of his great worth and deserts, as well in respect of his learning and orthodox, judgment, as of his most exemplary life and conversation.” In 1661, he was presented to the rectory of Llaqbeder in the Vajley, in the county of Pembroke, by lord chancellor Hyde, and made chaplain to the duke of York, whom he attended in his voyage to Dunkirk, in whose family he continued some time, and with whom he was in one of the sea engagements against the Dutch. By the interest of the duke and the chancellor he was promoted to the deanery of Worcester, Nov. 25, 1665, in the room of Dr. Thomas Warrnestry, deceased. Here, though a stranger, he behaved himself in such a manner as to gain the affections of all the gentlemen of the county, particularly the duke of Beaufort, lord Windsor, afterwards created earl of Plymouth, and sir John Pakington: the last, that he might enjoy more of his company, presented him to the rectory of Hampton Lovet in the beginning of 1670. Upon this he quitted his living at Laugharn, and removed his family to Hampton. Here he enjoyed an easy and pleasant retirement, and he was often heard to say that this was the pleasantest part of his life; and that here he had more quiet and satisfaction within himself than when he was afterwards in the highest order of the church. Here also he found time to search into antiquity, to enlarge his mind, and to enrich it with fruitful knowledge: but his pleasures were not without alloy, for, during his residence here in 1677, his beloved wife died, and was buried in one of the side ailes of the cathedral church of Worcester. In this year also he was promoted to the see of St. David’s, and held the deanery of Worcester in commendam. He was very acceptable to the gentry and clergy of that diocese: he had been bred up among them, spoke their language, and had been a fellow-sufferer with many of them in the late troublesome times. His behaviour confirmed their expectations, his generous temper agreed with theirs, but his chief concern was not so much to please their humours, as to correct their morals, and save their souls; to promote true piety and goodness, and to sow the seeds of holiness among them. He began to repair the palaces at Brecknock and Aberguilly; he preached frequently in several parts of his diocese in the language of the country, and was very instrumental in promoting the translation of the Bible into Welsh. He endeavoured all he could to remove the cathedral service from St. David’s to Caermarthen; the former being a place of no trade, little frequented, situated ; in a corner of the kingdom, twelve long miles from any market town, the cathedral ruinous, the bishop’s palace quite demolished, no residence kept, the canons never attending, except to receive their revenues, and not one shilling laid out in repairing the cathedral after the restoration. On the contrary, Caermarthen he knew to he a rich and populous town; the great church capable of heing made decent and handsome, and the episcopal house of Aberguilly very near, where the bishop constantly resided. On those motives he set about the work very heartily, but met with the same success as bishop Barlow had done before.

Having been bishop of St. David’s six years, he was translated to the see of Worcester, in the place of bishop Fleetwood. As soon as he knew of this appointment, his lordship, who never was a lover of money, desisted from any further treaty with several tenants of the bishopric of St. David’s, and refused very considerable fines, afterwards received by bishop Womack. He went to Worcester in August 1683, and was conducted to his palace by the gentry and clergy of his diocese, where they were entertained very handsomely, and ever after found a plentiful table and hearty welcome; he being always of opinion that, in order to amend the morals of the people, the first step was to gain their acquaintance and affection. Upon this principle, he was a great lover of hospitality and charity; the poor of the neighbourhood were daily fed at his door, and he sent provisions twice a week to the common prison, besides very large sums given where he saw occasion. Some may think that he carried this matter to excess for though he frequently was heard to say, “he dreaded debt as a sin,” through his extensive charity, and the necessary calls of a numerous family, he sometimes brought himself to the verge of it, he laid not up for himself or his children; and, when charged by several for not providing for his own household, his answer always was, “that no bishop or priest was to enrich himself with, or raise his family out of the revenues of the church that the sacred canons forbade it and that for his part he was resolved that none of his should be the richer for them, as he was only God’s steward, and bound to dispense them to his glory in works of charity and piety.” He was extremely careful what persons he ordained; his censures were also expressed in the softest words, and with an humble air of such tenderness and brotherly compassion as always gained the more ingenuous, and left the incorrigible without excuse. He constantly attended six o'clock prayers in the cathedral, so long as Ins health would permit and upon complaint from archbishop Sheldon, dated June 4, 1670, that the duties of reading the church service and administering 1 the sacraments were too much neglected by dignified persons, “the cleans and canons, as if it were an office below them, and left for the most part to be performed by their vicars or petty canons, to the offence of the church’s friends, and the advantage of sectaries, and their own just reproach;” he, together with the prebendaries, so ordered the residence, that one or two of them generally officiated at the communion. The bishop, at his first visitation of the dean and chapter, by his own authority, and their concurrence, procured a chapter act to be made, to oblige the prebendaries to be resident two at a time in every month; this being done with the concurrence of Dr. Hickes, then dean, and Dr. Hopkins, a worthy prebendary of the church, passed without the least appearance of uneasiness in any one member of the society. The money, which at former visitations was usually expended in entertaining, v the bishops, he ordered to be laid out in books for the library, and entertained the church at his own charge; he was besides a considerable benefactor to the library, the books about this time being brought from an inconvenient room on the south side of the church, and placed in the chapter-house, a very elegant room, capable of containing a noble collection of books. The bishop was often present in the Consistory court, whereby he much prevented the frivolous suits, and expedited the dilatory proceedings, which at that time were much complained of. Jn 1683, archbishop Bancroft wrote a letter to the bishop, complaining of a custom which then and for many years after continued, of preaching the sermon in the body of the cathedral, the prayers being read in. the choir: the origin of this custom was, that as there was no sermon in the parish churches, the several parishioners might, after their own prayers, attend the sermon of some eminent preacher in the cathedral. He was a great patron of the French protestants, and contributed largely to their support. In 1687, when the king made his progress through part of England, the bishop sent his servant to Bath, to invite his majesty to his palace at Worcester, where he had the honour of entertaining him on the 23d day of August, the eve of St. Bartholomew. He met him at the gate of his palace, attended by his clergy, and in a sfyort Latin speech welcomed him to the city. His majesty walked upon a large piece of white broad cloth of the manufacture or the city, all strewed with flowers, which reached from the palace gute to the stairs leading up to the great hall: as he went along, he said, “My lord, this looks like Whitehall.” Having refreshed himself after his journey, he went to see the cathedral, the dean attending his majesty to the college gate, from whence he went to see the curiosities of the town, and, among the rest, was shewn where the battle was fought between Oliver and his royal brother *.

The next morning being the feast of St. Bartholomew, the king went to hear mass at the popish chapel, built at his accession to the crown, on the east side of Foregatestreet, attended by the mayor and aldermen, whom, when they came to the gate of the chapel, his majesty asked if they would not go in with him; to which the mayor with a becoming spirit replied, “I think we have attended your majesty too far already.” This worthy magistrate, who preferred his religion, and duty to his country, to every other consideration, should have his name recorded in letters of gold: Dr. Nash took pains to find out who it was, and believed it to be either Thomas Bearcroft or Thomas Sherwin; the former was elected by the new charter, the Jatter by the old charter restored. Upon this answer made by the mayor, the king went into the popish chapel, and the mayor, with all the protestants who attended him, went to the college church, where, when divine service was ended, the bishop waited on his majesty till dinner came in, and the meat being set on the table he offered to say grace; but the king was pleased to say that he would spare him that trouble, for he had a chaplain of his own, upon which the good old man withdrew, not without tears in his eyes. As soon as the dinner was over, his majesty proceeded in his progress to Ludlow, having expressed himself well pleased with the attendance of the gentlemen of the county, and his entertainment by the bishop, which, his lordship says in a private letter to a friend, though very chargeable to him, yet he did not grudge it, as he hoped he had done the church some credit by it. The white broad

* The king’s escape after the de- out his own horse ready saddled, upon feat in this battle is thus related his which his majesty fled through St. Matmajesty being forced to alight from tin’s gate, and so to Boscobrl. Dr. his horse to get into Sidbury-gate, and Thomas, when dean ef Worcester, a cry being made for a horse to re- married his eldest son to a daughter mount thfcking, a Mr. William Bag- of this Mr. Bngi.il. u* I, who then li\cd in Skibury, turned cloth on which his majesty walked from the palace gate to the stairs leading to the great hall, cost his lordship 27/: it was rolled up after his majesty, and taken away by his attendants as belonging to his wardrobe.

While the king was at Worcester, the neighbouring dissenters of all denominations sent their addresses to hira^ which the earl of Plymouth, being lord-lieutenant, was to receive, and to deliver to the king. When he brought the two first the king asked him what religion the men who brought them were of. “Indeed, sir,” replied the lordlieutenant, “I did not ask them; but I know by their looks they are neither of your religion, nor mine.” But now the good bishop’s troubles drew on apace: the penal laws against nonconformists were suspended; and May 4, 1688, the king ordered the bishops to take care that his declaration should be read in the neighbourhood of London, on the 20th and 27th of the said month, and in all other churches and chapels the 3d and 10th of June. The archbishop and six bishops presented a petition against it; the consequence of which was, that they were sent to the Tower; this was a great grief to the bishop, not that he was concerned for any fault or misbehaviour of his brethren, or for the calamity that had befallen them, for he often wished that he had been with them, to bear his testimony in so good a cause, and to have a share with them in their honourable sufferings, but he was troubled to think on that impending storm which he foresaw might fall on the church: however, both he and the dean (Dr. Hickes) resolved not to disperse the declaration, and signified to all the clergy his utter dislike of it. Soon after he received a letter from court, containing a reprimand for not obeying the king’s orders; the answer to which was, as he himself says, without any tincture of collusion, but declaratory of his firm resolution not to comply. Upon king William’s accession, his ill health would not allow him to attend the convention; and indeed he never approved of the prince of Orange’s being declared king, and much less of that act which obliged all persons to take oaths of allegiance to king William and queen Mary, or to forfeit their offices, their livings, and their temporal subsistence. For his own part, he was resolved to forsake all, rather than act con* trary to his former oaths, and homage, which he had paid to king James; and although he writes to Kettlewell, and says, “If my heart do not deceive me, and God’s grace do not fail me, I think I could suffer at a stake rather than take this oath,” yet it does not appear that he used any persuasions to prevent others from taking it, only freely gave his opinion, and advised them sincerely to consult their own consciences. This was what he said to the clergy; and when a grandson of his, Dr. William Thomas, of whom we shall speak hereafter, then a student in Trinity college, Camhridge, consulted him on this critical point, he left him to his own liberty, and the feelings of his own conscience. In one of his sermons he says, “An humble man submits, suspects his own judgment, hath a venerable esteem for his superiors; if startled by any constitutions in church and state, he frequently prays, seriously discourses, modestly counsels with others; if after all expedients he remains dissatisfied, if he cannot swim with the stream, he will not trouble the waters.”

His whole estate amounted to but 800l. He left behind him two sons, John and William; and five grand-children, four by his daughter Elizabeth, who married Mr. Jonathan Andrews, of Barnes-hall near Worcester, and one by his son John, who was the Worcestershire antiquary, of whom we shall presently speak.

