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

, a celebrated German alchymist and rosicrucian of the seventeenth century, who sacrificed his health, his fortune, his time, and his understanding, to those ruinous follies, wrote many works, all having reference, more or less, to the principles or rather absurdities of his favourite study. The following are mentioned as the chief of these publications. 1. “Atalanta fugiens,” 1618, 4to, the most rare and curious of his works. 2. “Septimana philosophica,” 1620, 4to. In both these works he has given abundance of his reveries. 3. “Silentium post clamores, seu tractatus -Revelationum fratrum roseae Crucis,” 1617, 8vo. 4. “De fraternitate roseae Crucis,” 1618, 8vo. 5. “Jocus severus,” 1617, 4to. 6. “De rosea Cruce,” 1618, 4to. 7. “Apologeticus revelationum fratrum roseae Crucis,” 1617, 8vo. 8. “Cantilenas intellectuals,” Rome, 1624. 9. “Museum Chymicum,” 1708, 4to. 10. “De Cnrculo physico-quadrato,” 1616, 4to.

, 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.

Dr. Reid, on the other hand, does not allow, that either Plato or the latter Platonists, or St. Augustine, or the Mystics, thought, that we perceive the objects of sense in the divine ideas. This theory of our perceiving the objects of sense in the ideas of the Deity, he considers as the invention of father Malebranche himself. Although St. Augustine speaks in a very high strain of God’s being the light of our minds, of our being illuminated immediately by the eternal light, and uses other similar expressions; yet he seems to apply those expressions only to our illumination in moral and divine things, and not to the perception of objects by the senses. Mr. Bayle imagines, that some traces of this opinion of Malebranche are to be found in Amelius the Platonist, and even in Democritus; but his authorities seem, as Dr. Reid conceives, to be strained, Malebranche, with a very penetrating genius, entered into a more minute examination of the powers of the human mind than any one before him; and he availed himself of the previous discoveries made by Des Cartes, without servile attachment. He lays it down as a principle admitted by all philosophers, and in itself unquestionable, that we do not perceive external objects immediately, but by means of images or ideas of them present to the mind. “The things which the soul perceives,” says Malebranche,“are of two kinds. They are either in the soul, or without the soul: those that are in the soul are its own thoughts, that is to say, all its different modifications. The soul has no need of ideas for perceiving these things. But with regard to things without the soul, we cannot perceive them but by means of ideas.” He then proceeds to enumerate all the possible ways by which the ideas of sensible objects may be presented to the mind: either, 1st, they come from the bodies, which we perceive; or, 2dly, the soul has the power of producing them in itself; or, 3dly, they are produced by the Deity in our creation, or occasionally as there is use for them: or, 4thly, the soul has in itself virtually and eminently, as the schools speak, all the perfections which it perceives in bodies: or, 5thly, the soul is united with a Being possessed of all perfection, who has in himself the ideas of all created things. The last mode is th^it which he adopts, and which he endeavours to confirm by various arguments. The Deity, being always present to our minds in a more intimate manner than any other being, may, upon occasion of the impressions made on our bodies, discover to us, as far as he thinks proper, and according to fixed laws, his own ideas of the object; and thus we see all things in God, or in the divine ideas.

However visionary this system may appear on a superficial view, yet when we consider, says Dr. Reid, that he agreed with the whole tribe of philosophers in conceiving ideas to be the immediate objects of perception, and, that he found insuperable difficulties, and even absurdities, in every other hypothesis concerning them, it will not seem so wonderful that a man of very great genius should fall into this; and probably it pleased so devout a man the more, that it sets in the most striking light our dependence upon God, and his continual presence with us. He distinguished more accurately than any philosopher had done before, the objects which we perceive from the sensations in our own minds, which, by the laws of nature, always accompany the perception of the object: and in this respect, as well as in many others, he had great merit. For this, as Dr. Reid apprehends, is a key that opens the way to a right understanding, both of our external senses, and of other powers of the mind.

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.

Mr. Steevens having published a second edition of his Shakspeare, in 1778, Mr. Malone, in 1780, added two supplementary volumes, which contained some additional notes, Shakspeare’s poems, and seven plays which have been ascribed to him. There appears up to this time to have been no interruption to their friendship; but, on the contrary, Mr. Steevens, having formed a design of relinquishing all future editorial labours, most liberally made a present to Mr. Malone of his valuable collection of old plays, declaring that he himself was now become “a dowager commentator.” It is painful to think that this harmony should ever have been disturbed, or that any thing should have created any variance between two such men, who were so well qualified to co-operate for the benefit of the literary world. Mr. Matone, having continued his researches into all the topics which might serve to illustrate our great dramatist, discovered, that although much had been done, yet that much still remained for critical industry; and that a still more accurate collation of the early copies than had hitherto taken place was necessary towards a correct and faithful exhibition of the author’s text. His materials accumulated so fast, that he determined to appear before the world as an editor in form. From that moment he seems to have been regarded with jealousy by the elder commentator, who appears to have sought an opportunity for a rupture, which he soon afterwards found, or rather created. But it is necessary to go back for a moment, to point out another of Mr. Malone’s productions. There are few events in literary history more extraordinary in all its circumstances than the publication of the poems attributed to Rowley. Mr. Malone was firmly convinced that the whole was a fabrication by Chatterton; and, to support his opinion, published one of the earliest pamphlets which appeared in the course of this singular controversy. By exhibiting a series of specimens from early English writers, both prior and posterior to the period in which this supposed poet was represented to have lived, he proved that his style bore no resemblance to genuine antiquity; and by stripping Rowley of his antique garb, which was easily done by the substitution of modern synonymous words in the places of those obsolete expressions which are sprinkled throughout these compositions, and at the same time intermingling some archaeological phrases in the acknowledged productions of Chatterton, he clearly showed that they were all of the same character, and equally bore evident marks of modern versification, and a modern structure of language. He was followed by Mr. Warton and Mr. Tyrwhitt, in his second Appendix; and the controversy was soon at an end. While Mr. Malone was engaged in his Shakspeare, he received from Mr. Steevens a request of a most extraordinary nature. In a third edition of Johnson and Steevens’s Shakspeare, which had been published under the superintendance of Mr. Reed, in 1785, Mr. Malone had contributed some notes in which Mr. Steevens’s opinions were occasionally controverted. These he was now desired to retain in his new edition, exactly as they stood before, in order that Mr. S. might answer them. Mr. Malone replied, that he could make no such promise; that he must feel himself at liberty to correct his observations, where they were erroneous; to enlarge them, where they were defective; and even to expunge them altogether, where, upon further consideration, he was convinced they were wrong; in short, he was bound to present his work to the public as perfect as he could make it. But he added, that he was willing to transmit every note of that description in its last state to Mr. Steevens, before it went to press; that he might answer it if he pleased; and that Mr. Malone would even preclude himself from the privilege of replying. Mr. Steevens persisted in requiring that they should appear with all their imperfections on their head; and on this being refused, declared that all communication on the subject of Shakspeare was at an end between them. In 1790, Mr. Malone’s edition at last appeared and was sought after and read with the greatest avidity. It is unnecessary to point out its merits; the public opinion upon it iias been long pronounced. It cannot indeed be strictly said that it met with universal approbation. Mr. Ritson appeared against it in an angry and scurrilous pamphlet, replete with misrepresentations so gross, and so easy of detection, though calculated to mislead a careless reader, that Mr. Malone thought it worth his while to point them out in a letter which he published, addressed to his friend Dr. Farmer. Poor Ritson, however, has not been the only one who has attempted to persuade the world that they have been mistaken in Mr. Malone’s character as a critic. Mr. Home Tooke in particular, who, whatever were his talents as a grammarian, or his knowledge as an Anglo-Saxon, had by no means an extensive acquaintance with the literature of Shakspeare’s age, has mentioned Mr. Malone and Dr. Johnson with equal contempt, and immediately after proceeds to sneer at Mr. Tyrwhitt. It may readily be supposed that Mr. Malone would not feel very acutely the satire which associated him with such companions. But, to counterbalance these puny hostilities, his work gained the highest testimonies of applause from all who were best qualified to judge upon the subject, and from men whose approbation any one would be prpud to obtain. Dr. J. Warton, in a most friendly letter, which accompanied a curious volume of old English poetry which had belonged to his brother Thomas, and which he presented to Mr. Malone as the person for whom its former possessor felt the highest esteem and the most cordial regard, observes to him that his edition is by far, very far, the best that had ever appeared. Professor Person, who, as every one who knew him can testify, was by no means in the habit of bestowing hasty or thoughtless praise, declared to Mr. Malone’s biographer, that he considered the Essay on the three parts of Henry the Sixth as one of the most convincing pieces of criticism that he had ever read; nor was Mr. Burke less liberal in his praises.

Having concluded his laborious work, Mr. Malone paid a visit to his friends in Ireland; but soon after returned to his usual occupations in London. Amidst his own numerous and pressing avocations he was not inattentive to the calls of friendship. In 1791 appeared Mr. Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson, a work in which Mr. Malone felt at all times a very lively interest, and gave every assistance to its author during its progress which it was in his power to bestow. His acquaintance with this gentleman commenced in 1785, when, happening accidentally at Mr. Baldwin’s printing-house to be shewn a sheet of the Tour to the Hebrides, which contained Johnson’s character, he was so much struck with the spirit and fidelity of the portrait, that he requested to be introduced to its writer. From this period a friendship took place between them, which ripened into the strictest and most cordial intimacy, and lasted without interruption as long as Mr. Boswell lived. After his death, in 1795, Mr. Malone continued to show every mark of affectionate attention towards his family; and in every successive edition of Johnson’s Life took the most unwearied pains to render it as much as possible correct and perfect. He illustrated it with many notes of his own, and procured many valuable communications from his friends, among whom its readers will readily distinguish Mr. Bindley. Any account of Mr. Malone would be imperfect which omitted to mention his long intimacy with that gentleman, who is not so remarkable as the possessor of one of the most valuable libraries in this country, as he is for the accurate and extensive information which enables him to use it, and the benevolent politeness with which he is always willing to impart his knowledge to others. There was no one whom Mr. Malone more cordially loved.

In 1795 he was again called forth to display his zeal in defence of Shakspeare, against the contemptible fabrications with which the Irelands endeavoured to delude the public. Although this imposture, unlike the Rowleian poems, which were performances of extraordinary genius, exhibited about the same proportion of talent as it did of honesty, yet some persons of no small name were hastily led into a belief of its authenticity. Mr. Malone save through the falsehood of the whole from its commencement; and laid bare the fraud, in a pamphlet, which was written in the form of a letter to his friend lord Charlemont, a nobleman with whom he lived on the most intimate footing, and maintained a constant correspondence. It has been thought by some that the labour which he bestowed upon this performance was more than commensurate with the importance of the subject; and it is true that a slighter effort would have been sufficient to have overthrown this wretched fabrication; but we have reason to rejoice that Mr. Malone was led into a fuller discussion than was his intention at the outset; we owe to it a work which, for acuteness of reasoning, and the curious and interesting view which it presents of English literature, will retain its value long after the trash which it was designed to expose shall have been consigned to oblivion. Mr. Malone, in 1792, had the misfortune to lose his admirable friend sir Joshua Reynolds, and his executors, of whom Mr. Malone had the honour to be one, having determined in 1797 to give the world a complete collection of his works, he superintended the publication, and prefixed to it a very pleasing biographical sketch of their author. Although his attention was still principally directed to Shakspeare, and he was gradually accumulating a most valuable mass of materials for a new edition of that poet, he found time to do justice to another. He drew together, from various sources, the prose works of Dryden, which, as they had lain scattered about, and some of them appended to works which were little known, had never impressed the general reader with that opinion of their excellence which they deserved; and published them in 1800. The narrative which he prefixed is a most important accession to biography. By active inquiry, and industrious and acute research, he ascertained many particulars of his life and character that had been supposed to be irrecoverably lost, and detected the falsehood of many a traditionary tale that had been carelessly repeated by former writers. In 1808 he prepared for the press a few productions of his friend, the celebrated William Gerard Hamilton, with which he had been entrusted by his executors; and prefixed to this also a brief but elegant sketch of his life. In 1811 his country was deprived of Mr. Windham: Mr. Malone, who equally admired and loved him, drew up a short memorial of his amiable and illustrious friend, which originally appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine; and was afterwards, in an enlarged and corrected state, printed in a small pamphlet, and privately distributed. But the kind biographer was too soon to want “the generous tear he paid.” A gradual decay appears to have undermined his constitution; and when he was just on the point of going to the press with his new edition of Shakspeare, he was interrupted by an illness, which proved fatal; and, to the irreparable loss of all who knew him, he died on the 25th of May, 1812, in the 70th year of his age. In hid last illness he was soothed by the tender and unremitting attentions of his brother, lord Sunderlin, and his youngest sister; the eldest, from her own weak state of health, was debarred from this melancholy consolation. He left no directions about his funeral; but his brother, who was anxious, with affectionate solicitude, to execute every wish he had formed, having inferred from something that dropt from him, that it was his desire to be buried among his ancestors in Ireland, his remains were conveyed to that country, and interred at the family seat of Baronston, in the county of Westmeath.

Mr. Malone, in his person, was rather under the middle size. The urbanity of his temper, and the kindness of his disposition, were depictured in his mild and placid countenance. His manners were peculiarly engaging. Accustomed from his earliest years to the society of those who were distinguished for their rank or talent, he was at all times and in all companies easy, unembarrassed, and unassuming. It was impossible to meet him, even in the most casual intercourse, without recognizing the genuine and unaffected politeness of the gentleman born and bred His conversation was in a high degree entertaining and instructive; his knowledge was various and accurate, and his mode of displaying it void of all vanity or pretension. Though he had little relish for noisy convivial merriment, his habits were social, and his cheerfulness uniform and unclouded. As a scholar, he was liberally communicative. Attached, from principle and conviction, to the constitution of his country in church and state, which his intimate acquaintance with its history taught him how to value, he was a loyal subject, a sincere Christian, and a true son of the Church of England. His heart was warm, and his benevolence active. His charity was prompt, but judicious and discriminating; not carried away by every idle or fictitious tale of distress, but anxious to ascertain the nature and source of real calamity, and indefatigable in his efforts to relieve it. His purse and his time were at all times ready to remove the sufferings, and promote the welfare of others, and as a friend he was warm and steady in his attachments.

, an eminent French chemist and physician, was born at Caen in 1701, and was the son of a counsellor, who sent him, when of a proper age, to study law at Paris. Young Malouin, however, as soon as he arrived there, without ever informing his father, began the study of medicine, and pursued it with such success as well as secrecy, that on his return home in 1730, his father, whom he had always satisfied in every respect as to moral conduct, expenses, &c. and who expected to see him return as a licentiate in law, was astonished to find him a doctor of medicine, but was obliged at the same time to yield to a choice which indicated so much zeal and decision. Nor was this a new profession in the family, his uncle and grandfather having both been physicians. After remaining at home about three years, he went again, to Paris, and assisted Geoffroi in his chemical lectures, and would probably have succeeded him had he been on the spot when he died; but it was not until 1767 that he was appointed in the room of Astruc, who was the immediate successor of Geoffroi. At Paris, where he got iiitd practice, it lay much among literary men, whom he found generally very incredulous in the virtues of medicine. Malouin, who was a perfect enthusiast in his art, had many contests with them on this account. When a certain great philosopher had been cured by taking Malouin’s prescriptions for a considerable time, and came to acknowledge the obligation, Malouin embraced him and exclaimed, “you deserve to be sick.” (Vous etes digne d'etre maladej. He could not, however, bear those who, after being cured, indulged their pleasantries at the expehce of the faculty, and he broke off his acquaintance with an eminent writer* who had been his patient, on this account. On another occasion, when one of these wits with whom he had had a warm dispute about his favourite art, and had quarrelled, fell ill, Malouin sought him out, and his first address was, “I know you are ill, and that your case has been improperly treated; I am now come to visit you, although I hate you; but I will cure you, and after that never see your face more,” and he kept his word in all these points. This was, however, in him pure enthusiasm, without any mixture of quackery. His liberal conduct and talents were universally acknowledged, and he filled with great reputation the honourable offices of professor of medicine in the college of Paris, and physician in ordinary to the queen. He was also a member of the academy of sciences, and of our royal society. His love of medicine did not hinder him from paying equal attention to preventatives, and he was distinguished for a habit of strict temperance, which preserved his health and spirits to the advanced age of seventy-seven, without any of its infirmities. His death was at last occasioned by a stroke of apoplexy, which happened Dec. 31, 1777. He left a legacy to the faculty on condition of their assembling once a year, and giving an account of their labours and discoveries. His principal works were, 1. “Traite” de Chimie,“1734, 12mo. 2.” Chimie medicinale,“1755, 2 vols. 12mo, a work iti a very elegant style, and including maiiy valuable observations. He wrote also several articles in the dictionary” Des arts et metiers,“published by the academy of sciences* and the chemical part of the” Encyclopedic."

, an Italian physician and anatomist, was born March 10, 1628, at Crevalcuore, near Bologna, in Italy, where he was taught Latin and studied philosophy. In 1649, losing his parents, and being obliged to choose his own method of life, he determined to apply himself to physic. The university of Bologna was then supplied with very learned professors in that science, particularly Bartholomew Massari, and Andrew Mariano, under whose instructions Malpighi in a short time made great progress in physic and anatomy. After he had finished the usual course, he was admitted doctor of physic, April 6, 1653, In 1655 Massari died, a loss which Malpighi severely felt, as independent of his esteem for him as a master, he had become more nearly related to him by marrying his sister. In 1656, the senate of Bologna gave him a professorship, which he did not long hold; for the same year the grand duke of Tuscany invited him to Pisa, to be professor of physic there. Here he contracted a strict friendship with Borelli, whom he subsequently owned for his master in philosophy, and to whom he ascribed all the discoveries which he afterwards made. They dissected animals together, and it was in this employment that he found the heart to consist of spiral fibres; a discovery, which has been ascribed to Borelli in his posthumous works. The air of Pisa not agreeing with Malpighi, be continued there but three years: and, in 1659, returned to Bologna, to resume his former posts, notwithstanding the advantageous offers which were made him to stay at Pisa. In 1662 he was sent for to Messina, in order to succeed Peter Castello, first professor of physic, who was just dead. It. was with reluctance that he went thither, though the stipend was great; and although he was prevailed on at last by his friend Borelli, to accept it, yet in 1666 he returned to Bologna. In 1669 he was elected a member of the royal society of London, with which he ever after kept a correspondence by letters, and communicated his discoveries in anatomy. Cardinal Pignatelli, who had known him while he was legate at Bologna, being chosen pope in 1691, under the name of Innocent XII. immediately sent for him to Rome, and appointed him his physician. In 1694 he was admitted into the academy of the Arcadians at Rome. July the 25th, of the same year, he had a fit, which struck half his body with a paralysis; and, November the 29th following, he had another, of which he died the same day, in his 67th year. His remains were embalmed, and conveyed to Bologna, where they were interred with great funeral honours in the chureh of St. Gregory, and a statue was erected to his memory. Malpighi is described as a man of a serious and melancholy temperament, which is confirmed by his portrait in the meeting-room of the royal society at Somerset-house. He was indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge, on the sure ground of experience and observation, ever candid in his acknowledgments to those who had given him any information, and devoid of all ostentation or pretension on the score of his own merits. He ranks very high among the philosophers of the physiological age in which he lived, when nature began to be studied instead of books, and the dreams of the schools. Hence arose the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, the absorbent system of the animal body, and the true theory of generation. To such improvements the investigations of Malpighi, relative to the anatomy and transformation of insects, particularly the silk-worm, and the developement of the chick in the egg, lent no small aid. From these inquiries he was led to the anatomy and physiology of plants, in which he is altogether an original, as well as a very profound, observer. His line of study was the same as that of Grew, but these philosophers laboured independent of each other, and their frequent coincidence evinces the accuracy of both.

The first work which he published in 1661, and which was afterwards frequently reprinted, comprised his microscopical observations relative to the intimate structure of the lungs, and was entitled “Observationes Anatomicse de l*ulmonibus,” fol. He published separate tracts concerning the brain, the tongue, the external organ of touch, the omentum, throat, and the adipose ducts, between the years 1661 and 1665; and subsequently, other tracts, respecting the structure of the viscera, the kidneys, spleen, liver, membranes of the brain, &c.

