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, a very skilful German physician and writer, was born at Mentz, Feb. 14, 1722, and educated in his native city. He then having chosen physic as a profession, came to Paris, and after employing six years in medical studies, took his degree of doctor at Erfurth, in September 1747. Returning to Mentz, he practised with great reputation, and in 1754 was appointed professor of surgery, in 1763 professor of physiology and pathology, and in 1782 professor of chemistry. About this time, when the university of Mentz had sufficient funds for the purpose, Strack was appointed to renovate the medical department, in performing which he acquitted himself with such credit as to be honoured with the title of counsellor of the electorate court. His writings likewise were so much admired by the faculty throughout Europe, that he was chosen a member of the learned societies of Paris, Madrid, Erfurth, and Giessen, and carried off several prizes, the rewards of the treatises he communicated. He died Oct. 18, 1806, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. His principal writings are, 1. “De dysenteria tentamen medicum,” 1760. 2. “De coiica pictonum,” 1772. 3. “De tussi convuUiva infantum,” 1777. 4. “De crusta lactea infantum,” and other treatises on the diseases of children and lying-in women, to both which he appears to have devoted much of his attention. 5. “Observationes rnedicinales de febribus intermittentibus,” 1785. 6. “Nova theoria pleuritidis,” 1786. 7. “De diversa. febris continuce remittentis causa,” 1789. 8. “De ratione novandi, et pururn reddendi aerem intra nosocornia carceresque,” 1770. 9. “De custodia aegrorum,” 1779. 10. “De fraudibus conductorum nutricum,” 1779. 11. “Oratio qua matres hortatur ut proles suas ipsa? lactent,” 1801.

Sir Robert enjoyed his honours but for a short period. On the 5th of July, 1792, he fell a victim to a complaint of an asthmatic nature, with which he had been long severely afflicted. It is for those who were best acquainted with his character while living, to conceive with what sentiments of regret this melancholy event, though neither untimely nor unexpected, was felt by his family and friends. Of aM Uk-;-! whom the writer of this narrative ever knew, sir Hubert ossessed the mildest and most ingenuous manne! s, i.uned to dispositions of mind the most liberal and benign. There was in his temper an endearing gentleness which invited affection; and in his heart a warm sincerity, immediately perceptible, which infallibly secured it. To know him and be his enemy was impossible. Unassuming even to a fault, and with a diffidence which anxiously shunned pretension, his opinions both of thinking and of expressing himself, even on the most unimportant occasions, laid an irresistible, though unconscious claim, to taste, to sentiment, and to genius. These, indeed, a skilful physiognomist, if such a person exists, might have read distinctly in the features of his countenance; though Lavater, to support a theory, or misled by an imperfect likeness, has asserted the contrary. The head engraved from Greuse, and prefixed to sir Robert’s posthumous volume, bears a strong, though scarcely a striking resemblance, to the original, and will probably be thought to justify what is here advanced. It may certainly with equal truth be added, that in the whole of his deportment and general demeanour, there was a remarkable degree of grace and modest dignity.

, baron de Schwarrenaw, a native of Austria, and learned Protestant writer, counsellor to the emperor, superintendant of finances, and his librarian, was born in 1538. He was much esteemed by the literati of his time, and died in 1601, leaving a treatise “De Gentibus et Familiis Romanorum,” Paris, 1559, fol. in which he has thrown considerable light on the Roman antiquities. He wrote also some pieces against Bellarmin, and some discourses in favour of the freedom of the Netherlands, which he published anonymously lest they should offend the house of Austria, whose subject he was.

