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Mr. Cumberland, whose paintings are to be viewed with some caution, gives the following as characteristic sketches of bishop Pococke: “That celebrated oriental traveller and author was a man of mild manners and primitive simplicity; having given the world a full detail of his researches in Egypt, he seemed to hold himself excused from saying any thing more about them, and observed in general an obdurate taciturnity. In his carriage and deportment he appeared to have contracted something of the Arab character, yet there was no austerity in his silence, and though his air was solemn, his temper was serene. When we were on our road to Ireland, I saw from the windows of the inn at Daventry a cavalcade of horsemen approaching on a gentle trot, headed by an elderly chief in clerical attire, who was followed by five servants at distances geometrically measured and most precisely maintained, and who, upon entering the inn, proved to be this distinguished prelate, conducting his horde with the phlegmatic patience of a Scheiki”

, one of the. revivers of literature, was the son of Guccio Bracciolini, and was born in 1380, at Terranuova, a small town situated in the territory of the republic of Florence, not far from Arezzo. He inherited from his father who had been a notary, but had lost his property, no advantages of rank or fortune, yet in a literary point of view, some circumstances of his birth were singularly propitious. At the close of the fourteenth century, the dawn of literature was appearing, and the city of Florence was distinguished by the zeal with which its principal inhabitants cultivated and patronized the liberal arts. It was consequently the favourite resort of the ablest scholars of the time; some of whom were induced by the offer of considerable salaries, to undertake the task of public instruction. In this celebrated school, Poggio applied himself to the study of the Latin tongue, under the direction of John of Ravenna; and of Greek, under Manuel Chrysoloras. When he had acquired a competent knowledge of these languages, he quitted Florence, and went to Rome, where his literary reputation introduced him to the notice of pope Boniface IX. who took him into his service, and promoted him to the office of writer of the apostolic letters, probably about 1402. At this time Italy was convulsed by war and faction, and in that celebrated ecclesiastical feud, which is commonly distinguished by the name of the “schism of the West,” no fewer than six of Poggio’s patrons, the popes, were implicated in its progress and consequences. In 1414 we find Poggio attending the infamous pope John to Constance, in quality of secretary; but as this pontiff fled from the council, his household was dispersed, and Poggio remained some time at Constance. Having a good deal of leisure, he employed his vacant hours in studying the Hebrew language, under the direction of a Jew who had been converted to the Christian faith. The first act of the council of Constance was the trial of pope John, who was convicted of the most atrocious vices incident to the vilest corruption of human nature, for which they degraded him from his dignity, and deprived him of his liberty. It was also by this council that John Huss, the celebrated Bohemian reformer, was examined and condemned, and that Jerome of Prague, in 1416, was tried. Poggio, who was present at Jerome’s trial, gave that very eloquent account of the martyr’s behaviour which we have already noticed (See Jerome Of Prague), and which proves, in the opinion of Poggio’s biographer, that he possessed a heart “which daily intercourse with bjgoted believers and licentious hypocrites could not deaden to the impulses of humanity.”

The vacancy in the pontifical throne still affording Poggio a considerable degree of leisure, he undertook about this time an expedition of no small importance to the interests of literature, in quest of such ancient manuscripts of classic authors as were scattered rh various monasteries and other repositories in the neighbourhood of Constance, where they were in danger of perishing through neglect and in this he was successful beyond any individual of his time. Among other precious relics thus recovered, was a complete copy of Quintilian pare of the Argonautics of Valerius Flaccus; Asconius Pedianus’s Comment on eight of Cicero’s orations several of the orations of Cicero Silius Italicus; Lactantius “de ira Dei” Vegetius “de re militari” Nonnius Marcellus Ammianus Marcellinus Lucretius Columella Tertullian twelve of the comedies of Plautus and various other works, or parts of the works of the ancient classics, which are enumerated by his Biographer.

After the ecclesiastical feud had been in some measure composed, Martin V. became the new pontiff, but Poggio did not at first hold any office under him, as he visited England in consequence of an invitation which he had received from Beaufort, bishop of Winchester. He is said to have observed with chagrin the uncultivated state of the public mind in Britain, when compared with the enthusiastic love of elegant literature, which polished and adorned his native country. During his residence here he received an invitation to take the office of secretary to Martin V. which was the more readily accepted by him, as he is said to have been disappointed in the expectations he had formed from the bishop of Winchester. The time of his arrival at Rome is not exactly ascertained but it appears that his first care afcer his re-establishment in the sacred chancery, was to renew with his friends the personal and epistolary communication which his long absence from Italy had interrupted. He now also resumed his private studies, and in 1429 published his “Dialogue on Avarice,” in which he satirized, with great severity, the friars who were a branch of the order of the Franciscans, and who, on account of the extraordinary strictness with which they professed to exercise their conventual discipline, were distinguished by the title of Fratres Observantly. He inveighs also against the monastic life with great freedom, but with a levity which renders it very questionable whether any kind of religious life was much to his taste. When Eugenius IV. was raised to the pontificate, his authority commenced with unhappy omens, being engaged in quarrels both in Italy and Germany and Poggio, foreseeing the disastrous event, wrote freely upon the subject to the cardinal Julian, the pope’s legate, that he might gain him over to his master’s interest. In this letter were some smart strokes of satiric wit, which the disappointed and irritated mind of Julian could not well bear. Poggio’s morals were not free from blame; and the cardinal in his answer reminds him of having children, which, he observes, “is inconsistent with the obligations of an ecclesiastic and by a mistress, which is discreditable to the character of a layman.” To these reproaches Poggio replied in a letter replete with the keenest sarcasm. He pleaded guilty to the charge which had been exhibited against him, and candidly confessed that he had deviated from the paths of virtue, but excused himself by the common-place argument that many ecclesiastics had done the same. In 1433, when the pope was obliged to fly from Rome, Poggio was taken prisoner, and obliged to ransom himself by a large sum of money. He then repaired to Florence, where he attached himself to the celebrated Cosmo de Medici, and in consequence became involved in a quarrel with Francis Philelphus (See Philelphus), which was conducted with mutual rancour. Poggio now purchased a villa at VaJdarno, which he decorated with ancient sculpture and monuments of art; and such was the esteem in which he was held by the republic of Florence, that he and his children were exempted from the payment of taxes. These children, all illegitimate, amounted to fourteen but in 1435, when he had attained his fifty-fifth year, he dismissed them and their mother without provision, and married a girl of eighteen years old. On this occasion he wrote a formal treatise on the propriety of an old man marrying a young girl the treatise is lost, and would be of little consequence if recovered, since the question was not whether an old man should marry a young girl, but whether an old man should discard his illegitimate offspring to indulge his sensuality under the form of marriage. As however, men in years who marry so disproportionately are generally very ardent lovers, he celebrates his young bride for her great beauty, modesty, sense, &c.

Whatever might be the case with his moral, Poggio’s literary reputation began about this time to be extensively diffused, and his writings became an object of frequent inquiry among the learned, some of whom solicited him to publish a collection of his epistles, from a perusal of which they had often derived gratification. This request could not but be highly agreeable to his feelings, and he readily took the requisite steps to comply with it. This was followed by a funeral oration in honour of his friend Niccolo Niccoli. In 1440 he published his “Dialogue on Nobility,” a work which, his biographer says, greatly increased his reputation, by the luminousiiess of its method, the elegance of its diction, and the learned references with which it was interspersed. This was followed by his dialogue “On the unhappiness of Princes,” in which he dwells with so much energy on the vices of exalted rank, as to afford room for suspicion, that resentment and indignation had at least as much influence in its composition as the suggestions of philosophy. However the effusions of moroseriess that occur in this dialogue are interspersed with precepts of sound morality, and the historic details with which it abounds are both entertaining and instructive.

Although Poggio held the office of apostolic secretary under seven pontiffs, he had never reached any of the superior departments of the Roman chancery. But when Nicholas V. ascended the pontifical throne, his prospects were brightened and he indulged the hope of spending the remainder of his days in a state of independence, if not of affluence. With a viewof improving his interest with the new pontiff, he addressed to him a congratulatory oration, which was recompensed by very liberal presents. This was succeeded by a dedicatory epistle, introducing to his patronage a dialogue “On the Vicissitudes of Fortune,” the most interesting of Poggio’s works, and inculcating maxims of sublime philosophy, enforced by a detail of splendid and striking events. Confiding in the pontiff, he also published the dialogue “On Hypocrisy,” already mentioned. At the request, and under the patronage of Nicolas, he also contributed to the illustration of Grecian literature, by a Latin translation of the works of Diodorus Siculus, and the “Cyropaedia” of Xenophon. During the plague, which raged in various parts of Italy, in 1450, Poggio visited the place of his nativity; and availing himself of this interval of relaxation from the duties of his office, he published his “Liber Facetiarum,” or collection of jocose tales, containing anecdotes of several eminent persons who flourished during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This work acquired a considerable degree of popularity, and was read, not only in the native country of its author, but also in France, Spain, Germany, and Britain, very little indeed to the credit of the readers, as it abounds with gross and abominable indecencies. In 1451 he dedicated to the cardinal Prospero Colonna, his “Historia disceptativa convivialis.” In 1453 Poggio was elevated to the chancellorship of Florence; and at the same time he was chosen one of the “Priori degli arti,” or presidents of the trading companies; both which offices he held till his death, which happened October 30, 1459. Notwithstanding the multiplicity of his business, and the advances of age, he prosecuted his studies with his accustomed ardour, and published a dialogue “De miseria hurnanae conditionis,” and a version of Lucian’s “Ass,” with a view of establishing a point of literary history, which seems to nave been till that time unknown namely, that Apuleius was indebted to Lucian for the stamina of his “Asinus aureus.” The last literary work in which he engaged, was his “History of Florence,” divided into eight books, and comprehending the events in which the Florentines were concerned from 1350 to the peace of Naples in 1455. This history was translated into Italian by Jacopo, the son of Poggio but the original was published by Recanati, and has been republished in the collections of Graevius and Muratori. Poggio concluded his career in the possession of universal respect, and in the tranquil enjoyment of social and domestic comforts. His remains were interred with solemn magnificence in the church of Santa Croce at Florence and his fellow-citizens testified thek respect for his talents and virtues, by erecting a statue to his memory on the front of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore. As the citizeu of a free state, which he deemed a high honour, he improved every opportunity that occurred for increasing and displaying the glory of the Tuscan republic. Although he was honoured by the favour of the great, he never sacrificed his independence at the shrine of power, but uniformly maintained the ingenuous sentiments of freedom. Such was the state of morals in his time, that the licentiousness which disgraced the early period of his life, and the indecent levity which occurs in some of his writings, did not deprive him of the countenance of the greatest ecclesiastical dignitaries, or cause him to forfeit the favour of the pious Eugenius, or of the moral and accomplished Nicolas V. To those with whom he maintained a personal intercourse, he recommended himself by the urbanity of his manners, the strength of his judgment, and the sportiveness of his wit. “As a scholar, Poggio is entitled to distinguished praise. By assiduous study, he became a considerable proficient in the Greek language, and intimately conversant with the works of the Roman classic authors. In selecting, as his exemplar in Latin composition, the style of Cicero, he manifested the discernment of true taste and his endeavours to imitate this exquisite model, were far from being unsuccessful. His diction is flowing, and his periods are well balanced. But by the occasional admission of barbarous words and unauthorized phraseology, he reminds his readers that at the time when he wrote, the iron age of literature was but lately terminated. His striking fault is diffuseness a diffuseness which seems to arise, not so much from the copiousness of his thoughts, as from the difficulty which he experienced in clearly expressing his ideas. It must, however, be observed, that he did not, like many modern authors who are celebrated for their Latinity, slavishly confine himself to the compilation of centos from the works of the ancients. In the prosecution of his literary labours, he drew from his own stores and those frequent allusions to the customs and transactions of his own times, which render his writings so interesting, must, at a period when the Latin language was just rescued from the grossest barbarism, have rendered their composition peculiarly difficult.” When compared with the works of his immediate predecessors, the writings of Poggio are truly astonishing. Rising to a degree of elegance, to be sought for in vain in the rugged Latinity of Petrarca and Coluccio Salutati, he prepared the way for the correctness of Politian, and of the other eminent scholars whose gratitude has reflected such splendid lustre on the character of Lorenzo de Medici." The works of Poggio were published together at Basil, in 1538, which is reckoned the most complete edition.

, a very excellent French engraver, was born at Abbeville in 1622, and bred under Pierre Duret. He completed his knowledge of his art by a residence of seven years at Rome and on his return to Paris, distinguished himself by many capital works from pictures of sacred and profane history, and portraits of various sizes. Louis XIV. made him his engraver in ordinary, in 1664, expressly on account of his merit, and the works he had published in Italy, as well as in France. He drew as skilfully as he engraved. Precision of outline, boldness, firmness, and clearness, are the characteristics of his plates; and it is recorded to his honour, that he never degraded his abilities by engraving any subject of an immoral kind. He died in 1693. His brother Nicolas, who was also an able engraver, survived him only three years and both left sons, who applied their talents to painting and engraving.

, famous only for his love of mysticism and enthusiasm, and for his writings conformable to those sentiments, was born at Metz, April 15, 1646, and educated at Basle in Switzerland, in the college of Erasmus. His father, who was a sword-cutler, placed him as pupil to a sculptor, and from him he learned design at least, and retained so much of the art as to draw the portrait of his favourite, madame Bourignon. This pursuit, however, he forsook for the learned languages, philosophy, and theology. He became a minister at Heidelberg in 1668, and at Anweil obtained a similar situation in 1674. Here it was that he met with the works of the mystical writers, with which, particularly with those of madame Bourignon, he became to the utmost infatuated. Madame Guyon was another of his favourites, and he determined to live according to their maxims. Towards the end of life he retired to Reinsberg in Holland, where he died, May 21, 1719, at the age of seventy-three. His works are all of the mystical kind: 1. “Cogitationes rationales de Deo,” Amst. 1677, 4to twice reprinted. 2. “ L'ceconomie Divine,” 1687, in 7 vols. 8vo, in which all the notions of Bourignon are repeated. 3. “La Paix des bonnes Ames,” Amst. 1687, 12mo. 4. “Les Principes solides de la Religion Chretienne,” 1705, 12mo. 5. “Theologie du Coeur,” Cologne, 1697, 2 vols. 12mo. 6. He published also a complete edition of the works of madame Bourignon, in twenty-one volumes, octavo, with a life of that pious enthusiast. 7. An attempt to attack Descartes, in a treatise “de Eruditione triplici,” in 2 vols. 4to, reprinted at Amsterdam in 1707. This being directed against Descartes, has been compared to the attack of the viper upon the file. It contains, however, some good observations.

, an eminent physician, was born at Nancy, in 1527. He studied medicine at Paris under Sylvius, together with his elder brother, Anthony Lepois, who was afterwards first physician to Charles III. duke of Lorraine, and author of a valuable work on ancient coins. Nicholas succeeded him as the duke’s physician in 1578. The result of his practice, and of his very extensive reading, was at first drawn up only for the use of his sons, Christian and Charles, whom he destined for the medical profession; but being prevailed on to publish it, it was printed at Francfort, in 1580, in folio, under the title of “De cognoscendis et curandis prsecipue interi}is humani corporis morbis, Libri tres, ex clarissimorum medicorum, turn veterum, turn recentiorum, monumentis non ita pridem collecti.” Boerhaave had so high an opinion of this author, that he edited this work, adding a preface to it, at Leyden, 1736, in two volumes, quarto; a_nd it was again reprinted at Leipsic in 1766, 2 vols. 8vo. The time of his death has not been recorded.

, son of the preceding, was born at Nancy in 1563, and educated at the college of Navarre, at Paris, where he distinguished himself by his rapid advancement in the knowledge of the languages, belles lettres, and philosophy. He received the degree of M. A, in the university of Paris in 1581, and immediately commenced his career in the schools of medicine, which he pursued at Paris, Padua, and other schools of Italy. When he returned to Paris in 1588 he took his bachelor’s degree in medicine, and became a licentiate but having already expended his little income on the previous parts of his medical progress, he was obliged to leave Paris without having taken the degree of doctor. He then returned to his native city, where duke Charles III. of Lorraine appointed him his consulting physician, and Duke Henry II. instituted a faculty of medicine at Pont-aMousson, and nominated him dean and first professor. Being now enabled to take his doctor’s degree, he went to Paris for that purpose and, on his return, commenced the duties of his professorship in November 1598, which he performed for many years with the highest reputation, and enjoyed very extensive practice until his death, which was occasioned by the plague, at Nancy, whither he had gone to administer relief to those afflicted by that disorder, in 1633. His principal publication is entitled “Selectiorum Observationum et Consiliorum de proeteritis hactenus morbis, effectibusque praeter naturam ab aqua, seu scrosa colluvie et deiuvie ortis, Liber singularis,” Pont-a-Mousson, 1618, in quarto'. This work passed through several subsequent editions, one of which, (that of Ley den 1733), was published, with a preface, by the celebrated Boerhaave. A selection from, or an abridgment of it, was also printed in 1639, with the title of “Piso enucleatus,” in 12mo. His other works were, “Physicum Cometae Speculum,” Ponte ad Montionem, 1619, in 8vo and “Discours de la Nature, Causes, et Remedes, tant curatifs que prevservatifs, des maladies populaires, accompagnees de Dysenteric et autres Flux de Ventre,” ibid. 1623, in 12mo. He translated from the. Spanish into Latin, “Ludovici Mercati Institutiones ad usum et examen eorum qui artem luxatoriam exercent,” Francfort, 1625, in folio. He likewise published the following eulogy of his first patron “Caroli III., Serenissimi, Potentissimique Ducis Lotharingiae, &c., Macarismos, seu felicitatis et virtutum egregio Principe dignarum coronse,” 1690.

, a native of Paris, and learned priest of the Oratory, was esteemed well acquainted with philosophy, mathematics, and divinity. He made a considerable stay in Italy, where he acquired the respect of the literati, and was sometime superior of his congregation at Vendome. He died in an advanced age at Lyons, May 5, 1710. His works are, a Summary of the Councils, printed at Lyons 1706, in two volumes, folio, under the title “Delectus actorum Ecclesiae universalis, seu nova Summa^Conciliorum,” &c. The second volume is nearly half filled with notes on the councils, and valuable remarks on the method, mechanics, and music of Descartes, who was his friend. He'.left also some manuscripts. It is said, that he was in possession of several pieces by Clemangis and Theophylact, which have never been printed.

, a celebrated French physician, was born at Dijon, July 5, 1720. After studying medicine, he succeeded M. Dubois in 1746 as protessor of physic in the college de France. He was one of the first who gave a course of chemical lectures in Paris. In 1757 he was appointed first physic‘an to the French army, and the year following went to Russia to attend the empress Elizabeth in her illness. He remained two years in Russia, and assisted at the famous experiment relative to the congelation of quicksilver, of which he afterwards gave an account (inserted in their memoirs), to the Academy of sciences at Paris, who had elected him a member. Soon after he returned to France he was promoted to the rank of counsellor of state; and in 1764 was appointed inspectorgeneral of physic; surgery, and pharmacy, in the ports and colonies of France. His ingenious method of procuring fresh from sea-water, by distillation, procured him, in 1765, a pension of 12,000 livres a-year from the French government. In nil, he resigned his chair at the college of France; but, in conformity ’to an unanimous vote of the professors, continued to preside at their public meetings as long as his health would permit. M. Laiande says, that he did honour to this office “by a grand and striking figure: by the dignity of his speech the nobleness of his manner and the deservedly high estimation in which he was held by the public.” He was, during the reign of terror, imprisoned, with his whole family, by Robespierre but was liberated on the death of that monster. He died in September 1797 or 179S. He is said to have left behind him a very valuable collection of natural history, medals, and other curiosities. He wrote several treatises belonging to his profession, viz. on the fever of St. Domingo, the diseases of seamen, an abridgment of anatomy, &C.

, an eminent cardinal, and archbishop of Canterbury, was descended from the bloodroyal of England, being a younger son of sir Richard Pole, K.G. and cousin-german to Henry VII. by Margaret, daughter of George duke of Clarence, younger brother to king Edward IV. He was born at Stoverton, or Stourton castle, in Staffordshire, in 1500, and educated at first in the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, near Richmond, in Surrey, whence, at the early age of twelve, he was removed to Magdalen-college, Oxford, and there assisted in his studies by Linacre and William Latimer. In June 1515, he took the degree of B. A. and soon after entered into deacon’s orders. Without doubting his proficiency in his studies, it may be supposed that this rapid progress in academical honours was owing to his family interest and pretensions. Among the popish states abroad it was not uncommon to admit boys of noble families to a rank in the universities or the church, long before the statutable or canonical periods. One object for such hasty preferment was, that they might be entitled to hold lucrative benefices, and the rank of their family thus supported and accordingly, in March 1517, we find that Pole was made prebendary of Roscombe, in the church of Salisbury, to which were added, before he had reached his nineteenth year, the deaneries of Winbourne Minster, and Exeter, For all these he was doubtless indebted to his relation Henry VIII. who intended him for the highest dignities of the church.

Having now acquired perhaps as much learning as his country at that time afforded, he was desirous of visiting the most celebrated universities abroad, to complete his education, and being provided by the king with a pension, in addition to the profits of his preferments, he fixed his residence for some time at Padua, where he hired a house and kept an establishment suitable to his rank. The professors at Padua were at this time men of high reputation, and were not a little pleased with the opportunity of forming the mind of one who was the kinsman ana favourite of a great king, and might hereafter have it in his power amply to reward their labours and some of them even now partook nobly of his bounty, being maintained by him in his house. Here commenced his acquaintance with Bembo, Sadolet, and Longolius, which lasted the remainder of their lives, and here also his acquaintance took its rise with Erasmus, who had received from his friend Lupset a very favourable representation of Pole. He therefore entered into an epistolary correspondence with him, which he began b\ T recommending to his favour the afterwards well-known John A Lasco. (See Alasco, vol. I. p. 292.) Besides the aid which Pole received in his studies from Longolius and Lupset, who is said to have been entertained by him in his own family, he paid much attention to the lectures of Leonicus, an eminent Greek scholar, who taught Pole to relish the writings of Aristotle and Plato in the original. While Pole continued at Padua, Longinus died in 1522, and such was the regard Pole had for him that he wrote his life, which Dr. Neve thinks was not only the first but the best specimen he gave the public of his abilities. It was the production, however, of a young man who could not have known Longolius above two years, and he has therefore fallen into some mistakes. (See Longueil.)

Pole had acquired a considerable degree of reputation in Italy, which made his mother, now countess of Salisbury, and other friends, desirous of his return, that the same display of his talents might sanction the honours intended for him and it was his design to set out for England in 1525; but being desirous of seeing the jubilee, which was celebrated this year at Rome, he resolved to visit that city first. On his journey to Rome he was, we are told, every where received with great respect but at Rome he contented himself with viewing 1 what was most curious, without appearing at the papal court. On his arrival in England, he was welcomed with great respect by the royal family, and by the public at large, which he seems to have merited by his elegant and accomplished manners, as well as the proficiency he had made in learning. That learning was still his favourite pursuit appears from his requesting from the king a grant of the house dean Colet had built in the Carthusian monastery, where he had first been educated, and where he now devoted himself to study for about two years.

The affair of king Henry’s divorce drevr Pole from his retirement, and led to the singular vicissitudes of his life. This was a measure which he greatly disapproved, but he is said to have had some reasons for his disapprobation, different from what conscience, or his religious principles, might fairly have suggested. Notwithstanding his being an ecclesiastic, we are told that he had entertained hopes of espousing the princess Mary, and that this project was even favoured by queen Catherine, who had committed the care of the princess’s education to the countess of Salisbury, Pole’s mother. Whatever may be in this suspicion, which prevailed for many years, it appears that he wished to be out of the way while the matter was in agitation, and therefore obtained leave from the king to go to the university of Paris, under pretence of continuing his theological studies. Accordingly he spent a year at Paris, from Oct. 1529 to Oct. 1530, during which time the king having determined to consult the universities of Europe respecting the divorce, sent to Pole to solicit his cause at Paris. Pole, however, excused himself on account of his want of experience, and when Henry sent over Bellay, as joint commissioner, left the whole business to this coadjutor, and returning to England, went again to his. favourite retirement at Sheen, Here he drew up his reasons for disapproving of the divorce, which were shown to the king, who probably put them into Cranmer’s hands. Cranmer praised the wit and argument employed, and chiefly objected to committing the cause to the decision of the pope, which Pole had recommended. Pole’s consent to the measure, however, appears to have been a favourite object with the king; and therefore in 1531, the archbishopric of York was offered him on condition that he would not oppose the divorce but he refused this dignity on such terms, after a sharp contention, as he says in his epistle to king Edward, between his ambition and his conscience. He is said also to have given his opinion on this subject so very freely to the king, that he dismissed him in great anger from his presence, and never sent for him more.

Pole now resolved to leave the kingdom, from a dread of Henry’s revengeful temper, who, however, at first behaved rather better than might have been expected; for he not only permitted Pole to go abroad, but continued the pension which had been before granted, and which had always been regularly paid. Pole then passed a year at the university of Avignon in France, the air of which place disagreeing with him, he went in 1532 to Padua. Here he divided his time between that city and Venice, applying diligently to theological studies, and was respected, as he was before, by the learned of Italy. After he had been a considerable time abroad, his capricious relative, Henry VIII. solicited his return, but Pole, after many excuses, plainly told his majesty that he neither approved his divorce, nor his separation from the church of Rome. The king then sent him Dr. Sampson’s book in defence of the proceedings in England, on which Pole embodied his full opinion on these proceedings, in his treatise entitled “De unitate ecclesiastica.” Burnet and other protestant historians very naturally censure this work as devoid of sound argument, and Phillips and other popish writers have as highly praised it; but all must agree that in coarseness of invective it does not comport with the urbanity of style and manner hitherto attributed to Pole. Pole in fact seems to have written it as much in contempt of Hery, as with a view to convince him; and therefore, when Henry renewed his solicitations for his return, that he might talk all these matters over in an interview, he not only refused, but added to that refusal such a repetition of irritating language that no hope of reconciliation could be entertained. Henry therefore withdrew his pension, and stripped him of his ecclesiastical preferments.

About this time the pope, having resolved to call a general council for the reformation of the church, summoned several learned men to Rome, for that purpose, and among these he summoned Pole to represent England. As soon as this was known in that country, his mother and other friends requested him not to obey the pope’s summons; and at first he was irresolute, but the importunities of his Italian friends prevailed, and he arrived at Rome in 1536, where he was lodged in the pope’s palace, and treated with the utmost respect, being considered as one who might prove a very powerful agent in any future attempt to reduce his native land to the dominion of the pope. The projected scheme of reformation, in which Pole assisted, came to nothing; but a design was now formed of advancing him to the purple, to enable him the better to promote the interests of the papal see. To this he objected, and his objections certainly do him no discredit, as a zealous adherent to the order and discipline of his church. He was not yet in holy orders, nor had received even the clerical tonsure, notwithstanding the benefices which had been bestowed on him and he represented to the pope, that such a dignity would at this juncture destroy all his influence in England, by subjecting him to the imputation of being too much biassed to the interest of the papal see and would also have a natural tendency to bring ruin on his own family. He, therefore, intreated his holiness to leave him, at least for the present, where he was, adding other persuasives, with which the pope seemed satisfied but the very next day, whether induced by the imperial emissaries, or of his own will, he commanded Pole’s immediate obedience, and he having submitted to the tonsure, was created cardinal- deacon of S. Nereus and Achilleus, on Dec. 22, 1536. Soon after he was also appointed legate, and received orders to depart immediately for the coasts of France and Flanders, to keep up the spirit of the popish party in England and he had at the same time letters from the pope to the English nation, or rather the English catholics, the French king, the king of Scotland, and to the emperor’s sister, who was regent of the Low Countries. Pole undertook this commission with great readiness, and whether from ambition or bigotry, consented to be a traitor to his country. In the beginning of Lent 1537, he set out from Rome, along with his particular friend, the bishop of Verona, and a handsome retinue. His first destination was to France, and there he received his first check, for on the very day of his arrival at Paris, the French king sent him word that he conld neither admic him to treat of the business on which be came, nor allow him 'to make any stay in his dominions. Pole now learnt that Henry VIII. had proclaimed him a traitor, and set a price (50,000 crowns) on his head. Pole then proceeded to Cambray, but there he met with the same opposition, and was not allowed to pursue his journey. The cardinal bishop of Liege, however, invited him, and liberally entertained him in that city, where he remained three months, in hopes of more favourable accounts from the emperor and the king of France but nothing of this kind occurring, he returned to Ro'iki[ after an expedition that had been somewhat disgracefu and totally unsuccessful. In 1538 he again set out on a similar design, with as little effect, and was now impeded by the necessary caution he was obliged to preserve for fear of falling into the hands of some of Henry’s agents. In the mean time, he was not only himself attainted of high treason by the Parliament of England, but his eldest brother Henry Pole, lord Montague, the marquis of Exeter, sir Edward Nevil, and sir Nicholas Carew, were condemned and executed for high treason, which consisted in a conspiracy to raise cardinal Pole to the crown. Sir Geoffrey Pole, another brother of the cardinal’s, was condemned on the same account, but pardoned in cpnsequence of his giving information against the rest. Margaret, also, countess of Salisbury, the cardinal’s mother, was condemned, but not executed until two years after. The cardinal now found how truly he had said to the pope that his being raised to that dignity would be the ruin of his family but he appears to have at this time in a great measure subdued his natural affection, as he received the account of his mother’s death with great composure, consoling himself with the consideration that she died a martyr to the catholic faith. When his secretary Beccatelli informed him of the news, and probably with much concern, the cardinal said, “Be of good courage, we have now one patron more added to those we already had in heaven.”

In 1539, when Pole returned to Rome, the pope thought it necessary to counteract the plots of Henry’s emissaries by appointing him a guard for the security of his person. He likewise conferred on him the dignity of legate of Viterbo, an office in which, while he maintained his character as an example of piety and a patron of learning, he is said to have shown great moderation and lenity towards the protestants. He was here at the head of a literary society, some of the members of which were suspected of a secret attachment to the doctrines of the reformation and Immanuel Tremellius, who was a known protestant, was converted from Judaism to Christianity in Pole’s palace at Viterbo, where he was baptised, the cardinal and Flaminius being his godfathers.

Pole continued at Viterbo till 1542, when the general council for the reformation of the church, which had been long promised and long delayed, was called at Trent, and is known in ecclesiastical history as the famous “Council of Trent.” It did not, however, proceed to business until 1545, when Pole went thither, with the necessary escort of a troop of horse. For the proceedings of this extraordinary assembly, we must refer the reader to father Paul’s history. The principal circumstance worthy of notice respecting the cardinal was his writing a treatise on the nature and end of general councils, just before he left Rome, in which he proves himself the determined advocate for the boundless prerogative of the pope. He Continued at Trent until a rheumatic disorder, which fell into one of his arms, obliged him to go to Padua for medical advice; and afterwards, the council being prorogued, he went to Rome at the request of the pope, who wished to avail himself of his pen in drawing up memorials and vindications of the proceedings of the see of Rome; and Pole, a man of superior talents to most of the Italian prelates, knew how to render these very persuasive, at a time when freedom of discussion was not allowed.

