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, third son of sir Thomas, and brother to George lord Lyttelton, was born at Hagley, in 1714. He was educated at Eton-school, and went thence first to University-college, Oxford, and then to the InnerTemple, where he became a barrister at law; but entering into orders, was collated by bishop Hough to the rectory of Alvechurch, in Worcestershire, Aug. 13, 1742. He took the degree of LL. B. March 28, 1745; LL. D. June 18 the same year; was appointed king’s chaplain in Dec. 1747, dean of Exeter in May 1748, and was consecrated bishop of Carlisle, March 21, 1762. In 1754 he caused the cieling and cornices of the chancel of Hagley church to be ornamented with shields of arms in their proper colours, representing the paternal coats of his ancient and respectable family. In 1765, on the death of Hugh lord Willoughby of Parham, he was unanimously elected president of the society of antiquaries; a station in which his distinguished abilities were eminently displayed. He died unmarried, Dec. 22, 1768. His merits and good qualities are universally acknowledged; and those parts of his character which more particularly endeared him to the learned society over which he so worthily presided, shall be pointed out in the words of his learned successor dean Milles: “The study of antiquity, especially that part of it which relates to the history and constitution of these kingdoms, was one of his earliest and most favourable pursuits; and he acquired g cat knowledge in it by constant study and application, to which he was led, not only by his natural disposition, but also by his state and situation in life. He took frequent opportunities of improving and enriching this knowledge by judicious observations in the course of several journies which he made through every country of England, and through many parts of Scotland and Wales. The society has reaped the fruits of these observations in the most valuable papers, which his lordship from time to time has communicated to us; which are more in number, and not inferior either in merit or importance, to those conveyed to us by other hands. Blest with a retentive memory, and happy both in the disposition and facility of communicating his knowledge, he was enabled also to act the part of a judicious commentator and candid critic, explaining, illustrating, and correcting from his own observations many of the papers which have been read at this society. His station and connections in the world, which necessarily engaged a very considerable part of his time, did not lessen his attention to the business and interests of the society. His doors were always open to his friends, amongst whom none were more welcome to him than the friends of literature, which he endeavoured to promote in all its various branches, especially in those which are the more immediate objects of our attention. Even this circumstance proved beneficial to the society, for, if I may be allowed the expression, he was the centre in which the various informations -on points of antiquity from the different parts of the kingdom united, and the medium through which they were conveyed to us. His literary merit with the society received an additional lustre from the affability of his temper, the gentleness of his manners, and the benevolence of his heart, which united every member of the society in esteem to their head, and in harmony and friendship with each other. A principle so essentially necessary to the prosperity and even to the existence of all communities, especially those which have arts and literature for their object, that its beneficial effects are visibly to be discerned in the present flourishing state of our society, which I flatter myself will be long continued under the influence of the same agreeable principles. I shall conclude this imperfect sketch of a most worthy character, by observing that the warmth of his affection to the society continued to his latest breath; and he has given a signal proof of it in the last great act which a wise man does with resp'ect to his worldly affairs; for, amongst the many charitable and generous donations contained in his will, he has made a very useful and valuable bequest of manuscripts and printed books to the society, as a token of his affection for them, and of his earnest desire to promote those laudable purposes for which they were instituted.” The society expressed their gratitude and respect to his memory by a portrait of him engraved at their expence in 1770.

, a very learned French writer, was born Nov. 23, 1632, at Pierre-mont, on the frontiers of Champagne. He was educated in the university of Rheims, and afterwards entered into the abbey of the Benedictines of St. Remy; where he took the habit in 1653, and made the profession the year following. He was looked upon at first as a person that would do honour to his order; but a perpetual head-acb, with which he was afflicted, almost destroyed all the expectations which were conceived of him. He was ordained priest at Amiens in 1660; and afterwards, lest too much solitude should injure his health, which was not yet re-established, was sent by his superiors to St. Denis, where he was appointed, during the whole year 1663, to shew the treasure and monuments of the kings of France. But having there unfortunately broken a looking-glass, which was pretended to have belonged to Virgil, he obtained leave to quit an employment, which, as he said, frequently obliged him to relate things he did not believe. As the indisposition of his head gradually abated, he began to shew himself more and more to the world. Father d'Acheri, who was then compiling his “Spicilegium,” desiring to have some young monk, who could assist him in that work, Mabillon was chosen for the purpose, and accordingly went to Paris in 1664, where he was very serviceable to d'Acheri. This began to place his talents in a conspicuous light, and to shew what might be expected from him. A fresh occasion soon offered itself to him. The congregation of St. Maur had formed a design of publishing new editions of the fathers, revised from the manuscripts, with which the libraries of the order of the Benedictines, as one of the most ancient, are furnished. Mabillon was ordered to undertake the edition of St. Bernard, which he had prepared with great judgment and learning, and published at Paris, in 1667, in two volumes folio, and nine octavo. In 1690 he published a second edition, augmented with almost fifty letters, new preliminary dissertations, and new notes; and just before his death was preparing to publish a third. He had no sooner published the first edition of St. Bernard, than the congregation appointed him to undertake an edition of the “Acts of the Saints of the order of Benedictines;” the first volume of which, he published in 1668, and continued it to nine volumes in folio, the last of which was published in 1701. The writers of the “Journal de Trevoux” speak not improperly of this work when they say that “it ought to be considered, not as a simple collection of memoirs relating to monastic history, but as a valuable compilation of ancient monuments; which, being illustrated by learned notes, give a great light to the most obscure part of ecclesiastical history.” The prefaces alone,“say they,” would secure to the author an immortal reputation. The manners and usages of those dark ages are examined with great care; and an hundred important questions are ably discussed.“Le Clerc, in the place referred to above, from which we have chiefly drawn our account of Mahillon, has given us one example of a question occasionally discussed by him in the course of his work, concerning the use of unleavened bread, in the celebration of the sacrament. Mabillon shews, in the preface to the third age of his” Acta Sanctorum,“t'hat the use of it is more ancient than is generally believed; and, in 1674, maintained it in a particular dissertation, addressed to cardinal Bona, who was before of a contrary opinion. But the work which is supposed to have done him the most honour is his” De re diplomatica libri sex, in quibus quicquid ad veterum instrumentorum antiquitatem, materiam, scripturam et stilutn; quicqnid ad sigilla, monogrammata, subscriptiones, ac notas chronologicas; quicquid inde ad antiquariam, historicam, forensemque disciplinam pertinet, explicatur, et illustratur. Accedunt commentarius de antiquis regum Francorum palatiis, veterum scripturarum varia specimina tabulis LX. comprehensa, nova ducentorum et amplius monumentoruoi collectio," Paris, 1631, folio. The examination of almost an infinite number of charters and ancient titles, which had passed through his hands, led him to form the design of reducing to certain rules and principles an art, of which before there had been only very confused ideas. It was a bold attempt; but he executed it with such success, that he was thought tp have carried it at once to perfection.

In 1682 he took a journey into Burgundy, in which M. Colbert employed him to examine some ancient titles relating to the royal family. That minister received all the satisfaction he could desire; and, being fully convinced of Mabillon’s experience and abilities in these points, sent him the year following into Germany, in order to search there, among the archives and libraries of the ancient abbeys for materials to illustrate the history of the church in general, and that of France in particular. He spent five months in this journey, and published an account of it. He took another journey into Italy in 1685, by order of the king of France; and returned the year following with a very noble collection of above three thousand volumes of rare books, both printed and manuscript, which he added to the king’s library; and, in 1687, composed two volumes of the pieces he had discovered in that country, under the title of “Museum Italicum.” After this he employed himself in publishing other works, which are strong evidences of his vast abilities and application. In 1698 he published a Latin letter concerning the worship of the unknown saints, which he called “Eusehii Romani ad Theophilum Gallum epistola.” The history of this piece does credit to his love of truth, and freedom from traditional prejudices. While at Rome he had endeavoured to inform himself particularly of those rules and precautions, wh:ch were necessary to be observed with regard to the bodies of saints taken out of the catacombs, in order to be exposed to the veneration of the public. He had himself visited those places, and consulted all persons who could give him light upon the subject; but five or six years elapsed after his return to France, without his having ever thought of making use of these observations. In 1692, however, he drew up the treatise above-mentioned; in which he gave it as his opinion, that the bodies found in the catacombs were too hastily, and without sufficient foundation, concluded to be the bodies of martyrs. Still, aware this was a subject of a very delicate nature, and thai such an opinion might possibly give offence, he kept it by him five years, without communicating it to above one person; and then sent it, under the seal of secresy, to cardinal Colloredo at Rome, whose opinion was, that it should not be published in the form it was then in. Nevertheless, in 1698 it was published; and, as might easily be foreseen, very ill received at Rome; and after many complaints, murmurs, and criticisms, it was in 1701 brought before the Congregation of the Index, and Mabillon fou.id it necessary to employ all his interest to prevent the censure of that body. Nor, perhaps, could he have averted this misfortune if he had not agreed to publish a new edition of it; in which, by softening some passages, and throwing upon inferior officers whatever abuses might be committed with regard to the bodies taken out of the catacombs, he easily satisfied his judges; who, to do them justice, had a great esteem for his learning and virtues, and were not very desirous of condemning him.

This eminent man died of a suppression of urine, at the abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres, in Dec. 1707. His great merit had procured him, in 1701, the place of honorary member of the academy of inscriptions. Du Pin tells us thac “it would be difficult to give Mabillon the praises he deserves: the voice of the public, and the general esteem of all the learned, are a much better commendation of him than any thing we can say. His profound learning appears from his works: his modesty, humility, meekness, and piety, are no less known to those who have had the least conversation with him. His style is masculine, pure, clear, and methodical, without affectation or superfluous ornaments, and suitable to the subjects of which he has treated.” Few men were more honoured by the notice of the great than Mabillon, and to this he was entitled both by his virtues and his extensive learning. Pope Clement XI. paid him the compliment to write to father Iluinart, expressing his hopes that the remains of such a man had been interred with the honours due to him. “Every man of learning who goes to Paris,” said cardinal Colloredo, “will ask where you have placed him”.

, a celebrated French political and miscellaneous writer, and brother to the abbé Condillac, was born at Grenoble in March 1709, and was educated in the Jesuits’ college at Lyons. In his youth he attached himself to his relation the cardinal de Tencin, but never took any higher order in the church than that of sub-deacon. On his coming into life, as it is called, he had the honour to be admitted, both as a relation and a man of letters, into the parties of madame de Tencin, so well known for her intrigues and her sprightly talents, who at that time gave dinners not only to wits, but to politicians. Here madame de Tencin was so much pleased with the figure Mably made in conversation with Montesquieu and other philosophical politicians at hertable, that she thought he might prove useful to her brother, then entering on his ministerial career. The first service he rendered to the cardinal was to draw out an abridgment of all the treaties from the peace of Westphalia to that time (about 1740): the second service he rendered his patron, was of a more singular kind. The cardinal soon becoming sensible that he had not the talent xof conveying his ideas in council, Mably suggested to him the lucky expedient of an application to the king, that he might be permitted to express his thoughts in writing, and there can be little doubt that m this also he profited by the assistance of his relative, who soon began himself to meddle in matters of state. In 1743 he was entrusted to negoeiate privately at Paris with the Prussian ambassador, and drew up a treaty, which Voltaire was appointed to carry to Berlin. Frederick, to whom* this was no secret, conceived from this time a very high opinion of the abbe, and, as Mably’s biographer remarks, it was somewhat singular that tvro men of letters, who had no political character, should be employed on a negociation which made such an important change in the state of affairs in Europe. The abbe" also drew up the papers which were to serve as the basis of the negociation carried on in the congress at Breda in the month of April 1746.

His success in these affairs had nearly fixed him in political life, when a dispute with the cardinal changed his destination, and the circumstance does credit to his liberality. The cardinal was not only minister of state, but archbishop of Lyons, when the question was agitated respecting the marriages of protestants. The abbe wished him to view this question with the eyes of a statesman only, but the cardinal would consider it only as a prince of the Romish church, and as he persisted in this opinion, the abbe saw him no more. From this time he gave himself up to study, without making any advances to fortune, or to literary men. He always said he was more anxious to merit general esteem than to obtain it. He lived a long time on a small income of a thousand crowns, and an annuity; which last, on the death of his brother, he gave up to his relations. The court, however, struck with this disinterested act, gave him a pension of 2800 Jivres, without the solicitation or knowledge of any of his friends. Mably not only inveighed against luxury and riches, but showed by his example that he was sincere; and to these moderate desires, he joined an ardent love of independence, which he took every opportunity to evince. One day when a friend brought him an invitation to dine with a minister of state, he could not prevail on him to accept it, but at length the abbe said he would visit the gentleman with pleasure as soon as he heard that he was “out of office.” He had an equal repugnance to become a member of any of the learned societies. The marshal Richelieu pressed him much to become a candidate for the academy, and with such arguments that he could not refuse to accept the offer; but he had fio sooner quitted the marshal than he ran to his brother the abbe Condillac, and begged he would get him released, cost what it would. “Why all this obstinacy?” said his brother. “Why!” rejoined the abbe“Mably,” because, if I accept it 1 shall be obliged to praise the cardinal de Uichelieu, which is contrary to my principles, or, it I do not praise him, as I owe every thing to his nephew, I shall be accused of ingratitude.“In the same spirit, he acquired a bluntness of manner that was not very agreeable in the higher circles, where he never tailed to take the part of men of genius who were poor, against the insults of the rich and proud. His works, by which the booksellers acquired large sums of money, contributed very little to his own finances, for he demanded no return but a lew copies to give as presents to his friends. He appeared always dissatisfied with the state of public affairs, and had the credit of predicting the French revolution. Political sagacity, indeed, was that on which he chiefly rested his fame, andhaving formed his theory from certain systems which he thought might be traced to the Greeks and Romans, and even the ancient Gauls, he went as far as must of his contemporaries in undervaluing the prerogatives of the crown, and introducing a representative government. In his latter works his own mind appears to have undergone a revolution, and he pro\ed that if he was before sincere in his notions of freedom, he was now equally illiberal. After enjoying considerable reputation, and bein^ considered as one of the most popular French writers on the subjects of politics, morals, and history, he died at Paris, April 23, 1785. The abbe Barruel ranks him among the class of philosophers, who wished to be styled the Moderates, but whom Rousseau calls the Inconsistents. He adds, that” without being impious like a Voltaire or a Condorcet, even though averse to their impiety, his own tenets were extremely equivocal. At times his morality was so very disgusting, that it was necessary to suppose his language was ambiguous, and that he had been misunderstood, lest one should be obliged to throw off all esteem for his character." Such at least was the defence which Barruel heard him make, to justify himself from the censures of the Sorbonne.

His works are, 1. “Parallele des Romains et des Franc.ais,” Paris, 1740, 2 vols. 12mo. 2. “Le Droit public de l'Enrope,” 1747, 3 vols. 12mo. 3. “Observations sur les Romains,” 2 vols. 12mo. 4. “Observations sur les Grecs,” 1751, 12mo, reprinted in 1766, with the title of “Observations sur Thistoire cle la Grece.” 5. “Des principes des negotiations,” 1757, 12mo. 6. ft Entretiens de Phocion sur le rapport de la morale avec la politiqoe,“Amst. (Piins), 1763, 12mo, reprinted in 1783, 3 vols. 12mo, and by Didot in 1795, 4to. Of this an English translation was published by Mr. Macbeau in 1770. It was once a very popular work in America, where his name was held in the highest honour, until he published his work on the constitution of the United States after the peace of 1783, when the Americans hung him in effigy as an enemy to toleration and liberty. 7.” Observations sur l'histoire de France,“1765, 2 vols. 12mo. 8.” Entretiens sur i'Histoire,“12 mo. This is the work by which he has been most known in England, but in it, as well as his other works, he gives too great preference to the ancients over the moderns. 9.” De la inaniere d'ecrire Phistoire,“Kehl, 1784, 2 vols. 12mo. The whole of his works were collected, with an eloge by the abbe Bnzard, in 15 vols. 8vo, 17i'4. In this are many pieces not enumerated above, particularly his work on” Morals,“and his” Observations on the Government and Laws of America," which last,as we have noticed, destroyed his popularity in America. In both are symptoms of decayed intellect, and that confusion of thought which is peculiar to men who have been theorizing all their lives.

, a Hungarian artist, was born at Maubeuge, a village in Hainault, in 1499, though in the Chronological Tables his birth is supposed to have been in 1492. It is not known from whom he derived his knowledge of the art of painting but, in his youth, he was laborious in his practice, and his principal studies were after nature, by which he acquired a great deal of truth in his compositions. To improve himself in his profession, he travelled to Italy, and became an artist of great repute. He had a good pencil, and finished his pictures highly, with great care; yet, notwithstanding his studies in Italy, and the correctness of his design, he never could arrive at the elegance of the Roman school. His manner was dry, stiff, and laboured; but he was exceedingly industrious to give a polished smoothness to his colouring. By king Henry VIII. of England he was employed to paint the portraits of some of his children, which gained him great reputation, as he finished them delicately, and gave them spirit and liveliness and he painted several others for the nobility who attended the court at London. His paintings are consequently not unfrequent in this country.

Many excellent works of Mabuse are at Middleburg; one of the most capital is the altar-piece of the great church, representing the descent from the cross. That picture had been so highly commended, that it raised the curiosity of Albert Durer; and he took a journey to Middleburg, merely to be an eye-witness of the merit of that performance. He viewed it with singular attention, and expressed the pleasure it afforded him, by the praise he bestowed upon it. But the picture which is accounted to excel all his other productions, is the Virgin with the infant Jesus, which he finished while he was retained in the service of the marquis ofVeren; and in that subject he contrived to pay an extraordinary compliment to his patron, by making the heads of his lady and son the models for the heads of his figures.

, the elder, a celebrated hermit of the fourth century, said to be a disciple of St. Antony, was born at Alexandria, in the year 301, of poor parents. He was bred a baker, which trade he pursued to the age of thirty; then, being baptized, he retired and took up a solitary life. He passed sixty years in a monastery in mount Sceta, dividing his time between prayer and manual labour. He died about the year 391. Fifty homilies in Greek have been attributed to him, which were printed at Paris in 1526, with Gregory Thaumaturgus, in folio; and in 2 vols. 8vo, at Leipsic, in 1698.

, the younger, another famous monk, a friend of the former, and a native also of Alexandria, had near 5000 monks under his direction. He was persecuted by the Arians, and banished into an island where there was not a single Christian, but where he converted almost all the inhabitants by his preaching, and as some say, by his miracles. He died in the year 394 or 395. “The Rules of Monks,” in 30 chapters, are attributed to him, and a discourse by him on the “Death of the Just,” was published by Tollius, in his “Insignia Itinerarii Italici.”

, or Graham, the name of her second husband, was born in 1733, at Ollantigh, in Kent, the seat of her father, John Sawbridge, esq. She appears to have had none of the regular education given to young ladies of her ranl$, but had an early taste for promiscuous reading, which at length terminated in a fondness for history. That of the Romans is supposed to have inspired her with the republican notions which she professed throughout life, and in which she was probably encouraged by her brother the late alderman Sawbridge, whose politics were of the same cast. In 1760 she married Dr. George Macaulay, a physician of London. Soon after this, she commenced her career in literature, and in 1763 published the first volume, in 4to, of her “History of England, from the accession of James I. to that of the Brunswick Line.” This work was completed in 8 vols. in 1783; it was read with some avidity at the period of its publication, as the production of a female pen, but has since fallen into so much disrepute, as scarcely ever to be inquired after. It was written in the true spirit of rancorous republicanism, and was greatly deficient in that impartiality which ought to be the characteristic of true history. While in the height of her fame, Mrs. Macaulay excited the admiration of Dr. Wilson, rector of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, who in his dotage placed her statue, while living, in the chancel of his church. This disgraceful appendage, however, his successor thought himself justified in removing. Having been left a widow, Mrs. Macaulay in 1778 married Mr. Graham, a step which, from the disparity of years, exposed her to much ridicule. In the year 1785 she went to America, for the purpose of visiting the illustrious Washington, with whom she had before maintained a correspondence. She died at Bin field, in Berkshire, June 22, 1791. Her works, besides the history already referred to, which may be regarded as the principal, are, “Remarks on Hobbes’s Rudiments of Government and Society;” “Loose Remarks on some of Mr. Hobbes’s Positions;” the. latter being an enlarged edition of the former: the object of these is to shew the superiority of a republican to a monarchical form of government. In 1770, Mrs. Macaulay wrote a reply to Mr. Burke’s celebrated pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents;” and in 1775 she pub.­lished “An Address to the People of England, Scotland, and Ireland, on the present important Crisis of Affairs.” She wrote also “A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth;” which she afterwards re-published, with much other original matter, under the title of “Letters on Education,” 1790. Her last publication was “Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, oo the Revolution in France, in a letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope,” 1790, 8vo. Many curious particulars of this lady may be found in our authorities.

, a distinguished physician, was born at Ballymony, co. Antrim, on the 26th of April, 1726. He was descended from an ancient family of his name in the shire of Galloway, in Scotland; but his grandfather, who was bred to the church, was called to officiate at Belfast to a congregation of Presbyterians, and his father became the minister of Ballymony, where David was born. Having received the first elements of his education at the public school of this place, and served his apprenticeship to a surgeon, he went into the navy, first in the capacity of mate to an hospital-ship, and subsequently in the rank of surgeon, in which station he remained for some years preceding the peace of Aix-laChapelle. At this period he was led from the frequent opportunities of witnessing the attacks of scurvy which a sea-faring life afforded him, to investigate the best method of cure for that disease, upon which he afterwards published a treatise. After the peace of Aix, Mr. Macbride went to Edinburgh and London, where he studied anatomy under those celebrated teachers doctors Monro and Hunter, and midwifery under Smellie. About the end of 1749, he settled in Dublin as a surgeon and accoucheur; but his youth and remarkable bashfulness occasioned him to remain a number of years in obscurity, little employed; although he was endeared to a small circle of friends by his great abilities, amiable dispositions, and his general knowledge in all the branches of polite literature and the arts. In 1764, he published his “Experimental Essays,” which were received with great applause, and were soon translated into different languages; and the singular merit of this performance induced the university of Glasgow to confer the degree of doctor of physic on its author. The improvement introduced by Dr. Macbride in the art of tanning, by substituting lime-water for common water in preparing ooze, procured him the honour of a silver medal from the Dublin Society, in 1768, and of a gold medal of considerable value from the society of arts and commerce in London.

For several years after Dr. Macbride obtained his de*­gree, he employed part of his time in the duties of a medical teacher, and delivered at his own house a course of lectures on the theory and practice of physic. These lectures were published in 1772, in 1 vol. 4to, under the title of“An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Medicine,” and a second edition appeared in 1777. It was translated into Latin, and published at Utrecht, in 2 vols. 8vo, in 1774. This work displayed great acuteness of observation, and very philosophical views of pathology, and contained a new arrangement of diseases, which was deemed of so much merit by Dr. Cullen, that an outline of it was given by that celebrated professor in his Compendium of Nosology. Of the five classes, however, into which Dr. Macbride distributed diseases, the genera and species of the first only were detailed.

The talents of Dr. Macbride were now universally known, his character was duly appreciated, and his professional emoluments increased rapidly; for the public, as if to make amends for former neglect, threw more occupation into his hands than he couid accomplish either with ease or safety. Although much harassed both in body and mind, so as to have suffered for some time an almost total incapacity for sleep, he continued in activity and good spirits until the end of December, 1778, when an accidental cold brought on a fever and delirium, which terminated his life on the 13th of that month, in the fifty-third year of his age; his death was sincerely lamented by persons of all ranks.

, who in his Latin works called himself Cavellus, was titular primate of Armagh, and a learned writer in defence of Duns Scotus, whose opinions were generally embraced by his countrymen. He was born in the county of Down, in Ireland, in 1571, and became a Franciscan friar. He studied at Salamanca, in Spain, and afterwards for many years governed the Irish Franciscan college at Louvain, dedicated to St. Anthony, in the founding of which he had been instrumental. In this college he was also professor of divinity, which office he filled afterwards in the convent of Ara Cceli at Rome, was definitor-general of his order, and at length advanced by the pope to the see of Armagh; but died at Rome, as he was preparing for his journey to Ireland, Sept. 22, 1626, in the fifty -fifth year of his age. He was buried in the church of St. Isidore, under a monumental stone, and inscription, placed there by the earl of Tyrone. He was reckoned a man of great learning, and one of the best schoolmen of his time. His works, which consist chiefly of commentaries on and a defence of Scotus, were in substance incorporated in Wading' s edition of Scotus’s works, printed at Lyons, 1639, in 12 vols. folio.

, an ingenious young writer, was the son of the rev. Mr. Macdiarmid, minister of Weem in the northern part of Perthshire, and was bern in 1779. He studied at the universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, and was for some years tutor in a gentleman’s family. Such a situation is generally desired in Scotland with the view of provision in the church, but as this was not Mr. Macdiarmid’s object, he became desirous of visiting the metropolis, and trying his fortune in the career of literary competition. He accordingly came to London in 1801, and was soon in the receipt of a competent income from periodical writing. His principal occupations of this kind were, as editor of the St. James’s Chronicle (a paper in which some of the first scholars and wits of the last half century have employed their pens), and as a reviewer in a critical publication. On the commencement or rather the renewal of the late war in 1802-3, his attention was directed to our military establishment, and he relinquished his periodical engagements to become the author of a very elaborate work, entitled “An Inquiry into the System of Military Defence of Great Britain,” 1803, 2 vols. 8vo. This exposed the defects of the volunteer systeui, as well as of all temporary expedients, and asserted the superiority of a regular army; and had he lived, he would have doubtless been highly gratified to contemplate the army formed by the illustrious Wellington. His next work was, an “Inquiry into the Nature of Civil and Military Subordination,” 1804, 8vo, perhaps the fullest disquisition which the subject has received. He now determined to suspend his theoretic labours, and to turn his attention to works of narrative. He accordingly wrote the “Lives of British Statesmen,” 4to, beginning with the life of sir Thomas More. This work has strong claims on public attention. The style is perspicuous and unaffected; authorities are quoted for every statement of consequence, and a variety of curious information is extracted from voluminous records, and brought for the first time before the public view. His political speculations were always temperate and liberal. He was indeed in all respects qualified for a work of this description, by great powers of research and equal impartiality. But unfortunately he was destined to enjoy, for a short time only, the approbation with which his work was received. His health, at all times delicate, received in November 1807, an irreparable blow by a paralytic stroke; and in February 1808 a second attack proved fatal, April 7. Mr. D'Israeli has paid a just and pathetic tribute to his memory and talents in the work referred to below.

, another young writer of considerable talents, was the son of George Donald, a gardener at Leith. The Mac he appended. to his name when he came to London. He was born in 1757 at Leith, where he was educated, chiefly by the assistance of bishop f Forbes. For some time he had the charge of a chapel at Glasgow, in which city he published a novel, -entitled *' The Independent.“He afterwards came to London, and wrote for the newspapers. His works were lively, satirical, and humorous, and were published under the signature of Matthew Bramble. He naturally possessed a fine genius, and had improved his understanding with classical and scientific knowledge; but for want of connections in this southern part of the united kingdom, and A proper opportunity to bring his talents into notice, he was ajways embarrassed, and had occasionally to struggle with great and accumulated distress. He died in the 33d year of his age, at Kentish Town, in Aug. 1790, leaving a wife and infant daughter in a state of extreme indigence. A volume of his” Miscellaneous Works“was published in 1791, in which were comprised,” The fair Apostate,“a tragedy;” Love and Loyalty,“an opera;” Princess of Tarento,“a comedy; and” Vimonda," a tragedy.

, a learned French priest, was born at Paris about 1640, and pursued his divinity studies at the university of his native city, where he took his degrees. About this time he was appointed secretary to the council for managing the domains and finances of the queen, consort to Lewis XIV.; and when he took holy orders, in 1685, he was immediately appointed canon and rector of the church of St. Opportune, at Paris. He was a very diligent student as well in profane as in sacred literature, and was celebrated for his popular talents as a preacher. He died in 1721, leaving behind him a great number of works that do honour to his memory, of which we shall mention “A chronological, historical, and moral abridgment of the Old and New Testament,” in 2 vols. 4to “Scriptural Knowledge, reduced into four tables;” a French version of the apocryphal “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs;” of which Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, gave the first Latin translation, Grabe the first Greek edition, from Mss. in the English universities, and Whiston an English version (S The History of the Four Ciceros,“in which he attempts to prove, that the sons of Cicero were as illustrious as their father. Mace (Thomas), a practitioner on the lute, but more distinguished among lovers of music by a work entitled” Music’s Monument, or a Remembrancer of the best practical Music, both divine and civil, that has ever been known to have been in the world," 1676, folio, was born in 1613, and became one of the clerks of Trinity-college, Cambridge. He does not appear to have held any considerable rank among musicians, nor is he celebrated either as a composer or practitioner on the lute: yet his book is a proof that he was an excellent judge of the instrument; and contains such variety of directions for the ordering and management of it, and for performing on it, as renders it a work of great utility. It contains also many particulars respecting himself, many traits of an original and singular character; and a vein of humour which, far from being disgusting, exhibits a lively portraiture of a good-natured gossiping old man. Dr. Burney recommends its perusal to all who have taste for excessive simplicity and quaintness, and can extract pleasure from the sincere and undissembled happiness of an author, who, with exalted notions of his subject and abilities, discloses to his reader every inward working of self-approbation in as undisguised a manner, as if he were communing with himself in all the plenitude of mental comfort and privacy. There is a print of him prefixed to his book, from an engraving of Faithorne, the inscription under which shews him to have been sixty-three in 1676: how long he lived afterwards, is not known. He had a wife and children.

, a Portuguese Jesuit, and most indefatigable writer, born at Coimbra, in 1596, quitted that order after a time to take the habit of a cordelier. He was strongly in the interest of the duke of Braganza when he seized the crown of Portugal. Being sent to Rome, he acquired for a time the favour of pope Alexander the Vllth, and was preferred by him to several important offices. The violence of his temper however soon embroiled him with this patron, and he went to Venice, where he disputed de omni scibili; and gaining great reputation, obtained the professorship of moral philosophy at Padua. Afterwards, having ventured to interfere in some state matter at Venice, where he had been held very high, he was imprisoned, and died in confinement, in 1681, at the age of 85. He is said, in the “Bibliotheque Portugaise,” to have published 109 different works: and in one of his own books he boasts that he had pronounced 53 public panegyrics, 60 Latin discourses, and 32 funeral orations; that he had written 48 epic poems, 123 elegies, 115 epitaphs, 212 dedications, 700 familiar letters, 2600 poems in heroic verse, 3000 epigrams, 4 Latin comedies, and had written or pronounced 150,000 verses extemporaucously. Yet the man who could declare all this, is hardly known by name in the greater part of Europe; and of the enormous list of his printed works, not more than five are thought worthy of mention by the writers of his life- To write much, is far easier than to write well. The works specified by his biographers are, 1. “Clavis Augustiniana liberi arbitrii,” a book written against father, afterwards cardinal Noris. The disputants were both silenced by authority; but Macedo, not to seem vanquished, sent his antagonist a regular challenge to a verbal controversy, which by some biographers has been mistaken for a challenge to fight. The challenge may be found in the “Journal Etranger” for June 1757. 2. “Schema Sanctae Congregationis,” 1676, 4to a dissertation on the inquisition, full of learning and absurdity. 3. “Encyclopaedia in agonem literatorum,” 1677, folio. 4. “Praise of the French,” in Latin, 1641, 4to; a book on the Jansenian controversy. 5. “Myrothecium Morale,” 4to. This is the book in which he gives the preceding account of what he had written and spoken, &c. He possessed a prodigious memory, and a ready command of language; but his judgment and taste were by no means equal to his learning and fecundity.

, was an ancient heretic of the church of Constantinople, whom the Arians made bishop of that see in the year 342, at the same time that the orthodox contended for Paul. This occasioned a contest, which rose at length to such a height, that arms were taken up, and many lives lost. The emperor Constantius, however, put an end to the dispute, by banishing Paul, and ratifying the nomination of Macedonius; who, after much opposition, which ended at the death of Paul, became peaceably and quietly settled in his see, and might have remained so had he been of a temper to be long peaceable and quiet in any situation: he soon fell into disgrace with Constantius, for acting the part of a tyrant, rather than a bishop. What made him still more disliked by the emperor, was his causing the body of Constantine to be translated from the temple of the Apostles to that of Acacius the martyr. This also raised great tumults and confusion among the people, some highly approving, others loudly condemning, the procedure of Macedonius and the parties again taking up arms, a great number on both sides were slain. Macedonius, however, notwithstanding the emperor’s displeasure, which he had incurred by his seditious and turbulent practices, contrived to support himself by his party, which he had lately increased by taking in the Semi-Arians; till at length, imprudently offending two of his bishops, they procured his deposition by the council of Constantinople, in the year 359. He was so enraged at this, as to resolve to revenge the insult by broaching a new heresy. He began to teach, therefore, that the Holy Spirit had no resemblance to either the Father or the Son, but was only a mere creature, one of God’s ministers, and somewhat more excellent than the angels. The disaffected bishops subscribed at once to this opinion; and to the Arians it could not be unacceptable. According to St. Jerome, even the Donatists of Africa joined with them: for he says, that Douatus of Carthage wrote a treatise upon the Holy Ghost, agreeable to the doctrine of the Arians; and the outward shew of piety, which the Macedonians observed, drew over to their party many others. One Maratorus, who had been formerly a treasurer, having amassed vast riches, forsook his secular life, devoted himself entirely to the service of the poor and sick, became a monk; and at last adopted the Macedonian heresy, which he disseminated very extensively. In this he succeeded in most cases by his riches; which, being freely and properly distributed, were found of more force in effecting conversions than all his arguments: and from this man, as Socrates relates, the Macedonians were called Maratorians. They were also called Pneumatomachi, or persons who were enemies of the Holy Ghost. The report of the Macedonian heresy being spread over Egypt, the bishop Serapion advertised Athanasius of it, who then was leading a monastic life, and lay hid in the desert and this celebrated saint was the hrst who confuted it.

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

, a political and miscellaneous writer, was born in Scotland in 1734, and educated in the university of Edinburgh. He came to London at an early period of life, and for many years keptan academy of considerable reputation at Walthamstow. He was also much engaged in the political disputes at the beginning of the reign of his present majesty, and concentrated his sentiments on them, in a “History of the Reign of George III.” an octavo volume, which was published in 1770. A dispute occurring between him and his bookseller, the late Mr. Thomas Evans of Paternoster-row, the latter employed another person to continue the history, of which vol. II appeared in 1782, and vol. III. about 1794. Mr. Macfarlane being then reconciled to his employer, published a fourth volume. The whole is com-r piled from the journals of the day, and cannot, either in point of style or matter, entitle Mr. Macfarlane, or the other writers, to the character of historians. In early life, also, he was editor of the Morning Chronicle and London Packet, in which he gave the debates with great accuracy and at considerable length, and wrote many letters and papers under fictitious names, in favour of the politics of the opposition. Being an enthusiastic admirer of Ossian, and an assistant, as has been said, to Mr. Macpherson in the arranging and publishing of these poems, he conceived the very preposterous design of translating them into Latin verse. Accordingly, in 176.9, he published “Temora,” as a specimen, and issued, at the same time, proposals for publishing the whole by subscription, in one volume, 4to: but few subscribers appearing, he desisted from his plan. During the latter years of his life, he resumed it, and was employed in it at the time of his death. Curiosity led him one evening to witness the triumphs of an electionmob coming from Brentford, when he fell under a carnage, and was so much hurt as to survive only half an hour. This happened on August 8. 1804. He had at this time in the press, an “Essay on the authenticity of Ossian and his Poems.”