In 1669, when he became a fellow of our royal society, his essay “de formatione pulli in ovo” was first printed, in London, in quarto, as well as his remarks on the “Bombyx” or silk-worm, and “De Glandulis conglobads,” forming his three “Dissertationes Epistolicae.” His “Anatome Piantarum,” addressed to the royal society, accompanied by observations on the incubation of the egg, was published by that learned body in folio, with wurny plates, in 1675 and 1679. His works were republished at London in 1686, making two folio volumes and more correctly at Amsterdam, in 1687, 4to, and a posthumous volume appeared Jiere, accompanied with an account of his life, in 1697, of which a re-impression was given at Venice, and another at Leyden, the ensuing year. Some other dissertations are to be found in the “Bibliotheca Anatomica,” published by Le Clerc and Manget at Geneva in 1685; especially “De Cornuum Vegetgtione,” “DeUtero et Viviparorum Avis;” and “Epistolae quaedam circa illam de ovo dissertationem.” His only medical work, “Consultationum Medicinalium Centuria prima,” was edited by Gaspari, in 1713, 4to, Patau. He is not, indeed, distinguished as a practitioner, but he deserves praise for pointing out the mischiefs of blood-letting, in the malignant epidemics prevalent in Italy in his time. An edition of the whole of his works was printed at Venice, in 1733, in folio, by Gavinelli.

, a distinguished mathematician, philosopher, and military engineer, was born at Paris July 23, 1775. His first education was principally directe'd to classical and polite literature, and at seventeen years of age he composed a tragedy in five acts, called “The Death of Cato.” These pursuits, however, did not prevent him from a study apparently not very compatible, that of the mathematics; for at the above age he passed an examination which gained him admittance into the school of engineers. After having distinguished himself there by his genius for analysis, he was about to leave it in quality of officer of military engineers, but was rejected on political grounds, and as this repulse deprived him of all hope of promotion there, he repaired to the army in the north, where he was incorporated in the 15th battalion of Paris, and was employed as a common soldier in the fortifications of Dunkirk. The officer of engineers, who superintended those works, perceiving that Malus was deserving of a better station, represented his merits to the government, and he was recalled and sent to the Polytechnic school, where he was soon appointed to the analytic course in the absence of M. Monge. Being now re-established in his former rank at the date of his first nomination, he succeeded almost immediately to that of captain, and was employed at the school at Metz as professor of mathematics.

It was at this period (1797), that his military career commenced, and in the army of the Sambre and Meuse he was present at the passage of the Rhine. The same year he formed an attachment to the lady who afterwards became his wife. She was the daughter of the chancellor of the university of Giessen; but honour and duty prevented him from then realising his wishes. He was obliged to embark for Egypt, and assisted at the battles of Chebreis, and of the Pyramids. He was chosen member of the Institute of Cairo, but his life was too active and busy to allow him to indulge his taste for the sciences. One only occasion presented itself, of which he knew how to take advantage. In a reconnoitre on which he was ordered along with M. Lefevre, engineer of bridges and causeways, he had the satisfaction to discover a branch of the Nile, hitherto unknown to travellers, and to draw a description and map of a country where no Frenchman had penetrated since the crusades; and the memoir which he wrote on this subject forms part of the first volume of “La Decade Egyptienne.” But it was as a military engineer that he principally distinguished himself during this memorable expedition, particularly during the dangers of all kinds which attended him in Syria, and at the siege of El-Hariscb, and Jaffa, where he filled the office of engineer. After the capture of this town, he received orders to repair the fortifications, and to establish military hospitals. Here he was attacked by the plague, of which he had the good fortune to cure himself without any foreign assistance. Scarcely recovered, he hastened to Damietta on business, and from thence marched against the Turks who had landed at Lisbech; and was present at the battle of Heliopolis and Coraim, and at the siege of Cairo. After other movements, which will be found in the history of that expedition, he embarked at Aboukir, and arrived in France in Oct. 1801.

Although exhausted by so many fatigues, and by the dreadful diseases which had undermined his constitution, he did not neglect his promise to his mistress, but married her soon after his arrival, and their union, though short, was happy. About the time of his marriage, Malus gained new celebrity by a work in which be treated all the optical questions which depend on geometry, and in which he expounded and calculated all the phenomena of reflection and refraction, and followed the ray of light through all its various courses. This production called the attention of the learned to the phenomenon of double refraction, which had occupied Huygens and Newton; and hopes were entertained of obtaining an explanation of a fact which had defied the penetration of the greatest geniuses. The Institute of France made it the subject of a prize, which ]VIalus gained, and shewed that to the analytical knowledge of which he had given proofs in his first work, he could unite the patience, the skill, and the sagacity, which constitute a great philosopher. By very nice experiments he discovered a remarkable and totally unknown property of light, that is, the resemblance between the loadstone and a particle of light, the latter of which he found to acquire polarity and a determined direction. This success opened the doors of the Institute to him, where he supplied the place of a philosopher whose name had been immortalized by a brilliant discovery (Montgolfier).

Malus was a member of the legion of honour, and under director of the fortifications at Antwerp in 1804; underdirector of the barracks in the department of the Seine, in 1809; member of the committee of fortifications, and major of engineers, in 1810. In 1811 he was second in command, director of the studies of the Polytechnic school, in which he performed for several years, to the satisfaction of the directors and pupils, the arduous duties of examiner. These various occupations did not prevent him from continuing the ingenious experiments on which his fame was to be chiefly founded, and which procured him the Copley niedal from our royal society.

The activity of Malus was equal to so many different pursuits. Though he carried in his habit the seeds of that severe illness which was so soon to terminate his life, scarcely a week elapsed without his submitting to the Institute new fruits of his researches and his name being attached to the phenomenon of polarised light, which he discovered, all future discoveries of this kind must recall the remembrance of the philosopher who first opened this new road, and who, if he had lived, would have probably completed the theory of light. He died February 24th, 1812, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, a loss which cannot be sufficiently deplored, as his learning, his genius, and indefatigable industry, afforded every hope that length of years would have added to his discoveries, and extended the boundaries of science. His discovery of the polarisation of light by oblique reflection is perhaps the most important that optics has received since the discovery of the achromatic telescope.

, a learned Dominican, born in 1566, at Xativa, taught philosophy and divinity with great reputation in his order. Baronius, hearing of his abilities, persuaded his general to send for him to Rome, that he might have the benefit of his advice. Malvenda accordingly gave Baronius great assistance, and was employed, at the same time, to correct all the ecclesiastical books of his order, which he did with much accuracy. He died May 7, 1628, at Valencia in Spain, aged sixty-three. His most esteemed works are, a treatise “De Anti-Christo,” the best edition of which is that of Valencia, 1621, folio “A new Version of the Hebrew Text of the Bible, with Notes,” Lyons, 1650, 5 vols. folio; “Annales Ordinis Praedicatorum,” Naples, 1627, folio.

, commonly called the marquis Malvezzi, an Italian writer of eminence, was born of a noble family at Bologna, in 1599. After having finished his classical and philosophical studies, he applied to the law, and became a doctor in that faculty in 1616, although not quite seventeen years of age. After this he cultivated other sciences, and spent some time and pains upon physic, mathematics, and divinity. He even did not neglect astrology; in favour of which he always entertained high prejudices, although he affected outwardly to despise it. Music and painting were also among the arts in which he exercised himself for his amusement. He afterwards became a soldier, and served under the duke Feria, governor of the Milanese. Philip the Fourth of Spain employed him in several affairs, and admitted him into his council of war. Letters, however, occupied a good part of his time, and he was member of the academy of the Gelati at Bologna. He was the author of several works in Spanish and Italian: among the latter were, “Discourses upon the first book of Tacitus’s Annals,” which he composed at the age of twenty-three, and dedicated to Ferdinand II. great duke of Tuscany. There is a great shew of learning in it; too much, indeed, for there are many quotations from the fathers and scripture, which have but little to do with Tacitus and modern politics. There are also in it certain logical distinctions, and subtile reasonings, which savour of pedantry, and had better become a professor of philosophy, than a writer upon government and stateaffairs. He died at Bologna, Aug. 11, 1654. His discourses upon Tacitus were translated and published in English, by sir R. Baker, Lond. 1642, folio. His “Davide perseguitato” was translated by Robert Ashley, 1647, in 12mo; his “Romulus and Tarquin,” by lord H. Gary, 1638, 12mo; and his “Successi della monarchia di Spagna” by Robert Gentilis, 1647, 12mo.

, an ingenious and learned French Jesuit, who has written Latin poetry, was born in the diocese of Clermont, in 1581. He was one of the most ambitious imitators of Virgil; and wrote in the same measure, the same number of books, and in the three different kinds to which that illustrious poet applied himself. Thus we have of Mambrun, “Eclogues,” “Georgics, or four books upon the culture of the soul and the understanding;” and an heroic poem in twelve books, entitled “Constantine, or idolatry overthrown. We cannot, however, say that he has imitated the genius and judgment of Virgil as well as he has his exterior form and ceconomy. He is, indeed, allowed to have had great talents for poetry, and was a good critic, as he has sufficiently shewn in a Latin Peripatetic dissertation upon an epic poem; so that it is not without some foundation that Menage has called him” a great poet, as well as a great critic.“His” Peripatetic dissertation“was published at Paris, 1652, 4to; his” ConstantiYie,“at Amsterdam, 1659, in 12mo; his” Eclogues and Georgics," at Fleche, 1661, in 12mo; in which year also he died, aged eighty.

, a schoolmaster of considerable learning, but chiefly known as the antagonist of the celebrated Ruddiman, was born about the beginning of the last century, at Whitewreatb, in the parish of Elgin, and county of Murray, and was educated, first at the parish school of Longbride, and afterwards at King’s college, Aberdeen, where he took his degree of master of arts in 1721. He was afterwards appointed schoolmaster of the parish school of Touch, in the county of Aberdeen; and at length, in 1742, master of the poor’s hospital, in the city of Aberdeen. While in this station, his zeal for the character of the very celebrated Scotch historian and poet, Buchanan, led him to join the party of Scotch scholars, politicians, and writers, who were dissatisfied with Ruddiman’s edition of Buchanan’s worfcs, published in 1715, 2 vols. folio, and Jie determined himself to give a new edition more agreeable to the views he entertained of Buchanan as a historian, which, he being a staunch presbyterian, were of course adverse to Ruddiman’s well known sentiments. In the mean time he thought it necessary to show the errors and defects of Ruddiman’s edition, and accordingly published a work, the title of which will give the reader some idea of its contents: “A censure and examination of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman’s philological notes on the works of the great Buchanan, more particularly on the history of Scotland; in which also, most of the chronological and geographical, and many of the historical and political notes, are taken into consideration. In a letter to a friend. Necessary for restoring the true readings, the graces and beauties, and for understanding the true meaning of a vast number of passages of Buchanan’s writings, which have been so foully corrupted, so miserably defaced, so grossly perverted and misunderstood: Containing many curious particulars of his life, and a vindication of his character from many gross calumnies,” Aberdeen, 1751. This work, which extends to 574 pages small octavo, forms a very elaborate examination of Ruddiman’s edition, not only as referring to classical points, but matters of history, and is distinguished throughout by an unjustifiable contempt for Ruddiman’s knowledge and talents. Blameable as this was, and as his style generally is, he evidently proves that he was no mean verbal critic, and that his researches into the history of Buchanan and his works had been very extensive. With a better temper he might have proved an antagonist more worthy of Rnddiman’s serious attention. The latter, however, replied in 1754, in a pamphlet entitled “Anticrisis, or a Discussion of the scurrilous and malicious libel published by one James Man of Aberdeen,” 8vo, which was followed by “Audi alteram partem; or a further vindication of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman’s edition of the great Buchanan’s works,” 1756, 8vo. Both these contain an able vindication of the author; but the latter is particularly valuable, on account of the critical remarks Ruddiman offers on Burman’s philological notes on Buchanan.

Mr. Man died in 1761. In private life his character was highly respected, and his manners were amiable. He was a very useful superintendent of the poor’s hospital, to which he left more than half the little property he had accumulated. He had made collections for an edition of Arthur Johnston’s poems, which were in the hands of the late professor Thomas Gordon of Aberdeen, and had been encouraged by many clergymen to undertake the history of the church of Scotland, for which task he was well qualified by his learning and diligence. The only undertaking, however, which he lived to accomplish, although not t6 publish, was his edition of Buchanan’s History, published in 1762, 8vo. Whatever may be the defects in this edition, we do not mention it as any honour to Buchanan’s countrymen, that it is the last which has appeared.

, a statesman and elegant writer, was born at Borgo Taro, a small town of the dukedom of Parma, on the 14th April, 1714. He was the eldest son of Marcel marquis of Ozzano, of an ancient family amongst the Parmesan nobility, and of a lady named Pellegrini, of birth equally illustrious. As soon as he arrived at an age competent for a learned education, he was placed in the college of Parma, where he went through all his studies with assiduity and success; and in the earliest period of his youth displayed that peculiar fondness for the belles lettres and fine arts, which afterwards constituted his predominant and almost exclusive passion. On quitting college, he repaired to his native place, where his father, with a view of giving him some knowledge of domestic economy, associated him in the management of his large estate, and thus gave him for some time rather more occupation than was compatible with his literary pursuits. After his father’s death he married a lady of noble birth, of the name of Antini; and soon added to his other occupations that of superintending the education of his children. In this way he spent many years, on his manor of Borgo Taro, and occasionally gave specimens of his talents in painting and poetry. His performances in the former art were not numerous or highly distinguished, and were only intended as presents to his friends; but in poetry he reached the highest degree of merit, and seemed to have well availed himself of those favourable circumstances which the spirit of the age had introduced. The abbe" Frugoni was then one of the most conspicuous leaders of the new poetical band; and having fixed his residence at Parma, he naturally became, in that small metropolis, the head of a school, in which, by exploding the frequent antitheses, the inflation of style, the wantonness of conceits, and the gigantic strains of imagination, he introduced an easy, regular, descriptive, sentimental, and elegant poesy, and what was more remarkable, gave to blank verse a strength and harmony till then unknown. Mr. Manara, although a professed admirer of Frugoni and his disciples, did not choose to be of their number as far as regarded their enthusiasm, imagery, rapidity of thoughts, and luxury of versification. He was conscious that his own poetical fire was like his temper, endowed with gentleness and sensibility; and with this spirit wrote those elegant eclogues, which soon proved rivals to the pastoral songs of the celebrated Pompei; and in the opinion of the best judges, united the flowing style of Virgil with the graces of Anacreon. His sonnets, too, though not numerous, might be put in competition with those of Petrarch.

During his retreat also, he wrote his very excellent translation of the Bucolics of Virgil, which was thought to display taste, elocution, harmony, and such an happy substitution of the Italian for the Latin graces, as to give it the double appearance of a faithful translation and an original composition. It rapidly went through several editions, and raised the name of the author to the first rank among his contemporaries in the art of poetry.

In 1749, and the thirty-fifth year of his age, Manara was called to town by his sovereign, and the place to which he was appointed, the first he had filled at court, was admirably adapted to his temper. No sooner had the highspirited Infant Don Philip become the pacific possessor of that principality, than he thought of reviving the languid progress of scientific and literary pursuits; and instituted that famous academy of arts, which, except those of Rome and Bologna, was soon accounted the best in Italy. He himself was appointed academician and counsellor, invested with a vote; and he greatly distinguished himself, as might be expected, in the sessions of the society, and in the annual speeches on the solemn distribution of its premiums. The first minister of state, marquis of Felin, a man of great discernment and sagacity, was not long in perceiving that Manara, by his uncommon abilities, was entitled to higher honours and employments at court. Accordingly, in 1760 he appointed him a chamberlain of the royal house, and soon after, superintendant of the newly-projected high road, through that lofty branch of the Apennines which connects the Ligurian with the Parmesan dominions; and from that time he was gradually promoted to more conspicuous and important places. He succeeded the abbe" de Condillac in the education of the young Infant (his late royal highness) Ferdinand, and acquitted himself of this task to the complete satisfaction of his friends and countrymen. The amiable prince himself was so duly sensible of his services in this respect that he rewarded him with an extraordinary pension for life^ and with the eminent dignity of first chamberlain of his royal family.

From 1767 to 1781 his farther advancements were so rapid, that we can only slightly glance at them. The celebrated Theatin Paciaudi being directed to new model the university of Parma, he established it on the same plan as that of Turin 1 he invested a committee of secular clergymen with the power of directing all moral and religious concerns in it, and another committee of lay noblemen, under the name of magistracy of reform, with that of superintending all its temporal and economical transactions. Manara was appointed one of these magistrates, with the additional prerogative of being the exclusive director of that branch of the establishment which was called the royal college of noblemen, and in this double capacity he answered the most sanguine expectations. In 1771 he was appointed counsellor of state to his royal highness, and in 1773 was sent ambassador to the court of Turin, for the purpose of felicitating his late Sardinian majesty on his accession to the crown.

It reflects no small honour on him, that during these numerous occupations in the court and in the state, from 1749 to 1773, he wrote his masterly translation of the Georgics of his favourite Latin poet. The great success of his former essays on the Bucolics, inspired him with the design of some farther similar exertions of his powers; but he had no sooner written the first two books, than he was trusted with a charge utterly incompatible with his literary avocations, as it deprived him of any tolerable degree of leisure; being in 1779 appointed tutor to the infant hereditary prince, don Luigi, the late king of Etruria. He was not, however, suffered to remain long in this employment, being before the expiration of three years, appointed minister of state, to which he acceded with great reluctance, and at length his age being too much advanced to suffer him to continue, he solicited, and obtained from his sovereign permission to retire. His retreat was attended by the warmest mark of good-will from the court, by all the honours suitable to his station, and by an additional pension.

Soon after his retreat from the ministry, though he had already reached the sixty-ninth year of his age, he thought of bestowing his now uninterrupted leisure on the translation of the other two books of the Georgics, a performance for which, owing to his past occupations, no hopes perhaps were entertained by the public. This task he actually performed with so much care, attention, and zeal, that these last two books were decidedly better translated than the two former; a truth of which the respectable writer himself was so convinced, that he carefully revised, and almost totally altered the preceding part of his work. This uncommon zeal, however, was attended by a fatal consequence; for being determined to copy, as he did, the whole manuscript with his own hand, he fell into a giddiness which prevented him from any literary labour during the last days of his life, and scarcely left him the power of perusing historical books and periodical works for the sake of amusement.

Although Manara never wrote any large work in prose, his letters to his friends and relatives were considered as a model of epistolary style. He must have kept up indeed a large correspondence with his poetical contemporaries of Italy, as it was his custom to shew his compositions previous to publication, to the most intelligent persons, and to listen with docility to their respective opinions. Canonici, Mazza, Pagnini, and many others were of the number. To the last mentioned poet, already celebrated as the translator of Theocritus and Anacreon, he was indebted for some valuable hints when about to publish his translation of the Georgics. The marquis Prosper Manara died Oct. 18, 1800. All his poetical works, with his life by Mr. Cerati, (from which the preceding account is abridged) were published in the following year, 1801, in 4 elegant little volumes, by the celebrated Bodoni.

, a Roman catholic writer, was the son of lieutenant-colonel Manby, and after being educated at the university of Dublin, became chaplain to Dr. Michael Boyle, archbishop of -Dublin, and at length dean of Derry. During the reign of James II. in 1686, being disappointed of a bishopric, which he had hopes of obtaining by means of the lord primate, he attempted to rise by popish interest, and publicly embraced that religion, in vindication of which he wrote several books. But the revolution preventing the accomplishment of his wishes, he removed to France, and thence to England, and died at London in 1697. He wrote “A Letter to a Nonconformist minister,” Lond. 1677, 4to. 2. “A brief and practical Discourse on Abstinence in Lent,” Dublin, 1682, 4to. 3. “Of Confession to a lawful Priest,” &c. Lond. 1686, 4to. 4. “The Considerations which obliged Peter Manby, Dean of Derry, to embrace the Catholic religion. Dedicated to the Lord Primate of Ireland,” Dublin, 1687. This was ably answered by Mr. William King, afterwards archbishop of Dublin, and by Dr. Clagett in England. Manby replied to Mr. King, in “A reformed Catechism in two Dialogues,” the first only of which appeared in 1687, and was answered by King.

, an Italian grammarian, poet, and orator, was born atVelitri, in 1452. He taught classical learning in different parts of Italy with considerable success. He published in 1492 a poem entitled “Silva vitse suae,” or an account of his own life, which Meuschenius reprinted, in 1735, in the first volume of his collection, entitled “Vitae summorum dignitate et eruditione virorum.” He was distinguished also by some other poems, as “de Floribus, de Figuris, de Poetica virtute.” 2. “Epigrams,” published at Venice in 1500, in 4to. 3. Notes upon some of the classic authors. He died some time after 1506; but the story of his having his hands cut off, and his tongue cut out, by order of the pope Alexander VI. for having made an insolent speech to him, and which was related by Flaccius Illyricus, appears to be without foundation.

, a celebrated English traveller, was born at St. Alban’s, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, of a family whose ancestor is said to have come into England with William the Conqueror. Leland, who calls this knight Magdovillanus, affirms that he was a proficient in theology, natural philosophy, and physic, before he left England, in 1322, to visit foreign countries. He returned, after having been long reputed dead, at the end of thirty-four years, when very few people knew him; and went afterwards to Liege, where it seems he passed under the name of Joannes de Barbam, and where he died, according to Vossius, who has recorded the inscription on his tomb, Nov. 17, 1372. His design seems to have been to commit to writing whatever he had read, or heard, or knew, concerning the places which he saw, or has mentioned in his book. Agreeably to this plan, he has described monsters from Pliny, copied miracles from legends, and related, without quotation, stories from authors who are now ranked among writers of romances and apocryphal history, so that many or most of the falsehoods in. his work properly belong to antecedent relators, but who were certainly considered as creditable authors at the time he wrote.