On the death of Henry VIII. in 1547, he endeavoured to renew his designs, in order, as his partial historian says, “to repair the breaches which Henry had made in the faith and discipline of the church.” On this occasion he solicited the pope’s assistance, and wrote to the privycouncil of England, partly soothing and partly threatening them with what the pope could t do; but all this had no effect, and the members of the privy-council refused to receive either the letter or him who brought it. The cardinal also drew up a treatise, and inscribed it to Edward VI. which contained an elaborate vindication of his conduct towards the late king, but it does not appear that it ever came into Edward’s hands. Pole therefore remained still attainted, and was one of the few excepted in the acts of grace which passed at the accession of the young king.

In 1549, our cardinal had the prospect of advancement to all of power and dignity which the church of Rome had to bestow, the chair of St. Peter itself. On the death of pope Paul III. he was proposed in the conclave as his successor by cardinal Farnese, and the majority of votes appeared to be in his favour, when an opposition was excited by the French party, with cardinal Caraffa at their head, who hoped, if Pole were set aside, to be chosen himself. It was necessary, however, to show some strong grounds for opposing cardinal Pole and these, bad they been proved, were certainly strong enough, heresy and incontinency he had been lenient to the protestants at Viterbo, and he was the reputed father of a young girl, at this time a nun. But against both these charges Pole vindicated himself in the most satisfactory manner, and his party determined to elect him. Why they did not succeed is variously related. It is said that they were so impatient to bring the matter to a conclusion as to go late at night to Pole’s house to pay their adorations to him, according to custom, and that Pole refused to accede to such a rash and unseasonable proceeding, and requested they would defer it until morning. They then retired, but immediately after two of the cardinals came again to him, and assured him that they required nothing of him but what was usual upon which he gave his consent, but afterwards repented, and endeavoured to retract. The cardinals, in the mean time, of their own accord had deferred proceedings until next morning, when a very different spirit appeared in the conclave, and the election fell upon cardinal de Monte, who reigned as pope by the name of Julius, 111. a man of whom it is sufficient to say that he gave his cardinal’s hat to a boy who had the care of his monkey. When Pole appeared, with the other cardinals, to perform his adoration to the new pope, the latter raised him up and embraced him, telling him, that it was to his disinterestedness he owed the papacy. How far our cardinal was really disinterested, is a matter of dispute. Some suppose that he still had in view a marriage with the princess Mary, and the hopes of a crown; and it is certain that he had hitherto never taken priest’s orders, that he might be at liberty to return to the secular world, which his being only a cardinal would not have opposed.

The cardinal was at a convent of the Benedictines at Maguzano, in the territory of Venice, whither he had retired when the tranquillity of Rome was disturbed by the French war, when the important news arrived of the accession of the princess Mary to the throne of England, by the death of her brother Edward VI. It was immediately determined by the court of Rome that he should be sent as Jegate to England, in order to promote that object to which his family had been sacrificed, the reduction of the kingdom to the obedience of the holy see. Pole, however, who did not know that his attainder was taken off, determined first to send his secretary to England to make the necessary inquiries, and to present letters to the queen, who soon dissipated his fears by an ample assurance of her attachment to the catholic cause. He then set out in Oct. 1553, but in his way through Germany, was detained by the emperor, who was then negociating a marriage between his son Philip and the queen of England, to which he imagined the cardinal would be an obstacle. This delay was the more mortifying as the emperor at the same time refused to admit him into his presence, although he had been commissioned by the pope to endeavour to mediate r a peace between the emperor and the French king. But the greatest of all his mortifications came from queen Mary herself, who under various pretences, which the cardinal saw in their proper light, contrived to keep him abroad until her marriage with Philip was concluded.

All obstacles being now removed, he proceeded homewards, and arrived at Dover, Nov. 20, 1554, where he was received by some persons of rank, and reaching London, was welcomed by their majesties in the most honourable manner. No time was now lost in endeavouring to promote the great objects of his mission. On the 27th of November, the cardinal legate went to the House of Peers, where the king and queen were present, and made a long Speech, in which he invited the parliament to a reconciliation with the apostolic see from whence, he said, he was sent by the common pastor of Christendom, to bring back them who had long strayed from the inclosure of the church; and two days after the Speaker reported to the House of Commons the substance of this speech. What followed may be read with a blush. The two Houses of Parliament agreed in a petition to be reconciled to the see of Rome, which was presented to the king and queen, and stated, on the part of the parliament, that “whereas they had been guilty of a most horrible defection and schism from the Apostolic see, they did now sincerely repent of it; and in sign of their repentance, were ready to repeal all the laws made in prejudice of that see; therefore, since the king and queen had been no way defiled by their schism, they prayed them to intercede with the legate to grant them absolution, and to receive them again into the bosom of the church.” This petition being presented by both Houses on their knees to the king and queen, their majesties made their intercession with the legate, who, in a long speech, thanked the parliament for repealing the act against him, and making him a member of the nation, from which he was by that act cut off; in recompense of which, he was npw to reconcile them to the body of the church. After enjoining them, by way of penance, to repeal the laws which they had made against the Romish religion, he granted them, in the pope’s name, a full absolution, which they received on their knees; and he also absolved the whole realm from all ecclesiastical censure. Bin however gratifying to the court or parliament all this mummery might be, the citizens of London and the people at large felt no interest in the favours which the pope’s representative bestowed. In London, during one of his processions, no respect was paid to him, or to the cross carried before him and so remiss were the people in other parts in their congratulations on the above joyful occasion, that the queen was obliged to write circular letters to the sheriffs, compelling them to rejoice.

After the dissolution of parliament, the first thing taken into consideration was, in what manner to proceed against the heretics. Pole, as we have before noticed, had been charged by some with favouring the protestants; but he now expressed a great detestation of them, adding probably something of personal resentment to his constitutional bigotry, and would not now converse with any who had been of that party, except sir William Cecil. Since his arrival as legate, his temper appeared to have undergone an unpleasant alteration: he was reserved to all except Priuli and Ormaneto, two Italians whom he brought with him, and in whom he confided. Still for some time he recommended moderate measures with respect to heretics, while Gardiner laboured to hasten the bloody persecution which followed'; but, either out-argued by Gardiner, or influenced by the court, we find that -he granted commissions for the prosecution of heretics, as one of the first acts of his legantine authority. If in this he was persuaded contrary to his opinion and feelings, he must have been the most miserable of all men; for the consequences, it is well known, were such as no man of feeling could contemplate without horror.

In March 1555, pope Julius III. died, and in less than a month, his successor Marcel Jus II. on which vacancy, the queen employed her interest in favour of cardinal Pole, but without effect; nor was he more successful when he went to Flanders this year, to negociate a peace between France and the emperor. To add to his disappointments, the new pope, Paul IV. had a predilection for Gardiner, and favoured the views of the latter upon the see of Canterbury, vacant by the deposition of Cranmer; nor although the queen nominated Pole to be archbishop, would the pope confirm it, till after the death of Gardiner. The day after Cranmer was burnt, March 22, 1556, Pole, who now for the first time took priest’s orders, was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. Having still a turn for retirement, and being always conscientious in what he thought his duties, he would now have fixed his abode at Canterbury, and kept that constant residence which became a good pastor, but the queen would never suffer him to leave the court, insisting that it was more for the interest of the catholic faith that he should reside near her person. Many able divines were consulted on this point, who assured the cardinal that he could not with a safe conscience abandon her majesty, “when there was so much business to be done, to crush the heretics, and give new life to the catholic cause.”

In November of the same year, he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, and soon after that of Cambridge, and in 1557 he visited both by his commissaries. It was on these occasions that the shameful ceremony was ordered, of disturbing the ashes of Peter Martyr’s wife, at Oxford, and of Bucer and Fagius, at Cambridge. Other severities were exercised; all English Bibles, comments on them, &c. were ordered to be burnt, and such strict search made for heretics, that many fled, and, according to Wood, the university lost some good scholars. The only instance of the cardinal’s liberality to Oxford, was his giving to All-Souls’ college, the living of Stanton Harcourt.

It was cardinal Pole’s misfortune that he was never long successful in that line of conduct which he thought would have most recommended him; and now, when he was doing every thing to gratify the Roman see, by the persecution of the protestants, &c. the pope, Paul IV. discovered a more violent animosity against him than before. The cause, or one of the causes, was of a political nature. Paul was now engaged in a war with Philip, king of Spain and husband to Mary, and he knew that the cardinal was devoted to the interests of Spain. He therefore wanted a legate at the court of England like himself, vigorous and resolute who, by taking the lead in council, and gaining the queen’s confidence, might prevent her from engaging in her husband’s quarrels. But while Pole remained in that station, he was apprehensive that by his instigation she might enter into alliances destructive to his politics. Upon various pretensions, therefore, Paul IV. revived the old accusation against the cardinal, of being a suspected heretic, and summoned him to Rome to answer the charge. He deprived him also of the office of legate, which he conferred upon Peyto, a Franciscan friar, whom he had made a cardinal for the purpose, designing also the see of Salisbury for him. This appointment took place in Sept. 1557, and the new legate was on his way to England, when the bulls came into the hands of queen Mary, who having been informed of their contents by her ambassador, laid them up without opening them, or acquainting Pole with them. She also directed her ambassador at Rome to tell his holiness, “that this was not the method to keep the kingdom steadfast in the catholic faith, but rather to make it more heretical than ever, for that cardinal Pole was the very anchor of the catholic party.” She did yet more, and with somewhat of her father’s spirit, charged Peyto at his peril to set foot upon English ground. Pole, however, who by some means became acquainted with the fact, displayed that superstitious veneration for the apostolic see which was the bane of his character, and immediately, laid clown the ensigns of his legantine power and dispatched his friend Ormaneto to the pope with an apology so submissive, that, we are told, it melted the obdurate heart of Paul. The cardinal appears to have been restored to his power as legate soon after, but did not live to enjoy it a full year, being seized with an ague which carried him ff Nov. 18, 1558, the day after the death of queen Mary. With them expired the power of the papal see over the political or religious constitution of this kingdom, and all its fatal effects on religion, liberty, and learning.

Cardinal Pole was, in person, of a middle stature, and thin habit; his complexion fair, with an open countenance and cheerful aspect. His constitution was healthful, although not strong. He was learned and eloquent, and naturally of a benevolent and mild disposition, but his bigoted attachment to the see of Rome occasioned his being concerned in transactions which probably would not have originated with him yet we have no reason to think that he dissuaded the court of queen Mary from its abominable cruelties and it is certain that many of them were carried on in his name. Mr. Phillips, who wrote an elaborate biographical vindication of cardinal Pole, but who would not openly vindicate the cruelties of Mary’s reign, has unfortunately asserted, that not one person was put to death in the diocese of Canterbury, after the cardinal was promoted to that see but Mr. Ridley has clearly proved that no less than twenty-four were burnt in one year in that diocese, while Pole was archbishop. Gilpin, however, seems to be of opinion that he “would certainly have prevented those reproaches on his religion which this reign occasioned, had his resolution been equal to his judgment.” Of both we have a remarkable example, alluded to already, but more fully quoted by the same author in his life of Latimer, which seems to be conclusive as to the cardinal’s real character. When, in a council of bishops, it was agitated how to proceed with heretics, the cardinal said, “For my part, I think we should be content with the public restoration of religion; and instead of irritating our adversaries by a rigorous execution of the revived statutes, I could wish that every bishop in his diocese would try the more winning expedients of gentleness and persuasion.” He then urged the example of the emperor Charles V. who, by a severe persecution of the Lutherans, involved himself in many difficulties, and purchased nothing but dishonour. Notwithstanding the liberality and humanity of these sentiments, when Gardiner, Bonner, and others equally violent, were heard in favour of severe measures, Pole had not the courage to dissent; and the result was a commission issued by himself, impowering the bishops to try and examine heretics, agreeably to the laws which were now revived.

Pole’s private life appears to have been regular and unblameable. His behaviour in his last moments, says Dr. Neve, “shewed that his religion, though ill-directed, was sincere and genuine.” He appears to have been charitable and generous, and a kind master to his domestics. He was naturally fond of study nd retirement, and certainly better adapted to these than the more active and public scenes of life, in which, however, we have seen that he was very frequently employed. There is no part of his character, says the author just quoted, more amiable than when we view him in his retirement, and in the social intercourses with private friends here he appeared to great advantage, and displayed all the endearing good qualities of the polite scholar, the cheerful companion, and the sincere friend. It appears by Beccatelli that he was a man of wit, and many of his repartees would have done credit to the wits of a more refined age.

He left his friend Priuli, a Venetian man of quality, his executor and heir; but the latter, whose attachment to the cardinal was as disinterested as it was constant, after discharging the specific legacies, divided the whole of the property in the way that he thought would have been most agreeable to the cardinal, and reserved to himself only his friend’s Breviary and Diary.

Pole published some other small pieces, besides those we have mentioned in the preceding account, and some translations from the fathers. He was several years employed in collecting various readings, emendations, &c. of Cicero’s works, with a view to a new edition, but these are supposed to be lost. Dodd also mentions a collection of dispatches, letters, and dispensations, &c. during the time of his reforming the Church of England in queen Mary’s reign, 4 vols. fol. which are preserved among the Mss. in the college of Doway and Tanner notices a few other Mss. in our public libraries. In 1744 1752 a very valuable collection of letters which passed between Pole and his learned friends, with preliminary discourses to each volume, was published by cardinal Quirini, in 4 vols. 4to, This was followed, after Quirini’s death, by a fifth volume, from his collections. The title, “Cardinalis Poll et aiiorum ad ipsum Epistolae.” Of the life of Cardinal Pole much was discovered, and many mistakes rectified, in consequence of the controversy excited by Mr. Phillips’s life (See Phillips, Thomas) and which was carried on with great spirit

, or Poelemburg, a celebrated Dutch painter, was born at Utrecht in 1586, where he became the disciple of Abraham Bloemart, but went to complete his studies at Rome. His first determination was to imitate the manner of Elsheimer but when he contemplated the works of Raphael, he was so affected, that he was led irresistibly to copy after that much higher model. This union of objects produced a mixed but original style; more free and graceful than the Flemish, though with far less grandeur and excellence of design than the Italian. He could not rise to the execution of large figures; his best pieces, therefore, are of the cabinet size; but he surpassed all his contemporaries in the delicacy of his touch, the sweetness of his colouring, and the choice of agreeable objects aud situations. His skies are clear, light, and transparent his back-grounds often ornamented with the vestiges of magnificent Roman edifices and his female figures, which are usually without drapery, are highly beautiful. He returned rather reluctantly to Utrecht, where, however, his merit was acknowledged by the great Rubens. Charles I. invited him to London, where he was much employed, and richly paid; but, though he was much solicited to remain here, his love for his native country prevailed, and he returned to Utrecht, where he died in 1660, affluent and highly esteemed. The genuine works of Polemberg are extremely scarce; but figures by him maybe found in the works of other artists, particularly those of Steenwyck, and Kierings; and his disciple John Vander Lis so successfully imitated his style, that the works of the pupil are frequently taken for those of the master.

, an Italian marquis, and a learned mathematician, was born at Padua in 1683. He was appointed professor of astronomy and mathematics in the university of his native city, and filled that post with high reputation. In three instances he gained prizes from the Royal Academy of Sciences, and in 1739 he was elected an associate of that body. He was also a member of the academy of Berlin, a fellow of the London Royal Society, and a member of the Institutes of Padua and Bologna, and contributed many valuable mathematical and astronomical papers to the Memoirs of these Societies. As he was celebrated for his skill and deep knowledge of hydraulic architecture, he was nominated by the Venetian government, superintendant of the rivers and waters throughout the republic; other states also applied to him for advice, in business belonging to the same science. He was sent for by pope Benedict XIV. to survey the state of St. Peter’s church at Rome, and drew up a memoir on what he conceived necessary to be done. He died at Padua in 1761, at the age of 7S. He appears to have acquired very distinguished reputation in his day, and was the correspondent of many learned contemporaries, particularly sir Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, the Bernoulli’s, Wolff, Cassini, Gravesande, Muschenbroeck, Fontenelle, and others. Nor was he more esteemed as a mathematician than as an antiquary, and the learned world is indebted to him for a valuable supplement to the collections of Graerius and Gronovius, Venice, 1737, 5 vols. fol. but these volumes are rather scarce. Among his other most valued publications are, “Exercitationes Vitruvianae, seu Commentarius Criticus de Vitruvii architectura,” Venice, 1739, 4to and “Dissertazione sopra al Tempio di Diana di Efeso,” Rome, 1742. Fabroni gives a long list of his mathematical and astronomical essays, and of the Mss. he left behind him.

a celebrated French cardinal, was born Oct. 11, 1661, at Puy, in Velay, and was the son of Louis Armand, viscount de Polignac, descended from one of the most ancient families in Languedoc. He was.sent early to Paris, where he distinguished himself as a student, and was soon noticed as a young man of elegant manners and accomplishments. In 1689, cardinal de Bouillon carried him to Rome, and employed him in several important negociations. It was at one of his interviews with pope Alexander VIII. that this pontiff said to him, “You seem always, sir, to be of my opinion, and yet it is your own which prevails at last.” We are likewise told that when, on his return to Paris, Louis XIV. granted him along audience, he said as he went out, <4 I have been conversing with a man, and a young man, who has contradicted me in every thing, yet pleased me in every thing.*' In 1693, he was sent as ambassador into Poland, where he procured the prince of Conti to be elected and proclaimed king in 1696; but, this election not having been supported, he was obliged to retire, and return to France, where he arrived in 1698, after losing all his equipage and furniture, which was seized by the Dantzickers. The king then banished him to his abbey at Bonport, but recalled him to court with great expressions of regard in 1702, and in 1706 appointed him auditor of the Rota. M. Polignac then set out again for Rome and cardinal de la Tremouille, who conducted the French affairs there, having the same opinion of him as cardinal de Bouillon had, employed him in several negociations. Going back to France three years after, his majesty sent him as plenipotentiary into Holland in 1710, with marechal d'Uxelles. He was also plenipotentiary at the conferences and peace of Utrecht, in 1712 and 1713. The king, satisfied with his services, obtained a cardinal’s hat for him the same year, and appointed him master of his chapel. During the regency, cardinal de Polignac was banished to his abbey of Anchin in 1718, and not recalled till 172L. In 1724, he went to Rome for the election of pope Benedict XIII. and remained there eight years, being entrusted with the affairs of France. In 1726, he was made archbishop of Auch, returned to his native country in 1732, and died at Paris, November 10, 1741, aged 80. He was a member of the French academy, the academy of sciences, and that of belles lettres. He is now chiefly remembered for his elegant Latin poem, entitled “Anti-Lucretius,” in which he refutes the system and doctrine of Epicurus, according to the principles of Descartes’ philosophy. This he left to a friend, Charles de Rothelin, who published it in 1747, 2 vols. 8vo. It has since been often reprinted, and elegantly translated by M. de Bougainville, secretary to the academy of belles lettres. His Life was published at Paris, 1777, 2 vols. 12mo, by F. Ghrysostom Faucher. The reviewer of this life very justly says, that the man who compiled the “Anti-Lucretius,” and proposed a plan for forming a new bed for the Tiber, in order to recover the statues, medals, basso-relievos, and other ancient monuments, which were buried there during the rage of civil factions, and the incursions of the barbarians, deserves an eminent place in literary biography. Few works have been more favourably received throughout Europe than the cardinal’s celebrated poem, although he was so much of a Cartesian. The first copy that appeared in England was one in the possession of the celebrated earl of Chesterfield, and such was its reputation abroad at that time, that this copy was conveyed by a trumpet from marshal Saxe to the Duke of Cumberland, directed for the earl of Chesterfield, It was sent to him both as a judge of the work, and a friend of the writer.

, was born at Florence in 1679, and was early distinguished in the schools of philosophy and theology, for the extent of his memory and the sagacity of his mind. He became very early a teacher in the sciences above-mentioned, and in rhetoric at Genoa; but in 1733, was invited to Pisa to give lectures on the Greek language, whence he was promoted to the professorship of eloquence, which had been some time vacant, after the death of Benedict Averano. He died of an apoplexy, July 23, 1752. He distinguished himself as a commentator and as an author, by publishing, 1. An edition of Homer with Eustathius’s commentary, to which he added, a Latin translation, and abundant notes, in 3 vols. folio, 1730, 1732, 1735. The fourth volume was in the press when he died, but has not since appeared. 2. “Martyrologium Romanum castigatum, ac commentariis illustrattim,” folio, Florence, 1751. 3. “Orationes 12 ad Academiam Pisanam, 1746,” 4. “Panegyricus Imp. Francisco I. consecratus,” Florence, 4to. 5. “De patrra in cohdendis testamentrs potestate,” Florence, 1712, 12mo, in four books.

, a most ingenious and learned Italian, was born July 14, 1454, at Monte Pulciano in Tuscany and from the name of this town, in Latin Mons Politianus, he derived the surname of Politian. His father was a doctor of the civil law. His name, according to M. Baillet, was Benedictus de Cinis, or, de Ambroginis, for he considers the former as a corruption of the latter. Politian, who gave early proofs of an extraordinary genius; had the advantage of Christophero Landino’s instructions in the Latin language. His preceptors in the Greek were Andronicus of Thessalonica and John Argyropylus. His abilities, at a very early period of his life, attracted the notice of Lorenzo and Julius de Medici. An Italian poem, the production of his juvenile pen, in which he celebrated an equestrian spectacle, or Giostra, wherein the latter bore away the prize, greatly contributed to establish his reputation. He was thence honoured with the peculiar patronage of the Medicean family; and, among other persons remarkable for genius and learning, whom the munificence of Lorenzo attracted to Florence, Politian was seen to shinq as a star of the first magnitude. Lorenzo confided to him the education of his own children and in this honourable employment he passed a great part of his life, favoured with the peculiar friendship of his patron, and the society and correspondence of men of letters. Among the more intimate associates of Poiitian, was Picus of Mi ran ­dula, and between these eminent scholars there was a strict attachment, and a friendly communication of studies. The Platonic philosopher, Marsilius Ficinus, completed this literary triumvirate.

Poiitian had been indebted for his education to Lorenzo, who had early procured for him the citizenship of Florence placed him in easy and affluent circumstances; probably conferred on him the secular priory of the college of S. Giovanni, which he held and on his entrance into clerical orders, appointed him a canon of the cathedral of Florence. It was at this period that the arts and sciences began gradually to revive and flourish; philosophy “to be freed,” to use the expression of antiquaries, “from the dust of barbarism,” and criticism to assume a manly and rational appearance. The more immediate causes which brought about these desirable events, were, the arrival of the illustrious Grecian exiles in Italy the discovery of antient manuscripts; establishment of public libraries, and seminaries of education; and especially the invention of printing. No branch of science was cultivated with greater ardour than classical literature: under the peculiar patronage of Lorenzo, and of some of the chief of other states in Italy, who imitated his liberality, eminent scholars engaged with incredible ardour and diligence, in collating manuscripts, and ascertaining the genuine text 'of Greek and Latin authors: explaining their obscurities, illustrating them with commentaries, translating them into various languages, and imitating their beauties.

The-“Miscellanea” of Poiitian were first published at Florence, in 1489, and were every where received with the greatest applause, and compared by the learned to the “Noctes Atticas” of Aulus Gellius. His Latin version of Heroclian is universally allowed to be a masterly performance, and perhaps no other translation of any Greek author has been so much and so generally admired. Some critics have declared, that if the Greek of Heroclian could have been suppressed, this work might have passed among the learned for the classical and finished' production of some original pen of antiquity. Yet amidst such general approbation, there were not wanting others who accused him of having published as his own, a version previously made by Gregorius of Tiphernum M. de la Monnoye maintains that Omnibuono, a native of Lunigo, nearVicenza, commonly denominated Omnibonus Vicentinus, was the author of this prior version and endeavours to prove from a fragment of it, that Politian had seen and availed himself of it. These detractions, however, have not been generally admitted. Politian inscribed this version to Pope Innocent VIII. in a dedication which is prefixe*d to most of the ancient editions of the work, and which procured him a present from his holiness of two hundred gold crowns. Politian returned thanks i a courtly and somewhat adulatory epistle, in which he/ extols the pope’s bounty, and promises to redouble his efforts to produce something more worthy of so exalted a patron.

The“Greek Epigrams” of Politian were written, for the most part, when he was very young, but from the address to the reader prefixed to them, in the volume of his works, they appear to have been published after his death, from the original manuscript, by Zenobius Acciajolus, who did not consider them as adding much to the fame of the author, 'and some of them might have been suppressed, without injury to literature, and certainly with advantage to the moral reputation of the author. He is supposed to have written a translation of Homer, but no part of it is nowknown to exist. Of his other Latin poems, the “Manto,” “Rusticus,” and probably the “Ambra,” were occasional, and intended for public recitation and appear to have been published at the instance of some of his pupils. Perhaps his most laboured production is the “Nutricia,” which seems to be the poem sent by him to Matthias king of Hungary, as a specimen of his talents.

The labours of Politian on the pandects of Justinian: his collations and corrections of classic authors, and the less voluminous pieces that are contained in his works, are lasting monuments of his erudition and industry; but such was his confidence in his powers, that he affected to consider all his past works, merely as preludes to others of greater magnitude. These, however, he did not live to execute.

The only probable account of the death of this distinguished scholar is, that it was prematurely occasioned by his grief for the misfortunes of the Medicean family, from whom he had received so many favours, and with whose prosperity and happiness, his own were so intimately connected. This event took place September 24, 1494, in the forty-first year of his age. His “Letters,” which serve to illustrate his life and literary labours, were prepared for the press by himself, a very short time before his death, at the particular request of the son and successor of Lorenzo. The letters of Politian and his friends, in the earlier editions, at least in that printed by Jo. Badius Ascensius at Paris, 1512, are entitled “Angeli Politiani Epistolae,” but in a subsequent edition of 1519 from the same press, more properly “Virorum Illustrium Epistolae.”

, an English lawyer and judge, was descended from a good family in Devonshire, where he probably was educated, as Prince intimates that he was of no university. He studied the law, however, at one of the inns of court, and acquired very considerable practice in the reign of Charles II. He was counsel for the earl of Danby in 1679, whom he advised to plead his pardon and the corporation of London afterwards engaged him to plead, with Treby, in behalf of their charter. Iti 1688 he sat as one of the members for the city of Exeter, and he was retained as one of the counsel for the bishops. After the revolution he was knighted, called a serjeant April 11, 1689, and appointed chief justice of the common pleas on May 5 following but he held this office a very short time, dying in 1692. Burnet calls him “an honest and learned, but perplexed lawyer.” In 1702 was published his “Arguments; and Reports in some special cases in the King’s Bench from 22 to 36 Car. II. with some cases in the Common Pleas and Exchequer, together with divers decrees in the High Court of Chancery, upon Limitations of Trusts of Terms for years,” fol. with two tables. The copies of these reports, Mr. Bridgman informs us, are very incorrect, varying in the pages, and in the dates. In the pages there is a chasm from 173 to 176, and from 181 to 184, with other errors.

, an ancient Greek grammarian, was born at Naucrates, a town in Egypt, in the year 180. Having been educated under the sophists, he became eminent in grammatical and critical learning taught rhetoric at Athens, and acquired so much reputation, that he was advanced to be preceptor of the emperor Commodus. He drew up for, and inscribed to this prince while his father Marcus Antoninus was living, an “Onomasticon, or Greek Vocabulary,” divided into ten books. It is still extant, and contains a vast variety of synonymous words and phrases, agreeably to the copiousness of the Greek language, ranged under the general classes of things. The first edition of the “Onomasticon” was published at Venice by Aldus in 1502, and a Latin version was added in the edition of 1608, by Seberus; but there was.no correct and handsome edition of it, till that of Amsterdam, 1706, in folio, by Lederlin and Hemsterhuis. Lederlin went through the first seven books, correcting the text and version, and subjoining his own, with the notes of Salmasius, Is. Vossius, Valesius, and of Kuhnius, whose scholar he had been, and whom he succeeded in the professorship of the Oriental languages in the university of Strasburgh. Hemsterhuis continued the same method through the three last books. Pollux died in the year 238. He is said to have written many other works, none of which are come down to us but there was another of the same name, who is supposed to have flourished about the end of the fourth century, and wrote “Historia physica, seu chronicon ab origine mundi ad Valentis tempora.” Of this Bianconi published the first edition at Bonon. 1779, fol. and Ignatius Hardt, a second in 1792, 8vo, without knowing of the preceding.

is the name of many eminent personages recorded in ancient writers, particularly Julius Polysenus, of whom some Greek epigrams are extant, in the first book of the Anthologia. But the Polyænus who is best known, flourished in the second century, and is the author of the eight books of the “Stratagems of illustrious Commanders in war.” He appears to have been a Macedonian, and probably was a soldier in the younger part of his life; but we are more certain that he was a rhetorician, and a pleader of causes and that he enjoyed a place of trust and dignity under the emperors Antoninus and Veriis, to whom he dedicated his work. The “Strategemata” were published in Greek by Isaac Casaubon, with notes, in 1589, 12mo but no good edition of them appeared, till that of Leyden; 1690, in 8vo. The title-page runs thus: “Polygeni Strategematum libri octo, Justo Vulteio interprete, Pancratius Maasvicius recensuit, Isaaci Casauboni nee non suas notas adjecit.” This was followed, in 1756, by Mursinua’s edition, Berlin, and by that of Coray, at Paris in 1809, 8vo. We have now an excellent English translation by Mr. R. Shepherd, 1793, 4to. It contains various stratagems, of above three hundred commanders and generals of armies, chiefly Greeks and Barbarians, which are at least entertaining, and illustrative of the manners of the times in which those commanders lived but it may be doubted whether a modern soldier would gain much advantage by making himself master of this tricking study. The original has come down to us incomplete, and with the text considerably mutilated and corrupted; but the style is classical, and even elegant.

The whole collection, says the translator, if entire, would have consisted of nine hundred stratagems; containing the exploits of the most celebrated generals, of various nations, fetched from ages remote as the page of history will reach, and carried forward to our author’s own time so wide was the field he traversed of annals, histories, and lives, in the prosecution of his design a manual, as he terms it, of the science of generalship. And in so large a collection, if some stratagems occur, that bear a resemblance to each other, sometimes with little variation employed by the same general, and sometimes, on different occasions, copied by others - 9 the reader will be rather surprised that he finds so few instances of this kind, than led to have expected none. Some will strike him as unimportant, and some are not properly military stratagems. Some devices again will appear so ludicrous and absurd, as nothing but the barbarism of the times, the ignorance and superstition that in some states prevailed, will reconcile to credibility. The stratagems however that rank under those classes are few the work in general was executed with great judgment; and, as the author himself observes, he had employed upon it no small degree of pains.

