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“Such (he concludes) have been the errors and the faults of my youth. I have given a history of them with a fidelity with which my heart is satisfied. If, in the sequel, I have honoured my mature age with some virtues, I should have told them as frankly, and such was my design—But I must stop here. Time may undraw the curtain. If my memoir reaches posterity, one day or other it will perhaps learn what I had to say. Then it will know why I am silent.”

An account of the last moments of this celebrated man may be an acceptable addition to his life. He rose in perfect health, to all appearance, on Thursday morning at five o'clock (his usual hour in summer), and walked with a young pupil, son to the marquis de Girardin, lord of Ermenonville in Fiance. About seven he returned to his house alone, and asked his wife if breakfast was ready. Finding it was not, he told her he would go for some moments into the wood, and desired her to call him when breakfast was on the table. He was accordingly called, returned home, drank a dish of coffee, went out again, and came back a few minutes after. About eight, his wife went down stairs to pay the account of a smith; but scarcely had she been a moment below, when she heard him complain. She returned immediately, and found him sitting on a chair, with a ghastly countenance, his head reclining on his hand, and his elbow sustained by a desk. “What is the matter, my dear friend,” said she, “are you indisposed” “I feel,” answered he, “a painful anxiety, and the keen pains of a cholic.” Upon this Mrs. Rousseau left the room, as if she intended to look for something, and sent to the castle an account of her husband’s illness. The marchioness, on this alarming news, ran with the utmost expedition to the cottage of the philosopher; and, that she might not alarm him, she said she came to inquire whether the music that had been performed during the night in the open air before the castle, had not disturbed him and Mrs. Rousseau. The philosopher replied, with the utmost tranquillity of tone and aspect, “Madam, I know very well that it is not any thing relative to music that brings you here: I am very sensible of your goodness: but I am much out of order, and I beg it as a favour that you will leave me alone with my wife, to whom I haw a great many things to say at this instant.” Madam de Girardin immediately withdrew. Upon this, Rousseau desired his wife to shut the door, to lock it on the inside, and to come and sit by him. “I shall do so, my dear friend,” said she; “I am now sitting beside you—how do you find yourself?”

Rousseau. “My dear—It was always my earnest desire that it would please God to take me out of the world before you—my prayer has been heard—and my wish will soon have its accomplishment. Look at that sun, whose smiling aspect seems to call me hence! There is my God—God himself—who opens to me the bosom of his paternal goodness, and invites me to taste and enjoy, at last, that eternal and unalterable tranquillity, which I have so long and so ardently panted after. My dear spouse —do not weep—you have always desired to see me happy. I am now going to be truly so! Do not leave me: I will have none but you to remain with me—you, alone, shall close my eyes.” Mrs. Rousseau. “My dear—my good friend—banish those apprehensions and let me give you something—I hope that this indisposition will not be of a long continuance!”

Rousseau. “Ah! my dear, how happy a thing is it to die, when one has no reason for remorse or self-reproach! —Eternal Being! the soul that I am now going to give thee back, is as pure, at this moment, as it was when it proceeded from thee: render it partaker of thy felicity! My dear—I have found in the marquis of Girardin and his lady the marks of even parental tenderness and affection: tell them that I revere their virtues, and that I thank them, with my dying breath, for all the proofs I have received of their goodness and friendship: I desire that you may have my body opened immediately after my death, and that you will order an exact account to be drawn up of the state of its various parts: tell monsieur and madame de Girardin, that I hope they will allow me to be buried in their gardens, in any part of them that they may think proper.”

Here his extreme weakness prevented his walking without help; and Mrs. Rousseau being unable to support him, he fell gently on the floor, where, after having remained for some time motionless, he sent forth a deep sigh, and expired, July 1778. Next day his body was opened in presence of a competent number of witnesses; and an inquest being held by the proper officers, the surgeons declared upon oath, that all the parts of the body were sound, and that a serous apoplexy, of which palpable marks appeared in the brain, was the cause of his death . The marquis de Girardin ordered the body to be embalmed; after which it was laid in a coffin of oak, lined with lead, and was buried.

It becomes necessary now to recur to some particulars of Rousseau’s more public and literary life, which was in many respects as censurable as his private. The commencement of his literary career was in 1750. The academy of Dijon had proposed the question, “Whether the revival of the arts and sciences has contributed to the refinement of manners.” Rousseau, it is said, at first inclined to the affirmative side of the question; but Diderot told him it was a kind of pons asinorum, and advised him to support the negative, and he would answer for his success. Nor was he disappointed, for this paradoxical discourse was allowed to be admirably written, and replete with the deepest reasoning, and was publicly crowned with the approbation of the academicians. Several answers appeared Against it, one of which was written by Stanislaus, king of Poland, who was, however, so much an admirer of Rousseau, that when the latter was ridiculed on the stage of Nancy, by Palissot, in his “Comedie des Philosophes,” the king, then duke of Lorraine, deprived Palissot of his place at the academy of Nancy. On this occasion Rousseau, with far more sense, interceded for him, and obtained his restoration. In 1752 Rousseau wrote a comedy entitled “Narcisse, ou PAmant de lui-meme.” He also composed a musical entertainment of “Le Devin du Village,” which was represented with the greatest success at Paris. His next piece was “Lettre sur la Musique Franchise,” which was to prove that the French had no such thing as vocal music, and that, from the defects in their language, they could not have it. This able work so excited the resentment of the French, that he is said to have been burnt in effigy. In 1754- he returned to Geneva, where he abjured the catholic faith, and was restored to the rights of citizenship. He now wrote his e< Discours sur les Causes de l'inegalite parmi les Hommes, et sur TOrigine des Societes.“This endeavour to prove that all mankind are equal has (in the opinion of a modern critic, by no means partial to Rousseau’s character) been much misunderstood by critics, and misrepresented by wits. Even by the author’s confession, it is rather ajeu d'esprit than a philosophical inquiry; for he owns that the natural state, such as he represents it, did probably never take place, and probably never will; and if it had taken place, he seems to think it impossible that mankind should ever have emerged from it without some very extraordinary alteration in the course of nature. He also says that this natural state is not the most advantageous for man; for that the most delightful sentiments of the human mind could not exert themselves till man had relinquished his brutal and solitary nature, and become a domestic animal. At this period, and previous to the establishment of property, he places the age most favourable to human happiness; which is precisely what the poets have done before him, in their descriptions of the golden age. After publishing this rhapsody, Rousseau did not remain long at Geneva, but returned to France, and lived some time at Paris, after which he retired to Montuiorency, and published, in 1758, his” Lettre“to M. D‘Alembert on the design of establishing a theatre at Geneva, which he proved could not be necessary in a place circumstanced as Geneva was. D’Alembert and Marmontel, however, replied, and Voltaire appears from this time to have begun his hatred for Rousseau, with whom he and the rest of the philosophers had hitherto cordially co-operated against the Christian religion. Rousseau wanted that uniform hatred to revealed religion which the others called consistency, and his fancy was apt to ramble bevond the limits they had set. In 1760 he published his 'celebrated novel entitled” Lettres de clt ux A mans,“c. bui generally known by the title of” Julie, ou la Nnuvelie Heloise.“This epistolary romance, of which the plofc is ill-managed, and the arrangement bad, like all other works of genius, has its beauties as well as its defects. Some of the letters are, indeed, admirable, both for style and sentiment, but none of the personages are reaily interesting. The character of St. Preux is weak, and often forced. Julia is an assemblage of tenderness and pity, of elevation af soul, and of coquetry, of natural parts and pedancry. Wolmar is a violent man, and almost beyond the limits of nature. In fine, when he wishes to change his style, and adopt that of the speaker, he does not long support it, and every attempt embarrasses the author and cools the reader. In this novel, however, Rousseau’s talent of rendering every thing problematical, appears very conspicuous, as, in his arguments in favour of, and against, duelling, which afford an apology for suicide, and a just condemnation of it; of his facility in palliating the crime of adultery, aud his strong reasons to make it abhorred; on the one hand, in declamations against social happiness, on the other in transports in favour of humanity; here in violent rhapsodies against philosophers; there by a rage for adopting their opinions; the existence of God is attacked by sophistry, and atheists confuted by the most irrefragable arguments; the Christian religion combated by the most specious objections, and celebrated by the most sublime eulogies. Yet in the preface to this work the author attempts to justify his consistency; he says public spectacles are necessary for great cities, and romances for a corrupted people.” I have,“he adds,” viewed the manners of my age, and have published these letters. Why did I not live at a time when I ought to have thrown them into the fire?“He affects also to say that they were not intended for an extensive circulation, and that they will suit but few readers. With regard to their effects on the female sex, he pretends to satisfy his conscience with saying” No chaste young woman ever reads romance^; and I have given this book a decisive title, that on opening it a reader may know what to expect. She who, notwithstanding, shall dare to read a single page, is undone; but let her not impute her ruin to me the mischief was done before.“Such is the impudence of this man, who had made his work as seductive as possible, and would have been greatly mortified if it had not produced its effect. Whoever, indeed, reads his” Confessions“will see that sensuality was, first and last, his predominant vice, and that moral corruption became early familiar to him. The only wonder is, that he should ever have been considered as a moral teacher, because, in order to introduce his depraved sophistry with more effect, he mixed with it some moral lessons. Yet there was a time when this was a favourite work even in our country, and it is to be feared, has been the pattern of many others, which, although written with less ability, have been encouraged in the same circles which once gave a fashion to Rousseau. His next attempt was to recommend republicanism in a work entitled” Du Contrat Social, ou Principes du Droit Politiqtie,“in which he bore his part, along with the Encyclopaedists, in exciting those awful delusions which produced the French revolution and all its disastrous consequences. It was, however, less cautious than some of his former productions, and was immediately prohibited in France and Switzerland; and hence his lasting enmity to all existing establishments, civil and religious, which brought on what he and his friends were pleased to consider as persecution. This appeared particularly in his” Emilie, ou de l'Education,“which was published in 1762. In this work, with many remarks that may be useful, there are others so mischievous and impious, that whenever it produces an effect, it must be of the worst kind. It was not, however, his dogmas on education only, which excited the public hostility to this work, so much as his insolent declamation against all which the world had agreed to hold sacred, mixed, as in his former novel, with an affected admiration of the morals of the gospel, and the character of its founder; and it is remarkable that, in this last condescension, he so much displeased his former colleagues, Voltaire, D'Alembert, &c. that they joined the public voice, although from different and concealed motives. In truth, they thought, like others, that there was too much of an insane inconsistency about Rousseau, and that no party could rank him among its supporters. In the mean time, as soon as published, the French parliament condemned this book, and entered into a criminal prosecution against the author, which forced him to a precipitate retreat. He directed his steps to his native country, but Geneva shut her gates against him, and both at Paris and Geneva, the” Emile“was burnt by the common hangman. At length he was for a time allowed to take shelter in Switzerland, where he published a letter to the archbishop of Paris, in answer to his tnandement for the burning of the” Emile;“and also his” JLettres de la Montagne,“in which occurs the following almost blasphemous paragraph:” How,“says he,” can I enter into a justification of this work? I, who think that I have effaced by it the faults of my whole life; I, who place the evils it has drawn upon me as a balance to those which I have committed; I who, filled with confidence, hope one day to say to the supreme Arbiter, ‘ Deign in thy clemency to judge a weak mortal:’ I have, it is true, done much ill upon earth, but I have published this writing.“In these letters too, he continued his hostility to revealed religion, in a manner that excited against him great indignation among the clergy of Neufchatel; and in September 1765, the populace attacked his house and his person, and with much difficulty he reached Strasburg in a very destitute condition, where he waited till the weather permitted, and then set out for Paris, and appeared in the habit of an Armenian. The celebrated Hume at this time resided in Paris, and being applied to in favour of Rousseau, undertook to find him an asylum in England, to which he accordingly conducted him in the beginning of the year 1766, and provided him with an agreeable situation. But Rousseau, whose vanity and perverse temper were ungovernable, and who thought he was not received in this country with the respect due to the first personage in Europe, which he conceived himself to be, took it in his head that Hume was in league with the French philosophers to injure his lame, and after abusing his benefactor in a letter, in the most gross manner, and even refusing a pension from the crown, left England in 1767, and went to France. At this period he published his” Dictionnaire de Musique.“Of this work Dr. Burney, after pointing out some defects, says, that” more good taste, intelligence, and extensive views are to be found in his original articles, not only than in any former musical dictionary, but in all the books on the subject of music which the literature of France can boast. And his ` Lettre sur la Musique Frangois,' may be safely pronounced the best piece of musical criticism that has ever been produced in any modern language. It must, however, be confessed, that his treatment of French music is very sarcastic, not to say contemptuous; but the music, the national character avantageux, and exclusive admiration of their own music, required strong Ian* guage. It had been proved long since, that they were not to be laughed out of their bad taste in any one of the fine arts: the national architecture, painting, and sculpture, were, in general, bad, and not what a traveller returning from Italy could bear to look at: though there have been now and then individual French artists of every kind, who have travelled and studied antiquity as well as the great masters of the Italian school; and it is now said, that at the Institute they are trying seriously to correct their errors, and to establish a classical taste throughout the empire."

In 1768, he resumed his botanical pursuits, which he conducted with equal taste and judgment, by collecting and studying the plants on the mountains of Dauphine. During the year 1770, he appeared at a coffee-house in Paris in his ordinary dress, and took much pleasure in the admiration of the surrounding crowd. This seems always to be his ambition, and he was never content unless when occupying the public attention, even while he seemed conscious he could not draw the public respect. The conclusion of his life we have given before. The influence of his opinions was once most extensive in France, and reached even this country in a greater degree than could have been wished. One reason might be, that in England, for many years we were accustomed to contemplate Rousseau only as a man persecuted for freedom of opinion, and this excited a sympathy which tolerated more than mature reflection could justify. Rousseau was naturally a man of great talents, and might have been one of the first of philosophers, if his genius had not been perverted in early life. He does not appear to have been a man of learning: his education, we have seen, was neglected, and irregular: but imagination was his forte; and this, under the guidance of a sensual appetite, which never forsook him, led him to be the great master of seduction in morals, while his early association with Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Diderot, tempted him to rival them in impiety; and even when he quarrelled with them, as he did with all his contemj-or ies, he still pursued the object by himself; and his s -phistries, perhaps more than the wit and argument of his former colleagues, powerfully contributed to that delusion which afflicted the continent with so much misery.—Although Kousseau’s works are less read now, he must ever be considered by the French as one of their first writers: and they continue to print very splendid editions of his works, the last and finest of which is that printed by Dulot, 1796—1801, 25 vols. royal eighteens, of which only 100 copies were struck off.

, a learned Benedictine of the congregation de St. Maur, was born at Conches in Normandy in 16 58. He made profession, September 23, 1680, and distinguished himself in his order, by his genius and talents for the pulpit; but preferring the tranquillity of a private life, retired to Rheims, where he made a good French translation of St. Jerome’s “Letters,” which was reprinted, 1713, 3 vols. 8vo; and an elegant “Eulogy on Pere Mabillon.” He undertook also the Literary History of France, but had scarcely traced out his plan, and collected some materials on that subject, when he died at Argenteuil, October 5, 1717, aged fifty-nine. The plan was completed by father Rivet.

, a French physician, was born at Ax, in the diocese of Painier, and after a course of medical studies, took his degree at Montpellier, and afterwards practised for some time at Paris. But he became at length averse to practice, and employed his time chiefly in study, which produced a work very highly praised by La Harpe, entitled, “System physique et moral de la Fernm?,” 1777, 12mo. This, however, may not be thought very complimentary to the ladies, as his principal object is to prove that they are to be considered as children, and consequently as having the same vivacity and the same inconstancy, the same fickleness of temper, the same caprices of liking and disliking, &c. La Harpe praises the style and philosophy of this work, which the author intended to have followed up by a “Systeme physique et moral de I'Homme,” but did not live to complete it. He was a man of singular diffidence and mildness of manner, and so much courted obscurity and retirement, that he used to say, that two ages of fame were not worth two days of quiet. He wrote the eloge on Bordeu, which was published in 1772, and afterwards prefixed to the works of that physician, and he contributed some memoirs to the literary journals. He died Sept. 18, 1802, at Chateaudun, on the Loire, to which he had retired a few months before, on account of bad health.

, a voluminous French writer, was born at Laon, in Picardy, Aug. 26, 1686. His father and mother were of good families, both protestants, and sutrerers for their religion. His mother’s body was ordered to be drawn upon a hurdle, because she died in the protestant faith, and his father was condemned to be hanged for endeavouring to escape into Holland, but was saved at the intercession of the chancellor Voisin, who prevailed on the Jesuit La Chaise to obtain his pardon. His son was educated first at the college of Laon, and afterwards in that of Du Plessis at Paris, Having finished his philosophical studies, some family discontents, owing to the introduction of a step- mother, determined him to go to Holland, where he entered into the company of the French cadets attached to the regiment of guards belonging to the States-general. He served with reputation until after the battle of Malplaquet, when he returned to his studies, and married. In order to maintain himself and family, he commenced the business of teaching for fourteen or fifteen years at the Hague, and educated in that time above fifty young men of family, who afterwards rose to offices of distinction in the republic. This employment, however, he relinquished in 1723, in order to devote his time to the study of politics and history, and became editor or contributor to various literary and political journals, in which he was assisted by some Frenchmen of talents, who, like himself, had taken refuge in Holland. Political writers are not always safe, even in republics; and Rousset, in 1747, having written some pamphlets against the magistrates, and in favour of the prince of Orange, was arrested at Amsterdam, and confined for some weeks there or at the Hague; but when the prince was made Stadtholder, by the name of William IV. he not only released Rousset, but soon after conferred on him the title of counsellor extraordinary, and appointed him his historiographer. Returning now to Amsterdam, he plunged farther into politics by becoming one of the chiefs of the party known in that country by the name of Doelisten, from Doele, the name of a hotel where they assembled. This party obtained what they demanded, but the stadtholder wishing to unite all parties in the common cause, and the Doelisten having become obnoxious to the public, he dismissed Rousset, in 1749, from the places he had conferred on him, and forbid the publication of a work he had written against the French court. Rousset being at the same time informed that he was in danger of being taken up, went to Brussels, where his pen was his chief resource, and there he died in 1762.

The principal works of this laborious writer were, 1. “Description geographique, historique, et politique, du royaume de Sardaigne, 9 ' Cologn, 1718, 12mo. 2.” Histoire de cardinal Alberoni,“translated from the Spanish, Hague, 1719, 12mo, and in 1720 enlarged to 2 vols. 3.” Mercure historique et politique,“15 vols. from August 1724 to July 1749. 4.” Histoire du prince Eugene, du due de Marl borough, du prince d'Orange,“Hague, 1729 1747, 3 vols.; fol. the first volume was by Dumont. The whole is valued chiefly for its fine plates and plans. 5.” Supplement au Corps Diplomatique de J. Dumont,“new arranged with large additions by Rousset, Amst. and Hague, 1739, 5 vois. fol. 6.” Interets des Puissances de TEurope,“founded on the treaties concluded at the peace of Utrecht, Hague, 1733, 2 vols. 4to, reprinted with additions, &c. four times; but the last edition of Trevoux, 1736, 14 vols. 12mo, is said to have been mutilated. 7.” Recueil Historique d'Actes et de Negociations,“from the peace of Utrecht, Hague, 1728, Amst. 1755, 21 vols. 12mo, but with the addition of some other political tracts and collections by our author, is generally to be found in 25 vols. 8.” Relation historique de la grande Revolution arrives dans la republique des Provinces-Unies en 1747,“Amst. 4to, without date. Rousset was also edicor of Mably’s” Droit Public“the abbe Raynal’s history of the Stadholderate, in which he attacks the abbe and his country; St. Manr’s French translation of Milton; Mrs. Manley’s” Atalantis," &c. In all his works, his ambition was to pass for a man of such impartiality that the reader could discover neither his country nor his religion. In this, however, he has not always succeeded, although it is apparent that his attachment to both had been considerably weakened.

, an English lady, celebrated for personal accomplishments, and her elegant writings both inverse and prose, was the daughter of Mr. Waiter Singer, a dissenting minister, and born at Ilchester in Somersetshire, Sept. 11, 1674. Her father was possessed of a competent estate near Frome in that county, whhere he lived; but, being imprisoned at Ilchester for nonconformity, married and settled in that town. The daughter, whose talents in other respects appeared very early, began to write verses at twelve years of age. She was also fond of the sister-arts, music and painting; and her father was at the expence of a master, to instruct her in the latter. She was also early accustomed to devout exercises, in which her mind was sincere, ardent, and unconstrained: and this habit, which grew naturally from constitution, was also powerfully confirmed by education and example. She was early acquainted with the pious bishop Ken, who had a very high opinion of her: and, at his request, wrote her paraphrase on the 38th chapter of Job. In 1696, the 22d of her age, a collection of her poems was published: they were entitled “Poems on several occasions, by Philomela,” her name being concealed, but they contributed to introduce her to the public with great advantage.

She understood the French and Italian tongues well; for which, however, she had no other tutor than the hon. Mr. Thynne, son to lord Weymouth, who kindly took upon him the task of teaching her. Her uncommon merit, and the charms of her person and conversation, procured her many admirers; and, among others, it is said that Prior the poet made his addresses to her. There was certainly much of friendship, if not of love, between them; and Prior’s answer to Mrs, Roue’s, then Mrs. Singer’s, pastoral on those subjects, gives room to suspect that there was something more than friendship on his side. In the mean time, Mr. Thomas Rowe, the son of a dissenting clergyman, a gentleman of uncommon parts and learning, and also of some talents for poetry, was the successful suitor. She was advanced to the age of thirty-six, before their interview at Bath in 1709, and he was ten or twelve years younger. It appears, however, to have been a match of affection on both sides. Some considerable time after his marriage, he wrote to her under the name of Delia a very tender ode, full of the warmest sentiments of connubial friendship and affection: five years constituted the short period of their happiness. Mr. Rowe died of a consumption in May 1715, aged twenty-eight years, and was unfeignedly lamented by his amiable partner. The elegy she composed upon his death is one of her best poems. It was only out of a regard to Mr. Rowe, that she had hitherto endured London in the winter-season, and therefore, on his decease, she retired to Frome, where her property chiefly lay, and where she wrote the greatest part of her works, Her “Friendship in Death, in twenty letters from the dead to the living,” was published in 1728; and her “Letters Moral and Entertaining” were printed, the first part in 1729, the second in 1731, and the third in 1733, 8vo, both written with the pious intention of exciting the careless and dissipated part of the world to an attention to their best interests, and written in a style considerably elegant, and perhaps at that time new, striking, copious, and luxuriant. In 1736, she published “The History of Joseph,” a poem, which she had written in her younger years. She did not long survive this publication; for she died of an apoplexy, as was supposed, Feb. 20, 1736-7, in the sixty-third year of her age. In her cabinet were found letters to several of her friends, which she had ordered to be delivered immediately after her decease, that the advice they contained might be the more impressive. The rev. Dr. Isaac Watts, agreeably to her request, revised and published her devotions in 1737, under the title of “Devout Exercises of the heart in Meditation and Soliloquy, Praise, and Prayer;” and, in 1739, her “Miscellaneous Works in prose and verse” were published in 2 vols. 8vo, with an account of her life and writings prefixed. These have often been reprinted, and still retain a considerable share of popularity. Her person is thus described: Although she was not a regular beauty, she possessed a large share of the charms of her sex. She was of a moderate stature, her hair of a fine colour, her eyes of a darkish grey inclining to blue, and full of fire. Her complexion was very fair, and a natural blush glowed in her cheeks. She spoke gracefully, her voice was exceedingly sweet and harmonious; and she had a softness in her aspect, which inspired love, yet not without some mixture of that awe and veneration which distinguished sense and virtue, apparent in the countenance, are wont to create.

, an eminent dramatic poet, was the son of John Rowe, esq. serjeant at law, and born at Little Berkford in Bedfordshire in 1673. His family had long possessed a considerable estate, with a good house, at Lambertoun in Devonshire. His ancestor from whom he descended in a direct line, received the arms borne by his descendants for his bravery in the holy war. His father, John Rowe, who was the first that quitted his paternal acres to practise any part of profit, professed the law, and published Benlow’s and Dallison’s Reports in the reign of James the Second, when, in opposition to the notions then diligently propagated, of dispensing power, he ventured to remark how low his authors rated the prerogative. He was made a serjeant, and died April 30, 1692. He was buried in the Temple church.

Nicholas was sent for education to a grammar-school in Highgate; whence he was removed to Westminster in 1688, where he acquired great perfection in classical literature, under Dr. Busby. To his skill in Greek and Latin he is said to have added some knowledge of the Hebrew; but poetry was his early bent and darling study. His father, designing him for his own profession, took him from that school, when he was about sixteen, and entered him a student in the Middle Temple. Being capable of attaining any branch of knowledge, he made a great progress in the law; and would doubtless have arrived at eminence in that profession, if the love of the belles lettres, and of poetry in particular, had not predominated. At the age of nineteen, he was, by the death of his father, left more to his own direction, and probably from that time gave up all thoughts of the law. When he was five and twenty, he wrote his first tragedy, called “The Ambitious Step-Mother;” and this meeting with universal applause, induced him to devote himself wholly to elegant literature. Afterwards he wrote these following tragedies “Tamerlane,” “The Fair Penitent,” Ulysses,“The Royal Convert,” “Jane Shore,” “Lady Jane Grey” and a comedy called “The Biter.” He wrote also several poems upon different subjects, but mostly of a temporary kind, which have been published under the title of “Miscellaneous Works,” in one volume: as his dramatic works have been in two.

Rowe is chiefly to be considered (Dr. Johnson observes) in the light of a tragic writer and a translator. In his attempt at comedy he failed so much, that he wisely gave up the pursuit of the comic muse, and his “Biter” is not inserted in his works; and his occasional poems and short compositions are rarely worthy of either praise or censure; for they seem the casual sports of a mind seeking rather to amuse its leisure than to exercise its powers. In the construction of his dramas there is not much art; he is not a nice observer of the unities. He extends time, and varies place, as his convenience requires. To vary the place is not (in the opinion of the learned critic from whom these observations are borrowed) any violation of nature, if the change be made between the acts for it is no less easy for the spectator to suppose himself at Athens in the second act, than at Thebes in the first but to change the scene as is done by Rowe in the middle of an act, is to add more acts to the play, since an act is so much of the business as is transacted without interruption. Rowe, by this licence, easily extricates himself from difficulties; as in “Lady Jane Gray,” when we have been terrified with all the dreadful pomp of public execution, and are wondering how the heroine or poet will proceed, no sooner has Jane pronounced some prophetic rhimes, than pass and be gone the scene closes, and Pembroke and Gardiner are turned out upon the stage. “I know not,” says Dr. Johnson, “that there can be found in his plays any deep search into nature, any accurate discriminations of kindred qualities, or nice display of passion in its progress all is general and undefined. Nor does he much interest or affect the auditor, except in” Jane Shore,“who is always seen and heard with pity. Alicia is a character of empty noise, with no resemblance to real sorrow or to natural madness.” It is concluded, therefore, that Rowe’s reputation arises principally from the reasonableness and propriety of some of his scenes, from the elegance of his diction, and the suavity of his verse. He seldom moves either pity or terror, but he often elevates the sentiments; he seldom pierces the breast, but he always delights the ear, and often improves the understanding. Being a great admirer of Shakspeare, he gave the public an edition of his plays; to which he prefixed an account of that great man’s life. But the most considerable of Mr. Rowe’s performances was a translation of “Lucan’s Pharsalia,” which he just lived to finish, but not to publish; for it did not appear in print till 1728, ten years after his death. It is said he had another talent, not usual with dramatic authors. Mrs. Oldfield affirmed, that the best school she had ever known was, hearing Rowe read her part in his tragedies.

In the mean time, the love of poetry and books did not make him unfit for business; for nobody applied closer to it when occasion required. The duke of Queensbernf, when secretary of state, made him secretary of public affairs. After the duke’s death, all avenues were stopped to his preferment; and, during the rest of queen Anne’s reign, he passed his time in study. A story, indeed, is told, rather an improbable one, which shews that he had some acquaintance with ministers. It is suid, that he went one day to pay his court to the lord treasurer Oxford, who asked him, “if he understood Spanish well?” He answered, “No:” but, thinking that his lordship might intend to send him into Spain on some honourable commission, he presently added, “that he did not doubt but he could shortly be able both to understand and to speak it.” The earl approving what he said, Rowe took his leave; and, retiring a few weeks to learn the language, waited again on the earl to acquaint him with it. His lordship asking him, “if he was sure he understood it thoroughly,” and Rowe affirming that he did, “How happy are you, Mr. Rowe,” said the earl, “that you can have the pleasure of reading and understanding the history of Don Quixote in the original!” On the accession of George I. he was made poet laureat, and one of the land-surveyors of the customs in the port of London. The prince of Wales conferred on him the clerkship of his council; and the lord chancellor Parker made him his secretary for the presentations. He did not enjoy these promotions long, for he died Dec. 6, 1718, in his 45th year.

Mr. Rowe was twice married, had a son by his first wife, and a daughter by his second. He was a handsome, genteel man; and his mind was as amiable as his person. He lived beloved, and at his death had the honour to be lamented by Mr. Pope, in an epitaph which is printed in Pope’s works, although it was not affixed on Mr. Rowe’s monument, in Westminster-abbey, where he was interred in the Poet’s corner.

, a physician of some note in his day, was of a family of Irish extraction, but born in London, Nov. 18, 1743. After a liberal education, he determined to the profession of surgery, and became a pupil at St. Thomas’s Hospital, under Mr. Thomas Baker. Being duly qualified, he went into the king’s service, in which he continued from 1760 to 1763, and was present at the siege of Belleisle, and the taking of the Havannah. By the patronage of admiral Keppel he obtained a confidential situation under the administration, and in obedience to their instructions made a voyage, in the course of which he visited Jamaica, Hispaniola, Cuba, and all the Leewardislands. On his return to England he was liberally rewarded for this service, which he had performed to the entire satisfaction of his employers. In the course of those voyages, as well as during his visits to the continent, he became an excellent French and Italian scholar, and collected many valuable specimens of the fine arts. Having now encouragement to settle in London, he first commenced practice as a surgeon and accoucheur, during which he resided in Holborn, Harley-street, Castle-street, Leicester-fields, and lastly in Savile~row. At what time he digressed so far from practice as to go to Oxford, we know not, but he was entered of St. Alban hall, where he took his degree of M. A. in May 1787, and that of bachelor of medicine in June 1788. He was desirous also of obtaining his doctor’s degree in that faculty, but this was refused, owing probably to his not keeping his regular terms. He obtained, however, a doctor’s diploma from the university of St. Andrew, in Scotland, and was admitted a licentiate of the college of physicians, and from this time his practice as a physician was considerably extensive and lucrative. He was chosen physician to the St. Mary-le-bone infirmary, and consulting physician to the queen’s Lying-in hospital, in both which stations he was distinguished for his humane attention to the poor patients, and his judicious treatment. He died of a cold, caught at a funeral, March 17, 1806.

Dr. Rowley wrote a great many medical pamphlets on various subjects, arising from the practice or peculiar diseases of his day, the titles of which it is unnecessary to specify, as in 1794, he re-published the whole, with corrections and additions, in 4 vols. 8vo. under the title of “The rational practice of Physick of William Rowley.” He appears to have been a man of extensive reading; and his practice, if not his theory, was in general conformable to that of his brethren, who did not, however, hold him in the highest regard, as in most of his works he seemed less ambitious of professional fame, than of popularity. When the Cow-pock was introduced, Dr. Rowley joined his learned friend Dr. Moseley, in direct hostility to the plan, and thus added a few more enemies to those he had created by his former attacks on some of the most eminent physicians of his time, Fothergill, Huxham, Pringle, Fordyce, Wall, Gregory, Cullen, &c. In 1793 he published a work under the title of “Schola medicinse universalis nova,” 2 vols. 4to, and afterwards a sort of translation of it in one volume 4to. This appears to have excited very little attention, although he was at great expence in engraving anatomical, &c. plates, and referred to it in many of his’ subsequent pamphlets on “Injections,” “The Hydrocephalus,” “The Plague,” &c. Dr. Rowley had much caste for music, and some for poetry. We are told he wrote light verses, and songs of a humorous cast, with great facility.

