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

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

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

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

The first edition of Pomponatius “De Immortalitate,” a copy of which is in Mr. GresswelPs possession, is without date but the colophon informs us, that the author completed it in 1516. The first with a date, and along with his other tracts, is that of Venice 1525, folio the second, of the “De immortalitate” only, is that of 1534, 12mo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the beginning he aimed at grandeur of style, and left some traces of it in certain pictures still existing in front of the house Michieli, chiefly remarkable for a figure of Samson slaying the Philistines, with a fierceness not unworthy of Michael Angelo. But whether prompted by nature or judgment, he soon confined himself to smaller proportions and subjects of less energy. Even in altarpieces his figures are generally below the natural size, and seldom much alive so that socne one said, the elders of Tintoretto had all the rage of yocith, and the youth of Bassano all the apathy of age. His situation, the monotony and meanness of the objects that surrounded him, limited his ideas, debased his fancy, and caused frequent repetitions of the same subjects without much variation. He had contracted the habit of working at his ease in his study assisted by his scholars, and of dispatching the produce to Venice, or the most frequented fairs. Hence those swarms of pictures of all sizes, which make it less a boast for a collector to possess a Bassan, than a disgrace not to have one. The Banquet of Martha and the Pharisee, the Prodigal Son, Noah’s Ark, the Return of Jacob, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, the Queen of Sheba, the Three Magi, the Seizure of Christ, and the taking down from the Cross by torch-light, nearly compose the series of his sacred subjects. The profane ones consist chiefly in markets, rustic employments, kitchens, larders, &c. His daughters generally sat for his females, whether queens, Magdalens, or country wenches. The grand objection to his works is a repetition of similar conceits; but these, it must be allowed, he carried to a high degree of perfection. He lived equally employed by the public and the great, and highly esteemed, if not by Vasari, by the most celebrated of his contemporaries and rivals, Titian, Tintoretto, Annibal Caracci, and Paul Veronese. He died in 1592, aged eighty-two, leaving four sons, Francis, Leander, John Baptist, and Jerom all of whom preserved the reputation of the family, in a considerable degree, for many years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Along with this specimen and proposals, Mr. Pool published the opinions of “several eminent, reverend, and learned persons, bishops and others,” in favour of the work, and of his ability to execute it, of which he wa$ authorized to make this use. Among the prelates -who recommended the “Synopsis,” as a work which they “were persuaded would tend very much to the advancement of religion and learning, were Morley, bishop of Winchester, Reynolds of Norwich, Ward of Salisbury, Rainbow of Carlisle, Blandford of Oxford, Dolben and Warner of Rochester, Morgan of Bangor, and Hacket of Lichfield and Coventry and among the other divines, several of whom afterwards were raised to the episcopal bench, were Dr. Barlow, provost of Queen’s college, Oxford; Dr. WilIdns, Dr. Castell, Dr. Lloyd (whom some, as we have observed, make the first instigator), Dr. Tillotson, Mr. Stillingfleet, Dr. Patrick, Dr. Whichcot; Dr. Bathurst, president of Trinity college, Oxford, Dr. Wallis and Dr. Lightfoot, with the most eminent and learned of the nonconformists, Baxter, Owen, Bates, Jacomb, Horton, and Manton. Most of these signed their opinions in a body; but bishop Hacket, Dr. Barlow, Dr. Lightfoot, and Dr. Owen, sent him separate letters of encouragement, in language which could not fail to have its weight with the pubJic. He also acknowledges, with great gratitude, the munificent aid he received from sir Peter Wentworth, K. B.” who appears to have been his chief patron, and from sir Orlando Bridgman, the earls of Manchester, Bridgwater, Lauderdale, and Donegal the lords Truro, Brooke, and Cameron, sir William Morrice, sir Walter St. John, sic Thomas Clifford, sir Robert Murray, &c. &c. &c.

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

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

After some farther exchange of altercation, in which the prevailing opinions of the lawyers and others of that day are decidedly against Mr. Bee’s monopoly of biblical criticism, the parties in 1668 agreed to refer to two of his majesty’s privy-council, the marquis of Dorchester and the earl of Anglesey, who determined in favour of Mr. Pool, and, as it would seem, even to the satisfaction of Mr. Bee, whose name appears, as a vender in the title-page of vol. I. published in 1669. Pool had previously obtained his majesty’s patent, expressed in the same terms as that granted to Bee for the “Critici Sacri,” forbidding the printing of the “Synopsis” either in whole or in part, without his leave, for the space of fourteen years, under penalty of confiscation, &c. This is dated Oct. 14, 1667.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It seems that Pope, being desirous of printing his letters, and not knowing how to do, without imputation of vanity, what has in this country been done very rarely, contrived an appearance of compulsion: that, when he could complain that his letters were surreptitiously published, he might decently and defensively publish them himself.”

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

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

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

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

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

Some idea of Pope’s character may be derived from the preceding particulars, and more may be learned from his biographers Ruffhead, Johnson, Warton, and Bowles. Many circumstances, however, still want explanation, although upon the whole we cannot be said to be ignorant of the temper and character of a man whose publications and Quarrels form a great part of the literary history of the first half of the eighteenth century, and of which some notice has been taken by every journalist, every critic, and every biographer, from his own to the present times. A large volume might be filled with even a moderate account of Pope’s contests, and less than such a volume perhaps woulcfy not be satisfactory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of the editions of Pope’s works, it is unnecessary to mention any other than those of Warburton, and Johnson (the poems only), Warton, and the recent one by Mr. Bowles, which contains many additional letters and documents illustrative of Pope’s character and connections.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The frescoes of Pordenone are spread over the towns and castles of Friuli some are found at Mantua, Genoa, Venice, but the best-preserved ones are at Piacenza and Cremona. In these he is not always equal, but all bear marks of innate vigour and bold conception of a mind, as eager to form as to resolve difficulties in variety of expression, singularity of perspective, novelty of fore-shortening, and magic resources of chiaroscuro. He had an imitator in Bernardino Licinio, who from the surname may be supposed to have been related to him: and Sandrart mentions, in a high strain of praise, Giulio Licinio de Pordenone, as his nephew and scholar; who, according to that author, quitted Venice, and left frescoes of extraordinary beauty at Augsburg.

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

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

Porphyrius wrote a great number of books, the far greater part of which have perished. Some have wished that his books against the Christians had come down to us, because they are firmly persuaded that, among innumerable blasphemies against Christ and his religion, which might easily have been confuted, many admirable things would have been found. We doubt, however, whether the world

student of the Eclectic system; and formed about the thirty-sixth year of

ter, and so perfectly acquainted with purposing hereby, according to the

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

opponents, and in explaining to his him to divert his melancholy by taking

of his writings he even intrusted him Probus, an accomplished and excellent

with the charge of methodising and man, who lived near Lilybaaum. Porcorrecting his works. The fanatical pbyrius followed the advice of Plotinus,

spirit of the philosophy, to which Por- and recovered the vigour and trauquiU

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This excellent prelate continued to exert all the influence of his high office, and to display all the energies of his character in whatever comprehended the extension, and benefit of religion, morality, and literature. His address, in particular, to those who came to him for confirmation when he visited his diocese for the fourth time in 1802, is an admirable piece of eloquence. His charge on his last visitation, is more particularly deserving of attention, as it answered the objections of those who represented his lordship as friendly to sectaries. The part he took on the subject of the Curates’ Bill, and residence of the clergy, evinces his tenacious zeal in whatever seemed in his opinion to be connected with his duty.

