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, a political and poetical writer of considerable note, is said to have been descended of mean parentage, and was born probably in America. There at least, from the Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin we learn that he became acquainted with that eminent man, who gives a favourable account of him, as being “ingenuous and shrewd, genteel in his addre3, and extremely eloquent.” Franklin appears to have considered him, however, as a man who might be imposed on, and acknowledges “that he had a hand in unsettling his principles,” The first effect of this was Ralph’s leaving 1 a wife and children in America, in 1725, and regardless of what became of them, forming another female connexion, by marriage, as it would appear, soon after he arrived with Franklin in England, fie is also said to have assumed Franklin’s name for some time, until a quarrel dissolved their friendship, such as it was. In 1728 he published his “Night,” and in 1729, “Zeuma, or the Love of Liberty.”

Warburton says these lines were inserted after the first edition of the Dunciad, and that he was not known to Pope, until he published a swearing-piece called “Sawney,” very abusive df Pope, Swift, and Gay. He adds that “this low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the Journals; anfd once, in particular, praised himself highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks upon that author’s account of English poets, printed in a London Journal, Sept. 172$. He was wholly illiterate, and knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled and replied, ‘ Shakspeare writ without rules.’ He ended at last in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnall (see Arnall), and received a small pittance for pay and being detected in writing on both sides on one and the same day, he publicly justified the morality of his conduct.”

Such is Warburton’s account, heightened a little, unqaestionnbly, by his regard for Pope, but, except where he calls him illiterate, not much beyond the truth for Ralph’s pen was completely venal, and both his principles and his distresses prevented any consideration on the moral part of his conduct. He had by this time produced on the stage, “The Fashionable Lady,” an opera, “The Fall of the Earl of Essex,” a tragedy and afterwards, “The Lawyer’s Feast,” a farce, and “The Astrologer,” a comedy, none of which had much success. He was a writer, iff 1739, in the “Universal Spectator,” a periodical paper; but from his letters to Dr. Birch* in the British Museum, it appears that he was no great gainer hy any of his performances. There is an excellent pamphlet, however* attributed tp him, which was published about 1731, a “Review of the Public Buildings of London” but from the style and subject, we should suppose his name borrowed. In 1735 he commenced a managing partner with Fielding- in the Haymarket theatre but, as Davies says, “he had no other share in the management than viewing and repining at his partner’s success.”

At length he became an attendant on the “levees of great men,” and luckily applied himself to political writing, for which he was well qualified. When the duchess of Marlborough, about 1742, published memoirs of her life, Ralph was employed to write an answer, which he called “The other side of the question.” This, says Davies, was written with so much art, and made so interesting, by the author’s management, that it sold very well. His pamphlets and political papers at length appeared of so much importance^ that towards the latter end of the Walpole administration, it was thought proper to buy him off with an income. Whether his paper called “The Remembrancer,” recommended him to Doddington, lord Melcombe, or was written in consequence of his acquaintance with that statesman, does not appear but from Doddington’s celebrated (< Diary,“we learn that he was much in the confidence of the party assembled round the prince of Wales, and was not only constantly employed to carry messages and propositions to the leaders of the party, but was frequently, consulted as to the subject of such messages. Nor indeed do his talents as a politician seem much inferior to those who employed him. He had like-r wise before this acquired considerable fame by his” Use and Abuse of Parliaments,“174-4, 2 vols. 8vo, and still more by his” History of England, during the reign of William III.; with an introductory review of the reigns of Charles II. and James II.“1744 6, 2 vols. folio, written upon principles avowed by his party. This was always considered as an useful work. Ralph had read a great deal, and was very conversant in the history and politics of this country. He applied himself, with great assiduity, to the study of all writings upon party matters: and had collected a prodigious number of pamphlets relating to the contests of whig and tory, the essence of which he incorporated in his work so as to make it a fund of curious information and opinions, of which more regular historians might afterwards avail themselves. Mr. Fox, in his late” Historical Work,“pronounces him” an historian of great acuteness, as well as diligence, but who falls sometimes into the common error of judging too much from the event."

Notwithstanding his importance with his party, who, we may suppose, provided for him while he was of service to them, his turn for the stage had not left him, and he was continually teazing Garrick (to whom he had been introduced by Doddington), to encourage him in his error. Garrick saw that he was not qualified to write for the stage, and was candid enough to tell him so. Davies also says that Garrick had so much friendship for him, that he prevailed upon the minister, Mr. Pelham, to settle a pension upon him. The editor of DoddingtoiVs “Diary” relates this in a different way. After some remarks on Doddington’s selfish motives, he adds, “But all this may be strictly honourable within the verge of a court and on this account, I could patiently hear his lordship recommend Mr. Ralph as a very honest man, and in the same pages inform us, that he was ready to be hired to any cause; that he actually put himself to auction to the two contending parties (the Bedford and Pelhams), and that, after several biddings, the honest Mr. Ralph was bought by the Pelhams.” If, however, Garrick was in any way the means of closing this bargain, Ralph soon forgot the obligation, and in his “Case of Authors by profession,” published in 1,758, conveys many insinuations against Garrick, as a manager. Garrick was so irritated, that he never spoke to him afterwards, nor would go into any company where there was a chance of meeting him.

The death of the prince of Wales was a severe blow to Ralph. In a letter to Doddington he thus states his situation “My brain, such as it is, is my whole estate. I lost half a year’s pension, when I went into the prince’s service. I lost another 100l. about the same time by a bankrupt bookseller. His royal highness died in my debt 65l. every farthing of which I had a thousand pressing occasions for it is almost two years since that event. I did not alter my manner of living except in a few particulars thereon I. because I was put in hope that friends would have been found to assist, if not provide for me, till I could again be useful 2d, because I thought it for their credit, that I should not appear a ruined man, while they continued to honour me with their countenance and 3dly, because I knew I should be provided for (if ever' I was provided for at all) in exact conformity to the figure I lived in, which I cannot yet be humble enough to suppose is better than I have pretensions to, unless the pretensions of players, fiddlers, rope-dancers, &c. to a decent manner of living, should be thought better than mine,” &c.

On the death of George II. Ralph, according to Mr. Davies’s account, attained the summit of his wishes by the interest of the earl of Bute, a pension of 600l. per annum was bestowed upon him, but he did not live to receive above one half year’s income. A fit of the gout proved fatal to him at his house at Chiswick, Jan. 24, 1762. He died almost in the arms of lord Elibank and sir Gilbert Elliot, from whom Mr. Davies had this information. His character may be gathered from the preceding particulars. He left a daughter, to whom a pension of 150l. was granted in consequence of some papers found in her father’s possession, which belonged to the prince of Wales, and contained a history of his life, said to be written by himself under the title of “The History of Prince Titi.” The late Dr. Rose of Chiswick, who was Ralph’s executor, gave up those papers to the earl of Bute, and the pension was granted to Miss Ralph, who died, however, about a month after her father. It has been thought, with much probability, that “The History of Prince Titi” was the composition of Ralph himself. Besides the above daughter, he left a son, if we may rely on the following paragraph in all the papers of May 22, 1770, erroneous certainly in other particulars “Mr. Ralph, who died a few days since, was the son of that great historian. He enjoyed a pension of 150l. a year, which the late and present king settled on his father for writing the History of Scotland.”

, an Italian physician, was born of a citizen’s family at Carpi near Modena, Nov. 5, 1633. When he had laid a foundation in grammar and classical literature in his own country, he went to Parma to study philosophy; and, afterwards applying himself to physic, took a doctor’s degree there in 1659. Then he went to Rome, for the sake of penetrating still further into his art; and afterwards settled as a practitioner in the duchy of Castro. After some time, ill health obliged him to return to Carpi for his native air, where he married, and followed the business of his profession; but in 1671, at the advice of some friends, he removed to Modena. His brethren of the faculty there conceived at first but meanly of his learning and abilities; but, when he had undeceived them by his publications, their contempt is said to have been changed into jealousy. In 1682, he was made professor of physic in the university of Modena, which was just founded by duke Francis II.; and he filled this office for eighteen years, attending in the mean time to practice, and not neglecting polite literature, to which he was always partial, and wrote a very elegant Latin style. In 1700, he went to Padua upon invitation, to be a professor there: but the infirmities of age began now to come upon him. He lost his sight, and was forced to read and write with other people’s eyes and hands. The senate, however, of Venice made him rector of the college in 1708, and also raised him from the second professorship in physic to the first. He would have refused these honourable posts; but, being overruled, performed all the functions of them very diligently to the time of his death, He died Nov. 5, his birthday, 1714, aged eighty-one. Ramazzini was a member of several of the academies of science established in Germany, Berlin, &c., and left several works the principal of which, and one which will ever be held in estimation, is his treatise on the diseases of artists and manufacturers, entitled “De Morbis Artificum Diatriba,” first published in 1700, and frequently reprinted, and published in English. He also published some tracts relative to certain epidemics, both among men and cattle; some “Ephemerides Barometrical;” a work on the abuse of Peruvian bark; and several orations delivered in his professorial capacity. All his works have been collected and published together at Padua, Geneva, London, and Naples; the edition of London, 1716, 4to, is the most correct.

, chevalier de St. Michel, composer to the king of France, and to l'Academic Royale de la Musique, or serious opera at Paris, was born at Dijon in 1683, He went early in his life to Italy, and at his return was appointed organist at Clermout en Auvergne, where his “Traite” de la Musique“was written, in 1722. He was afterwards elected organist of St. Croix de la Bretonnerie at Paris. Here his time was chiefly employed in teaching; however, he published harpsichord lessons, and several other theoretical works, without distinguishing himself much as a vocal composer, till 1733, when, at fifty years of age, he produced his first opera of” Hippolite et Aricie." The music of this drama excited professional envy and national discord. Party rage was now as violent between the admirers of Lulli and Rameau, as in England between the friends of Bononcini and Handel, or, in modern times, at Paris, between the Gluckists and the Piccinists. When the French, during the last century, were so contented with the music of Lulli, it was nearly as good as that of other countries, and better patronized and supported by the most splendid prince in Europe. But this nation, so frequently accused of more volatility and caprice than their neighbours, have manifested a steady persevering constancy in their music, which the strongest ridicule and contempt of other nations could never vanquish.

Rameau only answered his antagonists by new productions, which were still more successful; and, at length, he was acknowledged by his countrymen to be not only superior to all competition at Paris, but sole monarch of the musical world. From 1733 to 1760 he composed twentyone operas, of which the “names and dates are annually published in the” Spectacles de Paris," and in many other periodical works, Rameau’s style of composition, which continued in favour almost unmolested for upwards of forty years, though formed upon that of Lulli, is more rich in harmony, and varied in melody. The genre, however displeasing to all ears but those of France, which had been nursed in it, was carried by the learning and genius of Rameau to its acme of perfection; and when that is achieved in any style, it becomes the business of subsequent composers to invent or adopt another, in which something is still left to be done, besides servile imitation.

The opera of “Castor and Pollux” having been long regarded in France as the master-piece of this composer, Dr. Burney has entered into a strict critical examination of it, for which we refer to his History. He concludes with observing, that, though the several merits of this musician have been too much magnified by partizans and patriots in France, and too much depreciated by the abettors of other systems and other styles, as well as patriots of other countries, yet Rameau was a great man; nor can the professor of any art or science mount to the summit of fame, and be elected by his countrymen supreme dictator in his particular faculty, without a large portion of genius and abilities.

The successful revival of his opera of tc Castor and Pollux“in 1754, after the victory obtained by his friends over the Italian burletta singers who had raised such disturbance by their performance of Pergolesi’s intermezzo, the” Serva Padrona,“was regarded as the most glorious event of his life. The partizans for the national honour could never hear it often enough.” This beautiful opera,“says M. de la Borde,” without any diminution in the applause or pleasure of the audience, supported a hundred representations, charming at once the soul, heart, mind, eyes, ears, and imagination of all Paris."

From this sera to the time of his death, in 1767, at eighty-four years of age, Rameau’s glory was complete. The royal academy of music, who all regarded themselves as his children, performed a solemn service in the church of the oratory, at his funeral. And M. Philidor had a mass performed at the church of the Carmelites, in honour of a man whose talents he so much revered.

, a German poet of great celebrity in his own country, but little known here, was born in 1725, at Kolberg, and became professor of belles lettres in a military academy at Berlin. In concert with Leasing, he there edited two ancient poets of the Germans, Logau and Wernike. His Lyrical Antholpgy contributed much to improve the taste of his countrymen, by those changes of diction which almost every poem received from his pen. Sixteen odes of Horace he translated with great felicity, and composed many original imitations of them. His oratorios, which Graun set to music, would have been warmly admired, but in the country of Klopstock. In 1774, he translated the critical works of Batteux, which he accompanied with considerable additions.

, one of the extraordinary instances of the power of uncultivated genius, was born at Leadhills, Oct. 13, 1685. His father, John Ramsay, descended of the Rarnsays of Cockpen, an ancient and respectable family in Mid- Lothian, was factor to the earl of Hopeton, and superintendant of his lead-mines. His mother, Alice Bower, was daughter of Allan Bower, a gentleman of Derbyshire, who, on account of his great skill in mining, had been invited by sir James Hope of Hopeton to set his valuable mines in motion.

When Allan Ramsay was about a year old his father died, and his mother being but ill provided for, soon after married a second husband in the neighbourhood, by whom she had several children. In this situation young Ramsay could not he supposed to have much care or expence bestowed upon him: he had, however, access to all the learning a village-school could afford, and it was during this period, the first fifteen years of his life, that he had an opportunity of storing his mind with those rural images which were afterwards so agreeably exhibited in his writings.

About the year 1700, his mother died: he was now completely an orphan; but was come to an age when it was proper for him to do something for his own subsistence. His own wish, as he was often heard to say, was to have been bred a painter, and he had even attempted to copy prints he found in books, before he left the country. What were the particular causes which prevented this wish from being gratified, have not come to our knowledge; but his step-father, being exceedingly desirous of getting rid of him at any rate, carried him to Edinburgh, and bound him apprentice to a wig-maker , probably believing it to be the most profitable trade of the two.

But, although young Ramsay was of that happy temper which readily accommodates itself to accidental circumstances, yet, poor as he was, he could not heartily reconcile himself to an occupation in which his active and liberal mind found no exercise that was fit for it. He therefore thought how he might procure for himself a decent maintenance by some means more connected with his poetical genius and growing passion for literary knowledge. All this he accomplished by turning bookseller, in which employment he succeeded very much to his satisfaction, publishing sometimes his own works, sometimes those of other authors, as they occasionally presented themselves.

In 1728, he published a second volume in quarto; and these two volumes, which have been often reprinted in octavo, contain all his printed works which he has thought fit to acknowledge. The longest piece among them, and the one which has been the most universally read and admired, is a pastoral comedy, called the “Gentle Shepherd,” which, though it presents only that mode of country life which belongs to the corner of Scotland where he himself was born, yet is every where filled with such just sentiments and general imagery as will insure it approbation in every country where its language can be either understood or translated.

The first scene, between Patie and Roger, of this drama, was written early, and published first by itself, and afterwards in his first volume in 1721, as an independent eclogue. In that volume is likewise to be found the dialogue song between Patie and Peggie, afterwards introduced into the second act. After the publication of this first volume, he put forth another eclogue between Jenny and Peggy, as a sequel to Patie and Roger, and which now stands the second scene in the “Gentle Shepherd.” At what particular time between 1721 and 1728 he conceived the idea of forming a complete drama, of which those two were to serve as the opening, is not precisely known; but it was not, probably, till after publishing the last mentioned eclogue; for he had more skill than to weaken the effect of a complete work, by giving it to the public in detached scenes, and at such different periods.

Soon after the first edition, in octavo, of this pastoral was published, and about the time of the publication of his second volume in quarto, the “Beggar’s Opera” made its appearance, with such success that it soon produced a great number of other pieces upon the same musical plan. Amongst the rest, Ramsay, who had always been a great admirer of Gay, especially for his ballads, was so far car-r ried away by the current as to print a new edition of his pastoral, interspersed with songs adapted to the common Scotch tunes. He did not reflect at the time that the “Beggar’s Opera” was only meant as a piece of ironical satire, whereas his “Gentle Shepherd” was a simple imitation of nature, and neither a mimickry nor mockery of any other performance. He was soon, however, sensible of his error, and would have been glad to have retracted those songs; but it was too late; the public was already in possession of them, and as the number of singers is always greater than that of sound critics, the many editions since printed of that pastoral have been almost uniformly in this vitiated taste. He comforted himself, however, with the thought that the contagion had not infected his second volume in quarto, where the “Gentle Shepherd” is still to be found in its original purity.

Before he left Leadhills he had no opportunity of reading any books but such as were in the hands of the country people all over Scotland. Amongst those were the hktory in verse of king Robert the Bruce, the exploits of sir William Wallace, and the poems of sir David Lindsey , a favourite of king James V. which coming at an early period to one not distracted by a variety of studies, made a deep impression upon his mind, and gave a cast to all his after sentiments, particularly with regard to the dignity and independence of Scotland, in the history and antiquities of which he became very knowing. In the “Ever Green,” a collection of old Scottish poems, published by him in 1724, there are two pieces of his own, one of them called “The Vision,” said to have been written in Latin, about 1300, and translated in 1524, and which has for its subject the sufferings of Scotland under Edward I. and the Balioi faction. It consists of twenty pages, and is full of poetical imagery. What were his motives for writing so long a poem without reaping any fame from it, is not easy to guess. Perhaps it was only for the sake of amusing himself with the profound remarks of learned critics and antiquaries upon it; perhaps some political ideas not very orthodox had their share in the concealment But whatever might be his reason for concealing himself at this time, he certainly did not mean that this should continue always a secret, as appears by his communicating it to his son, from whom the writer of this article had the information; and by his putting, by way of name to the end of it, A R. Scot, which, though it appears at first sight to mean Archibald Scot, is no other than the two initials of his own name, with his country added to them. His notions about the independency of Scotland had made him, for some time, consider the union of the two crowns as a hardship: an opinion which he held in common with many worthy men and sincere friends of their country in those days; and there is a poem of his in print called “The Tale of the Three Bonnets,” in which the manner of bringing about that treaty is handled with a great dea4 of satirical humour: but his good sense and observation getting, at length, the better of those early prejudices, this poem never obtained a place in any of his two volumes, and is now difficult to he met with.

To those who look upon poetry as an affair of labour and difficulty, it must appear very strange that any man should compose so much of it, with so little view either to fame or profit. But the fact is, that writing verse cost Ramsay no trouble at all, and as it lightly came it lightly went. In the “Ever Green,” already mentioned, there is what is called a “Fragment of Hardiknnte,” of which almost one half made its first appearance in that publication. But this was a forgery which could not be supposed to lie very heavy upon his conscience, as he knew that the original “Fragment” so justly admired, was not of above ten or fifteen years greater antiquity than his own additions to it. For it had been ushered into the world by a lady Wardlaw, who produced it, by two or three stanzas at a time, saying she had taken them down in writing from an old woman, who sung them while she was spinning at her distaff. But as lady Wardlaw had given sufficient proofs of her poetical genius, by several smaller compositions, and as this spectre of an old woman had never appeared to any body but herself, none of her acquaintance ever doubted of her being the true author. What parts of this pretended fragment, as printed in the “Ever Green,” were lady Wardlaw’s, and what were Ramsay’s, his son, from whom we likewise hud this anecdote, could not precisely remember, and said, that they were all too much of the same texture for his critical skill alone to make the distinction: but that it was a point which might be easily ascertained by comparing what is in the “Ever Green” with the copies of “Hardiknute,” printed before 1724. In the “Ever Green,” the whole of this poem is printed in the spelling of the 15th century, which, though the flimsiest of all disguises, has a wonderful effect in imposing upon the bulk of readers.

As to his person, he was of a middle stature, or somewhat less, but well shaped and active, and enjoyed perpetual health, except that in his latter years, he was now and then troubled with the gravel. His disposition was cheerful and benevolent; and what is not often the lot of men of lively imaginations, he was blessed with an equality of mind, free from impatience or anxiety, and little elevated or cast down with any thing prosperous or adverse that befell him.

Having acquired by business what he reckoned a sufficient fortune, that is, an independent subsistence of the plainest kind, he retired, about 1739, to a small house he had built in the midst of a garden on the north side of the Castle-hill of Edinburgh. There he passed the last twenty years of his life in the conversation of his friends, in reading a few chosen books, in the cultivation of his little garden, and in other innocent and healthful amusements. Although he had no further desire of attracting the notice of the public, he continued to write epistles, and other occasional pieces of poetry, for the entertainment of his private friends. When urged by one of them to give some more of his works to the press, he said, “that he was more inclined, if it were in his power, to recall much of what he had already given; and that if half his printed works were burnt, the other half, like the Sybill’s books, would become more valuable by it.” He had even formed a project of selecting as many of his principal pieces as would fill one volume; leaving the rest to perish by neglect. But this was never executed.

Great part of every summer he passed with his friends in the country, but chiefly with sir John Clerk of Pennycuik, one of the barons of the Exchequer, a gentleman eminent for his learning and taste in the polite arts, and who had known and esteemed Mr. Ramsay from the time of his first appearance. The death of this valuable friend, in 1756, was a great grief to him; which was, however, much alleviated by the continuation of the same friendship in his son and successor, sir James, who, upon Mr. Ram­$ay’s death, which happened Jan, 1, 1758, erected near his seat of Pennycuik, a stately obelisk of hewn stone to his memory, with this inscription:

, son of the preceding, and a distinguished portrait-painter, was born at Edinburgh in 1709, and having devoted himself to painting, went at an early period to study in Italy, where he received some instructions from Solimene, and Imperiali, two artists of great celebrity there. After his return he practised for some time in Edinburgh, but chiefly in London, and acquired a considerable degree of reputation in his profession, and much esteem from all who knew him, as a scholar and a gentleman. By the interest of lord Bute, he was introduced to his present majesty, when prince of Wales, whose portrait he painted both at whole length, and in profile, and both were engraved, the former by the unhappy Ryland, and the latter by Woollett. There are also several jnezzotinto prints after pictures which he painted of some of the principal personages among his countrymen. He practised with success for many years, and, a,t the death of Mr. Shalcelton, in March 1767 was appointed principal painter to the crown, a situation which he retained till his death, though he retired from practice about eight years after his appointment. He visited Rome at four different times, “smit,” as Mr. Fuseli says, “with the love of classic lore, to trace, on dubious vestiges, the haunts of ancient genius and learning.” On his return from his last visit to Italy, in which he was accompanied by his son, the present majorgenral Ramsay, he died a few days after landing at Dover, August 10, 1784.

Mr. Ramsay’s portraits possess a calm representation of nature, that much exceeds the mannered affectation of squareness, which prevailed among his contemporary artists; and it may justly be allowed, that he was among the first of those who contributed to improve the degenerate style of portrait painting. Walpole says, “Reynolds and Ramsay have wanted subjects, not genius.” Mons. Rouquet, in his pamphlet, entitled “The present state of the Arts in England,” published in 1755, mentions Mr. Ramsay as “an able painter, who, acknowledging no other guide than nature, brought a rational taste of resemblance with him from Italy; he shewed even in his portraits, that just, steady spirit, which he so agreeably displays in his conversation.” He was a man of much literary taste, and was the founder of the “Select Society” of Edinburgh in 1754, to which all the eminently learned men of that city belonged, he wrote himself some ingenious pieces- on controverted topics of history, politics, and criticism, published under the title of “Investigator.” He wrote also a pamphlet on the subject of Elizabeth Canning, which attracted much, attention at the time, and was the means of opening the eyes of the public, and even of the judges, to the real truth and explanation of that mysterious event. Mr. Ramsay was a good Latin, French, and Italian scholar, and, like Cato, learned Greek in his old age. He is frequently mentioned by Boswell, as being of Dr. Johnson’s parties, who said of him, “You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance than in Ramsay’s.”

, frequently styled the Chevalier Ramsay, a title by which he frequently signed his letters, was a Scotsman of an ancient family, and was born at Ayr in that kingdom, June 9, 1636. He received the first part of his education at Ayr, and was then removed to Edinburgh; where, distinguishing himself by good parts and uncommon proficiency, he was sent for to St. Andrew’s, in order to attend a son of the earl of Wemyss in that university. After this, he travelled to Holland, and went to Leyden; where, becoming acquainted with Poiret, the mystic divine, he became tinctured with his doctrines; and resolved, for farther satisfaction, to consult the celebrated Fenelon, archbishop of Camhray, who had long imbibed the fundamental principles of that theology. Before he left Scotland, he had conceived a disgust to all the forms of religion in his native country, and had settled in a species of deism, which became confirmed during his abode in Holland, yet not without leaving him sometimes in a considerable state of perplexity. On his arrival at Cambray in 1710, he was received with great kindness by the archbishop, who took him into his family, heard with patience and attention the history of his religious principles, entered heartily with him into a discussion of them, and, in six months’ time, is said to have ^made him as good a catholic as himself.

The subsequent course of his life received its direction from his friendship and connections with this prelate. Feiielon had been preceptor to the duke of Burgundy, heirapparent, after the death of his father the dauphin, to the crown of France; yet neither of them came to the possession of it, being survived by Lewis XIV. who was succeeded by his great grandson, son to the duke of Burgundy, and now Lewis XV. Ramsay, having been first governor to the duke de Charteau-Thiery and the prince de Turenne, was made knight of the order of St. Lazarus; and afterwards was invited to Rome by the chevalier de St. George, styled there James III. king of Great Britain, to take the charge of educating his children. He went accordingly to that court in 1724; but the intrigues and dissentions, which he found on his arrival there, gave him so much uneasiness, that, with the Pretender’s leave, he presently returned to Paris. Thence he returned to Scotland, and was kindly received by the duke of Argyle and Greenwich; in whose family he resided some years, and employed his leisure there in writing several of his works. In 1730 he had the degree of doctor of law conferred on him at Oxford, being admitted for this purpose of St. Mary hall in April of that year, and presented to his degree by the celebrated tory Dr. King, the principal of that house. After his return to France, he resided some time at Pontoise, a seat of the prince de Turenne, duke de Bouillon with whom he continued in the post of intendant till his death, May 6, 1743, at St. Germaiu-en-Laie, where his body was interred; but his heart was deposited in the nunnery of St. Sacrament at Paris.

His works are, 1. “Discours sur le Poeme Epique;” prefixed to the later editions of Telemachus. V 2. “La Vie de Mr. Fenelon,” of which there is an English translation. 3. “Essai sur le Gouvernrnent Civil.” 4. “Le Psychometre, ou Reflexions sur les dirTerens characteres de ressprit, par un Milord Anglois.” These are remarks upon lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristics. 5. “Les Voyages de Cyrus,” in French and English, the only work of his much known in this country. It is a professed imitation of Telemachus, and we can remember was once a very popular book. 6. “L'Histoire de M. de Turenne, in French and English.” 7. “Poems,” somewhat in the mystic and inflated style, printed at Edinburgh, 1728, 4to, seemingly without his knowledge. 8. “Two Letters in French, to M. Racine the son, upon the true sentiments of Mr. Pope, in his Essay on Man.” These were printed after his decease, in “Les Oeuvres de M. Racine le fils,” torn. II. 1747, and form a kind of defence of Pope from the charge of irreiigion in the “Essay.” This is a subject of which the chevalier was perhaps a better judge than of philosophy; for in one of these letters he calls Locke gtnia superfci'el, “a superficial genius.” Two posthumous works of his were also printed at Glasgow: 9. “A plan of education;” and, 10. “Philosophical Principles of natural and revealed Religion, explained and unfolded in a geometrical order,” 1749, 2 vols. 4to, neither of which ever attracted much attention. The last, his French biographers seem to be of opinion, must have been either falsely attributed to him, or much altered by his editors, as he maintains the doctrine of the metempsychosis, and denies the eternity of hell-torments; and not only contends that these were the sentiments of Fenelon, but that they are agreeable to the decisions of the church.