, a Jesuit, was born at Paris in 1651, and was professor of rhetoric in his society, doctor of divinity, and rector of the Jesuits college at Rouen, then of the college de Clermont at Paris. He died March 15, 1619, aged 58. He published under the name of Callus, or Le Cocq, which was his mother’s name, “Jo. Galii jurisconsult! notationes in Historiam Thuani,” Ingoldstadt, 1614, 4to, a scarce volume, because suppressed in that year, as pernicious, seditious, and full of falsehoods and calumnies against the magistrates and officers of the king. Machault also translated from the Italian, a, “History of transactions in China and Japan, taken from letters written 1621 and 1622,” Paris, 1627, 8vo. John Baptist de Machault, another Parisian Jesuit, who died May 22, 1640, aged 29, after having been rector of the colleges at Nevers and Rouen, left “Gesta a Soc. Jes. in Regno Sinensi, ^thiopico, et Tibetano;” and some other works of the historical kind, but of little reputation. James de

, a Jesuit also, born 1600, at Paris, taught ethics and philosophy, and was afterwards rector at Alencon, Orleans, and Caen. He died 1680, at Paris. His works are, “De Missionibus Paraguariae et aliis in America meridional!” “De rebus Japonicis” “De Provinces Goana, Malabarica, et aliis” “De Regno Cochineinensi” “De Missione Religiosorum Societatis J. in Perside” “De Regno Madurensi, Tangorensi,” &C.

, a celebrated political writer and historian, was born of a good family, at Florence, in 1469. He first distinguished himself as a dramatic writer, but his comedies are not formed on the purest morals, nor are the verses by which he gained some reputation about the same time, entitled to much praise. Soon after he had entered public life, either from the love of liberty, or a spirit of faction, he displayed a restless and turbulent disposition, which not only diminished the respect due to his abilities, but frequently endangered his personal safety. He involved himself in the conspiracy of Capponi and Boscoli, in consequence of which he was put to the torture, but endured it without uttering any confession, and was set at liberty by Leo X. against whose house that conspiracy had been formed. Immediately after the death of Leo, he entered into another plot to expel the cardinal de Medici from Florence. Afterwards, however, he was raised to hitjh honours in the state, and became secretary to the republic of Florence, the 'duties of which office he performed with great fidelity. He was likewise employed in embassies to king Lewis XII. of France; to the emperor Maximilian; to the college of cardinals; to the pope, Julius II., and to other Italian princes. Notwithstanding the revenues which must have accrued to him in these important situations, it would appear that the love of money had no influence on his mind, as he died in extreme poverty in June 1527. Besides his plays, his chief works are, 1. “The Golden Ass,” in imitation of Lucian and Apuleius 2. “Discourses on the first Decade of Livy” 3. “A History of Florence” 4. “The Life of Castruccio Castracani;” 5. “A Treatise on the Military Art;” 6. “A Treatise on the Emigration of the Northern Nations;” 7. Another entitled “Del Principe,” the Prince. This famous treatise, which was first published in 1515, and intended as a sequel to his discourses on the first decade of Livy, has created very discordant opinions between critics of apparently equal skill and judgment, some having considered him as the friend of truth, liberty, and virtue, and others as the advocate of fraud and tyranny. Most generally “the Prince” has been viewed in the latter light, all its maxims and counsels being directed to the maintenance of power, however acquired, and by any means; and one reason for this opinion is perhaps natural enough, namely, its being dedicated to a nephew of pope Leo X. printed at Rome, re*published in other Italian cities, and long read with attention, and even applause, without censure or reply. On the other hand it has been thought impossible that Machiavel, who was born under a republic, who was employed as one of its secretaries, who performed so many important embassies, and who in his conversation always dwelt on the glorious actions of Brutus and Cassius, should have formed such a system against the liberty and happiness of mankind. Hence it has frequently been urged on his behalf, that it was not his intention to suggest wise and faithlul counsels, but to represent in the darkest colours the schemes of a tyrant, and thereby excite odium against him. Even lord Bacon seems to be of this opinion. The historian of Leo considers his conduct in a different point of view; and indeed all idea of his being ironical in this work is dissipated by the fact, mentioned by Mr. Roscoe, that “many of the most exceptionable doctrines in” The Prince,“are also to be found in his” Discourses,“where it cannot be pretended that he had any indirect purpose in view; and in the latter he has in some instances referred to the former for the further elucidation of his opinions. In popular opinion” The Prince“has affixed to his name a lasting stigma; and Machiavelism has long been a received appellation for perfidious and infamous politics. Of the historical writings of Machiavel, the” Life of Castruccio Castracani“is considered as partaking too much of the character of a romance; but his” History of Florence," comprising the events of that republic, between 1205 and 1494, which was written while the author sustained the office of historiographer of the republic, although not always accurate in point of fact, may upon the whole be read with both pleasure and advantage. It has been of late years discovered tnat the diary of the most important events in Italy from 1492 to 1512, published by the Giunti in 1568, under the name of Biagio Buonaccorsi, is in fact a part of the notes of Machiavel, which he had intended for a continuation of his history; but which, after his death, remained in the hands of his friend Buonaccorsi. - This is a circumstance of which we were not aware when we drew up the account of this author under the name Esperiente.

, an ingenious and learned writer, and eminent lawyer of Scotland, was descended from an ancient and noble family, his father Simon Mackenzie being brother to the earl of Seaforth. He was born at Dundee, in the county of Angus, in 1636, and gave early proofs of an extraorJinary genius, having gone through the usual classic authors, at ten years of age. He was then sent to the universities of Aberdeen and St. Andrew’s, where he finished his studies in logic and philosophy before he had attained his sixteenth year. After this, he turned his thoughts to the civil law, and to increase his knowledge of it, travelled into France, and became a close student in the university of Bourges, for about three years. On his return home, he was called to the bar, became an advocate in 1656, and gained the character of an eminent pleader in a few years.

While he made the law his profession and chief study, he cultivated a taste for polite literature; and produced some works which added not a little to his reputation. In 1660, came out his “Aretino, or serious Romance,” in which he shewed a gay and exuberant fancy. In 1663, he published his “Religio Stoici;” or a short discourse upon several divine and moral subjects, with a friendly address to the fanatics of all sects and sorts. This was followed, in 1665, by “A Moral Essay,” preferring solitude to pubHe employment, and all its advantages; such as fame, command, riches, pleasures, conversation, &c. This was answered by John Evelyn, esq. in another essay, in which the preference was given to public employment. In 1667, he printed his “Moral gallantry;” a discourse, in which he endeavours to prove, that the point of honour, setting aside all other ties, obliges men to be virtuous; and that there is nothing so mean and unworthy of a gentleman, as vice: to which is added, a consolation against calumnies, shewing how to bear them with chearfulness and patience. Afterwards he published “The moral history of frugality,” with its opposite vices, covetousness, niggardliness, prodigality, and luxury, dedicated to the university of Oxford; and “Reason,” an essay, dedicated to the hon. Robert Boyle, esq. All these works, except “Aretino,” were collected and printed together at London, in 1713, 8vo, under the title of “Essays upon several moral subjects:” and have been regarded as abounding in good sense and wit, although upon the whole the reasoning is rather superficial. Besides these essays, which were the production of such hours as could be spared from his profession, he was the author of a play and a poem. The poem is entitled “Caelia’s country-house and closet;” and in it are the following lines upon the earl of Montrose:

Soon after Mr. Mackenzie had been employed as counsel for the marquis of Argyle, he was promoted to the office of a judge in the criminal court; which he discharged with so much credit and reputation, that he was made king’s advocate in 1674, and one of the lords of the privycouncil in Scotland. He was also knighted by his majesty. In these offices he met with a great deal of trouble on account of the rebellions which happened in his time; and his office of advocate requiring him to act with severity, he did not escape being censured for having, in the deaths of some particular persons who were executed, stretched the laws too far. This alludes to the noted trials of Baillie of Jerviswood, that of the earl of Argyle, and the prosecutions against Mitchel and Learmonth, events which make a great figure in the history of that unhappy period; but in the opinion of the late lord Woodhcusc lee, “his own defence will fully justify his conduct in the breast of every man whose judgment is not perverted by the same prejudices, hostile to all good government, which led those infatuated offenders to the doom they merited.” (See Mackenzie’s Works, Vindication of the government of Charles II.)

Upon the abrogation of the penal laws by James II. sir George, though he had always been remarkable for his loyalty, and censured for his zeal, thought himself obliged to resign his post; being convinced that he could not discharge the duties of it at that crisis with a good conscience. He was succeeded by sir John Dalrymple, who, however, did not long continue in it; for that unfortunate prince being convinced of his error, restored sir George to his post, in which he continued until the revolution, and then resigned it. He could not agree to the measures and terms of the revolution; he hoped that the prince of Orange would have returned to his own country, when matters were adjusted between the king and his subjects; but finding that the event proved otherwise, he quitted all his employments in Scotland, and retired to England, resolving to spend the remainder of his days in the university of Oxford. He accordingly arrived there in September 1689, and prosecuted his studies in the Bodleian library, being admitted a student there by a grace passed in the congregation June 2, 1690. In the spring following he went to London, where he contracted a disorder, of which he died May 2, 1691. His body was conveyed by land to Scotland, and interred with great pomp and solemnity at Edinburgh, his funeral being attended by all the council, nobility, college of justice, college of physicians, university, clergy, gentry, and a greater concourse of people than ever was seen on any similar occasion.

Besides the moral pieces mentioned above, he wrote several works to illustrate the laws and customs of his country, to vindicate the monarchy from the restless contrivances and attacks of those whom he esteemed its enemies, and to maintain the honour and glory of Scotland. To illustrate the laws and customs of his country, he published “A Discourse upon the laws and customs of Scotland in matters criminal,” 1674, 4to. “Idea eloquentiae tbrensis hodiernae, una cum actione forensi ex unaquaque juris parte,” 1681, 8vo. “Institutions of the laws of Scotland,” 1684, 8vo. “Observations upon the acts of parliament,” 1686, folio. Besides these, several other treatises of law are inserted in his works, printed at Edinburgh, 1716, in 2 vols. folio. In vindication of monarchy, he wrote his “Jus regium; or the just and solid foundations of monarchy in general, and more especially of the monarchy of Scotland; maintained against Buchanan, Naphthali, Doleman, Milton, &c.” Lond. 16S4, 8vo. This book being dedicated and presented by the author to the university of Oxford, he received a letter of thanks from the convocation. With the same view he published his * Discovery of the fanatic plot,“printed at Edinburgh, in 1684, folio; and his” Vindication of the government of Scotland during the reign of Charles II.“Also the” Method of Proceeding against Criminals and Fanatical Covenanters,“1691, 4to. The pieces which he published in honour of his nation, were as follow:” Observations on the Laws and Customs of Nations as to Precedency, with the science of heraldry, treated as a part of the civil law of nations; wherein reasons are given for its principles, and etymologies for its harder terms,“1680, folio.” A Defence of the Antiquity of the Royal Line of Scotland; with a true account when the Scots were governed by the kings in the Isle of Britain,“1685, 8vo. This was written in answer to” An historical Account of Church-Government as it was in Great Britain and Ireland, when they first received the Christian religion,“by Lloyd, bishop of St. Asaph. Sir George’s defence was published in June 1685; but before it came out it was animadverted upon by Dr. Stillingfleet, who had seen it in manuscript in the preface to his” Origines Britannicae.“Sir George replied the year following, in a piece entitled” The Antiquity of the Royal Line of Scotland farther cleared and defended against the exceptions lately offered by Dr. Stillingfleet, in his Vindication of the Bishop of St. Asaph;" and here the controversy appears to have ended. It is remarkable, however, that sir George’s books were translated into Latin, printed at Utrecht in 1689, and then presented to William-Henry prince of Orange, who wrote two very polite letters of thanks to him for his performance. Among the instances of this author’s zeal for his country, it is necessary to mention his founding of the lawyer’s library at Edinburgh, in 1689. This, which is now known by the name of the advocate’s library, was afterwards stored with variety of manuscripts, relating particularly to the antiquities of Scotland, and with a fine collection of books, in all sciences, classed in that excellent order, which he prescribed in an elegant Latin oration, pronounced upon the opening of it, and printed among his works.

Judging, says a late elegant and judicious writer, from the writings of sir George Mackenzie, his talents appear to have been rather splendid than solid. He certainly possessed uncommon assiduity and activity of mind, as the number and variety of his compositions testify; and perhaps the superficial manner in which he has treated many of those subjects foreign to his profession, is the less to be wondered at, in a man whose time was so occupied in professional duties. The obscurity and confusion that are discernible in some of his juridical discussions, may have arisen in a great measure from the rude, unmethodized, and almost chaotic state of the law of Scotland, both civil and criminal, in his days. On one account alone, although every other merit were forgotten, sir George Mackenzie is entitled to respect as a lawyer. He was the first who exploded from the practice of the criminal courts of Scotland that most absurd and iniquitous doctrine, that no defence was to be admitted in exculpation from a criminal indictment which was contrary to the libel (indictment); as, if John were accused of having murdered James, by giving him a mortal wound with a sword, it was not allowable for John to prove in his defence, that the wound was not given in any vital part, and that James died of a fever caught afterwards by contagion.

, viscount Tarbat, and first earl of Cromerty, a person eminent for his learning and for his abilities as a statesman, was descended from a branch of the family of Seaforth. He succeeded to the family estate on the death of his father sir John Mackenzie, and also to his unshaken fealty for Charles II. during whose exile he had a commission to levy what forces he could procure, to promote the restoration. After that event, he was made one of the senators of the college of justice, clerk register of the pri% 7 y council, and justice-general, an office which had been hereditary in the family of Argyle, till it was surrendered in the preceding reign. James II. made him a baron and viscount, but on the abdication of that monarch, whom it woukl appear he had favoured too much, he lost his office of lord-register for some time, until king William III. was pleased to restore it in 1692, being no stranger to his abilities. In queen Anne’s reign, 1702, he was constituted secretary of state, and the following year was advanced to the dignity of earl of Cromerty. He died in 1714, at the age of eighty-three, or, according to another account, eighty-eight.

Douglas describes him as a man of singular endowments, great learning, well versed in the laws and antiquities of his country, and an able statesman. Macky, or rather Davis, adds, that “he had a great deal of wit, and was the pleasantest companion in the world; had been very handsome in his person; was tall and fair complexioned; much esteemed by the royal society, a great master in philosophy, and well received as a writer by men of letters.” Bishop Nicolson notices a copy of the continuation of Fordun’s “Scotichronicon” in the hand-writing of this nobleman, whom he terms “a judicious preserver of the antiquities of his country.” He wrote, 1. “A Vindication of Robert, the third king of Scotland, from the imputation of bastardy, &c.” Edin. 1695, 4to. 2. “Synopsis Apocalyptica; or a short and plain Explication and Application of Daniel’s Prophecy, and St. John’s Revelation, in consent with it, and consequential to it; by G. E. of C. tracing in the steps of the admirable lord Napier of Merchiston,” Edin. 1708. 3. “An historical Account of the Conspiracies, by the earls of Gourie, and Robert Logan of Restalrig, against king James VI. of glorious memory, &c.” Edin. 1713, 8vo. Mr. Gough has pointed out three papers on natural curiosities, by lord Cromerty, in the “Philosophical Transactions” and “A Vindication,” by him, of the reformation of the church of Scotland, with some account of the Records, was printed in the Scots’ Magazine, for August 1802, from a ms. in the possession of Mr. Constable, bookseller, of Edinburgh.

, the oldest actor, and perhapsthe oldest man of his time, is entitled to some notice in this work, although his fame seems to have been derived principally from his longevity. He is said to have been born in the county of West Meath in Ireland, May I, 1690. His family name was Mac-Laughlin, which, on his coming to London, he changed to Macklin. He was employed in early life, as badgeman in Trinity college, Dublin, until his twenty-first year, when he came to England, and associated with some strolling comedians, after which he went back to his situation in Trinity college. In 1716 he again came to England, and appeared as an actor in the theatre, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, where, in Feb. 1741, he established his fame by his performance of Shylock in the “Merchant of Venice,” in which he followed nature, truth, and propriety, with such effect, as to distance all other performers through the whole course of his long life. It was, however, the only character in which he was pre-eminent, and all his subsequent attempts in characters of importance, particularly in tragedy, were unsuccessful, or, at least, displayed no exclusive merit. The remainder of his life consists of a series of tragi-comic adventures, involving the history of the stage for a considerable period, of which it would be impossible to give a satisfactory abridgment. We therefore refer to our authorities, where his life is detailed with great minuteness, and in a manner highly interesting to those to whom the vicissitudes of the theatres, and the wit of the green-room, are matters of importance. He continued on the stage until 1789, when a decay of memory obliged him to take a last leave of it. In 1791, a sum of money was collected by public subscription for the purchase of an annuity, which rendered his circumstances easy. During the last years of his life, his understanding became more and more impaired, and in this state he died July 11, 1797, at the very great age of 107, if the date usually given of his birth be correct. As a dramatic writer, he appears to much advantage in his “Man of the World” and “Love Alamode,” which still retain their popularity. He was a man of good understanding, which he had improved by a course of reading, perhaps desultory, but sufficient to enable him to bear his part in conversation very satisfactorily. While his memory remained, his fund of anecdote was immense, and rendered his company highly agreeable. His age, however, had in his opinion, conferred a dictatorial ppwer, and it was not easy to argue with him, without exciting his irascible temper, which shewed itself in much coarseness of expression. He is said to have been in his better days, a tender husband, a good father, and a steady friend. By his firmness and resolution in supporting the rights of his theatrical brethren, they were long relieved from a species of oppression to which they had been ignominiouslv subjected for many years, whenever the caprice or malice of their enemies chose to exert itself. We allude, says one of his biographers, “to the prosecution which he commenced and carried on against a certain set of insignificant beings, who, calling themselves The Town, used frequently to disturb the entertainments of the theatre, to the terror of the actors, as well as to the annoyance and disgrace of the publick.” It is almost needless to add that this advantage has been again lost to his brethren, by the toleration recently granted to scenes of brntality in the theatres both of London and Dublin, and which has placed them at the mercy of the lowest and most unprincipled of the populace.

, a learned Scotch clergyman, was born at Irvine, in Argyleshire, in 1721, educated at the university of Glasgow, and afterwards, as was the custom at that time, heard a course of lectures at Leyden. After his return he was admitted into the church, and in May 1753, was ordained minister of Maybole, on which living he continued during sixteen years. Here he composed his two celebrated works, the “Harmony of the Gospels,” and his “New Translation of the Epistles,” both which were very favourably received, and greatly advanced his reputation in the theological world. In 1763 he published a second edition of the “Harmony,” with the addition of six discourses on Jewish antiquities; and a third appeared in 1804, in 2 vols. 8vo. In 1763 also he published another work of great merit, entitled “The Truth of the Gospel History.” On account of these publications, the university of Edinburgh conferred upon him the degree of D. D. In 1769 he was translated to the living of Jedburgh, and after three years, became one of the ministers of Edinburgh, which situation he retained during the remainder of his useful life. He was particularly active and zealous in promoting charitable institutions, especially the fund established by act of parliament, for a provision to the widows and fatherless children of ministers in the church of Scotland. As an author, Dr. Mackhight occupied a considerable portion of his time in the execution of his last and greatest work on the apostolical epistles. This was the result of an almost unremitting labour during thirty years: he is said to have studied eleven hours in each day, and before the work was sent to the press, the whole ms. had been written five times with his own hand. A specimen was published in 1787, containing his version of the epistles to the Thessalonians; and in 1795 the whole appeared in four vols. 4to, under the title of “A New Literal Translation from the original Greek of all the Apostolical Epistles; with a commentary, and notes, philosophical, critical, explanatory, and practical,” with essays on several important subjects, and a life of the apostle Paul, which includes a compendium of the apostolical history. Having finished this great work, he was desirous of enjoying the remainder of his days free from laborious pursuits, and refused, though earnestly solicited, to undertake a similar work with regard to the Acts of the apostles. In a very short time after, the decline of his faculties became manifest, and about the close of 1799 he caught a violent cold, the forerunner of other complaints that put an end to his life in January 1800. Having early acquired a taste for classical literature, he studied the writers of antiquity with critical skill, and was well acquainted with metaphysical, moral, and mathematical science. As a preacher, without possessing the graces of elocution, he was much admired for his earnestness of manner, which rendered his discourses highly interesting and useful.

, a pious and learned clergyman, and for fifty years minister of the English church at the Hague, was born at Monachan in Ireland, in 1722, and educated at Glasgow under the celebrated Mr. Hutcheson, for the presbyterian ministry. His youth was spent in Belfast, where he was long remembered with delight by a numerous circle of friends, now nearly extinct. About the time of the rebellion in 1745, when in his twentysecond year, he was invited to Holland, and succeeded his venerable uncle Dr. Milling, as pastor of the English church at the Hague, and remained in that situation until the invasion of the country by the French, in 1794, compelled him to take refuge in England. He had not been here long when an only sister, whom he had not seen for fifty years, joined him in consequence of the rebellion in Ireland. During his residence at the Hague he was known and highly respected by all English travellers, and not unfrequently consulted, on account of his extensive erudition and knowledge of political history, by official men of the highest rank. On his arrival in England he fixed his residence at Bath, as affording the best opportunities of union with many of those numerous friends he had known on the continent, and here he died, Nov. 25, 1804, aged eighty-two.

During this long course, Dr. Maclaine’s superior endowments of mind and heart, his genius, learning, and industry, constantly directed by a love of virtue and truth, by piety and charity, diffused a beneficial influence over the whole of his professional and domestic sphere. As a scholar, a gentleman, and a divine, uniformly displaying a judicious taste, an amiable deportment, and instructive example, he was admired and loved by all who courted and enjoyed his society; especially those of whom he was a distinguished archetype the man of education, the polished companion, the benevolent friend, and pious Christian.

Dr. Maclaine published in 1752 a sermon on the death of the prince of Orange. In 1765 his masterly translation of Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History made its first appearance, in 2 vols. 4to, dedicated to William Prince of Orange. It experienced a most favourable reception, and was reprinted, 1758, in six vols. 8vo, in which form it has had several subsequent editions, particularly one published in 1811, withvaluable additions by Dr. Coote, the editor, and the Rev. Dr. Gleig, of Stirling. Few publications, on their first appearance, having been more generally read than Mr. Soame Jenyns’s “View of the internal Evidence of the Christian Religion,” Dr. Maclaine addressed to that gentleman a series of letters, 1777, in 12 mo, written to serve the best purposes of Christianity, on a due consideration of the distinguished eminence of Mr. Jenyns as a writer, of the singular mixture of piety, wit, error, wisdom, and paradox, exhibited in his publication, and of his defence of Christianity on principles which would lead men to enthusiasm or to scepticism, according to their different dispositions. His only publications since were two fast sermons, 1793 and 1797, and a volume of sermons preached at the Hague. He was interred in the abbey church of Bath, where a monument has been since erected to his memory by his friend Henry Hope, esq.

, an eminent mathematician and philosopher, was the son of a clergyman, and born at Kilmodan, near Inverary, in Scotland, Feb. 1698. His family was originally from Tirey, one of the western islands. He was sent to the university of Glasgow in 1709, where he continued five years, and applied himself to study in a most intense manner, particularly to the mathematics. His great genius for this science discovered itself so early as at twelve years of age; when, having accidentally met with a copy of Euclid’s Elements in a friend’s chamber, he became in a few days master of the first six books without any assistance: and it is certain, that in his sixteenth year he had invented many of the propositions, which were afterwards published as part of his work entitled “Geometria Organica.” In his fifteenth year, he took the degree of master of arts; on which occasion he composed and publicly defended a thesis “On the power of gravity,” with great applause. After this he quitted the university, and retired to a country-seat of his uncle, who had the care of his education, his parents being dead some time. Here he spent two or three years in pursuing his favourite studies; and such was his acknowledged merit, that having in 1717 offered himself a candidate for the professorship of mathematics in the Marischal college of Aberdeen, he obtained it after a ten days trial against a very able competitor. In 1719 he went to London, where he left his “Geometria Organica” in the press, and where he became acquainted with Dr. Hoadly, bishop of Bangor, Dr. Clarke, sir Isaac Newton, and other eminent men. At the same time he was admitted a member of the royal society; and in another journey in 1721, he contracted an intimacy with Martin Folkes, esq. the president of it, which lasted to his death.

In 1722, lord Polwarth, plenipotentiary of the king of Great Britain at the congress of Cambray, engaged him to go as tutor and companion to his eldest son, who was then to set out on his travels. After a short stay at Paris,“and visiting other cities in France, they fixed in Lorrain; where Maclaurin wrote his treatise” On the percussion of Bodies,“which gained the prize of the royal academy of sciences, for 1724; but his pupil dying soon after at Montpelier, he returned immediately to his professorship at Aberdeen. He was hardly settled here when he received an invitation to Edinburgh; the patrons of that university being desirous that he should supply the place of Mr. James Gregory, whose great age and infirmities had rendered him incapable of teaching. On this occasion he had some difficulties to encounter, arising from competitors, who had great interest with the patrons of the university, and also from the want of an additional fund for the new professor; all which, however, at length were surmounted, in consequence of two letters from sir Isaac Newton. In one, addressed to himself, with allowance to shew it to the patrons of the university, sir Isaac expresses himself thus:” I am very glad to hear that you have a prospect of being joined to Mr. James Gregory, in the professorship of the mathematics at Edinburgh, not only because you are my friend, but principally because of your abilities; you being acquainted as well with the new improvements of mathematics, as with the former state of those sciences. I heartily wish*you good success, and shall be very glad to hear of your being elected.“In a second letter to the lord provost of Edinburgh, he writes thus:” I am glad to understand that Mr. Maclaurin is in good repute amongst you for his skill in mathematics, for I think he deserves it very well; and to satisfy you that I do not flatter him, and also to encourage him to accept the place of assisting Mr. Gregory, in order to succeed him, I am ready, if you please to give me leave, to contribute 20l. per annum towards a provision for him, till Mr Gregory’s place becomes void, if I live so long, and I will pay it to his order in London."

In Nov. 1725, he was introduced into the university at the same time with his learned colleague and intimate friend, Dr. Alexander Monro, professor of anatomy. After this, the mathematical classes soon became very numerous, there being generally upwards of 100 students attending his lectures every year. These being of different standing and proficiency, he was obliged to divide them into four or five classes, in each of which he employed a full hour every day, from the first of Nov. to the first of June. In the first class he taught the first six books of “Euclid’s Elements,” plain trigonometry, practical geometry, the elements of fortification, and an introduction to algebra. The second studied algebra, the llth and 12th books of Euclid, spherical trigonometry, conic sections, and the general principles of astronomy. The third went on in astronomy and perspective, read a part of sir Isaac Newton’s “Priricipia,” and saw a course of experiments for illustrating them performed: he afterwards read and demonstrated the elements of fluxions. Those in the fourth class read a system of fluxions, the doctrine of chances, and the rest of Newton’s “Principia.” Besides these labours belonging to his professorship, he had frequently other employments and avocations. If an uncommon experiment was said to have been made any where, the feurious were desirous of having it repeated by him; and if an eclipse or comet was to be observed, his telescopes were always in readiness.

He lived a bachelor to the year 1733; but being formed for society, as well as contemplation, he then married Anne, the daughter of Mr. Walter Stewart, solicitor-general to his late majesty for Scotland. By this lady he had seven children, of which, two sons and three daughters, together with his wife, survived him. In 1734, Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne, published a piece called “The Analyst;” in which he took occasion, from some disputes that had arisen concerning the grounds of the fluxionary method, to explode the method itself, and also to charge mathematicians in general with infidelity in religion. Maclaurin thought himself included in this charge, and began an answer to Berkeley’s book: but, as he proceeded, so many discoveries, so many new theories and problems occurred to him, that, instead of a vindicatory pamphlet, it increased to “A complete system of Fluxions, with their application to the most considerable problems in geometry and natural philosophy.” This work, which was published at Edinburgh in 1742, 2 vols. 4to, cost him infinite pains, and will do him immortal honour, being indeed the most complete treatise on that science that has yet appeared . In the mean time, he was continually gratifying the public with some performance or observation of his own, many of which were published in the fifth and sixth volumes of the “Medical Essays,” at Edinburgh. Some of them appeared likewise in “The Philosophical Transactions” as the following: 1. “Of the construction and measure of Curves.” 2. “A new method of describing all kinds of Curves.” 3. “A letter to Martin Folkes, esq. on Equations with impossible Roots, May 1726.” 4. “Coiir tinuation of the same, March 1729.” 5. “December the 21st, 1732, On the description of Curves; with an account of farther improvements, and a paper dated at Nancy, Nov. 27, 1722.” 6. “An account of the treatise of Fluxions, Jan. 27, 1742.” 7. “The same continued, March 10, 1742” 8. “A Rule for finding the meridional parts of a Spheroid with the same exactness as of a Sphere, Aug. 1741.” 9. “Of the Basis of the Cells wherein the Bees deposit their honey, Nov. 3, 1734.”

In the midst of these studies he was always ready to promote any scheme xvhich might contribute to the service of his country. When the earl of Morton set out, in 1739, for Orkney and Shetland, to visit his estates there, he desired Mr. Maclaurjn to assist him in settling the geography of those countries, which is very erroneous in all our maps, to examine their natural history, to survey the coasts, and to take the measure of a degree of the meridian. Maclaurin’s family affairs, and other connections, however, not allowing of his absence, he drew up a memorial of what he thought necessary to be observed, furnished the proper instruments, and recommended Mr. Short, the famous optician, as a fit operator for the management of them. He had still another scheme for the improvement of geography and navigation, of a more extensive nature; which was, the opening a passage from Greenland to the South Sea by the North pole. That such a passage might be found, he was so fully persuaded, that he has been heard to say, if his situation could admit of such adventures, he would undertake the voyage, even at his own charge. But when schemes for finding it were laid before the parliament in 1744, and himself consulted by several persons of high rank concerning them, before he could finish the memorials he proposed to send, the premium was limited to the discovery of a North-West passage and he used to regret, that the word West was inserted, because he thought that passage, if at all to be found, must lie not far from the pole.

In 1745, having been very active in fortifying the city of Edinburgh against the rebel army, he was obliged to fly to the north of England; where he was invited by Herring, then archbishop of York, to reside with him during his stay in this country. “Here,” says he, in a letter to one of his friends, “I live as happy as a man can do, who is ignorant of the state of his family, and who sees the ruin of his country.” We regret to add, that in this expedition being exposed to cold and hardships, and naturally of a weak and tender constitution, he laid the foundation of a dropsical disorder, which put an end to his life June 14, 1746, aged 48. There is a circumstance recorded of him during his last moments, which shows that he was the inquiring philosopher to the last: He desired his friend Dr. Monro to account for a phenomenon he then observed in himself, viz. flashes of fire seeming to dart from his eyes, while in the mean time his sight was failing, so that he could scarcely distinguish one object from another."

Mr. Maclaurin is said to have been a very good, as well as a ver^y great man, and worthy of affection as well as admiration. His peculiar merit as a philosopher was, that all his studies were accommodated to general utility; and we find, in many places of his works, an application even of the most abstruse theories, to the perfection of mechanical arts. He had resolved, for the same purpose, to compose a course of practical mathematics, and to rescue several useful branches of the science from the bad treatment they often meet with in less skilful hands. But all this his death prevented; unless we should reckon, as a part of his intended work, the translation of Dr. David Gregory’s “Practical Geometry,” which he revised, and published with additions, 1745. He had, however, frequent opportunities of serving his friends and his country by his great skill. Whatever difficulty occurred concerning the constructing or perfecting of machines, the working of mines, the improving of manufactures, the conveying of water, or the execution of any other public work, he was at hand to resolve it. He was likewise employed to terminate some disputes of consequence that had arisen at Glasgow concerning the gauging of vessels; and for that purpose presented to the commissioners of excise two elaborate memorials, with their demonstrations, containing rules by which the officers now act. He made also calculations relating to the provision, now established by law, for the children and widows of the Scotch clergy, and of the professors in the universities, entitling them to certain annuities and sums, upon the voluntary annual payment of a certain sum by the incumbent. In contriving and adjusting this wise and useful scheme, he bestowed a great deal of labour, and contributed, not a little, towards bringing it to perfection.

Among his works, we have mentioned his “Geometria Organica,” in which he treats of the description of curve lines by continued motion: and that which gained the prize of the royal academy of sciences in 1724. In 1740, he likewise shared the prize of the same academy, with the celebrated Bernouilli and Euler, for resolving the motion of the tides from the theory of gravity; a question which had been given out the former year, without receiving any solution. He had only ten days for composing this paper, and could not find leisure to transcribe a fair copy; so that the Paris edition of it is incorrect. He afterwards revised the whole, and inserted it in his “Treatise of Fluxions,” as he did also the substance of the former piece. These, with the “Treatise of Fluxions,” and the pieces printed in the “Philosophical Transactions,” of which we have given a list, are all the writings which he lived to publish. Since his death, two volumes more have appeared his “Algebra,” and his “Account of sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical discoveries.” His “Algebra,” though not finished by himself, is yet allowed to be excellent in its kind; containing, in no large volume, a complete elementary treatise of that science, as far as it has hitherto been carried; besides some neat analytical papers on curve lines. His “Account of sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy” was occasioned by the following circumstances: sir Isaac dying in the beginning of 1728, his nephew, Mr, Conduitt, proposed to publish an account of his life, and desired Mr. Maclaurin’s assistance. The latter, out of gratitude to his great benefactor, chearfully undertook, and soon finished, the history of the progress which philosophy had made before sir Isaac’s time: and this was the first draught of the work in hand, which not going forward, on account of Mr. Conduitt’s death, was returned to Mr. Maclaurin. To this he afterwards made great additions, and left it in the state in which it now appears. His main design seems to have been, to explain only those parts of sir Isaac’s philosophy which have been, and still are, controverted: and this is supposed to be the reason, why his grand discoveries concerning light and colours are but transiently and generally touched. For it is known, that ever since the experiments on which his doctrine of light and colours is founded, have been repeated with due care, this doctrine had not been contested; whereas his theory of celestial phaenomena, founded on gravitation, had been misunderstood, and even ridiculed. The weak charge of introducing occult qualities has been frequently repeated; foreign professors still amuse themselves with imaginary triumphs; and even the polite and ingenious cardinal de Polignac has been seduced to lend them the harmony of his numbers.