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

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

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

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

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

1619, (or as some copies have, Geneva, 1630,) 2 vols. fol. but this is the same edition. 6. “Aristotelis Ars Rhetorica,” Gr. & Lat. the translation by Æmilius Portus, and the commentary by his father, Spire, 1598, 8vo. 7. “Pindar,” 1598. Besides these he contributed notes to Leunclavius’s edition of “Xenophon,” translated into Latin Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and published a “Dictionarium Doricum Grseco-Latinum,” 1603, 8vo, a “Dict. lonicum,” Gr. & Lat. 8vo, lately reprinted at Oxford, and a “Lexicon Pindaricum,” &c. &C.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wood mentions, as his writings, “Lectures on some chapters of Genesis,” but knows not whether printed; and several sermons; one, “The Baronet’s Burial,” on the burial of Sir Edmund Seymour, Oxon. 1613, 4to; and another, on Easter Tuesday, one of the Spital sermons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some time after this he became much a favourite with queen Caroline, then princess of Wales; and upon the accession of George II. preached the coronation sermon, Oct. 11, 1727, which was afterwards printed by his majesty’s express commands, and is inserted among the bishop’s theological works. It was generally supposed that the chief direction of public affairs, with regard to the church, was designed to be committed to his care; but as he saw that this must involve him in the politics of the times, he declined the proposal, and returned to his bishopric, until the death of Dr. Wake, in January 1737, when he was appointed his successor in the archbishopric of Canterbury. This high office he filled during the space of ten years with great reputation, and towards the close of that period fell into a lingering disorder, which put a period to his life Oct. 10, 1747, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He was buried at Croydon.

He left behind him the character of a prelate of distinguished piety and learning, strictly orthodox in respect to the established doctrines of the church of England, and a zealous and vigilant guardian of her interests. He was a great advocate for regularity, order, and oeconomy, but he supported the dignity of his high office of archbishop, in a manner which was by some attributed to a haughtiness of temper. Whiston is his principal accuser, in this respect, but allowances must be made for that writer’s prejudices, especially when we find that among the heaviest charges he brings against the archbishop is his having the Athanasian Creed read in his chapel. He had a numerous family of children, of whom three daughters and two sons survived him. One of his daughters, Mrs. Sayer, died in 1771.

His eldest son, John Potter, born in 1713, after a private education, was entered a member of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1727, and took his master’s degree in 1734. After he went into orders, he obtained from his father the vicarage of Blackburne, in the county of Lancaster, and in 1739, the valuable sinecure of Elme cum Emneth, in the isle of Ely, In 1741 his father presented him to the archdeaconry of Oxford. His other promotions were the v y icarage of Lydde in Kent, the twelfth prebend of Canterbury, and the rich benefice of Wrotham in Kent, with which he retained the vicarage of Lydde. In 1766 he was advanced to the deanery of Canterbury, on which he resigned the archdeaconry of Oxford. He died at Wrotham Sept. 20, 1770. He offended his father very much by marrying one of his servants, in consequence of which, although the archbishop, as we have seen, gave him many preferments, he left his personal fortune, which has been estimated at 70,000l. some say 90,000l. to his second son, Thomas Potter, esq. who followed the profession of the law, became recorder of Bath, joint vice-treasurer of Ireland, and member of parliament for Aylesbury and Oakhampton. He died June 17, 1759.

The archbishop’s works were published in 1753, 3 vols. 3vo, under the title of “TheTheological Works of Dr. John Potter, &c. containing his Sermons, Charges, Discourse of Church-government, and Divinity Lectures.” He had himself prepared these for the press; his divinity lectures form a continued treatise on the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures. Some letters of his, relative to St. Luke’s Gospel, &c. are printed in “Atterbury’s Correspondence.”

, an excellent landscape painter, was born at Enkhuysen, in 1625, and learned the principles of painting from his father, Peter Potter, who was but a moderate artist; yet, by the power of an enlarged genius and uncommon capacity, which he discovered even in his infancy, his improvement was so extraordinary, that he was considered as a prodigy, and appeared an expert master in his profession at the age of fifteen.

Paul’s subjects were landscapes, with different animals, but principally cows, oxen, sheep, and goats, which he painted in the highest perfection. His colouring is soft, agreeable, and transparent, and appears to be true nature; his touch is free, and exceedingly delicate, and his outline very correct. His skies, trees, and distances, shew a remarkable freedom of hand, and a masterly ease and negligence: but his animals are exquisitely finished, and touched with abundance of spirit. On these accounts he is esteemed one of the best painters of the Low Countries. His only amusement was walking into the fields; and even that amusement he so managed, as to make it conduce to the advancement of his knowledge in that art; for he always sketched every scene and object on the spot, and afterwards composed his subjects from his drawings; frequently he etched those sketches, and the prints are deservedly very estimable.

The paintings of Potter are exceedingly coveted, and bear a high price; because, beside their intrinsic merit, the artist having died young, in his twenty-ninth year, in 1654, and not painted a great number of pictures, they are now scarcely to be procured at any rate. One landscape, which originally he painted for the countess of Solms, was afterwards sold (as Houbraken affirms) to Jacob Van Hoeck, for 2000 florins. Lord Grosvenor has in his collection a small work of Potter’s, for which his lordship gave 900 guineas.

, an excellent classical scholar and translator, was born in 1721; but where, or of what family, we have not discovered. He was educated at Emmanuel college, Cambridge, and took his bachelor’s degree in 1741, but that of master not until 1788, according to the published list of Cambridge graduates, probably owing to his being then made a dignitary in Norwich cathedral. His first preferment was the vicarage of Seaming in Norfolk, in the gift of the Warner family; and, until he completed his translation of Sophocles, he held no higher preferment. In 1774, he published, in octavo, a volume of poems, some of which had appeared before separately: they consist of, “A Birth-day Thought;” “Cynthia;” “Verses to the same;” “Retirement, an epistle to Dr. Hurd” “A Fragment” “Verses to the painter of Mrs. Longe’s picture at Spixworth” “An Ode to Philoclea” “Verses to the same, exemplifying the absurdity of an affected alliteration in poetry” “Two Pieces in imitation of Spenser” “Holkham, inscribed to the earl of Leicester” “Kymber, to Sir A. Woodhouse” and a chorus from the “Hecuba” of Euripides, his intended translation of whose tragedies he announces in an advertisement. In most of these poems, particularly the “Holkham,” and “Kymber,” he shews himself a successful imitator of Pope. In the following year he published a very judicious tract, entitled “Observations on the Poor Laws, on the present state of the Poor, and on houses of Industry,” in which his principal object was, to recommend houses of industry, upon the plan of those already established in some parts of Norfolk and. Suffolk, particularly that at Bulcamp.

Although Mr. Potter had announced his “Euripides” as in a state of preparation for the press, he first published, in 1777, his translation of “Æschylus,” in a quarto volume, indisputably the best translation of any Greek poet that had appeared in the English language. In the same year appeared his “Notes on the Tragedies of Æschylus,” about eighty pages in quarto. These were dedicated to Mrs. Montague, at whose request they were written, and were printed and distributed at her expence gratis to the purchasers of the tragedies. A second edition appeared in 1779, in two volumes octavo, corrected in many places, and with the notes inserted in their respective places. In 1781, he published the first volume of his translation of “Euripides,” in quarto and, the following year, thesecond and, in 1788, that of “Sophocles,” in the same size. These last-mentioned versions are, on the whole, inferior to his first production, yet they are each of them excellent performances, and thought even superior to those of Mr. Wodhull and Dr. Franklin, Besides these very laborious works, Mr. Potter published, in 1783, in quarto, “An Enquiry into some passages of Dr. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets” in which we are sorry to observe a degree of petulance unworthy of liberal criticism and, in 1785, in quarto, “A Translation of the Oracle concerning Babylon, and the Song of Exultation, from Isaiah, chap, xiii. and xiv.” and “A Sermon on the Thanksgiving for the Peace, 1802.”