, an eminent Greek historian, was of Megalopolis, a city of Arcadia, and was the son of Lycortas, general of the Achaeans, who were then the most powerful republic in Greece. He was born in the fourth year of the 143d olympiad, or in the 548th year of the building of Rome, or about 203 years before Christ. When twentyfour years of age, the Achaeans sent him and his father Lycortas ambassadors to the king of Egypt; and the son had afterwards the same honour, when he was deputed to go to the Roman consul, who made war upon Perses, king of Macedon. In the consulships of Æmilius Paetus and Julius Pennus, a thousand Achaeans were ordered to Rome, as hostages, for the good behaviour of their countrymen who were suspected of designs against the Romans; and were there detained seventeen years. Polybius, who was one of them, and was then thirty-eight years of age, had great talents from nature, which were well cultivated by education; and his residence at Rome appears to have been of great advantage to him since he owed to it, not only the best part of his learning, but the important friendship he contracted with Scipio and Lselius and when the time of his detention expired, he accompanied Scipio into Africa. After this he was witness to the sack and destruc* tion of Corinth, and of the reduction of Achaia to tho condition of a Roman provinces Amidst these dreadful scenes, he displayed noble traits of patriotism and disinterestedness, which obtained for him so much credit, that he was entrusted with the care of settling the new form of government in the cities of Greece, which office he performed to the satisfaction both of the Romans and the Greeks. In all his journeys he amassed materials for his history, and took such observations as to render his descriptions very accurate. Although his chief object was the history of the Romans, whose language he had learned with great care, and the establishment of their empire, yet he had in his eye the general history of the times in which he lived and therefore he gave his work the name of “Catholic or Universal” nor was this at all inconsistent with his general purpose, there being scarcely any nations at that time in the known world, which had not some contest with, or dependence upon, the Romans. Of forty books which he composed, there remain but the first five entire; with an epitome of the twelve following, which is supposed to have been made by that great assertor of Roman liberty, Marcus Brutus. Brutus is said to have been so particularly fond of Polybius, that, even in the last and most unfortunate hours of his life, he amused himself not only in reading, but also in abridging his history. The space of time which this history includes, is fifty-three years, beginning, after two of introductory matter, at the third book.

How much this historian was valued by the ancients, appears by the number of statues erected to his honour, and Cicero, Strabo, Josephus, Plutarch, and others, have spoken, of him in terms of the highest applause. Livy however has been censured for calling him only auctor haudquaquam spernendus, “an author by no means to be despised,” after he had borrowed very largely from him but Casaubon and Vossius think that according to the usual phraseology of the ancients, Livy’s expression implies a rery high eulogium. Polybius’s style is by no means elegant, but the accuracy and fidelity of his narrative render his history a work of great importance. There is no historian among the ancients, from whom more is to be learned of the events which he professes to narrate, and it is much to be lamented that his history has not descended to us in a perfect state. We have only the Brst five books entire, and an abridgment of the twelve following, with some excerpta or extracts of this history, formerly made by Constantinus Forphyrogenitus which were first published in Greek by Ursinus in 1582, and in Greek and Latin by the learned Henry Valesius in 1634. Poly bi us lived to a great age; but concerning the particulars of his life much eannot be collected. He was highly honoured by the friendship of Scipio who, when the other hostages from Achaia were distributed through the cities of Italy, obtained leave by his interest for Polybius to live at Rome. He died at eighty-two years of age, of an illness occasioned by a fall from his horse.

His history was first published at Haguenau, by Obsopgeus, in 1530, fol. Gr. and Lat. and was reprinted by Isaac Casaubon at Paris, 1609, in folio, an edition very highly valued. The next is Gronovius’s, with many additions, particularly the “Excerpta de legationibus, et virtutibas ac vitiis;” for the “Extracts of Constantine,” published separately by Ursinus and Valesius, were upon those subjects. Gronovius’s edition was published at Amsterdam, 1670, 3 vols. 8vo but the best, and indeed an incomparable specimen of editorial learning and accuracy, is that of Leipsic, 1789, 9 vols. 8vo. Hampton’s English translation has usually been reckoned a good one, but has been severely criticised by the late learned Mr. Whitaker in his " Course of Hannibal.

, an apostolic father of the Christian church, was born in the reign of Nero, probably at Smyrna, a city of Ionia in Asia Minor, where he was educated at the expence of Calisto, a noble matron of great piety and charity. In his younger years he is said to be instructed in the Christian faith by Bucolus, bishop of that place but others consider it as certain that he was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, and familiarly conversed with others of the apostles. At a proper age, Bucolus ordained him a deacon and catechist of his church; and, upon the death of that prelate, he succeeded him in the bishopric. To this he was consecrated by St. John who also, according to archbishop Usher, directed his “Apocalyptical Epistle,” among six others, to him, under the title of the “Angel of the Church of Smyrna,” where, many years after the apostle’s death, he was also visited by St. Ignatius. Ignatius recommended his own see of Antioch to the care and si>perintendance of Polycarp, and afterwards sent an epistle to the church of Smyrna from Troas, A. C. 107 when Polycarp is supposed to have written his “Epistle to the Philippians,” a translation of which is preserved by Dr. Cave.

From this time, for many years, history is silent concerning him, till some unhappy differences in the church brought him into general notice. It happened, that the controversy about the observation of Easter began to grow very warm between the eastern and western churches each obstinately insisting upon their own way, and justifying themselves by apostolical practice and tradition. To prevent the worst consequences of this contest, Polycarp undertook a journey to Rome, that he might converse with those who were the main supports and champions of the opposite party. The see of that capital of the Roman empire was then possessed by Anicetus and many conferences were held between the two bishops, each of them urging apostolical tradition for their practice. But all was managed peaceably and amicably, without any heat of contention; and, though neither of them could bring the other into his opinion, yet they retained their own sentiments without violating that chanty which is the great and common law of our religion. In token of this, they communicated together at the holy sacrament when Anicetus, to do honour to Polycarp, gave him leave to consecrate the eucharistical elements in his own church. This done, they parted peaceably, each side esteeming this difference to be merely ritual, and no ways affecting the vitals of religion but the dispute continued many years in the church, was carried on with great animosity, and ended at length in a fixed establishment, which remains to this day, of observing Easter on different days in the two churches: for the Asiatics keep Easter on the next Lord’s day after the Jewish passover, and the church of Rome the next Sunday after the first full moon that follows the vernal equinox.

During Polycarp’s stay at Rome, he employed himself particularly in opposing the heresies of Marcion and Valentinus, which he did with more zeal and warmth than on former occasions. Irenaeus tells us, that upon Polycarp’s passing Marcion in the street without the common salutation, the latter called out, “Polycarp, own us” to which the former replied, with indignation, “I own thee to be the first-born of Satan.” To this the same author adds, that, when any heretical doctrines were spoken in his presence, he would presently stop his ears, crying out, “Good God to what times hast thou reserved me, that I should hear such things I” and immediately quitted the place. In the same zeal he was wont to tell, that St. John, going into a bath at Ephesus, and finding the heretic Cerinthus in it, started back instantly without bathing, crying out, “Let us run away, lest the bath should fall upon us while Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, is in it.” Polycarp governed the church of Smyrna with apostolic purity, till he suffered martyrdom in the seventh year of Marcus Aureiius, A. C. 167; the manner of which is thus related:

The persecution growing violent at Smyrna, and many having already sealed their confession with their blood, the general outcry was, “Away with the impious; let Polycarp be sought for.” On this he withdrew privately into a neighbouring village, where he lay concealed for some time, continuing night and day in prayer for the peace of the church. He was thus occupied, when, one night falling into a trance, he dreamed that his pillow took fire, and was burnt to ashes; which he told his friends was a presage, that he should be burnt alive for the cause of Christ. Three days after this dream, in. order to escape the search which was carried on incessantly after him, he retired into another village, where he was discovered, although some say he had time to escape but he refused it, saying, “The will of the Lord be done.” Accordingly he saluted his persecutors with a cheerful countenance and, ordering a table to be set with provisions, invited them to partake of them, only requesting for himself one hour for prayer. This being over, he was set upon an ass, and conducted towards the city. Upon the road he was met by Herod, an Irenarch or justice of the province, and his father, who were the principal agents in this persecution. This magistrate taking him up into his chariot, tried to undermine his constancy and, being defeated in the attempt, thrust him out of the chariot with so much violence, that he bruised his thigh with the fall. On his arrival at the place of execution, there came, as is said, a voice from heaven, saying, “Polycarp, be strong, and quit thyself like a man.” Being brought before the tribunal, he was urged to swear by the genius of Caesar. “Repent,” continues the proconsul, “and say with us, Take away the impious.” On this the martyr looking round the stadium, and beholding the crowd with a severe and angry countenance, beckoned with his hand, and looking up to heaven, said with a sigh, quite in another tone than they intended, “Take away the impious.” At last, confessing himself to be a Christian, proclamation was made thrice of his confession by the crier, at which the people shouted, “This is the great teacher of Asia, and the father of the Christians; this is the destroyer of our gods, that teaches men not to do sacrifice, or worship the deities.” The fire being prepared, Polycarp, at his own request, was not, as usual, nailed, but only tied to the stake and after pronouncing a short prayer, with a clear and audible voice, the executioner blew up the fire, which increasing to a mighty flame, “Behold a wonder seen,” says Eusebius, “by us who were purposely reserved, that we might declare it to others the flames disposing themselves into the resemblance of an arch, like the sails of a ship swelled with the wind, gentty encircled the body of the martyr, who stood all the while in the midst, not like roasted flesh, but like the gold or silver purified in the furnace, his body sending forth a delightful fragrancy, which, like frankincense, or some other costly spices, presented itself to our senses. The infidels, exasperated by the miracle, commanded a spearman to run him through with a sword which he had no sooner done, but such a vast quantity of blood flowed from the wound, as extinguished the fire when a dove was seen to fly from the wound, which some suppose to have been his soul, cloathed in a visible shape at the time of its departure.” The Christians would have carried off his body entire, but were not suffered by the Irenarch, who commanded it to be burnt to ashes. The bones, however, were gathered up, and decently interred by the Christians.

Thus died this apostolical man, as supposed, in May 167. The amphitheatre whereon he suffered was remaining in a great measure not many years ago, and his tomb is in a little chapel in the side of a mountain, on the southeast part of the city, solemnly visited by the Greeks on his festival day and for the maintenance and repairing of it, travellers were wont to throw a few aspers into an earthen pot that stands there for the purpose. He wrote some homilies and epistles, which are all lost, except that to the “Philippians,” which is a pious and truly Christian piece, containing short and useful precepts and rules of life, and which, St. Jerome tells us, was even in his time read in the public assemblies of the Asian churches. It is among archbishop Wake’s “Genuine Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers,” and the original was published by archbishop Usher in 1648, and has been reprinted since in various collections, [Wake has also given a translation of the account of Polycarp’s death, written in the name of the church of Smyrna.] It is of singular use in proving the authenticity of the books of the New Testament; inasmuch as he has several passages and expressions from Matthew, Luke, the Acts, St. Paul’s Epistles to the Philippians, Ephesians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Thessalonians, Colossians, 1st Timothy, 1st Epistle of St. John, and 1st of Peter; and makes particular mention of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. Indeed his whole “Epistle” consists of phrases and sentiments taken from the New Testament.

, a famous sculptor of antiquity, was a native of Sicyon, and flourished about the year 430 B. C. We know nothing of his history but from incidental notice of him in Pliny. His Doryphorus, one of his figures, for his excellence lay in single figures, was esteemed a canon of proportion; we read also of the statue of a boy, which was estimated at a hundred talents, or perhaps nearly 20,000l. according to our mode of reckoning. The emperor Titus had two naked boys playing at a game, by his hand, which was considered as a perfect performance. Lysippus the painter formed his manner on the study of the Doryphorus of this artist.

, a celebrated painter of Thasos, flourished about 422 B. C. and was the son and scholar of Aglaophon. He particularly distinguished himself by a series of pictures, including the principal events of the Trojan war. He refused the presents offered him by the Grecians on this occasion which so pleased the Amphictyons, who composed the general council of Greece, that they thanked him by a solemn decree; and it was provided by the same decree, that this skilful painter should be lodged and entertained, at the public expence, in every town through which he passed. The talents of Polygnotus are celebrated by many of the best authors of antiquity, as Aristotle and Plutarch, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Pausanias, but especially Pliny, whose sentiments, as well as those of Pausanias, are criticised by Mr. Fuseli in his Lectures on Painting."

, marquis of, a famous Portuguese minister of state, whom the Jesuits, whose banishment he pronounced, have defamed by all possible means, and others have extolled as a most able statesman, was born in 1699, in the territory of Coimbra a robust and distinguished figure seemed to mark him for the profession of arms, for which, after a short trial, he quitted the studies of his native university. He found, however, a still readier path to fortune, by marrying, in spite of opposition from her relations, Donna Teresa de Noronha Almada, a lady of one of the first families in Spain. He lost her in 1739, and being sent on a secret expedition in 1745 to Vienna, he again was fortunate in marriage, by obtaining the countess of Daun, a relation of the marshal of that name. This wife became a favourite with the queen of Portugal, who interested herself to obtain an appointment for Carvalho, in which, however, she did not succeed, till after the death of her husband, John V. in 1750. Her son Joseph gave Carvalho the appointment of secretary for foreign affairs, in which situation he completely obtained the confidence of the king. His haughtiness, as well as some of his measures, created many enemies; and in 1758, a conspiracy headed by the duke d'Aveiro, who had been the favourite of John V. broke out in an attempt to murder the king as he returned from his castle of Belem. The plot being completely discovered, the conspirators were punished, not only severely but cruelly; and the Jesuits who had been involved in it, were banished from the kingdom. At the death of Joseph, in 1777, Pombal fell into disgrace, and many of the persons connected with the conspirators, who had been imprisoned from the time of the discovery, were released. The enemies of Pombal did not, however, succeed in exculpating the principal agents, though a decree was passed in 1781, to declare the innocence of those who had been released from prison. Carvalho was banished to one of his estate?, where he died in May 1782, in his eighty-fifth year. His character, as was mentioned above, was variously represented, but it was generally allowed that he possessed great abilities. A book entitled “Memoirs of the Marquis of Pombal,” was published at Paris in 1783, in four volumes, 12mo, but it is not esteemed altogether impartial.

, born April 2, 1658, obtained great wealth in the profession of a wholesale druggist and being appointed to superintend the materia medica in the king’s gardens, drew up a catalogue of all the articles in that collection, with some that were preserved in cabinets, under the title of “Histoire generale des Drogues,” folio, which, besides passing through some editions in the original, was translated into English in 1725, 4to. He died Nov. 18, 1699, in his forty-first year, and the very day that the king sent him an order for a pension. His work was republished by his son in 1735, in two volumes, 4to, but the engravings in this edition are not thought so good as in the first.

, a Jesuit, most known for his “Pantheum mythicum,” of which his French biographers assert that an “Englishman, named Tooke, gave a translation, prefixing his own name, without that of the author” and this book has gone through a vast number of editions. He died at Lyons, in 1673, at an advanced age. He had been employed as a teacher of youth in that city, and most of his works are formed for the use of students. They consist of, a large dictionary, since superseded by that of Joubert; a small one in 12mo, entitled “Flos Latinitatis;” “Indiculus universalis,” a kind of nomenclator colloquies; a treatise on particles and another on the funerals of the ancients with a work on rhetoric. Pomey was well versed in the Latin authors, but his publications would have been more valuable had he been more attentive to method and exactness.

, an English poet, was son of Mr. Pomfret, rector of Luton in Bedfordshire, and formerly of Trinity college, Cambridge. He was born about 1667. He was educated at a grammar-school in the country, and thence sent to Queen’s college, Cambridge, where he took his bachelor’s degree in 1684, and that of master in 1698. He then went into orders, and was presented to the living of Malden in Bedfordshire. About 1703, he came up to London for institution to a larger and very considerable living but was stopped some time by Compton, then bishop of London, on account of these four lines of his poem entitled “The Choice:”

The parenthesis in these lines was so maliciously represented, that the good bishop was made to believe from it, that Pomfret prefered a mistress to a wife though no such meaning can be deduced, unless it be asserted, that an unmarried clergyman cannot live without a mistress. But the bishop was soon convinced, that this representation was nothing more than the effect of malice, as Pomfret at that time was actually married. The opposition, however, which his slanderers had given him, was not without effect for, being obliged on this occasion to stay in London longer than he intended, he caught the small-pox, and died of it, in 1703, aged thirty-five.

A volume of his poems was published by himself in 1699, with a very modest and sensible preface. Two pieces of his were published after his death by a friend under the name of Philalethes one called “Reason,” and written in 1700, when the disputes about the Trinity ran high; the other, “Dies Novissima,” or, “The Last Epiphany,” a Pindaric ode. His versification is sometimes not unmusical; but there is not the force in his writings which is 'necessary to constitute a poet. A dissenting teacher of his name, and who published some rhimes upon spiritual subjects, occasioned fanaticism to be imputed to him; but from this his friend Philalethes has justly cleared him. Pomfret had a very strong mixture of devotion in him, but no fanaticism.

, a laborious Benedictine of the congregation de St. Maur, was born in 1617, at Rouen. After a suitable education, he refused all offices in his order, that he might devote himself wholly to study. He died of an apoplexy at the house of the learned M. Bulreau, to whom he was paying a visit, Oct. 28, 1687, aged seventy. His works are, “L'Histoire de TAbbaye de S. Ouen de Rouen, folio and a” History of the Archbishops of Rouen,“folio, which is his best work. He published also a” Collection of the Councils and Synods of Rouen,“4to” L'Histoire de la Cath&irale de Rouen,“4to” Pratique journaliere de TAumone," a small book, exhorting to give alms to those who beg for the poor. This Benedictine’s works are not written in a pleasing style, nor are they every where accurate, but they contain many curious observations.

, marchioness of, the celebrated mistress- of Louis XV. was the daughter of a financier, and early distinguished by the beauty of her person, and the elegance of her talents. She was married to a M. d'Etioles when she attracted the notice of the king, and becoming his mistress, was created marchioness of Pompadour in 1745. Her credit was abundant, and she employed it Chiefly in the patronage of talents, in all branches of the polite arts. She collected also a cabinet of books, pictures, and various curiosities. She died in 1764, at the age of forty-four; and, it is said, with much more resignation than could have been expected of a person so little advanced in years, and so situated. Two spurious works hate been attributed to her since her death, the one, a set of “Memoirs,” in two volumes, 8vo the other, a collection of “Letters,” in three volumes, which have at least the merit of painting her character with skill. The memoirs attribute to her, in conformity with the popular ideas, much more influence than she actually possessed.

, an Italian poet and a man of letters, was born of a noble family at Verona in 1731. He became an early proficient in classical literature, particularly the Greek, of which he was enthusiastically fond, and attained an excellent style. At this period the marquis Maffei and other eminent literary characters were resident at Verpna, in whose society the talents of Pompei received the most advantageous cultivation. He was first known as an author by “Canzoni Pastorali,” in two vols. 8vo. Able critics spoke in the highest terms of these pieces, on account of their sweetness and elegance it was thought by some good judges that they were never surpassed by any productions of the kind. He next translated some of the Idylls of Theocritus and Moschus, in which he exhibited a very happy selection of Italian words, corresponding with the Greek. The next object of his attention was dramatic poetry, in the higher departments of which the Italians were at that time very deficient, and he published in 1763 and 1770, his tragedies of “Hypermestra” and “Callirhoe,” which were represented with great success in several cities of the Venetian state. He now employed several years on a translation of “Plutarch’s Lives,” which appeared in 1774 in four vols. 4to. This work gave him considerable reputation as a prose writer and scholar, and it ranks among the very best classical versions in the Italian language. In 1778 he published two volumes of “Nuove Canzoni Pastorali” he also published poetical versions of the “Hero and Leander of Musjeus” of the “Hymns of Callimachus;” “A hundred Greek Epigrams” and the “Epistles of Ovid.” He was a member of some of the academies, and he served his native city in the capacities of secretary to the tribunal of public safety, and to the academy of painting. He died at Verona in 1790, at the age of fifty-nine, and his memory was honoured by various public testimonies, and by the erection of his bust in one of the squares of the city. He was highly respected and esteemed, as well for his morals as for his literary talents, and his fame was not limited to the confines of Italy. An edition of his works was published after his death in six vols. 8vo.

, or P0MPEIUS (CNEius), surnamed Magnus, or the Great, was of a noble Roman family, the son of Pompeius Strabo, and Lucilia. He was born the same year with Cicero, but nine months later, namely, in the consulship of Csepio and Serranus, 105 years before the Christian sera. His father was a general of great abilities, and under him he learned the art of war. When he was only twenty-three he raised three legions, which he led to Sylla. Three years after, he drove the opponents of Sylla from Africa and Sicily. Young as he was, he had already won the soldiers sufficiently, by his mildness and military talents, to excite the jealousy of Sylla, who therefore recalled him to Rome. His soldiers would have detained him in spite of the dictator’s orders, but he obeyed, and was rewarded on his arrival by the name of Magnus, given him by Sylla, and soon after confirmed unanimously by his countrymen. He obtained also the honours of a triumph, which the dictator permitted rather unwillingly, and was the first instance of a Roman knight, who had not risen to any magistracy, being advanced to that elevation. This was in 81 B. C. In a short time, he had obtained as much power by the voluntary favour of the people, as Sylla had before by arms and after the death of that extraordinary man, obliged Lepidus to quit Rome, and then undertook the war against Sertorius in Spain, which he brought to a fortunate conclusion. For this victory he triumphed a second time, B. C. 73, being still only in the rank of a knight. Not long afterwards he was chosen consul. In that office he re-established the power of the tribunes; and, in the course of a few years, exterminated the pirates who infested the Mediterranean, gained great advantages against Tigranes and Mithriclates, and carried his victorious arms into Media, Albania, Iberia, and the most important parts of Asia; and so extended the boundaries of the Roman empire, that Asia Minor, which before formed the extremity of its provinces, now became, in a manner, the centre of them. When he returned to receive a triumph for these victories, he courted popularity by dismissing his troops and entering the city as a private citizen. He triumphed with great splendour but not feeling his influence such as he had hoped, he united with Caesar and Crassus to form the first triumvirate. He strengthened his union with Ccesar by marrying his daughter Julia; he was destined nevertheless to find in Caesar not a friend, but too successful a rival. While Caesar was gaining in his long Gallic wars a fame and a power that were soon to be invincible, Pompey was endeavouring to cultivate his popularity and influence in Rome. Ere long they took directly contrary parties. Pompey became the hope and the support of the patricians and the senate, while Caesar was the idol of the people. On the return of the latter from Gaul, in the year 51 A. C. the civil war broke out, which terminated, as is well known, by the defeat of Pompey in the battle of Pharsalia, A. C. 49, and the base assassination of him by the officers of Ptolemy in Egypt. It appears that Pompey had not less ambition than Caesar, but was either more scrupulous, or less sagacious and fortunate in his choice of means to gratify that passion. He was unwilling to throw off the mask of virtue and moderation, and hoped to gain every thing by intrigue and the appearance of transcendant merit. In this he might have been successful, had he not been opposed to a man whose prompt and decisive measures disconcerted his secret plans, drove things a once to extremities, and forced him to have recourse to the decision of arms, in which victory declared against him. The moderate men, and those who were sincerely attached to the republic of Rome, dreaded, almost equally, the success of Pompey and of Caesar. Cato, who took the mourning habit on the breaking out of the civil war, had resolved upon death if Caesar should be victorious, and exile if sue* cess should declare for Pompey.

, marquis of, a French nobleman, still more distinguished by his talents in poetry than by his rank, was born at Montauban in 1709. He was educated for the magistracy, and became advocategeneral, and first president of the court of aids at Montauban. His inclination for poetry, however, could not be repressed, and at the age of twenty-five he produced his tragedy of “Dido,” in which he approved himself not only one of the most successful imitators of Racine, but an able and elegant poet. After this success at Paris, he returned to his duties at Montauban, which he fulfilled in the most upright manner; but having suffered a short exile, on account of some step which displeased the court, he became digusted with the office of a magistrate. As he had now also increased his fortune by an advantageous marriage, he determined to remove to Paris, where at first he was received as his virtues and his talents deserved. His sincere attachment to Christianity brought upon him a persecution from the philosophists, which, after a time, drove him back to the country. Voltaire and his associates had nowinundated France with their deistical tracts the materialism of Helvetius in his book de TEsprit, had just been brought forward in the most triumphant manner the enemies of Christianity had filled the Encyclopedic with the poison of their opinions, and had by their intrigues formed a powerful party in the French academy, when the marquis of Pompignan was admitted as an academician, in 1760. He had the courage, at his admission, to pronounce a discourse, the object of which was to prove that the man of virtue and religion is the only true philosopher. From this moment he was the object of perpetual persecution. Voltaire and his associates were indefatigable in pouring out satires against him: his religion was called hypocrisy, and his public declaration in its favour an attempt to gain the patronage of certain leading men. These accusations, as unjust as they were illiberal, mingled with every species of sarcastic wit, had the effect of digusting the worthy marquis with Paris. He retired to his estate of Pompignan, where he passed the remainder of his<laysin the practice of a true philosophy, accompanied by sincere piety and died of an apoplexy in 1784, at the age of seventy-five, most deeply regretted by his neighbours and dependents. The shameful treatment of this excellent man, by the sect which then reigned in the academy, is a strong illustration of that conspiracy against religion, so ably detailed by M. Barruel, in the first volume of his Memoirs of Jacobinism. When once he had declared himself a zealous Christian no merit was allowed him, nor any effort spared to overwhelm him with disgrace and mortification. His compositions nevertheless were, and are, esteemed by impartial judges. His “Sacred Odes,” notwithstanding the sarcasm of Voltaire, “sacred they are, for no one touches them,” abound in poetical spirit, and lyric beauties though it is confessed also that they have their inequalities. His “Discourses imitated from the books of Solomon,” contain important moral truths, delivered with elegance, and frequently with energy. His imitation of the Georgics of Virgil, though inferior to that of the abbe De Lille (whose versification is the richest and most energetic of modern French writers), has yet considerable merit and his “Voyage de Languedoc,” though not equal, in easy and lively negligence to that of Chapelle, is superior in elegance, correctness, and variety. He wrote also some operas which were not acted and a comedy in verse, in one act, called “Les Adieux de Mars,” which was represented with success at the Italian comic theatre in Paris. The marquis of Pompignan was distinguished also as a writer in prose. His “Eulogium on the Duke of Burgundy,” is written with an affecting simplicity. His “Dissertations,” his “Letter to the younger Racine,” and his “Academical Discourses,” all prove a sound judgment, a correct taste, and a genius improved by careful study of the classic models. He produced also a “Translation of some dialogues of Lucian,” and some “Tragedies of Æschylus,” which are very generally esteemed. He was allowed to be a man of vast literature, and almost universal knowledge in the fine arts. Yet such a man was to be ill-treated, and crushed if possible, because he had the virtue to declare himself a partizan of religion. Even his enemies, and the most inflexible of them, Voltaire, were unable to deny the merit of some of his poetical compositions. The following stanza in particular, in “An- Ode on the Death of Rousseau,” obtained a triumph for him in defiance of prejudice. The intention seems to be to illustrate the vanity of those who speak against religion:

“Thus on the borders of the Nile, the black inhabitant* insult by their savage cries the star of day. Vain cries, and capricious fury! But while these barbarous monsters send up their insolent clamours, the God, pursuing his career, pours floods of light upon his dusky blasphemers.” “I have hardly ever seen,” says M. la Harpe, “a grander idea, expressed by a more noble image, nor with a more impressive harmony of language. I recited the passage one day to Voltaire, who acknowledged that it united all the qualities of the sublime; and, when I named the author, still praised it more.” The marquis’s brother, John George Le Franc, a prelate of great merit, was archbishop of Vienne, and like him combated the principles of the pbilosophists. He wrote various controversial and devotional works, and some of another description, as, “A Critical Essay on the present State of the Republic of Letters,” 1743 “Pastoral Instructions for the Benefit of the new Converts within his Diocese” Devotion not at enmity with Wit and Genius“”Mandates prohibiting the Reading of the Works of Rousseau and the Abbe Raynal." He died, in 1790, soon after the revolution had begun its destructive work, which he in vain endeavoured to resist.

, a modern Aristotelian, was born at Mantua in 1462. He delivered lectures on the philosophy of Aristotle and Averroes at Padua and Bologna, where his eloquence and talents procured him many auditors. He was at Bologna when he composed his celebrated little treatise “De immortalitate Animae,” in which he was supposed to call in question the immortality of the soul, at least he maintained that all natural reason was against it, but revelation for it, and upon the latter account ie believed it. It is probable, however, that the impression it made on the public mind was not very favourable to the received opinions, as pope Leo X. thought it necessary to suppress the work by a bull; and it was at his request that Augustine Niphus wrote a treatise with the same title, “De immortalitate Animae,” in which he undertook to prove that this doctrine is not contrary to the principles of the Aristotelian philosophy. Some time after, Pomponatius’s opinions were referred to the arbitration of Bembus, who endeavoured to justify him, and succeeded so far as to obtain permission for him to issue a second edition of the work, as well as to save the author from the vengeance of the church. Brucker is of opinion that notwithstanding Pomponatius’s pretences, he had more respect for the authority of Aristotle, than for that of Jesus Christ. He adds, that though much addicted to superstition and fanaticism, and a zealous advocate for judicial astrology, as appears from his book “De Incantationibus,” “On Enchantments,” he had an understanding capable of penetrating into the depths of the Peripatetic system, in the

study of which he chiefly followed the commentaries of Aphrodisaeus. His writings, though barbarous and inelegant in style, discover great acuteness and subtlety of thought. He also wrote a treatise on “Fate and Free will.” He died in 1525. He had many followers of great celebrity among whom were Simon Porta, Julius Caesar SeaJiger, and Lazarus Bonamicus. Vanini, the Atheist, is said by some to have been his pupil but this is impossible, for Pomponatius died in the year 1525, and Vanini was not born till the year 1586.