, son of the preceding, was born at Edinburgh in December 1734, and educated at the grammar-school and university of Edinburgh. Having applied to the study of the law, he was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates at Edinburgh in 1756. In 1782, a royal aociety was established in Edinburgh, of which Mr. Maclaurin was one of the original constituent members, and at an early period of the institution he read an essay to prove that Troy was not taken by the Greeks. In 1787 he was raised from the Scottish bar, at which he had practised long and successfully, to the bench, by the title of lord Dreghorn. He died in 1796. As an author we have “An Essay on Literary Property;” “A Collection of Criminal Cases;” “An Essay on Patronage;” and some poetical pieces, with three dramas, entitled “Hampden,” “The Public,” and “The Philosopher’s Opera.” During the years 1792, 3, 4, and 5, lord Dreghorn kept a journal, or diary, in which he recorded the various events that happened in Europe during those years. From this journal he made a selection for publication: and in 1799 a selection of his lordship’s works was printed in two vols. 8vo, containing most of the pieces mentioned above. It has, however, been generally thought that these added very little to his reputation, the character of his poetry being that of mediocrity, and his prose neither very lively not profound, though he occasionally exhibits learning and acuteness, and always an ardent love of liberty."

, an author whose fame rests chiefly on his being the editor of Ossian’s poems, was descended from one of the most ancient families in the North of Scotland, being cousin-german to the chief of the clan of the Macphersons, who deduce their origin from the ancient Catti of Germany. His father, however, was a farmer of no great affluence. He was born in the parish of Kingcusie, Inverness-shire, in the latter end of 1738, and received the first rudiments of his education at one of the parish schools in the district, called Badenoch, from which, in 1752, he entered King’s college, Aberdeen, where he displayed more genius than learning, entertaining the society of which he was a member, and diverting the younger part of it from their studies by his humorous and doggrel rhimes. About two months after his admission into the university, the King’s college added two months to the length of its annual session or term, which induced Macpherson, with many other young men, to remove to Marischal college, where the session continued short: and this circumstance has led the biographer, from whom we borrow it, to suppose that his father was not opulent. Soon after he left college, or perhaps before, he was schoolmaster of Ruthven or Riven, of Badenocb, and afterwards is said to have delighted as little as his antagonist Johnson, in the recollection of that period, when he was compelled, by the narrowness of his fortune, to teach boys in an obscure school.

It was here, however, about 1758, that he published the “Highlander,” an heroic poem in six cantos, 12mo. Of this poem, which has not fallen in our way, we have seen two opinions, the one, that it indicated considerable genius in so young an author; the other that it is a tissue of fustian and absurdity, feeble, and in some parts ridiculous, and shews little or no talent in the art of versification. This last we take to be the opinion of the late Isaac Reed, who had a copy of the poem, which was purchased at his sale by George Chalmers, esq. Mr. Reed adds, that in a short time the author became sensible of its faults, and endeavoured to suppress it. About the same time he wrote an “Ode on the arrival of the Earl Marischal in Scotland,” which he called an attempt in the manner of Pindar, how justly, the reader may determine, as it was published in the European Magazine for 1796.

It was intended that he should enter into the service of the church, but whether he ever took orders is uncertain. Mr. Gray speaks of him as a young clergyman; but David Hume probably more truly describes him as “a modest sensible young man, not settled in any living, but employed as a private tutor in Mr. Graham of Balgowan’s family, a way of life which he is not fond of.” This was in 1760, when he surprized the world by the publication of “Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Galic or Erse language,” 8vo. These fragments, which were declared to be genuine remains of ancient Scottish poetry, at their first appearance delighted every reader; and some very good judges, and amongst the rest Mr. Gray, were extremely warm in their praises. Macpherson had intended to bury them in a Scotch magazine, but was prevented from so injudicious a step by the advice of his friend, Mr. Home, the auther of “Douglas.” As other specimens were said to be recoverable, a subscription was set on foot to enable our author to quit the family he was then in, and undertake a mission into the Highlands, to secure them. He engaged in the undertaking, and soon after produced the works whose authenticity has since occasioned so much controversy.

In 1762 he published “Fingal, an ancient epic poem, in six books,” together with several other poems, composed by Ossian, the son of Fingal, translated from the Gaiic language, 4to. The subject of this epic poem is an invasion of Ireland by Swaran, king of Lochliu. Cuchullin, general of the Irish tribes during the minority of Cormac king of Ireland, upon intelligence of the invasion, assembled his forces near Tura, a castle on the coast of Ulster. The poem opens with the landing of Swaran; councils are held, battles fought, and Cuchullin is at last totally defeated. In the mean time Fingal, king of the Highlands of Scotland, whose aid had been solicited before the enemy landed, arrived, and expelled them from the country. This war, which continued but six days and as many nights, is, including the episodes, the story of the poem: the scene, the heath of Lena, near a mountain called Cromleach in Ulster. This poem also was received with equal applause as the preceding fragments.

The next year he produced “Temora,” an ancient epic poem, in eight books: together with several other poems composed by Ossian, son. of Fingal, 4to, which, though well received, found the public somewhat less disposed to bestow the same measure of applause. Though these poems had been examined by Dr. Blair and others, and their authenticity asserted, there were not wanting some of equal reputation for critical abilities, who either doubted or declared their disbelief of the genuineness of them. After their publication, by which he is said to have gained twelve hundred pounds, Mr, Macpherson was called to an employment which withdrew him for some time from the muses and his country. In 1764, governor Johnstone was appointed chief of Pensacola, and Mr. Macpherson accompanied him as his secretary; but some difference having arisen between them, they parted before their return to England. Having contributed his aid to the settlement of the civil government of that colony, he visited several of the West-India islands, and some of the provinces of North America, and returned to England in 1766. He now resumed his studies, and in 1771 produced “An Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland,” 4to, a work which, he says, “without any of th ordinary incitements to literary labour, he was induced to proceed in by the sole motive of private amusement.” This work is not inelegantly written, but his hypotheses on Celtic origin brought upon him the resentment of some critics, who preserved very little decency on a subject that might certainly have been discussed in an amicable manner. His next performance was more justly entitled to contempt, as it showed him to be utterly destitute of taste, and consequently produced him neither reputation nor profit. This was “The Iliad of Homer” translated, in two volumes 4to, 1773, a work fraught with vanity and selfconsequence, and which met with the most mortifying reception from the public. It was condemned by the critics, ridiculed by the wits, and neglected by the world. Some of his friends, and particularly sir John Elliott, endeavoured to rescue it from contempt, and force it into notice, but their success was not equal to their efforts. After a very acute, learned, and witty critique, inserted in the Critical Review, the new translation was confessed to possess no merit, and ever since has been consigned to oblivion.

About this time seems to be the period of Mr. Macpherson’s literary mortifications. In 1773, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell made the tour to the Hebrides; and in the course of it, the former took some pains to examine into the proofs of the authenticity of Ossian. The result of his inquiries he gave to the public in 1775, in his narrative of the tour, ai^d his opinion was unfavourable. “I believe they (i. e. the poems, says he) never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor or author never could shew the original; nor can it be shewn by any other. To revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt. It would be easy to shew it if he had it; but whence could it be had? It is too long to be remembered, and the language had formerly nothing written. He has doubtless inserted names that circulate in popular stories, and may have translated some wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the names and some of the images being recollected, make an inaccurate auditor imagine, by the help of Caledonian bigotry, that he has formerly heard the whole.” Again, “I have yet supposed no imposture but in the publisher, yet 1 am far from certainty, that some translations have not been lately made, that may now be obtruded as parts of the original work. Credulity on one part is a strong temptation to deceit on the other, especially to deceit of which no personal injury is the consequence, and which flatters the author with his own ingenuity. The Scots have something to plead for their easy reception of an improbable fiction: they are seduced by their fondness for their supposed ancestors. A Scotchman must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry, and, if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it. Neither ought the English to be much influenced by Scotch authority; for of the past and present state of the whole Erse nation, the Lowlanders are at least as ignorant as ourselves. To be ignorant is painful; but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion.”

The opinions above declared by Dr. Johnson incensed our author so much, that he was prompted by his evil genius to send a menacing letter to his antagonist, which produced the most severe, spirited, and sarcastic reply ever written . Whether his warmth abated, or whether he had been made sensible of his folly by the interposition of friends, we know not; but certain it is, we hear no more afterwards of this ridiculous affair, except that our author is supposed to have assisted Mr. Mac Nicol in an Answer to Dr. Johnson’s Tour, printed in 1779. This supposition, says one of his biographers, we are inclined to consider as well founded, because we have been told by a gentleman of veracity, that Mr. Mac Nicol affirms, that the scurrility of his book, which constitutes a great part of it, was inserted, unknown to him, after the manuscript was sent for publication to London.

Soon after this period, the tide of fortune flowed very rapidly in Mr. Macpherson’s favour, and his talents and industry were amply sufficient to avail himself of every favourable circumstance whieh arose. The resistance of the Colonies called for the aid of a ready writer to combat the arguments of the Americans, and to give force to the reasons which influenced the conduct of government, and he was selected for the purpose. Among other things he wrote a pamphlet, which was circulated with much industry, entitled “The Rights of Great Britain asserted against the Claims of the Colonies; being an answer to the declaration of the general congress,” 1776, 8vo, and of which many editions were published. He also was the author of “A short History of the Opposition during the last session of parliament,” 1779, 8vo, a pamphlet, which, on account of its merit, was by many ascribed to Mr. Gibbon.

But a more lucrative employment was conferred on him about this time. He was appointed agent to the nabob of Arcot, and in that capacity exerted his talents in several appeals to the public in behalf of his client. Among others he published “Letters from Mahommed Ali Chan, nabob of Arcot, to the Court of Directors. To which is annexed, a state of facts relative to Tanjore, with an appendix of original papers,” 1777, 4to; and he was supposed to be the author of “The History and Management of the East India Company, from its origin in 1600 to the present times, vol. I. containing the affairs of the Carnatic; in which the rights of the nabob are explained, and the injustice of the company proved,” 1779, 4to.

In his capacity of agent to the nabob, it was probably thought requisite that he should have a seat in the British parliament. He was accordingly in 1780 chosen member for Camelford, but we do not recollect that he ever attempted to speak in the house. He was also re-chosen in 1784 and 1790. He had purchased, before this last mentioned year, an estate in the parish in which he was born: and changing its name from Retz to Belville, built on it a large and elegant mansion, commanding a very romantic and picturesque view; and thither he retired when his health began to fail, in expectation of receiving benefit from the change of air. He continued, however, to decline; and after lingering some time, died at his seat at Belville, in Inverness, Feb. 17, 1796.

In Mrs. Grant’s “Letters from the Mountains” we “have some affecting particulars of his death.” Finding some inward symptoms of his approaching dissolution, he sent for a consultation, the result of which arrived the day after his confinement. He was perfectly sensible and collected, yet refused to take any thing prescribed to him to the last, and that on this principle, that his time was come, and it did not avail. He felt the approaches of death, and hoped no relief from medicine, though his life was not such as one should like to look back on at that awful period. Indeed, whose is? It pleased the Almighty to render his last scene most affecting and exemplary. He died last Tuesday evening; and from the minute he was confined till, a very little before he expired, never ceased imploring the divine mercy in the most earnest and pathetic manner. People about him were overawed and melted by the fervour and bitterness of his penitence. He frequently and earnestly entreated the prayers of good serious people of the lower class who were admitted. He was a very goodnatured mart; and now that he had got all his schemes of interest and ambition fulfilled, he seemed to reflect and grow domestic, and shewed of late a great inclination to be an indulgent landlord, and very liberal to the poor, of which I could relate various instances, more tender and interesting than flashy or ostentatious. His heart and temper were originally good. His religious principles were, I fear, unfixed and fluctuating; but the primary cause that so much genius, taste, benevolence, and prosperity, did not produce or diffuse more happiness, was his living a stranger to the comforts of domestic life, from which unhappy connexions excluded him, &c."

He appears to have died in very opulent circumstances, and by his will, dated June 1193, gave various annuities and legacies to several persons to a great amount. He also bequeathed lOOOl. to Mr. John Mackensie, of Figtree court, in the Temple, to defray the expence of printing and publishing Ossian in the original. -He directed 300l. to be laid out in erecting a monument to his memory, in some conspicuous situation at Belville, and ordered that his body should be carried from Scotland, and interred in the Abbey-church of Westminster, the city in which he had passed the greatest and best part of his life. He was accordingly brought from the place where he died, and buried in the Poets-corner of the church.

, a French lawyer, chiefly celebrated for his chronological abridgments after the manner of Henault, was born at Paris, Feb. 15, 1720, and educated at the university of that city. Here he gave the most promising hopes of success in any of the learned professions, and had in particular attached himself to the law; but weak lungs preventing him from entering into the active occupations of a pleader, he devoted himself to general literature, and produced the following works 1. “Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire Ecclesiastique,” a chronological abridgment of Ecclesiastical History, in three volumes, octavo, written more drily and less elegantly than that of Henault, whom the author followed. 2. “Les Annales Romaines,” 1756, one volume octavo, in which the author has taken advantage of the most valuable remarks of St. Evremond, the abbe St. Real, Montesquieu, Mably, and several others, respecting the Romans; and the work is consequently not so dry as the former. In style, however, he is still inferior to his model. Of this we have an English translation by Nugent, 1759, 8vo. 3. “Abreg6 Chronologique de l‘Histoire d’Espagne et de Portugal,” 2 vols. 8vo, 1759 1765. This work, which was actually begun by Henault, is worthy of him in point of exactness; but neither affords such striking portraits, nor such profound remarks. Lacombe, another author celebrated for this kind of compilation, assisted also in this. Macquer had some share in writing the “Dictionaire des Arts et Metiers,” 2 vols. 8vo. He was industrious, gentle, modest, sincere, and a decided enemy to all quackery and ostentation. He had little imagination, but a sound judgment; and had collected a great abundance and variety of useful knowledge. He died the 27th of January, 1770.

, brother to the preceding, an eminent physician and chemist, was born at Paris, Oct. 9, 171S, and became a doctor of the' faculty of medicine in the university of that metropolis, professor of pharmacy, and censor-royal. He was, likewise, a member of the academies of sciences of Turin, Stockholm, and Paris, and conducted the medical and chemical departments of the Journal des Sgavans. He had the merit of pursuing chemistry as a department of natural philosophy, and was one of the most successful cultivators of the science, upon rational principles, previous to the new modelling which it has received within the last twenty-five years. He died Feb. 15, 1784, after having suffered much by an internal complaint, which appeared beyond the reach of skill. On this account he desired that his body might be opened, when it was discovered that his disorder was an ossification of the aorta, with strong concretions formed in the cavity of the heart. Mr. Macquer’s private character appears to have been truly amiable in every relation, and few men were more respected by his contemporaries. He published, 1. “Elemens de Chymie Theorique,” 1749 1753, 12mo. 2. “Elemens de Chymie Pratique,” 2 vols. 12mo. 3. “Plan d'un Cours de Chymie experimentale et raisonnee,” 1757, 12mo. This was composed in conjunction with M. Baume“, who was associated with him in his lectures. 4.” Dictionnaire de Chymie,“1766, 2 vols. 8vo. These works have all been translated into English and German; the Dictionary particularly, by Mr. Keir, with great additions and improvements. 5.” Formulae Medicamentorum Magistralium,“1763 and he had also a share in the compoposition of the” Pharmacopeia Parisiensis," of 1758.

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

, was an ancient Latin writer, who flourished towards the latter part of the fourth century. What countryman he was, is not clear Erasmus, in his Ciceronianus, seems to think he was a Greek and he himself tells us, in the preface to his “Saturnalia,” that he was not a Roman, but laboured under the inconveniences of writing in a language which was not native to him. Of what religion he was, Christian or pagan, is also uncertain. Barthius ranks him among the Christians; but Spanheira and Fabiicius suppose him to have been a heathen. It seems, however, agreed that he was a man of consular. dignity, and one of the chamberlains, or masters of the wardrobe to Theodosius; as appears from a rescript directed to Florentius, concerning those who were to obtain that office. He wrote “A Commentary upon Cicero’s Somnium Scipiouis,” full of Platonic notions, and seven books of “Saturnalia;” which resemble in plan the “Noctes Atticae” of Aulus Gellius. He termed them “Saturnalia,” because, during the vacation observed on these feasts of Saturn, he collected the principal literati of Rome, in his house, and conversed with them on all kinds of subjects, and afterwards set down what appeared to him, most interesting in their discourses. His Latinity is far from being pure, but as a collector of facts, opinions, and criticism, his works are valuable. The “Somnium Sci r pionis,” and “Saturnalia,” have been often printed; to which has been added, in the later editions, a piece entitled “De difterentiis & societatibus Graeci Latinique verbi.” The best editions are those of the Variorum; of Gronovius in 1670, and Leipsic in 1777. There is a specimen of an English translation of the “Saturnalia” in the Gent. Mag. for 1760, but it does not appear to have been completed.

, a celebrated preacher and writer, was the son of Martin Madan, esq. of Hertingfordbury near Hertford, member of parliament for Wootton Basset, and groom of the bedchamber to Frederick prince of Wales. His mother was daughter of Spencer Cowper, esq. and niece of the lord chancellor Cowper, an accomplished lady, and author of several poems of considerable merit. He was born in 1726, and was bred originally to the law, and had been called to the bar; but being fond of the study of theology, well versed in Hebrew, and becoming intimate with Mr. Jones and Mr. Romaine, two clergymen of great popularity at that time, by their advice he left the law for the pulpit, and was admitted into orders. His first sermon is said to have been preached in the church of Allhallows, Lombard -street, and to have attracted immediate attention and applause. Being appointed chaplain to the Lock-hospital, his zeal led him to attend diligently, and to preach to the unfortunate patients assembled in the parlour: his fame also brought many others thither, till the rooms and avenues were crowded. This led to a proposal for a chapel, which was finished in 176.1, and opened with a sermon from the chaplain. He subjected himself to much obloquy, about the year 1767, by the advice he gave to his friend Mr. Havveis, to retain the rectory of Aldwincle, and several pamphlets were written on the subject; but lord Apsley (afterwards Bathurst) did not seem to consider the affair in an unfavourable light, as he afterwards appointed him his chaplain. Mr. Madan became an author in 1761, when he published, 1. “A sermon on Justification by Works.” 2. “A small treatise on the Christian Faith,” 1761, 12mo. 3. “Sermon at the opening of the Lock Hospital, 1762.” 4. “Answer to the capital errors of W. Law,” 1763, 8vo. 5. “Answer to the narrative of facts respecting the rectory of Aldwinckle,” 1767, 8vo. 6. “A comment on the Thirty-nine Articles,” 1772, 8vo. 7.“Thelyphthora,” 1780, 2 vols. -&vo. In this book the author justifies polygamy, upon the notion that the first cohabitation with a woman is a virtual marriage; and supports his doctrine by many acute arguments. The intention of the work was to lessen or remove the causes of seduction; but it met with much opposition, many very severe animadversions, and cost the author his reputation among the religious world. He, however, was not discouraged; and in 1781, published a third volume, after which the work sunk into oblivion, a fate to which the masterly criticism on it in the Monthly Review, by the rev. Mr. Badcock, very greatly contributed. It is somewhat remarkable that Mrs. Manley in the “Atalantis” speaks of lord chancellor Cowper, as maintaining the same tenets on polygamy. Mr. Madan next produced, 8. “Letters to Dr. Priestley,” 1787, 12mo. 9. A literal version of “Juvenal and Persius,” with notes, 1789, 2 vols. 8vo: and some controversial tracts on the subject of his Thelyphthora. Mr. Madan died at Epsom in May, 1790, at the age of 64, after a short illness, and was buried at Kensington. The late Dr. Spencer Madan, bishop of Peterborough, was brother to our author.

, D. D. (“a name,” says Dr. Johnson, “which Ireland ought to honour,”) was born in 1687, and received his education at Dublin. He appears, however, to have been in England in 1729; and having written a tragedy called “Themistocles, or the Lover of his country,” was, as he himself says, tempted to let it appear, by the offer of a noble study of books from the profits of it. In 1731, he projected a scheme for promoting learning in the college of Dublin by premiums, at the quarterly examinations, which has proved highly beneficial. In 1732, he published his “Memoirs of the Twentieth Century; being original Letters of State under George the Sixth, relating to the most important events in Great-Britain, and Europe, as to church and state, arts and sciences, trade, taxes, and treaties, peace and war, and characters of the greatest persons of those times, from the middle of the eighteenth to the end of the twentieth century, and the world. Received and revealed in the year 1728; and now published, for the instruction of all eminent statesmen, churchmen, patriots, politicians, projectors, papists, and protestants.” In 6 vols. Lond. 1733, 8vo. In 1740, we find him in his native country, and in that year setting apart the annual sum of one hundred pounds to be distributed, by way of premium, to the inhabitants of Ireland only; namely, 50l. to the author of the best invention for improving any useful art or manufacture; 25l. to the per-> son who should execute the best statue or piece of sculpture; and 25l. to the person who should finish the best piece of painting, either in history or landscape the premiums to be decided by the Dublin society, of which Dr. Madden was the institutor. The good effects of these well applied benefactions have not only been felt to advantage in the kingdom where they were given, but have even extended their influence to its sister country, having giren rise to the society for the encouragement of arts and sciences in London. In 1743 or 4, he published a long poem, called “Boulter’s Monument;” which was corrected for the press by Dr. Johnson; and an epistle of about 200 lines by him is prefixed to the second edition of Leland’s “Life of Philip of Macedon.” In an oration spoken at Dublin, Dec. 6, 1757, by Mr. Sheridan, that gentleman took occasion to mention Dr. Madden’s bounty, and intended to have proceeded in the following manner, but was prevented by observing the doctor to be then present. Speaking of the admirable institutions of premiums, he went on, “Whose author, had he never contributed any thing farther to the good of his country, would have deserved immortal honour, and must have been held in reverence by the latest posterity. But the unwearied and disinterested endeavours, during a long course of years, of this truly good man, in a variety of branches, to promote industry, and consequently the welfare of this kingdom, and the mighty benefits which have thence resulted to the community, have made many of the good people of Ireland sorry, that a long-talked of scheme has not hitherto been put in execution: that we might not appear inferior in point of gratitude to the citizens of London, with respect to a fellow-citizen [sir John Barnard], (surely not with more reason,) and that like them we might be able to address our patriot, Praesenti tibi matures largimur honores.”

Dr. Madden had some good church preferment in Ireland, particularly a deanery, we know not which, and the living of Drummully, worth about 400l. a year, the right of presentation to which was divided between his own family, and another. As his family had presented on the last vacancy, the other of course had a right to present now; but the Maddens offering to give up all right of presentation in future, if allowed to present on the present occasion, this was agreed to, and thus the Doctor got the living. At what time this occurred we are not told, but he was then a colonel of militia, and was in Dublin dressed in scarlet. Besides this living, he had a very good estate; but as he was almost entirely devoted to books, or acts of charity and public good, he left the management of his income, both ecclesiastical and temporal, to his wife, a lady of a somewhat different turn of mind. They lived at Manor-water-house, three miles from Newtown-Botler; and the celebrated rev. Philip Skelton lived with them for some time, as tutor to the children. Dr. Madden also gave him the curacy of Newtown-Butler.

Mons. Grosley, a lively French traveller, speaking of a city in the centre of France, “which at the beginning of the fifteenth century served as a theatre to the grandest scene that England ever acted in that kingdom,” mentions several English families as lately extinct, or still subsisting there. “This city,” he adds, “in return, has given the British dominions an illustrious personage, to whom they are indebted for the first prizes which have been there distributed for the encouragement of agriculture and arts. His name was Madain: being thrown upon the coast of Ireland by events of which I could never hear any satisfactory account, he settled in Dublin by the name of Madden, there made a fortune, dedicated part of his estate, which amounted to four or five thousand pounds a year, to the prizes which I have spoken of, and left a rich succession part of this succession went over to France to the Madains his relations, who commenced a law-suit for the recovery of it, and caused ecclesiastical censures to be published against a merchant, to whom they had sent a letter of attorney to act for them, and whom they accused of having appropriated to himself a share of their inheritance.”

, a famous English prelate, born at London, July 27, 1697, of obscure parents, whom he lost while he was young, was taken care of by an aunt, who placed him in a charity-school, and afterwards put him on trial to a pastry-cook; but, before he was bound apprentice, the master told her that the boy was not fit for trade; that he was continually reading books of learning above his (the master’s) comprehension, and therefore advised that she should take him away, and send him back to school, to follow the bent of his inclination. He was on this sent, by an exhibition of some dissenting friends, to one of the universities of Scotland, Cole says, that of Aberdeen; but, not caring to take orders in that church, was afterwards, through the patronage of bishop Gibson, admitted to Queen’s-college, Cambridge, and was favoured with a doctor’s degree at Lambeth. After entering into orders, he first was curate of St. Bride’s, then domestic chaplain to Dr. Waddington, bishop of Chichester, whose niece he married, and was afterwards promoted to the rectory of St. Vedast, in Foster-lane, London. In 1729, he was appointed clerk of the closet to queen Caroline. In 1733, he became dean of Wells, and was consecrated bishop of St. Asaph, in 1736. He was translated to the see of Worcester, in 1743. In 1733 he published the first part of the “Review of Neal’s History of the Puritans,” under the title of, “A Vindication of the Government, Doctrine, and Worship of the Church of England, established in the reign of queen Elizabeth:” of which the late bishop Hallifax said, “a better vindication of the reformed church of England, I never read.” He was a great benefactor to the London hospitals, and the first promoter of the Worcester Infirmary in 1745, which has proved of singular benefit to the poor, and a great advantage to medical and surgical knowledge in that neighbourhood. He was also a great encourager of trade, engaging in the British fishery, by which he lost some money. He likewise was a strong advocate for the act against vending spirituous liquors. He married Elizabeth daughter of Richard Price, esq. of Hayes in Middlesex, in 1731; and had two daughters and a son, of whom only one daughter survived him, and was afterwards married to the hon. James Yorke, bishop of Gloucester, and late bishop of Ely. He died Sept. 27, 1739. Bishop Madox published fourteen occasional sermons preached between the years 1734 and 1752. Among other instances of his benevolence, we may mention his assigning 200l.perann. during his life, for the augmentation of the smaller benefices of his diocese. He corresponded with Dr. Doddridge with affectionate familiarity, and visited him when at Bristol, offering in the most obliging manner to convey him to the Wells in his chariot, at the stated times of drinking. He used to anticipate any hints respecting his origin by a joke which he was fond of repeating. When tarts wera on his table, he pressed the company to partake, saying “that he believed they were very good, but that they were not of his own making” This he varied, when John Whiston dined with him, into, “some people reckon me a good judge of that article!” Upon the whole he appears to have been an amiable and benevolent man, and to have employed his wealth as well as his talents to the best purposes. His widow survived him thirty years, dying Feb. 19, 1789.

, the learned exchequer antiquary, and historiographer royal, of whose personal history we have no information, is well known among antiquaries and lawyers for his valuable collection of records relating to the ancient laws and constitution of this country; the knowledge of which tends greatly to the illustration of English history. In 1702, under the patronage of the learned lord Somers, he published the first fruits of his researches, under the title of “A Collection of antique Charters and Instruments of divers kinds taken from the originals, placed under several heads, and deduced (in a series according to the order of time) from the Norman conquest, to the end of the reign of king Henry VIII.” This is known by the name of the “Formulare AngJicanum.” To it is prefixed a dissertation concerning “Ancient Charters and Instruments,” replete with useful learning upon that subject. He was prompted to this work, by considering that there was no methodical history or system of ancient charters and instruments of this nation then extant; and that it would be acceptable to curious persons, and useful to the public, if something were done for supplying that defect. Having entertained such a design, and being furnished with proper materials from the archives of the late court of augmentations, he was encouraged to proceed in it, especially by lord Somers and prosecuted it with so much application, that out of an immense heap of original charters and writings, remaining in that repository, he selected and digested the chief substance of this volume. In 1711, he proceeded to a work of still greater importance than the foregoing, “The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer of the Kings of England, in two periods, viz. from the Norman conquest, to the end of the reign of king John; and from the end of the reign of king John, to the end of the reign of king Edward II. Taken from records. Together with a correct copy of the ancient dialogue concerning the Exchequer, generally ascribed to Gervasius Tilburiensis and a Dissertation concernlag the most ancient great roll of the exchequer, commonly styled the roll of Quinto Regis Stephani,” folio; reprinted in 1769, in 4to. This was dedicated to queen Anne; but there is likewise prefixed to it a long prefatory epistle to the lord Somers, in which he gives that illustrious patron some account of this unprecedented undertaking. He observes, that though some treatises had been written concerning the exchequer, yet no history [of it had been yet attempted by any man; that he had pursued his subject to those ancient times, to which, he thinks, the original of the exchequer in England may properly be assigned; and thence had drawn down an orderly account of it through a long course of years; and, having consulted, as well the books necessary to be perused upon this occasion, as a very great number of records and manuscripts, he had endeavoured all along x to confirm what he offered by proper vouchers, which are subjoined column-wise in each page, except where their extraordinary length made it impracticable. The records. which he here attests were, as he adds, taken by his own pen from the authentic parchments, unless where it appears by his references to be otherwise. He has contrived throughout the whole (as far as the subject-matter would permit) to make use of such memorials as serve either to make known or to explain the ancient laws and usages of this kingdom. For which reason, as he notes“, this work may be deemed, not merely a history of the exchequer, but likewise a promptuary towards a history of the ancient law of England. He afterwards acquaints” his lordship in what method he began and proceeded in compiling this work. First, he made as full a collection from records as he could, of materials relating to the subject. Those materials being regularly arranged in several books of collectanea, he reviewed them, and, weighing what they imported, and how they might be applied, he drew from thence a general scheme of his design. When he had pitched upon the heads of his discourse, he took materials for them out of the aforesaid fund, and digested them into their proper rank and order. In do ng this, it was his practice for the most part to write down, in the draught of his book, the respective records or testimonies first of all; i. e. before he wrote his own text or composition; and from them formed his history or accouit of things; connecting and applying them afterwards, as the case would admit. At the end of this history (as we have expressed it in the title) Mr. Maddox has publisteti a copy of the treatise concerning the exchequer, written in the way of dialogue, and generally ascribed to Gervasius Tilburiensis. This treatise is certainly very ancient, and intrinsically valuable. Our author introduces it by an epistolary dissertation, in Latin, to the then lord Halifax. The dialogue is followed by another epistolary dissertation, in the same language, addressed to the lord Somers, relating to the great roll of the exchequer, commonly styled the “Roll of Quinto Regis Stephani.” No historical account has been given, in this volume, of the records reposited in the exchequer. Mr. Madox thought that it might be more properly done if there was occasion for it, hereafter, in a continuation of this work; which he seems to have had some intention of performing himself when he published this part; or hoped some other hand would supply, if he did not. The concluding chapter of the history is a list of the barons of this court from the first year of William the Conqueror to the 20th of Edward II. The last work this laborious historiographer published himself, was the “Firma Burgi, or historical essay concerning the cities, towns, and boroughs of England. Taken from records.” This treatise was inscribed to king George I. The author warns his readers against expecting to find any curious or refined learning in it; in regard the matter of it is low. It is only one part of a subject, which, however, is extensive and difficult, concerning which, be tells us, much has been said by English writers to very little purpose, serving rather to entangle than to clear it. When he first entered upon the discussion of it, he found himself encompassed with doubts, which it hath been his endeavour, as he says, to remove or lessen as he went along. He has throughout mixed history and dissertation together, making these two strengthen and diversify each other. However modestly Mr. Madox might express himself concerning the learning of this work, it is in reality both curious and profound, and his inquiries very useful. The civil antiquities of this country would, in all probability, have been further obliged than they are to this industrious person, if his life had been of a somewhat longer continuance; for it may be presumed, from two or three passages in the prefaces of those books he published himself, that he meditated and intended some others to follow them, different from this posthumous History of Baronies, which his advertisement of it apparently suggests to be the only manuscript left finished by the author. This is compiled much in the manner of his other writings. In the first book he discourses largely of land baronies; in the second book he treats briefly of titular baronies and in the third of feudal tenure in capite.

, the great friend and counsellor of Augustus Caesar, was himself a polite scholar, but is chiefly memorable for having been the patron and protector of men of letters. He was descended from a most ancient and illustrious origin, even from the kings of Hetruria, as Horace often tells us; but his immediate forefathers were only of the equestrian order. He is supposed to have been born at Rome, because his family lived there; but in what year antiquity does not tell us. His education is supposed to have been of the most liberal kind, and agreeable to the dignity and splendour of his birth, as he excelled in every thing that related to arms, politics, and letters. How he spent his younger years is also unknown, there being no mention made of him, by any writer, before the death of Julius Caesar, which happened in the year of Rome 709. Then Octavius Caesar, who was afterwards called Augustus, went to Rome to take possession of his uncle’s inheritance; and, at the same time, Mæcenas became first publicly known; though he appears to have been Augustus’s friend, and, as it should seem, guardian, from his childhood. From that time he accompanied him through all his fortunes, and was his counsellor and adviser upon all occasions; so that Pedo Albinovanus, or rather the unknown author whose elegy has been ascribed to him, justly calls him “Caesaris dextram,” Caesar’s right hand.

A. U. C. 710, the year that Cicero was killed, and Ovid born, Mæcenas distinguished himself by his courage and military skill at the battle of Modena, where the consuls Hirtius and Pansa were killed in fighting against Antony; as he did afterwards at Philippi. After this last battle, began the memorable friendship between him and Horace. Horace, as Suetonius relates, was a tribune in the army of Brutus and Cassius, and, upon the defeat of those generals, made a prisoner of war. Mæcenas, finding him an accomplished man, became immediately his friend and protector, and afterwards recommended him to Augustus, who restored him to his estate, with no small additions. In the mean time, though Mæcenas behaved himself well as a soldier in these and other battles, yet his principal province was that of a minister and counsellor. He was the adviser, the manager, the negotiator, in every thing that related to civil affairs. When the league was made at Brundusium betwen Antony and Augustus, he was sent to act on the part of Augustus, and afterwards, when this league was about to be broken, through the suspicions of each party, he was sent to Antony to ratify it anew.

U. C. 717, when Augustus and Agrippa went to Sicily, to fight Sextus Pompeius by sea, Mæcenas went with them but soon after returned, to appease some commotions which were rising at Rome for though he usually attended Augustus in all his military expeditions, yet whenever there was any thing to be done at Rome, either with the senate or people, he was also dispatched thither for that purpose. He was indeed invested with the government while Augustus and Agrippa were employed in the wars. Thus Dion Cassius, speaking of the year 718, says that Mæcenas “had then, and some time after, the administration of civil affairs, not only at Rome, but throughout all Italy,” and V. Paterculus relates, that after the battle of Actium, which happened in the year 724, “the government of the city was committed to Mæcenas, a man of equestrian rank, but of an illustrious family.” Upon the total defeat of Antony at Actium, he returned to Rome, to take the government into his hands, till Augustus could settle some necessary affairs in Greece and Asia. Agrippa soon followed Mæcenas and, when Augustus arrived, he placed these two great men and faithful adherents, the one over his civil, the other over his military concerns. While Augustus was extinguishing the remains of the civil war in Asia and Kgypt, young Lepidus, the son of the triumvir, was forming a scheme to assassinate him at his return to Rome. This conspiracy was discovered at once by the extraordinary vigilance of Mæcenas who, as Paterculus says, “observing the rash councils of the headstrong youth, with the same tranquillity and calmness as if nothing at all had been doing, instantly put him to death, without the least noise and tumult, and by that means extinguished another civil war in its very beginning.”