Sir John Mandevile visited Tartary about half a century after Marco Polo, who was there in 1272. In this interval a true or fabulous account of that country, collected by a cordelier, one Oderic D'Udin, who set out in 1318, and returned in 1330, was published in Italian, by Guillaume de Salanga, in the second volume of Ramusio, and in Latin and English by Hakluyt. It is suspected that sir John made too much use of this traveller’s papers; and it is certain that the compilers of. the “Histoire Generale des Voyages” did not think our English knight’s book so original, or so worthy of credit, as to give any account of it in their excellent collection. Sir John indeed honestly acknowledges that his book was made partly of hearsay, and -'partly of his own knowledge; and he prefaces his most improbable relations with some such words as these, thei seyne, or men seyn^ but I have not sene it. His book, however, was submitted to the examination of the pope’s council, and it was published after that examination, with the approbation of the pope, as Leland thinks, of Urban V. Leland also affirms that sir John Mandevile had the reputation of being a conscientious man, and that he had religiously declined an honourable alliance to the Soldan-of Egypt, whose daughter he might have espoused, if he would have abjured Christianity. It is likewise very certain that many things in his book, which were looked upptv as fabulous for a long time, have been since verified beyond all doubt. We give up his men of fifty feet high r but his hens that bore wool are at this day very well known, under the name of Japan and silky fowls, &c. Upon the whole, there does not appear to be any very g.ood reason why sir John Mandevile should not be believed in any thing that he relates on his own observation. He was, as may be easily credited, an extraordinary linguist, and wrote his book in Latin, from which he translated it into French, and from French into English, and into Italian; and Vossius says that he knows it to be in Belgic and German. The English edition has the title of “The Voiyage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, knight, which treateth of the way to Hierusalem, and marvayles of lude,” &c. Lond. 1568, 4to, reprinted in 1684, same form, and again in 1727, 8vo. All these are in the British Museum, together with copies of the French, Spanish, Latin, and Italian. Of the last there are two editions, printed at Venice in 1537 and 1567, both in 8vo. The original English ms, is in the Cotton library. The English editions are the most valuable to us, as written in the very language used by our countrymen three hundred years ago^ at a time when the orthography of the English language was so little fixed, that it seems to have been the fashionable affectation of writers, to shew their wit and scholarship by spelling the same words in the greatest variety of ways imaginable. The reader will be amused by Addison’s pretended discovery of sir John Mandevile’s Mss. and the pleasant fiction of “the freezing and thawing of several short speeches which sir John made in the territories of Nova Zembla.” This occurs in the Tatler, No. 254, the note upon which has principally furnished us with the above account.

, an author of temporary celebrity in the last century for his writings, was born about 1670, in Holland, where he studied physic, and took the degree of doctor in that faculty. He afterwards came over into England, and wrote several books, not without ingenuity, but some of them were justly considered as likely to produce a bad effect upon society. In 1709 he published his “Virgin Unmasked, or A dialogue between an old maiden aunt and her niece, upon love, marriage,” &c. a piece not very likely to increase virtue and innocence among his female readers. In 1711 came out his “Treatise of the hypocondriac and hysteric passions, vulgarly called the hyppo in men, and the vapours in women.” This work, which is divided into three dialogues, may be read with amusement at least, and contains some shrewd remarks on the art of physic and the modern practice of physicians and apothecaries, among whom he probably did not enjoy much reputation. In 1714 he published a poem entitled “The grumbling hive, or knaves turned honest;” on which he afterwards wrote remarks, and enlarged the whole into his celebrated publication, which was printed at London in 1723, under the title of “The Fable of the Bees, or private vices made public benefits with an Essay on charity and charity-schools, and a search into the nature of society.” In the preface to this book he observes, that since the first publication of his poem he had met with several, who, either wilfully or ignorantly mistaking the design, affirmed that the scope of it was a satire upon virtue and morality, and the whole written for the encouragement of vice. This made him resolve, whenever it should be reprinted, some way or other to inform the reader of the real intent with which that little poem was written. In this, however, he was so unfortunate, that the book was presented by the grand jury of Middlesex in July the same year, and severely animadverted upon in “A Letter to the Right Honourable Lord C.” printed in the London Journal of July the 27tb, 1723. The author wrote a vindication of his book from the imputations cast upon it in that Letter, and in the presentment of the grand jury, which he published in the “London Journal” of August the 10th, 1723. It was attacked, however, by various writers, to whom Mandeville made no reply until 1728, when he published, in another 8vo volume, a second part of “The Fable of the Bees,” in order to illustrate the scheme and design of the first. In 1720, he published “Free thoughts on Religion,” builfc upon the system called rational; an arrogant epithet, which generally excludes from the province of reason a belief in the truths of revelation. In 1732 he published “An inquiry into the origin of honour, and usefulness of Christianity in war;” a work which abounds in paradoxical opinions.

Mandeville died Jan. 21, 1733, in his sixty-third year. He is said to have been patronized by the first earl of Macclesfield, at whose table he was a frequent guest, and had an unlimited licence to indulge his wit as well as his appetite. He lived in obscure lodgings, in London, and never had much practice as a physician. Besides the writings already enumerated, which came spontaneously from his pen, we are told by sir John Hawkins that he sometimes employed his talents for hire, and in particular wrote letters in the “London Journal” in favour of spirituous liquors, for which he was paid by the distillers. Sir John adds, that “he was said to be coarse and overbearing in his manners, where he durst be so, yet a great flatterer of some vulgar Dutch merchants, who allowed him a pension.”' The principles indeed, inculcated in some of his works, although there are many ingenious and many just remarks in them, forbid us to entertain any very high opinion of his morals; and among all his faults, we do not hear that he ever acted the hypocrite, or was ashamed of what he had written.

The “Fable of the Bees,” as we have observed, was attacked by several writers; particularly by Dr. Fiddes, in the preface to his “General treatise of morality formed upon the principles of natural religion only,” printed in 1724; by Mr. John Dennis, in a piece entitled “Vice and luxury public mischiefs,” in 1724; by Mr. William Law, in a book entitled “Remarks upon the Fable of the Bees,” in 1724; by Mr. Bluet, in his “Enquiry, whether the general practice of virtue tends to the wealth or poverty, benefit or disadvantage, of a people? In which the pleas offered by the author of The Fable of the Bees, for the usefulness of vice and roguery, are considered; with some thoughts concerning a toleration of public stews,” in 1725; by Mr. Hutcheson, author of the “Inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue, in several papers published at Dublin, and reprinted in the first volume of Hibernicus’s Letters;” and lastly, by Mr. Archibald Campbell, in his “Astoria,” first published by Alexander Innis, D. D. in his own name, but claimed afterwards by the true author. Mandeville’s notions were likewise animadverted upon by Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, in his “Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher,” printed in 1732; in answer to which Mandeville published, the same year, “A Letter to Dion, occasioned by his book called Alciphron.” In this year also a pamphlet appeared, entitled “Some remarks on the Minute Philosopher, in a letter from a country clergyman to his friend in London;” the anonymous author of which, supposed to have been John lord Harvey, interferes in the controversy between Mandeville and Berkeley with an apparent impartiality. It would be very unnecessary now, however, to enter minutely into the merits of a work no longer read. The prevailing error in the “Fable of the Bees” appears to us to be, that the author did not sufficiently distinguish between what existed, and what ought to be; that while he could uicontestibly prove “private vices” to be in some degree “public benefits,” that is, useful to the grandeur and financial prosperity of a state, he did not distinguish between vices properly so called, and superfluities, or articles of luxury, which are the accompaniments, and the usetul accompaniments too, of certain ranks of life. As to his tracing good actions to bad motives, and the general disposition he has to dwell on the unfavourable side of appearances in human nature and conduct, no apology can be offered, and none can be wanted for the contempt into which his writings have fallen.

, Man!, or Manicileus, the founder of a remarkable sect of heretics, flourished towards the conclusion of the third century, and began about the year 267 to propagate his doctrines, which he had taken from the books of one Scythianus. Scythianus was an Arabian, educated upon the borders of Palestine, and extremely well skilled in all the learning of the Greeks. Afterwards he went to Alexandria, where he studied philosophy, and acquainted himself also with the learning of the Egyptians. Here he espoused the opinion of Empedocles, concerning two co-eternal principles, one good and the other bad; the former of which he called God and light, the latter matter and darkness; to which he joined many dogmas of the Pythagorean school. These he formed into a system, comprised in four books; one of which was called “Evangelium,” another “Capita,” a third “Mysteria,” and a fourth “Thesauri.” After this he went to Jerusalem, ivhere he disputed with the Jews, and taught openly his opinions. Upon the death of Scythianus, his books and effects devolved by will to Terebinthus his disciple, who, however, soon quitted Palestine, and fled into Persia, where, to avoid the persecutions to which his doctrines exposed him, he took up his abode with a certain rich widow. Here he died, by a sudden and violent death, as it is commonly related. When, according to his usual way, he had ascended to the top of the house, in order to invoke the demons of the air, which custom the Manichees afterwards practised in their ceremonies, he was in a moment struck with a blow from heaven, which threw him headlong down and fractured his skull. St. Epiphanius says, that Scythianus had also met with the same fate before him. Here, however, it was that Manes became acquainted with the writings of Scythianus; for, having a handsome person and a ready wit, this widow, who had bought him, adopted him for her son, and took care to have him instructed by the magi in the discipline and philosophy of the Persians, in which he made so considerable a progress that he acquired the reputation of a very subtile and learned philosopher. When this lady died, the writings of Terebinthus, to whom she had been heir, or rather of Scythianus, from whom Terebinthus had received them, fell of course into the hands of Manes.

Manes now began to think of founding his system. He made what use he could of the writings of Scythianus; he selected from the heathen philosophy whatever was for his purpose, and he wrought it all up together with some institutes of Christianity; which made Socrates call his heresy a motley mixture of Christianity and Paganism. Although Manes wrote a great many pieces himself, we have nothing remaining, except a few fragments preserved in the writings of Epiphanius. Manes became famous all over Persia, engaged the attention of the court, and as he pretended to the gift of working miracles, he was called by king Sapor to cure his son, who was dangerously ill. This he undertook at the hazard of his life, and the undertaking in the end proved fatal to him. This bold impostor was no sooner called than he dismissed all the physicians who were about the young prince; and promised the king that he would recover him presently by the help of a few medicines, accompanied with his prayers: but the child dying in his arms, the king, enraged to the last degree, caused him to be thrown into prison; whence by the force of bribes he made his escape, and fled into Mesopotamia. There he was taken again by persons sent in quest of him, and carried to Sapor, who caused him to be flead alive, and after that his body to be given to the dogs, and his skin to be stuffed with chaff, and hung before the city gates, where, Epiphanius tells us, it was remaining to his time. His death is supposed to have happened about the year 278.

Manicheism, as we have seen, is a. great deal older than Manes. The Gnostics, the Cordonians, the Marcionites, and several other sectaries, who introduced this doctrine into Christianity before Manes occasioned any contest about it, were by no means its inventors, but found it in the books of the heathen philosophers. In truth, the Manicheau doctrine was a system of philosophy rather than of religion. They made use of amulets, in imitation of the Basilidians; and are said to have made profession of astronomy and astrology. They denied that Jesus Christ, who was only God, assumed a true human body, and maintained it was only imaginary; and, therefore, they denied his incarnation, death, &c. They pretended that the law of Moses did not come from God, or the good principle, but from the evil one; and that for this reason it was abrogated. They rejected almost all the sacred books, in which Christians look for the sublime truths of their holy religion. They affirmed that the Old Testament was not the work of God, but of the prince of darkness, who was substituted by the Jews in the place of the true God. They abstained entirely from eating the flesh of any animal; following herein the doctrine of the ancient Pythagoreans: they also condemned marriage. The rest of their errors may be seen in St. Epiplianius and St. Augustin; which last, having been of their sect, may be presumed to have been thoroughly acquainted with them.

Though the Manichees professed to receive the books of the New Testament, yet, in effect, they only took so much of them as suited with their own opinions. They first formed to themselves a certain idea or scheme of Christianity, and to this adjusted the writings of the apostles; pretending that whatever was inconsistent with this, had been foisted into the New Testament by later writers, who were half Jews. On the other hand, they made fables and apocryphal books pass for apostolical writings; and even are suspected to have forged several others, the better to maintain their errors. St. Epiphanius gives a catalogue of several pieces published by Manes, and adds extracts out of some of them. These are the Mysteries, Chapters, Gospel, and Treasury.

The rule of life and manners which Manes prescribed to his followers, was most extravagantly rigorous and severe. However, he divided his disciples into two classes; one of which comprehended the perfect Christians, under the name of the elect; and the other, the imperfect and feeble, under the title of auditors or hearers. The elect were obliged to a rigorous and entire abstinence from flesh, eggs, milk, fash, wine, all intoxicating drink, wedlock, and all amorous gratifications; and to live in a state of the severest penury, nourishing their emaciated bodies with bread, herbs, pulse, and melons, and depriving themselves of all the comforts that arise from the moderate indulgence of natural passions, and also from a variety of innocent and agreeable pursuits. The auditors were allowed to possess houses, lands, and wealth, to feed on flesh, to enter into the bonds of conjugal tenderness; but this liberty was granted them with many limitations, and under the strictest conditions of moderation and temperance. The general assembly of the Manieheans was headed by a president, who represented Jesus Christ. There was joined to him twelve rulers or masters, who were designed to represent the twelve apostles, and these were followed by seventytwo bishops, the images of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord. These bishops had presbyters or deacons under them, and all the members of these religious orders were chosen out of the class of the elect. Their worship was simple and plain; and consisted of prayers, reading the scriptures, and hearing public discourses, at which both the auditors and elect were allowed to be present. They also observed the Christian appointments of baptism of infants and the eucharist, communicating frequently in both kinds. They kept the Lord’s day, observing it as a fast and they likewise kept Easter and Pentecost.

, an ancient Egyptian historian, who pretends to take all his accounts from the sacred inscriptions on the pillars of Hermes Trismegistus, to whom the Egyptians ascribed the first invention of their learning, and all excellent arts, and from whom they derived their history. Manethos, as Eusebius tells us, translated the whole Egyptian history into Greek, beginning from their gods, and continuing his history down to near the time of Darius Codomannus, whom Alexander conquered; for in Eusebius’s <k Chronica,“mention is made of Manethos’s history, ending in the sixteenth year of Artaxerxes Ochus, which, says Vossius, was in the second year of the third olympiad. Manethos, called from his country Sebennyta, was highpriest of Heliopolis in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, at whose request he wrote his history, and digested it into three tomes; the first containing the eleven dynasties of the gods and heroes, the second eight dynasties, the third twelve, and altogether, according to his fabulous computation, the sum oft 53, 53 5 years. These dynasties are yet preserved, being first epitomized by Julius Africanus, from him transcribed by Eusebius, and inserted in his” Chronica;“from Eusebius by Georgius Syncellus, out of whom they are produced by Joseph Scaliger, and may be seen both in his Eusebius and his” Canones Isagogici.“Manethos, as appears by Eusebius, vouches this as the principal testimony of the credibility of his history, that he took his relations” from some pillars in the land of Seriad, on which they were inscribed in the sacred dialect by the first Mercury Thoth, and after the flood were translated out of the sacred dialect into the Greek tongue in hieroglyphic characters, and are laid up in books among the reveries of the Egyptian temples by Agathodsemon, the second Mercury, the father of Tat.“” Certainly,“says bishop Stillingfleet, in his” Origines Sacroe,“” this fabulous author could not in fewer words have more manifested his own impostures, or blasted his own credit, than he hath done in these."

, a very learned scholar, was born at Florence, June 5, 1396, of an illustrious family that had fallen into decay. After a course of philosophical, theological and mathematical studies, he became, in the Greek language, the pupil of Camaldoli, who then taught that language at Florence, and not of Chrysoloras, as Vossius, and Hody, if we mis-take not, have reported. Manetti then lectured on philosophy in that city to a numerous auditory. He was afterwards employed by the state in various negociatious; and became successively governor of Pescia, Pistoria, and Scarperia, and commissary of the army along with Bernardetto de Medicis. He filled also several offices in the government of Florence, and rendered his own country many important services. When at Rome in 1452, at the coronation of the emperor Frederick, pope Nicholas V. bestowed on him the honour of knighthood. His talents and services, however, excited the envy of some of the families of Florence, and even the favour he acquired with the princes at whose courts he had been employed as ambassador, was considered as a crime; and a heavy fine being imposed on him, he found it necessary to leave his country, and take refuge in Rome, where pope Nicholas V. made him one of his secretaries, with a handsome salary, besides the perquisites of his place. He remained in the same office under the succeeding popes Calixtus III. and Pius II. which last made him librarian of the Vatican. Manetti at length left Rome to reside with Alphonsus, king of Naples, who had a great esteem for him, and gave him an annuity of 900 golden crowns. He did not, however, enjoy this situation long, dying Oct. 26, 1459, in his sixty-third year. He was an excellent scholar in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which at that time was little known in Italy, and employed twenty-two years on those languages. He kept three domestics, two of whom were Greeks, and the third a Syrian, who knew Hebrew, and whom he ordered always to speak to him in their respective languages. He was the author of a great many works, most of which remain in manuscript in the Laurentian Library. Those published were, 1. “De dignitate et excellentia hominis,” Basle, 1532, 8vo. 2. “Vita Petrarchae.” This life of Petrarch is inserted in Tommasini’s “Petrarcha redivivus.” 3. “Oratio ad regem Alphonsum in nuptiis filii sui.” This, which was spoken in 1445, was printed by Marquard Freher, in 1611, 4to, along with three other orations, addressed to Alphonsus on the peace, to the emperor Frederic on his coronation, and to pope Nicholas V. Other works have been attributed to him, as a “History of Pistoria,” and the lives of Dante, Boccacio, and Nicholas V,; but we find no particular account of them.

, a celebrated astronomer and mathematician, was born at Bologna in 1674, and soon displayed a genius above his age. He wrote ingenious verses while he was but a child, and while very young formed in his father’s house an academy of youth of his own age, which in time became the Academy of Sciences, or the Institute, there. He was appointed professor of mathematics at Bologna in 1698, and superintendant of the waters there in 1704. The same year he was placed at the head of the college of Montalto, founded at Bologna for young men intended for the church. In 1711 he obtained the office of astronomer to the institute of Bologna. He became member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1726, and of the Royal Society of London in 1729; and died on the 15th of February 1739. His works are: 1. “Ephemerides Motuum Coelestium ab anno 17 15 ad annum 1750;” 4 vols. 4to. The first volume is an excellent introduction to astronomy; and the other three contain numerous calculations. His two sisters were greatly assisting to him in composing this work. 2. “De Transitu Mercurii per Solem, anno 1723,” Bologna, 1724, 4to. 3. “De annuls Inerrantium Stellarum aberrationibus,” Bologna, 1729, in 4to; besides a number of papers in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, and in other places, which are enumerated by Fabroni. The best edition of his Poems, which are still in repute, is that by Bodoni, in 1793, 8vo, with a life of the author.

, brother to the preceding, was born at Bologna, March 25, 1681, and having devoted himself to mathematical studies acquired the reputation of the best algebraist in Italy. At the age of twenty he composed a work on the equations of the first degree, which obtained the praises of the learned world. In 1708, the senate of Bologna appointed him one of their secretaries; and in 1720 he was made professor of mathematics in the university of that city, of which, in 1726, he became chancellor. He was much employed in hydrostatic labours, and with great success: nor did he shew less skill in the science of geography. He died in 1761. He published “De constructione aequationum differentialium primi gradus,” Bonon. 1707. This procured him a letter of congratulation from the celebrated Leibnitz. His other works are principally among the memoirs of the institute of Bologna.

, called, like other Benedictines, Dom Thomas, did considerable honour to his order by the extent of his learning, which obtained him the places of antiquary, librarian, and counsellor to Charles duke of Lorraine. He died in 1763, when he was preparing a work, which was published in the course of the same year, by the abbe Jacquin. The title is, “Introduction a la science des Medailles pour servir a la connoissance des Dieux, et de la Religion, des Sciences, des Arts, et de tout ce qui appartient a l'Histoire ancienne, avec les preuves tires des Medailles,” folio. Mangeart is here said to have comprised, in a single volume, the elementary knowledge of medals which had before been treated but too slightly; and the most valuable information which is scattered through many prolix dissertations on particular parts of the subject, Mr. Pinkerton, however, pronounces it to be a dry compilation concerning antiquities found on medals, in which the author shews no knowledge of the medals themselves. It is a kind of supplement to Montfaucon’s antiquities. Mangeart published also, 2. Eight sermons, with a treatise on Purgatory, at Nancy, 1739, in 2 vols. 12mo.