He appears, however, to have been early acquainted with misfortune. Soon after the death of his father, his mother contracted a second marriage, with a man who turned him away from her while yet a child; and an uncle, who survived his father only a few months, scarcely left him whereon to live. He was thus, at a very early period, launched into a world which was almost unknown to him, and it became necessary for him to acquire the habit of thinking and acting for himself, and of living on his own acquirements. “My ideas,” said he to a friend, “were not yet fixed; one scheme succeeded another, and perhaps I should have acquired a habit of indecision and inconstancy, perhaps I should have lived poor and miserable to the end of my days, if a woman had not loved me, if she had not given me existence, a habitation, and an independent fortune. 1 took a wife, or rather she took me, at nineteen years of age. I married the widow of colonel Rolfe, the daughter of the reverend Mr. Walker, a most respectable clergyman, and one of the first inhabitants of Rumford. He had made three voyages to England, intrusted with public business; he was well informed, and a most liberal-minded man. He heartily approved of the choice of his daughter, and himself united our hands and our destinies. That excellent man was sincerely attached to me; he directed my studies, he formed my taste; and my situation was, in every respect, the happiest which it is possible to conceive.”

During the autumn of the year 1777, his health becoming disordered, he went to Bath to take the waters. He there resumed his favourite pursuits, and performed an interesting set of experiments on the cohesion of different bodies. On his return to London he communicated the results of them to sir Joseph Banks, and from that epoch used to date the intimate friendship which long subsisted between him and the illustrious president of the Royal Society of London. In 1778, he was admitted a member of the society, and he made, in the same year, his first experiments on gun-powder. The results which he obtained greatly excited his curiosity, and raised the desire of repeating the same experiments with great guns, and. of choosing that occasion to study at sea the principles of naval architecture. With this view, in the spring of 1779, he went on board the Victory, a vessel of 110 guns, commanded by admiral sir Charles Hardy, who was his friend. He passed that whole campaign with the grand fleet of England, employing his time as he had purposed to do, by multiplying his experiments, and repeating them on different ships belonging to the fleet; and on his return to London he composed an essay on naval architecture, which is to be found, as a separate chapter, in the treatise of Staikart on the same subject, published the following year. He joined to it a code of signals for the use of the navy, which has never been published. Being appointed under-secretary of state in the beginning of the year 1780, he was for thirteen months constantly employed in the office of the business of the American war. The regiment of cavalry called the King’s American dragoons was raised at that period in his native country by his friends and agents, and he was at first appointed its lieutenant-colonel commandant. This circumstance determined him to return to America to serve with his regiment; and when at Charlestown he was appointed to the command of the remains of the cavalry in the royal army, then under the orders of lieutenant-general Leslie. This corps, which was greatly reduced, he restored speedily; and gained its confidence and attachment. He led it on several times against the enemy, and was often fortunate in his enterprises. Honoured with the esteem of the army, and furnished with the most flattering recommendations from general Leslie to the commander in chief, Thompson set out in the spring of 1782 for New York, where he assumed the command of his regiment. Prince William-Henry- (the duke of Clarence), the king’s third son, who reviewed his corps, delivered to him the colours with his own hand. General Clinton was, towards autumn, replaced by sir Guy Carlton, who equally imparted to Thompson his friendship and confidence. The feeble remainder of the two regiments which had served from the beginning of the war, was joined to his corps, and he was sent to Huntingdon, outpost of the army in Long-Island, where he passed the winter.

On quitting England in the month of September 1783, he landed at Boulogne, along wiih the celebrated Gibbon, who describes him by three epithets which shew how quickly he had been able to appreciate him. He calls him “the soldier, philosopher, statesman, Thompson.” He afterwards arrived at Strasburg, where the prince Maximilian de Deux- Fonts, now elector of Bavaria, then mareschal du camp in the service of France, was in garrison. That prince, commanding the parade, discovered among the spectators an officer in a foreign uniform, mounted on a fine English horse, and accosted him; Thompson informed him that he had just been employed in the American war; the prince, pointing out to him several officers who surrounded him, ' These gentlemen,“said he,” served in the same war, but against you. They belonged to the royal regiment Deux-ponts, sent to America under the command of the count de Rochambeau."

The conversation became close and animated. Colonel Thompson, invited, in consequence, to dine with the prince, found there a number of French officers against whom he had fought in America. The conversation turned on the events of that war. The colonel sent for his portfolio, which contained exact plans of all the principal actions, of the strong places, of the sieges, and an excellent collection of maps; every one recognized the places where events interesting to himself had happened. The conversation lasted a great while, and they parted, promising to see one another again. The prince was an enthusiast in his profession, and passionately fond of instruction. He invited the colonel next day. They resumed the conversation of the evening with the same ardour; and when the traveller at last took his leave, the prince engaged him to pass through Munich, and gave him a letter of recommendation to his uncle the elector of Bavaria. The season was far advanced, and he was in haste to arrive in Vienna. He intended to stop at Munich two or three days at most. He remained fifteen, and quitted, not without regret, that city, where the testimonies of the favour of the sovereign, and the partialities of the different classes of society, had been lavished upon him with that cordial frankness, which so eminently distinguishes the Bavarian character. At Vienna, in the same manner he met with the most flattering reception, and was presented at court, and in the first companies, He spent there a part of the winter; and, learning that the war against the Turks would not take place, he yielded to the attraction of the recollections of Munich, and passing through Venice, where he stopped some weeks, and through the Tyrol, he returned to that residence toward the end of the winter of 1784. He now received from the elector a positive invitation to enter into his service; and instead of returning to Vienna, he set out for London with the intention of soliciting permission from the king to accept the offers of the elector palatine. Not only was -that favour granted him, but the king joined to it ah honourable distinction, by creating him a knight. He accordingly returned to Bavaria sir Benjamin Thompson; and was on his arrival appointed colonel of the horse, and general aid-de-camp to the sovereign who wanted to secure his services. Sir Benjamin employed the four first years of his abode at Munich in acquiring the political and statistical knowledge necessary for realizing the plans which his philanthropy suggested to him for improving the condition of the lower orders, he did not neglect in the mean time his favourite studies; and it was in 1786, in a journey to Manheim, that he made his first experiments on heat. Political and literary honours poured in upon him during that interval. In 1785 he was made chamberlain of the elector, and admitted a member of the academies of science of Munich and Manheim. In 178C he received from the kin<4 of Poland the order of St. Stanislaus; in 1787 he made a journey in Prussia, during which he was elected a member of the academy of Berlin. In 1788 he was appointed Major-general of cavalry and privy counsellor of state. He was placed at the head of the war department, and particularly charged with the execution of the plans which he had proposed for improving the state of the Bavarian army.

At last, the following year (1789) witnessed the accomplishment of the numerous projects meditated during those which preceded. The house of industry of Manheim was established; the islands of Mulhau near Manheim, which till that time had been nothing but a pestilential morass, useless for culture, and pernicious to the health of the inhabitants of the city, were joined together, surrounded by a mound and ditch, and transformed into a fertile garden, consecrated to the industry of the garrison. The tine establishment of the military academy of Munich was founded; a scheme of military police was formed to deliver the country from the numerous gangs of vagabonds, robbers, and beggars, who infested it; schools of industry, belonging to every regiment, were established, to employ the wives and children of the soldiers; a veterinary school was instituted, and a stud of horses provided for improving the breed of the country. At the beginning of 1790 the house of industry at Munich, that fine establishment, which the count himself has described at length in his essays, was formed, for bettering the condition of the poor; and mendicity was completely abolished: nor has it again made its appearance in Bavaria, since that memorable epoch. The beautiful English garden of Munich was begun, and military gardens established in all the garrisons. The sovereign expressed his obligation for these numerous services, by conferring on sir Benjamin the rank of lieutenant-general of his armies, and giving him a regiment of artillery. In 1791 he was created a count of the holy Roman empire, and honoured with the order of the white eagle. He employed that year and the following in completing his projects, and in removing the obstacles by which attempts were made to interrupt their progress. This species of labour, and the anxiety of mind inseparable from it, impaired his health to such a degree, that his physicians declared that his life was in danger, unless he retired, for some time, from business, and had recourse to a change of climate. He obtained permission from the elector to take a journey into Italy; and before leaving him, communicated, in a detailed account, the principal results of his four years administration, compared with the four years which had preceded his entrance into office. After having travelled over all Italy, and a part of Switzerland, he returned to Bavaria in the month of August 1794. He had been attacked with a dangerous illness in Naples, and his slow recovery did not permit him to resume, on his return, the transaction of the business of his department, over which he contented himself with exercising a general superintendance. He laboured in his closet; and it was at this time that he prepared the first five of the essays which he published.

Nothing seemed sufficient to withdraw him from these tranquil and important oc-cupations, when the events of war called upon him to display his military talents fur the service of his adopted country. General Moreau, having crossed the Rhine, and defeated several bodies of soldiers who disputed with him its passage, advanced by quick marches to Bavaria. Count Rumford, on receiving this intelligence, immediately set out to join the elector. His arrival at Munich was eight days previous to the epoch when the sovereign was called upon to quit his residence, and to take refuge in Saxony. Rumford remained in Munich with instructions from the elector to wait events, and to act according to the exigency of circumstances: they were not long in requiring his interference. After the battle of Freidberg, the Austrians, repulsed by the French, fell back upon Munich: the gates of the city were shut against them. They marched round it, passed the Inn by the bridge, and posted themselves on the other side of die river on a height which commanded the bridge and the town. There they erected batteries, and firmly waited for the French. In this situation, some inconsiderate transactions which happened in Munich, were interpreted by the Austrian general as an insult pointed against himself, and he demanded an explanation of them from the council of regency, threatening to order the towq to be fired upon if a single Frenchman entered the city. At this critical moment the count made use of the eventual orders of the elector, to take the command in chief of the Bavarian forces. His firmness and presence of mind awed both parties; neither the French nor the Austrians entered Munich; and that city escaped all the dangers with which it had been threatened.