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

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

Mæcenas is said never to have enjoyed a good state of health in any part of his life; and many singularities are related of his bodily constitution. Thus Pliny tells us, that he was always in a, fever; and that, for three years before his death, he had not a moment’s sleep. Though he was certainly an extraordinary man, and possessed many admirable virtues and qualities, yet it is agreed on all hands that he was very luxurious and effeminate. Seneca has allowed him to have been a great man, yet censures him very severely on this head, and thinks that his effeminacy has infected even his style. “Every body knows,” says he, “how Mæcenas lived, nor is there any occasion for me to describe it the effeminacy of his walk, the delicacy of his manner, and the pride he took in shewing himself publicly, are things too notorious for me to insist on. But what! Is not his style as effeminate as himself? Are not his words as soft and affected as his dress, his equipage, the furniture of his house, and his wife?” Then, after quoting some of his poetry, “who does not perceive,” says he, “that the author of these verses must have been the man, who was perpetually walking about the city with his tunic loose, and all the other symptoms of the most effeminate mind?” V. Paterculus does not represent him as less effeminate than Seneca, but dwells more on his good qualities. “Mascenas,” says he, “was of the equestrian order, but sprung from a most illustrious origin. He was a man, who, when business required, was able to undergo any fatigue and watching; who consulted properly upon all occasions, and knew as well how to execute what he had consulted; yet a man, who in seasons of leisure was luxurious, soft, and effeminate, almost beyond a woman. He was no less dear to Caesar than to Agrippa, but distinguished by him with fewer honours; for he always continued of the equestrian rank, in which he was born; not that he could not have been advanced upon the least intimation, but he never solicited it.” His patronage of men of letters is, after all, the foundation of his fame; and having by general consent given a name to the patrons of literature, his own can never be forgotten.

, a celebrated astronomer of Germany, whose name deserves to be preserved, was born about 1542, in the dutchy of Wirtemberg, and spent his youth in Italy, where he made a public speech in favour of Copernicus, which served to wean Galileo from Aristotle and Ptolemy, to whom he had been hitherto entirely devoted. He returned afterwards to Germany, and became professor of mathematics at Tubingen; where he had among his scholars the great Kepler. Tycho Brahe, though he did not assent to Maestlin, has yet allowed him to be an extraordinary person, and well acquainted with the science of astronomy. Kepler has praised several ingenious inventions of Mæstlin’s, in his “Astronomia Optica.” He died in 1590, after having published many works in mathematics and astronomy, among which were his treatises “De Stella nova Cassiopeia;” “Ephemerides,” according to the Prutenic Tables, which were first published by Erasmus Reinoldus in 1551. He published Iikew4se “Thesis de Eclipsibus” and an “Epitome of Astronomy,” &c.

, a celebrated Italian writer, and a marquis, was born of an illustrious family at Verona, in 1675, and was very early associated to the academy of the Arcadi at Home. At the age of twenty -seven, he distinguished himself at Verona, by supporting publicly a thesis on love, in which the ladies were the judges and assessors; and displayed at once his talents for gallantry, eloquence, and poetry. Anxious for glory of all kinds, he made his next effort in the army, and served as a volunteer at the battle of Donawert, in 1704; but the love of letters prevailed, and he returned into Italy. There his first literary enterprise, occasioned by an affair of honour, in which his elder brother was involved, was an earnest attack upon the practise of duelling. He brought against it all the arguments to which it is so evidently exposed; the opposite practice of the ancients, the suggestions of good sense, the interests of social life, and the injunctions of religion. He proceeded then to the drama, and produced his “Merope,” which was acted with the most brilliant success. Having thus purified tragedy, he proceeded to render the same service to comedy, and wrote one entitled “La Ceremonia,” which was much applauded. Jn 1732, he visited France, where he passed four years, caressed in the greatest degree for his talents and learning; and then went into England, where he was much esteemed, to Holland, and finally to Vienna, and was most honourably received hy the emperor Charles VI. After several years thus employed, he returned into Italy, and in literary activity, extended his attention to almost every subject of human knowledge. He died in 1755, at the age of eighty. He was gifted with a comprehensive genius, a lively wit, and a penetrating mind, eager for discoveries, and well calculated for making them. His disposition was cheerful, sincere, and disinterested, full of zeal for religion, and faithful in performing its duties. The people of Verona almost idolized him. During his last illness they offered public prayers for his recovery, and the council of state decreed solemn obsequies after his death, with the ceremony of a funeral oration in the cathedral of Verona.

Lady Mary Wortley Montague, in her letters lately published, has given a very lively description of Maffei’s employments: “After having made the tour of Europe in search of antiquities, he fixed his residence in his native town of Verona, where he erected himself a little empire, from the general esteem, and a conversation (so they call an assembly) which he established in his palace, one of the largest in that place, and so luckily situated, that it is between the theatre and the ancient amphitheatre. He made piazzas leading to each of them, filled with shops, where were sold coffee, tea, chocolate, all sorts of sweetmeats, and in the midst, a court well kept, and sanded, for the use of those young gentlemen who would exercise their managed horses, or show their mistresses their skill in riding. His gallery was open every evening at five o'clock, where he had a fine collection of antiquities, and two large cabinets of medals, intaglios, and cameos, arranged in exact order. His library joined to it: and on the other side a suite of five rooms, the first of which was destined to dancing, the second to cards (but all games of hazard excluded), and the others (where he himself presided in an easy chair), sacred to conversation, which always turned upon some point of learning, either historical or poetical. Controversy and politics being utterly prohibited, he generally proposed the subject, and took great delight in instructing the young people, who were obliged to seek the medal, or explain the inscription that illustrated any fact they discoursed of. Those who chose the diversion of the public walks, or theatre, went thither, but never failed returning to give an account of the drama, which produced a critical dissertation on that subject, the marquis having given shining proofs of his skill in that art. His tragedy of” Merope,“which is much injured by Voltaire’s translation, being esteemed a master-piece and his comedy of the” Ceremonies,“being a just ridicule of those formal fopperies, it has gone a great way in helping to banish them out of Italy. The walkers contributed to the entertainment by an account of some herb, or flower, which led the way to a botanical conversation; or, if they were such inaccurate observers as to have nothing of that kind to offer, they repeated some pastoral description. One day in the week was set apart for music, vocal and instrumental, but no mercenaries were admitted to the concert. Thus, at a very little expence (his fortune not permitting a large one), he had the happiness of giving his countrymen a taste of polite pleasure, and shewing the youth how to pass their time agreeably without debauchery.”

The complete catalogue of his works would resemble that of a library; the chief of them are these: I. “Rime e prose,” Venice, 1719, 4to. 2. “La scienza Cavalleresca,” Rome, 1710, 4to. This is against duelling, and has passed through six editions. 3. “Merope,” of which there have been many more editions, and several foreign versions. 4. “Traduttori Italiani,” &c. Venice, 1720, 8vo, contains an account of the Italian translations from the classics. 3. “Theatre Italiano,” a selection of Italian tragedies, in 3 vols. 8vo. 6. “Cassiodori complexiones, in Epistola et Acta Apostolorum,” &c. Flor. 1721. 7. “Istoria Diplomatica,” or a critical introduction to diplomatic knowledge. 8. “Degli Anfiteatri,” on amphitheatres, particularly that of Verona, 1728. 9. “Supplementum Acaciarum,” Venice, 1728. 10. “Museum Veronense,” 1729, folio. 11. “Verona Illustrata,” 1732, folio. 12. An Italian translation of the first book of Homer, in blank verse, printed at London, in 1737. 13. “La Religione di Gentili tiel morire,” 1736, 4to. 14. “Osservationi Letterarie,” intended to serve as a continuation of the Giornale de‘ Leterati d’ Italia. He published also a work on grace, some editions of the fathers, and other matters. A complete edition of his works was published at Venice in 1790, in 18 vols. 8vo.

, a learned Jesuit, was born at Bergamo in 1536, and was instructed by his uncles Basil and Chrysostom Zanchi, canons regular of that city, in Greek, Latin, philosophy and theology. His studies being finished he went to Rome, where his talents became so well known that several princes invited him to settle in their dominions, but he gave the preference to Genoa, where in 1563 he was appointed professor of eloquence, with an ample salary. He continued in that office two years, and was chosen to the office of secretary of state; but in 1565, he returned to Rome, where he entered into the society of Jesuits. He spent six years as professor of eloquence in the Roman college, during which he translated, into the Latin language, the history of the Indies by Acosta, which was published in 1570. He then went to Lisbon at the request of cardinal Henry, and compiled from papers and other documents with which he was to be furnished, a complete history of the Portuguese conquests in the Indies, and of the progress of the Christian religion in that quarter. He returned to Italy in 1581, and some years after was placed, by Clement VIII. in the Vatican, for the purpose of continuing, in the Latin language, the annals of Gregory XIII. begun by him in the Italian of this he had finished three books at the time of his death, which happened at Tivoli Oct. 20, 1603. Soon after he entered among the Jesuits he wrote the life of Ignatius Loyola; but his principal work is entitled “Historiarum Indicarum,” lib. XVI. written in a very pure style, which has been frequently reprinted. The best edition is in two volumes 4to, printed at Bergamo in 1747. The purity of his style was the effect of great labour. Few men ever wrote so slowly; nothing seemed to please him, and he used to pass whole hours in polishing his periods; but we cannot readily credit all that has been reported on this subject, as that he never could finish above twelve or fifteen lines in a clay; that he was twelve years in writing his history of the Indies, and that, to prevent his mind being tainted with bad Latin, he read his breviary in Greek. There are, however, some other particulars of his personal history which correspond a little with all this. He disliked the ordinary commons of the Jesuits’ college, aftid had always something very nice and delicate provided for him, considering more substantial and gross food as incompatible with elegant writing; yet with all this care, he was of such an irascible temper as to be perpetually giving offence, and perpetually asking pardon.

, better known by the name of Magellan, an eminent navigator, was by birth a Portuguese. He served with much reputation during five years under Albuquerque, in the East Indies, particularly at the conquest of Malacca in 1510, but as his services were not well repaid, he accepted from Charles V. king of Spain, the command of a fleet, with which, in 1519, he discovered the straits called after himself at the extremity of South America. Soon after this he took possession of the Ladrone and Philippine islands in the name of Charles V.; and had he acted with prudence, might have had the honour of being accounted the first circumnavigator of the globe. His severities, however, towards the natives of Matan, compelled them to resist; and in the contest Magalhaens received a wound from an arrow in the leg, and being ill supported by his men, he was killed by a lance, in 1521.

, said to be a lineal descendant (Mr. Nichols says great-grandson) of the preceding, was born in 1723, and became an Augustine monk at Lisbon, but, having renounced the Roman Catholic religion, came to reside in England, about 1764. He was an able linguist, and well versed in chemistry and other branches of natural philosophy. He published several treatises in that science, particularly a work on mineralogy, taken principally from Crons’tadt; an account of various philosophical instruments; and a narrative of the last days of* Rousseau, to which his name is not affixed. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1774, and was a member of several foreign academies. He died at his lodgings at Islington, Feb. 7, 1790.

, a celebrated philosopher and mathematician, was born at Rome Octqber 23, 1637. After studying jurisprudence, in which he made a great and very rapid progress at Pisa, he began to devote his main attention to mathematics and natural philosophy, which he cultivated at Florence, during three years, under the celebrated Vincent Viviani, and was made secretary to the academy del Cimento, the duties of which office he discharged with the utmost assiduity and care. Being directed by the prince to draw up an account of the experiments made there, he published it in 1666, when it was received with universal applause by men of science. While engaged on this work, he obtained leave from Leopold to pay a visit to his father at Rome, and with a view to obtain some ecclesiastical promotion. Having failed in this object, he returned to Florence, and obtained a place at the court of the grand duke Ferdinand II.; and shortly after a pension was given him by pope Alexander VII. About 1666 he drew up and published a small volume relative to the history of China, which was received with great applause; and at the same time he published a small, but elegant compendium of the Moral Doctrine of Confucius. Having considerable poetical talents, he was the first person who published a good translation of the Odes of Anacreon in Italian verse. He was very conversant in many of the modern languages, and could write and speak French, Spanish, and English, with the correctness and ease of the natives of those countries. When in England he became the intimate friend of the illustrious Mr. Robert Boyle, whom he vainly attempted to convert from the errors of the protestant faith. After being employed in several missions to foreign princes, he was in 1674 appointed ambassador to the imperial court, where he acquired the particular favour of the emperor, and formed connections with the men most eminent for science and literature; but, finding a very inconvenient delay of the necessary pecuniary remittances from his court, he determined to return to Florence without waiting the permission of the duke. Shortly after, that prince recalled him, and gave him apartments in his palace, with a considerable pension, but Magalotti preferred retirement, and the quiet prosecution of his studies. In 1684 he composed fifteen Italian odes, in which he has drawn the picture of a woman of noble birth and exquisite beauty, distinguished not only by every personal, but by every mental charm, and yet rendering herself chiefly the object of admiration and delight by her manners and conduct, whom, with no great gallantry, he entitled “The Imaginary Lady.” His next work consisted of Letters against Atheists, in which his learning and philosophy appear to great advantage. In 169 he was appointed a counsellor of state to the grand duke, who sent him his ambassador into Spain to negotiate a marriage between one of his daughters and king Charles II.; but soon after he had accomplished the object of this mission, he sunk into a temporary melancholy. After recovering in about a year, he resumed his literary labours, and published works upon various subjects, and left others which were given to the world after his decease, which happened in 1712, when he had attained the age of 75. Magalotti was as eminent for his piety as he was for his literary talents; unimpeachable in his morals, liberal, beneficent, friendly, polite, and a lively and cheerful, as well as very instructive companion. His house was the constant resort of men of letters from all countries, whom he treated with elegant hospitality. He was deeply conversant with the writings of the ancient philosophers, and was a follower of the Platonic doctrine in his poems. In his natural and philosophical investigations he discarded all authority, and submitted to no other guide but experiment. Among the moderns he was particularly attached to Galileo. After his death a medal was struck in honour of his memory, with the figure of Apollo raised on the reverse, and the inscription Omnia Lustrat.

, an ingenious and learned man of the sixteenth century, was born at Anghiari in Tuscany. He was educated in the Italian universities, where his genius and application carried him almost through the whole circle of sciences; for, besides the belles lettres and law, he applied to the study of war, and even wrote books upon the subject. In this also he afterwards distinguished himself: for he was sent by the Venetians to the isle of Cyprus, with the commission of judge-martial and when the Turks besieged Famagosta, he performed all the services to the place that could have been expected from a skilful engineer. He contrived a kind of mine and fire-engines, by which he laid the labours of the Turks in ruins: and he destroyed in a moment works which had cost them no small time and pains. But they had too good an opportunity of revenging themselves on him; for the city falling at last into their hands, in 1571, Magius became their slave, and was used very barbarously. His comfort lay altogether in the stock of learning with which he was provided; and so prodigious was his memory, that he did not think himself unqualified, though deprived entirely of books, to compose treatises full of quotations. As, he was obliged all the day to do the drudgery of the meanest slave, he spent a great part of the night in writirjg. He wrote in prison a treatise upon bells, “De tintinnabulis,” and another upon the wooden horse, “De equuleo.” He was determined to the first of these subjects by observing, that the Turks had no bells; and to the second, by ruminating upon the various kinds of torture to which his dismal situation exposed him, which brought to his reflection, that the equuleus had never been thoroughly explained. He dedicated the first of these treatises to the emperor’s ambassador at Constantinople, and the other to the French ambassador at the same place. He conjured these ambassadors to use their interest for his liberty; which while they attempted to procure him, they only hastened his death: for the bashaw Mahomet, who had not forgot the mischief which Magius had done the Turks at the siege of Famagosta, being informed that he had been at the Imperial ambassador’s house, whither they had indiscreetly carried him, caused him to be seized again, and strangled that night in prison. This happened in 1572, or 1573, it is not certain which.

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

, or Maginus, professor of mathematics in the university of Bologna, was born at Padua in 1536. He was remarkable for his great assiduity in acquiring and improving the knowledge of the mathematical sciences, with several new inventions for these purposes, and for the extraordinary favour he obtained from most princes of his time. This doubtless arose partly from the celebrity he had in matters of astrology, to which he was greatly addicted, making horoscopes, and foretelling events both relating to persons and things. He was invited by the emperor Rodolphus to come to Vienna, where he promised him a professor’s chair, about 1597; but not being able to prevail on him to settle there, he nevertheless gave him a handsome pension. It is said, he was so much addicted to astrological predictions, that he not only foretold many good and evil events relative to others with success, bat even foretold his own death, which came to pass the same year: all which he represented as under the influence of the stars. Tomasini says, that Magini, being advanced to his 61st year, was struck with an apoplexy, which ended his days; and that a long while before, he had told him and others, that he was afraid of that year. And Roffeni, his pupil, says, that Magini died under an aspect of the planets, which, according to his own prediction, would prove fatal to him; and he mentious Riccioli as affirming that he said, the figure of his nativity, and his climacteric year, doomed him to die abouf that time; which happened in 1618, in the 62d year of his age.

, one of the most celebrated, and certainly one of the most extraordinary men of his time, was born at Florence, Oct. 28 or 29, 1633. His parents, who were of low rank, are said to have been satisfied when they got him into the service of a man who sold fruit and herbs. He had never learned to read, and yet was perpetually poring over the leaves of old books, that were used as waste paper in his master’s shop. A bookseller who lived in the neighbourhood, and who had often observed this, and knew the boy could not read, asked him one day, “what he meant by staring so much on printed paper?” He said, “that he did not know how it was, but that he loved it; that he was very uneasy in the business he was in, and should be the happiest creature in the world, if he could live with him, who had always so many books about him.” The bookseller, pleased with his answer, consented to take him, if his master was willing to part with him. Young Magliabechi thanked him with tears in his eyes, and having obtained his master’s leave, went directly to his new employment, which he had not followed long before he could find any book that was asked for, as ready as the bookseller himself. This account of his early life, which Mr. Spence received from a gentleman of Florence, who was well acquainted with Magliabechi and his family, differs considerably from that given by Niceron, Tiraboschi, and Fabroni. From the latter, indeed, we learn that he was placed as an apprentice to a goldsmith, after he had been taught the principles of drawing, and he had a brother that was educated to the law, and made a considerable figure in that profession. His father died while he was an infant, but Fabroni makes no mention of his poverty. It seems agreed, however, that after he had learned to read, that became his sole employment, but he never applied himself to any particular study. He read every book almost indifferently, as they happened to come into his hands, with a surprizing quickness; and yet such was his prodigious memory, that he not only retained the sense of what he read, but often all the words, and the very manner of spelling them, if there was any thing peculiar of that kind in any author.

This extraordinary application, and talents, soon recommended him to Ermini, librarian to the cardinal de Medicis, and to Marmi, the grand duke’s librarian, who introduced him into the company of the literati, and made him known at court. Every where he began to be looked upon as a prodigy, particularly for his vast and unbounded memory, of which many remarkable anecdotes have been given. A gentleman at Florence, who had written a piece that was to be printed, lent the manuscript to Magliabechi; and some time after it had been returned with thanks, came to him again with the story of a pretended accident by which he had lost his manuscript. The author seemed inconsolable, and intreated Magliabechi, whose character for remembering what he read was already very great, to try to recollect as much of it as he possibly could, and write it down for him against his next visit. Magliabechi assured him he would, and wrote down the whole ms. without missing a word, or even varying any where from the spelling. Whatever our readers may think of this trial of his memory, it is certain that by treasuring up at least the subject and the principal parts of all the books he ran over, his head became at last, as one of his acquaintances expressed it to Mr. Spence, “An universal index both of titles and matter.”

By this time Magliabechi was become so famous for the vast extent of his reading, and his amazing retention of what he had read, that he was frequently consulted by the learned, when meditating a work on any subject. For example, and a curious example it is, if a priest was going to compose a panegyric on any saint, and came to consult Magliabechi, he would immediately tell him, who had said any thing of that saint, and in what part of their works, and that sometimes to the number of above an hundred authors. He would tell not only who had treated of the subject designedly, but point out such as had touched upon it only incidentally; both which he did with the greatest exactness, naming the author, the book, the words, and often the very number of the page in which they were inserted. All this he did so often, so readily, and so exactly, that he came at last to be looked upon as an oracle, on account of the ready and full answers that he gave to all questions, that were proposed to him in any faculty or science whatever. The same talent induced the grand duke Cosmo III. to appoint him his librarian, and no man perhaps was ever better qualified for the situation, or more happy to accept it, He was also very conversant with the books in the Laurentian library, and the keeping of those of Leopold and Francis Maria, the two cardinals of Tuscany. Yet all this, it is said, did not appease his voracious appetite; he was thought to have read all the books printed before his time, and all in it. Doubtless this range, although very extensive, must be understood of Italian literature only or principally. Crescembini paid him the highest compliment on this. Speaking of a dispute whether a certain poem had ever been printed or not, he concluded it had not, “because Magliabechi had never seen it.” We learn farther that it was a general custom for authors and printers to present him with a copy of whatever they printed, which must have been a considerable help towards the very large collection of books which he himself made. His mode of reading in his latter days is said to have been this. When a book first came into his hands, he would look over the title-page, then dip here and there in the preface, dedication and advertisements, if there were any; and then cast his eyes on each of the divisions, the different sections, or chapters, and then he would be able to retain the contents of that volume in his memory, and produce them if wanted. Soon after he had adopted this method of what Mr. Spence calls “fore-shortening his reading,” a priest who had composed a panegyric on one of his favourite saints, brought it to Magliabechi as a present. He read it over in his new way, the title-page and heads of the chapters, &c. and then thanked the priest very kindly “for his excellent treatise.” The author, in some pain, asked him, “whether that was all that he intended to read of his book?” Magliabechi coolly answered, “Yes, for I know very well every thing that is in it.” This anecdote, however, may be explained otherwise than upon the principles of memory. Magliabechi knew all that the writers before had said of this saint, and he knew this priest’s turn and character, and thence judged what he would chuse out of them and what he would omit. Magliabechi had even a local memory of the place where every book stood, as in his master’s shop at first, and in the Pitti, and several other libraries afterwards; and seems to have carried this farther than only in relation to the collections of books with which he was personally acquainted. One day the grand duke sent for him after he was his librarian, to ask him whether he could get him a book that was particularly scarce. “No, sir,” answered Magliabechi; “for there is but one in the world; that is in the grand signior’s library at Constantinople, and is the seventh book on the second shelf on the right hand as you go in.” Though this extraordinary man must have lived a sedentary life, with the most intense and almost perpetual application to books, yet he arrived to a good old age. He died in his eighty-first year, July 14, 1714. By his will he left a very fine library of his own collectionfor the use of the public, with a fund to maintain it and whatever should remain over to the poor. By the funds which he left, by the addition of several other collections, and the bounty of some of the grand dukes, his library was so much augmented as to vie with some of the most considerable in Europe. Of this collection, a catalogue and description of the works printed in the fifteenth century was published by Fossi, under the tide “Catalogus codicum sseculo XV impressorum in Bibliotheca Magliabechiana, Florentiae adservantur,” Florence, 3 vols. fol. 1793—1795.

Of the domestic habits of Magliabechi, we have many accounts that represent him as an incorrigible sloven. His attention was so entirely absorbed by his books and studies, that he totally neglected all the decencies of form and ceremony, and often forgot the most urgent wants of human nature. His employment under the grand duke did not at all change his manner of life: the philosopher still continued negligent in his dress, and simple in his manners. An old cloak served him for a gown in the day, and for bed-clothes at night. He had one straw chair for his table, and another for his bed; in which he generally continued fixed among his books till he was overpowered by sleep. The duke provided a commodious apartment for him in his palace; of which Magliabechi was with much difficulty persuaded to take possession; and which he quitted in four months, returning to his house on various pretences, against all the remonstrances of his friends. He was, however, characterized by an extraordinary modesty, and by a sincere and beneficent disposition, which his friends often experienced in their wants. He was a great patron of men of learning, and ha4 the highest pleasure in assisting them with his advice and information, in furnishing them with all necessary books and manuscripts. Cardinal Nods used to call him his Maecenas; and, writing to him one day, he told him he thought himself more obliged to him for direction in his studies, than to the pope for raising him to the purple. He had the utmost aversion to any thing that looked like constraint. The grand duke knew his disposition, and therefore always dispensed with his personal attendance upon him; and, when he had any orders to give him, sent him them in writing. The pope and the emperor would gladly have drawn him into their service, but he constantly refused their most honourable and advantageous offers. The regimen he observed contributed not a little to preserve his health to old age. He always kept his head warmly covered, and took at certain times treacle, which he esteemed an excellent preservative against noxious vapours. He loved strong wine, but drank it in small quantities. He lived upon the plainest and most ordinary food. Three hard eggs and a draught of water was his usual repast. He took tobacco, to which he was a slave, to excess; but was absolute master of himself in every other article.

Though he never composed any work himself, yet the commonwealth of learning are greatly obliged to him for several, the publication of which was owing to him; such as the Latin poems of Henry de Settimello, the “Hodseporicon” of Ambrose Camaldula, the “Dialogue” of Benedict Aretin, and many others. A collection of letters addressed to him by literary men was printed at Florence, in 1745, but is said to be incomplete.

, a celebrated Capuchin, born at Milan in 1586, descended from the earls of Magni, acquired great reputation in the seventeenth century by his controversial writings against the protestants, and philosophical ones in favour of Descartes against Aristotle. He passed through the highest offices in his order, and was apostolical missionary to the northern kingdoms. It was by his advice that pope Urban VIII. abolished the Jesuitesses in 1631. Uladislaus king of Poland, solicited a cardinal’s hat for Magni; but the Jesuits are said to have opposed it. They certainly informed against him as a heretic, because he had said that the pope’s primacy and infallibility were not founded on scripture, and he was imprisoned at Vienna; but regained his liberty by favour of the emperor Ferdinand III. after having written very warmly against the Jesuits in his defence. He retired at last to Saltzburg, and died there, 1661, aged seventyfive. Mention is made of Magni in the sixteenth Provincial Letter and one of his Apologetical Letters may be found in the collection entitled “Tuba magna,” tom. II.

, a celebrated botanist of Montpellier, was born in 1638. He was bred to physic, but, being a protestant, could not take his degree there. He appears, however, afterwards to have obtained it elsewhere, and practised physic at Montpellier for a long course of years, and at the same time very assiduously cultivated botany, with the most enlarged views to its advancement as a science. He was beloved for his urbanity, and esteemed for his knowledge. Numerous botanists flocked at this time to Montpellier, that neighbourhood being famous for its vegetable riches; and these were all eager to enjoy the society, and to benefit by the guidance and instructions of so able a man. Among the pupils of Magnol were Fagon and the illustrious Tournefort, who regularly studied under tym, and on many subsequent occasions gratefully acknowledged their obligations to him. He was not chosen public professor till 1694, when he assumed the guise at least of Catholicism.

In 1708 Magnol was admitted a member of the 'academic des sciences of Paris, in the place of his distinguished friend Tournefort, and contributed some papers to their memoirs. He died in 1715, at the age of seventy-seven. He left a son, named Anthony, who wa professor of physic at Montpellier, but not of Botany. To this son we are indebted for the publication of the “Novus Character Plantarum,” on which the fame of Magnol as a systematic botanist chiefly rests. This posthumous work appeared in 1720, making a quarto volume of 341 pages. The system therein taught is much celebrated by Linnæus, who in his Classes Plautarutn, 375 403, gives a general view of it, expressing his wonder that so new and singular a system had not made more proselytes. That noble genus of trees or shrubs, called the Magnolia, received that name from Plumier, in honour of our author.

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

, archbishop of Upsal, in Sweden, was born at Lincoping in 1488; was a violent opposer of the protestant religion, and laboured much, though in vain, to prevent the king, Gustavus, from introducing it into his kingdom. Magnus, being persecuted on this account, retired to Rome, where he was received with great marks of regard, and died therein 1544. He was author of, 1. “A History of Sweden,” in twenty-four books, published in 1554, in folio. 2.“A History of the Archbishops of Upsal,” which he carried down as low as 1544. This was also in folio, and appeared in 1657 and 1560.

, or Mohammed, founder of the system of religious imposture called Mahometanism, was born in the year 569, at Mecca, a city of Arabia, of the tribe of the Korashites, which was reckoned the noblest in all that country; and was descended in a direct line from Pher Koraish, the founder of it. Yet in the beginning of his life he was in a very poor condition; for his father dying before he was two years old, and while his grandfather was still living, all the power and wealth of his family devolved to his uncles, especially Abu Taleb. Abu Taleb, after the death of his father, bore the chief sway in Mecca during the whole of a very long life; and it was under his protection chiefly, that Mahomet, when he first began topropagate his imposture, was sufficiently supported against all opposers, so as to be able, after his death, to establish it through all Arabia by his own power.

After his father’s death he continued under the tuition of his mother till the eighth year of his age; when she also dying, he was taken home to his grandfather, who at his death, which happened the year after, committed him to the care of his uncle Abu Taleb, to be educated by him. Abu Taleb, being a merchant, taught him his business, and, as soon as he was of sufficient age, sent him with his camels into Syria; in which employment he continued under his uncle till the 25th year of his age. One of the chief men of the city then dying, and his widow, whose name was Cadiga, wanting a factor to manage her stock? she invited Mahomet into her service. He accepted her terms, traded three years for her at Damascus and other places, and acquitted himself in this charge so much to her satisfaction, that, about the twenty-eighth year of his age, she gave herself to him in marriage, although she was twelve years older. From being her servant he was now advanced to be master of both her person and fortune; and, finding himself equal in wealth to the best men of the city, he began to entertain ambitious thoughts of possessing the sovereignty over it.

Among the various means to effect this, none seemed to him more eligible than that imposture which he afterwards published with so much success, and so much mischief to the world. The extensive trade which he carried on in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, having made him well acquainted with both Christians and Jews, and given him an opportunity of observing with what eagerness they and the several sects into which the Christians of the Eastwerd then miserably divided, engaged against each other, he concluded that nothing would be more likely to gain a party firm to him for the attaining the ends at which he aimed, than the invention of a new religion. In this, however, he proceeded leisurely; for it was not till his thirty-eighth year that he began to prepare his design. He then withdrew himself from his former way of living, which is said to have been very licentious and wicked; and, affecting an hermit’s life, used every morning to retire into a solitary cave near Mecca, called the Cave of Hira; and there continued all day, exercising himself, as he pretended, in prayers, fastings, and holy meditations. Thus he went on for two years, during which time he gained over his wife Cadiga, who was his first proselyte, by pretending visions which he had seen, and voices which he had heard, in his retirement. It is to be observed, says Dr. Prideaux, that Mahomet began this imposture about the same time that the bishop of Rome, by virtue of a grant from the tyrant Phocas, first assumed the title of universal pastor. Phocas made this grant in the year 606, and Mahomet in the same year retired to his cave to contrive that deception which he began in the year 608 to propagate at Mecca.

In his fortieth year, Mahomet began to take upon him the style of the Apostle of God, and under that character to carry on the plan which he had now contrived; but for four years he confined his doctrines to such as he either had most confidence in, or thought himself most likely to gain. When he had gained a few disciples, some of whom, however, were the principal men of the city, he began to publish it to the people at Mecca, in his forty-fourth year, and openly to declare himself a prophet sent by God, to convert them from the error of paganism, and to teach them the true religion. On his first appearance, he was treated with derision and contempt, and called by the people a sorcerer, magician, liar, impostor, and teller of fables, of which he frequently complains in the Koran; so that for the first year he made little or no progress. But persevering in his design, which he managed with great address, he afterwards gained so many proselytes, that in the fifth year of his pretended mission, he had increased his party to the number of thirty-nine, himself making the fortieth. People now began to be alarmed at the progress he made. Those who were addicted to the idolatry of their forefathers, stood up to oppose him as an enemy of their gods, and a dangerous innovator in their religion. Others, who saw further into his designs, thought it time to put a stop to them, for the sake of preserving the government, at which they thought he aimed: and therefore they combined together against him, and intended to have cut him off with the sword. But Abu Taleb, his uncle, defeated their design; and by his power, as being chief of the tribe, preserved him from many other attempts of the same nature; for though Abu Taleb himself persisted in the paganism of his ancestors, yet he had so much affection for the impostor, as being his kinsman, and one that was bred up in his house, and under his care, that he extended his full protection to Mahomet as long as he lived. The principal arguments, which Mahomet employed to delude men into a belief of this imposture, were promises and threats, both well calculated to influence the affections of the vulgar. His promises were chiefly of Paradise, which with great art he framed agreeably to the taste of the Arabians: for they, lying within the torrid zone, were, through the nature of their climate, as well as the corruption of their manners, exceedingly given to the love of women; and the scorching heat and dryness of the country, making rivers of water, cooling drinks, shaded gardens, and pleasant fruits, most refreshing and delightful unto them, they were from hence apt to place their highest enjoyment in things of this nature. For this reason, he made the joys of his Paradise to consist totally in these particulars; which he promises them abundantly in many places of the Koran. On the contrary, he described the punishments of hell, which he threatened to all who would not believe in him, to consist of such torments as would appear to them the most afflicting and grievous to be borne; as, “that they should drink nothing but boiling and stinking water, nor breathe any thing but exceeding hot winds, things most terrible in Arabia; that they should dwell for ever in continual fire, excessively burning, and be surrounded with a black hot salt smoke, as with a coverlid, &c.” and, that he might omit nothing which could work on their fears, he terrified them with the threats of grievous punishments in this life. To which purpose he expatiated, upon all occasions, on the terrible calamities which had befallen such as would not be instructed by the prophets who, were sent before him; how the old world was destroyed by water, for not being reformed at the preaching of Noah; how Sodom was consumed by fire from heaven, for not hearkening to Lot when sent unto them; and how the Egyptians were plagued for despising Moses: for he allowed the divinity of both the Old and New Testament, and that Moses and Jesus Christ were prophets sent from God; but alledged that the Jews and Christians had corrupted those sacred books, and that he was sent to purge them from those corruptions, and to restore the law of Cod to that original purity in which it was first delivered. And this is the reason, that most of the passages which he takes out of the Old and New Testaments, appear different in the Koran from what we find them in those sacred books.