The other works of Dr. Gilbert Stuart were, 3. An anonymous pamphlet against Dr. Adam, who had published a Latin grammar, 1772. 4. “Observations concerning the public Law and Constitutional History of Scotland,” Edinburgh, 1779, 8vo. In this work he critically examined the preliminary book to Dr. Robertson’s History of Scotland. 5. “The History of the Establishment of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland,” London, 1780, 4to, a work commended for the easy dignity of the narrative, and for the more extraordinary virtue of strict impartiality. 6. “The History of Scotland,” from the establishment of the reformation to the death of queen Mary, London, 1782, 2 vols. His chief purpose in this book was to vindicate the character of that queen; but the whole is well written, and has been very generally read and admired. 7. He also revised and published “Sullivan’s Lectures on the Constitution of England,” This was about 1774. Dr. Stuart was about the iRnicldle size and justly proportioned. His countenance was modest and expressive, sometimes announcing sentiments of glowing friendship, of which he is said to have been truly susceptible; at others, displaying strong indignation, against folly and vice, which he had also shewn in his writings. With all his ardour for study, he yielded to the love of intemperance, to which, notwithstanding a strong constitution, he fell an early sacrifice. His talents were great, and his writings useful; yet in his character altogether there appears to have been little that is worthy of imitation. He is painted in the most unfavourable colours by Mr. Chalmers, in his Life of Ruddiman, who says, “Such was Gilbert Stuart’s laxity of principle as a man, that he considered ingratitude as one of the most venial of sins. Such was his conceit as a writer, that he regarded no one’s merits but his own. Such were his disappointments, both as a writer and a man, that he allowed his peevishness to sour into malice; and indulged his malevolence till it settled in corruption.” If this character be not too harshly drawn, it is impossible that much should be alleged in its defence.

, an English writer of uncommon parts and learning, and very celebrated in his day, was born at Partney, near Spilsbye in Lincolnshire, Feb. 28, 1631. His father was a minister, and lived at Spilsbye; but being inclined to be an anabaptist, and forced to leave that place, he went with his wife and children into Ireland. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion there in 1641, the mother fled with her son Henry into England; and, landing at Liverpool, went on foot from thence to London, where she gained a comfortable subsistence by her needle, and sent her son Henry, being then ten years of age, to Westminster- school. There Dr. Busby, the master, was so struck with the surprising parts of the boy, that he shewed him more than ordinary favour; and recommended him to the notice of sir Henry Vane, junior, who one day came accidentally into the school. Sir Henry took a fancy to him, and frequently relieved him with money, and gave him the liberty of resorting to his house, “to fill that belly,” says Stubbe, “which otherwise had no sustenance but what one penny could purchase for his dinner, and which had no breakfast except he got it by making somebody’s exercise.” He says this in the preface to his “Epistolary Discourse concerning Phlebotomy;” where many other particulars of his life, mentioned by Mr. Wood, and here recorded, are also to be found. Soon after he was admitted on the foundation, and his master, in consideration of his great progress in learning, gave him additional assistance in books and other necessaries.

, a celebrated writer towards the end of the sixteenth century, was born at Zurich. He acquired great honour by his works, particularly by his treatise “On the Feasts of the Ancients,” which is very curious, and may be found with his works on antiquity, Leyden, 1695, 2 vols, folio. He died in 1607. Stuckius also wrote some good Commentaries on Arrian and a parallel between Charlemagne and Henry IV. entitled “Carol us Magnus redivivus,” 4to.

, son of the preceding, and a very eminent writer on the subject of architecture, was born Nov. 5, 1669, at Altorff, and began his studies in 1683, at Heilbrunn. Returning home in 1688, he was created master of arts, his father being at that time dean of the university. In 1690 he went to Leipsic, and studied divinity, but soon quitted that for mathematics. About 1693, George Bose, a senator of Leipsic, a man of fortune and an amateur, put into his hands Nicolas Goldmann’s manuscript work on architecture, which he wished to publish, but which had been lelt imperfect in some parts. Sturmius accordingly undertook the ofhce of editor, and it appeared in 1708, in 2 vols. fol. in the German language. In 1714- he published also “Prodromus Architecture Goldmanniaoae,” and with it the prospectus of a new edition of Goldmann, which he produced in separate treatises from 1715 to 1721, the whole forming a “Complete course of Civil Architecture,” in 16 vols. fol. printed at Augsburgh. This was thought the most comprehensive and perfect work of the kind that had ever appeared. Until that time no one bad treated on tlu- doctrine of me five orders of architecture with so much skill as Goldmann his proportions were reckoned preferable to those of Scamozzi; more beautiful and elegant than those of l'atladio, and more in conformity with the antique than those of Vignola.