In 1788 he was promoted by the lord chancellor Thurlow to the dignity of a prebendary in the cathedral of Norwich. He had been a schoolfellow of lord Thurlow, and had constantly sent his publications to that nobleman, without ever soliciting a single favour from him. On receiving a copy of the “Sophocles,” however, his lordship wrote a short note to Mr. Potter, acknowledging the receipt of his books from time to time, and the pleasure they had afforded him, and requesting Mr. Potter’s acceptance of a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Norwich. In the following year, and during his residence at Norwich, the united vicarages of Lowestoft and Kessingland were presented to him, without solicitation from any quarter, by Dr. Bagot, then bishop of Norwich. His mind was sensibly impressed by such a disinterested and honourable mark of that prelate’s favour, which was the greater, as these united vicarages were the best subject of patronage that fell vacant during the seven years that Dr. Bagot held the see. Mr. Potter died suddenly, in the night-time, at Lowestoff, Aug. 9, 1804, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was a man of unassuming simple manners, and his life was exemplary. His translations are a sufficient proof of his intimate acquaintance with classical learning, and in this character he was highly respected by the literati of his time. It is said that he left a manuscript biography of the learned men of Norfolk, but into whose hands this has fallen, we have not heard.

, a French divine, successively priest of the oratory, doctor of the Sorbonne, and abbe* of Chambon, was born at Montpellier in 1666. He was some time at the head of an ecclesiastical seminary, under Colbert, bishop of Montpellier where he was of infinite service, not only by the excellence of his instructions, but the purity of his example. He was vicar of St. Roch at Paris, in 161)2, and had there the credit of contributing to the penitence of the celebrated La Fontaine, of which the English reader may see his own curious account in the “New Memoirs of Literature,” vol. X. His latter days were passed at Paris, in the religious house of St. Magloire, where he died in 1723, at the age of fiftyseven.“Father Pouget was the author of some works, of which the most remarkable is,” The Catechism of Montpellier/ 1 the best edition of which is that of Paris in 1702, in 4to. It is a kind of body of divinity, and has been considered by the clergy of his communion as the most precise, clear, and elegantly simple statement of the doctrines and practices of religion that has ever been produced. He was concerned in some other works, which were not entirely his own such as “The Breviary of Narbonne” " Martinay’s edition of St. Jerom Montfaucon’s Greek Analects and a book of instructions for the Knights of Malta.

, a celebrated anatomist and physician, was born at Mans, and after receiving some education under the fathers of oratory, went to Paris, where he applied himself, with great assiduity, to natural history and philosophy. In the study of the former he had been led to the examination and dissection of insects, which turned his mind to anatomy and surgery, as the means of support for which purpose he presented himself at the Hotel Dieu, and passed his examinations with great applause, which occasioned the more surprise, as he avowed that he had had no opportunity of obtaining practical information, and knew no more of surgery than to let blood. He subsequently received the degree of doctor in medicine at Rheims, in 1699, and was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences. He did not long survive to receive the rewards of his industry; for he died at Paris, in October 1708, in a state of considerable poverty, which he supported with cheerfulness. His success in anatomical investigation may be estimated from the transmission of his name, attached to an important ligament. The Memoirs of the Academy comprize many of his papers, besides a “Dissertation sur la Sangue,” published in the Journal des Savans viz. a “Me*moire sur les Insectes Hermaphrodites” “L'Histoire du Formica Leo” that of the “Forrnica Pulex” “Observations sur les Monies;” “Dissertation sur PApparition des Esprits,” on the occasion of the adventure of St. Maur, and some other papers. He is also considered as the editor of a “Chirurgie complette,” which is a compilation from many works upon that art.

, an eminent French professor of philosophy, was born at Poilly, a village in the diocese of Sens, in the year 1651, and studied at the university of Paris, where he distinguished himself by his talents and great diligence, and in 1673 he was admitted to the degree of M. A. In the year 1677 he was appointed professor of philosophy in his own college, whither his reputation soon attracted a multitude of students and at the opening of the “College des Quatre Nations,' 7 he was appointed to fill the philosophical chair in that seminary. Mr. Pourchot soon became dissatisfied with the Aristotelian philosophy, and embraced the principles of Des Cartes, applying mathematical principles and reasonings to the discovery of physical and moral truths. He now drew up a system of philosophy, which he published under the title of” Institutiones Philosophies,“which was very generally applauded, and met with an astonishing sale. His reputation as a philosopher, at this time, stood so high, that his lectures were always attended by a numerous concourse of students. His acquaintance was eagerly courted by the most celebrated literary characters of his time Racine, Despreaux, Mabillon, Dupin, Baillet, Montfaucon, and Santeul, were his intimate associates. He was honoured with the esteem of M. Bossuet and M. de Fenelon. The latter would have procured for him the appointment of tutor to the younger branches of the royal family, but he preferred to employ his talents in the service of the university; and was seven times chosen to fill the post of rector of that body, and was syndic for the long space of forty years. At a very advanced age he began to apply himself to the study of the Hebrew language, with a degree of ardour which soon enabled him to deliver a course of lectures upon it at the college of St. Barbe. In the midst of his numerous engagements, he found leisure to improve his” Philosophical Institutions,“of which he was preparing the fourth edition for the press, when he lost his eyesight. He died at Paris in 1734, in the 83d year of his age. Besides his” Institutions,“he was author of numerous” Discourses,“which were given to the public in the” Acts of the University,“and various” Memoirs.“He assisted the learned Masclef in greatly improving the second edition of his” Grammatica Hebraica," and he aided him in drawing up the Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan grammars, which are combined in that edition.

, an eminent French painter, was born at Andely, a little town in Normandy, in 1594. His family, however, were originally of Soissons in which city there were some of his relations officers in the Presidial court. John Poussin, his father, was of noble extraction, but born to a very small estate. His son, seeing the narrowness of his circumstances, determined to support himself as soon as possible, and chose painting for his profession, having naturally a strong inclination to that art. At eighteen, he went to Paris, to learn the rudiments of it. A Poictevin lord, who had taken a liking to him, placed him with Ferdinand, a portrait-painter, whom Poussin left in three months to place himself with Lalleraant, with whom he staid but a month he saw he should never learn any thing from such masters, and he resolved not to lose his time with them; believing he should profit more by studying the works of great masters, than by the discipline of ordinary painters. He worked a while in distemper, and performed it with extraordinary facility. The Italian poet Marino being at that time in Paris, and perceiving Poussin’s genius to be superior to the small performances on which he was employed, persuaded him to go with him into Italy Poussin had before made two vain attempts to undertake that journey, yet by some means or other was hindered from accepting this opportunity. He promised, however, to follow in a short time; which he did, though not till he had painted several other pictures in Paris, among which was the Death of the Virgin, for the church of Ndtre-Dame. Having finished his business, he set out for Rome in his thirtieth year.

He there met with his friend, the cavalier Marino, who rejoiced to see him and that he might be as serviceable as he could, recommended him to cardinal Barberini, who desired to be acquainted with him. Yet by some means or other, he did not emerge, and could scarcely maintain, himself. He was forced to give away his works for sums that would hardly pay for his colours. His courage, however, did not fail he prosecuted his studies assiduously, resolving, at all events, to make himself master of his profession. He had little money to spend, and therefore the more leisure to retire by himself, and design the beautiful objects in Rome, as well antiquities as the works of the famous Roman painters. It is said, that he at first copied some of Titian’s pieces, with whose colouring, and the touches of whose landscapes, he was infinitely pleased. It is observable, indeed, that his first pieces are painted in a better style of colouring than his last. But he soon shewed, by his performances, that, generally speaking, he did not much value the part of colouring; or thought he knew enough of it, to make his pictures as perfect as he intended. He had studied the beauties of the antique, the elegance, the grand gusto, the correctness, the variety of proportions, the adjustments, the order of the draperies, the nobleness, the fine air and boldness of the heads the manners, customs of times and places, and every thing that is beautiful in the remains of ancient sculpture, to such a degree, that one can never enough admire the exactness with which he has enriched his painting in all those particulars.