Mahomet pretended to receive all his revelations from the angel Gabriel, who, he said, was sent from God, on purpose to deliver them unto him. He was subject, it is said, to the falling-sickness, and whenever the fit was upon him, he pretended it to be a trance, and that then the angel Gabriel was come from God with some new revelations. These revelations he arranged in several chapters; which make up the Koran, the Bib!e of the Mahometans. The original of this book was laid up, as he taught his followers, in the archives of heaven; and the angel Gabriel brought him the copy of it, chapter by chapter, as occasion required that they should be published to the people; that is, as often as any new measure was to be pursued, any objection against him or his religion to be answered, any difficulty to be solved, any discontent among his people to be quieted, any offence to be removed, or any thing else done for the furtherance of his grand scheme, his constant recourse was to the angel Gabriel for a new revelation; and then appeared some addition to the Koran, to serve his purpose. But what perplexed him most was, that his opposers demanded to see a miracle from him; “for,” said they, “Moses, and Jesus, and the rest of the prophets, according to thy own doctrine, worked miracles to prove their mission from God; and therefore, if thou be a prophet, and greater than any that were sent before thee, as thou boastest thyself to be, do thou work the like miracles to manifest it unto us.” This objection he endeavoured to evade by several answers; all oi which amount omy to this, “that God had sent Moses and Jesus with miracles, and yet men would not be obedient to their word; and therefore he had now sent him in the last place without miracles, to force them by the power of the sword to do his will.” Hence it has become the universal doctrine of the Mahometans, that their religion is to be propagated by the sword, and that all true mussulmen are bound to fight for it. It has even been said to be a custom among them for their preachers, while they deliver their sermons, to have a drawn sword placed by them, to denote, that the doctrines they teach are to be defended and propagated by the sword Some miracles, at the same time, Mahomet is said to have wrought; as, “That he clave the moon in two; that trees went forth to meet him, &c. &c.” but those who relate them are only such as are ranked among their fabulous and legendary writers: their learned doctors renounce them all; and when they are questioned, how without miracles they can prove his mission, their common answer is, that the Koran itself is the greatest of all miracles; for that Mahomet, who was an illiterate person, who could neither write nor read, or that any man else, by human wisdom alone, should be able to compose such a book, is, they think, impossible. On this Mahomet himself also frequently insists, challenging in several places of the Koran, both men and devils, by their united skill, to compose any thing equal to it, or to any part of it. From all which they conclude, and as they think, infallibly, that this book could come from none other but God himself; and that Mahomet, from whom they received it, was his messenger to bring it unto them. That the Koran, as to style and language, is the standard of elegance in the Arabian tongue, and Uiat Mahomet was in truth what they aifirm him to have been, a rude and illiterate man, ate points agreed on all sides. A question therefore will arise among those who are not so sure that this book was brought by the angel Gabriel from heaven, by whose help it was compiled, and the imposture framed? There is the more reason to ask this, because this book itself contains so many particulars of the Jewish and Christian religions, as necessarily suppose the authors of it to have been well skilled in both; which Mahomet, who was bred an idolater, and lived so for the first forty years of his life, among a people totally illiterate, for such his tribe was by principle and profession, cannot be supposed to have been: but this is a question not so easily to be answered, because the nature of the thing required it to have been transacted very secretly. Besides this, the scene of this imposture being at least six hundred miles within the country of Arabia, amidst those barbarous nations, who all immediately embraced it, and would not permit any of another religion to live among them, it could not at that distance be so well investigated by those who were most concerned to discover the fraud. That Mahomet composed the Koran by the help of others, was a thing well known at Metca, when he first published his imposture there; and he was often reproached on that account by his opposers, as he himself more than once complains. In the twenty-fifth chapter of the Koran, has words are “They say, that the Koran is nothing but a lie of thy own invention, and others have been assisting to thee herein.” A passage in the sixteenth chapter also, particularly points at one of those who was then looked upon to have had a principal hand in this matter: “I know they will say, that a man hath taught him the Koran; but he whom they presume to have taught him is a Persian by nation, and speaketh the Persian language. But the Koran is in the Arabic tongue, full of instruction and eloquence.” The person here pointed at, was one Abdia Ben Salon, a Persian Jew, whose name he afterwards changed into Abdollah Ebn Salem, to make it correspond with the Arabic dialect; and almost all who have written of this imposture have mentioned him as the chief architect used by Mahomet in the framing of it: for he was an artful man, thoroughly skilled in all the learning of the Jews; and therefore Mahomet seems to have received from him whatsoever of the rites and customs of the Jews he has ingrafted into his religion. Besides this Jew, the impostor derived some aid from a Christian monk: and the many particulars in the Koran, relating to the Christian religion, plainly prove him to have had such an helper. He was a monk of Syria, of the sect of the Nestorians. The name which he had in his monastery, and which he has since retained among the western writers, is Sergius, though Bahira was that which he afterwards assumed in Arabia, and by which he has ever since been mentioned in the East, by all that write or speak of him. Mahomet, as it is related, became acquainted with this Bahira, in one of his journeys into Syria, either at Bostra or at Jerusalem: and receiving great satisfaction from him in many of those points in which he had desired to be informed, contracted a particular friendship with him; so that Bahira being not long after excommunicated for some great crime, and expelled his monastery, fled to Mecca to him, was entertained in his house, and became his assistant in the framing of his imposture, and continued with him ever after; till Mahomet having, as it is reported, no farther occasion for him, to secure the secret, put him to death.

Jn the eighth year of his pretended mission, his party growing formidable at Mecca, the city passed a decree, by which they forbade any more to join themselves with him. This, however, did not much affect him, while his uncle Abu Taieb lived to protect him: but he dying two years after, and the government of the city then falling into the hands of his enemies, the opposition was renewed against him, and a stop soon put to the further progress of his designs at Mecca. Mahomet, therefore, seeing all his hopes crushed here, began to think of settling elsewhere; and as his uncle Abbas lived for the most part at Tayif, a town sixty miles distant from Mecca towards the East, and was a man of power and interest, he took a journey thither, under his protection, in order to propagate his imposture there. But, after a month’s stay, finding himself unable to gain even one proselyte, he returned to Mecca, with a resolution to wait for such further advantages as time and opportunity might offer. His wife Cadiga being now dead, after living with him twenty-two years, he took two other wives in her stead, Ayesha the daughter of Abubeker, and Lewda the daughter of Zama; adding a while after to them a third, named Haphsa the daughter of Omar; and by thus making himself son-in-law to three of the principal men of his party, he strengthened his interest considerably.

As soon as Mahomet appeared at the door, the angel Gabriel kindly embraced him, saluted him in the name of God, and told him that he was sent to bring him unto God into heaven; where he should see strange mysteries, which were not lawful to be seen by any other man. He prayed him then to get upon Alborak; but the beast having lain idle and unemployed from the time of Christ to Mahomet, was grown so mettlesome and skittish, that he would not stand still for Mahomet to mount him, till at length he was forced to bribe him to it, by promising him a place in Paradise. When he was firmly seated on him, the angel Gabriel led the way, with the bridle of the beast in his hand, and carried the prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem, in the twinkling of an eye. On his coming thither, all the departed prophets and saints appeared at the gate of the temple, to salute him; and thence, attending him into the chief oratory, desired him to pray for them, and then withdrew. After this, Mahomet went out of the temple with the angel Gabriel, and found a ladder of light ready fixed for them, which they immediately ascended, leaving Alborak tied to a rock till their return.

On their arrival at the first heaven, the angel knocked at the gate; and informing the porter who he was, and that he had brought Mahomet the friend of God, he was immediately admitted. This first heaven, he tells us, was all of pure silver; from whence he saw the stars hanging from it by chains of gold, each as big as mount Noho, near Mecca, in Arabia. On his entrance, he met a decrepid old man, who, it seems, was our first father, Adam; and as he advanced, he saw a multitude of angels in all manner of shapes; in the shape of birds, beasts, and men. We must not forget to observe, that Adam had the piety immediately to embrace the prophet, giving God thanks for so great a son; and then recommended himself to his prayers. From this first heaven, the impostor tells us, he ascended into the second, which was at the distance of five hundred years journey above it; and this he makes to be the distance of every one of the seven heavens, each above the other. Here the gates being opened to him as before, at his entrance he met Noah, who, rejoicing much at the sight of him, recommended himself to his prayers. This heaven was all of pure gold, and there were twice as many angels in it as in the former; for he tells us that' the number of angels in every heaven increased as he advanced. From this second heaven he ascended into the third, which was made of precious stones, where he met Abraham, who also recommended himself to his prayers; Joseph the son of Jacob, did the same in the fourth heaven, which was all of emerald; Moses in the fifth, which was all of adamant; and John the Baptist in the sixth, which was all of carbuncle: xvhence he ascended into the seventh, which was all of divine light, and here he found Jesus Christ. However, it is observed, that here he alters his style; for he does not say that Jesus Christ recommended himself to his prayers, but that he recommended himself to the prayers of Jesus Christ.

The angel Gabriel having brought him thus far, told him that he was not permitted to attend him any further; and therefore directed him to ascend the rest of the way to the throne of God by himself. This he performed with great difficulty, passing through rough and dangerous places, till he came where he heard a voice, saying unto him, “O Mahornet, salute thy Creator;” whence, ascending higher, he came into a place where he saw a vast expansion of light, so exceedingly bright, that his eyes could not bear it. This, it seems, was the habitation of the Almighty, where his throne was placed; on the right side of which, he says, God’s name and his own were written in these Arabic words: “La ellah ellallah Mohammed resul ollah;” that is, “There is no God but God, and Mahomer is his prophet,” which is at this day the creed of the Mahometans. Being approached to the divine presence, he teils us that God entered into a familiar converse with him, revealed to him many hidden mysteries, made him understand the whole of his law, gave him many things in charge concerning his instructing men in the knowledge of it; and in conclusion, bestowed on him several privileges above the rest of mankind. He then returned, and found the angel Gabriel waiting for him in the place where he left him. The angel led him back along the seven heavens, through which he had brought him, and set him again upon the beast Alborak, which stood tied at the rock near Jerusalem. Then he conducted him back to Mecca, in the same manner as he brought him thence; and all this within the space of the tenth part of one night.

On his relating this extravagant fiction to the people the next morning after he pretended the thing to have happened, it was received by them, as it deserved, with a general outcry; and the imposture was never in greater danger of being totally blasted, than by this ridiculous fable. But, how ridiculous soever the story may appear, Mahomet had a further design in it than barely telling such a miraculous adventure of himself to the people. Hitherto he had only given them the Koran, which was his written law; and had pretended to be nothing more than barely the messenger of God in publishing it, as it was delivered to him by the angel Gabriel. But now, learning from his friend Abdalla, that the Jews, besides the written law dictated by God himself, had also another law, called the oral law, given with it, as they pretend, to Moses himself while in the mount; and understanding that this law, which had its whole foundation in the sayings and dictates of Moses, was in as great veneration with them as the other; he had a mind for the future to advance his authority to the same pitch, and to make all his sayings and dictates pass for oracles among the mussulmen, as those which were pretended to proceed from Moses did among the Jews; and for this end chiefly it was, that he invented this story of his journey to heaven.

The story, however, whatever advantages he might gain by it when the imposture became more firmly established, was deemed at present so grossly ridiculous, that it occasioned the revolt of many of his disciples, and made his stay at Mecca no longer practicable. But what he lost at Mecca he gained at Medina, then called Yathreb, a city lying 270 miles north-west from Mecca; which was inhabited, the one part by Jews, and the other by heretical Christians. These two parties not agreeing, feuds and factions rose at length so high among them, that one party, exasperated against the other, went over to Mahomet. Thus we are told, that in the thirteenth year of his pretended mission, there came to him from thence seventy-three men and two women. Twelve of these he retained awhile with him at, Mecca, to instruct them in his new religion; then sent, them buck to Yathreb, as his twelve apostles, to propagate it in that town. In this they laboured abundantly, and with such success, that in a short time they drew over the greatest part of the inhabitants; of which Mahomet receiving an account, resolved to go thither immediately, finding it unsafe to continue any longer at Mecca.

On the 12th day of the month, which the Arabs call the Former Rabia, that is, on the 24th of our September, he came to Yathreb, and was received with great acclamations by the party which called him thither. This party is supposed to have been the Christians, and this supposition is confirmed by what he says of each of them in the fifth chapter of the Koran, which is one of the first he published after his coming to Yathreb. His words are these: “Thou shalt find the Jews to be very great enemies to the true believers, and the Christians to have great inclination and amity towards them.” By which we may see into what a deplorable decay the many divisions and distractions which then reigned in the eastern church had brought the Christian religion, when its professors could so easily desert it for that gross imposture which an illiterate barbarian proposed to them. On his first coming to Yathreb, he lodged in the house of Chalid Abu Job, one of the chief men of the party that called him thither, till he had built a house for himself. This he immediately undertook, and erected a mosque at the same time, for the exercise of his new-invented religion; and having thus settled himself in, this town, he continued there to the time of his death. From this flight of Mahomet, the Hegira, which is the sera of the Mahometans, begins its computation: Hegira, in. the Arabic language, signifying flight. It was first appointed by Omar, the third emperor of the Saracens, and takes its beginning from the 16th of July, in the year 622. Indeed the day that Mahomet left Mecca was on the first of the Former Rabia; and he came to Medina on the 12th of the same month, that is on the 24th of our September; but the Hegira begins two months before, from the first of Moharram: for, that being the first month of the Arabian year, Omar would make no alteration as to that, but anticipated the computation fifty-niue days, that he might commence his sera from the beginning of that year, in which the flight of the impostor happened, from which it topk its name.

The first thing that Mahomet did after he had settled himself at Medina, was to marry his daughter Fatima* to his cousin Ali. She was the only child then living of six which were born to him of Cadiga his first wife; and indeed the only one which he had, notwithstanding the mcltifnde of his wives who survived him. Having now obtained the end at which he had long been aiming, that is, that of having a town at his command, he entered upon a scheme entirely new. Hitherto he had been only preaching his religion for thirteen years together; for the remaining ten years of his life he took the sword, and fought for it. He had long been teazed and perplexed at Mecca with questions, and objectiows, and disputes about what he had preached, by which he/v as often put to silence-; but iKjnceforth he forbad all manner of disputing, telling his disciples that his religion was to be propagated not by disputing, but by fighting. He commanded them therefore to arm themselves, and slay with the sword all that. would not embrace it, unless they submitted to pay a yearly tribute for the redemption of their lives: and according to this injunction, even to this day, all who live under any Mahometan government, and are not of their religion, pay an annual tax for a mulct of their infidelity; and are punished with death if they contradict or oppose any doctrine taught by Mahomet. After he had sufficiently infused this doctrine into his disciples, he next proceeded to put it in practice; and having erected his standard, called them all to come armed to it. His first expeditious were against the trading caravans, in their journeys between Mecca and Syria, which he attacked with various success; and-if we except the establishing and adjusting a few particulars relating to his grand scheme, as occasion required, his time, for the two first years after his flight, was wholly spent in predatory excursions upon his neighbours, in robbing, plundering, and destroying all those that lived near Medina, who would not embrace his religion.

In the third year of the Hegira, A. D. 624, he made war upon those tribes of the Arabs which were of the Jewish religion near him; and having taken their castles, and reduced them under his power, he sold them all for slaves, and divided their goods among his followers. But the battle of Ohud, which happened towards the end of this year, had like to have proved fatal to him; for his uncle Hamza, who bore the standard, was killed, himself grievously wounded, and escaped only by one of his companions comincr to his assistance. This defeat gave rise to many objections against him, some asked, How a prophet of God could be overthrown in a battle by the infidels and others murmured as much for the loss of their friends and relations who were slain. To satisfy the former, he Jakt the cause of the overthrow on the sins of some that followed him; and said, that for this reason God suffered them to he overthrown, that so the good might be distinguished from the bad, and that those who were true believers might on this occasion be discerned from those who were not. Tq quiet the complaints of the latter, he invented his doctrine of fate and predestination; telling them that those who were slain in the battle, though they had tarried at home in their houses, must nevertheless have died at that moment, the time of every man’s life being predetermined by God; but-as they died fighting for the faith, they gained the advantage of the crown of martyrdon), and the rewards which were due to it in Paradise; both which doctrines served his purpose so well, that he proj>a-jated them afterwards on all occasions. They have also been the favourite notions of the Mahometans ever since, and enforced especially in their wars; where, it musk be owned, nothing can be more conducive to make them fight valiantly, than a settled opinion, that to whatever dangers they expose themselves, they cannot die either sooner or later than is predestinated by God; and that, in case this predestined time be come, they shall, by dying martyrs for their religion, immediately enter into Paradise as the reward of it.

In the fourth year of the Hegira, A. D. 625, he waged war with the Nadirites, a tribe of the Jewish Arabs in the neighbourhood; and the same year fought the battle of Beder, and had many other skirmishes with those who refused to submit: in all which he had sometimes prosperous and sometimes dubious success. But while his army was abroad on these expeditions, some of his principal men engaging in play and drinking, quarrelled, and raised such a disturbance among the rest, that they had like to have endangered his whole scheme; and, therefore, to prevent any mischief cf this kind for the future, he forbade the use of wine, and all games of chance. In the fifth and sixth years, he was engaged in various wars, and subdued, several tribes of the Arabs. After so many advantages obtained, being much increased in strength, he marched his army against Mecca, and fought a battle near it the consequence of which was, that, neither side gaining any victory, they agreed on a truce for ten years. The conditions of it were, that all within Mecca, who were for Mahomet, might have liberty to join themselves to him; and on the other side, those with Mahomet, who had a mind to leave him, might have the liberty to return to Mecca. By this truce, Mahomet, being very much confirmed in his power, took on him thenceforth the authority of a king, and was inaugurated as such by the chief men of his army.

Having thus made a truce with the men of Mecca, and thereby obtained free access for any of his party to go into that city, he ordained them to make pilgrimages thither, which have ever since been observed, with much superstition, by all his followers, once every year: and now being thus established in the sovereignty, at which he had long been aiming, he assumed all the insignia belonging to it; still retaining the sacred character of chief pontiff of his religion, as well as the royal, with which he was invested. He transmitted both to his successors, who, by the title of Caliphs, reigned after him: so that, like the Jewish princes of the race of Maccabees, they were kings and chief-priests of their people at the same time. Their pontifical authority consisted chiefly in giving the interpretation of the Mahometan law, in ordering all matters of religion, and in praying and preaching in their public mosques: and this at length was all the authority the caliphs had left; as they were totally stripped of the rest, first by the governors. of the provinces, who, about the 325th year of the Hegira, assumed the regal authority to themselves, and afterwards by others, who gradually usurped upon them; till at length, after a succession of ages, the Tartars came in, and, in that deluge of destruction with which they over-ran all the East, put a total end not only to their authority, but to their very name and being. Ever since that time, most Mahometan princes have a particular officer appointed in their respective dominions, who sustains this sacred authority, formerly invested in their caliphs; who in Turkey is called the Mufti, and in Persia the Sadre. But they, being under the power of the princes that appoint them, are in reality the mere creatures of state, who make the law of Mahomet speak just such language as is necessary to support the measures of the government, however unjust or tyrannical.

In the seventh year of the Hegira, A. D. 628, the impostor led forth his army against Caibar, a city inhabited by Arabs of the Jewish religion and, after routing them irt battle, he besieged their city, and took it by storm. Having entered the town, he took up his quarters in the house of Hareth, one of the principal inhabitants of the place, whose daughter Zainoh, preparing a shoulder of mutton for his supper, poisoned it. Here those who would ascribe miracles to Mahomet, tell us, that the shoulder of mutton spake to him, and discovered that it was poisoned; but, if it did so, it was, it seems, too late to do him any good; for Basher, one of his companions, beginning too greedily to eat of it, fell down dead on the place; and although Mahomet had not immediately the same fate, because, not liking the taste, he spit out again what he had taken into his mouth, yet he took enough to have a fatal effect; for he never recovered, and, at the end of three years, died of this meal. The maid being asked why she did this, answered, that “she had a mind to make trial, whether he were a prophet or not: for, were he a prophet,” said she, “he would certainly know that the meat was poisoned, and therefore would receive no harm from it; but, if he were not a prophet, she thought she should do the world good service in ridding it of so wicked a tyrant.”

After this, he reduced under his subjection other towns belonging to the Jewish Arabs, and having increased his strength by these acquisitions to an army of 10,000 men, he resolved to make himself master of Mecca. For this plurpose, pretending that the people of Mecca had broken the truce, he marched suddenly upon them, before they were aware of his design: when, being utterly incapable of putting themselves into any posture of defence against him, they found themselves necessitated to surrender immediately. As soon as it was heard among the neighbouring Arabs, that Mahomet had made himself master of Mecca, several other tribes made head against him, and in the first encounter routed his army, though greatly superior to theirs in number: but the impostor, having gathered up his scattered forces, and rallied them again into a body, acted more cautiously in the second conflict, and gave his enemies a total defeat, and took from them their baggage, with their wives and children, and all their substance. After this, his power being much increased, the fame of it so terrified the rest of the Arabs, who had not yet felt his arms, that they all submitted to him. So that in this year, which is the tenth of the Hegira, and the 631st of our Lord, his empire and his religion became established together through all Arabia.

He spent the remainder of the year in sending lieutenants into all his provinces, to govern in his name, to destroy the heathen temples, and all the other remains of the Arabian idolatry, and establish his religion in its stead. Towards the end of it, he took a journey in pilgrimage to Mecca, where a great concourse of people resorted to him from all parts of Arabia, whom he instructed in his law, and then returned to Medina. This pilgrimage is called, by his followers, the pilgrimage of valediction, because it was the last he made: for, after his return to Medina, Jhe began daily ta decline, through the force of that poison which he had taken three years before at Caibar. It had never been removed from his constitution, and at length brought him so low, that he was forced, on the 28th day of Saphar, the second month of their year, to take to his bed; and, on, the 12th day of the following month, he died, after a sickness of thirteen days. During his sickness he much complained of the mea.t which he had taken at Caibar; telling those who came to visit hirp, that he had felt the torments of it in his body ever since: so that, notwithstanding the intimacy he pretended with the angel Gabriel, and the continual revelations he received from him, he could not be preserved from perishing by the snares of a girl.

He was buried in the place where he died, which was in the chamber of his best-beloved wife, at Medina. The story that Mahomet’s tomb, being of iron, is suspended in the air, under a vault of loadstones, is a mere fable; and the Mahometans laugh, when they know that the Christians relate it, as they do other stories of him, for a certain matter of fact. A king of Egypt, indeed, formerly attempted to do this, when he had a mind to procure the same advantage to a statue of his wife. “Dinocrates the architect,” says Pliny, “had begun to roof the temple of Arsinoe, at Alexandria, with loadstone, that her image, made of iron, might seem to hang there in the air.” But no such Attempt was ever made in regard to Mahomet; whose body continued in the place where he was buried, without having been moved or disturbed. They have, it is said, built over it a small chapel, joining to one of the corners of the chief mosque of that city; the first mosque which was erected to that impious superstition, Mahomet himself being, as hath been related above, the founder of it.

Thus ended the life of this famous impostor, who was sixty-three years old on the day he died, according to the Arabian calculation, which makes only sixty-one of our years. For twenty-three years he had taken upon him to be a prophet of which he lived thirteen at Mecca, and ten at Medina, during which time, by his great address and management, he rose from the meanest beginnings to such a height of power as to be able to make one of the greatest revolutions that ever happened in the world. This revolution immediately gave birth to an empire, which, in eighty years, extended its dominion over more kingdoms and countries than the Roman empire could subdue m eight hundred: and, although it continued in its flourishing condition not much above three hundred years, yet out of its ashes have sprung up many other kingdoms and empires, of which there are three at this day, the largest, if not the most potent upon the face of the earth; namely, the empire of Turkey, the empire of Persia, and the empire of the Mogul in India. Mahomet was a man of a good stature and a comely aspect, and affected much to be thought like Abraham. He had a piercing and sagacious wit, and was extremely well versed in all those arts which are necessary to lead mankind. In the first part of his life, he was wicked and licentious, much delighted in rapine, plunder, and bloodshed, according to the usage olf the Arabs, who have generally followed this kind of life. The Mahometans, however, would persuade us, that he was a saint from the fourth year of his age: for then, they say, the angel Gabriel separated him from his fellows, while he was at play with them; and, carrying him aside, cut open his breast, took out his heart, and wrung out of it that black dropof blood, in which they imagined was contained thefomes peccati; so that he had none of it ever after. This is contradicted, however, by two predominant passions, ambition and lust. The course which he took to gain empire abundantly shews the former; and the multitude of women with whom he was connected, proves the latter. While Cadiga lived, which was till his fiftieth year, it does not appear that he had any other wife: for, she being the origin and foundation of all his fortunes and grandeur, it is probable he durst not displease her, by bringing in another wife. But she was no sooner dead, than he multiplied them to a great number, besides which he had several concubines. They that reckon the fewest, allow him to have married fifteen; but others reckon them to have been one and twenty, of which five died before him, six he divorced, and ten were alive at his death.

But of all his wives, Ayesha, the daughter of that Abubeker who succeeded him, was by far his best beloved. He married her very young, and took care to have her bred up in all the learning of Arabia, especially in the elegance of their language, and the knowledge of their antiquities; so that she became at length one of the most accomplished ladies of her time. She was a bitter enemy to Ali, he being the person who discovered her incontinence to Mahomet, and therefore employed all her interest, upon every vacancy, to hinder him from being chosen Caliph, althougn, as son-in-law to the impostor, he had the fairest pretence to it; and when at last, after having been thrice put by, he attained that dignity, she appeared in arms against him; and although she did not prevail, caused such a defection from him, as ended in his ruin. She lived forty. eight years after the death of Mahomet, and was in great reputation with her sect, being called by them the Prophetess, and the mother of the faithful. One of the principal arguments which the followers of Mahomet used, to excuse his having so many wives, is, that he might beget young prophets: he left, however, neither prophet nor prophetess long behind him of all his wives. The six children which he had by Cadiga, his first wife, all died before him, except Fatima, the wife of Ali, who only survived him sixty days; and be had no child by any of the rest.

As the impostor allowed the divinity of the Old and New Testament, it is natural to suppose that he would attempt to prove his own mission from both; and the texts used for this purpose by those who defend his cause, are these following. In Deuteronomy it is said, “The Lord came down from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them: he shined forth from mount Pharan^ and he came with ten thousand of saints: from his right-hand went a fiery law for them.” By these words, according to the Mahometans, are meant the delivery of the law to Mosea, on mount Sinai; of the gospel to Jesus, at Jerusalem; and of the Koran to Mahomet, at Mecca: for, say they, Seir are the mountains of Jerusalem, where Jesus appeared; and Pha-. ran the mountains of Mecca, where Mahomet appeared. But they are here mistaken in their geography; for Pharan is a city of Arabia Petraea, near the Red Sea, towards the bottom of the gulph, not far from the confines of Egypt and Palestine, and above 500 miles distant from Mecca. It was formerly an episcopal see, under the patriarchs of Jerusalem, and famous for Theodorus, once bishop of it, who was the first that published to the world the opinion of the Monothelites. It is at this day called Fara: and hence the deserts, lying from this city to the borders of Palestine, are called the deserts or wilderness of Pharan, and the mountains lying in it, the mountains of Pharan, in holy scripture; near which Moses first began to repeat, and more clearly to explain the law to the children of Israel, before his death: and it is to that, to which the text above mentioned refers.

The Psalmist has written, “Out of Sion, the perfec-­tion of beauty, God hath shined;” which the Syriac version reads thus, “Out of Sion God hath shewed a glorious crown.” From this some Arabic translation having expressed the two last words by “eclilan mahmudan,” that is, “an honourable crown,” the Mahometans have understood the name Mahomet; and so read the word thus, “Out of Sion hath God shewed the crown of Mahomet.” In Isaiah we read, “And he saw a chariot, with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses and a chariot of camels.” But the old Latin version hath it, “Et vidit currum duorum equitum, ascensorera asini, & ascensorem cameli” that is, “And he saw a chariot of two horsemen, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel.” Here, by the rider upon an ass, they understand Jesus Christ, because he so rode to Jerusalem; and by the rider upon a camel Mahomet, because he was of the Arabians, who used to ride upon camels. Our Saviour, in St. John, tells his disciples, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” By the Comforter, the Mahometans will have their prophet Mahomet to be meant: and therefore, among other titles, they gave him that of Paraclet, which is the Greek word used in this text for the Comforter, made Arabic. They also say, that the very name of Mahomet, both here and in other places of the gospel, was expressly mentioned; but that the Christians have, through malice, blotted it out, and shamefully corrupted those holy writings; nay, they insist, that at Paris there is a copy of the Gospels without those corruptions, in which the coming of Mahomet is foretold in several places, with his name expressly mentioned in them: Such a copy, it must be owned, would be highly convenient, and to the purpose: for ttien it would be no easy matter to refute this text in the 61st chapter of the Koran: “Remember, that Jesus, the son of Mary, said to the children of Israel, I am the messenger of God: he bath sent me to confirm the Old Testament, and to declare unto yon, that there shall come a prophet after me, whose name *hall be Mahomet.”

It is not our business to confute these glosses; and if it was, the absurdity of them is sufficiently exposed by barely relating them. Upon the whole, since the Mahometans can find nothing else in all the books of the Old and New Testament to wrest to their purpose, but the texts abovementioned, it appears to us, that their religion, as well as its founder, is likely to receive but little sanction from the Bible.

Mahomet was succeeded by Abubeker, agreeably to the wishes of the deceased prophet; who, after a reign of two years, was followed by Omar; and in the twelfth year of his government he received a mortal wound from the hand of an assassin, and made way for the succession of Othman, the secretary of Mahomet After the third caliph, twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, Ali was invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal office. Among the numerous biographers of Mahomet, we may reckon Abulfeda, Maracci, Savary, Sale, Prideaux, Boulainvilliers, D'Herbelot, Gagnier, Gibbon, and the author of the article in the Modern Universal History.

, the eleventh sultan of the Turks, born at Adrianople, the 24th of March, 1430, is to be remembered chiefly by us, for taking Constantinople in 1453, and thereby driving many learned Greeks into the West, which was a great cause of the restoration of learning in Europe, as the Greek literature was then introduced here. He was one of the greatest men upon record, with regard to the qualities necessary to a conqueror: and he conquered two empires, twelve kingdoms, and two hundred considerable cities. He was very ambitious of the title of Great, which the Turks cave him, and even the Christians have not disputed it with him; for he was the first of the Ottoman emperors, whom tue Western nations dignified with the title of Grand Seignior, or Great Turk, which posterity has preserved to his descendants. Italy had suffered greater calamities, but she had never felt a terror equal to that which this sultan’s victories imprinted. The inhabitants seemed already condemned to wear the turban; it is certain that pope Sixtus IV. represented to himself Rome as already involved in the dreadful fate of Constantinople; and thought of nothing but escaping into Provence, and once more transferring the holy see to Avignon. Accordingly, the news of Mahomet’s death, which happened the ad of Mav, 1481, was received at Rome with the greitest joy that ever was beheld there. Sixtus caused all the churches to be thrown open, made the trades-peopld leave off their work, ordered a feast of three days, with. public prayers and processions, commanded a discharge of the whole artillery of the castle of St. Angelo all that time, and put a stop to his journey to Avignon. Some authors have written that tbis sultan was an atheist, and derided all religions, without excepting that of his prophet, whom he treated as no better than a leader of banditti. This is possible enough; and there are many circumstances which make it credible It is certain he engaged in war, not to promote Mahometism, but to gratify his own ambition: he preferred his own interest to that of the faith he professed; and to this it was owing that he tolerated the Greek church, and even shewed wonderful civility to the patriarch of Constantinople. His epitaph deserves to be noted; the inscription consisted only of nine or ten Turkish words, thus translated: “I proposed to myself the conquest of Rhodes and proud Italy.”

He appears to be the first sultan who was a lover of arts and sciences; and even cultivated polite letters. He often read the History of Augustus, and the other Caesars; and he perused those of Alexander, Constantine, and Theodosius, with more than ordinary pleasure, because these bad reigned in the same country with himself. He was fond of painting, music, and sculpture; and he applied himself to the study of agriculture. He was much addicted to astrology, and used to encourage his troops by giving out that the motion and influence of the heavenly bodies promised him the empire of the world. Contrary to the genius of his country, he delighted so much in the knowledge of foreign languages, that he not only spoke the Arabian, to which the Turkish laws, and the religion of their legislator Mahomet are appropriated, but also the Persian, the Greek, and the French, that is, the corrupted Italian. Landin, a knight of Rhodes, collected several letters which this sultan wrote in the Syriac, Greek, and Turkish languages, and translated them into Latin. Where the originals are is not known; but the translation has been published several times; as at Lyons, 1520, in 4to; at Basil, 1554, 12mo, in a collection published by Oporinus; at Marpurgh, 1604, in 8vo, and at Leipsic, 1690, in 12mo. Melchior Junius, professor of eloquence at Strasburg, published at Montbeliard, 1595, a collection of letters, in which there are three written by Mahomet II. to Scanderbeg. One cannot discover the least air of Turkish ferocity in these letters: they are written in as civil terms as the most polite prince in Christendom could have used.

, a religious minim, and one of the greatest philosophers of his age, was born at Toulouse, of an ancient and noble family, July 17, 1601. While he was a child, he discovered an inclination to letters and the sciences, and nothing is said to have had so great an effect in quieting his infant clamours, as putting some little boot into his hands. He went through his course in the college of Jesuits, and acquitted himself with great diligence in every part of scholarship, both with respect to literary and religious exercises. He was determined to a religious life, by a check given to his vanity when he was learning rhetoric. He had written a poem, in order to dispute the prize of eloquence, and believed the victory was unjustly adjudged to another. This made him resolve to ask the minim’s habit, and having acquitted himself satisfactorily in the trials of his probation-time, he was received upon his taking the vow in 1619, when he was eighteen. He went through his course of philosophy under a professor who was very much attached to the doctrine of Aristotle; and he omitted no opportunity of disputing loudly against all the parts of that philosopher’s scheme, which he suspected of heterodoxy. His preceptor considered this as a good presage; and in a short time discovered, to his great astonishment, that his pupil was very well versed in mathematics, without having had the help of a teacher. In this, like Pascal, he had been his own master but what he says of himself upon this point must be understood with some limitation; namely, that “in his leisure hours of one year from the duties of the choir and school, he discovered of himself as many geometrical theorems and problems, as were to be found in the first six books of Euclid’s Elements.”

However freely he examined the opinions of philosophy, instead of shewing himself incredulous in matters of divinity, he implicitly submitted to all the tenets of his church. But, as the arguments of the Peripatetics were commonly applied to illustrate and confirm those tenets, where he did not upon examination find them wellgrounded, he made no scruple to prefer the assistance of Plato to that of Aristotle. His reputation was so great, that it spread beyond the Alps and Pyrenees; and the general of the minims ordered him to Rome, in 1636, to fill a professor’s chair. His capacity in mathematical discoveries and physical experiments soon became known; especially from a dispute which arose between him and father Kircher, about the invention of a catoptrical work. In 1648 his book “De perspectiva horaria” was printed at Rome, at the expence of cardinal Spada, to whom it was dedicated, and greatly esteemed by all the curious. From Rome he returned to Toulouse, in 1650, and was so well received by his countrymen, that they created him provincial the same year; though he was greatly averse to having his studies interrupted by the cares of any office, and he even refused an invitation from the king in 1660, to settle in Paris, as it was his only wish to pass the remainder of his days in the obscurity of the cloister, where he had put on the habit of the order. Before this, in 1652, he published his “Course of Philosophy,” at Toulouse, in 4 vols. 8vo, in which work, if he did not invent the explanation of physics by the four elements, which some have given to Empedocles, yet he restored it, as Gassendus did the doctrine of the atomists. He published a second edition of it in folio, 1673, and added two treatises to it the one against the vortices of Des Cartes, the other upon the speaking-trumpet invented by our countryman sir Samuel Morland. He also formed a machine, which shewed by its movements that Des Cartes’s supposition, concerning the manner in which the universe was formed, or might have been formed, and concerning the centrifugal force, was entirely without foundation.

Thus this great philosopher and divine passed a life of tranquillity in writing books, making experiments, and reading lectures. He was perpetually consulted by the most eminent philosophers, and was obliged to carry on a very extensive correspondence. Such was the activity of his mind that he is said to have studied even in his sleep; for his very dreams employed him in theorems, and he was frequently awaked by the exquisite pleasure which he felt upon the discovery of a demonstration. The excellence of his manners, and his unspotted virtues, rendered him no less worthy of esteem than his genius and learning. He died at Toulouse Oct. 29, 1676, aged seventy-five. It is said of him, that he composed with great ease, and without any alterations at all. See a book entitled “De vita, moribus, & scriptis R. patris Emanuelis Maignani Tolosatis, ordinis Minimorum, philosophi atque mathematici pracstantissimi, elogium,” written by F. Saguens, and printed at Toulouse in 1697, a work in which are some curious facts, not, however, unmixed with declamatory puerilities.

