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In 1716 he obtained the deanery of Chichester, and soon after this promotion appeared as an author, for the first time, in the memorable Bangorian controversy, during the course of which he published several tracts. One of the principal is entitled “A Vindication of the Corporation and Test Acts: in answer to the Bishop of Bangor’s Reasons for the Repeal of them. To which is added a second part, concerning the Religion of Oaths,” 1718, 8vo. The bishop of Bangor answered him in a piece entitled “The common Rights of Subjects defended, and the Nature of the Sacramental Test considered,” 1719, 8vo: yet, while he opposed strenuously the principles of his antagonist, he gave the strongest testimony that could be of his abilities; for, in the beginning of his preface, he calls his own book “An Answer to the most plausible and ingenious Defence, that, he thinks, has ever yet been published, of excluding men from their acknowledged civil Rights, upon the account of their differences in Religion, or in the circumstances of Religion.” Sherlock replied to the bishop, in a small pamphlet, in which he sets forth “The true Meaning and Intention of the Corporation and Test Acts asserted, &c.” 1719, 8vo. It has been said, by the writer of his life in the Biog. Brit, that in his latter days, Dr. Sherlock did not approve of these writings against bishop Hoadly, and that he told a friend, “that he was a young man when he wrote them,” and he would never have them collected into a volume. That Dr. Sherlock might have changed his sentiments in his latter days is not improbable, but it could not be asserted that he was at this time a young man, for he had passed his fortieth year*. Some part, however, which he took in this controversy, before he published on it, seems to have given offence at court, for in 1717, he and Dr. Snape were removed from the list of king’s chaplains.

But this, it appears, he was inclined to we may bo saved, but the name of

for reforming the lives and manners ters, 1790, 8vo, p. 457. and enlarged, was published in 1744, 8vo; to which are added, “Four Dissertations: I. ‘The Authority of the second Epistie of St. Peter.’ 2. ‘ The Sense of the Ancients before Christ, upon the Circumstances and Consequences of the Fall.’ 3. ‘ The blessing of Judah,’ Gen. xlix. 4. ‘ Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem’.” Three of these dissertations, if we mistake not, accompanied the discourses from their first publication; the fourth was added afterwards. In 1749, Sherlock, then bishop of London, published “An Appendix to the second Dissertation, being a farther enquiry into the Mosaic account of the Fall,” 8vo. An advertisement is prefixed, setting forth, that the dissertation was drawn up some years since, and intended as an examination of the objections made to the History of the Fall by the author of “The Literal Scheme of Prophecy;” but that author being dead, was now published, not in answer to him, but to all who call in question, or are offended with, the History of the Fall, as it stands recorded by Moses. Whether Dr. Middleton, who had ridiculed the “Literal History of the Fall,” considered himself as particularly aimed at here, or whether he acted from other private motives of resentment, which has been asserted, we know not, but he published the year after, 1750, a sharp and satirical “Examination of the Discourses upon Prophecy, with Animadversions upon this Dissertation:” in which he undertakes to explain and affirm these four points: 1. “That the use of Prophecy, as it was taught and practised by Christ, his Apostles, and Evangelists, was drawn entirely from single and separate predictions, gathered by them from the books of the Law and the Prophets, and applied, independently on each other, to the several acts and circumstances of the life of Jesus, as so many proofs of his Divine Mission; and, consequently, that his Lordship’s pretended chain of Antediluvian Prophecies is nothing else but a fanciful conceit which has no connection at all with the evidences of the Gospel.” 2. “That the Bishop’s exposition of his text is forced, unnatural, and inconsistent with the sense of St. Peter, from whose epistle it is taken.” 3. “That the historical Interpretation, which he gives to the account of Fall, is absurd and contradictory to reason; and that the said account cannot be considered under any other character than that of Allegory, Apologue, or Moral Fable.” 4. “That the Oracles of the Heathen World, which his Lordship declares to have been given out by the, Devil, in the form of a Serpent, were all impostures, wholly managed by human craft, without any supernatural aid or interposition whatever.”

From the notice of this controversy we must now return to the succession of those preferments to which Dr. Sherlock was thought entitled for his able services as a divine. In 1728 he was promoted to the bishopric of Bangor, in which he succeeded Dr. Hoadly, as he did also in the see of Salisbury, in 1734; in both which stations his abilities were so conspicuous, that on the death of archbishop Potter in 1747, the see of Canterbury was offered to him, but he declined it on account of bad health. The following year, however, he was so much recovered, as to accept a translation to the see of London, in room of the deceased bishop Gibson.

On tins pro.notion, he had the misfortune to differ with Dr. Herring, then archbishop of Canterbury, who had made his option for the rectory of St. George’s Hanoversquare, which being one of the most valuable livings in his diocese, the bishop was very unwilling to relinquish it, and drew up a pamphlet respecting the nature of the archbishop’s options, and resolved to oppose the present claim. The matter, however, was accommodated by his giving up the living of St. Anne’s, Solio, which the archbishop accepted. Dr. Sherlock printed fifty copies of his thoughts on the subject, in 1757, for private distribution, in a folio pamphlet, entitled “The Option; or an Inquiry into the grounds of the claim made by the archbishop, on all consecrated or translated bishops, of the disposal of any preferment belonging to their respective sees that he shall make choice of.” The chief argument of the author, deduced from the registers, &c. of the archbishops, is that the archbishop of Canterbury never had, nor at this tune has a right to an option from a translated bishop; but he allows that the claim on consecrated bishops is well founded, for it is properly a consecration fee, and becomes due ratione consecrationis. Archbishop Herring, to whom he had sent a ms copy, in 1749, reprinted the whole afterwards in 4to, with a short answer in onu page, and distributed it among his friends. Dr Sherlock, however, we see, virtually gave up the point, by giving up the living of St. Anne’s.

Bishop Sherlock held the mastership of the Temple, where he was much beloved, and in which he generally resided, until 1753; anil when his resignation was accepted by his majesty, he addressed an affecting letter to the treasurer and masters of the bench, gratefully acknowledging their goodness to him, during the long course of his ministry among them; assuring them that he should always remember the man) and distinguished instances of their favour to him; and declaring that he esteemed his relation to the two societies of the Temple to have been the greatest happiness of his life, as it introduced him to some of the greatest men of the age, and afforded him the opportunities of living and conversing with gentlemen of a liberal education, and of great learning and experience.

Bodily infirmities now began to affect him very much, and, though for three or four years he applied himself to business, and made one general visitation of his diocese in person, yet he was then visited with a severe illness, which deprived him almost first of the use of his limbs, and then at times of his speech, insomuch that he could not be understood but by those who were constantly about him. Still the powers of his understanding and his accustomed cheerfulness continued; and under this weak state of body, in which he lay many years, he revised, corrected, and published, 4 vols. of “Sermons” in 8vo. The last time in which he probably used his pen, was in an affectionate congratulatory letter to his present majesty on his accession, being incapable of waiting on him in person . He He died July 18, 1761, in his eighty-fourth year, and was interred in the church-yard at Fulham, in a vault made for that purpose: where likewise a monument was erected to his memory, with an inscription drawn up by Dr. Nicholls, who succeeded him, in the mastership of the Temple, and speaks thus of his character:

“His learning was very extensive: God had given him a great and an understanding mind, a quick comprehension, and a solid judgment. These advantages of nature he improved by much industry and application; and in the early part of his life had read and digested well the ancient authors, both Greek and Latin, the philosophers, poets, and orators: from whence he acquired that correct and elegant style, which appears in all his compositions. His knowledge in divinity was obtained from the study of the most rational writers of the church, both antient and modern: and he was particularly fond of comparing scripture with scripture, and esperially of illustrating the epistles and writings of the apostles, which he thought wanted to be more studied, and of which we have some specimens in his own discourses. His skill in the civil and canon law was very considerable; to which he had added such a knowledge of the common law of England, as few clergymen attain to. This it was that gave him that influence in all causes where the church was concerned; as knowing precisely what it had to claim from its constitutions and canons, and what from the common law of the land.” Nicholls then mentions his constant and exemplary piety, his warm and fervent zeal in preaching the duties and main* taining the doctrines of Christianity, and his large and diffusive munificence and charity. “The instances of his public charities,” says he, “both in his life-time and at his death, are great, and like himself.” He has given large sums of money to the corporation of clergymen’s sons, to several of the hospitals, and to the society For propagating the gospel in foreign parts: and at the instance of the said society, he consented to print at his own charge an Impression of two thousand sets of his valuable discourses at a very considerable expence; and they have been actually sent to all the islands and colonies in America; and, by the care of the governors and clergy, it is hoped that by this time they are all properly distributed among the people of those respective colonies, to their great improvement in the knowledge of rational and practical Christianity. And, to mention one instance more of his great charity and care for the education of youth, ne has given to Catherine-hall in Cambridge, me place of his education. his valuable library of books, anu uonations for the founding a librarian’s place, a.'^d a scholarship."

In 1707, he married Miss Judith Fountaine, descended from a goud family in Yorkshire, a very amiable woman; but they had no children. She survived him, and died in 1764, aged seventy-seven, and was interred in the same vault with her husband. By the death of his younger brother, he acquired a fortune of 30,000l. and notwithstanding his many charities, died possessed, as it is said, of upwards of 100,000l. the bulk of which came to sir Thomas Gooch, his sister’s son, by Dr. Thomas Gooch, bishop of Ely.

Besides the works already enumerated, a fifth volume of his “Sermons” was published in 1776: this consists of fourteen occasional sermons, printed at the expense of Lockyer Davis and Thomas Davies, two well-known booksellers, whose initials D. D. are subscribed to the preface, and but for this notice, may perhaps perplex some future inquirer. He was also the author of “The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus,” first published in 1729, without his name, and which went through fourteen editions. Dr. Leland remarks that this piece has been “very justly admired for the polite and uncommon turn, as well as the judicious way of treating the subject.” It is indeed a very ingenious effort both of argument and imagination, and places Sherlock’s talents in a new light*. On

* Mr. Woolston having bent his ef- evidences of the resurrection are exforts with particular virulence against amined in the form of a judicial proour Saviour’s resurrection Dr. Sher- ceeding. In 1749 was published lock wrote this pamphlet, io which the “The sequel of the Trial of the Witoccasion of the earthquake at Lisbon in 1750, which alarmed, this country, he addressed an excellent” Pastoral Letter" to the clergy and inhabitants of Lon 'on, of which fifty- five thousand were dispersed, besides pirated editions to nearly the same amount. The effect of this letter was for some time visible in the repression of public licentiousness, and in a remarkable show of outward penitence and decency, but all this abated as the danger disappeared.

In bishop Sherlock’s sermons are many passages of uncommon animation. It is said that when Dr. Nichblls waited upon lord chancellor Hardwicke with the first volume of these sermons, in Nov. 1753, his lordship asked him whether there was not a sermon on John xx. 30, 31 and, on his replying in the affirmative, desired him to turn to the conclusion, and repeated verbatim the animated contrast between the Mahometan and Christian religion, beginning, “Go to your natural religion,” &c. to the end. Yet it was thirty years since that sermon had been published singly. Such was the impression it made on lord Hardwicke. This interesting anecdote, however, would want some of its effect, if we did not add, that at a later period, Dr. Blair, in his “Lectures on Rhetoric,” pointed out this identical passage, as an instance of personification, carried as far as prose, even in its highest elevation, will admit. After transcribing it, Blair adds, “this is more than elegant: it is truly sublime.” The frequency of such coincidences of sentiment between men of real taste, renders it unnecessary to question whether Blair had heard the anecdote of lord Hardwicke.

, a learned and accomplished prelate, was born about 1714. His education was liberal, and at a proper age he was entered of Christ Church, Oxford, where while bachelor of arts he exhibited a talent for poetry, which with cultivation might have risen to excellence. On the death of queen Caroline, he wrote some verses in the Oxford collection, which are said to have been the best that were produced on that occasion. In April 1738 he took his degree of M. A. and soon afterwards entered into holy orders, and obtained a living. May 27,

nesses ofthe Resurrection, &c. Revised nesses." This was either written by by the Author ofthe Trial ofthe Wit- the bishop, or under his inspection. 1743, he was installed a prebendary in the cathedral church of Winchester; and in March 1745 was appointed chaplain to the duke of Cumberland, to attend him abroad. On October 14, 1748, he took the degree of doctor of divinity; and on January 28, 1749, became canon of Christ Church in Oxford. In the year 1760 he was advanced to the deanery of Winchester, and at the same time was permitted by dispensation to retain the livings of Silchester and Chilbolton. His last preferment took place in the year 1769, when on the death of bishop Newcombe he was promoted to the bishopric of St. Asaph, in which he remained until his death, which took place at his house in Bolton-row, Piccadilly, Dec, 9, 1788. He was buried at Twyford, near Winchester.

Dr. Shipley gave an early and decided opinion against the coercive measures adopted towards America, to which his friends imputed his receiving no further advancement. In the year 1774 he published “A speech intended to have been spoken on the bill for altering the charters of the Colony of Massachusetts-bay,” 8vo the style of which was much admired even by those who disliked the sentiments. Mr. Mainvvaring, in the introduction to his “Sermons,” p. 28, 8vo, speaks of it in the following terms “If it were allowable for a moment to adopt the poetical creed of the antients, one would almost imagine, that the thoughts of a truly elegant writer were formed by Apollo, and attired by the Graces. It would seem, indeed, that language was at a loss to furnish a garb adapted to their rank and worth; that judgment, fancy, taste, had all combined to adorn them, yet without impairing that divine simplicity for the want of which nothing can compensate.” And in a note on this passage, he says, “Amongst all the productions, antient or modern, it would be difficult to find an instance of more consummate elegance than in a printed Speech intended to be spoken in the House of Lords.” Besides this effort, his lordship during the whole American war, continued to be an opponent of Government; but his character, talents, and manners were always highly respected by men of all parties. His works, consisting of sermons, charges, and parliamentary speeches, were published in 2 vols. 8vo, in 1792.

, a celebrated traveller, second son of Thomas Shirley of Weston, in Sussex, was born in 1565. He studied at Hart-hall, Oxford, where he took his bachelor’s decree in 1581, and in the same year was elected probationer fellow of All Souls College. Leaving the university, he spent some time in one of tru 1 inns of court, after which he travelled on the continent, and joined the English troops, which, at that time, were serving in Holland. In 1596 he was one of the adventurers who went against the Spaniards in their settlements in the West Indies; and on his return, the earl of Essex, with whom he was a great favourite, employed him in the wars in Ireland, for his services in which he was knighted. After this he was sent by the queen into Italy, in order to assist the people of Ferrara in their contest with the pope: but finding that before he arrived, peace had been, signed, he proceeded to Venice, and travelled from thence to Persia, where he became a favourite with Shah Abbas, who sent him as his ambassador to England in 1612. By the 'emperor of Germany he was raised to the dignity of count, and by the king of Spain he was appointed admiral of the Levant seas. Such honours excited the jealousy of James I. who ordered him to return, but this he thought proper to disobey, and is supposed to have died in Spain about the year 1630. There is an account of his West Indian expedition in the third volume of Hakluyt’s collection, under the following title: “A true Relation of the Voyage undertaken by Sir Anthony Shirley, Knight, in 1596, intended for the island San Tome, but performed to St. Jago, Dominica, Margarita, along the Coast of Tien a Firma to the Isle of Jamaica, the Bay of Honduras, thirty leagues up Rio Dolce, and homewards by Newfoundland, with the memorable Exploits achieved in all this Voyage.” His travels into Persia are printed separately, and were published in London in 1613, 4to; and his travels over the Caspian sea, and through Russia, were inserted in Purchas’s Pilgrimages.

, an English dramatic writer and poet, was of an antient family, and born about 1594, in the parish of St. Mar) Wool-church, London. He was educated at Merchant-Taylors school, and thence removed to St. John’s college in Oxford; where Laud, then president of that college, had a good opinion of his talents, yet would often tell him, as Wood relates, that “he was an unfit person to take the sacred function upon him, and should never have his consent;” 'because Shirley had then a large mole upon his left cheek, which appeared a great deformity. Afterwards, leaving Oxford without a degree, he went to Katherine-hall, Cambridge, where he formed a close attachment with Bancroft, the epigrammatist, who has recorded their friendship in one of his epigrams. At Cambridge, Wood supposes he took the degree in arts, as he soon after entered into orders, and took a cure at or near St. Alban’s, in Hertfordshire; but, becoming unsettled in his principles, changed his religion for that of Rome, left his living, and taught a grammar school in the town of St. Alban’s. This employment being after some time uneasy to him, he retired to London, lived in Gray’s-inn, and commenced dramatic writer, which recommended him to the patronage of various persons of rank, especially Henrietta Maria, Charles the First’s queen, who made him her servant. His first comedy is dated 1629, after which he wrote nine or ten, between that year and 1637, when he went to Ireland, under the patronage of George earl of Kildare, to whom he dedicated his tragi-comedy of the “Royal Master,” and by whose influence that comedy was acted in the castle at Dublin, before the lord deputy. From Ireland he returned to England in 1638; but Wood says, that when the rebellion broke out, he was obliged to leave London and his family (for he had a wife and children), and, being invited by his patron, William earl of Newcastle, to accompany him in the wars, he attended his lordship. Upon the decline of the king’s cause, he retired to London; where, among other of his friends, he found Thomas Stanley, esq. author of the “Lives of Philosophers,” who supported him for the present. The acting of plays being now prohibited, he returned to his old occupation of teaching school, which he carried on in White Friars; and educated many youths, who afterwards proved eminent men. At the Restoration, several of his plays were brought upon the theatre again; and it is probable he subsisted very well, though it does not appear how. In 1666 he was forced, with his second wife Frances, by the great fire in September, from his house near Fleet-street, in the parish of St. Giles’s in the fields, where, being extremely affected with the loss and terror that fire occasioned, they both died within the space of twentv-four hours, and were both interred in the same grave, Oct. the 29th.

Besides thirty-seven plays, tragedies and comedies, printed at different times, he published a volume of poems in 1646, some beautiful specimens of which Mr. Ellis has recommended in his judicious selection. He was also the author of three tracts relating to grammar. He assisted his patron the earl, afterwards duke of Newcastle, in composing several plays, which the duke published; and wrote notes for Ogilby’s translations of Homer and Virgil. Wood tells us, that “he was the most noted dramatic poet of his time;” and Langbaine calls him “one of such incomparable parts, that he was the chief of the second-rate poets, and by some even equal to Fletcher himself,” and modern critics tell us that his comedies possess many features of the genuine drama, and deserve republication.

There was one Mr. Henry Shirley, a contemporary of our author, who wrote a tragedy called “The Martyred Soldier;” which was often acted with applause. It was printed in 1631, and dedicated by the publisher J. K. to sir Kenelm Digby; the author being then dead. More recently there was a William Shirley, who was for some years resident in Portugal, in a public character, as it is supposed. On some disgust, however, or dispute in which he had involved himself there, he returned to England about 1749. He was esteemed well versed in affairs of trade, and the commercial interests and connections of different kingdoms, especially those of Great Britain and Portugal. He was also considered as the author of several letters on those subjects, published in the Daily Gazetteer, and signed Lusitanicus; and wrote a pamphlet, entitled “Observations upon the sentence of the conspirators against the king of Portugal,” 1755, 8vo. In his poetical capacity, however, Mr. Shirley does not stand in so considerable a light, though several of his plays have been represented on the stage; but others were rejected by Garrick, whom tie abused in the newspapers. He is said to have written for the stage as late as 1777, when he must have been advanced in years; but the time of his death is not specified in our authority.

, son of sir Thomas Shirley, ofWiston in Sussex, and related to the Shirleys the travellers, was born in St. Margaret’s parish, Westminster, in 1638. He lived with his father in Magdalen-college, Oxford, while the city was garrisoned by the king’s forces, and was educated at the school adjoining the college. Afterwards he studied physic abroad, and took his degrees in that faculty. On his return he became a very eminent practitioner, and was made physician in ordinary to Charles II. He was immediate heir to his ancestors’ estate of near 3000l. a year at Wiston, which was seized during the rebellion; but although he applied to parliament, never was able to recover it. This disappointment is thought to have hastened his death, which took place April 5, 1678. Besides “Medicinal counsels,” and “A Treatise of the Gout,” from the French of Mayerne, he published “A philosophical essay of the productions of Stones in the earth, with relation to the causes and cure of stones in the bladder, &c.” Lond. 1672; and “Cochlearia curiosa, or the curiosity of Scurvygrass,” from the Latin of Molinbrochius of Leipsic. Both these are noticed in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 81, and No. 125.

, an eminent optician, was born in Edinburgh in the year 1710. At the age of ten being left in a state of indigence by the death of both his parents, he was admitted into Heriot’s hospital, where he soon shewed a fine mechanical genius, by constructing for himself a number of curious articles with common knives, or such other instruments as he could procure. Two years after he was removed from the hospital to the high- school, where he so much distinguished himself in classical learning, that his friends thought of qualifying him for a learned profession. After four years spent at the high-school, in 1726 he was entered a student of the university of Edinburgh, where he passed through a regular course of study, took his degree of master of arts, and at the earnest entreaties of his relations, attended the divinity lectures: after which, in 1731, he passed his examination to fit him for a preacher in the church of Scotland. He soon, however, gave up all thoughts of a profession which he found little suited to his talents, and from this period he devoted his whole time to mathematical and mechanical pursuits. He was pupil to the celebrated Maclaurin, who perceiving the bent of his genius, encouraged him to prosecute those particular studies for which he seemed best qualified by nature. Under the eye of his preceptor he began, in 1732, to construct Gregorian telescopes; and, as the professor observed, by attending to the figure of his specula, he was enabled to give them larger apertures, and to carry them to greater perfection, than had ever been done before him.

In 1736 Mr. Short was invited to London by queen Caroline, to instruct William duke of Cumberland in the mathematics; and on his appointment to this office, he was elected a member of the Royal Society, and patronized by the earls of Macclesfield and Morton. In the year 1739 he accompanied the former to the Orkney islands, where he was employed in making a survey of that part of Scotland. On his return to London he established himself as an optician, and in 1743, he was commissioned by lord Thomas Spencer to make a reflector of twelve- feet focus, for which he received 600 guineas. He afterwards made several other telescopes of the same focal distance, with improvements and higher magnifiers: and in 1752 he completed one for the king of Spain, for which, with the whole apparatus, he received 1200l. This was the noblest instrument of the kind that had ever been constructed, and has probably not been surpassed, unless by the grand telescopes manufactured by Dr. Herschel.

Mr. Short was accustomed to visit the place of his nativity once every two or three years during his residence in London, and in the year 1766 he paid his last visit to Scotland. He died at Newington Butts, near London, in June 1768, after a very short illness, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. Mr. Short was a very good general scholar, besides well skilled in optics and mathematics. He was a very useful member of the Royal Society, and wrote a great many excellent papers in the Philosophical Transactions, from 1736 to the time of his death. His eminence as an artist is universally admitted, and he is spoken of by those who knew him from his youth upwards, as a man of virtue and very amiable manners.

, a physician of the early part of the last century, anci the author of many works relating to chemistry, meteorology, and medicine, was a native of North Britain, and settled early in life as a physician at Sheffield, and had considerable reputation and practice, both in the town and among persons of rank and fortune in the neighbourhood. In 1732 he niaivied Mary, daughter of Mr. Parkins of Mortimley, near Sheffield, by whom he had two sons and two daughters, all since dead. On the death of this wife in 1762, he retired to llotheram, where he died at an advanced age, Nov. 28, 1772, and was buried at Sheffield. Some time before his decease he requested that his corpse might not be disturbed in the bed in which he departed, until it was removed into his coffin. He had acquired some property in Pea-street, where he resided, and in other parts of Sheffield. In his person he was tall, thin, and hard-featured, affected the Scotch accent in his speech, and a bluntness and freedom in conversation that were not always agreeable. He had an utter aversion to swine’s flesh, was irritable in his temper, and impatient of contradiction. But he had undoubted abilities in his profession, was indefatigable in his pursuit after knowledge, and irreproachable in his moral conduct. Of his publications, the most valuable was his “Comparative History of the Increase and Decrease of Mankind in England, and several countries abroad, &c.” published by subscription in 1767. Among his other works are, “Memoir on the Natural History of Medicinal Waters,” 1725. “A Dissertation on Tea,” 1730. “Natural History of the Mineral Waters of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire,” 1733. “A General Chronological History of the Air, Weather, Seasons, Meteors, &c. for the space of 250 Years,” 1749. “Discourses on Tea, Sugar, Miik, made Wines, Spirits, Punch, Tobacco, &c.” 1749. “New Observations, Natural, Moral, Civil, Political, and Medical, on Bills of Mortality,” 1750. Having for several years rented the Holt spa of the Nevile family, he wrote a pamphlet on the subject, of which a considerable part is given in Mr. Nichols’s “Leicestershire,” vol. II.

, an eminent English admiral, was born near Clay, in Norfolk, about 1650, of parents in middling circumstances, and put apprentice to some mechanic trade, to which he applied himself for som.e time. He is said to have early discovered an inclination for the naval service, and at length went to sea, under the protection of sir Christopher Mynns, as a cabbin-boy, and applying himself very assiduously to the study of navigation, became an able seaman, and quickly arrived at preferment. In 1674, our merchants in the Mediterranean being very much distressed by the piratical state of Tripoly, a strong squadron was sent into those parts under the command of sir John Narborough, who arrived before Tripoly in the spring of the year, and found considerable preparations for defence. Being, according to the nature of his instructions, desirous to try negotiation rather than force, he thought proper to send Shovel, now a lieutenant, to demand satisfaction for what was past, and security for the time to come. Shovel went on shore, and delivered his message with great spirit; but the Dey, despising his youth, treated him with much disrespect, and sent him back with an indefinite answer. Shovel, on his return to the admiral, acquainted him with some remarks he had made on shore. Sir John sent him back with another message, and well furnished him with proper rules for conducting his inquiries and observations. The Dey’s behaviour was worse the second time, which Shovel made a pretence for delaying his departure that he might complete his observations. On his return he assured the admiral it was very practicable to burn the ships in the harbour, notwithstanding their lines and forts: accordingly, in the night of the 4th of March, Shovel, with all the boats in the fleet, filled with combustibles, went boldly into the harbour, and destroyed the vessels in it, after which he returned safe to the fleet, without the loss of a single man; and the Tripolines were so disconcerted at the boldness and success of the attack, as immediately to sue for peace. Of this affair sir John Narborough gave so honourable account in all his letters, that the next year Shovel had the command given him of the Sapphire, a fifth rate; whence he was not long after *e* moved into the James galley, a fourth rate, in which he continued till the death of Charles II. Although he was known to be unfriendly to the arbitrary measures of James II. yet that prince continued to employ him, and he was preferred to the Dover, in which situation he was when the Revolution took place, and heartily concurred in that event. In 1689, he was in the first battle, that of Bantry-bay, in the Edgar, a third-rate; and so distinguished himself by courage and conduct, that when king William came down to Portsmouth, he conferred on him the honour of knighthood. In 1690, he was employed in conveying king YVilr liam and his army into Ireland, who was so highly pleased with his diligence and dexterity, that he did him the honour to deliver him a commission of rear-admiral of the blue with his own hand. Just before the king set out for Holland, in 1692, he made him rear-admiral of the red, at the same time appointing him commander of the squadron that was to convoy him thither. On his return, Shovel joined admiral Russell with the grand fleet, and had a share in the glory of the victory at La Hogue. When it was thought proper that the fleet should be put under command of joint admirals in the succeeding year, he was one; and, as Campbell says, “if there had been nothing more than this joint commission, we might well enough account from thence for the misfortunes which happened in our affairs at sea, during the year 1693.” The joint admirals were of different parties; but as they were all good seamen, and probably meant well to their country, though they did not agree in the manner of serving it, it is most likely, “that, upon mature consideration of the posture things were then in, the order they had received from court, and the condition of the fleet, which was not either half manned or half victualled, the admirals might agree that a cautious execution of the instructions which they had received was a method as safe for the nation, and more so for themselves, than any other they could take.” On this occasion sir Cloudesley Shovel was at first an object of popular odium; but when the affair came to be strictly investigated in parliament, he gave so clear and satisfactory an account of the matter, that it satisfied the people that the commanders were not to blame; and that if there was treachery, it must have originated in persons in office at home. The character of sir Cloude&ley remaining unimpeached, we find him. again at sea, in 1694, under lord Berkley, in the expedition to Camaret-bay, in which he distinguished himself by his dextrous embarkation of the land forces, when they sailed on that unfortunate expedition; as also when, on their return to England, it was deemed necessary to send the fleet again upon the coast of France, to bombard Dieppe, and other places. In 1702 he was sent to bring the spoils of the Spanish and French fleets from Vigo, after the capture of that place by sir George Rooke. In 1703, he commanded the grand fleet up the Streights; where he protected our trade, and did all that was possible to be done for the relief of the protestants then in arms in the Cevenues; and countenanced such of the Italian powers as were inclined to favour the allies. In 1704 he was sent, with a powerful squadron, to join sir George liooke, who commanded a grand fleet in the Mediterranean, and had his share in the action off Malaga. Upon his return he was presented to the queen by prince George, as lord high admiral, and met with a very gracious reception; and was next year employed as commander in chief. In 1705, when k was thought necessary to send both a fleet and army to Spain, sir Cloudesley accepted the command of the fleet jointly with the earls of Peterborough and Monmouth, which sailed to Lisbon, thence to Catalonia, and arrived before Barcelona on the 12th of August and it was chiefly through his activity, in furnishing guns for the batteries, and men ta play them, and assisting with his advice, that the place was taken.