, justly celebrated for his philanthropy, was born July 25, 1733, at Frasersburgh, a small town in the county of Aberdeen, North Britain. From his earliest years he discovered a serious disposition, and a strong thirst for knowledge, and after his grammatical education, was inclined to pursue the studies necessary for a. clergyman; but the narrowness of his circumstances prevented his going to Oxford or Cambridge, where he might be qualified to enter the English church, in the principles of which he had been educated. Yielding therefore to necessity, he resolved to study surgery and pharmacy, and was with this view bound apprentice to Dr. Findlay, a medical practitioner in Frasersburgh. In the mean time, with the approbation of his master, he entered, in 1750, of King’s college, Aberdeen, and having obtained one of the highest bursaries or exhibitions belonging to that seminary, he was enabled to prosecute his studies with comfort, and for three years had Dr. Reid, then one of the professors^ for his preceptor. To that great and amiable philosopher he so recommended himself by his talents, his industry, and his virtues, that he was honoured with his friendship to the day of his death.

In 1755, he went to London, and studied surgery and pharmacy under the auspices of Dr. Macauley; in whose family he lived for two years, much esteemed both by him and his celebrated lady. Afterwards he served in his medical capacity for several years in the royal navy, and by the humane and diligent discharge of his duties, endeared himself to the seamen, and acquired the esteem of his officers. Of his humanity there is indeed one memorable instance, which must not be omitted. Whilst he acted as surgeon of the Arundel, then commanded by captain (afterwards vice-admiral sir Charles) Middleton, a slaveship, on her passage from Africa to the West Indies, fell in with the fleet to which the Arundel belonged. An epidemical distemper, too common in such vessels, had swept away not only a great number of the unfortunate negroes, but also many of the ship’s crew, and among others the surgeon. In this distressed situation the commander of the Guinea ship applied to the English commodore for medical assistance; but not a surgeon or surgeon’s mate in the whole fleet, except Mr. Ramsay, would expose himself to the contagion of so dangerous a distemper. Prompted, however, by his own innate benevolence, and fully authorized by his no less benevolent commander, the surgeon of the Arundel, regardless of personal danger, went on board the infected ship, visited all the patients, and remained long enough to leave behind him written directions for their future treatment. In this enterprise he escaped the contagion, but in his return to his own ship, just as he had got on the deck, he fell, and broke his thigh bone, by which he was confined to his apartment for ten months, and rendered in a small degree lame through the remainder of his life.

The humanity which he displayed on this occasion gained him the friendship and esteem of sir Charles Middleton, which no future action of his life had the smallest tendency to impair; but the fracture of his thigh-bone, and his subsequent lameness, determined him to quit the navy, and once more turn his thoughts towards the church. Accordingly, while the Arundel lay at St. Christopher’s, he opened his views to some of the principal inhabitants of the island, hy whom he was so strongly recommended to the bishop of London, that on his coming home with sir Charles Middleton, who warmly joined in the recommendation, he was admitted into orders; after which he immediately returned to St. Christopher’s,* where he was presented by the governor to two rectories, valued at Too/, a year.

As soon as he had taken possession of his livings, irt 1763, he married Miss Rebecca Akers, the daughter of a planter of the best. family-connexions in the island, and began to regulate his household on the pious plan inculcated in his “Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of the African slaves in the British sugar colonies.” He summoned all his own slaves daily to the prayers of the family, when he took an opportunity of pointing out to them their duty in the plainest terms, reproving those that had done amiss, and commending such as had shewn any thing like virtue: but he confessed that his occasions for reproof were more frequent than for commendation. As became his office and character, he inculcated upon others what he practised himself, and knew to be equally the duty of all. On his first settlement as a minister in the West Indies, he made some public attempts to instruct slaves. He began to draw up some easy plain discourses for their instruction. He invited them to attend on Sundays, at particular hours. He appointed hours at home to instruct such sensible slaves as would of themselves attend. He repeatedly exhorted their masters to encourage such in their attendance, and recommended the French custom, of beginning and ending work by prayer. But inconceivable is the listlessness with which he was heard, and bitter was the censure heaped on him in return. It was quickly suggested, and generally believed, that he wanted to interrupt the work of slaves, to give them- time, forsooth, to say their prayers and that he aimed at the making of them Christians, to render them incapable of being good slaves, &c. That he was hurt by this display of gross ignorance, bigotry, and avarice, cannot be questioned, for he had a mind benevolent, warm, and irritable; but he still retained many friends among the most worthy members of the community.

Although his serious studies were now theological, he considered himself as answerable for a proper use of every branch of knowledge which he possessed. He therefore took the charge of several plantations around him in the capacity of a medical practitioner; and attended them with unremitting diligence, and with great success. Thus he lived till 1777, when, relinquishing the practice of physic entirely, he paid a visit to the place of his nativity, which he had not seen since 1755. After remaining three weeks in Scotland, and near a year in England, during which time he was admitted into the confidence of lord George Germaine, secretary of state for the American department, he was appointed chaplain to admiral Harrington, then going out to take a command in the West Indies. Under this gallant officer, and afterwards under lord Rodney, he was present at several engagements, where he displayed a fortitude and zeal for the honour of his country which would not have disgraced the oldest admiral. To the navy, indeed, he seems to have been strongly attached; and he wrote, at an early period of his life, an “Essay on the Duty and Qualifications of a Sea-officer,” with such a knowledge of the service as would not have discredited the pen of the most experienced commander. Of the first edition of this essay the profits were by its benevolent author appropriated, to the Magdalen and British Lying-in hospitals, as those of the second and third were to the Maritime-school, or, in the event of its failure, to the Marine society.

Although caressed by both the admirals under whom he served, and having such influence with lord Rodney as to be able to render essential services to the Jews and other persons whom he thought harshly treated at the capture of St. Eustatius, Mr. Ramsay once more quitted the sea-service, and retired to his pastoral charge in the island of St. Christopher’s. There, however, though the former animosities against him had entirely subsided, and his friendship was now solicited by every person of consequence in the island, he remained but a little while. Sick of the life of a planter, and of the prospect of the slavery around him, he resigned his livings, bade adieu to the island, and returned to England with his wife and family in the end of 1781. Immediately on his arrival, he was, through the interest of his steady friend sir Charles Middleton, presented to the livings of Teston and Nettlestead in the county of Kent. Here he was soon determined, by the advice of those whom he most respected, to publish what had been written many years before, an “Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies.” The controversy in which this publication involved him, is probably recent in the memory of many of our readers. He defended himself with great ability; but they who could not answer his arguments, could at least invent calumnies: and sorry we are to add, that they were not unsuccessful in removing one powerful advocate for the abolition of that abominable traffic, of which all Europe seems now ashamed. The agitation given to his mind by these calumnies, and the fatigues he underwent in his endeavours to rescue from misery the most helpless portion of the human race, contributed to shorten a life in no common degree useful. He had been for some time afflicted with a pain in his stomach, for which he was prevailed upon, though with great reluctance, to try the effects of air and exercise, by attempting a journey ef 100 miles. But in London, being seized with a violent vomiting of blood, he was unable either to proceed or to be removed home; and in the house of sir Charles Middleton he ended his days, July 20, 1789. He may be justly accounted one of the first and most active of those benevolent men who roused the attention of the nation to the degradation of its character in continuing the slave-trade, although he did not live to witness the completion of his wishes. Hif works, besides those to which we have alluded, consist of a volume of “Sea-Sermons,” preached on board his majesty’s ship the Prince of Wales; a “Treatise on Signals,” and various pamphlets in answer to his opponents on the subject of the slave-trade.

, an excellent optician and mechanist, was born at Halifax, in Yorkshire, in 1735, and after some school-education, served an apprenticeship in his native place to the trade of a hot-presser, after which he came to London, and applied himself to engraving. In the course of this employment, mathematical instruments were often brought to him to be engraved, which induced him to try his genius in that way; and such was his success, that by 1763 he made instruments for several of the best artists. Soon after his coming up to London he married the daughter of Mr. Dollond, the celebrated optician of St. Paul’s church-yard; by which means he was introduced to the knowledge of a profession in which his genius enabled him to excel), and attract the approbation of the public, in the same manner as his private worth endeared him to society. In 1763 or 1764 he opened a shop in the Hay-market; but in 1775 he removed to Piccadilly, where he carried on business till his death.

Mr. Ramsden was chosen a fellow of the royal society in 1786. Being always of a slender frame of body, as well as of delicate constitution, in his latter years his health gradually declined to recruit which he had retired to Brighihelmstone, where he died, Nov.5, 1800.

, or La Ramme'E, a celebrated French mathematician and philosopher, was born in 1515, in a village of Vermandois, in Picardy, of a family so greatly reduced by the ravages of war, that his grandfather, having lost all his possessions, was obliged to turn collier for a livelihood. His father followed husbandry, but appears to have been unable to give any education to this son, whose 4 arly years were spent in mean occupations. At length he obtained the place of servant in the college of Navarre, at Paris, where he picked up the rudiments of learning, and became acquainted with the logic of Aristotle. All his leisure time he devoted to study, so that what is related in the first Scaligerana of his living to nineteen without learning to read, and of his being very dull and stupid, is totally inconsistent with the truth. On the contrary, his talents and perseverance at last procured him to be regularly educated in the college, and having finished classical learning and rhetoric, he went through a course of philosophy, which took him up three years and a half. The thesis which he made for his master’s degree denied the authority of Aristotle, and this he maintained with great ability, and very ingeniously replied to the objections of the professors. This success inclined him to examine the doctrine of Aristotle more closely, and to combat it vigorously: but he confined himself principally to his logic. All this, however, was little less than heresy; and the two first books he published, the one entitled “Institutiones Dialecticae,” the other “Aristotelicse Animadversiones,” so irritated the professors of the university of Paris, that, besides many effusions of spleen and calumny, they prosecuted this anti- peripatetic before the civil magistrate, as a man who was at war with religion and learning. The cause was then carried before the parliament of Paris, but his enemies dreading either the delay or the fairness of a trial there, brought it before the king, Francis I. who ordered that Ramus, and Antony Govea, who was his principal adversary, should chuse two judges each, to pronounce on the controversy after they should have ended their disputation; while he himself appointed an umpire. Ramus, in obedience to the king’s orders, appeared before the five judges, though three of them were his declared enemies. The dispute lasted two days; and Govea had all the advantage he could desire, Ramus’s books being prohibited in all parts of the kingdom, and their author sentenced not to write or teach philosophy any longer. This sentence, which elated his enemies beyond all bounds of moderation, was published in Latin and French in all the streets of Paris, and in all parts of Europe, whither it could be sent. Plays were acted with great pomp, in which Ramus was ridiculed in various ways amidst the applauses and acclamations of the Aristotelians. This happened in 1543. The year after, the plague made great havoc in Paris, and forced most of the students to quit the university, and cut off several of the professors. On their return, Ramus, being prevailed upon to teach in it, soon drew together a great number of auditors, and through the patronage and protection of the cardinal of Lorrain he obtained in 1547 from Henry II. the liberty of speaking and writing, and the royal professorship of philosophy aad eloquence in 1551. The parliament of Paris had, before this, maintained him in the liberty of joining philosophical lectures to those of eloquence; and this arret or decree had put an end to several prosecutions, which Ramus and his pupils had suffered. As soon as he was made regius professor, he was fired with new zeal for improving the sciences; and was extremely laborious and active on this occasion, notwithstanding the machinations of his enemies. He bore at that time a part in a very singular aflair, which deserves to be mentioned. About 1550 the royal professors corrected, among other abuses, that which had crept into the pronunciation of the Latin tongue. Some of the clergy followed this regulation; but the Sorbonnists were much offended at it as an innovation, and defended the old pronunciation with great zeal. Things at length were carried so far, that a clergyman who had a good living was ejected from his benefice for having pronounced qm’squis, quanquaw, according to the new way, instead of kiskis, kankam, according to the old. The clergyman applied to the parliament; and the royal professors, with Ramus among them, fearing he would fall a victim to the credit and authority of the faculty of divines, for presuming to pronounce the Latin tongue according to their regulations, thought it incumbent on them to assist him. Accordingly they went to the court of justice, and represented in such strong terms the indignity of the prosecution, that the person accused was acquitted, and the pronunciation of Latin recovered its liberty.

Ramus was bred up in the catholic religion, but afterwards deserted it, and began to discover his new principles in 1552, by removing the images from the chapel of his college. This naturally increased the number as well as bigotry of his enemies, who now succeeded in compelling him to leave the university. He still appears to have had a friend in the king, who gave him leave to retire to Fontainbleau; where, by the help of books in the royal library, he pursued geometrical and astronomical studies. As soon as his enemies knew where he was, he found himself nowhere safe; so that he was forced to go and conceal himself in several other places. During this interval the excellent and curious collection of books he had left in the college was plundered; but, after a peace was concluded in 1563, between Charles IX. and the protestauts, he again took possession of his employment, maintained himself in it with vigour, and was particularly zealous in promoting the study of the mathematics. This lasted till the second civil war in 1567, when he was forced to leave Paris and shelter himself among the protestants, in whose army he was at the battle of St. Denys. Peace having been concluded some months after, he was restored to his professorship; but, foreseeing that the war would soon break out again, he obtained the king’s leave to visit the universities of Germany. He accordingly undertook this journey in 1568, and received much respect and great honours wherever he came. He returned to France after the third war in 1571; and lost his life miserably, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day, 1572. Charpentaire, a professor of mathematics, who had been eclipsed by the superior talents of Ramus, seized the opportunity of being revenged upon his rival, and employed assassins to murder him. Ramus gave them money in order to procure his escape, but in vain; for, after wounding him in many places, they threw him out of a window; and, his bowels gushing out in the fall, some Aristotelian scholars, encouraged by their masters, spread them about the streets; then dragged his body in a most ignominious manner, and threw it into the Seine.

Ramus was a man of eloquence, and of universal learning. He was free from avarice, sober, temperate, and chaste. His temperance was very exemplary. He contented himself with only boiled meat, and ate but little at dinner: he drank no wine for twenty years, nor then until his physicians prescribed it. He lay upon straw; used to rise very early, and to study all day; and led a single life with the utmost purity. He was zealous for the protestant religion, but was at the same time an advocate for introducing a democratical government in the church; which design was defeated in a national synod.

Few persons in the present day will be inclined to doubt whether Ramus did right in attempting to undermine the foundations of that authority which Aristotle had so long possessed in the schools; and no one who will take the trouble to examine the manner in which he laid open the defects and inconsistencies of the Organ on, will hesitate in allowing him considerable merit in this part of his design. In attempting a new logical institute, Ramus was not, however, equally successful. The general outline of his plan, according to Brucker, is this: " Considering dialectics as the art of deducing conclusions from premises, he endeavours to improve this art by uniting it with that of rhetoric. Of the several branches of rhetoric, he considers invention and disposition as belonging equally to logic. Making Cicero his chief guide, he divides his treatise on dialectics into two parts, the first of which treats of the invention of arguments, the second, of judgments. Arguments he derives not only from what the Aristotelians call middle terms, but from any kind of proposition, which, connected with another, may serve to prove any assertion. Of these he enumerates various kinds. Judgments he divides into axioms, or self-evident propositions, and dianoea, or deductions by means of a series of arguments. Both these he divides into various classes; and illustrates the whole by examples from the ancient orators and poets.

In the logic of Ramus many things are borrowed from Aristotle, and only appear under new names; and many others are derived from other Grecian sources, particularly from the dialogues of Plato and the logic of the Stoics. The author has the merit of turning the art of reasoning from the futile speculations of the schools to forensic and common use; but his plan is defective in confining the whole dialectic art to the single object of disputation, and in omitting many things which respect the general culture of the understanding, and the investigation of truth. Notwithstanding the defects of his system, we cannot, however, subscribe to the severe censure which has been passed upon Ramus by lord Bacon and others; for much is, we think, due to him, for having with so much firmness and perseverance asserted the natural freedom of the human understanding. The logic of Ramus obtained great authority in the schools of Germany, Great Britain, Holland, and France; and long and violent contests arose between the followers of Ramus and those of the Stagyrite. These were not, however, sufficiently important in their consequences to require a distinct relation, and the fame of Peter Ramus vanished b.efore that of Des Cartes. He published a great many books: the principal of those on mathematics are, 1. “Scholarum Mathematicarum libri 31.” 2. “Arithmeticae libri duo; Algebrae libri duo; Geometriae libri 27.” These were greatly enlarged and explained by Schoner, and published in 2 volumes 4to, and there were several editions of them. The geometry, which is chiefly practical, was translated into English by William Bedwell, and published at London, 1636, in 4to. He published also a singular work, Paris 1558, 4to, the 15 books of Euclid, containing only the definitions and general enunciations of the propositions, without diagrams or demonstrations, which he thinks it better for the teacher to suppress.

, a valuable collector of voyages and travels, the son of Paul Ramusio, a lawyer, was born at Venice in 1486. He made great proficiency in his classical and philosophical studies, but had a particular turn for politics, and was thought so accomplished in the knowledge of public affairs, that he was frequently deputed by the state to Switzerland, Rome, and France. He was also made secretary of the council of ten at Venice, and was for forty-three years more or less employed in that post, or in embassies. When old and infirm, he retired to Padua, where he died in July 1557, in the seventy- second year of his age. His principal work was entitled “Raccolta delleNavigazioni e de Viaggi,” and was published at different periods in three volumes folio. Of this valuable work complete copies are not easily to be met with. Brunei recommends the following selection as forming the best copy: vol. I. of the edition 1563 or 1588; vol. II. of 1583, and vol.111, of 1565. To this last volume should be added the supplement to the edition of 1606, p. 386—430, which contains “Viaggio di M. Cesare de Fredrici nelP Inclia-Orientale.”

, the celebrated abbe and reformer of the monastery of La Trappe, was born January 9, 1626, at Paris. He was nephew of Claudius le Bouthillier de Chavigny, secretary of state, and superintendant of the finances. In classical learning he made so rapid a progress that, with some direction from his tutor, he published, at the age of twelve or thirteen years, a new edition of “Anacreon,” in Greek, with notes, 1639, 8vo. This curious volume, which was dedicated to his godfather Cardinal Richelieu, was reprinted in 1647, and both editions are now scarce. At ten years old, according to the absurd custom then prevalent, he was appointed canon of Notre Dame in Paris, and became possessed of several benefices in a short time. He afterwards took a doctor of divinity’s degree in the Sorbonne, February 10, 1654, and appearing then in a public character, soon became distinguished not only for taste and politeness, but for those amiable qualifications which are of use in society. He was not however without his frailties, and it is said that he refused the bishopric of Leon from a motive of vanity. He was then appointed almoner to the duke of Orleans, and made a shining figure in the assembly of the clergy in 1655, as deputy from the second order. At length becoming conscious how little splendour and preeminence avail to happiness, he bad adieu to all, and devoted his days to religious exercises. It has been said, that this resolution was the consequence of a visit he paid to a favourite lady, from whom he had been absent for some time, and whom on entering her apartment he found dead in her coffin, and frightfully disfigured with the smallpox. This anecdote is taken from “Les veritables Motifs de la Conversion de l'abbé de la Trappe,” published by Daniel de la Roque, Cologn, 1685, 12mo; but some of his biographers treat it as fabulous. One of them, Marsollier, with greater appearance of probability, attributes his conversion to his having narrowly escaped being killed by the ball of a firelock, which struck his gibeciere, or pouch, on which he immediately exclaimed, “Alas! where should I have been, had not my God had compassion on me.” Whichever of these incidents was the cause, it is certain that he retired from the world, and refused even to be assistant to his uncle, who was archbishop of Tours. He then founded a monastery, the fraternity belonging to which practise the utmost self-denial. Their diet is merely vegetable. They allow not themselves wine, flesh, fish, nor eggs; they enter into no conversation with strangers, and for some days are wholly silent. They have each a separate cell, and used to pass some part of every day in digging their own graves in the garden of the convent. De Ranee placed this new establishment of the monks of La Trappe in the hands of the fathers of the strict Cistertian observance. He also sold his estate at Veret for 100,000 crowns, which sum he gave to the H6tel Dieu at Paris, and took the monastic habit in the abbey of Notre Dame de Perseigne, where he made profession, June 6,1664. He afterwards took possession of the abbey de la Trappe, and introduced those regulations above mentioned, which long made it the admiration of all travellers. In this retreat he lived devoted to his austere observances, until 1695, when he died on his straw pallet, in presence of the bishop of Seez, and the whole community, October 26, 1700, aged 74, leaving many pious works; among which the principal are, a book “de la Saintété des Devoirs de l'Etat monastique,” 1683, 2 vols. 4to “Eclaircissemens sur ce Livre,” 1685, 4to; “Explication sur la Regie de S. BenoSt,” 12mo; “lieflexions morales sur les quatre Evangiies,” 4 vols. 12mo; “Conferences sur les Evangiies,” 4 vols. 12mo “Instructions et Maximes,” 12mo; “Concluite Chretienue,” written for Mad. de Guise, 12mo; a greafnumber of “Spiritual Letters,” 2 vols. 12 mo; “Accounts of the Lives and Deaths of some Monks of la Trappe,” 4 vols. 12tno, continued to 6 vols.; lastly, “The Constitutions and Rules of the Abbe of la Trappe,” 1701, 2 vols. 12mo. His life has been written by several Romish authors, particularly by M. de Maupeou, M, Marsollier, and Le Nain, brother of M. de Tillemont, 2 vols. 12mo.

, a native of Perigueux, or, according to Menage, of Bourdeaux, was the son of an advocate in the last mentioned city. He was well skilled in the Roman law, philosophy, mathematics, and antiquities; and was appointed president of the parliament of Paris, after having been counsellor to that of Bourdeaux. His mode of life was singular. He seldom read in the daytime; but used to take a light supper, go to rest early, and rise, after his first sleep, about the time that the monks say matins; then, covering his head like a capuchin, he spent four hours in study, and, going to bed again, finished, after a quiet sleep, what he had meditated upon during the night. By this plan, he used to say that the most rapid progress might be made in learning. He was an excellent Greek and Latin scholar; and, if we may believe M. Pithou, it was be who composed the Dictionary which goes under the name of Charles Stephens. Pithou adds, that, when cardinal de Lorraine assembled the parliament of Paris to take their advice as to the punishment of heretics, Ranconet was so imprudent as to read that passage in which Sulpitius Severus touches upon the execution of Priscillian; and the cardinal being displeased, sent him to the Bastille, where he died of grief, 1558, aged above 60. Others say that Ranconet’s confinement proceeded from his having been falsely accused of a capital crime. He left in ms. “Le Tresor de la Langue Franchise, taut ancienne que nioderne;” which was the foundation of the Dictionaries of Nicot and Monet.

, an English divine, was born at Missenden in Buckinghamshire, and sent very young to Sr. Mary Hall, Oxford, in 1581, whence he removed to Trinity college, and took his degree of bachelor of arts. In July 1587, he was chosen to a fellowship of Lincoln college, and in 1589 proceeded in the degree of master of arts. About this time he was ordained, and became one of the most noted preachers in the university. In 1598, he was admitted bachelor of divinity, and the year after resigned his fellowship, and was presented to the rectory of St. Andrew Hubbard, in East-cheap, London. Here, Antony Wood informs us, “after some time, he became so great a labourer in God’s vineyard by his frequent and constant work in the ministry, as well in resolving of doubts and cases of conscience as in preaching and lecturing, that he went beyond his brethren in that city, to the wonder of all.” Wood adds that this was the more wonderful, as he was a great sufferer by sickness; and that he was “accounted a judicious, orthodox, and holy man, and by some a zealous and innocent puritan, of a harmless life and conversation, and one that was solely framed to do good acts.” He died in June 1622, aged about fifty- four, and was buried in his church. By his will he left a tenement situated in St. Mary ­Hall-Iane, to Lincoln college. Besides some single sermons, and a collection of “Eleven Sermons on Romans viii.” London, 1623, he was the author of the following posthumous works: 1. “The great Mystery of Godliness,” 1624, 4to; and 1640, third edition. 2. “Treatise concerning the Sacraments,” 1630, 4to. 3. “Catechistical Lectures upon the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper,” 1630, 4to. 4. “Nine-and-twenty Lectures of the Church, for the support of the same in these times,” ibid. 1631, 4to.

, music professor in the university of Cambridge, was probably a native of London, where he was born in 1715. He was brought up in the king’s chapel, and was one of the children of that choir who first performed in Handel’s oratorio of Esther, at the house of Bernard Gates, master of the boys in James-street, Westminster, on Wednesday, February 23, 1731, when it was performed in action, previous to its having been heard in public, or any where but at Cannons, the magnificent seat of the duke of Chandos, for whose chapel it was composed in 1720. Dr. Randal was never rated very high in his profession, but was regarded as a slight organ-player, and had never distinguished himself as a composer. He obtained his degree at the installation of the duke of Grafton in the university of Cambridge, for which he composed the ode written by Gray. To the astonishment of all the musical profession, he undertook to have this composition performed by the musicians resident in the university, without the expence of additional hands and voices from London, as Drs. Greens and Boyce had thought necessary on former occasions at Cambridge, and Dr. William Hayes at Oxford. As Dr. Randal’s professional life was unmarked by talents, his death, which happened March 18, 1799, in the eightyfourth year of his age, was hardly noticed, except by the candidates for the professorship, and his organist’s places.