, an eminent Italian antiquary, all whose names were of his own choice, was the illegitimate offspring of the illustrious house of Sanseverino, in the kingdom of Naples; but this was a circumstance on which he preserved an inflexible silence, and admitted no conversation or questions on the subject. Even when that family sent him an invitation to reside with them, he rejected it by a laconic note which is preserved by Tiraboschi “Pomponius Laetus cognatis et propinquis suis salutem. Quod petitis fieri non potest. Valete.” “Pomponius Laetus to his kinsmen and relations what you ask cannot be granted. Farewell.” He went young to Home, where he studied first under a very able grammarian of that time, Pietro da Monopoli, and afterwards under Laurentius Valia. On the death of this eminent scholar in 1457, he was thought qualified to succeed him in his professorship. He now began to found an academy, the members of which were men of letters, fond of antiquary researches, like himself, but who sometimes entered upon philosophical discussions. They were mostly young men, and in their zeal for past times, the glorious days of Rome, adopted Latinized names. Our author took that of Pomponius Lsetus, and Buonaccorsi that of Callimachus Experiens, &c. In their philosophical discussions, they went so far as to compare ancient with modern institutions, not much to the credit of the latter and at length this was represented to pope Paul II. (whom we have recently noticed as the persecutor of Platina) first as inferring a contempt for religion secondly, as an attack on the church and lastly, as a conspiracy against the pope himself. The pope, either really alarmed, or pretending to be so, ordered all the members of the academy to be arrested, that could be found, and imprisoned and put them to the torture, of which one very promising young scholar died and although Pomponius was at this time (1468) at Venice, and had been indeed residing for three years with the Cornaro family, he was dragged in chains to Rome, and shared the same horrible fate as his fellow academicians; and although, after various examinations, conducted by the pope himself, no proof of guilt appeared, he and his companions remained in confinement a very considerable time. The death of their persecutor, however, restored them to liberty, and it was no inconsiderable testimony of their innocence that his successor Sixtus IV. equally strict in matters of heresy, made Platina librarian of the Vatican, and restored Pomponius to his professorship, in which office he continued to draw a great concourse of scholars. He also endeavoured to revive his academy, against which Paul It. had been so inveterate that he forbid its name to be mentioned either in jest or earnest, “vel serio vel joco,” attd we find two grand commemorations held by the members, in 1482 and 1483; the one on account of the death of Platina, the other to celebrate the foundation of Rome.

Pomponius was never rich, but it is a mistake that he died in an hospital. In 1484, during a public commotion, his library and goods were destroyed; but the loss was soon made up by his friends and scholars, so that at last his house was better furnished than before. He was indeed universally esteemed for the probity, simplicity, and even the occasional harshness of his manners. He died at “Rome in 1498, and was interred with honourable solemnity. He wrote some works, illustrative of the manners, customs, and Jaws of the Roman republic, and the state of ancient Rome. These are, treatises on the priesthood, the magistrates, the laws, an abridgment of the history of the emperors, from the death of the younger Gordianus to the exile of Justin III. all which shew great research and erudition. He also was a commentator on some ancient authors he corrected for the press the first edition of Sallust, and collated it with some antient Mss, although his name is not mentioned by our bibliographers. He extended the same care to the works of Columella, Varro, Nonius Marcellus, Pliny the younger, and wrote notes on Quintilian and Virgil. His own works were collected in one vol. 8vo, very rare, printed at Mentz, 1521, under the title” Opera, Pomponii Laeti varia."

, a very learned Italian, was born at Cerreto, in Umbria, in 1426, and settled at Naples, where his merit procured him illustrious friends. He became preceptor to Alphonso the younger, king of Arragon, to whom he was afterwards secretary and counsellor of state. Having reconciled this prince to his father Ferdinand, and not being rewarded by the latter as he thought he deserved, he aimed against him “A Dialogue on Ingratitude,” in which also he launched out into the praises of Charles VIII. of France, his great enemy. Ferdinand had the magnanimity to despise his censures, and suffer him to hold his appointments. Pontanus died, according to Moreri, in 1503, at the age of seventy-seven; according to others two years later. His epitaph is famous, and, though vain enough in the beginning, concludes with a fine thought, which seems to have suggested the still more sublime close of Dr. Foster’s epitaph on himself.

He wrote the “History of the Wars of Ferdinand I. and John of Anjou,” and several works in prose, which were collected and published at Venice by D'Asola, in 1513, 1518, in 3 vols. 8vo. His poetical works were published by Aldus, in 1505, in 8vo, and again in 1513, 1518, in 2 vols. Many have considered him as the most accomplished poet and scholar of his age; but, like too many scholars, he was infected with the licentiousness which then prevailed.

, historiographer to his Danish majesty, and to the province of Guelderland, was of a family of Harlem, but was born in Denmark, in 1571, and died in 1640, aged 69, at Harderwick, where he had taught physic and mathematics. His works are, “Historia Urbis et Rerum Amstelodamensium,” folio; “Itinerarium Gallic Narbonensis,” 12mo; “Rerum Danicarum Historia,” folio. This history, which is esteemed, comes dewn to 1548; and M. de Westphal, chancellor of Holstein, printed the Supplement in vol. II. of his “Monumenta inedita Rerum Germanicarum,” &c. Leipsic, 1740, folio which includes the reigns of Christiern I. and the five succeeding kings, with a life of Pontanus. Pontanus wrote also, “De Rheni divortiis et accolis populis adversus Ph. Cluverium,” 1617, 4to, a learned and judicious work “Discussiones Historicse,” 8vo “Historia Geldrica,” fol.; “Origines Francicse,” 4to the “Life of Frederic II. king of Denmark,” published 1737, by Dr. George Kry sing, a physician at Flensburg. Pontanus left several other works in ms.; among others, an account of women who have distinguished themselves by their learning. He also wrote some very indifferent verses published at Amsterdam itt 1634, 12mo.

, a celebrated casuist, was born December 2, 1638, at St. Hilaire de Harcourt, in the diocese of Avranches. He completed his studies at Paris, took holy orders at Toul in 1663, was admitted doctor of canon, and civil law three years after, and appointed vicar of St. Genevieve at Paris. After he had zealously discharged the duties of this situation for twenty-five years, he became sub-penitentiary of Paris, and died in that city, April 27, 1728, aged ninety, leaving a large “Dictionary of Cases of Conscience” the most complete edition of which is that of 1741, 3 yols. folio. M. Collet has published an abridgement of it in two volumes, 4to. His other works are, '“Scriptura sacra ubique sibi constans,” quarto; in which he reconciles the seeming contradictions in the Pentateuch “Les entretiens spirituels pour instruire, exhorter, et consoler les Malades” and a great number of other religious books,

, an eminent French engineer, is considered as the first military topographer, or rather as the inventor of that art, in the time of Louis XIV. It was his practice to follow the army, and construct upon the spot plans of the battles and sieges, with historical and perspective accompaniments. We find many of his plans in the “GEvre de Delle-Bella” but his most important work is entitled “Les glorieuses Conquetes de Louis-le-Grand ou Recueil de Plans et Vues des places assiegees, et de celles ou se sont donnee*s des batailles, avec des Discours,” 2 vols. folio. This work, one of the most magnificent of the kind, comprehends all the operations of war, from the battle of Rocroi, in 1643, to the taking of Namur, in 1692. De Pontault died in 1674; but the work was completed to the above date at the expence of his niece, the widow of the sieur Des Roches. This edition is usually called the Grand Beaulieu, to distinguish it' from one on a reduced scale, in oblong quarto, called the Petit fieaulieu, of which there are two series, one in three volumes, comprehending views of the actions in the Netherlands; the other in four, which includes those of France. From the death of this able draftsman, military topography is said to have been productive of very few good specimens in France, uptil within the last fifty years.

Perrault informs us, that Pontault went into the army at the age of fifteen, and behaved with so much spirit at the siege of Rochelle, that the king gave him the post of commissary of artillery, although then so young. He was afterwards present at most of the battles and sieges which he has described, and did not quit a military life until the loss of an arm and other wounds, with the approach of old age, rendered retirement necessary.

, one of a family of artists, was originally of Vicenza, but settled at Bassano, a small town on the Brenta, whence he was called Bassan, or Bassano. He may be considered as the head of the Bassanese school and his education is said to have been sufficiently learned. The different styles that discriminate his works clearly shew which were the first and which the last. He is diligent, but dry, in the St. Bartolomeo of the cathedral, more genial and mellow in another picture of the church of S. Giovanni at Bassano but in the Pentecost which he painted in the village of Olero, he shews himself almost a modern painter; the arrangement is masterly, the colour has suavity, Variety, harmony, the expression is warm, pleasing, and characteristic of the subject. He was the father and first instructor of Jacob da Pome. He died about 1530.

, called also IL Bassano, and IL Bassan Vecchio, was born at Bassano, 1510, and initiated in the first principles of the art by his father, of which the proofs are his earliest works in the church of S. Bernardino. He went to Venice, recommended to Bonifazio, a master not less jealous of his ‘ mystery’ than Titian or Tintoretto so that Jacob saw little more of his method than what he could discover through a key-hole or a crevice. The short time he staid at Venice was employed drawing from the designs of Parmegiano, and in making copies from the pictures of Bonifazio and Titian, whose scholar he is even called in some ms. and not without probability, if conformity of manner were sufficient to prove it, so much does his second style resemble that of Titian. The death of his father obliged him to return and to fix himself at Bassano, a small opulent town surrounded by a picturesque country, abounding in cattle and pastures, and conveniently situated for markets and fairs: from which objects arose his third style, natural, simple, and pleasing, the Italian prelude to that which afterwards distinguished the Flemish school. In the handling of the pencil he had two methods: one highly finished in blended tints, and only at last decided by bolder touches; the second, which must be the result of the first, was formed of simple pencilstrokes, and dashes of gay and lucid tints, laid on with conscious power, and a kind of contemptuous security, which, on close inspection, appear a confused mass, at a distance from a magic charm of colours. His composition in both is the same, and peculiar to himself, blending circular with triangular forms, and the most contrasted postures with parallel lines. He veils his light, and by its sober distribution, the frequent use of demi-tints, and little or no black, contrives to produce harmony from the most opposite colours. In the degradation of his lights, he often makes the shade of an interior figure serve for the ground of an exterior one, and strikes the strongest lights on the most angular parts, such as the top of the shoulders, the knee, the elbows. His drapery, simple in appearance, is disposed with great art for this purpose, and the folds are varied according to the difference of the stuffs with unusual refinement. His colours even now have the brilliancy of gems, especially the green, which has an emerald lustre peculiar to himself.

, a Spanish divine and martyr, called also de Fuente, was a native of the town of St. Clement, in New Castille, and was educated at the university of Valladolid, where he became an excellent linguist. After taking his doctor’s degree he obtained a canonry in the metropolitan church of Seville, and was made theological professor in that city. His learning and eloquence becoming known, he was appointed preacher to the emperor Charles V. and afterwards to his son Philip Jl, whom he attended into England, where he imbibed the principles of the Reformation. After his return to Spain, he resumed his employment of preacher at Seville, where the change in his sentiments was first suspected, and then discovered by a treacherous seizure of his papers. He did not, however, affect any denial, but boldly avowed his principles, and was therefore thrown into prison, where he was kept for two years, and would have been burnt alive, to which punishment he was condemned, had he not died of a -dysentery, occasioned by the excessive heat of his place of confinement, and the want of proper food. This happened the day before his intended execution, and his enemies not only reported that he had laid violent hands on himself, to escape the disgrace, but burnt his remains and effigy, having first exposed them in a public procession. As an author, his works were “Commentaries 7 ' ou the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, and Job; 46 A Summary of the Christian Doctrine” “Sermons,” and other smaller pieces.

, bishop of Bergen, who was born in 1698, at Aarhuus, in Denmark, and died in 1764, wrote several works respecting the history and geography of that kingdom; one of which, his “History of Norway,” was translated into English in 1755. His other publications are less known in this country. He must be distinguished from another Danish writer of both his names, author of a Danish grammar, a collection of epigrams and other articles of Latin poetry. He was born in 1616, and died in 1678.

, a learned Nonconformist, was born in the city of York in 1624. He was the son of Francis Pool, esq. by a daughter of alderman Toppin of York, and was descended from the ancient family of the Pools or Pooles, of Sprinkhill, in Derbyshire, but his grandfather, being obliged to leave that county on. account of his attachment to the reformation, lived at Sikehouse, and afterwards at Drax-abbey, in Yorkshire. Our author was educated at Emanuel-college, Cambridge, under the learned Dr. Worthington, and took the degree of M. A. in which he was incorporated at Oxford, July 14, 1657. Having long before this adopted the prevailing notions during the usurpation, concerning ecclesiastical polity, on the presbyterian plan, he was ordained according to the forms then used; and about 1648, was appointed rector or rather minister of St. Michael le Querne, in London, in which he succeeded Dr. Anthony Tuckney.

His first publication appeared in 1654, against the Socinian tenets of John Biddle, and was entitled “The Blasphemer slain with the sword of the Spirit, or a plea for the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, wherein the Deity of the Spirit is proved, against the cavils of John Biddle,” 12mo. In 1657 he went to Oxford, to be present at the installation of Richard Cromwell, who then succeeded his father Oliver, as chancellor of that university, and it was upon this occasion that Mr. Pool was incorporated M. A. In the following year he published a schemeof education under the title of, “A model for the maintaining of students of choice abilities at the university, and principally in order to the ministry. Together with a Preface before it, and after it a recommendation from the university; and two serious exhortations recommended unto all the unfeigned lovers of piety and learning, and more particularly to those rich men who desire to honour the Lord with their substance,” 1658, 4to. Among the learned persons who approved this scheme, we find the names of John Worthington, John Arrowsmith, Anthony Tuckney, Benjamin Whichcot, Ralph Cudworth, and William Dillingham. Its object was to provide a fund, out of which a certain number of young men might be maintained at the university, who could obtain no other maintenance by exhibitions, scholarships, &c. Dr. Sherlock, afterwards deaa of St. Paul’s, was indebted to this fund, being supported, out of it in taking his bachelor’s degree. The whole sum. raised was about 900l. but the restoration put a stop to any farther accumulation.

In support of the opinions of himself and his party, he published in 1659, a letter, in one sheet 4to, addressed to the lord Charles Fleetwood, and delivered to him o,n the 13th of December, which related to the juncture of affairs at that time and in the same year appeared “Quo Warran to a moderate debate about the preaching of unordained persons election, ordination, and the extent of the ministerial relation, in vindication of the Jus Divinum Ministerii, from the exceptions of a late piece, entitled” The Preacher sent.“4to. In the title-page of this” Quo Warranto“it is said to be written by the appointment of the provincial assembly at London. In 1660 he took a share in the morning exercise, a series of sermons then preached by those of the London clergy who were deemed puritans; and he contributed some of the most learned and argumentative of their printed collection. The same year he published a sermon upon John iv. 23, 24, preached before the lord mayor of London at St. Paul’s, Aug. 26, in the preface to which he informs us that he printed it exactly as it was preached, in consequence of some misrepresentations that had gone abroad one of which, says he, was” that I wished their ringers might rot that played upon the organs.“This expression he totally denies, but admits that he did dislike and speak against instrumental or vocal music when so refined as to take up the attention of the hearers” I appeal,“he adds,” to the experience of any ingenuous person, whether curiosity of voice and musical sounds in churches does not tickle the fancy with a carnal delight, and engage a man’s ear and most diligent attention unto those sensible motions and audible sounds, and therefore must necessarily, in great measure, recall him from spiritual communion with God; seeing the mind of man cannot attend to two things at once with all it’s might [to each], and when we serve God we must do it with all our mig;ht. And hence it is, that the ancients have some of them given this rule that even vocal singing [in churches] should not be too curious, sed legenti similior giiam canenti. And Paul himself gives it a wipe, Eph. v. 19, Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, making melody in your hearts to the Lord“This sermon was revived in 1698, 4to, with the title of” A reveres to Mr. Oliver’s Sermon of Spiritual Worship." The descendants of the nonconformists have, however, in our times effectually got rid of their prejudices against organs.

However Mr. Pool might vindicate himself against the misrepresentations of this sermon, he refused to comply with the act of uniformity in 1662, and therefore incurred an ejectment from his rectory upon which occasion he printed a piece in Latin, entitled “Vop clamantis in deserto” He then submitted to the law with a commendable resignation, and enjoying a paternal estate of one hundred pounds per annum, sat down to his studies, resolving to employ his pen in the service of religion in general, without interfering with the controversies of the times. With this view, he formed the design of a very laborious and useful work, which procured him much credit at the time, and entitles him to the regard of posterity. This was his “Synopsis Criticorum,” published in 1669, and following years, in 5 very large volumes in. folio, some account of which may not be uninteresting, as it throws some light on the state of literary trade and public spirit in those clays. As it was probable that this work, which was suggested by bishop Lloyd, would be attended with an enormous expence, Mr. Pool, after he had formed his plan, and partly prepared his materials, endeavoured first to discover what likelihood there was of public encouragement, and with this view published as a specimen of the work, the sixth chapter of Genesis, with an address and proposals. In these he solicited the subscriptions of “the friends of religion and learning” to the “Synopsis,” which was to consist of three volumes folio, of 280 sheets each, at 4l. each copy, and the number of his subscribers, there is reason to think, was from the beginning very great, men of all parties discovering an eagerness to encourage a work the utility of which was so obvious. That the subscribers might be satisfied as to their money being properly expended, a committee of divines and gentlemen of property consented to act as trustees for the m,anage*­ment of the fund. These were, sir James Langham, Dr. Patrick, Dr. Tillotson, Dr. Micklethwait, Dr. Wharton, John King, of the Inner-Temple, esq. and Mr. Stiliingfleet, any three of whom might impower the treasurer, William. Webb, esq. to issue money for carrying on the work.

With much encouragement he had also some difficulties to encounter. When the first volume was ready for the press, an obstruction which appeared very formidable was thrown in his way by Cornelius Bee, a bookseller, who, in a paper or pamphlet called “The case of Cornelius Bee,” accused Mr. Pool of invading his property. To understand this it is necessary to know that this Mr. Bee, unquestionably a man of an enterprizing spirit, equal perhaps to any instance known in our days among the trade, had published a very few years before, i. e. in 1660, the “Critici Sacri,” or a body of criticisms of the most learned men in Europe, amounting to ninety, on the Old and New Testament, given at large from their works, and extending to nine volumes folio. Bee had a patent for this work, and unquestionably deserved every encouragement and protection the law could give, but the language of his patent seems to have given him a narrow notion of literary property. It stated that no person should print the Critics either in whole or in party and therefore he considered Mr. Pool as prohibited from taking any thing from this vast collection of criticisms which separately were in every persons’ hands, or from making any abridgment, or compiling any work that resembled the “Critici Sacri,” however improved in the plan, or augmented, as Pool’s was, from a variety authors not used in it. He also complained that he should sustain a double injury by the “Synopsis:” first, in the loss of the sale of the remaining copies of his own work, for which he did Mr. Pool the honour to think there would be no longer a demand; and secondly, in being prevented from publishing an improved edition of the “Critici Sacri” which he intended.

In answer to this, Mr. Pool said, that as soon as he heard of Mr. Bee’s objections, he took the opinion of counsel, which was in favour of his proceeding with the “Synopsis” that he also offered to submit the matter to arbitration, which Bee refused, and that he, in vain proposed other terms of accommodation, offering him a fourth part of the property of the work, which Mr. Bee treated with contempt; “but,” adds Pool, “I doubt not Mr. Bee will be more reconciled to it the next time that Mr. Pool shall make him such another offer,” which we shall see proved to be true. With regard to the supposed injury that would accrue to Mr. Bee, part appears imaginary, and part contradictory. We learn from this controversy, that the price of the “Critici Sacri” (which, as well- as of the “Synopsis,” has been, in our time, that of waste paper) was originally 13l. 10s. and Bee says in his preface, and truly, that for this sum the purchaser had more works than he could have bought separately for 50l. or 60l. But as he had blamed Pool for Occasioning a depreciation of the remaining copies of the “Critici Sacri,” the latter tells him that if this was a crime, he was himself guilty of it in two ways for first when he brought down the price of divers books from 50l. or 60l. to 13l. 10s. the possessors of those books were forced to sell them at far lower prices than they cost; and secondly, Pool contends that his projected new edition of the “Critici Sacri” would be a manifest injury to hundreds who bought the old one at a dear rate, and would now find them worth little more than waste paper.

We have said that Mr. Pool intended to have comprized the whole in 3 vols. folio, for which the subscription price was 4l. but he had not proceeded far before he found that he had made a wrong calculation, and that it would be necessary to add a fourth. This appears to have given him great uneasiness, for he considered his first proposals as implying a sacred and inviolable compact. As soon therefore, as he perceived his error, he issued “A Proposition” concerning this fourth volume, plainly showing that it was unavoidably necessary, but at the same time betraying very serious apprehensions as to the fate of it. His subscribers, however, soon dissipated his fears, and the bishops and other divines who had originally recommended the work to the public, being now better acquainted with his merit in executing it, and with the plan he had adopted, again came forward with a new and liberal testimonial in his favour. To the former names of his clerical patrons were now added those of Dr. Mews, Dr. Allestree, Dr. Pocock, Dr. Pearson, &c. The price of this volume to subscribers was 1/, and when it became farther necessary to extend it to the size of two, as usually bound, he left it to his subscribers 7 option to receive the fifth without paying more, or, if they pleased, to contribute another sum of ten shillings. He even hopes that this last will be the case, and trusts that “he shall not be censured by any ingenuous person, as a transgressor of the rules either of justice or modesty.” The number printed, of the whole work was four thousand, and it was so favourably received that before the fifth volume appeared, there were not two hundred copies of the preceding four unsold. And notwithstanding many hindrances of the press, &c. for which Mr. Pool thought it his duty to be frequently apologizing, the other volumes appeared in the following order; vol. I. in 1669, vol. II. in 1671, vol. III. in 1673, vol. IV. in 1674, and vol. V. in 1676, the whole in about seven years, during which, according to his own account, he had very little copy before-hand, but continued supplying two presses with incredible diligence. Calamy informs us, that while employed on this work, “his common rule was to rise very early in the morning, about three or four o'clock; and take a raw egg about eight or nine, and another about twelve, and then continue his studies till the afternoon was pretty far advanced, when he went abroad, and spent the evening at some friend’s house in cheerful conversation;” in which, he observes, “he was very facetious, as well as very true to his friend.” It may be doubted whether the British press of the eighteenth century has produced many works of equal risk and value with Walton’s “Polyglot,” the “Critici Sacri,” and the “Synopsis.” The price of the two latter has within these few years advanced very considerably; but the reputation of the “Synopsis” seems to have been longer preserved abroad than in this country. Notwithstanding the impression extended to four thousand, many of which were probably disposed of on the continent, a second edition was printed at Francfort in 1678, 5 vols. fol. and a third at Utrecht, edited by Leusden, in 1686. A fourth edition was printed at Francfort in 1694, in 5 vols. 4to, in a very small type, and a fifth at the same place in 1709, 6 vols. folio. This last, as well as the former has additions and improvements, criticisms on the Apocrypha, and a defence of the learned author against the censures of father Simon.

In the midst of this employment Mr. Pool found leisure to testify his zeal against popery, in a treatise concerning the infallibility of the church, printed in 1666, 8vo, which was followed by another the next year, 8vo, entitled, “Dialogues between a Popish priest and an English Protestant, wherein the principal points and arguments of both religions are truly proposed, and fully examined.” Besides these, he published a “Seasonable Apology for Religion,” on Matthew xi. 14, London, 1673, 4to. The first of these pieces was reprinted in 1679 his other works are some sermons, already mentioned, in the “Morning Exercise;” a poem and two epitaphs upon Mr. Jeremy Whitaker; two others upon the death of Mr. Richard Vines; and another on the death of Mr. Jacob Stock; a preface to twenty posthumous Sermons of Mr. Nalton’s, together with a character of him. He also wrote a volume of “'English Annotations on the Holy Scripture;” but was prevented by death from going farther than the 58th chapter of Isaiah. Others undertook to complete that work, whose names Ant. Wood has mistaken. From Calamy we learn that the 59th and 60th chapters of Isaiah were done by Mr. Jackson of Moulsey. The notes on the rest of Isaiah and on Jeremiah and Lamentations were drawn up by Dr. Collinges Ezekiel by Mr. Hurst Daniel by Mr. Cooper the Minor Prophets by Mr. Hurst the four Evangelists by Dr. Collinges the Acts by Mr. Vinke the Epistle to the Romans by Mr. Mayo the two Epistles to the Corinthians, and that to the Galatians, by Dr. Collinges; that to the Ephesians by Mr. Veale the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians by Mr. Adams the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, by Dr. Collinges; that to the Hebrews by Mr. Obadiah Hughes; the Epistle of St. James, two Epistles of St. Peter, and the Epistle of St. Jude, by Mr. Veale three Epistles of St. John by Mr. Howe and the Book of the Revelations by Dr. Collinges. These Annotations were printed at London 1685, in two volumes in folio, and reprinted in 1700, which is usually called the best edition, although it is far from correct. We have the original proposals for this work also before us; but there is nothing very interesting in them, unless that they inform us of the price, which was I/. 5s. per volume, or a penny per sheet, which appears to have been the average price of folio printing at that timeWhen Oates’s depositions concerning the popish plot were printed in 167,9, Pool found his name in the list of those that were to be cut off; and an incident befel him soon after, which gave him the greatest apprehension of his danger. Having passed an evening at alderman Ashurst’s, he took a Mr. Chorley to bear him company home. When they came to the narrow passage which leads from Clerkenwell to St. John’s-court, there were two men standing at the entrance one of whom, as Pool came along, cried out to the other, “Here he is” ijpon which

the other replied, “Let him alone, for there is somebody with him.” As soon as they were passed, Pool asked his friend, if he heard what those men said and upon his answering that he had, “Well,” replied Pool, “I had been murdered to-night if you had not been with me.” It is said, that, before this incident, he gave not the least credit to what was said in Oates’s deposition; but then he thought proper to retire to Holland, where he died in Oct. of the same year, 1679, not without a suspicion of being poisoned, as Calamy relates. His body was interred in a vault belonging to the English merchants at Amsterdam.

It has been said that Pool lived and died a single man. This, however, was not the case. Niceron tells us that he had a son who died in 1697, a piece of information whicli he probably took from the account of Mr. Pool, prefixed to the Francfort edition of the “Synopsis,” 1694; and in Smith’s Obituary (in Peck’s “Desiderata”) we have a notice of the burial, Aug. 11, 1668, of “Mrs. Poole (wife to Mr. Matthew Poole preacher), at St. Andrew’s Holbornj Dr. Stillingfleet preacher of her funeral sermon.”

, the most elegant and popular of all English poets, was born in Lombard -street, London, May 22, 1688, where his father, a linen-draper, had acquired a property of 20,000l. His mother was daughter of William Turner, esq. of York, two of whose sons died in the service of Charles I. and a third became a general officer in Spain, and from this last Mrs. Pope is said to have inherited what sequestrations and forfeitures had left in the family. Both his parents were Roman catholics. He. was from his birth of a constitution tender and delicate but is said to have shewn remarkable gentleness and sweetness of disposition. The weakness of his body continued throughout life, and was so great that he constantly wore stays; but the mildness of his mind, says Johnson, perhaps ended with his childhood. His voice, when he was young, was so pleasing, that he was called in fondness “the little Nightingale.”

He was taught to read by an aunt who was particularly fond of him, and to write by copying printed books, which he did all his life with great skill and dexterity, although his ordinary hand was far from elegant. At the age of eight he was placed under the care of Taverner, a Homish priest, who taught him the rudiments of the Greek antfi Latin languages at the same time, a method very rarely practised. Having improved considerably under Taverner, he was sent to a celebrated seminary of catholics at Twyford, near Winchester - y but in consequence of his writing a lampoon on his master, one of his first efforts in poetry, he was again removed to a school kept near Hyde-parkcorner. His master’s name here is not mentioned by any of his biographers, but it was probably John Bromley, who was curate of St. Giles’s in the fields in the beginning of James II. 's reign, soon after became a decided catholic, and losing his employment at the revolution, taught a school with good reputation. Dodd was infornaed that Pope was one of his pupils. Before his removal to this last place he had been much a reader of Ogilby’s Homer, and Sandys 7 Ovid, and frequently spoke, in the latter part of his life, of the exquisite pleasure which the perusal of these two writers gave him. He now had an opportunity of visiting the playhouse, and became so delighted with theatrical exhibitions, that he formed a kind of play from, the chief events of the Iliad as related by Ogilby, with some verses of his own intermixed. He persuaded a few of the upper boys to act in this piece; the master’s gardener represented the character of Ajax; and the actors were dressed after the pictures of his favourite Ogilby, which indeed were designed and engraved by artists of note.

In 1700, when he had attained his twelfth year, he retired with his father to Binfield near Oakingham and for some time was under the care of another priest named Dean, but with so little advantage, that the youth determined to study on a plan of his own, reading all such books as he could procure, but with a decided preference, even at this early age, to poetical works. It does not appear that any of the learned professions were pointed out to him, or that his father attempted in any way to direct his studies. “He was,” says Dr. Warton, “invariably and solely a poet, from the beginning of his life to the end.” Of the poets which he read, Dryden soon became his favourite and model; and we are told that he entreated a friend to carry him to Button’s coffee-house which Dryden. frequented, that he might gratify himself with the hare sight of a man whom he so much admired, and of whom he continued to speak well throughout life.

How early Pope began to write cannot be ascertained some think the “Ode to Solitude,” written at twelve years of age, was his earliest production but Dodsley, who lived in intimacy with him, had seen pieces of a still earlier date. I At fourteen, he employed himself in some of those transis lations and imitations which appear in the first volume of his works and still zealous in the prosecution of his poetical studies, he appears at this time ambitious to exhibit specimens of every kind of poetry. He wrote a comedy, a tragedy, and an epic poem, with panegyrics on all the princes of Europe; and, as he confesses, “thought himself the greatest genius that ever was.” Most, however, of these puerile productions he afterwards destroyed. At sixteen he wrote his “Pastorals,” which laid the foundation of lasting hostility between Philips and himself, but were the means of introducing him to the acquaintance and friendship of Sir William Trumbull, who had formerly been much, in public life, as a statesman, and was then retired within a short distance of Binfield. TrwnbuH, who was pleased to find in his neighbourhood a youth of such abilities and taste as young Pope, circulated his “Pastorals” among his friends, and introduced him to Wycherley and Walsh, and the wits of that time. They were not however published until 1709, and then only in Tonsori’s Miscellany. Of their poetical merit, it seems now agreed that their chief excellence lies in correctness and melody of versification, and that the discourse prefixed to them, although much of it is borrowed from Rapin and other authors, is elegantly and elaborately written. From this time the life of Pope, as an author, may be computed, and having now declared himself a candidate for fame, and entitled to mix with his brethren, he began at the age of seventeen to frequent the places where they used to assemble. This was done without much interruption to his studies, his own account of which was, that from fourteen to twenty he read only for amusement, from twenty to twenty-seven for improvement and instruction that in the first part of his time he desired only to know, and in the second he endeavoured to judge. His next performance greatly increased his reputation this was the “Essay on Criticism,” written in 1709, and published in 1711, which Dr. Johnson has characterized, as displaying “such extent of comprehension, such nicety of distinction, such acquaintance with mankind, and such knowledge both of ancient and modern learning, as are not often attained hy the maturest age and longest experience.” It found its way, however, rather slowly into the world but when the author had sent copies to Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Buckingham, and other great men, it began to be called for. It was in this “Essay” he made his attack on Dennis, which provoked those hostilities between them that never were completely appeased. Dennis’s reply was sufficiently coarse, but he appears to have been the first who discovered that leading characteristic of Pope, his propensity to talk too frequently of his own virtues, and that sometimes when they were least visible' to others.