After the unsuccessful attempt upon Toulon, in which sir Cloudesley performed all in his power, he bore away for the Streights; and soon after resolved to return home. He left sir Thomas Dilkes at Gibraltar, with nine ships of the line, for the security of the coasts of Italy: and then proceeded with the remainder of the fleet, consisting of ten ships of the line, four fire-ships, a sloop, and a yacht, for England. Oct. 22, he came into the soundings, and had ninety fathom water. About noon he lay-by; but at six in the evening he made sail again, and stood away under his courses, believing, as it is supposed, that he saw the light on St. Agnes, one of the islands of Scilly. Soon after which, several ships of his fleet made the signal of distress, as he himself did; but the admiral’s, and some more, perished with all oil-board. How this accident happened has never been properly accounted for. Sir Cloudesiey Shovel’s body was thrown ashore the next day upon the island of Scilly, where some fishermen took him up; and, having stolen a valuable emerald ring from his finger, stripped and buried him. This coming to the ears of Mr, Paxton, who was purser of the Arundel, he found out the fellows, declared the ring to be sir Cloudesley Shovel’s, and obliged them to discover where they had buried the body; which he took up and carried on-board his own ship to Portsmouth. It was thence conveyed to London; and buried in Westminster-abbey with great solemnity, where a monument (a most tasteless one indeed) was afterwards erected to his memory by the queen’s direction.

, an eminent and pious divine, was born at Exeter in May 1657, and educated in school learning at his native city, whence, at the age of fourteen he was placed at a dissenting academy at Taunton, and afterwards at another at Newington-green, London. Having gone through the usual course of studies in these seminaries, and having decided in favour of nonconformity, he was encouraged by the celebrated Dr. Manton, to preach as a candidate for the ministry before he was quite twenty years of age. Two years after, in 1679, he received ordination from some dissenting ministers, but in a very private way, and his first settlement appears to have been as assistant to Mr. Vincent Alsop, at the meeting Tothill-fields, Westminster. He was also one of those who established a lecture against popery, which was carried on with good success in a large room in Exchange-alley.

In 1685 he was prevailed upon by sir Samuel Barnardiston to accompany his nephew on his travels upon the continent. This gave him, what few of his brethren had enjoyed, an opportunity of visiting the most remarkable places in France, Swisserland, Italy, &c. and of returning with additional stores of useful knowledge. On his return through Holland, Mr. Shower parted with the companions of hfs tour, and resided in that country about two years. In 1686 he was again in London, and took his turn at the lecture in Exchange-alley, but disapproving of the vacillating measures of the court both towards the dissenters and the papists, he again went abroad, and took up his residence partly at Utrecht, and partly at Rotterdam, where far three years he officiated as lecturer to the English church. Here he remained until 1690, when he accepted a call to become assistant to the learned John Howe, at his meeting in Silver-street, London; whence, after other changes, he was finally settled at the new meeting-house in the Old Jewry, lately pulled down. Here he continued to preach with great popularity until his death, after lingering illnesses, June 28, 1715, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. He was buried at Highgate. His works are very numerous, but consist chiefly of sermons moulded, for the press, into the shape of treatises, of which the principal appear to be, J. “Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity,” 12mo. 2. “Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica, Italy, &c. with a particular historical account of those and divers other earthquakes,” 1693, 12mo. 3. “Family Religion, in three letters to a friend,” 16L4, 12mo. 4. “The Life of Henry Gearing,” 1694, 12mo. 5. “The Mourner’s Companion, or Funeral Discourses on several texts,” 1699, 12mo. 6. “Sacramental Discourses, &c.” 7. “Winter Meditations,” &c. &c. &c.

, an eminent lawyer, was brother to the preceding, but few particulars of his early life are on record. We should suppose him of very different sentiments from his brother. By the appointment of James II. he became recorder of London during the time that the city was deprived of its charter, but when that monarch’s fears compelled him to restore it, sir Bartholomew and the new aldermen were obliged to give place to the old recorder Treby and the legal aldermen. As a pleader he distinguished himself both before the House of Commons and at the bar. He opposed vehemently the Kentish petitioners, and pleaded strenuously as counsel for sir John Fenwick, that his conviction might not be made a pretence for ruining innocence. He died Dec. 1701, and was buried on the 12th of that month at Harrowon-tue-Hill, near to which he had resided, at Pinner-hill.

Two editions of “Cases in parliament resolved and adjudged upon petitions and writs of error,” by sir Bartholomew, have been published, one in 1698, and another in 1740, with many references, and a table of principal matters. These cases are learnedly reported, and the arguments of the counsel, as well as of the judges, are recorded in a very able manner. This mode of reporting, however, though valuable in itself, and particularly desirable to the profession, was. thought an infringement upon the privileges of the House of Lords, and the bookseller was called to the bar, for the publication of it. Sir Bartholomew also published his “Reports of cases in Banco Regis from 30 Car. II. to 6 William III.” 1708, and 1720, 2 vols. folio; bnt the second volume is first in point of time. A second edition was published in 1794, in 2 vols. 8vo, by Thomas Leach, esq. with additional notes and references.

, a learned divine of the last century, was educated at Caius college, Cambridge, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1716, and that of M. A. in 1720. He afterwards became curate of Shelthon in Norfolk, prebendary of Canterbury, and lastly had the city living of All-hallows, Lombard-street. He died July 14, 1754. He published a few occasional sermons, but is principally known for his “History of the World, sacred and profane,” 3 vols. 8vo, intended to serve as an introduction to Prideaux’s “Connection,” but he did not live to carry it down to the year 747 B. C. where Prideaux begins. He wrote also a treatise on “The Creation and Fall of Man,” intended as a supplement to the preface to his history. His works are heavily written, but display a great deal of erudition, although not well applied, in the opinion of the late bishop Home, and his biographer Mr. Jones. They blame Shuckford for rendering the subject almost ridiculous, by illustrating the sacred history of the creation from Ovid, and Cicero, and even Pope’s “Essay on Man.”

, an eminent physician, naturalist, and antiquary, was a descendant of the Sibbalds of Balgonie, an ancient family in Fifeshire, Scotland. He received his education in philosophy and the languages at the university of Edinburgh, and afterwards studied medicine at Leyden, where, on taking his doctor’s degree in 1661, he published his inaugural dissertation “De variis tabis speciebus.” Soon after he returned home, and fixed his residence at Edinburgh; but for the benefit of study, often retired to a rural retreat in the neighbourhood, and cultivated, with much attention, many rare and exotic plants. His reputation obtained for him the appointment of natural historian, geographer, and physician, to Charles II. and he received the royal command to compose a general description of the whole kingdom, and a particular history of the different counties of Scotland. The “History of Fife,” however, is the only part of this plan which he executed. This was at first sold separately, but became very scarce; a new edition was published at Cupar-Fife in 1803, In 1681, when the royal college of physicians was incorporated, he was one of the original fellows. In 1684 he published his principal work, “Scotia Illustrata, sive Prodromus historian naturalis, &c.” folio, reprinted in 1696. In this volume, which, he tells us, was the work of twenty years, one part is appropriated to 'the indigenous plants of Scotland, and contains observations on the medicinal and (Economical uses. A few rare species make their first appearance in this book, particularly that which Linnreus named Sibbaldia, after the author. Having thrown out some strictures on the mathematical principles of physic, for which the learned Dr. Pitcairn was a strenuous advocate, the latter wrote a severe satire on this work, entitled “De legibus historian naturalis,” Edit). 1696; but it contains no-, thing solid, and was thought by some to have been the result of party dislike, as Dr. Sibbald had embraced the Roman catholic religion under James II. in 1686, and afterwards recanted, and Pitcairn was a zealous adherent of the exiled family, although he cared little about religion of any kind. Sir Robert Sibbald is supposed to have died about the year 1712.

We have hitherto considered sir Robert as a physician and naturalist, but his reputation is more securely founded on his having been the first who illustrated the antiquities of his native country, in various learned essays, the titles of which it is unnecessary to give, as the whole were printed in “A collection of several treatises in folio, concerning Scotland as it was of old, and also in later times. By sir Robert Sibbald, M. D.” Edin. 1739. They were, however, at that time sold separately, or bound together. Of all Mr. Gough gives a particular account, and also of his Mss* now in the Advocates’ library. Sir Robert likewise published a piece entitled “The liberty and independency of the kingdom and church of Scotland asserted, from ancient records in three parts,” 1701, 4to, now very rarely to be met with and “De Gestis Gul. Valise,” Edin. 1705, 8vo. A catalogue of his library was printed at Edinburgh, 1722, in 8vo.

, a learned puritan divine, whose works are still in reputation, was born at Sudbury in Suffolk, in 1577, and educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, where he took his degrees with great applause, and obtained a fellowship. The foundation of that character for humility and piety which he enjoyed throughout life, appears to have been laid while at college. After taking orders he was chosen lecturer of Trinity church, Cambridge, and held the living of that church during the last two years of his life. The reputation he acquired here procured him an invitation from the learned society of Gray’s-inn, and in 1618 he became their preacher, and had for his audience not only the gentlemen of the robe, but many noblemen and persons of rank. In 1625, he was chosen master of Katherine-hall, Cambridge, which, although a puritan, he was permitted to retain till his death, with very little molestation. He found that society, says Granger, in a very declining state, but it soon began to flourish under his care, and he was a great benefactor to it. He died July 5, 1635, aged fifty-seven. His works, which are numerous, have lately been reprinted in a new edition, 3 vols. 8vo. They are chiefly sermons and pious treatises. One of the most popular, entitled “The bruised reed,” of which there have been many editions, was that to which Baxter tells us he in a great measure owed his conversion. This circumstance alone, says Granger, would have rendered Sibbs’s name memorable. As a commentator, his principal work is his “Commentary on the first chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians,”" 1655, fol.

, an eminent botanist and traveller, was the youngest son of Dr. Humphrey Sibthorp, professor of botany at Oxford, a man not eminent For any contributions to that science. He was born at Oxford, Oct. 28, 1758. He was first educated at Magdalen and Lincoln schools, after which he entered of Lincoln college, where he took his master’s degree in June 1780; but upon obtaining the Radcliffe travelling fellowship, became a member of University college, and took his degree of B. M. in December 1783. Being intended for the medical profession, he studied for some time at Edinburgh, and there also cultivated his early taste for natural history, especially botany. He then visited France and Switzerland, and communicated to the Montpellier academy of sciences, an account of his numerous botanical discoveries in that neighbourhood. On his return, his father having resigned, he was appointed by the college of physicians to the botanical professorship in 1784, and then took his doctor’s degree.

He passed a portion of the same year, 1784, at Gottingen, where he projected his first tour to Greece, the botanical investigation of which country had for some time past become the leading object of his pursuits. He first, however, visited the principal seats of learning in Germany, and made a considerable stay at Vienna, where he procured an excellent draughtsman, Mr. Ferdinand Bauer, to be the companion of his expedition. On the 6th of March, 1786, they set out together from Vienna, and early in May sailed from Naples to Crete, where, in the month of June, as his biographer says, “they were welcomed by Flora in her gayest attire.” The ensuing winter they spent at Constantinople, in the course of which Dr. Sibthorp devoted himself to the study of the modern Greek. On the 14th of March, 1787, they sailed from Constantinople for Cyprus, taking the islands of Mytilene, Scio, Cos, and Rhodes, and touching at the coast of Asia minor in their way. A stay of five weeks at Cyprus enabled Dr. Sibthorp to draw up a “Fauna” and Flora“of that island. The former consists of eighteen mammalia, eighty-five birds, nineteen amphibia, and one hundred fishes; the latter comprehends six hundred and sixteen species of plants, These and his other catalogues were greatly augmented by subsequent observations, insomuch that the number of species, collected from an investigation of all Dr. Sibthorp’s manuscripts and specimens for the materials of the” Pro-. dromus Florae Graecai," amounts to about 3000. Without minutely tracing our traveller’s steps throiigh Greece, or the various islands of the Archipelago, we may notice that his health, which suffered from the confinement of a ship, and the heat of the weather, was restored at Athens, where he arrived June lyth, 1787. From thence he prosecuted his journeys in various directions, and with various successes. The ascent of mount Delphi*, or Delphi, in Negropont, one of his most laborious, if not perilous adventures, yielded him an abundant botanical harvest; and mount Athos, which he visited a week after, also greatly enriched Ifis collection of rare plants. From hence he proceeded to Thessalonica, Corinth, and Patras, at which last place he embarked with Mr. Bauer, on board an English vessel, for Bristol, on the 24th of September. After a tedious and stormy voyage, they arrived in England the first week in December.

The constitution of Dr. Sibthorp, never very robust, had suffered materially from the hardships and exertions of his journey. But his native air, and the learned leisure of the university, gradually recruited his strength. The duties of his professorship were rather a recreation than a toil. The superintendance of his exquisite draughtsman, now engaged in making finished drawings of the Greek animals^ as wel! as plants; and his occasional visits to the Linnsean and Banksian herbariums, for the removal of his difficulties; all together filled up his leisure hours. He was every where welcomed and admired for his ardour, his talents, and his acquisitions. His merits procured an augmentation of his stipend, with the rank of a regius professor (conferred in 1793); both which advantages were, at the same time, conferred on his brother professor at Cambridge. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1789, and was among the first members of the Linnsean Society, founded in 1788. In the spring of the year last mentioned, sir James Smith, with sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Dryander, passed a week at Oxford, which was devoted to a critical survey of the professor’s Grecian acquisitions; nor was the honey of mount Hymettus, or the wine of Cyprus, wanting at this truly attic entertainment. But the greater these acquisitions, the less was their^ possessor satisfied with them. No one knew, so well as himself, how much was wanting to the perfection of his undertaking, nor could any other person so well remedy these defects. Though he was placed, a few years after his return, in very affluent circumstances; and though his necessary attention to his landed property, and to agricultural pursuits, of which he was passionately fond, might well have turned him, in some measure, aside from his botanical labours; he steadily kept in view the great object of his life, to which he finally sacrificed life itself. No name has a fairer claim to botanical immortality, among the martyrs of the science, than that of Sibthorp.

On the 20th of March, 1794, Dr. Sibthorp set out from London, on his second tour to Greece. He travelled to Constantinople in the train or' Mr. Listen, ambassador to the Porte, and was attended by Francis Borone, as a botanical assistant. They reached Constantinople on the 19th of May, not without Dr. Sibthorp’s having suffered much from the fatigues of the journey, which had brought on a bilious fever. He^oon recovered his health at Constantinople, where he was joined by his friend Mr. Hawkins from Crete. Towards the end of August they made an excursion into Bithynia, and climbed to the summit of Olympus, from whence they brought a fresh botanical harvest. Dr. Sibthorp discovered at Fanar an aged Greek botanist, Dr. Dimitri Argyrami, who had known the Danish traveller Forskall, and who was possessed of some works of Linnæus.

November 16th, Dr. Sibthorp and Mr. Hawkins left Athens by the ancient Eleusinian way, while the classical streams of the Cephisus, the heights of Helicon and Parnassus, lay before them. They proceeded to Patras and to Zante, where they arrived in the middle of December, enriched with a large collection of seeds, the only botanical tribute that could, at this season, be collected from those famous mountains. An apothecary at Zante furnished Dr. Sibthorp with an ample and splendid herbarium, of the plants of that island, with their modern Greek names; nor did the winter pass unprofitably or unpleasantly in this sequestered spot; where neither agreeable society, nor copious information relative to our learned travellers’ various objects, was wanting. The season was sufficiently favourable in the middle of February, 1795, to allow them to visit the Morea, of which peninsula they made the complete circuit in somewhat more than two months. The violet and primrose welcomed them in the plains of Arcadia; but in vain did our classical travellers look for the beauty of Arcadian shepherdesses, or listen for the pipe of the sylvan swain. Figures emaciated, and features furrowed, with poverty, labour, and care, were all that they met with.

Proceeding to Argos, and thence to Pvlycena, the travellers were highly gratified by rinding, on the gate of the latter, those ancient lions, which Pausanias describes as the work of the Cyclops; and near it the reputed tomb of Agamemnon, a circular building, formed of immense masses of stone, placed with such geometrical precision, though without mortar, that not one had given way. That which forms the portal is described by Dr. Sibthorp as the largest stone he ever saw employed in any edifice. A number of fragments of vases, like those commonly called Etruscan, lay among the ruins of Mycena. From this place they returned by land to Argos, whence they proceeded to Corinth, Patras, and by way of Elis to Pyrgos. Here they obtained another escort, and safely reached Calamata, on the gulf of -Corone, where they were detained by the celebration of Easter, on the 12th of April, amid a profusion of sky-rockets and crackers. Proceeding in a boat along the barren and craggy shore, covered with bushy and prickly Euphorbia^ they reached Cardamoula. Here Panagiote, a popular character, nephew of the Cherife, came down, with a train of followers, to welcome the strangers, and conducted them to his tower-like castle, where a narrow entrance, and dark winding stair-case, led to a chamber, whose thick walls and narrow loop-holes seemed well prepared for defence. Taygetus, the highest mountain in the Morea, and almost rivalling Parnassus, was ascended by our adventurous travellers; but the quantity of snow, and the grea't distance, prevented their reaching the summit. Panagiote and fifty of his followers accompanied them, and he displayed his botanical knowledge by shewing Dr. Sibthorp darne^ still called aiga, among the corn, which he said occasioned dizziness; and a wonderful root, the top of which is used as an emetic, the bottom as a purge. This proved Euphorbia Apios, to which the very same properties are attributed by Dioscorides.

From Cardamoula the travellers were escorted by the dependants of this hospitable Grecian chief, along, a precipitous road, to Mistra, where they had the unexpected pleasure of meeting a party of their English friends, in the garb of Tartars, with whom they explored the scite of ancient Sparta. After returning to Culamata, and surveying from the summit of a neighbouring precipice the ruins of Messenia, with the rich plains watered by the Paniscus, and bounded by the hills of Laconia, Dr. Sibthorp and Mr. Hawkins hastened to Corone, where a Venetian vessel waited to convey them to Zante, which place they reached on the 29th of April. Here Dr. Sibthorp parted from the faithful companion of his tour, whom he was destined never to see again, but in whose friendship he safely confided in his last hours. Mr. Hawkins returned to Greece; while the subject of our memoir leaving Zante on the 1st of May, experienced a most tedious voyage of twenty-four days to Otranto, though five days are the most usual time for that passage. He touched at the island of Cephulonia, and next at Preversa, on the Grecian shore, where being detained by a contrary wind, he employed the 7th of May in visiting the ruins of Nicopolis. The weather was unfavourable, and Dr. Sibthorp here caught a severe cold, from which he never recovered. It seems to have proved the exciting cause of that disease, which had long beeii latent in the mesenteric and pulmonary glands, and which terminated in a consumption. Being obliged by the weather to put in at the little island of Fanno, May llth, the violent north-west wind “continued,” as he too expressively says in his journal, “to nurse his cough and fever.” He was confined to his bed, in a miserable hovel, to which, after frequent attempts to sail, he was driven back six times by the unfavourable wind. At length, the vessel was enabled to cast anchor in the port of Otranto on the 24th of May. Here he was obliged to submit to a quarantine of three weeks, part of which, indeed, was allowed to be spent in proceeding to Ancona. From thence he passed through Germany and Holland to England. Of the precise time of his arrival we find no mention. It was in the autumn of 1795, and his few succeeding months were chiefly marked by the progress of an unconquerable disease, for which the climates of Devonshire and Bath were, as usual, resorted to in vain. He died at Bath, February 8tb, 1796, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and lies interred in the abbey church, where his executors have erected a neat monument to his memory.

We have now to record the posthumous benefits which Dr. Sibthorp has rendered to his beloved science, and which are sufficient to rank him amongst its most illustrious patrons. By his will, dated Ashburton, January 12, 1796, he gives a freehold estate in Oxfordshire to the university of Oxford, for the purpose of first publishing his “Flora Gfaeca,” in 10 folio volumes, with 100 coloured plates in each, and a “Prodromus” of the same work, in 8vo, without plates. His executors, the honourable Thomas Wenman, John Hawkins, and Thomas Platt, esqrs. were to appoint a sufficiently competent editor of these works, to whom the manuscripts, drawings, and specimens, were to be confided. Their judicious choice fell upon the learned president of the Linnsean Society, who has nearly completed the “Prodromus,” and the second volume of the “Flora.” The plan of the former, was drawn out by Dr. Sibthorp, but nothing of the latter, except the figures, was prepared, nor any botanical characters or descriptions whatever. The final determination of the species, the distinctions of such as were new, and all critical remarks, fell to the lot of the editor, who has also revised the references to Dioscorides. When these publications are finished, the fcnnlial sum of 200. is to be paid to a professor of rural oeconomy, who is, under certain limitations^ to be Sherar* dian professor of botany. The remainder of the rents of the estate above mentioned is destined to purchase books for the professor, and the whole of the testator’s collections* with his drawings, and books of natural history, botany, and agriculture, are given to the university. The only work which Dr. Sibthorp published in his life-time is a “Flora Oxoniensis,” 1794, in one vol. 8vo, which has the merit of being entirely formed on his own personal observation.

, a strenuous champion for repub-­lican government, who set up Marcus Brutus for his pattern, and died like him in the cause of liberty, was second son of Robert, earl of Leicester, by Dorothy, eldest daughter of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland; and was born about 1617, or as some say, 1622. Of his education, and how he spent the younger part of his life, we know little. It appears that his father, when he went as ambassador to Denmark in 1632, took him with him, when a mere boy, and again in 1636, when he went as ambassador to France. During the rebellion he adhered to the interest of the parliament, in whose army he was a colonel; and was nominated one of the king’s judges, and as some say, sat on the bench, but was not present when sentence was passed, nor: did he sign the warrant for his execution. His admirers, however, assure us that he was far from disapproving of that atrocious act. He was in truth such a zealous republican, that he became a violent enemy to Cromwell, after “he had made himself protector. In June 1659 he was appointed, by the council of state, to go with sir Robert Houeywood, and Bulstrode Whitelocke, esq. commissioners to the Sound, to mediate a peace between the kings of Sweden and Denmark: but Whitelocke observes, that himself was unwilling to undertake that service,” especially,“says he,” to be joined with those that would expect precedency of me, who had been formerly ambassador extraordinary to Sweden alone; and I knew well the over-ruling temper and height of colonel Sidney. I therefore endeavoured to excuse myself, by reason of my old age and infirmities; but the council pressed it upon me:" which at last he evaded. While Sidney was at the court of Denmark, M. Terlon, the French ambassador there, had the 1 confidence to tear out of the university Album this verse; which the colonel, when it was presented to him, had written in it

Lord Molesworth, who relates this in the preface to his spirited Account of Denmark, observes, that, “though M. Terlon understood not a word of Latin, he was told by others the meaning of the sentence; which he considered as a libel upon the French government, and upon such as was then setting up in Denmark by French assistance or example.”

As Sidney adhered to the notions he had conceived of a pure republic, he refused to act under Oliver Cromwell, or Richard Cromwell, and during this period lived in a retired manner, sometimes at the family seat at Penshurst, and it is supposed that he employed some part of his leisure in composing those “Discourses on Government,” which have formed the favourite code of the republican faction in all ages since. When, however, Richard had resigned his protectorship, and the long parliament was restored, and a government without king or lords, Sidney became one of the council of state, and was sent to Denmark, as we have just noticed.

At the restoration, Sidney would not personally accept of the oblivion and indemnity generally granted to the whole nation; but continued abroad till 1677, when his father died. He then returned to England, and obtained from the king a particular pardon, upon repeated promises of constant and quiet obedience for the future. Burnet observes, “that he came back when the parliament was pressing the king into the war, the court of France having obtained leave for him to return; and that, upon his doing all he could to divert the people from that war, some took him for a pensioner of France: while he in the mean time declared, to those to whom he durst speak freely, that he knew it was a juggle; that our court was in an entire confidence with France; and had no other design in this show of a war but to raise an army, and keep it beyond sea till it was trained and modelled.” In 1683, he was accused of being concerned in the Rye-house plot; and, after lord Eussel had been examined, was next brought before the king and council. He said, that he would make the best defence he could, if they had any proof against him, but xvould not fortify their evidence by any thing he should say; so that the examination was very short. He was arraigned for high treason before the chief justice Jeffreys, Nov. 1683; and found guilty. After his conviction he sent to the marquis of Halifax, who was his nephew by marriage, a paper to be laid before the king, containing the main points of his defence upon which he appealed to the king, and desired he would review the whole matter but this had no other effect, except only to respite his execution for three weeks. When the warrant for his execution was brought, he told the sheriff, that he would not expostulate any thing upon his own account; for, the world was nothing to him: but he desired it mig^ht be considered, how guilty they were of his blood, who had not returned a fair jury, but one packed, and as directed by the king’s solicitor. He was beheaded on Tower-hill, where he delivered a written paper to the Sheriff, Dec. 7, 1683: but his attainder was reversed in the first year of William and Mary. “The execution of Sidney,” says Hume, “is regarded as one of the greatest blemishes of the reign of Charles II. The evidence against him, it must be confessed, was not legal: and the jury, who condemned him, were, for that reason, very blameable. But that after sentence parsed by a court of judicature, the king should interpose and pardon a man, who, though otherwise possessed of merit, was undoubtedly guilty, who had ever been a most indexible and most inveterate enemy to the royal family, and who lately had even abused the king’s clemency, might be an act of heroic generosity, but can never be regarded as a necessary and indispensable duty.” Burnet, who knew Sidney personally, gives the following character of him: “He was a man of most extraordinary courage; a steady man, even to obstinacy; sincere, but of a rough and boisterous temper, that could not bear contradiction. He seemed to be a Christian, but in a particular form of his own he thought it was to be like a divine philosophy in tue mind but he was against all public worship, and every thing that looked like a church. He was stiff to all republican principles; and such an enemy to every thing that looked like monarchy, that he set himself in a high opposition against Cromwell when he was made protector. He had studied the history of government in all its branches, beyond anv man I ever knew.”

He left behind him “Discourses upon Government;” the first edition of which was in 1698, the second in 1704, folio. To the second is added the paper he delivered to the sheriffs immediately before his death; with an alphabetical table. They also formed one of the publications of Mr. Thomas Hollis, in favour of republicanism in 1763, 4to, with a life, in which the writer or writers declare that they “cannot wish a greater or more extensive blessing to the world, than that it (the volume) may be every where read, and its principles universally received and propagated.”

, a very accomplished English gentleman, and one of the greatest ornaments of the court of queen Elizabeth, was born Nov. 29, 1554, at Penshurst in Kent. He was the grandson of sir William Sidney, knight banneret, and chamberlain and steward of the household to Henry VIII. His father, Henry Sidney, was from his infancy the companion and bosom friend of Edward VI., who conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, constituted him ambassador to France, and afterwards promoted him to several appointments near his person. He was at this time universally beloved and admired, as the most ac^ complished gentleman in the court of the youthful monarch, who expired in his arms. Sir Henry, after this melancholy event, retired to his seat at Penshurst. He afterwards enjoye'd the favour of queen Mary, and gave his son the name of Philip, in compliment to her husband the king of Spain. In Elizabeth’s reign his abilities were more immediately called forth, and proved him a brave soldier, a consummate general, an able counsellor, and a wise legislator, while in private life he was no less estimable as a husband, father, and a friend; firmly attached to the church of England, and adorning his Christian profession by his temperance and exemplary piety. He was lord president of Wales, and for the space of eleven years discharged the administration of lord deputy of Ireland, with extraordinary justice and probity, and left to provincial governors an example of integrity, moderation, and wisdom, which was never surpassed. The mother of Philip Sidney, was Mary, the eldest daughter of the unfortunate duke of Northumberland, a lady no less illustrious and amiable than her husband.