He used frequently to examine the ancient sculptures in the vineyards about Rome, and this confirmed him more and more in the love of. those antiquities. He would spend several days together in making reflections upon them by himself. It was in these retirements that he considered the extraordinary effects of nature with respect to landscapes, that he designed his animals, his distances, his trees, and every thing excellent that was agreeable to his taste. He also made curious observations on the works of Raphael and Domenichino; who of all painters, in his opinion, invented best, designed most correctly, and expressed the passions most, vigorously three things, which Poussin esteemed the most essential parts of painting. He neglected nothing that could render his knowledge in these three parts perfect he was altogether as curious about the general expression of his subjects, which he has adorned with every thing that he thought would excite the attention of the learned. He left no very large compositions behind him; and all the reason we can give for it is, that he had no opportunity to paint them; for we cannot imagine that it was any thing more than chance, that made him apply himself wholly to easel pieces, of a size proper for a cabinet, such as the curious required of him.

Louis XIII. and de Noyers, minister of state and superintendant of the buildings, wrote to him at Rome to oblige him to return to France to which he consented with great reluctance. He had a pension assigned him, and a lodging ready furnished at the Thuilleries. He drew the picture o “The Lord’s Supper,” for the chapel of the castle of St. Germain, and that which is in the Jesuit’s noviciate at Paris. He began “The Labours of Hercules,” in the gallery of the Louvre; but Vouet’s school railing at him and his works, put him out of humour with his own country. He was also weary of the tumultuous way of living at Paris, which never agreed with him. For these reasons he secretly resolved to return to Rome, pretending he went to settle his domestic affairs and fetch his wife; but when he was there, whether he found himself in his proper situation, or was quite put off from any thought of returning to by tae deaths of Richelieu and the king, which happened about that time, he never afterwards left Italy. He continued working on his easel-pieces, and sent them from Rome to Paris the French buying them very eagerly, whenever they could be obtained, and valuing his productions as much as Raphael’s.

Poussin, having lived happily to his seventy-first year, died paralytic in 1665. He married the sister of Caspar Dughet, by whom he had no children. His estate amounted to no more than sixty thousand livres; but he valued his ease above riches, and preferred his abode at Rome, where he lived without ambition, to fortune elsewhere. He never made words about the price of his pictures; but put it down at the back of the canvas, and it was always given him. He had no disciple. The following anecdote much illustrates his character. Bishop Mancini, who was afterwards a cardinal, staying once on a visit to him till it was dark, Poussin took the candle in his hand, lighted him down stairs, and waited upon him to his coach. The prelate was sorry to see him do it himself, and could not help saying, “1 very much pity you, Monsieur Poussin, that you have not one servant.” “And I pity you more, my lord,” replied Poussin, “that you have so many.”

, whose proper name was Dughet, was born, according to some authors, in France, in 1600; according to others, at Rome, in 1613; nearly the same difference has been found in the dates of his death, which some place in 1663, and others in 1675. Which may be right, it is not easy to ascertain but the two latter dates are adopted by the authors of the Dictionnaire Historique. His sister being married to Nicholas Poussin, and settled at Rome, he travelled to that place, partly to visit her, and partly from a strong love of painting. Sandrart says, that Caspar was employed at first only to prepare the palette, pencils, and colours, for Nicholas; but, by the instructions and example of that great master, was so led on, that he also obtained a high reputation. While he remained at Home, he dropped his own name of Dughet, and assumed that of Poussin, from his brother-in-law, and benefactor. He is acknowledged to have been one of the best painters of landscapes that the world has seen. No painter ever studied nature to better effect, particularly in expressing the effects of land-storms. His scenes are always beautifully chosen, and his buildings simple and elegant. He was not equally skilled in painting figures, and frequently prevailed on Nicholas to draw them for him. The connoisseurs distinguish three different manners in his paintings the first is dry the second is more simple, yet delightful, and natural, approaching more than any other, to the style of Claude. His third manner is more vague and undefined than these, but pleasing; though less so by far than the second. His style is considered on the whole by Mr. Mason, in his table subjoined to Du Fresnoy, as a mixture between those of Nicolo and Claude Lorraine. Mr. Mason adopts the date of 1675 for his death.

, in Latin Possinus, a learned Jesuit, of Narbonne, in the 17th century, resided a considerable time at Rome, where he was much esteemed by Christina, queen of Sweden, cardinal Barberini, and several other illustrious persons. He understood Greek well, had very carefully studied the fathers, and has left translations of a great number of Greek authors, with notes a “Catena of the Greek Fathers on St. Mark,” Rome, 1673, fol. and other works. He died 1686, aged 77.

, a learned Welsh divine, was born in Denbighshire, about 1552. In 1568, he was sent to Oxford, but to what college is uncertain. When Jesus-college was founded, in 1571, he removed thither; and took his degrees in arts the year following. In 1576, he took orders, and became vicar of Ruabon, or Rhiw-Abon, in Denbighshire, and rector of Llanfyllin, which last he resigned in 1579. About the end of the same year he was instituted to the vicarage of Mivod in Montgomeryshire, and in 1588 he had the sinecure rectory of Llansanfraid, in Mechain. He held also some dignity in the church of St. Asaph. He proceeded to his degrees in divinity in 1582, and the subsequent year, and was afterwards chaplain to sir Henry Sidney, then president of Wales. He died in 1598, and tvas buried in his own church of Ruabon. The works published by him were, 1. “Caradoc’s History of Cambria, with annotations,” 1584, 4to. This history had been translated from the Latin, by Humphrey Lloyd, but was left by him unfinished at his death. Powel corrected and augmented the manuscript, and published it with notes. 2. “Annotationes in itinerarium Cambrirc, scriptum per Silvium Geraldum Cambrensem,” London, 1585. 3. “Annotationes in Cambriae descriptionem, per Ger. Cambr.” 4. “De Britannica historia recte intelligenda, epistola ad Gul. Fleetwoodum civ. Lond. recordatorem.” This and the former are printed with the annotations on the itinerary. 5. “Pontici Virunnii Historia Britannica,” London, 1585, 8vo. Wood says, that he took great pains in compiling a Welsh Dictionary, but died before it was completed.

He left a very learned son, Gabriel Powell, who was born at Ruabon, in 1575, and educated at Jesus college, Oxford, after which he became master of the free-school at Ruthen, in his native county. Not however finding his situation here convenient for the studies to which he was addicted, ecclesiastical history, and the writings of the fathers, he returned to Oxford, and took up his abode in St. Mary Hall. Here principally he wrote those works which procured him great reputation, especially among the puritans. Dr. Vaughan, bishop of London, invited him to the metropolis, and made him his domestic chaplain, and would have given him higher preferment had he lived. It was probably Vaughan’s successor who gave him the prebend of Portpoole, in 1609, and the vicarage of Northall, in Middlesex, in 1610. He died in 1611. His works enumerated by Wood are chiefly controversial, against the papists, except one or two in defence of the silenced puritans. Several of them, being adapted to the circumstances of the times, went through numerous editions, but are now little known. Wood says he was esteemed a prodigy of learning, though he died when a little more than thirty years old (thirty-six), and had he lived to a greater maturity of years, it is “thought he would have exceeded the famous Dr. John Rainolds, or any of the learned heroes of the age.” Wood adds that he “was a zealot, and a stiff puritan.” By one of his works, entitled “The unlawfulness and danger of Toleration of divers religions, and connivance to contrary worship in one monarchy or kingdom,” it would appear that he wrote against toleration while he was claiming it for himself and his puritan brethren.