, a statesman in queen Elizabeth’s reign, the son of Avery Randolph of Badlesmere in Kent, was born in that county in 1523. He was, according to his own account, a pupil of George Buchanan, but had his academical education at Christ Church, Oxford, then newly founded; where he took the degree of bachelor of law in 1547, about which time he was made a public notary. In Nov. 1549, he became principal of Broadgatehall (now Pembroke college), and continued in that office until 1553, when the persecution of the protestants under queen Mary, obliged him to retire to France. On the accession of queen Elizabeth, he came into high favour, and his talents recommended him to be employed in various embassies, particularly in Scotland during the commotions there: he was sent thrice to queen Mary, and afterwards seven times to her son and successor James VI. We find him also several times supporting the same character at the courts of Russia and France. Eiis first mission to Scotland, in 1561, had for its professed object to promote a mutual friendship between the two nations, and to endeavour that queen Mary, who hadj ust lost her husband, Francis II. king of France, should not again marry a foreigner; but according to Sir James Melvil and others, his real business was to intrigue between the two parties which then divided Scotland, and rather to increase than allay their animosities. In this plan secretary Cecil was supposed to be the director, and Randolph the executor. By a letter published by Mr. Lodge, who says that Randolph was a man of “a dark intriguing spirit, full of cunning, and void of conscience,” we learn that at one time he was confined in prison at Edinburgh; but probably for a short time, as the circumstance is not mentioned in any history. In Russia, to which he was sent in 1560, his conduct merits greater approbation, as in the following year, he brought to conclusion a commercial treaty highly advantageous to the English merchants, who were then enabled to establish the “Russia Company.” His secretary on this embassy was George Turberville the poet, who has described the manners and customs of the Moscovites in some epistles to his friends, which are inserted in Hakluyt’s voyages. In 1571, during one of his embassies to Scotland, he had the spirit to challenge Virac, the French ambassador in that kingdom, who had taken some liberties with queen Elizabeth’s character and with his own. For all these services the queen is accused of having rewarded Mr. Randolph rather niggardly, having bestowed on him only the order of knighthood, the office of chamberlain of the exchequer, and that of postmaster, to neither of which last was much profit annexed, and a few small estates. Yet with these he is said to have been content, although he had a large family. He died at his house on St. Peter’s hill, near Thames-street, London, June 8, 1590, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, and was buried in the church of St. Peter, Paul’s wharf. In his latter days he appears to have lived retired, “setting his mind,” as he expresses it, “upon the heavenly country, and reconciling himself to the divine mercy by a timely repentance.” Such likewise is the advice he gave to sir Francis Walsingham, whose sister he had married. He tells him, “how worthy. yea, how necessary a thing it was, that they should at length bid farewell to the tricks, he of a secretary, and himself of an ambassador.” Several of his letters and dispatches are in the Cotton collection in the British Museum, and among bishop More’s books in the public library at Cambridge. Two of his letters were published by James Oliphant, among Buchanan’s Letters, 1711, 8vo, and have been inserted since in the Leyden and Edinburgh edition of Buchanan’s works, one to Buchanan himself, and the ether to Peter Yonge, school- master to James VI. There are also some of his letters, instructions, and dispatches, printed in Strype’s “Annals,” Goodall’s “Examination of the Letters said to be written by Mary queen of Scots,” and in Robertson’s History of Scotland," &C.

, an English poet, was the son of a steward to Edward lord Zouch, and born in Northamptonshire (Wood says, at Newnham, nearDaintry; Langbaine,atHoughton) June 15, 1605. He was educated at Westminster-school, whence, being a king’s scholar, he was elected to Trinity college,Cambridge, in 1623. Here he obtained a fellowship, and afterwards commenced master of arts, in which degree he was incorporated at Oxford. Very early in life he gave proofs of good talents, and was not only esteemed and admired by the learned at the university, but grew in equal favour with the wits and poets of the metropolis. His learning, gaiety of humour, and readiness of repartee, gained him admirers, procured him admission in all companies, and especially recommended him to the intimacy and friendship of Ben Jonson, who admitted him as one of his adopted sons in the Muses, and held him in equal esteem with Cartwright.

As a dramatic writer, his turn was entirely to comedy; and Baker pronounces his language elegant, and his sentiments just and forcible; his characters for the most part, strongly drawn, and his satire well chosen and poignant; and this critic also recommended the altering his pieces, so as to render them fit for the present stage, or at the least giving the world a correct and critical edition of them.

The dramatic pieces he has left behind him, five in number, were published in 1638, by his brother, Mr. Thomas Randolph, of Christ-church college, Oxford, along with his poems, some of which have considerable merit. Of his dramatic pieces, the “Muses’ Looking-glass” is the most generally admired; in it there is great variety of characters of the passions and vices, drawn with much truth, and interspersed with many strokes of natural humour. A late critic thinks he has discovered in it the ground-work of the “Rehearsal,” and similar satires. “The Looking-Glass” was about fifty years ago revived at Covent-garden theatre, and is reprinted in Dodsley’s Collection of Old Plays. Had Randolph lived, it is thought he would have produced many more valuable pieces; hut, as Antony Wood says, being somewhat addicted to libertine indulgences, in consequence of keeping too much company, and running into fashionable excesses with greater freedom than his constitution could bear, he assisted in shortening his own days, and died March 17, 1634, before he had completed the age of twenty-nine years, at the house of William Stafford, esq. of Blatherwyke in Northamptonshire. He was buried, with the ancestors of the family of Stafford, in an aile adjoining to the church of that place, soon after which a monument of white marble was erected over his grave, at the charge of sir Christopher (afterwards lord) Hatton, of Kirby, with an inscription upon it, in Latin and English verse, written by our author’s intimate friend Peter Hausted.

, archdeacon of Oxford, and president of Corpus Christi college, the son of Herbert Randolph, esq. recorder of the city of Canterbury, was born August 30, 1701. He received his school education at the king’s school in Canterbury, then in great repute, under the rev. Mr. Jones. At the early age of fourteen, being then a good proficient in classical learning, he was elected into a county scholarship in Corpus Christi college, Oxford. There he entered upon a course of academical studies under the tuition of the rev. Mr. Smith, in which, as well in his whole conduct, he acquitted himself to the great satisfaction of those who were set over him; having in view throughout the sacred profession, td which he had been destined from his early youth. He proceeded regularly through the degree of B. A. to that of M. A. the latter in 1722. In 1724 he was ordained deacon, and in the following year priest. At the same time he entered upon the duty of his profession, and undertook a cure at such a moderate distance from the university, as that he might discharge the duties of it, and not be obliged to give up his residence, and the farther prosecution of his studies there. This course of life he continued for a few years, and then returned to a more strict residence in the university; nor was he intent on his own improvement only, but occasionally took part in the education of others, and in the government of his college, in which he succeeded to a fellowship in 1723. He took the degree of B. D. in 1730, and that of D. D. in 1735. In the mean time his reputation as an able divine introduced him to the notice of Dr. Potter, then bishop of Oxford, who soon after his translation to Canterbury, collated him to the united vicarages of Perhatn and Waltham in Kent. He also shortly after recommended him to Dr. Rye, regius professor of divinity, as a person (it to act as his deputy, who appointed him accordingly. This appointment will appear the more honourable, as the divinity disputations are esteemed a trial of the skill and learning of the senior part of the university; and Dr. Randolph acquitted himself in such a manner, that on a vacancy for the professorship in 1741, his friends thought him amply qualified to succeed but on this occasion the superior interest of Dr. Fanshaw carried the election; and Dr. Randolph retired to his living of Perham.

About this time several bold and artful attacks were made upon the Christian religion, which drew forth many able answers from the divines of the church of England. Amongst other works published in favour of deism and infidelity, was that entitled “Christianity not founded on Argument;” which, from the singularity of its positions, attracted much notice. Dr. Randolph was encouraged by his patron, archbishop Potter, to try his strength ill controversy in answer to this plausible writer; nor was the archbishop disappointed in the hopes he might form: Dr. Randolph’s answer, entitled “The Christian’s Faith a rational assent,” 1744, was considered as a truly valuable acquisition, and met with a most favourable reception.

The archbishop, still continuing his patronage to Dr. Randolph, collated him, in 1746, to the rectory of Saltwood, with the chapel of Hythe annexed; his residence, however, still continued at Perham, until he was elected, without his knowledge, or any communication with th e electors, to be president of Corpus Christ! college. This election, which took place April 23, 1748, enabled him to devote the remainder of his life to the place of his education, and the scene of his growing reputation. Oxford became now the principal place of his residence; and the government of his college, and a share in that of the university, his chief employment and concern. Yet having naturally an active mind, and being ever vigilant and attentive to all the duties of his station, much of his time was still devoted to religious studies, which he considered as included in the proper duties of his station, and as their highest aim. Many of his sermons preached before the university were printed by request, and his larger work upon “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” in answer to “The Essay on Spirit,” was published in 1753, and 1754. From 1756 to 1759 he held the office of vice-chancellor, in which he was allowed on all hands to have conducted himself with temper and ability, at a time when disputes ran high, and the business of the university was more than common; the Vinerian statutes having been settled, and the delegacy of the press reformed, during that period. These several labours were so well received by the university, that in 1768 he was unanimously elected to the Margaret professorship of divinity on the death of Dr. Jenner. In the preceding year he had been promoted to the archdeaconry of Oxford on the resignation of Dr. Potter: which promotion took place by the recommendation of archbishop Seeker, accepted and confirmed by bishop Lowth, then bishop of Oxford; and may be 'considered as a testimony borne by those eminent prelates to his merit and character. From this time to that of his death he was again frequently engaged in controversy. The questions now agitated were chiefly, that of subscription to articles of faith, and that of the doctrine of the Trinity revived by Mr. Lindsey, and his followers. On these he published several tracts, and also occasionally gave his assistance to others engaged in the same cause. Bodily infirmities he was subject to for many years before his death, but the faculties of his mind were sound and unimpaired to the very last. Within the last year of his life he finished and published a work, which he had prepared some time before, on the “Citations from the Old Testament in the New.” Repeated attacks at length brought him to a state of weakness, under which he laboured for three months, and died March 24, 17 S3. He was buried in Corpus Christi cloister, where a monument is erected to his memory.

Dr. Randolph’s whole attention was confined to his profession, and his station in the university. Being convinced that the province allotted to him, if its duties were faithfully discharged, was sufficient for his own employment, and for the rendering him an useful member of society, he was not disposed to wander beyond it. He was a zealous supporter of the doctrines of the church of England, from a conviction that they were those of the religion of Christ. It has sometimes been invidiously urged by the enemies of our religious establishment, who with great professions of liberality are by no means scrupulous of the terms in which they speak of the doctrines, discipline, or members of our church, that its supporters act from interested views. In answer to this charge thrown out against himself in common with others, Dr. Randolph says, in a preface to an intended work, “One of these writers is now near fourscore years of age, who neither hopes for, nor will solicit for any thing farther in this world: he fights under no banner but that of his Lord and Saviour, from whom alone he expects his reward.”

In 1784, a collection of the most valuable of Dr. Randolph’s works was published, under the title of “A View of our blessed Saviour’s Ministry, and the proofs of his divine mission arising from thence; together with a charge, dissertations, sermons, and theological lectures,” 2 vols. 8vo. To this is prefixed an account of his life, of which we have availed ourselves in the present sketch.

, the late bishop of London, was the younger son of the preceding, and was born July 6, 1749. He became a student of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, and took his degrees at the usual periods that of M. A. in 1774; B. D. in 1782 D. D. by diploma, in 1783. In 1776 he was appointed prselector of poetry, and in 1782 regius professor of Greek. In the same year he was presented to a prebend of Salisbury; and in 1783 became canon of Christ church, regius professor of divinity, and rector of Ewelnoe. In the year 1799 he was elevated to the bishopric of Oxford; translated to that of Bangor in 1807; and thence to London in 1809. He was elected F. R. S. in 1811. He passed a great part of his life in the university of Oxford, and it was generally believed that when he was raised to the see of Oxford, the university was complimented with the nomination by the crown. His lordship was author of many single sermons, and charges delivered on different occasions: also of “De Grsecae Linguae Studio Prselectio habita in Schola Linguarum,” 1783, and “Concio ad Clerum in Synodo Provinciali Cantuariensis Provincial ad D. Pauli,” 1790. One of his last works was a report of the progress made by the National School Society, to which the general committee referred in terms of gratitude, at their first meeting after his lordship’s decease. They notice his lordship as one “whose latest employment had been to state, for the information qf the public, the progress of a work to which he had contributed his time, his labour, and his counsels. The committee therefore could not fail to entertain a common sentiment of profound regret for the loss which they have sustained, and to cherish in their minds the liveliest recollection of the service which has been so successfully fulfilled by him in this second report. They wish, therefore, to add to this document, designed for general circulation, their sense of what is due from the public, and themselves, to the. memory of one who was a constant and assiduous promoter of this salutary institution, from its first establishment to the last hour of his life. The committee trust, that this testimony, though limited to a single object in the large field of pastoral duty in which he was incessantly engaged, may serve to denote the benefits which have resulted from his prompt, unwearied, and effectual exertions.” The following is the character drawn of him by Mr. archdeacon Jefferson, and which alludes to his zeal for the church, of which he was an active member: “Fearless now of being censured for mercenary adulation, or reproved by unconscious merit, a just tribute may be paid to the character of that departed and exalted prelate, who is, and will be, most lamented where he was best and most entirely known. This opportunity, therefore, is willingly embraced of offering a heartfelt condolence to the ministry of the diocese on the affecting and important loss, which, in these perilous times of contending sects and unsettled opinion, has arisen to them, and to the church: To them, in the premature privation of a diocesan, firm in his support of ecclesiastical authority, but considerate in its application; eminently versed in the letter of ecclesiastical law, but liberal in its practical construction, reluctant in interference, but determined in duty, slow in the profes-. sion of service, but prompt in its execution; disinterested, in patronage, unwavering in measures, correct in judgment, attentive in council, and kind and compassionate to distress: To the church, in the premature privation of a father, diligent in her rites and services, but unostentatious in piety and devotion; sound and unrelaxing in her doctrines and faith, but discreet in zeal, and comprehensive in charity; ever vigilant in defending her interests, ever forward in asserting her privileges, and ever able in the assertion and the defence.” This high character, how-, ever, has been thought capable of abatement. It was perhaps unfortunate that he succeeded a prelate of the mild and conciliating temper of Dr. Porteus, and that he undertook the government of a diocese, which, above all others, requires such a temper. It was, perhaps, not less unfortunate that in his first charge to the clergy of this diocese, he betrayed no little ignorance of the state of religious opinions, and the creeds of those sectaries against whom he wished to warn his clergy.

Bishop Randolph died suddenly on the 28th of July, 1813. He was one of the governors of the Charter-house; trustee of the British Museum; dean of the Chapel royal; visitor of Sion college; and provincial dean of Canterbury.

, or Raffaello, whose family name was Sanzio, was born in the city of Urbino, March 28, 1483. He was the only child of John Sanzio, a painter, who, though of no great professional celebrity, encouraged his son’s inclination for the art, and after having taught him what he could, had the good sense and diffidence in his own talents, to place him under the care of Peter Perugino, when in his thirteenth year. Perugino, who, from his style of design, pronounced that he would be a great man, regarded him with peculiar affection, and Raphael, during the three years that he remained with this artist, so perfectly adopted his manner, that his works were not to be distinguished from those of his master; which was so far from creating any jealousy in the mind of the latter, that on the return of Raphael to Perugia, after his visit to Florence, he was the first to admire his works and proclaim his improvement.

In 1499, at the age of sixteen, Raphael left Perugia, and went with Pinturicchio to Siena, to assist him in painting for the library of the cathedral, the history of Pius II. which was executed in ten large pictures, of which Raphael made the greater part, if not all the designs, and assisted in painting them. Before this work was completed, he left Siena, probably about 1502, to pursue his studies at Florence, where the great names of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo flourished with rival pre-eminence, and where he immediately became conscious of the inferiority of the style which he had been taught and practised. Here he acquired the esteem of some persons of eminence, and pursued his studies with avidity until 1504, when he was obliged to visit Urbino to arrange some domestic affairs, and at intervals painted four small pictures for the duke of Urbino, which were much esteemed. He then went to Perugia to paint several pictures for the convents, which were all so much admired, that commissions pressed upon him; but his desire to return to Florence made him leave one which was begun in fresco for the monastery of St. Severo, to be terminated by his old master Perugino.

In Florence he again pursued his studies with unremitting assiduity; and the Brancacci and Corsini chapels in the church of the Carmelites, painted by Masaccio, were his favourite school; but of living artists there was no one to whom he was so much attached as Fra. Bartolomeo, by whose instruction and example he improved himself in colouring, and the principles of chiaroscuro; and in return he gave his friend some information in perspective. The work to which his mind was at this time particularly directed, was a cartoon for a picture, which, when he left Perugia, he engaged to paint for the church of St. Francis. This picture, which represents the body of Christ borne to, the sepulchre, he afterwards painted in Perugia, and it obtained so much credit, that his professional rank was from that time decidedly established. It shewed the advantages he had acquired by study, and the benefit he derived from the friendship of Fra. Bartolomeo; for this was the first step he had taken to overcome the restraints of his previous education. When the picture was finished he again returned to Florence; was much sought after by men of taste, and with accumulated reputation his fame soon extended itself to the Vatican. Julius II. was then pope, a great patron of the arts, and having heard of Raphael, invited him to Rome in 1508, and received him. with the most flattering marks of distinction. Here being immediately commissioned to paint one of the state chambers of the Vatican, which the pope was then ornamenting with great taste and splendour, Raphael executed his “School of Athens,” which gave such entire satisfaction to the pope, that all the pictures by the various masters already painted in the different rooms, were ordered to be effaced, and the walls prepared to transmit to posterity his own unrivalted genius. The only work preserved from this general destruction was the ceiling of one of these rooms, the fourth in the suite, which had been painted by Perugino, and was saved at Raphael’s intercession. So amiable a trait of character ought not to be forgotten.

This extensive undertaking, which it was for Raphael alone to plan and execute, he appears to have formed into one general design to shew the triumph of the Christian religion (in the catholic form), its divine authority, and the dependence of human laws on its pervading influence. But whether in this arrangement there was any refined system of metaphysics, intending to conduct man from a savage state by the paths of religion and philosophy to a more intimate union with the great first cause, must now be left to fanciful theorists, as neither the painter nor his contemporaries have left us any written data for speculation. Of these rooms, which, in honour of his name, are called the Stanze of Raphael, the first is a grand saloon dedicated to the emperor Constantine, in which are represented four principal events in his reign. The second stanza exhibits four extraordinary miracles, two from sacred history, and two from the legends of the church. The third stanza is dedicated to those branches of knowledge that serve most to elevate the human mind, and dignify our nature in the rank of created beings, of which the principal subjects are poetry, philosophy, jurisprudence, and theology. The subjects of the fourth stanza are two kistorical, from the life of Leo III.; and two miraculous, from the life of Leo IV. These are all supposed to have been executed before 1517, and, with smaller pictures on the ceilings of the second and third stanza, are all designed by Raphael, and painted in fresco by himself, his scholars and assistants; and. three centuries of unsuccessful emulation have already made their eulogium.

Although we see in these the aggregate of his powers in poetical conception and execution, this extraordinary exhibition of talent is not likely at the first view to be impressive to a general observer. Even sir Joshua Reynolds has recorded his disappointment, and the causes of it, but he also records the way in which his prejudices were at length removed, and himself compelled to acknowledge that he had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world.

On the death of Julius II. in 1513, Raphael was honoured with the same favour and esteem by his successor Leo X. under whose patronage he continued the great work of the stanze. He painted also in the Vatican in chiaroscuro twelve whole-length figures of the apostles, but which, from various causes, have been since destroyed; and he made designs to ornament one of the arcades in the grand cortile of the palace, now called the loggia, consisting of fifty-two historical subjects from the Bible, and arabesque decorations, which were all painted by his scholars, or with exceptions too doubtful and uncertain to identify any particular part to be of his own hand. For this pontiff he also made a series of large historical cartoons from the sacred writings, representing in thirteen compositions the origin and progress of the Christian religion, to be executed in tapestry, intended as an additional decoration for the hall of Constantine. Seven of these cartoons, from the concurrence of fortunate circumstances, are now in the collection of his Britannic majesty; but the others were most probably mutilated or lost, and the tapestries themselves were dispersed when the Vatican palace was sacked by the French in 1798.

Raphael, though possessing pre-eminent powers as a painter, had not suffered that profession alone to absorb his mind; he had studied architecture under Bramante, and in chastity of design was not inferior to that distinguished artist, who in full confidence of his abilities, recommended him as his successor, to conduct the great work of St. Peter’s, to which recommendation his holiness paid due attention. According to the pope’s brief on this occasion, dated August 1515, his salary was fixed at three hundred golden crowns, or 150l. per annum. For so important an undertaking this sum would seem to be a very inadequate remuneration but, as his biographer observes, in our own country, one hundred and sixty years subsequent to this period, sir Christopher Wren did not receive more than 200l. per annum, for the building of St. Paul’s, which included draughts, models, making estimates and contracts, examining and adjusting all bills and accounts, with constant personal superintendance, and giving instructions to the artificers in every department. St. Peter’s, which cost more than a century to complete, underwent so many changes by the various architects employed, that it would be now extremely difficult to particularize with any degree of certainty the different parts of it which were executed by Raphael. It appears, however, that it is to him we are indebted for the general plan of the church as it now exists. In 1515, Raphael went with the pope to Florence, and made a design for the facade of the church of St. Lorenzo: and, according to Vasari, he was also the architect of a magnificent house for the bishop of Troja, which still exists in the street of St. Gallo in that city; but of the different buildings designed or executed by Raphael, that on which his reputation as an artist is thought principally to rest, is the Caffarelli palace at Rome. The other buildings of Raphael still existing are, a palace for M. Giovanni Baptista dell' Aquila, opposite to the church of S. Maria della Vallicella, in Rome; a villa for cardinal Julius de Medici, afterwards pope Clement VII.; and for the prince Ghigi he built a set of stables in the Longara, and a chapel in the church of S. Maria del Popolo. This prince was a distinguished patron of Raphael, and much employed him. For him he painted in fresco, in one of the rooms of his Casino in the Longara, now called the Farnesina, a picture of Galatea drawn by dolphins, and surrounded with tritons, &c. which would appear to have been much admired and praised by his friend count Castiglione, from a letter still existing by Raphael to that nobleman, which the reader may see in our principal authority. For prince Ghigi he painted in fresco, on the spandrels of an arch in front of the Ghigi chapel in the church of S. Maria della Pace, a large allegorical subject of Sibyls delivering their prophecies for the confirmation of the revealed religion. This work was highly esteemed when finished; but is now unfortunately much injured, and parts are entirely effaced. For his Casino in the Longara, Raphael made a series of designs from Apuleius’s history of Cupid and Psyche, which were painted by himself and his scholars on a ceiling of a spacious hall. What part was painted by himself it would not be easy at this time to ascertain, as the work has suffered much by being originally exposed to the open air, as the loggia of the Vatican is at present, and by being repainted and repaired.

In the church of St. Auguslin, Raphael painted in fresco, on one of its piers, the prophet Isaiah, intended as the commencement of a series of pictures to ornament that church, but some dispute arising concerning the expence, the fathers relinquished their design; a loss much to be regretted, as the style of this picture is equal to his best works. This dispute concerning the price is said to have been referred to Michael Angeio to adjust, who settled it in one word, by telling the fathers that the knee alone was worth more money. Raphael also decorated his own villa in Rome, which now belongs to the cardinal Doria, with arabesque ornaments, a group of figures shooting at a target, and a small historic;*! subject, called the Marriage of Roxana.

Raphael was not only eminent as a painter and an architect, but he was desirous to emulate the reputation of his great contemporary, Michael Angelo, in being a sculptor also. We are informed that, with his own hand he executed some statues, but one only is referred to by the anonymous author of the Milan ms. which was the statue of a child, then in the possession of Julio Romano; and of this statue there can be no doubt, as it is also recognized by count Castiglione, in a letter of the year 1523; but what became of it is not known. There is, however, in the Ghigi chapel in the church of S. Maria del Popolo, a statue of Jonah from his own model, and executed in marble, under his immediate direction, by Lorenzetto, which remains an extraordinary instance of the versatility of his powers, as this specimen of sculpture may fairly rank with the best productions of modern Rome.

In the midst of his professional reputation, Raphael was equally caressed by the learned and the great, many instances of which are given by his late biographer, Mr. Duppa, whose elaborate narrative we principally follow. LeoX. regarded Raphael with the highest esteem; he was much about his person, was made groom of the chamber, and is even said to have had reason to expect the honours of the purple, which is the alleged cause for his not marrying the niece of cardinal di Bibbiena, who was desirous of the alliance.

In the meridian of life, and in the full possession of its enjoyments, Raphael became an unfortunate victim to the barbarous state of the medical knowledge of his time and from the unscientific manner in which his death has been reported, the grossest misapprehensions have arisen as to the cause of it, and in particular it has been attributed to sensual irregularities, for which there seems no foundation in fact. He became early attached to a young woman, the daughter of a baker at Rome, and thence called by way of distinction La Bella Fornarina, and she became his mistress. To her he appears to have been solely and constantly attached, and left her by his will in a state of independence. His constitution, however, was delicate, and his labours in his profession so great, as probably to add to that delicacy; and when he was seized with a violent fever, for which his injudicious physicians prescribed copious bleeding, we are not to wonder that his constitution sunk under such treatment. He became indeed so rapidly reduced, that he had only time to make his will, and conform, to the last offices of religion, before his death, which took place April 7, 1520, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. Thus, says his biographer, terminated the life of the most illustrious painter of modern times; and, for any data we have to the contrary, perhaps the most eminent that ever lived at any period of the world.

In his will, after leaving to his mistress a sufficiency to live independent, he bequeathed the rest of his property to a relation at Urbino, and to two of his scholars, Julio Romano, and Francesco Penni; appointing an intimate friend Turini da Pescia his executor. His body lay in state in the tall of his own house, and the celebrated picture of the Transfiguration, which he had just finished, was placed at the head of the room. His remains were afterwards removed with great funeral pomp to the Pantheon, where the last ceremonies were performed, and at the request of Leo X. cardinal Bembo wrote an inscription, to honour his memory, and mark the place of his interment. These particulars we have selected from the best life of this great artist that has appeared in this country, written by R. Duppa, esq. and prefixed to his splendid publication of “Heads from the Fresco pictures of Raffaello in the Vatican,” 1802, as a companion to his “Heads of Michael Angela*” Mr. Duppa concludes with a critical essay on the merits of Raphael, too long for our limits, and too valuable to be injured by abridgment. In Sir Joshua Reynolds’ lectures are many interesting and important observations on the same subject, which in truth must enter deeply into every discussion on the art. We might refer likewise to Opie’s lectures, Barry’s works, and other authors who have professedly or incidentally treated of Raphael. The present professor of painting has a note on the subject which may not form an improper conclusion to our article, as he appears to have on this occasion exerted his highest powers of discriminative criticism.

“The general opinion,” says Mr. Fuseli, " has placed Raphael at the head of his art, not because he possessed a decided superiority over every other painter in every branch, but because no other artist ever arrived at uniting with his own peculiar excellence all the other parts of the art in an equal degree with him. The drama, or in other words the representation of character in conflict with passion, was his sphere; to represent this, his invention in the choice of the moment, his composition in the arrangement of his actors, and his expression in the delineation of their emotions, were, and are, and perhaps will be unrivalled. And to this he added a style of design dictated by the subject itself, a colour suited to the subject, all the grace which propriety permitted, or sentiment suggested, and as much chiaroscuro as was compatible with his supreme desire of perspicuity and evidence. It is therefore only when he forsook the drama, to make excursions into the pure epic or sublime, that his forms become inadequate, and were inferior to those of M. Angelo: it is only in subjects where colour from a vehicle becomes the ruling principle, that be is excelled by Titian; he yields to Correggio only in that grace and that chiaroscuro which is less the minister of propriety and sentiment, than its charming abuse or voluptuous excess; and sacrifices to the eye what was claimed in vain by the mind.

“Michael Angelo appears to have had no infancy; if he had, we are not acquainted with it: his earliest works equal in principle and elements of style the vigorous offsprings of his virility: Raphael we see in his cradle, we hear him stammer; but propriety rocked the cradle, and character formed his lips. Even in the trammels of Pietro Perugino, dry and servile in his style of design, formal and gothic in his composition, he traced what was essential, and separated it from what was accidental, in figure and subject. The works of Lionardo, and the cartoon of Pisa, invigorated his eye, but it was the antique that completed the system which he had begun to establish on nature. From the antique he learned discrimination and propriety of form. He found that in the construction of the body, the articulation of the bones was the true cause of ease and grace in the action of the limbs, and that the knowledge of this was the true cause of the superiority of the ancients. He discovered that certain features were fittest for certain expressions and peculiar to certain characters; that such a head, such hands, and such feet, are the stamen or the growth of such a body; and on physiognomy established uniformity of parts. When he designed, his attention was immediately directed to the primary intention and motive of his figure, next to its general measure, then to the bones and their articulation, 'from them to the principal muscles or the muscles eminently wanted, to their attendant nerves, and at last, to the more or less essential minutiae; but the characteristic part of the subject is infallibly the characteristic part of his design, whether it be a rapid sketch, or a more finished drawing. The strokes of his pen or pencil themselves are characteristic: they follow the direction and texture of the part; flesh in their rounding, tendons in straight, bones in angular lines.