, a learned Jesuit, was born in the French province of Bugey ou the borders of Savoy, in 1670. From the age of twenty-eight he had made himself so completely master of Chinese learning of all kinds, that he was considered as a prodigy, and in 1703, was sent as a missionary into that country, where he was highly esteemed by the emperor Kam-Hi, who died in 1722. By that prince he was employed, with other missionaries, to construct a chart of China, and Chinese Tartary, which was engraved in France in 1732. He made also some separate maps of particular provinces in that vast empire, and the emperor was so pleased with these performances, that he fixed the author at his court. Mailla likewise translated the “Great Annals” of China into French, and transmitted his manuscript to France in 1737, comprising the complete history of the Chinese empire. The first volumes appeared in 1777, under the care of the abbe Grosier, and the whole was completed by him in 1785, making thirteen volumes 4to. The style of the original is heavy, and contains many long and tedious harangues, which the editor has suppressed: it gives many lively and characteristic traits of men and manners. Mailla died at Pekin June 28, 1748, having lived forty -five years in China, and attained his seventy-ninth year. He was a man of a lively but placid character, of an active and persevering spirit, which no labours repressed. The late emperor Kien Long paid the expences of his funeral, which was attended by a procession of seven hundred persons.

, a famous preacher, and a cordelier, was a native of Paris, where he rose to the dignity of doctor in divinity. He was entrusted with honourable employments by Innocent VIII. and Charles VIII. of France, by Ferdinand of Arragon, &c. and is said to have served the latter prince, even at the expence of his master. He died at Toulouse June 13, 1502. His sermons, which remained in manuscript, are full of irreverent familiarities, and in the coarsest style of his times. His Latin sermons were printed at Paris, in seven parts, forming three volumes in 8vo; the publication commenced in 1711, and was continued to 1730. In one of his sermons for Lent, the words hem hem are written in the margin to mark the places where, according to the custom of those days, the preacher was to stop to cough. Niceron has given some amusing extracts from others of them, which, amidst all their quaintnesses, show him to have been a zealous reprover of the vices of thfe times, and never to have spared persons of rank, especially profligate churchmen. He even took liberties with Louis XI. of France to his face, and when one of the courtiers told him that the king had threatened to throw him into the river, “The king is my master,” said our hardy priest, “but you may tell him, that I shall get sooner to heaven by water, than he will with his post-horses.” Louis XI. was the first who established posting on the roads of France, and when this bon mot was repeated to him, he was wise enough to allow Maillard to preach what he would and where he would. The bon mot, by the way, appears in the “Navis Stultifera,” by Jodocus Badius, and was probably a current jest among the wits of the time.

, was the son of Nicolas Desmarets, controller-general of the finances towards the end of Louis XIV.'s reign, and was born in 1682. He first signalized himself in the war on the Spanish succession, and completed his reputation by two brilliant campaigns in Italy. He was afterwards sent against Corsica, which he reduced, but it threw off subjection immediately on his departure. This expedition obtained him the staff of mareschal of France. In the war of 1741, he gained new laurels in Germany and Italy: but in 1746, he was defeated by the famous count Brown, in the battle of Placentia. He died in February 1762, in the 80th year of his age. The account of his campaigns in Italy was published in 1775, in three volumes quarto, accompanied with a volume of maps. The author of this work was the marquis of Pezay, who executed it with great judgment.

, a French theorist of some note, was born in 1659, of a noble family in Lorraine. At the age of thirty-three he was appointed consul-general of Egypt, and held that situation with great credit for sixteen years. Having strenuously supported the interests of his sovereign, he was at length rewarded by being removed to Leghorn, which was esteemed the chief of the Frencb consulships. In 1715 he was employed to visit and inspect the other consulships of Barbary and the Levant, and fulfilled this commission so much to the satisfaction of his court, that he obtained leave to retire, with a considerable pension, to Marseilles, where he died in 1738, at the age of seventy-nine. De Maillet did not publish any thing himself, but left behind him papers and memoirs, from which some publications were formed. The first of these was published in 8vo, by the abbe Mascrier, under the feigned name of Telliamed, which is De Maillet reversed. The subject is the origin of our globe, and the editor has thrown the sentiments of his author into the form of dialogues between an Indian philosopher and a French missionary. The philosopher maintained that all the land of this earth, and its vegetable and animal inhabitants, rose from the bosom of the sea, on the successive contractions of the waters: that men had originally been tritons with tails; and that they, as well as other animals, had lost their marine, and acquired terrestrial forms by their agitations when left on dry ground. This extravagance had its day in France. The same editor also drew from the papers of this author, a description of Egypt, published in 1743, in 4to, and afterwards in two volumes 12mo.

, a man celebrated in the republic of letters, was born at Nancy, in Lorrain, in 161O. He was very well descended, and his parents were people of considerable rank and fortune. He was admitted into the society of the Jesuits in 1626; but obliged afterwards to quit it by the order of pope Innocent XI. in 1682, for having asserted too boldly the authority of the Gallican church against the court of Rome. Louis XIV. however, made him sufficient amends for this disgrace by settling on him a very honourable pension, with which he retired into the abbey of St. Victor at Paris. Here he died in 1686, after having made a will by which it appears that he was extremely dissatisfied with the Jesuits. Bayle has given the substance of it, as far as relates to them, and calls it a kind of a declaration of war. It sets forth, “That a gentleman of Nancy, in Lorrain, had been educated and settled in France from twelve years of age, and by that means was become a very faithful and loyal subject of that king; that he was now almost seventy-six years old that his father and mother being very rich ha J founded a college for the Jesuits at Nancv., fifty years ago; and that for ten years hefore this foundation they had supplied those fathers with every thing they wanted. He declares, that they did all this in consideration of his being admitted into that order; and yet that now he was forcibly turned out of it. he wills, therefore, by this testament, that all the lands, possessions, &c. which the Jesuits received of his father and mother, do devolve, at his decease, to the Carthusian monastery near Nancy; affirming, that his parents would never have conferred such large donations upon them, but upon condition, that they would not banish their son from the society, after they had once admitted him; and that, therefore, since these conditions had been violated on the part of the Jesuits, the possessions of his family ought to return to him.”

Maimbourg had a great reputation as a preacher, and published two volumes of sermons. But what have made him most known were the several histories he published. He wrote the History of Arianism, of the Iconoclasts, of the Croisades, of the Schism of the West, of the f-chism of the Greeks, of the Decay of the Empire, of the League, of Lutheranism, of Calvinism, the Pontificate of St. Leo; and he was composing the “History of the Schism of England” when he died. These histories form 14 vols. 4to, or 26 in 12mo. Protestant authors have charged him with insincerity, have convicted him of great errors and misrepresentations, in their refutations of his “History of Lutheranism and Calvinism.” The Jansenists criticued his “History of Arianism,” and that of the “Iconoclasts,” leaving all the rest untouched. The “History of Calvinism,” which he published in 1681, stirred up a violent war against him; the operations whereof he left entirely to his enemies, without ever troubling himself in the least about it, or acting either offensively or defensively. The abbé L'Avocat says that his historical works were admired at first, on account of a kind pf romantic style which prevails in them; but this false taste did not continue long, and the greatest part of them were exploded while their author was yet living. It is asserted that P. Maimbourg never took up his pen till he had heated his imagination by wine, nor ever attempted to describe a battle till he had drank two bottles; making use of this precaution, as he said jestingly, lest the horrors of the combat should enfeeble his style. The same biographer adds, that Theodore Maimbourg, his cousin, turned Calvinist, then went back to the catholic church, then changed afresh to “what is called the reformed religion,” and died a Socinian at London, about 1693. This last left an answer to “M. Bossuet’s Exposition of the Catholic Faith” and other works.

, or Moses the son of Maimon, a celebrated rabbi, called by the Jews “The eagle of the doctors,” was born of an illustrious family at Cordova in Spain, 1131. He is commonly named Moses Egyptius, because he retired early, as it is supposed, into Egypt, where he spent his whole life in quality of physician to the Soldan. As soon as he arrived there he opened a school, which was presently filled with pupils from all parts, especially from Alexandria and Damascus; who did such credit to their master by the progress they made under him, that they spread his name throughout the world. Maimonides was, indeed, according to all accounts of him, a most uncommon and extraordinary man, skilled in all languages, and versed in all arts and sciences. As to languages, the Hebrew and Arabic were the first he acquired, and what he understood in the most perfect manner; but perceiving that the knowledge of these would distinguish him only among his own people, the Jews, he applied himself also to the Chaldee, Turkish, &c. &c. of all which he became a master in a very few years. It is probable also, that he was not ignorant of the Greek, since in his writings he often quotes Aristotle, Plato, Galen, Themistius, and others; unless we can suppose him to have quoted those authors from Hebrew and Arabic versions, for which, however, as far as we can find, there is no sufficient reason.

He was famous for arts as well as language. In all branches of philosophy, particularly mathematics, he was extremely well skilled; and his experience in the art of healing was so very great, that as we have already intimated, he was called to be physician in ordinary to the king. There is a letter of his extant, to rabbi Samuel Aben Tybbon, in which he has described the nature of this office, and related also what vast incumbrances and labours the practice of physic brought upon him. Of this we shall give a short extract, because nothing can convey a clearer or a juster idea of the man, and of the esteem and veneration in which he was held in Egypt. Tybbon had consulted him by a letter upon some difficult points, and had told him in the conclusion of it, that as soon as he could find leisure he would wait upon him in person, that they might canvas them more fully in the freedom of conversation. Maimonides replied, that he should be extremely glad to see him, and that nothing could give him higher pleasure than the thoughts of conversing with him; but yet that he must frankly confess to him that he durst not encourage him to undertake so long a voyage, or to think of visiting him with any such views. “1 am,” says he, “so perpetually engaged, that it will be impossible for you to reap any advantage from me, or even to obtain a single hour’s private conversation with me in any part of the four-and-twenty. I live in Egypt, the king in Alkaira; which places lie two sabbath-days journey asunder. My common attendance upon the king is once every morning; but when his majesty, his concubines, or any of the royal family, are the least indisposed, I am not suffered to stir a loot from them; so that my whole time, you see, is almost spent at court. In short, 1 go to Alkaira every morning early, and, if all be well there, return home about noon; where, however, I no sooner arrive, than I find my house surrounded with many different sorts of people, Jews and Gentiles, rich men and poor, magistrates and mechanics, friends as well as enemies, who have all been waiting impatiently for me. As I am generally half famished upon my return from Alkaira, I prevail with this multitude, as well as I can, to suffer me to regale myself with a bit of dinner; and as soon as I have done, attend this crowd of patients, with whom, what with examining into their particular maladies, and what with prescribing for them, I am often detained till it is night, and am always so fatigued at last, that I can scarcely speak, or even keep myself awake. And this is my constant way of life,” &c.

But however eminent Maimorides was as a physician, he was not less so as a divine. The Jews have this saying of him, “A Mose ad Mosen non surrexit sicut Mose;” by which they would insinuate, that of all their nation none ever so nearly approached to the wisdom and learning of their great founder and lawgiver, as Moses, the son of Maim on. He was, says Isaac Casaubon, “a man of great parts and sound learning; of whom, I think, we may truly say, as Pliny said of old of Diodorurs Siculus, that he was the first of his tribe who ceased to be a trifler.” He was so far from paying an undue regard to absurd fables and traditious, as his nation had always been accustomed to do, that he dissuaded others from it in the most express terms. “Take heed,” says he, “and do not waste your time in attempting to draw sense or meaning out of that which has no meaning in it; I myself have spent a great deal of time in commenting upon, and explaining the Gemara, from which I have reaped nothing but my labour for my pains.”

The works of Maimonides are very numerous. Some of them were written in Arabic originally, but are now extant in Hebrew translations only. The most considerable are his Jad, which is likewise called “Mischne Terah,” his “More Nevochim,” and his “Peruschim, or Commentaries upon the Misna.” His “Commentaries upon the Misna” he began at the age of three-and-twenty, and finished in Egypt, when he was about thirty. They were translated from the Arabic by rabbi Samuel Aben Tybbon. His “Jad” was published about twelve years after, written in Hebrew, in a very plain and easy style. This has always been esteemed a great and useful work, being a complete code, or pandect of Jewish law, digested into a clear and regular form, and illustrated throughout with an intelligible commentary of his own. “Those,” says Collier, “that desire to learn the doctrine and the canon law contained in the Talmud, may read Maimonides’s compendium, of it in good Hebrew, in his book entitled Jad; wherein they will find a great part of the fables and impertinences in the Talmud entirely discarded.” But of all his productions, the “More Nevochim” has been thought the most important, and valued the most, not only by others, but also by himself. This was written by him in Arabic, when he was about fifty years old; and afterwards translated into Hebrew, under his own inspection, by rabbi Samuel Aben Tybbon. The design of it was to explain the meaning of several difficult and obscure words, phrases, metaphors, parables, allegories, &c. in scripture which, when interpreted literally, seemed to have no meaning at all, or at least a very absurd and irrational one. Hence the work, as Buxtorf says, took its title of “More Nevochim,” that is, “Doctor perplexorum;” as being written for the use and benefit of those who were in doubt whether they should interpret such passages according to the letter, or rather figuratively and metaphorically. Jt was asserted by many at that time, but very rashly, that the Mosaic rites and statutes had no foundation in reason, but were the effects of mere will, and ordained by God upon a principle purely arbitrary. Against these Maimonides argues, shews the dispensation in general to be instituted with a wisdom worthy of its divine author, and explains the causes and reasons of each particular branch of it. This procedure, however, gave offence to many of the Jews; those especially who had long been attached to the fables of the Talmud. They could not conceive that the revelations of God were to be explained upon the principles of reason; but thought that every institution must cease to be divine the moment it was discovered to have any thing in it rational. Hence, when the “More Nevochim” was translated into Hebrew, and dispersed among the Jews of every country, great outcries were raised, and great disturbances occasioned about it. They reputed the author to be a heretic of the worst kind, one who had contaminated the religion of the Bible, or rather the religion of the Talmud, with the vile allay of human reason; and would gladly have burnt both him and his book. In the mean time, the wiser part of both Jews and Christians have always considered the work in a very different light, as formed upon a most excellent and noble plan, and calculated in the best manner to procure the reverence due to the Bible, by shewing the dispensation it sets forth to be perfectly conformable to all our notions of the greatest wisdom, justice, and goodness: for, as the learned Spencer, who has pursued the same plan, and executed it happily, observes very truly, “nothing contributes more to make men atheists, and unbelievers of the Bible, than their considering the rites and ceremonies of the law as the effects only of caprice and arbitrary humour in the Deity: yet thus they will always be apt to consider them while they remain ignorant of the causes and reasons of their institution.”

Besides these three works of Maimonides, a great many pieces are said to have been written by him upon theology, philosophy, logic, medicine, &c. and in various languages, as Arabic, Chaldee, and Greek. It may easily indeed be conceived, that a man of his uncommon abilities might be qualified to write upon almost every subject, as there was hardly any thing to be found in the republic of letters, which he had not read. He had turned over not only all the Hebrew, but all the Arabian, Turkish, Greek, Egyptian, and Talmudic writers, as appears by the use he has made of them in his works. He tells us in more places than one, that he had perused with great attention, all the ancient authors upon the rise and progress of idolatry, with a view of explaining the reasons of those rites and ordinances in the law, which were instituted to abolish it: and, in the preface to his “Commentary upon the Misna,” he expressly says, that there was no book written in any language, upon the subject of philosophy, which he had not read entirely through.

This wonderful rabbi died in Egypt, in 1204, when he was seventy years of age, and was buried with his nation in the land of Upper Galilee. The Jews and Egyptians bewailed his death for three whole days, and called the year in which he died “Lamentum 1 amen tab ile,” as the highest honour they could confer upon his name. See the preface of John Buxtorf the son, to his Latin translation of the “More Nevochim,” whence this account of the author is chiefly taken.

, a very extraordinary French lady, who, from a low condition and many misfortunes, was raised at last to be the wife of Louis XIV. was descended from the ancient family of d‘Aubigne; her proper name being Frances d’Aubigne. M. d'Aubigne, her grandfather, was born in 1550, and died in 1630, in his 80th year. He was a man of great merit, a man also of rank, a leading man among the Protestants in France, and much courted to go over to the opposite party. When he perceived that there was no safety for him any longer in his own country, he fled for refuge to Geneva, about 1619. The magistrates, and the clergy there, received him with great marks of honour and distinction; and he passed the remainder of his life among them in great esteem. Mezeray says, that “he was a man of great courage and boldness, of a ready wit, and of a fine taste in polite learning, as well as of good experience in matters of war.”

The son of this d'Aubigne was the father of madam de Maintenon her mother the daughter of Peter de Cardillac, lord of Lane; and of Louisa de Moritalembert. They were married at Bourdeaux, Dec. 27, 1627, not without some apprehensions, it is said, on the part of the lady, upon her being united, we know not haw, to a man of a most infamous character, and who had actually murdered his first wife: for such was Constance d‘Aubigne. Going to Paris soon after his marriage, he was for some very gross offence cast into prison; upon which madam d’Aubign6 followed to solicit his pardon; but in vain: cardinal Richelieu was inflexible, and told her, that “to take such a husband from her, was to do her a friendly office.” Madam d'Aubign6, more attached to her husband in proportion as he became more miserable, obtained leave to shut herself up in prison with him. Here she had two sons, and becoming pregnant a third time, obtained leave from court to have her husband removed to the prison of Niort, that they might be nearer the assistance which they derived from their relations.

In this prison madam de Maintenon was born, Nov. 27, 1635; from which miserable situation, however, she was taken a few days after by madam Villette, her aunt by her father’s side, who, out of compassion to the child, gave her to the care of her daughter’s nurse, with whom she was bred for some time as a foster-sister. Madam Villette also sent the prisoners several necessaries, of which they were in extreme want. Madam d‘Aubigne at length obtained her husband’s enlargement; but it was upon condition that he should turn Roman Catholic. D’Aubigne promised all; but, forgetting his promises, and fearing to be involved again in trouble, he was determined to seek his fortune abroad. Accordingly in 1639, he embarked for America with his wife and family; and arriving safely there, settled in Martinico, where he acquired considerable plantations. Madam d'Aubigne“returned in a little time with her children to France, to carry on some lawsuits, and recover some debts; but madam Villette persuading her to desist from her pretensions, she returned to America, where she found her husband ruined by gaming. In 1646, he died, when madam d'Aubigne” was left, in the utmost distress, to support herself, and manage the education of her children, as she could. She returned to France, leaving her debts unpaid, and her daughter as a pledge in the hands of one of her principal creditors; who, however, soon sent her into France after her mother. Here neglected by her mother, who was indeed little able to support her, she fell into the hands of madam Villette at Poicton, who received her with great marks of affection; and told her, that she should be welcome, if she thought fit, to live with her, where at least she should never be reduced to want a subsistence. The niece accepted the offer which her aunt made her, and studied to render herself necessary and agreeable to a person, upon whom she saw she must depend for every thing. She particularly Jaboured to insinuate herself into the affections of her cousin, with whom she had one common nurse: and to omit nothing that might please them, she expressed a great desire to be instructed in the religion of her ancestors. She was impatient to have some conversation with ministers, and to frequent their sermons, and in a short time became firmly attached to the Protestant religion. In the mean time madam de Neuillant, a relation by her mother’s side, and a Roman catholic, had been busy in advertising some considerable persons of the danger she was in, as to her salvation; and had solicited an order, which was granted, from the court, to take her out of the hands of madam Villette, and to have her instructed in the Roman Catholic religion. She accordingly took her to herself, and made a convert of her: which however was not effected without many threats, artifices, and hardships, which drove her at length to a compliance with the solicitations of madam de Neuillant.

In 1651, she was married to the abb Scarron. Madam de Neuillant, being obliged to go to Paris, took her along with her; and there becoming known to this old famous buffoon, who admired her for her wit, she preferred marrying him to the dependent state she was in. Scarron was of an ancient and distinguished family, but deformed, infirm, and in no very advantageous circumstances; as he subsisted only on a pension, which was allowed him by the court, in consideration of his wit and parts. She lived with him, however, many years; and Voltaire says that this part of her life was undoubtedly the happiest. Her beauty, but still more her wit, for she was never reckoned a complete beauty, distinguished her greatly; and her conversation was eagerly sought by all the best company in Paris. Upon the death of her husband, which happened in 1660, she was reduced to the same indigent condition she was in before her marriage; but her friends did all they timid to prevail upon the court to continue to her the pension which Scarron had enjoyed: in order to which, petitions were frequently given in, beginning always with, “The widow Scarron most humbly prays your majesty,” &c. For a time all these petitions signified nothing; and the king was so weary of them, that he has been heard to say, “Must I always be pestered with the widow Scarron?” At length, madam de Montespan, his mistress, undertook to present one to him “How” cried the king, “the widow Scarron again Shall I never hear of any thing else” “Indeed, Sire,” replied madam de Montespan, “you ought to have ceased hearing of it long ago.” The pension was granted, and madam Scarron went to thank madam de Montespan, who was so struck with the charms of her conversation, that she presented her to the king, who is reported to have said: “Madam, I have made you wait a long time; but your friends are so numerous, that I was desirous of your owing this to me alone.” Voltaire tells us, he had this fact from cardinal Fleury, who took a pleasure in often repeating it, because he said Louis XIV. had made him the same compliment when he gave him the bishopric of Frejus.

Some time after, madam de Montespan, wishing to conceal the birth of the children she had by the king, cast her eyes on madam Scarron, as the most likely person to keep the secret, and educate them properly; and madam Scarron undertook this charge by his majesty’s order, and became their governante. She then led a hard, unpleasant, and retired life, with only her pension of 2000 livres, and had the mortification of knowing that she was disagreeable to the king. His majesty had indeed a degree of dislike to her: he looked upon her as a wit; and though he possessed much wit himself, he could not bear those who made a display of it. He never mentioned her to madam de Montespan, but by the name of “your belesprit.” When the children grew older, they were sent for to court, which occasioned the king to converse sometimes with madam Scarron, in whom he found so much sense, sweetness, and elegance of manners, that he not only lost by degrees his dislike to her, but gave her a particular proof of his esteem: looking over the state of the pensions, and seeing “two thousand francs for madam Scarron,” he erased the sum, and wrote “two thousand crowns.” The young duke of Maine also contributed not a little to remove his majesty’s prejudices. The king frequently played with him, and being much pleased with the sense that appeared even in his eyes, and with the manner in which he answered his questions, said to him one day, “You are very wise” “I may well be so,” replied the child, “for I have a governess who is wisdom itself.” “Go,” said his majesty, “go, tell her you bring her a hundred thousand franks for your sugar plumbs.” Madam Scarron attended this young prince sometime after to the waters of Barege, from whence she wrote to the king himself, to inform him of all that passed. He was much pleased with her letters, and said, “I had no idea that a bel -esprit could write so well.” This circumstance probably gave rise to the report that Louis XIV. was first captivated by a letter she wrote in madam de Montespan’s name; but it is a mere story. Madam de Montespan wrote at least as good letters as madam Scarron, and even as madam de Sevigne.

In 1679, the king bought her the lands of Maintenon, worth 250,000 livres, which was the only estate she ever had, though afterwards in a height of favour that afforded her the means of purchasing immense property. Here she had a magnificent castle, in a most beautiful country, not more than fourteen leagues from Paris, and ten from Versailles. The king, seeing her extremely pleased with the acquisition of her estate, called her publicly madam de Maintenon; which change of name was of greater use to her than she herself could have foreseen. She could not well be raised to the rank in which she was afterwards seen, with the name of Scarron, which must always have been accompanied with a mean and burlesque idea. A woman, whose very name was a jest, must have detracted from the respect and veneration which was paid to the great and pompous Louis; nor could all the reserve and dignity of the widow efface the impression made by the remembrance of her buffoonish husband. It was necessery, therefore, that madam de Maintenon should obliterate madam Scarron.

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

About the end of 1683, Louis married madam de Maintenon; and certainly acquired an agreeable and submissive companion. He was then in his forty-eighth year, she in her fiftieth. The only public distinction which made her sensible of her secret elevation (for nothing could be conducted more secretly then, or kept a greater secret afterwards, than this marriage) was, that at mass she sat in one of the two little galleries, or gilt doors, which appeared only to be designed for the king and queen: besides this, she had not any exterior appearance of grandeur. That piety and devotion, with which she had inspired the king, and which she had applied very successfully to make herself a wife, instead of a mistress, became by degrees a settled disposition of mind, which age and affliction confirmed. She had already, with the king and the whole court, given herself the merit of a foundress, by assembling at Noisy a great number of women of quality; and the king had already destined the revenues of the abbey of St. Denis, for the maintenance of this rising community. St. Cyr was built at the end of the park at Versailles, in 1686 She then gave the form to this establishment; and, together with Desmarets, bishop of Chartres, made the rules, and was herself superior of the convent. Thither she often went to pass away some hours; and, as we learn from herself, melancholy determined her to this employment. “Why cannot I,” says she in a letter to madam de la Maisonfort, “why cannot I give you my experience? Why cannot I make you sensible of that uneasiness, which wears out the great, and of the difficulties they labour under to employ their time? Do not you see that I am dying with melancholy, in a height of fortune, which once my imagination could scarcely have conceived? I have been young and beautiful, have had a relish for pleasures, and have been the universal object of love. In a more advanced age, I have spent my time in intellectual amusements. I have at lastrisen to favour but I protest to you, my dear girl, that every one of these conditions leaves in the mind a dismal vacuity.” If any thing, says Voltaire, could shew the vanity of ambition, it would certainly be this letter. She could have no other uneasiness than the uniformity of her manner of living with a great king; and this made her say once to the count d'Aubigne, her brother, “I can hold it no longer; I wish I was dead.”

The court grew now every day less grty and more serious, after the king began to live a retired life with madam de Maintenon. It was the convent of St. Cyr which revived the taste for works of genius. Madam de Maintenon intreated Racine, who had renounced the theatre for Jansenism and the court, to compose a tragedy, and to take the subject from the Bible. Racine composed “Esther:” and this piece having been first represented at the house of St. Cyr, was afterwards acted several times at Versailles before the king, in the winter of 1689. At the death of the king, which happened Sept. 2, 1715, madam de Maintenon retired wholly to St. Cyr, where she spent the remainder of her days in acts of devotion. What appears surprising is, that Louis XIV. made no certain provision for her, but only recommended her to the duke of Orleans. She would accept of no more than an annual pension of 80,000 livres and this was punctually paid her till her death, which happened the 15th of April, 1719. M. de la Beaumelle published in 1755, “M. de Maintenon’s Letters,” 9 vols. 12mo; and “Memoirs” for her history, &c. the whole reprinted in 12 vols. small 12mo. These “Letters” are curious and interesting, but there are several trifling ones among them. The “Memoirs,” which contain some remarkable anecdotes, are not always to be depended on as to facts, and are frequently censurable for indelicacy.

, a scholastic divine and historian, was born, not at Haddington, as is usually said, but at Gleghorn, a village near North Berwick, in 1469. From some passages in his writings, it appears that he resided for a time both at Oxford and at Cambridge. At the former particularly, we learn from the dedication of one of his works to cardinal Wolsey, he resided, not three months, as Wood says, but a year. The cardinal, whom he styles “your majesty,” received him “after the old manner of Christian hospitality, and invited him with a splendid salary to Oxford, where he had lately founded his college, which Major did not accept, on account of the love he bore to his mother university of Paris.” It appears that he went in 1493 to Paris, and studied in the college of St. Barbe, under the famous John Boulac. Thence he removed to the college of Montacute, where he began the study of divinity, under the celebrated Standouk. In 1498 he was entered of the college of Navarre in 1505 he was created D. D. returned to Scotland in 1519, and taught theology for several years in the university of St. Andrew’s. At length, disgusted with the quarrels of his countrymen, he returned to Paris, and resumed his lectures in the college of Montacute, where he had several pupils, afterwards men of eminence. About 1530, he removed once more to Scotland, was chosen professor of divinity at St. Andrew’s, and afterwards became provost. It is usually supposed that he died in 1547, but it is certain that he was alive in 1549; for in that year he subscribed (by proxy, on account of his great age) the national constitutions of the church of Scotland. He died soon after, probably in 1550, which must have been in his eighty-second year. Du Pin says, that of all the divines who had written on the works of the Master of Sentences (Peter Lombard), Major was the most learned and comprehensive. His History of Scotland is written with much commendable freedom; but in a barbarous style, and not always correct as to facts. Hs was the instructor, but not, as some have said, the patron of the famous George Buchanan. He also had the celebrated John Knox as one of his pupils. Baker in a ms note on the “Athenae,” adds to the mention of this fact, that “a man would hardly believe he ha.d been taught by him.” Baker, however, was not sufficiently acquainted with Major’s character to be able to solve this doubt. Major, according to the very acute biographer of Knox (Dr. M‘Crie) had acquired a habit of thinking and expressing himself on certain subjects, more liberal than was adopted in his native country and other parts of Europe. He had imbibed the sentiments concerning ecclesiastical polity, maintained by John Gerson, Peter D’Ailly, and others, who defended the decrees of the council of Constance, and liberties of the Gallican church, against those who asserted the incontroulable authority of the sovereign pontiff. He thought that a general council was superior to the pope, might judge, rebuke, restrain, and even depose him from his dignity; denied the temporal supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and his right to inaugurate or dethrone princes; maintained that ecclesiastical censures and even papal excommunications had no force, it* pronounced on invalid or irrelevant grounds; he held that tithes were merely of human appointment, not divine right; censured the avarice, ambition, and secular pomp of the court of Rome and the episcopal order; was no warm friend of the regular clergy, and advised the reduction of monasteries and holidays. His opinions respecting civil government were analogous to those which he held as to ecclesiastical policy. He taught that the authority of kings and princes was originally derived from the people that the former are not superior to the latter, collectively considered that if rulers become tyrannical, or employ their power for the destruction of their subjects, they may lawfully be controuled by them; and proving incorrigible, may be deposed by the community as the superior power; and that tyrants may be judicially proceeded against, even to capital punishment. The affinity between these and the political principles afterwards avowed by Knox, and defended by the classic pen of Buchanan, is too striking to require illustration. But although Major had ventured to think for himself on these topics, in all other respects be was completely subservient to the opinions of his age; and with a mind deeply tinctured with superstition, defended some of the absurdest tenets of popery by the most ridiculous and puerile arguments. We cannot, therefore, greatly blame Buchanan, who called him in ridicule, what he affected to call himself in humility, “Joannes, solo cognomine, Major.” His works are, 1. “Libri duo fallaciarum,” Lugd. 1516, comprising his “Opera Logicalia.” 2. “In quatuor sententiarum commentarius,” Paris, 1516. 3. “Commentarius in physica Aristotelis,” Paris, 1526. 4. “In primum et secundum sententiarum commentarii,” Paris, 1510. 5. “Commentarius in tertium sententiarum,” Paris, 1517. 6. “Literalis in Matthaeum expositio,” Paris, 1518. From these two last may be collected his sentiments on ecclesiastical polity, mentioned above. 7. “De historia gentis Scotorum, sen historia majoris Britanniae,” Paris, 1521, 4to. Of this a new edition was printed at Edinburgh, 17+0, 4to. 8. “Luculenta in 4 Evangelia expositiones,” &c. Paris, 1529, folio. 9. “Placita theologica.” 10. “Catalogus episcoporum Lucionensium.” He also translated Caxton’s Chronicle into Latin.

, so named from a village in the territory of Milan, where he was born in 1514, applied himself to the study of belles lettres, and afterwards taught them at Milan, with very great reputation. He introduced into the schools of that place the mode of writing declamations which had been practised by the ancients, and was found to be an useful method of exercising the genius of young men. His success attracted much envy, and his enemies are said to have instituted a law-suit against him for taking the name of Marcus Antonius Majoriauus, instead of Antonius Maria, which was his proper name. He founded his defence on the more classical sound of the name, and his plea was considered as valid. He died in 1555, at the early age of forty-one. Of his works are extant, 1. “Commentaries on the Rhetoric of Aristotle, on the Oratory of Cicero, and on Virgil,” all in folio. 2. Several Tracts, and among others, “De senatu Romano,” in 4to. “De risu Oratorio et urbano.” “De nominibus propriis veterum Rotnanorum.” 3. “A Collection of Latin Speeches,” Leipsic, 1628, 8vo. These works are all replete with learning.

, a French philosopher, whose works do credit to his country, was born at Beziers, in 1678. He was early admitted into the academy of sciences, and the French academy; and in the former, in 1741, succeeded Fontenelle in the office of perpetual secretary. This place he filled with great reputation for three years, and displayed, like his predecessor, the talent of placing the most abstruse questions in a clear and intelligible light. He died at Paris, Feb. 20, 1771. His works are, 1. “Dissertation sur les variations du Barometre,” 1715, 12mo. 2. “Dissertation sur la cause de la lumiere des Phosphores, et des noctiluques,” 1717, 12mo. 3. “Dissertation sur la Glace,” 1719, 12mo. 4. “Lettre a M. I'abbe Bignon, sur la nature des Vaisseaux.” 1728, 4to. 5. “Traiie physique et historique de l'Aurore Boreale,” 1733, 4to. 6. “Dissertation sur les forces motrices des corps,” 1741, 12 mo. 7. “Lettre a Madame du Chatelet, sur ia question des forces vives,” 1741, 12mo. 8. “Eloges des Academicians de l'academie des sciences, morts en 1741, 1743, and 1747,” 12mo. In these compositions, without imitating Fontenelle, he is thought nearly to equal him, in the talent of characterizing the persons he describes, and appreciating their merits justly. 9. “Lettre au Pere Parennin, contenant diverses questions, sur la Chine,” 12mo. This is a curious work, and strongly displays the philosophical mind of the author. 10. Many memoirs inserted in the volumes of the academy of sciences, and some other compositions of no great bulk. Mairan was much admired in society as an intelligent, agreeable, and lively companion. It is of him that madame Pompadour relates the following anecdote, which, if we mistake not, has been attributed to others: “His house had by chance taken fire, which was just getting into the second floor, where he was plodding calmly over his circles and triangles. He is summoned to fly without delay `Talk to my wife,' says he, `I meddle with none of these matters’ and sat down again contentedly to muse on the moon, until he was forced out of the house.”

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

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

. France has produced several great men of the name of Maistre, and among them Giles le Maistre, celebrated as an incorruptible magistrate in the corrupt times of Francis I. and Henry II. Antony le Maistre seems to have been of a different family, being the son of Isaac le Maistre, master of the accounts, and Catherine Arnauld, sister of the celebrated M. Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne. He was born at Paris, May 2, 1603. He appeared very early as a pleader, and with uncommon success, but from religious feelings gave up his pursuits, and retired to the society of Port-Royal, where his piety and mortification became conspicuous. “I have been busy,” said he, “in pleading the causes of others, I am now studying to plead my own.” He died Nov. 4, 1658, aged fifty-one. Of his works, there have been published, 1. “Pleadings;” of the elegant style of which, Perrault speaks in the highest terms of approbation. 2. “A Translation of Chrysostom de Sacerdotio,” with an elegant preface, 12mo. 3. “A life of St. Bernard, under the name of the sieur Lancy, 4to and 8vo. 4. Translations of geveral writings of St. Bernard. 5. Several publications in favour of the Society of Port-Royal. 6.” The Life of Don Barth61emi des Martyrs," in 8vo, esteemed a very well-written composition); but some biographers have attributed this to his brother, the subject of our next article.