, a learned popish divine, was bora about the latter part of the sixteenth century, and was educated at Oxford. He appears to have been fellow of Oriel college in 1495, and afterwards became D. D. and was accounted one of the ornaments of the university. In November 1501, he was made rector of Bledon, in the diocese of Wells, and in July 1503 was collated to the prebend Centum solidorum, in the church of Lincoln, as well as to the prebend of Carleton. In 1508, by the interest of Edmund Audley, bishop of Salisbury, he was made prebendary of that church, and in 1525 became prebendary of Sutton in Marisco, in the church of Lincoln. In November 1514, Pope Leo gave him a licence to hold three benefices, otherwise incompatible. His reputation for learning induced Henry VIII. to employ him to write against Luther, which he did in a work entitled “Propugnaculum summi sacerdotii evangelici, ac septenarii sacramentorum numeri adversus M. Lutherum, fratrem famosum, et Wickliffistam insignem,” Lond. 1523, 4to. This performance, says Dodd, was commonly allowed to be the best that had hitherto been published. There are two public letters from the university of Oxford, one to the king, the other to bishop Audley, applauding the choice of a person so well qualified to maintain the cause of the church and in these letters, they style him the glory of their university, and recommend him as a person worthy of the highest preferment. But all this could not protect him from the vengeance of Henry VIII. when he came to employ his learning and zeal in defence of queen Catherine, and the supremacy of the see of Rome, on both which articles he was prosecuted, hanged, drawn, and quartered in Smithfield, July 30, 1540, along with Dr. Thomas Abel, and Dr. Richard Fetherstone, who suffered on the same account. He wrote in defence of queen Catherine, “Tractatus de uon dissolvendo Henrici regis cum Catherina matrimonio” but it is doubtful if this was printed. Stow, indeed, says it was printed in 4to, and that he had seen it, but no copy is now known. Mr. Churton, in his “Lives of the Founders of Brazenose college,” mentions Dr. Powell’s preaching a Latin sermon, in a very elegant style, at the visitation of bishop Smyth at Lincoln.

, principal of Jesus college, Oxford, was born at Lansawell in Carmarthenshire, in 1561, and entered a commoner of Jesus college in 1581, and after taking his degrees, and obtaining a fellowship, was chosen principal in 1613 being then, says Wood, “accounted by all a most noted philosopher, or subtle disputant, and one that acted and drudged much as a tutor, moderator and adviser in studies among the juniors.” He died June 28, 1620, and was buried in St. Michael’s church. By will he left all his estate, amounting to between six and seven hundred pounds, to the college, with which a fellowship was founded. He wrote “Analysis Analyticorum posteriorum, seu librorum Aristotelis de Demonstratione, cum scholiis,” Oxon. 1594, 8vo,and “Analysis libri Aristotelis deSophisticis Elenchis,” ibid. 1594, reprinted 1598 and 1664. Concerning these two works, a wit of the day made the following lines:

And having little else to do,

, an eminent lawyer, and an upright judge, was a native of Gloucester, which city he represented in parliament in 1685. He was called to the coif April 24, 1686, appointed a justice of the common pleas April 21, 1687, at which time he received the honour of knighthood, and was removed to the court of king’s bench April 26 in the following year. He sat hi that court at the memorable trial of the seven bishops, and having declared against the king’s dispensing power, James II. deprived him of his office in July 1688; but William III. placed him again in the common pleas, Oct. 28, 1695, and queen Anne advanced him to the queen’s bench June 18, 1702, where he sat until his death, at Gloucester, on his return from Bath, June 14, 1713, far advanced in life. He was reckoned a sound lawyer, and in private was to the last a man of a cheerful, facetious disposition. Swift, in one of his letters, mentions his meeting with him at Lord Oxford’s, and calls him “an old fellow with grey hairs, who was the merriest old gentleman I ever saw, spoke pleasing things, and chuckled till he cried again.” In his time the laws against witchcraft being unrepealed, one Jane Wenman was tried before him, and her adversaries swore that she could fly “Prisoner,” said our judge, “can you fly?” “Yes, my lord.” “Well then you may; there is no law against flying.”

, an English divine of good abilities, was born at Colchester, Sept. 27, 1717 admitted of St. John’s college, Cambridge, in 1734 and, having taken the degree of bachelor of arts in 1739, elected fellow of it in March 1740. In 1741, he was taken into the family of lord Townshend, as private tutor to his second son Charles Townshend, afterwards chancellor of the exchequer; and was ordained deacon and priest at the end of the year, when he was instituted to the rectory of Colkirk in Norfolk, on lord Townshend’s presentation. He returned to college the year after, and began to read lectures as an assistant to the tutors, Mr. Wrigley and Mr. Tunstali but became himself principal tutor in 1744. He took the degree of bachelor of divinity in 1749, and in 1753 was instituted to the rectory of Stibbard, in the gift of lord Townshend. In 1757 he was created D. D. In 1761 he left college, and took a house in London but did not resign his fellowship till 1763. In Jan. 1765,' he was elected master of his college, and was chosen vice-chancellor of the university in November following. The year after, he obtained the archdeaconry of Colchester; and, in 1768, was instituted to the rectory of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. He died, Jan. 19, 1775, and was interred in the chapel of St. John’s college.

The preceding sketch is taken from an advertisement prefixed to a volume of his “Discourses on various subjects,” published by his friend Dr. Thomas Balguy “which Discourses,” says the editor, “are not published for the credit of the writer, but for the benefit of his readers; especially that class of readers, for whom they were chiefly intended, the younger students in divinity. The author’s reputation,” he adds, “stands on a much wider bottom: a whole life uniformly devoted to the interests of sound philosophy and true religion.”

The office of master of the college, says Mr. Cole, he maintained with the greatest reputation and honour to himself, and credit and advantage to the society. Some years before he attained this office, a relation with whom he had very little acquaintance, and less expectation from, Charles Reynolds, of Peldon Hall, esq. left him the estate and manor of Peldon Hall in Essex, together with other estates at Little Bentley in the same county and, adds Mr. Cole, to do him justice he well deserved it, for he was both hospitable and generous, and being a single man had ample means to exercise his generosity. In Feb. 1773, when St. John’s college had agreed to undertake two very expensive works, the new casing the first court with stone, and laying out their gardens under the direction of the celebrated Mr. Brown, who told them that his plan would cost them at least 800l. the master recommended an application to those opulent persons who had formerly been members of the college, and told the fellows that if they thought proper to make such application, and open a subscription, he would begin it with a donation of 500l. which he immediately subscribed. On all such occasions, where the honour and reputation of his college, or the university, was concerned, no one displayed his liberality more in the sumptuousness and elegance of his entertainments, but in other cases he was frugal and ceconomical.

The late celebrated poet, Mr. Mason, in his life of Whitehead, takes occasion to pay a high compliment to Dr. Powell on that part of his literary character concerning which he may be thought the least liable to be mistaken, and pronounces Dr. Powell’s taste in works of imagination to have been as correct as his judgment was in matters of more abstruse speculation. “Yet this taste,” adds Mr. Mason, “always appeared to be native and his own he did not seem to have brought it with him from a great school, nor to have been taught it by a celebrated master. He never dealt in the indiscriminate exclamations of excellent and sublime: but if he felt a beauty in an author, was ready with a reason why he felt it to be such a circumstance which those persons, who, with myself, attended his lectures on the Poetics of Aristotle, will both acknowledge and reflect upon with pleasure.”

His published works consist of the volume above mentioned, edited by Dr. Balguy, which contains three discourses preached before the university; thirteen preached in the college chapel one on public virtue three charges to the clergy of the archdeaconry of Colchester and his “Disputatio” on taking his doctor’s degree. One of his discourses, relative to subscription, was first preached on commencement Sunday in 1757; and being reprinted in 1772, when an application to parliament on the matter of subscription was in agitation, was attempted to be answered, probably by the author of the “Confessional,” in a pamphlet entitled “Remarks on the Rev. Dr. Powell’s Sermon, &c.” but of this we do not know that he took any notice, Contenting himself with this reprint of his sermon, which was the fourth edition. He had spoken his sentiments, and had no turn for controversy. He acted the same part in his college; during the controversy in 1772 he called all his scholars before him, and submitted to them the real state of the case relating to their subscription, and left it with them. In 1760, Dr. Powell published Observations on “Miscellanea Analytica,” which was the beginning of a controversy that produced many pamphlets relative to the Lucasian professorship of mathematics at Cambridge, when Mr. Waring was elected.