, an ingenious English mathematician and philosopher, was fellow of Magdalen college, Cambridge, and afterwards rector of Anderby in Lincolnshire, in the gift of that society. He was a constant attendant at the meetings of the Spalding Society, and was a man of a philosophical turn of mind, though of a cheerful and companionable disposition. He had a good genius for mechanical contrivances in particular. In 1738 he printed at Cambridge, in 8vo, “A Compendious System of Natural Philosophy,” in 2 vols. 8vo; a very ingenious work, which has gone through several editions. He had also two pieces inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, viz. I. “A Description of a Barometer wherein the Scale of Variation may be increased at pleasure;” vol. 38, p. 39. And 2. “Directions for making a Machine for finding the Roots of Kquations universally, with the manner of using it;” vol. 60, p. 240. Mr. Rowning died at his lodgings in Carey -street, near Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, the latter end of November 1771, at the age of seventy-two. Though a very ingenious and pleasant man, he had but an unpromising and forbidding appearance: he was tall, stooping in the shoulders, and of a sallow down-looking countenance*.

, in Latin Regius, a learned professor, was born at Constance, in Normandy, about the beginning of the 16th century. In the course of his studies he not only became a good Greek and Latin scholar, but particularly cultivated his native language, the French, which he endeavoured to polish and refine. After passing several years in Italy and at court, he settled at Paris, where, in 1570, he was appointed to the professorship of Greek. After this he studied the law four years at Toulouse; and frequented the bar at the parliament of Paris, in which he exercised some kind of magistracy; but his inattention to domestic affairs reduced him at last to depend upon the liberality of others for his daily subsistence, a misery almost insupportable in him who was naturally of a haughty temper, would never admit of a superior, and treated many of his learned contemporaries with great disdain. He died July 2, 1577. One of his best performances was an elegantly written life of the learned Budieus. His others were good translations into French of part of the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Demosthenes, which he enriched with learned commentaries, and proved his intimate acquaintance with the original language.

, an architect and antiquary, was born at Paris in 1728, and was son of Julian le Roy, a celebrated mechanist, who so excelled in the art of watchmaking, that his time-pieces acquired the same celebrity in France as those of Graham in England. He died at Paris in 1759, at the age of 74, leaving four sons; of whom Julian became an eminent architect, and greatly improved the French style of architecture. He wrote, 1. “Ruines des plus beaux Monumens de la Grece,” which obtained for the author admission into the Academy of Inscriptions. This first appeared in 1758, but many errors having been pointed out by our Athenian Stuart, he published a more correct edition in 1770. 2. “Histoire de la disposition et tiesformes differentes des Temples des Chretiens;” 3. “Observations sur les Edifices des anciens Peuples. 4.” De la Marine des anciens Peuples.“5.” Les Navires des Anciens,“1783, 8vo, and in 1785, another on the same subject; which was followed, in 1796, by a memoir on cutting masts in the Pyrenees. This ingenious man died at Paris in the year 1803, at the age of seventy-five. His brother Peter was watch-maker to the king, and published memoirs for the clock-makers of Paris,” Etrennes Chronometriques,“” Treatise on the Labours of Harrison and le Roy for the Discovery of Longitude at Sea." He died in 1785. The English, on account of their numerous discoveries in this art, had enjoyed such a reputation for the excellence of their clocks and watches, that they found every where a market, in preference to any others, and tbr French themselves were obliged to come to England for their time-pieces, until Julian le Roy, the father, had the honour of removing, in part, this pre-eminence, and of transferring it to the French. He made many discoveries in the construction of repeating-clocks and watchc- in second and horizontal watches he invented an universal compass with a sight an extremely useful ar.d simple contrivance for drawing a meridional line, and finding the declination of the needle; and a new universal horizontal dial. It is to him we are indebted for the method of compensating for the effects of heat and cold in the balances of chronometers, by the unequal expansion of different metals, a discovery which has been brought by our English artists to a state of great perfection, although it had been thrown aside by the inventor’s son, Peter.

, archbishop of Rheims in the fourteenth century, was the son of Matthew le Roye, the fourth of that name, grand master of the French archery, descended from an ancient and illustrious family, originally of Picardy. He was first canon of Noyon, then dean of St. Quintin, and lived at the papal court while the popes resided at Avignon; but followed Gregory XI. to Rome, and afterwards attached himself to the party of Clement VII. and of Peter de Luna, afterwards Benedict XIII. Guy le Roye was successively bishop of Verdun, Castres, and Dol, archbishop of Tours, then of Sens, and lastly, archbishop of Rheims in 1391. He held a provincial council in 1407, and set out to attend the council of Pisa two years after; but on his arrival at Voutre, a town situated five leagues from Genoa, one of his suite happened to quarrel with one of the inhabitants, and killed him. This naturally excited a violent tumult among the populace, who in their fury surrounded the prelate’s hous*e and whiie he was endeavouring to appease them, one of the mob wounded him from a cross-bow, of which he died June 8, 1409. He founded the college of Rheims at Paris, in 1399. He left a book, entitled “Doctrinale Sapientiae,” written in 1388, and translated into French the year following, by a monk of Chigni, under the title of “Doctrinal de Sapience,” printed in 4to, black letter, with the addition of examples and short stories, some of which have a species of simple and rather coarse humour; but not ill adapted to the taste of the times. The good archbishop is said to have written it “for the health of his soul, and of the souls of all his people,” and had such an opinion of its efficacy, that he gave it the authority of homilies, commanding that every parish in his diocese should be provided with a copy, and that the curates and chaplains of the said parishes, should read to the people two or three chapters, with promises of pardon for certain readings. Caxton, who seems to have entertained almost as high an opinion of this work, translated and printed it in 1489, in a folio size. According to Mr. Dibdin, who has given a minute description, with specimens, of this “Doctrinal of Sapyence,” there are not more than four perfect copies extant.

, an eminent agricultural writer, was born at Lyons, Jan. 24, 1734. His father, who was engaged in commerce, dying while he was young, and without property, he entered into the ecclesiastical order; but he had scarce ended his studies, when the soil, cultivation, &c. of the beautiful country near Lyons, began to occupy his attention, and Columella, Varro, and Olivier de Serres, became his favourite authors. In the study of botany he took La Tourette for his guide, who was his countryman and friend. With him, after being appointed director of the school at Lyons, which he soon left, he published, in 1766, “Elementary Demonstrations of Botany,” a work that passed through many editions. In 1771 he went to Paris, where he began to publish the “Journal de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle,” which was conducted with greater reputation than in the hands of his predecessor Gauthier d‘Agoty. In this work he gave clear and interesting accounts of all new discoveries in physics, chemistry, and natural history. ’ Having been, by the recommendation of the king of Poland, presented to a valuable priory, he had leisure to turn his attention to his favourite project of a complete body, or “Cours d' Agriculture.” As Paris was not the place for an object of this kind, he purchased an estate at Beziers, where his studies and observations enabled him to complete his “Cours,” in 10 vols. 4to, except the last, which did not appear till after the author’s death. In 1788 he went to Lyons, and was admitted a member of the academy, and the government gave him the direction of the public nursery ground. On the revolution Rozier was one of its earliest partizaris, and one of its victims; for in September 1793, during the siege of Lyons, a bomb falling upon his bed, buried his body in the ruins of his house. He was author of several treatises on the method of making wines, and distilling brandy, on the culture of turnip and cole-seed, on oil-mills, and other machinery.

, an illustrious artist, was of a distinguished family at Antwerp, where some say he was born in 1577; but according to others he was barn at Cologne, to which place his father had retired for security, to avoid the calamities of civil war. On his return to Antwerp, our artist was educated with the greatest care, and as he had shown some turn for design, was placed for instruction under Tobias Verhaecht, a landscape painter of some note, but soon exchanged this master in order to study historical painting under Adam Van Oort. But as the surly temper of this artist was incompatible with the more amiable disposition of Rubens, he soon left him also, and attached himself to Otho Venius, whom he found a man of learning, candour, and congeniality of taste; and although he rose infinitely above this preceptor, he ever preserved the highest esteem for him. From Venius, Rubens probably acquired his taste for allegory, one of his least merits, it is true, but one to which he was indebted for a considerable share of popularity, in an age when allegory was in fashion.

After continuing about four years with Venius, the latter, who admired his progress, candidly told him that he could no farther advance it, and that he must visit Italy. This was Rubens’s secret wish, but the means by which he accomplished it have been variously represented. Sandrart, who was intimately acquainted with him, and accompanied him when he travelled through Holland, tells us that the archduke Albert, governor of the Netherlands, conceived so high an opinion of Rubens, from the accounts he had received of his superior talents, that he engaged him in his service, employed him to paint several fine designs for his own palace, and recommended him in the most honourable manner to the duke of Mantua, in whose court he might have access constantly to an admirable collection of paintings and antique statues, and have an opportunity of improving himself by studying as well as copying the former, and designing after the latter. On his arrival at Mantua he was received with a degree of distinction worthy of his merit; and while he continued there, he added considerably to his knowledge, though he attached himself in a more particular manner to the style of colouring peculiar to the Venetian school. From Mantua he visited Rome, Venice, and other cities of Italy, and studied the works of the greatest painters, from the time of Raphael to his own, and accomplished himself in colouring, by the accurate observations he made on the style of Titian and Paolo Veronese. It has been objected, however, that he neglected to refine his taste as much as he ought by the antique, though most of the memorable artists in painting had sublimed their own ideas of grace, expression, elegant simplicity, beautiful proportion, and nature, principally by their making those antiques their perpetual studies and models.

On his return to Mantua, he painted three magnificent pictures for the church of the Jesuits, which, in point of execution and freedom of force in effect, rank nearly among his best productions. His patron, wishing to have copies of some of the most celebrated pictures at Rome, sent Rubens thither for that purpose, which while he performed with great skill, he employed no less diligence in studying the originals. In 1605, he was honoured with one of those mixed commissions, of statesman and artist, with which he was frequently entrusted, and which place the various powers of Rubens in a very singular light. This was no less than an embassy from Mantua to the court of Spain. Carrying with him some magnificent presents for the duke of Lerma, the favourite minister of Philip III. he painted at the same time the picture of this monarch, and received from him such flattering marks of distinction, as probably facilitated the political purpose of his errand. Soon after his return to Mantua, he again visited Rome, and there and at Genoa painted some pictures for the churches, which greatly advanced his reputation. On the death of his mother, whom he appears to have deeply regretted, he formed the design of settling in Italy, bnt by the persuasion of the archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella, was induced to take up his residence at Antwerp. Here he married his first wife, Elizabeth Brants, and built a magnificent house, which he enriched with the choicest specimens of the antique, and with valuable pictures.

In 1620 he received a commission from Mary de Medici, to adorn the gallery of the palace of the Luxembourg, for which he executed a vvellfknown series of paintings, exhibiting the principal events of the life of that princess. The whole were completed in three years, an astonishing instance both of art and labour. It was at this period he became known to the duke of Buckingham, who was then on a tour with prince Charles. He afterwards became the purchaser of Rubens’s rich museum of works of art, for which he is said to have given 10,000l. sterling.

On the return of Rubens to Antwerp, he was honoured with several conferences with the Infanta Isabella, and was by her dispatched on a political mission to the court of Madrid, where he arrived in 1628, and was most graciously received by Philip IV. He acquitted himself in his novel cap K-ity to the satisfaction of that monarch, and his minister, the duke de Olivares, by both of whom he was highly esteemed; and while his talents as a diplomatist met with the success they merited, those of the painter were not neglected.

The duke de Olivares had just completed the foundation t?f a convent of Carmelites, at the small town of Loeches, near Madrid, and the king, as a mark of his favour to the minister, commissioned liubens to paint four pictures for their church, which he executed in his grandest style, and the richest glow of his colouring. He also painted eight grand pictures for the great saloon of the palace at Madrid, which are regarded among the most brilliant of his productions. Their subjects were, the Rape of the Sabines the battle between the Romans and Sabines the Bath of Diana; Perseus and Andromeda; the Rape of Helen the Judgment of Paris; Juno, Minerva, and Venus; and the Triumph of Bacchus. He also painted a large portrait of the king on horseback, with other figures; and a picture of the martyrdom of the apostle St. Andrew, which was in the church dedicated to that saint. For these extraordinary productions he was richly rewarded* received the honour of knighthood, and was presented with the golden, key as gentleman of the chamber to the king. In 1629 he returned to Flanders, and thus, in the short space of little more than nine months, he designed and executed so extensive a series of pictures; a labour which, to any other artist not possessed of his extraordinary powers, must have required the exertion of many years. When he had rendered the account of his mission to the Infanta, she dispatched him to England, to sound the disposition of the government on the subject of a peace. There for a time he concealed the powers granted to him to negociate upon the subject, which he afterwards produced with success. In the mean time, as Lord Orford observes, neither Charles I. nor Rubens overlooked in the ambassador the talents of the painter. The king engaged him to paint the ceiling of the Banquetting-house, the design the apotheosis of king James I. The original sketch for the middle compartment was long preserved at Houghton. Rubens received 3000l. for this work. During his residence here he painted for the king the St. George, four feet high and seven feet wide. His majesty was represented in the Saint, the queen in Cleodelinde: each figure one foot and a half high: at a distance a view of Richmond and the Thames. In England are still several capital works of Rubens, at Blenheim, Wilton, Easton, &c. He was knighted during his residence here, which Lord Orford supposes did not exceed a year. The French, in their late barbarous irruptions into the Netherlands, robbed Flanders of fifty -two of Rubens’s best pictures, which however have probably since found their way to their former destination.

Rubens continued to enjoy his well-earned fame and honours, with uninterrupted success, till he arrived at his fifty-eighth year, when he was attacked with strong fits of gout, which debilitated his frame, and unfitted him for great exertions: he abandoned, therefore, all larger works, and confined himself to easel painting. Yet he continued to exercise his art until 1640, when he died at the age of sixty-three. He was buried, with extraordinary pomp, in the church of St. James at Antwerp, under the altar of his private chapel, which he had previously decorated with a very fine picture. A monument was erected to him by his wife and children, with an epitaph in Latin, eulogizing his talents and virtues, and displaying their success.

He left a son Albert Rubens, who was born at Antwerp in 1614, and succeeded his father in his post as secretary to the council, devoting his leisure to literary pursuits. He died in 1657, leaving behind him many works, as monuments of his great learning and sound judgment, of which the following may be mentioned. “Regum et Imperatorum Romanorum Numismata,” which is a commentary on the medals of the duke of Arscbot: “De Re Vestiaria Veterum:” “Dissertatio de Gemma Tiberiana et Augustea de Urbibus Neocoris de natali Die Caesaris Augusti,” which were published by Graevius in the “Thesaurus Antiq. Roman.”

"I remember to have observed in a picture of Diatreci, which I saw in a private cabinet at Brussels, the contrary effect. In that performance there appeared to be a total absence of this pervading genius; though every individual figure was correctly drawn, and to the action of each as careful an attention was paid, as if it were a set academy figure. Here seemed to be nothing left to chance; all the nymphs (the subject was the Bath of Diana) were what the ladies call in attitudes; yet, without being able to censure it for incorrectness, or any other defect, I thought it one of the coldest and most insipid pictures I ever beheld.

"The works of Rubens have that peculiar property always attendant on genius, to attract attention, and enforce admiration, in spite of all their faults. It is owing to this fascinating power that the performances of those painters with which he is surrounded, though they have, perhaps, fewer defects, yet appear spiritless, tame, and insipid; such as the altar-pieces of Crayer, Schutz, Segers, Heysens, Tysens, Van Bulen, and the rest. They are done by men whose hands, and indeed all their faculties, appear to have been cramped and confined; and it is evident that every thing they did was the effect of great labour and pains. The productions of Rubens, on the contrary, seem to flow with a freedom and prodigality, as if they cost him nothing; and to the general animation of the composition, there is always a correspondent spirit in the execution of the work. The striking brilliancy of his colours, and their lively opposition to each other, the flowing liberty and freedom of his outline, the animated pencil with which every object is touched, all contribute to awaken and keep alive the attention of the spectator; awaken in him, in some measure, correspondent sensations, and make him feel a degree of that enthusiasm with which the painter was carried away. To this we add the complete uniformity in all the parts of the work, so that the whole seems to be conducted, and grow out of one mind; every thing is of a piece, and fits its place. Even his taste of drawing and of form appears to correspond better with his colouring and composition, than if he had adopted any other manner, though that manner, simply considered, might be better; it is here as in personal attractions: there is frequently found a certain agreement and correspondence in the whole together, which is often more captivating than mere regular beauty.

"Besides the excellency of Rubens in these general powers, he possessed the true art of imitating. He saw the objects of nature with a painter’s eye; he saw at once the predominant feature by which every object is known and Distinguished; and as soon as seen, it was executed with a facility that is astonishing: and let me add, this facility is to a painter, when he closely examines a picture, a source of great pleasure. How far this excellence may be perceived or felt by those who are not painters, I know not to themcertainly it is not enough that objects be truly representedtliey must likewise be represented with grace which means here, that the work is done with facility, and without effort. Rubens was, perhaps, the greatest master in the mechanical part of the art, the best workman with his tools that ever exercised a pencil. This part of the art, though it does not hold a rank with the powers of invention, of giving character and expression, has yet in it what may be called genius. It is certainly something that cannot be taught by words, though it may be learned by a frequent examination of those pictures which possess this excellence. It is felt by very few painters; and it is as rare at this time among the living painters, as any of the higher excellencies of the art.

"The difference of the manner of Rubens from that of any other painter before him, is in nothing more distinguishable than in his colouring, which is totally different from that of Titian, Corregio, or any of the great colourists. The effect of his pictures may be not improperly compared to clusters of flowers; all his colours appear as clear and as beautiful: at the same time he has avoided that tawdry effect which one would expect such gay colours to produce; in this respect resembling Barocci more than any other painter. What was said of an ancient painter may be applied to those two artists that their figures look as if they fed upon roses.

, in Latin Oricellarius, a learned writer of the fifteenth century, was born in 1449. His mother was daughter of the celebrated Pallas Strozzi, one of the most powerful and opulent citizens of Florence, a great patron of literature, and who in his collections of books and antiquities, was the rival of Niccoli, and even of the Medicis themselves. To this last mentioned illustrious family Bernard became allied, in his seventeenth year, by his marriage with the sister of Lorenzo, which joyful occasion his father John Ruccellai is said to have celebrated with princely magnificence, at the expence of 37,000 florins. Bernard after his marriage pursued his studies with the same avidity as before; and after Lorenzo de Medici’s death, the Platonic academy found in him a very generous protector. He built a magnificent palace, with gardens and groves convenient for the philosophic conferences held by the academicians, and ornamented it with the most valuable specimens of the antique, collected at an immense expence.

Like many other scholars of that day, he added political skill to his literary accomplishments, and held some offices of trust and importance. In 1480 he was chosen gonfalonier of justice and four years after, the republic appointed him ambassador to the state of Genoa, which was folloxved by three other embassies, one to Ferdinand king of Naples, and two to Charles VIII. king of France. During the revolutions which took place at Naples about the end of the fifteenth century, Ruccellai took a part, for which some Florentine historians censure him but whether his Conduct was patriotic or factious, is not very clear, although the former is most probable. He died in 1514, and was interred in the church of St. Maria Novella, the fagade of which, begun by his father, he finished with great magnificence.

Ruccellai’s principal work “De Urbe Roma,” contains an accurate account of what the ancient writers have handed down respecting the magnificent edifices of that city, and Was in all respects the best work of the kind that had then appeared. It was first published in the collection entitled “Rerum Ital. Scriptores Florentini.” He left also a history of the war of Pisa, and another of the descent of Charles VIII. into Italy, “De Bello Pisano,” and “De Jtello Jtajico;” the latter of which is said to have been first printed at London by Brindley in 1724, and both by Bowyer in 1733; but this last edition we do not find mention.ed in Mr. Nichols’s very accurate and elaborate list of the productions of Bowyer’s press. In 1752 was published at JLeipsic a treatise on the Roman magistracy, “De magistratibus Romanis,” written by Ruccellai, and sent to the editor by the learned antiquary Gori, who discovered it at Florence. Ruccellai was also a poet, and appears in the “Canti Carnascialeschi” as the author of the “Trionfo della calunnia.” In poetry, however, he was eclipsed by his son, the subject of our next article.

, fourth son to the preceding, was born at Florence, Oct. 20, 1475, at a time when his family was in the plenitude of its power. By what masters he was educated we have not been told, but it maybe presumed, from his father’s character, that he procured him the best which Florence could afford; and it is said that he became very accomplished in the Greek and Latin languages, as well as in his own. In 1505 he was sent as ambassador from Florence to Venice. In the tumult raised by the younger citizens of Florence on the return of the Medici in 1512, and which contributed so greatly to facilitate that event, he and his brother Pallas took a principal part, apparently in opposition to the wishes of their father, who was on the popular side. On the elevation of Leo X. and the appointment of his nephew Lorenzo to the government of Naples, Ruccellai is supposed to have accompanied the latter to Rome, when he went to assume the insignia of captain-general of the church. In 1515 he attended Leo on his visit to Florence, on which occasion the pontiff was entertained in the gardens of the Ruccellai with the representation of the tragedy of “Rosmunda,” written by our author in Italian blank verse. As Ruccellai entered into the ecclesiastical order, it has appeared surprising that Leo did not raise him to the purple; but political reasons, and not any want of esteem, seem to have prevented this, fop he sent him, at a very important crisis, as his legate to Francis I. in which station he continued until Leo’s death. After this event he returned to Florence, and was deputed, lyith five other principal citizens, to congratulate the net* pope Adrian VI. which he performed in an oration yet extant. The succeeding pope Clement VII. appointed Ruccellai keeper of the castle of St. Angelo, whence he obtained the name of IL Gastellano. He died in 1526. His fame rests chiefly on his poem of the “Api,” or Bees, which was published in 1539, and will secure to its author a high rank among the writers of didactic poetry. “His diction,” says Mr. Roscoe, “is pure without being insipid, and simple without becoming vulgar; and in the course of his work he has given decisive proofs of his scientific acquirements, particularly on subjects of natural history.” Besides the tragedy of “Rosmunda,” already noticed, he wrote another, V Oreste,“which remained in manuscript until published by Scipio Maffei in his” Teatro Italiano,“who consider it as superior to his” Rosmunda.“They are both imitations of Euripides. An edition of all his works was printed at Padua in 1772, 8vo, and his poem of the” Bees" was translated into French by Pingeron, in 1770.

, one of the earliest cultivators of natural science in Sweden, was the son of John Rudbeck, bishop of Vesteras, a considerable patron of letters, and by whose exertions the Swedish Bible was published in 1618. He was born in 1630, and educated at Upsal. Anatomy was his early study, and he prosecuted it with such success, that at the age of nineteen or twenty he made the important discovery of the lymphatic vessels in the liver, and soon afterwards, of those of other parts of the body. In Bartholine he had a rival in this discovery, which indeed both appear to have made independent of each other; but Haller gives the priority, in point of time, to Rudbeck. Rudbeck, having also made botany a part of his pursuits, contributed, out of his own means, to the advancement of that science, by founding a garden, which he afterwards gave to the university of Upsal. After a visit to Holland in 1653, he devoted himself to medicine, and to the instruction of his pupils in anatomy. In 1658 he was appointed professor of medicine, and was fixed at Upsal for the remainder of his life. Besides the attention which he gave to the above-mentioned pursuits, he very early addicted himself to the study of languages, history, antiquities, architecture, and music, as well as the practical art of drawing, and was so much regarded as a man of taste, that the public festivals and decorations, at the coronation of the young king Charles XL in 1660, were put entirely under his direction.

The first botanical publication of Rudbeck seems to have been his “Catalogus plantarum horti Upsaliensis,” printed at Upsal in 1658, the year after the establishment of that collection. To this little volume a preface in Latin and Swedish is prefixed, treating of practical horticulture, and recommending botany for its agreeableness and utility. The list is of course not very ample, but contains several exotic species and varieties. An appendix to this catalogue was printed in 1666, the garden having been, by that time, considerably enriched. The same year, 1666, another similar work appeared, “Deliciae Vallis Jacobaeae;” a catalogue, alphabetical like the former, of a garden at Jacob’s Dahl, near Stockholm. This, which was anonymous, is a little book of extreme rarity, insomuch that Haller speaks of it by report only. A Latin poem is prefixed to the work, describing the beauty of this villa, its orangery, aviary, plantations, and fountains.

It is uncertain at what period of his life Rudbeck first conceived the vast project of his “Campi Elysii,” in which all the plants in the world, as far as they had been discovered, were to be represented by wooden cuts, in twelve folio volumes, disposed according to Bauhin’s “Pinax.” For this stupendous work he is said to have prepared ten or eleven thousand figures, and the first and second volumes were already printed, when a dreadful fire reduced almost the whole town of Upsal to ashes, in 1702. Three copies only of the first volume escaped the fire, two of which remain in Sweden, and the third is preserved in the Sherardian library at Oxford. A few leaves, wanting in this last copy, are supplied in manuscript. A number of the blocks of this very volume, which consists of grasses and their allies, came into England with the Linncean collection; and having been compared with the Oxford copy, an impression of them was given to the public in 1789, by sir James Edward Smith, president of the Linntean society, under the title of “Reliquiae Rudbeckiancc,” the appropriate letterpress of each figure, and the Linnaean names, being subjoined. An historical preface is prefixed to this edition, as well as a dedication to Dr. John Gustavus Acrel, professor of medicine at Upsal, who was entrusted with the sale of the l.innaean museum and library.

The second volume of the “Campi Elysii” came from the press a little before the former; so that several copies having got abroad, escaped the destruction of the rest. Even this, however, is a very rare book, the price of which can hardly be estimated. A copy was bought by professor Jacquin in Germany, many years ago, for about 30 guineas. This volume is in the Linnrcan, Banksian, and Sherardian libraries. Containing liliaceous plants, and the Orchis tribe, it is much more splendid than the first. The figures are copied from all quarters, though several are original, and amount to about 600 in all, many of them executed with great correctness and elegance. The preface attributes the anticipated publication of this volume to the greater popularity and attraction of its contents; and speaks of many of the intended figures of the whole work, as to be executed from drawings made by the author liinn* self, after original specimens, either preserved in Burser’s fine Swiss herbarium, or obtained from other quarters. The author speaks of his son and nephew, each of the same name with himself, as his coadjutors, and the destined continuators of this laborious undertaking. The destruction of his materials is extremely to be regretted; for such a repository of the botanical knowledge of the time would have been highly valuable to succeeding writers; particularly as illustrating the plants of Bauhin, so many of which are to be determined from Burser’s herbarium only.

The author’s other work, as scarce as the preceding, having shared the same fate, is entitled “Atlantica, sive Manheim vera Japheti posterorum sedes ac patria, &c.” l6L>8-^1702j 4 vols. folio. This work was written in the Swedish language, but is accompanied by a Latin translation. The fourth volume was put to press in 1702, and the printer was in the second alphabet, when the fire above mentioned took place, and consumed this volume as well as the others, with all the author’s copy, except two or three sets of the printed sheets, which have, if we mistake not, been supplied by manuscript in the few copies extant The president of the Linnaean society has one of the preceding volumes, composed of wooden cuts; but the whole work, which Brunet has accurately described, has copperplate frontispieces and other finished engravings, maps, &c. The aim of this singular performance was to prove that Sweden had been the terrestrial paradise of our first parents, the Atlantis of Plato, the place whence the Germans, French, English, Danes, Greeks, and Romans, and a,li nations came, and the source of all learning, ancient mythology, arts and sciences; but all that the author has realty proved is, how much profound learning may be brought to bear upon a wild and untenable hypothesis.

, son of the preceding, was born at Upsal in 1660, and under his father’s direction studied medicine, botany, and antiquities. He took his doctor’s degree at Utrecht, in 1690, publishing on that occasion an able dissertation, “De fundamental! Plantarum Notiti-3. rite acquirenda.” In this he asserts the necessity of arranging and distinguishing the genera of plants by their fructification alone, and prefers such leading principles as are derived from the fruit, rather than from the corolla. He rejects habit, colour, sensible qualities, time of flowering, &c. on which so much stress has been laid by superficial observers; while, on the other hand, he declines being implicitly led by the more abstruse principles of certain more philosophical botanists. He had previously, at Upsal, in 1686, defended a thesis “De Propagatione Plantarum, 1 * which is less original, though highly creditable as a school exercise. In 1695, he set out from Upsal on a tour to Lapland, accompanied by two sons of count Gyllenborg, After his return he prepared a very ample account of his journey, having made a number of drawings for the pur* pose. The first part, published in 1701, in Latin and Swedish, is dedicated to king Charles XII. in a Latin, as well as Swedish, poem, and ornamented with a magnificent wood-cut of the Pedicularis Sceptrum-Carolinum. But this volume, a thin 4to, goes no further than the province of Upland. The rest of the materials, except a collection of drawings of plants, which still exist, and perhaps rather belong to the” Campi Elysii,“seem to have perished in the fire of Upsal. Such indeed was the fate of most of the copies of the work just mentioned, entitled” Laponia illusr trata," which is therefore an extremely scarce book.

In 1720 Rudbeck, in conjunction with Benzelius, after* wards archbishop of Upsal, founded the Swedish academy of sciences, as it was then called, though subsequently, when other similar establishments arose at Stockholm, Lund, &c. the original one was entitled the Royal Academy of Upsal. This institution still flourishes, and ha* produced several volumes of Transactions in Latin. In the first, printed in 1720, is a catalogue of plants, observed by lludbeck in Lapland. He published several curious dissertations from time to time, which evince his deep erudition, though he betrays, like his father, somewhat of a paradoxical turn. He was particularly skilled in oriental literature, and was hence led to undertake the explanation of some of the most obscure subjects of natural history hi the sacred scriptures. He contends that Borith, mentioned by some of the prophets, is neither an herb, nor any kind of soap, but a purple dye. He also undertook to demonstrate that the Dudaim were raspberries. The two dissertations which contain these opinions appeared in 1733, in 4to, but the author had previously given to the world three others, the inaugural essays of some of his pupils, on Hedera, in 1707, 4to on Mandragora, in 1702; and on the Rubus arcticus of Linnæus, in 1716, both in 8vo, with good cuts. His most elaborate and eccentric performance of all, perhaps, is a dissertation on the bird Sclav, which our translation of the Bible renders a quail. Some have thought it a locust, but Rudbeck will have it a flying-fish. He intended to publish a great philological work entitled “Lexicon Harmonicum,” when death arrested his career, March 23, 1740. In his latter days, finding himself unable to leave home and lecture as usual, he fixed his choice, as an assistant, on Linnæus, then in his twenty-third year, who first supplied Rudbeck' s place in 1730, with much approbation.

, bishop of St. David’s in the fifteenth century, was, according to Fuller, a native of Hertfordshire, and took his name from Rudborne, a village near St. Alban’s; but Wood says he was born at Rodburne in Wiltshire. He studied at Merton college, Oxford, and became one of the greatest mathematicians of his day, and an able architect. He built the gateway and fine tower of Merton college, and probably the chapel, for that seems improperly given to bishop Rede. He was so much esteemed, that Henry V. who became acquainted with him when a student at Queen’s college, afterwards appointed him his chaplain, on his going to Franc previous to the battle of Agincourt. He received some ecclesiastical preferments, as the prebend of Horton in the church of Salisbury, the living of East Deping in Lincolnshire, and the archdeaconry of Sudbury. He served the office of proctor in the university, and was elected chancellor, but Wood thinks that if he accepted this office, he did not retain it long. In 1426 he was admitted warden of Merton college, which he appears to have resigned the following year. In 1433 he was promoted to the see of St. David’s, from which the king, Henry VI. would have translated him to Ely; but Wood says, “could not effect it.” He died about 1442. The tower and chapel of Merton will long remain monuments of his skill and taste. He was also a benefactor to the first public library in Oxford. Like the majority in his day, he was an opponent of the first attempts at reformation in religion, and in 1411 was one of the commissioners for suppressing Wickliff’s doctrines and writings. He wrote, according to Bale, a “Chronicle,” and some epistles “ad Thomam Waldenem et alios.” He must be distinguished from the Thomas Rudborne, whose “Historia Major Wintoniensis” is printed by Wharton in vol. I. of his “Anglia Sacra,” who was, however, a monk of Winchester about the middle of the same century, but survived bishop Rudborne.

, a very eminent grammarian and critic, was born in October 1674, at Raggel, in the parish of Boyndie and county of Banff, Scotland. His father, James Ruddiman, was a farmer, and so strongly attached to the house of Stuart, as to shed tears on the death of Charles If. His son was educated in Latin grammar at the parish-school of Boyndie, and quickly surpassed his class-fellows in vigour of application. At the age of sixteen he was desirous of going to the university, and when his father opposed this inclination, because he thought him too young, he set out, without his knowledge, to King’s college, Aberdeen, and obtained by his skill in Latin, the first exhibition, or bursary, as it is there called, of that year. After studying at this college for four years, he obtained the degree of master of arts. Though he was only twenty years of age when he left Aberdeen, it appears from a book entitled, “Rhetoricorum Libri tres,” composed before this period, but never published, that he had then read the Roman classics with uncommon attention and advantage.