, more known under the name of Sacy (Isaac inverted), was brother of the former, and was born at Paris, in 1613, where he was also educated. After pursuing his studies with the greatest success under Du Verger, the abbé of St. Cyran, and other eminent teachers, he was admitted to the priesthood in 1648. His reputation gained him the office of confessor to the society of Port Royal; but that house being accused of Jansenism, he was involved in the persecution; was obliged to conceal himself in 1661; and in 1666 was confined in the Bastille. In that prison he composed some important works, particularly a translation of the whole Bible, which was finished on the eve of All-saints, 1668; and on the same day he obtained his liberty, after being confined two years and a half. When this work was presented to the king and his minister, le Maistre desired no other reward than that of being allowed frequently to visit the Bastille, to inspect the state of the prisoners. Some writers assert that during his confinement, he composed a history of the Old and New Testament, in one volume, under the name of Royaumont, a work known in this, country by a translation in 4to, published about the beginning of the last century, with nearly 300 plates but others ascribe it to Nicholas Fontaine. Le Maistre remained at Paris till 1675, when he retired to Port-Royal but was obliged in 1679 to quit it, and retired to Pompona, where he died, at the age of seventy-one, in 1684. His works are, 1. His translation of the Bible, with explanations of the literal and spiritual sense taken from the fathers; in which part he was assisted by du Fosse, Hure“, and le Tourneaux. This work was published at Paris, in 1682, and several subsequent years, in 32 vols. 8vo. Several other editions have been printed, but this is on the whole esteemed the best. 2. A translation of the Psalms, from the Hebrew and the Vulgate together. 3. A translation of the Homilies of St. Chrysostom on St. Matthew, in 3 vols. 8vo. 4. A translation of Kempis on the Imitation of Christ, under the name of de Beuil, prior of S. Val, Paris, 1663, 8vo. 5. A translation of Phaedrus, under the name of St. Aubin, 12mo. 6. Three comedies of Terence, 12mo. 7. The Letters of Bongars, published under the rj^me of Brianville. 8. The poem of St. Prosper, on ingratitude, rendered in verse and prose. 9.” Les enluminures de l'Almanach des Jesuites,“1654, 12mo; an attack upon the Jesuits, which was so far relished as to be reprinted in 1733. 10.” Heures de Port-Royal,“called by the Jesuits Hours of Jansenism, 12mo. 11.” Letters of Piety," in 2 vols. 8vo, published at Paris in 1690. The merits of this author are fully displayed in the memoirs of PortRoyal, written by Nicholas Fontaine, and published at Cologne, in 1738, in 2 vols. 12mo.

, a cultivator and preserver of Scotch poetry, the son of William Maitland of Lethington, and of Martha, daughter of George lord Seaton, was born in 1496. Having finished his course of literature and philosophy in the university of St. Andrews, he visited France in order to prosecute the study of the law. In 1554 he appears to have been one of the extraordinary lords of session. About 1561 he was deprived of his sight, a misfortune which, however, did not prevent his being admitted in that year to the office of an ordinary lord of session, by the title of lord Lethington; and in 1562, he xvas appointed lord privy-seal, and a member of the privycouncil. His office as keeper of the privy seal he resigned in 1567, in favour of his second son, the subject of our next article. In 1583 he was excused from attendance as a judge, unless when it suited his convenience; but from a sense of the importance of the duties of that office, he resigned it in favour of sir Lewis Ballenden. Sir Richard died March 20, 1586. His eldest son, sir William Mait-. land, secretary to queen Mary, makes a considerable figure in the history of that princess.

Sir Richard Maitland is celebrated as a man of learning, talents, and virtue. His compositions breathe the genuine spirit of piety and benevolence. The chearfulness of his natural disposition, and his affiance in divine aid, seem to have supported him with singular equanimity under the pressure of blindness and old age. His poem “On the Creation and Paradyce Lost” is printed in Allan Ramsay’s “Ever-Green.” A considerable number of his productions are to be found among Mr. Pinkerton’s “Ancient Scotish Poetry,” 1786, 2 vols. 8vo; two are in the Bibliograpfter, vol. III. p. 114, and many more remain unpublished. A ms. containing “The Selected Poemes of Sir Richard Metellan” was presented by Drummond to the university of Edinburgh; but it seems merely to consist of gleanings from the two volumes deposited in the library of Magdalen -college, Cambridge. Two of his unpublished works, a genealogical history of the family of Seaton, and decisions of the court of session from 1550 to 1565, are preserved in the Advocates’ library, Edinburgh. It is supposed that he did not write his poems before he had nearly attained his sixtieth year. On that and other accounts they afford some gratification to curiosity, but little to taste. The Maitland Collection of Poems in the Pepysian library has served to connect his name with the history of early Scotish poetry.

, lord of Thirlstone, and afterwards chancellor of Scotland, one of the Latin poets of that country, the second son of the preceding, was born about 1537. He was educated in Scotland, and afterwards sent to France to study the law. On his return to his native country, he practised that profession with great success. In 1567, as already noticed, his father resigned the privyseal in his favour; but in 1570 he was deprived of that office, from his attachment to queen Mary. In 1581 he was made a senator of the college of justice. In 1584 he became secretary of state to king James VI. and the year following, on the death of the earl of Arran, was created lord chancellor of Scotland. The power and influence of the chancellor created him many enemies among the Scotch nobility, who made several unsuccessful attempts to destroy him. In 1589 he attended the king on his voyage to Norway, where his royal bride, the princess of Denmark, was detained by contrary winds. The marriage was there completed, and they passed the winter at Copenhagen. During this residence in Denmark, Maitland became intimately acquainted with Tycho Brahe. In 1590 he was created lord Maitland of Thirlstone. Towards the end of 1592, the chancellor incurred the queen’s displeasure for refusing to relinquish his lordship of Musselburgh, which she claimed as part of Dumferling. He absented himself from court for some time, but was at length restored to favour. He died of a lingering illness Oct. 4, 1595, and was much regretted by the king. He is spoken of by Spotiswood and Johnston as a man of great learning, and eminent political abilities. Of his works, we have “Johannis Metellani, Thirlstoni domini, epigrammata Latina,” published in the second volume of the “Delicioe Poetarum Scotorum,” Amst. 1637; a satire in the Scotch language “aganist sklanderous toungis,” and an “admonitioun” to the regent Mar, published in Mr. Pinkerton’s collection of“Ancient Scotish Poems.”

, duke of Lauderdale, grandson of the preceding, was a statesman of great power and authority, but of most inconsistent character. On the breaking out of the wars in Scotland in the reign of Charles I. he was a zealous covenanter; and in Jan. 1644-5, one of the commissioners at the treaty of Uxbridge, during which, upon the death of his father the earl of Lauderdale, he succeeded to his titles and estate. He took an active but not very useful part in the above treaty; “being,” says lord Clarendon, “a young man, not accustomed to an orderly and decent way of speaking, and having no gracious pronunciation., and full of passion, he made every thing much more difficult than it was before.” In April 1647, he came with the earl of Dumfermling to London, with a commission to join with the parliament commissioners in persuading the king to sign the covenant and propositions offered to him; and in the latter end of the same year, he, in conjunction with the earl of Loudon, chancellor of Scotland, and the earl of Lanerick, conducted a private treaty with his majesty at Hampton court, which was renewed and signed by him on Dec. 26 at Carisbrook castle. By this, among other very remarkable concessions, the king engaged himself to employ the Scots equally with the English in all foreign employments and negociations; and that a third part of all the offices and places about the king, queen, and prince, should be conferred upon persons of that nation; and that the king and prince, or one of them, should frequently reside in Scotland. In August the year following, the earl of Lauderdale was sent by the committee of estates of Scotland to the prince of Wales, with a letter, in which, next to his father’s restraint, they bewailed his highness’s long absence from that kingdom; and since their forces were again marched into England, they desired his presence to countenance their endeavours for religion and his father’s re-establishment. In 1649, he opposed with great vehemence the propositions made by the marquis of Montrose to king Charles II.; and in 1651 attended his majesty in his expedition into England, but was taken prisoner after the battle of Worcester in September the same year, and confined in the Tower of London, Portland-castle, and other prisons, till the 3d of March, 1659-60, when he was released from his imprisonment in Windsor-castle.

Upon the Restoration he was made secretary of state for Scotland, and persuaded the king to demolish the forts and citadels built by Cromwell in Scotland; by which means he became very popular. He was likewise very importunate vfith his majesty for his supporting presbyterv in that kingdom; though his zeal, in that respect, did not continue long. In 1669, he was appointed lord commissioner for the king in Scotland, whither he was sent with great pomp and splendour to bring about some extraordinary points, and particularly the union of the two kingdoms. For this purpose he made a speech at the opening of the parliament at Edinburgh on the 19th of October that year, in which he likewise recommended the preservation of the church as established by law, and expressed a vast zeal for episcopal government. And now the extending of the king’s power and grandeur in that kingdom. was greatly owing to the management of his lordship although he had formerly been as much for depressing the prerogative; and from the time of his commission the Scots had reason to date all the mischiefs and internal commotions of that and the succeeding reign. Having undertaken to make his majesty absolute and arbitrary, he stretched the power of the crown to every kind of excess, and assumed to himself a sort of lawless administration, the exercise of which was supposed to be granted to him in consequence of the large promises he had made. In the prosecution of this design, being more apprehensive of other men’s officious interfering, than distrustful of his own abilities, he took care to make himself his majesty’s sole informer, as well as his sole secretary; and by this means, not only the affairs of Scotland were determined in the court of England, without any notice taken of the king’s council in Scotland, but a strict watch was kept on all Scotchmen, who came to the English court; and to attempt any access to his majesty, otherwise than by his lordship’s mediation, was to hazard his perpetual resentment. By these arrogant measures, he gradually made himself almost the only important person of the whole Scotch nation; and in Scotland itself assumed so much sovereign authority, as to name the privy-counsellors, to place and remove the lords of the session and exchequer, to grant gifts and pensions, to levy and disband forces, to appoint general officers, and to transact all matters belonging to the prerogative. Besides which, he was one of the five lords, who had the management of affairs in England, and were styled the Cabal, and in 1672, was made marquis of March, duke of Lauderdale, and knight of the garter. But these honours did not protect him from the indignation of the House of Commons; by whom, in November the year following, he was voted a *' grievance, and not fit to be trusted or employed in any office or place of trust.“And though his majesty thought proper on the 25th of June, 1674, to create him a baron of England by the title of Baron of Petersham in Surrey, and earl of Guildford, yet the House of Commons the next year presented an address to the king to remove him from all his employments, and from his majesty’s presence and counsels for ever; which address was followed by another of the same kind in May 1678, and by a third in May the year following. He died at Tunbridge Wells, August 24, 1682, leaving a character which no historian has been hardy enough to vindicate. In Clarendon, Burnet, Kennet, Hume, Smollet, &c. we find a near conformity of sentiment respecting his inconsistency, his ambition, and his tyranny . Mr. Laing observes, that” during a long imprisonment, his mind had been carefully improved by study, and impressed with a. sense of religion, which was soon effaced on his return to the world. His learning was extensive and accurate; in public affairs his experience was considerable, and his elocution copious, though unpolished and indistinct. But his temper was dark and vindictive, incapable of friendship, mean and abject to his superiors, haughty and tyrannical to his inferiors; and his judgment, seldom correct or just, was obstinate in error, and irreclaimable by advice. His passions were furious and ungovernable, unless when his interest or ambition interposed; his violence was ever prepared to suggest or to execute the most desperate counsels; and his ready compliance preserved his credit with the king, till his faculties were visibly impaired with age." The duke died without male issue, but his brother succeeded to the title of Earl, whose son Richard was the author of a translation of Virgil, which is rather literal than poetical, yet Dryden adopted many of the lines into his own translation.

, an antiquary of some note, was born, according to the best accounts we can obtain, at Brechin in Forfarshire in Scotland, about 1693. What education he had is uncertain, but his original employment was that of a hair-merchant; in the prosecution of which business he travelled into Sweden, and Denmark, to Hamburgh, and other places. At length he settled in London, and applied himself to the study of English and Scottish antiquities, and must have acquired some literary reputatation, as in 1733 he was elected a fellow of the royal society, and in 1735 a fellow of the society of antiquaries, which he resigned in 1740, on going to reside in the coun­'try. His first publication was his History of London, published in folio, in 1739; a work compiled from Stow, and afterwards, in T765, enlarged by Entick to 2 vols. folio, with a great many views, plans, &c. the plates of which are now in Mr. Nichols’s possession. In 1740, as just mentioned, he retired into his native country, and in 1753, published a history of Edinburgh, comprised also in one folio volume. In 1757, appeared his work on the history and antiquities of Scotland, in 2 vols. folio; a performance not in general so highly esteemed as the two former, although he appears to have taken considerable pains to acquire information, by a set of printed queries which he sent to every clergyman in Scotland, and himself travelled over it for the same purpose. On July the 16th of the same year, he died, at Montrose, according to our account at the age of 64; the papers of the time say, at an advanced age, by which possibly it may be meant that he was still older; but this is matter of doubt. He was said, in the accounts of his death, to have died worth more than 10,000l. Mr. Maitland was rather a compiler from printed or written authorities, than an original collector of antiquary knowledge. Mr. Gough, a very competent judge, pronounces him, eren in this respect, “self-conceited and credulous,” and adds that he “knew little, and wrote worse.” The merit of his history of London was chiefly in supplying the place of Stowe, which was become scarce, and in modernizing the style. His “History of Edinburgh” is the most useful of his works.

, an eminent classical editor, of a foreign family, was born in 1668. He was educated at Westminster school, under Dr. Busby, who kept him to the study of Greek and Latin some years longer than usual. He then gained another powerful friend in Dr. South, for whom he compiled a list of the Greek words falsely accented in Dr. Sherlock’s books. This so pleased Dr. South, who was then a canon of Christ church, Oxford, that he made him a canoneer student (i. e. one introduced by a canon, and not elected from Westminster school), where he took the degree of M. A. March 23, 1696. From 1695 till 1699, he was second master of Westminsterschool which was afterwards indebted to him for “Græcæ Linguæ Dialecti, in usum Scholas Westmonastcriensis,” 1706, 8vo , (a work recommended in the warmest terms by Dr. Knipe to the school over which he presided, “cui se sua omnia debere fatetur sedulus Author”) and for “The English Grammar, applied to, and exemplified in, the English tongue,” 1712, 8vo. In “Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliae & Hiberniae,” Oxon. 1697, t. ii. p. 27, is inserted “Librorum Manuscriptorum Ecclesiae Westmonasteriensis Catalogus. Accurante viro erudito Michaele Mattaerio.” But before the volume was published, the whole collection, amounting to 230, given by bishop Williams, except one, was destroyed by an accidental fire in 1694. In 1699 he resigned his situation at Westminster-school; and devoted his time solely to literary pursuits. In 1711, he published “Remarks on Mr. Whision’s Account ef the Convocation’s proceedings with relation to himself: in a Letter to the right reverend Father in God, George, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells,” 8vo; and also “An Essay against Arianism, and some other Heresies; or a Reply tp Mr. William Whiston’s Historical Preface and Appendix to his Primitive Christianity revived,” 8vo. In 1709, he gave the first specimen of his great skill in typographical antiquities, by publishing “Stephanorum Historia, vitas ipsorum ac libros complectens,” 8vo; which was followed in 1717, by “Historia Typographorum aliquot Parisiensium, vitas & libros complectens,” 8vo. In 1719, “Annales Typographic! ab artis inventae origine ad annum MD. Hagae Com.” 4to. To this volume is prefixed, “Epistolaris de antiquis Qnintiliani editionibus Disseitatio, clarissimo viro D. Johanni Clerico.” The second volume, divided into two parts, and continued to 1536, was published at the Hague in 1702; introduced by a letter of John Toland, under the title of “Conjectura verosimilis de prima Typographies Inventione.” The third volume, from the same press, in two parts, continued to 1557, and, by an Appendix, to 1564, in 1725. In 1733 was published at Amsterdam what is usually considered as the fourth volume, under the title of “Annales Typographic! ab artis inventae origine, ad annum 1564, opera Mich. Maittaire, A. M. Editio nova, auctior & emendatior, tomi priori pars posterior.” In 1741 the work was closed at London, by “Annalium Typographicorum Tomus Quintus & ultimus; indicem in tomos quatuor praeeuntes complectens;” divided (like the two preceding volumes) into two parts.

In the intermediate years, Mr. Mattaire was diligently employed on various works of value. In 1713 he published by subscription, “Opera & Fragmenta Veterum Poe'tarum,” 1713, two handsome'volumes, in folio, dedicated to prince Eugene; the title of some copies is dated 1721. In 1714, he was the editor of the “Greek Testament,” in 2 vols. The Latin writers, which he published separately, most of them with good indexes, came out in the following order In 1713, “Christus Patiens;” an heroic poem by Rene Rapin, first printed in 1674; “Paterculus;” “Justin;” “Lucretius” Phædrus;“” Sallust;“” Terence.“In 1715,” Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius;“”Cornelius Nepos;“” Florus;“”Horace;“”Ovid,“3 vols.;” Virgil.“In 1716,” Caesar’s Commentaries;“”Martial;“” Juvenal and Persius;“” Quintus Curtius.“In 1719, Lucan.” In 1720, “Bonefonii Carmina.” Here he appears to have stopped all the other classics which are ascribed to him having been disclaimed, by a memorandum which Mr. Nichols has preserved under Maittaire’s own hand, in the latter part of his life. In 1721 he published “Batrachomyomachia Græce ad veterum exemplarium fidem recusa: glossa Greca, variantibus lectionibus, versionibus Latinis, commentariis & indicibus illustrata,” 8vo. At the end of this volume he added proposals for printing by subscription, “Musaeus,” in Greek and Latin, for half a guinea and “Rapin’s Latin works,” for a guinea, both in 4to “Musaeus,” to be comprised in twelve sheets, “Rapin” in fifty. But neither of these were ever committed to the press, from want probably of sufficient encouragement. In 1722, “Miscellanea Graecorum aliquot Scriptorum Carmina, cum versione Latina & Nods,” 4to. In 1724, he compiled, at the request of Dr. John Freind (at whose expence it was printed) an index to the works of Aretaeus,“to accompany the splendid folio edition of that author in 1723. In 1725 he published an excellent edition of” Anacreon,“in 4to, of which no more than 100 copies were printed, and the few errata in each copy corrected by his own hand. A second edition of the like number was printed in 1741, with six copies on fine writing paper. In 1726 he published,” Petri Petiti Medici Parisiensis in tres priores Aretaei Cappadocis Libros Commentarii, nunc primum editi," 4to. This learned Commentary was found among the papers of Graevius.

From 1728 to 1732 he was employed in publishing, “Marmorum Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, aliorumque Academies Oxoniensi donatorum, una cum Commentariis & Indice, editio secunda,” folio to which an “Appendix” was printed in 1733. “Epistola D. Mich. Maittaire ad D. P. Des Maizeaux, in qua Indicis in Annales Typographicos methodus explicatur,” &c. is printed in “The Present State of the Republic of Letters,” in August 1733, p. 142. The life of Robert Stephens, in Latin, revised and corrected by the author, with a new and complete list of his works, is prefixed to the improved edition of R. Stephens’s Thesaurus, 4 vols. in folio, in 1734. In 1736 appeared, “Antiques Inscriptiones cluae,” folio; being a commentary on two large copper tables discovered near Heraclea, in the bay of Tarentum. In 1738 were printed at the Hague, “Graecse Linguae Dialecti in Scholse Regias Westmonasterrensis usum recogniti opera Mich. Maittaire. Prosfationem & Appendicem ex Apollonii Discoli fragmento inedito addidit J. F. Reitzius.” Maittaire prefixed a dedication of this volume to the marquis of Granby, and the lords Robert and George Manners, his brothers; and a new preface, dated 3 Cal. Octob. 1737. This was again printed at London in 1742. In 1739, he addressed to the empress of Russia a small Latin poem, under the title of “Carmen Epinicium Augustissimae Russorum Imperatrici sacrum.” His name not having been printed in the titlepage, it is not so generally known that he was editor of Plutarch’s “Apophthegmata,” 1741, 4to. The last publication of Mr. Maittaire was a volume of poems in 4to, 1742, under the title of “Senilia, sive Poetica aliquot in argumentis varii generis tentamina.” It may be worth mentioning, that Baxter’s dedication to his “Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum,” was much altered by Maittaire; who died August 7, 1747, aged seventy-nine. There is a good mezzotinto print of him by Faber, from a painting by B. Dandridge, inscribed, “Michael Maittaire, A. M. Amicorum jussu.” His valuable library, which he had been collecting fifty years, was sold by auction, by Messrs. Cock and Langford, at the close of the same year, and the beginning of the following, taking up in all forty-four nights. Mr. Cock, in his prefatory advertisement, tells us, “In exhibiting thus to the public the entire library of Mr. Maittaire, I comply with the will of my deceased friend; and in printing the catalogue from his own copy just as he left it (though, by so doing, it is the more voluminous), I had an opportunity not only of doing the justice I owe to his memory, but also of gratifying the curious.” Maittaire, it may be added, was patronized by the first earl of Oxford, both before and after that gentleman’s elevation to the peerage, and continued a favourite with his son the second earl. He was also Latin tutor to Mr. Stanhope, the earl of Chesterfield’s favourite son, and was esteemed by so many persons of eminence that we cannot wonder at his portrait being engraven jussu amicorum. He possessed many amiable qualities; in religion was orthodox and zealous ; in temper modest and unassuming despising the pride of learning, yet fond of friendly intercourse.

With respect to his talents, he may be characterized as a sound scholar, and a careful editor; and, although his genius was confined, and his taste questionable, his labours have been truly useful, and entitle him to the grateful remembrance of the classical student. He has the glory, says Mr. Dibdin, of being the first who established in this country, on a solid basis, the study of bibliography.

, a Lutheran divine, was born Feb. 5, 1653, at Pfortzheim, in the marquisate of Baden-Dourlach. He was profoundly skilled in Hebrew literature, and taught the oriental languages in several universities, with great reputation. His last employments of this kind were at Giessen, where he was pastor, and where he died Sept. 3, 1719. He was well acquainted with antiquities, sacred and profane, but his works are less known in other parts of Europe than in Germany. The following are some of them: 1. “Historiaanimaliuin Scripturae sacrse,” 8vo. 2. “Vita Johannis Reuchlini,” 1687, 8vo. 3. “Examen historiae criticse Ricardi Simonis,” 4to. 4. “Synopsis Theologiae symbolical,” 4to. 5. “Synopsis Moralis,” 4to. 6. “Synopsis Judaica,” 4to. 7. “Introductio ad studium Philologicum, criticum, et exegeticum,” 4to. 8. “Paraphrasis Epistolae ad Hebraeos,” 4to. 9. “Theologia Evangelica,” 1701, and 1719, 4 parts 4to. 10. “Animadversiones et Supplementa ad Coccei Lexicon Hebraeum,” 1703, fol. 11. “CEconomia temporum veteris et Novi Test. 4to. 12.” Synopsis Theologian Christiana?,“4to. 13.” Theologia Lutheri,“4to. 14.” Theologia Prophetica,“4to. 15.” Harmonia Evangelica,“4to. 16.” Historia Reformationis Lutheri,*' 4to. 17. “Dissertationes philologies et exegetica;,” Francfort, 1711, 2 vols. 4to, &c. He also published a very good edition of the Hebrew Bible, 4to. His son, of the same name, was eminent for his knowledge of Greek and the oriental languages.

, an Italian Jesuit, sent by his superiors as a missionary to Portugal, was a man of an ardent zeal, with that facility of elocution which enthusiasm geu*rally confers. He soon became the fashionable confessor, and people of all ranks put themselves under his direction. He was regarded as a saint, and consulted as an oracle. When the duke d‘Aveiro formed his conspiracy against the king of Portugal, he is said by the enemies of the Jesuits to have consulted with three of that order, one of whom was Malagrida. The king, when he thought proper to banish the Jesuits from his kingdom, suffered Malagrida, Alexander, and Mathos, to remain there; and these are the very three who are supposed to have assisted the conspiracy, by telling the conspirators that it was not even a venial sin to kill a monarch who persecuted the saints, i. e. the Jesuits. Malagrida was some time after sent to the inquisition, for teaching heretical doctrines; an accusation which is said to have been not altogether without foundation. He appears, however, to have been an enthusiast of so extravagant a kind, that no singularities in his writings can be thought extraordinary. He conceived himself to possess the power of working miracles; and declafed to the inquisitors, that God himself had appointed him his ambassador, apostle, and prophet. This, and many other very wild declarations, would not, perhaps, have occasioned his condemnation, had he not unfortunately pretended to have had the death of the king revealed to him. The marquis of Tancors, general of the province of Estremadura, ’happening to die, the castle of Lisbon, and all the fortresses of the Tagus, discharged their cannon in honour of him. Malagrida, hearing this unusual sound in the night, concluded that the king was dead, and desired that the inquisitors would grant him an audience. When he came before them, he said, in order to establish the credit of his predictions, that the death of the king had been revealed to him; and that he also had a vision, which informed him what punishment that monarch was to undergo in the other world for having persecuted the Jesuits. This declaration hastened his condemnation. He was burnt alive on Sept. 21, 1761, at the age of 75, not as a conspirator, but as a false prophet. His true character, perhaps, was that of a lunatic. The works in which his heretical extravagancies are to be found, are entitled “Tractatus de vita et imperio Antichrist!” and (written in the Portuguese language) “The Life of St. Anne, composed with the assistance of the blessed Virgin Mary and her most holy Son.”

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

, a very learned Spanish Jesuit, was born at Fuente del Maestro, a small village in the province of Estramadura, in 1534. He studied under Dominicus Asoto, a Dominican, and also under Francis Tolet, a Jesuit, who was afterwards a cardinal, and there was no better scholar in the university of Salamanca in his time, than Maldonat. He there taught philosophy, divinity, and the Greek language. He entered into the society of the Jesuits, but did not put on the habit of his order till 1562, when he was at Rome. In 1563, he was sent by his superiors to Paris, to teach philosophy in the college which the Jesuits had just established in that city; where, as the historians of his society tell us, he was so crowded with hearers, that he was frequently obliged to read his lectures in the court or the street, the hall not being sufficient to contain them. He was sent, with nine other Jesuits, to Poictiers, in 1570, where he read lectures in Latin, and preached in French. Afterwards he returned to Paris, where he was not only accused of heresy, but likewise of procuring a fraudulent will from the president de St. Andre, by which the president was made to leave his estate to the Jesuits. But the parliament declared him innocent of the forgery, and Gondi, bishop of Paris, entirely acquitted him of the charge of heresy. He afterwards thought proper to retire to Bourges, where the Jesuits had a college, and continued there about a year and a half. Then he went to Rome, by the order of pope Gregory XIII. to superintend the publication of the “Septuagint'? and after finishing his” Commentary upon the Gospels," in 1582, he died there, in the beginning of 1583.

He composed several works, which shew great parts and learning; but published nothing in his life-time. The first of his performances which came abroad after his death, was his “Comment upon the Four Gospels;” of which father Simon says: “Among all the commentators which we have mentioned hitherto, there are few who have so happily explained the literal sense of the Gospels as John, Maldonat the Spanish Jesuit. After his death, which happened at Rome before he had reached his fiftieth year, Claudius Aquaviva, to whom he presented his” Comment“while he was dying, gave orders to the Jesuits of Pont a Mousson to cause it to be printed from a copy which was sent them. The Jesuits, in the preface to that work, declare that they had inserted something of their own, according to their manner; and that they had been obliged to correct the manuscript copy, which was defective in some places, because they had no access to the original, which was at Rome. Besides, as the author had neglected to mark, upon the margin of his copy, the books and places from whence he had taken a great part of his quotations, they supplied that defect. It even appeared, that Maldonat had not read at first hand all that great number of writers which he quotes; but that he had made use of the labours of former writers. Thus he is not quite so exact, as if he had put the last hand to his Comment. Notwithstanding these imperfections, and some others, which are easily corrected, it appears plainly, that this Jesuit had bestowed abundance of pains upon that excellent work. He does not allow one difficulty to pass without examining it to the bottom. When a great number of literal interpretations present themselves upon the same passage, he usually fixes upon the best, without paying too great a deference to the ancient commentators*, or even to the majority, regarding nothing but truth alone, stript of all authorities but her own.” Cardinal Perron laid, that he “was a very great man, and a true divine; that he had an excellent elocution as a speaker, understood the learned languages well, was deeply versed in scholastic divinity and theology, and that he had thoroughly read the fathers.” His character has been as high among the Protestants, for an interpreter of Scripture, as it was among the Papists. Matthew Pole, in the preface to the fourth volume of his “Synopsis Criticorum,” calls him a tvriter of great parts and learning. “He was,” says Dr. Jackson, “the most judicious expositor among the Jesuits. His skill in expounding the Scriptures, save only where doting love unto their church had made him blind, none of theirs, few of our church, have surpassed.” His “Commentaries upon Jeremiah, Baruch, Ezekiel, and Daniel,” were printed at Lyons in 1609, and at Cologne in 1611. To these were added, his “Exposition of the cixth Psalm,” and “A letter concerning a celebrated dispute which he had with above twenty Protestant ministers at Sedan.” His treatise “De fide,” was printed at Maienne in 1600; and that upon “Angels and Demons” at Paris, in 1605. In 1677, they published at Paris some pieces which had never appeared before; namely, his treatise “Of Grace,” that upon “Original Sin,” upon “Providence,” upon “Justice,” upon “Justification,” and that upon “The Merit of Works;” besides “Prefaces, Harangues, and Letters,” one volume, folio.

We will conclude our account of this celebrated Jesuit, with mentioning an high eulogium of him, given by the impartial and excellent Thuanus; who, after observing that he “joined a singular piety and purity of manners, and an exquisite judgment, to an exact knowledge of philosophy and divinity,” adds, “that it was owing to him alone, that the parliament of Paris, when they had the Jesuits under their consideration, did not pronounce any sentence to their disadvantage, though they were become suspected by the wisest heads, and greatly hated by the university.” Nothing can set the importance of Maldonat in a stronger light, or better shew the high opinion that was had of his merit.

, a French philosopher, was born at Paris, Aug. 6, 1638, and was first placed under a domestic tutor, who taught him Greek and Latin. He afterwards went through a course of philosophy at the college of la Marche, and that of divinity in the Sorbonne; and was admitted into the congregation of the Oratory at Paris, in 1660, After he had spent some time there, he consulted father le Cointe, in what manner he should pursue his studies; who advised him to apply himself to ecclesiastical history. Upon this he began to read Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret; but soon grew weary of this study, and next applied himself to father Simon, who recommended Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, rabbinical learning, and critical inquiries into the sense of the Scriptures. But this kind of study was not at all more suitable to his genius, than the former. At last, in 1664, he met with Des Cartes’s “Treatise upon Man,” which he read over with great satisfaction, and devoted himself immediately to the study of his philosophy; of which, in a few years, he became as perfect a master as Des Cartes himself. In 1699, he was admitted an honorary member of the royal academy of sciences. He died Oct. 13, 1715, being then seventy-seven years of age. From the time that he began to read Des Cartes, he studied only to enlighten his mind, and not to furnish his memory; so that he knew a great deal, though he read but little. He avoided every thing that was mere erudition; an insect pleased him much more than all the Greek and Roman history. He despised likewise that kind of learning, which consists only in knowing the opinions of different philosophers; since it was his opinion that a person may easily know the history of other men’s thoughts, without ever thinking at all himself. Such was his aversion to poetry, that he could never read ten verses together without disgust. He meditated with his windows shut, in order to keep out the light, which he found to be a disturbance to him. His conversation turned upon the same subjects as his books, but was mixed with so much modesty and deference to the judgment of others, that it was much courted. Few foreigners, who were men of learning, neglected to visit him when they came to Paris: and it is said, that an English officer, who was taken prisoner during die war between William III. and the king of France, was content with his lot, when he was. brought to Paris, because it gave him an opportunity to see Louis XIV. and father Malebranche.

He wrote several works. The first and principal, as in-deed it gave rise to almost all that followed, was his “Be la Recherche de la Verite,” or his “Search after Truth,” printed at Paris in 1674, and afterwards augmented in several successive editions. His design in this book is to point out the errors into which we are daily led by our senses, imaginvvtion, and passions;. and to prescribe a method for discovering the truth, which he does, by starting the notion of seeing all things in God. Hence he is led to think and speak meanly of human knowledge, either as it lies in written books, or in the book of nature, compared with that light which displays itself from the ideal world; and by attending to which, with pure and defecated minds, he supposes knowledge to be most easily had. These sentiments, recommended by various beauties of style, made many admire his genius who could not understand, or agree to his principles. Locke, in his “Examination of Malebranche’s opinion of seeing all things in God,” styles him an “acute and ingenious author;” and tells us, that there are “a great many very fine thoughts, judicious reasonings, and uncommon reflections in his Recherche:” but in that piece, endeavours to refute the chief principles of his system. Brucker is of opinion that the doctrine of his “Search after Truth,” though in many respects original, is raised upon Cartesian principles, and is, in some particulars, Platonic. The author represents, in string colours, the causes of error, arising from the disorders of the imagination and passions, the abuse of liberty, and an implicit confidence in the senses. He explains the action of the animal spirits, the nature of memory; the connection of the brain with other parts of the body, and their influence upon the understanding and will. On the subject of intellect, he maintains, that thought alone is essential to mind, and deduces the imperfect state of science from the imperfection of the human understanding, as well as from the inconstancy of the will in inquiring after truth. Rejecting the ancient doctrine of species sent forth from material objects, and denying the power of the mind to produce ideas, he ascribes their production immediately to God; and asserts, that the human mind immediately perceives God, and sees all things in him. As he derives the imperfection of the human mind from its dependence upon the body, so he places its perfection in union with God, by means of the knowledge of truth and the love of virtue. Singular and paradoxical, Brucker adds, as the notion of “seeing all things in God,” and some other dogmas of this writer, must have appeared, the work was written with such elegance and splendour of diction, and its tenets were supported by such ingenious reasonings, that it obtained general applause, and procured the author a distinguished name among philosophers, and a numerous train of followers. Its popularity might, perhaps, he in part owing to the appeal which the author makes to the authority of St. Augustine, from whom he professes to have borrowed his hypothesis concerning the origin of ideas. The immediate intercourse which this doctrine supposes, between the human and the divine mind, has led some to remark a strong resemblance between the notions of Malebranche, and those of the sect called Quakers.