A letter of Mr. Markland’s having been published in the “Anecdotes of Bowyer,” reflecting on Dr. Powell as if he had died rich in consequence of accumulation, and had been saving of his money to the last, produced a satisfactory defence of him from a member of St. John’s college, part of which it is but justice to Dr. Powell’s memory to copy. “It is true,” says this writer, “that Dr. Powell died in very affluent circumstances but the greatest part of his fortune was left to him in 1759 by Mr. Reynolds, a relation of his mother, and the remainder was the wellearned fruits of his labours in educating his pupils while tutor. During the ten years he was master, he lived in great splendour and magnificence, and had considerably diminished his private fortune before his death. When it was determined to rebuild the first court, he generously made a present of 500l. to the society to several undergraduates he occasionally gave sums of money, and to others he allowed annual stipends to enable them to complete their studies: at his own expence he bestowed prizes upon those who distinguished themselves at the public examinations. By his will, which had been made a considerable time before his death, he bequeathed 1000l. to his friend Dr, Balguy to six 'actual fellows, to ten who had been fellows, and to four who had only been of the college, 100l. each; and to four fellows his books.”

, a gentleman of considerable learning and political knowledge, was born in 1722, and educated at Lincoln. His first appearance in public life was when appointed secretary to the commissioners for trade and plantations in 1745, subjects with which he must have made himself early acquainted, as he had not yet reached his twenty-fourth year. In 1753 he went to America, and in the following year was concerned in a matter which eventually proved of great importance. At the beginning of what has been called the seven years’ war with France, which commenced in America in 1754, two years before it broke out in Europe, a number of persons, styled commissioners, being deputed from each colony, assembled at Albany, to consider of defending themselves against the French, who were making alarming encroachments on their back settlements. This assembly was called the Albany Congress, and became the precedent for that other more remarkable congress established at the revolution in 1773. As soon as the intention of the colonies to hold a congress at Albany was known in England, Mr. Pownall immediately foresaw the danger to the mother country, if such a general union should be permitted, and presented a strong memorial to lord Halifax, the secretary of state, on the subject, in 1754. The plan which the congress had in view was, to form agreat council of deputies from all the colonies, with a governor-general to be appointed by the crown, and empowered to take measures for the common safety, and to raise money for the execution of their designs. The ministers at home did not approve of this plan; but, seeing that they could not prevent the commissioners meeting, they resolved to take advantage of this distress of the colonies, and turn the subject of deliberation to their own account. For this purpose they sent over a proposal, that the congress should be assisted in their considerations by two of the king’s council from each colony, be empowered to erect forts, to levy troops, and to draw on the treasury in London for the money wanted and the treasury to be reimbursed by a tax on the colonies, to be laid by the British parliament; but this proposal was peremptorily rejected, because it gave the British parliament a power to tax the colonies. Although Mr. Pownall did not agtee with the ministry in the whole extent of their proposal, yet they thought him so well acquainted with the affairs of the colonies, that in 1757 they appointed him governor of Massachusetts bay.

After two years’ residence, some political differences with some of the leading men of the province, induced him to solicit to be recalled; and in 1751) he succeeded Mr. Bernard as governor of New Jersey but he retained his post a very short time, being almost immediately appointed governor, captain -general, and vice-admiral, of South Carolina. Here he continued until 1761, when he was recalled, at his own desire and on his arrival in London, he was appointed director-general of the office of controul, with the rank of colonel in the army, under the command of prince Ferdinand, in Germany. At the end of the war he returned to England, where his accounts were examined, and passed with honour.

At the general election, 1768, he was chosen representative in parliament for Tregony in Cornwall, and in 1775 for Minehead in Somersetshire, and on all cccasions vigorously opposed the measures which led to the war with America; and, from the knowledge which he was supposed to have acquired in that country, was listened to with attention. Of the importance of his speeches he had himself a considerable opinion, by his sending them in manuscript, to be printed in Almon’s Parliamentary Register. He is also said to have assisted that bookseller in his “American Remembrancer,” a periodical paper which contained all the calumny, as well as all the arguments, which the opponents of the measures of administration could bring together. At the general election in 1780 he retired from parliament, and resided, in his latter years, at Bath, where ie died Feb. 25, 1805, in the 83d year of his age, if our date of his birth be correct.

Governor Pownall was twice married first, in 1765, to lady Fawkener, relict of Sir Everard Fawkener, and daughter of lieutenant-general Churchill, who died in 1777 and secondly, in 1784, to Mrs. Astell, of Everton-house, in Bedfordshire; but had no issue by either.

He had a vigorous and comprehensive mind which by a liberal education, and constant cultivation during along series of years, was furnished with an uncommon fund of various knowledge, both as a politician and antiquary but not, in both characters, without some singular opinions. His works were very numerous. The first, and most popular, which went through several editions, was his “Ad ministration of the Colonies.” 2. Observations on a Bread Bill, which he introduced in parliament and, 3< “Of the Laws and Commissions of Sewers” both printed, but not published. 4. An ironical pamphlet, entitled “Considerations on the indignity suffered by the Crown, and dishonour brought upon the Nation, by the Marriage of his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland with an English subject,” 1772, 4to. 5. A pamphlet on “The high price of Bread,” &c. 1774, 8vo. 6. “A Topographical Description of such parts of North America as are contained in the annexed map of the middle British Colonies, &c. in North America,” 1776, folio. 7. “A Letter to Adam Smith, LL.D. F. R. S.” respecting his “Wealth of Nations,” 1776, 4to. 8. “Drainage and Navigation, but one united work,” 1776, 8vo. 9. “A Treatise on the study of Antiquities,” 1782, 8vo. 10. “A Memorial addressed to the Sovereigns of America,” 1782 *. 11. “Two Memorials, with an explanatory Preface.” 12. “Memorial addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe and the Atlantic,” 1783. 13. “Proposal for founding University Professorships for Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture,” 1786. 14. “Answer to a Letter on the Jutae or Viti.” 15. “Notices and Descriptions of Antiquities of the Provincia Romana of Gaul, now Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphiny: with Dissertations on the subjects of which those are exemplars and an Appendix, describing the Roman Baths and Thermae, discovered in 1784, at Badenweiler,” 1787, 4to. 16. “An Antiquarian Romance, endeavouring to mark a line by which the most ancient people, and the processions of the earliest inhabitancy of Europe, may be investigated, 11 1795, 8vo. 17.” Descriptions and Explanations of the Remains of some Roman Antiquities dug up in the city of Bath in 1790, with an Engraving from Drawings made on the spot,“1795, 4to. 18.” Considerations on the Scarcity and high Prices of Bread Corn,“&c, 1796. He contributed also many papers to the Archaeologia of the Society of Antiquaries, of which he was chosen a fellow in 1772, He was elected F. R.S. in 1765. He is also said to have been the author of” The Right, Interest, and Duty, of Governments, as concerned in the affair of the East Indies,“1781, 8vo.” Intellectual Physics, an Essay concerning the nature of Being,“4to, 1803 and a” Treatise on Old Age."

His brother, John Pownall, was also an antiquary, and contributed a few articles to the Archaeologia. He died July 17, 1795.

, successively bishop of Rochester and Winchester, in the reign of Edward VI. was born in the county of Kent, about the year 1516, and was educated in King’s college, Cambridge, where his adversaries allow he was distinguished for his learning;. He was not only skilled in Greek and Latin, but in some of the modern languages, particularly Italian and Dutch. In early life he proved himself an able mathematician and mechanist. He constructed a clock, which pointed both to the hours of the day, the day of the month, the sign of the Zodiack, the lunar variations, and the tides, which was presented to Henry VIII. and considered by him and others as a very extraordinary performance. Heylin, who is seldom partial to the early English reformers, tells us, that he was “well-studied with the ancient fathers.”