Count Rumford quitted England for the last time in the month of May 1802, for Paris. He went that summer to Munich, and returned to Paris in the winter. In the summer of 1803, he made a tour of part of Switzerland and Bararia with the widow of the celebrated Lavoisier, a woman of highly cultivated mind and capacious understanding; whom shortly after their return to Paris he married; but their union proved unhappy, and they at length separated, the count retiring to a house at Auteuil, about four miles from Paris, where he passed the rest of his days in philosophical pursuits and experiments, almost secluded from the world; for after the death of his worthy friend, the illustrious Lagrange, he saw only his next-door neighbour, the senator Lecoutejux Caneleux, Mr. Underwood, the member of the royal institution, who assisted him in the experiments, and an old friend, Mr. Parker, a learned American. He ceased to attend the sittings of the National Institute; but for the perpetual secretary Cuvier, he always preserved the highest admiration and esteem. One object of his latter occupations was a work not finished, “On the Nature and Effects of Order;” which would probably have been a valuable present to domestic society. No man in all his habits had more the spirit of order: every thing was classed; no object was ever allowed to remain an instant out of its place the moment he had done with it; and he was never beyond his time in an appointment a single instant. He was also latterly employed on a series of experiments on the propagation of heat in solids. He had by him several unpublished works, particularly one of considerable interest on Meteorolites, in which he demonstrated that they came from regions beyond the atmosphere of the earth. This very ingenious philosopher died August 21, 1814, when on the eve of retiring to England. The literary productions of count Kumford have obtained a wide circulation, having been translated into various languages. His papers in the “Philosophical Transactions,” chiefly on matters connected with the object of his beneficent investigations, were rather distinguished for the useful application of which they were susceptible, than for their number. Among them are, 1. “Experiments on Gun-powder, with. a method of determining the velocity of projectiles, and the force of gun-powder.” 2. “Experiments on Heat; by which it is proved to pass more slowly through the Torricellian vacuum, than through the air.” 3. “Experiments on the production of dephlogisticated air (oxygen gas) by different substances, exposed under water to the action of light.” 4. “Experiments on the relative and absolute quantities of moisture absorbed by different substances employed as garments.” 5. “Experiments on the communication of heat in air.” This memoir procured to the author the gold medal of the royal society. 6. “The description of a photometer, and experiments on the relative quantity of light furnished by different combustible substances, and their relative prices.” 7. “Experiments on coloured shades, and the optical illusions produced by the contrast of colours actually present.” 8. “Experiments on the force of Gunpowder, by which it is proved that this force is at least 50,000 times greater than the mean weight of the atmosphere, and that it is probable that the force of gun-powder depends chiefly on the elasticity of the vapour of water.” 9. “A letter to sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, offering a capital of 1000l. sterling destined for a fund to furnish a premium every two years to the author of the most useful discovery made in Europe with regard to light or heat.” 10. “Inquiries into the cause of heat excited by friction, &c. &c.”

In 1767 he published his “Sailor’s Letters,” 2 vols. 12mo, in which there are many particulars of his life, from 1754 to 1759, told in a rambling and desultory manner. He afterwards edited the works of Oldham in 3 vols. and in 1777, those of Paul Whitehead, in one vol. 4to, and of Andrew Marvell, in 3 vols, 4to, none of which added much to his reputation, either for judgment or correctness. When the war with France commenced, he was, in 1778, appointed to the command of the Hyaena, and was in Rodney’s famous action off Cape St. Vincent, of which he is said to have brought home the intelligence; but this, and other accounts of his progress, as related by his biographer, are certainly erroneous. There was a capt. Thompson, of the America, who brought home the news of Rodney’s having captured a valuable Spanish convoy, but this was capt. Samuel Thompson, a much older officer; and as to Rodney’s action off Cape St. Vincent, a reference to the Gazette will show that it was capt. Uvedale of the Ajax; who brought home that intelligence. We are told, which may be correct, that he was soon afterwards appointed commodore of an expedition against Demerara, and afterwards conveyed home a fleet of merchantmen from St. Eustathius. In 1785 he was appointed commander of the Grampus, and sent to the coast of Africa, where he died on board of his ship, Jan. 17, 1786. He was considered as a brave and skilful commander, and had that infallible test of merit, the affection of his crew. It must also be noticed to his honour that when he acquired some degree of opulence, he with great alacrity and liberality repaid his obligations to many persons who had before assisted him. The most impartial of his biographers concludes with observing that “the merits by which capt. Thompson will be best known to posterity, are his sea songs, which are still on every one’s lips: more especially those three beautiful and affecting compositions, beginning” Loose every sail to the breeze,“” The topsail shivers in the wind,“and” Behold upon the gallant wave."

, a scholar and poet of considerable merit, is said to have been the second son of the rev. Francis Thompson, B. D. of Queen’s college, Oxford, and vicar of Brough in Westmoreland, who died August 31, 1735, aged seventy. His mother, who died two years after, in the sixty-fifth year of her age, was the widow of the rev. Joseph Fisher, M. A. fellow of Queen’s college, Ox* ford, vicar of Brough, and archdeacon of Carlisle, by whom she had no children. Our author was born probably in the early part of the last century, but the year cannot be ascertained. He was young, when in 1734 and 1736, he wrote “Stella, Sive Amores, Tres Libri,” and “Six Pastorals,” none of which he thought it proper to include in his published works. In his poem, entitled “Sickness,” he laments the want of a mother’s tenderness, and a father’s care; but, as they died in advanced age, he could not have lost them before he had attained at least his twentieth year.

It was on the banks of the Eden, which runs near Brough, that “his prattling muse was first provoked to numbers,” and where, we may suppose, he wrote most of those smaller pieces which he thought worthy of preservation. In these he frequently addresses an lanthe, who was probably a real mistress. At the usual age he went to Queen’s college, Oxford, and on February 26, 1738, took the degree of master of arts. He afterwards became a fellow of his college, and succeeded to the livings of South Weston and Hampton Poyle, in Oxfordshire. It was probably during his residence on his living that he published “Sickness,” in 1746. The origin of this poem may be found in a note subjoined to the fifth book, but much of it must have been written just before publication, as he pays tribute to the memory of Pope and Swift, who died about that time.

But his chief dependence, during this long interval, was on the protection and bounty of his royal highness Frederic prince of Wales, who, upon the recommendation of lord Lyttelton, then his chief favourite, settled on him an handsome allowance, and always received him very graciously. It happened, however, that the favour of his royal highness was, in one instance, of some disadvantage to Mr. Thomson, in the refusal of a licence for his tragedy of “Edward and Eleonora,” which he had prepared for the stage in 1739. This proceeded from the misunderstandings, which then subsisted between the court of the prince of Wales and that of the king his father. His next dramatic performance was the masque of “Alfred,”' written, jointly with Mr. Mallet, who was his good friend on many occasions, by command of the prince of Wales, for the entertainment of his royal highness’s court at his summer residence. In 1745, his “Tancred and Sigismunda,” taken from the novel in Gil Bias, was performed with applause. He had, in the mean time, been finishing his “Castle of Indolence,” an allegorical poem, in two cantos the stanza which he uses in this work is that of Spenser, borrowed from the Italian poets. This was the last piece Thomson himself published, his tragedy of “Coriolanus” heing only prepared for the theatre, when a fever seized him, and deprived the world of a very good man, as well as of an admirable poet. His death happened Aug. the 27th, 1748. His executors were lord Lyttelton and Mr. Mitchel; and by their interest, the orphan play, “Coriolanus,” was brought on the sta e to the best advantage: from the profits of which, and from the sale of his manuscripts and other effects, all demands were duly satisfied, and a handsome sum remitted to his sisters. His remains were deposited in the church of Richmond in Surrey, under a plain stone, without any inscription; but in 1762 a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster-abbey.

, an eminent antiquary, descended from a very ancient family, was born at Leeds in Yorkshire, Aug. 16, 1658, and was the son of a reputable merchant, and after some education at the grammar-school of that place, was sent, in 1677, for further improvement, to London. The father possessed a good share of learning, and had a peculiar turn for the knowledge of antiquities; which being inherited by the son, he employed his leisure hours in visiting remarkable places, copying monumfntal inscriptions, studying their history, and particularly collecting accounts of protestant benefactions. His father, designing him for his own -business, sent him in 1678 to Rotterdam, in order to learn the Dutch and French languages, and to be perfected in mercantile accomplishments: but he was obliged to return the year following, on account of his health. On the death of his father, in 1680, he entered on his business: and, though merchandize was his profession, yet learning and antiquities took so firm a possession of his heart, that, contenting himself with a moderate patrimony, he made those researches the great employment of his life. There is a circumstance relating to him, in the unhappy times under James II. which we cannot pass over. He had been bred among the presbyterians; but, never imbibing any of their rigid principles, had always occasionally conformed to the established church: and now, when popery began to threaten the nation, he more frequently attended its worship, with a view of promoting an union among the protestaots for their mutual preservation. His presbyterian pastor was highly displeased with his compliance, and treated him with a very indiscreet zeal. This prompted Thoresby to examine more closely the arguments on both sides, and apply to his diocesan and friend archbishop Sharp (who, by the way, had a good taste for coins and medals, and collected a curious cabinet of them), who treated him very affectionately, and by letters and personal conversation settled him in full communion with the established church.

Thoresby was well respected by the clergy and gentry of his town and neighbourhood, and by all the eminent antiquaries and men of learning of his time. It would be almost endless to enumerate the assistances which he gave in one way or other to the works of the learned. When Gibson published his new edition of Camden’s Britannia, Mr. Thoresby wrote notes and additional observations on the West-riding of Yorkshire, for the use of it; and transmitted above a hundred of his coins to Mr. Obadiah Walker, who undertook that province which related to the Roman, British, and Saxon monies. Hearne often acknowledged in print the favour of his correspondence. He communicated to Strype some original letters in his collection. He imparted to Calamy memoirs of several northern divines for his abridgment of “Baxter’s Life and Times” as he did also of the worthy royalists to Walker, for his “Sufferings of the Clergy,” which was published as an antidote to Calamy’s book; esteeming good men of all parties worthy to have their names and characters transmitted to posterity. His skill in heraldry and genealogy rendered him a very serviceable correspondent to Collins in his “Peerage of England.” By these kindnesses, sweetened with the easiness of access to his own cabinet, he always found the like easy admission to those of others; which gave him frequent opportunities of enlarging his collection, far beyond what could have been expected from a private person, not wealthy. He commenced an early friendship with the celebrated naturalist Dr. Martin Lister. To this friend he sent an account of some Roman antiquities he had discovered in Yorkshire, which being communicated by him and Dr. Gale, dean of York, to the Royal Society, obtained him a fellowship of that learned body in 1697: and the great number of his papers, in their Transactions, relating to ancient Roman and Saxon monuments in the North of England, with notes upon them, and the inscriptions of coins, &c. shew how deserving he was of that honour.

, one of a family of that name, of foreign extraction, but settled in England, is said by Wood to have been the son of John Thorius, a physician, who called himself “Balliolenus Flandrus,” a native of Bailleul in Flanders. It is more probable, however, that his father’s name was Francis, whom Foppen calls “Balliolenus, Flander,” who published, in 1562, “Joannis Straselii Comment, in aurea Carmina Pythagorx,” 8vo. He published also, according to the same biographer, a poem on peace, translated into Latin from the French, and wrote some epigrams and satires. According to Wood, John Thorius was born at London in 1568, and in 1586 became a member of Christ church, Oxford, but whether he took a degree, Wood says, “appears not, though in one of his books he writes himself ‘ a graduate of Oxenford.’” When he died is uncertain. He published “A Spanish Dictionary,” Lond. 1590, 4to, along with a translation of Anthony de Corro’s “Spanish Grammar.” He translated from the Spanish “The Councellor; a Treatise of Councils and Councellors of Princes,” Lond. 1589, 4to, written by Barth. Phillip. It is in this he calls himself, not “a graduate of Oxenford,” but “graduate in Oxford.” It is dedicated to the right hon. John Fortescue, master of her majesty’s wardrobe. He also translated from the Spanish of Valdes, “The Serjeant Major: or, a Dialogue of the office of a Serjeant major,” Lond. 1500, 4to.