“Such was the felicity and propriety of Raphael when employed in the dramatic evolutions of character both suffered when he attempted to abstract the forms of sublimity and beauty; the painter of humanity not often wielded with success superhuman weapons. His gods never rose above prophetic or patriarchal forms; if the finder of Michael Angelo impressed the divine countenance oftener with sternness than awe, the gods of Raphael are sometimes too affable and mild, like him who speaks to Jacob in a ceiling of the Vatican; or too violent, like him who separates light from darkness in the Loggia of the same place. But though, to speak with Mengs, he was ohiefly made to walk with dignity on earth, he soared above it in the conception of Christ on Tabor, and still more in the frown of the angelic countenance that withers the strength of Heliodorus.

“Of ideal female beauty, though he himself in his letter to count Castiglione tells us, that from its scarcity in life, he made attempts to reach it by an idea formed in his own mind, he certainly wanted that standard which guided him in character; his goddesses and mythologic females are no more than aggravations of the generic forms of Michael Angelo. Roundness, mildness, sanctimony, and insipidity, compose in general the features and airs of his Madonnas, transcripts of the nursery or some favourite face. The `Madonna del Impanato,‘ the `Madonna della Sedia,’ the `Madonna bella,' share more or less of this insipidity, which arises chiefly from the high, rounded, smooth forehead, the shaven vacuity betwec-n the arched semicircular eyebrows, their elevation above the eyes, and the ungraceful division and scanty growth of hair. This indeed might be the result of his desire not to stain the virgin character of sanctity with the most distant hint of coquetry or meretricious charms; for in his Magdalens he throws the hair with luxuriant profusion, and surrounds the breast and shoulders with undulating waves and plaids of gold. The character of Mary Magdalen met his, it was the character of a passion. It is evident from every picture or design, at every period of his art, in which she had a part, that he supposed her enamoured. When she follows the body of the Saviour to the tomb, or throws herself dishevelled over his feet, or addresses him when he bears his cross, the cast of her features, her mode, her action, are the character of love in agony. When the drama inspired Raphael, his women became definitions of grace and pathos at once. Such is the exquisite line and turn of the averted halfkneeling female with two children, among the spectators of the punishment inflicted on Heliodorus; her attitude, the turn of her neck, supplies all face, and intimates more than he ever expressed by features.”

, a learned writer of the 16th century, and professor of Oriental languages at Leyden, was born February 27, 1539, at Lanoy, in French Flanders. He began his studies at Ghent, and after some interruption from the death of his father, resumed them at Nuremberg and Paris, where he applied with great assiduity to the Greek and Hebrew languages, under the ablest masters, until the civil wars obliged him to go into England, where he taught Greek at Cambridge, After some time he returned to the Netherlands, and, in 1565, married a daughter of Christopher Plantin, the celebrated printer, Raphelengius assisted his father-in-law in correcting his books, which he also enriched with notes and prefaces, and was particularly engaged in the Polyglot Bible of Antwerp, printed in 1571, by order of Philip II. king of Spain. In 1585 he settled at Leyden, where Plantin had a printing-office; laboured there with his usual assiduity, and was chosen, for his learning, to be professor of Hebrew and Arabic in that university. He died July 20, 1597, aged fifty-eight, le'aving, “Remarks and corrections on the Chalciee Paraphrase;” a “Hebrew Grammar;” a “Chaldee Dictionary,” in the Dictionary to the Polyglot of Antwerp; an “Arabic Lexicon,” 1613, 4to; and other works. One of his sons, of the same name, published notes on Seneca’s Tragedies, and “Elogia carmine elegiaco in imagines 50 doctorum virorum,” Ant. 1587, fol.

, a French poet, was born at Fontenai-le-comte, in Poitou, in 1535. He was vice-seneschal of his native province, and went afterwards to Paris, where Henry III. made him provost of the high-constable’sjurisdiction, which office he held till 1598. In his old age he determined to retire to Fontenai-le-Comte, and died at Poitiers, February 15, 1609, aged seventy-four, leaving a family. His biographers differ very much in their character of this author, as may be seen by comparing our authorities. A considerable part of his Latin poems may be found in torn. III. of “Les Devices des Poetes Latins Francois;” and his Epigrams are particularly admired: the best among his French ones are, “Les Plaisirsdu Gentilhomme Champetre,” printed in 1583; and those which he wrote on mademoiselle de Roche’s Flea, which are inserted in the collection of poems on that foolish subject, printed at Paris, in 1582, 4to. Rapin also attempted to write French blank verse, in the manner of Greek and Latin verse; but succeeded no better than Ba'if, who had made the same trial before him. He was one of those concerned in the famous Satire " Menippee. All his works were printed at Paris, 1610, 4to.

, a French Jesuit, and an able classical scholar, was born at Tours, in 1621, and entered into the society in 1639. He taught polite literature for nine years, and published various works both on that subject and on religion, which made him say to the abbe de la Chambre that he served God and the world by turns. To Latin he was particularly partial, and wrote with great facility and elegance in that language, both in prose and verse. Of the latter, he exhibited many specimens which were unrivalled in his time, particularly his “Hortorum libri quatuor;” a work, which has been much admired and applauded. It was first printed at Paris, in 1665, and afterwards re-printed with alterations and corrections by the author. In 1780, Brotier edited an edition at the Barbou press. An English version of it was published at London, in 1673, 8vo, by the celebrated Evelyn; and again, in 1706, by Mr. James Gardiner of Jesus college, in Cambridge. All his Latin poems, consisting of odes, epitaphs, sacred eclogues, and these four books upon gardens, were collected and published at Paris, in 1681, in 2 vols. 12mo. In French, which he also wrote with elegance, he published several treatises on polite literature, at various times, which were printed collectively in 1684, 2 vols. 4to, Paris; and at Amsterdam, in 2 vols. 8vo, and translated into English by Basil Rennet and others, in 1705, in 2 vols. 8vo, under the title of “The Critical Works of Mons. llapin.” The first volume contains a comparison between Demosthenes and Cicero for eloquence, Homer and Virgil for poetry, Thucydides and Livy for history, Plato and Aristotle for philosophy: the second, reflections on eloquence, on Aristotle’s poetry, on history, on philosophy. Rapin’s general design in this work was, as he tells us himself, to restore good taste, which had been somewhat corrupted by a spirit of profound erudition, that had reigned in the preceding age: but, although there are many just observations in his work, it is not that on which it would be safe for a student to rely; nor is his preference of the Roman to the Greek writers to be justified. Some of his arguments on this part of his subject are childish.

He died at Paris, Oct. 27, 1687; and in his eulogium, written by father Bouhours, he is represented, there is reason to think deservedly, as possessed of all the qualities that can adorn a man of probity. Zeal for the honour of his society made him undertake an “History of Jansenism,” against which he had published a Latin work, in 1658, under the title of “Dissertatio de nova doctrina, seu Evangelium Jansenistarum.” He had also a contest with father Vavassor, who wrote against his “Reflections on Aristotle’s Poetics,” yet pretended to be ignorant, as there was no name to them, that Rapin was the author.

, an eminent historian, was born at Castresin Languedoc, March 25, 1661. His family was originally from Savoy, and is supposed to have removed into France upon embracing the Protestant religion. Philibert de Rapin, his great-grandfather, who was of that persuasion, exposed himself so much to the indignation of the Roman catholics, and particularly to that of the parliament of Toulouse, that his head was struck off in 1563 by a sentence of theirs, at the very time that he came, by the king’s order, to have the treaty of peace registered there. Daniel the historian passes over this fact in silence; and his reason is supposed to have been, that he might exaggerate the disturbances raised by the Huguenots afterwards in the country about Toulouse. What then happened appears to have been the popular revenge for Philibert’s death, as the soldiers wrote on the ruins of the houses they had burned, “Vengeance for Rapin’s death.” James de Rapin, lord of Thoyras, was our author’s father. He applied himself to the study of the law, and was an advocate in the chamber of the edict of Nantes above fifty years. These chambers were courts of judicature erected in several towns of France, in behalf of the Huguenots, or Protestants; the judges of which were half of the Reformed, and half of the Roman catholic religion. Jane de Pelisson, his wife, was daughter to a counsellor of the chamber of Castres, and sister to George and Paul Pelisson; which lady, after having been Confined for some time in a convent, was at last sent, by the king’s order, to Geneva, where she died in 1705.

Rapin was their youngest son. He was educated at first under a tutor in his father’s house, and afterwards sent to Puylaurens, and thence to Saumur. In 1679, he returned to his father, with a design to apply himself closely to the law; but, before he had made any great progress, he was obliged, with other young gentlemen, to commence advocate, upon report of an edict soon after published, in which it was ordered, that no man should have a doctor’s degree without having studied five years in some university. The same year, the chamber of the edict of Nantes was suppressed, which obliged Rapin’s family to remove to Toulouse: and the state of the Reformed growing every day worse, with his father’s leave he quitted the profession of advocate for that of arms. He had before given what his biographer calls proofs of a military disposition; for he had fought a duel or two, in. which he had acquitted himself very gallantly. His father at first did not grant his request, but gave him such an answer, as served to prolong the time. Rapin, however, advanced so far in his legal progress as to plead one cause, and one only; and then applied himself diligently to mathematics and music, in both which he became a good proficient.

In 1685, his father died; and two months after, the edict of Nantes being revoked, Rapin with his mother and brothers retired to a country-house; and, as the persecution in a short time was carried to the greatest height, he and his youngest brother, in 1686, departed for England. He was not long in London, before he was visited by a French abbé of distinguished quality, a friend of his uncle Pelisson, who introduced him to Barrillon, the French ambassador. These gentlemen persuaded him to go to court, assuring him of a favourable reception from the king; but he declined this honour, not knowing what the consequences might be in that very critical state of affairs. His situation indeed was not at all agreeable to him; for he was perpetually pressed, upon the subject of religion, by the French Catholics then in London; and especially by the abbe“, who, though he treated him with the utmost complaisance, always turned the discourse to controversy. Having no hopes of any settlement in England at that time, he went over to Holland, and enlisted in a company of French volunteers, then at Utrecht, under the command of Mr. Rapin, his cousin-german. Pelisson, the same year, published his” Reflections on the difference of Religions," which he sent to his nephew Rapin, with a strict charge to give him his opinion impartially of the work, which it is said he did, although nothing of this kind was found among his papers, nor was he influenced by his uncle’s arguments. He remained with his company, till he followed the prince of Orange into England; where, in 1689, he was made an ensign. In that rank he went to Ireland, and distinguished himself so bravely at the siege of Carrick-fergus, that he was the same year promoted to a lieutenancy. He was also present at the hattle of the Boyne; and, at the siege of Limerick, was shot through the shoulder with a musket-ball. This wound, which was cured very slowly, proved very detrimental to his interest; as it prevented him from attending general Douglas into Flanders, who was very desirous of having him, and could have done him considerable service: he had, however, a company given him.

In the end of 1693, he was ordered for England without any reason assigned; but a letter informed him, that he was to be governor to the earl of Portland’s son. Having never bad any thoughts of this kind of employment, he could not imagine to whom he owed the recommendation; but at last found it to be lord Galway. He immediately went to London, and entered upon this charge, losing, however, with it those preferments in the army which several of his fellow-officers soon after attained. All the favour shown him was, that he had leave to resign his commission to his younger brother, who died in 1719, after having been made lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of English dragoons. Indeed the king gave him a pension of 100l. per annum, “till such time as he should provide for him better;” which time never came: and after enjoying this pension during the king’s life, a post of small value was given him in its stead.

While the earl of Portland was ambassador in France, Rapin was obliged to be sometimes in that kingdom, sometimes in England, and often in Holland: but at length he settled at the Hague, were the young lord Portland was learning his exercises. While he resided here, in 1699, he married; but this marriage neither abated his care of his pupil, nor hindered him from accompanying him in his travels. They began with a tour through Germany, where they made some stay at Vienna: hence went into Italy by the way of Tirol, where the marshal de Villeroy, at that time prisoner, gave Rapin a letter for the cardinal d'Etrees, when at Venice. Their travels being finished, which put an end to his employment, he returned to his family at the Hague, where he continued some years; but, as he found it increase, he resolved to remove to some cheap country; and accordingly retired, in 1707, to Wesel, in the duchy of Cleves in Germany, where he employed the remaining years of his life in writing fche “History of England.” Though his constitution was strong, yet seventeen years application (for so long he was in composing this history) entirely ruined it. About three years before his death, he found himself exhausted, and often felt great pains in the stomach: and at length a fever, with an oppression in his breast, carried him off, after a week’s illness, May 16, 1725. He left one son and six daughters. He was naturally of a serious temper, although no enemy to mirth: he loved music, and was skilled, as we have said, in mathematics, especially in the art of fortification. He was master of the Italian, Spanish, and English languages; and had also a very competent knowledge of the Greek and Latin. He spent all his leisure hours in reading and conversing with men of learning and information.

He lived to publish the eighth volume of his history, which ends with the death of Charles I. The two remaining volumes, which bring the history down to the proclamation of William and Mary, came out in 1724. They were printed at the Hague in quarto; and have twice been translated into English; by the Rev. Nicholas Tindal, M. A. first in octavo, then, much improved in style, in folio; and by John Kelly of the Inner Temple, esq. in two vols. folio. Tindal has given a Continuation of Rapin’s history to 1760, and added useful notes to the whole. When Rapin first set about this work, it was not his intention to write a complete history of England; but curiosity and much leisure led him on from one step to another, till he came to the reign of Henry II.; and then, when he was upon the point of stopping, an unexpected assistance came forth, which not only induced him to continue his history, but to do it in a more full and particular manner than at first he intended. This was Rymer’s “Fœdera,” or “Collection of Public Acts,” which began to be published at the expence of government about 1706. In 1708, six volumes in folio were completed, which were afterwards increased to seventeen, and then to twenty. Lord Halifax, a great promoter of this noble work, sent the volumes, as they came out, to Le Clerc, who generously lent them to our author as long as he had occasion for them. That he did actually use this collection, appears from the pains he took to abridge the whole seventeen volumes, except the first, which was done by Le Clerc: in which abridgment we have all the important acts pointed ut, a well-connected series of events to which they relate, and the use to be made of them in clearing up the history of England. This abstract lies scattered up and down in the several volumes of Le Clerc’s “Bibliotheque Choisie;” and was thence translated and published in English, in 1727, in four volumes octavo, with portraits. Rapin also, to let us see what a thorough knowledge he had of our parties and factions in England, published, in 1717, a little treatise, entitled “A Dissertation on the Whigs and the Tories;” which is subjoined to his history, and has likewise been translated and published in English.

Voltaire has observed, that “England is indebted to Rapin for the best history of itself which has yet appeared; and the only impartial one of a nation, wherein few write without being actuated by the spirit of party.” This character, however, is not strictly just. Rapin was not without his partialities, although his general moderation is to be praised; and although it was easy to excel preceding English historians, he laboured under the disadvantage of being remote from all those records and sources of intelligence which are to be found in England only. Carte, in his proposals for his history of England, has specified the errors into which Rapin fell upon this account, and his neglect of original authorities. Tindal, however, and Morant, have supplied some of his defects, and rectified his errors; and upon the whole as an ample, though somewhat tedious narrative of facts, Rapin’s history has not acquired more popularity than it deserved, and which, in some degree, it still retains for, of late years, the folio edition has risen to a very high price.

, one of our early printers, is said by Bale to have been a citizen of London, and by Pits a native of that city. Wood says he was educated in grammar and philosophy at Oxford, and that returning to London he set up the trade of printing, which was then, as Wood adds, “esteemed a profession fit for any scholar or ingenious man.” By whom he was taught the art, or whether he was at first employed only as a corrector, does not appear. His residence was at the sign of the Mermaid “at Fowl’s gate,” next Cheapside. He married Elizabeth, sister to sir Thomas More, with whom he became intimate, according to Wood, by his piety and learning. Bale and Pits assign different causes for this intimacy; the one, because he was a bold champion for popery, which the other terms his great zeal for the glory of God. Herbert thinks it was most likely that he was at first introduced to his acquaintance by means of printing sir Thomas’s “Dialogues,” and that his acquaintance was afterwards cemented into friendship, as was natural, by their mutual principles and opinions. The date, therefore, of this acquaintance may be 1528 or 1529. Wood says that Rastall, by frequent conferences with sir Thomas, improved his knowledge in various sorts of learning, which is probable; but he omits to notice what is more important, that Rastall became a convert to the reformed religion by means of a controversy with John Frith. Rastall published “Three Dialogues,” the last of which treats on purgatory, and was answered by Frith. On this Rastall wrote his “Apology against John Frith,” which the latter answered with such strength of argument as to make a convert of his opponent. Rastall also wrote a book called “The Church of John Rastall,” which being in the list of prohibited books published by bishop Bonner, annexed to his injunctions in 1542, is supposed to have contained some retraction of his former opinions, at least of what he had written concerning purgatory. Herbert questions whether this book be not the same which Bale mentions by the title of “Abrasio Papismi.” Both Bale and Pits attribute other works to Rastall, not now known, except his “Anglorum regnum Chronicon, or Pastime of the People,” printed by him in 1529. This having lately been reprinted (1B11) among the rest of the English Chronicles, by a select number of the booksellers of London, it is not necessary to describe its contents. The original edition is so scarce that one perfect copy only is known, which formerly belonged to lord Orford, who gave it to James West, esq. and is now in the king’s library; and of imperfect copies, bibliographers mention only three or four.

John Rastail died at London in 1536, leaving two sons, William and John. William was born in London in 1508, and about 1525 was sent to Oxford, which he left without taking a degree, and entered of Lincoln’s Inn for the study of law. In the first of Edward VI. he became autumn or summer reader of that house; but on the change of religion he retired with his wife to Louvain, whence he returned on the accession of queen Mary. In 1554 he was made a serjeant at law, one of the commissioners for the prosecution of heretics, and a little before Mary’s death, one of the justices of the common pleas. Queen Elizabeth renewed his patent as justice, but he preferred retiring to Louvain, where he died Aug. 27, 1565, and was buried in the church of St. Peter, on the north side of the altar of the Virgin Mary. His wife, who died in 1553, on their first going to Louvain, at the age of twenty-six, was the daughter of Dr. John Clement, one of the physicians sent by Henry VIII. to Cardinal Wolsey during his last illness. She was a lady of considerable learning, and well acquainted with Greek and Latin.

Herbert ascribes some law publications to William Rastall, but doubtfully. He carried on the printing business from 1530 to 1534. When Justice Rastall he published “A collection (abridged) of the Statutes in force and use,” in 1557, often reprinted. It contains copies of statutes not elsewhere extant, and in some instances more complete transcripts of several acts than are commonly printed in the Statutes at large and it seems to be a republication and enlargement of the abridgment which was printed by his father in 1519. The other son, John, was commonly, but improperly called Mr. Justice Rastall, from having been a justice of the peace. Some works, in controversy with bishop Jewell, have been attributed to William Rastall, but were written by a John Rastall, no relation, as far as we know, of this family, who became a Jesuit, and died abroad in 1600.

, Earl of Sussex, a statesman of the sixteenth century, was the eldest son of Henry Ratcliffe, the second earl of Sussex, by Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Thomas Howard, second duke of Norfolk. His first public service was in an honourable embassy to the emperor Charles the Fifth, to treat of the projected marriage of Queen Mary to Philip, which he afterwards ratified with the latter in Spain. Upon his return he was appointed lord deputy of Ireland, and chief justice of the forests north of Trent. The order of the garter, and the office of captain of the pensioners, were likewise conferred on him in that reign, a little before the conclusion of which he succeeded to his father’s honours. Elizabeth continued him for a while in the post of lord deputy, and recalled him to assume that of the president of the North, a situation rendered infinitely difficult by the delicacy of her affairs with Scotland, and the rebellious spirit of the border counties. The latter, however, was subdued by his prudence and bravery in 1569; and the assiduity and acuteness with which he studied the former, will appear from his own pen. The unfortunate affair of the duke of Norfolk, to whom he was most firmly attached, fell out in the course of that year, and would have ended happily and honourably if the duke had followed his advice. That nobleman’s last request was, that his best george, chain, and gafter, might be given to my lord of Sussex. He was the prime negociator in those two famous treaties of marriage with the archduke Charles and the duke of Alenson, Elizabeth’s real intentions in which have been so frequently the subject of historical disquisition. In 1572, he retired from the severer labours of the public service, in which he had wasted his health, to the honourable office of lord chamberlain, and the duties of a cabinet minister; and died at his house in Bermondsey, June 9, 1583, leaving little to his heirs but the bright example of a character truly noble. The earl of Sussex was twice married; first, to Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, by whom he had two sons, Henry and Thomas, who died young; secondly, to Frances, daughter of sir William Sydney, afterwards the celebrated foundress of Sydney-Sussex college in Cambridge; by whom having no children, he was succeeded by Henry, his next brother.

“This great man’s conduct,” says Mr. Lodge, “united all the splendid qualities of those eminent persons who jointly rendered Elizabeth’s court an object of admiration to Europe, and was perfectly free from their faults. Wise and loyal as Burghley, without his blind attachment to the monarch; vigilant as Walsingham, but disdaining his low cunning; magnificent as Leicester, but incapable of hypocrisy; and brave as Ralegh, with the piety of a primitive Christian; he seemed above the common objects of human ambition, and wanted, if the expression may be allowed, those dark shades of character which make nien the 1 heroes of history. Hence it is, probably, that our writers have bestowed so little attention on this admirable person, who is but slightly mentioned in most historical collections, unless with regard to his disputes with Leicester, whom he hated almost to a fault.” Mr. Lodge justly esteems himself peculiarly fortunate in having been the instrument of disclosing the earl of Sussex’s letters to the public. They form a very valuable part of the “Historical Illustrations,” and, a small number excepted, are the only ones to be met with in print. These letters display both his integrity and ability in a very striking light, and are written in a clear and manly style. Four of them are particularly curious two to the queen, onthe treaty of marriage with the archduke of Austria; one to sir William Cecil, on the state of parties in Scotland; and one to her Majesty, concerning the duke of Alen$on. The letter on the affairs of Scotland is considered by Mr. Lodge as an inestimable curiosity. Farther light will be thrown on the earl of Sussex’s character, by transcribing the manly language in which he complains that his services were neglected, and declares his purpose of retiring to private life. It is in a letter to sir William Cecil. “I was firste a Lieuten‘te; I was after little better than a Marshal; I had then nothing left to me but to direct hanging matters (in the meane tyme all was disposed that was w th in my comission), and nowe I ame offered to be made a Shreif’s Bayly to deliver over possessions. Blame me not, good Mr. Secretarie, though my pen utter somewhat of that swell in my stomake, for I see I ame kepte but for a brome, and when I have done my office to be throwen out of the dore. I ame the first nobel man hathe been thus used. Trewe service deserveth honor and credite, and not reproche and open defaming; but, seeing the one is ever delivered to me in the stede of the other, I must leave to serve, or lose my honor; w^h, being continewed so long in my howse, I wolde be lothe shoolde take blemishe wth me. These matters I knowe procede not from lacke of good and honorable meaning in the Q,’ ma 1 towards me, nor from lacke of dewte' and trewthe in me towards her, which grevethe me the more and, therefore, seing I shall be still a camelyon, and yelde no other shewe then as it shall please others to give the couller, I will content my self to live a private lyfe. God send her Mate others that meane as well as I have done; and so I comitt you to th* Almightie.” From the next letter it appears that the queen had too much wisdom to part with so faithful a counsellor and servant. The earl of Sussex had a high regard and esteem for Lord Burghley. In one of his letters, dated June 28, 1580, he expresses himself, to that great statesman, in the following terms: “The trevve fere of God w^h yo r actyons have alwayes shewed to be in yo r harte, the grete and deepe care wch you have always had for the honor and salfty of the Q‘. Ma*’s most worthy p’son; the co‘tinual troubell w ch yqu have of long tyme taken for the benefyting of the com’on-welthe and the upryght course wich ye have alwaye’s taken, respectying the mattr and not the p’son, in all causes (wch be the necessary trusts of him that ferethe God trewly, s’rveth his Soverayne faythfully, and lovethe his countrey clerely) have tyed me to yo r L. in that knotte w cli no worldly fraylty can break; and, therfor, I wyll never forbere to runne any fortune that may s’rve you, and further you' godly actyons. And so, my good L. forberyng to entrobell you w th words, I end; and wysh unto you as to my self, and better, yf I may.”

, one of the very few learned prelates in the tenth century, was born at Libya, and embraced a monastic life at the abbey of Lobbes, or Laubes, in Flanders. Here he distinguished himself by his abilities and acquirements. In the year 928, after Hilduin had been driven out of the see of Liege, he accompanied him into Italy; and in 931 he was, by the express order of the pope, put in possession of the see of Verona; and with this promotion he commenced a life of vicissitudes and persecutions, an account of which here would perhaps be uninteresting, but may be found amply detailed in the edition of his works printed by the brothers Ballerini in 1767. He died at Namur, about the year 973. His works are numerous, and divided into three parts the first contain his “Prologues,” in six books which form a treatise on the duties of all classes of men, expressing also their vices and irregularities; the second is a collection of letters; and the third consists of sermons.

, Ratram, or Bertramn, a celebrated monk, and priest of the abbey of Corby, flourished in the 9th century, in the reign of Charles the Bald. He appears to have been well acquainted with the Greek and Latin classics, and with the Holy Scriptures. Of all Ratramn’s works, his treatise “On the Body and Blood of Christ” made the most noise. This treatise was written in answer to Paschasius Radbert, and so much appeared to favour the protestant opinion respecting the real presence in the Eucharist, that many learned catholics considered it either as heretical or spurious; but its authenticity was clearly proved afterwards by Mabillon, M. Boileau, and a doctor of the Sorbonne, who published an excellent edition in Latin and French, 1686, 12mo, reprinted with a defence in Latin only, 1712, 12mo, and according to catholic writers, has also shewn the work to be orthodox. But this is ably controverted in the English translation published in Dublin in 1753. His other works, which are less interesting, are mostly inserted in D'Acheri’s Spicilegium. The time of his death is not known.