He was soon after engaged as a tutor in a gentleman’s family, which situation he quitted in about a year for that of schoolmaster in the parish of Lawrence-Kirk. After passing three years and a half in this employment, he had a favourable opportunity of removing to advantage, owing to an accidental introduction to the celebrated Dr. Pitcairne. This gentleman happening to pass through Lawrence-Kirk, was detained by a vidlent storm, and wanting amusement, inquired of his hostess whether she could procure him any agreeable companion at dinner. She replied, that the parish schoolmaster, though young, was said to be learned, and, though modest, she was sure could talk. Pitcairne was delighted with the conversation and learning of his new companion, and invited him to Edinburgh, with a promise of his patronage. Ruddiman accordingly quitted Lawrence-Kirk, and soon after his arrival at Edinburgh was appointed assistant- keeper of the advocates’ library. The emoluments of this place were trifling, but it made him known and made him learned; and after the regular hours of attendance at the library (from 10 to 3) he occupied his leisure hours as a private tutor in the Latin language to various young gentlemen. As his merits became better known, his assistance was anxiously solicited by those who were engaged in literary publications. His first employment of this kind was as editor to sir Robert Sibbald’s “Introductio ad historiam rerum a Romanis gestarum in ea Borealis Britannise parte quse ultra murum Picticum est,” and he likewise contributed his aid to Sir Robert Spottiswood’s “Practiques of the Laws of Scotland.” So little was literary labour rewarded at that time, that for the former of these works he received only 3l. and for the latter 5l. Such poor encouragement obliged him, in 1707, to commence auctioneer. The same year he published an edition of “Voluseni de Animi Tranquillitate Dialogus,” to which he prefixed a life of Volusenus, or Wilson, a learned countryman, who had been patronized by cardinal Wolsey. In 1709, h published “Johnstoni Cantici Solomonis Paraphrasis Poetica,” and “Johnstoni Cantica,” with notes, which he dedicated to his i'riend and patron Dr. Pitcairne. The edition consisted of two hundred copies, which he sold at one shilling each. The expence of printing amounted to 51. 10s. He was next employed by Freebairne, the bookseller, on a new edition of Gawin Douglas’s “Virgil’s yneid,” which he corrected throughout, added the glossary, and probably the forty-two general rules for understanding the language, for all which he received the sum of Sl 6s. Sd.

His reputation having now reached distant parts, he was invited by the magistrates of Dundee to be rector of the grammar-school there, but his salary as librarian having been increased to 30l. 6s. ScL he was induced to decline the offer. In 1711 he assisted bishop Sage in publishing the folio edition of “Drummond of Hawthornden’s Works:” and Dr. Abercrombie, in preparing for the press his “Martial Atchievements.” In 1713 he lost his friend Dr. Pitcairne, for whom he composed an epitaph, and conducted the sale of his library, which was disposed of to the Czar Peter the Great. In 1714, he published his “Rudiments of the Latin tongue,” which soon superseded all other books of the kind, and is still taught in all the grammarschools in Scotland. He lived to see fifteen editions of it sold.

His next publication was the Works of Buchanan, in two volumes 1715, fol. His account of his life, and opinion of that history, so different from that (till then) entertained by his countrymen, drew on him many enemies. A counter edition of Buchanan’s works was set about by a society who formed themselves for that purpose, and, after promising their aid to Burman as their editor, disappointed him, and left him to publish it in 1725, with Ruddiman’s preface and notes, and a few of his own. Ruddiman’s edition opens with a preface pretendedly of Freebairn, which had plainly been written by Ruddiman. He gave also an elaborate statement of the various editions of Buchanan’s separate works, exposed the chronological errors and spirit of the History, and laid open the sources whence he drew the documents which enabled him to rectify both. He acknowledged, with the warmest thankfulness, the obligations he owed to several men of learning for their able assistance in this difficult task. Sir David Dalrymple, the lord- advocate of Scotland, contributed his intelligent help with the kindness of a friend. Fletcher of Saltoun, the “Cato of the age,” promoted the design with the usual ardour of his spirit and Pitcairne gave his continual aid while he lived. He mentions also John Drummond, M. D. Laurence Dundas, professor of languages in the college at Edinburgh, John Macdonald, James Anderson, a whig, and John Gillan, a Jacobite, as two antiquaries who were forward to assist his labours. This preface naturally led on to the life of Buchanan, said to have been written by himself two years before his death; of which assertion Ruddiman expressed his doubts in a note, without perceiving, what appears to have been the fact, that sir Peter Young was the real author of it.

After having been so long accustomed to superintend the press, Ruddiman was led to form the plan of erecting a printing-office himself. Accordingly, in 1715, be commenced printer, in partnership with his brother Walter, who had been regularly bred to the business; and some years after he was appointed printer to the university along with James Davidson, a bookseller. In 1718, he became one of the founders of the first literary society in Scotland. In 1725, he published the first part of his “Grammatical Latinae Institutiones,” which treats of etymology; and the second part, which explains the nature and principles of syntax, appeared in 1732. He also wrote a third part on prosody, which is said to be more copious and correct than any other publication on the subject, but, for want of encouragement, he published only an abridgment of it. He next engaged in the management of a newspaper, “The Caledonian Mercury,” from which he derived more profit than fame, it being a mere dry record of occurrences. This paper continued in his family until 1772, when it was sold to Mr. Robertson, and still exists.

After the death of the principal keeper of the advocates’ library, Mr. Ruddiman was appointed his successor, but without any increase of salary. He was, however, now acquiring by his other employments a competence according to his moderate desires, and independent spirit. In 173^, he published what is known by the name of Anderson’s “Diplomata Scotiae,” from having been begun by Anderson, but was finished by Ruddiman, who wrote the admirable preface, which displays a greater extent of knowledge than any of his other productions. During the rebellion in 1745, although Ruddiman was firmly attached to the house of Stuart, he took no active part, but employed himself in writing critical observations on Burman’s commentary on Lucan.

During the last fourteen years of his life, he was almost incessantly engaged in controversy, first, with auditor Benson, on the comparative merit of Buchanan and Johnston as poets. His next antagonist was Logan, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. Of Benson we have already taken some notice. The subject of Ruddiman‘ s controversy with Logan was, whether the crown of Scotland was strictly hereditary, and whether the birth of Robert III. was legitim.iiL’? Ruddiman maintained the affirmative in both points. He was soon after called upon to repel the attacks of Mr. Love, a schoolmaster at Dalkeith, who wrote in defence of Buchanan’s character.

About this time he gave his assistance to Mr. Ames, in his typographical researches. In October 1751, at the age of 77, he was obliged to ask the aid of physicians for preserving his eye-sight, which, however, they did not effect. Yet this misfortune, that to a scholar cannot easily be supplied, did not prevent him from doing kind acts to his relations, and continuing his correspondence with his friends, nor from pursuing his studies, and producing his edition of Livy, in four volumes 12mo, which Harwood declares to be one of the most accurate that ever was published. Glasgow had to boast of the spotless perfection of her Horace, in 1744; Edinburgh had reason, said that critic, to triumph in the immaculate purity of Ruddiman’s Livy, in 1751. Ruddiman resigned his place of keeper to the advocates’ library in a very handsome English letter; and the celebrated David Hume was appointed to succeed him. Mr. Ruddiman soon gave a fine specimen of his knowledge of the Latin language, in a letter on the subject to Mr. John Garden, of Brechin, 1712, still in ms.; but, with his usual judgment, he concluded his elaborate dissertation by remarking, that, if the Latin tongue be written with Roman accuracy, Roman pronunciation may be left, without much inconvenience, to find its own fashion in the learned world. He had scarcely closed this friendly correspondence when he was called from his favourite studies into an acrimonious contest, by James Man, master of the poor-hospital in Aberdeen, concerning his edition of Buchanan’s Works, which had been published 38 years before. Of this we have already taken notice in our account of Mr. Man. Mr. Ruddiman died at Edinburgh, Jan. 19, 1757, when he had advanced into the eighty-third year of his age, and was buried in the cemetery of the Grey Friers. His brother and partner, Walter, died in 1770, aged 83.

Of Ruddiman’s talents and learning his works afr'ird the most satisfactory proofs. His memory was tenacious and exact, and he was so great a master of the Latin language, that perhaps he has not been equalled since the days of Buchanan. His personal character was recommended by many virtues, and upon the whole he may justly be considered as an honour to his native country, and a benefactor to classical literature. Many very interesting memorials of him, and of the state of learning and opinions in his time, may be found in the work to which we are chiefly indebted for the materials of this account.

, a French orator and poet, was born at Paris in 1643, and educated in the Jesuits’ college, where he afterwards became professor of humanity and rhetoric. In 1667, when only twenty-four, he wrote a Latin poem, upon the conquests of Lewis XIV. which was thought so excellent, that Peter Corneille translated it into French, and presented it to the king; apologizing, at the same time, for not being able to convey to his majesty the beauties of the original. No introduction could be more favourable, and the king shewed him singular respect ever after. He was one of those who had the care of the Delphine editions of the classics; and Virgil was allotted to him, which he published with good notes, and a,correct life of the author, in 1675, 4to. He published also panegyrics, funeral orations, and sermons, which shew him to have been a very great orator: but his master-piece is a funeral oration for the prince of Luxembourg. There are also tragedies of his writing in Latin and French, which had the approbation of Corneille, and therefore cannot be without merit; but he would not suffer them to be performed. A collection of his Latin poems was published at Paris, in 1680, in 12mo, and at Antwerp in 1693. He died at Paris May 27, 1725, in his eighty-second year.

, was a Benedictine monk, born in 1685, who became so learned in the Greek and Hebrew languages, and in divinity, that Montfaucon too|i him into his friendship, and made him an associate with him in his studies. Montfaucon had published, in 1713, the remains of “Origen’s Hexapla;” and was very desirous, that a correct and complete edition should be given of the whole works of this illustrious father. His own engagements not permitting him, he prevailed with de la Rue, whose abilities and learning he knew to be sufficient for the work, to undertake it: and accordingly two volumes were published by him, in 1733, folio, with proper prefaces and useful notes. A third volume was ready for the press, when de la Rue died in 1739; and though it was published afterwards by his nephew, yet the edition of Origen not being quite completed, some remaining pieces, together with the “Origeniana” of Huetius, were published in 1759, as a fourth volume, and the whole reprinted in 1780 by Oberthur, at W-iselburg, in 15 vols, 8vo.

, the historian of Marseilles, was born there in 1607, and bred to the law. Being appointed counsellor to the seneschalcy of his native place, he practised in that court for some years, and with a scrupulous integrity rather uncommon; for we are told that on one occasion when, by his own neglect, a client had lost his cause, he sent him a sum of money equivalent to that loss. He was a man of learning, and a good antiquary, and employed much of his time in collecting materials for his “History of Marseilles,” which he published in 1642. In. 1654 he was made a counsellor of state, and next year published a life of Gaspard de Simiane, known by the name of the chevalier de la Coste, and about the same time a history of the counts of Provence from 934 to 1480. He died April 3, 1689, aged eighty-two. His son Louis Anthony, who followed similar pursuits, added to his father’s History of Marseilles a second volume, in an edition published in 1696, and illustrated with plates of seals, coins, &c. He was author, likewise, of “Dissertations Historiques et Critiques sur POrigine des Comtes des Provence, de Venaissin, de Forcalquier, et des Vicomtes de Marseille” and in 1716 he published “Une Dissertation. Historique, Chronologique, et Critique sur les Evéques de Marseille.” Both these were intended as preludes to more elaborate works on the subject, which he was prevented from completing by his death, March 26, 1724, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.

, orRUFINUS, a very celebrated priest of Aquileia, called by some Toranius, was born about the middle of the fourth century, at Concordia, a small city in Italy. He retired to a monastery in Aquileia, and devoted himself wholly to reading and meditating on the sacred scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers. St. Jerome passing that way became much attached to him, and vowed an indissoluble friendship. When St. Jerome retired into the east some years after, Ruffinus, inconsolable for their separation, resolved to quit Aquileia in search of his friend. He accordingly embarked for Egypt, visited the hermits who inhabited the deserts, and having been told much of the chamy of St. Melania the elder, had the satisfaction of seeing ner at Alexandria, where he went to hear the celebrated Didymus. The piety which Melania observed in Ruffinus induced her to make him her confident, which he continued to be while they remained iti the East, which was about thirty years. But the Arians, who ruled in the reign of Valens, raised a cruel persecution against Ruffinus, cast him into a dungeon, and loaded him with chains, where he suffered the torments of hunger and thirst, and they afterwards banished him to the most desolate part of Palestine. Melania ransomed him, with several other exiles, and returned to Palestine with him. It was at this period, that St. Jerome, supposing Ruffinus would go directly to Jerusalem, wrote to a friend in that city to congratulate him on the occasion, in the following terms: “You will see the marks of holiness shine in the person of Ruffinus, whereas I am but his dust. It is enough for my weak eyes to support the lustre of his virtues. He has lately been further purified in the crucible of persecution, and is now whiter than snow, while I am defiled with all manner of sins.” Ruffinus built a monastery on mount Olivet, converted numbers of sinners, re-united to the church above 400 solitaries, who had engaged in the schism of Antioch, and persuaded several Macedonians and Arians to renounce their errors. He, at the same time, translated such Greek books as appeared to him the most interesting; but his translations of Origen’s works, particularly “the Book of principles,” occasioned that rupture between him and St. Jerome, which made so much noise in the church, and so deeply afflicted St. Augustine, and all the great men of their time. Ruffinus was cited to Rome by pope Anastatius, who is said to have condemned his translation of “the Book of principles.” Being accused of heresy, he published some very orthodox apologies, which discover great ingenuity. His chief plea was, “That he meant to be merely a translator, without undertaking to support or defend any thing reprehensible in Origen’s works.” He went afterwards into 'Sicily, and died there about the year 410. He translated from Greek into Latin, “Josephus;” “The Ecclesiastical History,” by Eusebius, to which he added, two books; several of Origen’s writings, with his “Apology” by St. Pamphilius; ten of St. Gregory of Nazianzen’s Discourses, and eight of St. Basil’s, in all which he has been accused of taking great liberties, and in some of them acknowledges it. He has also left a Tract in defence of Origen; two “Apologies” against St. Jerome; “Commentaries” on Jacob’s Benedictions, on Hosea, Joel, and Amos; several “Lives of the Fathers of the desert,” and “An Exposition of the Creed,” which has always been valued. His works were printed at Paris, 1580, fol.; but the “Commentary on the Psalms,” which bears his name, was not written by him. The abbe“Gervase has published a” Life of Ruffinus," 2 vols. 12mo.

, a law and miscellaneous writer, was born about 1723 in Piccadilly, where his father was his majesty’s baker, and having bought a lottery ticket for Owen, when in his infancy, which was drawn a prize of 500l. he determined to expend it upon his education for the profession of the law. He was accordingly entered of the Middle Temple, and by studying here, as well as at school, with great diligence, became a good general scholar, and an acute barrister, although he never arrived at great eminence in his profession. He endeavoured, however, to form some political connexions; and when, in 1757, Murphy wrote a periodical paper, in favour of Mr. Henry Fox, afterwards lord Holland, called “The Test,” Ruffhead setup another, in opposition, called “The ConTest.” Dr. Johnson, who then conducted ths “Literary Magazine,” after giving a few of both these papers, adds, “Of these papers of the Test and Con-test, we have given a very copious specimen, and hope that we shall give no more. The debate seems merely personal, no one topic of general import having been yet attempted. Of the motives of the author of the Test, whoever he be, I believe, every man who speaks honestly, speaks with abhorrence. Of the Con-test, which, being defensive, is less blameable, I have yet heard no great commendation. The language is that of a man struggling after elegance, and catching finery in its stead; the author of the Con-test is more knowing of wit neither can boast in the Test it is frequently attempted, but always by mean and despicable imitations, without the least glimmer of intrinsic light, without a single effort of original thought.” Ruffhead wrote other pamphlets on temporary political subjects, the last of which was a defence of the conduct of administration in the affair of Wilkes, entitled “The case of the late Election for the county of Middlesex considered,” in answer to sir William Meredith’s pamphlet on the same subject. Of his law writings, the first was a continuation of Cay’s “Statutes” to the 13 George III. 9 vols. fol. and the second an edition of the Statutes, which goes under his own name, which he did not live to publish, as it appeared in 1771, but which has been since regularly continued, making 13 vols. 4to. For this, or his political services, he was about to have been promoted to the place of one of the secretaries of the Treasury, when he died Oct. 25, 1769, in his forty-sixth year.

Some time before his death, bishop Warburton, who probably thought the task might involve himself in inquiries not very suitable to the dignity of his order, employed Ruffhead to write the “Life of Pope,” but himself revised the sheets, and occasionally contributed a paragraph, although neither was sufficiently attentive to accuracy of dates, which, in Pope’s history, are matters of no small importance, nor was the work in general creditable to the subject, for Ruffhead had no taste for poetry or criticism. The public, however, knowing to whom he must be indebted for most of his materials, read the book with some avidity, and it was twice reprinted, but has since been superseded by more able pens. The university of Edinburgh conferred the degree of LL. D on Ruffhead, in 1766, which, we believe, he never assumed, although in Northouck’s dictionary he is called Dr. Ruffhead. Among his other literary engagements, Sir John Hawkins informs us that he was employed as reviewer of books in the Gentleman’s Magazine, until employed on Cay’s Statutes: and some time before his death the proprietors of Chambers’s Cyclopædia engaged him to superintend a new edition of that work: he was paid a considerable sum on account, but, having done nothing, the booksellers recovered the money of his heirs. He left one son, Thomas Ruffhead, who died curate of Prittlewell, in Essex, in 1798.

, the Ephesian, a physician and anatomist in the reign of the emperor Trajan, obtained great reputation by his extensive knowledge and experience. Galen esteemed him one of the most able of the physicians who had preceded bin:-. Rufus appears to have cultivated anatomy, by dissecting brutes, with great zeal and success. He traced the origin of the nerves in the brain, and considered some of them as contributing to motion, and others to sensation. He even observed the capsule of the crystalline lens in the eye. He considered the heart as the seat of life, and of the animal heat, and as the origin of the pulse, which he ascribed to the spirit of its left ventricle and of the arteries; and he remarked the difference in the capacity and thickness of the two ventricles. He deemed the spleen to be a very useless viscus, and his successors have never discovered its use. He examined very fully the organs of generation, and the kidnies and bladder; he has left, indeed, a very good treatise on the diseases of the urinary organs, and the methods of cure. He also wrote a work on purgative medicines, mentioning their different qualities, the countries from which they were obtained; and a little treatise on the names given by the Greeks to the different parts of the body. Galen affirms also that Rufus was the author of an essay on the tnateria medica, written in verse; and Suidas mentions a treatise of his on the ' atra bilis, with some other essays; but these are lost. What remains of his works are to be found in the “Artis medicse principes” of Stephens, and printed separately at London, Gr. and Lat. 4to, by W. Clinch, 172G.

, the author of a celebrated dramatic satire, was born at Lavenham in Suffolk, where his father was a clothier, probably in November 1575. He was educated at the free grammar school of Lavenham, and made such progress, that great hopes were entertained of the advantages he might derive from an university education, which his father was encouraged to give him. He was accordingly admitted of St. John’s college, Cambridge, June 26, J 589, but foreseeing no chance of a maintenance there, removed to Trinity college, and obtained a scholarship in 1593, about which time he probably took the degree of B. A. as he did that of M. A. in 1597, and entered into holy orders. From Trinity he removed to Clare-hall, and was elected a fellow of that society, to which afterwards he was a benefactor.

Having a taste for polite literature, he studied to acquire a familiar knowledge of the French and Italian languages; but particularly of the Greek and Latin poets, historians, and orators. Among the Italian writers, the productions of John Baptist Porta, were his favourites. This author’s comedies, in our account of him, are erroneously said not to be extant, instead of esteemed. An edition of them was published in 1726, 4to, but there were old editions of them all in Ruggle’s time, and he evidently caught their spirit. Hjy “Ignoramus?' owes much to Porta’s” Trappolana.“In the mean time, Ruggle’s reputation for learning became an inducement with many parents and guardians to place their sons at Clare-hall, uiider his tuition. In 1604, he was appointed one of the two taxers in the university. This seems the only distinction he obtained, except that in the following year, when king James visited Oxford, he was admitted M. A. It is said to have been in consequence of a litigious dispute carried on, in 1611, between the university, and the mayor and corporation of Cambridge, that he conceived an unfavourable opinion of the gentlemen of the law, and thought some of their practices a fair subject for ridicule. With this view he completed his comedy called” Ignoramus,“which was acted at the university before James I. both in March and May 1614, and is said to have highly delighted his majesty; the pleasure, indeed, which it gave him is rather oddly expressed.” Spectando et ridendo rex tantum non cacatus!“The lawyers are said to have felt the force of the ridicule, and to have expressed the warmest resentment against the poet and his performance. A very correct edition of this comedy, with a life of the author, was published in 1787, by Mr. John Sidney Hawkins, 8vo. Two other plays are ascribed to Ruggle,” Club Law,“and” Revera, or Verity,“but neither have been printed. Mr. lluggle resigned his fellowship in 1620, probably on succeeding to an estate, and died between Sept. 6, 1621, and Nov. 3, 1622, the former being the date of his will, the latter the day when it was proved. Mr. Hawkins’s opinion of the famed” Ignoramus" is, we are afraid higher than modern taste and humour can allow.

, a French theologian, was born at Rheims, June 10, 1657, and became a Benedictine monk in 1674. He studied the scriptures, the fathers, and ecclesiastical writers, in so masterly a way, that Mabillon chose him for a companion in his literary labours. He shewed himself not unworthy of the good opinion Mabillon had conceived of him, when he published, in 1689, “Acta Primorurn Martyrum,” &c. 4to, meaning the martyrs of the first four centuries. In a preface to this work, he endeavours to refute a notion, which our Dodwell had advanced in a piece “De paucitate Martyrum,” inserted among his “Dissertationes Cyprianicae.” A new edition of this work, with alterations and additions, was printed ie 1713, folio. Ruinart publisnec other learned works, as *' Hist, persecutionis Vandalicae,“”Jtor Literariinn in Alsatiam et Lotharingiain,“&c.; and assisted Mabillon, whom he survived, and whose life he wrote, in the publication of the acts of the saints, and annals of their order. He gave alsc -in excellent edition of the works of” Gregory of Tours, it Paris, 1699, in folio. When Mabillon died, in 1707, he was appointed to continue the work in which he had jointly laboured with him; upon which he travelled to Champagne, in quest of new memoirs, but on his return to Pads died Sept. 24, 1707.

, a doctor of physic in the university of Hanau, and a member of the academy of naturalists, was born at Hanau in 1637. He went to Amboyna, and became consul and senior merchant there, which did not prevent his employing his leisure moments in collecting the plants of that country; being so fond of botany as to acquire great skill in it without any instruction. Although he lost his sight at the age of forty-three, he could discover the nature and shape of a plant by his taste and feeling. He comprised all the plants which he had collected in the country where he settled, in twelve books, and dedicated them to the governor and council of the India company in 1690. They were not, however, printed then; but John Burman published them from 1740 to 1750, 7 vols. fol. which have commonly the date of 1751, under the title of “Herbarium Amboinense,” 1755. Burman has added an Auctuarium, with the table usually bound at the end of torn. VI. This work has some of the faults, or rather misfortunes, of a posthumous publication; and the reader must always keep in mind that the figures, far inferior to those of the “Hortus Malabaricus,” are generally not more than half the size of nature. The original drawings still in existence are said to be very fine. Rumph also left, “Imagines piscium testaceorum,” Leyden, 1711, foL reprinted 1739; the former is much valued for the plates. He wrote, besides, “The political History of Amboyna,” which has never been printed, but a copy is deposited in the India company’s chest at Amsterdam, and another at Amboyna.

, a Scotch painter, was born at Edinburgh in 1736, where his father, who was an architect, probably taught him some of the principles of his art. Mr. Fuseli says he served an apprenticeship to a coachpainter, and “acquired a practice of brush, a facility of penciling, and much mechanic knowledge of colour, be^ fore he had attained any correct notions of design.” The Scotch account, on the other hand, says he was placed as an apprentice to John and Robert Norries, the former of whom was a celebrated landscape painter (no-where upon record, however,) and under his instructions Runciman made rapid improvement in the art. From 1755 he painted landscapes on his own account, and in 1760 attempted historical works. About 1766 he accompanied or soon followed his younger brother John, who had excited much livelier expectations of his abilities as an artist, to Rome; where John, who was of a delicate and consumptive habit, soon fell a victim to the climate, and his obstinate exertions in art. Alexander continued his studies under the patronage and with the support of sir James Clerk, a Scottish baronet, and gave a specimen of his abilities before his departure, in a picture of considerable size, representing Ulysses surprising Nausica at play with her maids: it exhibited, with the defects and manner of Giulio Romano in style, design, and expression, a tone, a juice, and breadth of colour, resembling Tintoretto. At his return to Scotland in 1771, Runciman was employed by his patron to decorate the hall at Pennecuik, with a series of subjects from Ossian; in the course of some years he was made master of a public institution for promoting design, and died Oct. 21, 1785. Jacob More, the landscape-painter, who died at Rome, was his pupil; and John Brown, celebrated for design, his friend. One of his capital pictures is the Ascension, an altar-piece in the episcopal chapel, Edinburgh; another a Lear, which, with his Andromeda and “Agrippina landing with the ashes of Germanicus,” are highly praised by his countrymen. Edwards mentions having seen two etchings by this artist, the one “Sigismunda weeping over the heart of Tancred;” the other riew of Edinburgh, which is executed with great spirit and taste.

, LL. D. an English divine, and bishop of Derry in Ireland, was born in the parish of Milton-Abbot, near Tavistock, in Devonshire, about 1686, of what family is not known. He was educated at the freeschool of Exeter, under the care of Mr. John Reynolds, uncle to the celebrated painter sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1702 he was removed to Exeter college, Oxford, and about this time his friend and fellow collegian, Joseph Taylor, esq. (father of Thomas Taylor, of Denbury, esq.) introduced him to Mr. Edward Talbot, of Oriel college, the second son of Dr. William Talbot, at that time bishop of Oxford. This event was of great importance in his future life, as it secured him the friendship and patronage of the Talbot family, to whom he owed all his promotion. Recommenced bachelor of civil laws in July 1710, and two years afterwards became acquainted with the celebrated Whiston, and was inclined to adopt his notions as to reviving what he called primitive Christianity. Mr. Whiston, who has given us many particulars respecting bishop Rundie in his “Memoirs of his own Life,” says that Mr. Rundie, before he entered into holy orders, became so disgusted at the corrupt state of the church, and at the tyranny of the ecclesiastical laws, that he sometimes declared against obeying them, even where they were in themselves not unlawful, which, adds Whiston, “was farther than 1 could go with him.” The truth seems to have been, as stated by bishop Rundle’s late biegrapher, that the singular character of Whiston, his profound erudition, and disinterested attachment to the doctrines of Arius, supported by an ostensible love of truth, were likely to attract the notice of young men who, in the ardour of free inquiry, did not immediately perceive the pernicious tendency of their new opinions.

Soon after Mr. Rundle’s acquaintance with bishop Talbot became an intimacy, he was ordained by him in 1718, and published a discourse on Acts x. 34, 35. In 1720 he was promoted by that prelate, on his removal to Salisbury, to the archdeaconry of Wilts; and upon the demise of Mr. Edward Talbot, in the same year, was constituted treasurer of the church of Sarum. These were the first bounties of his munificent patron, who retained him from this time-as his domestic chaplain, and particularly delighted in his elegant manners and brilliant conversation. When bishop Talbot was translated to Durham, he continued Mr. Rundle of his household, and on Jan. 23, 1721, collated him to the first stall in that cathedral but on Nov. 12, in the following year, he was removed to the twelfth prebend He bad likewise the valuable mastership of Sherborne hospital, an appointment incompatible with the cure of souls, but which, it will appear from the foregoing list of preferments, he had never undertaken. If any period of his life afforded him more than ordinary satisfaction, it was this. He was esteemed, in a degree far beyond what is usually to be attained in friendships between persons of unequal rank, by the great and good family who patronised him. He had opportunities of gratifying his literary propensities, by frequent conversations with the first in almost every branch of science, and by the most select epistolary correspondences. He became particularly known at this time to the republic of letters by the liberal support he gave to Thomson, upon his publishing his “Winter,” whose acquaintance he instantly sought; and whom, having recommended to lord chancellor Talbot as a proper person to superintend his son’s education during the grand tour, Thomson found himself on his return rewarded by a lucrative appointment. On July 5, 1723, he had proceeded LL. D. as necessary to the dignities he enjoyed, and was associated with Dr. Seeker, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, as resident chaplain at the palace at Durham.

When bishop Talbot died, in 1730, his son, the lord chancellor, particularly distinguished Dr. Rundle as his friend, and entertained him on the same terms as his father had done. The first effort, however, which his lordship made for his advancement was attended with very extraordinary consequences, and formed the basis of a controversy of considerable warmth, although not of long duration. In Dec. 1733, the see of Gloucester becoming vacant by the death of Dr. Sydall, the lord chancellor solicited that preferment for his friend Dr. Rundle, but was refused. Dr. Edmund Gibson, bishop of London, had at this time the greatest weight in ecclesiastical appointments, and had lon4 entertained doubts of the soundness of Dr. Rundle’s principles. This could not have arisen from his former intimacy with Whiston, and his forbearance of Chubb, the professed foes of modern episcopacy, but is said to have proceeded from information given him by Mr. Venn, minister of St. Antholin’s, who reported an improper conversation held by Dr. Rundle in his presence, which Dr. Rundle afterwards declared he never had held, and that the obnoxious words must have been used by some other person in company. Dr. Gibson, however, peremptorily declared against the admission of a suspected deist to the sacred bench, and lord Talbot, we are told, after ably asserting the injustice of the charge, and detecting the sinister means that were made use of to support it, withdrew his petition with disdain.

All this could not be [known without exciting considerable interest in the public mind. In a few weeks a pamphlet appeared, entitled “Reasons alledged against Dr. Rundle’s promotion to the see of Gloucester,” &c. This was written by Dr. Sykes, and followed by several other pamphlets, of which Dr. Disney, in his “Life of Sykes,” has given a list of ten. Even Whiston vindicated his old friend in a very candid manner. Perhaps his best vindication is in a letter to Mr. Duncombe, originally published in “Hughes’ s Correspondence,” which Dr, Rundle wrote in the confidence of friendship, and in which he appears to use no disguise. As to Dr. Sykes’s pamphlets, they evidently are written more with a view to raise a clamour against Dr. Gibson, than to serve the interest of Dr. Run-? die. Dr. Gibson, in his causes for rejecting Dr. Rundle, might have been misinformed, and we trust he was so; but they who accuse him of excessive bigotry, would do well to recollect, that he was the promoter of Dr. Hoadly to the bishopric of Winchester.

The issue of this matter, however, was, that the bishop of London proposed Dr. Benson, the friend of Dr. Rundle, for the vacant see of Gloucester, and Dr, Rundle was soon after promoted to the. lucrative bishopric of Derry in Ireland, to which he was consecrated February 1734-5. The aspersions thrown on his character in England had by this time reached Ireland, and created great discontent at the appointment; but a residence of a few years, and repeated acts of public munificence and private generosity, gradually endeared him to the people of Ireland. He died at his palace in. Dublin April 14, 1743, scarcely sixty years of age. Having survived the nearer connections of his own family, he left his property, amounting to 20,000^, principally to the hon. John Talbot, second son to the chancellor. His person is said to have been slender, and not inelegantly formed. As to his character as a man, he appears to have been distinguished by many virtues, and by some weaknesses. His biographer says, he was precipitate in forming friendships, and as ready to relinquish them; a character by no means amiable; but for which, perhaps, some excuse might be formed, if we were made acquainted with the nature of his friendships. Unsuspicious men often contract friendships which, upon a closer inspection, they find unworthy and untenable; and this may happen before years have accumulated experience, if not without blame, at least with some excuse; and perhaps Dr. Rundle did not always suffer himself to be deceived. His character as a divine, we see, once laboured under suspicion, and if we except his own declaration, it was principally vindicated by those who were not very friendly to the church. The attestations of Pope and Swift can add little to his reputation. There was nothing, however, in his public conduct subsequent to the clamour raised against him, which could be censured; and the last letter he appears to have written, a little before his death, to archdeacon S. breathes the language of genuine piety.