The “Messiah” appeared first in the Spectator, 1712, with a warm recommendation -. by Steele, and raised the highest expectations of what the author was capable of performing; but he was not so happy in his “Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day.” This was followed by the beautiful little ode, “The Dying Christian to his Soul,” written at Steele’s desire, to-be set to music. In this he owns his obligations to the verses of Adrian, and the fragment of Sappho, but says nothing of Flatman, whose ode he not only imitated, but copied some lines of it verbatim. - The very pathetic “Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate Lady” was probably written about thistime, but who the lady was remains a matter of conjecture. One story, in a note appended to Dr. Johnson’s life of Pope, is, that her name was Withinbury, or Winbury that she was in love with Pope, and would have married him that her guardian, though she was deformed in person, looking upon such a match as beneath her, sent her to a convent, &c. where she committed suicide but all this has been contradicted, and nothing substituted in its room much more worthy of belief.

In the same year, 1711, he produced the “Rape of the Lock,” a poem which at once placed him higher than any modern writer, and exceeded every thing of the kind that had appeared in the republic of letters. It was occasioned by a frolic of gallantry, in which Lord Petre cut off a favourite lock of Mrs. Arabella Fermor’s hair, and this familiarity being so much resented as to occasion a serious rupture between the two families, Mr. Caryl, a friend to both, de-r sired Pope to write something that might bring them into better humour. Two cantos were accordingly produced in a fortnight, and published in one of Lintot’s Miscellanies and finding these received with universal applause, he next year enlarged the poem to five cantos and by the addition of the machinery of the Sylphs, placed the “Rape of the Lock” above all other mock heroic poems whatever.

It appears by a letter to Steele, dated Nov. 16, 1712, that he then first communicated to him “The Temple of Fame,” though he had written it two years before. The descriptive powers of Pope, Warton thinks are much more visible and strong in this poem, than in the “Windsor Forest” which followed it in the order of publication, although the first part was published in 1704. The last of his separate publications which appeared about this time was the “Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard,” in which it has been justly said that he excelled every composition of the same kind. Its poetical merit, however, great as it is, is Scarcely sufficient to make the reader forget the inherent indelicacy of the story, or its pernicious tendency.

Having amply established his fame by so many excellent, and by two incomparable, poems, the “Rape of the J-oc]t” and the “Eloisa,” he now meditated what Warton, somewhat incautiously, calls “a higher effort,” his translation of Homer. A higher effort it certainly was not than the poems just mentioned, but we may allow it was “something that might improve and advance his fortune as well as his fame.” A clamour was raised at the time that he had uot sufficient learning for such an undertaking and Dr. Johnson says, that considering his irregular education, and course of life, it is not very likely that he overflowed with Greek but this, it is known, he supplied by the aid of his friends, or by scholars employed, of whom he had no personal knowledge, as the celebrated Dr. Jortin, who, when a soph at Cambridge, made extracts from Eustathius for his notes. This translation Pope proposed to publish by subscription, in six vols. 4to. at the price of six guineas, and his list of subscribers soon amounted to 575, who engaged for 654 copies. The greatness of the design, and popularity of the author, and the attention of the literary world, naturally raised such expectations of the future sale, that the booksellers made their, offers with great eagerness but the hi-ghest bidder was Bernard Lintot, who became proprietor, on condition of supplying, at his own expence, all the copies which were to be delivered to subseribeYs, 4or pre,­sentecl to friends, and paying 200l. for every volume, so ­that Pope obtained, on the whole, the sum of 5S20J. 4s. Thk money he partly laid out in annuities, particularly one of 200l. a year, or as some say 500l. from the Duke of Buckingham, and partly in the purchase of a house at Twickenham, to which he now removed, having persuaded his father to sell his little property at Binfield.

The publication of the first volume of the “Iliad” was attended by a circumstance which interrupted the friendship that had long subsisted between Pope and Addison. This was the appearance of a translation of the first book of the Iliad under the name of Tickell, which Pope had reason to think, and confidently asserted, was the work of Addison himself, and not of Tickell. In the collection of Pope’s letters, in Johnson’s life, and in the notes to Addison’s life in the “Biographia Britannica,” written by Mr. Justice Blackstone, are many particulars of this unhappy quarrel, the real cause of which is not very clear. Every candid reader will wish that a' charge of disingenuity against so amiable a man as Addison, could be clearly refuted, and Blackstone has made considerable progress in this. Pope’s biographers seem to think that much cannot be learned from the evidence of style, and that this translation of the first book of the Iliad is more likely to have been written by Tickell than by Addison. With his usual frankness and good nature, Steele once endeavoured to reconcile Pope and Addison but, in the interview he procured, they so bitterly upbraided each other with envy, arrogance, and ingratitude, that they parted with increased aversion and ill-will. Pope was chiefly irritated at the calm and contemptuous unconcern with which Addison affected to address him in this conversation, and his mind had been alienated from him long before, owing to a notion that Addison was jealous of his fame. Of TickelPs translation no more appeared than this first book; and if we may be permitted to add one to the many conjectures already offered on this subject, we should say that probably no more was intended, and that this specimen was published rather to alarm Pope’s vanity than to hurt his interest or his fame.

During the publication of the Iliad, Pope found leisure to gratify his favourite passion of laying out grounds, which he displayed with great taste and judgment at his newly purchased house at Twickenham. This spot was visited and admired by the first men of this country, and frequently by Frederick, prince of Wales, who contributed some ornamental articles and for nearly a century it continued to be an object of curiosity; but in 1807 the house was entirely pulled down, and the grounds, from the many alterations they have undergone, can no longer be associated with the taste and skill of Pope* Here in 1717 his father died, after having lived to spend thie greater part of the 20,000l. which he acquired in trade, but which, being disaffected to government, he would not trust in any of its funds, and therefore he went on consuming the principal. His son celebrated him with equal elegance, tenderness, and gratitude, in the “Epistle to Arbuthnot.” The year before he had published in folio a collection of all his poems, with that sensible preface whichnow usually stands at the. head of his works.

In 172O, the publication of the ‘.’ Iliad“, was. completed, and in 1721 he acted as editor of the poems of his friend Parnell, to which he prefixed the fine epistle to Lord Oxford. Pope loved money, and in 1720 had been one of the adventurers in the South-Sea scheme, but from this he escaped without being a very great loser the same motive, though his remuneration did not much exceed 200/ tin-­duced him to become editor of Shakspeare, for which he was totally unfit. Tonson wished to have a good name prefixed to his edition, and Pope’s was then the first/among living poets. His labours were attacked by Theobald, first in his” Shakspeare Restored,“and afterwards in his own edition, to which Warburton contributed many remarks. Pope was much mortified by this failure, but is said to have recovered his tranquility by reflecting that he had a mind too great for the petty employments of collators, commentators, and verbal critics. It was on this occasion that Mallet obtained Pope’s friendship by addressing to him an epistle on” Verbal Criticism." What sort of friend MaiJet proved at last, we have already mentioned in our account of him.

Soon after this Pope issued proposals for a translation of the “Odvssey” but of this he performed only twelve books, namely the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, tenth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth, twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-fourth. The rest were translated by Fenton and Broome, and Pope is said to have given the former three hundred, and the latter five hundred pounds for their assistance; but as the number of subscribers equalled that of the Iliad, his own profits must have been very considerable. About this time he was full of grief and anxiety, on account of the impeachment of his friend bishop Atterbury, for whom he seems to have felt the greatest affection and regard; and being summoned before the Lords at the trial, to give some account of At* lerbury’s domestic life and employments, not being used to speak in a large assembly, he made several blunders in the few words he had to utter. It is remarkable that the day which deprived him of Atterbury, restored to him another friend, Bolingbroke, who continued in habits of intimacy with him during the whole of his life.

In 1727, Swift, who had long corresponded withhiai, coming to England, joined with Pope in publishing in 4 vols. 8vo, their miscellanies in prose and verse. To these Pope wrote a preface, complaining, among other instances, of the ill usage he had received front booksellers, and of the liberty one of them (Curll) had taken in this same year to publish his juvenile letters, purchased from a Mrs. Thomas, a mistress of his correspondent Mr. Cromwell. Pope had been intimate with this lady in his young days, but was now so seriously hurt at the publication of his letters, although he knew that she did it from distress, that he took a severe revenge in a poem called “Corinna,” and in the “Dunciad,” which appeared in the following year. The object of this celebrated satire was to crush all his adversaries in a mass, by one strong and decisive blow. His own account of this attempt is very minutely related by Pope himself, in a dedication which he wrote to Lord Middlesex, under the name of Savage the poet, who assisted Pope in finding out many particulars of these adversaries. If we may credit this narrative, Pope contemplated his victory over Dunces with great exultation and such, says Dr. Johnson, was his delight in the tumult he had raised, that for a while his natural sensibility was suspended, and he read reproaches and invectives without emotion, considering them only as the necessary effects of that pain which he rejoiced in having given. He would not however have long indulged this reflection, if all the persons he classed among the Dunces had possessed the spirit which animated some of them. Ducket demanded and obtained satisfaction for a scandalous imputation on his moral character and Aaron Hill expostulated with Pope in a manner so much superior to all mean solicitation, that Pope “was reduced to sneak and shuffle, sometimes to deny, and sometimes to apologize: he first endeavours to wound, and is then afraid to own that he meant a blow.” There are likewise some names introduced in this poem with disrespect which could receive no injury from such an attack. His placing the learned Bentley among dunces, could have occurred to Pope only in the moment of his maddest revenge Bentiey had spoken truth of the translation of the Iliad he said it was “a fine poem, but not Homer.” This, which has ever since been the opinion of the learned world, was not to be refuted by the contemptuous lines in which Bentley is mentioned in the “Dunciad.” On the other hand, the real Dunces, who are the majority in this poem, were beneath the notice of a man who now enjoyed higher fame than any poetical contemporary, and greater popularity, and greater favour with men of rank. But it appears’ to have been Pope’s opinion that insignificance should be no protection, that even neutrality should not be safe, and that whoever did not worship the deity he had set up, should be punished. Accordingly we find in this poem contemptuous allusions to persons who had given no open provocation, and were nowise concerned in the author’s literary contests. The “Dunciad” indeed seems intended as a general receptacle for all his resentments, just or unjust; and we find that in subsequent editions he altered, arranged, or added to his stock, as he found, or thought he found new occasion; and the hero of the “Dunciad,” who was at first Theobald, became at last Gibber.

The “Dunciad” first appeared in 1729; and two years after, Pope produced his “Epistle to Richard Earl of Burlington, occasioned by his publishing Palladio’s designs of the Baths, Arches, Theatres, &c. of ancient Rome, &c.” Of the merit of this highly-finished poern, there is no difference of opinion but it gave rise to an attack on Pope’s private character which was not easily repelled. Dr. Warton says, “The gang of scribblers immediately rose up together, and accused him of malevolence and ingratitude, in having ridiculed the house, gardens, chapel, and dinners, of the Duke of Chandos at Canons (who had lately, as they affirmed, been his benefactor) under the name of Timon. He peremptorily and positively denied the charge, and wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke, with the asseverations of which letter, as the last Duke of Chandos told me, his ancestor was not perfectly satisfied.” It was not therefore the “gang of scribblers” who brought this accusation, but all the family and connections of the Duke of Chandos, and no defence has yet been advanced which can induce any impartial reader to think the accusation unjust. What seems to have injured Pope most at the time was, that the excuses he offered were of the same shuffling kind which he employed in the case of Aaron Hill, and which, wherever employed, have the effect of doubling the guilt of the convict. This was one of the circumstances which induce us to think that Pope greatly injured his personal character by the indiscriminate attacks in his “Dunciad,” and by the opinion he seems to have taken up that no man was out of his reach.

In 1732, Pope published his epistle “On the use of Riches,” addressed to Lord Bathurst, which he has treated in so masterly a way, as to have almost exhausted the subject. His observation of human life and manners was indeed most extensive, and his delineations most exact and perfect. It is very hazardous to come after him in any subject of ethics which he has handled. Between this year and 1734, he published the four parts of his celebrated “Essay on Man,” the only work from his pen which equally engaged the attention of the moral, the theological, and the poetical world. He appears himself to have had some fears respecting it, for it appeared without his name, and yet it is wonderful that the style and manner did not betray him. When discovered it was still read ds an excellent poem, abounding in splendid and striking sentiments of religion and virtue, until Crousjaz endeavoured to prove, and not unsuccessfully, that it contained tenets more favourable to natural than to revealed religion. Crousaz was answered by a writer who a considerable time before had produced and read a dissertation against the doctrines of the “Essay on Man,” but now appeared as their vigorous defender. This was the learned and justly celebrated Warburton, who wrote a series of papers in the monthly journals called “The Republic of Letters” and “The Works of the Learned,” 'Which were afterwards collected into a volume. Pope was so delighted with this vindication, that he eagerly sought the acquaintance of Warburton, and told him he understood his opinions better than he did himself; which may be true, if, as commonly understood, Bolingbroke furnished those subtle principles by which Pope at first, and his readers afterwards, were deceived. The consequence* of this acquaintance tp Warburton were indeed momentous, for Pope introduced him to Murray, afterwards the celebrated Lord Mansfield, by whose interest he became preacher at Lincoln’s Inn and to Mr. Allen, “who gave him his niece and his estate, and by consequence a bishopric” and when he died he left him the property of his works.

Few pieces, in Warton’s opinion, can be found that, for depth of thought and penetration into the human mind and heart, excel the Epistle to lord Cobham, which Pope published in 1733, and which produced from his lordship two very sensible letters on the subjects and characters introduced in that epistle. In the same year appeared the first of our author’s Imitations of Horace, and in 1734, the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, which was considerably altered. It was first called “A Prologue to the Satires,” and then “A Dialogue.” Pope did not always write with a decided preference of form or manner, for his admirable poem pa “The Use of Riches” he called an epistle to lord Bathurst, although that nobleman is introduced as speaking, and speaking so insignificantly, that, as Warton informs us, he never mentioned the poem without disgust. Pope’s affectionate mention of his mother in this Epistle to Arbuthnot must always be quoted to his honour. Of all his moral qualities, filial affection was most predominant. He then, in 1735, produced the Epistle on the “Characters of Women,” in an advertisement to which he asserted that no one character was drawn from life. Pope had already lost some credit with the public for veracity, and this assertion certainly was not believed, nor perhaps did he wish it to be believed, for in a note he informed his readers that the work was imperfect, because part of his subject was tt Vice too high" to be yet exposed. This is supposed to allude to the character of the first duchess of Marlborough under the name of Atossa, which was inserted after her death, in a subsequent edition, although Pope received £1000 from her to suppress it. This is said to rest on the sole authority of the late Horace Walpole, lord Orford but if told by him as we find it in Warton’s and Bowles’s editions of Pope’s works, it confutes itself. The fact as they relate it is, that Pope received £lOOO. from the duchess, promising on these terms to suppress the character, and that he took the money and then published it. But Pope could not have published it, for it did not appear, according to Warton’s account, until 1746, two years after his death I It might then probably have been found among Mr. Pope’s Mss. and inserted without any great blame by those who knew nothing of the bargain with the duchess, if there was even such a bargain.

In 1736 and 1737 he published more of his Imitations of Horace, all with his name, except the one entitled, “Sober Advice from Horace to the young Gentlemen about town,” which he was ashamed to acknowledge although he suffered Dodsley to publish it as his own in a 12mo edition. In the last mentioned year appeared an edition of his “Letters” published in 4to by a large subscription. His friend Mr. Allen of Bath had such an opinion of Pope that he advised this publication, from which, he said, “a perfect system of morals might be extracted,” and offered to be at the cost of a publication of them. Pope preferred the patronage of the public, but yet wanted some apology for publishing his own letters. Dr. Johnson relates where he found that, in the following words:

"One of the passages of Pope’s life, which seems to deserve some inquiry, was a publication of Letters between him and his friends, which falling into the hands of Curll, a rapacious bookseller of no good fame, were by him printed and sold. This volume containing some letters from noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in the House of Lords for breach of privilege, and attended himself to stimulate the resentment of his friends. Curll appeared at the, bar, and knowing himself in no danger, spoke of Pope with very little reverence. ‘ He had,’ said Curll, ‘ a knack of versifying, but in prose I think myself a match for him.’ When the orders of the house were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy.

"Curll’s account was, that one evening a man in a clergyman’s gown, but with a lawyer’s band, brought and offered to sale a number of printed volumes, which he found to be Pope’s epistolary correspondence that he asked no name, and was told none, but gave the price demanded, and thought himself authorized to use his purchase to his own advantage. That Curll gave a true account of the transaction it is reasonable to believe, because no' falsehood was ever yet detected; and when, some years afterwards, I mentioned it to Lintot, the son of Bernard, he declared his opinion to be, that Pope knew better than any body else how Curll obtained the copies, because another parcel was at the same time sent to himself, for which no price had ever been demanded, as he made known his resolution not to pay a porter, and consequently not to deal with a nameless agent.

"Such care had been taken to make them public, that they were sent at once to two booksellers; to Curll, who was likely to seize them as a prey; and to Lintot, who might be expected to give Pope information of the seeming injury. Lintot, I believe, did nothing; and Curll did what was expected. That to make them public was the only purpose, may be reasonably supposed, because the numbers offered to sale by the private messenger, shewed that hope of gain could not have been the motive of the impression. __

Such was the artifice, which, however, was soon detected, for no man could for a moment doubt that the letters were conveyed to Curll by Pope himself, that he might have a pretence for an edition, which, being avowed by himself, would obtain the preference over every other* Could a doubt remain, it must be removed by the notes and information respecting these letters in Mr. Bowles’s edition of his works. As to the letters themselves, Warton says “they are all over-crowded with professions of integrity and disinterestedness, with trite reflections on contentment and retirement; a disdain of greatness and courts; a contempt of fame and an affected strain of common-place morality.” Affectation indeed pervades the greater part of the correspondence, and those objects are mentioned with the greatest disdain, which were the objects of their highest ambition.

Returning to his more original publications, Pope nowissued those two dialogues which were named, from the year in which they appeared, “Seventeen hundred and thirty eight,” and are among the bitterest of satires. Ever/ species of sarcasm and mode of style are here alternately employed ridicule, reasoning, irony, mirth, seriousness, lamentation, laughter, familiar imagery, and high poetical painting. Although many persons in power were highly provoked, he does not appear to have been very directly menaced with a prosecution; but Paul Whitehead, who about this time wrote his “Manners,” and his publisher Dodsley, were called to an account, which was supposed to have been intended rather to intimidate Pope, than to punish Wintehead> and Pope appears to have taken the hint; for he discontinued a Third Dialogue, which he had begun, and never afterwards attempted to join the patriot with the poet. He had been led into this by his connection with the prince of Wales and the opposition, but he could not have long been of service to them. Had they come into office, he must have been either silent, or offensive, for he was both a Jacobite and a papist. Dr. Johnson says very justly that he was entangled in the opposition now, and had forgot the prudence with which he passed, in his earlier years, uninjured and unoffending, through much more violent conflicts of faction.

Ceasing therefore from politics, for which he was so unfit, he amused himself, in 1740, in republishing “Selecta Carmina Italorum,” taken, withgut acknowledgement, from the collection called “Anthologia,” 1684, 12mo, attributed to Atterbury, falsely, as Warton asserts, but justly accorcling to every other opinion. The work however is more imperfect than it would have been had he consulted other collections of the kind. His last performance shewed either that his own judgment was impaired, or that he yielded too easily to thatot Warburton, who now ad vised him to write the fourth book of the “Dunciad” and in 1743 he betrayed a yet greater want of judgment by printing a new edition of the Dunciad, in which he placed Cibber in the room of Theobald, forgetting how opposite their characters were. He had before this introduced Cibber with contemptuous mention in his satires, and Cibber resented both insults in two pamphlets which gave Pope more uneasiness than he was willing to allow.

The time was now approaching, however, in which all his contests were to end. About the beginning of 1744 his health and strength began visibly to decline. Besides his constant head achs, and severe rheumatic pains, he had been afflicted, for five years, with an asthma, which was suspected to be occasioned by a dropsy of the breast. In the month of May he became dangerously ill, and on the sixth was all day delirious, which he mentioned four clays afterwards as a sufficient humiliation of the vanity of man fte afterwards complained of seeing things as through a curtain, and in false colours, and one day asked what arm "it was that came out from the wall. He said that his greatest inconvenience was inability to think. Bolingbroke sometimes Wept over him in this state of helpless decay and being told by Spence, that Pope, at the intermission of his deliriousness, was always saying something kind either of his present or absent friends, and that his humanity seemed to have survived his understanding, answered,

* It has’so*:“and added,” I never in my life knew a man that had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or more general friendship for mankind.“At another time he said,” I have known Pope these thirty years, and value myself more in his friendship than“-his grief then suppressed his voice. Pope expressed undoubting confidence of a future state. Being asked by his friend Mr. Hooke, a papist, whether he would not die like his father and mother, and whether a priest should not be called he answered,” I do not think it is essential, but it will be very right: and I thank you for putting me in mind of it.“In the morning, after the priest had done his office, he said,” There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship, and indeed friendship itself is only a part of virtue." He died in the evening of May 30, 1744, so placidly, that the attendants did not discern the exact time of his expiration. He was buried at Twickenham, near his father and mother, where a monument was afterwards erected to him by Warburton.

We have already copied an expression of Dr. Warton’s, that Pope was invariably and solely a poet from the beginning of his life to the end and we may add from the same elegant critic, that his whole life, and every hour of it, in sickness and in health, was devoted with unremitting diligence, to cultivate that one art in which he had determined to excel, and in which he did excel. It is not our intention, however, to expatiate on his merits as a poet. What has been advanced by Dr. Johnson and Dr. Warton must supersede all other efforts; but we may be permitted to regret that he added so little to the dignity of the literary character, and that his passions were vulgar and vulgarly expressed. Never had the genus irritabile a more faithful representative. With abundant professions of philosophy, benevolence, and friendship, he thought no display of petty revenge, and no discharge of acrimony, beneath him and was continually endeavouring to promote his interest by quackish stratagems and idle artifices, often so poorly disguised as to expose him to immediate contempt; and all this at a time when he was confessedly at the head of the poetical list, and when his wealth was so great that he was mean enough to upbraid his adversaries for their want of it. “It would be hard,” says Johnson, “to find a man so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in talking of his money. In his letters and in his poems, his gardens and his grotto, his quincunx and his vines, or some hints of his opulence, are always to be found. The great topic of his ridicule is poverty; the crimes with which he reproaches his antagonists are their debts, their habitation in the Mint, and their want of a dinner.”

In constitution he was constantly a valetudinarian. His person was deformed, and he was so feeble as not to be able to dress or undress himself without assistance. Such a state of body generally produces a certain degree of irritability and peevishness, which must naturally be greatly exasperated by a life of literary warfare. This was surely not the proper life for a man who, in his private habits was capricious and offensive, and who expected that every thing should give way to his humour. He was thus provoking contradictions, and risking mortifications, from which he. might have been free, if he could have lived on his own. ample treasures of genius and fame. But if Pope created enemies, he also conciliated friends, and had a pleasure in enumerating the men of high rank with whom he was acquainted, and to gain whose favour he practised no meanness or servility. It is indeed allowed that he never flattered those whom he did not love, or praised those whom he did not esteem. And as, from his infirmities and his capricious habits, he must have been a very disagreeable guest, his frequent reception in the houses and at the tables of men of high rank is a proof that there was much in his character to admire or esteem, and a presumption that some of the failings which have been reported of him may have been exaggerated by his enemies. “A man,” says his ablest biographer, “of such exalted superiority, and so little moderation, would naturally have all his delinquencies observed and aggravated: and those who could not deny that he was excellent, would rejoice to find that he was not perfect.” Unfortunately some of those imperfections were too obvious for concealment. Pope was, among other instances, with all his defects of person, a man of gallantry, and besides his presumptuous and ridiculous love for lady Mary Wortley Montague, carried on an intercourse with the Misses Blount, which certainly was not of the Platonic kind. From the account given by Mr. Bowles, in his recent Life of Pope, and the new Letters published in Mr. Bowles’s edition of his works, no great obscurity now rests on the nature of that connection.

This transient notice of the Misses Blount leads to a remark that he was not always fortunate in his friendships. Martha Blount, to whom he was most attached, deserted him in his last illness and Bolingbroke, whom we have seen weeping over the dying bard, and pouring out the effusions of the warmest affection for the friend he was about to lose, soon employed the hireling Mallet to blacken Pope’s character in the very article for which he thought him most estimable, the purity and honour of his friendships. We have already noticed this affair in our account of Mallet, (vol. XXI. p. 195,) and shall now only briefly say that, on Pope’s death, it was disclosed to Lord Bolingbroke by Mallet, who had his information from a printer, that Pope had printed an edition of the Essay on a “Patriot King.” But, as there has been much misconception and misrepresentation respecting this affair, we are happy to bd able, in this place, to state the circumstances attending it on unquestionable authority, that of a gentleman to whom the following particulars were more than once related by the late earl of Marchmont, and who, besides the obliging communication of them, has conferred the additional favour of permitting us to use his name, the Right Hon. George Rose.

"The Essay (on the Patriot King) was undertaken at the pressing instance of lord Cornbury, very warmly supported by the earnest entreaties of lord Marchmont, with which lord Bolingbroke at length complied. When it was written, it was shewn to the two lords, and one other confidential friend, who were so much pleased with it, that they did not cease their importunities to have it published, till his lordship, after much hesitation, consented to print it; with a positive determination, however, against a publication at that time, assigning, as his reason, that the work was not finished in such a way as he wished it to be, before it went into the world.

Conformably to that determination, some copies of the Essay were printed, which were distributed to lord Cornbury, lord Marchmont, sir William Wyndham, Mr. Lyttelton, Mr. Pope, and lord Chesterfield one only havirfg been reserved. Mr. Pope put his copy into the hands of Mr. Allen, of Prior Park, near Bath, stating to him the injunction of lord Bolingbroke; but that gentleman was so captivated with it as to press Mr. Pope to allow him to print a small impression at his own expense, using such caution as should effectually prevent a single copy getting into the possession of any one, till the consent of the author should be obtained.

"Under a solemn engagement to that effect, Mr. Pope very reluctantly consented the edition was then printed, packed up, and deposited in a separate warehouse, of which Mr. Pope had the key.

“Qn th circumstance being made known to lord Bolingbroke, who was then a guest in his own house at Battersea with lord Marchmont, to whom he had lent it for two or three years, his lordship was in great indignation; to appease which, lord Marchmont sent Mr. Grevenkop (a German gentleman who had travelled with him, and was afterwards in the household of lord Chesterfield when lord lieutenant of Ireland,) to bring out the whole edition, of which a bonfire was instantly made on the terrace at Battersea.” This plain unvarnished tale, our readers will probably think, tends very much to strengthen the vindication which Warburton offered for his deceased friend, although he was ignorant of the concern Allen had in the matter; but it will be difficult to find an excuse for Bolingbroke, who, forgetting the honourable mention of him in Pope’s will, a thing quite incompatible with any hostile intention towards him, could employ such a man as Mallet to blast the memory of Pope by telling a tale of "breach of faith/ 1 with every malicious aggravation, and artfully concealing what he must have known, since lord Marchmont knew it, the share Allen had in the edition* of the Patriot King.

, founder of Trinity college, Oxford, was born at Dedington, in Oxfordshire, about the year 1508. His parents were William and Margaret Pope, the daughter of Edaiund Yate, of Stanlake, in Oxfordshire. She was the second wife of our founder’s father, and after his death in 1523, was again married to John Bustarde, of Adderbury, in the same county, whom she survived, and died in 1557. The circumstances of the family, if not opulent, were “decent and creditable.”

Thomas was educated at the school of Banbury, kept by Thomas Stanbridge, of Magdalen college, an eminent tutor, and was thence removed to Eton college, from which he is supposed to have gone to Gray’s Inn, where ie studied the law. Of his progress at the bar we have no account; but his talents must have discovered themselves at an early period, and have recommended him to the notice of his sovereign, as in October I 533, when he was only twenty-seven years old, he was constituted by letters-patent of Henry VIII. clerk of the briefs of the star-chamber at Westminster, and the same month received a reversionary grant of the office of clerk of the crown in Chancery. Of this last he soon after became possessed, with an annual fee of twenty pounds from the hanaper, and also a robe with fur at the feast of Christmas and Pentecost, from the king’s great wardrobe. Two years after, in November 1535, he was constituted warden of the mint, exchange, and coinage, in the Tower of London, which his biographer thinks he quitted about eight years after for some more valuable preferment. The same year he received a patent for a new coat of arms to be borne by him and his posterity, which are those of Trinity college. In October 1536, he received the honour of knighthood, at the same time with Henry Howard, afterwards the gallant and unfortunate earl of Surrey. In December, he was appointed to exercise, jointly with William Smythe, the office of clerk of all the briefs in the star-chamber at Westminster. In Feb. 1538, he obtained at his own instance, a new royal licence for exercising the office of clerk of the crown in conjunction with John Lucas, afterwards an eminent crown, lawyer in, the reign of Edward VI.

Some of these appointments, it is probable, he owed ta Sir Thomas More, with whom he was early acquainted, and some to lord Audley, both lord chancellors,; but in 1539 he received one of greater importance, being constituted by the king, treasurer of the court of augmentations. on its first establishment byact of parliament. The business of this court was, to estimate the lands of the dissolved monasteries, vested in the crown, receive their revenues, and sell the monastic possessions for the king’s service 5 and it was so called from the increase which the royal revenue thus received. The treasurer’s office was a post of considerable profit, and of considerable dignity, as the person holding it ranked with the principal officers of state, and was privileged to retain in his house a chaplain, having a benefice with cure of souls, who should not be compelled to residence. What the emoluments of this office were, is not s,o clear, but they were greater than the allowance of sir John Williams, treasurer in Edward Vlth’s reign, who had 320l. yearly: and it may be supposed the office gave those advantages in the purchase of the dissolved possessions which probably formed the foundation of sir Thomas’s vast fortune.

He held this office for five years, and during that time was appointed master, or treasurer, of the jswel- house in the Tower. In 1546, the court of augmentations was dissolved, and a new establishment on a more confined plan substituted. In this sir Thomas Pope was nominated master of the woods of the court on this side the river Trent., end was How a member of the privy council. It has been asserted that he was appointed one of the commissioners or Visitors under Cromwell, for dissolving the religions houses; but the only occasion, according to his biographer, in which he acted, was in the case of the Abbey of St. Albans. He was undoubtedly one of those into whose hands the seal of that abbey was surrendered in 1539, and it was to his interest with the king that we owe the preservation of the church now standing. But although there is no proof of his having been one of the visitors employed in the general dissolution, it is certain that his immense fortune arose from “that grand harvest of riches,” and diverted his thoughts from the regular profession of the law. Before 1556, he appears to have been actually possessed of more than thirty manors in the counties of Oxford, Gloucester, Warwick, Derby, Bedford, Hereford, and Kent, besides other considerable estates and several advowsons. Some of these possessions were given him by Henry VIII. but the greatest part was acquired by purchase while he was connected with the court of augmentations, and many of his estates were bought of queen Mary.