, a French mathematician and astronomer, was born at Montpellier, Sept. 1, 1722, and from his earliest years became attached to the study of the sciences, particularly mathematics. When very young, he was appointed secretary to the Montpellier academy of sciences, which office he held until all academies in France were dissolved. In the course of his office, he published two volumes of their “Memoirs/' and was preparing a third at the time of the revolution. He also contributed many valuable papers himself on philosophical and mathematical subjects, and furnished some articles for the” Dictionnaire Encyclopedique.“The comet of 1759, the subject of so much prediction and expectation, so far altered his pursuits as to make them afterwards centre in astronomy. He was for a long time considered as the only good astronomer at Montpellier, and made many useful observations, particularly on the famous transit of Venus in 1761. Such was his zeal, that when old age prevented him from making observations with his usual accuracy, he maintained a person for that purpose at his own expence as keeper of the observatory at Montpellier. On the death of his father, in 1770, he became counsellor of the court of aids, and was often the organ of that company on remarkable occasions. In 1793, when such members of the old academy as had esdaped the murderous period of the revolution attempted to revive it under the name of” Societe* Libre des sciences et belles lettres de Montpeliier,“De Ratte was chosen president. Some volumes of their transactions have been published under the title of” Bulletins." When the national institute was formed, De Ratte was chosen an associate, and also a member of other learned societies in France, and at last one of the legion of honour. He died Aug. 15, 1805, aged eighty-three. His astronomical observations have been collected for publication by M. De Flaugergues, an astronomer of Viviers; but our authority does not mdntipn whether they haV yet appeared.

, a French divine, was born at Toul in 1443, of a good family. He studied at Paris, and rereived the degree of doctor of divinity in 1479, having before given proof of his learning and talents, by a commentary on the logic of Aristotle; and his pulpit oratory. In 1481 he vvas chosen grand master of the college of Navarre, and performed the duties of that office in a manner which procured him universal esteem. In 1497 he fancied he had a special call to leave the world, and therefore relired to the abbey of Cluny, the order of which he vvas commissioned to reform by cardinal D'Amboise; and here too he was a very frequent preacher. He died Feb. 6, 1514, in his seventy-first year. Major mentions an anecdote much to the credit of Raulin. When he was only a licentiate, some ecclesiastics who were filling their pockets by the stile of indulgences, offered to pay all the expences of taking his doctor’s degree, if he would join them and preach up their trade, which he rejected with indignation. Many iarge volumes ofRaulin’s sermons were printed after his death, composed in a miserably bad taste, which, however, was the taste of his age. It is perhaps a sufficient character of them, that Rabelais took some of his ludicrous stories from them. The only useful publication of RauSin is his volume of correspondence, “Epistolse,” Paris, 1529, 4to, which, like most collections of the kind, throws some light on the literature of the age.

, a skilful botanist, was a native of Augsburg, and a pupil of Rondelet. He sailed from Marseilles, in 1573, for the Levant, and performed a laborious and dangerous journey through Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt; of which he has left an account in German, full of curious information relative to medical and other rare plants, with several wooden cuts. He died physician to the Austrian army, at Hatvany, in Hungary, in 1606, according to Dryander, Bibl. Banks, v. 395, though Haller says 1596. The latter writer mentions his being obliged to quit his country, on account of his religion, which was protestant. His splendid herbarium, once the property of queen Christina, and of Isaac Vossius, is preserved in the university of Leyden. From it Gronovius composed his “Flora Orientalis.” An English translation of his journey was published by Staphorst in 1693, 8vo.

, an engraver, was a native of France, but came to England about 1750, and settled in London. In the latter part of his life he resided at Mother lied Cap’s, near Kentish Town, where he died in 1774. He was of an amiable disposition and much respected, and had the honour of instructing both Ryland and Hall in the art of engraving.

, an active English musician and publisher, who flourished from the beginning of the 17th century to 1635, was the editor and composer of the best collection of psalm tunes in four parts, which had till then appeared in England. He was a bachelor of music, and a professor not only well acquainted with the practice of the art, but seems to have bestowed much time in the perusal of the best authors, and in meditation on the theory. This book published in small octavo, 1621 and 1633, contains a melody for every one of the hundred and fifty psalms, many of them by the editor himself, of which a considerable number is still in use; as Windsor, St. David’s, Southwell, and Canterbury. There are others, likewise, which are sung by the German, Netherlandish, and French Protestants. To these the base, tenor, and counter-tenor parts have been composed by twenty-one English musicians: among whom we find the names of Tallis, Dowlajid, Morley, Bennet, Stubbs, Farnaby, and John Milton, the father of our great poet. The tunes which are peculiar to the measure of the lOOdth psalm, the 113th, and 119th, were originally Lutheran, or perhaps of still higher antiquity. And though Ravenscroft has affixed the name of Dr. John Dowland to the parts which have been st to the lOOdth psalm, yet, in the index, he has ranked the melody itself with the French tunes; perhaps from having seen it among the melodies that were set to the French version of Clement Marot and Theodore Beza’s Psalms, by Goudimel and Claude le Jeune. Ravenscroft, in imitation of these harmonists, always gives the principal melody, or, as he calls it, the playn-song, to the tenor. His publication is, in some measure, historical: for he tells us not only who composed the parts to old melodies, but who increased the common stock, by the addition of new tunes; as well as which of them were originally English, Welch, Scots, German, Dutch, Italian, French, and imitations of these.

In 1614 Ravenscroft published “A briefe Discourse of the true, but neglected. Use of characterizing the Degrees by their perfection, imperfection, and diminution, in measurable Musicke, against the common practice and custome of the times,” 4to. He had been educated in St. Paul’s choir, under Mr. Edward Pierce, and was particularly conversant with old authors; he, therefore, wished to revive the use of those proportions in time, which, on account of their intricacy, had been long discontinued. He practised these exploded doctrines ineffectually, though to his discourse he added examples to illustrate his precepts, expressed in the harmony of four voices, concerning the pleasure of the five usual recreations of hunting, hawking, dancing, drinking, and enamouring. He was not always very successful in his attempts at imitative harmony; and melody was then so crude and uncouth throughout Europe, as to afford little assistance in imitative strains. Ravenscroft was also the author of a collection of songs, entitled “Melcimata, Musical Phancies, fitting the Court, City, and Country Humours, in three, four, and five Voyces,” published in the year 1611.

, a learned orientalist, was born at Berlin, in 1613, and alter studying for eight years at Rostock and other foreign schools, he came to Oxford in 1638, about which time he addressed a letter to archbishop Usher, who, conceiving a high opinion of him, gave him an invitation to Dublin, with offers of preferment. In the mean time becoming likewise known to Grotius, the latter, unknown to archbishop Usher, introduced him to cardinal Richelieu, who offered to employ him as his agent in the east. Ravins, however, pleaded his pre-engagement to the English nation, and especially to Usher; and the cardinal, with great liberality, admitted his motive, and dismissed him with a handsome present. He then, under the patronage of Usher, began his travels in the East, but fortunately for himself, arrived at Constantinople with a strong recommendation from archbishop Laud; for, according to Dr. Pocock’s account, who was then in that city, Ravius “came thither, without either cloaths befitting him (of which he said he had been robbed in France) or money, or letters of credit to any merchant. He had letters of recommendation from some of the states to the Dutch ambassador, who was departed before his arrival. Sir Sackville Crow, the English ambassador, finding that he brought the archbishop’s recommendation, generously took him into his house and protection, and gave him all due furtherance; requiring of him that, if occasion so present itself, England may enjoy the benefit of what time he shall here employ in the study of the eastern tongues. His desire,” Dr. Pocock adds, “seems to be, to be employed in setting forth books in the Arabic language, and to be overseer of the press in that kind, for which he would be very fitting.”

In 1639, archbishop Usher wrote a Latin letter to him, with a promise of <24. a-year towards his support and on his return with a large treasure of Mss. to the number of three hundred, Usher rewarded and supported him with great liberality. Ravius now settled in England, and in 1642 resided at Gresham college, and afterwards at London house, Aldersgate-street, and in both places taught the Eastern languages. During the following year he went to Holland, and was appointed professor of the oriental languages at Utrecht, which has procured him a place among the learned men of Utrecht in Burman’s “Trajectum Eruditum.” In 1648, we find him again in England, where, in compliance with the ruling powers, he took the covenant, and even became a rival to Dr. Pocock in the Arabic professorship, but failed in this design. He then went to Sweden, and became professor of oriental literature at Upsal; but a large family and the scanty salary of his professorship obliged him to go to Kiel in Germany, where he lived comfortably until his death in 1677.

He had a brother, John Ravius, who was professor of philosophy at Rostock, and the author of a commentary on Cornelius Nepos, and some other works.

, a learned English divine, and editor of lord Bacon’s works, was born at Norwich about 1588. He was admitted a Bible-clerk in Bene't college, Cambridge, under the tuition of Mr. Chapman, on the 22d of January, 1660, and took both the degrees in arts before the 19th of March, 1609, when he was elected a fellow of the house. Upon this he commenced tutor, and was ordained deacon by the bishop of Ely, at Downham, September 22, 1611; not long after which, he was presented by the university of Cambridge to the rectory of Bowthorpe in Norfolk, and was instituted to it Dec. 10, 1612. In 1616, by the favour of sir Francis Bacon, who procured the living for him of the college, he obtained the rectory of Landbeach. He had commenced B. D. the year before, and upon his patron’s being made lord-keeper of the great seal, was appointed his domestic chaplain. While Mr. Rawley was in this situation, he proceeded D. D. in 1621. He was of great use to his master, in writing down, compiling, digesting, and publishing his works; to many of which he wrote prefaces and dedications, as well as translated several of them into Latin. These, with some other pieces committed to his care, he collected together, and printed, after his lordship’s decease, London, 1638, folio, with a dedication to king Charles, one of whose chaplains he then was. In 1657, he published at London, in folio, under the title of “Resuscitatio,” several others of lord Bacon’s tracts; to which at the request of many foreigners, and natives of the kingdom, he prefixed some account of his patron’s life. This, which is thought to be drawn up in a clear and manly style, shews Dr. Rawley to have been an able writer. It was likewise translated into Latin, and placed before the “Opuscula varia Posthuma,” printed in 8vo the year following, which, he tells us, were the last things he had in his hands. However, he republished the “Resuscitatio,” with some additions, in 1661; at which time he was chaplain in ordinary to his majesty king Charles II. He was so great a favourite with lord Bacon, that, after his resignation of the seals, he recommended Dr. Rawley to his successor, bishop Williams, for farther preferment. This the bishop promised, and desired lord Bacon to point out in what he would wish him to promote Dr. Rawley but his lordship modestly declining this, and referring the choice to the lord- keeper, Dr Rawley appears to have derived no advantage from his friend’s recommendation. Lord Verulam, besides the care of his writings, left the doctor by will, as a farther testimony of his regard, one hundred pounds, with the king of Spain’s Polyglot. After the publication of his master’s works, in 1638, Dr. Ravvley resided upon his rectory at Landbeach. He married Barbara, the daughter of Mr, John Wicksted, alderman of Cambridge, by whom he had two children. His daughter^ Mary, died in her infancy; but his son, William, became fellow of Corpus Christi college, and was buried at Landbeach, on the 3d of July, 1666. Dr. Rawley lost his son, his wife, and his servants, all in the same year, of the plague; which probably affected him so much as to bring down his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. He died on the 18th of June, 1667, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, after haying been pastor at Landbeach fifty years, and throughout the whole of the troubles. His remains were deposited near the Communion-table, in the chancel of his own church, under a black marble, with a Latin inscription to his memory. Dr. Rawley was proctor in convocation for the clergy of the diocese of Ely, in 1661, and as such subscribed to the Book of Common-Prayer, upon its revisal. He had the appellation of the lord Bacon’s learned chaplain; and that this title was justly bestowed upon him, is evident from the testimonies of several considerable men, both at home and abroad. He presented lord Bacon’s works, as he published them, to the library of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge; and bequeathed to it “Camden’s Britannia,” with “Ciceronis Opera,” in 2 vols. and Plato, in 3 vols. folio. These books were delivered by his executor Mr. John Rawley, to whose care we are indebted for those Remains of lord Bacon which were published by Dr. Tenison.

, of CarkhalL in Lancashire, esq. an able Saxon scholar, the only son of Curwen Rawlinson of the same place, who died in 1689, and descended from a family of long standing in High Furness, and very numerous in the parish of' Hawkshead and Colton, was collaterally related to the subjects of the three following articles. He was born in 1677, educated at Queen’s college, Oxford, made upper commoner May 10, 1695, and eminently distinguished for his application to Saxon and Northern literature. He published, whilst at Queen’s college, a beautiful edition of king Alfred’s Saxon translation of “Boethius de Consolatione Philosophise,” Oxon. 1698, 8vo, from a transcript, by Franciscus Junius of a very ancient ms. in the Bodleian library, collated with one in the Cotton library. The “Grammatica Anglo-Saxonica, ex Hickesiano Thesauro excerpta,” printed at Oxford in 1711, is dedicated to this gentleman, in the following words “Viro eximio Christophoro Rawlinson Armigero, Literaturae Saxonicae Fautori egregio, hasce breviculas Institutiones Grammaticas dicat, dedicat, Editor.” He left behind him a large collection of Mss. among which are many relating to Westmorland and Cumberland, of which copies are at sir Michael le Fleming’s at Rydal. He ordered his under-coffin to be heart of oak, and covered with red leather; and died January 8, 1732-3, aged fiftyfive. At the north end of the north transept of the abbeychurch of St. Alban’s is a white marble sarcophagus, with a figure of History sitting on it, reclining on her left arm, holding in her hand a pen, with which she writes in a book, while two other books lie under her feet. Below is this epitaph:

Christopher Rawlinson, of Caik-hall in Carimel, in the county of Lancaster, esq. whose remains are deposited in a vault near this place. He wa son of Curwen Rawlinson, member of parliament for the town of Lancaster, and Klizabeth Monk, daughter and co-heir of the loyal Nicholas Monk, lord bishop of Hereford, brother to (Jen. Monk duke of Albemarle. The said Christopher was of Queen’s college, in Oxford, and published the Saxon version of “Boethius de Consolatione Philosophise” in the Saxon language. He was born in the parish of Springfield in Essex, June 13, 1677, and died in Jan. 1733. This monument was erected pursuant to the will of his cousin and co-heiress, Mrs. Mary Blake, youngest daughter of Roger More, of Kirkby Lonsdale, in the county of Westmoreland, serjeant at law, and Catharine Rawlinson, sister of the said Curwen Rawlinson.

, knt eldest surviving son of Daniel Rawlinson, citizen and wine-merchant of London, descended from the ancient family of that name at Graisdale, in the county of Lancaster, was born in the parish of St. Dionis Backchurch, in Fenchurch-street, London, March 1647 appointed sheriffof London by James II. 1687, colonel of the white regiment of trainee! bands, and govt rnor of Bridewell and Bethlem hospitals, 1705; and, in 1706, lord mayor of London, when he beautified and repaired Guildhall, as appears by an inscription in the great porch. He married Mary, eldest daughter of Richard Taylor, esq. of Turnham-green, with whom he lived 27 years, and by whom he had 15 children. She died at Chelsea, Feb. 21, 1724-5, aged sixty-three. He died in his own parish, November 2, 1705, and was buried with his father, who died in 1679, aged sixty-six, Of his children, four daughters, Anne- Maria, Mary, Margaret, Susan; and two sons, both named Daniel, died before him. William died in 1732, and was buried at Antwerp. John, of Little Leigh in Cheshire, esq. died January 9, 1753. Tempest, the youngest son, by profession a dry-salter, died January 1, 1737. Sir Thomas Rawlinson, it maybe added, had been foreman of the grand jury at the trial of alderman Cornish; and was elected sheriff by royal mandate. His eldest son, Thomas, for whom Mr. Addison is said to have intended his character of Tom Folio, in the Taller, No. 158, but with infinitely too satirical a vein, was a great collector of books; and himself a man of learning, as well as patron of learned men. Mattairehas dedicated to him his edition of Juvenal; and Hearne’s publication, entitled “Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales, &c.” was printed from the original ms. in this gentleman’s possession. Very numerous indeed were the communications that editor received from Mr. Thomas Rawlinson, for all which he takes every opportunity of expressing his gratitude. While Mr. Rawlinson lived in Gray’s inn, he had four chambers so completely filled with books, that his bed was removed out into the passage. He afterwards removed to London-house, the ancient palace of the bishops of London, in Aldersgate-­street, where he died August 6, 1725, aged forty-four, and was buried in the church of St. Botolph Aldersgate. In London-house his library was sold after his decease; and there also lived and died his brother Richard, who left a portrait of his brother Thomas in crayons, another of himself, and another of Nicolas Salmon, LL. D. the antiquary, to the Society of Antiquaries, all afterwards revoked. His Mss. took sixteen days to sell, from March 4, 1733-4. The catalogue of his library consists of nine parts. The amount of the fiva first parts was 2409l. Mr. Charles Marsh, late bookseller at Charing-cross, used to say, that the sale of Mr. Thomas Rawlinson’s library was one of the first events he remembered upon engaging in business; and that it was the largest collection at that time known to have been offered to the public.

, an eminent antiquary, and great benefactor to the university of Oxford, was the fourth son of sir Thomas; and was educated at St. John’s college, Oxford, where he was admitted gentleman commoner, and proceeded M. A. and grand cornpounder in 1713, and was admitted to the degree of doctor of civil law by diploma in 1719. He was F. R. S. and became F. S. A. May 10, 1727. He was greatly accessary to the bringing to light many descriptions of counties; and, intending one of Oxfordshire, had collected materials from Wood’s papers, &c. had many plates engraved, and circulated printed queries, but received accounts only of two parishes, which in some degree answered the design, and encouraged him to pursue it. In this work were to be included the antiquities of the city of Oxford, which Wood promised when the English copy of his “Historia & Antiquitates Oxon.” was t.o be published, and which have since been faithfully transcribed from his papers, by Mr. Gutch, and much enlarged and corrected from ancient original authorities. All Dr. Rawlinson’s collections for the county, chiefly culled from Wood, or picked up from information, and disposed b,y hundreds in separate books, in each of which several parishes are omitted, would make but one 8vo volume. But he made large collections for the continuation of Wood’s “Athena Oxonienses” and “History of Oxfor.d,” and for an account of “Non-compilers” at the Revolution which, together with some collections of Hearne’s, and note-books of his own travels, he bequeathed by his will to the university of Oxford. The Life of Mr. Anthony Wood, historiographer of the most famous university of Oxford, with an account of his nativity, education, works, &c. collected and composed from Mss. by Richard Rawlinson, gent, commoner of St. John’s college, Oxon. was printed at London in 1711. A copy of this life, with ms additions by the author, is in the Bodleian library. He published proposals for an “History of Eton College,” 1717; and, in 1728, “Petri Abselardi Abbatis Ruyensis & Heloissae Abbatissae Paracletensis Epistolae,” 8vo, dedicated to Dr, Mead. The books, the publication of which he promoted, are supposed to be the “History and Antiquities of Winchester,” 1715, 8vo. “History and Antiquities of Hereford,” 1717, 8vo. “History and Antiquities of Rochester,” 1717, 1723, 8vp. “Inscriptions on tombs in Bunhill-fields,” 1717, 8vo. “History and Antiquities of the Churches of Salisbury and Bath,” 1719, 1723, 8vo. “Aubrey’s History of Surrey,” 1719, 5 vols. 8vo. “Norden’s Delineation of Northamptonshire,” 1720, 8vo. “History and Antiquities of Glastonbury,” Oxford, 1722, 8vo. In 1728, he translated and printed Fresnoy’s “New Method of studying History, with a Catalogue of the chief Historians,” 2 vols. 8vo. But his principal work was “The English Topographer, or, an Historical Account of all the Pieces that have been written relating to the antient Natural History or Topographical Description of any Part of England,” 1720, 8vo, the plan of which has been so much augmented and improved in Mr. Cough’s two editions of the “British Topography.” In 1750, he gave, by indenture, the yearly sum of 87l. 165. Sd. being the rents and profits of various estates which he inherited under the will of his grandfather Daniel Rawlinson to the university of Oxford, for the maintenance and support of an Anglo-Saxon lecture or professorship for ever. To the Society of Antiquaries, he gave, by will, a small freehold and copyhold estate at FulEam, on condition that they did not, upon any terms, or by any stratagem, art, means, or contrivance howsoever, increase or add to their (then) number of 150 members, honorary members only excepted. He also made them a considerable bequest of dies and matrices of English seals and medals, all his collection of seals , charters, drawings by Vertue and other artists, and other antiquities ten walnut-tree book-cases, which had been given to his late brother Thomas by the then earl of Pembroke, and four mahogany presses, all marked P, all his English prints of which they had not duplicates, and a quit-rent of 5L per annum, in Norfolk, for a good medal for the best description on any English, Saxon, Roman, or Greek, coin, or other antiquity not before treated of or in print; but, resenting some supposed want of deference to his singularities and dictatorial spirit, and some reflections on his own and his friend’s honour, in an imputation of libelling the Society in the public papers, he, by a codicil made and signed at their house in Chancery lane, revoked the whole, and excluded all fellows of this or the Royal Society from any benefit from his benefactions at Oxford, which, besides his Anglo-Saxon endowment, were extremely considerable; including, besides a number of books with and without ms notes, all his seals, English and foreign, his antique marbles, and other curiosities; his copper-plates relative to several counties, his ancient Greek and Roman coins and medals, part of his collection of English medals, his series of medals of Louis XIV. and XV. a series of medals of the popes, which Dr. Rawlinson supposed to be one of the most complete collections in Europe; and a great number of valuable Mss. which he ordered to be safely locked up, and not to be opened till seven years after his decease . His music, ms. and printed, he gave to the music-school at Oxford. He died at Islington, April 6, 1755 and in the same year was printed “The Deed of Trust and Will of Richard Rawlinson, of St. John the Baptist college, Oxford, doctor of laws concerning his endowment of an Anglo-Saxon lecture, and other benefactions to the college and university.” He left to Hertford college the estate in F-ulham before mentioned, and to the college of St. John the Baptist the bulk of his estate, amounting to near 700l. a year, a plate of archbishop Laud, thirty-one volumes of parliamentary journals and debates; a set of the “Fo?dera,” all his Greek, Roman, and English, coins not given to the BocU leian library, all his plates engraved at the expence of the Society of Antiquaries, with the annuity for the prizemedal, and another to the best orator. The produce of certain rents bequeathed to St. John’s college was, after 40 years’ accumulation, to be laid out in purchase of an estate, whose profits were to be a salary to a keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, being a master of arts, or bachelor Ib civil law; and all legacies refused by the university or others, to center in this college. To the hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlehem, for the use of the incurables of the latter he left 200l. and ten guineas as an equivalent for the monthly coffee which he had received in Bethlehem common room: but, if they did not give up the picture of his father hanging in their hall, in order to its being put up in the Mansion-house, they were to forfeit the larger sum, and receive only the smaller. This picture, after it had hung up at the Mansion-house for some years, without any companion, in a forlorn, neglected state, and received considerable damage, the late sir Walter Rawlinson obtained leave of the court of aldermen (being then himself & member of that body, and president of those hospitals) to restore to Bridewell. It is one of sir Godfrey Kneller’s best performances, and well engraved by Vertue. Constanxine, another brother, is mentioned by Richard RawJinson’s will, as then residing at Venice, where he died in 1779. To him he gave the copper-plate of his father’s portrait, and all family-pictures, except his father’s portrait by Kneller, which was given to the Vintners’ company, of which his father was a member. He left him also his rents in Paul’s-head court, Fenchurch-street, jointly with his sisters, Mary Rawlinson, and Anne Andrews, for life. In the same will is mentioned another brother, John, to whom he left estates in Devonshire-street, London; and a nephew Thomas. To St. John’s college he bequeathed also his diploma, and his heart, which is placed in a beaur tiful marble urn against the chapel- wall, inscribed

His body was buried in a vault, purchased by him in the north aile of St. Giles’s church, Oxford, of which he had a plate engraved in his life-time, with this inscription:

When the head of counsellor Layer, who was executed for being concerned in the plot of 1722*, and fixed on Temple-bar, was blown off, and taken up by Mr. John Pearce, an eminent attorney of Tooke’s-court, and agent for the nonjuring party, Dr, Rawiinson purchased it of him at a high price, preserved it as a valuable relic, and directed that it should be buried in his right hand. It is said, however, that he was imposed upon, and that a head was sold to him which was not Layer’s.

His library of printed books and books of prints was sold by auction in 1756; the sale lasted 50 days, and produced 1164l. There was a second sale of upwards of 20,000 pamphlets, reduced into lots under proper heads, with his most uncommon, rare, and odd, books, in the fol^ lowing year, during ten days; which was immediately succeeded by a sale of the doctor’s single prints, books of prints, and drawings, which lasted eight days.

, an ingenious and worthy man, who is described as possessed of learning, but ignorant of the world; indolent and thoughtless, and often very absent; was a native of $palding, where he was educated under Dr. Neve, and afterwards admitted of St. John’s college,

counsellor of the Temple, was appre- time, the House of Commons appointed

was overtaken, and committed to the making any discovery; and was exeTower. He was examined Sept, 21, cuted at Tyburn May 17, 1721—2, and

Essex for the Pretender’s service, and of the Pretender. His trial was printcorresponding with them, was conTict- ed some time before his execution.

d, and received sentence of death. Tindal’s Contin. of Rapin, IV. 666. Cambridge. He was perpetual curate of Surfleef, of which he gave an account to the Spalcling Society; and curate of Cowbitt, which is a chapel to Spalding, in the gift of trustees. His hermitage of osiers and willows there was celebrated, by William Jackson of Boston, in a ms heroic poem. He communicated to the Royal Society an account of a water-spout raised off the land in Deeping fen, printed in their “Transactions,” vol. XLVII. p. 447, and of an ancient coin, to “Gent. Mag. 1744.” There are several dissertations by him in that miscellany. He was secretary to the Spalding society in 1735. Mr. Pegge, about 1758, had a consultation with Dr. Taylor, residentiary of St. Paul’s, and a friend of Ray’s, to get him removed to a better situation, and the doctor was inclined to do it; but, on better information and mature consideration, it was thought then too late to transplant him. He died a bachelor at Spalding in 1760. See his communications to the society, in the Reliquiae Galeanae, pp. 57, 58, 3. He also communicated, in ms. “The Truth of the Christian Religion demonstrated from the Report that was propagated throughout the Gentile World about the Birth of Christ, that a Messiah was expected, and from the Authority of Heathen Writers, and from the Coins of the Roman Emperors to the beginning of the second general persecution under Domitian,” in ten sections, never printed. Also a ms catalogue of household goods, furniture, and ten pictures, removed out of the presence-chamber, 26 Charles II. 14 Dec. 1668, from Mr. Brown, and of others taken out of the cupboard in the chamber, 25 Dec. 1668, by Mr. Church. These were in number 69. (Percy Church, esq. was some time page of honour and equerry to the queen-mother Henrietta Maria.) A ms catalogue of Italian princes, palaces, and paintings, 1735, now in the Society’s Museum. In 1740, a large and well-written history of the life and writings of the great botanist, his namesake, by Mr. Dale, which was read, and approved. John Ray’s account of Cuba, where he was on shore some months. Mr. Johnson calls him his kinsman, and says, in honour of him, he finds an inscription on the lower ledge of an altar-tomb, on which lies a mutilated alabaster knight in armour and mail in Gosberkirke, alias Gosberton chapel, now a school at Surfleet, to belong to Nicolas Rie, who was sheriff of Lincolnshire 5 and 6 Edw. I. 1278, and died 1279 or 80.