Of his works, we have nothing, except four occasional sermons, one of which we have mentioned; a second was preached in England, and the other two in Ireland, in 1734, 1735, and 1736. In 1790, appeared “Letters of the late Thomas Ilundle, LL. D,” &c. to Mrs. Barbara Sandys, of Miserden, in Gloucestershire, with introductory “Memoirs, by James Dallaway, M. A. of Trinity-college, Oxford,” 2 vols. 12mo. To these memoirs we are indebted for the facts In this sketch. The letters are entertaining, and display much kindness of disposition but are not otherwise of superior merit.

, third son of the king of Bohemia, by the princess Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James I. of England, was born 1619, and educated, like most German princes, for the army and those who have been least inclined to favour him, admit that he was well adapted, both by natural abilities and acquired endowments, to form a great commander. On the commencement of the rebellion, which happened when he was scarcely of age, he offered his services to Charles I. and throughout the whole war behaved with great intrepidity. But his courage was of that kind which is better calculated for attack than defence, and is less adapted to the land service than that of the sea, where precipitate valour, Granger observes, is in its element. He seldom engaged but he gained the advantage, which he generally lost by pushing it too far. He was better qualified to storm a citadel, or even mount a breach, than patiently to sustain a siege, and would have been an excellent assistant to a general of a cooler head. In consideration of his services, for which we refer to the general histories of the times, and on account of his affinity to him, king Charles made him a knight of the garter, and a free denizen, and advanced him to the dignity of a peer of England, by the title of earl of Holdernesse and duke of Cumberland.

When the civil war was over, he went abroad with a pass from the parliament; but when the fleet revolted to the prince of Wales, he readily went on board, and distinguished himself by the vigour of his counsels. His advice, however, was not followed, but on the return of the fleet to Holland, as the command of it was left to him, he sailed to Ireland, where he endeavoured to support the declining royal cause. He was quickly pursued by the superior fleet of the parliament, under Popham and Blake, who, in the winter of 1649, blocked him up in the haven of Kinsale, whence he escaped, by making a bold effort, and pushing through their fleet.

After the Restoration, he was invited to return to England, and had several offices conferred upon him. In April 1662, he was sworn a member of the privy-council; and in December following, was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1666, the king appointed him, in conjunction with the duke of Albemarle, to command the fleet, and he now exhibited all the qualities that are necessary to constitute a great admiral. By his return to the fleet on June 3d, he wrested from the Dutch the only victory they had the appearance of gaining; and on the 24th of the same month, he beat them effectually, pursued them to their own coast, and blocked up their harbour. The great intrepidity which he displayed, in this naval war, was highly and justly celebrated; and in the last Dutch war of that reign he seemed to retain all the activity and fire of his youtb, and defeated the enemy in several engagements. From this time prince Rupert led a retired life, mostly at Windsor-castle, of which he was governor, and spent a great part of his time in the prosecution of chemical and philosophical experiments, as well as the practice of mechanic arts. He delighted in making locks for fire-arms, and was the inventor of a composition called, from him, Prince’s metal. He communicated to the Royal Society his improvements upon gunpowder, by refining the several ingredients, and making it more carefully, which augmented its force, in comparison of ordinary powder, in the proportion often to one. He also acquainted them with an engine he had contrived for raising water, and sent them an instrument for casting any platform into perspective, and for which they deputed a select committee of their members to return him their thanks. He was the inventor of a gun for discharging several bullets with the utmost speed, facility, and safety; and the Royal Society received from his highness the intimation of a certain method of blowing up rocks in mines, and other subterraneous places. Dr. Hooke has preserved another invention of his for making hail-shot of all sizes. He devised a particular kind of screw, by the means of which, observations taken by a quadrant at sea were secured from receiving any alteration by the unsteadiness of the observer’s hand, or through the motion of the ship. It was said that he had also, among other secrets, that of melting or running black lead, like a metal, into a mould, and reducing it again into its original form.

But there is one invention of which he has the credit, which requires more particular notice. Besides being mentioned by foreign authors with applause for his skill in painting, he was considered as the inventor of mezzotinto, owing, as it is said, to the following casual occurrence. Going out early one morning during his retirement at Brussels, he observed the centinel at some distance from his post, very busy doing something to his piece. The prince asked the soldier what he was about? he replied, the dew had fallen in the night, and made his fusil rusty, and that he was scraping and cleaning it. The prince looking at it, was struck with something like a figure eaten into the barrel, with innumerable little holes closed together like friezed work on gold or silver, part of which the fellow had scraped away. The prince immediately conceived that some contrivance might be found to cover a brass plate with such a grained ground of fine pressed holes, which would undoubtedly give an impression all black; and that by scraping away proper parts, the smooth superficies would leave the rest of the paper white. Communicating his idea to Wallerant Vaillant, a reputable painter then in the neighbourhood of Brussels, they made several experiments, and at last invented a steel roller with projecting points or teeth like a file, which effectually produced the black ground, and which being scraped away, or diminished at pleasure, left the gradations of light.

Such was the invention of mezzotinto, according to lord Orford, Mr. Evelyn, and Mr. Vertue; but the baron Heinnekin affirms that “it was not prince Rupert who invented the art of engraving in mezzotinto, as Vertue and several other authors pretend to say; but it was the lieutenant colonel de Siegen, an officer in the service of the landgrave of Hesse, who first engraved in this manner; and the print which he produced was a portrait of the princess Amelia Elizabeth of Hesse, engraved as early as the year 1643. Prince Rupert, he adds, learned the secret from this gentleman, and brought it into England when he came over the second time with Charles II.” Mr. Strutt, who makes this quotation, says, that he has not seen the print thus spoken of by the baron: and the precise date of prince Rupert’s discovery is no where mentioned. But if a mezzotinto engraving dated seventeen years before the restoration can be produced, and the date be genuine, it certainly goes far toward proving Heinnekin’s assertion. Vertue acknowledges to have seen an oval head of Leopold William, archduke of Austria, in mezzotinto, that was dated in 1656, which he esteems the earliest. It is inscribed “Theodorus Casparus a Furstenburgh canonicus ad vivum pinxit et fecit” but this argues little against prince Rupert’s discovery, since it is quite within probability that Casparus might have learned the art from the prince or Vaillant during their residence in the Low Countries.

The earliest of Rupert’s engravings in mezzotinto, that is now extant, is dated in 1658. It is an half length figure from Spagnoletto: the subject, an executioner holding a sword in one hand, and in the other a head, which is probably intended for that of John the Baptist, and upon the sword are the initials R. P. F. surmounted with a coronet. It is further distinguished by the following inscription on a tablet beneath, “Sp in Rvp. P. fecit. Francofurti. anno 1658 M. A. P. M.” Prince Rupert died at his house in Spring Gardens, Nov, 29, 1682, and was interred in Henry the Vllth’s chapel, regretted as one whose aim in all his actions and all his accomplishments was the public good. He was a great promoter of the trade to Africa, and a principal protector of the Royal African Company; as a proof of which, before the first Dutch war in this reign, he offered his majesty to sail with a squadron to the coast of Guinea, in order to vindicate the honour of the crown, assert the just rights of the company, and redress the injuries done to the nation; but the king, unwilling to hazard his person at such a distance, and in so sickly a climate, though he received the motion kindly, would not consent to it, but contented himself with taking an officer of his recommendation (captain Holmes), under whom the squadron was sent. He was an active member of the council of trade. It was owing to his solicitations, after being at great expence, not only in the inquiry into the value, but in sending ships thither, that the Hudson’s Bay Company was erected, of which he was the first governor appointed by the charter. In memory of him, a considerable opening on the east side of that bay, in Terra de Labrador, is called Rupert’s river. In general, his highness was a great friend to seamen, and to all learned, ingenious, and public-spirited persons, and assisted them with his purse, as well as afforded them his countenance. He was concerned in the patent for annealed cannon, in a glass-house, and other undertakings for acquiring or improving manufactures. Strict justice has been done to his highness’s many virtues, and amiable qualities, in that excellent character of him by bishop Sprat. In respect to his private life, he was so just, so beneficent, so courteous, that his memory remained dear to all who knew him. “This,” observes Campbell, “I say of my own knowledge; having often heard old people in Berkshire speak in raptures of prince Rupert.”

After his death his collection of pictures was sold by auction; but his jewels, which were appraised by three jewellers at 20,000l. were disposed of by way of lottery, as appears by the Gazette 1683, Nos. 1864, 1873, &c. The tickets were 5l. each, and the largest prize a great pearl necklace valued at 8000l. The lowest prizes were valued at IQQl. The advertisement states that this lottery was to be “drawn in his majesty’s presence, who is pleased to declare that he himself will see all the prizes put in among the blanks, and that the whole shall be managed with all equity and fairness, nothing being intended but the sale of the jewels at a moderate value.”

Prince Rupert, who never was married, left a natural son, usually called Dudley Rupert, by a daughter of Henry Bard viscount Beilemont, though styled in his father’s last will and testament Dudley Bard. He was educated at Eton school, and afterwards placed under the care of that celebrated mathematician sir Jonas Moore at the Tower. Here he continued till the demise of the prince, when he made a tour into Germany to take possession of a considerable fortune which had been bequeathed to him. He was very kindly received by the Palatine family, to whom he had the honour of being so nearly allied. In 1686 he made a campaign in Hungary, and distinguished himself at the siege of Buda, where he had the misfortune to lose his life, in the month of July or August, in a desperate attempt made by some English gentlemen upon the fortifications of that city, in the twentieth year of his age; and, though so young, he had signalized his courage in such an extraordinary manner, that his death was exceedingly regretted.

, an eminent American physician, was born near Bristol, in the state of Pennsylvania, Jan. 5, 1745. His ancestors, quakers, were of the number of those who followed the celebrated William Penn to Pennsylvania, in 1683, His father dying while Benjamin was yet young, his education devolved upon his mother, who placed him, at an early age, under the direction of the late rev. Samuel Finley, at West Nottingham, in Chester county, Pennsylvania, by whom he was taught the rudiments of classical knowledge. From this academy he was removed to the college of Princeton, where he finished his classical education, and was admitted to the degree of A. B. in 1760, when he had not yet completed his sixteenth year. He was now left to choose a profession, and having given the preference to the science and practice of medicine, he placed himself under the care of the late Dr. John Redman, of Philadelphia, a gentleman who had deservedly obtained an extensive share of professional business, and who was justly considered an excellent practitioner. With Dr. Redman young Rush continued some time, zealously engaged in the acquisition of the several branches of medicine; but as no institution for the purpose of medical instruction was then established in Philadelphia, he came over to Edinburgh, and there took his doctor’s degree in 1768, after having performed the usual collegiate duties with much honour, and published his inaugural dissertation “De Concoctione Ciborum in Ventriculo.” In this performance he candidly acknowledged himself indebted, for many of the opinions which he advanced, to his distinguished teacher Dr. Cullen.

About the period of Dr. Rush’s return to his native country, the first attempt was made in Philadelphia for the organization of a medical school. Lectures on anatomy and surgery had indeed been delivered, in that city, in 1763 and 1764-, to a small class of pupils, by the late Dr. William Shippen, who, two years previous, had returned from Europe, where he had completed his education under the direction of the celebrated Dr. William Hunter; and, in 1765, Dr. John Morgan, also, gave instruction on the institutes of medicine and the practice of physic. Three years after this, the venerable Dr. Kuhn, who had been a pupil of the illustrious Linnseus, and had preceded Dr. Rush in his medical honours only one year, was made professor of botany and the materia medica, and Dr. Rush became professor of chemistry immediately upon his arrival from England in 1769, a situation which he filled in such a manner as did great credit to his talents, and contributed much to the prosperity of the new school. When the dispute between the mother-country and the colonies took place, Dr. Rush sided with his countrymen; in 1776 was chosen a member of the congress for the state of Pennsylvania; and in 1777 was appointed surgeon-general of the military hospital in the middle department, but in the same year he exchanged this for the office of physiciangeneral, which, owing to some misunderstanding among the managers of the hospital stores, he resigned in February following. He still, however, continued to take an active part in the politics of the state to which he belonged, and contributed to the formation of a new government, that which prevailed before in Pennsylvania appearing to him and others very defective.

Soon after, he formed the resolution of retiring from, political life, and from this time may be considered as exclusively occupied in duties pertaining to his profession. As an author he first wrote, in 1770, an account of the effects of the stramonium, or thorn apple, which was published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. I. The same year he addressed a letter, on the usefulness of wort in ill-conditioned ulcers, to his friend Dr. Huck, of London, which was published in the Medical Observations and Inquiries of London, vol. IV. In 1774 he read, before the Philosophical Society, his interesting “Inquiry into the Natural History of Medicine among the Indians of North America,” which formed the subject of an anniversary oration. He this year again addressed another letter to Dr. Huck, containing some remarks on bilious fevers, which was printed in the London Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. V. To this succeeded his “Account of the Influence of the Military and Political Events of the American Revolution upon the Human Body, and Observations upon the Diseases of the Military Hospitals of the United States,” which his situation in the army eminently qualified him to make. In 1785 he offered to the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia an “Inquiry into the cause of the increase of Bilious and Intermitting Fevers in Pennsylvania,” published in their Transactions, vol. II.; and soon after, in quick succession, appeared “Observations on Tetanus,” an “Inquiry into the Influence of Physical Causes upon the Moral Faculty,” “Remarks on the Effects of ardent Spirits upon the body and mind,” and his “Inquiry into the Causes and Cure of the Pulmonary Consumption.” About this time also appeared his paper entitled “Information to Europeans disposed to migrate to the United States,” in a letter to a friend in Great Britain; a subject which had already occupied the attention of Dr. Franklin, but which Dr. Rush considered still further deserving notice, on account of the important changes which the United States had lately undergone. To this paper followed his “Observations on the Population of Pennsylvania,” “Observations on Tobacco,” and his “Essay on the Study of the Latin and Greek Languages,” which was first published in the American Museum of Philadelphia. This last mentioned paper, which has been the fertile topic of much animadversion, was, with several other essays of Dr. Rush, and his eulogiums on Dr. Cullen and the illustrious Rittenhouse, the former delivered in 1790, the latter in 1796, embodied in an octavo volume, entitled “Essays, literary, moral, and philosophical,” published in 1798. In 1791, the medical colleges of Philadelphia, which, on account of certain legislative proceedings, had existed as two distinct establishments since 1788, became united under the name of the university of Pennsylvania; and Dr. Rush was appointed to the chair of the professorship of the institutes of medicine and clinical practice. He now gave to the public his “Lectures upon the cause of Animal Life.” The same year he presented to the Philosophical Society his “Account of the Sugar Maple Tree of the United States,” which was published in their Transactions, vol. III.; and in 1792, “Observations, intended to favour a supposition that the black colour of the negro is derived from leprosy,” published in their Transactions, vol. IV.

The year 1793 is memorable in the medical annals of the United States, on account of the great mortality occasioned by the yellow fever, which prevailed in the city of Philadelphia; and the history of that epidemic, which was published by Dr. Rush in 1794, cannot be too highly valued, both for his minute and accurate description of the disease, and the many important facts he has recorded in relation to it. It was comprised in one volume 8vo, and has undergone several editions, and been extensively circulated in the Spanish and in the French languages. About this period also, he offered to the medical world his observations on the “Symptoms and Cure of Dropsy” in general, and on “Hydrocephalus Internus;” an “Account of the Influenza,” as it appeared in Philadelphia in 1789, 1790, and 1791; and “Observations on the state of the Body and Mind in Old Age.” In 1797 came out his “Observations on the nature and cure of Gout, and on Hydrophobia” an “Inquiry into the cause and cure of the Cholera Infantum” “Observations on Cynanche Trachealis,” &c.

In 1788, many of his medical papers were collected together, and published under the title of “Medical Inquiries and Observations,” vol. I. These he, from time to time, continued, embracing most of the writings above enumerated, besides observations on the climate of Pennsylvania, and some others, until a fifth volume was completed in 1798. In 1801 he added to his character as a writer, by the publication of six “Introductory Lectures to a course of lectures upon the institutes and practice of Medicine,” delivered in the university of Pennsylvania. In 1804 a new and corrected edition of his “Medical Inquiries,” &c. was printed in four volumes, 8vo. In 1806 he also published a second edition of his “Essays.” In 1809, such was the demand for the “Medical Inquiries and Observations,” he again revised and enlarged the work throughout, for a third edition, in which he continued his several histories of the yellow fever, as it prevailed in Philadelphia from 1793 to 1809. It also contained a “Defence of Bloodletting, as a remedy for certain diseases;” a view of the comparative state of medicine in Philadelphia between 1760 and 1766, and 1809; an “Inquiry into the various sources of the usual forms of summer and autumnal Diseases in the United States,” and the means of preventing them; and the recantation of his opinion of the contagious nature of the yellow fever.

He now formed the idea of selecting some of the best practical works for republication in America, and in order to render them more useful, of adding to them such notes as might the better adapt them to the diseases of his own country. His editions of Sydenham and of Cleghorn were published in 1809, and in 1810 appeared those of Pringle and Hillary. In 1811 appeared a volume of “Introductory Lectures,” containing those he had formerly published, with ten others delivered at different years before his class, and also two upon the pleasures of the senses and of the mind. His work upon the “Diseases of the Mind,” which had long and ardently been looked for, was next added to his writings. It appeared towards the close of 1812, in one volume octavo. The last effort of his pen was a letter on hydrophobia, containing additional reasons in support of the theory he had formerly advanced, as to the seat of the disease being chiefly in the blood-vessels. It was addressed to Dr. Hosack, and written not many days before his fatal illness.

While thus assiduously engaged in enriching medical science with the valuable fruits of his long and extensive experience, and in the active discharge of the practical duties of his profession, he was, on the evening of the 13th of April, 1813, seized with symptoms of general febrile irritation, which were soon accompanied with considerable pain in his chest. His constitution was naturally delicate, and he had acquired from previous illness, a predisposition to an affection of his lungs. He lost a moderate quantity of blood, by which he felt himself considerably relieved. But his strength was not sufficient to overcome the severity of his complaint; the beneficial effects resulting from the most skilful treatment were but of temporary duration. His disease rapidly assumed a typhus character, attended with great stupor, and a disinclination to conversation. In other respects, however, he retained his faculties, and the perfect consciousness of his approaching dissolution. On Monday evening ensuing, after a short illness of five days, and in the sixty-ninth year of his age, he ended his truly valuable and exemplary life. His death was the subject of universal lamentation, and he was followed to the grave by thousands, who assembled to bear testimony to his excellence.

It were no easy task to do adequate justice to the great talents, the useful labours, and the exemplary character of Dr. Rush. From the preceding sketch, it is presumed, some idea may be formed of his incessant devotedness to the improvement of that profession of which he was so bright an ornament- and many additional particulars may be seen in our authority, which we must necessarily omit. In private life, his disposition and deportment were in the highest degree exemplary and amiable. His writings are highly estimable, both on account of their extent and their variety. Instead of being a mere collator of the opinions of others, he was constantly making discoveries and improvements of his own; and from the results of his individual experience and observation, added more facts to the science of medicine, than all who had preceded him in his native country. His description of diseases, for minuteness and accuracy of detail cannot be exceeded, and may safely be regarded as models of their kind. In the treatment of gout, dropsy, consumption of the lungs, and the diseases of old age, he enlarged our views of the animal economy, and threw more light upon the peculiar character of these afflicting disorders than is to be derived from the investigations of any other writer. His volume on the diseases of the mind, in as far as it exhibits the infinitely varied forms which those diseases exhibit, is a storehouse of instruction. Had his labours been limited to these subjects alone, his character would deservedly have been cherished by future ages. His reputation, however, will permanently depend upon his several histories of the epidemics of the United States, which have rendered his name familiar wherever medical science is cultivated. The respect and consideration which his publications procured for him among his contemporaries was such, that the highest honours were accumulated upon him in different parts of Europe, as well as in his own country, and he was admitted a member of many of the 'most distinguished literary and philosophical associations.

, an English gentleman, author of the “Historical Collections,” was of an ancient family, and born in Northumberland about 1607. He was for a short time a student in the university of Oxford; but left it without being matriculated, and entered himself of Lincoln’s Inn, where he became a barrister. But, his inclination leading him more to state-affairs than the comfrion law, he began early to take down in short-hand, speeches and passages at conferences in parliament, and from the king’s own mouth what he spake to both houses; and contrived to be on all occasions an eye and ear witness of the most important public transactions. He also personally attended and observed all occurrences of moment, during eleven years interval of parliament from 1630 to 1640, in the star-chamber, court of honour, and exchequer-chamber, when the judges met there upon extraordinary cases; and at the council-table, when great causes were tried before the king and council. He also frequently travelled in pursuit of information to considerable distances, and was present, during the civil war, at the camp at Berwick, at the fight at Newborn, at the treaty of Rippon, and at the great council at York.

In 1640 he was chosen an assistant to Henry Elsynge, esq. clerk of the house of commons; and this furnished him with another desirable opportunity of gratifying his curiosity, by "becoming acquainted with the debates in the house, and being privy to their proceedings. The house likewise reposed such confidence in him that they entrusted him with their weightiest affairs; particularly in conveying messages and addresses to the king while at York; between which place and London he is said to have rode frequently in twenty-four hours. For these services he was rewarded with presents, and recommended to a place in the excise, which, however, it does not appear that he ever received. In 1643 he took the covenant; and when sir Thomas Fairfax, who was his near relation, was appointed general of the parliament forces, he was made his secretary, in which office he did great services to his master, and has been commended for not making a large fortune, as he safely might, in this office. During the siege of Oxford in 1646 he was very serviceable to Fairfax, and while the treaty of surrender was pending, acted as courier between the army and the government at London. In 1649, being in Fairfax’s suite at Oxford, he was created M. A. as a member of Queen’s college, and at the same time was made one of the delegates to take into consideration the affairs depending between the citizens of Oxford and the members of that university. Upon Fairfax’s laying down his commission of general, Rushworth went and resided for some time in Lincoln’s Inn, and, being in much esteem with the prevailing powers, was appointed one of the committee, in Jan. 1651-2, to consult about the reformation of the common law. In 1658 he was chosen one of the burgesses for Berwick-uponTweed, to serve in the protector Richard’s parliament; and was again chosen for the same place in what was called the healing parliament, which met April 25, 1660.

After the Restoration he presented to the king several of the privy-council’s books, which he had preserved frpm ruin during the late distractions; but does not appear to have received any other reward than thanks, which was given him by the clerk of the council in his majesty’s name. Sir Orlando Bridgman, lord-keeper of the great seal, appointed him his secretary in 1677, atid continued him in that office as long as he kept the seals. In 1678 he was a third time elected burgess for Berwick, as he was in the succeeding parliament in 1679, and afterwards for the Oxford parliament. Upon the dissolution of this, he lived in the utmost retirement and obscurity in Westminster. He had many opportunities of enriching himself, at least of obtaining a comfortable subsistence; but, either through carelessness or extravagance, he never became master of any considerable possessions. He had a small annual pension of 8l. or lOl. from the government of Massachusetts Bay, for procuring them papers from the public offices, but this was withdrawn when he became incapable of supplying them. At length, being arrested for debt, he was committed to the King’s Bench prison in Southwark, where he dragged on the last six years of his life in a miserable condition, having greatly lost the use of his understanding and memory, partly by age, and partly by drinking strong liquors to keep up his spirits. There he died May 12, 1690, about eighty-three years of age, and was buried behind the pulpit in St. George’s church, Southwark. He had several daughters, one of whom was married to sir Francis Vane.

His “Historical Collections of private passages in State, weighty matters in Law, and remarkable proceedings in Parliament/' were published at different times, in folio. The first part, from 1618 to 1629, was published in 1659. The copy had been presented to Oliver Cromwell when he was protector; but he, having no leisure to peruse it, recommended it to Whitelock, who running it over made some alterations and additions. The second part appeared in 1680; the third in 1692; and the fourth and last, which extends to 1648, in 1701. All the seven volumes were reprinted together in 1721, with the trial of the earl of Strafford, published in 1680, which makes the whole eight volumes. This work has been highly extolled by some, and as much condemned by others. Alt who have been averse to Charles I. and his measures, have highly extolled it; all who have been favourers of that king and his cause, have represented it as extremely partial, and discredited it as much as possible. But the person who professedly set himself to oppose it, and to ruin its credit, was Dr. John Nalson, of Cambridge, who published, by the special command of Charles II.” An impartial collection of the great affairs of State, from the beginning of the Scotch rebellion in 1639 to the murder of king Charles I. wherein the first occasions and whole series of the late troubles in England, Scotland, and Ireland, are faithfully represented. Taken from authentic records, and methodically digested.“The title promises to bring the history down to the murder of Charles I. but Nalson lived only to put out two vols. in folio, 1682 and 1683, which bring it no lower than Jan. 1641-2. He professes, in the introduction to this work, to make it appear that” Mr. Rushvvorth hath concealed truth, endeavoured to vindicate the prevailing detractions of the late times, as well as their barbarous actions, and, with a kind of a rebound, to libel the government at second-hand:“and so far it is certain, that his aim and design was to decry the conduct of the court, and to favour the cause of the parliament; for which reason it is easy to conceive that he would be more forward to admit into his collections what made for, than against that purpose. The authors of the” Parliamentary Chronicle" have also proved that Rushworth suppressed much which an impartial collector would have inserted, nor can we suppose that he could be very impartial in the early part of the work, which was submitted to Cromwell or his adherents. His Collections, however, cannot be without great use, if it be only to present us with one side of the question.

It is said that Rushworth supplied himself plentifully from the grand collection of pamphlets made by Tomlinson the bookseller, which commenced from the latter end of 1640, and was carried down to the Restoration. They were uniformly bound in upwards of two thousand volumes of different sizes, and consisted of about thirty thousand tracts. Tomlinson is said to have refused four thousand pounds for this collection. William Prynne had by far the greatest hand in these pamphlets, having written above 160 of them himself. Near an hundred were written by and concerning John Lilburne. The catalogue, which was taken by Marmaduke Foster, the auctioneer, consists of tsvelve folio volumes. So scarce were many of these tracts, even at their first publication, that king Charles I. is reported to have given ten pounds for only reading one of them over, which he could no where else procure, at the owner’s house in St. Paul’s Church-yard. The author from whom we have borrowed these particulars, says that Mr. Rushworth “did, most plentifully, supply himself from these fountains, how abundantly soever he represents the facts therein corrupted with fiction; how fondly soever he seems to magnify his own sagacity, in the distinguishment of one from the other; and how suspiciously soever he discountenances all farther examination into them, than that wherewith he hath been pleased to present us; where he expresses himself thus slightingly of these very authorities, which have yet so liberally contributed to such of the massy tomes, passing under his name, whereof he was the real compiler. ‘Posterity,’ says he (i. e. Rushworth), should know, that some durst write the truth, whilst other men’s fancies were more busy than their hands; forging relations; building, and battering castles in the air; publishing speeches, as spoken in parliament, which were never spoken there; printing declarations, which were never passed; relating battles which were never fought; and victories which were never obtained; dispersing letters which were never writ by the authors; together with many such contrivances to abet a party or interest Pudet h<ec opprobria. Such practices, and the experience I had thereof, and the impossibility for any man, in after-ages, to ground a true history, by relying on the printed pamphlets of our days which passed the press while it was without controul, obliged me to all the pains and charge I have been at for many years together, to make a great collection; and, whilst such things were fresh in memory, to separate truth from falsehood, things real from things fictitious, or imaginary.'”

, a Roman catholic writer, was born in Lancashire, and after being instructed in the classics at school, was admitted of Brazenose college, Oxford, about 1568, where he took his degree of A. B. in 1572. Next year, being a Roman catholic, he left the university, and joined his countrymen of that persuasion at Doway, where he pursued his studies, and took his degrees in divinity. In 1577, he was sent to Rome, and ordained priest, and appointed to go to England as a missionary. Here, however, he was taken up and sentenced to die, but after four years imprisonment, this was commuted for banishment, in 1585. He then went abroad, and was about to receive his academical honours at Lovaine, when he died there of the plague in 1586. He was the first publisher of Sanders’s book, “De schismate Anglicano,” 1585, 8vo, to which he added a third part; and a fourth, by way of appendix, appeared in 1628, which contained from his pen a list of those who suffered for popery in Henry the VHIth’s time. He also published “Synopsis rerurn ecclesiasticarum ad annum Christi 1577,” for the use of the students at Doway, ecclesiastical history being much his study and a “Profession of Faith.”

, physician to the English factory at Aleppo, was born at Edinburgh, and by his father devoted, at an early period, to medicine. After studying grammar, he spent two) ears in the university, and was then>laced under the care of his uncle, an eminent practitioner in physic. In 1732, 3, and 4, he continued his studies under the professors of Edinburgh, till the time of his coming to London, from which place he embarked for Turkey in 1740, and settled at Aleppo. Here he assiduously applied himself to acquire a knowledge of the language, and to form an intimate acquaintance with the most experienced practitioners; but he soon attained a superior distinction, and was consulted by all ranks and professions, Franks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and even Turks themselves. The Pascha of Aleppo particularly admitted him to his familiarity and confidence, which enabled Dr. Russel to render the most important services to the factory; the Pascha, indeed, die] not fail to consult him in every act of importance, and many of the criminals who were natives owed their lives to Dr. Russet’s interposition. The Pascha carried his esteem for him so far, that he sent some valuable presents to his aged father, saying to him, “I am obliged for your friendship and assistance.” His valuable “History of Aleppo” was first published in 1755; and has been translated into different European languages, and a new edition was more recently published, on a very enlarged scale, by his brother Dr. Patrick Russel. It is not necessary here to expatiate in praise of this publication, but the remarks on the plague have been found of utility to every European nation; and, possibly, have tended to check the progress of that dreadful scourge. On his return to England, he chose the metropolis for his residence, and in 1759 was elected physician of St. Thomas’s Hospital, in which situation he continued to the time of his death, which happened in 1770. The Royal Society are obliged to Dr. Russel for many valuable communications, and the Medical Society were under obligations to him for many important papers. His character was that of a constant, sensible, and upright friend, a physician of great skill and experience, a pleasing companion, and a benevolent man.

His brother, Dr. Patrick Russel, who died July 2, 1805, in his seventy-ninth year, succeeded him as physician to the English factory at Aleppo. He published a copious “Treatise on the Plague,” in 1791, 4to, having had ample opportunities of treating that pestilential disease during the years 1760, 1761, and 1762. In this work, bcbides a journal of the progress, and a medical history of the plague, Dr. Russel inserted a full discussion of the subjects of quarantine, lazarettoes, and of the police, to be adopted in times of pestilence. He likewise published “Descriptions and figures of two hundred Fishes collected on the coast of Coromandel,” 1803, 2 vols. fol. and prevjousiy to this, in 1794, a new edition of his brothers “Natural History of Aleppo,” upon a very enlarged scale. He was a man of learning and wit: spoke the Arabic, which he acquired during his residence at Aleppo, with the fluency of his mother-tongue: and was, like his brother, of a friendly and benevolent disposition.

, a man of learning and ingenuity, the son of Christopher Russel, esq. of Minorca, was born in 1728. He was bred at Westminster-school, and in 1746 was admitted a member of St. Mary’s hall, Oxford. He commenced a poet in 1744, or before; for in his collection are verses on seeing lady Elizabeth Boyle dance at Marston on her father’s birth-day in that year. In April 1750 he was admitted bachelor of arts, but. did not determine or complete his decree until 1752. About 1753 he obtained the rectory of Skull, in the diocese of Cork, in Ireland, by r the patronage of John, fifth earl of Oork and Orrery. With that nobleman he appears to have lived in intimacy, as well as with his second son, Hamilton Boyle, and frequently visited Marston. He died in 1767; and two years after, were published, in 2 vols. 8vo, “The Works^of the late Rev. George Russel, Rector of Skull, in the diocese of Cork.” From the few specimens Mr. Malone has given, he seems justified in saying that these work?, though little known, owing probably to their having been published only in Ireland, have very considerable merit.

, author of the “History of Modern Europe,” and other works, was born in 1746, in the county of Mid- Lothian, Scotland, and received some knowledge of Greek and Latin at the school of Inverleithen. After some further instructions at Edinburgh, he was bound apprentice to the bookselling and printing business for five years, during which, at his leisure hours, he read much, and acquired a considerable fund of general knowledge. At the end of his apprenticeship, he published a “Collection of Modern Poems,” the selection of which was thought judicious. About 1763 he made an attempt to adapt Crebitlon’s “Rhadamisthe et Zenobie” to the British stage, which was offered to the manager of the Dmry-lane theatre but, as Murphy’s Zenobia was at that time in rehearsal, it was deemed imprudent to accept of another play on the same subject.