Mr. Sidney was placed at a school at Shrewsbury, where, at the age of twelve, he addressed two letters, one in Latin, and the other in French, to his father, which produced in answer a valuable compendium of instruction, the original of which was found among the Mss. at Penshurst, and is inserted by Dr. Zouch in the life of Sir Philip. From this school Mr. Sidney was removed to Christ church, Oxford, in 1569, where his tutors were Dr. Thomas Thornton and Mr. Robert Dorsett. During his residence here, he performed a scholastic exercise, by holding a public disputation with Carew, the author of the Survey of Cornwall, then a gentleman commoner of Christ-church. Sidney was at this time only fourteen years old, and yet of three years standing, and his disputation took place in the presence of several of the* nobility, and particularly of his two uncles, the earls of Warwick and Leicester, which last was at this time chancellor of the university. He also appears to have pursued his studies for some time at Cambridge, probably at Trinity college, where he had an opportunity of cultivating and improving that friendship, which he had already contracted with Mr. Fulke Greville his relation, and his companion at school. During these years his proficiency was very uncommon: he cultivated the whole circle of arts and sciences, his comprehensive mind aspiring to preeminence in every part of knowledge attainable by human genius or industry. He acquired, in particular, a complete knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and nothing could equal the diligence with which he explored the stores of ancient literature, which had been recently imported into E.urope; and hen.ce at a more advanced season of his life, he was highly esteemed by the universities at home and abroad,

Having inured himself to habits of regularity, he put off his gown, and left the university with an intention to travel, in order to obtain a knowledge of the affairs, manners, laws, and learning of other nations, that he might become the more serviceable to his own. Having, in May 1572, obtained from the queen a license for travelling, for two years, he set out for Paris; and on his arrival there, the French king, Charles IX. appeared to be highly gratified with his ingenuous manners and conversation, and gave him an early proof of his royal favour, by advancing him to the office of gentleman ordinary of his chamber; but this promotion has been generally considered, not so much an indication of real regard, as an unworthy and insidious artifice to conceal the design which was then formed, of destroying the protestants. Accordingly he had not held this above a fortnight, when he became a spectator of that hideous and savage massacre of the Huguenots, which filled all Europe with indignation, amazement, and terror.

During this massacre, Mr. Sidney preserved his life, by taking refuge with several of his countrymen, in the house of sir Francis Walsingham, the English ambassador; and when the danger was over, proceeded on his travels, tinder the tutorage of Dr. John Watson, then dean, and afterwards bishop of Winchester, to whom sir Francis Walsingham recommended him. Having left Paris, he pursued his journey through Lorraine, by Strasburgh and Heidelberg, to Franc fort. At the latter place, he lodged at the house of Andrew Wechel, the celebrated printer, and here was honoured with the friendship of Hubert Languet (See Languet), who was then a resident from the elector of Saxony; and to him he was principally indebted for his extensive knowledge of the customs and usages of nations, their interests, governments, and laws, and nothing could be more honourable to a youth of the age of nineteen, than the choice of such a companion and guide. Sidney has gratefully commemorated Languet in some lines in the third book of his “Arcadia.” When they were separated, Languet renewed in his letters the strongest assurances of his regard, intermixed with the most useful and most endearing lessons of advice.

At Vienna, where Mr. Sidney appears to have arrived in 1573, he learned horsemanship, the use of arms, and all those manly and martial exercises which were suitable to his youth and nobleness of birth. He excelled at tilt or tournament, in managing all sorts of weapons, in playing at tennis, in diversions of trial and skill, in music, in all the exercises that suited a noble cavalier, while his person, his aspect, his discourse, his every gesture were embellished with dignity and grace. In 1574, he was at Venice, where his sacred adherence to the precepts of youth guarded him against its dissipations. His biographer thinks it probable that he was not unknown to the celebrated Paul Sarpi. In June 1574, Sidney left Venice and came to Padua, where he applied hiinself with his accustomed diligence to geometry and astronomy, and here he met with the illustrious 7 asso, which his biographer conceives was one of his motives for visiting Padua. On his return to Venice in 1574-, Mr. Sidney derived great pleasure and instruction from a free and undisguised conversation on topics of learning with persons who professed the religion of the church of Rome. This circumstance gave rise to a suspicion among his friends in England, that he was inclined to become a member of that church; but against this he appears to have been sufficiently guarded by his friend Languet, and it was by his persuasion that he desisted from visiting Rome.

In the mean time, Sidney went on with his studies, and by Languet’s direction read Cicero’s Epistles, Plutarch, &c. All Languet’s advices appear to have been as salutary as they -vere affectionate. On one occasion only, he suggested to his pupil to afFe^t more attachment than he felt to Cecil, the great favourite of Elizabeth; but it does not appear that Sidney was inclined to observe this lesson of perverted wisdom, which was in itself contrary to the whole tenour of Languet’s instructions. After three years travel, Sidney returned to England in May 1575.

To his attainments in Greek and Latin, he had now added a fenowledm.' of the French, Spanish, and Italian languages. On his return he became the delight and admiration of the English court, by his dignified and majestical address, the urbanity of his manners, and the sweet complacency of his whole deportment. The queen treated him with peculiar kindness, calling him “her Philip,” in opposition, it; is said, to Philip of Spain, her sister’s husband. When she war, on a visit at Wanstead, Sidney composed a masque to amuse her majesty, called “The Lady of May,” which was performed before her. In this dramatic composition he betrayed some proficiency in the school of courtly adulation, by the frequent allusions he has made to Elizabeth’s beaut).

He had not been long at home before what may be termed his political life comnrienr.edj by his being appointed in 1576, ambassador to the couit of Vienna, to condole with the emperor Rodnlph, on the death of his father Maximilian II. The queen’s own penetration and discernment had promoted him to this appointment, but it was not intended to be confined to the mere ceremonial mentioned above. It had in view the union of all the protestant states in defence of their common cause against the ruin that menaced them from the popish powers, from the superstition of Rome, and the tyranny of Spain. Sidney succeeded in this attempt: and they were induced to conclude a religious league with England, with that country which was then justly acknowledged to be the firm support and the invincible bulwark of the reformation. He was directed at the same time to visit the court of John Casimir, count palatine of the Rhine, to whom he was earnestly and affectionately recommended by his uncle lord Leicester. His other transactions belong to history, but he managed them all with so much of the sagacity and discretion <of an able and experienced statesman, that it was justly said, that “from a child he started into a man, without ever being a youth.” When entrusted with these negociations of so much importance, he had scarcely reached his twenty^ fifth year.

His spirit and sense were afterwards displayed in a manner which reflects high honour upon his character. When in 1579, queen Elizabeth seemed inclined to accede to the proposal of a marriage with the duke of Anjou, which might have endangered the prosperity, religion, and liberty of the nation, Mr. Sidney addressed a letter to her against such a connection, written with unusual elegance of expression as well as force of reasoning, and with uncommon freedom. The delicacy of the subject, and the difficulty of discussing it without offending the queen, he was perfectly aware of, yet his zeal for the welfare of his country, and particularly the protestant religion, would not permit him to be silent; and it is supposed that by this letter he had the honour of averting the mischiefs that would have attended the maiv riage. Nor did he lose her majesty’s favour, although others who interfered, were treated with the utmost rigour, particularly Stubbs, a gentleman of Lincoln’s Inn, and Page a printer, whose right hands were cut, the one for writing, and the other for-printing a pamphlet against the match. Camden, the historian, was present at the execution of this savage sentence, one of the greatest blemishes in the reign of Elizabeth.

Among the fashionable amusements in the court of Elizabeth, tournaments were most in vogue. In 1580, Philip earl of Arundel, and sir William Drury his assistant, challenged all comers to try their feats of arms in those exercises. This challenge was given in the genuine spirit of chivalry in honour of the queen. Among those who gallantly offered themselves as defenders, were Edward Vere, earl of Oxford, lord Windsor, Mr. Philip Sidney, and fourteen others. The victory Was adjudged by her majesty to the earl of Oxford. With this earl of Oxford Sidney had afterwards a serious quarrel, having received a personal insult from him. The queen interposed to prevent a duel, with which Sidney was much dissatisfied, and to compose his mind retired to Wilton, the seat of his brother-in-law the earl of Pembroke. In this seat of rural beauty (and not at Houghton-house, as asserted in Gough’s Camden, which was not built until after his death) he planned the design of the “Arcadia.” It has been conjectured that the Ethiopic history of Heliodorus, which had been recently translated into English prose by Thomas Underdowne, suggested that new mode of writing romance which is pursued in this work; but it seems more probable that he derived the plan of his work from the “Arcadia” of Sannazarius, a complete edition of which was printed at Milan in 1504. The persons introduced by the Italian author are shepherds, and their language, manners, and sentiments are such as suit only the innocence and simplicity of pastoral life. This species of composition may be considered as forming the second stage of romance-writing. The heroism and the gallantry, the moral and virtuous turn of the chivalry-romance, were still preserved; but the dragons, the necromancers, the enchanted castles were banished, and some small resemblance to human nature was admitted. Still, however, there was too much of the marvellous in them to please an age which aspired to refinement. The characters were discerned to be strained, the style swollen, the adventures incredible, and the books themselves were voluminous and tedious. With respect to the “Arcadia,” Sidney formed a just estimate when he characterized it as “an idle composition, as a trifle, and triflingly handled.” He appears indeed to have written it chiefly for his sister’s amusement, to whom he sent it in portions as it came from his pen. He never completed the third book, nor was any part of the work printed during his life. It is said he intended to arrange the whole anew* and to have changed the subject by celebrating the prowess and military deeds of king Arthur, The whole, imperfect as he left it, was corrected by his sister’s pen, and carefully perused by others under her direction, so that it was very properly called “The countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.” It now lies neglected on the shelf, and has almost sunk into oblivion; yet the reception it obtained from the public, having gone through fourteen impressions, and having been translated into the French, Dutch, and other European languages, clearly evinces that it was once held in very high estimation. “There are,” says his biographer, “passages in this work exquisitely beautiful, and useful observations on life and manners, a variety and accurate discrimination of characters, fine sentiments expressed in strong and adequate terms, animated descriptions, equal to any that occur in the ancient or modern poets, sage lessons of morality, and judicious reflexions on government and policy.”

In 1583 he married Frances, the only surviving daughter and heir of sir Francis Walsingham, a young lady of great beauty and worth, who is said to have endeared herself to him by those lovely qualities which embellish and improve the female character; and about the same time the queen conferred on him the honour of knighthood. She also gave him a sinecure in Wales of the yearly value of 120l. but at what time is uncertain. About 1584 several plots and conspiracies formed against the queen’s person, both at home and abroad, greatly alarmed her. To remove her fears of danger, the nobility and gentry, and indeed men of all degrees and conditions, instituted an association under the direction of the earl of Leicester, binding themselves under the most solemn obligations to prosecute even to death those enemies of their country who should attempt any thing against their sovereign. Of the zeal of sir Philip Sidney at this momentous crisis no doubt can be entertained. While the efforts of Leicester exposed him to the rude censures and severe aspersions of anonymous writers, his nephew took up the pen to vindicate his fame. With this view he composed an answer to a publication, entitled “Leicester’s Commonwealth,” the reputexl author of which was Parsons the noted Jesuit; but sir Philip’s production has not been thought conclusive as to the chief points in dispute, and it remained in ms. until the publication of the Sidney papers in 1746.

About this time sir Philip formed, along with sir Fulke Greville, a design of accompanying sir Francis Drake in a voyage of discovery to America; and this he projected with the greatest secrecy, and with more of a romantic turn than his friends could have wished. The secret, however, transpired, and the queen issued peremptory orders to restrain him from his purpose, which in all probability would have ended in disappointment, or, if successful, would have left a stain on his hitherto spotless character. In 1585 a very remarkable honour seemed to be within his reach. He was named among the competitors for the elective kingdom of Poland, vacant by the death of Stephen Bathori, prince of Transylvania. Queen Elizabeth, however, was averse from the measure, “refusing,” says sir Robert Naunton, “to further his advancement, not only out of emulation, but out of fear to lose the jewel of her times.” According to Fuller he declined the dignity, preferring rather to be “a subject to queen Elizabeth than a sovereign beyond the seas.”

The protestant inhabitants of the Netherlands being grievously oppressed by the cruelties of the duke of Alva, implored the assistance of queen Elizabeth, who promised to send a military force to their relief, and on this occasion indulged the martial disposition of sir Philip Sidney, who was now a privy counsellor, by appointing him governor of Flushing, one of the most important places in the Netherlands. Sir Philip, who entered heartily into the cause of the protestant religion, prepared himself cheerfully to sacrifice his life and fortune in this service, and on his arrival at Flushing, Nov. 18, 1585, was immediately appointed colonel of all the Dutch regiments, and captain of a small band of English soldiers amounting to 300 horse and foot. Not long after, the earl of Leicester was sent, with an army of 5000 foot and 1000 horse, to the United Provinces, as general of the English auxiliaries, and sir Philip, promoted to the office of general of the horse under his uncle, joined himself to this army. It would be foreign to our purpose to recount the different causes which obstructed the success of the auxiliaries, or the mischiefs which arose from dissentions among the commanders. Sir Philip, we are told, attempted by wise counsels to reconcile them. In July 1586, accompanied by the young prince Maurice, he took Axell, a town in Flanders, without the loss of a single man; but on September 22, 1586, having engaged with a convoy sent by the enemy to Zutphen, a strong town in Guelderland, then besieged by the Spaniards, the English troops, far inferior in number to those of the enemy, though they gained a decisive victory, sustained an irreparable loss by the death of sir Philip Sidney. Having one horse shot under him, he mounted a second, and seeing lord Willoughby surrounded by the enemy, and in imminent danger, he rushed forward to rescue him. Having accomplished his purpose, he continued the fight with great spirit, until he received a bullet in the left thigh, which proved fatal.

The concluding period of life not seldom presents us with the most prominent features of genuine goodness; and it may be truly said that history does not afford an incident more noble or affecting than the following. As sir Philip was returning from the field of battle, pale, languid, and thirsty with excess of bleeding, he asked for water to quench his thirst. The water was brought, and had no sooner approached his lips, than he instantly resigned it to a dying soldier, whose ghastly countenance attracted his notice, speaking these memorable words: “This man’s necessity is still greater than mine.” He languished until Oct. 17, when he expired in the arms of his secretary and friend Mr. William Temple. He had just arrived at the age of thirty-two years, and had attained in that short period, more fame, more esteem, more admiration, both at home and throughout Europe, than any man of the sixteenth century, and for many years after employed more pens to celebrate his excellent qualities of head and heart. In England a general mourning was observed among those of highest rank, “no gentleman, for many months, appearing in a gay or gaudy dress, either in the city or the court.” His body being brought to England, was interred, with great pomp, in St. Paul’s cathedral. No memorial, however, was erected to him, except a tablet with some very indifferent lines, but his fame did not require aid from brass or marble. For the many testimonies to his uncommon worth and excellence, both by his contemporaries and their successors, we must refer to Dr. Zouch’s elaborate “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of sir Philip Sidney.” There also the petty objections of lord Orford to this illustrious character are fully answered. Both the universities of England lamented the death of sir Philip Sidney in three volumes of elegiac poems, in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Italian. His widow afterwards married Robert Devereux, earl of Essex; and after his death, she married Richard de Burgh, the fourth earl of Clanrickard in the kingdom of Ireland. She became a convert to popery after the death of her second husband, the earl of Essex. There seems little that is very estimable in the marriages and conversion of this lady, and certainly nothing respectful to the memory of her first husband.

The works of sir Philip Sidney, which we shall but briefly notice, are, 1. The “Arcadia” already mentioned. 2. “Astrophel and Stella,” with sonnets of various noblemen and gentlemen, 1591, 4to. 3. “The Defence of Poesy,” 1595, 4to, afterwards usually printed with the “Arcadia*” In 1787 Dr. Joseph Warton printed an edition, with “Observations on Poetry and Eloquence from Ben Jonson’s Discoveries,” 8vo. 4. “Sonets,” several of which appeared in Constable’s “Diana,” 1594, but were afterwards annexed to the “Arcadia,” with “Astrophel and Stella.” 5. “A remedie for Love.” 6. “The Lady of May, a masque,” both generally printed with the “Arcadia.” 7. “Valour anatomized in a fancie,” 1581, printed at. the end of “Cottoni Posthuma,” 1672. 8. Various songs and sonnets in “England’s Helicon,” and other collections. 9. “English Version of the Psalms of David,” a ms. 10. A translation of Du Plessis 7 true use of the Christian religion, begun by sir Philip, and finished at his request by Arthur Goiding, 1587 and 1592, 1604 and 1617. Dr 4 Zouch is of opinion that the greatest part of it was by sir Philip. It is pleasing to reflect, adds this biographer, that the most accomplished gentleman and the most complete scholar of his -age, was deeply impressed with a sense of religion, that he delighted in contemplating the doctrines of revelation, the existence of one supreme being, the creation of the world by him, and his providential government of it, the immortality of the soul of man, the prospect of future blessedness, the redemption of mankind by the Messiah, who was promised to the Jews for the salvation of the whole world.

, countess of Pembroke, sister of the preceding, manied in 1676, Henry earl of Pembroke; and her eldest son, William, who succeeded to the titles and estates of his father, is the ancestor of the present family. She had received a liberal education, and was distinguished among the literary characters of the age for a highly cuLtivaied mind and superior talents. Congenial qualities and pursuits united her vith her brother sir Pnilip Sidney, in bonds of strict friendship; and, as we have mentioned in his article, he wrote the “Arcadia” for her amusement. To her also Mr. Abraham Fraunce devoted his poetic and literary labours. The countess por 5 sessed a talent for poetical composition, which she assiduously cultivated. She translated from the Hebrew into English verse many of the Psalms, which are said to be preserved in the library at Wilton, and in this was assisted by her brother. She also translated and published “A Discourse ok Life and Death, written in French by Phiiip Mornay, done into English by the countess of Pembroke, dated May 13, 1590, Wilton:” Lond. 1600, 12mo. Likewise, “The Tragedie of Antonie: done into English by the countess of Pembroke,” Lond. 1595, Umo. This little work contains, though not paged, 54 leaves. To these we may add “An Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney,” printed in Spenser’s “Astrophel,” 1595, and a “Pastoral Dialogue in praise of Astrsea,” i. e. queen Elizabeth, published in Davison’s “Poetical Rapsody,” 1602. A long poem in six-line stanzas, entitled “The Countesse of Pembroke’s Passion,” occurs among the Sloanian Mss. No. 1303.

She survived her husband twenty years, and having lived to an advanced age, died at her house in Aldersgate-street, London, Sept. 25, 1601. She was interred with the Pembroke family, in the chancel of the cathedral at Salisbury, without any monument. The following lines, designed as an inscription for her tomb, were written by the celebrated Ben Jonson:

, a learned ecclesiastic of the fifth century, was descended of an illustrious family, his father and grandfather having been pretorian prefects in Gaul, and was born at Lyons about 430. He was educated with care, performed his studies under the best masters of that time, and became very skilful in all parts of literature, especially in poetry. He married Papianilla, the daughter of Avitus, who, from the office of pretorian prefect in Gaul, was raised to the imperial throne, after the death of Maximus. But Majorianus, whom Leo had taken into a partnership of the empire, forced Avitus to lay down his crown, and came to besiege the city of Lyons, where Sidonius had shut himself up. The city being taken, he fell into the hands of the enemy but the reputation of his great learning softened the barbarity of his enemies, and in return for their lenient treatment of him, he wrote a poem in honour of Majorianus, who was so highly gratified with it as to erect a statue to Sidonius in the city of Rome. The emperor Anthemius was equally pleased with a panegyric which Sidonius wrote in praise of him, and made him governor of Rome, and a patrician; but he soon quitted his secular employment, and obtained preferment in the church, being in 472 chosen, against his will, as reported, bishop of Clermont. He appears however to have been worthy of the station by learning and charity. His liberality indeed was highly conspicuous, and even before he was bishop, he frequently converted his silver plate to the use of the poor. When Clermont was besieged by the Goths, he encouraged the people to stand upon their defence, and would never consent to the surrender of the city; so that, when it was delivered up, he was forced to fly, but was soon restored. Some time after, he was opposed by two factious priests, who deprived him of the government of his church; but he was again re-instated with honour at the end of a year. He died in peace in 487, after he had been bishop fifteen years.

He was a man learned above the age he lived in, skilled in all parts of literature and science, of a subtle and penetrating wit, and considering that he lived in the decline of Roman literature, not an inelegant writer. Of his works, nine books of epistles, with about four and twenty poems interspersed, are still extant. There are few things in his letters which relate to religion or the church, so that his opinions cannot be ascertained, but they contain many particulars relative to the learning and history of the times. They were published with notes by father Sirmond, at Paris, 1614, in 8vo;and, after his death, reprinted in 1652, with some additions, in 4to.

, a Florentine artist, born at Corfcona in 1439, was the scholar of Piero della Francesca. He was an artist of spirit and expression, and one of the first in Tuscany, who designed the naked with anatomical intelligence, though still with some dry ness of manner, and too much adherence to the model: the chief evidence of this is in the Duomo of Orvieto, where in the mixed imagery of final dissolution and infernal punishment, he has scattered original ideas of conception, character, and attitude, in copious variety, though not without remnants of gothic alloy. The angels, who announce the impending doom or scatter plagues, exhibit, with awful simplicity, bold fore-shortenings; whilst the St. Michael presents only the tame heraldic figure of a knight all cased in armour. In the expression of the condemned groups and daemons, he chiefly dwells on the supposed perpetual renewal of the pangs attending on the last struggles of life with death, contrasted with the inexorable scowl or malignant grin of fiends methodizing torture; a horrid feature, reserved by Dante for the last pit of his Inferno. It has been first said by Vasari, who exulted in his relation to Luca, that Michael Angelo, in certain parts of his Last Judgment, adopted something of the conduct and the ideas of his predecessor. This is true, because Michael Angelo could not divest himself of every impression from a work he had so often seen: his originality consisted in giving consequence to the materials of Luca, not in changing them; both drew from the same sources, with the same predilections and prejudices, and differed less in the mode than the extent of their conception.

Of this artist, who died in 1521, aged eighty- two, a story is told as a proof of what an absolute command he had over his passions, or rather, it might have been said, over natural affection. He had a son extremely handsome, and a youth of great hopes, who was unfortunately killed at. Cortona. When this son, greatly beloved by him, was brought home, he ordered his corpse to be carried into his painting-room and, having stripped him, immediately drew his picture, without shedding a tear.

, a learned Italian, was of an ancient family of Modena, and born there in 1524. His father designed him for a physician, and sent him to Bologna with that view; but he soon abandoned this pursuit, and studied the Greek and Latin classics, which was more agreeable to his taste. He taught Greek first at Venice, then at Padua, and lastly at Bologna. He had some literary disputes with Robortellius and Gruchius upon Roman antiquities, in which he was exceedingly well versed. Of his numerous works, the most esteemed are, “De Republica Hebrseorum” “De Republica Atheniensium;” “Historia de Occidentali Imperio;” and “De regno Italize.” Lipsius, Casaubon, Turnebus, and all the learned, speak of him in terms of the profoundest respect; and he was unquestionably one of the first classical antiquaries of his time, and a man of great judgment as well as learning, very correct and deep in researches, and of most unwearied diligence. He died in 1585, aged sixty. His works were all collected and printed at Milan in 1733 and 1734: they make six volumes in folio. His “Fasti Consulares” were printed with the Oxford Livy in 1800.

, a French writer, whose taste for English literature entitles him to a place here, was born at Limoges in 1709, and appears to have been brought up to civil or political life, although he always cultivated a taste for literature. He purchased the office of master of requests, and after having managed the affairs of the duke of Orleans, became comptroller-general and minister of state in 1759. This was a critical time for France, which was carrying on a ruinous war, and the finances were in a very low condition. Silhouette wished to remedy this last evil by retrenchment and ceconomy, but finding that such a plan was only a topic for ridicule, he quitted his post in about nine months, and retired to his estate of Brie-sur-Marne,and devoted his time to study, and his wealth to benevolence. He died in 1767. His works were: 1. “Idee generate du Government Chinois,” 1729, 4to, 1731, 12mo. 2. “Reflexion politique,” from the Spanish of Balthazar Gracian, 1730, 4to. 3. A translation of Pope’s “Essay on Man,” which the French speak of as faithful, but not elegant. 4. A translation of Bolingbroke’s “Dissertation on Parties.” This is said to have been printed at London in 1739, where, perhaps about this time Silhouette was on a visit. 5 “Lettre sur les transactions pubiiques du Regrie d'Elizabeth,” with some remarks on Rapin’s account of that reign, Amst. 1736, 12mo. 6. A translation of Pope’s “Miscellanies,” 1741, 2 vols. 12mo. 7. “Traite* mathematique sur le bonheur,” 1741, 12mo. 8. A translation of Warburton’s “Alliance,” 1742, 2 vols. 1.2 mo. With Warburton he appears to have corresponded, for in one of Warburton’s letters, printed by Mr. Nichols, we find that celebrated author desiring that a copy of his “Divine Legation” may be sent to M. Silhouette in Franoe. In the “History of the Works of the Learned” also, we find “Observations on the Abbe* Pluche’s History of the Heavens,” translated from the French of Silhouette, who professes that he was chiefly indebted for them to the second volume of the “Divine Legation,” and to some particular remarks communicated to him hy Mr. Warburton. 9. “Epitres morales, Lettres phiiosophiques, et Traits mathematiques,” printed at the Bowyer press, in 1741. 10. “Memoirs des commissaires du roi et de ceux de sa majeste Britamuque stir les possessions et les droits respectifs des deux couronnes en Amerique,” Paris, 1755, 4to. In this he was assisted by M. de la Gahssonniere. 1 1> “Voyage de France, d‘Espagne, de Portugal, et d’ltalie,” a posthumous work, Paris, 1770.

, a Roman poet, and author of a poetical history of the second Punic war, which decided the empire of the world in favour of the Romans, was born in the reign of Tiberius, about A. D. 15, and is supposed to have derived the name of Italicus from the place of his birth; but whether he was born at Italica in Spain, or atCorsinium in Italy, which, according to Strabo, had the name of Italica given it during the social war, is a point which cannot be known: though, if his birth had happened at either of these places, the grammarians tell us, that he should have been called Italicensis, and not Italicus. When he came to Rome, he applied himself to the bar; and, by a close imitation of Cicero, succeeded so well, that he became a celebrated advocate and most accomplished orator. His merit and character recommended him to the highest offices in the republic, even to the consulship, of which he was possessed when Nero difed. He is said to have been aiding in the accusation of persons of high rank and fortune, whom that tyrant had devoted to destruction: but he retrieved his character afterwards by a long and uniform course of virtuous behaviour, and held a principal office under the emperor Vitellius, which he executed so well as to preserve his credit with the public. Vespasian sent him as proconsul into Asia, where he behaved with integrity and unblemished reputation. After having thus spent the best part of his life in the service of his country, he bade adieu to public affairs, resolving to consecrate the remainder of his days to retirement and the Muses. He had several fine villas in the country one at Tusculum, celebrated for having been Cicero’s and a farm near Naples, said to have been Virgil’s, and at which was his tomb, which Silius often visited. Martial compliments him on both these accounts. In his retirement he applied himself to poetry, not so much from the impulse of genius, which would have appeared earlier, but from his enthusiastic regard for Virgil, to whose memory he paid the highest veneration, and whose birth-day he is said to have celebrated annually with more solemnity than his own. He has endeavoured to imitate him in his poem; and, though he falls greatly short, yet there are some splendid passages and strains of imagination which enliven a historical detail that otherwise may be read with more pleasure in Livy’s prose. After spending a considerable time in this retirement, and reaching his seventy- fifth year, he was seized with an incurable ulcer, which afflicted him with unsupportable pains, and drove him to put an end to his life by refraining from sustenance. The best and almost the only account we have of Silius Italicus is in one of Pliny’s letters, from which most of the above particulars are taken.

The first edition of his poem was published by Sweynheym and Pannartz, at Rome jn 1471, and five other editions were printed in the same century. Of modern editions the best are, that of Drakenborch, 1717, 4to, of Viltebrun, Paris, 1781, 8vo, of Ernesti, Leipsic, 1791, 2 vols. 8vo, of Heber, 1792, 2 vols. 12mo, elegantly printed at the Buhner press, and of Rupert, Gottingen, 1795 8, 2 vols. 8vo.

, a man of great talents and influence in the tenth century, was born in Aquitaine, of mean parentage, and was educated in a neighbouring convent. His original name was Gerbert. From his convent he passed into the family of a count of Barcelona, in which he prosecuted his studies under the care of a Spanish bishop, whom he accompanied from Spain to Rome. Here he was introduced to Otho the great, attached himself to Adalbaron, the archbishop of Rheims, whom he attended to his see, and returned with him about the year 972 into Italy. His progress in learning, which comprized geometry, astronomy, the mathematics, mechanics, and every branch of subordinate science, is said to have been prodigious; and his residence in Spain, during which he visited Cordova and Seville, had enabled him to profit by the instruction of the Arabian doctors. With such acquirements, he was promoted by Otho to be abbot of the monastery of Bobbio in Lombardy, but, finding no satisfaction in this place, he again joined his friend the archbishop of Rheims. Here he had leisure to prosecute his favourite studies, while, as his letters shew, his abilities were usefully engaged in different political transactions: in addition to the superintendance of the public schools, he was intrusted with the education of Robert, son and successor of Hugh Capet. He also employed himself in collecting books from every quarter, in studying them, and in introducing a taste for them among his countrymen. It is said that the effects of this enlightened zeal were soon visible in Germany, Gaul, and Italy; and by his writings, as well as by his example and his exhortations, many were animated to emulate their master’s fame, and caught by the love of science, to abandon the barbarous prejudices of the age. In his epistles, Gerbert cites the names of various classical authors, whose works he possessed, though often incomplete: and it is plain, from the style of these epistles, that he expended his wealth in employing copyists, and exploring the repositories of ancient learning.