, a learned physician and laborious historian of that science, was horn June 19, 1652, at Geneva, where his father was an eminent merchant. His father’s brother, author of a work on fevers, was physician to the king of Poland. Manger, having finished his classical studies at the age of fourteen, bestowed two years on philosophy, and then studied theology for five years, when, changing his destination, he entered on a course of medical reading (for he says he had no teacher but his books), and made such proficiency, that in 1678, he received his doctor’s degree at Valence, along with the celebrated Hartman. On his return home he entered upon practice, to which he joined the laborious perusal of many medical works, which served as the foundation of his own publications. In 1699, the elector of Brandenburgh appointed him, by letters patent, his first physician, and the kings of Prussia continued this title to him during his life. He was dean of the faculty at Geneva at the time of his death, Aug. 15, 1742, in the ninetieth year of his age. His works are: l.“Messis Medico-spagyrica, &c.” Geneva, 1683, folio, which contains a most abundant collection of pharmaceutical preparations, arranged in a very complex order. 2. In the same year he edited, “Pauli Barbetti Opera omnia Medica et Chirurgica,” with additional cases and illustralions. 3. “Bibliotheca Anatomica,” 1685, two vols, folio a work which was executed in conjunction with Daniel le Clerc. He afterwards edited, 4. The “Compendium Medicinae Practicum,” of J. And. Sehmitz. 5. The “Pharmcopeia Schrodero-Hoffmanniana.” 6. The “Tractatus de Febribus,” of Franc. Pieus; and, 7. The “Sepulchretum” of Bonetus, to which he added several remarks and histories. 8. In 1695, he published his “Bibliotheca Medico-Practica,” four vqls. folio; a vast collection of practical matter relative to all the diseases of the human body, arranged in alphabetical order. 9. “Bibliotheca Chemica curiosa,” 1702, two vols. folio. 10 “Bibliotheca Pharmaceutico Medica,” 1711, two vols. folio; and 11. “Bibliotheca Chirurgica,” 1721, four vols. in two, folio. 12. “Theatrum Anatomicum, cum Eustachii Tabulis Anatomicis,” 1716, two vols. folio, a description of all the parts of the body, abridged from various authors. On the appearance of the plague at Marseilles, he published a collection of facts and opinions on that disease, under the title of “Traite de la Peste recueilli des meilleurs Auteurs,” 1721, two vols. 12mo; and in the following year, 14. “Nouvelles Reflexions sur l'Origine, la Cause, la Propagation, les Preservatifs, et la Cure de la Peste,” 12mo. 15. His “Observations sur la Maladie qui a commence depuis quelques annees a attaquer le gros Betail,” was a collection of the opinions of the Genevese physicians concerning the distemper of horned cattle. The last work of Manget was his “Bibliotheca Scriptorum Medicorum veterum et recentiorum,” at which he laboured when at least eighty years of age, and published it in 1731, in four vols. folio. It is the most important of his productions, being an useful collection of medical lives, and catalogues of writings. It has not been so much thought of since the appearance of Haller’s Bibliotheca, and particularly of Eloy’s; but the plans are different, and Manget’s, as well as the rest of his voluminous compilations, may be yet consulted with advantage. Although he was so intent on accumulating information, and reprinting scarce works and tracts, that he did not employ his judgment always, either in selection or arrangement, yet those, who, like himself, wish to trace the progress of medical knowledge, will find his works of great use. They contain, indeed, the substance of many libraries, and a variety of treatises which it would not be easy to procure in their separate form.

, a learned English divine, was born at Leeds in 1684, and was educated at St. John’s-college, Cambridge, where he was admitted to his degrees, that of B. A. in 1707, M. A. 1711, LL.D. 1719, and D.D. 1725. He was also a fellow of the society of antiquaries, and rector of St. Mildred, Bread-street, London. He was early distinguished by his “Practical Discourses upon the Lord’s Prayer, preached before the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn; published by the special order of the Bench,” 1716, 8vo. These discourses were again printed in 1717, and in 1721; and in 1718 he published “Remarks upon Nazarenus; wherein the falsity of Mr. Toland’s Mahometan Gospel, and his misrepresentations of Mahometan sentiments in respect of Christianity, are set forth; the history of the old Nazaraeans cleared up, and the whole conduct of the first Christians, in respect to the Jewish laws, explained and described.” The author then stiled himself “Rector of St. Nicholas’s in Guilford,” to which he was instituted in 1717, and resigned in 1719-20. In, January 1719, he published “Plain Notions of our Lord’s Divinity,” a sermon preached on Christmas-day; in June 1719, “The eternal Existence of our Lord Jesus Christ,” a Visitation-sermon in October that year, “The Holiness of Christian-churches,” a sermon preached at Sunderland, on consecrating a new church there; and in 1720, “The providential Sufferings of good men,” a 30th of January sermon before the House of Commons. In 1719, Dr. Mangey wrote “A Defence of the Bishop of London’s Letter,” 8vo and, besides the sermons already mentioned, published five single ones, in 1716, 1726, 1729, 1731, and 1733. On May 11, 1721, he was presented to a prebend, the fifth stall in the cathedral church of Durham, being at that time chaplain to Dr. Robinson bishop of London, and vicar of Yealing, or Ealing, in the county of Middlesex. He was advanced to the first stall of Durham, Dec. 22, 1722; and, when treasurer of the chapter, greatly advanced the fines upon the tenants, and improved the rents of his prebendal lands nearly a hundred pounds a year. He was one of the seven doctors in divinity created July 6, 1725, when Dr. Bentley delivered the famous oration prefixed to his Terence; and at the end of 1726 he circulated proposals for an edition of “Philo Judaeus,” which he completed in 1742, under the title of “Philonis Judaei Opera omnia quas reperiri potuerunt,” 2 vols. folio. He died March 6, 1755, and was interred in the cathedral of Durham, where is an elegant Latin inscription to his memory, composed by Dr. Sharp, then a prebendary and archdeacon of Northumberland. His manuscript remarks on the New Testament came into the possession of Mr. Bowyer, who extracted from them many short notes, which are printed in his “Conjectures.” A very elegant inscription to Dr. Mangey by Dr. Taylor is prefixed to “Lysias Fragmenta.”

Dr. Mangey married Dorothy, daughter of archbishop Sharp, by whom he had one son, John, vicar of Dunmow in Essex, and a prebendary of St. Paul’s. He died in 1782. Mrs. Mangey, widow of the doctor, died in 178O.

, was a Latin poet, who lay buried in the German libraries, and never was heard of in the modern world, till Poggius published him from some old manuscripts found there about two centuries ago. He is mentioned by no ancient writer, and the moderns are so little able to fix the time when he lived, that while some place him as high as the age of Augustus, others bring him down to the reign of Theodosius the Great. Indeed, the only account to be had of him must be drawn from hi poem; and from this, his translator Creech thinks that he was born a Roman, and lived in Rome, when Rome was in her glory, as he says appears from several passages in the poem. In the beginning of it he invokes the emperor; who from the description must be Augustus Csesar. Creech likewise infers that he was of illustrious extraction, and a branch of that noble family the Manilii, who so often filled the consul’s chair, and supplied the greatest offices in the commonwealth. Some, indeed, have thought that he was a Tyrian slave, and that being made free, he took, ao cording to custom, the name of his patron. But this seems very improbable; and he almost, says Creech, expressly declares the contrary in the fortieth verse of his fourth book, where he shews a concern for the interest of the Roman commonwealth, as far back as the age of Hannibal:

which he could not have done with propriety, had his relation to that state commenced so lately, or had his ancestors had no interest in the losses and victories of Rome in that age. But this verse, as well as the 776th line of the. same book, Bentley proves to be spurious, and overthrows the whole of Creech’s conjectures. It may, however, still be allowed that he was conversant at court, and acquainted with the modish flattery of the palace, and that he made his compliments in the same phrase that was used by the most finished courtier of his time, which renders it not improbable that he was of a good family.

The “Astronomicon” of Manilius contains a system of the ancient astronomy and astrology, together with the philosophy of the Stoics. It consists of five books, and he also wrote a sixth, which has not been recovered. That he was young when he composed this work, his translator thinks demonstrable from almost every page of it; and had he lived to revise the whole composition, as he seems to have done the first book, we should perhaps have had a more correct performance. He had a genius equal to his undertaking; his fancy was bold and daring; his skill in mathematics great enough for his design; and his knowledge of the history and mythology of the ancients general. As he is now, some critics have placed him among the judicious and elegant writers; and all allow him to be useful, instructive, and entertaining. He hints at some opinions, in which later ages have been ready to glory as their own discoveries. Thus he defends the fluidity of the heavens against the hypothesis of Aristotle; he asserts that the fixed stars are not all in the same concave superficies of the heavens, and equally distant from the centre of the world: he maintains, that they are all of the same nature and substance with the sun, and that each of them hath a particular vortex of its own; and lastly, he says that the milky way is only the undistinguished lustre of a great many small stars, which the moderns now see to be such, through their telescopes. So that perhaps upon the whole, and notwithstanding all his defects, one may venture to say that he is one of the most discerning philosophers antiquity can shew. The first edition of Manilius, with a date, is that of Bologna, by ttugerius and Berthoqus, 1474. The best editions since, are that of Joseph Scaliger, printed at Leyden, 1600, 4to; that of Bentley,. at London, 1738, 4to; that of Edmund Burton, esq. “cum notis variorum,” London, 1783. 8vo; and that of Sioeber, published at Strasburg, in 1767, 8vo.

, an English lady, authoress of a noted piece of scandal called “The Atalantis,” was born in Guernsey, or one of those small islands, of which her father, sir Roger Mauley, was governor. He wa* the second son of an ancient family, and had been a great sufferer for his loyalty in the reign of Charles I. without receiving either preferment or recompense in that of Charles II. He was a man of considerable literary talents, wnich appeared in several publications, particularly his Latin commentaries on the rebellion, under the title of “Commentaria de Rebelhone Anglicana, ab anno 1640 ad annum 1685,” Lond. 1686, 8vo, and of which an English translation was published in 1691; and his “History of the late wars of Denmark,” 1670. He is also said to have been the author of the first volume of the “Turkish Spy,” which was found among his papers, and continued to its present number of volumes by Dr. Midgley, a physician, who had the care of his papers; but this has been justly doubted (See Marana). His daughter, the subject of this article, received an education suitable to her birth, and gave indications of genius above her years, and, as her biographer says, “much superior to what is usually to be found amongst her sex.” The loss of her parents before she was settled in life, seems to have been peculiarly unfortunate, for her father confided the care of her to his nephew, a married man, who first pretended that his wife was dead, then by a series of seductive manoeuvres cheated her into a marriage. When he could no longer conceal his infamy, he deserted her, and the world tamed its back upon her. While in this situation, she accidentally acquired the patronage of the duchess of Cleveland, one of Charles II.'s mistresses, having been introduced to her by an acquaintance to whom she was paying a visit; but the duchess, a woman of a very fickle temper, grew tired of Mrs. Manley in six months, and discharged her upon a pretence that she intrigued with her son. When this lady was thus dismissed, she was solicited by general Tidcomb to pass some time with him at his country-seat; but she excused herself by saying, “that her love of solitude was improved by her disgust of the world; and since it was impossible for her to be in public with reputation, she was resolved to remain concealed.” In this solitude she wrote her first tragedy, called “The Royal Mischief,” which was acted at the theatre in Lincoln’s-inn-fields, in 1696. This play succeeded, and she received such unbounded incense from admirers, that her apartment was crowded with men of wit and gaiety, which proved in the end very fatal to her virtue, and she afterwards engaged in various intrigues. In her retired hours she wrote her four volumes of the “Memoirs of the New Atalantis,” in which she was very free with her own sex, in her wanton description of loveadventures, and with the characters of many high and distinguished personages. Her father had always been attached to the cause of Charles I. and she herself having a confirmed aversion to the Whig ministry, took this method of satirising those who had brought about the revolution. Upon this a warrant was granted from the secretary of state’s office, to seize the printer and publisher of those volumes. Mrs. Mauley had too much generosity to let innocent persons suffer on her account; and therefore voluntarily presented herself before the court of King’s -bench, as the author of the “Atalantis.' 1 When she was examined before lord Sunderland, then the secretary, he was curious to know from whom she got information of some particulars which they imagined to be above her own intelligence. She pleaded that her only design in writing was her own amusement and diversion in the country, without intending particular reflections and characters; and assured them that nobody was concerned with her. When this was not believed, and the contrary urged against her by several circumstances, she said,” then it must be by inspiration, because, knowing her own innocence, she could account for it no other way.“The secretary replied, that” inspiration used to be upon a good account; but that her writings were stark naught.“She acknowledged, that” his lordship’s observation might be true; but, as there were evil angels as well as good, that what she had wrote might still be by inspiration.“The consequence of this examination was, that Mrs. Manley was close shut up in a messenger’s house, without being allowed pen, ink, and paper. Her counsel, however, sued out her habeas corpus at the King’s-bench bar, and she was admitted to bail. Whether those in power were ashamed to bring a woman to a trial for this book, or whether the laws could not reach her, because she had disguised her satire under romantic names, and a feigned scene of action, she was discharged, after several times exposing herself in person, to oppose the court before the bench of judges, with her three attendants, the printer, and two publishers. Not long after, a total change of the ministry ensued, when she lived in high reputation and gaiety, and aroused herself in writing poems and letters, and conversing with wits. To her dramatic pieces she now added” Lucius,“the first Christian king of Britain, a tragedy, acted in Drury-lane, in 1717. She dedicated it to sir Richard Steele, whom she had abused in her” New Atalantis,“but was now upon such friendly terms with him, that he wrote the prologue to this play, as Mr. Prior did the epilogue. This was followed by her comedy called the” Lost Lover, or the Jealous Husband,“acted in 1696. She was also employed in writing for queen Anne’s ministry, certainly with the consent and privity, if not under the direction, of Dr Swift, and was the author of” The Vindication of the Duke of Maryborough,“and other pamphlets, some of which would not disgrace the best pen then engaged in the” defence of government. After dean Swift relinquished “The Examiner,” she continued it with great spirit for a considerable time, and frequently finished pieces begun by that excellent writer, who also often used to furnish her with hints for those of her own composition. At this season she formed a connection with Mr. John Barber, alderman of London, with whom she lived in a state of concubinage, as is supposed, and at whose house she died July 11, 1724.

The superior accomplishments of her sex in our days must now place her very low in the scale of female authors; and she seems to have owed her fame in a great measure to her turn for intrigue and for recording intrigues. This will probably ba the opinion of those who will take the trouble to peruse any of the works already mentioned, of the following: 1. “Letters, one from a supposed nun in Portugal,” Lond. 1696, 8vo. 2. “Memoirs of Europe towards the close of the eighth century,” 1710, 2 vols. 8vo. 3. “Court Intrigues,” 1711, 8vo. 4. “Adventures of Rivelle,” 1714, 8vo. 5. “The Power of Love, in seven novels,” 1720, 8vo. 6. “A Stage-coach Journey to Exeter,” 1725, 8vo. 7. “Bath Intrigues,” 1725, 8vo. 7. "Secret History of Queen Zarah/' 1745, 8vo. The two last, from the dates, must be posthumous, or second editions.

, marquis of Granby, was son of John duke of Rutland, and grandson of John the first duke, and was born in January 1721. He was bred to the army, and in the rebellion of 1745 raised a regiment of foot at his own expence, for the defence of the country against the rebels. In 1755 he was advanced to the rank of majorgeneral, and in 1758 was appointed lieutenant-general and colonel of the blues. With this rank he went into Germany with the British forces, which were sent to serve under prince Ferdinand of Brunswick; and in 1759 was promoted to the general command of the British troops, an appointment which gave much satisfaction, and for which he appears to have been well qualified. If he had not the great abilities requisite to a commander in chief, he had all the qualifications for an admirable second in command. With a competent share of military skill, he possessed that personal valour and ardour in the service, which inspired his soldiers with confidence; and that humane and generous attention to their comfort and welfare, joined with affability and open-hearted cheerfulness, which strongly attached them to his person. In 1760 he justified the high opinion which prince Ferdinand had expressed of him after the battle of Minden, by his good conduct at Warburg, where the British cavalry were particularly signalized. In the beginning of the ensuing campaign, he commanded under the hereditary prince, in his attack on the frontier towns of Hesse; and at the battle of KirkDenkern, bore the first and most violent onset of the enemy, and by the firmness of his troops contributed much to that victory. He maintained the same character at Grsebesteein and Homburgh, in 1762. He died at Scarborough, Oct. 19, 1770 He had been made a member of the privycouncil in 1760, and resigning the office of lieutenantgeneral of the ordnance, was in May 1763 constituted master-general of that department. In Feb. 1764, he was declared lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Derbyshire. In 1766 he was constituted commander in chief of his majesty’s land forces in Great Britain; which he resigned a little before his death. He married Sept. 3, 1750, lady Frances Seymour, eldest daughter of Charles duke of Somerset, by whom, among other issue, he had Charles, the late duke of Rutland, who died lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1787; and lord Robert Manners, a gallant officer of the navy, who died Jan. 23, 1782, of the wounds he received in an engagement, Sept. 1, 1781, in the West Indies, on board his majesty’s ship the Resolution, of which he was captain. A monument in hoiiour of his memory was ordered at the national expence for him, capt. Blair, and capt. Bayne, which is now in St. Paul’s cathedral.

, an eminent Italian writer, was born at Florence, April 8, 16yO He was early distinguished by great powers of retention, and a strong passion for research into facts, two attributes for which he was celebrated during the whole of his life. He was regularly instituted in every class of literature, but his particular bias was to history, in which he began his career by inquiries into the modern history of his native city. This produced in 1722 his “Series of Florentine Senators,” 2 vols. fol. a work which, under the modest garb of a collection of notices on private individuals, exhibited the most original, authentic, and curious information respecting the public law and government of Tuscany, from the extinction of the line of the marquises, to the creation of the grand dukes in 1332. In 1731 he published a work of yet greater interest, “De Florentine inventis Commentarium,” in which he gave the most satisfactory account of the manufactures which either originated or were improved in Florence; he showed how the art of banking was there first invented; how, in the subsequent times, the art ef engraving also originated there, &c. Among the discoveries made at Florence in the middle ages, there was one so highly beneficial as to demand * methodical disquisition for itself alone; this was the invention of spectacles, which in 1738 Manni illustrated by his “Historical Treatise on Spectacles.” In this, after a careful examination of evidence, he is inclined to attribute the invention to Salvino Armati.

In 1742 he published “Historical Illustrations of the Decamerone of Boccaccio,” 4to, in which he proves that the greatest part of Boccaccio’s tales were real facts, which occurred in his life. A work of this kind could not fail to be amusing, nor in that country, instructing; and indeed this has been thought one of the best of Manni’s publications. His more elaborate work, connected with the history of Florence and Tuscany, is his “Historical Observations on the Seals of the lower age.” “Osservazioni istoriche sopra isigilli antichi de' secoli bassi,” published in 1749, and originally consisting of 18 vols. 4to, but afterwards extended to thirty. It exhibits the most valuable records of all the illustrious persons who acted a conspicuous part in the vicissitudes of Florence and other great cities of Tuscany. It also elucidates the origin and progress of all the mints of those cities. In 1755 he published his “Method of studying the History of Florence,” which is an account of all the authorities and sources of Florentine history, both printed and manuscript, in which he affirms that the best limited history of Florence is that yet unpublished of the chevalier Francis Settimanni, who wrote on the period which intervened between the accession of the house of Medici, in 1532, and its extinction, in 1737. The only other works he published respecting Florence and its antiquities, were, his “Historical notices concerning the amphitheatre at Florence,” published in 1746; and his “Inquiries into the ancient Thermae of Florence,” published in 1751.

Of the historical works of Manni v relative to other places, and more general subjects, we shall only mention his “History of the Jubilees,” published in 1750, in which he did justice to his subject in a philosophical and political light, by shewing who were the most distinguished persons who had ever visited Rome on those occasions, and how far, on their return to their native countries, they grafted on those countries the manners and practices of Italy. He also illustrated every particular by curious anecdotes, medals, fac-similes, &c. In biography, Manni wrote a singular work, but perhaps of local interest, entitled “Le Veglie Piacevoli,” &c. or “Agreeable Evenings,” being the lives of the most jocose and eccentric Tuscans. This was published in 1757, in 4 vols. 4to. He wrote also the “Life of the well-deserving prelate, Nicholas Steno, of Denmark,” published in 1775. Manni’s publications, not of the historical or biographical kind, were few, and none of them added much to his fame, except his “Lectures on Italian Eloquence,” 1758, 2 vols. 4to.

He died at Florence, Nov. 30, 1788, in his ninety-ninth year. He left behind him the fame not only of one of the most laborious and deserving writers of his time, but of a most exemplary moral character. He was particularly distinguished for his zeal and kindness in assisting with his superior knowledge, younger writers who wished to treat on any subject connected with his inquiries. A catalogue of all his works, amounting to 104, was published in 1789, by his friend count Tomitano, a patrician of Feltri.