, a law-writer, was an esquire’s son, as Wood says, but probably the son of sir Humphrey Style, knt. and bart. whose family are buried in Beckenham in Kent. He was born in 1603, and became a gentlemancommoner of Brasenose college, Oxford, in 1618; but, as usual with gentlemen destined for the law, left the university without a degree, and went to the Inner Temple. He was afterwards called to the bar, but, according to Wood, “pleased himself with a retired and studious condition.” He died in 1679, if he be the William Style buried that year at Beckenham, as Mr. Lysons conjectures with great probability. The most valued of his writings are his “Reports,” published in 1658, folio, from the circumstance of being the only cases extant of the common law courts for several years in the time of the usurpation, during which sir Henry Rolle, and afterwards John Glynn, sat as chief justices of the upper bench. His other works are, “The Practical Register, or the Accomplished Attorney,” 1657, 8vo, and “The Common Law epitomized, with directions how to prosecute and defend personal actions,” 8vo. Wood also mentions a non-professional work, translated from the Latin of John Michael Delher, a name we are unacquainted with, under the title of “Contemplations, Sighs, and Groans of a Christian,” Lond. 1640, 8vo, with a singular engraved title.

, author of a celebrated Greek Lexicon, is a personage of whom we are unable to give many particulars. Who he was, or when he lived, are points of great uncertainty; no circumstances of his life having been recorded, either by himself or any other writer. Politian and some oihers have been of opinion that no such person ever existed; but thai Suidas was a real person, appears, not only from his name being found in all the manuscripts of his Lexicon, but from his being often mentioned by Eustathius in his Commentary upon Homer. The learned have differed in the same manner concerning the age of Suidas; some, as Grotins, supposing him to have lived under Conjstantinus, the son of Leo, emperor of the East, who began to reign in the year 912; while others have brought him even lower than Eustathins, who is known to have lived in 1180. The learned Bentley thinks that as he has referred a point of chronology to the death of the emperor Zimisces, that is, to the year of Christ 975: we may infer that he wrote his Lexicon between that time and the death of the succeeding emperor, which was in 1075. This Lexicon is a compilation of matters from various authors, sometimes made with judgment and diligence, but often from bad copies; and he therefore sometimes gives his reader corrupt and spurious words, instead of those that are pure and genuine. He also mixes things of a different kind, and belonging to different authors, promiscuously; and some of his examples to illustrate the signification of words are very little to the purpose. His Lexicon, however, is a very useful book, and a storehouse of all sorts of erudition. Scholars by profession have all prized it highly; as exhibiting many excellent passages of ancient authors whose works are lost. It is to be ranked with the Bbliotheca of Photuis ard works of that kind. The “Etymologicon Magnum” has been ascribed to Suidas, but without sufficient authority, though it may have been composed in the same period with the Lexicon. Suidas’s Lexicon was first published at Milan, 1499, in Greek only: it has since been printed with a Latin version: but the best edition, indeed the only good one, is that of Kuster, Gr. & Lat. Cambridge, 1705, 3 vols. folio. To this should be added Toup’s valuable “Emendationes in Suidam,” Oxon. 1790, 4 vols. 8vo. Mr. Taylor had begun an appendix to Suidas, four sheets only of which were printed off at the time of his death, April 4, 1766. It had the following title, “Appendix notarum in Suidae Lexicon, ad paginas edit. Cantab. 1705, adcommodatarum; colligente, qui et suas etiani aliquammultas adjecit, Joanne Taylor.” This, we believe, was never finished.