, an eminent English natural philosopher, was the son of a blacksmith at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Essex, and was born there Nov. 29th, 1628. He was bred a scholar at Braintree school; and sent thence, in 1644, to Catharine-hall in Cambridge. Here he continued about two years, and then removed, for some reason orother, to Trinity-college with which, says Derham, he was afterwards much pleased, because in Catharine-hall they chiefly addicted themselves to disputations, while in Trinity the politer arts and sciences were principally cultivated. In Sept. 1649 he was chosen a minor fellow along with his ingenious friend Isaac Barrow, and was chosen major fellow, when he had completed his master’s degree. The learned Duport, famous for his skill in Greek, who had been his tutor, used to say, that the chief of all his pupils, and to whom he esteemed none of the rest comparable, were Mr. Ray and Dr. Barrow. In 1651, Mr. Ray was chosen the Greek lecturer of the college; in 1653, the mathematical lecturer; in 1655, humanity-reader; which three appointments shew the reputation he had acquired, in that early period of his life, for his skill in languages, polite literature, and the sciences. After he had been of greater standing, he was chosen into the respective offices of the college, as praelector primarius, in 1657; junior dean in 1658; and twice college-steward, in 1659 and 1660.

During his continuance in the university, he acquitted himself honourably as a tutor and a preacher; for, preaching and common placing, both in the college and in the university-church, were then usually performed by persons not ordained. Dr. Tenison informed his biographer that Mr. Ray was much celebrated in his time for his preaching solid and useful divinity, instead of that enthusiastic stuff which the sermons of that time were generally filled with. His favourite study, and what indeed made the chief business of his life, was the history of nature, and the works of God: and in this he acquired very extensive knowledge. He published, in 1660, a “Catalogue of the Cambridge Plants,” in order to promote the study of botany, which was then much neglected and the reception this work met with encouraged him to proceed farther in this study. He no longer contented himself with what he met with about Cambridge, but extended his pursuits throughout the greatest part of England and Wales, and part of Scotland. In these journeys of simpiing, though he sometimes went alone, yet he had commonly the company of other curious gentlemen, particularjy Mr, Willoughby, his pupil, Mr. (afterwards sir) Philip Skippon, and Mr. Peter Courthope* At the restoration of the king, he resolved upon entering into holy orders; and was ordained by Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, December 23, 1660. He continued fellow of Trinitycollege, till the beginning of the Bartholomew act; which, requiring a subscription against the solemn league and covenant, occasioned him to resign his fellowship, he refusing to sign that declaration. His biographer informs us that the reason of his refusal was not, as some have imagined, his having taken the solemn league and covenant: “for that he never did, and often declared that he ever thought it an unlawful oath, but he said he could not declare, for those that had taken the oath, that no obligation lay upon them; but feared there might.” This explanation of Mr. Hay’s conduct seems not very satisfactory, but it is all that we can now obtain, and it is certain that he died in communion with the church of England.

Having now left his fellowship, and visited most parts of his own country, he was desirous of seeing what nature afforded in foreign parts; and accordingly, in April, 1663, himself, with Mr. Willoughby,' Mr. Skippon, and Mr. Nathanael Bacon, went from Dover to Calais, and thence through divers parts of Europe; which, however, it is sufficient just to mention, as Mr. Hay himself, in 1673, published the “Observations” they made in that tour. Towards the end of their journey, Mr. Willoughby and Mr. Ray separated; the former passing through Spain, the latter from Montpelier through France, into England, where he arrived in March, 1665-6. He pursued his philosophical studies with his usual ardour, and became so distinguished, that he was importuned to come into the royal society, and was admitted fellow thereof in 1667. Being then solicited by dean (afterwards bishop) Wilkins, to translate his-“Real Character” into Latin, he consented; and the original manuscript of that work, ready for the press, is still extant in the library of the royal society.

In the spring of 1669, Mr. Ray and Mr. Willoughby entered upon those experiments about the tappings of trees, and the ascent and the descent of their sap, which are published in the Philosophical Transactions. About this time, Mr. Ray began to draw up his observations for public use; and one of' the first things he undertook was, his “Collection of English Proverbs.” This book, though sent to Cambridge to be printed in 3669, yet was not published till 1672. It was afterwards much enlarged, and is perhaps better known to the generality of his countrymen, than any other of his literary labours. He also prepared his “Catalogue of English Plants” for the press, which came out in 1670: his humble thoughts of this and his other book (for he was a man of uncommon modesty) may be seen in a Latin letter of his to Dr. Lister, August 22, 1670. In the same letter, he also takes notice of the altering his name, by leaving out the W in the beginning of it; for, till 1670, he had always written his name Wraij; but this being, he says, contrary to the custom of his forefathers, he therefore re-assumed the name of Ray. In the same letter, he mentions his having had an offer of 200l. per annum to travel with three young noblemen into foreign parts; but this proposal not being consistent with his infirm state of body, he thought it prudent to decline it.

In 1671 he was afflicted with a feverish disorder, which terminated in the yellow jaundice; but he was soon cured of it, and resumed his botanical pursuits. The year after, his beloved friend Mr. Willoughby died, in his 37th year, at Middleton-hall, his seat in Yorkshire; “to the infinite and unspeakable loss and grief,” says Mr. Ray, “of myself, his friends, and all good men.” There having been the sincerest friendship between Mr. Willoughby and Mr. Ray, who were men of similar dispositions and tastes, from the time of their being fellow-collegians, Mr. Willoughby not only confided in Mr. Ray in his life-time, but also at his death; for, he made him one of the executors of his will, and charged him with the education of his sons, Francis and Thomas, leaving him also for life 60l. per ann. The eldest of these young gentlemen not being four years of age, Mr. Ray, as a faithful trustee, betook himself to the instruction of them; and for their use composed his “Nomenclator dassicus,” which was published in 1672, and is far more exact, especially in the names of natural objects, than any that had previously appeared. Francis, the eldest, dying before he was of age, the younger became lord Middleton. Not many months after the death of Mr. Willoughby, Mr. Ray lost another of his best friends, bishop Wilkins; whom he visited in London, November 13, 1672, and found expiring. Mr. Ray having thus lost some of his best friends, and being in a manner left destitute, endeavoured to consoler himself with female society; and in June, 1673, married a young lady, not half his age, being only 20 years of age, the daughter of Mr. Oakeley, of Launton in Oxfordshire. Towards the end of this year came forth his “Observations, Topographical, Moral, &c.” made in foreign countries; to which was added his “Catalogus Stirpium in exteris regionibus observatarum” and, about the same time, his “Collection of unusual or local English words,” which he had gathered up in his travels through the counties of England. In 1674, Mr. Oldenbufgh, the secretary of the Royal Society, renewed his correspondence with Mr. Ray^, which had been some time intermitted, and sent him letters almost every month. Mr. Ray’s accounts in these letters were published by Oldenburgh in the Philosophical Transactions. Oldenburgh had a farther view in his correspondence with Mr. Ray; it was to engage him with those leading members, who had agreed to entertain the society with a philosophical discourse at their meetings, so that the burthen might not lie among too few of the members. Mr. Ray complied, and accordingly sent him “A Discourse concerning Seeds, and the Specific Differences of Plants;” which, Oldenburgh tells him, was so well received by the president and fellows, that they returned him their thanks, and requested he would repeat his favours of that kind.

This year, 1674, and part of the next, he spent in preparing Mr. Willoughby’s “Observations about Birds” fof the press; which, however, was not published till 1678. These two gentlemen, finding the history of nature very imperfect, had agreed between themselves, before their travels gn the continent, to reduce the several tribes of oature to a method, and to give accurate descriptions of the several species from a strict survey of them: and, since Mr. Willoughby’s genius lay chiefly to animals, he undertook the birds, beasts, fishes, and insects, as Mr. Ray did the vegetables. How they discharged each their province, the world has seen in their works. Old lady Willoughby dying, and Mr. Wilionghby’s sons being removed from under Mr. Kay’s tuition, about 1676 he left Middletonhall, and retired with his wife to Sutton Cofield, about four miles from Middleton. Some time after, he went into Essex, to Falborne-hall, wfcere he continued till June 1677; aod then made another remove to Black-Notley, his native place.

The first fruit of our author’s leisure and retirement here, was his “Met hod us Plantarum Nova,” published in 1682, making au octavo volume. His principles of arrangement are chiefly derived from the fruit. The regularity and irregularity of flowers, which take the lead in the system of Rivinus, make no part of that of Ray. It is remarkable that he adopts the ancient primary division of plants, into trees, shrubs, and herbs, and that he blamed Rivious for abolishing it, though his own prefatory remarks tend to overset that principle, as a vulgar and casual one, unworthy of a philosopher. That his system was not merely a commodious artificial aid to practical botany, but a philosophical clue to the labyrinth of Nature, he probably, like his fellow-labourers, for many years, in this department, believed; yet he was too modest, and too learned, to think he had brought this new and arduous design to perfection; for whatever he has incidentally or deliberately thrown out, respecting the value of his labours, is often marked with more diffidence on the subject of classification, than any other. He first applied his system to practical use in a general “Historia Plantarum,” of which the first volume, a thick folio, was published in 1686, and the second in 1687. The third volume of the same work, which is supplementary, came out in 1704. This vast and critical compilation is still in use as a book of reference, being particularly valuable as an epitome of the contents of various rare and expensive works, which ordinary libraries cannot possess, such as the “Hortus Malabaricus.” The description of species is faithful and instructive; the remarks original, bounded only by the whole circuit of the botanical learning of that day nor are generic character! neglected, however vaguely they are assumed. Specific differences do not enter regularly into the author’s plan, nor has he followed any uniform rules of nomenclature. So ample a transcript of the practical knowledge of such a botanist, cannot but be a treasure; yet it is now njucli neglected, few persons being learned enough to use it with facility, for want of figures, and a popular nomenclature; and those who are, seldom requiring its assistance. A mere catalogue or index, like the works of Tournefort and Caspar Bauhin, which teach nothing of themselves, are of readier use. The Species Plantarum of Linnseus unites the advantages of the clearest most concise specific definition, and, by the help of Bauhin, of an universal index. Nor was Mr. Ray less mindful of Mr. Willoughby’s collections, where there were noble, though rude and indigested, materials; but spent much time and pains in reducing them to order, and fitting them for the press. He had published his “ObserTations upon Birds” in 1678; and, in 1685, he published his “History of Fishes:” and, though these works were then the completest in their kinds, yet they lost much of their perfection by the miscarriage of Mr. Willoughby’s and Mr. Ray’s papers in their travels. They had very accurately described all the birds, fishes, &c. which they saw as they passed through Germany, especially those in and upon the Danube and the Rhine; but lost their accounts in their return home. This loss Mr. Ray laments in the philosophical letters above cited.

Though Mr. Ray’s health began to be impaired by years and study, yet he continued from time to time to give his works to the public. He published, in 1688, “Fasciculus Stirpium Britannicarum;” and, in 1690, “Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum.” The learned president of the Linnaean society observes, that if the fame or the utility of Ray’s great botanical works has, neither of them, been commensurate with the expectations that might have been formed, this “Synopsis” amply supplied all such defects, and proved the great corner stone of his reputation in this department of science. The two editions of his alphabetical catalogue of English plants being sold off, and some pettifogging reasons of his bookseller’s standing in the way of a third, with any improvements, he remodelled the work, throwing it into a systematic form, revising the whole, supplying generic characters, with numerous additions of species, and various emendations and remarks. The uses and medicinal qualities of the plants are removed to the alphabetical index at the end. A second edition of this “Synopsis” was published in 1696, nor did its author ever prepare another. The third, now most in use, was edited twenty-eight years afterwards by Dillenius. Of all the systematical and practical Floras of any country, the second edition of Ray’s “Synopsis” is the most perfect that ever came under our observation. He examined every plant recorded in his work, and even gathered most of them himself. He investigated their synonyms with consummate accuracy; and if the clearness and precision of other authors had equalled his, he would scarcely have committed an error. It is difficult to find him in a mistake or misconception respecting Nature herself, though he sometimes misapprehends the bad figures, or lame descriptions, he was obliged to consult. Above a hundred species are added, in this second edition, and the cryptogamic plants, in particular, are more amply elucidated. A controversial letter from Rivinus to Ray, and its answer, with remarks upon Tournefort, are subjoined to this second edition. Much of the dispute turns upon the now obsolete distinction of plants, in a methodical system, into trees, shrubs, herbs, &c. The letters are well written, in Latin: and liberal, though perhaps hypercritical, in their style. Ray took no delight in controversy.

Having thus published many books on subjects which he took to be somewhat foreign to his profession, he at length resolved to edify the world like a divine. With this view he completed his Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, which he calls, “The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation.” The rudiments of this work were laid in some college-lectures, read in the chapel, and called common places; which, having much enlarged, he published in 1691, 8vo. This book is the basis of all the labours of following divines, who have made the book of nature a commentary on the book of revelation; a confirmation of truths, which Nature has not authority, of herself to establish! In it the author inculcates the doctrine of a constantly superintending Providence; as weil as the advantage, and even the duty, of contemplating the works of God. This, he says, is part of the business of a sabbath-day, as it will be, probably, of our employment through that eternal rest, of which the sabbath is a type. He was next encouraged to publish another of a similar kind, whose foundation was also laid at Cambridge, in some sermons which he had preached before the university. This was his “Three Physico-Theologicai Discourses concerning the Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of the World,” 1692, 8vo. Both these works have been often reprinted with large additions, and continued to be very popular books until within the last thirty or forty years.

Soon after these theological pieces, his “Synopsis Methodica Animalium Quadrupedum” was published in Jun6 1693 and he then finished a. “Synopsis of Birds aad Fishes,” which was so long neglected by the bookseller, that it was thought to have been destroyed but, after Mr. Ray’s death, it was published by Mr. Derham in 1713. He made a catalogue of Grecian, Syrian, Egyptian, and Cretan, plants, which was printed with RauwolfTs Travels in 16!j3 and, the year after, published his “Sylloge Stirpium Europearum extra Britanniam.” He had afterwards some little contests with Rivinus and Tournefort, concerning the method of plants, which occasioned him to review and amend his own method, and to draw it up in a completer form than he had used in his “Methodus Plantarum,” published in 1682, or in his “Historia Plantarum.” He began now to be grievously afflicted with a continual diarrhoea, and with very painful ulcers in his legs, which ate deep into the flesh, and kept him waking whole nights: by which means he was so disabled, that, as he tells Dr. Tancred Robinson, in a letter of September 30, 1698, he could not so much as walk into the neighbouring fields. He still, however, kept up to the last his correspondence with his friends, in the vivacity and clearness of style which was natural to him. Latin and English, it is said, were equally ready to his pen. So indefatigable was he in the cultivation of the study of Nature, that within a year or two of his death, he began to collect his scattered notes for a work on insects, and actually drew up a “Methodus Insectorum,” which was printed, soon after his decease, in a little octavo of sixteen pages, and republished in the front of his “Historia Insectorum.” This last book, comprising all his own and Mr. Willoughby’s descriptions of insects, came from the press in 1710, at the expence of the Royal Society, and under the superintendance of Dr. Derham. It consists of 375 quarto pages, besides an apdendix of twenty-three more, on British Beetles, by Lister. This work is a mass of accurate and authentic observation, but, for want of plates, has never come into popular use.

The study of insects was probably the last that engaged the attention of this great and wise man; who, though on the verge of eternity, in the full possession of himself, and in the anticipation of the most glorious manifestations of his Creator, did not disdain or neglect to contemplate him in his least and lowest works. His last letter to Dr. Derham, who had just been to visit him, is dated August 16, 1704. He speaks of having lately obtained Mr. Willoughby’s entomological papers, and describes himself as then entering on his History of Insects. How well he employed his time during the autumn, is evident from what we have related concerning this work, for he never saw another spring. He died at Black Notley, in a house of his own building, Jan. 17, 1705, in the 77th year of his age. His character is thus concisely given by Derham: In his dealings, no man more strictly just; in his conversation, no man more humble, courteous, and affable; towards God, no man more devout; and towards the poor and distressed, no man more compassionate and charitable, according to his abilities.“The friend who wrote this eulogium, in his” Life of Mr. Ray," asserts, that he was buried, according to his own desire, in the church of Black Notley; but the authors of the Biographia Britannica are probably more correct, in saying, that he declined the offer made him by the rector, of a place of interment in the chancel, choosing rather to repose with his ancestors, in the church-yard; and this account is confirmed by the original situation of his monument, erected at the expence, in part at least, of bishop Compton. The long and elegant Latin epitaph has often been published. Its author was the rev. William Coyte, M. A., father of the late Dr. Coyte of Ipswich, and the original manuscript in possession of sir E. J. Smith, contains the information that Ray was interred in the church-yard. In 1737, the monument in question, which seems to have been a sort of altar-tomb, being nearly ruined, was restored at the charge of Dr. Legge, and removed for shelter into the church; where therefore it became a cenotaph, as an inscription added on this occasion terms it. Forty-five years afterwards the tomb again underwent a repair, by the care of the present sir Thomas Gery Cullum and others, who subjoined a third inscription.

A more lasting monument was dedicated to the memory of our great English naturalist, in the genus of plants which bears his name, the Raiana. It must be lamented that he made, as far as we can learn, no collection of dried plants, which might serve to ascertain, in every case, what he described. The great Herbariums of Buddie, Uvedale, &c. still kept in the British Museum, are indeed supposed to supply, in a great measure, this defect; they having been collected by persons who had frequent communication with Ray, and were well acquainted with his plants. Whatever be had preserved relative to any branch of natural history, he gave, a week before his death, to his neighbour Mr. Samuel Dale, author of the “Pharmacologia.” Nothing is said of his library, which was probably inconsiderable.

, Lord, one of those many eminent men who have risen to the peerage from the profession of the law, was the son of sir Thomas Raymond, a justice of the King’s Bench, and author of “Reports of divers special cases in the court of King’s-Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, from 12 to 35 Car. II.” first printed In 1696, and lastly in 1803, 8vo. His son was solicitor general to queen Anne, and attorney-general to George I. by whom he was appointed one of the commissioners of the great seal. He succeeded sir John Pratt as chief justice of the court of King’s-bench, and was created baron Raymond of Abbot’s Langley, Hertfordshire, in 1730. He died in 1732, leaving one son, by whose death, in 1753, the title became extinct.

, a French writer of considerable, but temporary celebrity, was born at St. Genies in the Rovergue, in 1713. He was educated among the Jesuits, and became one of their order. The learning of that society is universally known, as well as the happy talents which its superiors possessed, of assigning to each member his proper employment. Raynal, after having acquired among them a taste for literature and science, and being ordained a priest, displayed such talents in the pulpit, that his preaching attracted numerous audiences. Hi* love of independence, however, induced him, in 1748, to dissolve his connexion with the Jesuits, and to take up his’ residence at Paris. Such is the account given by our principal authority; but, according to the abbe Barruel, he was expelled the society for his impiety. With this circumstance Barruel may be much better acquainted than we can be: but it seems probable that his impieties had not then reached much farther than to call in question the supreme authority of the church; for Raynal himself assures us, that he did not utter his atrocious declarations against Christianity till he had ceased to be a member of the order of Jesuits. He then associated himself with Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Diderot, and was by them employed to furnish the theological articles for the “Encyclopedic.” But though his religious opinions were certainly lax, he could not even then be what, in a Protestant country, would be deemed a man remarkable for impiety; for he employed the abbe Yvon, whom Barruel calls an old metaphysician, but an inoffensive and upright man, to write the articles which he was engaged to furnish. In this transaction, indeed, he shewed that he possessed not a proper sense of honour, for he paid poor Yvon with twentyrive louis d'ors for writing theological articles, for which he received himself six times that sum; and the trick being discovered, Raynal was disgraced, and compelled to pay up the balance to the abbe Yvon; but though he had thus shewn himself to be without honour, it is difficult to believe he had yet proceeded so far as blasphemy, of which he has been accused, since he had employed a Christian divine to supply his place in the “Encyclopedic.”

After his settling at Paris, he appears to have become an author by profession, as we do not find that he had any place or preferment. His first piece, published the same year in which he quitted the society of the Jesuits, was entitled “Histoire du Stadhouderat.” He next published “Histoire du Parlement d'Angleterre,” which gained him much reputation, though it had little claim to the title of history, and was tinged with many prejudices, religious and political. He also composed “Anecdotes Literaires,” in three volumes, 12mo; and “Memoires de Ninon de PEnclos;” and was much employed in the “Mercure de France.” But the work upon which his fame is chiefly built, is his “Political and Philosophical History of the European Settlements in the East and West Indies.” That this history is written in an animated style, and that it contains many just reflections, both political and philosophical, is known to all Europe for it has been translated into every European language. Its beauties, however, are deformed by many sentiments that are irreligious, and by some that are impure. It was followed, about 1780, by a small tract, entitled “The Revolution of America,” in which the author pleads the cause of the revolted colonists with a degree of zeal, censures the conduct of the British government with a keenness of asperity, and displays a knowledge of the principles and intrigues of the 'different factions which at that period divided the English nation, that surely was not natural to the impartial pen of a philosophic foreigner. Hence he has been supposed to have been incited to the undertaking, and to have been furnished with part of his materials, hy some persons who opposed the measures of the English government, and secretly fomented the American cause. Be this as it may, he propagated, both in this tract and in his history, a number of licentious opinions respecting government and religion, of which he lived to regret the consequences.

A prosecution was instituted against him by the French government, on account of his History of the East and West Indies; but it was conducted with so little severity, that he had sufficient time to retire to the dominions of the king of Prussia, who afforded him the protection he solicited, although his majesty’s character was treated by the author in his book with no great degree of veneration. Raynal also experienced the kindness of the empress of Russia; and it is not a little remarkable of this singular personage, that although he was always severe in discussing the characters of princes, yet the mostdepoiic among these heaped upon him many marks of favour and generosity. The abbe also received a very unusual mark of respect from a British House of Commons. It was once intimated to the speaker, that Raynal was a spectator in the gallery. The business was immediately suspended, and the stranger conducted to a more convenient and honourable station.

The great trait of Raynal’s character was a love of liberty, which, in his earlier writings, he did not properly define; but when he lived to see some of the consequences of this, in the progress of the French revolution, he made one glorious effort to retrieve his errors. In the month of May 1791, he addressed to the constituent assembly one of the most eloquent, argumentative, and impressive letters that ever was written on any subject; a letter which, if the majority of them had not been intoxicated with their newly-acquired consequence, must have given some check to their mad career.

One consequence of this letter was very singular. Those who could not answer it, nor resist the conviction of its arguments, wreaked their vengeance on liaynal, by endeavouring to prove that he did not write the celebrated History of the Indies; and this became the cant of the day. To illustrate this, we shall give the following extract of a letter from an English gentleman then in Paris, addressed to the editor of one of the London newspapers.

“I am sorry to add,” says this gentleman, f ' that the reputation of the abbe Raynal in Paris, where he is personally known, is very different from what he enjoys in London, where he is only known as an author. That Philosophical history which you ascribe to him, is really, in no proper sense, his work; but was produced by a combination of the labours of several ingenious men, among whom I am inclined to think, he contributed the smallest part. We might indeed give him some credit for lending his name to a book, which contained so many bold truths, which it was then dangerous to publish; but even here, there is need of caution; for under the ancient system, deceit and fraud were carried to such a pitch of refinement, that it was not uncommon for men of letters to concert stratagems with ministers, to get themselves put into the Bastile, to raise their reputation, and to make their fortune in the world. Whatever be in this, you may ascribe the history of the European settlements to Perrijeat la Roque, Dubreuil, Diderot, Nargion, or Holbach, who were all concerned, as well as the abbe Raynal."

This letter was written by Mr. Thomas Christie, who wrote a volume some time after on the French revolution; but when our readers consider that he was then intoxicated with the fallacious prospects of that revolution, and that this accusation against the abbe Raynal was not produced until he had written against the proceedings of the assembly, they will easily be able to appreciate the information that he was not the author of the celebrated history.

A History of the Divorce of Catherine by Henry VIII. and a History of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantz, and some other works, are attributed to Raynal, but are little known. He escaped the general danger, during the reign of Robespierre, but was stripped of his property, and died in poverty, March 6, 1796, at the advanced age of eighty, four. Such was his distress at this time, that there was only found in his possession an assignment of fifty livres, which was worth no more than about five sous. When he had money he was liberal to profuseness, and delighted in those expences that would add to his fame. He raised in the island of Ardstatt, near Lucerne, a monument to the founders of Helvetian liberty. He gave annuities of 1200 livres each to five principal learned societies in France, to be bestowed in prizes.

, a celebrated Jesuit, was born in 1583, at Sospello, in the county of Nice. He resided almost wholly in France; and though his singular opinions, joined to a temper naturally morose and satirical, involved him in many disputes with his society, he would not quit it. He died at Lyons, October 31, 1663, aged eighty, and the Carmelites paid him funeral honours in all their convents on account of the book he had written on the Scapulary. A complete collection of his works was printed at Lyons; in 1665, 20 vols. fol. Tom. XX is not numbered so, but entitled “Apopompaeus,” 1669, and falsely marked Cracow; it contains those works which father Raynaud did not choose to own. They discover uncommon learning and extent of reading; but as almost all the subjects he has chosen are singular, and treated in a singular and extravagant manner, his books sold slowly at first, and Boissat, who printed them, was ruined, and died in an hospital. Most of his works had been published separately, and their author suffered the mortification of seeing some of them put into the Index. Two of the best and most remarkable among them are, “Erotema cle bonis et mails Libris,” i. e. Questions concerning good and bad books; and “Symbola Antoiiiana,” Rome, 1648, 8vo, relative to St. Anthony’s fire.

, a learned Dominican, born at Pisa, was appointed vice-chancellor of the Roman church, and bishop ofMaguelone. He died January 13, 1649, leaving several works: the most considerable of which is a theological dictionary, entitled “Pantheologia;” in which he has arranged the theological subjects in alphabetical order. The best edition of this work is, Lyons, 1655, 3 vols. fol. with the additions by father Nicolai, a Dominican: it was reprinted in 1670.

, was born at Vercelli, in Piedmont, in 1479, and became a citizen of Siena. The warm tone of his colour, the masses of his chiaroscuro, and other traces of the Milanese school in his works, seem to confirm the tradition as to the place of his birth. The frescoes which he painted in the Vatican, under the pontificate of Julius II. were by order of that pope demolished, to make room for those of Raphael. Certain other pictures, representing deeds of Alexander the Great, still remain in the palace Chigi, now called the Farnesina: with much of the chiaroscuro, though not of the dignity and grace, of Lionardo da Vinci, they are remarkable for beauties of perspective and playful imagery.

, an English divine, was a native of Buckinghamshire, where he was born in 1588. He was admitted a student of Magdalen-hall, Oxford, in 1604. He took his degree of M. A. in 1610, and then entered himself a commoner of Alban-hall. In 1612 he was ordained deacon, and in 1614 priest, by the bishop of Oxford. About this time he became chaplain to Edward lord Zouch of Haringworth, warden of the cinque ports, and governor of Dover-castle. Having accompanied this nobleman to Dover, his preaching was so much admired, that at the request of the parishioners he was made minister of St. Mary’s, in December 1616. He was afterwards appointed chaplain in ordinary to Charles I. He was one of those doctrinal puritans, who opposed, as much as any churchman of opposite religious sentiments, the violent proceedings of the authors of the rebellion, and had exposed them so frequently in his sermons, that he was soon marked out for vengeance. In April 1612, his library at Dover was plundered, and in November following he was dragged from his house by the soldiers, and imprisoned for a year and seven months. In January of the above mentioned year, archbishop Laud, then a prisoner in the Tower, had, at his majesty’s request, bestowed on him the living of Chartham in Kent; but from that the usurping party took care he should receive no advantage. He was also with as little effect made a prebendary of Canterbury. In 1644, however, sir William Brockman gave him the living of Cheriton in Kent, which he was not only allowed to keep, but was likewise appointed by the assembly of divines, to be one of the nine divines who were to write annotations on the New Testament for the work afterwards published, and known by the title of the “Assembly’s Annotations.”