, an excellent antiquary and topographer, the son of Mr. Owen Manning, of Orlingbury, co. Northampton, was born there Aug. 11, 1721. He was admitted of Queen’s-college, Cambridge, where he proceeded B. A. in 1740; and about this time met with two extraordinary instances of preservation from untimely death. Having been seized with the small pox, he was attended by Dr. Heberden, who thinking he could not survive, desired that his father might be sent for. On his arrival he found the young man to all appearance dying, and next day he was supposed to have expired, and was laid out, as a corpse, in the usual manner. An undertaker was sent for, and every preparation made for his funeral. His father, however, who had not left the house, could not help frequently viewing the seemingly lifeless body; and in one of his visits, without seeing any cause for hope, said, “I will give my poor boy another chance,” and at the same time raised him up, which almost immediately produced signs of life. Dr. Heberden was then sent for, and by the use of proper means, the young man recovered. As it was customary for the scholars of every college to make verses on the death of any one of their own college, which are pinned to the pall at the funeral, like so many escutcheons, this tribute of respect was prepared for Mr. Manning, who was much beloved by his fellow students; and it is said that the verses were presented to him afterwards, and that he kept them for many years as memoranda of his youthful friendships. Scarcely had he met with this narrow escape, when, his disorder having made him for some time subject to epileptic fits, he was seized with one of these while walking by the river, into which he feJl, and remained so long that he was thought to be drowned, and laid out on the grass, until he could be conveyed to the college, where Dr. Heberden being again called in, the proper means of recovery were used with success.

In 1741 he was elected to a fellowship of his college, in right of which he had the living of St. Botolph, in Cambridge, which he held until his marriage, in 1755. He took the degree of M. A. in 1744, and that of B. D. in 1753. In 1760, Dr. Thomas, bishop of Lincoln, to whom he was chaplain, gave him the prebend of Milton Ecclesia, in the church of Lincoln, consisting of the impropriation and advowson of the parish of Milton, co. Oxford. In 1763 he was presented by Dr. Greene, dean of Salisbury, to the vicarage of Godalming, in Surrey, and was instituted Dec. 22, he preferring the situation to that of St. Nicholas in Guildford (though a better living) which was offered to him by the same patron. Here he constantly resided till the time of his death, beloved and respected by his parishioners, and discharging his professional duty in the most punctual and conscientious manner. In 1769 he was presented to the rectory of Pepperharrow, an adjoining parish, by viscount Middleton. He was elected F. R. S. in 1767, and F. S. A. in 1770. To the sincere regret of his parishioners, and of all who knew him, Mr. Manning died Sept. 9, 1801, after a short attack of pleurisy, having entered his eighty-first year. By Catherine, his wife, daughter of Mr. Reade Peacock, a quaker, mercer, of Huntingdon, he had three sons and five daughters, all of whom survived him, except his eldest son, George Owen, and one of the daughters.

To the literary world Mr. Manning performed a most acceptable service in taking up, and by unwearied application completing, the Saxon Dictionary begun byhis friend the rev. Edward Lye (see Lye), a work which for copiousness and authorities will stand the test of the strictest examination. Mr. Lye had the patronage of a very handsome subscription, and left that, and the completion of his work, to his friend Mr. Manning, whose abilities he well knew. After four years of close application, he printed it in 1775, in 2 vols. folio, in an elegant manner, at the press of the late Mr. Allen, of Bolt-court, Fleet-street. Besides the preface and the grammar, he made large additions to the sheets before composed, and in an appendix, he subjoined fragments of Uphilas’s version of the Epistles to the Romans; sundry Saxon charters; a Sermon oil Anti-Christ; a fragment of the Saxon Chronicle, and other instruments. Mr. Manning also published illustrations of king Alfred’s Will. His only other publications were two occasional Sermons.

From his first settlement in Surrey, he had employed himself in collecting materials for a history and antiquities of that county; and by the support of men of the first talents, possessed himself of a mass of information which falls to the lot of few persons engaged in such pursuits. His comprehensive mind and exquisite penmanship had brought them to a perfection which justly made every lover of our national antiquities deeply regret that his modesty could never be persuaded to think them sufficiently complete for publication, although he had more than once printed specimens of his intended work, and solicited assistance. At length, a total loss of sight rendered it impossible for him to execute his intention: but his previous labours were not doomed to perish. His papers being confided to the care of William Bray, esq. the present worthy treasurer of the society of antiquaries, he produced the first volume of “The History and Antiquities of Surrey,” in 1804, a large and splendid folio, which he has since completed in two more volumes. Of the whole, it may be sufficient to say, upon no slight examination of this elaborate and valuable addition to the topographical history of our country, that Mr. Bray has in every respect removed the regret which he and others felt on Mr. Manning’s being disabled from completing his own undertaking.

, called Giovanni da san Giovanni, from a village near Florence, where he was born, was a celebrated painter of the Florentine school, where he shone by a natural superiority of genius. He perfectly understood the poetical part of his art, and excelled, therefore, in the ingenuity of those designs by which he at once ornamented the palace, and illustrated the beneficence and taste of Lorenzo de Medicis. He was particularly successful in painting in fresco, and his colours remain uninjured to the present day: in the imitation of bas-relief he was so skilful, that the touch only could distinguish his paintings of that kind from sculpture. He had profound skill also in perspective and optics. With all these excellencies in his art, he was capricious, envious, and malevolent, and consequently raised himself enemies who were not a little inveterate. He died at the age of forty-six, in 1636.

, a very celebrated French architect, was born in 1598, and died in 1666. The magnificent edifices raised by him at Paris and elsewhere, are so many monuments of his genius and skill in his art. His ideas of general design were esteemed noble, and his taste in ornamenting the inferior parts delicate. The principal buildings of which he was the author, are the gate of the church of the Feuillans, in the street St. Honor6; the church of les filles St. Marie, in the street of S. Antoine; the gate of the Minims in the Place Royale; a part of the Hotel de Conti; the Hotels de Bouillon, Toulouse, and Jars; besides several buildings in the provinces, which were formed on his designs. Much as he was approved by the public, he was not equally able to satisfy himself. Colbert having inspected his plans for the facades of the Louvre, was so pleased with them, that he wished to engage him in a promise not to make any subsequent alterations. Mansard refused to undertake the work on those conditions, being determined, as he said, to preserve the right of doing better than he had undertaken to do. His nephew, Jules-Hardouin Mansard, had the office of first architect, and conductor of the royal buildings, and was the designer also of many very celebrated structures.

, a very learned Italian prelate, and voluminous editor, was born at Lucca, Feb. 16, 1692. At school and college he made rapid progress in every branch of study, but became particularly attached to ecclesiastical history and biography. He was for some years professor of theology at Naples; but the greater part of his life was spent in reading, and carefully exploring the contents of the Italian libraries, particularly the manuscripts, from all which he amassed a fund of information on subjects connected with ecclesiastical history, of vast extent and importance. His first station in the church was that of a clerk-regular in the congregation of the Mother of God; and from this, in 1765, at the age of seventy-two, he was promoted to the archbishopric of Lucca, by pope Clement XIII. who had a high esteem for him. He died Sept. 27, 1769. His life, in our authority, is little more than an account of his works, which indeed must have occupied the whole of his time. His first publication was entitled “Tractatus de casibus, et excommunicationibus episcopis reservatis, confectusad normam label lae Lucanse,” Lucca, 1724. He then published a translation into Latin of Calmet’s “Dictionary of the Bible,*' with additions; an, edition of Thomasini” De veteri et nova ecclesise disciplina,“3 vols. folio; a Latin translation of Calmet’s” Commentaries on the Bible,“1731, &c. 7 vols. an edition of Baronius’s annals, with great additions, in 30 vols. folio a new edition of the Councils, including Labbe, Cossart, &c. 1759, &c. 30 vols. folio; anew edition of yneas Sylvius (pope Pius II.) orations, with many hitherto unpublished, 1755, 2 vols. 4to. He was the editor of some other ecclesiastical collections and theological pieces of inferior note; but we must not omit the work by which he is perhaps best known in this country, his excellent edition of Fabricius’s” Bibliotheca Latina mediae et infimae aetatis," 6 vols. 4to, generally bound in three, printed at Padua, in 1754. This alone is sufficient to place him in the first rank of literary antiquaries.

, a celebrated Russian officer and writer, was born at Petersburgh in 1711. He was first a lieutenant in the Prussian service, and afterwards a captain of genadiers in the Russian regiment of Petersburgh. At the death of the czarina Anne, he was employed to arrest the Birons, who were then the regents and the tyrants of the young prince Iwan III. who rewarded his services by the rank of colonel, and some estates in Ingria. But when the throne of that prince was seized by the czarina Elizabeth, Manstein lost at once his regiment and his lands. Some time after, he entered again into the Prussian service, where he acted as a volunteer in 1745; and having sufficiently signalized his abilities and courage, was appointed major-general of infantry in 1754. In the war of 1756, he fell the very second year by a shot; leaving two sons and four daughters. His “Memoirs of Russia,” printed at Lyons in 1772, in 2 vols. 8vo, are at once historical, political, and military. They contain the principal revolutions of that empire, and the wars of the Russians against the Turks and Tartars; besides a short sketch of the military and marine establishments, and also of the commerce of his country. These memoirs comTnence in 1727, with the reign of Peter II. and close with the first year of the empress Elizabeth. They are considered as deserving of much reliance from the truth of the facts, and the sincerity of the author.

, an eminent Italian painter, was born in 1431, at Padua or in its district. His parents were poor, but Squarcione, whose pupil he became, was so deeply struck with his talents, that he adopted him for his son, and repented of it when Andrea married a daughter of Jacopo Bellini, his competitor. But the censure which now took place of the praise he had before lavishe'd on his pupil, only added to his improvement. Certain basso-relievos of the ancient Greek style, possessed by the academy in which Andrea studied, captivated his taste by the correctness of their outline, the simplicity of the forms, the parallelism of the attitudes, and strictness of the drapery: the dry servility with which he copied these, suffered him not to perceive that he had lost the great prerogative of the originals, the soul that animates them. The sarcasms of Squarcione on his picture of S. Jacopo, made him sensible of the necessity of expression and character; he gave more life to the figures in the story of S. Cristophoro; and in the face of St. Marc, in the church of S. Giustina, united the attention of a philosopher with the enthusiasm of a prophet. While the criticisms of Squarcione improved Mantegna in expression, the friendly advice of the Bellini directed his method, and fixed his principles of colour. During his short stay at Venice, he made himself master of every advantage of that school; and in some of his pictures there are tones and tints in flesh and landscape, of a richness and zest equal to the best Venetians of his day. Whether he taught Bellini perspective is uncertain; Lomazzo affirms “that Mantegna was the first who opened the eyes of artists in 'hat branch.”

The chief abode and the school of Mantegna were at Mantua, where under the auspices of Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga, he established himself with his family, but he continued to work in other places, and particularly at Rome, where the chapel which he had painted for Innocenzio VIII. in the Vatican existed, though injured by age, at the accession of Pius VI. The style of those frescoes proved that he continued steady in his attachment to the antique, but that from a copyist he was become an imitator. Of his works in oil Mantua possesses several; but the principal one, the master-piece of the artist, and the assemblage of his powers, the picture della Vittoria, afterwards in the Oratorio de Padri di S. Filippo, is now at Paris. It is a votive picture dedicated, for a victory obtained, to the Madonna seated on her throne with the infant standing on her lap, and giving benediction to the kneeling marquis in arms before her. At one side of the throne stands the archangel Michael, holding the mantle of the Madonna; at the other are S. George, S. Maurice, John the Baptist, and S. Elizabeth on her knees. The socle of the throne is ornamented with figures relative to the fall of Adam: the scene is a leafy bower peopled by birds, and here and there open to a lucid sky. No known work of Mantegna equals in design the style of this picture: they generally shew him dry and emaciated, here he appears in all the beauty of select forms: the two infants and St. Elizabeth are figures of dignity, so the archangel who seems to have been, by the conceit of his attitude and the care bestowed on him, the painter’s favourite object. The head has the beauty and the bloom of youth, the round fleshy neck and the breast, to where it confines with the armour, are treated with great art, the expression is to a high degree spirited, and as characteristic. The countenance of the Madonna is mild and benign, that of Christ humane. The future prophet is announced in the uplifted arm of St. John. The guardian angel kindly contemplates the suppliant, who prays with devout simplicity. The whole has an air of life, All the draperies, especially that of St. Elizabeth, are elegant, and correctly folded; with more mass and less intersection of surfaces, they would be perfect. The extreme finish of execution, as it has not here that dryness which disfigures most other works of this master, does not impair the brilliancy of colour. The head of the Madonna, of the infant, of St. Michael, have a genial bloom of tints. The lights are everywhere true, the shades alone are sometimes too grey or too impure. The general scale of light has more serenity than splendour, more the air of nature than of art, but the reflexes are often cut off too glaringly from the opaque parts. The whole of the picture has preserved its tone to this day, is little damaged, and in no place retouched.

Of the remainder of Mantegna' s works, besides some frescoes of considerable merit, but much injured, in a saloon of the castle of Mantua, and the well known triumph of Caesar in various compartments at Hampton court, little now remains. His name is more frequent in galleries and collections than his hand; lankness of form, rectilinear folds, yellow landscape, and minute polished pebbles, are less genuine signs of originals than correctness of design and delicacy of pencil. It is not probable that a man so occupied by large works, and so much engraving, should have had time to finish many cabinet-pictures: the series of his plates consist of upwards of fifty pieces, executed by his own hand; and though he was not the inventor of the art, he was certainly the first engraver of his time.

Andrea had great influence on the style of his age, nor was the imitation of his style confined to his own school; Francesco, and another of his sons, finished some of the frescoes which he had begun in the castle, and added the beautiful ceiling which shews that the science of foreshortening, and what the Italians call “del sotto in su,” though Melozio be its reputed author, was carried much farther by Mantegna and his followers. Mantegna died in 1505. Besides his talents for painting, Mantegna was one of the earliest engravers on metal, some, indeed, say the very first, but this does not appear to have been the case. Strutt, who gives a list of his principal engravings, has also exhibited a specimen in his Dictionary.

, one of the most learned and eminent nonconformists of the seventeenth century, was born at Lawrence Lydiard, in Somersetshire, in 1620. His father and grandfather were both clergymen, but of them we have no account, except that his father was settled at Whimpole in Devonshire, and sent his son to the freeschool at Tiverton. Here his progress was such that he was thought qualified to begin his academical studies at the age of fourteen, and about a year after, in 1635, he was entered of Wadham college, Oxford. From thence, in 1639, he removed to Hart-hall, where he took his bachelor’s degree in arts. Wood says, he was accounted in his college, “a hot-headed person,” a character very remote from that which he sustained throughout life, and when all eyes were upon him. After studying divinity, he was admitted to deacon’s orders by the celebrated Dr. Hall, bishop of Exeter, and although this was sooner than Mr. Man ton approved upon maturer thought, bishop Hall appears to have thought him duly qualified, and predicted that “he would prove an extraordinary person.” As he came into public life when principles of disaffection to the church were generally prevalent, it appears that he entered so far into the spirit of the times, as to be content with deacon’s orders, and to deny the necessity of those of the priest

His ministerial functions were exercised in various places, first at Sowton near Exeter, and then at Colyton in Devonshire, where he was much respected. Removing to London, he became more admired for his talents in the pulpit, and about 1643 was presented to the living of Stoke Newington, by colonel Popham, and here preached those lectures on the epistles of St. James and St. Jude, which he afterwards published in 1651 and 1652, 4to. During his residence at Newington, he often preached in London, and is said to have preached the second sermon before the sons of the clergy, an institution then set on foot, chiefly through the influence of Dr. Hall, son to the bishop, who preached the first. He was also one of those who were called occasionally to preach before the parliament, but being a decided enemy to the murder of the king, he gave great offence by a sermon in which he touched on that subject. In 1651 he shewed equal contempt for the tyranny of the usurpers, by preaching a funeral sermon for Mr. Love (see Christopher Love), and in neither case allowed the fears of his friends to prevent what he thought his duty. In 1650 he removed from Stoke-Newington, on being presented to the living of Covent garden by the earl, afterwards duke of Bedford, who had a high respect for him. At this church he had a numerous auditory. Archbishop Usher, who was one of his hearers, used to say that he was one of the best preachers in England, and had the art of reducing the substance of whole volumes into a narrow compass, and representing it to great advantage. Although he had already, by the two sermons above noticed, shewn that he was far from courting the favours, of government, Cromwell, who well knew how to avail himself of religious influence and popular talents, sent for him in 1653, when he assumed the protectorate, and desired him to pray at Whitehall on the morning of his installation; and about the same time made him one of his chaplains. He was nominated also by parliament one of a committee of divines to draw up a scheme of fundamental doctrines. In the same year he was appointed one of the committee for the trial and approbation of ministers, and appears to have acted in this troublesome office with considerable moderation. What influence he had with Cromwell, he employed for the benefit of others, and particularly solicited him to spare the life of Dr. Hewit, a loyalist, whom Cromwell executed for being concerned in a plot to restore Charles II. In 1660, when the days of usurpation were over, Mr. Manton co-operated openly in the restoration of Charles, was one of the ministers appointed to wait upon his majesty at Breda, and was afterwards sworn one of his majesty’s chaplains. In the same year he was, by mandamus, created doctor of divinity at Oxford.

He was then one of the ministers who waited upon the king after his arrival, to beg his majesty’s interposition for reconciling the differences in the church; and afterwards joined several of his brethren, in a conference with the episcopal clergy, at the lord chancellor’s house; preparatory to the declaration of his majesty, who was likewise present. Being satisfied with this declaration, Dr. Manton continued in his living of Covent-garden, and received episcopal institution from Dr. Sheldon, bishop of London, Jan. 16,1661, after having first subscribed the doctrinal articles only of the church of England, and taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and of canonical obedience in all things lawful and honest. He also allowed that the common-prayer should be read in his church. Soon after he was offered the deanery of Rochester, which he might have held until 1662, and enriched himself by letting leases; but, either dissatisfied with the advances he bad already made towards conformity, or foreseeing that greater would soon be expected, he honourably refused to enrich himself by accepting a dignity, the very existence of which he and his brethren were prepared to oppose. In 1661 he was one of the commissioners at the Savoy conference, and continued preaching until St. Bartholomew’s day in 1662, when he was obliged to resign his living. After this he preached occasionally, either in private or public, as he found it convenient, particularly during the indulgence granted to the nonconformists from 1668 to 1670, but was imprisoned for continuing the practice when it became illegal. From this time his history is too generally involved with that of his brethren to admit of being separated. He preserved, amidst all vicissitudes, the friendship of the duke of Bedford, the duke of Richmond, lord Wharton, and many other persons of rank. To this they were probably induced by a congeniality of principle; but independent of this, Dr. Manton was a man of great learning and extensive reading, and his conversation as much recommended him to men of the world, as to those who admired his pious services. Waller, the poet, said “that he never discoursed with such a man as Dr. Manton in all his life.” He was also a person of extraordinary charity, and supplicated the assistance of his great friends more for the poor than for himself, being perfectly disinterested. Wood has misrepresented his character in all these respects. His constitution, although a man of great temperance, early gave way; and his complaints terminating in a lethargy, he died Oct. 18, 1677, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was buried in the chancel of the church at Stoke Newington, where his intimate friend Dr. Bates preached his funeral sermon, which includes a very copious character of him.

He published in his life-time only some occasional sermons, and the Commentaries on St. Jude and St. James, already mentioned, except a controversial work, entitled “Smeetymnuus Redivivus, being an answer to a book entitled An humble remonstrance.” After his death, various treatises and collections of sermons were printed separately, all of which, if we are not mistaken, were afterwards incorporated in an edition of his “Works” in five large volumes, 1681—1691, folio.