Having resided with his father till the month of May 1767, he set out for London, with hopes that were soon disappointed, and after waiting in vain for promotion, he was under the necessity of engaging himself as a corrector of the press -of William Strahan, afterwards his majesty’s printer, vvhie llin 1769 he exchanged for the office of overseer to the printing-office of Brown and Adlard. During the same year he published an “Ode to Fortitude,” which was immediately reprinted at Edinburgh by his former masters, Martin and Witherspoon. His <; Sentimental Tales“appeared in 1770. From this time he wrote many essays in pvose and'verse for the monthly publications. In 1772, he published a” Collection of Fables, Moral and Sentimental,“and an” Essay on the Character, Manners, and Genius of Women,“from the French of M. Thomas; and seems about this period to have commenced an author by profession. His” Julia, a Poetical Romance,“made its appearance ia the year 1774, but with no great success. He was afterwards engaged in composing the” History of America,“which was published in numbers, and completed in 1779; this was favourably received by the public, and has far more of the spirit of original thinking and accurate information than is to be found in works published in that shape. In the course of the same year, he also published the two first volumes of his” History of Modern Europe," and the notice which they attracted exceeded his most sanguine expectations.

About this time he was a frequent contributor to the various Magazines then in circulation. His occasional poems inserted in these publications would form a volume of considerable size, but it seems to be allowed by his friends, would, if so published, diminish rather than increase his reputation. In the estimate of his own literary merits he dissented from the general voice. His historical works, which have met with a very favourable reception, he regarded as greatly inferior to his poetical works, which have been totally neglected.

In 1780 his studies met with a temporary interruption: he embarked for Jamaica in order to recover some money due to him as the heir of his brother James, who had died in that island. In 1783 he published “The Tragic Muse,” a very just compliment to the transcendant abilities of Mrs. Siddons. In 1784 he completed his “History of Modern Europe,” by the addition of three volumes. He remained for some time in London, without any particular engagement of the literary kind, from which, being now in easy circumstances, he appears to have meditated a retreat. In 1787 he went to Scotland, married Miss Scott, a very amiable woman, and settled at a place called Knottyholm, a small distance from the town of Langholm in Scotland. In 1792 he obtained from the university of St. Andrew’s, the honorary degree of doctor of laws, with which he wished to adorn the title-page of his “History of Ancient Europe,” an undertaking which he had now begun, and completed two volumes in 1793; but this, neither as to plan or execution, was so highly valued as his former work. He was in truth less fit for the task than he had been, and being engaged in disputes with his booksellers, his mind became hurt and irritated. Some letters we have seen from him at this period shew that it was not quite sound; and that the strong sense of injury which he felt was in a great measure without foundation. While in this state a stroke of palsy terminated his life, Jan. 1, 1794, in the fortyseventh year of his age.

Dr. Russel was a man of indefatigable industry. Before he had perfected one scheme, another always presented itself to his mind. Besides two complete tragedies, entitled “Pyrrhus” and “Zenobia,” he left behind him an analysis of Bryant’s Mythology, and the following unfinished productions: 1. “The Earl of Strafford,” a tragedy. 2. “Modern Life,” a comedy. 3. “The Love Marriage,” an opera. 4. “Human Happiness,” a poem intended to have been comprised in four books. 5. “A Historical and Philosophical View of the progress of mankind in the knowledge of the Terraqueous Globe.” 6. “The History of Modern Europe, part III. from the peace of Paris in 1763, to the general pacification in 1783.” 7. “The History of England from the beginning of the reign of George III. to the conclusion of the American war.” In the composition of the last of these works he was engaged at the time of his death. It was to be comprised in three volumes 8vo; for the copy-right of which Mr. Caclell had stipulated to pay seven hundred and fifty pounds. His “History of Modern Europe” has lately been reprinted, with an additional volume “to the peace of Amiens,” by Dr. Coote, and continues to be a standard book for scholars of the upper classes. His “Ancient History” has never been completed.

Dr. Russel, without exhibiting the graces of polished life, was an agreeable companion, and possessed a considerable fund of general knowledge, and a zeal for literature and genius, which approached to enthusiasm. In all his undertakings, he was strictly honourable, and deserved the confidence reposed in him by his employers.

, was eldest son of Francis fourth earl of Bedford, by Catharine, sole daughter and heir of Giles Bridges, lord Chandois, and was born in 1614. He was educated in Magdalen college, Oxford, and was made knight of the bath at the coronation of king Charles I. He was a member of the Long-parliament, which met at Westminster, November 3, 1640; and May 9 following, upon the death of his father, succeeded him in his honours and estate. In July 1642, having avowed his sentiments against the measures pursued by the court, he was appointed by the parliament general of the horse, in the army raised in their defence against the king; and the marquis of Hertford being sent by his majesty into the West to levy forces, iti order to relieve Portsmouth, the earl of Bedford inid the command of seven thousand foot, and eight full troops of horse, to prevent his success in those parts; and marched with such expedition, that he forced the marquis out of Somersetshire, where his power and interest were believed unquestionable, and thus destroyed all hopes of forming an army for the king in the West. He afterwards joined the eari of Essex, and in the battle of Edgehill commanded the reserve of horse, which saved the whole army, when the horse of both wings had been defeated, and, after doing great execution on the king’s infantry, brought off their own foot; so that it became doubtful who had the victory, this reserve being the only body of forces that stood their ground in good order. In 1643, he, and the earls of Holland and Clare, conferred with the earl of Essex, who became dissatisfied with the war; and they had so much influence in the House of Lords, that, on the 5th of August the same year, that House desired a conference with the Commons, and declared to them their resolution of senclHig propositions for peace to the king, and hoped they would join with him. But by the artin'ce of Pennington, lord mayor of London, who procured a petition from the common-council of that city against the peace, such tumults were raised to terrify these lords, that they left the town, the Commons refusing to agree to their propositions. The earls of Bedford and Holland resolved therefore to go to Oxford; but their purpose being discovered or suspected, they with some difficulty got into the king’s garrison at Wallingford, from whence the governor sent an account of their arrival to the council at Oxford. The king was then at the siege of Gloucester, and the council divided in their opinions, in what manner to receive them; but his majesty upon his return determined on a middle way, by allowing them to come to Oxford, and every person to treat them there as they thought fit, while himself would regard them according to their future behaviour. Accordingly the two earls came, and, together with the earl of Clare, entered into the king’s service in Gloucestershire, waited upon his majesty throughout his march, charged in the royal regiment of horse at the battle of Newbury with great bravery, and in all respects behaved themselves well. Upon the king’s return to Oxford, he spoke to them on all occasions very graciously; but they were not treated in the same manner by others of the court, so that the earl of Holland going away first, the earls of Bedford and Clare followed, and came to the earl of Essex at St. Alban’s on Christmas-day, 1643. Soon after this, by order of parliament, the earl of Bedford was taken into custody by the black rod, and his estate sequestered, as was likewise the earl of Clare’s, tili the parliament, pleased with their successes against % the king in 1644, ordered their sequestrations to be taken off, and on the 17th of April the year following, the earl of Bedford, with the earls of Leicester and Ciare, and the lords Paget, Rich, and Convvay, who had left Oxford, and joined the parliament at London, took the covenant before the commissioners of the great-seal. He did not, however, interpose in any public affairs, till the House of Peers met in 1660, when the earl of Manchester, their speaker, was ordered by them to write to him to take his place among them; which he accordingly did, being assured of their design to restore the king and on the 27th of April that year, he was appointed one of the managers of the conference with the House of Commons, “to consider of some ways and means to make up the breaches and distractions of the kingdom” and on the 5th of May was one of the committee of peers “for viewing and considering, what ordinances had been made since the House of Lords were voted useless, which now passed as acts of parliament, and to draw up and prepare an act of parliament to be presented to the House to repeal what they should think fit.”

After the restoration of king Charles II. the earl of Bedford, notwithstanding his past conduct, was so far in his favour, that at the solemnity of his coronation, on April 23, 1661, he had the honour to carry St. Edward’s scepter; and, on May 29, 1672, was elected a knight of the most noble order of the garter. When the prince and princess of Orange came to the throne, he was sworn one of their privy council and at their coronation, on April 11, 1689, carried the queen’s scepter with the dove. They constituted his lordship, on May 10, 1689, lord lieutenant of the counties of Bedford and Cambridge; and, on March 1, 1691, lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum for the county of Middlesex, and the liberties of Westminster. He sought for no other honours or employments; but their majesties, on May 11, 1694, created him marquis of Tavistock and duke of Bedford, and, in enumerating his merits in the patent it is expressed, “That this was not the least, that he was father to the lord Russel, the ornament of his age, whose great merits it was not enough to transmit by history to posterity; but they were willing to record them in their royal patent, to remain in the family, as a monument consecrated to his consummate virtue; whose name could never be forgot, so long as men preserved any esteem for sanctity of manners, greatness of mind, and a love to their country, constant even to death. Therefore to solace his excellent father for so great a loss, to celebrate the memory of so noble a son, and to excite his worthy grandson, the heir of such mighty hopes, more cheerfully to emulate and follow the example of his illustrious father, they intailed this high dignity upon the earl and his posterity.”

This duke, in 1695, having made the settlements previous to his grandson’s marrying Elizabeth, only daughter and heir of John Howlancl, of Stretham, esq. who was one of the greatest fortunes of that time, it was thought convenient, for the honour of this alliance, to make him baron Howland, of Stretham in Surrey, on June 13 the same year. His grace died in the eighty-seventh year of his age, September 7, 1700, and was buried with his ancestors at Cheneys, where a most noble monument is erected for him and his countess (who died on May 10, 16S1-, aged sixty-four), their two figures being exhibited under a canopy, supported by two pillars of the Corinthian order.

, the third son of the preceding, and for whose sake indeed some account was thought necessary of his father, was born about 16H. Hi? was bred up in those principles of liberty for which his father had fought, but in his youth partook freely of the dissipations of the court of Charles II. until his marriage in 1667 reclaimed him, and he became afterwards a sedate and unblemished character, as to morals. He represented the county of Bedford in four parliaments, and was considered as one of the heads of the whig party. The first affair, however, in which he co-operated with this party, has thrown some obscurity on his character. When Charles II. exasperated against the court of France for withdrawing the pension he had been mean enough hitherto to receive, wished to join the continental confederacy against Louis XIV. the whigs, who dreaded the giving Charles an army that might as likely be employed against their own country as against France, raised an opposition to the measure; and this being acceptable to the French king, an intrigue commenced between some of the vvhigs and Barillon, the French ambassador, the consequence of which was their receiving bribes from him to thwart the measures of the court. Sir John Dalrymple has given a list of the members who thus accepted money from the enemy of their country; and although lord Russel is said positively to have refused to act so meanly, there seems little reason to doubt that he was concerned in the intrigue. The defence set up for him on this occasion amounts tolittle more than that in certain cases the means may be justified by the end.

In 1679, when the king found it expedient to ingratiate himself with the whigs, lord William Russel was appointed one of his new council; but this could not last long, for in the following year he promoted the bill for the exclusion of the duke of York from the throne, the debate upon which was opened by him on the 26th of October, with a declaration of his opinion, that the life of his majesty, the safety of the nation, and the protestant religion, were in great danger from popery; and that either that parliament must suppress the growth and power thereof, or else popery would soon destroy, not only parliaments, but all that was dear and valuable to them, for which reason he moved, that they might in the first place take into consideration, how to suppress popery, and prevent a popish successor. The bill being accordingly passed in the House of Commons, his lordship, on the J5th of November, carried it up to the peers; who rejecting it, the Commons were exasperated at this, and lord Russel in particular said, that if ever there should happen in this nation any such change, as that he should not have the liberty to live a protestant, he was resolved to die one; and therefore would not willingly have the hands of their enemies strengthened. But these, and similar speeches from other members, having disgusted the court, the parliament was prorogued on the 10th of January, 1680-1. However, the necessity of the king’s affairs requiring the meeting of another parliament, his majesty called one, which assembled at Oxford on the 21st o March following; in which lord Russel served again as knight of the shire for the county of Bedford. But another bill of exclusion being moved for by sir Robert Clayr ton, who was seconded -.hy. his lordship, that parliament was soon after dissolved, and no other called during the reign of king Charles II. who now seemed determined to govern without one.

This state of affairs led to a conspiracy, in which the duke of Monmouth, lord llussel, and others, were concerned, to act in concert with the duke of Argyle and the Scotch. The leaders of this party had different views; but lord William Russel is said to have wished for nothing more than the exclusion of the duke of York, and a redress of grievances. While this was in meditation, another plot was laid by other conspirators to assassinate the king on his return from Newmarket, at a farm called the Kye-house, from which this plot has taken its name. Both conspiracies having been discovered, lord William Russel was apprehended and brought to trial at the Old Bailey July 13, 1683. In the indictment, the noble lord was charged with the treasonable purpose of killing the king, which was made an inference from his being engaged in a plan of insurrection. “On the whole,” says Hume, after describing the nature of the evidence produced on the trial, “it was undoubtedly proved, that the insurrection had been deliberated on by the prisoner, and fully resolved; the surprisal of the guards deliberated on, but not fully resolved, and that an assassination had not been once mentioned or imagined by him. So far the matter of fact seems certain: but still, with regard to the law, there remained a difficulty, and that an important one. The English laws of treason, both in the manner of defining that crime, and in the proof required, are the mildest and most indulgent, and consequently the most equitable, that are any where to be found. The two chief species of treason contained in the statute of Edw. III. are the compassing and intending of the king’s death, and the actually levying of war against him; and by the law of Mary, the crime must be proved by the concurring testimony of two witnesses, to some overt act, tending to these purposes. But the lawyers, partly desirous of paying court to the sovereign, partly convinced of the ill consequences which might attend such narrow limitations, had introduced a greater latitude, both in the proof and definition of the crime; and the jury, after a very short deliberation, found the prisoner guilty, and sentence of death was passed upon him. As he refused to adopt some means which were very likely to have enabled him to escape, it has been imputed, by his admirers, to the pressing solicitations of his friends, that he wrote a very meanly supplicatory letter to the duke of York, in which he declared,” that what he had done in opposition to his royal highness, did not proceed from any personal ill-will or animosity to him, hut merely from opinion, that it was the best way for preserving the religion established by law; in which if he was mistaken, yet he had acted sincerely, without any ill end in it. And as for any base design against the duke’s person, he hoped he would be so just to him, as not to think him capable of so vile a thought. But that he was now resolved, and did faithfully engage himself, that if it should please the king to pardon him, and if his royal highness would interpose in it, he would in no sort meddle any more in the least opposition to his highness, but would be readily determined to live in any part of the world, which the king should prescribe, and would wholly withdraw himself from the affairs of England, unless called by his majesty’s orders to serve him; which he should never be wanting to do to the uttermost of his power. And that if his royal highness would be so gracious to him, as to move on his account, as ijt would be an engagement upon him beyond what he could in reason expect, so it would make the deepest impression on him possible; for no fear of death could work so much upon him, as so great an obligation would for ever do.“A few days after he wrote a letter to the king, to be delivered after his death, as it was by his uncle col. Russel; in which he observed,” that his chief business was humbly to ask his majesty’s pardon for any thing he had either said or done, which might look like want of respect to him, or of duty to his government; in which, though he did to the last moment acquit himself of all designs against his person, or of altering the government, and protested he knew of no design then on foot against either, yet he did not deny, but he had heard many things, and said some things, contrary to his duty; for which he had asked God’s pardon," &c. &c.

As he drew near to the close of life, conjugal affection was the feeling that clung closest to his heart; and when he had taken his last farewell of his wife, he said, “The bitterness of death is now over.” He suffered the sentence of his judges with resignation and composure. Some of his expressions imply an unusual degree of indifference in this last extremity. The day before his execution he was seized, with a bleeding at the nose: “I shall not now let blood to divert this distemper,” said he to bishop Burnet, who was present; “that will be done to-morrow.” A little before the sheriffs conducted him to his carriage, that was to convey him to the scaffold, he wound up his watch, “Now I have done,” said he, “with time, and henceforth must think solely of eternity.”

The execution was performed July 21, not on Towerhill, the common place of execution for men of high rank, but in Lincoln’s-inn-fields; and as he passed on in his coach, the multitude imagined they beheld virtue and liberty sitting by his side. He was the most popular among his own party, and perhaps the least obnoxious to the opposite faction; and his melancholy fate united every heart in a tender compassion for him. Without the least change of countenance, he laid his head on the block, and at two strokes it was severed from his body. He was, at the time of his death, only forty-two years of age. Burnet says, “he was a man of great candour and of a general reputation, universally beloved and trusted of a generous and obliging temper. He had given such proofs of an undaunted courage and of an unshaken firmness, that no man of that time had so entire a credit in the nation as he had. He quickly got out of some of the disorders, into which the court had drawn him, and ever after that his life was unblemished in all respects. He had from his first education an inclination to favour the non-conformists; and wished the laws could have been made easier to them, or they more pliant to the law. He was a slow man, of little discourse; but he had a tree judgment, when he considered things at his own leisure. His understanding was not defective, but his virtues were so eminent, that they would more than balance real defects, if any had been found in the other.”

At the revolution an act was passed on March 16, 1688-9, for annulling and making void the attainder of William Russel, esq. commonly called Lord Russel; and about the same time Henry lord De la Mere published “The late Lord Russel’s Case: with Observations upon it,” in which he affirms that his lordship could not be guilty of the indictment he was tried on; which he inferred from the law of the case, and from the inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence against his lordship. Sir Robert Atkyns also, one of the judges of the court of common pleas, published a “Defence of the late Lord Russet’s Innoeency,” printed in 1694; but the greatest honour paid to his memory is in the preamble to his father’s patent, transcribed in our account of him. His lordship married the lady liachel, second daughter, and at length heir to Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, lord high treasurer of England, the widow of Francis Vaughan, eldest son of Richard earl of Carbery. She died Sept. 29, 1723, aged eighty-seven. This lady’s “Letters,” published in 1773, exhibit her piety, virtue, and conjugal affection, and have immortalized her memory.

His implacable enemy, the duke of York, when James II. was reminded of his courage and virtues in a very affecting manner. Upon the approach of the prince of Orange, the infatuated king called an extraordinary council to consider of his highness’s proposals. Lord William Russel’s father, the earl of Bedford, being of the number, the king made earnest application to him, saying, “My lord, you are a good man, and have a great influence; you can do much for me at this time.” His lordship replied, “I am an old man, and can do but little, but I once had a son.” The king felt the full force of this appeal, and was struck dumb.

, one of the learned divines who was contemporary with Cudworth, Whichcot, Tillotson, and Worth ington, at the university of Cambridge, was a native of that town, and educated at Christ’s college, of which he became fellow, and probably took his degrees at the usual periods, though we do not find his name in the list of graduates published some years ago. Mr. Joseph Glanvil, in his preface to Dr. Rust’s “Discourse of Truth,” tells us that, when at the university, he “lived in great esteem and reputation for his eminent learning and virtues, and was one of the first in the university who overcame the prejudices of the education of the times before the restoration, and was very instrumental to enlarge others. He had too great a soul for the trifles of that age, and saw early the nakedness of phrases and fancies. He out-grew the pretended orthodoxy of those days, and addicted himself to the primitive learning and theology, in which he even then became a great master.” In 1651 he delivered in his own. chapel a discourse upon Proverbs xx. 27, which in 1655 he preached again at St. Mary’s in Cambridge. This piece was first published by Mr. Joseph Glanvil at London in 1682, in 8vo, under the title of “A Discourse of Truth,” in a volume entitled “Two choice and useful Treatises; the one Lux Orientalis: or an inquiry into the opinion of the Eastern sages concerning the pre-existence of souls: being a key to unlock the grand mysteries of Providence in relation to man’s sin and misery.” The other, “A Discourse of Truth, by the late reverend Dr. Rust, lord bishop of Drornore in Ireland. With annotations on them both.” The annotations are supposed to be written by Dr. Henry More, to who-e school Dr. Rust appears to have belonged. On the restoration, bishop Jeremy Taylor, foreseeing the vacancy in the deanery of Connor in Ireland, sent to Cambridge for some learned and ingenious man, who might be fit for that dignity. The choice tell upon Dr. Rust, which corresponding with the great inclination he had to be conversant with that eminent prelate, he gladly accepted of it, hastened to Ireland, and landed at Dublin about August 1661. He was received with great kindness and respect by bishop Taylor, and preferred to the deanery of Connor as soon as it was void, which was shortly after, and in 1662 to the rectory of the island of Magee in the same diocese. Upon the bishop’s death, August 13, 1667, he preached his funeral sermon, which was printed. The bishoprics were now divided; Dr. Boyle, dean of Cork, was nominated bishop of Down and Connor, and Dr. Rust, bishop of Dromore, in which he continued till his death, which was occasioned by a fever in Dec. 1670. He was interred in the choir of the cathedral of Dromore in a va'ult made for his predecessor bishop Taylor, whose body was deposited there. Mr. Glanvil, who was very particularly acquainted with him, tells us “that he was a man of a clear mind, a deep judgment, and searching wit, greatly learned in all the best sorts of knowledge, old and new, a thoughtfql and diligent inquirer^ of a free understanding and vast capacity, joined with singular modesty and unusual sweetness of temper, which made him the darling of all that knew him. He was a person of great piety and generosity, a hearty lover of God and man, an 'excellent preacher, a wise governor, a profound philosopher, a close reasoner, and above all, a true and exemplary Christian. In short, he was one, who had all the qualifications of a primitive bishop, and of an extraordinary man.” Dr. Rust’s other works were, “A Letter of Resolution concerning Origen and the chief of his opinions,” Lond. 1661, 4to; two sermons, one at the funeral of the earl of Mount-Alexander, the other on the death of bishop Taylor; and “Remains,” published by Henry Hallywell, Lond. 1686, 4to.

, an able critic and negociator, was born of an ancient family at Dordrecht or Dort, Aug. 28, 1589. He received a part of his early education at home, and was afterwards placed under the instructions of Gerard Vossius. In 1605 he was sent to Leyden, where he studied under Baud-ins, with whom he also resided, Scaliger, and Heinsius. After remaining here six years, he travelled in 1611 into France, resided two years at Paris, and took the degree of licentiate in law at Orleans; less from inclination than to please his parents. He returned to Dort, September 13, 1613, the day after his mother died, and soon after went to the Hague, where he was admitted to the bar; but remaining averse to this profession, and uncertain what to adopt in its place, the Swedish ambassador, who had been desired by his royal master to send him a person from Holland qualified for the post of counsellor, proposed it to Rutgers, and he having accepted the offer, they departed for Stockholm in May 1614. Finding, on their arrival, that the king was in Livonia, on account of the war with Muscovy, they took that route, and when they arrived at Nerva, the king received Rutgers with so great kindness, that the latter, although he had taken this journey without any determined purpose, or the hopes of a fixed settlement, now resolved ta attach himself to his majesty’s service. He was after this employed three times as envoy from that prince to Holland upon very important affairs, in which he acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction of his majesty, who ennobled him in 1619. He visited Bohemia, Denmark, and several German courts, in the same quality; and lastly he resided at the Hague, as minister from Gustavus to that republic, where he died Oct. 26, 1625, at the early age of thirty-six. His works are, 1. “Notae in Horatium,” added to an edition of that poet by Robert Stephens, in 1613, and reprinted in 1699 and 1713. 2. “Variarum lectionum libri tres, quibus utriusque linguae scriptores, qua emendantur, qua illustrantur,” Leyden, 1618. This is justly esteemed as a very learned work, and, what was not so common then, a very judicious Specimen of criticism. 3. “Notse in Martialem,” added to Scriverius’s excellent and scarce edition of 1619, 12mo. 4. “Spicilegium in Apuleiurrt,” printed in Elmenhorst’s edition of 1621, 8vo. 5. “Emendationes in Q. Curtium,” given in the Leyden edition of 1625, 12mo. 6. “Poemata,” printed with Nicolas Heinsius’ s poems, Leyden, 1653, and Amst. 1669, 8vo. This Heinsius, the son of Daniel Heinsius, was Rutgers’s nephew. 7. “Lectiones Venusinae,” added to Peter Bui-man’s Horace, 1699, 12mo. 8. “VitaJani Rutgersii,” &c. written by himself, and published by another nephew, William Goes, Leyden, 1646, 4to, of 14 pages, but republished with his poems, and elsewhere. Rutgers bequeathed his library to Daniel Heinsius, his brother-in-law, who printed a catalogue of it in 1630.

, a learned physician, and one of the founders of the medical school of Edinburgh, was the son of the rev. Rutherford, minister of Yarrow, in the county of Selkirk, Scotland, and was born Aug. 1, 1695. He received his school-education at Selkirk, where there is every reason to believe he made a rapid progress in the knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages. In 1708, or 1710, he went to the university of Edinburgh, and after the regular course of classical studies, mathe^ matics, and natural philosophy, engaged himself as apprentice to Mr. Alexander Nesbit, at that time an eminent surgeon, with whom he remained until 1716, when he went to London. There he attended some of the hospitals, and the lectures read on anatomy by Dr. Douglas, on surgery by Andre, and on materia medica by Strother. He next proceeded to Leyden, which, from the lectures of Boerhaave, was then the most celebrated medical school in Europe. In 1719, he went to France, and about the end of July of that year was admitted to the degree of M. D. in the university of Rheims. He passed the following winter in Paris, chiefly for the sake of Window’s private demonstrations in anatomy, and in 1720 returned to Britain.

In 1721, he settled as a physician at Edinburgh, and soon afterwards Drs. Rutherford, Sinclair, Plummer, and Innes, purchased a laboratory, where they prepared compound medicines, an art then little known in Scotland; but, having higher views than the mere profits of such a speculation, they demonstrated, as far as they were the* known, the operations of chemistry, to a numerous audience: and soon afterwards, by the advice of their old tnaster Boerhaave, they extended their lectures to other branches of physic. In 1725, they were appointed joint professors in the university: where, we believe, each, for some time, read lectures in every department of medical science, anatomy exempted, and carried forward their classes in rotation. The anatomical lectures were read by the elder Monro, who had been settled a 3*ear or two before them in Edinburgh. But on the death of Dr. Innes, a particular branch of medical science was allotted to each of the other three professors. Dr. Plummer was appointed professor of chemistry and materia medica, Dr. Sinclair of the institutes of physic, and Dr. Rutherford of the practice; and thus they had the honour to establish the medical school of Edinburgh. The lectures on the institutes and practice of physic were then, and for many years afterwards, delivered in Latin, of which Dr. Rutherford had a great command, and talked the language more fluently than that of his country. This practice, we believe, was afterwards discontinued by the successors of these founders; but Dr. Rutherford lectured in Latin as long as he filled the practical chair.

About 1748, he introduced a very great improvement in the course of medical education. Sensible that abstract lessons on the symptoms and the mode of treating various diseases, of which the student knew little but the names, could scarcely be of any benefit, he had for some time encouraged his pupils to bring patients to him on Saturday, when he inquired into the nature of their diseases, and prescribed for them in the presence of the class. This gave rise to a course of clinical lectures, the utility of which was so obvious, that it was enacted, by a decree of the senate of the university, that no man should be admitted to an examination for his doctor’s degree, who had not attended those lectures, to which an excellent hospital, then lately erected, gave the professors every opportunity of doing ample justice. He resigned his professorship in 1765, after having taught medicine in different departments for upwards of forty years, and was succeeded, by Dr. John Gregory. Dr. Rutherford lived, after this period, highly respected by many eminent physicians who had been his pupils, till 1779, when he died at Edinburgh, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.

, an ingenious philosopher and divine, the son of the rev. Thomas Rutherforth, rector of Papworth Everard, in the county of Cambridge, who had made large collections for an history of that county, was born October 13, 1712. He was entered of St. John’s college, Cambridge, about 1725, and took his degrees of A. B. 1729, and A.M. 1733. He was then chosen fellow, and proceeded bachelor of divinity in 1740. Two years after he was chosen fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1745, on being appointed professor of divinity, took his doctor’s degree, and was appointed chaplain to his royal highness the prince of Wales. In the church, he was promoted to be rector of Barrow in Suffolk, of Shenfield in Essex, and of Barley in Hertfordshire, and archdeacon of Essex. He communicated to the Gentleman’s Society at Spalding a curious correction of Plutarch’s description of the instrument used to renew the vestal fire, as relating to the triangle with which the instrument was formed. It was nothing but a concave speculum, whose principal focus which collected the rays is not in the centre of concavity, but at the distance of half a diameter from its surface: but some of the ancients thought otherwise, as appears from Prop. 31 of Euclid’s il Catoptrics;“and, though this piece has been thought spurious, and this error a proof of it, the sophist and Plutarch might easily know as little of mathematics. He published” An Essay on the nature and oblirgations of Virtue,“1744, 8vo, which Mr. Maurice Johnson, of Spalding, in a letter to Dr. Birch, calls” an useful, ingenious, and learned piece, wherein the noble author of the Characteristics, and all other authors ancient and modern, are, as to their notions and dogmata, duly, candidly, and in a gentleman-like manner, considered, and fully, to my satisfaction, answered as becomes a Christian divine. If you have not yet read that amiable work, I must (notwithstanding, as we have been told by some, whom he answers in his Xlth and last chapters, do not so much approve it) not forbear recommending it to your perusal.“”Two Sermons preached at Cambridge,“1747, 8vo.” A System of Natural Philosophy, Cambridge,“1748, 2 vols. 4to.” A Letter to Dr. Middleton in defence of bishop Sherlock on Prophecy,“1750, 8vo.” A Discourse on Miracles,“1751, 8vo.” “Institutes of Natural Law,” 1754, 2 vols. 8vo. “A Charge to the Clergy of Essex,” 1753, 4to, reprinted with three others in 1763, 8vo. “Two Letters to Dr. Kennicott,” 1761 and 1762. “A Vindication of the Right of Protestant Churches to require the Clergy to subscribe to an established Confession of Faith and Doctrines, in a Charge delivered at a Visitation, July 1766,” Cambridge, 1766, 8vo. A second, the same year. “A Letter to Archdeacon Blackburn,” 1767, 8vo, on the same subject. He died Oct. 5, 1771, aged fifty-nine, having married a sister of the late sir Anthony Thomas Abdy, bart of Albins, in Essex, by whom he had two sons, one of whom survived him. Dr. llutherforth was interred in the church at Barley, where, on his monument, it is said, that “he was no less eminent for his piety and integrity than his extensive learning; and filled every public station in which he was placed with general approbation. In private life, his behaviour was truly amiable. He was esteemed, beloved, and honoured by his family and friends; a,nd his death was sincerely lamented by all who ever heard of his well-deserved character.”

, a Latin poet, who was advanced to high employments at the Roman court, was a military tribune, and about 414- A. D. was prefect of Rome> and in order to succour his native country, then over-run by the Visigoths, took a journey to Gaul, of which he wrote a description in elegiac verse. It consisted of two books, of which the latter is lost. The work gives a favourable impression of the writer, as a Pagan, though it has been greatly censured by Christian writers, on account of some remarks he makes on the conduct and manners of the Christians. This “Itinerarium” was discovered in 1494 at a monastery, and has been several times printed. The best editions are those of 1582 and 1687. It is inserted in Burmann’s “Poetac Minores,” and in Matlaire’s " Corpus Poetarn m.' 12

, a medical observer and writer of very considerable learning, was born in Ireland, most probably at Dublin, Dec. 26, 16&8. His parents appear to have belonged to the people called Quakers, and were, as he tells 115, among “the more refined professors” of that religion. In his eleventh year, he was sent “to a seminary of the like,” which, he says, was a school not only of learning, but religion. Two years after he was removed to a school where there “was far less religion,” and from this to his eighteenth year he was “at various mixed schools, and among aliens.” In his twentieth year he was again placed in a family of friends; and such were the religious impressions of his youth, that he seems at various times to have considered the acquisition of human learning as a crime. He pursued it, however, and began a course of medical studies in Ireland, which he continued in London, and finished in Holland, probably at Leyden, then the chief medical school in Europe. Even here he cannot help telling us, that “the object was all nature and physic, no grace.” In 1723, having returned to his native country, he began practice, in what place he does not mention, but in the following year he “was transplanted to Dublin by a singular providence,” and attained much reputation. Soon after, he began a scheme for the improvement of the Materia Medica, in which he persevered for upwards of forty years, and which produced a work which we shall shortly notice.