His works, all Latin poems, were mostly published after his decease: 1. “Hymnus Tabaci,” which, Wood says, was first published at London in 1627, 8vo; but Eloy mentions two editions at Leyden in 1622 and 1623, 4io. It was afterwards reprinted at the same place in 1628, 4to and at Utrecht in 1644, 12mo, in a collection mentioned by Haller, under the title of “Collectio opusculorum de Tabaco.” 2. “Cheimonopegnion, a Winter Sung,” published with the London edition of the “Tobacco,” 1627, and both were translated into English by Peter Hausted, M. A. and afterwards D. D. of Cambridge, 1651, 8vo. He wrote also “Epistolae duae de Isaaci Casauboni morbi mortisque causa,” inserted in Gronovius’s edition of J. Casaubon’s epistles. Tborius’s death was lamented in a poem printed in 1626, a single sheet, 4to, entitled “Lessus in funere Raphaelis Thorii medici et poeti prastantissimi, qui Londini peste extinctus bonis et doctis omnibus triste sui desiderium reliquit, anno 1625.” He left a son John, who studied at Magdalen -college, Oxford, and became a physician in Dublin. He was incorporated M. D. at Oxford in 1627, but we find no further mention of him.

, a learned divine in the seventeenth century, was educated in Trinity-college, in the university of Cambridge, of which he was fellow. In 1638 he was proctor of that university. In July 1642 he was admitted to the rectory of Barley in Hertfordshire and, upon the death of Dr. Samuel Ward, in September 1643, he was elected master of Sidney-college in Cambridge, from which, Dr. Walker says, he was kept out “by the oppressions of the times;” but there was also somewhat of court-intrigue in this affair, as related in Walter Pope’s life of bishop Ward. He tells us, that upon the death of the latter, the fellows of the college assembled to choose a new master. “Mr. Seth Ward, with nine of them, gave their suffrages for Mr. Thorndike of Trinity-college; for Mr. Minshull there were eight votes including his own. But while they were at the election, a band of soldiers rushed in upon them, and forcibly carried away Mr. Parsons, one of those fellows who voted for Mr. Thorndike, so that the number of suffrages for Mr. Minshull, his own being accounted for one, was equal to those Mr. Thorndike had. Upon which Mr. Minshull was admitted master, the other eight only protesting against it, being ill-advised, for they should have adhered to their votes. Two of them, whereof Mr. Ward was one, went to Oxford, and brought thence a mandamus from the king, commanding Mr. Minshull, and the fellows of Sidney-college, to repair thither, and give an account of their proceedings as to that election. This mandamus, or peremptory summons, was fixed upon the chapel-door by Mr. Linnet, who was afterwards a fellow of Trinity-college, but at that time attended on Mr. Thorndike. On the other side, one Mr. Bertie, a kinsman of the earl of Lindsey, being one of those who voted for Mr. Minshull, was also sent to Oxford on his behalf. This gentleman, by the assistance and mediation of my lord of Lindsey, procured an order from the king to confirm Mr. Minshull’s election; but he, not thinking this title sufficient, did corroborate it with the broad seal, to which Mr. Thorndike consented, Mr. Minshull paying him and the rest of the fellows the charges they had been at in the management of that affair,amounting to about an hundred pounds.” This was therefore evidently a matter in which “the oppressions of the times” (which are usually understood to mean those which arose from the usurpation) were not concerned. He was, however, afterwards, to experience the latter also, and was ejected from his living of Barley, which was given to the rev. Nath. Ball of King’s college, Cambridge, who, Calamy informs us, punctually paid a fifth part of the income to Mr. Thorndike. At the restoration he was replaced in this living, but resigned it on being made a prebendary of Westminster. He very much assisted Dr. Walton in the edition of the Polyglot Bible, particularly in marking the variations in the Syriac version of the Old Testament; and wrote several treatises: “A Discourse concerning the primitive Forme of the Government of Churches,” Cambridge, 1641, 8vo; “A Discourse of Religious Assemblies and the Publike Service of God,” Cambridge, 1642, 8vo; “A Discourse of the Right of the Church in a Christian State, with a Review by way of Appendix,” London, 1649, 8vo; “Just Weights and Measures; that is, the present State of Religion weighed in the Balance, and measured by the Standard of the Sanctuary,” London, 1662, 4to; “A Discourse of the Forbearance of the Penalties, which a due Reformation requires,” London, 1670, 8vo; “Origines Ecclesiae, seu de ratione ac jure finiendi Controversias Ecclesise,” Lond. 1670. To these we may add, what is called his famous book, published in 1659, under the title of “An Epilogue to the Tragedy of the Church of England, in three books, viz. 1. Of the Principles of Christian Truth. 2. Of the Covenant of Grace. 3. Of the Laws of the Church.” By a letter from chancellor Hyde, in the appendix to Dr. Barwick’s Life, it would appear that this work had given offence, as being unseasonable and injudicious. Hyde says, “Pray tell me, what melancholy hath possessed poor Mr. Thorndike? And what do our friends think of his book? And is it possible that he would publish it, without ever imparting it, or communicating with them? His name and reputation in learning is too much made use of, to the discountenance of the poor church; and though it might not be in his power to be without some doubts and scruples, I do not know what impulsion of conscience there could be to publish those doubts to the world, in a time when he might reasonably believe the worst use would be made, and the greatest scandal proceed from them.” This seems to allude to some opinions he held that were unfavourable to the measures of the court: and we find that there was some difficulty in admitting him into the convocation in 1661, “on account of his speaking much of the Bohemian churches, called Unitas Fratrum.” He was a member of the Savoy conference, and in the little he said completely undeceived the non-conformists, who, from his early publications, had supposed he was of their side. There was also a suspicion that he had a little too much leaning to the church of Rome, so that his character has not descended to us with all the evidences of consistency; but that he was a man of great learning, and an able oriental scholar, seems indisputable.

, an eminent English painter, was born in 1676. He was the son of a gentleman of an ancient family ‘and estate in Dorsetshire but the father’s imprudent conduct having reduced him to sell his estate, the son was uno’er the necessity of seeking for a profession which might support him. He came to London, where the famous physician, Sydenham, who was his uncle, supplied him with the necessary assistances for studying under a middling painter. Such a master, however, doing but little for him, he was driven to trust to his own judgment and application; and having naturally genius and taste, he made, by the strength of these, a surprising progress in the art of painting. He travelled through Holland and Flanders, whence he went into France, and there bought several good pictures; among others, a Virgin, of Annibal Carrache, and the history of Tancred, by Poussin. If he had seen Italy, his works would have had more delicacy and correctness. His only view in travelling seemed to be acquiring a knowledge of the tastes of different nations, and buying up good pictures, in which he was very curious. Thornhill’s merit soon spread his character, and raised his reputation to the greatest height. Queen Anne appointed him to paint, in the dome of St. Paul’s church, the history of that saint, which he executed in a grand and beautiful manner, on eight pannels, in two colours, relieved with told her majesty also nominated him her first historypainter. He afterwards executed several public works, particularly at Hampton-court, where he painted an apartment, in which the queen and prince George of Denmark her husband are represented allegorically; as also another piece painted entirely on the wall, where the same subject is treated in a different manner. The other parts of the paintings there are done by Antonio Verrio, a Neapolitan. He painted also in the chapel at All Souls, Oxford, the portrait of the founder over the altar, and the cieling and figures between the windows; an altar-piece for Weyuriouth church, which was engraved by a young man, his scnolar, whom he set up in business: the hall at Blenheim, tke chapel at lord Oxford’s, at Wimple, in Cambridgeshire, the saloon and other things for Mr. Styles, the then owner of More-park, in Hertfordshire.

These great works, having established his reputation, procured him much employment among people of quality and fortune. His master-piece is the refectory and saloon of the sailors hospital at Greenwich. The passage to this refectory is through a vestibule, where sir James has represented, in two colours, the winds in the cupola; and, on the walls, boys who sustain pannels to receive the inscription of the names of the benefactors. The refectory is a fine gallery, very lofty, in the middle of which king William and queen Mary are allegorically represented sitting, and attended by the virtues and love, who support the sceptre; the monarch appears giving peace to Europe. The twelve signs of the zodiac surround the great oval in which he is painted; the four seasons are seen above: lastly, Apollo drawn by his four horses, making his tour through the zodiac. The painter has represented in the angles the four elements, and between the colossal figures that support the balustrade, the portraits of those able mathematicians, that have perfected the art of navigation, are painted, such as Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, and Newton. The cieling is all by his own hand; but he emploj'ed a Polander to assist him in painting the walls, which he has adorned with allegorical figures suitable to the intention of the fabric, such as Liberality, Hospitality, and Charity. The saloon above is not so beautiful as the refectory; the cieling represents queen Anne and prince George of Denmark, surrounded by heroic virtues; Neptune and his train bringing their marine presents, and the four quarters of the world presenting themselves, in various attitudes, to admire them. George I. is painted on the wall facing the entry, sitting with all his family around him. On the left hand is the landing of king William, on the right that of king George I. at Greenwich. These great works would have been certainly more esteemed if they had all been done by sir James ThornhilPs own hand; they are entirely from his designs; but one cannot help, in looking at them, criticizing their incorrectness; it may even be wished that there were fewer figures. They display, however, great judgment and knowledge in treating the allegory, talents which must necessarily produce great and rich compositions.

By the favour of the earl of Halifax, who had procured him the work at Hampton-court, he was allowed to copy the cartoons there, on which he employed three years. He executed also a smaller set, of one-fourth part of the dimensions. Having been very accurate in noticing the defects, and the additions by Cooke who repaired them, and in examining the parts turned in to fit them to the places: and having made copious studies of the heads, hands, and feet, he intended to publish an exact account of the whole, for the use of students, but this work never appeared. At his sale the smaller set was sold for seventy-five guineas, the larger for only 200l. a price we ought in justice to suppose was owing to the few bidders who had spaces in their houses large enough to receive them. They were purchased by the duke of Bedford, and placed in the gallery at Bedford- house, Bloomsbury-square and when that house was pulled down a few years ago, the late duke, Francis, presented them to the royal academy.

Our author took his degree of M. A. on April 7, 1750, and as his father wished him to make physic his profession, he took the degree of bachelor in that faculty, May 18, 1754 but his bent, like that of Colman, was not to the severer studies, and they about this time “clubbed their wits” to establish the periodical paper entitled “The Connoisseur.” As they did not distinguish their respective papers by any mark, Thornton’s share cannot now be ascertained, but it is believed to be less than that of his partner. His habits were early relaxed, and although not naturally indolent, he was easily led from regular pursuits, and was consequently not remarkable for punctuality in his periodical supplies. Of this we have the following instance: when the Connoisseur, No. 101, came to town for publication, Colman, who happened to be in London, saw it at the publisher’s, and found it contained the production of a correspondent of very inferior merit, which Thornton had sent to press to save himself the trouble of writing one. But as the day for the appearance of this paper was the first of January, Colman was enraged at this carelessness and inattention to so remarkable an opportunity for a good essay, and came to Mr. Say’s printing-office late at night to inquire if it was possible to have a paper printed in time for next day’s publication. Being told that it was barely possible, he immediately sat down in his publisher (Mr. R. Baldwin’s) parlour, and wrote the paper which now stands as the 101st, cancelling the other.