At what time he imbibed the principles of the Reformation is uncertain; but it appears that he was accounted a champion for that great change in the beginning of the reign of Edward VI. when he was made bishop of Rochester, although only in his 33d year. He was then D.D. and chaplain to archbishop Cranmer. When Gardiner was deprived, he was the following year, 1551, translated to Winchester, and was one of the bishops appointed to make a new code of ecclesiastical laws. He had frequently preached be fore king Edward who, on account of his zealous efforts for the reformation, desired that he might have the above dignities. He had before this, however, some lesser preferment. By Newcourt we find, that Cranmer gave him the rectory of St. Michael Queenhithe, London, Nov. 15, 1543, which he held, in commendam, until May 15, 1551, when he was translated to Winchester. He was a frequent preacher, and wrote several treatises in defence of the Reformation but his most remarkable performance was what is commonly called “King Edward’s Catechism,” which appeared in 1553, in two editions, the one Latin, the other English, with the royal privilege. That it was not hastily adopted, however, appears by king Edward’s letter prefixed to it, in which he says “When there was presented unto us, to be perused, a short and playne order of Catechisme, written by a certayne godlye and learned man: we committed the debatinge and diligent examination thereof to certain byshoppes and other learned men, whose judgment we have in greate estimation.” This catechism has been attributed to Nowell; but the late excellent biographer of that eminent divine considers it as unquestionably Poynet’s, although Nowell took much from it into his own catechism.

When queen Mary came to the crown, Povnet, with many others, retired to Strasburgh, where he died April 11, 1556, not quite forty years of age. Dodd says he was obliged to leave England for treasonable practices; as he had not only encouraged Wyat’s rebellion, but personally appeared in the field against the queen and government. This may be true; but no treason was necessary to render England an unsafe place for a man so zealous for the reformation, a professed opponent of Gardiner, and who succeeded that tyrannical prelate in the see of Winchester. Strype informs us, that immediately on the accession of Mary, bishop Poynet was ejected and imprisoned, and deprived of episcopacy, for being married. He doubts whether he ever was concerned with Wyat, but says he was a great friend to the learned Ascham. Milner accuses him of signing away a great number of the most valuable possessions of the see of Winchester. He accuses him also of being of an intolerant spirit, and that he persecuted the learned physician, Andrew Borde. Borde, however, was guilty of irregularities, which it was not unbecoming in his diocesan to punish. If Poynet was intolerant, what shall we say of the favourites of the popish historians?

Besides the “Catechism” already mentioned, bishop Poynet was the author of: 1. “A Tragedie or Dialoge of the unjust usurped primacie of the bishop of Rome,” translated from Bernard Ochinus,“1549, 8vo. 2.” A notable Sermon concerning the ryght use of the Lordes Supper,“&c. preached before the king at Westminster,” 1550, 8vo. When abroad, he wrote, which was published the year after his death, a treatise on the same subject, entitled :t Dialecticon viri boni et literati de veritate, natura, atque substautia corporis et sanguinis Christi in Eucharistia“in which, Bayle says, he endeavoured to reconcile the therans and Zuinglians. 3.” A short Treatise of Politique Power, and of the true obedience which subjectes owe to kynges and other civile governours, with an exhortacion to all true naturall Englishe men, compyled by D. I. P. B. R. V.V. i.e. Dr. John Poynet, bishop of Rochester and Winchester,“1556, 8vo. The contents of this may be seen in Oldys’s Catalogue of Pamphlets in the Harleian Library, No. 409. It was reprinted in 1639 and 1642 which gave a suspicion that it contained sentiments respecting queen Mary, which at this time were thought applicable to a far milder sovereign. Dr. Poynet wrote” A Defence for Marriage of Priests,“1549, 8vo; and has been thought the author of an answer to the popish Dr. Martin on the same subject, entitled” An Apologie, fully aunswering, by Scriptures and anceant doctors, a blasphemose book, gathered by D. Stephen Gardiner," &c. &c. But Wharton, in his observations on Strype’s Memorials of Cranmer, assigns very sufficient reasons why it could not be Poynet’s.

, an eminent English lawyer, was the son of sir John Pratt. This sir John Pratt was a student at Oxford, and fellow of Wadham college, in the hall of which is his portrait, among other distinguished members and benefactors of the society. Applying himself to the study of the law, he was called to the bar about the end of king Charles II.‘s reign and. after various gradations in the dignities of his profession, was in 1718 constituted lord chief justice of the court of King’s Bench. He died in 1724, when the subject of the present article was ’a child, one of the sons of his second wife, Elizabeth Wilson. He was born in 1713 and, after being educated in school-learning at Eton, entered of King’s college, Cambridge, on the election in 1731, and became a fellow of that society. In 1735 he took the degree of B. A. and in 1739 that of M. A. after which he became a member of Lincoln’s Inn; and having regularly gone through his law studies, was called to the bar. For many years, however, he had so little practice, that at one time he had resolved to relinquish his attendance at Westminster Hall; but, by degrees he became noticed; and, in 1752, we find him supporting the rights of juries, in opposition to Mr. Murray, afterwards lord Mansfield, in a case of libel, the King y. Owen, when his client was acquitted.

In 1754 he was chosen representative for the borough of Downton, in Wiltshire and in 1759, recorder of Bath; and the same year was made his majesty’s attorney general. In Dec. 1761, he was constituted chief justice of the court of Common Pleas, and received the honour of knighthood; and in 1762, was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law.

His lordship had the reputation of having presided in that court with a dignity, weight, and impartiality, never exceeded by any of his predecessors and when the celebrated John Wilkes was seized and committed to the Tower, upon a general warrant, his lordship granted him an Habeas Corpus; and when Wilkes was brought before the court of Common Pleas, discharged him from his confinement in the Tower, on May 6, 1763, after stating the case, in a speech which did him great honour. His wise and spirited behaviour upon this occasion, and in the consequent judicial proceedings, between the printers of the “North Briton” and others concerned in that publication, or in apprehending the authors, was so acceptable to the nation, that the lord mayor, aldermen, and common-council of the city of London, presented him with the freedom of their corporation in a gold box, an,d desired him to sit for his picture, which was put up in the Guildhall in 1764, with a suitable inscription at the bottom of the frame. The guild of merchants of the city of Dublin, also voted him the freedom of their guild, in a gold box the corporation of barber- surgeons of that city voted him his freedom thereof; and the sheriffs and commons of Dublin presented him their thanks “for the distinguished zeal and loyalty which he has shewn in asserting and maintaining the rights and liberties of the subject, in the high station whichhe now fills, with remarkable dignity and for his particular services to this kingdom, in the office of attorney-general.” Other towns sent him testimonies of their regard, and his popularity was now at its height. In 1765 he was created a peer of Great Britain by the title of lord Camclen, baron Camden in the county of Kent and on July 30, 1766, his majesty, upon the resignation of lord Northington, delivered the great seal to his lordship, as lord high chancellor of Great Britain. It was the Rockingham administration who promoted his lordship’s advancement to the peerage; but they did not thereby obtain his entire support in parliament for when the declaratory bill, asserting the right of parliament to make laws, binding the colonies in all cases whatever, was brought into the House of Lords, he opposed it with the greatest vigour. Lord Camden, whatever might be thought of his opinions, was uniformly independent, and incurred a portion of popular odium for supporting the suspension of the law, in order to prevent the exportation of corn at a time when scarcity was impending. On this occasion he happened to make a sarcastic reply to lord Temple, which drew upon him the wrath of Junius; but for this he had as little regard as for the more sober invectives of party. As a lord chancellor, he appears to have conciliated the good opinion of all parties. His acuteness and judgment, and the perspicuity with w'hich he delivered his opinions, and his general politeness, mixed with a becoming regard to the dignity of his office, all produced the highest respect and confidence in his decisions. But as he still adhered to his opinion against the taxation of the Americans, which he strongly and publicly opposed on every occasion, he was removed from his high office in 1770.