In 1733, he began his “History of the rise and progress of the people called Quakers in Ireland, from 1653 to 1750,” which was printed at Dublin in 1751, 4to. It was peculiar to Dr. Rutty that all his publications were the result of careful industry and observation long continued. Of this work, not having seen it, or any account of it, we are unable to speak with precision. He tells us, however, that he did not undertake it for reward, but from zeal, “and a cordial love to the exercise of Christian discipline among them, extended not to a few external particulars only, as dress and address, but also to the inordinate pursuit of riches, to lukewarmness, and to profaneness, and all immorality.” In 1737, he published an “Essay on Women’s preaching,” with a rebuke to false prophets, who had long given him offence: some censure, he adds, ensued from this. From L740 to 1745, he was engaged on the “Natural History of the county of Dublin.” This, however, was Dot published until 1772. He tells us, that now “he was led a long dance on birds, fishes, and fossils, and in compotations for information, and was greatly hurt in his spirituals by this means,” &c. In truth, these compotations appear throughout the greater part of his life, to have been an almost constant source of uneasiness, and self-condemnation. In every page of his “Spiritual Diary,” he laments over his doses of whiskey and the ill-humour they produced, although his friends assure us that, both as to temper and temperance, his conduct was rather exemplary than blameable. Yet he had acquired a habit of magnifying the least infirmities into crimes, and this pervades the whole of the volumes which he filled with his Diary.

The first publication by which he was known, in his professional character, in this country, was a very elaborate work, entitled, “A Methodical Synopsis of Mineral Waters, comprehending the most celebrated Medicinal waters, both cold and hot, of Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, and Italy, and several other parts of the world, wherein their several impregnating minerals being previously described, and their characteristics investigated, each water is reduced to its proper genus; and besides the particular analysis, the virtues, uses, and abuses of the water are described, in a method entirely new. Interspersed with tables, tending to throw a light upon this intricate subject; and abstracts of the principal authors who have treated of mineral waters; and the accounts dispersed in the acts of most of the learned societies in Europe, are collected and properly digested,” 1756, 4to. In the preface he informs us that his original intention was only to do justice to his own country, by giving a history of the mineral waters of Ireland, which appeared to him to be as considerable, both in number and variety, as those of any part of Europe of equal extent; but this inquiry obliging him to institute a comparison between the Irish waters, and those of other countries, he extended his plan at last to a general history of mineral waters. This, however, appears to have been unfortunate for the reputation of the work, by obliging him to give accounts, at second hand, of many mineral waters, particularly some remarkable ones in England, which he had no opportunity of examining and analyzing; and hence there are many inaccuracies in a work, otherwise valuable, and evidently the result of much study and extensive inquiry. Dr. Rutty informs us that this work engaged him in a controversy for three years. With this we are unacquainted, having seen only a scurrilous pamphlet by one Lucas, an apothecary, and of some note as a mob-patriot, but which was spoken of in the literary journals of the day with the contempt which it appears to have amply deserved, and could scarcely have been worthy of Dr. Rutty’s notice.

Dr. Rutty’s next publication, in 1770, was “A Chronological History of the Weather and Seasons, and of the prevailing diseases in Dublin: with their various periods, successions, and revolutions, during the space of forty years. With a comparative view of the difference of the Irish climate and diseases, and those of England and other countries,” 8vo. This was followed by “An Essay towards a Natural History of the County of Dublin,” 1772, 2 vols. 8vo. This work, we have seen, he had begun in 1740. It was now published in consequence of the institution of the “Physico- historical Society” of Dublin, the object of which was to procure the natural and civil history of every county in the kingdom. Those of Waterford, Cork, and Kerry, had been written by Mr. Smith, and that of the county of Down by another hand, and Dr. Rutty undertook that of Dublin, which he executed, if in a manner less pleasing than Mr. Smith, to the general reader, was not less interesting to men of science.

Dr. Rutty died April 27, 1775; and after his death were published “Observations on the London and Edinburgh Dispensatories, with an account of the various subjects of the Materia Medica, not contained in either of those works,” 1776, 12mo. In this Dr. Rutty contends, but with no great force of argument, or proof from their efficacy, that several medicines were improperly omitted in the above dispensatories. “Materia Medica Antiqua et Nova, repurgata et illustrata; sive de Medicamentorum simplicium officinalium facultatibus tractatus,” 4to. On this compilation he had bestowed forty years, and calls it “the principal work of his life,” but it has not acquired the same estimation with the faculty. Besides being unnecessarily prolix, there are many symptoms of credulity in the efficacy of certain medicines, which does no honour to the regular practitioner. The last of this author’s works which appeared, was his “Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies,” 1776, 2 vols. 8vo, one of the most extraordinary of those books which have been published under the title of “Confessions.” It is scarcely possible, however, to read it or characterize it with gravity, being a series of pious meditations perpetually interrupted with records of too much whiskey, piggish or swinish eating, and ill temper. Had his friends been left to their own judgment, this strange farrago had never appeared; but by a clause in his will, his executors were obliged to publish it. Nor, after all, does it exhibit a real character of the man; who, we are assured by his friends (in the preface), was correct and temperute in his conduct and mode of living, a man of great benevolence, and a very useful, as he certainly was a very learned physician.

, a celebrated anatomist and physician, was born at the Hague, in the month of March 1638, where his father was commissary of the States-general. Being sent to the university of Leyden, he devoted himself to the study of anatomy, botany, and chemistry, especially to the practical investigation of these sciences, having conceived an early bias to the profession of medicine. He repaired also to Franeker, for the farther pursuit of his studies; but received the degree of doctor at Leyden, in 1664. Even during his pupilage at Leyden, he was applied to by Sylvius and Van Home, to assist them in combating the vanity of Bilsius, who came thither to exhibit his boasted method of preserving dead bodies.

After taking his degree, Ruysch returned to the Hague, where he married, and began practice. In 1665 he published his treatise on the lacteal and lymphatic vessels, which contained the result of his inquiries while engaged in the dispute with Bilsiu*. In this work he does not deny that the existence of valves in the lymphatic had been noticed before, but he claims the honour of having first demonstrated them, and taught the method of discovering them. This ingenious tract immediately procured him reputation; and he was invited the year after to the chair of anatomy at Amsterdam; an invitation which he gl-adly accepted; and anatomy, both human and comparative, henceforth constituted the principal object of his life: he spared neither time, labour, nor expence, for the attainment of his purposes; he was almost continually employed in dissection, and not only examined with the most minute exactness every organ of the human body, but devised means by which to facilitate the detection and demonstration of the different parts, and to preserve and exhibit them thus demonstrated. If he were not the discoverer of the use of injections, for the display of vascular and other structure, he contributed, together with the suggestions of De Graaf and Swammerdam, by his own ingenuity and industry, to introduce that important practice among anatomists. His collection of injected bodies is described, indeed, as marvellous; the 6nest tissue of capillary vessels being filled with the coloured fluids, so as to represent the freshness of youth, and to imitate sleep rather than death. In this way he had preserved foetuses in regular gradation, as well as young and adult subjects, and innumerable animals of all sorts and countries. His museum, indeed, both in the extent, variety, and arrangement of its contents, became ultimately the most magnificent that any private individual had ever accumulated, and was the resort of visitors of every description; generals, ambassadors, princes, and even kings, were happy in the opportunity of examining it. The czar Peter, in his journey through Holland in 1698, frequently dined at the frugal table of Ruysch, in order to spend whole days in his cabinet; and in 1717, on his return to Holland, the czar purchased it of him for 30,000 florins, and sent it to Petersburg. The indefatigable anatomist immediately commenced the labour of supplying its place by a new collection.

In the course of his investigations Ruysch became the anthor of some discoveries, which, however, were not all unknown toother anatomists; for his fault was a neglect of reading, and therefore he sometimes gave as new what other writers had described. Among other parts which he investigated minutely, were the pulmonary circulation (in which he claims the discovery of the bronchial artery), the, structure of the ear, of the brain, of the lymphatic and glandular system.

Ruysch was appointed professor of physic in 1685, a post which he filled with honour and reputation until 1728, when he unhappily broke his thigh by a fall in his chamber. He was also nominated superintendant of the mid wives at Amsterdam, in the exercise of which office he introduced some improvements. He was a member of the royal society of London, and of the academy of sciences of Paris, having succeeded sir Isaa Newton in the latter body in 1727. In the same year he had the misfortune to lose his son, Henry Ruysch, also doctor of physic, who, like himself, was an able practitioner, well skilled in anatomy and botany, and was supposed to have materially assisted him in his publications, inventions, and experiments. This loss deprived him of his best assistance in completing the second collection of rarities, which he was occupied in making. His youngest daughter, however, who was still unmarried, and had been initiated into all the mysteries of his anatomical experiments, was fully qualified to assist him, and he proceeded with his new museum, retaining his general health until the commencement of 1731, when he was carried off by a fever, in the ninety-third year of his age.

Ruysch was the author of many publications, several of which were controversial; for his want of reading, and consequent differences with some of the learned of his profession, led him into frequent disputes. It becomes, however, unnecessary to repeat the titles of them as separately published, since the whole were published at Amsterdam in 1721, under the title of “Opera omnia Anatomico-Medico-Chirurgica, and again in 1735, 5 vols. 4to, which is the most complete edition. His son, Henry Ruysch, published” Theatrum universale omnium animalium," 1718, 2 vols. fol.

, a celebrated landscape-painter of Holland, was born at Haerlem in 1636; and, though it is not known by what artist he was instructed, yet it is affirmed that some of his productions, when he was only twelve years of age, surprised the best painters. Nature was his principal instructor as well as his guide; for he studied her incessantly. The trees, skies, waters, and grounds, of which his subjects were composed, were all sketched upon the spot, just as they allured his eye, or delighted his imagination. His general subjects were, views of the banks of rivers hilly ground, with natural cascades; a country, interspersed with cottages and huts solemn scenes of woods and groves, with roads through them windmills and watermills but he rarely painted any subject without a river, brook, or pool of water, which he expressed with all possible truth and transparency. He likewise particularly excelled in representing torrents, and impetuous falls of water; in which subjects the foam on one part, and the pellucid appearance of the water in another, were described with wonderful force and grandeur. Sir Joshua Reynolds says there is a clearness in his landscapes scarce seen in those of any other painter. Most of the collections in England are adorned with some of the works of this master. He died in 1681, aged forty-five.

He had a brother, Solomon Ruysdaal, who was born at Haerlem in 1616, and was also a painter of landscapes, but in every respect far inferior to Jacob. The best commendation given him by the writers on this subject is, that he was a cold imitator of Schoeft and Van Goyen, and although his pictures have somewhat that is plausible, sufficient to engage the attention of those who are prejudiced in favour of the name of Ruysdaal, yet, to persons of true judgment and taste, they are in no great estimation; and the eye is disgusted with too predominant a tint of yellow, which is diffused through the whole. He rendered himself, however, considerable, by having discovered the art of imitating variegated marbles with surprising exactness; and he gave to his compositions an appearance so curiously similar to the real marble, that it was scarce possible to discern any difference, either in the weight, the colour, or the lustre of the polish. He died in 1670.

, a celebrated Dutch admiral, was born at Flushing in 1607, and entered into the naval service of his country very early. Much of the early part of his life was spent in the service in the West Indies, to which he is said to have made eight voyages, and two to Brasil. Jn 1641 he was sent to the assistance of the Portuguese, who had thrown off the yoke of Spain, and on this occasion he was raised to the rank of rear-admiral. He afterwards rendered some important services on the Barbary coast, entering the road of Sallee in a single ship, although five Algerine corsairs disputed the passage. When war broke out, in 1652, between the English and Dutch, Van Tromp having been disgraced, De Ruyter was appointed to the command of a separate squadron, for the purpose of convoying home a rich fleet of merchantmen. He fell in with the English admiral Ayscough, with whom he had an engagement off Plymouth, in the month of August, which lasted two days, and terminated so far to the advantage of the Dutch, that he brought his convoy safe into port. In the following October De Ruyter aud De Witte had an action with Blake and Ayscough on the Flemish coast, which was severely contested; but De Ruyter, being deserted by some of his captains, found it advisable to retreat to his own coast, the loss having been Dearly equal on both sides. Van Tromp was now restored to the chief command, and De Ruyter had a squadron under him in the battle of December, offFolkstone, in which Blake was obliged to take shelter in the Thames. De Ruyter likewise distinguished himself in the terrible battle of three days, fought in February 1653, between Tromp and Blake, near the mouth of the Channel. In the month of June, Tromp and De Ruyter engaged Monk and Dean off Nieuport; and after a battle of two days, in which the two Dutch admirals successively rescued each other from imminent danger, the Dutch confessed their inferiority by retiring behind their own sand-banks, where having received a reinforcement, they were enabled to attack the English under Monk and Lawson, near Scheveling. In the final battle between the two fleets Tromp was killed, and De Ruyter compelled to withdraw his shattered ships to the Meuse. After the peace, which was concluded the following year, De Ruyter was sent to cruize in the Mediterranean, to reinforce Opdam; and this service being effected, he returned to his station, and put an end to the predatory warfare carried on by the French privateers. The Dutch having quarrelled with Portugal, De Ruyter exhibited his vigilance, taking several Portuguese ships at the mouth of the Tagus, and made several prizes from the Brazil fleet, till a want of provisions obliged him to return to Holland. War having recommenced between the Swedes and Danes in 1658, De Ruyter, who was sent with a fleet to the assistance of the latter, made a descent on the island of Funen, defeated the Swedes, and forced them to surrender at discretion in Nyborg, whither they had retired. He then wintered at Copenhagen, where the king of Denmark ennobled him for his services. In 1662 he was sent with a strong squadron to curb the insolence of the Barbary states, who had exercised their piracy upon the Dutch shipping, and succeeded entirely to the satisfaction of his employers. At the commencement of the disputes between Charles II. and the United Provinces, De Ruyter had a command on the coast of Africa, where he recovered the forts which had been taken from the Dutch by the English, and made prizes of some merchant ships. After the defeat of the fleet of Opdam by the duke of York in 1665, D Ruyter returned, and was raised to the rank of lieutenant-admiralgeneral of the Dutch navy. The first service of De Ruyter was to convoy home a fleet of merchantmen; and in June 1666, the great fleets of the two maritime powers met in the Downs; the Dutch commanded by De lluyter and Tromp, the English by prince Rupert, and Monk, now the duke of Albemarle. In the three days’ fight which ensued, the Dutch had the advantage, though the valour of the English rendered the contest very severe; and on the fourth, the English, who had been the greatest sufferers, withdrew to their harbours.

In the following August the duke of Albemarle and prince Rupert fell in, near the coast of Essex, with De Ruyter and Tromp, and in the ensuing action, Tromp, eagerly pursuing a defeated division of the English fleet, left De Ruyter alone to contend with the main body of the enemy, who, after a long and most severe contest, was obliged to retreat, exclaiming, how wretched he was that not one bullet of so many thousands would free him from the disgrace. The year 1667 was memorable for the disgrace which the reign of Charles II. incurred by the triumphant entrance of the Dutch into the Thames. Negociations for peace had been carrying on at Breda, which De Witte had protracted, while he hastened the naval preparations; which being completed, the Dutch fleet appeared in the Thames, under the command of De Ruyter, and took Sheerness, and burnt several English men of war. The peace which soon followed gave some repose to De Ruyter, till the alliance between Charles II. and Louis XIV. against the Dutch, rendered his services again necessary. In June 1672, with a fleet of ninety-one sail, he attacked the combined fleets of one hundred and thirty sail, under the command of the duke of York, lord Sandwich, and count d'Estrees, in Solebay; an obstinate engagement took place, which was in some measure undecided, as night parted them, but De Ruyter kept the sea, and safely convoyed home a fleet of merchantmen. In 1673 he was again sent to sea with a strong fleet in quest of the combined English and French, who were on the Dutch coast. Three engagements took place, which were obstinately fought, but both parties claimed the victory. De Ruyter’s other actions against the French were of little comparative importance. In the last, however, fought near Messina, against the French fleet, April 21, 1676, he was mortally wounded by a cannon-shot, and died a week after in the port of Syracuse, deeply regretted by his country. He was interred at Amsterdam, at the public expense, and a superb monument erected to his* Hiemory.

, a learned critic, of the seventeenth century, was professor of history at Leyden. He was born in 1640, and after studying, probably at that university, he visited England, France, and Italy, and was every Tvhere esteemed for his talents and address. On his return to Holland he followed the profession of the law for some time at the Hague, but having little inclination for either the study or practice of it, he accepted the professorship of history at Leyden, and became an honour to the university. His lectures were much crowded, and he added to the reputation they procured him by his publications, particularly his edition of Tacitus, which Dr. Harwood pronounces “a very correct and excellent one.” It consists of 2 vols. 12mo, printed at Leyden in 1687, the first containing the text of Tacitus, the second Rycke’s notes, which are very valuable, and illustrate many passages that had escaped the notice or sagacity of his predecessors. He published also a curious dissertation “De primis Italian coionis, et de adventu JEneze in Italiam,” the subject of which was to refute the opinion of Bochart, who maintained that/neas had never seen Italy. He wrote another dissertation on giants, in which he collected all that had been written on those remarkable beings; an “Oratio de Palingenesia literarum in terris nostris,” published by Krieghius, at Jena in 1703; and published some other critical works. He died in 1690. Many of his letters are in the posthumous works of Francius.

, sieur de Malesais, a native of Marcigny, in JViaconois, was gentleman in ordinary of the king’s bedchamber, and knight of the holy sepulchre, in the 17th century. He resided a long time at Constantinople in his majesty’s service, was French consul in Egypt, learnt the Turkish and Arabic languages, and died soon after his return to France. His works are, “A Turkish Grammar,” in Latin, Paris, 1630, 4to; A French “Translation of the Koran,” 1649, 12mo, reprinted at Amsterdam, 1770, 2 vols. 12mo, but this work is not esteemed, the author having injudiciously blended the reveries of the Mahometan commentators with the text of Mahomet; A French translation of “Gulistan, or the empire of the Roses,” written by Sadi, chief of the Persian poets, Paris, 1634, 8vo. Gentius has translated the same book into Latin, under the title of “Rosarium poeticum.”

, historiographer to the king, and one of the forty members of the French academy, was born 1605, at Paris, and was the son of Isaac Ryer, who died about 1631, and has left some “Pastoral Poems.” Peter Ryer gained some reputation by his translations, though they were not exact, his urgent engagements with the booksellers preventing him from reviewing and correcting them properly. He obtained the place of king’s secretary in 1616, but having married imprudently, sold it in 1633, was afterwards secretary to Caesar duke de Vendome, and had a brevet of historiographer of France, with a pension from the crown. He died November 6, 1658, at Paris, aged fifty-three, leaving French translations of numerous works. Du Ryer’s style is pure and smooth; he wrote with great ease, both in verse and prose, and could doubtless have furnished the publick with very excellent works, had not the necessity of providing for his family, deprived him of leisure to polish and bring them to perfection. He also wrote nineteen tragedies, among which “Alcyonee,” “Saul,” and “Scevole,” are still remembered.

, an eminent engraver, was born in London in the year 1732. His genius for the fine arts manifested itself at an early period of his life, and he was accordingly placed under Ravenet. At the expiration of his engagement he was patronized by his godfather sir Watkin Williams Wynne, and went to Paris, where, for five years, under the guidance of Boucher, who at that time led the fashion in art, he applied with great assiduity to the study of drawing, but did not neglect to improve himself also in the practical part of engraving. From the designs of this principal misleader of the taste of France, Ryland engraved several plates, of which the principal and probably the best engraving he ever performed, is rather a large work, of which the subject is “Jupiter and Leda.” In this he has displayed great power as an engraver in lines. The print has a fine transparent tone; he has tempered the flimsy touchiness of the French taste with a portion of Ravenet’s solidity; the soft firmness of flesh is ably characterized in the figure of Leda, and the delicacy of the swan, and various textures of the surrounding objects, are rendered with much feeling and judicious subserviency to the principal parts. Such other proofs did he give of his abilities, as to obtain an honorary gold medal, which entitled him to pursue his studies at the academy in Rome, which he afterwards did with great success. From Boucher, however, he acquired a false taste, which diverted his talents from the mark at which he was evidently and successfully aiming when he produced his “Jupiter and Leda;” and this error was heightened by the fashion of stippling which he learned in France, and introduced, with his own modifications, into England. Ryland employed stippling, so as rather to imitate such drawings as are stumped than such as are hatched with chalk, by which means he softened down all energy of style, and has left posterity to regret the voluntary emasculation of the powers he had manifested in his “Jupiter and Leda.”

Soon after his return to England, he, however, engraved in lines a portrait of the queen, after Coates, and that portrait of his majesty, after Allan Ramsay, which Strange, from a misunderstanding, either with the earl of Bute or Ramsay, had declined, but they possess neither the vigour nor taste of his “Jupiter and Leda.” From this time he was appointed engraver to the king, and received an annual salary.

His subsequent engravings, in the chalk manner, are chiefly after Angelica Kauffman, and consist of four halfsheet circles, of which the subjects are, “Juno obtaining the Cestus of Venus,” “A Sacrifice to Pan,” “Cupid bound,” and “Cupid asleep;” “Queen Eleanor sucking the poison from the wounded Edward I.” (an excellent engraving of the kind); “Lady Elizabeth Grey soliciting the restoration of her Lands;” “Maria,” from Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, and “Patience,” both upright ovals; also “King John ratifying Magna Charta.” The last plate being left, by Ryland’s unfortunate death, in an unfinished state, was afterwards completed by Bartolozzi. This artist also engraved in lines, “Antiochus and Stratonice,” from, Pietro de Cortona, and “The first Interview between Edgar and Elfrida,” from Angelica Kauffman, both large plates.

Ryland’s engravings in the novel manner were, for the most part, printed in red, and this manner of engraving soon obtained the name of “the red chalk manner,” and was run after with avidity by the public. With so much heedless anxiety was it pursued, that people never stopped to consider whether even red chalk or stumped drawings themselves, of which these prints were professed imitations, were so good representations of nature, or afforded a means so happy and efficient of transfusing the soul of painting, as the art which previously existed of engraving in lines, and which was then exercised in high perfection by Bartolozzi, Strange, Vivares, and Woollet it was enough that it was new and red Ryland and novelty led the way, and fashion and the print-sellers followed.

The end of Ryland was awful. In 1783, some temporary embarrassment led him to the crime of forgery, for which he was executed in the month of August of that year.

, an antiquary and critic, was born in the North of England, and educated at the grammar-school of Northallerton, whence he was admitted a scholar at Sidney college, Cambridge. On quitting the university, he became a member of Gray’s-inn; and in 1692 succeeded Mr. Shadwell as historiographer to king William III. He rendered himself known first as a writer for the stage, by his production of “Edgar,” a tragedy, in 1673, which excited little approbation or inquiry until he became the author of “A View of the Tragedies of the last age,” which occasioned those admirable remarks by Dryden, preserved in the preface to Mr. Colman’s edition of “Beaumont and Fletcher,” and since by Dr. Johnson in his “Life of Dryden.” Rymer was a man of considerable learning, and a lover of poetry; but had few requisites for the character of a critic; and was indeed almost totally disqualified for it, by want of candour and the liberties he took with Shakspeare, in his “View of the Tragedies of the last age,” drew upon him the severity of every admirer of that poet. His own talents for dramatic poetry were extremely inferior to those of the persons whose writings he has with so much rigour attacked, as appears very evidently by his tragedy of “Edgar.” But, although we cannot subscribe either to his fame or his judgment as a poet or critic, it cannot be denied that he was a very useful compiler of records, and his “Fœdera” will ever entitle his memory to respect. While collecting this great work, he employed himself, like a royal historiographer, as one of his biographers says, in detecting the falsehood, and ascertaining the truth of history. In 1702, he published his first letter to bishop Nicolson, in which he endeavours to free king Robert III. of Scotland, beyond all dispute, from the imputation of bastardy. He soon after published his second letter to bishop Nicolson, “containing an historical deduction of the alliances between France and Scotland; whereby the pretended old league with Charlemagne is disproved, and the true old league is ascertained.”

It was in king William’s councils that it was first determined to print, by authority, the public conventions of Great Britain with other powers; and Mr. Rymer being selected as the editor, a warrant, empowering him to search the public repositories for this great design, was granted Aug. 26, 1693. Mr. Rymer then undertook the work, which he entitled “Fœdera;” the first volume was published in 1704, and in 1707, Mr. Robert Sanderson was appointed his assistant, the warrant being renewed for that purpose. Mr. Rymer lived to publish fifteen folio volumes of this work and from his collections a sixteenth was published by Sanderson, who, by a warrant dated Feb. 15, 1717, was continued the sole conductor of this laborious undertaking, and completed it in twenty volumes, the last of which appeared in 1735. This Sanderson, who was usher of the court of chancery, clerk of the chapel of the rolls, and fellow of the society of antiquaries, died Dec. 25, 1741.

Mr. Rymer died Dec. 14, 1713, and was buried in the parish church of St. Clement Danes. Some specimens of his poetry are preserved in the first volume of Mr. Nichols’s “Select Collection of Miscellany Poems,” 1780. After his death was published, in 1714, a small treatise by him “Of the antiquity, power, and decay of Parliaments” and in the same year, “Some translations from Greek, Latin, and Italian poets, with other verses and songs, never before printed,” which, not being sufficient to make a volume in 12mo, were published in a collection called “ Curious Amusements, by a gentleman of Pembroke-hall in Cambridge.”

As historiographer, the “Fœdera” were not the only labours of Ryiner. He left an unpublished collection, relating to the government and history of England, from 1115 to 1698, in fifty-eight volumes, now in the British Museum. The “Fœdera” was abridged by Rapin in French in Le Clerc’s “Bibliotheque,” and a translation of it published in English by Stephen Whatley, in 1731, 4 vols. 8vo. What is more remarkable, an edition of the whole of the original was printed at the Hague, in 1749, in 10 very large volumes, folio.

, a very eminent sculptor, was born in 1694, at Antwerp. His father was a landscape-painter, and had been in England, but quitted it with Largilliere, and went to Paris, where he married, and returning to Brussels and Antwerp, died in the latter in 1726, at the age of eighty. Michael, his son, arrived here in 1720, and after modelling some small figures in clay, to show his skill, succeeded so well in a bust of the earl of Nottingham, that he began to be employed on large works, particularly monuments, in which his art and industry gave general satisfaction. His models were thoroughly studied, and ably executed; and as a sculptor capable of furnishing statues was now found, our taste in monuments improved, which till Rysbrach’s time had depended more on masonry and marbles than statuary, on which he taught the age to depend for its best ornaments; and although he is too fond of pyramids for back-grounds, his figures are well disposed, simple and great.

Among his works may be enumerated, the monuments of sir Isaac Newton and of the duke of Marlborough at Blenheim, and the equestrian statue in bronze of king William at Bristol, in 1733, for which he received 1800l.; a great many busts, and most of them very like, as of Pope, Gibbs, sir Robert Walpole, the duke and duchess of Argyle, the duchess of Marlborough, lord Bolingbroke, Wootton, Ben Jonson, Butler, Milton, Cromwell, and himself; the statues of George I. and II. at the Royal Exchange; the heads in the hermitage at Richmond, and those of the English worthies at Stowe. The competition of Scheemaker and Roubiliac hurt the business, if not the reputation of Rysbrach, for some time, and induced him to produce his three statues of Palladio, Liigo Jones, and Fiarningo, and at last his chef d'ceuvre, his Hercules; an exquisite summary of his knowledge, skill, and judgment. This athletic statue, for which he borrowed the head of the Farnesian god, was compiled from various parts and limbs of seven or eight of the strongest and best made men in London, chiefly the bruisers and boxers of the then flourishing amphitheatre for boxing: the sculptor selecting the parts which were the most truly formed in each. The arms were Broughton’s, the breasts a celebrated coachman’s, a bruiser, and the legs were those of Ellis the painter, a great frequenter of that gymnasium. As the games of that Olympic academy frequently terminated at the gallows, it was soon after suppressed by act of parliament; so that in reality Rysbrach’s Hercules is the monument of those gladiators. It was purchased by Mr. Hoare, and is the principal ornament of the noble temple at Stourhead, that beautiful assemblage of art, taste, and landscapes.

Mr. Rysbrach, who had by no means raised a fortune equal to his deserts, before his death made a public sale of his remaining works and models, to which he added a Jarge collection of his own historic drawings, conceived and executed in the true taste of the great Italian masters. Another sale followed his death, which happened Jan. 8, 1770. He had two brothers, Peter Andreas, and G. Rysl>rach, who painted fish, dead fowls, and landscape, with Considerable merit, particularly the elder, who was born it Paris in 1690, and died in England of a consumption in 1743. He must be distinguished from another landscape painter of the seventeenth century of the same name, who was a native of Antwerp.

, related to sir Thomas Ryves, mentioned in the next article, a loyal divine and celebrated preacher, was born in Dorsetshire, and educated at New college, Oxford, of which he became one of the clerks in 1610, and was afterwards, in 1616, appointed one of the chaplains of Magdalen college. Having taken his degrees in arts, he attained great reputation as a preacher, and was made vicar of Stanwell, in Middlesex, rector of St. Martin’s Vintry, in London, chaplain to king Charles I. and in 1639, doctor in divinity. When the rebellion broke out, he was sequestered and plundered. At the restoration of king Charles II. he had the deanry of Windsor conferred on him, with the rectory of Acton, in Middlesex, and was made secretary to the garter. He died July 13, 1677. His works are, “Mercurius Rusticus; or, the Country’s Complaint, recounting the sad events of this unparalleled War,” &c. These Mercuries begin August 22, 1642. “Mercurius Rusticus, the 2d part, giving an account of Sacrileges, in and upon Cathedrals,” &c. When the war was ended, all these Mercuries were reprinted in 8vo, in 1646 and 1647, with an addition of the papers following: 1. “A general Bill of Mortality of the Clergy of London, &c. or a brief Martyrology and Catalogue of the learned and religious Ministers of the City of London, who have been imprisoned, plundered,” &c. 2. “Q,uerela Cantabrigiensis or, a Remonstrance by way of Apology for the banished Members of the flourishing University of Cambridge.” 3. “Micro-Chronicon or, a brief Chronology of the Time and Place of the Battles, Sieges, Conflicts, and other remarkable passages, which have happened betwixt his Majesty and the Parliament,” &c. 4. “A Catalogue of all, or most part of the Lords, Knights, Commanders, and Persons of Quality, slain or executed by Law Martial, from the beginning of this unnatural War to March 25, 1647.” And here we may observe, that the edition of 1647 has more in it than that of 1646. Dr. Ryves has likewise printed several occasional sermons, and is said to have assisted in the celebrated Polyglot Bible.

, son of John Ryves of Damery Court, or, as Fuller says, of Little Langton, in Dorsetshire, was born in the latter end of the XVIth century, ' and was educated at Winchester-school, whence he was admitted of New college, Oxford, in 1596, became fellow in 1598, and applying himself to the study of the civil law, commenced doctor in that faculty in 1610. He was a celebrated, civilian in doctors’ commons and the court of admiralty, and when he had established his fame in England, was, in 1618, preferred to be one of the masters in chancery, and judge of the faculties and prerogative court in Ireland, where he was held in equal esteem for his knowledge in the laws. Upon king Charles I. coming to the crown, he was made his advocate, and knighted: and, when the rebellion broke out, he was very firm to the royal cause, and although advanced in life, engaged in several battles, and received several wounds in his majesty’s service. He was one of the assistants to the king at the treaty of peace in the Isle of Wight. Sir Thomas Ryves was not only a very eminent civilian, and a good common lawyer, but likewise very accomplished in polite learning; and, particularly, wrote in Latin with unusual delicacy and correctness. He died in 1651, and was buried in St. Clement Danes, near Temple Bar, London. His works are, 1. “The Vicar’s Plea; or, a competency of Means due to Vicars out of the several parishes, notwithstanding their impropriations.” This book is written with a great deal of learning and strength of argument. 2. “iiegiminis Anglicani in Hibernia Defensio, adversus Analecien, lib. 3,” London, 1624, 4to. This was the answer to a book called “Analecta Sacra,” supposed to be written by David Roth, titular bishop of Ossory, a good antiquary, according to Usher, but a bigoted Roman catholic, if the author of this work. Sir Thomas Ryves’s object is, to vindicate the conduct of the Irish government as far as respects the Roman catholics, and his book includes much curious information respecting the state of opinions at that time. 3. “Jmperatoris Justiniani defensio adversus Alemannum,” Lond. 1626, 12mo. Alemanni had taken great liberties with the character of Justinian in his edition of Procopius, which our civilian thought it his duty to censure. 4. “Historia Navalis,” Lond. 162!), 12mo, enlarged afterwards into two publications, “Historiae Navalis antiquae libri quatuor,” ibid. 1633, 8vo, and “Historian Navalis mediae libri tres,” ibid. 1640, 8vo.