In 1764, Mr. Thornton married Miss Sylvia Brathwaite, youngest daughter of colonel Brathwaite, who was governor of Cape Coast Castle in Africa, and who, when the ship in which he was returning to England, was taken by a Spanish privateer, fell under a treacherous blow by one of the sailors, who had observed a valuable brilliant on his finger. With this lady, Mr. Thornton appears to have enjoyed the highest domestic felicity, for which he^ was eminently qualified by a most affectionate heart, until his prospects were closed by bad health, which hurried him to his grave in the forty-fourth year of his age, May 9, 1768. He left a widow, a daughter and two sons, of whom Dr. Thornton, physician, is the only survivor.

Mr. Thorpe married the daughter of Lawrence Holker, M. D. a physician at Milton near Gravesend; and after her death, 1789, to whom he had been united forty-two years, be married in 1790 Mrs. Holland, a lady who lived with him as housekeeper, and was the widow of an old college acquaintance. Soon after his first marriage, he purchased High-street-house, in Bexley, which after his first wife’s death he quitted fora house on Richmond-green, Surrey, and at last removed to Chippenham in Wiltshire, where he died Aug. 2, 1792, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He was buried, according to his own desire, in the churchyard of Harden Huish, Wiltshire. Mr. Thorpe, by the report of one who knew him well, “was happy in a retentive memory, and could quote whole pages of hi*; favourite Pope, with the utmost facility. He was courteous,” but not courtly, in his manners hospitable, but not extravagant at his table skilful and curious in his garden intelligent and communicative in his library; social, elegant, and informing in his general conversation, and on antiquarian topics almost an enthusiast."

, an illustrious historian of France, was son of a first president of the parliament of Paris, and born there the 9th of October, 1553. He was so exceedingly weak and infirm in his infancy, that there was no hope of rearing him for the first five years of his life; and to this it is owing, that abundantly more care was taken to preserve his body, than to cultivate his mind, although he then appeared to be a boy of uncommon talents; for he was not addicted to the amusements of childhood, but aimed at something higher, and would divert himself with drawing and painting, for which he had always a very good taste. When he was ten years old, he was put to books, and placed in the college of Bourgogne; but in less than a year he was attacked with a violent fever, and taken home. The physicians gave him over for many months; but he recovered, and applied again to books, though with great moderation; for hie constitution was not able to* undergo the least fatigue. He was afterwards placed under the care of private tutors \ and regard seems to have been had, in the choice of them, to the weakness of his nature, as well as to the improvement of his understanding; for they were physicians, and successively four of them. Then he studied under the famous Dionysius Lambinus, and Joannes Pellerinus, who was professor of the Greek language in the College-royal.

In 1570 he went to Orleans, to pursue the law; and there the writings of Cujaci us inspired him with such an esteem for that celebrated professor, that he quitted Orleans, and repaired to him into Dauphiny. He stopped upon the road at Bourges six months, for the sake of, hearing the famous civilian Hotomannus; and then proceeded to Valence, where Cujacius was reading lectures. Here he met with Joseph Scaliger, who was upon a visit to Cujacius; and commenced a friendship with him, which he cultivated ever after with the greatest care. His father, unwilling to have him long at a distance from him, recalled him in about a year; and he returned to Paris some time before that terrible massacre of the Protestants, which was perpetrated on St. Bartholomew’s day in 1572. As he was designed for the church, he went to live with his uncle Nicholas de Thou, who, being just made bishop of Chartres, resigned to him a canonry of Notre Dame. He began now to collect that library, which afterwards became so famous. In 1573 he accompanied Paul de Foix into Italy, and visited the principal towns, cultivating acquaintance with the learned as he passed. On his return to Paris, he applied himself to reading for four years; yet this, he used to say, was not of so much use to him as conversing with learned men, which he did daily. About the end of 1576, when civil tumults threatened the state, M. de Thou was employed in certain negotiations, which he executed so well, as to establish the reputation of a man fit for business. He afterwards went into the LowCountries, and in 1578 was made counsellor-clerk to the parliament; an honourable post, bur accepted by him with reluctance, on account of his great love for retirement and study. In 1579 he accompanied his eldest brother to the baths of Plombieres in Lorrain; and this gentleman dying, he soon after quitted the ecclesiastical state.

During the holding of the states at Blois, he returned to Paris, where he was in danger of losing his life; fur the news of the duke of Guise’s death arriving, all who were of known attachment to the king were obliged to hide themselves. Thuanus was among them, hut happily escaped under the disguise of a soldier. He repaired to the king, who, being removed to Tours, resolved to establish a parliament there, to oppose that of the league; and De Thou would have been made the first president of it, if he had not been fixed against accepting that office; He afterwards accompanied Mr. de Schomberg into Germany, to assist in raising forces for the king, and drawing succours from the German princes he passed by Italy, and was at Venice, when the news of Henry Illd’s death made him immediately return to France. Henry IV. received him very kindly, to whom he gave an exact account of all that had been done, and continued very faithfully in his service; while the king placed the greatest confidence in him, and employed him in many important negotiations. After the battle of Yvry, which Henry IV. gained in 159O, De Thou obtained leave to visit his wife at Senlis, whom he had not seen above a year; and arrived there, after having been detained some time upon the road by a fever. His purpose was to settle at Tours and he was one evening upon the road thither, when a party of the enemy carried off his wife and equipage, while he escaped by the swiftness of his horse, and found ipeaus soon after to recover his lady. In 1592, he had the plague, and despaired of life, but was happily cured by the infusion of bezoarstone into strong waters. The year after, the king made him his first librarian, which place became vacant by the death of the learned James Amyot, famous for his translation of Plutarch and other ancient Greek authors. In 1592, the duke of Guise having made his peace with the king, Thuanus was one of the persons appointed to regulate the conditions of the treaty he became the same year president à mortier by the death of his uucle Augustin de Thou, which honour had long been promised him. He was afterwards concerned in many negotiations with the Protestant party, and was greatly instrumental in bringing forward the edict of Nantes, which was signed in April 1598, and afterwards revoked, as is well known, by Louig XIV. in 1685. In 1601, he lost his wife, whom he immortalized by elegies; but soon after recovered so far from his grief, great as it was, as to take another. During the regency of queen Mary of Medicis, Thuanus was one of the general directors of the finances; and was, to the end of his life, engaged more or less in the service of the state. He died the 17th of May, 1617, and was interred with his fami-ly in the chapel of St. Andrew of the Arches,

Part of this History was first printed at Paris in 1604, with a dedication to Henry IV. which is thought to be as masterly a composition in its kind, as the dedication of Casaubon’s Polybius to the same monarch, and that of the “Instittitiones Christianae” of Calvin to Francis I. The publication of the history, in separate parts, was alterwards continued by the author, who, however, does not seem to have published it all in his life-time; or any part of it, except the volume just mentioned, in a manner conformable to his original copy, which, therefore, he deposited in the hands of a friend, that it might be printed after his death, just as he wrote it. It was long, however, before this could be effected. Thuanus was an honest historian, and with respect to things and persons boldly delivered the truth. There would of course be many exceptionable passages in his work, many that would highly offend individuals both in church and state; and this was the reason why, though printed frequently and in different countries, it never came out free from castrations, and agreeable to the author’s original copy, till 1733. It was then handsomely printed at London, and published under the direction, and chiefly at the expence, of the excellent Dr. Mead, in seven volumes folio; to which are prefixed four Latin letters, inscribed to that celebrated patron of letters, and giving an account of the various changes and chances this History has undergone; of the different editions; what each of them contain, and how they vary; and by what materials and assistances the editors have at length been enabled to give a very complete and perfect copy of it.

, a topographical writer, whose writ* ings, where they occur, may probably excite some curi-r osity alter his name, was born in 1740. Of his early history we have no account. He was for many years parish clerk of St. Martin’s Leicester, and a man of fine natural parts, and much laudable curiosity. During the vicissi* tudes of a life remarkably checquered, he rendered himself conspicuous as a draughtsman and topographer. He attempted many expedients for the maintenance of a numerous family, few of which answered his purpose; and his last days would have been shaded with penury and disappointment, hut for the assistance of those friends who knew his worth, and justly appreciated him as a man of honesty, integrity, and merit. He died Feb. 3, 1803, ai>ed sixtythree, and is recorded, on a tablet over the vestiy door at Sl Ma tin’s, to have been “of a peaceable disposition; who lived respected, and died an humble member of the church of Christ.” His publications were, 1. “The Me* moirs of the Town and County of Leicester,” 1777, 6 vols. 12mo. 2. “Select Views in Leicestershire, from original Drawings,” 1789, 4to, 3. “A Supplementary volume to the Leicestershire Views, containing a series of Excursions, in 1790, to the villages and places of note in the county,” J 790, 4to. 4. “The History and Antiquities of the ancient town of Leicester,” 1791, 4to. 5. “Letters on the Roman Cloaca at Leicester,” 1793. It is almost needless to add, that all these works on Leicestershire have been since superseded by Mr. Nichols’s elaborate history of that county. 6. “Thoughts on the Provincial Corps raised, and now raising, in support of the British constitution at this awful period,” 1795, 8vo. 7. “Thoroton’s History of Nottinghamshire, re-published with large additions, and embellished with picturesque and select views of seats of the nobility and gentry, towns, villages, churches, and ruins,” 1797, 3 vols. 4to.

, an ancient Greek historian, was a citizen of Athens, and born in the second year of the 77th olympiad, or before Christ 469. He was of royal extraction; for all writers relate, that his father Olorus, or Orolus, was descended from Olorus, king of Thrace. He was educated in philosophy by Anaxagoras, and in eloquence by Antiphon. Suidas and Photius relate a circumstance, which shews, that he had from his youth a noble emulation, for when Herodotus recited his History in public, a practice in use then and many ages after, it drew tears from him; which Herodotus himself noticing, congratulated his father on having a son who shewed so wonderful an affection to the muses. Herodotus was then twenty-nine years of age; Thucydides about sixteen.

When the Peloponnesian war began to break out, Thucydides conjectured truly, that it would prove an argument worthy of his labour; and it no sooner commenced than he began his history, noting down events and circumstances, as they happened under his eye, or came to his knowledge. Of his own life we know nothing with certainty, but what he himself has delivered in his history. He was a lover of contemplation and retirement, yet he did not decline the service of the state, and accepted accordingly a command in the army. This, however, proved unfortunate to him; for while he resided in the Isle of Thasus, it happened that Brasidas, the Lacedemonian, besieged Amphipolis, a city belonging to the Athenians, about half a day’s sail from Thasus. Thucydides being one of the strategi, or of those who had authority to raise forces in those parts for the service of the commonwealth, the Athenian captain sent to him to levy a power, and hasten to his relief: as he did not arrive till too late, and when the city was already yielded up, he was afterwards punished, as if he had done this either through negligence or fear of the enemy. For this suspicion, however, there was no just reason, for he put himself into the city of Eion, and preserved it to the Athenians, with the repulse of Brasidas, who came down the next morning from Amphipolis, and besieged it.

It does not appear, that after his exile Thucydides ever again enjoyed his country; nor is it clear from any author, where, or when, or in what year of his age, he died. Most agree, that he died in banishment; yet some have related, that,“after the defeat in Sicily, the Athenians decreed a general revocation of all banished persons, and that he then returned, and was afterwards put to death at Athens. This is not likely; and many other circumstances are related which have no more probability. Hobbcs thinks, that in this variety or' conjectures there is nothing more probable than that which we have from Pausanias, who, in describing the monuments of the Athenian city, says,” The worthy act of Oenobius, in the behalf of Thucydides, is not without honour, for Oenobius obtained to have a decree passed for his return: who returning was slain by treachery, and his sepulchre is near the gate called Melirides." He is reckoned to have been sixty-eight years of age when he died. He left a son, whose name is hardly known, but supposed to have been Timotheus.