His sufferings, however, were not yet at an end; for soon after this apparent favour, upon a suspicion that he was concerned in a plot for the seizing of Dover-castle, he was apprehended and carried to Leeds-castle, where he was imprisoned for some time. In March 1650, he held a public disputation in Folkstone church with Fisher, an anabaptist, who argued against the necessity of ordination, and quoted as his authority some passage in bishop Taylor’s “Discourse of the liberty of Prophesying,” which obliged Mr. Reading to write a tract on the subject. On the restoration, when Charles II. landed at Dover, Mr. Reading was deputed by the corporation to address his majesty, and present him with a large Bible with gold clasps, in their name. He was now replaced in the prebend of Canterbury and the living of Chartham. Here he died Oct. 26, 1667, and was buried in the chancel of the church.

He published several occasional sermons from 1623 to 1663; and 1. “Brief instructions concerning the holy Sacrament,” Lond. 1645, 8vo. 2. “A guide to the holy City,” Oxon. 1651, 4to. 3. “An antidote to Anabaptism,” 1654, 4to. It was in this he animadverted on those passages of bishop Taylor’s “Discourse,” which seemed to favour irregular preaching. 4. “An Evening Sacrifice, or Prayers for a family in these times of calamity.” 5. “Speech made before king Charles II. on the shore, when he landed at Dover,” &c. 1660, single sheet, with verses. Mr, Reading left several manuscripts, partly in the hands of Basil Kennet, whence they passed to his sen, White Kennet.

, an eminent French naturalist, was born at Rochelle in 1683. He learned grammar at the place of his birth, and studied philosophy at the Jesuits college at Poitiers. In 1699 he went from thence to Bourges, at the invitation of an uncle, where he studied the civil law. In 1703, he went to Paris, and applied himself wholly to the mathematics and natural philosophy; and in 1708, being then only twenty-four years old, he was chosen a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences; and during that and the following year, he described a general method of finding and ascertaining all curves described by the extremity of a right line, the other end of which is moved round a given curve, and by lines which fall upon a given curve, under a certain angle greater or less than a right angle.

These are the only geometrical performances that he produced. In the year 1710 he read his observations upon the formation of shells, in which he proved that they grow not like the other parts of the animal body, by expansion, but by the external addition of new parts; he also assigned the cause of the variety of colour, figure, and magnitude which distinguishes one shell from another. During the experiments which this inquiry led him to make upon the snails, he discovered a very singular insect which lives not only upon these animals, but burrows in their bodies, a situation which he never leaves unless he is forced out of it by the snail. This inquiry also gave occasion to M. Reaumur to account for the progressive motion of testaceous animals of different kinds, and to describe and explain an almost endless variety of organs which the author of nature has adapted to that purpose. He produced also the same year the natural history of cobwebs. M. Bon, the first president of the chamber of accounts at Montpellier, had shewn that cobwebs might be spun into a kind of silk, which might be applied to useful purposes; but it was stiil necessary to determine whether spiders could be bred in sufficient numbers, without an expence too great for the undertaking to bear; and Reaumur soon found that M. Bon’s discovery was a mere matter of curiosity, and that the commercial world could derive no advantage from cobwebs. It had been long known, that marine animals adhere to solid bodies of various kinds, either by an attachment which continues during their existence, or which they can determine at pleasure; but how this attachment was formed, remained a secret, till it was discovered by Reaumur, to whose inquiries we are indebted for our knowledge of many organs and materials adapted to that purpose,before unknown. In the course of this inquiry, M. Reaumur discovered a fish different from that which furnished the ancients with their Tyrian dye, but which has the same property in a yet greater degree: upon the sides of this fish there are small grains, like those of a hard roe, which being broken, yield first a fine full yellow colour, that upon being exposed for a few minutes to the air, becomes a beautiful purple.

About the same time Reaumur made a great variety of experiments to discover whether the strength of a cord was greater or less than the sum of the strength of the threads of which it consists. It was generally believed that the strength of the cord was greater, but Reaumur’s experiments proved it to be less; whence it necessarily follows, that the less a cord differs from an assemblage of parallel threads, i. e. the less it is twisted, the stronger it is*.

It had been long asserted by those who lived on the sea coast, or the banks of great rivers, that when craw-fish, crabs, and lobsters, happen to lose a claw, nature produces another in its stead: this, however, was disbelieved by all but the vulgar, till Reaumur put the matter out of dispute, and traced the re-production through all its circumstances, which are even more singular than the thing itself. M. Reaumur also, after many experiments made with the torpedo, or numb-fish, discovered that its effect was not produced by an emission of torporific particles, as some have supposed, but by the great quickness of a stroke given by this fish to the limb that touches it, by muscles of a most admirable structure, which are adapted to that purpose. These discoveries, however, are chiefly matters of curiosity; those which follow are of use.

In 1722, he published a work under the title of “The art of converting Iron into Steel, and of rendering cast Iron ductile.” The use of iron is well known under the three forms of cast iron, forged or bar iron, and steel: iron in the first state is susceptible of fusion, but it is brittle and hard, and can neither be forged by the hammer, nor cut by the chissel: in the second state it is malleable, and may be both filed and cut, but it is no longer fusible without the addition of a foreign substance: in the third it acquires a very singular property of becoming hard and brittle, if after it has been made red hot it is dipped into cold water: the extreme brittleness of cast iron makes it unfit for the construction of any thing that is required to be either supple or elastic, and still more for any thing upon which it will be necessary to employ a tool of any kind after it comes out of the font, for no tool can touch it. On the other hand, the manner of converting forged, or bar-iron into steel, was then wholly unknown in France. But Reaumur having, in the course of other inquiries, found that steel differed from iron only in having more sulphur and more salt in its composition, undertook to discover the method of giving to iron what was wanting to make it steel, and at length perfectly succeeded, so as to make steel of what quality he pleased.

The same experiments which convinced Reaumur that steel differed from iron only in having more sulphur and salt, convinced him also that cast iron differed from forged iron, only by having still more sulphur and salt than steel; it was steel with an excess of its specific difference from forged iron: he therefore set himself to take away this excess, and he succeeded so as to produce a great variety of utensils in cast iron, which were as easily wrought as forged iron, and did not cost half the money. However, a manufactory set on foot in France for rendering cast iron sufficiently ductile to be forged and wrought, was, after some time, discontinued. For discovering the secret of converting iron into steel, the duke of Orleans, being then regent, settled a pension upon Reaumur of 12,000 livres a year, and, at his request, it was settled upon the academy after his death, to be applied for defraying the expences of future attempts to improve the arts.

M. de Reaumur also discovered the secret of tinning plates of iron, as it was practised in Germany; and his countrymen, instructed in that useful manufacture, no longer imported them from abroad. He has likewise the credit of having invented the art of making porcelain. A few simple observations upon fragments of glass, porcelain, and pottery, convinced him that china was nothing more than a derm-vitrification; now a demi-vitrification may be obtained either by exposing a verifiable matter to the action of fire, and withdrawing it before it is perfectly vitrified, or by making a paste of two substances, one of which is verifiable, and the other not: It was therefore very easy to discover by which of these methods the porcelain of China was made; nothing more was necessary than to urge it with a strong fire: if it consisted wholly of a vitrifiable matter half vitrified, it would be converted into glass; if of two substances, one of which was not vitrifiable, it would come out of the furnace the same as it went in: this experiment being made, the China porcelain suffered no alteration, but all the European porcelain was changed into glass. But when the China porcelain was thus discovered to consist of two distinct substances, it was farther necessary to discover what they were, and whether France produced them. M. Reaumur accomplished these desiderata, and had the satisfaction to find that the materials for making China porcelain were to be had in France, in the same abundance, and in greater perfection, than in India. Reaumur also contrived a new species of porcelain, consisting only of glass, annealed a second time, with certain easy precautions, which, though less beautiful than other porcelain, is yet a useful discovery, considering the great facility and little expence with which it is made.

M. Reaumur was the first that reduced thermometers to a common standard, so as that the cold indicated by a thermometer in one place, might be compared with the cold indicated by a thermometer in another; in other words, he prescribed rules by which two thermometers might be constructed that would exactly coincide with each other through all the changes of heat and cold: he fixed the middle term, or zero, of his division of the tube, at the point to which the liquor rises when the bulb is plunged in water that is beginning to freeze; he prescribed a method of regulating the divisions in proportion to the quantity of liquor, and not by the aliquot parts of the length of the tube; and he directed how spirits of wine might be reduced to one certain degree of dilatability. Thermometers constructed upon these principles were called after his name, and soon took place of all others.

Reaumur also invented the art of preserving eggs, and of hatching them; this art had been long known and practised in Egypt, but to the rest of the world was an impenetrable secret: he found out and described many ways of producing an artificial warmth in which chickens might be hatched, and some by the application of fires used for other purposes; he shewed how chickens might be hatched in a dunghill, he invented long cages in which the callow brood were preserved in their first state, with fur cases to creep iinder instead of the hen, and he prescribed proper food for them of things every where to be procured in great plenty. He found also that eggs might be kept fresh and fit for incubation many years, by washing them with a varnish of oil, grease, or any other substance, that would effectaally stop the pores of the shell, and prevent the contents from evaporating; by this contrivance eggs may not only be preserved for eating or hatching in the hotest climates, but the eggs of birds of every kind may be transported from one climate to another, and the breed of those that could not survive a long voyage, propagated in the most distant part of the world.

While he was employed in these discoveries, he was gradually proceeding in another work, the “History of Insects,” the first volume of which he published in 1734. This volume contains the history of caterpillars, which he divides into seven classes, each of a distinct kind and character: he describes the manner in which they subsist, as well under the form of caterpillars as in the chrysalis; the several changes which they undergo; the manner of takingfood, and of spinning their webs. The second volume, which was published in 1736, is a continuation of the same subject, and describes caterpillars in their third state, that of butterflies, with all the curious particulars relating to their figure and colour, the beautiful dust with which they are powdered, their coupling, and laying their eggs, which the wisdom of Providence has, by an invariable instinct, directed them to do, where their young may most conveniently find shelter and food. The third volume contains tho history of moths, not only of those which are so pernicious to clothes and furniture, but those which live among the leaves of trees, and in the water; the first is perhaps the most useful, because Reaumur has given directions how the cloth-moth may be certainly destroyed; but the second abounds with particulars that are not only curious, but wonderful in the highest degree. This volume also contains the history of the vine-fretter, an insect not less destructive to our gardens than the moth to our furniture, with an account of the worm that devours them, and the galls produced upon trees by the puncture of some insect, which often serve them for habitations.

M. de Reaumur, during the course of his experiments upon birds, remarked the amazing art with which the several species of these animals build their nests. His observations on this subject he communicated to the French academy in 1756, and this memoir was the last he exhibited. He died by a hurt in his head, received from a fall at Bermondiere in the Maine, upon an estate that had been left him by a friend, on the 17th of October, 1756, aged seventyfive years.

He was a man of great ingenuity and learning, of the strictest integrity and honour, the warmest benevolence, and the most extensive liberality.

, a native of Avignon, and exJesuit, was an advocate, but compelled to quit his profession for want of health. He died in 1752. Reboulet wrote the “Mernoires de Forbin,” 2 vols. 12mo, and the “Hist, de l'Enfance,” 2 vols. compiled from memoirs with which the Jesuits furnished him, of whom he was too servile a flatterer to express any doubt concerning what they related. This work, however, was burnt as calumnious and defamatory, by a sentence of the parliament of Toulouse. His other works are, “A History of Pope Clement XI.” in 2 small volumes, 4to, which the king of Sardinia suppressed; as his father did not love the Jesuits, and could not therefore be a great man in the opinion of Reboulet. A “History of Louis XIV.” 3 vols. 4to, or 9 vols. 12mo, his best work, is tolerably accurate as to facts, but the narration is dry.

, a learned physician and mathematician, was born of a good family in Wales, and flourished in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary. There is no account of the exact time of his birth, though it must have been early in the sixteenth century, as he was entered of the university of Oxford about 1525, where he was elected fellow of All Souls college in 1531, being then B. A. but Wood is doubtful as to the degree of master. Making physic his profession, he went to Cambridge, where he was honoured with the degree of doctor in that faculty, in 1545, and highly esteemed by all that knew him for his great knowledge in several arts and sciences. He afterwards returned to Oxford, where, as he had done before he went to Cambridge, he publicly taught arithmetic, and other branches of the mathematics, with great applause. It seems he afterwards repaired to London, and it has been said he was physician to Edward VI. and Mary, to which princes he dedicates some of his books; and yet he ended his days in the King’s Bench prison, Southwark, where he was confined for debt, in 155.S, at a very immature age. Pits gives him a very high character, as excelling in every branch of knowledge, philosophy, polite literature, astronomy, natural history, &c. &c. And Tanner observes that he had a knowledge of the Saxon language, as appears from his marginal notes on Alexander Essebiens, a ms. in Corpus Christi college, Cambridge.

Recorde published several mathematical books, which are mostly in dialogue, between the master and scholar. They are as follow: 1. “The Pathway to Knowledge, containing the first principles of Geometric, as they may moste aptly be applied unto practise, bothe for use of Instrumentes Geometricall and Astronomicall, and also for projection of Plattes much necessary for all sortes of men,” Lond. 1551 and 1574, 4to. 2. “The Ground of Arts, teaching the perfect worke and practice of Arithmeticke, both in whole numbers and fractions, after a more easie and exact forme then in former time hath beene set forth,” 1549, 1558, 1561, and 1571, 8vo. This work went through many other editions, and was corrected and augmented by several other persons; as first by the famous Dr. John Defe; then by John Mellis, a schoolmaster, 1590 and 1618; next by Robert Norton; then by Robert Hartwell, practitioner in mathematics, in London; and lastly, by R. C. and printed in 8vo, 1623. In the “Archaeologia,” vol. XIII. may be seen a specimen of the author’s method of illustrating an example, which exhibits a strange jumble of Arabic and Roman notation. The former was not much in use in his days. 3. “The Castle of Knowledge, containing the Explication of the Sphere bothe Celestiall and Materiall, and divers other things incident thereto. With sundry pleasaunt proofes and certaine newe demonstrations not written before in any vulgare woorkes,” Lond. 1551, 4to, 1556, fol. and 1596, 4to. 4. “The Whetstone of Witte, which is the seconde part of Arithmetike: containing the extraction of Rootes; the Cossike practise, with the rules of Equation: and the woorkes of Surde Nombers,” Lond. 1557, 4to. An analysis of this work on Algebra, with an account of what is new in it, is given in Dr. Hutton’s Dictionary, art. Algebra. 5. “The Urinal of Physic, and the Judicial of Urines,” 4to, 1548, 1567,1574, 1582, and 165 1, the two last in 8vo. Bale and Pits mention some writings of his on the eucharist, auricular confession, the image of a true commonwealth, &c. He also collated the first and third editions of Fabian’s Chronicle, translated Euclid, and undertook the ancient description of England and Ireland; but we know not that these were published.

, an ancient Italian scholar and physician, was born of a noble family at Arezzo, in 1626. He studied at Padua, where he took the degree of doctor in philosophy and physic: and very soon afterwards rendered himself so conspicuous by his talents and acquirements in these sciences, that he was appointed first physician to the grand dukes Ferdinand II. and Cosmo III. At this time the academy del Cimento was occupied in a series of philosophical experiments which gave full scope and employment to Redi’s genius; and at the desire of his noble patron, he undertook the investigation of the salts which are obtainable from different vegetables. With what success these experiments were conducted, may be seen by referring to his works. His principal attention, however, was directed to two more important subjects: viz. the prison of the viper, and the generation and properties of insects. In the first of these inquiries he shewed the surprising difference there is between swallowing the viperine poison, and having it applied to the surface of the body by a wound. He also proved that, contrary to the assertion of Charas, the virulence of the poison does not depend upon the rage or exasperation of the animal, since the poison collected from a viper killed without being previously irritated, and dropped into a wound produces the same fatal effects, as that which is infused into a wound made by the animal when purposely teazed until it bites. On the subject of insects, he refuted the doctrine, maintained by all the ancients and by many moderns, of putrefaction being the cause of their generation; a doctrine which had, indeed, been attacked some years before by an Italian author named Aromatari, but not with that weight of facts and force of argument which are so conspicuous in this treatise and the rest of Redi’s writings. His observations on various natural productions brought from the Indies, and on animals that live within other living animals, “osservazioni intorno agli animali viventi che si trovano negli animali viventi,” exhibit many curious experiments and discoveries. But while he was thus engaged in philosophical pursuits, he did not neglect the duties of his profession, as a physician. His letters contain numerous histories of diseases and of their treatment; for he kept a register of all remarkable cases and consultations. He was particularly diligent in noticing the operation of remedies, and in many disorders enjoined a very abstemious diet. Kedi’s merits, however, were not confined to philosophy and medicine. He was also an excellent philologist and an elegant poet. His “Bacco in Toscana” has lately been edited by Mr. Mathias. All his writings possess the attraction of a pure and polished style; and the Academy della Crusca justly regarded him as one of the best authorities, in the composition of their celebrated Dictionary. This indefatigable philosopher and amiable man died at Pisa in 1698, having previously suffered much from epileptic attacks. After his death, a medal was struck in honour of his name, by order of Cosmo III. His works have gone through various editions; but that which was printed at Naples in 7 vols. 4to, is esteemed the best.

, one of the most learned divines of his time, was born in 1499, descended from a Yorkshire family, and was nearly related to Tonstall, bishop of Durham. By the encouragement of this learned prelate, he was from his infancy devoted to literature, which he cultivated first in Corpus Christi, Oxford, under the first president, John Claymond, a man of singular erudition and generosity. From Oxford he went for a time to study at Paris, and continued there until he became of age. He then, on his return, fixed himself in St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he is said to have been so adorned with the knowledge of Cicero and the purest authors of antiquity, that Cheke, then a young man there, was fired with emulation; and in a short time, through their united pains and example, that seminary acquired the fame of being more than a match for a whole foreign university. Here he took his bachelor’s degree in 1526, that of master in 1530, and that of D. D. in 1534. He was also elected public orator of the university. He was soon after chosen master of King’s-hall, which he resigned in 1547, being then appointed the first master of Trinity college. He was likewise archdeacon of Taunton, and a member of the convocation in 1547 and 1550; also prebendary of Wells, and of Westminster, in the college of which cathedral he died in 1551, aged fifty-two, and was buried in the north aile of the abbey.

Dodd says that, as to Dr. Redman’s religion, “though” he was no friend to the doctrine of the reformers, yet he was very complaisant to them, in point of discipline, and went so far away wiih them, as to be an assistant in compiling the book of Common Prayer. In a word, he divided himself between both religions.“We have better authority, however, for asserting that if he did so divide himself, the reformed religion had the larger share. That he was at first attached to the religion in which he had been educated, appears by his letter to Latimer reproving that reformer for his innovations; but he soon found reason to change his opinion. He had applied his maturer judgment and learning, with equal piety and patience, for the space of twenty years, to the study of the Scriptures and the early writers of the church, intending to compose a work on the subject of transubstantiation; but the result of his studies was, that there was no foundation for that absurd dogma, either in Scripture, or in the primitive fathers. He therefore relinquished this, and other errors of the Romish creed, and” with constant judgment and unfeigned conscience descended into that manner of belief,“which he held, when he assisted in compiling the first liturgy of Edward VI. published in 1549*. We have still more proof of his relinquishing his old creed, in Mr. archdeacon Churton’s” Life of Newell.“Nowell waited upon Redman in his last illness, desirous to know what was his opinion and belief concerning the” troublous controversies of those days,“professing himself willing to” receive and approve his words as oracles sent from heaven.“The dying confessor, possessing a” quiet mind and perfect remembrance,“took a day or two to consider of the matters propounded to him by Nowell; and then sent for him, declaring himself ready to converse with him on those points, and to answer truly as he thought, to whatever question should be asked him, as in the presence of God. These articles were fourteen in number, the sum of which was, that purgatory, the sacrifice of the mass, and tran­*” Afterwards I conferred with Dr. Prayer was an holy book, and agreeRedman, in whom I reposed much able to the Gospel." Bernard Gilpin’s

and great scholarship. He affirmed and Wbrdsworth, vol. IV. p. 124. unto me that the book of Common substantiation, were groundless and ungodly; that we are justified, not by our works, but by lively faith, which rests in our only Saviour Jesus Christ; that good works are not destitute of their rewards; yet nevertheless they do not merit the kingdom of heaven, which is " the gift of God. 7 ' Dr. Wilkes, master of Christ’s college, Cambridge, and Dr. Young of Trinity college in that university, were present at this conference; of which an account was given by Young, in a Latin epistle to their common friend Cheke. Redman survived this interview, which was in Nov. 1551, not many days, for on the 27th Nowell succeeded him in the canonry of Westminster.

, a dramatic and miscellaneous writer, was born at Stockton, in the county of Durham, in March 1723, and succeeded his father in the business of a ropemaker, which he carried on in that country until 1757, when he removed to Sun Tavern fields at Stepney near London, and there pursued the same occupation with great credit and probity until his death, Aug. 15, 1787, aged sixty-four. In 1750 he married Sarah, daughter of Mr. John Watson, of Stockton, flax-dresser, who died many years before him, and by whom he left issue John Watson Reed, late of Ely-place, Holborn, attorney at law, who died Jan. 31, 1790; Shakspeare, who succeeded him in his business; and Sarah, who married Gilbert Wilson, and died his widow a few days before her brother.

Notwithstanding a due attention to business, Mr. Reed found leisure to amuse himself and the world with many miscellanies in prose and verse of very considerable merit. The late Mr. Ritson, who had for Mr. Reed, what he extended to very few, a high respect, intended to have edited some of these miscellanies, in a volume or volumes, of which the following were to have been the contents: 1. “Madrigal and Trulletta, a mock tragedy,” 1758. 2. “The Register Office,” 1761, a farce, or rather a dramatic satire. 3. The same; the second edition. 4. “Tom Jones,” a comic opera, 1769. 5. “Dido,” a tragedy, 1767, printed for the first time by Messrs. Nichols in 1808, but the whole impression having been destroyed by the fire which consumed their premises in February of that year, it has not been reprinted. 6. The “Retort Courteous,” to the manager of the theatre. 7. An “Epitaph on the Earl of Chatham.” 8. “St. Peter’s Lodge,” a serio-comic legendary tale. 9. “A Rope’s end for Hempen monopolists.” Besides the above articles, Mr, Reed was the author of, 10. “A Poem, in imitation of the Scottish dialect, on the death of Mr. Pope,” printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine for August 1744. 11. “The Superannuated Gallant,” a farce, Newcastle, 1745, 12mo. 12. “A British Philippic, inscribed to the right hon. the earl of Granville,” London, 1756, 4to. 13. “A Sop in the Pan for a physical critic, in a letter to Dr. Smollett, occasioned by a criticism (in the Critical Review) on Madrigal and Trulletta/' 1759. 14.” A humorous account of his own Life,“printed in the Universal Museum for 1764. 15.” The Tradesman’s Companion, or Tables of Averdupois weight, &c.“London, 1762, 12mo. 16.” The Impostors, or a Cure for Credulity,“a farce, acted for the benefit of Mr. Woodward, March 19, 1776, with an excellent prologue, not printed. To these may be added, several tragedies, comedies, and farces, never acted or printed; a few unpublished poems; and some numbers of the” Monitor,“a political paper published in the administration of the earl of Bute, and” Letters“under the signature Benedict, in defence of Mr. Garrick, on the publication of Kenrick’s” Love in the Suds," printed originally in the Morning Chronicle, and afterwards added to the fifth edition of that poem.

, a gentleman eminently conversant in literary history, was born Jan. 1, 1742, at Stewart-street, Old Artillery-ground, London, of a family, we are told, “highly respectable, and of considerable antiquity,” but certainly at this time somewhat reduced, as his father was in the humble occupation of a baker. He is said, however, to have been a man of education and abilities very superior to his condition, and both capable and desirous of bestowing those advantages upon his son, whom he sent to an academy at Streatham. In 1757, Mr. Reed became an articled clerk to Messrs. Perrot and Hodgson, then eminent attornies in London; and at the expiration of his articles, engaged himself as assistant to Mr. Hoskins, of Lincoln’s-inu, an eminent barrister and conveyancer. In this situation he remained about a year, when he took chambers in Gray’s-inn, and began to practise as a conveyancer on his own account.

Independently, however, of his application to the laborious duties of his profession, he had, previous to this period, acquired great proficiency in general knowledge, and in particular a decided taste for old English literature, and an intimate acquaintance with old English authors. His reading, in this class, was most extensive, and only equalled by a memory uncommonly tenacious of facts and dates. Hence his publications, as editor, are stamped with a peculiar value; and he had not proceeded far in researches into the antiquities of English literature, when he gave up his profession, to which he never appears to have been cordially attached, and devoted his time and his little property to employments more congenial to his disposition, and to his retired and simple manners.

As he had the utmost aversion to the appearance of his name on a title-page, it is not easy to enumerate all the publications of which he was editor, but we are told that the following list may be considered as tolerably accurate. In 1768, he collected into one volume the poetical works of lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In 1778, he printed a few copies of Middleton’s unpublished play, called “The Witch, a tragi-comedie,” which were circulated privately among his friends. In the same year he collected materials for a sixth volume of Dr. Young’s Works, small 8vo. In 1773, he collected and published the Cambridge Seatonian prize poems, from their institution in 1750. From 1773 to about 1780, he was, if not editor, a constant contributor to the “Westminster Magazine,” and particularly of the biographical articles; but about 1782 or 1783 transferred his services to the “European Magazine,” of which he was from that time editor, and one of the proprietors. He was also an occasional contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine. In 1775 he furnished the biographical notes to Pearch’s collection of poems, 4 vols. and rendered the same important service to a new edition of Dodsley’s collection in 1782, 6 vols. One of the lives of Dr. Dodd, published in 1777, has been ascribed to Mr. Reed, and he certainly conveyed it to his then booksellers, Messrs. Fielding and Walker, but there are doubts whether he was the sole author. There are none, however, respecting the “Biographia Dramatica,” 2 vols. 8vo, which was his favourite work. It was first published by him in

To the generality of readers the name of Mr. Reed is most familiar as an annotator on Shakspeare. The first edition of our immortal bard in which he was engaged was that of 1785, 10 vols. This he undertook at the request of his friend Mr. Steevens, with whom he was joint editor in the subsequent edition of 1793. Mr. Steevens had a high respect for him as a coadjutor in this undertaking; and as a testimony of his regard, bequeathed him his own corrected copy of Shakspeare, from which was published,, in 1803, Mr. Reed’s last edition, in 21 vols. 8vo, and, for the first time, his name was formally prefixed.

But, it is justly remarked by his biographer, all these, though no inconsiderable proofs of his industry and zeal, are far from comprising the sum total of his labours; indeed they give a very inadequate idea of his literary usefulness. The works in which he was partially concerned as editor, are exceedingly numerous, and the occasions on which he has given his assistance in difficult points of literature, almost beyond calculation, particularly in what concerned the literary history of his own country. Although his manner had little of polish, he was always kindly ready to communicate the information he had for so many years accumulated; and perhaps received more public acknowledgments for his assistance in this way than any man of his time. Hence, on his death, so many scholars of eminence hastened with their grateful tributes to his memory. He died Monday, Jan. 5, 1807; and was interred, agreeably to his desire, at Amwell, a place which he was accustomed to visit and admire.