Though, if we may believe his encomiasts, the genius of Gerbert embraced all the branches of learning, its peculiar bent was to mathematical inquiries. In these, when the barbarism of the age is considered, he may be said to have advanced no inconsiderable way. What was the extent of his astronomical science, does not appear: but what chiefly deserves notice, is the facility with which he aided his own progress, and rendered discovery more palpable, by combining mechanism with theory. He constructed spheres, the arrangements of which he describes observed the stars through tubes invented a clock, which with some accuracy marked the hours, and was esteemed an able musician. He is said to have been as well skilled in the construction of musical instruments as in the use of them, particularly the hydraulic organ. William of Malmsbury speaks with wonder of the perfection to which he had brought this instrument, by means of blowing it with warm water. Dr. Burney thinks that the application of warm water may have been the invention of Gerbert, though, in all probability, he had followed the principles of Vitruvius in constructing the instrument.

In the Rawlinson collection of Mss. at Oxford, there is a didactic poem, entitled “Ars Mu^ica,” which, though anonymous, contains internal evidence of having been written by Gerbert. It is composed in Latin monkish rhyme, except where such technical terms occurred, as could not possibly be reduced to metre. The last chapter of this work is a separate treatise, of a very few pages, under the title of “Rhythmomachia,” or the battle of numbers and figures, which is universally allowed to have been written by Gerbert. It was composed as a kind of game, soon after the arrival of the Arabian figures or ciphers in Europe, for which the author gives rules resembling those for chess. Hence some of his biographers say, that it is to Gerbert we are indebted for the Arabic numerals. Certainly such attainments were indications ofno common mind, and induced the vulgar to suspect that he was addicted to magic an absurd notion, which Platina had adopted, for he says that he obtained the papacy by ill arts, and that he left his monastery to follow the devil. He allows him, indeed, the merit of a sincere repentance; but mentions some prodigies at his death, which will claim little regard on the testimony of such a writer.

On his rise to the papacy we shall be brief. In 991, Hugh Capet promoted him to the archbishopric of Rheiins; but this elevation was a source of disquiet to him, and after much contention, he was obliged to resign the see to Arnulf, the natural son of Lothaire, king of France, who had been formerly deposed from it. This was in 997, and at the same time Otho III. conferred upon him the archbishopric of Ravenna; and on the death of pope Gregory V, in 999, he was elected to the papal dignity, when he assumed the name of Silvester. The acts of his pontificate were but few, and not at all important. In 1000 he is said to have conferred on Stephen I., king of Hungary, the royal title, with the famous crown, the palladium of that kingdom, and to have constituted him perpetual legate of the holy see, with power to dispose of all ecclesiastical benefices. It was also in this century that the plan of the holy war was formed; and towards the conclusion of it, the signal was given by our learned pontiff, in the first year of his pontificate, in aa epistle, written in the name of the church of Jerusalem, to the church universal throughout the world, in which the European powers are solemnly exhorted to succour and deliver the Christians in Palestine. The pontiff’s exhortations, however, were only regarded by the inhabitants of Pisa.

, a celebrated French engraver, was born August 15, 1621, at Nanci, of a good family, originally Scotch. After his father’s decease, he went to Paris, where Israel Henriet, his mother’s brother, a skilful engraver, gladly received him, and educated him as his own son. He drew ajl the views of Paris and its environs, engraved them with great success, and went twice afterwards to Rome, whence he brought the great number of fine Italian views which he has left us. Louis XIV. being at length informed of this artist’s great genius, employed him to engrave all the royal palaces, conquered places, &c, and appointed him drawing master to the dauphin, allowing him a considerable pension besides, with apartments in the Louvre. Silvestre married Henrietta Selincart, a lady celebrated both for her wit and beauty, who dying in September 1680, he erected a superb monument to her memory in the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. He died October 11, 1691, aged seventy.

, an eminent English historian, and the contemporary of William of Malmsbury, lived in the twelfth century. He both studied and taught the sciences, and particularly the mathematics at Oxford, and became precentor to the church of Durham. He died probably soon after the year 1130, where his history ends. He took great pains in collecting our ancient monuments, especially in the north of England, after they had been scattered by the Danes in their devastations of that country. From these he composed a history of the kings of England from the year 616 to 1130, with some smaller historical pieces. It was continued by John, prior of Hexham, to the year 1156. This work, and Simeon’s account of the church of Durham, are printed among Twisden’s “Decem Scriptores” but of the latter a separate edition was published in 1732, 8vo, by Thomas Bedford.

, surnamed Metaphrasfes, from his having written the lives of the saints in a diffuse manner, was born of noble parents at Constantinople, in the tenth century, and was well educated, and raised himself by his merit to very high trust under the reigns of Leo, the philosopher, and Constantine Pruphyrogenitus his son. It is said, that when sent on a certain occasion by the emperor to the island of Crete, which the Saracens were about to surprize, a contrary wind carried his ship to the isle of Pharos. There he nut with an anchorite, who advised him to write tho life of Theoctista, a female saint of Lesbos. With this he complied, and we may presume, found some pleasure in the undertaking, as be gradually extended his researches to the lives of an hundred and twenty other saints, which, with respect to style, are not disgraceful to a scholar, but, cardinal Bellarmin says, he describes his saints rather as what they ought to be, than as what they were. There are Latin translations of this work by Lipotian, Surius, and others, but no edition of the original Gveek; and iiis translators are accused of having added much of a fabulous nature. Some other religious tracts of Metaphrastes are extant, and some “Annals.” He died in 976 or 977.

, a learned divine of the sixteenth century, who co-operated in the reformation, was born Nov. 6, 1530, at Cappell, a village near Zurich in Swisserland. His father, Peter Simler, after having been for many years a member of, and afterwards prior of the L onastery there, embraced the reformed religion, became a preacher of it, and died in 1557. After being educated for some time in his father’s monastery, he went to Zurich in 1544, and studied for two years under the direction of the celebrated Bullinger, who was his god-father. He removed thence to Basil, where he studied rhetoric and mathematics, and afterwards to Strasburgh, where Sturmius, Martyr, Bucer, and others of the reformers resided; but as he had no thoughts at this time of divinity as a profession, he improved himself chiefly in other branches of learning. He continued here about two years, and passed three more in visiting various universities, and hearing the lectures of the most eminent professors. In 1549, he returned home, and with such visible improvement in learning, that Gesner often employed him to lecture to his scholars, both in geometry and astronomy. In 1552 he was appointed to expound in public the New Testament, which he did with so much ability as to be greatly admired by the learned of Zurich, as wt 11 as by the English who had taken refuge there from the Marian persecution. In 1557 he was made deacon; and when Bibliander, on account of his advanced age, was declared emeritus^ Simler was appointed to teach in his place, and was likewise colleague with Peter Martyr, who had a high opinion of him, and on his death in 1563, Simler succeeded him as professor of divinity. He filled this office with great reputation until his constitution became impaired by a hereditary gout, which in his latter years interrupted his studies, and shortened his useful life. He was only forty-five when he died, July 2, 1576. He is represented as a man of a meek, placid, and affectionate temper, and although never rich, always liberal, charitable, and hospitable.

His works are very numerous, some on subjects of divinity, commentaries on the scriptures, c. and some on the controversies most agitated in his time. He wrote also the lives of Peter Martyr, Gesner, and Bullinger, each in a thin 4io volume; published an epitome of Gesner’s “Bibliotheca,* 5 155-), fol. and was editor of some of the works of Martyr and Bullinger. To those we may add, 1.” Je­thici costtiographta, Antonini Itinerarimn, Rutiliani Numantiani hinerarium, et alia varia,“basil', 1575, 12mo, with valuable scholia. 2.” Helvetiorum Respublica,“often reprinted, and esteemed one of the best of that collection of little books called” Republics.“3.” Vallesise descriptionis libri duo, et de Alpibus commentarius,“1574, 8vo. 4.” Vocabularia rei nummarise ponderum et mensurarum, Gr. Lat. Heb Arab, ex diversis autoribus collecta," Tignri, 1584, 8vo, &c. &C.

, a late learned physician, and physician extraordinary to the king, was born March 17, 1750, at Sandwich, in Kent, where his father, who followed the profession of the law, was so respected, that, at the coronation of their present majesties, he was deputed by the cinque ports one of their barons to support the king’s canopy, according to ancient custom. His mother, whose maiden name was Foart, and whose family was likewise of Sandwich, died when he was an infant. He was educated at a seminary in France, where he not only improved himself in the learned languages, but acquired such a perfect knowledge of the French tongue, as to be able to write and speak it with the same facility as his own. He pursued his medical studies for nearly three years at Edinburgh, and afterwards went to Holland, and studied during a season at Leyden, where he was admitted to the degree of doctor of physic: he chose the measles for the subject of his inaugural discourse, which he inscribed to Cullen, and to Gaubius, both of whom hud shewn him particular regard. After taking his degree at Leyden, he visited and became acquainted with professor Camper in InesKuul, who had at that time one of the finest anatomical museums in Kurope. From thence he proceeded to Aix-lct-Chapelle and the Spa, and afterwards visited different parts of Germany; stopped for some time at the principal universities; and wherever he went cultivated the acquaintance of learned men, especially those of his own profession, in which he was ever anxious to impr >ve himself. At Berne, in Switzerland, he became known to the celebrated Haller, who afterwards ranked him among his friends and correspondents. He came to reside in London towards the close of 1778, being then in his 2Stii year, and was admitted a member of the College of Physicians, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society 1779, and of the Society of Antiquaries 1791, as he had been before of different foreign academies at Nantz, Montpellier, and Madrid: he was afterwards admitted an honorary member of the Literary and Philosophical Society at Manchester, and of the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris, at which place he was elected one of the Associes Etrangers de l‘Ecole de Medicine; and in 1807, Correspondant de la Premiere Classe de I’Institut Imperial. Previous to 1778, he had written an elementary work on Anatomy, which was greatly enlarged and improved in its second edition, 1781: and he had communicated to the Royal Society the History of a curious case, which was afterwards published in their Transactions, “Phil. Trans.” vol. LXIV. He became also the sole editor of the London “Medical Journal;” a work which, after going through several volumes, was resumed under the title of “Medical Facts and Observations’.” these two works have ever been distinguished for their correctness, their judicious arrangement, and their candour. About this time he published an account of the Tape-worm, in which he made known the specific for this disease, purchased by the king of France. This account has been enlarged in a subsequent edition. — He likewise distinguished himself by a practical work on “Consumptions,” which, at the time, became the means of introducing him to considerable practice in pulmonary complaints. In 1780, he was elected physician to the Westminster General Dispensary; a situation he held for many years, and which afforded him ample scope for observation and experience in the knowledge of disease. These opportunities he did not neglect; and though, from his appointment soon after to St. Luke’s Hosr he was led to decline general practice, and to attach himself more particularly to the diseases of th mi-.;, continued to communicate to the publick such facts and remarks as he considered likely to promote the extension of any branch of professional science. With this view, he published some remarks on the treatment of Hydrocephalus internus (“Med. Comment, of Edinburgh, vol. V.”), and in the same work a case of Ulceration of the Œsophagus and Ossification of the Heart. He wrote also an account of a species of Hydrocephalus, which sometimes takes place in cases of Mania (London Med. Journal, vol. VI.) and an account of the Epidemic Catarrh of the year 1788, vol. IX. He had given an account also of the “Life of Dr. William Hunter,” with whom he was personally acquainted, a work abounding in interesting anecdote, and displaying an ingenuous and impartial review of the writings and discoveries of that illustrious anatomist. From the time of his being elected physician to St. Luke’s Hospital to the period of his death, he devoted himself, nearly exclusively, to the care and treatment of Insanity; and his skill in this melancholy department of human disease, became so generally acknowledged, that few, if any, could be considered his superiors. In the year 1803, it was deemed expedient to have recourse to Dr. Simmons, to alleviate the mournful malady of his sovereign, of whom he had the care for nearly six months, assisted by his son: the result was as favourable as the public could have wished; and on taking their leave, his majesty was pleased to confer a public testimony of his approbation, by appointing Dr. Simmons one of his physicians extraordinary, which took place in May 1804. — In the unfortunate relapse, which occurred in 1811, Dr. Simmons again attended; and, in conjunction with the other physicians, suggested those remedies and plans which seemed most likely to effect a cure. In February of that year he resigned the office of physician to St. Luke’s, in a very elegant letter, in which he assigned his age and state of health as the reasons for his resignation. The governors were so sensible of the value of his past services, and the respect due to him, as immediately to elect him a governor of the charity. They also proposed his being one of the committee; and, expressly on his account, created the office of Consulting Physician, in order to have the advantage of his opinion, not merely in the medical arrangement, but in the domestic ceconomy of the hospital. His last illness began on the evening of the 10th. of April, 1813, when he was seized with sickness, and a violent vomiting of bile, accompanied with a prostration of strength so sudden, and so severe, that on the second day of the attack he was barely able to stand; and a dissolution of the powers of life seeming to be rapidly coming on, he prepared for his departure with methodical accuracy, anticipated the event with great calmness, and, on the evening of the 23d of the same month, expired in the arms of his son. He was buried May 2, at Sandwich in Kent, and, according to the directions expressed in his will, his remains were deposited in a vault in the church-yard of St. Clement, next to those of his mother. In private life, Dr. Simmons was punctiliously correct in all his dealings; mild and unassuming in his manners, and of rather retired habits, passing Ins time chiefly in his study and in his professional avocations. He was one of the earliest proprietors of the Roy;d Institution and, in 1806, became an hereditary governor of the British Institution for the promotion of the Fine Arts. He has left one son, who is unmarried, and a widow, to deplore his loss.

, a French critic and divine of great learning, was born at Dieppe, May 13, 1638, and commenced his studies among the priests of the oratory, whom he quitted for some time, and went to Paris, where he applied himself to divinity, and made a great progress in Oriental learning, for which he had always a particular turn. About the end of 1662, he returned to the oratory and became a priest of it. On the death of father Bourgouin, general of this congregation, some cause of displeasure inclined him to leave them, and join the society of the Jesuits; but from this he was diverted by the persuasions of father Bertad, the superior of the oratory. He was then sent to the college of Juilly, in the diocese of Meaux, to teach philosophy; but other business occurring, he was ordered to go to Paris. In the library of the oratory there was a valuable collection of Oriental books, of which Simon was employed to make a catalogue, which he executed with great skill, and perused at the same time those treasures with great avidity. M. de Lamoignon, first president of the parliament of Paris, meeting with him one day in the library, was so pleased with his conversation, that he requested of Senault, the new general of the oratory, that he might be permitted to remain in Paris; but this being unaccompanied by any advantages, Simon, who had much of an independent spirit, petitioned to go back to Juilly, to teach philosophy, as before. He accordingly arrived there in 1668, and, in 1670, his first publication appeared, a defence of the Jews against the accusation of having murdered a Christian child, “Factum pour les Juifs de Metz,” &c. In the following year, with a view to shew that the opinion of the Greek church is not materially different from that of the church of Rome, with respect to the sacrament, he published “Fides Ecclesiae Orientalis, seu Gabrielis Metropolitae Philadelphiensis opuscula, cum interpretatione Latina et notis,” Paris, 1671, quarto, reprinted 16S6. When the first volume of the “Perpetuity of the faith respecting the Eucharist” appeared, our author, who from his youth was an original, if not always a just thinker, expressed some opinions on that work, and on the subject, which involved him in a controversy with the gentlemen of Port-Royal; and this seems to have laid the foundation of the opposition he afterwards met with from the learned of his own communion. His next publication came out under the name of Recared Simeon (for he often used fictitious names), and was a translation from Leo of Modena, entitled “Ceremonies et Coutumes qui s’observent aujourdui parmi les Juifs,” &c. 1674, 12mo. This was republished in 1681, under the name of the Sieur de Semonville; with the addition of a “Comparison between the ceremonies of the Jews and the discipline of the church.” In this edition, and perhaps in the subsequent ones of 1682 and 1684, the reader will find a great number of parentheses and crotchets, which Bayle thus accounts for: The work having been submitted in ms. to M. Perot, a doctor of the Sorbonne, for examination, he added some passages, which the author being obliged to retain, and yet unwilling that they should pass for his own, inclosed in crotchets; but had afterwards to complain, that the printers, who were not in the secret, had omitted some of these. In 1675, Simon published a “Voyage duMontLiban,” from the Italian of Dandini, with notes; and, about the same time, a “Factum du Prince de Neubourg, abbe de Feschamps, centre les religieux de cette abbay” and, as was usual with him, took an opportunity to attack the Benedictines.

But the first work of importance which he published, and that which rendered him most famous, was his “Critical History of the Old Testament,” which appeared in 1678, but was immediately suppressed by the Messieurs du Port Royal; who alleged, that it. contained things false and dangerous to religion and the church. It was reprinted the year after, and was so much admired for excellent learning and admirable criticism, that it became an object of attention to foreigners; and was published, in Latin, at Amsterdam 1681, and in English at London 1682, by R. H. i. e. R. Hampden (son of the celebrated John Harnpden), who, we are told, declared on his death-bed, that father Simon’s works had made him a sceptic.

After the publication of his “Critical History,” he left the congregation of the Oratory, and went to Bolleville, a village in the pais de Caux, of which he had been curate from 1676, but resigning this office in 1682, removed for a short time to Dieppe, and thence again to Paris, to renew his studies, and make arrangements for the publication of some other works. In the mean time, as the Paris edition of his “Critical History” had been suppressed, it was reprinted at Amsterdam, by the Elzevirs, but from a very incorrect transcript. One more correct, and indeed the best, was printed at Rotterdam in 1685, with a “General Apology,” &c. It then produced a controversy with many eminent protestant divines, Le Clerc, Jurieu, Isaac Vcssius, and others.

In 1684 he published, at Francfort, “Histoire de l'Origine et du Progres des Revenus Ecclesiastiques,” or, “The History of the Rise and Progress of Ecclesiastical Revenues,” under the name of Jerome a Costa. A second edition of it, with great additions, was printed at Francfort, 1709, in 2 vols. 12mo. In 1684 he published, at London, “Disquisitiones Criticae de variis per diversa loca et tempora Bibliorum Editionibus,” &c. and in the same year, at the same place, appeared an English translation of it, with this title, “Critical Enquiries into the various editions of the Bible, printed in divers places and at several times, together with animadversions upon a small treatise of Dr. Isaac Vossius concerning the oracles of the Sibyls.” There is his usual display of learning in this piece, which may be considered as an abridgment of his “Critical History of the Old Testament.” In 1686, he published an answer to Le Clerc, who had criticised his work the year before; and, upon Le Clerc’s replying in 1686, another in 1687, both under the name of the Prior of Bolleville, at which place he then resided,

In 1688 he published at Francfort, under the name of John Reuchlin, “Dissertation Critique sur la Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecc'eYiastiques par Du Pin, &c.” in which he supports with great spirit some principles in his “Critical History of the Old Testament,” which had been controverted by Du Pin. In 1689 came out his “Histoire Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament,” an English version of which was published the same year at London; in 1690, “Histoire Critique des versions du Nouveau Testament;” in 1693, “Histoire Critique des principaux Commentateurs du Nouveau Testament;” in all which, as indeed in every thing else he wrote, there appears great acuteness, and great learning, with, however, an unfortunate propensity to singularities and novelties of opinion, and too much contempt for those who differed from him, and in this last work he has perhaps unsettled more than he has settled. In 1702 he published a French translation of the New Testament, with critical remarks, in 2 vols. 8vo: which was censured by cardinal de Noailles, and Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. In 1714, was published at Amsterdam, in 2 vols. 12mo, “Nouvelle Bibliotheque Choisie,” or, “A new select library, which points out the good books in various kinds of literature, and tht? use to be made of them;” but this must be reckoned a posthumous work; for Simon died at Dieppe in April 1712, in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried in St. James’s church.

He was the author and editor of other things, but they were less considerable: it is sufficient to have mentioned his principal works. He bequeathed to the library of the cathedral of Rouen a great number of his manuscript works, many printed books enriched by his manuscript notes, and a valuable collection of books in all the learned languages. He was unquestionably a man of great learning and acuteness; but a love of controversy, in all its bitterness, rendered him almost equally obnoxious to protestants and papists, yet there is evidence enough in his works to prove that he contributed in no small degree to weaken the authorityand pretensions of his own church, and to strengthen the opinions of its adversaries.

, a Grecian poet, wit, and somewhat of a philosopher, uas born in the 35th olympiad, or 558 B.C. and is said to have died in his ninetieth year. He was a native of Ceos, one of the Cyclades, in the neighbourhood of Attica, and became the preceptor of Pindar. Both Plato and Cicero speak of him, not only as a good poet ana musician, but also as a man of wisdom and virtue. His lengthened life gave him an opportunity of knowing a great number of the first characters in antiquity, with whom he was in some measure connected. Fabncius informs us that he was contemporary, and in friendship with Pittacus of Mitylene, Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens, Pausanias, king of Sparta; Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse also with Themistocles, and with Alcuudes, king of Thessaly. X uophon, in his dialogue upon tyranny, makes him one of the interlocutors. His famous answer to Hiero. as recorded by Cicero, has been often quoted as a proof, not only of his wisdom, hut his piety. When Hiero asked of him a definition of God, he requested a day to consider of it; when this was expired, he doubled the time, and thus he did repeatedly, till the monarch desired to know his reason for this proceeding “It is,” said he,“because the longer I reflect on the question, the more difficult it appears to be.”

In his old age, perhaps from seeing the respect which money procured to such as had lost the charms of youth, and the power of attaching mankind by oiiier means, he became somewhat mercenary and avaricious. He was frequently employed by the victors at the games to write panegyrics and odes in their praise, before his pupil Pindar had exercised his talents in their behalf; but Simonides would never gratify their vanity in this particular, till he had first tied them down to a stipulated sum for his trouble: and, upon being upbraided for his meanness, he said that he had two coffers, in one of which he i <id, for many years, put his pecuniary rewards; the other was for honours, verbal thanks, and promises; that the first was pretty well filled, but the last remained always empty. Anu he made no scruple to confess, in his old age, that of all the enjoyments of life, the love of money was the only one of which time had not deprived him. He was of course frequently reproached with this vice, but always defended himself with good humour. Upon being asked by Hiero’s queen, whether it was most desirable to be learned or rich, he answered that it was far belter to be rich; for the learned were always dependent on the rich, and waiting at their doors; whereas he never saw rich men at the doors of the learned. When he was accused of being so sordid as to sell part of the provisions with which his table was furnished by Hiero, he said he had done it, in order, “to display to the world the magnificence of that prince, and his own frugality.” To others he said, that his reason for accumulating wealth was, that “he would rather leave money to his enemies, after death, than be troublesome to his friends when living.”

He obtained the prize in poetry at the public games when he was eighty years old. According to Suidas, he added four letters to the Greek alphabet: and Pliny assigns to him the eighth string of the lyre; but these claims are disputed by the learned. Among the numerous poetical productions, of which, according to Fabricius, antiquity has made him the author, were his many songs of victory and triumph, for athletic conquerors at the public games. He is likewise said to have gained there, himself, the prize in elegiac poetry, when ^schylus was his competitor. His poetry was so tender and plaintive, that he acquired the cognomen of Meliceutes, i. e. sweet as honey, and the tearful eye of his muse was proverbial. Dr. Warton, who has an elegant paper in the Adventurer (No. 89) partly on the merits of this poet, remarks that he was celebrated by the ancients for the sweetness, correctness, and purity of his style, and his irresistible skill in moving the passions. Dionysius places him among those polished writers, who excel in a smooth volubility, and flow on, like plenteous and perennial rivers, in a course of even and uninterrupted harmony. Addison has an ingenious paper on Simonides’ “Characters of Women,” in the Spectator (No. 209). This considerable fragment of Simonides, preserved by Stobaius, was published in Greek by Kohler, at Gottingen, 1781, 8vo, and he also published the Latin only, in 1789, to which professor Heyne prefixed a letter on the condition of women in ancient Greece. Simonides’s fragments of poetry are in Stephens’s Pindar, 1560, and other editions of the ancient lyric poets.

, an ancient philosopher of the sixth century, was a native of Cihcia, a disciple of Ammonias, the peripatetic, and endeavoured to unite the Platonic and Stoic doctrines with the peripatetic. Distrusting his situation under the emperor Justinian, he went to Cosroes king of the Persians: but returned to Athens, after it had been stipulated in a truce between the Persians and the Romans, A. D. 549, that he and his friends should live quietly and securely upon what was their own, and not be compelled by the Christians to depart from the religion of their ancestors. From his wish to unite discordant sects, he is called by a modern (Peter Petit) “omnium veterum philosophorurn coagulum.” He wrote commentaries upon several of Aristotle’s works, once thought to be valuable in themselves, but now consulted only for some curious fragments of ancient philosophers preserved in them. Of these there are three Aldine editions, 152b and 1527. But, of all his productions, some of which are lost, at least unpublished, his “Commentary upon Epictetus” has obtained most reputation. Fabricius is of opinion, that there is nothing in Pagan antiquity better calculated to form the manners, or to give juster ideas of a Divine Providence. It has been several times printed in Greek and Latin, particularly at Ley den, 1639, in 4to, and at London, in 1670, in 8vo. Dacier published a French translation of it at Paris, 1715, 12mo; and Dr. George Stanhope an English one at London, 1704, 8vo.

, a learned English divine, the son of Edward Simpson, rector of Tottenham, was born tli ere in May 1573. His father taught him the rudiments of Latin, and when he had attained the age of fourteen, placed him at Westminster school, where he was under the celebrated Camden for four years, at the expiration of which, in 1596, he was elected to Trinity-college, Cambridge. In 1600 he took his degree of A. B. and next year was admitted fellow of his college. In 1603 he was ado

mitted to his master’s degree, and in 1610 to that of bachelor of divinity. In 1611 he went into the family of sir Moyle Finch, knt. of Kent, as chaplain, and remained four years in that station, until the death of his patron, whose funeral sermon he preached. He then returned to the university, and had a church in Cambridge for three years, and in 1618, by the interest of the viscountess Maidstone, relict of -ir Moyle Finch, he was presented to the rectory of Eastling. He then took his degree of doctor of divinity, and was made prebendary of Coringharn. Being now at his ease, he devoted much of his time to study, and published at Cambridge, his “Mosaiea; sive Chronici historiam Catholicam complectentis, Pars Prima, in qua res antiquissimu} ab orbe condito ad Mosis obitum chronologice digests: continentur,” 1G36, 4t.o. This, although his first, is the least polished of all his works. Afterwards he undertook his “Chronicon Catholicum ab exordio mundi,” but did not live to publish it. He died in 1651, aged seventy-three, without any apparent disorder, his departure more resembling the quietness of falling asleep. He is represented as a man of an erect and comely appearance, and of a healthful, though not robust constitution. He was twice married.

His “Chronicon, &c.” was published at Oxford in 1652, with a Latin life prefixed, and was reprinted by the eminent critic Peter Wesseling. Dr. Reynolds, afterwards bishop of Norwich, in his license for the press, speaks of it as “egregtum et absolutissimum opus, summa industria, omniuenaerui ditione, magno judicio, et multorum annoru'n vigiliis productum.” His other works were, 1 “Positive divinity in three parts, containing an exposition of the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, an. 1 decalogue, &c.” 2. “The knowledge of Christ, in two Treatises.” 3. “A Treatise concerning God’s Providence in regard of Evil or Sin.” 4. “The Doctrine of Regeneration, delivered in a Sermon on John iii. 6,” and defended in a “Declaration.” 5. “Tractatus de Justificatione.” 6. “Notce selectiores in Horatium.” 7. “Prselectiones in Ptrsii Satyras.” 8. “Anglicanae linguae vocabuiarium Etymologicum.” 9. “Sanctas linguce soboles.” 10. “Dii gentium, sive nominurn, quibus deos suos Ethnic! appellabant explicatio.”

, professor of mathematics in the king’s academy at Woolwich, fellow of the Royal Society, and member of the royal academy at Stockholm, was born at Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire, Aug. 20, 1710. His father was a stuff-weaver in that town: and, though in tolerable circumstances, yet, intending to bring up his son to his own business, he took so little care of his education, that he was only taught English. But nature had furnished him with talents and a genius for far other pursuits, which led him afterwards to tut: highest rank in the mathematical and philosophical sciences.