, an Italian poet of great temporary fame, was born at Mantua, whence he took his name, in 1448, and not in 1444, as Cardan and others have said; for Mantuan himself relates, in a short account of his own life, that he was born under the pontificate of Nicholas V. and Nicholas was only made pope in March 1447. He was of the illustrious family of the Spagnoli, being a natural son of Peter Spagnolo, as we learn from Paul Jovius, who was his countryman, and thirty-three years old when Mantuan died, and therefore must have known the fact. Mantuan too speaks frequently and highly, in his works, of his father Peter Spagnolo, to whom he ascribes the care of his education. In his youth, he applied himself ardently to books, and began early with Latin poetry, which he cultivated all his life; for it does not appear that he wrote any thing in Italian. He entered himself, we do not know exactly when, among the Carmelites, and came at length to be general of his order; which dignity, upon some disgust or other, he quitted in 1515, and devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of the belles-lettres. He did not enjoy his retirement long, for he died in March 1516, upwards of eighty years of age. The duke of Mantua, some years after, erected to his memory a marble statue crowned with laurel, and placed it next to that of Virgil; and even Erasmus went so far as to say that a time would come, when Baptist Mantuan would not be placed much below his illustrious countryman. In this opinion few critics will now join. If he had possessed the talents of Virgil, he had not his taste, and knew not how to regulate them. Yet allowance is to be made, when we consider that, in the age in which he lived, good taste had not yet emerged. Liiius Gyraldiis, in his “Dialogues upon the poets of his own times,” says, “that the verses which Mantuan wrote in his youth are very well; but that, his imagination afterwards growing colder, his latter productions have not the force or vigour of his earlier.” We may add, that Mantuan was more solicitous about the number than the goodness of his poems; yet, considering that he lived when letters were but just reviving, it must be owned, that he was a very extraordinary person. His poetical works were first printed, in a folio volume without a date, consisting of his eclogues, written chiefly in his youth seven pieces in honour of the virgins inscribed on the kalendar, beginning with the virgin Mary these he calls “Parthenissal.” “Parthenissa II.” &c. four books of Silvge, or poems on different subjects; elegies, epistles, and, in short, poems of every description. This was followed by an edition at Bologna, 1502, folio, and by another at Paris in 1513, with the commentaries of Murrho, Brant, and Ascensius, 3 vols. fol. but usually bound in ne. A more complete, but now more rare, edition of them was published at Antwerp, 1576, in four vols. 8vo, under this title, “J. Baptistae Mantuani, Carmelitae, theologi, philosophi, ppetae, & oratoris clarissimi, opera omnia, pluribus libris aucta & restituta.” The Commentaries of the Paris edition are omitted in this; but the editors have added, it does not appear on what account, the name of John, to Baptist Mantuan.

, the elder of three justly celebrated printers, was born about 1447, at Bassiano, a small town in the duchy of Sermonetta, He was educated at Rome, under Caspar of Verona and Domitius Calderinus, both of whom he has mentioned in several of his prefaces, as men of talents and erudition. Having acquired a knowledge of the Latin language from them, he went to Ferrara to study Greek under Baptist Guarini, and, probably after his own studies were completed, became the preceptor of the prince of Carpi, a nephew of the celebrated Picus of Mirandula. In 1482, Ferrara being closely besieged by a Venetian army, he retired to Mirandula, and spent some time in the society of Picus, who, though not quite twenty years of age, was already a consummate master of almost all learning. From Mirandula, Aldus went, some time after, to reside with his pupil, who, though only twelve years of age, had made such advances in learning, that he was already qualified to take a part in the serious conversations, and the designs of his uncle and his preceptor; and it is believed to have been at this time, that Aldus conceived the project of his subsequent printing establishment at Venice, to the expences of which, Picus and his pupil probably contributed. He began, however, to print, at Venice, in 1488, with an edition of the small Greek poem of Musseus, in quarto, with a Latin translation, but without date. In 1494 he published the Gre*k grammar of Lascaris, and in 1495, in one collection, the grammatical treatises of Theodore Gaza, Apollonius, and Herodian.

He had already begun to prepare for the press the manuscripts of the then unprinted originals of the works of Aristotle, which, in number and extent, were sufficient to fill five volumes in folio. Although the state of these Mss. required almost incredible efforts of diligence and erudition, Aldus brought out a first volume in 1495; and the edition was completed in 1498. Aldus was from that time confessed, without dispute, to stand as an editor in the very first rank among his contemporaries. He was not, however, the very first that printed an entire Greek book. The Greek grammar of Lascaris had been printed in folio, at Milan, in 1476. The works of Homer were printed at Florence in i 488; and several other Greek works had also appeared in print, when Aldus began his establishment; yet he must be allowed the praise of having first used elegant Greek types, and printed from the most correct and authentic manuscripts.

In imitation, it is said, of the hand-writing of the celebrated Petrarch, Aldus procured the first examples of that which is called, in printing, the Italic character, to be cut and cast for him by Francesco of Bologna, about 1500. An edition of the works of Virgil, in octavo, was the first book he printed in this type, which was long known among printers by the name of Aldine. The inventor obtained a patent from the Senate of Venice, for its exclusive use for ten years, from the 13th of November, 1502; and another similar patent from pope Alexander the Sixth, from the 17th of November, 1502. The last of these was renewed for fifteen years more, by Julius the Second, on the 27th of January, 1513; and again by Leo the Tenth, on the 28th of the following November.

From 1502, the different works printed by Aldus, were reprinted at Lyons, with a close imitation of the Aldine type and edition. The very prefaces of Aldus and his assistants, were copied in the editions of Lyons. But the imitation was disgraced by many typographical errors. Aldus, observing and noting these, published on the 16th of March, 1503, a list in which they were particularly enumerated, and which he appears to have distributed to the purchasers of copies of his own genuine editions. The cunning and industrious Lyonnese took this list of their errors, corrected them in new editions of the same books; and thus still divided the market with Aldus, and now more successfully than at the first.

In 1501, 1502, 1503, 1504, and 1505, Aldus printed in folio, or in octavo, a considerable number of the best authors, Greek, Roman, and Italian, such as Demosthenes, Lucian, Dante, Horace, Petrarch, Cicero’s epistles to his familiar friends, Juvenal, Lucan, Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, &c. &c. He published, at the least, a volume every month. These publications were in all respects excellent. They were of works the most valuable in all literature, ancient or modern. The composition of the types was finely regular and uniform; the press-work was admirably executed; and the ink so truly good, that it retains to this day all its beauty and lustre of colour.

In the necessary pains upon these works, Aldus had the assistance of some of the best and most learned among his contemporaries. His house became a sort of new academy. The learned in Venice began, about 1500, to assemble there on fixed days of frequent recurrence, for conversation on interesting literary topics: and their meetings were continued for several years subsequent. The topics on which they conversed were, usually, what books were fittest to be printed, what manuscripts might be consulted with the greatest advantage, what readings, out of a diversity, for any one passage, ought to be preferred. Among those who attended these conversations, were, besides Aldus himself, the famous A. Navagerus, P. Bembo the celebrated cardinal, Erasmus, when he was at Venice, P. Alcionius, M. Musurus, Marc-Ant. Cocch. Sabellicus, Albertus Pius, prince of Carpi, and others, whose names, though they were then eminent, are not now equally in remembrance. Among those who assisted Aldus in the correction of the press, were men not less eminent than Demetrius Chalcondylas, Aleander, afterwards famous as a cardinal, and even Erasmus.

There are some curious circumstances in the history of the acquaintance and connexion between Erasmus and Aldus. The “Adagia” of Polydore Vergil had been printed at Venice, and well received in the world. Erasmus, aware of this fact, wrote from Bologna, to request that Aldus would undertake the printing of his “Adagia.” Aldus readily agreed to the proposal, and invited Erasmus upon it to Venice. When Erasmus came, it was not till after some delay that he obtained admittance to the printer’s closet, whose servants were not aware of the stranger’s Jiterary consequence. But Aldus no sooner knew that it was Erasmus who waited for him, than he hastened to rer ceive his visitor with open arms. He did more he stopped the progress, of several important Greek and Latin works, which he had then in the press, to make room for the printing of the great collection of Erasmus with the desired, expedition. Erasmus was, in the mean time, entertained in the house of Andrew d‘Asola, father-in-law to Aldus, with whom Aldus and his wife appear, by Erasmus’s account, to have lived. D’Asola was rich; yet his table was, even for that of an Italian family, parsimoniously served: and Erasmus loved good cheer. The Dutchman made frequent remonstrances to his friend Aldus, against the thinness of the soups, the absence of solid animal food, the weakness and sourness of the wine, the general scantiness of the whole provisions. The Italians, whose climate and natural habits had taught them to live much more sparingly than was usual for the Dutch and Germans, were astonished and offended by his complaints. Some small additions, such as a fowl or two, and perhaps half a dozen eggs a week, were made on his account to the commons of the family. But these dainties were sometimes intercepted by the women in the kitchen, on their way to the table. On the table, they were devoured by the rest who sat at it still more eagerly than by Erasmus. And if he was not absolutely starved, he wiis assuredly a good deal mortified in his appetite for a glass of good wine and a mess of delicate and savoury meat, before he could see the printing of his “Adagia” entirely at an end. His humours and complaints made him at length a very unpleasant inmate to the family; while he was, on the other hand, dissatisfied still more, that his murmurs were not more complaisantly attended to. They parted with mutual dislike. Erasmus wrote afterwards his dialogue, which has the title of “Opulentia Sordida,” in ridicule of the parsimonious spirit, and the scantily-served table of Andrea D'Asola. Aldus and his successors, whenever they, after this time, reprinted any work by Erasmus, avoided to mention his name, and gave him simply the appellation of “Transalpinus quidain homo.” Aldus, not thinking that he did enough for the interests of literature, in printing, for the first time, so many excellent books in the Latin, Greek, and Italian languages, gave, in his Latin grammar, in 1501, a short introduction to the knowledge of the Hebrew tongue; and even proposed to give a beautiful edition of the original Hebrew of the sacred Scriptures, with the Septuagint and the Vulgate Latin versions. Of this, however, he was diverted from printing more than a specimen sheet. That sheet, now ia the royal library at Paris, exhibits the text in the three different languages, each occupying one of three parallel columns on the same page. It is to be regretted that Aldus should have been hindered from completing a design so noble.

In 1500, Aldus married the daughter of the above-mentioned Andrew of Asola, who had been a printer of some reputation at Venice, and who soon after became his sonin-law’s partner. The “Letters of Pliny,” 1508, is the first book which marks this partnership, “in sedibus Aldi et Andreae Asulani soceri.” In 1506 Aldus was a great sufferer by the war which then rag;ed in Italy, and his printing was so much interrupted, that he was not able to resume it until 1512. From that to 1515, he executed several works, and was proceeding with others when he died, nearly seventy years of age, in the last mentioned year.

The character of Aldus as a printer is so well known to every scholar, and to such only it can be interesting, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon it here. But he may be considered also as an original benefactor to the literature of the age. He published a Latin grammar of his own composition; and in 1515, after his death, was published by his friend Marcus Musurus, a Greek grammar, which Aldus had compiled with great research and industry. He wrote likewise a treatise “de metris Horatianis,” which is reprinted in Dr. Combe’s edition of that poet. He produced a Greek dictionary, printed by himself, in folio, 1497, and reprinted by Francis D' Asola in 1524. He was likewise the author of many of the Latin translations of the classics, wrote many letters, some of which have been published, and for some years after he settled at Venice, gave a course of lectures on the best Greek and Roman authors, which was attended by a great number of students. Aldus, however, has not escaped the censures of criticism. Urceus Codrus, the learned professor of Bologna, complained, that he suffered many errors to escape uncorrected, in his editions of the Greek authors; that he sold his copies too dear; and printed them with an useless and unsuitable width of margin. Later critics have not been sparing of remarks somewhat similar. Krnesti, in his notes on the Letters of Pliny, blames Aldus for excessive boldness of conjectural criticism. In the preface to his Tacitus, the same critic remarks, that Aldus rarely made on the second and subsequent editions of the works he printed, any alterations but such as consisted in neglected errors of the press. It is indeed true, that the editions of Greek works printed by Aldus, are not always so correct as his Latin and Italian editions. But their defects are owing to the disadvantages of Aldus’s situation, much rather than to negligence, or inability in himself, as a printer and a man of letters. He had not always a sufficient number of manuscripts to collate: and sometimes he could not have the benefit of the judgment of a sufficient number of the learned upon the difficulties which occurred to him. After beginning to print any particular work, he often had not leisure to pause for a sufficient length of time, over the difficulties occurring in the progress of the edition. He might, in some instances, also, print a manuscript which he did not approve, lest it should otherwise have been lost to posterity.

, the son of the preceding, was born at Venice in 1512. After his father’s death, he lived with his mother and her other children at Asola, at some distance from Venice, while the business of the printing esablishment at Venice was carried on, for the general benefit of the family, by his grandfather, Andrea D'Asola, and the Torresani, his maternal uncles. At Asola Paul made but small progress in letters; he was, however, removed when very young to Venice, where he had every advantage of instruction and encouragement to study; Bembo, Sadolet, Bonamicus, Reginald Pole, and especially Rambertus and Gasp. Contarinus, who had been his father’s friends, took a pleasure to excite and direct him in hi literary pursuits. Under their tuition he applied to his studies with such zeal and assiduity as even to injure his health, but he suffered more from the disputes that took place respecting the partition of the estates of his father and hi; maternal grandfather, between himself and the other heirs. His uncles and himself could not agree in the management of the printing-house, and in 1529 it was shut up; but in 1533, having arrived at the age of twenty-one, he again opened it, and renewed the business in the names, and for the common benefit, of the heirs of Aldus, and Andrea D'Asola. In 1540, however, this partnership was dissolved and from this period, the business was continued in the names of the sons of Aldus only.

Paul became now indefatigable in the management of the printing establishment, and as the most valuable remains of Grecian literature were already in print, determined to give new editions of the best Latin authors. As his admiration had been principally directed to the style and eloquence of Cicero, the first work he printed was that author’s treatises on Oratory, which appeared from his press in 1533, and the same year he published Cicero’s Familiar Letters. He printed also at this time the fifth Decade of Livy, II Cortegiano, by Castiglione, II Petrarca, and Pontani Carolina, torn. I. In the following year the number of Italian and Latin books which he published was very considerable. His first Greek publication was Themistius, which was speedily followed by Isocrates and Aetius Amidenus. In these publications he availed himself of the literary assistance of various learned friends, whose attention and corrections gave that decided superiority to the Aldine editions which his father had endeavoured to establish.

In 1535 he accepted an invitation to Rome, upon the promise of an opulent and eligible situation; but, not being received with respect or attention, he returned to Venice, and resumed his studies and employment. Having, however, attained no degree of opulence, he engaged in the business of education, took twelve young men of family into his house, and superintended their education for three years. Of these, two were Matth. Senarega, who translated Cicero’s Letters to Atticus into Italian, and Paul Contarinus. In 1538 he went on an excursion to examine the manuscripts in certain old libraries, particularly the library of the Franciscans in Cesena, which contained some Mss. left to their convent by Malatesta Novellus; and such was his reputation at this time, that he was invited to fill the chair of the professor of eloquence at Venice, and had the offer of a similar situation at Padua, vacant by the death of Bonamicus. But his ill heahh, and his predilection for his business, induced him to devote his whole time to the printing-house, from which a great number of the classics issued.

After a second journey to Rome, in 1546, he married Margarita, the daughter of Jerome Odonus. His eldest son, Aldus, the subject of our next article, was the firstfruit of this marriage: he had also two other sons, who died young, and a daughter, who is often mentioned in his letters, and was married in 1573. In 1556 an academy was established at Venice, in the house of Frederick Badoarus, one of the principal senators of the republic, which was composed of about an hundred members, who endeavoured to unite every species of literary and scientific excellence. Belonging to this academy was a printing-house, in which it was proposed to print good editions of all books and manuscripts already known to exist, as well as the original writings of the academicians. Over this establishment, Paul was appointed to preside, and it was completely furnished with new founts of his own types, and he had under him several other skilful printers, particularly Dominick Bevilacqua. In 1558 and 1559, fifteen different books were printed in this house, none very large, but intended as a prelude to greater undertakings, of which a catalogue was published both in Italian and Latin, and may be seen in Renouard’s “Annales de Plmprimerie des Aides,” vol. I. The books printed in this academy were all executed with admirable correctness and beauty, and are become exceeding scarce, and valuable. Paul was farther honoured with the professorship of eloquence in this academy, which, however, did not exist long. It was probably thought to have been an engine in Badoarus’s hands, by which he might have become dangerous to the state; or perhaps its expences might exceed his resources, and drive him to pecuniary shifts of the discreditable kind. In August 1562, however, the academy was dissolved by a public decree.

In 1561 Paul had been invited by Pius IV. upon terms of great honour and advantage, to repair to Rome, and engage in printing the Holy Scriptures and the works of the lathers of the church. He accordingly undertook this journey, of which his holiness bore the expences, as well as of the removal of his printing-materials and of his family; and conditioned to allow him, from the time of his arrival, a yearly salary of at least 500 crowns. From this time, till the death of Pius, he continued to exercise his profession as a printer with great reputation at Rome, while he also kept open his printing-house at Venice. But at length dissatisfied with his situation, and in ill health, he left Rome in September 1570, and after visiting several distinguished places in Italy, returned to Venice in May 1572. From Venice, after a very short stay, he went back again to Rome, where he was cheered by the seasonable liberality of the pope, which was made more agreeable by being bestowed without any exaction of personal labour or attendance.

Much of his life appears to have been embittered by sickness, and in September 1573 his health began to decline very rapidly. Three months after, he thought himself better, but he had still an extreme weakness in his loins, with frequent and severe head-aches, and he received no benefit from medicines. On the 6th of April, 1574, he expired in the arms of his son, who had just arrived from Venice to attend him in his sickness. He had lived in general esteem; and his death was universally regretted. He left a variety of writings, which distinguish him as one of the most judicious critics, and one of the most elegant Latin writers that modern times have produced. Of these, the principal are his letters in Latin and Italian, his Commentaries on the works of his favourite Cicero, and his treatise “De Curia Rornana.” The productions of his presses are all of the highest value, for both accuracy and beauty.

, the younger, son of the preceding, was born in 1547. His father paid the utmost attention to his education; and so extraordinary was the progress of the youth in learning, that he was enabled to give the world “A collection of elegant phrases in the Tuscan and Latin languages,” when he was only eleven years of age. Other juvenile works at different periods marked his advances in classical literature, and he soon became his lather’s assistant in his labours. When very young, he conducted the printing-business at Venice while his father was engaged at Rome. In 1572 he married a lady of the Giunti family, so well known in the annals of typography; and on the death of his father in 1574, all the concerns of the Aldine press devolved upon him. He was, however, less calculated for the business of a printer than for the profession of an author. ' In 1577 he was appointed professor of the belles lettres in the school of the Venetian chancery, in which young men designed for public employments were educated. This office he held till 1585, when he was made professor of rhetoric at Bologna. In the same year he published the “Life of Cosmo de Medici,” which was so well received, that he was almost immediately invited to undertake the professorship of polite literature at Pisa, which he accepted, although he received an invitation at the same time to a professorship at Rome, which had been lately held by Muratus. During his stay at Pisa he received the degree of doctor of laws, and was admitted a member of the Florentine academy, on which occasion he delivered an eloquent oration “On the nature of Poetry.” He now paid a visit to Lucca in order to obtain materials for a “History of Castruccio Castracani,” which he afterwards published, and which is much applauded by Thuanus. The Roman professorship being reserved for him, he removed thither in 1588, and intending to spend his life there, he caused his whole library to be brought to Rome from Venice, at a very great expence. He was in high favour with Sixtus V. who gave him an apartment in the Vatican, and a table at the public expence. He was also patronized in various ways by Clement VIII. He died in the fifty-firstyear of his age, in October 1597. He left no posterity, and with him ended the glory of the Aldine press. His library, consisting of 8.0,000 volumes, collected by himself and his predecessors, was sold to pay his debts. He was author of many performances besides those already mentioned, but the most celebrated of his works were his “Commentaries on all the Works of Cicero,” in ten volumes. His “Familiar Letters,” published in 1592, were highly esteemed; but M. Renouard confesses, that were it not from his inheriting the Aldine offices, it might not have been remembered he bad ever been a printer; yet, though difference of taste gave his studies a different bent, his numerous writings, notwithstanding they were inferior to his father’s and grandfather’s, sufficiently prove his industry and learning, and justify, to a certain point, the commendations bestowed on him by many to whom his merits were known.

, was a poet of some celebrity for his time, which was that of Henry II. of England, whose chaplain he was about 1190. After the death of that monarch he held the same office under prince John, and lived familiarly with him. He was then made a canon of Salisbury, afterwards precentor of Lincoln, and in the eighth year of Richard I. archdeacon of Oxford. He wrote in Latin; and some of his verses, which are in a light and satirical style, are still extant. There is in the Bodleian a work of his under the assumed name of Valerius, entitled “Valerius ad llufinum de non ducenda uxore,” with a large gloss. He perhaps adopted this name because one Valerius had written a treatise on the same subject in St. Jerom’s works. Warton thinks it probable that he translated from Latin into French the popular romance of Saint Graal, at the instance of Henry II. He was also celebrated for his wit and facetiousness in conversation. When he heard a natural son of Henry II. swear by his father’s royalty, he told him to remember also his mothers honesty. He wrote a “Compendium Topographioe,” and “Epitome Cambriae;” and is thought to have written a “Descriptio Norfolciae,” which, says Mr. Gough, if we could find it, would be a valuable curiosity. Mapes was often confounded with a contemporary poet, Golias, of a similar genius; and some have supposed that Golias was a name assumed by Mapes. But according to Warton’s information, they were different persons.