During the reign of Henry VIII. sir Thomas Pope was employed in various services and attendances about court, but in none of more affecting interest than when he was sent by the king to inform his old friend and patron, sir Thomas More, of the hour appointed for his execution. (See More.) On the accession of Edward VI. as he was not of the reformed religion, sir Thomas Pope received no favour or office; but when queen Mary succeeded, he was again made a privy councillor and cofferer to the household, and was often employed in commissions of considerable importance; nor are we surprized to find his name in a commission for the more effectual suppression of heretics, in concert with Bonner and others; but his conduct, when the princess (afterwards queen) Elizabeth was placed under his care in 1555, was far more to his credit. After having been imprisoned in the Tower and at Woodstock, she was permitted by her jealous sister to retire with sir Thomas Pope to Hatfield-house, in Hertfordshire, then a royal palace, where he shewed her every mark of respect that was consistent with the nature of his charge, and more than could have been expected from one of his rigid adherence to the reigning politics. After a residence here of four years, she was raised to the throne on the death of her sister Mary, Nov. 17, 1558, and on this occasion sir Thomas does not appear to have been continued in the privycouncil, nor had he afterwards any concern in political transactions. He did not, indeed, survive the accession of Elizabeth above a year, as he died Jan. 29, 1559, at his house in Clerkenwell, which was part of the dissolved monastery there. No circumstances of his illness or death have been discovered. Mr. Warton is inclined to think that he was carried off by a pestilential fever, which raged with uncommon violence in the autumn of 15p8. He was interred, in great state, in the parish church of St. Stephen’s,Walbrook, where his second wife, Margaret, had been before buried, and his daughter Alice. But in 1567 their bodies were removed to the chapel of Trinity college, and again interred on the north side of the altar under a tomb of gothic workmanship, on which are the recumbent figures of sir Thomas in complete armour, and his third wife Elizabeth, large as the life, in alabaster.

Sir Thomas Pope was thrice married. His first wife was Elizabeth Gunston, from whom he was divorced July 11, 1536. His second was Margaret Dodmer, widow, to whom he was married July 17, 1536. Her maiden name was Townsend, a native of Stamford in Lincolnshire, and the relict of Ralph Dodmer, knight, sheriff and lord-mayor of London. By sir Thomas Pope she had only one daughter, Alice, who died very young, but she had two sons by her former husband, whom sir Thomas treated as his own. She died in 1538, after which, in 1540, he married Elizabeth the daughter of Walter Blount, esq. of Blount’s Hall, in Staffordshire. She was at that time the widow of Anthony Basford, or Beresford, esq. of Bently, in Derbyshire, by whom she had one son, but no children by sir Thomas Pope. After Sir Thomas’s death she married sir Hugh Powlett, of Hinton St. George, in Somersetshire, the son of sir Amias Powlett, who was confined in the Temple by the order of cardinal Wolsey. Sir Hugh joined her cordially in her regard and attentions to the college, of which she was now styled the foundress. She died at an advanced age, Oct. 27, 1593, at Tyttenhanger, in Hertfordshire, the favourite seat of sir Thomas Pope, and was interred, in solemn pomp, in the chapel of Trinity college.

Mr. Warton’s character of sir Thomas Pope must not be omitted, as it is the result of a careful examination of his public and private conduct. He appears to have been a man eminently qualified for business; and although not employed in the very principal departments of state, he possessed peculiar talents and address for the management and execution of public affairs. His natural abilities were strong, his knowledge of the world deep and extensive, his judgment solid and discerning. His circumspection and prudence in the conduct of negociations entrusted to his charge, were equalled by his fidelity and perseverance. He is a conspicuous instance of one, not bred to the church, who, without the advantages of birth and patrimony, by the force of understanding and industry, raised himself, to opulence and honourable employments. He lived in an age when the peculiar circumstances of the times afforded obvious temptations to the most abject desertion of principle; and few periods of our history can be found which exhibit more numerous examples of occasional compliance with frequent changes. Yet he remained unbiassed and uncorrupted amid the general depravity. Under Henry VIII. when on the dissolution of the monasteries he was enabled by the opportunities of his situation to enrich himself with their revenues by fraudulent or oppressive practices, he behaved with disinterested integrity; nor does a single instance occur upon record which impeaches his honour. In the succeeding reign of Edward VI. a sudden check was given to his career of popularity and prosperity: he retained his original attachment to the catholic religion; and on that account lost those marks of favour or distinction which were so liberally dispensed to the sycophants of Somerset, and which he might have easily secured by a temporary submission to the reigning system. At the accession of Mary he was restored to favour; yet he was never instrumental or active in the tyrannies of that queen which disgrace our annals. He was armed with discretionary powers for the suppression of heretical innovations; yet he forbore to gratify the arbitrary demands of his bigoted mistress to their utmost extent, nor would he participate in forwarding the barbarities of her bloody persecutions. In the guardianship of the princess Elizabeth, the unhappy victim of united superstition, jealousy, revenge, and cruelty, his humanity prevailed over his interest, and he less regarded the displeasure of the vigilant and unforgiving queen, than the claims of injured innocence. If it be his crime to have accumulated riches, let it be remembered, that he consecrated a part of those riches, not amid the terrors of a death-bed, nor in the dreams of old age, but in the prime of life, and the vigour of understanding, to the public service of his country; that he gave them to future generations for the perpetual support of literature and religion.

Sir Thomas Pope was certainly in the prime of life when he determined to found a college, the necessity of which was to him apparent, from the actual state of the university, and the increasing zeal for literature, which had in less than half a century produced three new colleges in Oxford, and four in Cambridge. Like some of the most learned of his predecessors in these munificent acts, he saw the necessity of providing for classical literature, and his teacher of humanity is specially enjoined to inspire his scholars with a just taste for the graces of the Latin language, and to explain critically the works of Cicero, Quintilian, Aulus Gellius, Plautus, Terence, Virgil, Horace, Livy, and Lucan. From these and other injunctions respecting the same subject, it may be inferred, that although Mr. Wavton has not made it a prominent feature in his character, the founder’s acquaintance with classical learning was not inferior to his other accomplishments.

The site chosen for his new foundation was at this time occupied by Durham college, which Edward VI. granted to George Owen, of Godstowe, the king’s physician, a man of great learning and eminence, and William Martyn, gentleman, in 1552; and sir Thomas purchased the premises of these gentlemen by indenture dated Feb. 20, 1554. On March 8, and March 28, he obtained from Philip and Mary a royal licence and charter to create and erect a college within the university of Oxford, under the title of Collegium Sanctæ Et Individuæ Trinitatis In Universitate Oxon. Ex Fundatione Thomæ Pope Militis. The society was to consist of a president, a priest, twelve fellows, four of whom should be priests, and eight scholars (afterwards increased to twelve) and the whole to be liberally and amply endowed with certain manors, lands, and revenues. They were to be elected out of the diocese and places where the college has benefices, manors, or revenues, more particularly in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Kent. The same charter empowered him to found and endow a school at Hokenorton, in Oxfordshire, to be called Jesus Scholehouse; and to give statutes both to the college and to the first and second masters of the said school. And by deed, dated March 28, 1555, he declared his actual erection and establishment df the said college, and the same day delivered possession, before a large concourse of witnesses, to the president, fellows, and scholars. In May following he supplied his college with necessaries and implements of every kind, books, furniture for the chapel, of the most costly kind; and next year he transmitted a body of statutes to the society, dated May 1, 1556. These statutes he had submitted to the revision of cardinal Pole, from whom he received some valuable hints. On the 8th of the same month, May, he gave them one hundred pounds as a stock for immediate purposes; and the endowment, by thirty-five manors, thirteen advowsons, besides impropriations and pensions, was completed before, or upon the feast of Annunciation, in the same year; and the first president, fellows and scholars, nominated by himself, were formally admitted within the chapel, May 30, on the eve of Trinity Sunday. During his life-time, the founder nominated the fellows and scholars, and afterwards delegated the power to his widow, dame Elizabeth, of nominating the scholars, and presenting to the advowsons, and this she continued to exercise during her long life, but with some interruptions, and some opposition. On one occasion the college rejected her nomination to a scholarship, and chose another candidate; but on an appeal to the visitor, he decided in her favour. She sometimes also nominated the fellows, and once a president. But both she and her husband, sir Hugh Powlett, were so liberal and punctual in fulfilling the founder’s intentions, and in contributing to the prosperity of the college, that she was in general obeyed with respect and gratitude.

On St. Swithin’s day, July 15, 1556, the founder visited his college, accompanied by the bishops of Winchester and Ely, Whyte and Thirlby, and other eminent personages, who were entertained sumptuously in the hall, the whole expenses of which were paid by him to the bursar on the same day. Nor was this a singular act of liberality, for it appears that during his life-time he paid all the university expences of degrees, regencies, and determinations, for the fellows and scholars. He also continued to send various articles of rich furniture for the chapel and hall, and a great quantity of valuable plate, and made considerable additions to the permanent endowment, by new revenues for five obits or dirges, yearly, to be sung and celebrated ss festivals in his college. About the same time he founded four additional scholarships, from the endowment of the school intended to have been established at Hokenorton, but which intention he now abandoned, thinking it more beneficial to the public to increase the number of scholars in the university. In December 1557, he announced his intention of building a house at Garsington, near Oxford, to which the society might retire in time of the plague. This was built after his death, pursuant to his will, in a quadrangular form; and it appears from the college books that they took refuge here in 1570-1, and again in 1577. On the former occasion they were visited by sir Hugh Powlett. At this house they performed the same exercises, both of learning and devotion, as when in college. In 1563, before this house was completed, they retired, during a plague, to Woodstock.

, a man of wit and learning in the seventeenth century, was born at Fawsley in Northamptonshire, in what year is not mentioned. He was half brother to Dr. John Wilkins, bishop of Chester, by the mother’s side. He was admitted of Trinity college, Cambridge, in 1645, but is supposed for some reason to have left that soon for Wad ham college, Oxford, where he obtained a scholarship, and took the degree of B. A. July 6, 1649. In July 1651 the parliamentary visitors admitted him probationer fellow, although he, does not appear to have been of their principles, and in the same month he commenced master of arts. In 1658, while he served the office of junior proctor, a controversy took place respecting the wearing of caps and hoods, which the reigning party considered as reliques of popery, and therefore wished to aboJish the statute which enjoined them. This he contrived to oppose with so much success that all the power of the republicans was not sufficient to carry the point, and these articles of dress continued to be worn until the restoration. Of this affair, which he calls “the most glorious action of his life,” he has given a full account in his Life of Dr. Ward, bishop of Salisbury, and expresses his displeasure that Antony Wood should, in his “Annals,” have passed over an event so honourable to him.

Towards the end of the above year, 1658, and before his proctorship expired, he obtained leave to travel, but returned probably before 1660, as we then find him dean of Wadham college and when, in the same year Mr. (afterwards, sir) Christopher Wren resigned the professorship of astronomy in Gresham college, Mr. Pope was chosen in his room, and Sept. 12 of that year was created doctor of physic; but the statutes not permitting him to hold both, he was obliged on this occasion to resign his fellowship in Wadham. In May 1663 he was chosen one of the first fellows of the Royal Society along with the other eminent men whom the nation then yielded, and soon after had licence to travel for two years, during which he made the tour of Italy, and remitted to the Royal Society various observations collected on his journey. In 1667 he was chosen into the council of the Royal Society, and in the following year, his half-brother Dr. Wilkins, being promoted to the bishopric of Chester, made him registrar of that diocese. In 1686 he was recovered of an inflammation in his eyes, which endangered the loss of sight, by Dr. Turbervile, an eminent oculist, as he gratefully acknowledged in an epitaph which he wrote upon him after his deatii. In the following year he resigned his Gresham professorship.

Dr. Pope was a man of humour and a satirist, and in both characters had published in 1670 the “Memoirs of Mons. Du Vail, with his last speech and epitaph.” Du Vail was a notorious highwayman, who was hanged in 1669 at Tyburn, and having been much admired and bewailed by the ladies, our author by this piece of biography endeavoured to cure them of such weakness or affectation, and to direct their esteem to more worthy objects. In 1693, he published his well-known song called “The Wish,” or “The Old Man’s Wish,” which may be seen in Mr. Nichols’s collection of Miscellany Poems, and perhaps in every collection of English songs. Vincent Bourne wrote a beautiful imitation of it in Latin. This wish seems to have been in some measure accomplished in his own case, for in his life of bishop Ward, published in 1697, he says, “I thank God, I am arriv‘d to a good old age without gout, or stone, with my external senses but little decayed; and my intellectuals, tho’ none of the best, yet as good as ever they were.” In the following year he was involved in a tedious law-suit, which gave him much uneasiness, but what the subject was, his biographer has not discovered. In 1699 he withdrew from the Royal Society, designing Yery probably to retire into the country, and enjoy himself in some respects agreeably to his “Wish.” Accordingly he spent much of his time afterwards at Epsom, but at last settled in Bunhill fields, then a suburb of London, where he died, in a very advanced age, in June 1714, and was buried in the church of St. Giles’s Cripplegate.

He maintained an intimate friendship with two very emifcent and learned men, Mr. Rooke and Dr. Barrow; but his greatest friend and patron, next to his brother bishop Wilkins, was Dr. Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury, whose life he wrote, and from whom he had a pension of lOOl. a year. His intimacy with this excellent prelate seems to contradict the character Anthony Wood gives of him, that he led “an” Epicurean and heathenish life,“but there was some cause of quarrel between Wood and Dr. Pope, and the former, we know, was too apt to put his resentments in writing. Pope wds a man of wit as well as learning, but certainly not a correct or elegant writer. He was a good French and Ita* lian scholar, and well acquainted also with the Spanish language. In the Philosophical Transactions (April 1665), is by him” Extract of a letter from Venice to Dr. Wilkins, concerning the mines of mercury in Friuli, &c.“and” Observations made at London upon an eclipse of the sun, June 22, 1666.“His other works are,” The Memoirs of Mons. Du Vail,“mentioned above, Lond. 1670, 4to;” Te the Memory of the most rerrowned Du Vail, a Pindaric Ode,“ibid. 1671, 4to, said in the title to be written by Butler, and since printed among his” Remains,“and in his” Works.“Dr. Pope wrote also” The Catholic Ballad,“and other verses, which are inserted in Mr. Nichols’s Col* lection;” Select Novels,“1694, from the Spanish of Cervantes and the Italian of Petrarch;” Moral and Political Fables, ancient and modern,“ibid. 1698, 8vo. But his most useful publication is” The Life of the Right Rev. Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury,“a small volume printed at London in 1697, which contains many anecdotes of that prelate’s contemporaries, Wilkins, Barrow, Rooke, Turberville, &c. Dr. Thos. Wood, a civilian, and relation of Ant. Wood, published some severe animadversions on this life in what he entitled” An Appendix to the Life, &c. in a Letter to the Author, &c." 1697, 12mo, but this is much more scarce than the other.

, an English lawyer of eminence, was the eldest son of Edward Popham, esq. of Huntworth in Somersetshire, and born in 1531. He was some time a student at Baliol college in Oxford, being then, as Wood says, given at leisure hours to manly sports and exercises. When he removed to the Middle Temple, he is said at first to have led a dissipated life, but applying diligently afterwards to the study of the law, he rose to some of its highest honours. He was made serjeant at law about 1570, solicitor-general in 1579, and attorney-general in 1581, when he also bore the office of treasurer of the Middle Temple. In 1592, he was promoted to the rank of chief justice of the court of king’s-bench; not of the common pleas, as, from some expressions of his own, has been erroneously supposed, and at the same time he was knighted. In 1601 he was one of the lawyers detained by the unfortunate earl of Essex, when he formed the absurd project of defending himself in his house; and on the earl’s trial gave evidence against him relative to their detention. He died in 1607, at the age of seventy-six, and was buried at Wellington in his native country, where he had always resided as much as his avocations would permit. He was esteemed a severe judge in the case of robbers; but his severity was welltimed, as it reduced the number of highwaymen, who before had greatly infested the country. If Aubrey may be credited, his general character was liable to many serious exceptions. His works are, 1. “Reports and Cases, adjudged in the time of queen Elizabeth,” London, 1656, fol. 2. “Resolutions and Judgements upon Cases and Matters agitated in all the Courts at Westminster in the latter end of queen Elizabeth,” London, 4to. Both lord Holt and chief justice Hyde considered the Reports as of no authority.

, a learned Italian of the sixteenth century, was born at Casliglione Aretino. While resident at Venice in 1559, he assisted in making a collection of all the Greek historians, or annalists, from whose works he formed the “Collana Storica Graeca;” or GreekHistorical Necklace, divided into twelve rings, to which were added the jewels, or minor authors, serving to illustrate the greater. Porcacchi was likewise editor or translator of Pomponius Mela, Quintus Curtius, and vftrfptts other authors, and published some original works in poetry, history, antiquities and geography. The most valued of these is his “Funeral i antichi di diversi populi, &c.” Venice, 1574, 4to, the plates of which are Very fine. He died in 1585.

, a Neapolitan of the fifteenth century, is said to have been a swineherd in his youth, from which circumstance he had the name of Porcellus. He was born about 1400, and therefore could not have lived in the time of Petrarch, as Vossius and Baillet have asserted. How he emerged from obscurity is not known, but it is certain that he calls himself secretary to the king of Naples, and was much esteemed by Frederic, duke of Urbino, a celebrated general, who died 1482. He was also in the Venetian army in 1452, which gave him occasion to write the history of count James Picinini, who fought for the Venetians at his own expence, and not only honoured Porcellus with his esteem, but lodged him in his house, and admitted him daily to hisiable. Muratori published this fragment of history, 1731, in vol. XX. of his historical collections. He had written a supplement to it which remains in ms. and some Epigrams, in a simple and natural style, which were printed with other Italian poems, Paris, 1539, 8vo. He died some time after 1452.

, a learned Benedictine, was born in 1652, at Chateauroux in Berry. He was well acquainted with languages, history, geography, heraldry, and medals; and had the office of librarian in the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prez, where he died, February 14, 1695, aged 42. He published an edition of the “Maxims for the Education of a young Nobleman,” 1690, after having corrected the language, and added a translation of the t-mperor Basilius the Macedonian’s instruction to his son Leo, with the lives of those two princes. An edition of the "Geography of the Anonymous Author of Ravenna/' was also published by him at Paris, 1688, 8vo. with curious and learned notes; a work very useful for the geography of the middle ages, as this anonymous author lived in the 7th century. He also assisted in the new edition of St. Hilary.

, known by the former name, from the village of Pordenone, about twentyfive miles from Udino, in which he was born in 1484, had a strong talent for historical painting, which he carried to a high degree of perfection, without any other aid than the careful study of the works of Giorgione. He painted at first in fresco, but afterwards in oil, and was particularly distinguished by his skill in foreshortening his figures. His invention was fertile, his taste good, his colouring not unlike that of Titian, and his designs had the merit of uniting force and ease. A strong emulation subsisted between him and Titian and it is certainly no small merit that he was able to sustain any competition with such a master. It is said, however, that they who endeavoured to support him in this rivalship, were actuated by malignity and envy towards Titian. It is related also, that when he worked in the same town with Titian, he was so afraid of the effects of his jealousy, that he never walked out without arms offensive and defensive. Pordenone painted at Genoa for prince Doria, but did not there give entire satisfaction; he then returned to Venice, and was afterwards invited to Ferrara by the duke of that state, from whom he received many signal marks of favour and esteem. He died in 1540, at the age of fifty-six, and his death has been by some authors attributed to poison given by some painters at Ferrara, jealous of the distinctions he received at court. The most considerable picture which Rome possesses of him, is that with the portraits of his family, in the palace Borghese. But perhaps his most splendid work in oil is the altar-piece at S. Maria dell' Orto, at Venice, which represents a S. Lorenzo Giustiniani, surrounded by other saints, among whom a St. John Baptist surprises no less by correctness of forms, than a St. Augustin by a boldness of foreshortening which makes his arm start from the canvas.

, a zealous and learned Jesuit, was born in 1675, at Vendees, near Caen, and after pursuing his theological studies at Paris, in 1708, he was nominated to the chair of rhetoric in the college of Louis le Grand, which he filled with great diligence, success, and reputation, for thirty-three years, and formed many pupils that did honour to the instructions of their master. He died in 1741, at the age of sixty-six. His writings are numerous, chiefly in the Latin language there are two “Collections of Harangues,” published in 1735 and 1747 also six Latin tragedies and five Latin comedies. He was also author of several fugitive pieces in prose and verse. He had a brother, Charles Gabriel, who died in 1770, at the age of 85, a considerable writer, but known principally for a work entitled “Nouvelles Liieraires de Caen,” in 3 vols. 8vo, being a collection of pieces in prose and verse, written by the academicians of that city, and also for “Forty-four Dissertations on different subjects,” read before the academy of Caen, of which he was a member more than thirty years.

, a philosopher of great name among the ancients, was born A. D. 233, in the reign of Alexander Severus. He was of Tyre, and had the name of Malchus, in common with his father, who was a Syrophcenician. St. Jerome and St. Augustin' have called him Bataneotes whence Fabricius suspects, that the real place of his nativity was Batanea, a town of Syria and that he was carried thence with a colony to Tyre. His father very early introduced him to the study of literature and philosophy under the Christian preceptor Origen, probably while he was teaching at Caesarea in Palestine. He then went to Athens, where he had the famous Longinus for his master in rhetoric, who changed his Syrian name Malchus, as not very pleasing to Grecian ears, into that of Porphyrius, which answers to it in Greek. It is in a great measure owing to this able teacher, that we find so many proofs of erudition, and so much elegance of style, in the writings of PorphyFrom this time, we have little information concerning him until he proceeded to Rome, where, at thirty years of age, he heard Plo'tinus, whose life he has written, and inserted in it many particulars concerning himself*. Five years after, he went to reside at Lilybseum in Sicily, on which account he is sometimes called Siculus and here, as Eusebius and Jerome relate, he composed those famous books against the Christians, which, for the name and authority of the man, and for the acuteness and learning with, which they were written, were afterwards thought so considerable, as to be suppressed by particular edicts, under the reigns of Constantine and Theodosius. Some have surmised, that these books are still extant, and secretly preserved in the Duke of Tuscany’s library; but there is little doubt that they were destroyed by the mistaken zeal of the Christians. The circumstances of Porphyrius’s life, after his arrival in Sicily, are little known except that he died at Rome, towards the end of Dioclesiari’s reign, about the year 304. Some have imagined that he was. in the early part of his life a Christian, but afterwards, through some disgust or other, deserted that profession, and became its decided enemy; while others have hinted, that he embraced Christianity when he was old, and after he had written with great acrimony against it; but for neither of these opinions is there any good authority.

*" Porphyrius was six years a diligent choly to produce a resolution, which he

his school, and frequently employed From this mad design he was, however,

phyrius addicted himself,concurred with lity of his mind.“Brucker. his natural propensity towards melanwould have reaped any great benefit from these, since neither his judgment nor his integrity was equal to his learning; and neither the splendour of his diction, nor the variety of his reading, can atone for the credulity or the dishonesty, which fill the narrative parts of his works with so many extravagant tales; or interest the judicious reader in the abstruse subtleties, and mystical flights of his philosophical writings. Of his works which remain, the four following,” De abstinentia ab esu animalium“” De vita Pythagone“” Sententite ad intelligibilia ducentes“” De Antro Nymphorum“with a fragment” De Styge,“preserved by Stobaeus, were printed at Cambridge in 1655, 8vo, with a Latin version, and the Life of Porphyry subjoined, by Lucas Holstenius. The” Life of Pythagoras,“which, however, is but a fragment, has since been published by Kusterus, at Amsterdam, 1707, in 4to, in conjunction with that written by Jamblichus, who was a disciple of this philosopher. It should have been observed, that the above pieces of Pythagoras, printed at Cambridge, were published jointly with Epictetus and Arrian’s Commentary, and the Tabula Cebetis. His treatise” De Antro Nymphorum“was reprinted in Greek and Latin, with notes, by R. M. Van Goens, at Utrecht in 1765, 419; anc1jac.de Rhoer published a new edition of the treatise” De Abstinentia" at the same place in 1767.

, a late eminent Greek scholar and most accomplished critic, was born at East Ruston, in Norfolk, Dec. 25, 1759, and was first initiated in knowledge by his father, Mr. Huggin Person, the parish-clerk of East Ruston, who, though in humble life, and without the advantages himself of early education, 'laid the basis of his son’s unparalleled acquirements. From the earliest dawn of intellect, Mr. Person began the task of fixing the attention of his children, three sons and a daughter; and he had taught Richard, his eldest son, all the common rules of arithmetic, without the use of a book or slate, pen or pencil, up to the cube root, before he was nine years of age. The memory was thus incessantly exercised; and by this early habit of solving a question in arithmetic, he acquired such a talent of close and intense thinking, and such a power of arranging every operation that occupied his thought, as in process of time to render the most difficult problems, which to other men required the assistance of written figures, easy to the retentive faculties of his memory. He was initiated in letters by a process equally efficacious, and which somewhat resembled Dr. Bell’s admirable plan. His father taught him to read and write at one and the same time. He drew the form of the letter either with chalk on a board, or with the finger in sand; and Richard was made at once to understand and imitate the impression. As soon as he could speak he could trace the letters; and this exercise delighting his fancy, an ardour of imitating whatever was put before him was excited to such a degree that the walls of the house were covered with characters delineated with great neatness and fidelity. At nine years of age, he and his youngest brother, Thomas, were sent to the village school, kept by a Mr. Summers, a plain but intelligent man, who having had the misfortune in infancy to cripple his left hand, was educated for the purpose of teaching, and he discharged his duties with the most exemplary attention. He professed nothing beyond English, writing, and arithmetic but he was a good accountant, and an excellent writing-master. He perfected Mr. Richard Porson in that delightful talent of writing, in which he so peculiarly excelled but which we are doubtful whether to consider as an advantage, or a detriment to him, in his progress through life. It certainly had a considerable influence on his habits, and made him devote many precious moments in copying, which might have been better employed in composition. It has been the means, however, of enriching his library with annotations, in a text the most beautiful, and with such perfect imitation of the original manuscript or printing, as to embellish every work which his erudition enabled him to elucidate. He continued under Mr. Summers for three years; and every evening during that time he had to repeat by heart to his father the lessons and the tasks of the day; and this not in a loose or desultory manner, but in the rigorous order in which they hadbeen taught; and thus again the process of recollection was cherished and strengthened, so as to become a quality of his mind. It was impossible that such a youth should remain unnoticed, even in a place so thinly peopled, and so obscure, as the parish of East Ruston. The reverend Mr. Hewitt, vicar of the parish, heard of his extraordinary propensities to study, his gift of attention to whatever was taught him, and the wonderful fidelity with which he retained whatever he had acquired. He took him and his brother Thomas under his care, and instructed them in the classics. The progress of both was great, but that of Richard was most extraordinary, and when he had reached his fourteenth year, had engaged the notice of all the gentlemen in the vicinity. Among others, he was mentioned as a prodigy to an opulent and liberal man, the late Mr- Norris, or‘ Grosvenorplace, who, after having put him under an examination of the severest kind, from which an ordinary boy would have shrunk dismayed, sent him to Eton in August 1774, when he was in his 15th year. In that great seminary, he almost, from the commencement of his career, displayed such a superiority of intellect, such facility of acquirement, such quickness of perception, and sucli a talent of bringing forward to his purpose all that he had ever read, that the upper boys took him into their society, and promoted the cultivation of his mind by their lessons, as well, probably, as by imposing upon him the performance of their own exercises . He was courted’ by them as the never-failing resource in every difficulty and in all the playful excursions of the imagination, in their frolics, as well as in their serious tasks, Person was the constant adviser and support. He used to dwell on this lively part of his youth with peculiar complacency, and used to repeat a drama which he wrote for exhibition in their long chamber, and other compositions, both of seriousness and drollery, with a zest that the recollection of his enjoyment at the time never failed to revive in him. A very learned scholar, to whom the public was indebted for “A short account of Mr. Person,” published soon after his death, has the following remarks on his progress at Eton “By his own confession he learnt nothing, or added little to his stock, at school and perhaps for a good reason, since he had every thing that was given him to read, where he was first placed, by heart; that is, he could repeat all the Horace, and all the Virgil, commonly read at Eton, and the Iliad, and extracts from the Odyssey, Cicero, and Livy, with the Ambubaiarum of Horace, the Eclogues and Georgics, and the Culex, Ciris, and Catalecta, which they do not read. But still, though he would not own it, he was much obliged to the collision of a public school for the rapidity with which he increased his knowledge, and the correction of himself by the mistakes of others.”

The death of Mr. Norris was the source of severe mortification to him though, by the kindness of some eminent and liberal persons, particularly sir George Baker, he was continued at Eton, and afterwards placed at the university. To sir George Baker, his second protector, he inscribed' one of his Greek plays, “Britanniarum APXIATPftl.” It is to the fostering hand of this second patron, says Mr. Weston, “that we are indebted for the noblest plant that ever grew in any garden with such spreading branches, so high a head, and so deep a root.”

He was entered of Trinity college towards the end of 1777, and, his character having preceded him, he was from the first regarded as a youth whose extraordinary endowments would do honour to that society. Nor did he disappoint the hopes that had been formed of him. In every branch of study to which he applied himself, his course was so rapid as to astonish every competent observer. By circumstances common at Cambridge, he was drawn first to read in mathematics, in which, from his early exercises, he was eminently calculated to shine, but from which he drew no benefit and then, having the prospect of a scholarship, he sat down to the classics, in which he soon acquired undisputed pre-eminence. He got the medal of course, and was elected a -fellow in 1781. In 1785 he took his degree of master of arts but long before the period had elapsed when he must either enter into holy orders or surrender his fellowship, he felt such powerful scruples in his mind with regard to subscription to the articles of the church, that he determined to decline it and, so early as 1788, he had made up his mind to surrender his fellowship, though with an enfeebled constitution he had nothing to depend upon but acquirements that are very unprofitable to their owner. Accordingly, in 1791 his fellowship ceased, but soon after some private friends stept in, and in 1793 he was elected Greek professor of Cambridge, by an unanimous vote of the seven electors. The distinction of this appointment was grateful to him. The salary is but 40l. a-year. It was his earnest wish, however, to have made it an active and efficient office, and it was his determination to give an annual course of lectures in the college, if rooms had been assigned him for the purpose. The importance of such lectures as he could have given has been often revolved in the minds of some of his friends, while others have doubted whether his studies, which had been throughout life desultory, could have been concentrated to one point, and that point requiring unremitting assiduity, and a periodical regularity. No opportunity, however, was afforded for the trial.