Upon this occasion he repaired to Nuneaton, a town at a small distance from Bosworth, where he went to lodge at the house of a taylor’s widow, of the name of Swinfield, who had been left with two children, a daughter and a son, by her husband, of whom the son, who was the younger, being but about two years older than Simpson, had become his intimate friend and companion. And here he continued some time, working at his trade, and improving his knowledge by reading such books as he could procure.

Among several other circumstances which, long before this, gave occasion to shew our author’s early thirst for knowledge, as well as proving a fresh incitement to acquire it, was that of a large solar eclipse, which took place on the llth day of May, 1724. This phenomenon, so awful to many who are ignorant of the cause of it, struck the mind of young Simpson with a strong curiosity to discover the reason of it, and to be able to predict the like surprising events. It was, however, several years before he could obtain his desire, which at length was gratified by the following accident. After he been some time at Mrs. Swinfield’s, at Nuneaton., a travelling pedlar came that way, and took a lodging at the same house, according to his usual custom. This man, to his profession of an itinerant merchant, had joined the more profitable one of a fortuneteller, which he performed by means of judicial astrology. Every one knows with what regard persons of such a cast are treated by the inhabitants of country villages; it cannot be surprising therefore that an untutored lad of nineteen should look upon this man as a prodigy, and, regardin^ him in this lignt, should endeavour to ingratiate himself into his favour; in which he succeeded so well, that the sage was no less taken with the quick natural parts and genius of his new acquaintance. The pedlar, intending a journey to Bristol fair, left in the hands of young Simpson a i oK! edition of Cocker’s Arithmetic, to which was subjo i.ed a short Appendix on Algebra, and a book tipoa Gemtim s, by Partridge the almanac maker. These books h 11 “‘ perused to so good purpose during the absence of his f’ri<-nd, as to excite his amazement upon his return in consequence of which he set himself about erecting a genethliacal type, in order to a presage of Thomas’s future fortune. The position of the heavens the wizard having very maturely considered,” secundum artem,“pronounced with much confidence, that” within two years time Simpson would turn out a greater man than himself!"

It was not long after this, that Simpson, being pretty well qualified to erect a figure himself by the advice of his friend, make an open profession of casting nativities, and was so successful, that he quite neglected weaving, and soon became the oracle of Bosworth and its environs. Scarcely a courtship advanced to. a match, or a bargain to a sale, without the parties previously consulting the infallible Simpson about the consequences. Helping persons to stolen goods he always declared above his match; and that, as to life and death, he had no power. Together witii his astrologv, he had furnished himself with arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, sufficient to qualify him for looking into the “Ladies Diary-” (of which he had afterwards the direction), by which he came to understand, that there was still a higher branch of mathematical knowledge than any he had been yet acquainted with; and this was the method of fluxions. But he was altogether at a loss to discover any English author who had written on the subject, except Mr. Hayes; and his work, being a folio and rather scarce, exceeded his ability of purchasing. An acquaintance, however, lent him Stone’s Fluxions, which is a translation of De l'Hospital’s “Analyse des infinitement petits” and by this one book, and his own penetrn<:; tJents, he was enabled, in a very few years, to compose a much more accurate treatise on that subject tnan any that had before appeared in our language. In the mean time an unfortunate event involved him in a deal of trouble. Having undertaken to raise the devil, in order to answer certain questions to a joung woman, who consulted him respecting her sweetheart, then absent at sea, the credulous girl was so frightened on the appearance of a man from beneath some straw, who represented the devil, that she fell into violent fits, from which she was with difficulty recovered, and which for a considerable time threatened insanity or fatuity. In consequence of this exertion of his art, he was obliged to leave the place, and he removed to Derby, where he remained a few years, working at his trade by day, and instructing pupils in the evening. It would seem that Simpson had an early turn for versifying, both from the circumstance of a song written here in favour of the Cavendish family, on occasion of the parliamentary election at that place, in 1733; and from his first two mathematical questions that were published in the “Ladies Diary,” which were both in a set of verses, not ill written for the occasion. These were printed in the Diary for 1736, and therefore must at latest have been written in 1735. These two questions, being at that time pretty difficult ones, shew the great progress he had even then made in the mathematics; and from an expression in the first of them, viz. where he mentions his residence as being in latitude 52, it appears he was not then come up to London, though he must have done so very soon after.

After, however, he took leave of astrology and its emoluments, he was driven to hardships for the subsistence of his family, having married the taylor’s widow with two children, who soon brought him two more. He, therefore, came up to London in 1735 or 1736, and for some time wrought at his business in Spitalfields, and taught mathematics when he had any spare time. His industry soon became so productive, that he was enabled to bring up his wife and children to settle in London. The number of his scholars increasing, and his abilities becoming in some measure known to the public, he issued proposals for publishing, by subscription, “A new Treatise of Fluxions, wherein the Direct and Inverse Method are demonstrated after a new, clear, and concise manner; with their application to Physics and Astronomy. Also the Doctrine of infinite Series and reverting Senes universally and amply explained; fluxionary and exponential Equations solved,” &c. When he first proposed his intentions of publishing such a work, he did not know of any English book founded on the true principles of fluxions, that contained any thing material, especially the practical part; and, though some progress had been made by several learned and ingenious gentlemen, the principles were nevertheless left obscure and defective, and all that had been done by nny of them in “infinite series” very inconsiderable. The book was not published till 1737, 4to; the author having been frequently interrupted from furnishing the press so fast as he could have wished, through his unavoidable attention to his pupils for his immediate support. In 1740 he published “A Treatise on the Nature and Laws of Chance,” in 4to; to which are annexed full and clear Investigati ns of two important Problems added in the second edition of Mr. De Moivre’s “Book on Chances, and two new Methods for summing of Series.” His next performance was, “Essays on several curious and useful subjects in speculative and mixed Mathematics. Dedicated to Francis Blake, esq. since fellow of the Royal Society, and his very good Friend and Patron,” 174-0, 4to. Soon after the publication of this book he was chosen a member of the Royal Academy at Stockholm. Our author’s next work appeared in 1742, 8vo, “The Doctrine of Annuities and Reversions deduced from general and evident Principles: with useful Tables, shewing the values of single and joint lives, &c. at different rates of interest,” &c. This, in 1743, was followed by “An Appendix, containing some Remarks on a late Book on the same subject (by Mr. Abr. De Moivre, F. R. S.) with answers to some personal and malignant representations in the Preface thereof.” To this De Moivre never thought fit to reply. In 1743 he published also “Mathematical Dissertations on a variety of Physical and Analytical subjects,” 4to. This work he dedicated to Martin Folkes, esq. president of the Royal Society. His next book was, “A Treatise of Algebra, wherein the fundamental principles are fully and clearly demonstrated, and applied to the solution of a variety of problems.” To which he added, “The Construction of a great number of geometrical Problems, with the method of resolving them numerically.” This work was designed for the use of young beginners; inscribed to William Jones, esq. F. R. S. and printed in 1745, 8vo. A new edition appeared in 1755, with additions and improvements. This is dedicated to James earl of Morton, F. R. S. Mr. Jones being dead; and there was a sixth edition in 1790. His next work was, “Elements of Geometry, with their application to Mensuration of Superficies and Solids, to the determination of Maxima and Minima, and to the construction of a great variety of Geometrical Problems,” 1747, 8vo, reprinted in 1760, with large alterations and additions, designed for young beginners; particularly for the gentlemen at the king’s academy at Woolwich, and dedicated to Charles Frederick, esq. surveyor-general of the ordnance; and other editions have appeared since*. In 1748 came out his “Trigonometry, Plane and Spherical, with the construction and application of Logarithms,” 8vo. This little book contains several things new and useful. In 1750 appeared in 2 vols. 8vo, “The doctrine and application of Fluxions, containing, besides what is common on the subject, a number of new improvements in the Theory,and the solution of a variety of new and very interesting Problems, in different branches of the Mathematics.” In the preface the author offers this to the world as a new book rather than a second edition of that published in 1737; in which he acknowledges, that, besides errors of the press, there are several obscurities and defects, for want of experience, in his first attempt. This work is dedicated to George earl of Mat-clesfield. In 1752 appeared in 8vo, “Select Exercises for young proficients in Mathematics,” dedicated to John Bacon, esq. F. R. S. His “Miscellaneous Tracts,” printed in 1757, 4to, was his last legacy to the public; a most valuable bequest, whether we consider the dignity and importance of the subjects, or his sublime and accurate manner of treating them. These are inscribed to the earl of Macclesfield, and are ably analyzed in Dr. Hutton’s Dictionary.

hie and vexation in consequence of the of Euclid. Thf second was by an

versity of Glasgow, in the notes sub- and mathematics. This charge was

the notrs added to the second edition was fully refuted by Mr. Simpson in

bimson again replied in his notes on Geometry. he wrote several papers which were read at the meetings of the Royal Society, and printed in their Transactions; but as most, if not all of them, were afterwards inserted, with alterations or additions, in his printed volumes, it is needless to take any farther notice of them here. He also proposed, and resolved many questions in the “Ladies Diaries,” &c.; sometimes under his own name, as in 1735 and 1736; and sometimes under feigned or fictitious names; such as, it is thought, Hurlothrumbo, Kubernetes, Patrick O'Cavenah, Marmaduke Hodgson, Anthony Shallow, esq. and probably several others; see the Diaries for 1735, 36, 42, 43, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, and 60. Mr. Simpson was also the editor or compiler of the Diaries from 1754 till 1760, both inclusive, during which time he raised that work to the highest degree of respect. He was succeeded in the editorship by Mr. Edw. Rollinson.

It has also been commonly supposed that he was the real editor of, or had a principal share in, two other periodical works of a miscellaneous mathematical nature; viz. the “Mathematician,” and “Turner’s Mathematical Exercises,” two volumes, in 8vo, which came out in periodical numbers, in 1750 and 1751, &c. The latter of these seems especially to have been set on foot to afford a proper place for exposing the errors and absurdities of Mr. Robert Heath, the then conductor of the “Ladies Diary” and the “Palladium;” and which controversy between them ended in the disgrace of Mr. Heath, and expulsion from his office of editor to the “Ladies Diary,” and the substitution of Mr. Simpson in his stead, in 1753.

In 1760, when the plans proposed for erecting a new bridge at Blackfriars were in agitation, Mr. Simpson, among other gentlemen, was consulted upon the best form for the arches, by the New-bridge Committee. Upon this occasion he gave a preference to the semicircular form; and, besides his report to the Committee, some letters also appeared, by himself and others, on the same subject, in the public newspapers, particularly in the Daily Advertiser, and in Lloyd’s Evening Post, which were collected in the Gentleman’s Magazine for that year. It is probable that this reference to him, induced him to turn his thoughts more seriously to this subject, so as to form the design of composing a regular treatise upon it; for his family- often informed Dr. Hutton, that he laboured hard upon this work for some time before his death, and was very anxious to have completed it, frequently remarking to them, that when published, it would nre him more credit than

any of his Cornier publications. But he lived not to put the finishing hand to it. Whatever he wrote upon this subject, probably fell, together with all his other remaining papers, into the hands of major Henry Watson, of the engineers, in the service of the India company, being in all a large chest full of papers. This gentleman had been a pupil of Mr. Simpson’s, and had lodge ' in his house. After Mr. Simpson’s death, Mr. Watson prevailed upon the widow to let him have the papers, promising either to give her a sum of money for them, or else to print and publish them for her benefit. But neither of these was ever done; this gentleman always declaring, when urged on this point by Dr, Hutton and others, that no use could be made of any of the papers, owing to the very imperfect state in which he said they were left. And yet he persisted in his refusal to give them up again.

Through the interest and solicitations of William Jones, esq. he was, in 1743, appointed professor of mathematics, then vacant by the death of Mr. Derham, in the Royal academy at Woolwich; his warrant bearing date August 25th. And in 1745 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society, having been proposed as a candidate by Martin Folkes, esq. president, William Jones, esq. Mr. George Graham, and Mr. John Machiu, secretary; all very eminent mathematicians. The president and council, in consideration of his very moderate circumstances, were pleased to excuse his admission fees, and likewise his giving bond for the settled future payments.

At the academy he exerted his faculties to the utmost, in instructing the pupils who were the immediate objects of his duty, as well as others, whom the superior officers of the ordnance permitted to be boarded and lodged in hi$ house. In his manner of teaching, he had a peculiar and happy address; a certain dignity and perspicuity, tempered with such a degree of mildness, as engaged both the attention, esteem, and friendship of his scholars; of which the good of the service, as well as of the community, was a necessary consequence.

In the latter stage of his existence, when his life was in danger, exercise and a proper regimen were prescribed him, but to little purpose for he sunk gradually into such a lowness of spirits as seemed to injure his mental faculties, and at last rendered him incapable of performing his duty, or even of reading the letters of his friends; and so trifling an accident as the dropping of a tea-cup would flurry him as much as if a house had tumbled down. The physicians advised his native air for his recovery; and, Feb. 1761, he set out, with much reluctance (believing he should never return), for Bosworth, along with some relations. The journey fatigued him to such a degree, that upon his arrival, he betook himself to his chamber, where he died, May 14, in his fifty-first year.

, an eminent mathematician, was the eldest son of Mr. John Simson, of Kirton-hall in Ayrshire, and was born Oct. 14, 1687. Being intended for the church, he was sent to the university of Glasgow in 1701, where he made great progress in classical learning and the sciences, and also contracted a fondness for the study of geometry, although at this time, from a temporary cause, no mathematical lectures were given in the college. Having procured a copy of Euclid’s Elements, with the aid only of a few preliminary explanations from some more advanced students, he soon came to understand them, and laid the foundation of his future eminence. He did not, however, neglect the other sciences then taught in college, but in proceeding through the regular course of academic study, acquired that variety of knowledge which was visible in his conversation throughout life. In the mean time his reputation as a mathematician became so high, that in 1710, when only twenty-two years of age, themembersof the college voluntarily made him an offer of the mathematical chair, in which a vacancy in a short time was expected to take place. From his natural modesty, however, he felt much reluctance, at so early an age to advance abruptly from the state of a student, to that of a professor in the same college, and therefore solicited permission to spend one year at least in London. Being indulged in this, he proceeded to the metropolis, and there diligently employed himself in improving his mathematical knowledge. He also enjoyed the opportunity of forming an acquaintance with some eminent mathematicians of that day, particularly Mr. Jones, Mr. Caswell, Dr. Jurin, and Mr. Ditton. With the latter, indeed, who was then mathematical master of Christ’s Hospital, and well esteemed for his learning, &c. he was more particularly connected. It appears from Mr. Simson’s own account, in his letter, dated London, Nov. 1710, that he expected to have had an assistant in his studies chosen by Mr. Caswell; but, from some mistake, it was omitted, and Mr. Simson himself applied to Mr. Ditton. He went to him not as a scholar (his own words), but to have general information and advice about his mathematical studies. Mr. Caswell afterwards mentioned to Mr. Simson that he meant to have procured Mr. Jones’s assistance, if he had not been engaged.

When the vacancy in the professorship of mathematics at Glasgow did occur, in the following year, by the resignation of Dr. Robert Sinclair, or Sinclare (a descendant or other relative probably of Mr. George Sinclare, who died in that office in 1696), the university, while Mr. Simson was still in London, appointed him to fill it; and the minute of election, which is dated March 11, 1711, concluded with this very proper condition, “That they will admit the said Mr. Robert Simson, providing always, that he give satisfactory proof of his skill in mathematics, previous to his admission.” He returned to Glasgow before the ensuing session of the college, and having gone through the form of a trial, by resolving a geometrical problem proposed to him, and also by giving “a satisfactory specimen of his skill in mathematics, and dexterity in reaching geometry and algebra;” having produced also respectable certificates of his knowledge of the science, from Mr. Caswell and others, he was duly admitted professor of mathematics, on the 20th of November of that year.

Mr. Simson, immediately after his admission, entered on the duties of his office; and his first occupation necessarily was the arrangement of a proper course of instruction for the students who attended his lectures, in two distinct classes. Accordingly he prepared elementary sketches of some branches on which there were not suitable treatises in general use. Both from a sense of duty and from inclination, he now directed the whole of his attention to the study of mathematics; and though he had a decided preference for geometry, which continued through life, yet he did not devote himself to it to the exclusion of the other branches of mathematical science, in most of which there is sufficient evidence of his being well skilled. From 1711, he continued near fifty years to teach mathematics to two separate classes, at different hours, five days in the week, during a continued session of seven months. His manner of teaching was uncommonly clear and successful; and among his scholars, several rose to distinction as mathematicians; among which may be mentioned the celebrated names of Dr. Matthew Stewart, professor of mathematics at Edinburgh; the two Rev. Dr. Williamsons, one of whom succeeded Dr. Simson at Glasgow; the Rev. Dr. Trail, formerly professor of mathematics at Aberdeen; Dr. James Moor, Greek professor at Glasgow: and professor Robison, of Edinburgh, with many others of distinguished merit. In 17.58, Dr. Simson, being then seventy-one years of age, found it necessary to employ an assistant in teaching; and in 1761, on his recommendation, the Rev. Dr. Williamson was appointed his assistant and successor.

During the remaining ten years of his life, he enjoyed a pretty equal share of good health; and continued to occupy himself in correcting and arranging some of his mathematical papers, and occasionally for amusement, in the solution of problems, and demonstration of theorems, which occurred from his own studies, or from the suggestions of others. His conversation on mathematical and other subjects continued to be clear and accurate; yet he had some strong impressions of the decline of his memory, of which he frequently complained; and this probably protracted, and finally prevented his undertaking the publication of some of his works, which were in so advanced a state, that with little trouble they might have been completed for the press. So that his only publication, after resigning his office, was a new and improved edition of Euclid’s Data, which in 1762 was annexed to the 2d edition of the Elements. But from that period, though much solicited to bring forward some of his other works on the ancient geometry, though he knew well how much it was desired, and though he was fully apprised of the universal curiosity excited respecting his discovery of Euclid’s Por-> isms, he resisted every importunity on the subject. A life like Dr. Simson’s, purely academical and perfectly uniform, seldom contains occurrences, the recording of which could be either interesting or useful. But his mathematical labours and inventions form the important part of his character; and with respect to them, there are abundant materials of information in his printed works; and some circumstances also may be gathered from a number of ms papers which he left; and which, by the direction of his executor, are deposited in the library of the college of Glasgow. It is to be regretted, that, of the extensive correspondence which he carried on through life, with many distinguished mathematicians, a small portion only is preserved. Through Dr. Jurin, then Secretary of the Royal Society, he had some intercourse with Dr. Halley, and other distinguished members of that Society. And both about the same time, and afterwards, he had frequent correspondence with Mr. Maciaurin, with Mr. James Stirling, Dr. James Moor, Dr. Matthew Stewart, Dr. Wm. Trail, and Mr. Williamson of Lisbon. In the latter part of his life, his mathematical correspondence was chiefly with that eminent geometer the late earl Stanhope, and with George Lewis Scott, esq.

As to his character, Dr. Simson was originally possessed of great intellectual powers, an accurate and distinguishing understanding, an inventive genius, and a retentive memory: and these powers, being excited by an ardent curiosity, produced a singular capacity for investigating the truths of mathematical science. By such talents, with a correct taste, formed by the study of the Greek geometers, he was also peculiarly qualified for communicating his knowledge, both in his lectures and in his writings, with perspicuity and elegance. He was at the same time modest and unassuming; and. though not indifferent to literary fame, he was cautious, and even reserved, in bringing forward his own discoveries, but always ready to do justice to the merits and inventions of others. Though his powers of investigation, in the early part of life, were admirable, yet befoiv any decline of his health appeared, he felt strong impressions of the decay both of his memory and other faculties; occasioned probably by the continued exertion of his mind, in those severe studies, which for a number of years he pursued with unremitting ardour.

Besides his mathematical attainments, from his liberal education he acquired a considerable knowledge of other sciences, which he preserved through life, by occasional reading, and, in some degree, by his constant intercourse with many learned men in his college. He was esteemed a good classical scholar; and, though the simplicity of geometrical demonstration does not admit of much variety of style, yet in his works a good taste in that respect may be distinguished. In his Latin prefaces also, in which there is some history and discussion, the purity of language has been generally approved. It is to be regretted, indeed, that he had not had an opportunity of employing, in early life, his Greek and mathematical learning, in giving an edition of Pappus in the original language.

Dr. Simson never was married; and the uniform regularity of a long life, spent within the walls of his college, naturally produced fixed and peculiar habits, which, however, with the sincerity of his manners, were unoffending, and became even interesting to those with whom he lived. The strictness of these habits, which indeed pervaded all his occupations, probably had an influence also on the direction and success of some of his scientific pursuits. His hours of study, of amusement, and of exercise, were all regulated with uniform precision. The walks even in the squares or garden of the college were all measured by his steps, and he took his exercises by the hundreds of paces, according to his time or inclination.

It has been mentioned, that an ardent curiosity was an eminent feature in his character. It contributed essentially to his success in the mathematical investigations, and it displayed itself in the small and even trifling occurrences of common life. Almost every object and event excited it, and suggested some problem which he was impatient to resolve. This disposition, when opposed, as it often necessarily was, to his natural modesty, and to the formal civility of his manners, occasionally produced an embarrassment, which was amusing to his friends, and sometimes a little distressing to himself.

In his disposition, Dr. Simson was both cheerful and sociable; and his conversation, when he was at ease among his friends, was animated and various, enriched with much anecdote, especially of the literary kind, but always unaffected. It was enlivened also by a certain degree of natural humour; and even the slight fits of absence, to which in company he was occasionally liable, contributed to the entertainment of his friends, without diminishing their affection and respect, which his excellent qualities were calculated to inspire. One evening (Friday) in the week he devoted to c!nb, chiefly of his own selection, which met in a tavern in-ar the college. The first p; rr of the evening was employed in playing the game o which he was particularly fond; but, though he tool all trouble in estimatng chances, it was remarki h;it he was often Uimh ces ml. The rest of the evening ua> spent in cheerful conversation and, as he had some taste for music, he did not scruple to amuse his party with a song and it is said that he was rather fond of singing some Greek odes, to which modern music had been adapted. On Saturdays he usually dined in the village of Anderston, then about a mile distant from Glasgow, with some oi tie members of his regular club, and with a variety of other respectable visitors, who wished to cultivate the acquaintance, and enjoy the society of so eminent a person. In the progress of time, from his age and character, it became the wish of his company that every thing in these meetings should be directed by him; and though his authority, growing with his years, was somewhat absolute, yet the good humour with which it was administered, rendered it pleasing to even body He had his own chair and place at table; he gave instructions about the entertainment, regulated the time of break.ng up, and adjusted the expense. These parties, in the years of his severe study, were a desirable and useful relaxation to his mind, and they continued to amuse him till within a few months of his death.

Strict integrity and private worth, with corresponding purity of morals, gave the highest value to a character, which, from other qualities and attainments, was much respected and esteemed. On all occasions, even in the gayest hours of social intercourse, the doctor maintained a constant attention to propriety. He had serious and just impressions of religion; but he was uniformly reserved in expressing particular opinions about it; and, from his sentiments of decorum, he never introduced religion as a subject of conversation in mixed society, and all attempts to do so in his lubs were checked with gravity and decision.

In his person, Dr. Sunson was tall and erect; and his countetance, which was handsome, conveyed a pleasing expression of the superior character of his mind. His manner had always somewhat of the fashion which prevailed in the early part of his life, but was uncommonly graceful. He was seriously indisposed only for a few weeks before his death, and through a very long life had enjoyed a uniform state of good health. He died October I, 1768, when his eighty-first year was almost completed; having bequeathed his small paternal estate in Ayrshire to the eldest son of his next brother, probably of his brother Thomas, who was professor of medicine in the university of St Andrew’s, and who is known by some works of reputation, particularly a “Dissertation on the Nervous System, occasioned by the Dissection of a Brain completely Ossified.”

1. Two general propositions of Pappus, in which many of Euclid’s Porisms are included, vol. Xxxij. ann. 1723. These two propositions were afterwards incorporated into the author’s large posthumous works, published by earl Stanhope. 2. On the Extraction of the Approximate Roots of Numbers by Infinite Series, vol.XLVIII. ann. 1753. The separate publications in his life-time, were, 3. “Conic Sections,” 1735, 4to. 4. “The Loci Plani of Apollonius, restored,” 1749, 4to. 5. “Euclid’s Elements,” 1756, 4to, of which there have been since many editions in octavo, with the additions of Euclid’s Data. In 1776, earl Stanhope printed, at his own expence, several of Dr. Simson’s posthumous pieces: 1. Apollonius’s determinate section. 2. A treatise on Porisms. 3. A tract on Logarithms. 4. On the limits of quantities and ratios; and, 5. Some geometrical problems. Besides these. Dr. Simson’s Mss. contained a great variety of geometrical propositions and other interesting observations on different parts of the mathematics: though not in a state fit for publication. Among other designs, was an edition of the works of Pappus, in a state of considerable advancement, and which, had he lived, he might perhaps have published. What he wrote is in the library of the college of Glasgow, and a transcript was obtained by the delegates of the Clarendon press.

, professor of philosophy in the university of Glasgow in the seventeenth century, was the author of several works on mathematical and physical subjects. He was dismissed from his professorship soon after the restoration, on account of his principles, being a strict adherent to the presbyterian form of church government. During the period of his ejectment, he resided about the soutnern and border counties, collecting and affording useful information on the subjects of mining, engineering, &c. and was in particular employed by tue magistrates of Edinburgh on the then new plan for supplying that city with water, &c. Considerable attention seems to have been paid by him to such branches of hydrostatics as were of a practical nature: and it has been said he was the first person who suggested the proper method of draining the water from the numerous coal mines in the south-west of Scotland. When the revolution took place in 1688, and the presbyterian became the established religion of Scotland, Mr. Sinclare was recalled to his professorship, which he held until his death in 1696.

He published, 1. “Tyrocinia mathematica,” Glas. 1661, 12nto. 2. “Ars Nova et Magna Gravitatis et Levitatis,” Rotterd. 1669, 4to. 3. “Hydrostatics,” Eclin. 1672, 4to. 4. “Hydrostatical Experiments, with a Discourse on Coal,” Edin. 1680, 8vo. 5. “Principles of Astronomy and Navigation,” Edin. 1688, 12mo. Mr. Sinclare’s writings, in the opinion of a very able judge, are not destitute of ingenuity and research, though they may contain some erroneous and eccentric views. His work on Hydrostatics, and his “Ars Nova et Magna,” and perhaps also his political principles, provoked the indignation of some persons; on which occasion Mr. James Gregory, then professor of mathematics at St. Andrew’s, animadverted on him rather severely in a treatise entitled, “The great and new art of weighing Vanity,” &c. (See Gregory, vol. XVI. p. 278). Besides the works above mentioned, a publication in defence of witchcraft, entitled “Satan’s Invisible World,” has been ascribed to him: it bears the initials G. S. of his name; and witchcraft was a standard article of belief in Scotland at that time. He also translated and published under the same initials Dickson’s “Truth’s Victory over Error,” suppressing the author’s name (see David Dickson), for which he is censured by Wodrow, the ecclesiastical historian and biographer of professor Dickson, while he allows him the merit of some good intention.

, an Italian annalist, was born in 1613, and was a monk of Parma, where he employed the leisure hours which a monastic life afforded, in writing- the history of his times. The confidence placed in him by political men, and the correspondence to which he had access, enabled him to penetrate into the secret motives and causes of actions and events, and gave an air of authenticity and consequence to his public communications. He is said to have been the first, in Italy at least, who published a kind of political journal under the name of “Memorie recondite,” afterwards collected into volumes. The first two having found their way into France, induced cardinal Mazarine to entertain a very high opinion of the author, and by his persuasion, Louis XIV. invited Siri to Paris. On his arrival, he was preferred to a secular abbey, and quitting his ecclesiastical functions, lived at court in great intimacy and confidence with the king and his ministers, and was made almoner and historiographer to his majesty. There, in 1677, he published the 3d and 4th volumes of his journal, and continued it as far as the eighth, 4to. This, says Baretti, is as valuable a history as any in Italian, though the style and language are but indifferent, and it is very difficult to find all the volumes. The period of time they include is from 1601 to 1640. He published also another work of a similar kind, called “11 Mercurio, owero istoria de' correnti Tempi,” from 1647 to 1682, which extends to fifteen 4to volumes, the two last of which are more difficult to be found than all the rest. The former work, however, is in most estimation on account of the historical documents it contains, which are always useful, whatever colouring an editor may please to give. Siri has not escaped the imputation of venality, especially in his attachment to the French court, yet Le Cierc observes (Bibl. Choisie, vol. IV.) that no French writer dared to speak so freely of the public men of that nation as Siri has done. There is a French translation of the “Memorie recondite,” under the title of “Memoires secrets,” which, Landi says, might have been much improved from Siri’s extensive correspondence with almost all the ministers of Europe, now extant in the Benedictine library of Parma, and among the private archives of Modena. Siri died in 1683, in the seventieth year of his age.