, a physician and scholar, ^was the son of a father of both his names, whom Wood calls “a sufficient shoemaker,” and was born in 1615 in St. Martin’sle-grand, London, and educated at Westminster-school. He was thence elected a student of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1630, where he took his degrees in arts. Wood gives it as a report that he was first admitted to holy orders, but it is more certain that he was made M. D. in 1647, and principal of Gloucester Hall. He then travelled on the continent with his pupil, Lucius, lord Falkland, for two years, and wrote an account of his travels in Latin, which. Guidot promised to publish. He then travelled with Henry, brother to Lucius lord Falkland, and on his return settled as a physician at Bath in summer, and at Bristol in winter, and had great practice. During the usurpation he had been ejected from his office of principal of Gloucester Hall, but was restored in 1660, and soon after resigned it. He died at Bath, Aug. 4, 1670, and was buried in the cathedral, with a monument and inscription celebrating his learning and skill as a physician. Wood speaks of his Consultations with certain physicians, his cosmetics, and his poems, and epitaphs, but does not say where these are to be found, or whether printed. He has not escaped the diligence of Eloy, who, however, merely copies from the Ath. Ox. The only publication printed appears to have been a collection of letters on the efficacy of the Bath waters, published by Guidot under the title “Epistolarum Medicarum specimen de Thermarum Bathoniensium effectis, ad clariss. medicos D. Bate Eraser, Wedderbourne, &c.” Lond. 1694, 4to. He appears to have been a different person from the J. Maplet who wrote “A Discourse of metals, stones, herbs, &c.” printed in 8vo. This is mentioned by Dr. Pulteney, who says the author was of Cambridge.

, a very learned Englishman, was descended from a good family in Huntingdonshire, and born at Margaret-Inge, in June 1631. He was educated under the famous Busby at Westminster-school, and being king’s scholar, was elected thence to Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1648. He took his degrees in arts at the regular time,' and was made fellow of his college in 1653. In 1658 he left the college in order to be tutor to Joscelin, son of Algernon, the last earl of Northumberland, with whom he continued till 1660, and then travelled at his own ex pence, to qualify himself for the profession of physic, into which he had resolved to enter some years before. He passed through France to Rome, where he lived near a year in the house of the hon. Algernon Sidney, to whom he was recommended by his uncle the earl of Northumberland. In 1663 he returned to England, and to that earl’s family; and, taking his doctor of physic’s degree at Cambridge in 1667, he practised in London. Here he contraded an acquaintance with many eminent persons in his own faculty, as Willis, Sydenham, Locke; and with several of the most distinguished divines, as Whichcote, Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock, Stillingfleet, Sharp, and Clagget. In 1670 he attended lord Essex in his embassy to Denmark; and, in 1672, waited on the lady dowager Northumberland into France. In March 1675, he was chosen professor of physic in Gresbam college, London; and, in 1676, attended the lord ambassador Montague, and lady Northumberland, to France. The same year Dr. Sydenham published his “Observationes medicas circa morborum acutorum historiam et curationem,” which he dedicated to Dr. Mapletoft; who, at the desire of the author, had translated them into Latin. He held his professorship at Gresham till October 1679, and married the month following.

Soon after his marriage he relinquished the practice of physic, and retired, in order to turn his studies to divinity. In March 1682, he took both deacon’s and priest’s orders, and was soon after presented to the rectory of Braybrooke in Northamptonshire, by lord Griffin. In 1684 he was chosen lecturer of Ipswich, and a year after, vicar of St. Lawrence Jewry, and lecturer of St. Christopher’s in London. In 1689 he accumulated his doctor’s degree in divinity, while king William was at Cambridge. In 1707 he was chosen president of Sion college, having been a benefactor to their building and library. He continued to preach in his church of St. Lawrence Jewry till he was turned of eighty; and, when he was thinking of retiring, he printed a book entitled “The principles and duties of the Christian religion,” &c. 1710, 8vo, a copy of which he sent to every house in his parish. He lived the last ten years of his life with his only daughter Elizabeth, the wife of Dr. Gastrell, bishop of Chester, sometimes at Oxford, and in the winter at Westminster, where he died in 1721, in his ninety-first year. He' was a very polite scholar, wrote Latin elegantly, was a great master of the Greek, and understood well the French, Spanish, and Italian languages.

Besides his Latin translation of Sydeuham’s “Observationes medicae,” and “The principles and duties of the Christian religion,” he published other tracts upon moral and theological subjects; and, in the appendix to “Ward’s Lives of the professors of Gresham college,” from which this account is extracted, there are inserted three Latin lectures of his, read at Gresham in 1675, upon the origin of the art of medicine, and the history of its invention.

, an English divine, was born at North Thoresby in the county of Lincoln, in the beginning of 1610, of which place his father, Henry Mapletoft, was many years rector. He was educated at the free grammar school of Louth, and admitted of Queen’s college in Cambridge. When he had taken the degree of B. A. he removed to Pembroke hall, and was there made fellow January 6, 1630; and in or about 1633 was appointed chaplain to bishop Wren. He was one of the university preachers in 1641, and was some time after one of the proctors of the university. In 1644 (being then bachelor in divinity) he was ejected from his fellowship for not taking the covenant. After this he retired, and lived privately among his friends, and particularly with sir Robert Shirley in Leicestershire, where he became acquainted with Dr. Sheldon, who became archbishop of Canterbury. He had afterwards a private congregation in Lincoln, where he used to officiate according to the Liturgy of the church of England: this had like to have produced him much trouble; but it being found that he had refused a considerable sum of money offered him by his congregation, he escaped prosecution. On the restoration he returned to Cambridge, and was re-instated in his fellowship, and was presented by the Crown, August 1, 1660, on the death of Dr. Newell, to the prebend of Clifton in Lincoln cathedral, to which he was installed August 23, 1660: and then resigning it, he was also on the same day installed to the sub-deanery of the same church, which he resigned in 1671; and about the same time he became rector of Clayworth in Nottinghamshire, which living he afterwards exchanged for the vicarage of Soham, in Cambridgeshire. In 1661 he resigned his fellowship, and about that time was invited by archbishop Sheldon to be chaplain to the duchess of York, then supposed to be inclining to popery, and in want of a person of Dr. Mapletoft’s primitive stamp to keep her steady to her religion; but he could not be prevailed upon to accept the appointment. In 1664 he was elected master of Pembroke hall, and became doctor in divinity, and was by the king, August 7, 1667, promoted to the deanery of Ely. He served the office of vice-chancellor of the university of Cambridge in 1671, and died at Pembroke hall, August 20, 1677. His remains, according to his own desire, were deposited in a vault in the chapel of that college, near the body of bishop Wren, the founder of it, his honoured friend and patron, without any memorial.

Dr. Mapletoft lived very hospitably at Ely, and wherever he resided, and was esteemed for the many pious and charitable acts in his life-time; and, at his death, after many gifts, legacies, and charitable donations, he bequeathed to the university 100l. towards purchasing Golius’s library of Oriental books for the university library; and in case that design was not executed, then to some permanent university use, at the discretion of the vicechancellor and the two professors of divinity; lOOl. to poor widows, chiefly clergymen’s. His benefactions to the church of Ely were, to the dean and chapter for ever, all his close called hundred acres in the Wash in the town of Coveney, for the increase of the Dinging men’s stipends, and on condition that they should frequent early prayers in the cathedral. He also bequeathed to the same church his library of books, and 100l. toward fitting up a place to receive them, and furnishing it with more books; to each of the prebendaries a ring of 20,?. to each minor canon and schoolmaster 20s. to each singing-man and verger 10s. and to the choristers 5s. each.

In a codicil to his last will, signed 17th day of August, 1677, he gives to the use of the town of North Thoresby, in the county of Lincoln, his two cottages and one messuage, with all his lands in the same town and fields of the same for ever, to be settled upon trustees, for and towards the maintenance of one fit person to teach the scholars there to read, to learn them their catechism, and instruct them in it, to write, to cast accounts, and to teach tuem their accidence, and to make them fit for the grammar school, according to the rules and orders which he or his executors should prescribe; and also gives all those his lands, meadow, and pasture in Saltfleetby to the use of the town of Louth for ever, for and towards the maintenance of one fit person to teach the children there in like manner as in his gift to North Thoresby, per omnia. He gives likewise to the master, fellows, and scholars of Pembroke Hall, lands in Coveney for ever, on condition, that they pay yearly for ever to two poor scholars to be called his exhibitioners, 4l. each, and that they lay out yearly 4bs, in good books for the library of the said college.

, a learned author, born at Lucca in 1612, became a member of the congregation of regular clerks, “de la Mere de Dieu.” He obtained a name in the literary world by an edition of the Koran, published at Padua in 1698, in 2 vols. folio, and entitled “Alcorani Textus universus, Arabice et Latine,” to which he subjoined notes, with a refutation, and a life of Mahomet. The argumentative part, however, is not always solid; the critics in Arabic have found several faults in the printing of that language; and the editor appears to be more versed in the Mussulman authors than in philosophy or theology. Maracci had a large share in the edition of the Arabic Bible printed at Rome in 1671, in 3 vols. folio; and was certainly very successful as a professor of Arabic, in the college della Sapienza. Innocent XI. respected his virtues and knowledge, chose him for his confessor, and would have raised him to the purple, had not his great modesty declined that honour. He died in 1700. Niceron recounts a long list of his works.

, a learned astronomer and mathematician, was born in 1665 at Perinaldo in the county of Nice, a place already honoured by the birth of his maternal uncle, the celebrated Cassini. Having made a considerable progress in mathematics, at the age of twentytwo his uncle, who had been a long time settled in France, invited him there, that he might himself cultivate the promising genius of his nephew. Maraldi no sooner applied himself to the contemplation of the heavens, than he conceived the design of forming a catalogue of the fixed stars, the foundation of the whole astronomical edifice. In consequence of this design, he applied himself to observe them with the most constant attention; and he became by this means so intimate with them, that on being shown any one of them, however small, he could immediately tell what constellation it belonged to, and its place in that constellation. He has been known to discover those small comets, which astronomers often take for the stars of the constellation in which they are seen, for want of knowing precisely what stars the constellation consists f, when others, on the spot, and with eyes directed equally to the same part of the heavens, could not for a long time see any thing of them.

In 1700 he was employed under Cassini in prolonging the French meridian to the northern extremity of France, and had no small share in completing it. He next set out for Italy, where Clement the Xltli invited him to assist at the assemblies of the congregation then sitting in Rome to reform the calendar. Bianchini also availed himself of his assistance to construct the great meridian of the Carthusian church in that city. In 1718 Maraldi, with three other academicians, prolonged the French meridian to the southern extremity of that conntry. He was admitted a member of the academy of sciences of Paris in 1699, in the department of astronomy, and communicated a great multitude of papers, which are printed in t;heir memoirs, in almost every year from 1699 to 1729, and iisually several papers in each of the years; for he was indefatigable in his observation of every thing that was curious and useful in the motions and phenomena of the heavenly bodies. As to the catalogue of the fixed stars, it was not quite completed: just as he had placed a munil quadrant on the terras of the observatory, to observe some stars towards the north and the zenith, he fell sick, and died the 1st of December 1729.

, the author of the Turkish Spy, a book cried up far beyond its merits, for a long time, both in France and England, was born about 1642, at or near Genoa. When he was only twenty-seven or twentyeight, he was involved in the conspiracy of Raphael de la Torre, who was desirous to give up Genoa to the duke of Savoy. After being imprisoned four years, he retired to Monaco, where he wrote the history of t&at plot, printed at Lyons, in 1682, in Italian. It contains some curious particulars.

Marana, who had always wished to visit Paris, in 16S2 went to settle there; and his merit being distinguished, he found patronage from several people of consequence. He there wrote his “Turkish Spy,” in 6 vols. duodecimo, to which a seventh was added in 1742, when the last edition appeared. Tnough the style of this work was neither precise, correct, nor elegant, it was greatly relished by the public. The author had the art to interest curiosity by an amusing mixture of adventures, half true and half fictitious, but all received at the time as authentic, by persons of confined information. Few supposed the author to be a real Turk, but credit was given to the unknown European, who, under a slight fiction, thus delivered opinions and anecdotes, which it might not have been safe to publish in a more open manner. The first three volumes were most approved; the next three, which are in reality much inferior, were received with a proportionable degree of attention. The whole are now the amusement of tew except very idle readers. Many other spies of a similar kind have been formed upon this plan. Marana lived at Paris, rather in a retired manner, which suited his taste, to 1689, when the desire of solitude led him to retire into Italy, where he died in 1693.

, a prominent actor in the French revolution, was born of protestant parents, in Neufchatel, in 1744. In early life he went to Paris to study physic, and appears to have made very great proficiency in it; but probably from not having patience to pursue the profession in a regular course, he became an empyric, selling his medicines at an extravagant price. On the breaking out of the revolution, he took the lead among the most violent and savage of all the factions that disgraced the capital; and had endeavoured to preach murder and robbery long before it appeared probable that such crimes could have been practised with impunity. His first publication was a periodical paper, entitled the “Publiciste Parisien,” in which he, without scruple, and without any regard to decency and truth, attacked Neckar, and other men eminent for their integrity and public talents. His next paper was entitled “The Friend of the People,” in which he more openly excited the troops to use their arms against their generals, the poor to plunder the rich, and the people at large to rise against the king. After the deposition of Louis XVI. he was named a deputy of the department of Paris to the convention, in which assembly he appeared armed with pistols. In April 1793, he publicly denounced the leaders of the Brissotine party, accusing them oF treason against the state he was supported by Robespierre; a violent tumult ensued, but Marat and his friends were subdued, and himself impeached and prosecuted; in a few days, being brought to trial, he was acquitted. The triumph of his party was now unbounded, and they soon gained such an ascendancy over their enemies, that they murdered or banished all that attempted to obstruct the progress of their nefarious projects; till at length their leader Marat fell a victim to the enthusiastic rage of a female, Charlotte Cord6, who bad travelled from Caen, in Normandy, with a determination of rescuing, as she hoped, her country from the hands of barbarians, by the assassination of one of the chief among them. He died unpitied by every human being who was not of the atrocious faction which he led, having, for some weeks, acted the most savage parts, and been the means of involving many of the most virtuous characters in France in almost indiscriminate slaughter. Previously to joining in revolutionary politics, he was known as an author, and published a work “On Man, or Principles of the reciprocal Influence of the Soul and Body,” in two volumes, 12mo: also some tracts on Electricity and Light, in which he attacked the Newtonian System. These works had been forgot long before he began to make a figure in the political world; but it is remarkable that his death occasioned a fresh demand for them. They are now, however, again sunk into oblivion, and his name is never mentioned but with contempt and horror.

, one of the most admired painters of the Italian school, was born in 1625, at Camerino in the march of Ancona. When quite a child he is said to have pressed out the juices of flowers, which he used for colours in drawing on the walls of his father’s house. This propensity most probably induced his parents to send him to Rome at eleven years old; where, by his manner of copying the designs of Raphael in the Vatican, he obtained the favour of Andrea Sacchi, and became his pupil. From the grace and beauty of his ideas he was generally employed in painting Madonnas and female saints; on which account he was, by Salvator Rosa, satirically called Carluccio delta Madonna. He was far from being ashamed of this name, and in the inscription placed by himself on his monument (nine years before his death), he calls it gloriosum cognomen, and professes his particular devotion to the Virgin Mary. The pope, Clement XI. gave him a pension, and the title of Cavaliero di Cristo and he was appointed painter in ordinary to Louis XIV. He died at Home, loaded with honours, in 1713, at the advanced age of eighty-eight. Extreme modesty and gentleness were the characteristics of his disposition; and Jiis admiration of the great models he had studied was such, that not content with having contributed to preserve the works of Raphael and the Caraccis in the Farnese gallery, he erected monuments to them in the Pantheon, at his own expence. Several plates are extant, etched hy him in aquafortis, in which he has displayed abundant taste and genius.

Of this artist Mr. Fuseli says, that although " he enjoyed in his life the reputation of one of the first painters of Europe, his talent seldom rose above mediocrity; he delighted in easel-pictures or altar-pieces, though not unacquainted with fresco. He is celebrated for the lovely, modest, and yet dignified air of his Madonnas, the grace of his angels, the devout character of his saints, and their festive dresses. His best pictures are in the style of Sacchi: those of his second manner are more elaborate, more anxiously studied, but, with less freedom, have less grandeur. The masses of his draperies are too much intersected, shew the naked too little, and sometimes make his figures appear too heavy or too short. He certainly aimed at fixing his principal light -to the most important spot of his picture; but, being unacquainted with the nature and the gradations of shade, involved its general tone in a certain mistiness, which was carried to excess by his pupils, and became a characteristic mark of his school. He studied in his youth the style and works of Raphael with the most sedulous attention, and strove to imitate him at every period of his practice; but it does not appear that he ever discriminated his principles of design or composition, notwithstanding the subsequent minute and laborious employment of restoring his frescoes.

“The churches and palaces of Rome, filled with the pictures of Maratti, bear witness of his popularity but, perhaps, no work of his can impress us with a more advantageous opinion of his powers, than the Bathsheba viewed by David; a work, of which it is easier to feel than to describe the charms, which has no rival, and seems to preclude all hope of equal success in any future repetition of the subject.” Maratti had a daughter, Maria Maratti, whom he instructed himself in the art; her portrait, executed by herself, in a painting attitude, is in the gallery Corsini at Rome.

, one of the greatest ornaments of the Gallican church, but a man of great inconsistency of character, was born in 1594, at Gant, in Bearn, of a very ancient family in that principality. He went through his course of philosophy among the Jesuits, and then studied the law for three years; after which he was received a counsellor in 1615, in the supreme council at Pau. In 1621 he was made president of the parliament of Bearn; and going to Paris in 1639, about the affairs of his province, was made a counsellor of state. In 1640 he published “The History of Bearn,” which confirmed the good opinion that was conceived of his knowledge and parts. He was thought, therefore, a very proper person to undertake a delicate and important subject, which offered itself about that time. The court of France was then at variance with the court of Rome, and the book which Peter de Puy published, concerning the liberties of the Gallican church, greatly alarmed the partisans of the court of Rome; some of whom endeavoured to persuade the world that they were the preliminaries of a schism contrived by cardinal Richelieu; as if his eminency had it in his head to erect a patriarchate in that kingdom, in order to render the Gallican church independent of the pope. A French divine, M. Hersent (see Hersent), who took the name of Optatus Gallus, addressed a book to the clergy upon the subject; and insinuated that the cardinal had brought over to his party a great personage, who was ready to defend this conduct of the cardinal; and this great personage was Peter de Marca. But an insinuation of this nature tending to make the cardinal odious, as it occasioned a rumour that he aspired to the patriarchate, the king laid his commands on de Marca to refute Hersent’s work, and at the same time to preserve the liberties of the Gallican church on the one hand, and to make it appear on the other that those liberties did not in the least diminish the reverence due to the holy see. He accepted of this commission, and executed it by his book “De Concordia sacerdotii & imperii, sive, de libertatibus ecclesisæ Gallicæ,” which he published in 1641. He declared in his preface, that he did not enter upon the discussion of right, but confined himself to the settling of facts: that is, he only attempted to shew what deference the Western churches had always paid to the bishop of Rome on the one side; and on the other, what rights and privileges the Gallican churclh had always possessed. But though he had collected an infinite number of testimonies in favour of the pope’s power, the work was of too liberal a cast not to give offence: perhaps even the very attempt to throw the subject open to discussion was not very agreeable and accordingly, the court of Rome made a great many difficulties in dispatching the bulls which were demanded in favour of de Marca, who had, in the end of 1641, been presented to the bishopric of Conserans. That court gave him to understand that it was necessary he should soften some things he had advanced; and caused his book to pass a very strict examination. After the death of Urban VIII. cardinal Bichi warmly solicited Innocent X. to grant the bulls in favour of the bishop of Conserans; but the assessor of the holy office recalled the remembrance of the complaints which had been made against his book “De Concordia,” which occasioned this pope to order the examination of it anew. De Marca, despairing of success unless he gave satisfaction to the court of Rome, published a book in 1646, in which he explained the design of his “De Coocordia,” &c. submitted himself to the censure of the apostolic see, and shewed that kings were not the authors, but the guardians of the canon laws. “I own,” says he, “that I favoured the side of my prince too much, and acted the part of a president rather than that of a bishop. I renounce my errors, and promise for the future to be a strenuous advocate for the authority of the holy see.” Accordingly, in 1647, he wrote a book entitled “De singulari primatu Petri,” in which he proved that St. Peter was the only head of the church; and this he sent to the pope, who was so pleased with it, that he immediately granted his bulls, and he was made bishop of Conserans in 1648. This conduct of de Marca has been noticed by lord Bolingbroke, in his posthumous works, with becoming indignation. He calls him “a time-­serving priest, interested, and a great flatterer, if ever there was one;” and adds, that, “when he could not get his bulls dispatched, be made no scruple to explain away all that he had said in favour of the state, and to limit the papal power.”