, a learned Portuguese Jesuit, was born in 1530, at Conde, in the province of Douro, and entered the society in 1545. After the usual course of studies, he taught at Coimbra, Rome, and other places, and was considered as an excellent preacher and interpreter of the scriptures, on which last account he was employed, by pope Pius V. on a new edition of the Bible. He died at Arona, in the Milanese, Dec 30, 1596, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. His chief works are “Scholia in quatuor Evangelia,” Antwerp and Cologn, 1596, 4to; and “Notationes in totam s cram Scripturam,” &c. Antwerp, 1598, 4to reprinted, with other scholi or notes, by Mariana and Tirini. Dupin says, that of all the Commentaries upon the scriptures there is nothing more concise and useful than the notes of our author, whose sole object, he adds, is to give the literalest use in a few words and in an intelligible manner. De Sa was the author of another work, which, although a very small volume, is said to have employed him for forty years: it is entitled “Aphorismi Confessariorum,” printed first at Venice, 1595, 12mo, and afterwards frequently reprinted in various places. Dupin calls it a moral work it seems rather a set of rules for confessors in cases of conscience and Lavocat tells us it contains some dangerous positions respecting both morals and the authority of kings. It underwent so many corrections and emendations before the pope would license it, that it did not appea- until the year before the author died. The French translations of it have many castrations.

, or Saadias the Excellent, a learned rabbi, the chief of the academy of the Jews, was born at Pithom in Egypt, about the year 892. In the year 927, he was invited by David Ben- Chair, the prince of the captivity, to preside over the academy at Sora, near Babylon, where one of his first objects was to explode the doctrine ofthe transmigration of souls, which was very prevalent, even among the Jews. But having refused to subscribe to a new regulation, which appeared to him to be repugnant to the Jewish laws, a breach arose between David and Saadias, which after some years was made up, and Saadias was restored to his professorship, in which he continued with great reputation till his death, in the year 942. His principal works are, “Sepher Haemunah,” or a treatise concerning the Jewish articles of faith, in ten chapters; but we have only a translation of it from the original Arabic into Hebrew, which was printed at Constantinople in 1647, and often reprinted. “A Commentary on the Book Jezira,” printed, with other Commentaries on that book, at Mantua, in 1592; “An Arabic translation of the whole Old Testament,” of whjch the Pentateuch is inserted in Jay’s and Walton’s Polyglotts, accompanied with the Latin version of Gabriel Sionita; “A Commentary on the Song of Songs,” in Hebrew, printed at Prague in 1609, 4to “A Commentary on Daniel,” likewise in Hebrew, inserted in the great rabbinical bibles of Venice and Basil “A Commentary on Job,” in Arabic, the ms. of which is in the Bodleian library at Oxford and a commentary on illicit alliances, mentioned by Aben Efra.

, a Spanish political and moral writer, was born May 6, 1584, at Algezares, in the kingdom of Murcia, and studied at Salamanca. In 1606, he went to Rome as secretary to the cardinal Gaspar de Borgia, who was appointed Spanish ambassador to the pope, and assisted in the conclaves of 1621 and 1623, held for the election of the popes Gregory XV. and Urban VIII. For these services Saavedra was rewarded with a canonry in the church of St. James, although he had never taken priest’s orders. Some time after he was appointed agent from the court of Spain at Rome, and his conduct in this office acquired him general esteem. In 1636, he assisted at the electoral congress held there, in which Ferdinand III. was chosen king of the Romans. He afterwards was present at eight diets held in Swisserland, and lastly at the general diet of the empire at Ratisbonne, where he appeared in quality of plenipotentiary of the circle and of the house of Burgundy. After being employed in some other diplomatic affairs, he returned to Madrid in 1646, and was appointed master of ceremonies in the introduction of ambassadors; but he did not enjoy this honour long, as he died Aug. 24, 1648. In his public character he rendered the state very important services, and, as a writer, is ranked among those who have contributed to polish and enrich the Spanish language. The Spanish critics, who place him among their classics, say he wrote Spanish as Tacitus wrote Latin. He has long been known, even in this country, by his “Emblems,” which were published in 2 vols. 8vo, in the early part of the last century. These politico-moral instructions for a Christian prince, were first printed in 1640, 4to, under the title of “Idea de un Principe Politico* Christiano representada en cien empress,” and reprinted at Milan in 1642; they were afterwards translated into Latin, and published under the title of “Symbola Christiano-Politica,” and have often been reprinted in various sizes in France, Italy, and Holland. He wrote also “Corona Gotica, Castellana, y Austriaca politicamente illustrada,” 1646, 4to, which was to have consisted of three parts, but he lived to complete one only: the rest was by Nunez de Castro; and “Respublica Literaria,” published in 1670, 8vo. Of this work an English translation was published by I. E. in 1727. It is a kind of vision, giving a satirical account of the republic of letters, not unlike the manner of Swift. The French have a translation of it, so late as 1770.

, a learned French Benedictine, was born at Poictiers in 1682, and died at Rheims M^rch 24, 1742. He spent twenty years of his life in preparing for the press a valuable edition of all the Latin versions of the Scriptures, collected together, and united in one point of view. It consists of three volumes, folio; but he lived only to print one volume; the others were completed by La Rue, also a Benedictine of St. Maur. The title is 61 Bibliorum Sacrorum LatinaB Versiones antiquse seu Vetus Italica, et ceterae quaecumque in codicibus Mss. et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt," Rheims, 1743 1749.

, a very eminent French surgeon, was born at Paris in October 1732, and after studying there, acquired the first rank in his profession, and in every situation which he filled, his knowledge, skill, and success, were equally conspicuous. He became censor-royal of the academy of sciences, professor and demonstrator of the surgical schools, secretary of correspondence, surgeon-major of the hospital of invalids, and a member of the institute. His education had been more liberal and comprehensive than usual. He not only was an excellent Greek and Latin scholar, but was well acquainted with the English, Italian, and German languages. Besides his public courses of lectures on anatomy and surgery, he instructed many private pupils, not only of his own country, but those of foreign nations who were attracted to Paris by his fame as a teacher, and were delighted with his unaffected politeness and candour. In his latter days Bonaparte appointed him one of his consulting surgeons, and he was one of the first on whom he bestowed the cross of the legion of honour. Sabatier died at Paris July 21, 1811. He retained his faculties to the last, but we are told became ashamed of his bodily weakness. “Hide me,” he said to his wife and son, “from the world, that you may be the only witnesses of this decay to which I must submit.” A little before his death he said to his son, “Contemplate the state into which I am fallen, and learn to die.” His humane attention to his patients was a distinguished feature in his character. During any painful operation he used to say, “Weep! weep! the more you express a sense of your sufferings, the more anxious I shall be to shorten them.”

His works are, 1. “Theses anatomico-chirurgicæ,” 1748, 4to, 2. “De variis cataractam extrahendi modis,” 1759, 4to. 3. An edition of Verdier’s “Abreg d'Anatomie,” with additions, 1768, 2 vols. 12mo. 4. An edition of La Motte’s “Traité complet de Chirurgie,” which was followed by his own, 5. “Traité complet d'Anatomie,” 1775. Of this a third edition, with many improvements, appeared in 1791, 3 vols. 8vo. 6. “De la Medicine expectative,” 1796, 3 vols. 8vo. 7. “De la Medicine operatoire, ou Des Operations.de Chirurgie qui se pratiquent le plus frequemment,” 1796, 3 vols. 8vo. Besides these he contributed many essays to the medical journals.

, a learned French writer, was born at Condom, Oct. 31, 1735, and after making great proficiency in his studies among the fathers of the oratory in that city, went to Orleans, where he was employed as a private tutor. In 1762, he was invited to the college of Chalons-sur-Marne, where he taught the third and fourth classes for sixteen years, which gave him a title to the pension of an emeritus. His literary reputation took its rise principally from his essay on the temporal power of the popes, which gained the prize of the academy of Prussia. He was then about twenty-eight years old; but had before this addressed a curious paper on the limits of the empire of Charlemagne to the academy of Belles Lettres at Paris. He was the principal means of founding the academy of Chalons, procured a charter for it, and acted as secretary for thirty years. Such was his reputation that he had the honour to correspond with some of the royal personages of Europe, and was in particular much esteemed by the kings of Prussia and Sweden; nor was he less in favour with Choiseul, the French minister, who encouraged his taste for study. It does not appear, however, that his riches increased with his reputation, and this occasioned his projecting a paper-manufactory in Holland, which ended like some of the schemes of ingenious men; Sabbathier was ruined, and his successors made a fortune. He died in a village near Chalon, March 11, 1807, in his seventysecond year.

He published, 1. “Essai historique-critique sur l'origine de la puissance temporelle des Papcs,” Chalons, 1764, 12mo, reprinted the following-year. 2. “Le Manuel des Enfans,” ibid. 1769, 12mo, a collection of maxims from Plutarch’s lives. 3. “Recueii de Dissertations sur divers sujets de l'histoire de France,” ibid. 1778, 12mo. 4. “Les Mceurs, coutumes et usages des anciens peuples, pour servir a l'education de la jeunesse,” ibid. 1770, 3 vols. 12mo. Of this entertaining work, a translation was published in 1775, 2 vols. 8vo, by the late Rev. Percival Stockdale. 5. “Dictionnaire pour Tintelligencedes auteurs classiques Grecs et Latins, tant sacrés que profanes, contenant la geographic, Thistoire, la fable, et les andquite*s,” ibid. 1766 1790, 36 vols. 8vo, and 2 volumes of plates. Voluminous as this work is, the troubles which followed the revolution obliged the author to leave it incomplete; but the manuscript of the concluding volumes is said to be in a state for publication. It is an elaborate collection, very useful for consultation, but not always correct, and contains many articles which increase the bulk rattier than the value. A judicious selection, it is thought, would supersede any publication of the kind in France.

, known likewise by the name of Andrea da Salerno, is the first artist that deserves notice, of the Neapolitan school. He is supposed to have been born about 1480. Enamoured of the style of Pietro Perugino, who had painted an Assumption of the Virgin in the dome of Naples, he set out for Perugia to become his pupil; but hearing at an inn on the road some painters extol the works of Raphael in the Vatican, he altered his mine!, went to Rome, and entered that master’s school. His stay there was short, for the death of his father obliged him to return home against his will in 1513; he returned, however, a new man. It is said that he painted with Raphael at the Pace, and in the Vatican, and that he copied Jiis pictures well: he certainly emulated his manner with success. Compared with his fellow-scholars, if he falls short of Julio, he soars above Raphael del Colle and the rest of that sphere. He had correctness and selection of attitude and features, depth of shade, perhaps too much sharpness in the marking of the muscles, a broad style of folding in his draperies, and a colour which even now maintains its freshness. Of his numerous works at Naples mentioned in the catalogue of his pictures, the altarpieces at S. Maria delle Grazie deserve perhaps preference; for his fn scoes there and elsewhere, extolled by the writers as miracles of art, are now, the greater part, destroyed. He painted likewise at Salerno, Gaeta, and other places of the kingdom, for churches and private collections, where his Madonnas often rival those of Raphael. This distinguished artist died in 1545.

, called Lorenzin di Bologna, was one of the most genteel and most delicate painters of his age. He has been often mistaken for a scholar of Raphael, from the resemblance of his Holy Families in style of design and colour to those of that master, though the colour be always weaker. He likewise painted Madonnas and angels in cabinet- pictures, which seem of Parmigiano nor are his altar-pieces different the most celebrated is that of S. Michele at S. Giacomo, engraved by Agostino Caracci, and recommended to his school as a model of graceful elegance. He excelled in fresco; correct in design, copious in invention, equal to every subject, and yet, what surprises, rapid. Such were the talents that procured him employ, not only in many patrician families of his own province, but a call to Rome under the pontificate of Gregorio XIII. where, according to Baglioni, he pleased much, especially in his naked figures, a branch he had not much cultivated at Bologna. The stories of St. Paul in the Capella Paolina, Faith triumphant over Infidelity in the Sala regia, and various other subjects in the galleries and loggie of the Vatican, are the works of Sabbatini, always done in competition with the best masters, and always with applause: hence among the great concourse of masters who at that time thronged for precedence in Rome, he was selected to superintend the different departments of the Vatican in which office he died in the vigour of life, 1577.

, whose proper name was Marcus Antonius Coccius, or vernacularly Marcantonio Coccio, an Italian historian and critic, was born in 1436, in the campagna of Rome, on the confines of the ancient country of the Sabines, from which circumstance he took the name of Sabellicus. He was a scholar of Pomponius Letus’s, and in 1475, was appointed professor of eloquence at Udino, to which office he was likewise appointed at Venice, in 1484-. Some time after, when the plague obliged him to retire to Verona, he composed, within the space of fifteen months, his Latin history of Venice, in thirty- three books, whiqh were published in 1487, entitled “Rerum Venetiarum ab urbe condita,” folio, a most beautiful specimen of early printing, of which there was a copy on vellum, in the Pinelli library. The republic of Venice was so pleased with this work as to decree the author a pension of 200 sequins; and Sabellicus, out of gratitude, added four books to his history, which, however, remain in manuscript. He published also “A Description of Venice,” in three books a “Dialogue on the Venetian Magistrates” and two poems in honour of the republic. The most considerable of his other works is his rhapsody of histories: “Rhapsodiae Historiarum Enneades,” in ten Euneads, each containing nine books, and comprizing a general history from the creation to the year 1503. The first edition published at Venice in 1498, folio, contained only seven Enneads; but the second, in Io04, had the addition of three more, bringing the history down to the above date. Although there is little, either in matter or manner, to recommend tins work, or many others of its kind, to a modern reader, it brought the author both reward and reputation. His other works are discourses, moral, philosophical, and historical, with many Latin poems; the whole printed in four volumes, folio, at Basil in 1560. There is a scarce edition of his “Epistolæ familiares, necnon Orationes et Poemata,” Venice, 1502, folio. Sabellicus likewise wrote commentaries on Pimy the naturalist, Valerius Maximus, Livy, Horace, Justin, Florus, and some other classics, whi< h are to be found in Gruter’s “Thesaurus.” He died at Venice in 1506. Whatever reputation he might gain by his history of Venice, he allows himself that he too often made use of authors on whom not much reliance was to be placed; and it is certain that he did not at all consult, or seem to know the existence of, the annals of the doge Andrew Dandolo, which furnish the most authentic, as well as ancient, account of the early times of the republic.

, a Lybian, known in ecclesiastical history as the head of the sect called Sabellians, lived in the third century, and was born at Ptolemais, and was a disciple of Noetus. He reduced the three persons in the Trinity to three states, or relations, or rather reduced the whole Trinity to the one person of the Father; making the Word and Holy Spirit to be the only emanations or functions thereof. Epiphanius tells us, that the God of the Sabellians, whom they called the Father, resembled the Son, and was a mere subtraction, whereof the Son was the illuminative virtue or quality, and the Holy Ghost the warming virtue. This sect had many followers in Mesopotamia and Rome; but their doctrines are so obscurely -expressed, as to create doubts as to what they really were. It is certain, however, that they were condemned by the Trinitarians, and therefore Lardner, and his followers, seem pleased to add Sabellius to the scanty list of Unitarians of the early ages

, whose family name was Schalter, one of the best Latin poets of his time, was born in the electorate of Brandenburg in 1508; and, at fifteen, sent to Wittemberg, where he was privately instructed by Melancthon, in whose house he lived. He had a great ambitioft: to excel and an enthusiastic regard for what was excellent, especially in Latin poetry and although the specimens ht^ studied made him somewhat diffident of his powers, he ventured to submit to the public, in his twenty-second year, a poem, entitled “Res Gestse Csesarum Germanorum,” which spread his reputation all over Germany, and made all the princes, who had any regard for polite literature, his friends and patrons. Afterwards he travelled into Italy, where he contracted an acquaintance with Bembus and other learned men; and, on his return visited Erasmus at Friburg, when that great man was in the last stage of life. In 1536, he married Melancthon’s eldest daughter, at Wittemberg, to whom he was engaged before his journey into Italy. She was only fourteen, but very handsome, and understood Latin well and Sabinus always lived happily with her but he had several altercations with Melancthon, because he wanted to raise himself to civil employments; and did not relish the humility of Melancthon, who confined himself to literary pursuits, and would be at no trouble to advance his children. This misunderstanding occasioned Sabinus to remove into Prussia in 1543, with his wife, who afterwards died at Konigsberg in 1547. He settled, for some little time, at Francfort upon the Oder, and was made professor of the belles lettres by the appointment of the elector of Brandenburg; and was afterwards promoted to be rector of the new university of Konigsberg, which was opened in 1544. His eloquence and learning brought him to the knowledge of Charles V. who ennobled him, and he was also employed on some embassies, particularly by the elector of Brandenburg into Italy, where he seems to have contracted an illness, of which he died in 1560, the same year in which Melancthon died. His Latin poems were published at Leipsic in 1558 and 1597, the latter with additions and letters. He published some other works, less known, which are enumerated by Niceron.

, an Italian poet, but better known as a writer of novels, was born at Florence about 1335, of an ancient family, some branches of which had held employments of great trust and dignity in the republic. While young he composed some amatory verses, in imitation of Petrarch, but with a turn of thought and style peculiar to himself, and he was frequently employed in drawing up poetical inscriptions for public monuments, &c. in which sentiments of morality and a love of liberty were expected to be introduced. Some of these are still extant, but are perhaps more to be praised for the subject than the style. Sacchetti, when more advanced in life, filled several offices of the magistracy both at Florence and different parts of Tuscany, and formed an acquaintance with the most eminent men of his time, by whom he was highly respected. He suffered much, however, during the civil contests of his country. He is supposed to have died about the beginning of the fifteenth century. Very little of his poetry has been published. He is principally known by his “Novels,” an excellent edition of which was published at Florence in 1724, 2 vols. 8vo, by Bottari, who has prefixed an account of his life. These tales are in the manner of Boccaccio, but shorter, more lively, and in general more decent.

, an illustrious Italian painter, the son of a painter, was born at Rome in 1601, or as some writers say, in 1594. He learned the principles of his art under his father, but became afterwards the disciple of Francesco Albano, and made such advances, that, under twelve years of age, he carried the prize, in the academy of St. Luke, from all his much older competitors. With this badge of honour, they gave him the nickname of Andreuccio, to denote the diminutive figure he then made, being a boy; and which he long retained. His application to the works of Polidoro da Caravaggio and Raphael, and the antique marbles, together with his studies under Albano, and his copying after Correggio, and others, the best Lombard masters, were the several steps by which he raised himself to extraordinary perfection in historical composition The three first gave him his correctness and elegance of design; and the last made him the best colourist of all the Roman school. His works are not very numerous, o ving io the infirmities which attended his latter years; and especially the gout, which occasioned frequent and long interruptions to his labours. He was likewise slow and fastididus, and wished to rest his fame more upon the quality than quantity of his performances. His first patrons were the cardinals Antonio Barberini and del Morte, the protector of the academy of painting. He became afterwards a great favourite of Urban VIII. and drew an admirable portrait of him. Several of the public edifices at Rome are ^embellished with his works, some of which have been ranked among the most admired productions of art in that capital. Such are his celebrated picture of the Death of St. Anne, in the church of S. Carlo a Catinari; the Angel appearing to St. Joseph, the principal altar-piece in S. Giuseppe a Capo le Case; and his St. Andrea, in the Quirinal. But his most distinguished performance is his famous picture of S/Romualdo, formerly in the church dedicated to that saint, now in the gallery of the Louvre. This admirable production was considered one of the four finest pictures at Rome, where Sacchi died in 1668.

, a very distinguished musician in the last century, was born at Naples May 11, 1735, according to one account, but Dr. Burney says 1727. He was educated in the conservatorio of St. Onofrio, under Durante, and made rapid progress in the science, attaching himself principally to the violin, on which he became a most accomplished performer. He afterwards resided at Rome eight years; and at Venice, where he remained four years, he was appointed master of the conservatorio of the Ospidaletto. It was here where he first composed for the church, but always kept his sacred and secular style of composition separate and distinct. His ecclesiastical compositions are not only learned, solemn, and abounding with fine effects, but clothed in the richest and most pure harmony. His reputation increasing, he visited, by invitation, some of the courts of Germany, and among others those of Brunswick and Wittemberg, where he succeeded the celebrated Jomelli; and after having composed for all the great theatres in Italy and Germany with increasing success, he came to England in 1772, and here supported the high reputation he had acquired on the continent. His operas of the “Cid” and “Tamerlane” were equal, says Dr. Burney, if not superior, to any musical dramas we have heard in any part of Europe. He remained, however, too long in England for his fame and fortune. The first was injured by cabals, and by what ought to have increased it, the number of his works; and the second by inactivity and want of economy.

He refused several engagements which were offered him from Russia, Portugal, and even France, but this last he at length accepted, in hopes of an establishment for life. A-ccordingly he went thither in 1781, but it is manifest in the operas that he composed for Paris, that he worked for singers of mean abilities; which, besides the airs being set to French words, prevented their circulation in the rest of Europe, which his other vocal productions in his own language had constantly done. At Paris, however, he was almost adored, but returned the following year to London, where he only augmented his debts and embarrassments; so that, in 1784, he took a final leave of this country, and settled at Paris, where he not only obtained a pension from the queen of France, but the theatrical pension, in consequence of three successful pieces. This graceful, elegant, and judicious composer died, at Paris, October 8, 1786.

All Sacchini’s operas are replete with elegant airs, beautiful accompanied recitatives, and orchestral effects, without the least appearance of labour or study. It was seemingly by small means that he produced the greatest effects. He interested the audience more by a happy, graceful, and touching melody, than by a laboured and extraneous modulation. His accompaniments always brilliant and ingenious, without being loaded and confused, assist the expression of the vocal part, and are often picturesque. Each of the dramas he composed in this country was so entire, so masterly, yet so new and natural, that there was nothing left for criticism to censure, though innumerable beauties to point out and admire. He had a taste so exquisite, and so totally free from pedantry, that he was frequently new without effort; never thinking of himself or his fame for any particular excellence, but totally occupied with the ideas of the poet, and the propriety, consistency, and effect of the whole drama. His accompaniments, though always rich and ingenious, never call off attention from the voice, but by a constant transparency, the principal melody is rendered distinguishable through all the contrivance of imitative and picturesque design in the instruments.

Sacchini’s private character was that of a generous and benevolent man, somewhat too imprudent in the indulgence of charitable feelings, but a steady friend, an affectionate relation, and a kind master.

, a celebrated Jesuit, was born in 1570, in the diocese of Perugia. He was professor of rhetoric at Rome during several years, and secretary to his general, Vitelleschi, seven years. He died December 26, 1625, aged 55. His principal works are, “A Continuation of the History of the Jesuits* Society,” begun by Orlandino. Of this Sacchini wrote the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th parts or volumes, fol. 1620 1661. An addition to the fifth part was made by Jouvency, and the whole completed by Julius Cordara. Perfect copies are very rarely to be met with. Sacchini was also the author of a small book judiciously written and much esteemed, entitled “De ratione Libros cum profectu legendi,” 12mo, at the end of which is a discourse, “De vitanda Librorum moribus noxiorum lectione,” which father Sacchini delivered at Rome in his rhetorical school in 1603.

, D. D. a man whose history affords a very striking example of the folly of party spirit, was the son of Joshua Sacheverell of Marlborough, clerk, who died rector of St. Peter’s church in Marlborough, leaving a numerous family in very low circumstances. By a letter to him from his uncle, in 1711, it appears that he had a brother named Thomas, and a sister Susannah. Henry was put to school at Marlborough, at the charge of Mr. Edward Hearst, an apothecary, who, being his godfather, adopted him as his son. Hearst’s widow put him afterwards to^Magdalen-college, Oxford, where he became demy in 1687, at the age of 15. Here he soon distinguished himself by a regular observation of the duties of the house, by his compositions, good manners, and genteel behaviour; qualifications which recommended him to that society, of which he became fellow, and, as public tutor, had the care of the education of most of the young gentlemen of quality and fortune that were admitted of the college. In this station he had the care of the education of a great many persons eminent for their learning and abilities; and was contemporary and chamberfellow with Addison, and one of his chief intimates till the time of his famous trial. Mr. Addison’s “Account of the greatest English' Poets,” dated April 4, 1694, in a farewell-poem to the Muses on his intending to enter into holy orders, was inscribed <c to Mr. Henry Sacheverell,“his then dearest friend and colleague. Much has been said by Sacheverell’s enemies of his ingratitude to his relations, and of his turbulent behaviour at Oxford; but these appear to have been groundless calumnies, circulated only by the spirit of party. In his younger years he wrote some excellent Latin poems, besides several in the second and third volumes of the” Mus as Anglicanae,“ascribed to his pupils; and there is a good one of some length in the second volume, under his own name (transcribed from the Oxford collection, on queen Mary’s death, 1695). He took the degree of M. A. May 16, 1696; B. D. Feb. 4, 1707; D. D. July 1, 1708. His first preferment was Cannock, or Cank, in the county of Stafford. He was appointed preacher of St. Saviour’s, Southwark, in 1705; and while in this station preached his famous sermons (at Derby, Aug. 14, 1709; and at St. Paul’s, Nov. 9, in the same year) and in one of them was supposed to point at lord Godolphin, under the name of Volpone. It has been suggested, that to this circumstance, as much as to the doctrines contained in his sermons, he was indebted for his prosecution, and eventually for his preferment. Being impeached by the House of Commons, his trial began Feb. 27, 1709-10; and continued until the 23d of March: when he was sentenced to a suspension from preaching for three years, and his two sermons ordered to be burnt. This prosecution, however, overthrew the ministry, and laid the foundation of his fortune. To sir Simon Harcourt, who was counsel for him, he presented a silver bason gilt, with an elegant inscription, written probably by his friend Dr. Alterbury. Dr. Sacheverell, during his suspension, made a kind of triumphal progress through various parts of the kingdom; during which period he was collated to a living near Shrewsbury; and, in the same month that his suspension ended, had the valuable rectory of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, given him by the queen, April 13, 1713. At that time his reputation was so high, that he was enabled to sell the first sermon preached after his sentence expired (on Palm Sunday) for the sum of 100l.; and upwards of 40,000 copies, it is said, were soon sold. We find by Swift’s Journal to Stella, Jan. 22, 1711-12, that he had also interest enough with the ministry to provide very amply for one of his brothers; yet, as the dean had said before, Aug. 24, 1711,” they hated and affected to despise him.“A considerable estate at Callow in Derbyshire was soon after left to him by his kinsman George Sacheverell, esq. In 1716, he prefixed a dedication to” Fifteen Discourses, occasionally delivered before the university of Oxford, by W. Adams, M. A. late student of Christ-church, and rector of Staunton upon Wye, in Oxfordshire.“After this publication, we hear little of him, except by quarrels with his parishioners. He died June 5, 1724; and, by his will, bequeathed to Bp. Atterbury, then in exile, who was supposed to have penned for him the defence he made before the House of Peers , the sum of 500l. The duchess of Maryborough describes Sacheverell as” an ignorant impudent incendiary; a man who was the scorn even of those who made use of him as a tool.“And Bp. Burnet says,” He was a bold insolent man, wiih a very small measure of religion, virtue, learning, or good sense; but he resolved to force himself into popularity and preferment, by the most petulant railings at dissenters and low-church men, in several sermons and libels, written without either chasteness of style or liveliness of expression." Whatever his character, it is evident that he owed every thing to an injudicious prosecution, which defeated the purposes of those who instituted it, and for many years continued those prejudices in the public mind, which a wiser administration w r ould have been anxious to dispel.

, lord Buckhurst and earl of Dorset, an eminent statesman and poet, was born at Withyam in Sussex, in 1527. He was the son of sir Richard Sackville, who died in 1566, by Winifred Brydges (afterwards marchioness of Winchester), and grandson of John Sackville, esq. who died in 1557, by Anne Boleyne, sister of sir Thomas Boleyne, earl of Wiltshire and great grandson of Richard Sackviiie, esq. who died in 1524, by Isabel, daughter of John Digges, of Digues 1 s place in Barham, Kent, of a family which for many succeeding generations produced men of learning and genius. He was first of the university of Oxford, and, as it is supposed, of Hart-hall, now Hertford-college; but taking no degree there, he removed to Cambridge, where he commenced master of arts, and afterwards was a student of the Inner Temple. At both universities he became celebrated both as a Latin and English poet, and carried the same taste and talents to the Temple, where he wrote his tragedy of “Gorboduc,” which was exhibited in the great hall by the students of that society, as part of a Christmas entertainment, and afterwards before queen Elizabeth at Whitehall^ Jan. 18, 1561. It was surreptitiously printed in 1563, under the title of “The Tragedy of Gorboduc,” 4to; but a correct edition under the inspection of the authors (for he was assisted by Thomas Norton), appeared in 1571, entitled “The Tragedie of Ferrex and Porrex.” Another edition appeared in 1569, notwithstanding which, for many years it had so feompletely disappeared, that Dryden and Oldham, in the reign of Charles II. do not appear to have seen it, though they pretended to criticise it; and even Wood knew just as little of it, as is plain from his telling us that it was written in old English rhyme. Pope took a fancy to retrieve this play from oblivion, and Spence being employed to set it off with all possible advantage, it was printed pompously in 1736, 8vo, with a preface by the editor. Spence, speaking of his lordship as a poet, declares, that “the dawn of our English poetry was in Chaucer’s time, but that it shone out in him too bright all at once to last long. The succeeding age was dark and overcast. There was indeed some glimmerings of genius again in Henry VIII's time but our poetry had never what could be called a fair settled day-light till towards the end of queen Elizabeth’s reign. It was between these two periods, that lord Buckhurst wrote; after the earl of Surrey, and before Spenser.” Warton’s opinion of this tragedy is not very favourable. He thinks it never was a favourite with our ancestors, and fell into oblivion on account of the nakedness anil uninteresting nature of the plot, the tedious length of the speeches, the want of discrimination of character, and almost a total absence of pathetic or critical situations. Yet he allows that the language of “Gorboduc” has great merit and perspicuity, and that it is entirely free from the tumid phraseology of a subsequent age of play-writing.

Having by these productions established the reputation of being the best poet in his time, he laid down his pen, and assumed the character of the statesman, in which he also became very eminent. He found leisure, however, to make the tour of France and Italy; and was on some account or other in prison at Rome, when the news arrived of his father sir Richard Sackville’s death in 1566. Upon this, he obtained his release,‘ returned home, ente’red into the possession of a vast inheritance, and soon after was promoted to the peerage by the title of lord Buckhurst. He enjoyed this accession of honour and fortune too liberally for a while, but soon saw his error. Some attribute his being reclaimed to' the queen,- but others say, that the indignity of being kept in waiting by an alderman, of whom he had occasion to 1 borrow money, made so deep an impression oft him,“ibat he resolved from that moment to be an eeconomisi. By the queen he was received into particalar favour, and employed in many very important affairs- In 1587 he was sent ambassador to the United Provinces’,” upon 1 their complaints against the earl of Leicester 'j and y though he discharged that nice and hazardous trust with- great integrity, yet the favourite prevailed with his mistress to call him home, and confine him to his house for nine Or ten months; which command lord Buckhurst is said to have submitted to so obsequiously, than in all the time he never would endure, openly or secretly, by day or by night, to see either wife or child. His enemy, however, dying, her majesty’s favour returned to him more strongly than ever. He was made knight of the garter in 1590; and chancellor of Oxford in 1591, by the queen’s special interposition. In 1589 he was joined with the treasurer Burleigh in negotiating a peace with Spain; and, upon the death of Burleigh the same year, succeeded him in his office; by virtue of which he became in a manner prime minister, and as such exerted himself vigorously for the public good and her majesty’s safety.