, a very learned French Jesuit, was the son of a magistrate, and born at Riom, Oct. 12, 1559. At ten years of age he was sent to the college of Billon, in Lower Auvergne, the first seminary which the Jesuits had in France. He entered into the society in 1576, and two years after took the vows. His superiors, discovering his uncommon talents, sent him to Paris; where he taught classical literature two years, and rhetoric three. Two of his pupils were Charles of Valois, duke D‘Angouleme, the natural son of Charles IX., and Francis de Sales. During this time, he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages; and formed that style which has been so much esteemed by the learned. It is said that he took Muretus for his model, and never passed a day without reading some pages in his writings; and it is certain that by this, or his natural taste, he became one of the purest Latin writers of his time. In 1586, he began his course of divinity, which lasted four years. He undertook to translate into Latin the works of the Greek fathers, and began to write notes upon Sidonius Apollinaris. In 1590, he was sent for to Rome by the general of the order, Aquaviva, to take upon him the office of his secretary; which he discharged for sixteen years with success, and clothed the sentiments of his employer in very superior language. The study of antiquity was at that time his principal object: he visited libraries, and consulted manuscripts: he contemplated antiques, medals, and inscriptions: and the Italians, though jealous of the honour of their nation, acknowledged his acuteness as an antiquary, and consulted him in many cases of difficulty. At Rome he formed a friendship with the most eminent men of the time, particularly with Bellarmine and Tolet, who were of his own society, and with the cardinal Baronius, D’Ossat, and Du Perron. Baronius was much assisted by him in his “Ecclesiastical Annals,” especially in affairs relating to the Greek history upon which he furnished him with a great number of works, translated from Greek into Latin.

Sirmond returned to Paris in 1606; and from that time did not cease to enrich the public with a great number of works, particularly editions of the authors of the middle age, printed by him with great care from original manuscripts discovered by him in the public libraries. Much of his life was employed, and the better part of his reputation depends, on his labours as an editor, which produced correct copies of Geoffrey de Vendome, Ennodius, Flocloard, Fulgentius, Valerian, Sidonius Apollinaris, one of his most valuable editions, Paschasius Radbert, Eugene of Toledo, Jdacius, AJarcellinus, and many others When his reputation> came more generally known, pop.- Urban VIII. had a desire to draw him again to Rome and caused a letter for that purpose 10 be sent to him by fattier Vittelleschi, general of their order: but Louis XIII. would not suffer a person who did so much honour to his kingdom, to leave it; and, in 1637, appointed him his confessor, in the room of father Caussin, which delicate office he accepted with great reluctance, yet demeaned himself with the utmost caution and prudence, never meddling with political affairs, or employing his interest in enriching his relations. In 1643, however, after the death of Louis XIII. he left the court, and resumed his ordinary occupations with the same tranquillity as if he had never quitted his retirement. In 1645, he went to Rome, notwithstanding his great age, for the sake of assisting at the election of a general, upon the death of Vittelleschi, as he had done thirty years before upon the death of Aquaviva; and, after his return to France, resumed his studies. But having engaged in a warm dispute in the college of the Jesuits, the exertion brought on a disorder which carried him off in a few days. He died Oct. 7, 1651, aged ninety- two.

The works of which he was author and editor amount to fifteen volumes in folio; five of which, containing his original productions, many of them on controversial points, were printed at the royal printing-house at Paris in 1696, under this title: “Jacobi Sirmondi Opera Varia, nunc primum coilecta, ex ipsius schedis emendatiora, Notis posthumis, Epistolis. et Opusculis aliquibus auctiora.” The following character is given of him by Du Pin “Father Sirmond knew how to join a great delicacy of understanding and the jnstest discernment to a profound and extensive erudition. He understood Greek and Latin in perfection, all the profane authors, history, and whatever goes under the name of belles lettres. He had a very extensive knowledge in ecclesiastical antiquity, and had studied with care all the authors ~A the middle -ige His style is pure, concise, and nervous: yet he affects too much certain expressions of the comic poets. He meditated very much upon what he wrote, and had a particular art of reducing into a note what comprehended a great many things in a very few words. He is exact, judicious, simple; yet never omits any thing that is necessary. His dissertations have passed for a model; by which it were to be wished that every one who writes would form himself. When he treated of one subject, he never said immediately all that he knew of it; but reserved some new arguments always for a reply, like auxiliary troops, to come up and assist, in case of need, the grand body of the battle. He was disinterested, equitable, sincere, moderate, modest, laborious; and by these qualities drew to himself the esteem, not only of the learned, but of all mankind. He has left behind him a reputation which will last for many ages.”

, originally called Francis Albisola Della Rovera, is said by some writers to have been the son of a fisherman at Celles, a village live leagues from Savona in the territory of Genoa, but others derive him from a branch of a noble family. He was born in 1413, entered the Franciscan order, took a doctor’s degree at Padua, and taught with reputation in the universities of Bologna, Pavia, Sienna, Florence, and Perugia. After this he became general of the Franciscans, then cardinal through the interest of cardinal Bessarion, and at length pope, August 9, 1471, on the death of Paul II. He immediately armed a fleet against the Turks, and displayed great magnificence and liberality during his whole pontificate. He was almost the founder of, and certainly greatly enriched the Vatican library, and entrusted the care of it to the learned Platina. He published a bull, March 1, 1746, granting indulgences to those who should celebrate the festival of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin; the first decree of the Roman church concerning that festival. The establishment of the feast of St. Joseph, for which Gerson had taken great pains, is also ascribed to this pope. Historians have reproached him with conniving at the vices of his nephews, being too violent against the Medici family and the Venetians, and having joined in the conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence. There seems upon the whole to have been little in his character to command the respect of posterity, except his patronage of literature. He died August 13, 1484, aged 71. Before his election to the pontificate, he wrote the following treatises “De Sanguine Christi,” Rome, 1473, fol. scarce “De futuris contigentibus” “De potentia Dei;” “De Conceptione beatse V.irginis,” &c.; a very scarce work is also attributed to him, entitled “Regulne Cuncellariae,” 1471, 4to, translated into French by Dupinet, 1564, 8vo, and reprinted under the title of “La Banque Romaine,” 1700, 12mo.

, whose proper names were Felix Peretti, was born in 1521, in the signiory of Montalto his father, Francis Peretti, for his faithful service to a country gentleman, with whom he lived as a gardener, was rewarded with his master’s favourite servant-maid for a wife. These were the parents of that pontiff, who, from the instant of his accession to the papacy, even to the hour of his death, made himself obeyed and feared, not only by his own subjects, but by all who had any concern with him. Though he very early discovered talents and inclination for learning, the poverty of his parents prevented their indulging it; for which reason, at about nine years of age, his father hired him to an inhabitant of the town, to look after his sheep: but his master, being on some occasion disobliged, removed him to a less honourable employment, and gave him the care of his hogs. He was soon released, however, from this degrading occupation: for, in 1531, falling accidentally under the cognizance of father Michael Angelo Selleri, a Franciscan friar, who was going to preach during the Lent season at Ascoli, the friar was so exceedingly struck with his conversation and behaviour, as to recommend him to the fraternity whither he was going. Accordingly, with the unanimous approbation of the community, he was received among them, invested with the habit of a lay -brother, and placed under ft the sacristan, to assist in sweeping the church, lighting the candles, and such little offices; who, in return for his services, was to teach him the responses, and rudiments of grammar."

With no other tutor, his education commenced, and by a quick comprehension, strong memory, and unwearied application, he made such a surprising progress, that in 1534 he was thought fit to receive the cowl, and enter upon his noviciate; and, in 1535, was admitted to make his profession, being no more than fourteen. He pursued his studies with so much assiduity, that, in 1539, he was accounted equal to the best disputants, and was soon admitted to deacon’s orders. In 1545 he was ordained priest, and assumed the name of father Montalto: the same year, he took his bachelor’s degree, and two years after, his doctor’s; and was appointed to keep a divinity act before the whole chapter of the order, at which time he so effectually recommended himself to cardinal de Carpi, and cultivated so close an intimacy with Bossius his secretary, that they were both of them ever after his steady friends; and, indeed, he had frequent occasions for their interposition on his behalf; for the impetuosity of his temper, and his impatience of contradiction, had already subjected him to several inconveniencies, and in the subsequent part of his life involved him in many more difficulties. While all Italy was delighted with his eloquence, he was perpetuallyembroiled in quarrels with his monastic brethren: he, however, formed two new friendships at Rome, which were afterwards of signal service to him one with the Colonna family, who thereby became his protectors the other with father Ghisilieri, by whose recommendation he was appointed inquisitor-general at Venice, by Paul IV. soon after his accession to the papacy in 1555. But the severity with which he executed his office, was so offensive to a people jealous of their liberties, as the Venetians were, that he was obliged to owe his preservation to a precipitate flight from that city.

After his retreat from Venice, we find him acting in many public affairs at Rome, and as often engaged in disputes with the conventuals of his order; till he was appointed, as chaplain and consultor of the inquisition, to attend cardinal Buon Compagnon, afterwards Gregory XIII. who was then legate a latere to Spain. Here Montalto had great honours paid him: he was offered to be made one of the royal chaplains, with a table and an apartment in the palace, and a very large stipend, if he would stay there; but having centered his views at Rome, he declined accepting these favours, and only asked the honour of bearing the title of his majesty’s chaplain wherever he went." While things were thus circumstanced at Madrid, news was brought of the death of Pius IV. and the elevation of cardinal Alexandrine to the holy see, with the title of Pius V. MontaUo was greatly transported at this news, the new pontiff having ever been his steadyfriend and patron; for this new pope was father Ghisilieri, who had been promoted to the purple by Paul IV. Montalto’s joy at the promotion of his friend was not ill-founded, nor were his expectations disappointed; for Pius V. even in the first week of his pontificate, appointed him general of his order, an office that he executed with his accustomed severity. In 1568 he was made bishop of St. Agatha; and, in 1570, was honoured with a cardinal’s hat and a pension. During this reign he had likewise the chief direction of the papal councils, and particularly was employed to draw up the bull of excommunication against queen Elizabeth.

Being now in possession of the purple, he began to aspire to the papacy. With this view “he became humble, patient, and affable; so artfully concealing the natural impetuosity of his temper, that one would have sworn this gentleness and moderation was born with him. There was such a change in his dress, his air, his words, and all his actions, that his nearest friends and acquaintance said, he was not the same man. A greater alteration, or a more absolute victory over his passions, was never seen in any one; nor is there an instance, perhaps, in all history, of a person supporting a fictitious character in so uniform and consistent a manner, or so artfully disguising his foibles and imperfections for such a number of years.” To which may be added, that, while he endeavoured to court the friendship of the ambassadors of every foreign power, he very carefully avoided attaching himself to the interest of any one; nor would he accept favours, that might be presumed to lay him under peculiar obligations. He was not less singular in his conduct to his relations, to whom he had heretofore expressed himself with the utmost tenderness; but now he behaved very differently, “knowing that disinterestedness in that point was one of the keys to the papacy. So that when his brother Antony came to see him at Rome, he lodged him in an inn, and sent him back again the next day with only a present of sixty crowns; strictly charging him to return immediately to his family, and tell them, ‘That his spiritual cares increased upon’him, and he was now dead to his relations and the world; but as he found old age and infirmities begin to approach, he might, perhaps, in a while, send for one of his nephews to wait on him',” Upon the death of Pius V. which happened in 1572, Montalto entered the conclave with the rest of the cardinals; but, appearing to give himself no trouble about the election, kept altogether in his apartment, without ever stirring from it, except to his devotions. He affected a total ignorance of the intrigues of the several factions; and, if he was asked to engage in any party, would reply, with seeming indifference, “that for his part he was of no manner of consequence; that, as he had never been in the conclave before, he was afraid of making some false step, and should leave the affair to be conducted wholly by people of greater knowledge and experience.” The election being determined in favour of cardinal Buon Compagnon, who assumed the name of Gregory XIII. Montalto did not neglect to assure him, “that he had never wished for any thing so much in his life, and that be should always remember his goodness, and the favours he received from him in Spain.” The new pope, however, not only shewed very little regard to his compliment, but during his pontificate, treated him with the utmost contempt, and deprived him of the pension which had been granted to him by Pins V. Nor was he held in greater esteem by the generality of the cardinals, who considered him as a poor, old, doting fellow, incapable of doing either good or harm; and who, by way of ridicule, they were used frequently to style, “the ass of La Marca.” He seldom interfered in> or was present at any public transactions; the chief part of his time was employed in works of piety and devotion; and his benevolence to the indigent was so remarkable, that, when a terrible famine prevailed at Pome, the poor said openly of him, “that cardinal Montalto, who lived upon charity himself, gave with one hand what he received with the other; while the rest of the cardinals, who wallowed in abundance, contented themselves with shewing them the way to the hospital.”

Notwithstanding this affected indifference to what passed in the world, he was never without able spies, who informed him from time to time of every the most minute particular. He had assumed great appearance of imbecility and all the infirmities of old age, for some years before the death of Gregory XIII. in 1585; when it was not without much seeming reluctance, that Montalto accompanied the rest of the cardinals into the conclave, where he maintained the same uniformity of behaviour in which he had so long persisted. “He kept himself close shut up in his chamber, and was no more thought or spoken of, than if he had not been there. He very seldom stirred out, and when he went to mass, or any of the scrutinies, appeared so little concerned, that one would have thought he had no manner of interest in any thing that happened within those walls;” and, without promising any thing, he flattered everybody. This method of proceeding was judiciously calculated to serve his ambition. He was early apprised, that there would be great contests or divisions in the conclave; and he knew it was no uncommon case, that when the chiefs of the respective parties met with opposition to the person they were desirous of electing, they would all willingly concur in the choice of some very old and infirm cardinal, whose life would last only long enough to prepare themselves with more strength against another vacancy. These views directed his conduct, nor was he mistaken in his expectations of success. Three cardinals, who were the heads of potent factions, finding themselves unable to choose the persons they respectively favoured, all concurred to elect Montalto. As it was not yet necessary for him to discover himself, when they came to acquaint him with their intention, “he fell into such a violent fit of coughing, that they thought he would have expired upon the spot.” When he recovered himself, he told them, “that his reign would be but for a few days that, besides the continual difficulty of breathing, he had not strength enough to support such a weight; and that his small experience in affairs made him altogether unfit for a charge of so important a nature.” Nor would he be prevailed on to accept it on any other terms, than that “they should all three promise not to abandon him, but take the greatest part of the weight off his shoulders, as he was neither able, nor could in conscience pretend, to take the whole upon himself.” The cardinals giving a ready assent to his proposal, he added, “If you are resolved to make me pope, it will be only placing yourselves on the throne; we must share the pontificate. For my part, I shall be content with the bare title; let them call me pope, and you are heartily welcome to the power and authority.” This artifice succeeded; and, in confidence of engrossing the administration, they exerted their joint interests so effectually, that Montalto was elected. He now immediately pulled off the mask which be had worn for fourteen years, with an amazing steadiness and uniformity. As soon as ever he found a sufficient number of votes to secure his election, he threw the staff with which he used to support himself into the middle of the chapel; and appeared taller by almost a foot than he had done for several years. Being asked according to custom, “Whether he would please to accept of the papacy,” he replied somewhat sharply, “It is trifling and impertinent to ask whether I will accept what I have already accepted: however, to satisfy any scruple that may arise, I tell you, that I accept it with great pleasure; and would accept another, if I could get it; for I find myself strong enough, by the divine assistance, to manage two papacies.” Nor was the change in his manners less remarkable than in his person: he immediately divested himself of the humility he had so long professed; and, laying aside his accustomed civility and complaisance, treated every body with reserve and haughtiness.

The lenity of Gregory’s government had introduced a general licentiousness among all ranks of people; which, though somewhat restrained while he lived, broke out into open violence the very day after his death. Riots, rapes, robberies, and murders, were, during the vacancy of the see, claily committed in every part of the ecclesiastical state; so that the reformation of abuses, in the church as well as the state, was the first and principal care of Sixtus V. for such was the title Montalto assumed. The first days of his pontificate were employed in receiving the congratulations of the Roman nobility, and in giving audience to foreign ministers; and though he received them with seeming cheerfulness and complaisance, yet he soon dismissed them, desiring to be excused, “for he had something else to do than to attend to compliments.” It having been customary with preceding popes to release prisoners on the day of their coronation, delinquents used to surrender themselves after the pope was chosen; and several offenders, judging of Montalto’s disposition by his behaviour while a cardinal, came voluntarily to the prisons, not making the least doubt of a pardon: but they were fatally disappointed; for when the governor of Rome and the keeper of St. Angelo’s castle waited on his holiness to know his intention upon this matter, Sixtus replied, “You certainly do not either know your proper distance, or are very impertinent. What have you to do with pardons and acts of grace, and releasing of prisoners? Don't you think it sufficient, that our predecessor has suffered the judges to lie idle and unemployed these thirteen years? Would you have us likewise stain our pontificate with the same neglect of justice? We have too long seen, with inexpressible concern, the prodigious degree of wickedness that reigns in the ecclesiastical state, to think of granting any pardon. God forbid we should entertain such a design! So far from releasing any prisoners, it is our express command, that they be more closely confined. Let them be brought to a speedy trial, and punished as they deserve, that the prisons may be emptied, and room made for others; and that the world may see, that Divine Providence has called us to the chair of St. Peter to reward the good, and to chastise the wicked; that we bear not the sword in vain, but are the minister of God, and a revenger to execute wrath upon them that do evil.”

In the place of such judges as were inclined to lenity, he substituted others of a more austere disposition, and appointed commissaries to examine not only their conduct, but also that of other governors and judges for many years past; promising rewards to those who could convict them of corruption, or of having denied justice to any one at the instance or request of men in power. All the nobility, and persons of the highest quality, were strictly forbidden, on pain of displeasure, to ask the judges any thing in behalf of their nearest friends or dependants; at the same time the judges were to be fined in case they listened to any solicitation. He further commanded every body, “on pain of death, not to terrify witnesses by threats, or tempt them by hopes or promises. He ordered the syndics and mayors of every town and signiory, as well those that were actually in office, as those who had been for the last ten years, to send him a list of all the vagrants, common debauchees, loose and disorderly people in their districts, threatening them with the strappado and imprisonment, if they omitted or concealed any one.” In consequence of this ordinance, the syndic of Albano, leaving his nephew, who was an incorrigible libertine, out of the list, underwent the strappado in the public market-place, though the Spanish ambassador interceded strongly for him. He par ticularly directed the legates and governors of the ecclesiastical state to be expeditious in carrying on all criminal processes; declaring, “he had rather have the gibbets and gallies full, than the prisons.” He aUo intended to have shortened all other proceedings in law. It had been usual, and was pleasing to the people, as often as his holiness passed by, to cry out, “Long live the pope:” but Sixtus, having a mind to go often unexpectedly to the tribunals of justice, convents, and other public places, forbade this custom in regard to himself; and punished two persons who were ignorant of this edict, with imprisonment, for crying out, “Long live pope Sixtus.” Adultery he punished with death: nor was he less severe to those who voluntarily permitted a prostitution of their wives; a custom at that time very common in Rome. The female sex, especially the younger part, attracted, in a very particular manner, the attention of Sixtus; not only the debauching of any of them, whether by force or artifice, but even the attempting of it, or offering the least offence against modesty, was very severely punished. For the more effectual prevention, as well of private assassinations, as public quarrels, he forbade all persons, on pain of death, to draw a sword, or to carry arms specified in the edict; nor would he be prevailed on to spare any who transgressed this order: even to threaten another with an intended injury was sufficient to entitle the menacer to a whipping and the gallies; especially if the nature of their profession furnished the means of carrying their threats into execution. The banditti, who were numerous when Sixtus was advanced to the papacy, were rendered still more so by the junction of many loose and disorderly people; who, conscious of their demerits, and terrified at the severities they daily saw practised, had fled from justice. Their insolence increased with their numbers; insomuch, that no one could live in the ecclesiastical state with saiety to his person or fortune, nor could strangers travel without imminent danger of being robbed or murdered. The public security more especially required the extirpation of these plunderers, which, by the prudence, vigilance, and resolution of this pope, was effectually performed in less than six months. He obliged the nobility of Rome, and the country round it, to an exact payment of their debts. He abolished all protections and other immunities, in the houses of ambassadors, cardinals, nobles, or prelates. To this purpose, he sent for all the ambassadors, and ordered them to acquaint their respective masters, “that he was determined nobody should reign in Rome but himself; that there should be no privilege or immunity of any kind there, but what belonged to the pope; nor any sanctuary or asylum but the churches, anil that only at such times, and upon such occasions, as he should think proper.”

Thus far we have heheld Sixtus acting in his civil capacity; and if we take a view of his conduct as a politician, in his transactions with foreign powers, we find him maintaining the same degree of firmness as in his treatment of his own subjects. Before he had been pope two months he quarrelled with Philip II. of Spain, Henry III. of France, and Henry king of Navarre. His intrigues in some measure may be said to have influenced, in his day, all the councils of Europe. Sixtus had caused the Vulgate Latin edition of the Bible to be published, which occasioned a good deal of clamour; but far less than his printing an Italian version of it, which excited the in lignation of all the Roman Catholic part of Christendom. Count Olivares, and some of the cardinals, ventured to expostulate with him freely upon it; and said, “It was a scandalous as well as a dangerous thing, and bordered very nearly upon heresy,” But he treated them with contempt, and only said, “We do it for the benefit of you that do not understand Latin.” Though this pope’s behaviour may not command universal applause, yet it is certain the Roman see was under very great obligations to him. His impartial, though rigorous, administration of justice, had a very happy effect; he strenuously defended the rights of the poor, the widow, and the orphan; he refused audience to nobody, ordering his masters of the ceremonies to introduce the poorest to him first; but was more particularly ready to hear any accusation against the magistrates: the same conduct he observed between the clergy and their superiors, always applying quick and effectual, though mostly severe, remedies. In short, he had wrought such a reformation, that the governor told him one day, the place of a judge was now become a perfect sinecure. At his accession to the papacy, he found the apostolic clia.-nber, or treasury, not only exhausted, but in debt: he lei't it, not only clear, but enriched itwith five millions of gold; he also augmented the revenue to double its former amount. To him the city of Rome was obliged for several of its greatest embellishments, particularly the Vatican library, began by Sixtus IV.; and to him its citizens were indebted for the introduction of trade into the ecclesiastical state. Though he was naturally an enemy to profusion, he was never sparing in expence to relieve such as were really necessitous; and, among many other noble charities, his appropriation of three thousand crowns a year, for the redemption of Christian slaves out of the hands of the infidels, will hardly be reckoned the least meritorious.

In respect to his private character, it appears, from several instances, that he was, as well in his habit as diet, generally temperate and frugal; that he remembered, and greatly rewarded, every service that was conferred upon him when he was in an inferior station. Nor did his elevation make him unmindful of his former poverty: his sister once intimating, that it was unbecoming his dignity to wear patched linen, he said to her, “Though we are exalted, through the Divine Providence, to this high station, we ought not to forget, that shreds and patches are the only coat of arms our family has any title to.” The behaviour of Sixtus to his relations, previous to his exaltation, has been already noted: soon after his accession to the pontificate, he sent for his family to Rome, with express orders, that they should appear in a decent and modest manner. Accordingly, his sister Camilla, accompanied by her daughter and two grandsons, and a niece, came thither. The pope’s reception of them was as singular as any other part of his conduct; for some of the cardinals, to ingratiate themselves with his holiness, went out to meet her, dressed them all in a very superb manner, and introduced them with great ceremony to the Vatican. When Sixtus saw Camilla, he pretended not to know her, and asked two or three times who she was; upon which one of the cardinals, who handed her in, said, “It is your sister, holy father.” “My sister!” replied Sixtus, with a frown, “I have but one sister, and she is a poor woman at Le Grotte: if you have introduced her in this disguise, I declare 1 do not know her; and yet I think I should know her again, if I was to see her in such clothes as she used to wear.” Their conductors then thought it expedient to send them to a common inn, where they were disrobed of their finery. When this was done, Sixtus sent two of his ordinary coaches for them; and being introduced a second time, the pope embraced them tenderly, and said to Camilla, “Now we see it is our sister indeed: nobody shall make a princess of you but ourselves.” The terms Sixtus stipulated with his sister, as the conditions of her advancement, were, “not to ask any favour in matters of government, or make the least intercession for criminals, or otherwise interfere in the administration of justice;” assuring her that every suit of that kind would meet with a refusal not less mortifying to her than painful to himself. This being settled, he made, indeed, a princely provision, not only for his sister, who took care punctually to obey his orders, but also for all the family.

The pope’s severity could not exempt him from several poignant satires, though we have only one instance wherein he thought them worth his resentment; and that related to his sister. Pasquin was dressed one morning in a very dirty shirt; and being askedby Marforio, why he wore such dirty linen answered, “He could get no other, for the pope had made his washer-woman a princess;” meaning Camilla, who had formerly been a laundress. The pope ordered strict search to be made for the author, and promised to give him a thousand pistoles, and his life, provided he would discover himself; but threatened to hang him, if he was found out by any body else. The author, though he had trusted no person with the secret, was so tempted with the offer, that he was simple enough to make a full confession of it to the pope; demanding the money, and to have his life spared. Sixtus was so astonished at his folly and impudence, that he could not speak for some time; and at last said, “It is true we did make such a promise, and we shall not be worse than our word; we give you your life, and you shall have the money immediately; but we reserved to ourselves the power of cutting off your hands, and boring your tongue through to prevent your being so witty for the future:” which was directly executed, Sixtus declaring, that he did not deserve the punishment so much for the pasquinade, as for being so audacious to avow it.

This extraordinary man, who was an encourager of arts as well as arms, died, not without a suspicion of being poisoned by the Spaniards, Aug. 27, 1500, having enjoyed the papacy little more than five years.

, an old English poet, descended from an ancient family in Cumberland, was born towards the latter part of the fifteenth century, and appears to have studied in both universities. Wood claims him for Oxford, although without conceiving that he was a very honourable addition to his list of worthies. The late Mr. Cole, in his collections for the Athenae Cantabrigienses, is of opinion, that he belongs to Cambridge, partly because he alludes to his being curate of Trompington in 1507, and mentions Svvaffam and Soham, two towns in Cambridgeshire, and partly because there occurs the name of one Skelton, M. A. of Cambridge, in the year 1484. On the other hand, Wood reckons him of Oxford, from the authority of Bale in a manuscript in the Bodleian library and in the preface of Caxton’s Translation of the Æneids he is said to have been “lately created Poet Laureate in the Unyversite of Oxenforde,” and to have been the translator of some of the Latin classics.

This laureatship, however, it must be observed, was not the office now known as pertaining to the court, but was a degree conferred at the university. Churchyard, in the poem prefixed to Skelton’s works, says,

This honour appears to have been conferred on him about 1489, and if our author was the Schelton discovered by Mr. Cole, he had now left Cambridge for Oxford; but Mr. Malone says that, a few years after this, he was permitted to wear the laurel publicly at Cambridge, and had been previously honoured by Henry VII. with a grant to wear either some peculiar dress, or some additional ornament in his ordinary apparel. In addition to this, it may be inferred from the titles of some of his works, that he was poet laureate to king Henry VIII.; but Mr. Malone has not been able to discover whether he received any salary in consequence of this office. The origin of the royal laureat is somewhat obscure. According to Mr. Warton, he was only a graduated rhetorician employed in the service of the king, and all his productions were in Latin, until the time of the reformation, which, among other advantages, opened the way to the cultivation of the English tongue.

In the page where Skelton mentions his being curate of Trompington, he informs us that he was at the same time (1507) rector of Diss in Norfolk, and probably had held this living long before. Tradition informs us, that his frequent buffooneries in the pulpit excited general censure. Of what nature those buffooneries were, we cannot now determine, but it is certain that at a much later period the pulpit was frequently debased by irreverent allusions and personal scurrilities. There appear to have been three subjects at which Skeltori delighted to aim his satire; these were, the mendicant friars, Lilly the grammarian, and cardinal Wolsey. From what we find in his works, his treatment of these subjects was coarse enough in style, and perhaps illiberal in sentiment; and there is some reason to think that he did not preserve a due reverence for the forms and pomp of the established religion, which above all other faults would naturally tend to bring him into disgrace and danger. Those who felt his satire would be glad to excite a clamour against his impiety; and it must be allowed that the vices of his age are frequently represented in such indelicate language, as to furnish his enemies with the very plausible reproach, that he was not one of those reformers who begin with themselves.