He excelled in the two great points which form a just historian, truth and eloquence. The faith of his History has never been called into question. He wanted no opportunities of knowing the truth, and he does not appear to have misrepresented it; and though some have fancied him a little malevolent towards his country, because the usage hy had received would have made most people so, yet he has not written any thing that discovers such a passion. His manner of writing is coherent, perspicuous, and persuasive, yet close, strong, and pithy. The ancients have spoken <of him in the highest terms and if Herodotus, as his senior, obtained the title “father of history,” yet the greater part have allowed that Thucydides is the better historian. Plutarch says, in his treatise De Gloria Atheniensinm, that Thucydides “aims always at this, to make his auditor a spectator, and to excite in his reader the same passions witii those who were beholders.” Then enumerating some examples, “these things,” he says, “are so described, and so evidently set before our eyes, that the mind of the reader is no less affected, than if he had been present in the actions.” And it was probably for his skill in painting, certainly not for his eloquence (for, as Cicero says, “what great rhetorician ever borrowed any thing of Thucydides?”) that the famous orator Demosthenes wrote over his History, according to Lucian, eight times with his own hand. The same Lucian, in his book “How a history ought to be written,” continually exemplifies the virtues required in an historiographer by Thucydides; and it seems as if the image of Thucydides’s History, preconceived in Lucian’s mind, suggested to him all the precepts he there delivers. As to his style, Cicero speaks of it thus: “Thucydides in the art of speaking, in my opinion, has far exceeded them all. ^For he is so full of matter, that the number of his sentences almost equals the number of his words; and in his words he is so apt, and so close, that it is hard to say, whether his words more illustrate his sentences, or his sentences his words,” The Romans thought highly of Thucydides’s work; and Sallust evidently took him for his model.

In Feb. 1658 he was made chancellor of the university of Glasgow; and, in June following, concurred with Whitelocke in advising the protector to leave the persons who had been detected in a plot, to be proceeded against in the ordinary course of trials at the common law, and not by an high court of justice; it being always his opinion, that the forms and rules of the old constitution should, on every occasion, be inviolably preserved, especially in the administration of justice. Upon the death of Oliver, he was continued in the post of secretary and privy counsellor to his successor Richard; though he was very obnoxious to the principal persons of the army, to whose interests, whenever they interfered with those of the civil government, he was a declared enemy: and their resentment against him on that account was carried to so great a height, that they accused him as an evil counsellor, and one who was justly formidable by the ascendant he had gained over the new protector. For this reason, in Nov. 1658, he desired leave to retire from public business; in hopes that this might tend to quiet things, and facilitate the protector’s affairs with the army: but he was induced still to continue in his employment; and, in December, was chosen member of parliament for the university of Cambridge. He was returned likewise for the tpwn and borough of Wisbech, and for the borough of Huntingdon; but made his election for Cambridge, where he had a greater number of votes than had ever been known on a similar occasion. In April 1659, he used his utmost efforts to dissuade the protector from dissolving the parliament; a step which proved fatal to his authority, though, upon his quitting it, Thurloe still continued in his office of secretary till Jan. 14, 1660. It was then conferred on Thomas Scott, esq.; but on Feb. 27, upon a report of the council of state, the parliament resolved, that Thurloe should be again one of the secretaries of state, and John Thomson, esq. the other. In April 1660, he made an offer of his service for the restoration of Charles II. as appears from a letter of chancellor Hyde to sir John Grenville, in which his lordship observes, that Mr. Thurloe' s offers were very frank, and accompanied with many great professions of resolving to serve his majesty, not only in his own endeavours, but likewise by the services of his friends; but that these offers were mixed with somewhat of curiosity in Mr. Thurloe, who was very inquisitive to know whether his majesty had any confidence in general Monk, or had approached him in the right way: which he desired to know, only to finish what was left undone, or be able the better to advise his majesty. The king returned such answers as were proper, and desired to see some effects of his good affection; and that then he would find his services more acceptable. However, on May 15 following, he was committed by the House of Commons to the custody of their serjeant at arms, upon a charge of high treason; but was soon released, and retired to Great Milton in Oxfordshire, where he generally resided, except in term-time, when he came to his c;, bers at Lincoln’s-inn. He was of great use occasionally to the chancellor Clarendon, by the instructions he gave him with respect to the state of foreign affairs; of which there is a very remarkable instance among his state-papers, in the recapitulation he drew up of all the nei>ociations between England, France, and Spain, from the lime of Cromwell’s taking upon him the protectorship till the restoration. He was likewise often solicited by Charles II. to engage in the administration of public business, but thought proper to decline those offers. He died suddenly, at his chambers in Lincoln’s-inn, Feb. 21, 1668, aged fifty-one; and was interred under the chapel there with an inscription over his grave. He was twice married, first to a lady of the name of Peyton, by whom he had two sons who died before him; and secondly to Anne, third daughter of sir John Lytcote of East Moulsey in Surrey, by whom he had four sons and two daughters.

Lord Thurlow, says the candid author of the Biographical Peerage, “was a man of whose talents opinions have been various. His faculties were strong and direct; and, the results of his mind decisive. His nervous manner, and imperious temper, gave an artificial strength to what he delivered. Whatever he conceived right, he had rrcr timidity or hesitation in enforcing. A manly tone of sentiment, and a boldness which was admired while it was dreaded, gave him almost irresistible weight when clothed with authority. These qualities, added to a powerful natural sagacity, fitted him to preside over a court of equity with many advantages. He never felt himself fettered by forms and technicalities; but laid the case bare at once, and got at its essence. His head was not formed to be diverted by little difficulties or sophistries. On the other hand he was frequently too impatient, too dogmatical, and too little open to persuasion, and to all the complicated bearings of an entangled cause. His temper was severe, his feelings morose, and his disregard of the world, and even its innocent passions and foibles, too general and untparing. He made little allowance for a difference of habits or pursuits. On the whole, however, he was a man f a superior mind; and in many respects rilled his high station with great and deserved reputation.” To this we may add, that as a patron he was munificent; and often, what he could not perform in his official capacity, he expended from his own fortune. His behaviour, in this respect, to Dr. Johnson, must ever be remembered to his honour. In bestowing church preferment he was singularly honest and disinterested, and of all the anecdotes in current report (and they were at one time very many) relating to this subject, we never heard one that did not place his good sense and humanity in a very favourable light. But while, like many other men of high station encumbered with business, he needed to be reminded of those who had claims upon him, it was peculiar to himself that in his character of patron, he was seldom accessible to the common forms of application. If a tale of depressed merit and consequent distress was gently insinuated, he seldom heard it without extending relief, but all manner of solicitation from those who thought they had influence over him, he repelled with contempt; and such were the vicissitudes of his temper, that even when he came to confer his highest favours, it was frequently in a manner that seemed to lessen the obligation.

As a scholar lord Thurlow possessed more knowledge than the world gave him credit for, and his profound acquaintance with the Greek language is testified in a dedication to him by his friend Dr. Horsley. In early life, he lived much with men of gaiety and wit, and always preserved a high respect for literary merit. In his latter years, he would not probably have defended the laxity in which much of his time had been spent. He never was married, but left three daughters by a lady with whom he had long lived. He was, agreeably to the terms of his second peerage, succeeded by his nephew Edward, eldest son of Thomas Thurlow, late bishop of Durham, who died in 179 1.

, a learned Saxonist, and the descendant of some learned Oxonians, was born in 1667, but where, or where educated, has not been discovered. That he was well grounded in classical learning is evident. He was admitted battler of Queen’s college, Oxford, on Sept. 14, 1689, took his degree of B. A. jn Jan. 1694, and that of M.A. in 1697, and either then or in the following year, was admitted fellow of the college. Queen’s was at this time remarkable for the number of its Saxon scholars, one of the principal of whom was Mr. Thwaites, who so early as 1698 became a preceptor in the Saxon tongue there. The industry of his pupils was great, but they had few helps. In a letter to Wanley, dated March 24, 1698-9, he says, “We want Saxon Lexicons. I have fifteen young students in that language, and but one Somner for them all.” This was undoubtedly a sufficient reason for the patronage he bestowed on Mr. Thomas Benson’s Vocabulary, an epitome of Somner, begun to be printed in small quarto, but which was afterwards printed in 8vo, under the title of“Vocabularium Anglo-Saxonicum Lexico Gul. Somneri magna parte auctius,” Oxon. 1701. Mr. Thwaites, according to a memorandum in Hearne’s ms diary, had a considerable hand in this. In 1697, he edited “Dionysii Orbis Descriptio, cum veterum scholiis et Eustathii commentariis. Accedit Periegesis Prisciani, cum notis Andrea Papii,” Oxon. 8vo. This was followed in 1698, by “Heptateuchus, Liber Job, et Evangelium Nicodemi, Anglo-Saxonice. Historic Judith fragmentum, Dano-Saxonice*. Edidit nunc primum ex Mss. codicibus Edwardus Thwaites, e collegio Reginse,” Oxon. which being dedicated to Dr. Hickes, the celebrated non-juror, gave some offence in those days of party-spirit. The same year Mr. Thwaites had some concern in the edition of king Alfred’s Saxon version of “Boethius cle Consolatione Philosophize,” the professed editor of which was Mr. Christopher Rawlinson. Mr. Thvvaites also rendered much assistance to Dr. Hickes in his “Thesaurus,” which is amply acknowledged in the epistolary preface. In 17 Os, he was elected by the university, reader in moral philosophy, and the next year appointed regius professor of Greek. His last work, “Grammatica Anglo-Saxonica ex Hickesiano linguarum Septentrionalium Thesauro excerpta,” appeared at Oxford in 1711, on the 12th of December, 8vo, in which year he died, and was buried at Iffley church near Oxford. He was only forty-four years of age, and his death is supposed to have been hastened by the amputation of his leg. Of this affair, the accounts in our authorities differ; the one imputing the necessity for amputation to his having broke his leg by a fall from his horse, the other to a growing on one of his knees, perhaps what is called a white swelling, which is a very frequent cause for amputation. Both, however, agree in the extraordinary calmness with which he bore the operation, and in his having stopped the bleeding in the night when it broke out afresh, without help, It is said that when his surgeon, Mr. Charles Bernard, related his behaviour to queen Anne, she ordered him a pension, and to be made Greek professor; but in these circumstances likewise our accounts differ. A consumption ensued, and deprived the university of “the best Septentrionalist,” next to Dr. Hickes, a man, too, “beautiful in his personage, pleasant in conversation, of great vivacity, and of a most agreeable natural behaviour. 7 '” Besides these excellencies, he wrote,“says Mr. Browne,” the finest hand I ever saw."