Upon the death of Elizabeth, the administration of the kingdom devolving on him with other counsellors, they unanimously proclaimed king James; and that king renewed his patent of lord high-treasurer for life; before his arrival in England, and even before his lordship waited on his majesty. In March 1604 he was created earl of Dorset. tie was one of those whom his majesty consulted and confided in upon all occasions; and he lived in the highest esteem and reputation, without any extraordinary decay of health, till 1607. Then he was seized at his house at tlorsley, in Surrey, with a disorder, which reduced him so, that his life was despaired of. At this crisis, the king sent him a gold ring enamelled black, set with twenty diamonds; and this message, that “his majesty wished him a speedy and perfect recovery, with all happy and good success, and that he might live as long as the diamonds of that ring did endure, and in token thereof required him to wear it, and keep it for his sake.” He recovered this illness to all appearance but soon after; as he was attending at the council-table, he dropped down, and immediately expired. This sudden death, which happened April 19, 1608, was occasioned by a particular kind of dropsy on. the brain. He was interred with great solemnity in Westminster-abbey; his funeral sermon being preached by his chaplain Dr. Abbot, afterwards abp. of Canterbury. Sit Robert Naunton writes of him in the following terms “They much comoiend his elocution, but more the excellency of his pen. He was a scholar, and a person of quick dispatch; faculties that yet run in the blood: and they say of him, that his secretaries did little for him by way of inditement, wherein they could seldom please him, he was so facete and choice in his phrase and style. I find not that he was any ways inured in the factions of the court, which were all his time strong, and in every man’s note; the Howards and the Cecils on the one part, my lord of Essex; &c. on the other part for he held the staff of the treasury fast in his hand, which once in a year made them all beholden to him. And the truth is, as he was a wise man and a stout, he had no reason to be a partaker; for he stood sure in blood atid grace, and was wholly intentive to the queen’s services and such were his abilities, that she received assiduous proofs of his sufficiency and it has been thought, that she might have mure cunning instruments, but none of a more strong judgment and confidence in his ways, which are symptoms of magnanimity and fidelity.” Lord Orford says, that “iew first ministers have left so fair a character, and that hU family disdained the office of an apology for it, against some little cavils, which spreta exolescunt; si irascare, agnita videntur.”

Several of his letters are printed in the Cabala; besides which there is a Latin letter of his to Dr. Bartholomew Clerke, prefixed to that author’s Latin translation from the Italian of Castiglione’s “Courtier,” entitled, “De Curiali sive Aulico,” first printed at London about 1571. This he wrote while envoy at Paris. Indeed his early taste and learning never forsook him, but appeared in the exercise of his more formal political functions. He was, says Warton, frequently disgusted at the pedantry and official barbarity of style, in which the public letters and instruments were usually framed. Even in the decisions and pleadings of the Star-chamber court, he practised and encouraged an unaccustomed style of eloquent and graceful oratory.

, sixth earl of Dorset and Middlesex, a celebrated wit and poet, was descended in a direct line from Thomas lord Buckhurst, and born Jan. 24, 1637. He had his education under a private tutor; after which, making the tour of Italy, he returned to England a little before the Restoration. He was chosen in the first parliament that was called after that event for East Grinstead in Sussex, made a great figure as a speaker, and was caressed by Charles II.; but, having as yet no turn to business, declined all public employment. He was, in truth, like Villiers, Rochester, Sedley, &c. one of the wits or libertines of Charles’s court; and thought of nothing so much as feats of gallantry, which sometimes carried him to inexcusable excesses . He went a volunteer in the first Dutch war in 1665; and, the night before the engagement, composed the celebrated song “To all you Ladies now at land,” which is generally esteemed the happiest of his productions; but there is reason to think it was not originally composed, but only revised on this occasion. Soon after he was made a gentleman of the bed-chamber; and, on account of his distinguished politeness, sent by the king upon several short embassies of compliment into France. Upon the death of his uncle James Cranfield, earl of Middlesex, in 1674, that estate devolved on him; and he succeeded likewise to the title by creation in 1675. His father dying two years after, he succeeded him in his estate and honours. He utterly disliked, and openly discountenanced, the violent measures of James II's reign; and early engaged for the prince of Orange, by whom he was made lord chamberlain of the household, and taken into the privy-council. In 1692, he attended king William to the congress at the Hague, and was near losing his life in the passage. They went on board Jan. 10, in a very severe season; and, when they were a few leagues off Goree, having by bad weather been four days at sea, the king was so impatient to go on shore, that he took a boat; when, a thick fog arising soon after, they were so closely surrounded with ice, as not to be able either to make the shore, or get back to the ship. In this condition they remained twenty-two hours, almost despairing of life; and the cold was so bitter, that they could hardly speak or stand at their landing; and lord Dorset contracted a lameness, which continued for some time. In 1698, his health insensibly declining, he retired from public affairs; only now and then appearing at the council-board. He died at Bun Jan. 19, 1705-6, after having married two wives; by the latter of whom be had a daughter, and an only son, Lionel CranfieKl Sackvilie, who was created a duke in 1720, and died Oct. 9, 1765.

Lord Dorset wrote several little poems, which, however, are not numerous enough to make a volume of themselves, but are included in Johnson’s collection of the “English Poets.” He was a great patron of poets and men of wit, who have not failed in their turn to transmit his with lustre to posterity. Prior, Dryden, Congreve, Addisou, and many more, have all exerted themselves in their several paiu-gyrics upon this patron; Prior more particularly, whose exquisitely-wrought character of him, in the dedication of his poe.ns to his son, the first duke of Dorset, is to this day admired as a master-piece. He says, “The brightness of his parts, the solidity of his judgment, and the candour, and generosity of his temper, distinguished him in an age of great politeness, and at a court abounding with men of the finest sense and learning. The most eminent masters in their several ways appealed to his determination: Waller thought it an honour to consult him in the softness and harmony of his verse and Dr. Sprat, in the delicacy and turn of his prose Dryden determines by him, under the character of Eugenius, as to the laws of dramatic poetry Butler owed it to him, that the court tasted his ‘ Hudibras:’ Wycherley, that the town liked his ‘Plain Dealer; and the late duke of Buckingham deferred to publish his * Rehearsal’ till he was sure, as he expressed it, that my lord Dorset would not rehearse upon him again. If we wanted foreign testimdny, La Fontaine and St. Evremond have acknowledged that he was a perfect master of the beauty and fineness of their language, and of all they call * les belles lettres.' Nor was this nicety of his judgment confined only to books and literature: he was the same in statuary, painting, and other parts of art. Bernini would have taken his opinion upon the beauty and attitude of a figure; and king Charles did not agree with Lely, that my lady Cleveland’s picture was finished, till it had the approbation of my lord Bnckhursu”

“He was a man,” says Dr. Johnson, “whose elegance and judgment were universally confessed, and whose bounty to the learned and witty was generally known. To the indulgent affection of the public, lord Rochester bore ample testimony in this remark: ‘ I know not how it is, but lord Buckhurst may do what he will, yet is never in the wrong.’ If such a man attempted poetry, we cannot wonder that his works were praised. Dryden, whom, if Prior tells truth, he distinguished by his beneficence, and who lavished his blandishments on those who are not known to have so well deserved them, undertaking to produce authors of our own country superior to those of antiquity, says, c I would instance your Lordship in satire, and Shakspeare in tragedy.' Would it be imagined thai, of this rival to antiquity, all the satires were little personal invectives, and that his longest composition was a song of eleven stanzas The blame, however, of this exaggerated praise falls on the encomiast, not upon the author; whose performances are, what they pretend to be, the effusions of a man of wit; gay, vigorous, and airy. His verses to Howard shew great fertility of mind; and his Dorinda” has been imitated by Pope.

, one of the promoters of the reformation, was born in 1534, at the castle of Chabot in the Maconais, and was descended of a noble and ancient family of the Forez. His father dying when he was very young, the care of his education devolved on his mother, who sent him to Paris, where he first was initiated in the principles of the Protestant religion. These he afterwards became better acquainted with at Thoulouse and Geneva, when introduced to Calvin and Beza. On the death of an uncle he was recalled home, and again sent to Paris, in consequence of a contest respecting the will of that uncle, who had left considerable property. While here, becoming more attached to the cause of the reformation, he was induced to study divinity, instead of law, for which he had been originally intended; and such was his progress and the promising appearance of his talents and zeal, that at the age of twenty, he was invited to preach to the congregation of the reformed at Paris. Their assembling, however, was attended with great danger; and, in 1557, when they met to celebrate the sacrament, about 150 were apprehended and thrown into prison, their pastors only escaping. The priests having circulated various scandalous reports of this meeting, which the judges found to be false, Sadeel was employed by his brethren in drawing up a vindication of them. Next year he was himself taken up, and imprisoned, but the king of Navarre, who had often been one of his hearers, immediately sent to the officers to release him, as being one of his own suite, and when they refused, went in person to the prison, complained of the affront, and released Sadeel. It nor, how^ ever, being thought safe for him to remain at this crisis in Paris, he retired for some time to Orleans, and when the danger seemed to be over, returned again, and drew up a Confession of Faith, first proposed in a synod of the reformed clergy of France, held at Paris, which was presented to the king by the famous admiral Coligni. The king dying soon after, and the queen and the family of Guise renewing with more fury than ever the persecution of the reformed, Sadeel was obliged again to leave the metropolis, which, however, he continued occasionally to visit when it could be done without danger.

In 1562, he presided at a national synod at Orleans, and then went to Berne, and finally to Geneva, where he was associated with the ministers of that place. Henry IV. who had a great respect for him, gave him an invitation to his court, which, after some hesitation, from his aversion to public life, he accepted, and was chaplain at the battle of Courtray, and had the charge of a mission to the pro^ testant princes of Germany; but unable at length to bear the fatigues of a military life, which he was obliged to pass with his royal benefactor, he retired to Geneva in 1589, and resumed his functions as a preacher, and undertook the professorship of Hebrew until his death, Feb. 23, 1591, Besides his sermons, which were highly popular and persuasive, he aided the cause of reformation by taking an active part in the controversies which arose out of it, and by writings of the practical kind. One French biographef tells us that Sadeel was an assumed name, but in all other authorities, we find him called by that name only with the addition of Chandæus, which alluded to his ancestors, who were barons of Chandieu. Accordingly his works are entitled “Antonii Sadeelis Chandaei, nobilissimi viri, opera theologica,” Geneva, 1592, folio; reprinted 1593, 4to; and 1599 and 1615, folio. They consist, among others, of the following treatises published sepa-r rately, “De verbo Dei scripto,” Gen, 1592. “De vera peccatorum remissione,” ibid. 1591. “De unico Christi sacerdotio et sacrincio,” ibid. 1692. “De spirituali et sacramentali manducatione Corporis Christi;” two treatises, ibid. 1596. “Posnaniensium assertionum refutatio,” ibid. 1596. “Refutatio libelli Claudii de Sainctes, intitulati, Examen doctrinae Calvinianae et Bezanae de ccena Domini,” ibid. 1592. He wrote also, in French, “Histoire des persecutions et des martyrs de Peglise de Paris, depuis Fan 1557, jusqu'au regne de Charles IX.” printed at Lyons, in 1563, 8vo, under the name of Zamariel. He wrote also “Metamorphose de Ronsard en pretre,” in verse, part of a controversy he had with that writer, who in his work on the troubles during the minority of Charles IX. had attributed them to the reformers. His life, by James Lectius, was prefixed to his works, and published separately at Geneva in 1593, 8vo. The substance of it is given in our first authority.

, or Sadee, a celebrated Persian poet and moralist, was born in 1175, at Sheeraz, or Schiraz, the capiai of Persia, and was educated at Damascus, but quitted his country when it was desolated by the Turks, and commenced his travels. He was afterwards taken prisoner, and condemned to work at the fortifications of Tripoli. While in this deplorable state, he was redeemed by a merchant of Aleppo, who had so much regard for him as to give him his daughter in marriage, with a dowry of one hundred sequins. This lady, however, being an intolerable scold, proved the plague of his life, and gave him that unfavourable opinion of the sex which appears occasionally in his works. During one of their altercations she reproached him with the favours her family had conferred: “Are not you the man my father bought for \en pieces of gold?” “Yes,” answered Sadi, “and he sold me again for an hundred sequins?”

We find few other particulars of his life, during which he appears to have been admired for his wise sayings and his wit. He is said to have lived an hundred and twenty years, that is, to the year 1295, but different dates are assigned, some making him born in 1193, and die in 1312. He composed such a variety of works in prose and verse, Arabic and Persian, as to fill two large folio volumes, which were printed at Calcutta, in 1795. It was not, however, merely as a poet, that he acquired fame, but as a philosopher and a moralist. His works are quoted by the Persians on the daily and hourly occurrences of life; and his tomb, adjoining the city where he was born, is still visited with veneration. “Yet,” says sir William Ouseley, speaking of this author’s works, “I shall not here suppress that there is attributed to Sadi a short collection of poetical compositions, inculcating lessons of the grossest sensuality;” and even his most moral work, called “Gulistan,” or “Garden of Flowers,” is by no means immaculate. Mr. Gladwin also, to whom we owe an excellent translation of it, published at Calcutta, 1806, in 4to, with the original Persian, has been obliged to omit or disguise a few passages, which, he says, “although not offensive to the coarse ideas of native readers, could not possibly be translated without transgressing the bounds of decency.”

This work has been long known in Europe by the edition and translation published by the learned Gentius, under the title of “Rosarium politicum, sive amoenum sortis humanae Theatrum, Per4ce et Lat.” Amst. 1651, fol. There was also a French traii&Jation by P. du Ryer, 1634, 8vo, and another by d'Alegre, in 1704, 12mo, since which the abbe Gaudin gave a preferable translation, first in 1789, under the title of “Essai historique sur la legislation de la Perse,” and afterwards by the more appropriate title of “Gulistan, ou l'empire des roses,” 1791, 8vo. The English public was in some degree made acquainted with this work by a publication by Stephen Sullivan, esq. entitled “Select Fables from Gulistan, or the Bed of Roses, translated from the original Persian of Sadi,” 1774, 12 mo. These are chiefly of a political tendency, recommending justice and humanity to princes. Mr. Qiadwjn’s includes the whole, and is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of Persian manners and morals. Sadi’s other works are entitled “Bostan, or the Garden of Flowers,” which is in verse, and “Molamaat;” in Arabic, sparks, rays, or specimens. We may add, that Olearius published the “GuJistan,” in German, with plates, in 1634, fol. under the title of “Persianischer Rosenthal.”

, an English writer, descended of an ancient family in Shropshire, was born in 1615, and admitted pensioner of Emanuel college, in Cambridge, Nov. I 3, 1630, where he became eminent for his knowledge in the Hebrew and Oriental languages. After having taken his degrees at the usual periods, that of M. A. in 1638, in x which year he was chosen fellow of his college, he removed to Lincoln’s-Inn; where he made a considerable progress in the study of the law, and was admitted one of the masters in ordinary in the court of chancery, June 1, 1644, and was likewise one of the two masters of requests. In 1649, he was chosen town-clerk of London, and published in the same year in 4to, a work with this title, “Rights of the Kingdom: or, Customs of our Ancestors, touching the duty, power, election, or succession, of our kings and parliaments, our true liberty, due allegiance, three estates, their legislative power, original, judicial, and executive, the militia; freely discussed through the British, Saxon, Norman, laws and histories.” It was reprinted in 1682, and has always been valued by lawyers and others. He was greatly esteemed by Oliver Cromwell; who, by a letter from Cork, of Dec. 1, 1649, offered him the place of chief justice of Munster in Ireland, with a salary of 1000l. per annum; but this he excused himself from accepting. In August 1650, he was made master of Magdalen college, in Cambridge, upon the removal of Dr. Rainbow, who again succeeded Sadler after the restoration. In 1653, he was chosen member of parliament for Cambridge. In 1655, by warrant of Cromwell, pursuant to an ordinance for better regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of the high court of chancery, he was continued a master in chancery, when their number was reduced to six only. It was by his interest, that the Jews obtained the privilege of building a synagogue in 'London. In 1658, he was, chosen member of parliament for Yarmouth; and in December of the year following, appointed first commissioner, under the great seal, with Taylor, Whitelock, and others, for the probate of wills. In 1660, he published in 4-to, his “Olbia The New Island lately discovered. With its religion, rites of worship, laws, customs, government, characters, and language with education of their children in their sciences, arts, and manufactures with other things remarkable by a Christian pilgrim driven by tempest from Civita Vecchia, or some other parts about ftome, through the straights into the Atlantic ocean. The first part.” Of this work, which appears to be a kind of fiction, Dr. John Worthiugton, in a letter to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, dated April i, 1661, says, “Is the second part of Olbu like to come out shortly? Jt is said to treat of the religion, worship, laws, customs, manner of education, &c. of that place. The design promiseth much variety.”

Soon after the restoration, he lost all his employments, by virtue of an act of parliament 13 Caroli II, “for the well-governing and regulating of corporations:” his conscience not permitting him to take or subscribe the oath and declaration there required, in which it was declared, that “it was not lawful, upon any pretence whatever, to take arms against the king;” an obedience so absolute, that he thought it not due to any earthly power, though he had never engaged, or in any manner acied, against the late king. In the fire of London, 1666, his house in Salisbury-court, which he built at the expense of 5000l. and several other of his houses in London were destroyed; and, soon after, his mansion-house in Shropshire had the same fate. He was also now deprived of Vauxhall on the river Thames, and other estates which he had purchase,!, being crown lands, and of a considerable estate in the Fens in Bedford Level, without any recompence. These misfortunes and several others coming upon him, he retired to his manor and seat of Warmwell in Dorsetshire, which he had obtained with his wife; where he lived in a private manner, and died in April 1674, aged fifty-nine, Thomas Sadler, esq. deputy to lord Walpole, clerk of the pells, who contributed the above account to the editors of the General Dictionary, and Daniel Sadler, chief clerk in the Old Annuity office, were his grandsons. Walker says he was informed that Mr. Sadler was a very insignificant man, and Calamy tells us that a clergyman of the church of England gave him this character, “We accounted him, not only a general scholar, and an accomplished gentleman, but also a person of great piety; though it must be owned he was not always right in his head.”

, an eminent English statesman, was born in 1507, at Hackney, in Middlesex. He was the son of Henry Sadler, who, though a gentleman by birth, and possessed of a fair inheritance, seems to have been steward or surveyor to the proprietor of the manor of Gillney, near Great Hadham, in Essex. Ralph in early life gained a situation in the family of Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, and by him was introduced to the notice of Henry VIII. who took him into his service, but at what time is not very clear. He was employed in the great work of dissolving the religious houses, and had his full share of the spoil. In 1537, he commenced a long course of diplomatic services, byan embassy to Scotland, whose monarch was then absent in France. The objects of his mission were to greet the queen dowager, to strengthen the English interests in the councils of regency which then governed Scotland, and to discover the probable consequences of the intimate union of Scotland with France. Having collected such information as he could procure on these topics, he returned in the beginning of the following year, but went again to Scotland soon after, ostensibly to maintain a good correspondence between the two crowns, but really, as appears from his state-papers, to detach the king of Scotland from the councils of cardinal Beaton, who was at the head of the party most in the interest of France. He was instructed also to direct the king’s attention to the overgrown possessions of the church as a source of revenue, and to persuade him to imitate his uncle Henry VHIth’s conduct to the see of Rome, and to make common cause with England against France. In all this, however, he appears to have failed, or at least to have left Scotland without having materially succeeded in any part of his. mission.

In the same year, 1540, he lost his patron Cromwell, who was beheaded; but he retained his favour with Henry, and in 1541 was again sent to Scotland, to detach the king from the pope and the. popish clergy, and to press upon him the propriety of a personal meeting with Henry. This however the king of Scotland appears to have evaded with considerable address, and died the following year of a broken heart, in consequence of hearing of the fatal battle of Solway. The crown was now left to James V.'s infant daughter Mary; and sir Ralph Sadler’s next employment was to lend his aid to the match, projected by Henry VIII. between his son Edward and the young queen. But this ended so unsuccessfully, that Sadler was obliged to return to England in Dee 1543, and Henry declared war against Scotland. In the mean time he was so satisfied with Sadler’s services, even in this last negociation, that he included him, by the title of sir Ralph Sad ley r, knight, among the twelve persons whom he named as a privy-council to the sixteen nobles to whom, in his will, he bequeathed the care of his son, and of the kingdom. When this will was set aside by the protector duke of Somerset, and it became necessary to reconcile the king’s executors and privy-counsellors, by wealth and honours, sir Ralph Sadler received a confirmation of all the church-lands formerly assigned to him by Henry, with splendid additions.

When the war with Scotland was renewed, sir Ralph so distinguished himself at the battle of Pinkie, that he was on the field raised to the degree of knight banneret; but we hear nothing more of him during the reign of Edward VI. except that in a grant, dated the 4th of that king’s reign, he is termed master of the great wardrobe. In Mary’s reigo, although he appears to have been in her favour, he retired to his estate at Hackney, and resigned the office of knight of the hamper,;-.nich had been conferred on him by Henry VIII. On the accession of Elizab^th, he again appeared at court, was called to the privy council, and retained to his death a great portion of the esteem of that princess. He was a member of her first parliament, as one of the knights of the shire for the county of Hertford, and continued to be a representative of the people during the greater part, if not the whole, of her reign. When queen Elizabeth thought proper to favour the cause of the reformation in Scotland, and to support the nobility who were for it against Mary, sir Ralph Sadler was her principal agent, and so negotiated as to prepare the way for Elizabeth’s great influence in the affairs of Scotland. He was also concerned in the subsequent measures which led to the death of queen Mary, and was appointed her keeper in the castle of Tutbury; but such was Elizabeth’s jealousy of this unfortunate princess, that even Sadler’s watchfulness became liable to her suspicions, and on one occasion, a very heavy complaint was made against him, that he had permitted Mary to accompany him to some distance from the castle of Tutbury, to enjoy the sport of hawking. Sir Ralph had been hitherto so subservient to his royal mistress, in all her measures, and perhaps in some which he could not altogether approve, that this complaint gave him great uneasiness, and he answered it rather by an expostulation than an apology. He admitted that he had sent for his hawks and falconers to divert " the miserable life'- which he passed at Tutbury, and that he had been unable to resist the solicitation of the prisoner, to permit her to see a sport in which she greatly delighted. But he adds; that this was under the strictest precautions for security of her person; and he declares to the secretary Cecil, that rather than continue a charge which subjected him to such misconstruction, were it not more for fear of offending the queen than dread of the punishment, he would abandon his present charge on coitdition of surrendering himself prisoner to the Tower for all the days of his life, and concludes that he is so weary of this life, that death itself would make him more happy. Elizabeth so far complied with his intimation as to commit Mary to a new keeper, but she did not withdraw her confidence from sir Ralph in other matters, and after the execution of Mary, employed him to go to the court of James VI. to dissuade him from entertaining thoughts of a war with England on his mother’s account, to which there was reason to think he might have been excited. In this sir Ralph had little difficulty in succeeding, partly from James’s love of ease, and partly from the prospect he had of succeeding peaceably to the throne of England. This was the last time sir Ralph Sadler was employed in the public service, for soon after his return from Scotland, he died at his lordship of Standon, March 30, 1587, in the eightieth year of his age, and was buried in the church of Standon, where his monument was decorated with the king of Scotland’s standard, which he took in the battle of Musselburgh. He left behind him twenty-two manors, several parsonages, and other great portions of land, in the several counties of Hertford, Gloucester, Warwick, Buckingham, and Worcester. He married Margaret Mitchell, a laundress in the family of his first patron, Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, in the life-time, though in the absence, of her husband, Matthew Barre, a tradesman in London, presumed to be dead at that time, and he afterwards procured an act of parliament, 37 Henry VIII. for the legitimation of the children by her, who were three sons, and four daughters; Anne, married to sir George Horsey of Digswell, knight; Mary, to Thomas Bollys aliter Bowles Wallington, esq. Jane, toEdward Baesh, of Stanstead, esq. (which three gentlemen appear to have been sheriffs of the county of Hertford, 14, 18, and 13 Eliz.); and Dorothy, to Edward EIryngton of Berstall, in the county of Bucks, esq. The sons were, Thomas, Edward, and Henry. Thomas succeeded to Standon, was sheriff of the county 29 and 37 Eliz. was knighted, and entertained king James there two nights on his way to Scotland. He had issue, Ralph and Gertrude married to Walter the first lord Aston of the kingdom of Scotland; Ralph, his son, dying without issue, was succeeded in his lordship of Standon and other estates in the county of Hertford, by Walter, the second lord Aston, eldest surviving son of his sister Gertrude lady Aston. The burying-place of the family is in tire chancel of the church at Standon. Against the south wall is a monument for sir Ralph Sadler, with the effigies of himself in armour, and of his three sons and four daughters,' and three inscriptions, in Latin verse, in English verse, and in English prose against the north wall i& another for sir Thomas, with the effigies of himself in armour, his lady, son and daughter, and an epitaph in Ertglish prose. There are also several inscriptions for various persons of the Aston family.

The transactions of sir Ralph Sadler’s most memorable embassies are recorded in “Letters and Negociations of Sir Ralph Sadler,” &c. printed at Edinburgh, 1720, 8vo, from Mss. in the advocates’ library; but a more complete collective was recently published of his “State papers and Letters,” from Mss. in the possession of Arthur Clifford, esq. a descendant, 1809, in 2 vols. 4to, with a life by Walter Scott, esq. to which we are principally indebted for the preceding account. From this valuable and interesting publication the character of sir Ralph Sadler will be estimated according to the views the reader has been accustomed to take of the measures of the reigns in which he lived; and on this account his character will probably be more highly esteemed in England than in Scotland. That he should have preserved the favour of four such discordant sovereigns as Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, is extraordinary, but not a solitary instance.

, the first of a family of distinguished engravers, the son of a founder and chaser, was born at Brussels in 1550. He applied early in life to drawing and engraving, and published some prints at Antwerp, which did him great honour. Encouraged by this success, he travelled over Holland that he might work under the inspection of the best masters, and found a generous benefactor in the duke of Bavaria. He went afterwards into Italy, and presented some of his prints to pope Clement VIII. but receiving only empty compliments fram that pontiff, retired to Venice, where he died 1600, in his fiftieth year, leaving a son named Juste or Justin, by whom also we have some good prints. Raphael Sadeler, John’s brother, and pupil, was born in 1555, and distinguished himself as an engraver, by the correctness of his drawings and the natural expression of his figures. He accompanied John to Rome and to Venice, and died in the latter city. Raphael engraved some plates for a work entitled “de opificio mundi,” 1617, 8vo, which is seldom found perfect. The works executed by him and John in conjunction, are, “Solitudo, sive vitas patrum eremicolarum,” 4to “Sylvse sacrae,,” “Trophaeum vitae solitaries” “ Oraculum anacboreticum,” “Solitude sive vitae feminarura anachoreticarum;” “Recueil d‘Estampes, d’apres Raphael, Titien, Carrache,” &c. amounting to more than 500 prints, in 2 vols. fol. Giles Sadeler was nephew and pupil of John and Raphael, but excelled them in correct drawing, and in the taste and neatness of his engraving. After having remained some time in Italy, he was invited into Germany by the emperor Rodolphus II. who settled a pension upon him; and Matthias and Ferdinand, this emperor’s successors, continued also to esteem and honour him. He died at Prague in 1629, aged fifty-nine, being born at Antwerp in 1570, leaving “Vestigi dell' antichita di Roma,” Rome, 1660, fol. obi. These engravers employed their talents chiefly on scripture subjects. Mark Sadeler, related to the three above mentioned, seems to have been merely the editor of th^ir works.

, a polite and learned Italian, was born at Modena in 1477, and was the son of an eminent civilian, who, afterwards becoming a professor at Ferrara, took him along with him, and educated him with great care. He acquired a masterly knowledge in the Latin and Greek early, and then applied himself to philosophy and eloquence; taking Aristotle and Cicero for his guides, whom he considered as the first masters in these branches. He also cultivated Latin poetry, in which he displayed a very high degree of classical purity. Going to Rome under the pontificate of Alexander VI. when he was about twentytwo, he was taken into the family of cardinal Caraffa, who loved men of letters; and, upon the death of this cardinal in 1511, passed into that of Frederic Fregosa, archbishop of Salerno, where he found Peter Bembus, and contracted an intimacy with him. When Leo X. ascended the papal throne in 1513, he chose Bembus and Sadolet for his secretaries men extremely qualified for the office, as both of them wrote with great elegance and facility and soon after made Sadolet bishop of Carpentras, near Avignon. Upon the death of Leo, in 1521, he went to his diocese, and resided there during the pontificate of Adrian VI.; but Clement VII. was no sooner seated in the chair, in 1523, than he recalled him to Rome. Sadolet submitted to his boliness, but oh condition that he should return to his diocese at the end of three years. Paul III. who succeeded Clement VII. in 1534, called him to Rome again; made him a cardinal in 1536, and employed him in many important embassies and negotiations. Sadolet, at length, grown too old to perform the duties of his bishopric, went no more from Rome; but spent the remainder of his days there in repose and study. He died in 1547, not without poison, as some have imagined; because he corresponded too familiarly with the Protestants, and testified much regard for some of their doctors. It is true, he had written in 1539 a Latin letter to the senate and people of Geneva, with a view of reducing them to an obedience to the pope; and had addressed himself to the Calvinists, with the affectionate appellation of “Charissimi in Christo Fratres;” but this proceeded entirely from his moderate and peaceable temper and courteous disposition. He was a sincere adherent to the Romish church, but without bigotry. The liberality of sentiment he displayed in his commentary on the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans incurred the censure of the Roman court.

Sadolet in his younger days was somewhat gay, but reformed his manners very strictly afterwards, and became a man of great virtue and goodness. He was, like other scholars of his time, a close imitator of Cicero in his prose works, and of Virgil in his poetry. In the best of his Latin poems, his “Curtius,” he is allowed to have adorned a dignified subject with numbers equally chaste, spirited, and harmonious. His works consist of epistles, dissertations, orations, poems, and commentaries upon some parts of holy writ. They have been printed oftentimes separately and were first collected and published together, in a large 8vo volume, at Mentz, in 1607 but a more complete and excellent edition was published at Verona, in 1737, 4 vols. 4to. All his contemporaries have spoken of him in the highest terms; Erasmus particularly, who calls him “eximium setatis suse decus.”

, a celebrated Icelandic writer, was the son of a priest named Sigfus, and was born about the middle of the eleventh century, between 1050 and 1060. He travelled at a very early period into Italy and Germany, in order to improve himself in knowledge, and for a considerable time his countrymen were not at all aware ipf what had become of him. At length Jonas, the son of Ogmund, who was afterwards a bishop, found him at Paris, and carried him back to Iceland. Here he took the order of priesthood, and succeeded his father as priest of Odda, He also established a school, and contributed with others to induce the Icelanders to pay tithes, and took a considerable part with regard to the formation of the ecclesiastical code of laws. He died in 1133 or 1135, being about eighty years of age. At the age of seventy he wrote a History of Norway, from the time of Harold Haarfager to that of Magnus the Good. He is generally allowed the merit of having collected the poetical Edda, by which means he preserved these curious and valuable remains of the ancient Scandinavian mythology, poetry, and morality, from being lost. They were printed at Copenhagen, 1787, 4to, with a Latin translation, the editors of which, in their preface, give a full account of the supposed authors, and the claim of Saemund to be considered as the principal collector.

, the first of French novelists, was born, according to one of his biographers, in 1677, at Ruys, in Britanny; or, according to another, in 1668, at Vannes. At the age of twenty-five he came to Paris, with a view to study philosophy. His talents, although they did not display themselves very early, proved to be equally brilliant and solid. He made himself first known by a paraphrastic translation of the “Letters of Aristsenetus,” which he published in two small volumes. He then travelled through Spain, and applied to the study of the Spanish language, customs, and writers, from whom he adopted plots and fables, and transfused them into his native tongue with great facility and success. His works of this kind are, “Guzman D'Alfarache” the “Bachelor of Salamanca;” “Gil Bias;” “New Adventures of Don Quixote,” originally written by Avellaneda; “The Devil on two Sticks,” as it is called in our translation, in French “Le Diable boiteux,” and some others of less note. Of the “Devil on two Sticks,” we are told that the first edition had amazing success, and the second sold with still greater rapidity. Two noblemen coming to the bookseller’s, found only one single copy remaining, which each was for purchasing: and the dispute grew so warm, that they were going to decide it by the sword, had not the bookseller interposed. He was also distinguished for some dramatic pieces, of which “Crispin,” and “Turcaret,” both comedies, were the most successful, and allowed to fall very little short of the genius of Moliere. “Turcaret,” which was first played in 1709, has been praised by the French critics, as comprehending a dialogue just and natural, characters drawn with peculiar fidelity, and a well-conducted plot. He composed also many pieces for the comic opera, which, if somewhat deficient in invention, were in general sprightly, and enriched with borrowed fancies very happily adapted to the genius of the French theatre.

When a favourite with the town, he appears to have presumed a little on that circumstance. It was his custom to read his plays in certain fashionable circles, before they were publicly represented. On one of those occasions, when engaged to read a piece at the duchess de Bouillon’s, an unexpected affair detained him until a considerable time after the appointed hour. The duchess, on his entrance, began to reproach him, but with pleasantry, for his having made the company lose two hours in waiting for him. “If I have made them lose them,” said Le Sage, “nothing can be more easy than to recover them. I will not read my play,” and immediately took his leave, nor could any invitation induce him to visit the duchess a second time.