But although we can now have very little sympathy with the injured feelings of the begging friars, it is not improbable that some of his poems or ballads might very justly rouse the vigilance of his diocesan, the bishop of Norwich, who, Mr. Warton thinks, suspended him from his functions. Anthony Wood asserts, that he was punished by the bishop for “having been guilty of certain crimes, as most poets are.” According to Fuller, the crime of “most poets” in Skelton’s case, was his keeping of a concubine, which yet was at that time a less crime in a clergyman than marriage. Skelton, on his death-bed, declared that he conscientiously considered his concubine as his wife, but was afraid to own her in that light; and from this confession, and the occasional liberties he has taken with his pen, in lashing the vices of the clergy, it is not improbable that he had imbibed some of the principles of the reformation, but had not the courage to avow them, unless under the mask of such satire as might pass without judicial censure.

With respect, however, to Wolsey, his prudence appears to have deserted him, as he felt bold enough to Stigmatize the personal character of that statesman, then irt the plenitude of his power. Whether such attacks were made in any small poems or ballads, or only in his poem of “Why come ye not to Court?” is not certain, but the latter does not appear to have been printed until 1555, and was too long to have been easily circulated in manuscript. Wolsey, however, by some means or other, discovered the abuse and the author, and ordered him to be apprehended. Skelton took refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster-abbey, where the abbot, Islip, afforded him protection until his death, which took place June 21, 1529, not long before the downfall of his illustrious persecutor. He was interred in St. Margaret’s church-yard, with the inscription,

“J. Sceltonus Vates Pierius hie situs est.” Skelton appears to have been a more considerable personage, at one time at least, than his contemporaries would have us to believe. It is certain that he was esteemed a scholar, and that his classical learning recommended him to the office of tutor to prince Henry, afterwards king Henry VIII., who, at his accession, made him royal orator, an office so called by himself, the nature of which is doubtful, unless it was blended with that of laureat. As to his general reputation, Erasmus, in a letter to Henry VIII. styles him “Britannicarum literarum decus et lumen,” a character which must have either been inferred from common opinion, or derived from personal knowledge. Whatever provocation he gave to the clergy, he was not without patrons who overlooked his errors and extravagancies for the sake of his genius, and during the reign of Henry VII. he had the enviable distinction of being almost the only professed poet of the age. Henry Algernon Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland, one of the very few patrons of learned men and artists at that time, appears to have entertained a high regard for our author. In a collection of poems magnificently engrossed on vellum for the use of this nobleman, is an elegy on the death of the earl’s father, written by Skelton. This volume is now in the Bullish Museum, but the elegy may be seen in Skelton’s works, and in Dr. Percy’s Relics.

Skelton, however, is very unequal, although his natural bias, and what he seems most anxious to revert to, is comic buffoonery. That the author of the “Prayers to the Trinity,” and the lines on the death of Lord Percie, could have written the “Tunning of Elinour Humming,” is almost incredible. His multiplied repetition of rhymes, arbitrary abbreviations -of the verse, cant expressions, hard and sounding words newly coined, and patches of Latin and French, Warton supposes to be peculiar, though not exclusively to our author; but his new-coined words, and Latin and French phrases, occur so often, that other critics appear to have been too hasty in asserting that he wrote only for the mob. There is occasionally much sound sense, and, it is to be feared, much just satire on the conduct of the clergy, which we know was such as to justify the plunder of the church by Henry VIII. in the eyes of the people at large. As a poet, however, Skeltou contributed very little to the improvement of the poetical style, and seems more disposed to render versification ridiculous. His vein of humour is often copious and original, and had it been directed to subjects of legitimate satire, and regulated by some degree of taste, more credit would have been given to what he insinuates, that he was disliked and reviled for having honestly, though bluntly, exposed the reigning follies of his day. Mrs. Cooper calls him, with some degree of truth, “the restorer of invention in English poetry;” and by Bradshavv, a very indifferent poet of the fifteenth century, he is complimented as the inventive Skelton.

. a worthy and learned clergyman of Ireland, and author of some valuable works on divinity, was born in the parish of Berriaghly, near Lisburn, Feb. 1707. His family was originally English; his grandfather, an engineer, having been sent over by Charles I. to inspect the Irish fortifications, settled in that country, and suffered many hardships in Cromwell’s time. His father, Richard Skelton, appears to have been, in the reign of William III. a gunsmith, and afterwards a farmer and a tanner. He was a man of great sense, a strict observer of religion, and a careful instructor of his children. He died in his fiftieth. year, leaving a widow and ten children. Philip, when about ten years of age, was sent to Lisburn school, where "being at first negligent, his father cured him by sending him into the fields and treating him as a menial. After this he applied with diligence, and soon displayed an ardent desire for learning. On the death of his father, which happened when he was at school, his mother had many difficulties in bringing up her numerous family, and he began to think it his duty to relieve her from the expence of one, at least, by a still more close application to his studies. From school, he entered as a sizer in the university of Dublin, in June 1724, where Dr. Delany was his tutor, and ever after his friend.

Here he soon obtained the reputation of a scholar, and also distinguished himself by his skill in fencing, cudgelling, and other manly feats, as well as in some college frolics from which he did not always escape uncensured. His temper was warm, and he entertained that irritable sense of honour which frequently involved him in quarrels. On one occasion he had a quarrel with a fellow-student, who happened to be connected with Dr. Baldwin, the provost, and who insinuated that Skelton was a Jacobite, an accusation which he repelled by the most solemn declaration of his adherence to the Hanover family. Baldwin, however, was prejudiced against him, and endeavoured to keep him out of a scholarship, but, mistaking him for another of the same name, his malice was disappointed, and Skelton received this reward of merit in 1726. Baldwin, however, on other occasions did every thing in his power to make a college life uneasy to him; and Skelton, finding it impossible to gain his favour without disgraceful compliances, resolved to take his degree at the statutable period, and quit the college. This, however, his enemy still endeavoured to prevent, and, on some idle pretence, stopped his degree.

Skelton’s only remedy was now to wait patiently till the next commencement, which would take place in about half a year. As the time approached, he contrived to foil the provost at his own weapons, and knowing his tyrannical and capricious temper, played him a trick, which his biographer relates in the following manner. A few days before the commencement, he waited on the provost, “and after paying his humble submission, said, ‘Mr. Provost, I am extremely obliged to you for stopping me of my degree last time, because it was what I wished for above all thipgs, and I be and beseech you may also stop me now, as my friends are forcing me to take it, and quit the college, contrary to my desire.’ ‘ Ah, you dog,’ he replied, * what do you mean? do you wish to stay here contrary to your friends 1 consent? Take your degree, sirrah, and quit the college, or I Ml make you smart for it.‘ Skelton then began to cry, and whine, and sob, saying how greatly distressed he was at getting this unfavourable answer. * Don’t be growling here, sir,‘ he said, ’ but go about your business, I ‘11 not agree to your request, you shall take your degree in spite of you, sirrah.’ Upon this Skelton, with sorrowful countenance, though with joy at his heart, walked grumblingly out of the room.” The consequence of this was, that he commenced B. A. in July 1728, and had his name taken out of the college books, May 31st following, two years before the natural expiration of his scholarship. Notwithstanding this treatment, he always spoke of Dr. Baldwin as in many respects an excellent provost.

Soon after leaving college, he resided with his brother John, a clergyman, and schoolmaster of Dundalk, and took on himself the management of the school, which by his efforts rose to high reputation. He had been here but a short time, when he obtained abomination to the curacy of Newtown-Butler, in the county of Fermanagh, from Dr. Madden (see Madden), and was ordained deacon for this cure by Dr. Sterne, bishop of Clogher, about 1729. He was afterwards ordained priest by the same bishop, and used to relate that he and the other candidates were examined by Dr. Sterne and his assistant for a whole week in Latin, and that they were not allowed, during the whole of this trial, to speak a word of English.

During his holding this curacy he resided in Dr. Madden’s house, called Manor-waterhouse, about three miles from Newtovm- Butler, as private tutor; and had three or four boys to instruct in English and the rudiments of the Latin and Greek languages. This left him little time for the composition of his sermons, and such as he wrote at this time, he afterwards very much disliked. Here, however, he exhibited that active benevolence which always formed a striking feature in his character, and although the salary derived both from his curacy and his teaching was very small, he gave at least the half away in charitable purposes. Here likewise it would appear that he wrote his first publication, an anonymous pamphlet, printed at Dublin, recommending Dr. Madderi'a scheme for establishing premiums in Trinity college; but Madden, although he admired this pamphlet, and solicited the publisher for the name of its author, never made the discovery: Skelton judging it for his advantage to keep the secret. In the mean time, his situation being rendered extremely irksome by the vulgar mind and parsimonious disposition of Mrs. Madden, he resigned both the curacy and his tutorship in about two years.

On leaving Dr. Madden, he repaired to his brother’s, in Dundalk, until, in 1732, he was nominated to the curacy of Monaghan, in the diocese of Cloghet, by the hon. and rev. Francis Hamilton, the rector. This situation was for some years permanent, and afforded him leisure to pursue his favourite study of diunity, and to execute the duties of a parish priest. “His inclinations,” says his biographer, “were all spiritual, and he only desired an opportunity of being more extensively useful for long before, he had fixed his thoughts on the rewards of a better world than the present.” His life was accordingly most exemplary, and his preaching efficacious. It was said that the very children of Monaghan, whom he carefully instructed, knew more of religion at that time, than the grown people of any of the neighbouring parishes, and the manners of his flock were soon greatly improved, and vice and ignorance retreated before so powerful an opponent. His charities were extraordinary, for all he derived from his curacy was 40l. of which he gave 10l. a year to his mother, and for some years a like sum to his tutor, Dr. Delany, to pay some debts he had contracted at college. The rest were for his maintenance and his charities, and when the pittance he could give was insufficient for the relief of the poor, he solicited the aid of people of fortune, who usually contributed according to his desire, and could not indeed refuse a man who first gave his own before he would ask any of theirs. His visits to the jails were also attended with the happiest effects. On one remarkable occasion, when a convict at Monaghan, of whose innocence he was well assured, was condemned to be hanged within five days, he set off for Dublin, and on his arrival was admitted to the privy council, which then was sitting. Here he pleaded lor the poor man with such eloquence, as to obtain his pardon, and returned with it to Monaghan in time to save his life. In order to be of the more use to his poor parishioners, he studied physic, and was very successful in his gratuitous practice, as well as by his spiritual advice, and was the means of removing many prejudices and superstitions which he found very deeply rooted in their minds.

Mr. Skelton set out in his ministry in the character of an avowed champion of the orthodox faith. Deriving his religious principles from the pure source of information, the holy Scriptures themselves, he could find in these no real ground for modern refinements. Consequently he declared open war against all Arians, Socinians, c. and published several anonymous pieces against them. In 1736, he published “A Vindication of the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Winchester,” an ironical attack on Hoadly’s “Plain account of the nature and end of the Lord’s Supper.” When bishop Sterne read it, he sent for Skelton, and asked if he had written it? Skelton gave him an evasive answer. “Well, well,” said the bishop,“” 'tis a clever thing you are a young man of no fortune; take these ten guineas, you may want them.“” I took the money,“Skelton told his biographer,” and said nothing, for I was then a poor curate."

He published the same year, “Some proposals for the revival of Christianity,” another piece of irony against the enemies of the church, which was imputed to Swift, who, as usual, neither affirmed nor denied; but only observed, that the author “had not continued the irony to the end.” In 1737, he published a “Dissertation on the constitution and effects of a Petty Jury.” In this, among other things, ^eems to object to locking up a jury without food, until they agree upon their opinion. The attorney general called at his bookseller’s, who refused to give up the name of the author. “Well,” said the attorney general, “give my compliments to the author, and inform him from me, that I do not think there is virtue enough in the people of this country ever to put his scheme into practice.”

His fame, however, both as a preacher and writer, his extraordinary care as an instructor of a parish, and his wonderful acts of charity and goodness, began, about 1737, to be the subject of conversation, not only in the diocese of Clogher, and other parts of the North, but also in the metropolis; but still no notice was taken of him in the way of preferment. Dr. Sterne, the bishop of Clogher, usually sent for him, after he had bestowed a good preferment upon another, and gave him, “by way of a sop,” ten guineas, which Mr. Skelton frequently presented to a Mr. Arbuthnot, a poor cast-off curate, who was unable to serve through age and infirmity. At length Dr. Delany, who had been his tutor at college, perceiving him thus neglected, procured for him an appointment to the curacy of St. Werburgh’s in Dublin. This would have been highly acceptable to Mr. Skelton, and Dr. Delany would have been much gratified to place such a man in a situation where his merits were likely to be duly appreciated: it is painful to relate in what manner both were disappointed. When he was on the point of leaving the diocese of Clogher, bishop Sterne perceiving that it would be to his discredit if a person of such abilities should leave his diocese for want of due encouragement, sent a clergyman to inform him, “that if he staid in his diocese he would give him the first living that should fall.” Relying on this, he wrote to Dr. Delany, and the curacy of St. Werburgh’s was otherwise disposed of. The first living that fell vacant was Monaghan, where he had so long officiated, which the bishop immediately gave to his nephew Mr. Hawkshaw, a young gentleman that had lately entered into orders! It would even appear that he had made his promise with a determination to break it, for when he bestowed the preferment on his nephew, he is reported to have said, “I give you now a living worth 300l. a year, and have kept the best curate in the diocese for you, who was going to leave it: be sure take his advice, and follow his directions, for he is a man of worth and sense.” But Skelton, with all his “worth and sense,” was not superior to the infirmities of his nature. He felt this treacherous indignity very acutely, and never attended a visitation during the remainder of the bishop’s life, which continued for a series of years; nor did the bishop ever ask for him, or express any surprize at his absence. Under Mr. Hawkshaw, however, he Jived not unhappily. Mr. Hawkshaw submitted to his instructions, and followed his example, and there was often an amicable contest in the performance of their acts of duty and charity.

After he returned to his curacy, he was offered a school xvorth 500l. a year, arising from the benefit of the scholars, but refused it as interfering with the plan of literary improvement and labour which he had marked out for himself; and when told that he might employ ushers, he said he could not in conscience take the money, without giving up his whole time and attention to his scholars. In 1744, he published “The Candid Reader, addressed to his terraqueous majesty, the WorUl.” The objects of his ridicule in this are Hill, the mathematician, who proposed making verses by an arithmetical table, lord Shaftesbury, and Johnson, the author of a play called “Hurlothrumbo,” with a parallel between Hurlothrumbo and the rhapsody of Shaftesbury. In the same year he also published “A Letter to the authors of Divine Analogy and the Minute Philosopher, from an old officer,” a plain, sensible letter, advising the two polemics to turn their arms from one another against the common enemies of the Christian faith. During the rebellion in 1745, he published a very seasonable and shrewd pamphlet, entitled the “Chevalier’s hopes.” On the death of Dr. Sterne, the see of Clogher was filled by Dr. Clayton, author of the “Essay on Spirit,” a decided Arian; and between him and Skelton there could consequently be no coincidence of opinion, or mutuality of respect. In 1748, Mr. Skelton having prepared for the press his valuable work entitled “Deism revealed,” he conceived it too important to be published in Ireland, and therefore determined to go to London, and dispose of it there. On his arrival, he submitted his manuscript to Andrew Millar, the bookseller, to know if he would purchase it, and have it printed at his own expence. The bookseller desired him, as is usual, to leave it with him for a day or two, until he could get a certain gentleman of great abilities to examine it. Hume is said to have come in accidentally into the shop, and Millar shewed him the ms. Hume took it into a room adjoining the shop, examined it here and there for about an hour, and then said to Andrew, print. By this work Skelton made about 200l. The bookseller allowed him for the manuscript a great many copies, which he disposed of among the citizens of London, with whom, on account of his preaching, he was a great favourite. He always spake with high approbation of the kindness with which he was received by many eminent merchants. When in London he spent a great part of his time in going through the city, purchasing books at a cheap rate, with the greater part of the money he got by his “Deism revealed,” and formed a good library. This work was published in 1749, in two volumes, large octavo, and a second edition was called for in 1751, which waacomprized in two volumes 12mo. It has ever been considered as a masterly answer to the cavils of deists; but the style in this, as in some other of his works, is not uniform, and his attempts at wit are rather too frequent, and certainly not very successful. A few months after its publication the bishop of Clogher, Dr. Clayton, was asked by Sherlock, bishop of London, if he knew the author. “O yes, he has been a curate in my diocese near these twenty years.” “More shame for your lordship,” answered Sherlock, “to let a man of his merit continue so long a curate in your diocese.”

After a residence at London of about six months, during which he preached some of the sermons since published in his works, Mr. Skelton returned to his curacy in Ireland, and in 1750, a large living became vacant in the diocese of Clogher. Dr. Delany and another bishop immediately waited on bishop Clayton, and told him, that if he did not give Skehon a living now, after disappointing them so often, they would take him out of his diocese. This, however, was not entirely effectual: Clayton could not refuse the request, hut made several removals on purpose to place Skelton in the living of Pettigo, in a wild part of the county of Donegal, worth about 200l. a year, the people uncultivated, disorderly, fond of drinking and quarrelling, and, in a word, sunk in profound ignorance. He used to say, he was a missionary sent to convert them to Christianity, and that he was banished from all civilised society. He often declared that he was obliged to ride seven miles before he could meet with a person of common sense to converse with. With such difficulties, however, Skeltou was born to contend. He always had a conscientious feeling of the wants of his flock, with a strong impelling sense of duty. His biographer has given a very interesting account of the means, pious and charitable, which he took to meliorate the condition of his parish, which, for the sake of brevity, we must omit; suffice it to say, they were effectual; but his situation affected his mind in some degree, and he became liable to occasional fits of the hypochondriac kind, which recurred more or less in the alterpart of his life.

About 1758, a pamphlet appeared in Dublin, entitled “An Appeal to the common sense of all Christian people,” an artful defence of Arianism, an answer to which was written by Mr. Skelton, in the opinion of his biographer, in a masterly manner and style, exceeding any of hi* former compositions. But as the “Appeal” sunk into obscurity, the answer was not inserted in the edition of his works published in 1770. Here, however, maybe found a description of Longh-Derg, which he wrote about this time, a place much visited by the superstitious. In 1758, Dr. Clayton, bishop of Clogher, died, and was succeeded by Dr. Garnet, who treated Mr. Skelton with the respect he deserved, and in 1759 gave him the living of Devenish, in the county of Fermanagh, near Enniskillen, worth about 300l. a year, and thus he was brought once more into civilized society. When leaving Pettigo, he said to the poor, “Give me your blessing now before I go, and God’s blessing be with you. When you are in great distress, come to me, and I '11 strive to relieve you.” In this new charge, he exerted the same zeal to instruct his flock both in public and private, and the same benevolence toward the poor which had made him so great a benefit to his former people. W r e must refer to his biographer for numerous proofs, for which his memory continues still to be held in high veneration. In 17oG, the bishop of Clogher removed him from Devenish to the living of Fintona, in the county of Tyrone, worth at least 100l. more than the other. He was now in the fifty-ninth year of his age. “God Almighty,” he used to say, “was very kind to me: when I began to advance in years and stood in need of a horse and servant, he gave me a living. Then he gave me two livings, one after another, each of which was worth a hundred a year more than the preceding. I have therefore been rewarded by him, even in this world, far above my deserts.”

In his latter days, when the air of Fintona became too keen for him, he passed some of his winters in Dublin, and there was highly valued for his preaching, which, in the case of charities, was remarkably successful. During a dearth, owing to the decline of the yarn manufactory at Fintona, he again exhausted his whole property in relieving the poor, and again sold his books for 100l. He said he was now too old to use them; but the real cause was, that he wanted the money to give to the poor, and the year after he bestowed on them 60l. It was one of his practices to distribute money, even in times of moderate plenty, among indigent housekeepers, who were struggling to preserve a decent appearance. He was also the kind and liberal patron of such of their children as had abilities, and could, by his urgent application and interest, be advanced in the world.

His infirmities increasing, after fifty years labour in the ministry with unexampled diligence, he now found himself incapable any longer of the discharge of his public duties, and in 1780 took his final leave of Fintona, and removed to Dublin, to end his days. Here he received great respect from many of the higher dignitaries of the church, and in 1781 the university offered him the degree of doctor of divinity, which he declined. In 1784 he published by subscription a sixth volume of his works, containing “An Appeal to common sense on the subject of Christianity,” &c. or a historical proof of the truth of Christianity, superior in style and arrangement to any of his former productions, and which shewed that his faculties were in full force at the age of seventy-six. In the same volume, are “Some Thoughts on Common Sense,” some hymns, and a Latin poem. In 1786 he published his seventh volume, entitled *' Senilia, or an Old Man’s Miscellany," In the same year he published a short answer to a catechism, written by an English clergyman, and used at Sunday schools, which he supposed to contain an erroneous doctrine with respect to the state of men after death, and sent a copy to all the bishops of England and Ireland. The archbishop of Dublin was so convinced by it, that he stopped the use of the catechism in his diocese.

Mr. Skelton died May 4, 1787, and was buried near the west door of St. Peter’s church-yard. His character has been in some degree displayed in the preceding sketch taken from his “Life,” by the rev. Samuel Burdy, 1792, 8vo. With the exception of some oddities of conduct and expression, in which he somewhat resembled Swift and Johnson, his life was truly exemplary in all its parts, and his writings deserve to be better known.

, an English antiquary, was born either in London, or in the county of Middlesex, about 1622. He was admitted on the royal foundation at Christ church in Oxford, 1638; but, the rebellion breaking out before he could take any degree, he travelled, and studied in several universities abroad. About 1646, he returned home; and going to Oxford, which at this time ceased to be a garrison, he took both the degrees in arts the same year. He then resumed his travels through France, Italy, Germany, the Spanish Netherlands, and other countries; visited the courts of several princes; frequented the principal universities; and established an acquaintance with the learned in different parts of Europe. On the restoration of the university of Heidelberg, by Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine, he was honoured with a doctor of physic’s degree; and, returning to England, was incorporated into the same at Oxford in 1654. About this time he settled at Lincoln; where, after practising physic with success, he died of a malignant fever, Sept. 5, 1667. Wood says, “He was a person well versed in most parts of learning, understood all books whether old or new, was most skilful in the Oriental tongues, an excellent Grecian, and, in short, a living library.”

, a learned divine and poet, was born in Somersetshire in 1587, and was admitted a member of St. Mary hall, Oxford, in 1600, whence he removed to Brasenose college in 1607. In the following year he took his degree of B. A. and was chosen to a fellowship. He took his master’s degree in 1611, entered into holy orders, and was beneficed. In 1623 he took his degrees in divinity, and bad by this time acquired very considerable reputation for his poetical talent, and his knowledge in English history. He died at Otterden in Kent, where he was beneficed, in Oct. or Nov. 1647. His works are, 1. “Threnodia, sive Pandioniuni,” &c. being elegies and epitaphs on the queen Anne of Denmark, to whom he had been chaplain. It is a quarto of four sheets, printed in 1619. The elegies and epitaphs are in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English verses, and some of them in the fantastical shape of pillars, circles, &c. 2. “PaltcAlbion, or the History of Great Britain from the first peopling of this island to the reign of king James,” Lond. 1621, fol. in Latin and English verse, with historical notes, which Granger, who calls this Slater’s “capital work,” thinks the most valuable part. 3. “Genethliacon, sive stemma regis Jacobi,” Lond. 1630, a thin folio in Lat. and English, with a foolish genealogy of king James from Adam. He published also “The Psalms of David, in fowre languages, Hebrew, Greeke, Latin, and English, and in 4 parts, set to the tunes of our church, with corrections,” 1652, 16mo. There appears to have been an edition before this, which was posthumous, but the date is not known. Dr, Burney says this is the most curious and beautiful production of the kind, during the seventeenth century, that has come to his knowledge. Both words and music are very neatly engraved on near sixty copper- plates. The English version is that of Sternhold, retouched, not always for the better, and the music is selected from Ravenscroft.

, an excellent German historian, was born in 1506, at Sleiden, a small town upon the confines of the duchy of Juliers, whence he derived his name. His origin, according to Varillas, was so obscure, that not knowing the name of his father, he adopted that of his birth-place; but this is the report of an enemy, as his father’s name was Philip, and his family not of the lower order. He went through his first studies in his own country, together with the learned John Sturmius, who was born in the same town with himself; and afterwards removed, first to Paris, and then to Orleans, where he studied the law for three years. He took the degree of licentiate in this faculty, but, having always an aversion to the bar, he continued his pursuits chiefly in polite literature. Uporf his return to Paris, he was recommended by his friend Sturmius, in 1535, to John Du Bellay, archbishop and cardinal; who conceived such an affection for him, that he settled on him a pension, and communicated to him affairs of the greatest importance; for Sleidan had a turn for business, as well as letters. He accompanied the ambassador of France to the diet of Haguenan, but returned to Paris, and remained there till it was not safe for him to stay any longer, as he was inclined to the sentiments of the reformers. In 1542 he retired to Strasburg, where he acquired the esteem and friendship of the most considerable persons, and especially of James Sturmius; by whose counsel he undertook, and by whose assistance he was enabled, to write the history of his own time. He was employed in some uegociations both to France and England; and, in one of these journeys, he met with a lady whom he married in 1546. About the same time the princes of the league of Smalcald honoured him with the title of their historiographer, and granted him a pension, and when he lost this by the dissolution of the league in 1547, the republic of Strasburgh gave him another. In 1551, he went, on the part of the republic, to the council of Trent; but, the troops of Maurice, elector of Saxony, obliging that council to break up, he returned to Strasburgh without having transacted any business. He was employed in other affairs of state, when the death of his wife, in 1555, plunged him into a deep melancholy, with such a total loss of memory, as that he did not know his own children. Some imputed this to poison; and others to natural causes. It ended, however, in his death, at Strasburg, Oct. 31, 1556, in the fiftieth year of his age.

He was a learned man, and an excellent writer. In 1555, came out in folio, his “De Statu Religionis & lleipublicie, Carolo Quinto Cajsaie, Commentarii,” in twenty-five books, from 1517, when Luther began to preach, to 1555. This history was quickly translated into almost all the languages of Europe, and has been generally thought to be well and faithfully written, notwithstanding the attempts of Varillas and other popish authors to discredit it. It did not stand solely upon Sleidan’s own authority, which, however, must be of great weight, considering that he wrote of times in which he lived, and of transactions in which he had some concern; but was extracted from public acts and original records, which were in the archives of the town of Strasburg, and with which he was furnished by James Sturmius. Besides this history, which is his principal work, he wrote “De quatuor summis Imperils libri tres,” a compendious chronological account of the four great empires, which, on account of its singular utility, has been often printed. He epitomized and translated into Latin the Histories of Froissart and Philip de Comines, and was the author of some other works relating to history and politics, the principal of which are printed in a volume of “Opuscula,” Hanover, 1608, 8vo.

, a Dutch artist, eminent as a painter of portraits and conversations, was born at Leyden in 1640, and died in 1691. He was a disciple, and zealous imitator of Gerard Douw, whom he is thought in some respects to surpass. The exquisite neatness of his manner compelled him to work very slowly, and he is said to have employed three years in painting a family picture for Mr. Meermans. He imitated nature with exactness, but without taste or selection, yet he is esteemed one of the best of the Flemish painters.

, an eminent physician, naturalist, and benefactor to learning, was born at Killileagh, in the county of Down, in Ireland, April 16, 1660. He was of Scotch extraction, but his father, Alexander Sloane, being at the head of that colony of Scots which king James I. settled in the north of Ireland, removed to that country, and was collector of the taxes for the county of Down, both before and after the Irish rebellion. He died in 1666.

The younger years of sir Hans Sloane were marked by a strong attachment to the works of nature, in the contemplation of which he passed his leisure hours, until his studies of every kind were, in his sixteenth year, interrupted by a spitting of blood, which confined him to his room for three years. When, by strict regimen and abstinence, he had recovered, he studied the preliminary branches of physic in London, particularly chemistry, under Mr. Strafforth, an excellent chemist, who had been pupil to the celebrated Stahl. He also studied his favourite science of botany at Chelsea garden, which was then but just established, and, young as he was, contracted during that time an acquaintance with Boyie and Ray.

After four years thus employed, he visited France for improvement, in company with Mr. (afterwards sir) Tancred llobinson, M. D. (see his life, vol. XXVI.) and another student. At Paris he attended the lectures of Tournefort and Du Verney; and is supposed to have taken his degrees in medicine at Montpellierj some say at Orange. At Montpellier he was recommended by Tournefort to M. Chirac, then chancellor and professor of that university, and by his means to other learned men, particularly Magnol, whom he always accompanied in his botanical excursions, and derived much benefit from his instructions. He returned to London at the latter end of 1684, and immediately went to visit his illustrious friends Boyle and Ray. The latter was now retired and settled at Black Notley in Essex. Dr. Sloane sent him a great variety of plants and seeds, which Ray has described in his “Historia Plantartim,” with proper acknowledgments. At London Dr. Sloane became the favourite of Dr. Sydenham, who took him into his house, and zealously promoted his interest in the way of practice. On Jan. 21, 1685, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in April 1687, entered into the college of physicians. Such early advancements in his profession are the strongest presumptions in favour of his superior knowledge, and promising abilities. Yet these flattering prospects he relinquished, to gratify his ardour for natural knowledge.