In 1644, de Marca was sent into Catalonia, to perform the office of visitor-general, and counsellor of the viceroy, which he executed to the year 1651, and so gained the affections of the Catalonians, that in 1647, when he was dangerously ill, they put up public prayers, and vows for his recovery. The city of Barcelona, in particular, made a vow to our lady of Montserrat, and sent thither in their name twelve capuchins and twelve nuns, who performed their journey with their hair hanging loose, and bare-footed. De Marca was persuaded, or rather seemed to be persuaded, that his recovery was entirely owing to so many vows and prayers; and would not leave Catalonia without going to pay his devotions at Montserrat, in the beginning of 1651, and there wrote a small treatise, “De origine & progressu cultûs beatæ Mariæ Virginis in Monteserato,” which he left in the archives of the monastery; so little did he really possess of that liberality and firmness of mind which is above vulgar prejudice and superstition. In August of the same year, he went to take possession of his bishopric; and the year after was nominated to the archbishopric of Toulouse, but did not take possession till 1655. In 1656 he assisted at the general assembly of the French clergy, and appeared in opposition to the Jansenists, that he might wipe off all suspicion of his not being an adherent of the court of Rome, for he knew that his being suspected of Jansenism had for a long time retarded the bull which was necessary to establish him in the archbishopric of Toulouse. He was made a minister of state in 1658, and went to Toulouse in 1659. In the following year he went to Roussillon, there to determine the marches with the commissaries of the king of Spain. In these conferences he had occasion to display his learning, as they involved points of criticism respecting the language of Pomponius Mela and Strabo. It was said in the Pyrenean treaty, that the limits of France and Spain were the same with those which anciently separated the Gauls from Spain. This obliged them to examine whereabouts, according to the ancient geographers, the Gauls terminated here; and de Marca’s knowledge was of great use at this juncture. He took a journey to Paris the same year, and obtained the appoiutment of archbishop of Paris; but died there June 29, 1662, the very day that the bulls for his promotion arrived. His sudden death, at this time, occasioned the following jocular epitaph:

He left the care of his manuscripts to Mr. Baluze, who had lived with him ever since June, 1656, and who has written his life, whence this account is taken. Baluze also published an edition of his work “De Concordia,” in 1704, as originally written. The only other works he wrote of any note are his “Histoire de Bearn,” Paris, 1640, fol. and his “Marca Hispanica, sive Limes Hispanicus,” Paris, 1688, fol. edited by Baluze. Le Clerc very justly thinks Baluze’s account of De Marca, a panegyric or an apology rather than a life. The most favourable trait in De Marca’s character was his ambition to rise by learning, which certainly first brought him into notice. He is said to have renounced all the pleasures of youth, while he was at school, for the love of books; and to have foretold to his school-fellows, who spent their time in vain amusements, the difference which would one day appear between their glory and his. It was at Toulouse that he laid the groundwork of his great learning; and he did not neglect to make himself a complete master of the Greek tongue, which greatly distinguished him from other learned men. He was early married to a young lady of the ancient family of the viscounts of Lavedan, who bore him several children; but she dying in 1632, he went into orders.

, a nobleman celebrated for musical knowledge, was born July 24, 1680, at Venice, and was the descendant of one of the most illustrious families of that republic. He had cultivated music so seriously and successfully under the guidance of the celebrated Gasparini, that no contemporary professor was more reverenced for musical science, or half so much praised for his abilities as a composer, as Marcello; and besides his musical productions, consisting of psalms, operas, madrigals, songs, and cantatas, he was frequently his own poet, and sometimes assumed the character of lyric bard for other musicians. It is probable that Marcello had received some disgust in his early attempts at dramatic music; for, in 1720, he published a furious satire upon composers, singing-masters, and singers in general, under the title of “Teatro alia Moda,” or “An easy and certain Method of composing and performing Italian Operas in the modern manner.” But his great musical work, to which the late Mr. Avison’s encomiums aud Mr. Garth’s publication to English words, have given celebrity in our own country, was first printed at Venice, in 8 vols. folio, under the following title: “Estro poetico-arznonico, Parafrasi sopra i primi 50 Salmi, Poesia di Girciarno Ascanio Giustiniani, Musica di Benedetto Marcello, Patrizj Veneti, 1724 and 1725.” Dr. Burney, after a careful examination of this elaborate work, is of opinion, that though it has considerable merit, the author has been over-praised; as the subjects of many of his fugues and airs are not only common and old-fashioned at present, but were far from new at the time these psalms were composed. But, adds Dr. Burney, Marcello was a Venetian nobleman, as Venosa was a Neapolitan prince; both did honour to music by cultivating it; and both expected and received a greater return in fame than the legal interest of the art would allow. Marcello died at Brescia, June 25, 173<>, or, according to our principal authority, in 1741. He was author of a drama called “Arato in Sparta,” which was set by Ruggieri, and performed at Venice in 1704; and in 1710 he produced both the words and the music of an oratorio called “Giuditta.” He set the “Psyche” of Cassini about the same time; and in 1718 he published “Sonnets” of his own writing, without music.

, an author to whom the curious in literary history are greatly indebted, was probably a native of Paris, and born towards the conclusion of the seventeenth century. He was bred up as a bookseller in that city, a business which always requires some knowledge of books, but which he carried to an extent very unusual, and for forty years employed almost the whole of his time in inspecting the works of eminent authors, inquiring into their history, their editions, differences, and every species of information which forms the accurate bibliographer. During the time that Mr. Bernard published the “Nouvelles de la Republiques des Lettres,” Marchand was his constant correspondent, and contributed all the literary anecdotes from Paris, which appeared in that journal. Being, however, a conscientious protestant, and suspecting that in consequence of the repeal of the edict of Nantz, he might be interrupted in the exercise of his religion, he went to reside in Holland, and carried on the bookselling trade there for some time, until meeting with some lack of honesty among his brethren (pen de bonne-foi qiCil avoit trouvej, he relinquished business, and devoted his time entirely to literary history and biography. In both his knowledge was so conspicuous, that the booksellers were always happy to avail themselves of his opinion respecting intended publications, and more happy when they could engage his assistance as an editor. In the latter character, we find that he superintended an edition, 1. of Bayle’s “Dictionary,” and “Letters,” both which he illustrated with notes. 2. “Satyre Menippee,” Ratisbonne (Brussels), 1714, 3 vols. 8vo. 3. “Cymbalum mundi,” by Bonaventure de Perrieres, Amst. 1732, 12mo. 4. Fenelon’s “Direction pomla conscience d'un roi,” Hague, 1747, 8vo and 12mo. 5. The abbe Brenner’s “Histoire des Revolutions de Hongrie,” ibid. 1739, 2 vols. 4to, and 6 vols. 12mo. 6. “Lettres, Memoires, et Negociations du comte d'Estrades,” London (Hague)^ 1743, 9 vols. 12mo. 7. “Histoire de Fenelon,” Hague, 1747, 12mo. 8. “Oeuvres de Brantome,” ibid. 1740, 15 vols. 12mo. 9. “Oeuvres de Villon,” ibid. 1742, 8vo, &c. &c.

Marchand was also one of the principal writers in the “Journal Litteraire,” which was reckoned one of the best of the kind, and he contributed occasionally to other periodical works. He maintained at the same time a regular and extensive correspondence with the most learned men in different parts of Europe; to whom he communicated, and from whom he received communications, and often had it in his power to assist them from the stores of his ow, curious and well-chosen library.

Besides the “Anti-Cotton, ou Refutation de la lettre declaratoire du P. Cotton, avec un dissertation,” printed at the Hague in 1738, at the end of the history of Don Inigo de Guipuscoa, and the “Chef-d‘oeuvre d’un inconnu,” often reprinted, he published in 1740 “Histoire de PImprimerie,” Hague, 4to, a work of great research, and often consulted by typographical antiquaries, but deficient in perspicuity of arrangement. A valuable supplement to it was published by Mercier, the abbé of St. Leger, 1775, 2 vols. 4to, which French bibliographers say is better executed than Marchand’s work, and certainly is more correct. But the vvork which best preserves the name of Marchand, was one to which we have taken many opportunities to own our obligations, his “Dictionnaire Historique, ou Memoires Critiques et Litteraires, concernant la vie et les outrages de divers personnages distingués, particulierement dans la republique des-lettres,” 1758 9, 2 vols. folio. This has been by his editor and others called a Supplement to Bayle; but, although Marchand has touched upon a few of the authors in Bayle’s series, and has made useful corrections and valuable additions to them, yet in general the materials are entirely his own, and the information of his own discovering. The articles are partly biographical, and partly historical; but his main object being the history of books, he sometime*enlarges to a degree of minuteness, which bibliographers only can pardon, and it must be owned sometimes brings forward inquiries into the history of authors and works which his utmost care can scarcely rescue from the oblivion in which he found them. With this objection, which by no means affects the totality of the work, we know few volumes that afford more satisfaction or information on the subjects introduced. His accuracy is in general precise, but there are many errors of the press, and the work laboured under the disadvantage of not being handed to the press by the author. He often intended this, and as often deferred it, because his materials increased so that he never could say when his design was accomplished; and at length, when he had nearly overcome all his scruples, and was about to print, a stroke of palsy deprived him of the use of his right hand, and unfitted him for every business but that of preparing to die, and the settlement of his affairs. This last took up little time. He was a man of frugal habits, content with the decent necessaries of life, and laid out what remained of his money in books. The items of his will, therefore, were few, but liberal. He left his personal property to a society established at the Hague for the education of the poor; and his library and Mss. to the university of Leyden. He died, at an advanced age, June 14, 1756. His “Dictiormaire” he consigned to the care of a friend, who has given us only the initials of his name (J. N. S. A.) to whom he likewise intrusted a new edition of his “History of Printing,” which has never appeared. This friend undertook to publish the Dictionary with the. greater alacrity, as Mart-hand assured him that the manuscript was ready. Ready it certainly was, hut in such a state as frightened the editor, being all written upon little pieces of paper of different sizes, some not bigger than one’s thumb-nail, and written in a character so exceeding small, that it was not legible to the naked eye. The editor, therefore, said perhaps truly, that this was the first book ever printed by the help of a microscope. These circumstances, however, may afford a sufficient apology for the errors of the press, already noticed; and the editor certainly deserves praise for having so well accomplished his undertaking amidst so many difficulties.

, a French courtier and author, of the fifteenth century, was the son of a Burgundian gentleman. He was first page, and afterwards gentleman to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, who so highly esteemed his fidelity, that he refused to give him up at the demand of Louis XI. La Marche served afterwards with zeal under Charles the Rash, who was slain at the battle of Nancy, in 1477. After this, he had the office of grand maitre d'hotel to Maximilian of Austria, who had married the heiress of Burgundy; and, maintaining the same post under the archduke Philip, was sent on an embassy to France after the death of Louis XI. He died at Brussels Feb. 1, 1501. His works are, 1. “Memoirs, or Chronicles,” printed at Lyons in I 562, and at Brussels in 1616, 4to. They are reckoned inferior to the Memoirs of Comines, as to their style, but perhaps superior as to their sincerity. The author relates several curious anecdotes in a manner which, though flat, is rendered pleasing by its frankness. 2. “ATreatiseon Duels,” &c. 8vo. 3. “Triomphe des Dames d'Honneur,” 1520, 8vo; the Triumph of virtuous Women. This is a work of dull and trivial morality, full of quaint allusions and metaphors. Several other performances are said to be extant, in print, and. in manuscript, but from the account given of them there is little motive for making them the object of any further inquiry.

, a physician, mathematician, and poet of Pisa, was born at Pontormo, between Pisa and Florence, March 17, 1633. His talents were early developed, and he became the pupil and intimate friend of the learned Borelli, whom he succeeded in 1679, as professor of mathematics at Pisa. He was a man above prejudices, free to declare his sentiments, preferring experiment to authority, and reason to Aristotle. He produced several excellent disciples, and died at Pontormo, Sept. 6, 1714, aged eighty-one. There are extant by him, 1. “Poems,” 1704, in 4to. 2. Several treatises on philosophical subjects, among which that on the resistance of fluids, is particularly valued, 1669, 4to. After his death appeared, 3. A translation of Lucretius, in Italian verse, much esteemed for its fidelity, ease, and harmony; yet, say* baretti, “the versification, in my opinion, is but indifferent.” It was not allowed to be published in Italy, but was published in London, 1717, in 4to, by Paulo Rolli, the translator of Milton into,blank verse. 4. His free translation of Anacreon is less esteemed; it was published at Venice in 1736. There is an edition of his poems, printed at Venice in 1755, 4to, to which his life is prefixed.

, a physician, was professor of anatomy at Padua, where he was born, and where he continued to teach that art from 1652 until 1669, when he was allowed to resign his chair to his son Anthony. In 1661, he also obtained the appointment to the first professorship of surgery, which he held along with that of anatomy. His merit in both procured him the honour of knighthood of the order of St. Mark. At the age of eighty years, he retired altogether from the university; and, after having enjoyed a short period of repose, he died in April 1673. He left the following works: “Anatomia,” Venice, 1654, 4to. “Sylloge Observationnm Medico-chirurgicarum rariorum,” Padua, 1664, several times reprinted, and translated into German. It contained fiftythree cases of some interest, and three tracts on. ulcers, on fistulas of the urethra, and on spina ventosa. His two sons, Dominic and Anthony de Majrchetti, were likewise both professors in their native university of Padua. The former was author of a good compendium of anatomy, according to the judgment of Haller, which passed through several editions, under the title of “Anatomia, cui Responsiones ad Riolanum, Anatomicum Parisiensem, in ipsius animadversionibus contra Veslingium, additae sunt,” Padua, 1652, &c.

, a nobleman of great learning and accomplishments, was born in 1708. He was the third in succession to, and the last inheritor of, that title; there being no male descendants of his grandfather, sir Patrick Hume, the first earl, and his lordship having survived his only son, Alexander lord Polwarth, who had been created an English peer, but died without issue of his marriage with the lady Isabella Grey, daughter of the earl of Hardwicke, and heiress of the last duke of Kent; a peeress in her own right, under a limitation by Charles II. of the barony of Lucas of Cruduell.

Sir Patrick Hume, the first earl, was raised to the peerage by king William III, for having taken a very leading and active part to counteract the arbitrary proceedings of Charles II.; and afterwards the more dangerous measures of James II. which threatened the annihilation of the liberties of the country, as well as the complete subversion of its religion; for which attempts he was long imprisoned in the former reign; and persecuted with a most unrelenting spirit in the latter, for having joined in the unsuccessful attempt of the^earl of Argyle in 1685. King William’s private regard for sir Patrick was marked by his majesty’s granting an addition to his arms of an orange, ensigned with an imperial crown; and by giving him an original portrait of himself.

When a near relation, very dear to sir Patrick, was again imprisoned, he thought it adviseable to keep himself concealed. The following account of his concealment is taken, from the ms. preserved in the family by his grand-daughter. “After persecution began afresh, and my grandfather Baillie again in prison, sir Patrick thought it necessary to keep concealed; and soon found he had too good reason for so doing, parties being continually sent out in search of him, and often to his own house, to the terror of all in it, though not from any fear for his safety, whom they imagined at a great distance from home, for no soul knew where he was but my grandmother, and my mother, except one man, a carpenter, called Jamie Winter, who used to work in the house, and lived a mile off, on whose fidelity they thought they could depend; and were not deceived. The frequent examinations and oaths put to servants in order to make discoveries were so strict, they durst not run the risk of trusting any of them. By the assistance of this man they got a bed and bed-clothes carried in the night to the burying-place, a vault under ground at Polwarth church, a mile from the house, where he was concealed a month; and had only for light an open slit at the one end, through which nobody could see what was below; she (his daughter) went every night by herself at midnight, to carry him victuals and drink, and staid with him as long as she could to get home before day. In all this time my grandfather shewed the same constant composure and cheerfulness of mind that he continued to possess to his death, which was at the age of eighty -four; all which good qualities she inherited from, him in a high degree; often did they laugh heartily in that doleful habitation, at different accidents that happened. She at that time had a terror for a church-yard, especially in the dark, as it is not uncommon at her age, by idle nursery stories; but when engaged by concern for her father, she stumbled over the graves every night alone, without fear of any kind entering her thoughts, but for soldiers and parties in search of him, which the least noise or motion of a leaf put her in terror for. The minister’s house was near the church; the first night she went, his dogs kept such a barking as put her in the utmost fear of a discovery; my grandmother sent for the minister next day, and upon pretence of a mad dog, got him to hang all his dogs. There was also difficulty of getting victuals to carry him without the servants suspecting; the only way it was done, was by stealing it off her plate at dinner into her lap many a diverting story she has told about and other things of a like nature. Her father liked sheep’s head, and while the children were eating their broth, she had conveyed most of one into her lap; when her brother Sandy (the second lord Marchmont) had done, he looked up with astonishment, and said,” Mother, will ye look at Grizzel; while we have been eating our broth, she has eat up the whole sheep’s head.“This occasioned so much mirth among them, that her father at night was greatly entertained by it; and desired Sandy might have a share in the next. I need not multiply stories of this kind, of which I know many. His great comfort and constant entertainment (for he had no light to read by) was repeating Buchanan’s Psalms, which he had by heart from beginning to end; and retained them to his dying-day two years before he died, which was in 1724, I was witness to his desiring my mother to take up that work, which, amongst others, always lay upon his table, and bid her try if he had forgot his psalms, by naming any one she would have him repeat; and by casting her eye over it she would know if he was right, though she did not understand it; and he missed not a word in any place she named to him, and said they had been the great comfort of his life, by night and day, on all occasions. As the gloomy habitation my father was in, was not to be long endured but from necessity, they were contriving other places of safety for him; amongst others, particularly one under a bed which drew out, on a ground Moor, in a room of which my mother kept the key; she and the same man worked in the night, making a hole in the earth after lifting the boards, which they did by scratching it up with their hands not to make any noise, till she left not a nail upon her fingers, she helping the man to carry the earth as they dug it, in a sheet, on his back, out at the window into the garden; he then made a box at his own house, large enough for her father to lie in, with bed and bed-clothes, and bored holes in the boards for air; when all this was finished, for it was long about, she thought herself the most secure happy creature alive. When it had stood the trial for a month of no water coming into it, which was feared from being so low, and every day examined by my mother, and the holes for air made clear, and kept clean-picked, her father ventured home, having that to trust to. After being at home a week or two, the bed daily examined as usual, one day in lifting the boards, the bed bounced to the top, the box being full of water: in her life she was never so struck, and had near dropped down, it being at that time their only refuge; her father, with great composure, said to his wife and her, he saw they must tempt Providence no longer, and that it was now fit and necessary for him to go off, and leave them; in which he was confirmed hy the carrier telling for news he had brought from Edinburgh, that the day before, Mr. Baillie of Jerviswoode had his life taken from him at the Cross, and that every body was sorry, though they durst not shew it; as all intercourse by letters was dangerous, it was the first notice they bad of it; and the more shocking, that it was not expected. They immediately set about preparing for my grandfather’s going away. My mother worked night and day in making some alterations in his clothes for disguise; they were then obliged to trust John Allen, their grieve, who fainted away when he was told his master was in the house, and that he was to set out with him on horseback before day, and pretend to the rest of the servants that he had orders to sell some horses at Morpeth fair. Accordingly, my grandfather getting out at a window in the stables, they set out in the dark; though with good reason it was a sorrowful parting, yet after he was fairly gone they rejoiced, and thought themselves happy that he was in a way of being safe, though they were deprived of him, and little knew what was to be either his fate or their own.”

Sir Patrick having by such means eluded all the exertions of government to have him seized, after the failure of the duke of Argyle’s attempt, escaped to France, and travelled through that country, as a physician, to Bourcleaux, from whence he embarked for Holland, where he attached himself to the prince of Orange, looking up to him, as many others both at home and in Holland did, as the best resource against the threatened destruction of every thing most dear to British subjects.

When his serene highness came over, and happily effected the bloodless revolution, sir Patrick Hume was one of those who accompanied him, and was by him created lord Polwarth of Polwarth, and afterwards earl of Marchmont. He was also made lord high chancellor of Scotland by king William; an office in that country, before the Union, of the highest rank, as it is here,

Alexander, the second earl, second son of the preceding, was ambassador to Denmark and Prussia in 1715; in 1716 was appointed lord register of Scotland; and in 1721 was named first ambassador in the congress at Cambray.

Hugh, of whom we now speak, the third earl, was the third son of the above-mentioned Alexander, and twin-­brother of Mr. Hume Campbell, who was in the first practice at the English bar, but retired from it on being appointed lord register of Scotland. The subject of our present article having finished his studies in the learned languages, in which at an early period of his life he was a most distinguished scholar, he was sent to Utrecht to complete his education. Here, under the instruction of one of the most eminent civilians of modern times, he succeeded in the attainment of a knowledge of the civil law to an extent seldom acquired, even by those who were to follow it as a profession; and at the same time became master of several modern languages, which he read and wrote with great facility.