In March 1782, on an entire change of men and measures, in consequence of the failure of the American war, he was appointed president of the council, which, with the exception of a short secession during the coalition-administration, he held through life, and gave his support to the measures by which Mr. Pitt provided for the safety of the country, when the French revolution had let loose the disorganizing principles of bad men of all nations. In May 1786, lord Camden was advanced to the farther dignities of viscount Bayham and earl Camden, and lived to enjoy his well-earned honours to his death, April 18, 1794. High as his lordship’s character stood with the public, it was not superior to the esteem which his private virtues universally procured. In his relative duties he was affectionate, benevolent, and cheerful. His mind and manners threw an amiable colouring over every action. A pamphlet has been attributed to him, entitled “An Inquiry into the nature and etfect of the writ of Habeas Corpus, the great bulwark of English liberty, both at common law, and under the act of parliament and also into the propriety of explaining and extending that act,” Lond. 1753, 8vo. Another is mentioned by Mr. Park, which can scarcely be called his, although relating to him “Lord Camden’s argument in Doe, on the demise of Hindson, &c. versus Kersey; wherein Lord Mansfield’s argument in Wyndham versus Chetwynd, is considered and answered.” This is said to have been first printed in 4to, at London, and suppressed by an order of the court of Common Pleas, over which lord Camden at that time presided. It was, however, published at Dublin in 1766, 8vo.

His lordship married Elizabeth, daughter, and at length sole heiress, of Nicholas Jeffreys, esq. of the Priory in Breconshire, by whom he had a numerous issue. He was succeeded in titles and estate by his son John Jeffreys, the present earl Camden.

, a poet and miscellaneous writer, is said to have been born of a good family, at St. Ives, in Huntingdonshire, Dec. 25, 1749. He was ed located at Felstead, in Essex, and was originally brought up to the church. This, however, he appears to have quitted for the stage, which he attempted in London, in 1774, with very little success. After his failure in this attempt, he subsisted chiefly by writing. He also was for some time a bookseller at Bath, where, and at other places, he occasionally delivered lectures on the English language. For many years after his appearance on the stage, he assumed the name of Courtney Melmoth, which likewise is prefixed to most of his publications. As. an author, he was very prolific. The first of his productions which attracted the notice of the public, was “The Tears of Genius, occasioned by the Death of Dr. Goldsmith, 1774,” whose poetical works he endeavoured, and not always unsuccessfully, to make the model of his own. His poem of “Sympathy” was perhaps his best, and has passed through many editions, and is characterized by feeling, energy, and beauty. His first novel, entitled “Liberal Opinions upon Animals, Man, and Providence,” 1775, &c was published in detached volumes, which were eagerly perused as they successively appeared. His “Shenstone Green,” “Emma Corbett,” “The Pupil of Pleasure, or the New System (Lord Chesterfield’s) illustrated,” had likewise a temporary popularity. His other novel of any note was entitled “Family Secrets,” 1797, 5 vols. 12mo, but had not the success of the former. His dramatic productions were, a tragedy, “The Fair Circassian,” taken from Hawkesworth’s “Almoran and Harriet,” which required all the support of himself and friends, in the newspapers, to render it palatable for a few nights. His other dramatic pieces, enumerated in the Biog. Dram, were so little successful as to be soon forgot.

Other works by Mr. Pratt, not noticed in the above account, are “The Sublime and Beautiful of Scripture. Being Essays on select Passages of Sacred Compositions,” 1777. “An Apology for the Life and Writings of David Hume,” 1777. “Travels of the Heart, written in France,” 17 78,. 2 vols. “Observations on Young’s Night Thoughts,” 8vo. “Landscapes in Verse, taken in Spring,” 1785. “Miscellanies,” 1786, 4 vols. which included the most popular of the preceding pieces. “Triumph of Benevolence,” a poem, occasioned by the design of erecting a Monument to Mr. Howard. “Humanity, or the Rights of Nature,” a poem, 1788. “An Ode on his Majesty’s Recovery.” “A Letter to the Tars of Old England,” and “A Letter to the British Soldiers,” 1797. “John and Dame or, The Loyal Cottagers,” a poem, 1803. “Harvest Home, consisting of Supplementary Gleanings, Original Dramas and Poems, Contributions of Literary Friends, and Select Republications, including Sympathy, a poem, revised, corrected, and enlarged, from the eighth edition,” 1805, 3 vols. 8vo. “The Cabinet of Poetry, containing the best entire pieces which are to be found in the Works of the British Poets, from Milton to Beattie. The Works of each Poet prefaced by an Account of his Life and Character, by Mr. Pratt;” 6 vols. 1808. “The Contrast, a Poem, including Comparative Views of Britain, Spain, and France,” 1808. “The Lower World, a poem, in four books, with notes,” 1810. “A Description of Leamington Spa,” a retreat of Mr. Pratt’s, &c. To these we may add his “Gleanings,” or Travels Abroad and in England, in which there is some amusement, but so much mixture of fiction, that very little reliance can be placed on them for matters of fact. Mr. Pratt died Oct. 4, 1814, at his apartments in Colmore-row, Birmingham. He was unquestionably a man of genius, and a selection might be made from his works which would establish his reputation as a poet but his necessities seldom gave him time to polish and correct, and his vanity prompted him so often to become his own reviewer and his own panegyrist, that for some years before his death he sunk in respect with the public. There are no marks of learning in any of his performances and from the time he devoted himself to represent fiction on the stage, his general conduct was that of a man playing a part, or led through the adventures of a novel. It was to his praise, however, that in his latter days his works contained a more pure morality than some he had published at an earlier period of his life.

, a most celebrated Grecian sculptor, flourished, according to Pliny, in the 104th olympiad, that is, about 364 years before the Christian aera, He worked chiefly in Parian marble, to which he seemed to convey not only expression but animation. He was much attached to the beautiful Phryne, to whom he promised to give the very finest of his works, if she would select it. Not trusting to her own judgment in this matter, she contrived a stratagem, as Pausanias relates, to discover which he most esteemed. She ran to him in a pretended alarm, exclaiming that his workshop was on fire, when he immediately cried out, “If my Satyr and Cupid are not saved, I am ruined” Having thus learned his private thoughts, she took advantage of them in making her choice. His love for Phryne led him also to preserve her beauties by his art; and her statue, carved by him, stood afterwards in the temple at Deipni, between those of Archidamus king of Sparta, and Philip of Macedon. Grace and beauty prevailed in every work of Praxiteles and his statue of Venus clothed, which was bought by the inhabitants of Coos, was only surpassed by a naked figureof the same goddess, which was obtained by the Cnidians. It is uncertain whether any work of Praxiteles remains but an antique Cupid, formerly possessed by Isabella d'Este, of the ducal family of Mantua, was supposed to have been the production of his art.

, of the academy of sciences at Berlin, was born at Charenton Feb. 16, 1716. His attachment to the mathematics was so strong, that he opened a school at Paris, in 1740, where he taught them gratuitously, and formed several excellent scholars. But his temper was acrimonious and haughty, which created him so many enemies, that he quitted France for Bale, where he staid a year or two; and having wandered for some time in various cities of Germany, he finally settled at Berlin where, though he did not escape quarrels, he was Altogether successful, and became an author. He died at Berlin in 1767, at the age of fifty-one. His works are neither numerous nor very valuable. The best is, 1. His “Préservatifs cpntre la corruption de la langue Françoise en Allernagne.” He wrote also, 2. “La Monogamie, ou l'unité en Mariage,” 1751, 3 yols. 8vo a work of learning, but whimsical and tiresome. 3. “Le Diogene de l'Alembert;” not so singular as the preceding, but not better written, with some tendency to modern sophistry. 4. Several memoirs in the volumes of the academy at Berlin. He appears to have been in a great degree unsettled in his religious opinions; inclining at times to Socinianism, and the doctrines of fortuitous creation; at others producing strong suggestions in favour of religion.