His collection of books, chiefly English, was perhaps one of the most extensive in that series; and most of them were enriched by his ms notes. They were sold in November 1807 by Messrs. King and Lochee, in a sale which lasted thirty-nine days, and produced more than 4000l. Few collections have attracted more attention of late years, and it may be doubted whether we shall ever see a collection dispersed, in all respects so well suited to the taste of those who are ambitious of possessing literary curiosities, or of enlarging their knowledge of English literature.

, an English physician and philologist, was born at Llanvaethly in the isle of Anglesea, in 1534. After residing two or three years at Oxford, he was elected student of Christ church, but inclining to the study of medicine, went abroad, and took the degree of doctor in that faculty at Sienna in Tuscany. He acquired so perfect a knowledge of the Italian language, that he was appointed public moderator of the school of Pistoia in Tuscany, and wrote books in that tongue, which were much esteemed by the Italians themselves. On his return, with a high reputation for medical and critical learning of all kinds, he retired to Brecknock, where he passed the greater part of his life in literary pursuits and the practice of his profession, and where he died about 1609. Wood says he died a Roman catholic; and Dodd, upon that authority, has included him among his worthies of that religion, but there seems some reason to doubt this. One of Rhese’s publications was a Welsh grammar, “CambroBritannicae, Cymeraecaeve, linguse Institutiones et Rudimenta, &c. ad intelligend. Biblia Sacra iiuper in CambroBritannicum sermonem eleganter versa,” Lond. 1592, folio. Prefixed to this is a preface by Humphrey Prichard, in which he informs us that the author made this book purposely for the better understanding of that excellent translation of the Bible into Welsh, and principally for the sake of the clergy, and to make the scriptures more intelligible to them and to the people; a measure which a Roman catholic in those days would scarcely have adopted. Prichard also says that he was “sincere religionis propaganda avidissimus;” and as Prichard was a protestant, and a minister of the church of England, he must surely mean the protestant religion. Rhese’s other works are, “Rules for obtaining the Latin Tongue,” written in the Tuscan language, and printed at Venice; and “De Italicae linguae pronunciatione,” in Latin, printed at Padua. There was likewise in Jesus college library a ms compendium of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in the Welsh language by our author, in which he asserts, what every ancient Briton will agree to, that this tongue is as copious and proper for the expression of philosophical terms, as the Greek or any other language. Several other valuable tracts, which are entirely lost, were written by Dr. Rhese, who was accounted one of the great luminaries of ancient British literature. By Stradling in his epigrams, he is styled “novum antiques linguae lumen;” and by Camden, “clarissimus et eruditissimus vir Joannes David,” for he was sometimes called John David, or Davis.

, an English divine, was born in 1668, and educated at King’s college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1688, and M. A. in 1692, and obtained a fellowship. In 1694, earl Berkley gave him the rectory of Cranford in Middlesex, and he obtained the vicarage of St. Mary, Reading, in 1711. He was also chaplain to queen Anne. He died March 26, 1726, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and was buried near the altar in St. Mary’s church. He published several occasional sermons; and after his death a collection of fourteen were printed in 1729, from his ms. which he had prepared for the press. These sermons have a peculiar cast of originality; and the author was considered as an able and spirited preacher. The first sermon in the volume, “The fatal consequences of Bribery, exemplified in Judas, Matt, xxvii. 3, 4.” was first preached during the time of an election, and printed at a low price, to be given away: and it is said that many, on hearing, or reading it, returned the bribes which they had taken, and voted another way. He published also a valuable work, “The Apologies of the Fathers, with a dissertation on the right use of the Fathers,” Loud. 1709, 2 vols.

, a Dominican of the seventeenth century, one of the greatest defenders of Thomism, and the doctrine of grace efficacious in itself, died 1676, at Toulouse. His principal works are, a small theological treatise “sur la celebre distinction du Sens compose* et du Sens divise;” and “De mente Concilii Tridentini circa Gratiam per se efficacem.” This last was edited by Arnauld and Quesnel, in 1706, folio.

, a French philosopher, and great propagator of Cartesianism, was born in Agenois, in 1632. He cultivated the languages and philosophy under the Jesuits at Cahors, and afterwards divinity in the university of that town, being designed for the church. He made so uncommon a progress, that at the end of four years he was offered a doctor’s degree without the usual charges; but he did not think it became him to accept of it till he had studied also in the Sorbonne at Paris. He went thither, but was soon disgusted with theology; and, as the philosophy of Des Cartes was at that time drawing public attention, through the lectures of Rohault, he became attached to it, and went to Toulouse in 1665, where he read lectures on the subject. Having a clear and fluent manner, and a facility in making himself understood, he was honoured, as his auditors, by the magistrates, the learned, the ecclesiastics, and even the ladies, who all affected to abjure the ancient philosophy. In 1680, he returned to Paris; where the concourse about him was such, that the Aristotelians applied to the archbishop of Paris, who thought it expedient, in the name of the king, to put a stop to the lectures; and they were accordingly discontinued for several months. The whole life of Regis, however, was spent in propagating the new philosophy. In 1690, he published a formal system of it, containing logic, metaphysics, physics, and morals, in 3 vols. 4to, and written in French. It was reprinted, the year after, at Amsterdam, with the addition of a discourse upon ancient and modern philosophy. He wrote afterwards several pieces in defence of his system in which he had disputes with M. Huet, Du Hamel, Malebranche, and others. His works, though abounding with ingenuity and learning, have been disregarded in consequence of the great discoveries and advancement in philosophic knowledge that have been since made. He died in 1707. He had been chosen member of the academy of sciences in 1699.

, or Le Roi, a name he thought proper to change, as it was liable to be applied in ridicule, was a learned Reformer of the 16th century, and born at Langenargen, or Arga Longa, in the territories of the counts of Mountfort. Having received a very liberal education, first at the school of Lindau, and afterwards at that of Fribourg, where he lived with Zasius, a celebrated civilian who encouraged his diligence, and admired him for his extraordinary proficiency and amiable manners, he went to Basil for farther improvement, but was soon attracted to Ingoldstadt, at that time a very famous university, and under the direction of the no less famous John Eckius. Here Regius read lectures, but unfortunately was induced to superintend the education of some youths of noble families, and provide them with books and other necessaries, which their parents neglecting to pay, he was obliged to give up what little property he had for the benefit of his creditors, and in despair of assistance to carry on his studies, enlisted as a common soldier. In this plight, however, he happened to be discovered by Eckius, who procured his discharge, and prevailed on the parents of his pupils to discharge all arrears due to him.

Urban then returned to his studies, and became so distinguished, that the emperor Maximilian, passing through Ingoldstadt, made him his poet-laureat and orator; and he was afterwards made professor of poetry and oratory in that university. But, having applied to the study of divinity, he engaged with warmth and assiduity in the controversies of the times, particularly in that between Luther and Eckius, in which he inclined to Luther; but unwilling to give personal offence to his preceptor and good friend Eckius, he left Ingoldstadt and went to Augsburgh, where, at the importunity of the magistrates and citizens, he undertook the government of the church. Here he departed farther and farther from the errors of Popery, and soon joined with Luther in preaching against them. In his opinions, however, concerning the sacrament and original sin, he sided, fora time, with Zuinglius, -in consequence of a correspondence in which that reformer explained to him the grounds of his belief. In his preaching against errors so general as those of popery then were, he met with much opposition, but appears to have been supported by some of the principal citizens, one of whom bestowed on him his daughter, by whom he had thirteen children. Eckius, both by letters and by the intervention of friends, endeavoured to gain him back to the church, but his principles were fixed, and he resisted both flatteries and promises.

In 1530 there was a diet held at Augsburg, at which the duke of Brunswick was present, who prevailed on Regius to go to Lunenburg in his dominions, to take care of the church there. The duke highly esteemed him, and declared to the people of Augsburgh, who petitioned for his return, that he would as soon part with his eyes as with Regius, and made him chief pastor of all the churches in his dominions, with an ample and liberal salary. Here he passed the greater part of a useful and active life in preaching, writing, and religious conferences. He died May 23, 1541, when on a journey with the duke to Haguenau; the place of his death is said to be Zell; but we have no account of his age. He had often wished that he might die a sudden and easy death, which happened to be the case. His works were collected in 3 vols. folio: the first two contain the pieces he published in Latin, the other his German compositions. This last volume was afterwards translated into Latin, and published under the title of “Vita Opera Urbani Regii, reddita per Ernest. Regium,” Norib. 1562. Some of his pieces were translated in the 16th century into English, as “The Sermon which Christ made on the way to Emmaus, &c.” 1578, 4to. “A declaration of the twelve articles of the Christen faythe, &c.” 1548. “An Instruccyon of Christen fayth, &c.” 1588, translated by Fox the martyrologist. “The Olde Learnyng and the New compared, &c.” 1548, 8vo. “Exposition on the 87th Psalm,” 1594, 8vo. “A homily of the good and evil Angell, &c.” 1590, 8vo, and others. Besides what are included in the three volumes mentioned above, John Freder of Pomerania published, after the au^ thor’s death, a work of his, entitled “Loci Theologici ex patribus & scholasticis neotericisque collect!.”

, one of the best French comic writers after Moliere, was born at Paris in 1647. He had scarcely finished his studies, when he was seized with a passion for travelling, and an ardent desire to see the different countries of Europe. He went to Italy first, but was unfortunate in his return thence; for, the English vessel bound for Marseilles, on which he embarked at Genoa, was taken in the sea of Provence by the Barbary Corsairs; and he was carried a slave to Algiers. Having some acquaintance with the art of French cookery, he procured an office in his master’s kitchen. His amiable manners and pleasant humour made him a favourite with all about him, and not a little so with the women; but being detected in an intrigue with one of them, his master insisted upon his submitting to the law of the country, which obliged a Christian, convicted of such an offence, either to turn Mahometan, or to suffer death by fire. Regnard, however, was saved from either punishment, by the intervention of the French consul, who having just received a large sum for his redemption, sent him home, about 1681.

He had not been long at Paris, before he set out to visit Flanders and Holland, whence he passed to Denmark, and afterwards to Sweden. Having done some singular piece of service to the king of Sweden, this monarch, who perceived that he was travelling out of pure curiosity, told him, that Lapland contained many things well worthy of observation; and ordered his treasurer to accommodate him with whatever he wanted, if he chose to proceed thither. Regnard embarked for Stockholm, with two other gentlemen that had accompanied him from France; and went as far as Torneo, a city at the bottom of the Bothnic Gulph. He went up the river Torneo, whose source is not far from the Northern cape; and at length penetrated to the Icy sea. Here, not being able to go farther, he and his companions engraved these four lines upon a rock:

While he was in Lapland, his curiosity led him to inquire into the pretended magic of the country and he was shewn some of the learned in this black art, who, not succeeding in their operations upon him, pronounced him a greater magician than themselves. After his return to Stockholm, he went to Poland, thence to Vienna, and from Vienna to Paris, after a ramble of almost three years.

He now settled in his own country, near Dourden, about eleven leagues from Paris, and wrote a great many comedies, which were acted with success, particularly his “Gamester.” He was made a treasurer of France, and lieutenant of the waters and forests, which enabled him to indulge his taste for pleasure and gaiety. It has been said that he died of chagrin in his 52d year, Sept. 4, 1709, and that he even contributed himself to shorten his days; but both these reports are contradicted in the new edition of the Diet. Hist. (1811), and his death attributed to imprudent conduct after taking medicine. The best edition of his works, which consist of comedies and his travels, is that of Paris, 1730, 4 vols. 8vo, with notes.

, a satirical French poet, was the son of a citizen of Chartres, by a sister of the abbe Desportes, a famous poet also, and was born there in 1573. He was brought up to the church, and no man more unfit or unworthy, for such were his debaucheries, that as we learn from himself, he had at thirty all the infirmities of old age. Yet this did not prevent his obtaining the patronage of cardinal Joyeuse, and the ambassador Philip de Bethune, with whom he was twice at Rome, in 1593 and 1601. In 1604, by their influence, he obtained a canonry in the church of Chartres; and had other benefices, and also a pension of 2000 livres, which Henry IV. settled on him in 1606, all which he spent on his licentious pleasures. He died at Rouen in 1613, at the age of forty, completely debilitated and worn out.

He was the first among the French who succeeded in satire; and, if Boileau has had the glory of raising that species of composition to perfection among them, it may be said of Regnier, that he laid the foundation, and was perhaps more an original writer than Boileau. He is supposed to have taken Juvenal and Persius for his model: it is certain, that he has in some places imitated Ovid, and borrowed largely from the Italians. While pretending, however, to expose vice, much of that impurity, which ran through his life, crept also into his writings. Seventeen of his satires, with other poems, were printed at Rouen in 1614. There is a neat Elzevir edition of his works at Leyden, 1652, 12mo; but the best are those of Rouen, 1729, 4to, with short notes by M. Brossette and of London, 1733, with notes by Lenglet du Fresnoy, one of Tonson’s handsome books 4to, of which there are large paper copies.

, or Des-Marais (Francis Seraphin), a French writer, was born at Paris in 1632 and, at fifteen, distinguished himself by translating the “Batrachomyomachia” into burlesque verse. At thirty, he went to Rome as secretary to an embassy. An Italian ode of his writing procured him a place in the academy de la Crusca in 1667; and, in 1670, he was elected a member of the French academy. In 1684, he was made perpetual secretary, after the death of Mezeray; and it was he who drew up all those papers, in the name of the academy, against Furetiere. In 1668, the king gave him the priory of Grammont, which determined him to the ecclesiastical function: and, in 1675, he had an abbey. His works are, an Italian translation of Anacreon’s odes, which he dedicated to the academy de la Crusca in 1692; a French grammar and two volumes of poems, in French, Latin, Italian, and Spanish. He translated, into French, Tully “De Divinatione, & de Finibus” and Rodrigue’s “Treatise of Christian perfection,” from the Spanish. He died in 17 Is, aged 82. “He has done great service to language,” says Voltaire, “and is the author of some poetry in French and Italian. He contrived to make one of his Italian pieces pass for Petrarch’s but he could not have made his French verses pass for those of any great French poet.”

, a Scotch divine, whose life, however barren of incidents, fixes an aera in the history of modern philosophy, was born April 26, J7 10, at Strachen in Kincardineshire, a country parish, situated about twenty miles from Aberdeen, on the north side of the Grampian mountains. His father, the rev. Lewis Reid, was minister of that parish for fifty years. His mother was Margaret Gregory, one of the twenty-nine children of David Gregory of Kinnardie, and sister to James Gregory, the inventor of the reflecting telescope, and to David Gregory, Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. After two years spent at the parish school at Kincardine, our author was sent to Aberdeen, where he had the advantage of prosecuting his classical studies under an able and diligent teacher; so that about the age of twelve or thirteen he was entered a student in Marischal College, under Dr. George Turnbull. The sessions of the college were at that time very short, and the education, according to Dr. Reid’s own account, slight and superficial.

It does not appear that Dr. Reid gave any early indications of future eminence. His industry, however, and modesty, were conspicuous from his childhood; and it was foretold of him by the parish schoolmaster, who initiated him in the first principles of learning, “that he would turn out to be a man of good and well-wearing parts,” a prediction which, although it implied no flattering hopes of those more brilliant endowments which are commonly regarded as the constituents of genius, touched not unhappily on that capacity of patient thought, which contributed so powerfully to the success of his philosophical researches. His residence at the university was prolonged beyond the usual term, in consequence of his appointment to the office of librarian, which had been endowed by one of his ancestors about a century before. The situation was acceptable to him, as it afforded an opportunity of indulging his passion for study, and united the charms of a learned society with the quiet of an academical retreat.

In 1736, he resigned this office, and, accompanied by Dr. John Stewart, afterwards professor of mathematics in Marischal college, and author of a “Commentary on Newton’s Quadrature of Curves,” on an excursion to England. They visited together London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and were introduced to the acquaintance of many persons of the first literary eminence. His relation to David Gregory procured him a ready access to Martin Folkes, whose house concentrated the most interesting objects which the metropolis had to offer to his curiosity. At Cambridge he saw Dr. Bentley, who delighted him with his learning, and amused him with his vanity; and enjoyed repeatedly the conversation of the blind mathematician Saunderson; a phenomenon in the history of the human mind, to which he has referred more than once in his philosophical speculations. With the learned and amiable Dr. Stewart he maintained an uninterrupted friendship till 1766, when Mr. Stewart died of a malignant fever. His death was accompanied with circumstances deeply affecting to Dr. Reid’s sensibility; the same disorder proving fatal to his wife and daughter, both of whom were buried with him the same day in the same grave.

In 1737, Dr. Reid was presented by the King’s college of Aberdeen to the living of New Machar in that county; but the circumstances in which he entered on his preferment were far from auspicious. The intemperate zeal of one of his predecessors, and an aversion to the law of patronage, had so inflamed the minds of his parishioners against bim^ that in the first discharge of his clerical functions, he had not only to encounter the most violent opposition, but was exposed to personal danger. His unwearied attention, however, to the duties of his office, the mildness and forbearance of his temper, and the active spirit of his humanity, soon overcame all these prejudices; and not many years afterwards, when he was called to a different situation, the same persons who had suffered themselves to be so far misled, as to take a share in the outrages against him, followed him on his departure with their blessings and tears.

Dr. Reid’s popularity at New Machar increased greatly after his marriage, in 1740, with Elizabeth, daughter of his uncle Dr. George Reid, physician in London. The accommodating manners of this excellent woman, and her good offices among the sick and necessitous, were long remembered with gratitude, and so endeared the family to the neighbourhood, that its removal was regarded as a general misfortune. The simple and affecting language in which some old men expressed themselves on this subject deserves to be recorded: “We fought against Dr. Reid when he came, and would have fought for him when he went away.”

It is mentioned, that long after he became minister of New Machar, he was accustomed, from a distrust in his own powers, to preach the sermons of Dr.Tillotson and Dr. Evans, and that he had neglected the practice of composition in a more than ordinary degree, in the earlier part of his studies. The fact, says his biographer, is curious, when contrasted with that ease, perspicuity, and purity of style, which he afterwards attained. Yet during his residence at this place, the greater part of his time was spent in the most intense study; particularly in a careful examination of the laws of external perception, and of the other principles which form the ground-work of human knowledge. His chief relaxations were gardening and botany, to both of which pursuits he retained his attachment even in old age.

The first work published by Dr. Reid was in the Philosophical Transactions of London in 1748. It was entitled “An Essay on Quantity, occasioned by a Treatise in which simple and compound Ratios are applied to Virtue and Merit,” and shews plainly, that although he had not yet entirely relinquished the favourite researches of his youth, he was beginning to direct his thoughts to other objects. The treatise alluded to in the title of this paper was Dr. Hutcheson’s “Inquiry into the origin of our ideas of beauty and virtue.” In 1752, the professors of King’s college, Aberdeen, elected Dr. Reid professor of philosophy, in testimony of the high opinion they had formed of his learning and abilities. Soon after his removal to Aberdeen, he projected (in conjunction with his friend Dr. John Gregory) a literary society, which subsisted many years, and produced that spirit of philosophical research to which we owe the writings of Reid, Gregory, Campbell, Beattie, and Gerard, who communicated, in this society, sketches of their works, and profited by the remarks mutually offered. In 1763 he was invited by the university of Glasgow, and accepted, the office of professor of moral philosophy. In 1764 he published his “Inquiry into the Human Mind;” which was succeeded, after a long interval, in 1785, by his “Essays on the intellectual Powers of Man;” and that again, in 1788, by the “active Powers.” These, with a masterly “Analysis of Aristotle’s Logic,” which forms an appendix to the third volume of lord Karnes’s Sketches, comprehend the whole of Dr. Reid’s publications. The interval between the dates of the first and last of these amount to no less than forty years, although he had attained to the age of thirty-eight before he ventured to appear as an author. Even in very advanced life, he continued to prosecute his studies with unabated ardour and activity. The modern improvements in chemistry attracted his particular notice; and he applied himself, with his wonted diligence and success, to the study of these and its new nomenclature. He amused himself, also, at times, in preparing for a philosophical society, of which he was a member, short essays on particular topics, which happened to interest his curiosity. The most important of these were, “An examination of Dr. Priestley’s opinion concerning Matter and Mind;” “Observations on the Utopia of sir Thomas More;” and “Physiological reflections on Muscular motion.” This last essay appears to have been written in the eighty-sixth year of his age, and was read by the author to his associates, a few months before his death.

While he was thus enjoying an old age, happy in some respects beyond the usual lot of humanity, his domestic comfort suffered a deep and incurable wound by the death of Mrs. Reid. He had had the misfortune too of surviving, for many years, a numerous family of promising children; four of whom (two sons and two daughters) died after they had attained to maturity. One only was left to him, Mrs. Carmichael, then the wife, now the widow, of Patrick Carmichael, M. D. His situation at this period cannot be better described than by himself. “By the loss,” says he, “of my bosom friend, with whom I lived fifty-two years, I am brought into a new world at a time of life when old habits are not easily forgot, or new ones acquired. But every world is God’s world, and I am thankful for the comforts he has left me. Mrs. Carmichael has now the care of two old deaf men, and does every thing in her power to plcse them; and both are very sensible of her goodness. I have more health than at my time of life I had any reason to expect. I walk about; entertain myself with reading what I soon forget; can converse with one person, if he articulates distinctly, and is within tea inches of my left ear; go to church without hearing one word that is said. You know I never had any pretensions to vivacity; but I am still free from languor and ennui”

The actual and useful life of Dr. Reid was now drawing to a conclusion. A violent disorder attacked him about the end of September 1796; but does not seem to have occasioned much alarm to those about him, till he was visited by Dr. Cleghorn, who soon communicated his apprehensions in a letter to Dr. Gregory. Among other symptoms, he mentioned particularly “that alteration of voice and features, which, though not easily described, is so well known to all who have opportunities of seeing life close.” Dr. Reid’s own opinion of his case was probably the same with that of his physician; as he expressed to him on his first visit, his hope that he was “soon to get his dismission.” After a severe struggle, attended with repeated strokes of palsy, he died on the 7th of October following.

In point of bodily constitution, few men have been more indebted to nature than Dr. Reid. His form was vigorous and athletic; and his muscular force (though he was somewhat under the middle size) uncommonly great; advantages to which his habits of temperance and exercise, and the unclouded serenity of his temper, did ample justice. His countenance was strongly expressive of deep and collected thought; but when brightened up by the face of a friend, what chiefly caught the attention was a look of good will and of kindness. A picture of him, for which he consented, at the particular request of Dr. Gregory, to sit to Mr. Raeburn during his last visit to Edinburgh, is generally and justly ranked among the happiest performances of that excellent artist.

The most prominent features of Dr. Reid’s character were intrepid and inflexible rectitude, a pure and devoted attachment to truth, and an entire command over his passions. In private life, no man ever maintained more eminently or more uniformly, the dignity of philosophy; combining with the most amiable modesty and gentleness, the noblest spirit of independence. As a public teacher, he was distinguished by unwearied assiduity in inculcating principles, which he conceived to be of essential importance to human happiness. In his elocution and mode of instruction, there was nothing peculiarly attractive. Such, however, were the simplicity and perspicuity of his style; such the gravity and authority of his character, that he was always listened to with profound respect, and, in his latter years, with a veneration, which age added to great wisdom always inspires.

3. That by an unnecessary multiplication of original or instinctive principles, he has brought the science of mind into a state more perplexed and unsatisfactory than that in which it was left by Locke and his successors. 4. That his philosophy, by sanctioning an appeal from the decisions of the learned to the voice of the multitude, is unfavourable to a spirit of free inquiry, and lends additional stability to popular errors. In his reply to these objections, Mr. Stewart has not only set the merit of the writings which he defends in a clearer light, but has taken occasion to add various illustrations, which will not a little facilitate the study of these writings to those who for the first time undertake it.

, commonly called Cousin Jaques, a very eccentric French writer, was born at Laon Nov. 6, 1757. From his eighteenth to his twentysecond year, he taught rhetoric and the belles iettres in several colleges, and came to Paris in 1770, where he was made a member of the Musee and of the Lyceum of arts. He was also a member of the academy of Bretagne, and of many other learn'ed societies, all which seem to indicate reputation and talents. The former he employed every means to acquire, but appears in general to have been more ambitious of temporary than lasting fame, and thought himself very successful when he puzzled the wits of Paris with the strange titles of his publications. In 1799 he began to publish, in a periodical form, what he called “Dictionnaire des hommes et des choses,” which his biographer styles a whimsical work, without informing us in what respect. Something political seems to have entered into its composition, as after he had published several numbers, it was suppressed by the police. He tried his talents likewise on the theatre; and if success be a proof of merit, had no reason to complain. His plays were, 1. “Les ailes de l'amour,” which was performed at three theatres. 2. “Le club des bonnes gens,” played 117 times at Feydau, and often reprinted at Paris. 3. “Histoire universelle,” a comic opera, played 87 times at Feydau in 1790 and 1791. 4. “Nicodeme dans la Lune,” represented 373 times. 5. “La petite Nanette,” &c. and other operas, which were all successful, and of which he also composed the music, in an easy and agreeable style.

, a learned German, was a native of Steinheim, in the sixteenth century. He was a disciple of Melancthon, and taught the belles lettres in the universities of Frankfort and Helmstadt till his death, in 1595. His chief publications, on history and genealogy, in. which he was profoundly versed, are, “Syntagma de Familiis Monarchiarum trium priorum,” 1574; “Families Regum Judseorum;” “Chronicon Hierosolymitanum” “Historia Orientals;” “Historia Julia,” 3 vols. folio; “Methodus Legendi Historian).”

, a learned and philosophic German, was born at Gotha, a city of Thuringia, in 1587. He was a physician but applied himself to polite literature, in which he chiefly excelled. After practising physic in other places, he settled at Altenburg for several years, and was made a burgo-master. At last, having been raised to be counsellor to the elector of Saxony, he went to reside at Leipsic; where he also died in 1667. One of his letters relates many circumstances of his life, and shews him to have met with many vexations; though, as will appear afterwards, he was more than ordinarily upon his guard, that he might not be involved in the troubles of the world.

He wrote a piece or two upon subjects of his own profession; but the greatest part of his works relate to philology and criticism, among which are “Variarum Lectionum libri tres,” in 4to. Bayle says, he was one of those philologers who know more than their books can teach them; whose penetration enables them to draw many consequences, and suggests conjectures which lead them to the discovery of hidden treasures; who dart a light into the gloomy places of literature, and extend the limits of ancient knowledge. By his printed letters, it would appear that he was consulted as an oracle; that he answered very learnedly whatever questions were brought to him; and that he was extremely skilled in the families of ancient Rome, and in the study of inscriptions. A great eulogium is given of his merit, as well as of his learned and political works, by Graevius, in the dedication of the second edition of Casaubon’s epistles, dated Amsterdam, August 31, 1655, and by Haller and Saxius. He partook of the liberality which Lewis XIV. shewed to the most celebrated scholars of Europe, and received with the present a very obliging letter from Colbert; which favour he returned, by dedicating to him his “Observations on the Fragment of Petronius,” in 1666. The religion of Reinesius was suspected to be of the philosophical kind.