, an antiquary, and herald, of the sixteenth century, descended from an ancient branch of the noble family now having the title of marquis of Bath, was the son of William Thynne, chief clerk of the kitchen, and afterwards marquis of the household to Henry VIII. He was born at Stretton, in Shropshire, and educated at Tunbridge school, under Mr. Proctor, the learned master, who is gratefully remembered by him as one of the English historians. From thence he was sent to Magdalen college, Oxford, where he was entered a commoner; and, as himself informs us, was afterwards a member of Lincoln’s Inn f Camden, in the preface to his Britannia, gives him the ample character of having prosecuted the study of antiquities with great honour. In that of heraldic and genealogical pursuits, he was particularly an enthusiast, and presented a petition to lord Burleigh, then presiding at the head of the commission for executing the office of earl marshal, requesting to be admitted into the college of heralds, and offering himself to the strictest examination. This was accordingly instituted, and his merit being acknowledged, he was preferred to be blanche lyon poursuivant, after which, when he was fifty- seven years of age, he was, on April 22, 1602, with great ceremony, created Lancaster herald at arms, having previously obtained a patent for that office, dated Oct. 23, 44 Eliz. Wood, in. his “Athenae,” and Hearne, after him, place the death of Mr. Thynne in 1611, but it must have happened sooner, since he never surrendered his patent, and that granted to his successor in office bears date Nov. 1608, which was more probably the year of his death.

Hearne published “A discourse of the Dutye and Office of an Heraulde of Armes,” written by Thynne, the 3d day of March, 1605. In 1651 were printed his “Histories concerning Ambassadors and their Functions,” dedicated to his good friend William, lord Cobham. He continued the Chronicle, known by the name of Holingshed’s, finishing Uie annals of Scotland, from 1586 down to where they now end. He drew up a list of English cardinals, added to the reign of Mary I. He wrote the catalogue of English historical writers; but his “Discourses” upon the earls of Leicester, archbishops of Canterbury, lords Cobham, and the catalogue of the wardens of the Cinque ports, were suppressed. He also wrote the history of Dover Castle and the Cinque Ports; the genealogical history of the Cobhams; discourses of arms, concerning the Bath and bachelor knights; the history and lives of the lord treasurers, mentioned in a manuscript life of him in the collection of sir Joseph Ayloffe, barr. Numerous as these works are, yet there are various other literary productions of his: some of them are preserved in the Cotton library, others were possessed by Anstis, sen. garter. His heraldic collections are in the college of arms, and in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Some of his manuscripts are collections of antiquities, sepulchral inscriptions, taken by him from English churches, and elsewhere. He intended to have published an edition of Chaucer’s works, but declining that, gave his labours relative to it to Speght, who published them in his edition of that poet’s works, with his own notes, and those of his father, who printed an edition of this ancient writer in 1542. Thynne had meant to have written a comment upon the text, and some verses of his are prefixed to Speght’s edition.

, otherwise Pellegrino, an eminent artist, was of Milanese extraction, but probably a native of Bo. logna, and from the date of his earliest picture known to us, the Nativity in the palace Borghese at Rome, painted 1549, in his twenty-second year, must have been born in 1527. He entered the school of Bagnacavallo, and endeavoured to improve himself, according to Vasari, by designing from the pictures of that master in the refectory of S. Michele in Bosco; but departed for Rome in 1547, chiefly to study the works of Michael Angelo. There he was patronized by Monsig. afterwards cardinal Poggi, who sent him back to Bologna to complete the fabric of his palace, at present the Academical Institute, decorated by his pictures, and the principal monument of his art in Italy though the Carracci seemed to prefer, as objects of imitation for themselves and their scholars, the painting^ with which he had filled the sides and compartments of that noble chapel constructed by him in S. Giacopo of the Augustine friars.

Pellegrino had a brother, Domenico Tibaldi, who was his scholar, and acquired celebrity as an architect and an engraver at Bologna that he was a painter of merit we are told by his epitaph in the church dell' Annunciata, but epitaphs are doubtful authorities, and of Domenico there is not even a portrait remaining. In engraving he was the master of Agostino Caracci.

, a Latin poet, is supposed to have been born at Rome, in the year of Rome 690, six years after the birth of Virgil, and one after that of Horace. His father was of the equestrian order; and he himself set out into the world with all the advantages of fortune, and the greatest accomplishments of mind and person. Among the great men of his age, he singled out Messala Corvinus for his patron; who was a brave and accomplished Roman, admired by Cicero, mentioned with great respect by Horace, and ranked by Quintilian among the masters of oratory. He was to Tibullus, what Maecenas was to Horace. This poet had a country seat at Pedum, a town in Latium not far from Rome. He was a great sufferer in the civil wars, yet does not seem to have been concerned in any party. He was, like Ovid, a man devoted to ease and pleasure; and his time was divided between the Muses and his mistresses. He seems indeed to have abandoned himself entirely to the passion of love, as some think, even to the neglect of his affairs. His regard for Messala, however, made him forget his love of ease and pleasure, and followthat nobleman into Gaul, who was there victorious,' and had a triumph decreed him upon his return to Rome. He was attending Messala on a second expedition to Syria, when he fell sick by the way, and was forced to stay in the island of Phaeacia or Corcyra. On this occasion he composed the third elegy of the fourth book, and desired that if he should die of his illness, he might have this epitaph engraven on his monument:

This author has usually been printed in the same volume with Catullus and Propertius; and one of the best editions of him in conjunction with them is that by Graevius, “cum notia variorum,” Leyden, 1589, in 2 vols. 8vo. But he was afterwards, in 1*708, published separately at Amsterdam, in 1 vol. 4to, by Janus Brouckhusius, a very polite and elegant critic, who corrected many places from the best manuscripts, and added his own to the notes variorum. This edition is very neat, and adorned with copper-plates. An excellent edition in quarto was published by Vulpius, a professor at Padua (who also published Catullus and Propertius), in 1749. This was long esteemed the best, and is so still if we take splendour into the account; but two editions in 8vo, have since been published by the celebrated professor Heyne, of which the second of 1777 is, for use, one of the best editions of a classic author that has ever appeared. Tibullus has been translated into English with most success by Grainger, but some have thought it easy to suppose a better transfusion of his spirit into our language.

, son of the rev. Richard Tickell, was born in 1686 at Bridekirk in Cumberland; and in April 1701 became a member of Queen’s college, in Oxford; in 1708 he was made M. A. and two years afterwards was chosen fellow; for which, as he did not comply with the statutes by taking orders, he obtained a dispensation from, the crown. He held his fellowship till 1726, and then vacated it by marrying in that year, at Dublin. Tickell was not one of those scholars who wear away their lives in closets; he entered early into the world, and was long busy in public affairs, in which he was initiated under the patronage of Addison, whose notice he is said to have gained by his verses in praise of “Rosamond.” He produced another piece of the same kind at the appearance of “Cato,” with equal skill, but not equal happiness. When the ministers of queen Anne were negociating with France, Tickell published “The Prospect of Peace,” a poem, of which the tendency was to reclaim the nation from the pride of conquest to the pleasures of tranquillity. Mr. Addison, however he hated the men then in power, suffered his friendship to prevail over the public spirit, and gave in the “Spectator” such praises of Tickell’s poem, that when, after having long wished to peruse it, Dr. Johnson laid hold on it at last, he thought it unequal to the honours which it had received, and found it a piece to be approved rather than admired. But the hope excited by a work of genius, being general and indefinite, is rarely gratified. It was read at that time with so much favour that six editions were sold. At the arrival of king George he sung “The Royal Progress;” which, being inserted in the *' Spectator,“is well known. The poetical incident of most importance in Tickell’s life was his publication of the first book of the” Iliad,“as translated by himself, in apparent opposition to Pope’s” Homer,“of which the first part made its entrance into the world at the same time. Addison declared that the rival versions were both good; but that Tickell’s was the best that ever was made; and with Addison those wits who were his adherents and followers, were certain to concur. Pope does not appear to have been much dismayed;” for,“says he,” I have the town, that is, the mob, on my side.“But he remarks, that it is common for the smaller party to make up in diligence what they want in numbers;” he “appeals to the people as his proper judges; and if they are not inclined to condemn him, he is in little care about the high-flyers at Button’s.” Pope did not long think Addison an impartial judge; for he considered him as the writer of TickelPs version. The reasons for his suspicion we shall literally transcribe from Mr. Spence’s collection. “There had been a coldness between Mr. Addison and me for some time; and we had not been in company together for a good while, any where but at Button’s coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day. On his meeting me there, one day in particular, he took me aside, and said he should be glad to dine with me at such a tavern, if 1 stayed till those people were gone (Budgell and Philips). We went accordingly; and after dinner Mr. Addison said * that he had wanted for some time to talk with me; that his friend Tickell had formerly, whilst at Oxford, translated the first book of the Iliad; that he designed to print it, and had desired him to look it over; that he must therefore beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book, because, if he did, it would have the air of doubledealing.‘ I assured him that < I did not at all take it ill of Mr. Tickell that he was going to publish his translation; that he certainly had as much right to translate any author as myself; and that publishing both was entering on a fair stage. I then added, that I would not desire him to look over my first book of the ’ Iliad,' because he had looked over Mr. Tickeli’s; but could wish to have the benefit of his observations on my second, which I had then finished, and which Mr. Tickell had not touched upon.‘ Accordingly I sent him the second book the next morning; and Mr. Addison a few days after returned it, with very high commendations. Soon after it was generally known that Mr. Tickell was publishing the first book of the ’ Iliad,‘ I met Dr. Young in the street; and, upon our falling into that subject, the doctor expressed a great deal of surprise at Tickell’ s having had such a translation so long by him. He said, that c it was inconceivable to him, and that there must be some mistake in the matter; that each used to communicate to the other whatever verses they wrote, even to the least things; that Tickell could not have been busied in so long a work there without his knowing something of the matter; and that he had never heard a single word of it till on this occasion.' This surprise of Dr. Young, together with what Steele had said against Tickell in relation to this affair, makes it highly probable that there was some underhand dealing in that business; and indeed Tickelt himself, who is a very fair worthy man, has since in a manner as good as owned it to me. [When it was introduced into a conversation between Mr. Tickell and Mr. Pope by a third person, Tickell did not deny it; which, considering his honour and zeal for his departed friend, was the same as owning it.]” Upon these suspicions, with which Dr. Warburton hints that other circumstances concurred, Pope always, in his “Art of Sinking,” quotes this book as the work of Addison. (See Pope, vol. XXV. p. 168.) When the Hanover succession was disputed, Tickeli gave what assistance his pen would supply. His “Letter to Avignon” stands high among party-poems; it expresses contempt without coarseness, and superiority without insolence. It had the success which it deserved, being five times printed. He was now intimately united to Mr. Addison, who, when he went into Ireland as secretary to the lord Sunderland, took him thither, and employed him in public business; and, when (1717) afterwards he rose to be secretary of state, made him under-secretary. ' Their friendship seems to have continued without abatement; for when Addison died, he left him the charge of publishing his works, with a solemn recommendation to the patronage of Craggs. To these works he prefixed an elegy on the author, which could owe none of its beauties to the assistance which might be suspected to have strengthened or embellished his earlier compositions; but neither he not Addison ever produced nobler lines than are contained in the third and fourth paragraphs, nor is a more sublime or more elegant funeral poem to be found in the whole compass of English literature. He was afterwards (in June 1724) made secretary to the lords justices of Ireland, a place of great honour; in which he continued till 1740, when he died April 23, at Bath. To Tickell cannot be refused a high place among the minor poets; nor should it be forgotten that he was one of the contributors to the “Spectator.” With respect to his personal character, he is said to have been a man of gay conversation, at least a temperate lover of wine and company, and in his domestic relations without censure.