, an ecclesiastical writer, who flourished about the beginning of the fifth century, was a disciple of St. Martin of Tours, whose life he has written; and friend of Pauliims, bishop of Nola, with whom he held a constant and intimate correspondence. He was illustrious for his birth, his eloquence, and still more for his piety and virtue. After he had shone with great lustre at the bar, he married very advantageously; but, losing his wife soon after, he quilted the world, and became a priest. He was born at Agen, in the province of Aquitain, which at that time produced the best poets, the best rhetoricians, and the best orators of the Roman empire, of those at least who wrote in Latin. He lived sometimes at Elisso, and sometimes at Toulouse. Some have affirmed, that he was bishop of the Bitu rices; but they have erroneously confounded him with another Severus Sulpicius, who was bishop of that people, and died at the end of the sixth century. Sulpicius lived till about the year 420. He is said to have been at one time seduced by the Pelagians; and that, returning to his old principles, he imposed a silence upon himself for the rest of his days, as the best atonement he could make for his error; but some think that this silence meant only his refraining from writing or controversy. The principal of his works was his “Historia Sacra,” in two books; in which he gives a succinct account of all the reroaikible things that passed in the Jewish or Christian churches, from the creation of the world to about the year 400. He wrote, also, the “Life of St. Martin,” as we have said already; “Three Letters upon the death and virtues of this saint;” and “Three Dialogues;” the first upon the miracles of the Eastern monks, and the two last upon the extraordinary qualities and graces of St. Martin. These, with seven other epistles never before printed with his works, were all revised, corrected, and published with notes, in a very elegant edition, by Le Clerc, at Leipsic, in 1709, 8vo. There is another by Jerom de Prato, printed at Venice in 1741—54, 2 vols. 4to, the text of which is thought the most correct. Sulpicius has a purity in his style, far beyond the age in which he lived. He has joined a very concise manner of expressing himself to a remarkable perspicuity, and in this has equalled even Sallust himself, whom he always imitates and sometimes quotes. He is not, indeed, correct throughout in his “History of the Church;” and is very credulous upon the point of miracles. He admits also several opinions, which have no foundation in Scripture; and he is in some instances defective, taking no notice, for example, of the reign of Julian, &c. His “Dialogues” contain many interesting particulars, respecting the manners and singularities of the Eastern monks; the disturbances which the books of Origen had occasioned in Egypt and Palestine, and other matters of some curiosity.

, denominated the founder of the Russian theatre, was the son of Peter Sumorokof, a Russian nobleman, and was born at Moscow November 14, 1727. He received the first rudiments of learning in his father’s house, where, besides a grammatical knowledge of his native tongue, he was well grounded in the Latin language. Being removed to the seminary of the cadets at St. Petersburg!*, he prosecuted his studies with unwearied application, and gave early proofs of his genius for poetry. Even on holidays he would retire from his companions, who were engaged in play, and devote his whole time to the perusal of the Latin and French writers: nor was it long before he himself attempted to compose. The first efforts of his genius were love-songs, whose tenderness and beauties, till then unexpressed in the Russian tongue, were greatly admired, and considered as certain prognostics of his future fame. Upon quitting the seminary, he was appointed adjutant, first to count Golovkin, and afterwards to count Rosomouski: and being soon noticed and patronized by count Ivan Shuvalof, he was introduced by that Maecenas to the empress Elizabeth, who took him under her protection. About the twenty-ninth year of his age, an enthusiastic fondness he had contracted for the works of Racine, turned his genius to the drama; and he wrote the tragedy of “Koref,” which laid the foundation of the Russian theatre. This piece was first acted by some of his former schoolmates, the cadets, who had previously exercised their talents in declamations, and in acting a French play. The empress Elizabeth, informed of this phenomenon in the theatrical world, ordered the tragedy to be exhibited in her presence, upon a small theatre of the court, where German, Italian, and French plays had been performed. The applause and distinction which the author received on this occasion, encouraged him to follow the bent of his genius, and he produced other tragedies, several comedies, and two operas. With respect to his tragedies, Racine was his model; and the Russian biographer of Sumorokof, who seems a competent judge of his merit, allows, that though in some instances he has attained all the excellence of the French poet, yet he has failed in many others; but it would be uncandid to insist upon such defects in a writer who first introduced the drama among his countrymen. The French overlook in their Corneille still greater faults. “His comedies,” continues the same author, “contain much humour; but I do not imagine that our dramatic writers will adopt him for their model: for he frequently excites the laughter of the spectator at the expence of his cooler judgment. Nevertheless, they present sufficient passages to prove, that he would have attained a greater degree of perfection in this line, if he had paid more attention to paint our manners, and to follow the taste of the best foreign writers.”