The next piece which Malebranche published, was his “Conversations Chretiennes, dans lesquelles sont justifié la verite de la religion & de la morale de J. C.” Paris, 1676. He was moved, it is said, to write this piece, at the desire of the duke de Chevreuse, to shew the consistency and agreement between his philosophy and religion. His “Traité de la nature & de la grace,” 1680, was occaioned by a conference he had with M. Arnaud, about those peculiar notions of grace into which Malebranche’s system had led that divine. This was followed by other pieces, which were all the result of the philosophical and theological dispute our author had with M. Arnaud. In 1688, he published his “Entretien sur la inetaphysique & la religion:” in which work he collected what he had written against M. Arnaud, but disengaged it from that air of dispute which is not agreeable to every reader. In 1697, he published his “Traite de P amour de Dieu.” When the doctrine of the new mystics began to be much talked of in France, father Lamy, a Benedictine, in his book “De la connoissance de soi-mme,” cited some passages out of this author’s “Recherche de la verit6,” as favourable to that party; upon this, Malebranche thought proper to defend himself in this book, by shewing in what sense it may be said, without clashing with the authority of the church or reason, that the love of God is disinterested. In 1708, he published his “Entretiens d‘un philosophe Chretien, & d’un philosophe Chinois sur l'existence & la nature de Dieu:” or, “Dialogues between a Christian philosopher and a Chinese philosopher, upon the existence and nature of God.” The bishop of Rozalie having remarked some conformity between the opinions of the Chinese, and the notions laid down in the “Recherche de la Verite”,“mentioned it to the author, who on that account thought himself obliged to write this tract. Malebranche wrote many other pieces besides what we have mentioned, all tending some way or other to confirm his main system established in the” Recherche," and to clear it from the objections which were brought against it, or from the consequences which were deduced from it: and, if he has not attained what he aimed at in these several productions, he has certainly shewn great ingenuity and abilities.

, of Antioch, a sophist, who was a teacher of rhetoric, and a member of the church of Antioch, is supposed to have lived about the year 900, though some authors have been inclined to place him earlier. He is a writer of little value, and abounds in words of a barbarous Greek. He must not be confounded with John of Antioch, another historian of the same place, who was a monk. We have a chronicle written by Malelas, which extends from the creation to the reign of Justinian, but is imperfect. His history was published by Edward Chilmead at Oxford, in 1691, in 8vo, from a manuscript in the Bodleian library; and republished among the Byzantine historians, as a kind of appendix, at Venice, in 1733. The Oxford edition contains an interpretation and notes by Chilmead, with three indexes, one of events, a second of authors, a third of barbarous words. Prefixed is a discourse concerning the author, by Humphrey Hody; and an epistle is subjoined from Bentley to Mill, with an index of authors who are there amended.

, born at Paris, Dec. 16, 1721, was son of the chancellor of France, William de Lamoignon, a descendant of an illustrious family. He received his early education at the Jesuits’ college, and having studied law and political oeconomy, he was appointed a counsellor in the parliament of Paris, and in December 1750 he succeeded his father as president, of the “court of aids,” the duties of which were to regulate the public taxes. The superintendance of the press had been conferred upon Malesherbes by his father, at the same time that he received the presidentship of the court of aids; and this function he exercised with unusual lenity, promoting rather than checking those writings to which the subsequent miseries of his country have been attributed. His biographer classes it among his great merits that “to his care and benevolent exertions France is indebted for the Encyclopaedia, the works of Rousseau, and many other productions, which he sheltered from proscription;” and both Voltaire and D'Alembert acknowledged the obligation, and seem in their letters to hint that his partiality was entirely on their side. In this view of the subject, Malesherbes must be considered as in some degree instrumental in preparing the way for that revolution which has been the pregnant source of so many calamities.

In 1771, when the government had dissolved the whole legal constitution, and banished the parliaments, Malesherbes was banished to his country-seat by a “lettre de cachet,” and the duke de Richelieu, at the head of an armed force, abolished the court of aids. During his retirement, Malesherbes’s time was occupied with his family and his books, and the cultivation of his grounds. His expenditure in public objects was large: he drained marshes, cut canals, constructed roads, built bridges, planted walks, and carried his attention to the comfort of the lower classes so far as to raise sheds on the sides of the river for the shelter of the women at their domestic labours. He was thus benevolently and usefully employed when the accession of Lewis XVI. recalled him to a public station, and in 1774 Malesherbes received an order to resume the presidentship of the court of aids, on which occasion he pronounced a very affecting and patriotic harangue, and afterwards addressed the king in an eloquent speech of thanks. His majesty was so well pleased with him, and with the freedom of his sentiments, that he appointed him minister of state in June 1775, an office which gave Malesherbes an opportunity of extending his sphere of usefulness. One of his first concerns was to visit the prisons, and restore to liberty the innocent victims of former tyranny, and his praises were carried throughout France by persons of all descriptions returning to the bosoms of their families from the gloom of dungeons. Although he failed in his attempt to abolish the arbitrary power of issuing lettres de cachet, he procured the appointment of a commission, composed of upright and enlightened magistrates, to which every application for such letters should be submitted, and whose unanimous decision should be requisite for their validity. Malesherbes was also a great encourager of commerce and agriculture, in which he bad the cordial co-operation of the illustrious Turgot, at that period the comptroller of the revenue; but, owing to the rejection of some important measures which his zeal for the public good led him to propose, Malesberbes resigned in the month of May 1776. To obtain an accurate view of the manners and policy of other countries and foreign states, he set out on his travels, and visited Switzerland and Holland, and in the course of his journey he noted down every occurrence worthy of observation, and that might, hereafter, possibly be useful to himself, and promote the melioration of his country. On his return, at the end of a few years, he found his native country so much advanced in what he thought philosophical principles, that he was encouraged to present to the king two elaborate memoirs, one on the condition of the protestants, the other in favour of the principles of civil liberty, an4 toleration in general. Difficulties, however, were now accumulating in the management of the government, and the king, in 1786, called Malesherbes to his councils, but without appointing him to any particular post in the administration. He soon found it impossible to act with the men already possessed of the powers of government, and expressed his opinion in two energetic memoirs “On the Calamities of France, and the means of repairing them;” but it does not appear that these ever reached his majesty, nor could Malesherbes obtain a private interview; he therefore took his final leave of the court, and retreated to his country residence, determined to consult the best means of serving his country by agricultural pursuits, in 1790 he published “An Essay on the means of accelerating the progress of Rural Economy in France,” in which he proposed an establishment to facilitate the national improvement in this important point. In this tranquil state he was passing the evening of his days when the horrors of the revolution brought him again to Paris. During the whole of its progress, he had his eyes constantly fixed on his unhappy sovereign; and, subduing his natural fondness for retirement, went regularly to court every Sunday, to give him proofs of his respect and attachment. He imposed it as a duty on himself to give the ministers regular information of the designs of the regicide faction; and when it was determined to bring the king to trial, he voluntarily offered to be the defender of his master, in his memorable letter of Dec. 11, 1792, that eternal monument of his loyalty and affection. Three counsel had already been appointed, but one having from prudential motives, declined the office, the king, who wept at this proof of attachment from his old servant, immediately nominated Malesherbes in his stead. Their interview was extremely affecting, and his majesty, during the short interval before his death, shewed every mark of affection for, and confidence in, his generous advocate. Malesherbes was the person who announced to him his cruel doom, and was one of the last who took leave of him previously to his execution. After that catastrophe he again withdrew to his retreat, and with a deeply-wounded heart, refused to hear any thing of what was acting among the blood-thirsty Parisians. As he was one morning working in his garden, he observed four savage-looking wretches directing their course to his house, and hastening home, he found them to be officers from the revolutionary tribunal come to arrest his daughter and her husband, who had formerly been president of the parliament of Paris. The separation of these persons from his family was deeply afflicting to his heart, and it is probable that his own arrest shortly after was a relief to his feelings. He had long been esteemed as father of the village in which he lived, and the rustic inhabitants crowded round to take leave of their ancient benefactor with tears and benedictions. Four of the municipality accompanied him to Paris, that he might not be escorted by soldiers like a criminal. He was shut tip in prison with his unfortunate family and in a lew days the guillotine separated his son-in-law Lepelletier from his wife and the accusation of Malesherbes with his daughter and grand-daughter, “for a conspiracy against the liberties of the people,” was followed, as a matter of course, by a sentence of death. The real crime, as it was basely denominated, of this excellent man and worthy patriot, and which the convention never pardoned, was his defence of the king, an act in which he gloried to the latest hour of his existence. He probably thought it an honour to die by the same ruffian hands that had spilt the blood of his master. The condemnation of the females almost overcame the manly fortitude which he displayed in every personal suffering; his courage, however, returned at the prison, and they prepared for the death which was the last and only important event that they had to encounter. His daughter had exhibited the noble spirit with which she was inspired, for upon taking leave of mademoiselle Sombreuil, who had saved her father’s life on the second of September, she said to her, “You have had the happiness to preserve your father, I shall have the consolation of dying with mine” On the fatal day Malesherbes left the prison with a serene countenance, and happening to stumble against a stone, he said with much pleasantry, “a Roman would have thought this an unlucky omen, and walked back again.” Thus perished the venerable Malesherbes in April 1794, when he had attained to the age of seventy-two years four months and fifteen days. His character may be in part deduced from the preceding narrative, but is more fully displayed in his life translated by Mr. Mangin. The subsequent government has since made some reparation for the injustice done him, by ordering his bust to be placed among those of the great men who have reflected honour upon their country.

, a French author, a man of extensive and almost universal learning, was born at Paris in 1650. By Bossuet, and the duke of Montausier, who knew his merit, he was appointed preceptor to the duke of Maine; and the public in general approved the choice. In 1696 Malezieu was chosen to instruct the duke of Burgundy in mathematics. In 1699 he became a member of the academy of sciences, and in two years after of the French academy. The duke of Maine rewarded his care of him by appointing him the chief of his council, and chancellor of Dombes. Under the regency of the duke of Orleans he was involved in the disgrace which fell upon the duke his pupil, and was imprisoned for two years. He had an excellent constitution, which, aided by regularity, conducted him nearly to the close of life without any indisposition. He died of an apoplexy on March 4, 1727, at the age of seventy-seven. Notwithstanding the vast extent of his learning, and many occupations which required great attention, he had an easy and unembarrassed air; his conversation was lively and agreeable, and his manners polite and attentive. He published, 1. “Elements of Geometry, for the duke of Burgundy,” 1715, 8vo, being the substance of the instructions delivered by him to that prince. 2. Several pieces in verse, songs, &c. published at Trevoux about 1712. 3. There has also been attributed to him a farce in one act, entitled, “Polichtnelle demandant une place a l'Academie.” He had, among other talents, that of translating the Greek authors into French, particularly the tragic writers, in a style of harmony and energy of verse, whieh approached as nearly, perhaps, as any thing in his language could do, to the excellence of the originals.

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

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

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

, Sieur of St. Lazare, a French historian, more known for the number, than esteemed for the value of his books, was a native of Sens. In spite of every artifice to sell his histories, publishing the same under different titles, filling them with flatteries to the reigning princes, and other arts, it was with great difficulty that he could force any of them into circulation. It was not only that his style was low and flat, but that his representation of facts was equally incorrect. Latterly his name was sufficient to condemn a book, and he only put his initials, and those transposed. He died in 1655. His best work is said to be, “Histoire des dignités honoraires de France,” 8vo, on which some dependence is placed, because there he cites his authorities. He wrote also, 2. “L'histoire generate des derniers troubles” comprising the times of Henry III. and Louis XIII. in 4to. 3. “Histoire de Louis XIII.” 4to, a miserable collection of facts disguised by flattery, and extending only from 1610 to 1614. 4. “Histoire de la naissance et des progres de l'Heresie de ce siecle,” 3 vols. 4to, the first of which is by father Richeome. 5. “A Continuation of the Roman History from Constantino to Ferdinand the Third,” 2 vols. folio; a compilation which ought to contain the substance of Gibbon’s History, but offers little that is worthy of attention. 6. “The Annals and Antiquities of Paris,” 2 vols. folio. There is another work of this kind by a P. du Breul, which is much more esteemed; this, however, is consulted sometimes as a testimony of the state of Paris in the time of the author.

, a poet and miscellaneous writer, is said to have descended from the Macgregors, a clan which became in the early part of the last century, under the conduct of one Robin Roy, so formidable for violence and robbery, that the name was annulled by a legal prohibition; and when they we,re all to denominate themselves anew, the father, as is supposed, of our author called himself Malloch. This father, James Malloch, kept a publichouse at Crieff, co. Perth, in Scotland, where David was born, probably about 170O. Of his early years we have but scanty and discordant memorials, some accounts placing him at first in a menial situation in the university of Edinburgh; others informing us that he was educated at the university of Aberdeen. The latter seems most probable, as he wrote and even printed some lines on the repairs of that university, in which he could not have been interested, had he not studied there for some time. That he afterwards went to Edinburgh is not improbable, and it is aU most certain that he had in some way distinguished himself at that university, for when the duke of Montrose applied to the professors for a tutor to educate his sons, they recommended Malloch; a mark of their high opinion of him; and the office was of importance enongh to have excited the wishes of many candidates, there being no surer step to future advancement.

After making the usual tour of Europe with the duke’s sows, he returned with them to London, and by the influence of the family, in which he resided, easily gained admission to many persons of the highest rank, to wits, nobles, and statesmen. “By degrees,” says Dr. Johnson, “having cleared his tongue from his native pronunciation, so as to be no longer distinguished as a Scot, he seems inclined to disencumber himself from all adherences of his original, and took upon him to change his name from Scotch Malloch to English Mallet, without any imaginable reason of preference which the eye or ear can discover. What other proofs he gave of disrespect to his native country, I know not; bur it was remarked of him that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend.” It seems unreasonable, however, to impute this change of name to disrespect for his country; with his countrymen many of his most intimate connections were formed, and his friendship for Thomson is one of the most agreeable parts of his history; and almost the last character he sustained was that of an intrepid advocate for lord Bute, and what were then called the Scotch junto who ruled the king and kingdom. As to Scotchmen not commending him, he had at least one adherent in Smollet, who engaged him to write in the Critical Review, where all Mallet’s works are highly praised, particularly his “Elvira.” The late commentator, George Steevens, esq. hit upon the truth more exactly, when he wrote in a copy of Gascoigne’s Works, purchased in 1766, at Mallet’s sale, “that he was the only Scotchman who died, in his memory, unlamented by an individual of fyis own nation.” Steevens probably mad this remark to Johnson, who forgot the precise terms. The first time we meet with the name of David Mallet is in 1726, in a list of the subscribers to Savage’s Miscellanies.

Mallet’s first production in England was the celebrated and affecting ballad of “William and Margaret,” which was printed in Aaron Hill’s “Plain Dealer,” No. 36, July 14, 1724, and which in its original state was very different from what it is in the last editions of his works. Of this, says Dr. Johnson, he has been env ied the reputation; and plagiarism has been boldly charged, but never proved. In 1728 he published “The Excursion,” a poem in two cantos, containing a desultory view of such scenes of nature as his fancy or his knowledge led him to describe, and which is not devoid of poetical spirit, and in respect to diction is a close imitation of Thomson, whose “Seasons” were then in their full blossom of reputation.

In 1731 his first tragedy, called “Eurydice,” was performed at Drury-lane, and very unfavourably received; nor when revived thirty years after, and supported by Garrick and Mrs. Gibber, could the town endure it with patience. On this last occasion Dayies informs us that the author would not take the blame upon himself; “he sat in the orchestra, and bestowed his execrations plentifully upon the players, to whom he attributed the cold reception of his tragedy.” About this time we find him an inmate in Mr. Knight’s family at Gosfield, probably as tutor to Mr. Newsham, Mrs. Knight’s son by her first husband. Her third was the late earl Nugent. We shall soon have occasion to quote a very remarkable passage from a letter of Pope’s to this lady, respecting Mallet.

Soon after the exhibition of “Eurydice,” Mr. Mallet published his poem on “Verbal Criticism,” a subject which he either did not understand, or willingly misrepresented. “There is’in this poem,” says Dr. Johnson, “more pertness than wit, and more confidence than knowledge. The versification is tolerable, nor can criticism allow it a, higher praise.” It was written to pay court to Pope, who soon after introduced him, we may add, “in an evil hour” to lord Bolingbroke. The ruin of Pope’s reputation might have been dated from this hour, if the joint malignity of Bolingbroke and Mallet could have effected it. Mallet was now in the way to promotion. When the prince of Wales, at variance with his father, placed himself at the head of the opposition, and kept a separate court, he endeavoured to increase his popularity by the patronage of literature; and Mallet being recommended to him, his royal highness appointed him his under-secretary, with a salary of 200l. a year.

While in this employment, he published in 1739, “Mustapha,” a tragedy, dedicated to his royal patron. Thomson’s “Edward and Eleonora” had been excluded the stage, because the licenser discovered in it a formidable attack on the minister, yet Mallet’s “Mustapha,” which was thought, and was no doubt intended, to glance both at the king and sir Robert Walpole, in the characters of Solyman the Magnificent, and Rustan his visier, was allowed to be acted, and was acted with great applause. The language of this tragedy is more easy and natural than that of “Eurydice,” but its success was much owing to its political allusions. On the first night of its exhibition, the heads of the opposition were all assembled, and many speeches were applied by the audience to the supposed grievances of the times, and to persons and characters. In the following year, Thomson and Mallet were commanded by the prince of Wales to write the masque of “Alfred,” in honour of the birth-day of lady Augusta, his eldest daughter (the late duchess of Brunswick), which was twice acted in the gardens of Clifden by some of the London performers. After the death of Thomson in 1748, Mallet re-wrote the Masque of Alfred, under the influence and by the encouragement of lord Bolingbroke; and with the assistance of music and gorgeous scenery; it was acted with some, but no great success.

In 1747 Mallet published his “Hermit, or Amyntor and Theodora,” a poem in which Dr. Johnson allows that there is copiousness and elegance of language (which indeed appear in most of Mallet’s works), vigour of sentiment, and imagery well adapted to take possession of the fancy. It abounds also with many excellent moral precepts, which receive weight and energy from the sanction of religion, a foundation on which Mallet did not always build. Dr. Warton was much censured for saying in his “Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope,” that “the nauseous affectation of expressing every thing pompously and poetically, is nowhere more visible than in a poem lately published, called Amyntor and Theodora;” but Warton was not a rash critic, and retained the sentence in the subsequent editions of his “Essay.”

Not long after this, Mallet was employed by lord Bolingbroke in an office which he executed with all the malignity that his employer could wish. This was no other than to defame the character of Pope Pope, who by leaving the whole of his Mss to lord Bolingbroke, had made him in some respect the guardian of his character Pope, onwhose death-bed lord Bolingbroke looking earnestly down, repeated several times, interrupted with sobs, “O great God, what is man? I never knew a person that had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a warmer benevolence for all mankind!” who certainly had idolized this nobleman throughout his whole life, and who adhered to his lordship’s cause through all the vicissitudes of popular odium and exile. What could have induced Bolingbroke to the malice of degrading Pope’s character, and the cowardice of employing a hireling to do it? The simple fact is, that after Pope’s death it was thought to be discovered that he had privately printed 1500 copies of one of lord Bolingbroke’s works, “The Patriot King,” the perusal of which his lordship wished to be confined to a select few. This offence, which Mallet only could have traced to a bad motive, if fairly examined, will probably seem disproportioned to the rage and resentment of Bolingbroke. A very acute examiner of evidence (Mr. D'Israeli) has therefor imputed that to the preference with which Pope had distinguished Warburton, and is of opinion that Warburton, much more than Pope, was the real object. Between Bolingbroke and Warburton there was, it is well known, a secret jealousy, which at length appeared in mutual and undisguised contempt. But much of this narrative belongs rather to them than to Mallet, who could feel no resentment, could plead no provocation. On the contrary, he had every inducement to reflect with tenderness on the memory and friendship of Pope, who speaks of him, in a letter we have already alluded to, in the following terms “To prove to you how little essential to friendship I hold letter-writing I have not yet written to Mr. Mallet, whom I love and esteem greatly, nay whom I know to have as tender a, heart, and that feels a friendly remembrance as long as any man.” Such was the man who gladly undertook what Bolingbroke was ashamed to perform, and in a preface to the “Patriot King” misrepresented the conduct of Pope in language the most malignant and contemptuous. That he had an eye to his own interest in all this, it would be a miserable affectation of liberality to doubt. No other motive can account for his conduct, and this conduct will be found to correspond with his general character. Bolingbroke accordingly rewarded him by bequeathing to him all his writings published and unpublished, and Mallet immediately began to prepare them for the press. His conduct at the very outset of this business affords another illustration of his character. Francklin, the printer, to whom many of the political pieces written during the opposition to Walpole, had been given, as he supposed, in perpetuity, laid claim to some compensation for those. Mallet allowed his claim, and the question was referred to arbitrators, who were empowered to decide upon it, by an instrument signed by the parties; but when they decided unfavourably to Mr. Mallet, he refused to yield to the decision, and the printer was thus deprived of the benefit of the award, by not having insisted upon bonds of arbitration, to which Mallet had objected as degrading to a man of honour! He then proceeded, with the help of Millar, the bookseller, to publish all he could find; and so sanguine was he in his expectations, that he rejected the offer of 3000l. which Millar offered him for the copy-, right, although he was at this time so distressed for money that he was forced to borrow some of Millar to pay the stationer and printer. The work at last appeared, in 5 vols. 4to, and Mallet had soon reason to repent his refusal of the bookseller’s offer, as this edition was not sold off in twenty years. As these volumes contained many bold attacks on revealed religion, they brought much obloquy on the editor, and even a presentment was made of them by the grand-jury of Westminster. His memory, however, will be thought to suffer yet more by his next appearance in print When the nation was exasperated by the ill success of the war, and the ministry wished to divert public indignation from themselves, Mallet was employed to turn it upon admiral Byng. In this he entered as heartily as into the defamation of Pope, and wrote a letter of accusation under the character of a “Plain Man,” a large sheet, which was circulated with great industry, and probably was found to answer its purpose. The price of blood, on this occasion, was a pension which he retained till his death.

From this time (1757) until 1763, we hear nothing of Mr. Mallet, except a dedication of his poems to the late duke of Marlborough, in which he promises himself speedily the honour of dedicating to him the life of his illustrious predecessor. The cause of this promise is another of those charges which have been brought against Mallet, and which it will be difficult to repell. When the celebrated John duke of Marlborough died, it was determined, that the history of his life should be transmitted to posterity, and the papers supposed to contain the necessary information were delivered to lord Molesworth, who had been his favourite in Flanders. When Molesworth died, the same papers were transferred with the same design to sir Richard Steele, who in some of his exigences put them to pawn. They then remained with the old duchess, who in her will assigned the task to Mr. Glwer, the author of “Leonidas,” and Mr. Mallet, with a reward ef lOOOl. and a curious prohibition against inserting any verses. There were other prohibitions and conditions, however, which induced Glover, a man of spirit and virtue, to decline the legacy. Mallet had no such scruples, and besides the legacy, had a pension from the late duke of Marlborough to quicken his industry. He then began, and continued to talk much and often of the progress he had made, but on his death, not a scrap coulil be discovered of the history. In the political disputes which commenced at the beginning of the present reign, Mallet espoused the cause of his countryman lord Bute, and is said to have written his tragedy of “Elvira,” with a view to serve his lordship. This play was performed at Drury-lane in 1763; its ob­]ect was to recommend pacific sentiments, but the public was dissatisfied with the iate peace, and “Elvira,” though well performed, was easily rendered unpopular by the opponents of the ministry. Davies gives us an amusing anecdote of his tricking Garrick into the performance of this piece, by making him believe that he had introduced the mention of him in his life of Marlborough, a bait which Mallet’s principles suggested, and which Garrick’s vanity readily swallowed. Garrick got little by the play, but Mallet was rewarded with the office of keeping the book of entries for ships in the port of London.

Towards the end of his life, Mallet went with his wife to France, but after a while finding his health declining, returned alone to England, and died April 21, 1765. He was twice married. Of his first wife we find no mention, but by her he had several children. One daughter, who married an Italian of rank, named Cilesia, wrote a tragedy called “Almida,” which was acted at Drury-lane. This lady died at Genoa in 1790. His second wife, whom he married in October 1742, was miss Lucy Elstob, daughter to lord Carlisle’s steward. She had a fortune of 10,000l. all of which she took care to settle upon herself; but she was equally careful that Mallet should appear like a gentleman of distinction, and from her great kindness, always chose herself to purchase every thing that he wore, and to let her friends know that she did so. This lady’s sentiments were congenial to those of her husband, who was a professed free-thinker. They kept a good table (at which Gibbon appears to have been frequently a guest), and the lady, proud of her opinions, would often, we are told, in the warmth of argument, say, “Sir, we deists.”

Mr. Mallet’s stature, says Dr. Johnson, “was diminutive, but he was regularly formed. His appearance, till he grew corpulent, was agreeable, and he suffered it to want no recommendation that dress could give it. His conversation was elegant and easy.” Of his character in other respects, it would be unnecessary to add any thing to the preceding facts. As a writer he cannot be placed in any high class, nor is there any species of composition in, which. he is eminent yet his poetry surely entitles him to a place in every collection of English bards. In his poems as well as his prose compositions, elegance of style predominates, and he appears to have written with ease. His “Life of Lord Bacon,” prefixed to an edition of that illustrious philosopher’s works in 1740, has been censured as touching too little on the philosophical part of the character. The writing it, however, was probably a matter of necessity rather than choice, and while he could not afford to refuse the employment, he was too conscious of his inability to attempt any other than what he has accomplished, an elegant narrative of the events of lord Bacon’s life. Of Mallet’s works, prose and verse, an edition was published in 1769, 3 vols. small 8vo.

, was one of the writers in the French Encyclopedic, and one of those whose articles are the most valuable in that work. They are chiefly on the subjects of divinity and belles lettres, and if only men as sound and judicious as the abbe Mallet had been employed, that publication would have proved as useful as it has been, found pernicious. He was born at Melun in 1713, and educated at the college of the Barnabites at Montargis. He was afterwards engaged as tutor in the family of a farmer general. In 1742 he was admitted into the faculty of theology at Paris, and was employed on a cure near his native town till 1751, when he was invited to be professor of divinity in the college of Navarre. The more he was known, the more his merits were perceived; and the charge of Jansenism, which had been circulated against him, was gradually cleared away. Boyer, then bishop of Mirepoix, as a testimony of his regard, presented him to a canonry of Verdun. He died at Paris in 1755. Besides his shara in the Encyclopedie, he wrote several works on the principles of poetry and eloquence. His style is neat, easy, and unaffected; and he has great skill in developing the merits of good writers, and illustrating his precepts by the most apposite examples from their works. He published also a history of the civil wars of France, under the reigns of Francois II. Charles IX. &c. translated from the Italian of D'Avila, and published at Amsterdam in 3 vols. 4to.

, a learned historian and antiquary, first professor of history in his native city, was born at Geneva in 1730, became afterwards professor royal of the belles lettres at Copenhagen, a member of the academies of Upsal, Lyons, Cassel, and of the Celtique academy of Paris. Of his life no account has yet appeared. He joined an extensive acquaintance with history and general literature to great natural talents. The amenity of his disposition caused his company to be much sought, while his solid qualities procured him friends who deeply regretted his loss. The troubles of Geneva during the first revolutionary war deprived him of the greatest part of his fortune; and he was indebted, for the moderate competence he retained, to pensions from the duke of Brunswick and the landgrave of Hesse; but the events of the late war deprived him of both those pensions. The French government is said to have designed him a recompense, but this was prevented by his death, at Geneva, Feb. 8, 1807. His works were: 1. “Histoire de Danernarck,” to the eighteenth century, the best edition of which is that of 1787. 2. A translation of Coxe’s “Travels,” with remarks and additions, and a relation of his own Travels in Sweden, 2 vols. 4to. 3. Translation of the Acts and form of the Swedish government, 12mo. 4. “Histoire de Hesse,” to the seventeenth century, 3 vols. 8vo. 5. “Histoire de la rnaison de Brunswick,” to its accession to the throne of Great Britain, 3 vols. 8vo. 6. “Histoire des Suisses,” from the earliest times to the commencement of the late revolution, Geneva, 1803, 4 vols. 8vo. 7. “Histoire de la Ligne Anseatique,” from its origin to its decline, 1805, 2 vols. 8vo. He had discovered at Rome the chronological series of Icelandic bishops, which had been lost in Denmark. It is published in the third volume of Langebeck’s collection of Danish writers. The late Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, has made us acquainted with professor Mallet’s merit as an antiquary by his excellent translation entitled “Northern Antiquities; or a Description of the manners, customs, religion, and laws, of the ancient Danes, and other northern nations including those of our own Saxon ancestors. With a translation of the Edda, or system of Runic mythology, and other pieces from the ancient Islandic Tongue. Translated from M. Mallet’s Introduction a l'Histoire de Danemarck,” &c. 1770, 2 vols, 8vo. To this Dr. Percy has added many valuable and curious notes, and Goranson’s Latin version of the “Edda.” It was very justly said, at the time, by the Monthly Reviewer, that Dr. Percy had, in this instance, given a translation more valuable than the original.

, dean of the cathedral of Munster, and celebrated for his inquiries into typographical antiquities, was certainly a learned man, but very turbulent and ambitious. Hence it happened that he was named to two bishoprics without taking possession of either, and that he died in prison for his opposition to another prelate. The emperor Ferdinand I. appointed him to the bishopric of Ratzebourg, and he was, a few days after, elected to the see of Minden. But his ambition was to be bishop of Munster, and not succeeding, in 1650, he intrigued and raised seditions against the bishop who had succeeded, till in 1655, he was degraded from his dignity of dean. Nor yet warned, he continued his machinations, and in 1657, the bishop had him arrested and confined in the castle of Otteinzheim. Here he continued till his death, which happened suddenly, March 7, 1664. He wrote in Latin, 1. “De natura et usu Literarum,” Munster, 1638, 4to. 2. “De ortu et progressu artis Typographica;,” Cologne, 1639, 4to, and since reprinted in Wolfs collection of “Monumenta Typographica,” vol. I. 1740. 3. “De Archicancellariis S. R. imperil,” Munster, 1640, 4to. 4. “Paralipomenon de Historicis Gracis,” Cologne, 1656, 4to.

, an ancient English historian, who flourished in the twelfth century, was born in Somersetshire, and, on that account, as Bale and Pits inform us, was called Somersetanus. When a child, he himself says, he discovered a fondness for learning, which was encouraged by his parents, and increased with his years. Some have supposed Oxford to have been the place of his education. He became, however, a monk of Malmsbury, and it reflects no small honour on his fraternity, that they elected him their librarian. He had studied several sciences, as they could then be acquired, logic, physic, and ethics, but history appears to have been his favourite pursuit. After studying that of countries abroad, he began to inquire into the memorable transactions of his own nation but not finding any satisfactory history already written, he resolved, as he says, to write one, not to display his learning, “which is no great matter, but to bring to light things that are covered with the rubbish of antiquity.” This resolution produced his valuable work “De regibus Anglorum,” a general history of England in five books, from the arrival of the Saxons, in the year 449 to the 26 Henry I. in 1126; and a modern history, in two books, from that year to the escape of the empress Maud out of Oxford in 1143 with a church history of England in four books, published in sir H. Savile’s collection, 1596. His merits as a historian have been justly displayed and recommended by lord Lyttelton in his “History of Henry II.” In all his works (the Latin style of which is more pure than that of any of his contemporaries), he discovers great diligence, much good sense, and a sacred regard to truth, accompanied with uncommon modesty. He says that he can scarcely expect the applause of his contemporaries, but he hopes that when both favour and malevolence are dead, he shall obtain from posterity the character of an industrious, though not of an eloquent historian. Besides what we have mentioned, Gale has printed his “Antiquities of Glastonbury,” and Wharton his “Life of St. Adhelm.” But his abilities were not confined to prose. He wrote many pieces of Latin poetry; and it is remarkable, says Warton, that almost all the professed prose writers of this age made experiments in verse. William of Malmsbury died in that abbey in 1143.

, a gentleman of great literary research, and one of the ablest commentators on Shakspeare, was descended from an Irish family of the highest antiquity, an account of which may be found in the seventh volume of Archdall’s Peerage of Ireland, which, it is believed, was drawn up by Mr. Malone himself. All his immediate predecessors were distinguished men. His grandfather, while only a student at the Temple, was entrusted with a negotiation in Holland and so successfully acquitted himself, that he was honoured and rewarded by king William for his services. Having been called to the Irish bar about 1700, he became one of the most eminent barristers that have ever appeared in that country. His professional fame has only been eclipsed by that of his eldest son, the still more celebrated Anthony Malone, who as a lawyer, an orator, and an able and upright statesman, was confessedly one of the most illustrious men that his country has produced. Edmond, the second son of Richard, and the father of the late Mr. Malone, was born on the 16th of April, 1704. He was called to the English bar in 1730, where he continued for ten years to practise; and, in 1740, removed to the Irish bar. After having sat in several parliaments, and gone through the usual gradations of professional rank, he was raised, in 1766, to the dignity of one of the judges of the court of common pleas in Ireland, an office which he filled till his death in 1774. He married, in 1736, Catherine, only daughter and heir of Benjamin Collier, esq. of liuckholts, in the county of Essex, by whom he had four sons, Richard, now lord Sunderlin; Edmond, the subject of our present memoir Anthony and Benjamin, who died in their infancy and two daughters, Henrietta and Catherine.

Edmond Malone was born at his father’s house in Dublin, on the 4th of October, 1741. He was educated at the school of Dr. Ford, in Molesworth-street and went from thence, in 1756, to the university of Dublin,where he took the degree of batchelor of arts. Here his talents very early displayed themselves; and he was distinguished by a successful competition for academical honours with several young men, who atterwarda became the ornaments of the Irish senate and bar. It appears that at his outset he had laid down to himself those rules of study to which he ever afterwards steadily adhered. When sitting down to the perusal of any work, either ancient or modern, his attention was drawn to its chronology, the history and character of its author, the feelings and prejudices of the times in which he lived; and any other collateral information which might tend to illustrate his writings, or acquaint us with his probable views, and cast of thinking. In later years he was more particularly engrossed by the literature of his own country; but the knowledge he had acquired in his youth had been too assiduously collected, and too firmly fixed in his mind, not to retain possession of his memory, and preserve that purity and elegance of taste which is rarely to be met with but in those who have early derived it from the models of classical antiquity. He appears frequently at this period, in common with some of his accomplished contemporaries, to have amused himself with slight poetical compositions; and on the marriage of their present majesties contributed an ode to the collection of congratulatory verses which issued on that event from the university of Dublin. In 1763 he became a student in the Inner Temple; and in 1767 was called to the Irish bar, and, at his first appearance in the courts, he gave every promise of future eminence. But an independent fortune having soon after devolved upon him, he felt himself at liberty to retire from the bar, and devote his whole attention in future to literary pursuits, for which purpose he soon after settled in London, and resided there with very little intermission for the remainder of his life. Among the many eminent men with whom he became early acquainted, he was naturally drawn by the enthusiastic admiration which he felt for Shakspeare, and the attention which he had already paid to the elucidation of his works, into a particularly intimate intercourse with Mr. Steevens. The just views which he himself had formed led him to recognize in the system of criticism and illustration which that gentleman then adopted, the only means by which a correct exhibition of our great poet could be obtained. Mr. Steevens was gratified to find that one so well acquainted with the subject entertained that high estimation of his labours which Mr. Malone expressed; and very soon discovered the advantage he might derive from the communications of a mind so richly stored. Mr. Malone was ready and liberal in imparting his knowledge, which, on the other part, was most gratefully received.