On September 12, 1687, and in the twenty-eighth year of his age, he embarked for Jamaica, as physician to the duke of Alhemarle; and touched at Madeira, Barbadoes, Nevis, and Nt. Kitt’s. The duke dying Dec. 19th, soon after their arrival at Jamaica, Dr. Sleane’s stay on the island did noc exceed fifteen months. During this time, however, such was his application, that, in the language of his French eulogist, had he not converted, as it were, his minutes into hours, he could not have made those numerous acquisitions, which contributed so largely to extend the knowledge of nature; while they laid the foundation of his future fame and fortune. Dr. Pulteney remarks, that several circumstances concurred respecting Dr. Sloane’s voyage to Jamaica, which rendered it peculiarly successful to natural history. He was the first man of learning, whom the love of science alone had led from England, to that distant part of the globe, and, consequently, the field was wholly open to him. He was already well acquainted with the discoveries of the age. He had an enthusiasm for his object, and was at an age, when both activity of body, and ardour of mind, concur to vanquish difficulties. Under this happy coincidence of circumstances, it is not strange that Dr. Sloane returned home with a rich harvest. In fact, besides a proportional number of subjects from the animal kingdom, he brought from Jamaica, and the other islands they touched at, no fewer than eight hundred different species pf plants, a number very far beyond what had been imported by any individual into England before.

Dr. Sloane returned from his voyage, May 29, 1689, and fixing in London, soon became eminent. In 169-1 he was chosen physician to Christ’s hospital, which station he filled until age and infirmities obliged him to resign in 1730, and although he punctually received every year the emolument of his office, because he would not set a precedent that might be disadvantageous to his successor, he constantly applied the money to the relief of those belonging to the hospital who most wanted it. In the preceding year, 1693, he had been elected secretary to the Royal Society, and had revived the publication of the “Philosophical Transactions,” which had been interrupted from the year 1687. This office he held till 1712, when he was succeeded by Dr. Halley. About the same time, he became an active member of the college of physicians, in promoting the plan of a dispensary for the poor, which was at length carried into execution. The feuds excited on this occasion, by the apothecaries, gave rise to the once celebrated satire by Dr. Garth.

In 1696, Dr. Sloane published the Prodromus to his history of Jamaica plants, under the title of “Catalogus Plantarum quae in insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt,” 8vo. This volume, intrinsically valuable as it is, may yet be considered as only the nomenclature, or systematic index to his subsequent work. The arrangement of the subject is nearly that of Ray, vegetables being thrown into twenty-five large natural classes, or families. Among botanists of that time, generical characters had not attained any remarkable precision; and Sloane, like Plukenet, was little farther anxious, than to refer his new plants to some genus already established, without a minute attention to the parts of fructification, farther than as they formed part pf the character drawn from habit; yet, with this defect, the figures and descriptions of Sloane proved sufficiently accurate to enable his successors to refer almost all his species to the appropriate places in the system of the present clay.

Dr. Sloane began early to form a museum, and it was, by the collections mnde in his voyage, become considerable; but the rera of its celebrity was not until 1702, when it received the augmentation of Mr. Courten’s valuable stores (See Courten). In 1701, Dr. Sloane was incorporated doctor of physic at Oxford, and was associated member of several academies on the continent. In 1707, he published the first volume of his history, under the title of “A Voyage to the islands Madeira, Barbadoes, Nevis, St. Christopher’s, and Jamaica; with the Natural History of the Herbs and Trees, four-footed Beasts, Fishes, Birds,” &c. &c. fol. The introduction of this volume comprehends a general account of the discovery of the West-Indies, and of the island of Jamaica in particular. This is followed by the journal of the voyage. The second volume was not published till 1725, the reasons of which delay were principally the care, arrangement, and description of his museum; to this the collection of Petiver had been added in 1718, which, as it was not preserved with a care equal to the zeal with which Petiver acquired it, demanded extraordinary diligence to recover it from the injury it had sustained. It is in the introduction to this volume that sir Hans gives a general inventory of his library and museum, as it stood in 1725. by which it appears, that the subjects of natural history alone, exclusive of two hundred volumes of preserved plants, amounted to more than 26,200 articles. They were afterwards augmented to upwards of 36,600, as may be seen by “A general view of the contents,” published a year before his death. This second volume completed the vegetable part and the animal kingdom, and the plates are continued to the number of 274. The work was productive of much benefit to science, by exciting an emulation, both in Britain and on the continent.

In 1708, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, a distinction of the highest estimation in science, and the greater at that time, as the French nation was at war with England, and the queen’s consent was necessary to the acceptance of it. He was frequently consulted by queen Anne, who, in ber last illness, was blooded by him. On the accession of George I. he was created a baronet, being the first English physician on whom an hereditary title of honour had been conferred. He was appointed physician general to the army, which office he enjoyed till 1727, when he was made physician to George II. He also gained the confidence of queen Caroline, and prescribed for the royal family until his death.

In 1719, sir Hans was elected president of the college of physicians, which station he held sixteen years, and during that time he gave signal proofs of his zeal for the interests of that body. On the death cf sir Isaac Newton, in 1727, he was advanced to the presidency of the Royal Society of London, the interest of which no man had ever more uniformly promoted. He made the society a present of 100 guineas and a bust of the founder, Charles II. Thus, in, the zenith of prosperity, he presided, at the same time, over the two most illustrious scientific bodies in the kingdom; and, while he discharged the respective duties of each station with credit and honour, he also enjoyed the most extensive and dignified employment as a physician. He occupied these important stations from 1719 to 1733, when he resigned the presidency of the college of physicians; and, in 1740, at the age of eighty, that of the Royal Society, the members of which accepted his resignation with reluctance, and at a public meeting returned hira thanks for the great and eminent services he had done them, and requested his permission that his name might remain enrolled among the members of their council, as long as he should live.

Having thus resigned all his public employments, he left London in May 1741, and retired to his house at Chelsea, the manor of which he had purchased in 1712, and to which he removed his museum. Here he received, as in London, the visits of persons of rank, of all learned foreigners, of the royal family, who sometimes did him. that honour; and never refused admittance or advice to any, whether rich or poor, who came to consult him concerning their health. Hitherto his great temperance had preserved him from experiencing the infirmities of old age, but in his ninetieth year, he complained of frequent "pains, and was sensible of an universal decay, the progress of which he bore with complacency, and after an illness of only three days, expired Jan. 11, 1752. He was interred on the 18th at Chelsea, in the same vault with his lady, who died in 1724. She was the daughter of alderman Langley of London, and married to Dr. Sloane in 1695. Of this marriage two daughters only survived him, the eldest of whom was married to George Stanley, esq. of Hampshire, and the younger to lord Cadogan.

Sir Hans Sloane was tall and well made in his person; easy, polite, and engaging in his manners; sprightly in his conversation, and obliging to all. It appears by his correspondence in the British Museum that he was a man. of great benevolence, and from that character, was frequently solicited by distressed persons of all classes, and, as is usual in such cases, by many who abused his bounty. To foreigners he was extremely courteous, and ready to shew and explain his curiosities to all who gave him timely notice' of their visit. He kept an open table once a week for his learned friends, particularly those of the Royal Society. In the aggregation of his vast collection of books, he is said to have sent his duplicates, either to the royal college of physicians, or to the Bodleian library.

He was governor of almost every hospital in London; and to each, after having given 100l. in his life-time, he left a more considerable legacy at his death. He was ever a benefactor to the poor, who felt the consequences of his death severely. He was zealous in promoting the establishment of the colony of Georgia in 1732; and formed himself the plan for bringing up the children in the Foundling hospital in 1739. In 1721 he gave the freehold of the ground at Chelsea, near four acres, on which the botanical garden stood, to the company of apothecaries, on condition chat the demonstrator should, in the name of the company, deliver annually to the Royal Society, fifty new plants, till the number should amount to 2000, all specifically different from each other; the list of which was published yearly in the Philosophical Transactions. The first wa printed in 1722, and the catalogues were continued until 1773, at which time the number 2550 was completed. These specimens are duly preserved in the archives of the society, for the inspection of the curious.

In the exercise of his function as a physician, sir Hans Sloane is said to have been remarkable for the certainty of his prognostics; and the hand of the anatomist verified, in a signal manner, the truth of his predictions relating to the seat of diseases. By his practice he not only confirmed the efHcacy of the Peruvian bark in intermittents, but exied its use in favour of other denominations, in nervous disorders, and in gangrenes and hemorrhages. The sanction he gave to inoculation, by performing that operation on some of the royal family, encouraged, and much accelerated its progress throughout the kingdom. His ointment for the leucoma has not yet lost its credit with many reputable names in physic. He published only the works already mentioned, except his papers in the Philosophical Transactions, which are considerably numerous, and may be found in the volumes XVII to XLIX. His valuable museum, it is well known, formed the foundation of that vast national repository known by the name of the British Museum. Sir Hans was naturally very desirous to prevent his collection being dissipated after his death, and bequeathed it to the public on condition that 20,000l. should be paid by parliament to his family. Parliament accordingly passed an act, in 1753, for the purchase of sir Hans Sloane’s collection, and of the Harleian collection of Mss, and for procuring one general repository for their reception, along with the Cottonian collection, &c. Montague-house, in Russel- street Bloomsbury, was purchased as the repository, and statutes and rules having been formed for the use of the collection, and proper officers appointed, the British Museum was opened for the public in 1759. It were unnecessary to expatiate on the utility of an institution, so well known, so easily accessible, and so highly important to the interests of science and general literature. From the vast additions made of late years, however, it may be worthy of the parliament, as soon as the national finances will permit, to consider of the propriety of an entire new building for this immense collection, the present being much decayed, and, as a national ornament, bearing no proportion to its invaluable contents.

, a mathematician, was born in 1620, at Vise, a small town in the county of Liege. He became abbe of Amas, canon, councillor, and chancellor of Liege, and made his name famous for his knowledge in theology, physics, and mathematics. The Royal Society of London elected him one of their members, and inserted several of his compositions in their Transactions. This very ingenious and learned man died at Liege in 1683, at the age of sixty-three. Of his works there have been published, some learned letters, and a work entitled “Mesolabium et Problemata solida;” besides the following pieces in the Philosophical Transactions: viz. I. Short and easy Method of drawing Tangents to all Geometrical Curves; vol. VII. p. 5143. 2. Demonstration of the same; vol. VIII. pp. 6059, 6119. 3. On the Optic Angle of Alhaz, n vol. VIII. p. 6139.

, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, was born at Birmingham, were a street bears the name of his family, in 1672, and studied at Magdalen-college, Oxford. Here he took his degrees of M. A. 1694, B. D. 1706, and D. D. in 1708. He was chaplain to archbishop Tenison, and appointed in 1712 treasurer of Landaff, and afterwards prebendary of Hereford. On Feb. 2, 1723, he was consecrated bishop of St. David’s, whence he was translated and confirmed bishop of Lichfield and Coventry Feb. 20, 1730. He entered with spirit into the controversies of his times, particularly against Dodwell and Whiston, the latter in “Reflections on Mr. Whiston’s conduct,” and “Animadversions on the New Arian reproved.” But his great work was “A Vindication of our Saviour’s miracles; in which Mr. Woolston’s Discourses on them are particularly examined; his pretended authority of the fathers against the truth of the literal sense are set in a just light; and his objections, in point of reason, answered,” Lond. 1729, 8vo. This involved him in a controversy with some anonymous writers, and in one or two respects he laid himself open to ridicule by an arithmetical calculation of the precise number of the devils which entered into the swine. Dr. Smalbroke also published eleven single Sermons between 1706 and 1732, and one or two “Charges,” and small controversial pieces to the amount of twenty-two. He died Dec. 22, 1749, in the seventyseventh year of his age, leaving three sons and four daughters. His sons, and other relations, he provided for in the church of Lichfield. His son Richard, the last representative of the family, died in 1805. He had been chancellor of the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry sixty-four years, and was at his death senior member of the college of civilians.

, a learned prelate, was born in 1663,at Lichfield in Staffordshire, where his father followed the business of a dyer, but appears not to have been in opulent circumstances, as he was unable to give his son a liberal education. For this our author was indebted to the celebrated antiquary Ashmole, also a native of Lichfield, who, discerning his capacity, sent him to Westminster-school in 1G78. Here he was soon distinguished as a young man of parts and application, and acquired particular notice by the classical turn of his exercises. Two years after, he wrote two elegies, one in Latin and the other in English, on the death of Lilly, the astrologer, out of gratitude, we are told, to his patron Ashmole, a great admirer of Lilly. Whatever the poetical merit of these elegies, we may say, in reference to the subject, that they would now be thought ironical.

In May 1682, Mr. Smalridge was elected from Westminster-school to Christ-cburcb, Oxford, where having taken his degree of 13. A. at the regular time, he became a tutor, and, what is no inconsiderable proof of the high opinion entertained of his talents, the associate of Aldrich and Atterbury in the controversy against Obadiah Walker, the popish master of University-college. In conjunction with them he published in 1687 “Animadversions on the eight Theses laid down, and the inferences deduced from them, in a discourse entitled ‘ Church Government, Part V.’ lately printed at Oxford.” The object on the part of Smalridge and his colleagues, was to defend the supremacy of the king, against papal usurpations. The discourse mentioned in the title of his performance was printed by Obadiah Walker at his private press, and has for its full title “Church government, Part V. a relation of the English Reformation, and the lawfulness thereof examined by the Theses delivered in the four former parts.” But as these four former parts never were published, Walker, or rather the real author, Abraham Woodhoad, afforded his antagonists just cause for censure, as well as ridicule, since here he was referring for authority to proofs and positions which had never appeared, nor were afterwards produced.

During this time, Smalridge did not neglect classical literature, in which he excelled, and afforded an excellent specimen of his talent for Latin poetry in his “Auctio Davisiana,” first printed in 1689, 4to, ancNifterwards added to the “Musae Anglicange.” In July of the same year (1689) he proceeded master of arts, entered into holy orders, and about 1692 was appointed by the dean and chapter of Westminster to be minister of Tothill-fields chapel. In 1693 he was collated to a prebend in the church of Lichfield. In 1700 he took his degree of D. D. and frequently supplied the place of Dr. Jane, then regius professor of divinity, with great approbation, in which office it being his duty to present persons of eminence for their degrees in that faculty, we find him, in 1706, presenting the celebrated Dr. Grabe (whose Mss. he afterwards possessed) in a very elegant speech. On Jane’s death he was strongly recommended by the university to the queen, as a proper person to succeed to the professorship; but his tory principles being particularly obnoxious to the Marlborough party, Dr. Potter, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was preferred. The duchess of Marlborough, however, tells us, that this favour was not so easily obtained from her majesty as some others had been, and that it was not till after much solicitation that Dr. Potter was fixed in the professorship.

Dr. Smalridge, who had long been admired as a preacher, was chosen lecturer of St. Dunstan’s in the West, London, in Jan. 1708, and for some time quitted the university. His early acquaintance with Atterbury had now been improved into a great degree of intimacy and friendship, arising no doubt, from a similarity of sentiments and studies; and in 1710 Dr. Smalridge had an opportunity of giving a public testimony of his regard for Atterbury, by promoting his advancement to the prolocutor’s chair in the lower house of convocation, and presenting him to the upper house, in an elegant speech, which was much admired, and afterwards printed. In this speech he even touches on Atterbury’s warmth in controversy, with considerable delicacy indeed, but in a manner that became one who would not deceive the learned body he was addressing. Smalridge himself was not much of a party man, and studiously avoided an intemperate interference in disputed points respecting either church or state, unless where his principles might be called in question, or his silence misunderstood.

In the following year, 1711, he resigned the lectureship of St. Dunstan’s, having been made one of the canons of Christ-church, on the same day that Atterbury was made dean; and the latter having resigned the deanery of Carlisle, Dr. Smalridge succeeded him in that preferment, as he did likewise in the deanery of Christ-church, in 17 Is, when Atterbury was made bishop of Rochester. In 1714 Dr. Smalridge was consecrated bishop of Bristol, and the queen soon after appointed him her lord almoner, in which capacity he for some time served her successor George I.; but refusing to sign the declaration which the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops in and about London had drawn up against the rebellion in 1715, he was removed from that place. In this measure he probably was influenced by Atterbury; but he soon regained his favour with the princess of Wales at least, afterwards queen Caroline, who was his steady patron till his death.

Dr. Smalridge, as we have already noticed, in general avoided party connections and party spirit, and amidst much political turbulence, was accounted, and deserved the character of, a man of candour and moderation. He appears to have been on friendly terms with Clarke and Whiston, and contributed to moderate the proceedings of the convention against both. With Clarke he held a dispute on the Trinity at the house of Thomas Cartwright, esq. of Aynho in Northamptonshire, which, however, did not produce the intended effect. Whiston assures us that “if any person in England was able to convince upon that head, it must have been Dr. Smalridge,” both from reading and talents; and therefore we must hesitate in believing what Whiston adds, that “the evidence on Dr. Clarke’s side was greatly superior to the other,” as well as other insinuations which Whiston throws out with great illiberality. His acquaintance, however, with him and Clarke, brought Dr. Smalridge under the suspicion of a fellowship in their Ariun sentiments; but Trelawney, bishop of Winchester, having informed him of this imputation, he vindicated himself in a letter dated from Christ-church, and most explicitly rescued his character from the charge. “I have,” says he, “from the chair (while I supplied Dr. Jane’s place), from the pulpit, in convocation, and upon all other proper occasions, expressed my sentiments about the divinity of our Lord and Saviour, in opposition both to the Socinians and Arians. I did on Sunday last ordain some clergymen, and I examined them particularly as to the points controverted betwixt the Catholic church and the Arians, and said what to me seemed proper to confirm them in the Catholic faith, and to arm them against the objections usually brought by the Arians. I have read over more than once, and, as well as I was able, have considered Dr. Waterland’s lute book, and have in conversation signified my approbation of it, and recommended it to my friends as a substantial vindication of the received doctrines and confutation of Arianism.”

These were almost the words of a dying man, for this letter is dated Sept. 23, 1719, and on the 27th he expired of an apoplexy at Christ-church, and was interred in the aile of the north-side of the choir of that cathedral, where some years afterwards, a handsome monument wns erected to his memory, with an elegant inscription in Latin, most probably by Dr. Freind, his brother-in-law, the bishop and he having married two sisters.

Of Dr. Stnalridge bishop Newton says, he was “truly ft worthy prelate, an excellent scholar, a sound divine, an eloquent preacher, and a good writer both in Latin and English, of great gravity and dignity in his whole deportment, and at the same time of as great complacency and sweetness of manners, a character at once both amiable and venerable. He was so noted for his good temper, that succeeding Dr. Atterbury in the deaneries of Carlisle and Christ-church, he was said to carry die bucket wherewith to extinguish the fires which the other had kindled.”

Newton says the Biographia Britannica is wrong about his family, and “that he left a widow and three children, a son named Philip and two daughters, both sensible clever women. Caroline princess of Wales procured a pension of 300l. a-year for the widow, and a prebend of Worcester for the son, who afterwards received the living of C bristleton near Chester, from sir Roger Mostyn, and had the chancellorship of Worcester conferred upon him by bishop Hough, out of regard to his father’s memory. A subscription too was opened, and nobly promoted for the publication of sixty of the Bishop’s Sermons; some of which, it must be confessed, are unequal to the rest, but it is some excuse that they were never designed for the press.”

Bishop Newton adds that he had Bristol, the poorest bishopric, and Christ-church the most expensive deanery in the kingdom. This seems to confirm in some degree what Mr. Skelton says in his “Hylema.” “The bishopric of Bristol is one of the lowest in point of income among the English sees. Hence it was that Dr. Smalridge, at his decease, was not able to leave even a tolerable subsistence to his widow and two daughters.” Mr. Skelton adds a noble instance of liberality, which we have nowhere else met with. “In this state of exigence those ladies were visited by Mr. Wairtwrigbt, who had been some years register to that diocese, and had, by the profits of his place, and other practice of the law, acquired 3000l. This sum, his all, he with difficulty prevailed on the widow and her daughters to accept.” Mr. Skelton informs us that when queen Caroline heard of this liberal act from Mrs. Smalridge, she was so pleased with Mr. Wain Wright’s conduct, as to send him to Ireland, as a baron of the Exchequer.

, a poet of some, though not the highest celebrity, was born at Shipbourne, in Kent, April 11, 1722. His father was possessed of about three hundred pounds a year in that neighbourhood, and was originally intended for holy orders. Why he did not enter into holy orders, or what occupation he pursued, we are not told, except that at one time he had acted as steward of the Kentish estates of lord Barnard, afterwards earl of Darlington. His mother was a Miss Gilpin, of the family of the celebrated reformer, Bernard Gilpin; an ancestor, by the father’s side. Mr. Peter Smart had been a prebendary of Durham in the reign of Charles the First, and was accounted by the puritan party as the proto-martyr in their cause, having been degraded and deprived of all his ecclesiastical preferments, fined five hundred pounds, and imprisoned eleven years. When restored to liberty by the parliament, he appeared as a witness against archbishop Laud. The particular libel for which he suffered is written in Latin verse, and was published in 1643. This is probably what the author of the life prefixed to Smart’s poems (edit. 1791) calls “an interesting narrative in a pamphlet.” When our poet was at school his father died, and so much in debt, that his widow was obliged to sell the family estate at a considerable loss. As he had, however, received a liberal education, he is said to have communicated to his son a taste for literature, and probably that turn for pious reflection, which appears in many of hispoetical pieces, and was not interrupted with impunity by the irregularities of his life.

Smart was born earlier than the usual period of gestation, and to this circumstance his biographer ascribes that delicacy of constitution which rendered him unequal to the indulgences of men of vigour and gaiety. His taste for poetry is said to have appeared when he was only four years old, in an extempore effusion, which has not been preserved, but which is said to have indicated a relish for verse, and an ear for numbers. He was educated at Maidstone until he was eleven years old, at which time his father died, and his mother was induced to send him to Durham, where he might enjoy the advantages of a good school, change of air, and what in her circumstances became desirable, the notice and protection of his father’s relations. Who they were we are not told, but young Smart was very cordially received at Raby Castle, by lord Barnard, and in this family obtained the friendship of the hon. Mrs. Hope, and the more substantial patronage of the late duchess of Cleveland, who allowed him forty pounds a year until her death, in 1742. His gratitude to these noble personages is amply testified by his “Ode to lord Barnard,” whom he particularly acknowledges as one who encouraged his youthful studies. It was probably owing to the liberality of the same family that, after he had acquired very considerable reputation at Durham school, he was sent to Cambridge, in his seventeenth year, and admitted of Pembroke Hall, Oct. 30, 1739.

At college he was much more distinguished for his poetical efforts and classical taste than for an ambition to excel in the usual routine of academical studies, and soon became a general favourite with such of his contemporaries as were men of gaiety and vivacity. A convivial disposition led him at the same time to associate rather too frequently with men of superior fortune, while pride kept him from avowing his inability to support their expences. His only dependence was what he derived from his college, and the allowance made to him by the duchess of Cleveland. This imprudence involved him in difficulties, from which he probably might have been soon extricated, if it had not induced an habitual neglect of pecuniary matters, which adhered to him throughout life, and a love for convivial enjoyments, which afterwards formed the chief blot in his character. In all other respects, Smart was a man of strict principle, and of blameless conduct.

During the early part of his residence at Cambridge he wrote the Tripos poems, among his works, a species of composition of which it is not often that much notice is taken, but the merit of Smart’s verses was immediately and generally acknowledged. When afterwards, by the advice of his friends, he offered himself as a candidate for an university scholarship, he is said to have translated Pope’s Ode on St. Cecilia’s day into Latin. But this is doubted by his biographer, on account of the length and labour of the composition. He must, however, have executed that translation about this time, as the applause it received induced him to turn his mind to other translations from the same author, and to write to him for his advice or approbation, which produced a correspondence very flattering on both sides. Smart, as a young man, aiming at poetical honours, was gratified with the letters of Pope; and Pope, who was ever alive to extent of fame, was not sorry to find his works introduced on the continent in a classical form. Smart proceeded, accordingly, to translate the “Essay on Criticism,” of all Pope’s writings, perhaps the most unfit for the purpose; but it brought him into some reputation with scholars.

In 1743, he was admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts; and July 3, 1745, was elected a fellow of Pembroke hall. About this time, he wrote a comedy, of which a fevr songs only remain; and a ludicrous soliloquy of the Princess Periwinkle, preserved in the Old Woman’s Magazine. The play was called “A Trip to Cambridge, or the Grateful Fair.” The business of the drama, says his biographer, “was laid in bringing up an old country baronet to admit his nephew a fellow commoner at one of the colleges in, which expedition a daughter or niece attended. In their approach to the seat of the Muses, the waters from a heavy rain happened to be out at Fenstauton, which gave a youug student of Emmanuel an opportunity of shewing his gallantry as he was riding out, by jumping from his horse and plunging into the flood to rescue the distressed damsel, who was near perishing in the stream, into which she had fallen from her poney, as the party travelled on horseback. The swain being lucky enough to effect his purpose, of course gained an interest in the lady’s heart, and an acquaintance with the rest of the family, which he did not fail to cultivate on their arrival at Cambridge, with success as far as the fair one was concerned. To bring about the consent of the father (or guardian, fur my memory is not accurate), it was contrived to have a play acted, of which entertainment he was highly fond; and the Norwich company luckily came to Cambridge just at that time; only one of the actors had been detained on the road; and they could not perform the plav that night, unless the baronet would consent to take apart; which, rather than be disappointed of his favourite amusement, he was prevailed upon to do, especially as he was assured that it would amount to nothing more than sitting at a great table, and signing an instrument, as a justice of peace might sign a warrant: and having been some years of the quorum, he felt himself quite equal to the undertaking. The tinder-play to he acted by the Norwich company on this occasion, was the ‘ Bloody War of the King of Diamonds with the King of Spades;’ and the actors in it came on with their respective emblems on their shoulders, taken from the suits of the cards they represented. The baronet was the king of one of the parties, and in signing a declaration of war, signed his consent to the marriage of his niece or daughter, and a surrender of all her fortune.” This farce vvas acted at Pembroke-college-hall, the parlour of which made the green-room.

In 1747, Smart took the degree of master of arts, and became a candidate for the Seatonian prize, which was adjudged to himfor five years, four of them in succession. The Mibjects of his poems were, “The Eternity,” March 5, 1750. “The Immensity,” April 20, 1751. “The Omniscience,” Nov. 1, 1752. “The Power,” Dec. 5, 1753. and “The Goodness of the Supreme Being,” Oct. 28, 1755. It is probable he might have succeeded in the year 1754, but his thoughts were for some time diverted by an important change in his situation. In 1753 he quitted college. on his marriage with Miss Ann-Maria Carnan, the daughter by a former husband of Mary wife of the hue worthy Mr. John Newbery. He had been introduced to this gentleman’s family by Dr. Burney, the celebrated author of the History of Music, who composed several of Smart’s songs, and enriched the coilection of his works published in 1791 with some original compositions not generally known tobelong to our poet. Before this time, Smart had occasionally visited London, and had relinquished the prospects of any regular profession. In 1751 he published his Seatonian poem on the “Immensity of the Supreme Being:” and about the same time appears to have been engaged with Newbery in a general scheme of authorship. He had a ready turn for original composition, both in prose and verse, and as Newbery projected many works in the form of periodical miscellanies, must have been an useful coadjutor. During the years 1750 and 1751 he was a frequent contributor to the “Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany,” and carried on at the same time “The Midwife, or the Old Woman’s Magazine,” a small periodical pamphlet, which was published in three-penny numbers, and was afterwards collected into three volumes, 12mo. Smart and Newbery were almost the sole writers in this last work, which consists of short pieces in prose and verse, mostly of the humorous kind, and generally in a style of humour which in our more polished days would be reckoned somewhat coarse.

During the publication of the “Midwife,” he wrote the prologue and epilogue to Othello, when acted at Drurylane theatre by the Delaval family and their friends. Of the importance of this prologue and epilogue he had so high an opinion, that when he published them, in March 1751, he added a solemn notice of their being entered in the hallbook of the stationers’ company, and threatened to prosecute all persons who should pirate them, or any part of them. As he affected to conceal his share in the “Midwife,” he permits that old lady to copy these articles “because a work of merit printed in that Magazine is as a brilliant set in gold, and increased, not diminished, in its lustre.” He was now acquiring the various arts of puffing, and he ever preserved a much higher opinion of his works than even his best friends could allow to be just. Among other schemes, to which it is to be regretted a man of talents should descend, we find him about the beginning of 1752, endeavouring to amuse the town with a kind of farcical performance, called the “Old Woman’s Oratory,” intended partly to ridicule orator Henley’s buffooneries, and partly to promote the sale of the Old Woman’s Magazine. In neither of these was he very successful; the magazine was soon discontinued for want of encouragement, and Henley was a man whose absurdities could be heightened only by himself.