From this time, instead of lectures, it is said he turned his thoughts to publication; but before this, he had been a contributor to some of the literary journals, of articles which displayed his critical acumen. In the 3d vol. of Maty’s Review, he published a criticism on Schutz’s JEschylus“, dated from Trinity college, May 29, 1783. His other criticisms in that Review are, Brunck’s Aristophanes, vol. IV. Hermesianax, by Weston, vol. V. Huntingford’s Apology for” his Monostrophics, vol. VI. He also furnished Mr. Maty with a transcript of the letters of Bentley and Le Cierc, vol, IX. p. 253. He was an occasional contributor to the Monthly Review, the Gentleman’s Magazine, and, it is believed, to other publications. The account of Robertson’s Parian Chronicle, inthe Monthly Review, was written by him; and the review of Knight’s Essay on the Greek Alphabet, January 1. 1794, has, from internal evidence, been given to him. Of the ironical defence of Sir John Hawkinses Life of Johnson he was unquestionably the writer: this was comprised in three humourous letters inserted in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1787, under the signature of Sundry Whereof. Some letters upon the contested verse, 1 John, v. 7, appeared subsequently in the same work; which at lengtn caused the publication of his letters to Archdeacon Travis, in which he is thought by many to have completely invalidated the authority of that much-disputed text. Not long after he had taken his first degree, it was in the contemplation of the syndics of the university press at Cambridge to publish Æschylus, with Stanley’s commentaries, in ms. in the public library of that university. Mr. Porson offered to undertake the work, if allowed to conduct it according to his own ideas of the duty of an editor but this offer was rejected, and in a manner so discouraging, that we are told it in a great measure operated, for a short period, to extinguish in him that ardent love of fame which is, generally speaking, the concomitant of learning and the emanation of genius. We shall find hereafter how much he had at heart the elucidation of this very difficult author, and in the mean time he was not reluctant to employ his pen in similar undertakings. In 1785, when Nicholson, the bookseller of Cambridge, was preparing a new edition of Xenophon’s ft Anabasis," he prevailed upon Mr. Porson to furnish him with some assistance, which he accordingly did to the extent of twenty-eight pages of addenda, which, although avowedly written in hatete, attest the hand of a master. In the year 1787, he communicated to the delegates of the Clarendon press some notes upon Toup’s Emendations on Suidas, which appeared with that important work in 1790. These notes were probably composed by him at the request of his friend Mr. Tyrwhitt; a gentleman of whose learning and genius he had the highest opinion, and not only used to mention the talents and acuteness of Mr. T. with approbation, but with reverence.

However mortified Mr. Porson was by the rejection of his proposals respecting Æschylus at Cambridge, he did not wholly forego the idea of publishing that author, and twice announced in Maty’s Review, (vol. III. p. 168, and vol. IV. p. 238,) an intention to publish a new edition of Stanley’s -<Eschylus, in 3 vols. and solicited the aid of English or foreign scholars. His first regular publication, however, was a play of Euripides. In 1797, he published the “Hecuba,” which he intended as the precursor of all the dramas of that author. Accordingly, the next year was published the “Orestes” the year after the “Phcenissae” and, in1801, the “Medea” issued from the press at Cambridge, to which his name was prefixed. In 1802 was published a second edition of the “Hecuba,” with a supplement to the preface, and a very copious addition to the notes.

The last work that Professor Porson published was a third edition of the “Hecuba.” He had also, it is said, made a considerable progress in the revision of the three other plays which he had formerly edited but it has been lamented, that he spent so much time in revising what he had already given to the world, instead of proceeding to correct the text of the remaining plays.

The other literary labours of Professor Porson we shall briefly notice. When Heyne’s Virgil was republished in London, he was engaged to superintend the press but to this he did very little. The Grenville Homer had more of his assistance, as he collated the Odyssey with a Harleian ms. His last literary labour was his “Æschylus.” The fate of this work was somewhat singular. According to the author of the “Pursuits of Literature,” he had lent his ms corrections and conjectures on the text of Æschylus to a friend in Scotland, and these falling into the hands of Foulis, the printer, he published a magnificent edition of the text without the notes. This appeared in 1795, folio, but the edition was limited to the small number of 52 of the small paper, and eleven of the large. The professor’s own edition was printed, in 2 vols. 8vo, as early as 1794, but for what reason we know not, was not published until 1806, and then without the notes. It still, however, is to be considered as a permanent advantage to Greek literature, as the text is, in almost numberless instances, improved by his sagacity.

In 1795, Mr. Porson married Mrs. Lunan, the sister of Mr. Perry, the proprietor and conductor of the Morning Chronicle, which had to boast of many of his fugitive pieces. This lady died, in consequence of a decline, in April 1797. He had long before enjoyed the friendship of her brother, who for many years contributed more to the comfort of Mr. Person’s life than any one man we are able to mention. Porson had a proud and independent spirit; it was difficult, therefore, to confer an obligation on him, although his situation rendered many such necessary but Mr. Perry, by a thousand acts of kindness, had completely engaged his confidence, and had the art of conferring his favours in a manner which removed the painful sense of obligation. Porson knew that Mr. Perry was perfectly disinterested, and accepted from him what he would have rejected with indignation if offered by one who assumed the airs of the patron; and Mr. Perry, by carefully studying his temper, was enabled to anticipate his wishes, and on various occasions contrived to exercise a salutary controul over his failings, which his delicacy and judgment rendered imperceptible.

Mr. Person was in his latter days often afflicted with a spasmodic asthma, which interrupted his studies, and consequently, in a great degree, repressed his literary ardour. Whether this disease was a revival of a complaint which had afflicted his early youth, or was engendered by the severe and laborious study which had marked his middle age, is uncertain. It was probably increased by the latter, and certainly so by his irregularities, and neglect of the common means of health. There were times, however, when few men could display such patient and continued toil. An instance of this is mentioned which strongly marks his character. He had undertaken to make out and copy the almost obliterated manuscript of the invaluable Lexicon of Photius, which he had borrowed from, the library of Trinity college. And this he had wiith unparalleled difficulty just completed, when the beautiful copy, which had cost him ten months of incessant toil, was burned along with the house of Mr. Perry, at Merton. The original, being an unique entrusted to him by the college, he carried with him wheresoever he went, and he was fortunately absent from Merton on the morning of the fire. Unruffled by the loss, he sat down without a murmur, and made a second copy as beautiful as the first, which is now in Trinity-college library.

When the London Institution was established, professor Porson was selected to fill the situation of principal librarian. This office, which was rewarded with a salary of 200l. a year, and a suite of rooms, provided very amply for a man in whose eyes money had little value, unless as it enabled him to pursue his studies but it was rather convenient in that view, than gratifying with respect to its duties. The number of those who in his time availed themselves of the fine library of the Institution was too small to require the assistance of such a man as Porson yet in the few instances which occurred of young men attending there for the serious purposes of study, he delighted to be their instructor; and, as one of his biographers has observed, “his mode of communication, liberal in the extreme, was truly amiable, as he told you all you wanted to know in a plain and direct manner, without any attempt to display his own superiority, but merely to inform you.” We have often been surprized that the business of tuition was never recommended to him but perhaps in this, as in other instances, the irregularity of his habits would have been a great obstruction.

In the year 1808, his asthmatic complaint became so frequent as to interrupt his usual pursuits, and so painful that during the agony he never went to bed, and was forced to abstain from all sustenance. This greatly debilitated his body and about a month before his death he was also afflicted with an intermittent fever. He had an unfortunate objection to medical advice, and therefore resorted to his usual remedy of abstinence but on Monday, the 19th of September, 1808, he suffered an apoplectic stroke, from which he recovered only to endure another the next day. He languished in consequence until the Sunday night, and then expired without a struggle, at his rooms in the London Institution. His remains were removed for interment in the ante-chapel of Trinity-college, Cambridge, and were deposited in a grave close to the statue of sir Isaac Newton, and near the ashes of Bentley. The funeral was attended by the society of the college, and the service read by the master, the bishop of Bristol. The college afterwards purchased such of his books as contained his ms notes, which were very numerous, and from which two publications have since been made, one of his “Adversaria,” and the other already mentioned, by Mr. Kidd.

“The principal qualities,” says one of his biographers, * c in this great man’s mind, were his extraordinary acuteness of discernment, and solidity of judgment; and these, added to his intense application and stupendous memory, made him what the world, perhaps, never saw before, a complete critic, in the most honourable and extended sense of that appellation. His reading was immense: he was an excellent French scholar; but in his native language, in the Latin, and in the Greek, he was most familiarly and profoundly versed. He had, indeed, applied the knowledge which he had gained of the origin and structure of language in general, to all these dialects, if we may so express ourselves, of the universal language; and had not his eminence in classical literature, by its uncommon lustre, obscured other attainments, he would doubtless have been considered as one of the first English scholars. In Greek, however, we have no hesitation in pronouncing him the very first, not merely of his own age, but of every other. In him were conspicuous boundless extent of reading, a most exact and well-ordered memory unwearied patience in unravelling the sense of an author, and exploring the perplexities of a manuscript; perspicacity in discovering the corruptions of a text, and acuteness almost intuitive, in restoring the true reading. All this was tempered with a judgment which preserved him invariably from the rocks against which even the greatest of his critical predecessors have at some time or other split we mean precipitation in determining that to be unsound, which after all had no defect and rashness in applying remedies which only served to increase the disease." On the failings of this eminent man we have but gently touched: there is reason to think they have been exaggerated by vulgar report. Whatever they were, it is to his credit, that they who knew him most intimately, were most disposed to forget them in the splendour of his uncommon talents.

Mr. Porson left a sister, a most amiable and accomplished woman, the wife of Siday Hawes, esq. of Coltishall, Norfolk. Henry, his second brother, was settled in ti farm in Essex, and died young, leaving three children. His brother Thomas, the companion of his juvenile studies, was an excellent scholar he kept a boarding-school at Fakenham, and died in 1792 without issue. His father, Mr. Huggin Porson, died in 1805, in his seventy-fourth year. His mother died in 1784, aged fifty-seven.

, an eminent Florentine artist, whose surname is not known, was called Baccio dellaPorta, from a study which he kept when a youth, near a gate of the city; and this name was afterwards changed to the more celebrated one of Fra Bartolommeo di S. Marco, when he entered the order of that Dominican convent. Sometimes he is only called “il Frate.” He was born in 1469, and studied under Cosimo Roselli but soon grew enamoured of the grand chiaro-scuro of Lionardo da Vinci, and strove to emulate it. His progress was rapid, and he became the instructor of Raphael in colour, who gave him lessons in perspective, and taught him to unite gracefulness with grandeur of form. The composition of his sacred subjects, and he painted little else, is that which adhered to Raphael himself, and was not dismissed by the Florentine school before the epoch of Pontormo; but he disguised its formality by the introduction of architecture and majestic scenery. To repel the invidious charge of incapacity for large proportions, he produced the sublime figure of St. Marc, which alone fills an ample pannel, and is, or was lately, among the spoils of the Louvre. His St. Sebastian, for skill in the naked, and energy of colour, obtained every suffrage of artists and of critics, but being considered as indecent, the monks thought proper to sell and send it to France. In drapery he may be considered as an inventor; no artist of his school formed it with equal breadth or dignity, or so natural and expressive of the limits; and if he were the instructor, he was certainly not the slave, of the layman. One work of his, of prodigious grandeur and beauty, is unnoticed by Mr. Fuseli, whose account we have nearly followed hitherto, viz. the Assumption of the Virgin, at Lucca. Its situation being retired, this picture is little known to travellers, though it is one of the most sublime productions of the pencil. Mr. West, the president of the Royal Academy, has in his possession a considerable part of the Studies mentioned by Vasari as having been left to his scholar, a nun of St. Catharine at Florence; and among them several drawings for this picture and its various parts. They are accompanied by about two hundred drawings of figures, draperies, and limbs, studied from nature with great care and taste; and exhibit the industry and uncommon zeal with which he laid the basis of his justly-acquired fame. He died in 1517.

, a Neapolitan gentleman, who made himself famous by his application to letters and to science, particularly mathematics, medicine, and natural history, was born in 1445, and becoming eminent for his knowledge, held a kind of literary assembly at his house, in which, according to the notions of those times, they treated occasionally on the secrets of magic. The court of Rome on this account forbad these meetings; but his house was always the resort of literary men, foreign as well as Neapolitan. He not only established private schools for particular sciences, but to the utmost of his power promoted public academies. He had no small share in establishing the academy at Gli Ozioni, at Naples; and that in his own house, called de Secret!, was accessible only to such as had made some new discoveries in nature. He composed dramas, both tragic and comic, which had some success at the time, but are not now extant. He died in 1515. The chief of his works now extant are, 1. “De Magia naturali,” Amsterdam, 1664, 12mo; a work in which he teaches how to produce wonderful effects by natural causes but in which are some extravagances. 2. “De Physiognomia,” printed at Leyden in quarto, 1645. He judges of the physiognomy of men chiefly by comparing them to different animals and with his other fancies mixes those of judicial astrology. 3. “De occultis literarumnotis” in which he treats of the modes of writing in cypher which he does with great copiousness and diligence. 4. “Phytognomica,” a pretended method of knowing the inward virtues of things by inspection, Naples, 1583, folio. 5. “De Distillationibus,” Rome, quarto. To him is attributed the invention of the Camera Obscura, which was perfected by s’Gravesande. He is said to have formed the plan of an Encyclopaedia.

, a late eminent English prelate, was born at York May 8, 1731. He was the youngest but one of nineteen children. His father and mother were natives of Virginia, but retired to this country, much to the injury of their private fortune, solely for the honourable purpose of giving every possible advantage of education to their children. Dr. Porteus received the first rudiments of his education at York and at Ripon, whence at a very early age he became a member of Christ’s college, Cambridge, where he was admitted a sizar. Humble as this station was, his private merits and studious accomplishments advanced him, as might naturally be expected, to a fellowship of his college, and the active exertions of his friends soon afterwards procured him the situation of squire beadle, an office of the university, both advantageous and honourable, but not precisely adapted to the character of his mind or habits of his life. He did not therefore long retain it, but wholly occupied himself with the care of private pupils, among whom was the late lord Grantham, who distinguished himself not only as secretary of state, but as ambassador of Spain. Whilst employed in this meritorious office, he had some difficulty in obtaining a curacy, and has been heard to say, with good humour, that at this time, so limited was his ambition, he thought it an extraordinary piece of good fortune, to receive an invitation to go over every Sunday to the house of sir John Maynard, at Easton, a distance of sixteen miles from Cambridge, to read prayers to the family. In 1757 he was ordained deacon, and soon afterwards priest. His first claim to notice as an author was his becoming a successful candidate for Seaton’s prize for the best English poem on a sacred subject. His subject was “Death,” on which he produced an admirable poem, characterized by extraordinary vigour, warm sensibility, genuine piety, and accurate taste.

So much talent was not doomed long to remain unnoticed. In 1762 he became chaplain to archbishop Seeker, and in 1765 married miss Hodgson, the eldest daughter of Brian Hodgson, esq. of Ashbourne in Derbyshire. His first church preferments were two small livings in Kent, which he soon exchanged for Hunton, in the same county, and a prebend in the cathedral church of Peterborough, an optjon of the archbishop and not long afterwards he was promoted to the rectory of Lambeth. In the same year, 1767, he took his doctor’s degree at Cambridge, and on this occasion preached the commencement sermon. From this period he became more and more an object of public esteem and attention. He divided his time between Hunton, which place he always visited with delight and left with regret, and Lambeth; and in 1769 he was made chaplain to his majesty, and master of the hospital of St. Cross, near Winchester.

In 1773 a circumstance occurred, which then excited considerable interest, and in which the part that Dr. Porteus took has been much misinterpreted and misunderstood. The following statement in his own words, will place the fact in its true point of view. < At the close of the year 1772, and the beginning of the next, an attempt was made by myself and a few other clergymen, among whom were Mr. Francis Wollaston, Dr. Percy, now bishop of Dromore, and Dr. Yorke, now bishop of Ely, to induce the bishops to promote a review of the liturgy and articles, in order to amend in both, but particularly in the latter, those parts which all reasonable persons agreed stood in need of amendment This plan was not in the smallest degree connected with the petitioners at the Feathers tavern, but, on the contrary, was meant to counteract that and all similar extravagant projects; to strengthen and confirm our ecclesiastical establishment to repel the attacks which were at that time continually made upon it by its avowed enemies; to render the 17th article on predestination and election more clear and perspicuous, and less liable to be wrested by our adversaries to a Calvinistic sense,.which has been so unjustly affixed to it; to improve true Christian piety amongst these of our own communion, and to diminish schism and separation by bringing over to the national church all the moderate and well-disposed of other persuasions. On these grounds, we applied in a private and respectful manner to archbishop CornWallis, requesting him to signify our wishes (which we conceived to be the wishes of a very large proportion both of the clergy and the laity) to the rest of the bishops, that every thing might be done, which could be prudently and safely done, to promote these important and salutary purposes.

“The answer given by the archbishop, February 11, 1773, was in these words I have consulted severally my brethren the bishops, and it is the opinion of the bench in general, that nothing can in prudence be done in the matter that has been submitted to our consideration.'”

There can be no question that this decision, viewed in all its bearings, was right and Dr. Porteus, and those with whom he acted, entirely acquiesced in it. They had done their duty in submitting to the bench such alterations as appeared to them to be conducive to the credit and the interest of the church of England, and of religion in general; and their manner of doing it was most temperate and respectful. At the same time, it appeared to the majority then, as it does still, that the proposal was rejected on very satisfactory and sufficient grounds.

In 1776, Dr. Porteus was promoted to the bishopric of Chester, where he distinguished himself by a faithful discharge of the duties of his high station and in the interval between this period and his promotion to the see of London, the bishop evinced his zeal and ardour for the promotion of piety, benevolence, and the public good, by the part which he took in various matters which were objects of popular discussion. The principal among these were the ftratestaut association against Poperv that abeminable nuisance, the Sunday debating society the civilization of the negroes, and Ihe establishment of Sunday schools. In the first of these, at the same time that the bishop demonstrated his universal charity and candour, he was not negligent in guarding those committed to his care against the dangerous and delusive tenets of popery. In the second, his exertions effectually put a stop to a very alarming evil, to meetings which were calculated to destroy every moral sentiment, and extinguish every religious principle. With respect to the civilization and conversion of the negroes, he indulged the feeling nearest to his heart; but, although he had the happiness to see the final accomplishment of his wishes, his first endeavours were not effectual. The plan of Sunday schools was first introduced by Mr. Richard Raikes, of Gloucester, and when the bishop was convinced by time and experience of their real utility and importance, he promoted them in his diocese, and by an admirable letter which he addressed to his clergy, he explained their advantages, and recommeuded their universal adoption.

In 1787, on the death of bishop Lowth, Mr. Pitt recommended Dr. Porteus to his majesty as a fit person to Succeed to the diocese of London, and his majesty having given his entire approbation, he was accordingly installed. The first object which engaged his attention on his promotion to this important see, was the king’s proclamation against immorality and profaneness and the good effects of his exertions on this subject were immediate and important; but his pastoral zeal was displayed to most advantage a few years after, when all moral and religious principle became endangered by the pernicious influence of the French revolution. The object of the authors of that convulsion was to degrade and vilify the truths of revelation, and to propagate in its place a blasphemous and infidel philosophy. The attempt succeeded but too effectually in their own country, and the contagion soon spread to tbis. No efforts were spared, which could tend to contaminate the public mind, and obliterate from it all reverence for our civil and religious establishments; and had it not been for the vigorous measures of that great minister, who was then at the head of thq administration, and to whom, under providence, we owe our preservation, we might have witnessed here the same frightful scenes, which convulsed and desolated a neighbouring kingdom. At a crisis such as this, in which all that is (Tear to us hung suspended on the issue, it was plainly every man’s bounden duty to exert himself to the utmost for the public welfare and, in a situation so responsible as the see of London, comprehending a vast metropolis, where the emissaries of infidelity were most actively occupied in their work of mischief, the bishop felt himself called upon to counteract, as far as in him lay, the licentious principles which were then afloat, and to check, if possible, the progress they had too evidently made in the various ranks of society. The best mode, as he conceived, of doing this, was to rouse the attention of the clergy to what was passing around them; and nothing surely was ever better calculated to produce that effect, than the charge which he addressed to them in 1794. We know not where, in a short compass, the character of the French philosophy is more ably drawn, or its baneful influence more strikingly developed. He had marked its course with an observing eye. He had read all that its advocates could allege in its favour. He had traced the motives which gave it birth, the features by which it was marked, and the real objects which it was designed to accomplish. It was not therefore without much deliberation and a full knowledge of his subject, that he drew up for his second visitation that eloquent and most impressive address, in which he gave such a picture of the infidel school of that day, and of the industry which was then employed to disseminate its principles in this country, as at once carried conviction to the mind, and most powerfully awakened the attention of every serious and thinking man. But it was on the clergy, in an especial manner, that he was anxious to leave a strong and fixed persuasion of the necessity of increased assiduity and vigilance in the discharge of their religious functions. Christianity, attacked as it was on every side,required more than common efforts, and more than ordinary zeal on the part of its natural defenders and he therefore called upon them to repel with vigour and effect all those charges pf fraud, falsehood, and fanaticism, which had been so liberally thrown upon it; at such a perilous crisis to contend with peculiar earnestness for “the faith once delivered to the saints” and to shew that it is not, as our enemies affirm, “a cunningly devised fable,” but “a real revela-> tion from heaven.”

In particular he recommended it to them, with the view of stemming more effectually the overwhelming torrent of infidel opinions, “to draw out from the whole body of the Christian evidences the principal and most striking argu* ments, and to bring them down to the understandings of the common people.” *' If this,“says he,” or any thing of a similar nature, were thrown into a regular course of sermons or lectures, and delivered in an easy, intelligible, familiar language to your respective congregations, I know nothing that would, in these philosophic times, render a more essential service to religion." And to demonstrate that he was willing himself to take his full share of the burthen which he imposed upon others, he, in 1794, undertook to prepare and deliver at St. James’s church, his justly-celebrated Lent lectures, which were received by the public with enthusiastic gratitude, both from the pulpit, in which they were repeated for some succeeding years, and from the press, where they passed through several editions.

In 1805, he opposed the application for what was called Catholic Emancipation, as not being an application for liberty of conscience, but for political power. Among the last acts of his life were, his support of the English and Foreign Bible Society; his triumph on the successful termination of the question on the Slave trade; and his liberality in building and endowing a chapel at Sundridge, which was his favourite place of summer residence.

This worthy prelate had for some years been subject to ill health, which at length brought on a general debility, and on the 14th of May, 1808, he sunk under the pressure of accumulated disease, being in the 78th year of his age. He left behind him a justly-acquired reputation for propriety of conduct, benevolence to the clergy, and a strict attention to episcopal duties. As a preacher, he obtained the character of an accomplished orator; his language was chaste, his manner always serious, animated, and impressive, and his eloquence captivating. He seemed to speak from conviction, and being fully persuaded himself of the truth of those doctrines which he inculcated, he the more readily persuaded others. In private life he was mild, affable, easy of access, irreproachable in his morals, of a cheerful disposition, and ever ready to listen to and relieve the distresses of his fellow-creatures. In his behaviour towards dissenters from the established church, he discovered great moderation and candour. While he was a sincere believer in the leading doctrines contained in the thirty-nine articles, he could make allowance for those who did not exactly come up to the same standard. Toward the latter part of his life, he was accused of becoming the persecutor of the rev. Francis Stone, a clergyman of his own diocese, against whom he formally pronounced a sentence of deprivation for preaching and publishing a sermon in direct hostility to the doctrines of the church to which he belonged. Mr. Stone had for many years avowed his disbelief of the articles of faith which he had engaged to defend, and for the support of which he had long received a handsome income, but no notice whatever was taken of the unsoundness of his creed. He preached the offensive sermon before many of his brethren of different ranks in the church yet perhaps even, this attack, which could scarcely be deemed prudent or even decent, would have been unnoticed, had he contented himself with promulgating his opinions from the pulpit only but when he made the press the vehicle of disseminating opinions contrary to the articles of his church, the prelate took the part which was highly becoming the high office which he held.

The benefactions of the bishop of London were numerous, public as well as private. While he was living, he transferred nearly seven thousand pounds in three per cents to the archdeacons of the diocese of London, as a permanent fund for the relief of the poorer clergy of his diocese. He also transferred stock to Christ’s college, Cambridge, directing the interest arising from it to be appropriated to the purchase of three gold medals, to be annually contended for by the students of that college one medal, value fifteen' guineas, for the best Latin dissertation on. any of the chief evidences of Christianity another of the same value for the best English composition on some moral precept in the gospel; and one of ten guineas, to the best reader in and most constant attendant at chapel. He bequeathed his library for the use of his successors in the see of London, together with a liberal sum towards the expence of erecting a building for its reception at the episcopal palace at Fulham. At Hyde-hill, near Sundridge, in Kent, where the bishop had a favourite rural retreat, he built a chapel, under which he directed his remains to be deposited, and he endowed it with an income of 25()l. ayear.

As his works are now printed in a collected form, it is unnecessary to give their titles or dates. The edition was preceded by an excellent life of him, written by his nephew, the rev. Robert Hodgson, rector of St. George’s Hanover-square. To this we refer for many particulars of Dr. Porteus,which could not be included in the present sketch.

, a learnedwriter of the sixteenth century, was a native of Candia, where he was born in 1511, but was brought up at the court of Renee of France, daughter of Louis XII. and consort of Hercules II. duke of Ferrara, and afterwards taught Greek in that city. There also an acquaintance with Calvin induced him to embrace the reformed religion, for the quiet enjoyment of which he went to Geneva in 1561, and was appointed Greek professor, an office which he appears to have held until his death in 1581. He published commentaries and annotations upon Pindar, Sophocles, some of the works of Xenophon, Thucydides, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Longinus, and some other writers, a Latin version of the Psalms, and the Hymns of Synesius, an improved edition of Constantine’s Greek Lexicon, a reply to Peter Charpentier’s defence of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and other pieces.

, son of the preceding, was born in 1551, and like his father became an accomplished Greek scholar and critic. He taught Greek at Lausanne, and, as some say, in the university of Heidelberg. He died in 1610. Among his useful labours we may enumerate, 1. An edition of “Euripides,” printed at Geneva in 1602, 4to, with his own notes and those of Canter, Brodaeus, and Stibilinus. This is a rare edition. 2. “Aristophanes,” Geneva, 1607, fol. Gr. & Lat. 3. “Procli Diadochi commentaria in Platonis theologiam,” Gr. & Lat. Hamburgh,

, a learned traveller and geographer, was born probably about 1570, and entered of Gonvil and Caius college, Cambridge, in 1587, where he took the degrees in arts. The time of his leaving the university does not appear; but in 1600, we find him mentioned by Hackluyt, with great respect, in the dedication to secretary Cecil, of the third volume of his voyages“. He appears to have been in some measure a pupil of Hackluyt’s, or at least caught from him a love for cosmography and foreign history, and published in the same year, 1600, what he calls the” blossoms of his labours,“namely,” A Geographical History of Africa," translated from Leo Africanus, Lond. 4to. The reputation of his learning, and his skill in the modern languages, not very usual' among the scholars of that age, soon brought him acquainted with his learned contemporaries, and in a visit to Oxford in 1610, he was incorporated M. A. About the same time he appears to have been a member of parliament. In Feb. 1612, he was at Paris, where he delivered to Thuanus, ten books of the ms commentaries of the reign of queen Elizabeth, sent over by sir Robert Cotton for the use of that historian. From his correspondence it appears that he was at various parts of the Continent before 16 19, when he was appointed secretary to the colony of Virginia, in which office he remained until Nov. 1621, when he returned to England. Being however appointed, Oct. 24, 1623, by the privycouncil of England, one of the commissioners to inquire into the state of Virginia, he went thither again in that character, but came back to his own country in the year following, from that time he appears from his letters, to have resided chiefly at London, for the rest of his life, the period of which cannot be exactly ascertained, but must be antecedent to the month of Oct. 1635, as he is mentioned as deceased in a letter of Mr. George Gerrards, of the third of that month. His letters, in the British Museum, addressed to Mr. Joseph Mead, sir Thomas Puckering, and others, will perhaps be thought inferior to none in the historical series, for the variety and extent of the information contained in them, respecting the affairs of Great Britain.

, a learned Jesuit, was born at Mantua in 1534, of a good but decayed family. He was educated principally at Rome, and made such progress in learning, that the cardinal Hercules de Gonzaga made him his secretary, and intrusted him with the education of Francis and Scipio de Gonzaga, his nephews. After studying divinity at Padua, he was admitted into the society of Jesuits in 1559. As a preacher, he had distinguished success, both in Italy and France; and having a very uncommon talent both for languages and for negociation, he was employed by pope Gregory XIII. in important embassies to Poland, Sweden, Germany, and other parts of Europe. When he returned to Rome, he laboured to effect a reconciliation between Henry IV“. of France and the court of Rome. This, however, displeased the Spanish court, by whom he was compelled to leave that city. He died at Ferrara, Feb. 26, 1611, being then seventy-eight years old. Possevin, though so deeply skilled in politics and knowledge of mankind, was a man of profound erudition and exemplary piety. The most important of his works are, 1.” Bibliotheca selecta, de ratione studiorum,“published at Rome in 1593, folio, and reprinted at Venice in 1607, in 2 vols. folio, with many augmentations. This work was intended as a general introduction to knowledge; at once to facilitate the approach to it, and to serve as a substitute for many books, the perusal of which the author considered as dangerous for young minds. Tt treats distinctly of every science, with great extent of learning, but not always with sufficient correctness. 2.” Apparatus sacer,“Cologne, 1607, 2 vols. folio. The intention of this book was to give a general knowledge of the commentators on the Scriptures, and other theological writers. Though the catalogues it contains were from the first imperfect and ill-digested, it was much circulated, as the best book of the time, and it contains notices of above six thousand authors. It is now become almost entirely useless. 3.” Moscovia," 1587, folio; a description of Russia, the fruit of some of his travels. 4. Some controversial and other theological books. 5. Some smaller works, written and published in Italian. Possevin’s Life was published by father Dorigny at Paris, 1712, 12mo.