, an English divine of considerable abilities in controversy, was educated at Trinity-college, Cambridge, but of his early history we have no account. In 1586, he was installed archdeacon of Taunton, and on Oct. 22, 1588, confirmed dean of Exeter. He had been admitted a civilian in 1582. He died in 162U, leaving a daughter his heiress, who, Prince thinks, was married to the son and heir of the Halse family in Devonshire; and as the estates Dr. Sutcliffe left to Chelsea-college were in that country, it probably was his birth-place. He was esteemed a very learned writer in defence of the protestant establishment; but although long in favour with James I. upon that account, we find that this prince, in 1621, ordered him to be taken into custody for the freedom of his remarks upon public affairs. On the other hand Strype, in his life of Whitgift, has published a long letter from that eminent prelate to Beza, defending Sutcliffe against some disrespectful expressions used by the reformer. Among his works, may be noticed, 1. “A treatise of Ecclesiastical Discipline,” Loud. 1591, 4to. 2. “De Presbyterio, ejusque nova in Ecclesia Christiana Politeia,” the same year, 4to. 3. “De Turco-Papismo,” or, on the resemblance between Mahometanism and Popery, London, 1599, 4to. 4. “De Purgatorio, adversus Bellarminum,” the same year, 4to. 5. “De vera Christi Ecclesia,” 1600, 4to. 6. “De Missa, adversus Bellarminurn,” 1603, 4to. 7. “The Laws of Armes,” 1593, 4to. 8. lt Examination of Cartwright’s Apology," 1596, 4to; and many other works, enumerated in the Bodleian catalogue, of the controversial kind, against Beliarmin, Parsons, Garnet, and other popish propagandists.

In 1701, Swift took his doctor’s degree, and in 1702, soon after the death of king William, he went into England for the first time after his settling at Laracor; a journey which he frequently repeated during the reign of queen Anne. Miss Johnson was once in England in 1705, but returned in a few months, and never crossed the channel afterwards. He soon became eminent as a writer, and in that character was known to both whigs and tories. He had been educated among the former, but at length attached himself to the latter; because the whigs, as he said, bad renounced their old principles, and received others, which their forefathers abhorred. He published, in 1701, “A discourse of the contests and dissentions between the nobles and commons in Athens and Home, with the consequences they had upon both those states” this was in behalf of king William and his ministers, against the violent proceedings of the House of Commons; but from that year to 1708, he did not write any political pamphlet.

He was several times in England on a visit to Pope, after his settlement at the deanery, particularly in 1726 and 1727. On Jan. 28, 1727, died his beloved Stella, in her forty-fourth year, regretted by the dean with such excess of affection as the liveliest sensibility alone could feel, and the most excellent character excite: she had been declining from 1724. Stella was a most amiable woman both in person and mind. Her stature was tall, her hair and eyes black, her complexion fair and delicate, her features regular, soft, and animated, her shape easy and elegant, and her manner feminine, polite, and graceful: there was natural music in her voice, and complacency in her aspect; she abounded with wit, which was always accompanied with good-nature her virtue was founded upon humanity, and her religion upon reason her morals were uniform, but not rigid, and her devotion was habitual, but not ostentatious. “Why the dean did not sooner marry this most excellent person; why he married her at all; why his marriage was so cautiously concealed; and why he was never known to meet her but in the presence of a third person; are enquiries which no man can answer,” says the writer of his life, “without absurdity.”

, a law writer, of the seventeenth century, was the son of Thomas Swinburne of the city of York, where he was born. In his sixteenth year he was sent to Oxford, and entered a commoner of Hart-hall, whence after some time he removed to Broadgate-hall, now Pembroke college, and there took his degree of bachelor of civil law. Before he left the university he married Helena, daughter of Bartholomew Lant, of Oxford, and being then obliged to quit the college, he returned to York, and practised in the ecclesiastical courts as proctor. He afterwards commenced doctor of civil law, and became very eminent in his profession. On Feb. 10, 1612, he was advanced to be commissary of the Exchequer, and judge of the prerogative court of the province of York, in which office he continued till his death. Of this event we have no direct memorial; but, as his will was proved June 12, 1624, we may presume he died about that time. He was buried in the cathedral of York, leaving his dwelling house in York to his son Toby, and a benefaction to the poor of the city. It appears he was twice married, and that his second wife’s name was Wentworth. He wrote a “Treatise of Spousals, or Matrimonial contracts,” which was not published until 1686, 4to; but his more celebrated work was his “Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, compiled out of the laws, ecclesiastical, civil, and canon, as also out of the common laws, customs, and statutes of this realm.” This work has passed through seven editions, 4to. 1590, 1611, 1635, 1677, 1728, fol. corrected and much en- x larged in 1743, and lastly in 1803, with valuable annotations illustrative of the subject to the present time, by the Jate John Joseph Powell, esq. and prepared for the press by James Wake, esq. in 3 vols. 8vo. Mr. Hargrave observes, that there is a curious dissertation on the customs of York, in respect to filial portions, which forms a valuable part of the work, but which is not contained in the first edition, having been afterwards added by Swinburne. Mr. Hargrave also complains that his later editors have not been careful to distinguish their own enlargements from what belongs to the author, but this is not the case in Powell’s edition, whose annotations are printed distinct from Swinburne’s text.