, an ingenious writer, who first appeared as an author about 1778, in a poem entitled, “The Project,” is supposed to have been a descendant of the preceding, or rather of his brother Richard Tickel), esq. who was appointed secretary at war in 1724, and held that post till his death in 1740. Another account states that our author was the son of Richard Tickell, esq. who died in 1793, who was the son of Addison’s friend. Soon, after the appearance of Mr. Tickell’s “Project,” his “Wreath of Fashion” was published, and was allowed to have considerable merit. But that which raised him to immediate celebrity was his admirable political pamphlet, called “Anticipation;” in which, with the most successful humour, he imitated the manner of the principal speakers then in parliament, and defeated the force of the argument of the opposition, by preoccupying them. This appeared in 1778. Two other political pamphlets are attributed to him; namely, “The English Green-box,” 1779, and “Common-place Arguments,” in 1780. He produced also for the theatre, an alteration of Allan Ramsay’s “Gentle Shepherd,” which was acted at Drury-lane, in 1781; and “The Carnival of Venice,” a comic opera, written by himself, and acted the same year; but of these two pieces only the songs were printed.

Mr. Tickell was twice married, first in 1780 to mis* Mary Linley, sister to Mrs. Sheridan, by whom he had three children. After her death he married a daughter of captain Leigh, of the Berrington East-Indiaman, who survived him. His death, which happened Nov. 4, 1793, was occasioned by a fall from the window of his apartments at Hampton-court; in consequence of which he expired, even before Mrs. Tickell could reach the spot, though she had left him only for a moment. He had been for some lime one of the commissioners of the stamp-office.

, a modern German philosopher of considerable eminence, was born Aprils, 1748, at Bremervorde, in the duchy of Bremen, of which place his father was a burgomaster. His father intended him for the study of divinity, but he devoted the principal part of his early years to the study of the classics, and soon made great progress in the learned languages. As he became more acquainted with French and German literature and philosophy, he gave up all thoughts of studying divinity with a view to the church, imbibing by degrees the fashionable infidelity of his contemporaries. In 1772 he published at Riga his “Essay on the Origin of Languages,” and in 1776, his “System of the Stoic Philosophy,” a work that has been much praised abroad, and in which he was encouraged by the celebrated Heyne, who about the same time procured for him the professorship of the Greek and Latin languages in the Collegium Carolinum at Cassel. He was now, we are told, inclined to materialism, but cured by the essays and conversation of the learned Tetens. In 1778 he published his “Investigation of Man, 3 vols.; in 1780,” The first Philosophers of Greece,“and commenced his” Spirit of Speculative Philosophy."

, a learned protestant divine of the French church, was born at Goldberg in Silesia, Feb*4, 1563. He came into France about 1590, and was naturalized by Henry IV. He at first distinguished himself as an opponent of the tenetsof Arminius, but afterwards changed his opinion, and enlisted on the side of the remonstrants. His principal controversy was with Peter Du Moulin, which was carried on with so much warmth, that those who were friends to the peace of the church, and admired both writers for their respective excellencies, interposed to reconcile them, or put a stop to the dispute. James I. of England, among others, wrote a letter in 1614 to the synod of Tonneins on this subject, which with the answer and proceedings of that assembly, may be seen in Quick’s “Synodicon,” vol. I. Tilenus had, before this, been appointed by the mareschal de Bouillon, to be professor at the college of Sedan, which de Bouillon had founded, but about 1619, or 1620, Tilenus was obliged to resign in consequence of persisting in his peculiar sentiments, and came to Paris, where he lived on his property. He afterwards had a personal controversy at a country house near Orleans, with John Cameron, divinity professor at Saumur, concerning the subject of grace and free will. This lasted five days, and an account of it was published, under the title of “Collatio inter Tilenum & Cameronem, &c.” (See Cameron). Some time after, Tilenus addressed a letter to the Scotch nation, disapproving of the presbyterian, and commending the episcopal form of the reformed church, as established in England. This pleased king James so much, who hated presbyterianism, that he invited the author to England, where he received him very graciously, and offered him a pension. Tilenus accepted the offer, and only begged leave to return to France to settle his affairs; but his character becoming by some means obnoxious in this country, he was discouraged from returning, and died at Paris, Aug. 1, 163S. His latter days were spent in defending the Arminian tenets against the reformed church of France, and he wrote several books, the titles of which may now be dispensed with, but may be found in our authorities.

, a landscape-painter, who has left works that sustain their character even in capital collections, was born at Antwerp about 1684, and made himself a painter^ though he studied under very indifferent masters. In 1708, he was brought to England, with his brother-in-law, Casteels, by one Turner, a dealer in pictures, and was employed by him in copying Bourgognon and other masters, in which he succeeded admirably, particularly Teniers, of whom he preserved all the freedom and spirit. He generally painted landscapes with small figures, sea-ports and views, but when he came to be known, he was patronized by several men of quality, and drew views of their seats, huntings, races, and horses in perfection. In this way he was much employed, both in the west and north of England, and in Wales, and drew many prospects for Bridges’s History of Northamptonshire. The duke of Devonshire, in whose collection is a fine view of Chatsworth by Tillemans, and lord Byron, were his chief patrons. He also instructed the latter in his art, who did great credit to his master. After labouring many years under an asthma, for which he chiefly resided at Richmond, he died at Norton in Suffolk, Dec. 5, 1734, and was buried in the church of Stow-Langtoft.

, whom L‘Avocat prqnounces one of the most judicious and accurate critics and historians that France has produced, was born at Paris Nov. 30, 1637. His father, John L,e Nain, was master of the requests. About the age of ten, he was sent to the famous seminary of the Port Royal, where his attention to instruction, and his proficiency, were very extraordinary, and where he very early became fond of ’the study of history. This partiality seems to have been first excited by a perusal of Baronius, and while thus employed he was perpetually putting questions to his master Nicole, who at first gave him such answers as came in his head at the moment, hut soon found that his pupil was not so easily satisfied; and Nicole, although by no means ignorHiit of history, used to dread his approach, lest he might ask questions for which he was not fully prepared. At the age of e ghteen Tillemont began to read the fathers, the lives of the apostles, and their successors in the primitive church, and drew up for himself an account of early ecclesia^tical history, in the manner of Usher’s Annals, a hook he much admired, and formed his pwn somewhat on the same plan. In the mean time he was successfully instructed in other branches but it was a considerable time before he made choice of a profession. In this he was at last influenced by M. Choart de Buzanval, bishop of Brauvais, who determined him in favour of the church, and gave him the tonsure. About 1663, he went to reside with M. Hermant, a canon of the cathedral of Beauvais, and remained there five or six years. He then returned to Paris, and lodged with M. Thomas de Fosse, an old school-fellow, for about two years; but although in all these situations he was constantly employed in study, and had the quiet enjoyment of his time, he removed to the country, and, after receiving the other orders of his church, and being ordained priest in 1676, he settled at Tillemont, whence he took his name, about a league from Paris. About this time he was employed, along with his friend M. de Sacy, on a life of St. Louis, and two years after he travelled in Flanders and Holland. After his return, he continued his studies, and, in 1690, began to publish his <k History of the Emperors,“which was very favourabl\ received, and made the public more anxious to see his history of the church, on which it was well known he had been for some time employed. His” History of the Emperors“was, in fact, a part of his ecclesiastical history; hut when he printed a volume, as a specimen, it fell into the hands of a licenser of the press, who made so many petty objections, that M. Tillemont determined to suppress the work rather than submit to the proposed alterations and omissions, as none of the objections were in any way contrary to the received doctrines of the church. He then, by the advice of his friends, published the history of the emperors separately; and there being no occasion in this case for a theological licenser, he published vol. I. in 1690, 4to; and completed the work in five vols, in 1701, which had abundant success; was reprinted at Brussels, and translated into English. This was followed by his ecclesiastical history,” Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire ecclesiastique des six premiers siecles," &c. 1693, &c. completed in sixteen volumes, quarto. Extreme accuracy of facts and dates constitute the great merit of this work, and the want of a more methodical arrangement, and of a better style, its chief objections. Dupin wishes he had reduced his work to the form of annals, in imitation of Baronius; and this opinion having been conveyed to M. Tillemont, he said he could not think of going over the materials anew, but was very willing to give his manuscripts to any person who would take the trouble to put them in the form of annals. No such person offering his services, M. Tillemont proceeded in his own way, in which he met afterwards with very little opposition, except a short controversy, of no great importance, with father Lamy.

Tillemont was intimate with M. Hermant, doctor of the Sorbonne, Baillet, Nicole, and many other learned men, who frequently consulted him. To a complete knowledge of ecclesiastical history, he joined an exemplary humility, and regularity of conduct. His humility, indeed, was so great, that Bossuet, seeing one of his letters to father Lamy, besought him, *' not to be always upon his knees before his adversary, but raise himself now and then up." He was solicited to push himself in the church, and his friend the bishop of Beauvais wished to have him for his successor: but Tillemont, regardless of dignities, wished for nothing but retirement, and there his perpetual watchings and austerities brought him into a state of languor, which terminated in a disease, of which he died, January 10, 1698, aged sixty-one. He was interred at Port-royal agreeably to his desire, but when that abbey was destroyed in 1711, his remains were removed to St, Andre des Arcs, his parish church.

His first office in the church was the curacy of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, in 16S1 and 1662; where he is said, by his mild and gentle behaviour, which was natural to him, and persuasive eloquence, to have prevailed with an old Oliverian soldier, who preached among the Anabaptists there in a red coat, and was much followed, to desist from that, and betake himself to some other employment. The short distance of Cheshunt from London allowing him often to visit his friends there, he was frequently invited into their pulpits. Accordingly we find that his sermon on Eccles. xii. 1. “Upon the advantages of an early piety,” was preached at St. Lawrence Jewry in 1662; Dec. the 16th of which year, he was elected minister oi the adjoining parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury, upon the deprivation of Mr. Edmund Calamy. He declined this, but did not continue long without the offer of another benefice, which he accepted, being presented, in June 1663, to the rectory of Keddington in Suffolk. His residence there, however, was but short, being called to London by the society of Lincoln’s-Inn, who chose him their preacher the 26th following: his election was owing to his being accidentally heard at St. Lawrence Jewry, by Mr. Atkyns, one of the benchers of that Inn, and afterwards lord chief baron of the Exchequer. He determined to live among them, and therefore immediately resigned his living in Suffolk; but his preaching was so little relished there at first, that he for some time entertained thoughts of leaving them. They maintained, that “since Mr. Tillotson came, Jesus Christ had not been preached among them.” To this accusation, he seems to allude in his sermon against evil-speaking, preached near thirty years after; towards the close of which he says: “I foresee what will be said, because I have heard it so often said in the like case, that there is not one word of Jesus Christ in all this; no more is there in the text: and yet I hope that Jesus Christ is truly preached, when his will and laws, and the duties enjoined by the Christian religion, are inculcated upon us.”