, a very ingenious but visionary man, was by birth a Norman, of a small hamlet called Dolerie where he was born in 1510. Never did genius struggle with more vigour against the extremes of indigence. At eight years old, he was deprived of both his parents by the plague when only fourteen, unable to subsist in his native place, he removed to another near Pontoise, and undertook to keep a school. Having thus obtained a little money, he went to Paris, to continue his studies but there was plundered and suffered so much from cold, that he languished for two years in an hospital. When he recovered, he again collected a little money by gleaning irv the country, and returned to Paris, where he subsisted by waiting on some of the students in the college of St. Barbe; but made, at the same time, so rapid a progress in knowledge, that he became almost an universal scholar. His acquirements were so extraordinary, that they became known to the king, Francis I. who, touched with so much merit, under such singular disadvantages, sent him to the East to collect manuscripts. This commission he executed so well, that on his return, he was appointed royal professor of mathematics and languages, with a considerable salary. Thus he might appear to be settled for life; but this was not his destiny. He was, unfortunately for himself, attached to the chancellor Poyet, who fell under the displeasure of the queen of Navarre and Postel, for no other fault, was deprived of his appointments, and obliged to quit France. He now became a wanderer, and a visionary. From Vienna, from Rome, from the order of Jesuits, into which he had entered, he was successively banished for strange and singular opinions; for which also he was imprisoned at Rome and at Venice. Being released, as a madman, he returned 10 Paris, whence the same causes again drove him into Germany. At Vienna he was once more received, and obtained a professorship; but, having made his peace at home, was again recalled to Paris, and re-established in his places. He had previously recanted his errors, but relapsing into them, was banished to a monastery, where he performed acts of penitence, and died Sept. 6, 1581, at the age of seventy-one. Postel pretended to be much older than he was, and maintained that he had died and risen again which farce he supported by many tricks, such as- colouring his beard and hair, and even painting his face. For the same reason, in most of his works, he styles himself, “Postellus restitntus.” Notwithstanding his strange extravagances, he was one of the greatest geniuses of his time; had a surprising quickness and memory, with so extensive a knowledge of languages, that he boasted he could travel round the world without an interpreter. Francis I. regarded him as the wonder of his age Charles IX. called him his philosopher; and when he lectured at Paris, the crowd of auditors was sometimes so great, that they could only assemble in the open court of the college, while he taught them from a window. But by applying himself very earnestly to the study of the Rabbins, and of the stars, he turned his head, and gave way to the most extravagant chimeras. Among these, were the notions that women at a certain period are to have universal dominion over men that all the mysteries of Christianity are demonstrable by reason that the soul of Adam had entered into his body that the angel Raziel had revealed to him the secrets of heaven and that his writings were dictated by Jesus Christ himself. His notion of the universal dominion of women, arose from his attachment to an old maid at Venice, in consequence of which he published a strange and now very rare and high-priced book, entitled “Les tres-marveilieuseS victoires des Femmes du Nouveau Monde, et comme elles doivent par raison a tout le monde commander, et me' me a; eeux qui auront la monarchic du Monde viel,” Paris, 1553, 16mo. At the same time, he maintained, that the extraordinary age to which he pretended ttf have lived, was occasioned hy his total abstinence from all commerce with that sex. His works are as numerous as, they are strange and some of them are very scarce, hut very little deserve to be collected. One of the most important is entitled “De orbis concordia,” Bale, 1544, folio. In this the author endeavours to bring all the world to the Christian faith under two masters, the pope, in spiritual affairs, and the king of France in temporal. It is divided into four books; in the first of which he gives the proofs of Christianity; the second contains a refutation of the Koran; the third treats of the origin of idolatry, and all false religions and the fourth, on the mode of converting Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans, Of his other works, amounting to twenty-six articles, which are enumerated in the “Dictionnaire Historique,” and most of them by Brunet as rarities with the French collectors, many display in their very titles the extravagance of their contents; such as, “Clavis absconditorum a, constitutione ixmndi,” Paris, 1547, 16mo; “De Ultimo judicio;” “Proto-evangelium,” &c. Some are on subjects of more real utility. But the fullest account of the whole may be found in a book published at Liege in 1773, entitled “Nouveaux eclaircissemens sur 3a Vie et les ouvrages de Guillaume Postel,” by father des Billons. The infamous book, “De tribus impostoribus,” has been very unjustly attributed to Postel, for, notwithstanding all his wildness, he was a believer.

, a writer of reputation on subjects of trade and commerce, was slightly mentioned in our last edition, but without any particulars of his life; nor have we yet many to communicate. He was bora about the year 1707 but where, of what parents, or how educated, we have not discovered. In the introductory discourse to his work entitled “Great Britain’s true System,” he informs us, that nature having given him a very tender and weak constitution, he studiously declined and avoided, as much as he could, every degree of public life, as being inconsistent with, and indeed destructive of, that small snare of health which he had several years enjoyed, and which his studies had not mended and yet he preferred the studious life, as being more independent, He complains, however, of want of encouragement; and “humbly hopes that some people will be candid and ingenuous enough to think that he has a right to be treated upon a footing something different from that of an upstart idle schemist or projector, who has never given proof of any talents that might deserve the public regard and attention.” Whether this complaint was redressed, we know not. He died Sept. 17, 1767, and probably not in very opulent circumstances, as he was buried in Old-street church-yard. The coffin, at his own request, was filled with unslacked lime. His death was sudden, as he always wished it might be.

His most valuable publications were, the “Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce,” 2 vols. folio, of which a second edition was published in 1757 and “Great Britain’s true System” one part of which is to recommend, during war, to raise the supplies within the year. His other publications, with the merits of which we are less acquainted, were, <6 1. “The Merchant’s public Counting House,” 4to. 2. “State of the French Trade and Navigation,” 8vo. 3. “Britain’s Commercial Interest explained and improved,” 2 vols. 8vo. 4. “The Importance of the African Expedition considered,” &c. In the papers of 1763, we find mention of a James Postlethwayt, F. R. S. who wrote “The History of the public Revenue,” folio, but whether related to Malachi is uncertain. Malachi was chosen F. S. A. March 21, 1734.

, an English gentleman of talents, was the son of John Potenger, D. D. who was appointed master of Winchester School Aug. 1, 1642, which he was obliged to resign, in order to preserve his loyalty and principles, and died in Dec. 1659. He was born in St. Swithin’s parish, Winchester, July 21, 1647, admitted on the foundation of the college in 1658, and thence removed to a scholarship of Corpus Christi college, Oxon, where he took the degree of B. A. and afterwards entered of the Temple, and was regularly called v to the bar. The office of comptroller of the pipe, which he held to the day of his death, he purchased, in 1676, of sir John Ernie, then chancellor of the Exchequer, whose daughter he married. Speaking of his father, in one of his writings, he expresses himself thus- “About the thirteenth year of my age, the Christmas before the return of king Charles the Second, I lost a loving father; I was not so young but I was deeply sensible of the misfortune, knowing at what an unseasonable time I was deprived of him, when he should have received a reward for his loyal sufferings. He would often discourse with me, though, young, about the unhappy times, amid lament the church’s and the king’s misfortunes, which made a great impression on me; and laid the foundation, I hope, of my being a true son of the church of England, and an obedient subject to my lawful prince.” In 1692 his wife died, leaving him only one daughter, who, in 1695, was married to Richard Bingham, esq. of Mtlcombe Bingham, in the county of Dorset. Thither he retired many years before his death, which happened on Dec. 18, 1733, in the 87th year of his age. He was buried by his wife in Blunsden church, in the parish of Highworth, Wilts. Mr. Potenger also published “A Pastoral Reflection on Death,” a poem, in 1691 and “The Life of Agricoia,” from Tacitus, and perhaps other select pieces but the far greater part of his works, consisting, of “Poems, Epistles, Translations, and Discourses,” both in prose and verse, was reserved only for the entertainment of his private friends, who often importuned him to make them public. Two original letters to him from Dr. South, are printed in Nichols’s Select Collection of Poems.

son of a counsellor to the presidial of Orleans, was born in that city January 9, 1699, and was appointed counsellor to the same presidial himself at the age of twenty-one. A particular taste induced him to study the Romanlaw and the public are indebted to his labours on that subject for an edition of Justinian’s Pandects, very exactly arranged, which he published 1748, 3 vols. folio. This work made M. Pothier known to the chancellor D'Aguesseau, who appointed him, unsolicited, to the professorship of French law, vacant at Orleans in 1749 after which, he applied particularly to that branch. He died, unmarried, at Orleans, May 2, 1772. Though constantly employed in the service of his fellow citizens, and of all those who consulted him, he found opportunity, by his indefatigable diligence, to publish the following works: 1. “Coutume d'Orleans,” 1740, 1760, 2 vols. 12mo, and 1773, 4to. 2. “Coutumes du Duch, &c. d'Orleans,” 2 vols. 12mo, and 1760 and 1772, 4to: The introductions to this work are reckoned masterly. 3. “Tr. des Obligations,” 1764, 2 vols. 12mo, which has been followed by, 4. “Le Contrat de Vente de Constitution de Louage de Societe et a Cheptels de Bienfaisance de Depot, et Nantissement” these form five volumes, which are sold separately. “Traité des Contrats aleatoires,” 3 vols. “de Manage,” 2 vols. “Traité du Douaire,” 1 vol.; “Tr. du Droit d'Habitation,” “Don mutuel,” &c. 1 vol.; “Traité du Domaine, de Propriete de Possession,” 2 vols. All these works were reprinted, 1774, 4 vols. 4to. A Treatise on Fiefs has since appeared, Orleans, 1776, 2 vols. folio. He left many other manuscript works, which have not been printed

, an English surgeon of the highest eminence, was born in Thread needle-street, London, in December 1713. His father dying before he was quite four years old, he was left, in some degree, to the protection and patronage of Wilcox, bishop of Rochester, who was a distant relation of his mother. The profession of surgery was his own decided choice, though the connection above mentioned might naturally have led him to the church; and, in 1729, he was bound apprentice to Mr. Nourse, one of the surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s hospital, under whom he was profoundly instructed, in what, at that time, was taught only by a few, the science of anatomy. His situation brought with it an abundance of practical knowledge, to which his own industry led him to add all that can be gained from a sagacious and careful perusal of the early writers on surgery. Thus qualified, he was admirably calculated to reform the superfluous and awkward modes of practice which had hitherto disgraced the art. In 1736, having finished his apprenticeship, he took a house in Fencburch-street, and quickly was distinguished as a young man of the most brilliant and promising talents. In 1745, he was elected an assistant surgeon; and, in 1749, one of the principal surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s hospital. It was one of the honours of Mr. Pott’s life, that he divested surgery of its principal horrors, by substituting a mild and rational mode of practice (notwithstanding the opposition of the older surgeons), instead of the actual cautery, and other barbarous expedients which had hitherto been employed and he lived to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his improved plan universally adopted. Though he possessed the most distinguished talents for communicating his thoughts in writing, it seems to have been by accident that he was led to become an author. Immersed in practice, it does not appear that hitherto he had written any thing, except a paper “on tumours attended with a softening of the bones,” in the forty-first volume of the Philosophical Transactions; but, in 1756, a compound fracture of the leg, occasioned by a fall of his horse in the streets, gave him leisure to plan, and in part to write, his Treatise on Ruptures. The flattering reception of his publications attached him afterwards to this mode of employing his talents, so that he was seldom long without being engaged in some work. His leg was with difficulty preserved, and he returned to the labours of his profession. In 1764, he had the honour of being elected a fellow of the Royal Society; and in the ensuing year he began to give lectures at his house, which was then in Watling-street; but finding it necessary, from the increase of his business, to choose a more central situation, he removed, in 1769, to Lincoln’s-rnn-fields, and in 1777 to Hanover-square. His reputation had now risen nearly to the greatest height, bj means of his various publications, and the great success of his practice. He was universally consulted, and employed by persons of the first rank and situation; and received honorary tributes to his merit from the royal college of surgeons at Edinburgh and in Ireland. In 1787, he resigned the office of surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s hospital, “after having served it,” as he expressed himself, “man and boy, for half a century” and in December 1788, in consequence of a cold caught by going out of town to a patient in very severe weather, he died, at the age of seventy-five. He was buried near his mother, in the church of St. Mary Aldermary, Bow-lane, where a tablet was affixed to his memory, inscribed by his son, the rev. J. H. Pott, the present archdeacon of London, and vicar of St. Martin’s-­in-the-fields.

The genius of Mr. Pott was certainly of the first order. As an author, his language is correct, strong, and animated. There are few instances, if any, of such classical elegance united with so much practical knowledge and acuteness. His reading was by no means confined to professional works, but was various and extensive and his memory suffered nothing to escape. As a teacher he acquired the faculty of speaking readily, with great point and energy, and with a most harmonious and expressive elocution. As a practitioner in surgery, he had all the essential qualifications; sound judgment, cool determination, and great manual dexterity. The following is a list of his works: 1. “An Account of Tumours which soften the Bones,” Philos. Trans. 1741, No. 459. 2. “A Treatise on Ruptures,” 1756, 8vo, second edition, 1763. 3. “An Account of a particular kind of Rupture, frequently attendant upon new-born Children, and sometimes met with in Adults,” 1756, 8vo. 4. “Observations on that Disorder of the corner of the Eye commonly called Fistula Lachrytnalis,” 1758, 8vo. 5. “Observations on the Nature and Consequences of Wounds and Contusions of the Head, Fractures of the Skull, Concussions of the Brain,” &c. 1760, 8vo. 6. “Practical Remarks on the Hydrocele, or Watery Rupture, and some other Diseases of the Testicle, its Coats and Vessels. Being a Supplement to the Treatise on Ruptures, 1762,” 8vo. 7. “An Account of an Hernia of the Urinary Bladder including a Stone,” Philos. Transact, vol. LIV., 1764. 8. “Remarks on the Disease commonly caled a Fistula in Ano,” 1765, 8vo. 9. “Observations on the Nature and Consequences of those Injuries to which the Head is liable from external Violence. To which are added, some few general Remarks on Fractures and Dislocations,” 8vo, 1768. This is properly a second edition of No. 5. 10. “An Account of the Method of obtaining a perfect or radical Cure of the Hydrocele, or Watry Rupture, by means of a seton,” 1772, 8vo. 11. “Chirurgical Observations relative to the Cataract, the Polypus of the Nose, the Cancer of the Scrotum, the different kinds of Ruptures, and the Mortification of the Toes and Feet,” 1775, 8vo. 12. “Remarks on that kind of Palsy of the lower Limbs, which is frequently found to accompany a Curvature of the Spine, and is supposed to be caused by it; together with its Method of Cure,” 1779, 8vo. 13. “Further Remarks on the useless State of the lower Limbs in consequence of a Curvature of the Spine” being a supplement to the former treatise, 1783, 8vo. These works were published collectively by himself, in quarto and since his death, in 3 vols. 8vo, by his son-in-law, Mr. (now sir) James, Earle, with occasional notes and observations, and the last corrections of the author. This edition was published in 1790; and Mr. Earle has prefixed a life of Mr. Pott, from which the present account is taken.

We are assured, that Mr. Pott was no less amiable in private life than eminent in his profession. While his mother lived, he declined matrimonial engagement but, in 1746, soon after her death, he married the daughter of Robert Outtenden, esq. by whom he had four sons and as many daughters. Diligent as he was in tiis profession, he never suffered his attention to its avocations to interfere with the duties of a husband or a father but though he was pleasing as a companion, his professional manners had much of the roughness of the old school of surgery. In his person he was rather lower than the middle size, with an expressive and animated countenance. For the chief part of his life his labours were without relaxation but latterly he had a villa at Neasden, and usually passed about a month at Bath, or near the sea.

, a pious prelate of the church of England, was born within the barony of Kendall, in the county of Westmoreland, in 1578 or 1579. In his fifteenth year he entered Queen’s college, Oxford, as a poor student, or tabarder, but made such progress in his studies, that he took, his degrees with great reputation; and when master of arts, was chosen fellow of his college. During his fellowship he became tutor to the sons of several gentlemen of rank and worth, whom he assiduously trained in learning and religion. After taking orders, he was for some time lecturer at Abington, and at Totness in Devonshire, where he was highly respected as an affecting preacher, and was, according to Wood, much followed by the puritans. In 1610 he was chosen principal of Edmund Hall, but resigned, and was never admitted into that office. In 1615 he completed his degrees in divinity; and being presented the following year to a pastoral charge, by sir Edward Giles of Devonshire, hemarried the daughter of that gentleman, and intended to settle in that country. Such, however, was the character he had left behind him at Oxford, that on the death of Dr. Airay, the same year, he vvas unanimously elected provost of Queen’s college, entirely without his knowledge. This station he retained about ten years and being then one of the king’s chaplains, resigned the provostship in favour of his nephew, the subject of our next article. He was now again about to settle in Devonshire when king Charles, passing by, as we are told, many solicitations in favour of others, peremptorily nominated him bishop of Carlisle in 1628. Wood adds, that in this promotion he had the interest of bishop Laud, “although a thorough-paced Calvinist.” He continued, however, a frequent and favourite preacher; and, says Fuller, “was commonly called the puritanical bishop; and they would say of him, in the time of king James, that organs would blow him out of the church which I do not believe the rather, because he was loving of and skilful in vocal music, and could bear his own part therein.”

In the beginning of the long parliament he preached at Westminster, and inveighed against the corruptions and innovations that had crept into the church, and his sentiments were generally approved of; but, in the confusion and prejudices which ensued, he did not escape without the usual crimes imputed to men of rank in the church, and was censured as popish, merely because he was a bishop. This treatment, and a foresight of the calamities about to fall on his church and nation, are said to have hastened his death, which happened at his lodgings in Covent-garden, in January 1642. He was interred in the church of St, Paul, Covent-garden. He died, says Fuller, “in honour, being the last bishop that died a member of parliament.”

, nephew to the preceding, was born also within the barony of Kendal in Westmorland, about 1591, and became clerk of Queen’s college, Oxford, in the beginning of 1606. On April 30, 1610, he took the degree of B.A.and July 8, 1613, that of M.A.; and the same year was chosen chaplain of the college, and afterwards fellow of it. He was then a great admirer of Dr. Henry Airay, provost of that college, some of whose works he published, and who was a zealous puritan, and a lecturer at Abingdon in Berks, where he was much resorted to for his preaching. 'On March the 9th, 1620, he took the degree of bachelor of divinity, and February 17, 1626-7, that of doctor, having succeeded his uncle Dr. Barnabas Potter in the provostship of his college on the 17th of June, 1626. “Soon after,” says Mr. Wood, “when Dr. Laud became a rising favourite at court, he, after a great deal of seeking, was made his creature, and therefore by the precise party he was esteemed an Arminian.” On March the 15th, 1628, he preached a Sermon on John xxi. 17. at the consecration of his uncle to the bishopric of Carlisle at Ely House in Hoiborn which was printed at London, 1629, in 8vo, and involved him in a short controversy with Mr. Vicars, a friend of his, who blamed him for a leaning towards Arminianism. In 1633 he published his “Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet, entitled, Charity mistaken.” The cause was this A Jesuit who went by the name of Edward Knott, but whose true name was Matthias Wilson, had published in 1630, a little book in 8vo, called “Charity mistaken, with the want whereof Catholicks are unjustly charged, for affirming, as they do with grief, that Protestancy un repented destroies Salvation.” Dr. Potter published an answer to this at Oxford, 1633, in 8vo, with this title: “Want of Charitie justly charged on all such Romanists as dare (without truth or modesty) affirme, that Protestancie destroy eth Salvation; or, an Answer to a late Popish pamphlet, intituled, Charity mistaken, &c.” The second edition revised and enlarged, was printed at London, 1634, in 8vo. Prynne observes, that bishop Laud, having perused the first edition, caused some things to be omitted in the second. It is dedicated to King Charles I. and in the dedication Dr. Potter observes, that it was “undertaken in obedience to his majesty’s particular commandment.”

In 1635 he was promoted to the deanery of Worcester, having before had a promise of a canonry of Windsor, which he never enjoyed. In 1640 he was vice-chancellor of the university of Oxford, in the execution of which office he met with some trouble from the members of the long parliament. Upon breaking out of the civil wars, he sent all his plate to the king, and declared, that he would rather, like Diogenes, drink in the hollow of his hand, than that his majesty should want; and he afterwards suffered much for the royal cause. In consideration of this, upon the death of Dr. W r alter Balcanqual, he was nominated to the deanery of Durham in January 1645-6; but was prevented from being installed by his death, which happened at his college March the 3d following. He was interred about the middle of the chapel there and over his grave was a marble monument fastened to the north wall, at the expence of his widow Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Charles Sonibanke, some time canon of Windsor, afterwards wife of Dr. Gerard Langbaine, who succeeded Dr. Potter in the provostship of Queen’s college. He was a person esteemed by all that knew him to be learned and religious exemplary in his behaviour and discourse, courteous in his carriage, and of a sweet and obliging nature, and comely presence. But he was more especially remarkable for his charity to the poor; for though he had a wife and many children, and expected daily to be sequestered, yet he continued his usual liberality to them, having, on hearing Dr. Hammond’s sermon at St. Paul’s, been per* suaded of the truth of that divine’s assertion, that charity to the poor was the way to grow rich. He translated from Italian into English, “Father Paul’s History of the Quarrels of Pope Paul V. with the State of Venice,” London, 1626, 4to and left several Mss. prepared for the press, one of which, entitled “A Survey of the Platform of Predestination,” falling into the hands of Dr. William Twisse, of Newbury, was answered by him. This subject perhaps is more fully discussed in his controversy with Mr. Vicars, which was republished at Cambridge in 1719, in a “Collection of Tracts concerning Predestination and Providence.” The reader to whom this “Collection” may not be accessible, will find an interesting extract, from Dr.Potter’s part, in Dr. Wordsworth’s “Ecclesiastical Biography,” vol. V. p. 504, &c. Chillingworth likewise engaged in the controversy against Knott.

Dr. Potter had a son, Charles, who was born at Oxford in 1633, and admitted a student of Christ Church in 1647, but after completing his master’s degree, he left the university, and when abroad with James Croits, afterwards created duke of Monmouth, he embraced the Roman Catholic religion. He was afterwards one of the gentlemen ushers to his great uncle, Dr. Barnabas Potter, bishop of Carlisle. The “Theses Quaclragesiiriales in scholis Oxoniensibus publice pro forma discussae,” Oxon, 1649, 12mo, was published with his name, but the real author was his college tutor, Mr. Thomas Severn.

, a learned English divine, son of Mr. Richard Potter, a native of Oxfordshire, and vicar of Meyre in Wiltshire, was born in the vicarage house there on Trinity Sunday 1594, and educated in grammar learning in the king’s school at Worcester under Mr. Henry Bright. He became a commoner of Trinity college, in Oxford, under his elder brother Hannibal Potter, in the latter end of the year 1609. On July 8, 1613, he took the degree of B. A. June 26, 1615, that of M. A. and July 8, 1625, that of B. D. He continued a close student in his college till the death of his father, in 1637 and then succeeded him in the rectory of Kilmington, left the university, and retired to his living, where he lived in a very retired manner till his death. In 1642 he published at Oxford in 4to, a treatise entitled “An Interpretation of the number 666. Wherein not onely the manner how this number ought to be interpreted is clearly proved and demonstrated but it is also shewed, that this number is an exquisite and perfect character, truly, exactly, and essentially describing that state of government, to which all other notes of Antichrist do agree. With all knowne objections solidly and fully answered, that can be materially made against it.” Prefixed to it is the following opinion of the learned Joseph Mede “This discourse or tract of the number of the beast is the happiest that ever yet came into the world, and such as cannot be read (save of those that perhaps will not beleeve it) without much admiration. The ground hath been harped on before, namely, that that number was to be explicated by some avrirrotxla to the number of the Virgin-company and new Hierusalem, which type the true and Apostolical Church, whose number is always derived from XII. But never did any worke this principal to such a wonderfull discovery, as this author hath done, namely, to make this number not onely to shew the manner and property of that state, which was to be that beast, but to designe the city wherein he should reigne; the figure and compasse thereof; the number of gates, cardinall titles or churches, St. Peter’s altar, and I know not how many more the like. I read the book at first with as much prejudice against the numerical speculation as might be, and almost against my will, having met with so much vanitie formerly in that kinde. But by the time I had done, it left me possest with as much admiration, as I came to it with prejudice.”

This treatise was afterwards translated into French, Dutch, and Latin. The Latin version was made by several hands. One edition was all or most translated by Mr. Thomas Gilbert, of Edmund Hall, in Oxford, and printed at Amsterdam 1677, in 8vo; part of the Latin translation is inserted in the second part of the fourth volume of Pool’s “Synopsis Criticorum.” Our author’s treatise was attacked by Mr. Lambert Morehouse, minister of Prestwood, near Kilmington, who asserts, that 25 is not the true, but propinque root of 666. Mr. Potter wrote a Reply to him. Mr. Morehouse gave a manuscript copy of this dispute to Dr. Seth Ward, bishop of Sarum, in 1668. Our author, while he was very young, had a good talent at drawing and painting, and the founder’s picture in the hall of Trinity college is of his copying. He had likewise an excellent genius for mechanics, and made several inventions for raising of water, and water-engines; which being communicated to the Royal Society, about the time of its first establishment, were highly approved of, and he was admitted a member of that society. Mr. Wood likewise observes, that about 1640, “he entertained the notion of curing diseases by transfusion of blood out of one man into another; the hint whereof came into his head from Ovid’s story of Medea and Jason; which matter he communicating to the Royal Society about the time of its first erection, it was entered into their books. But this way of transfusion having (as it is said) been mentioned long before by Andr. Libavius, our author Potter (vfrho I dare say never saw that writer) is not to be the first inventor of that notion, nor Dr. Richard Lewen, but rather an advancer.” He became blind before his death, and died at Kilmington about April 1678, and was buried in the chancel of the church there. His memory was preserved in Trinity college until 1670 by a dial, which he constructed and placed on the north side of the old quadrangle, but there is now another in its room. There are many anecdotes of him in the Aubrey Mss. but none perhaps more worth transcribing than the following. “The last time I saw him,” says Aubrey, “I asked him why he did not get some cousin or kinsman to be with him, and look to him now in his great age? He answered me, that he had tried that way, and found it not so well; for they did begrudge what he spent, that it was too much, and went from them, whereas his servants (strangers) were kind to him, and took care of him.” Aubrey adds, that in the “troublesome times it was his happiness never to be sequestered. He was once maliciously informed against to the committee a* Wells (a thing very common in those times); but when he came before them, one of them (I have forgot his name) gave him a pint of wine, and gave him great praise, and bade him go home, and fear nothing.” He seems to have wanted only opportunities of conversing more frequently with his learned contemporaries to have made a distinguished figure in the infancy of the Royal Society.

His brother, Dr. Hannibal Potter, who had been his tutor at college, was, upon the death of Dr. Kettle, elected president of Trinity college, but was ejected by the parliamentary chancellor, lord Pembroke in person, attended by the parliamentary visitors and a guard of soldiers. His only subsistence afterwards was a poor curacy of 20l. a year, from which he was also ejected for using some part of the Liturgy.

, archbishop of Canterbury, was the son of Thomas Potter, a linen draper at Wakefield in Yorkshire, where he was born about the year 1674. He was educated at a school at Wakefield, and it is said, made an uncommon progress, in a short time, especially in the Greek languague. That this, however, was a private school seems to be taken for granted by Dr. Parr, who, after mentioning that our author’s Latin productions are not free from faults, says that he would have been taught to avoid these “in our best public seminaries.” At the age of fourteen, Mr. Potter was sent to Oxford, and entered a battler of University college in the beginning of 1688. There is every reason to think that his diligence here was exemplary and successful; for, after taking his bachelor’s degree, he was employed by the master of his college, the learned Dr. Charlett, to compile a work for the use of his fellow students, entitled, “Variantes lectiones et notae ad Plutarchi librum de audiendis poetis, item Variantes lectiones, &c. ad Basilii Magni orationem ad juvenes, quomodo cum fructu legere possint Graecorum libros,” 8vo. This was printed at the University press, then in the Theatre, in 1693, at the expence of Dr. Charlett, who used to present copies of it, as a new-year’s-gift, to the young students of University college, and to others of his friends.

In 1694 he was chosen fellow of Lincoln college, and proceeding M. A. in October of the same year, he took pupils and went into orders. Still pursuing his private studies, he produced, in 1697, his beautiful edition of Lycophron’s “Alexandra,” fol. the second edition of which, in 1702, Dr. Harwood pronounces “an everlasting monument of the learning of the illustrious editor.” It is no inconsiderable proof of his having distinguished himself in the republic of letters, that we find him already corresponding with many eminent scholars on the continent, and among Dr. Mead’s letters are some from Mr. Potter to Graevius, from whom he received the Basil edition of Lycophron, 1546, collated with ancient vellum Mss. and by this assistance he was enabled to correct and enlarge the commentaries of Tzetzes in no less than two hundred places, and throw much additional light on this very obscure poem. In the same year he printed the first volume of his “Archaeologia Graeca,” or Antiquities of Greece, and in the following year, 1698, the second volume. Several improvements were introduced by him in the subsequent editions of this valuable work, which has hitherto been unrivalled, and he lived to see at least five editions printed. It still continues a standard book for Greek students. It was incorporated in Gronovius’s Thesaurus. In the preface to the fifth edition he speaks of a Latin edition printed in Holland, the publisher of which pretended it was corrected by the author; but he assures us that “he never saw it till it was all printed, and therefore the many errors in it must not be imputed to him.”

In July 1704 he commenced bachelor of divinity, and being about the same time appointed chaplain to archbishop Tenison, he removed from Oxford to reside at Lambeth palace. He proceeded D.D. in April 1706, and soon after became chaplain in ordinary to queen Anne. In 1707 appeared his first publication connected with his profession, entitled a “Discourse of Church Government,” 8vo. In this he asserts the constitution, rights, and government, of the Christian church, chiefly as described by the fathers of the first three centuries against Erastian principles; his design being to vindicate the church of England from the charge of those principles. In this view, among other ecclesiastical powers distinct from the state, he maintains the doctrine of our church, concerning the distinction of the three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, particularly with regard to the superiority of the episcopal order above that of presbyters, which he endeavours to prove was settled by divine institution: that this distinction was in fact constantly kept up to the time of Constantine: and in the next age after that, the same distinction, he observes, was constantly reckoned to be of divine institution, and derived from the apostles down to these times.

In the beginning of 1708, he succeeded Dr. Jane as regius professor of divinity, and canon of Christ Church, who brought him back to Oxford. This promotion he owed to the interest of the celebrated duke of Marlborougb, and to the opinion held concerning him that he was a Whig; whereas Dr. Smalridge, whom the other party wished to succeed in the professorship and canonry, had distinguished himself by opposition to the whig-measures of the court. In point of qualification these divines might be equal, and Dr. Potter certainly, both as a scholar and divine, was liable to no objection. It was probably to the same interest that he owed his promotion, in April 1715, to the see of Oxford. Just before he was made bishop he published, what had occupied his attention a very considerable time, his splendid and elaborate edition of the works of Clemens Alexandrinus, 2 vols. fol. Gr. and Lat. an edition, says Harwood, “worthy of the celebrity of the place where it was published, and the erudition of the very learned prelate, who has so happily illustrated this miscellaneous writer.” In this he has given an entire new version of the “Cohortations,” and intended to have done the same for the “Stromata,” but was prevented by the duties of his professorship. In his preface he intreats the reader’s candour as to some typographical errors, he being afflicted during part of the printing by a complaint in his eyes, which obliged him to trust the correction of the press to others.

For some time after his being made bishop of Oxford, he retained the divinity chair, and filled both the dignities with great reputation, rarely failing to preside in person over the divinity disputations in the schools, and regularly holding hisxtriennial visitation at St. Mary’s church; upon which occasions his charges to the clergy were suited to the exigencies of the times. In 1717, Dr. Hoadly, then bishop of Bangor, having advanced some doctrines, respecting sincerity, in one of his tracts, which our prelate judged to be injurious to true religion, he took occasion to animadvert upon them in his first visitation the following year; and his charge having been published, at the request of his clergy, Dr. Hoadly answered it, which produced a reply, from our prelate. In this short controversy, he displayed more warmth than was thought consistent with the general moderation of his temper; but such were his arguments and his character, that Hoadly is said to have been more concerned on account of this adversary than of any other he had then encountered.