"The late learned Mr. Swinton of Oxford having one day remarked, that one man, meaning, I suppose, no man but himself, could assign all the parts of the Universal History to their proper authors, at the request of sir Robert Chambers, or of myself, gave the account which I now transmit to you in his own hand, being willing that of so great a work the history should be known, and that each writer should receive his due proportion of praise from posterity. I recommend to you to preserve this scrap of literary intelligence, in Mr. Swinton’s own hand, or to deposit it in the Museum, that the veracity of the account may never be doubted. I am, sir,

Tacitus intended, if his life and health continued, to review the reign of Augustus, in order to detect the arts by which the old constitution was overturned to make way for the government of a single ruler. This, in the hands of such a writer, would have been a curious portion of history; but it is probable he did not live to carry his design into execution. The time of his death is not mentioned by any ancient author. It seems, however, highly probable that he died in the reign of Trajan, and we may reasonably conclude that he survived his friend PJiny. The commentators assume it as a certain fact, that he must have left issue, because they find that M. Claudius Tacitus, who was created emperor in A. D. 275, deduced his pedigree from our historian; and Vopiscus telts us that he ordered the image of Tacitus, and a complete collection of his works, to be placed in the public archives, with a special direction that twelve copies should be made every year, at the public expence. But when the mutilated state, in which our author has come down to posterity is considered, there is reason to believe that the orders of this prince, who reigned only six months, were never executed.

, a Roman catholic writer, of considerable celebrity in his day, was the son of sir William Talbot, and was born in 1620, of an ancient family in the county of Dublin. He was brother to colonel Richard Talbot, commonly called, about the court of England, “Lying Dick Talbot,” whom James II. created duke of Tyrconnell, and advanced to the lieutenancy of IrelandPeter was received into the society of the Jesuits in Portugal in 1635, and after studying philosophy and divinity, went into holy orders at Rome, whence he returned to Portugal, and afterwards to Antwerp, where he read lectures on moral theology. He was supposed to be the person who, in 1656, reconciled Charles II. then at Cologn, to the popish religion, and Charles is reported to have sent him secretly to Madrid to intimate to the court of Spain his conversion. He was also sent by his superiors to England to promote the interests of the Romish church, which he appears to have attempted in a very singular way, by paying his c ourt to Cromwell, at whose funeral he attended as one of the mourners, and even joined Lambert in opposing general Monk’s declaration for the king. He fled therefore at the restoration, but was enabled to return the year following, when the king married the infanta of Portugal, and he became one of the priests who officiated in her family. His intriguing disposition, however, created feome confusion at court, and he was ordered to depart the kingdom. The Jesuits, too, among whom he had been educated, thought him too busy and factious to be retained in their society, and it is supposed that by their interest pope Clement IX. was prevailed upon to dispense with his vows, and to advance him to the titular archbishopric of Dublin, in 1669. On his return to Ireland he recommenced his services in behalf of the church of Rome, by excommunicating those regulars and seculars of his own persuasion who had signed a testimony of their loyalty to the king. His ambition and turbulence led him also to quarrel with Plunket, the titular primate, a quiet man^ over whom he claimed authority, pretending that the king had appointed him overseer of all the clergy of Ireland; but when this authority was demanded, he never could produce it. In 1670, when lord Berkeley landed as lord lieutenant, Talbot waited upon him, and being courteously received, had afterwards the presumption to appear before the council in his archiepiscopal character, a thing without a precedent since the reformation. He was, however, disniissed without punishment; but when the popish plot was discovered in England in 1678, he was imprisoned in the castle of Dublin, on suspicion of being concerned in it, and died there in 1680. He was a man of talents and learning, but vain, ambitious, and turbulent. Sotwell, Harris, and Dodd have enumerated several of his publications, which, says Dodd, are plausible, and generally in defence of the Jesuits, but some of them are virulent against the English church.

The first work of Tartalea’s that was published, was his “Nova Scientia inventa,” Venice, 1537, in 4to. This is a treatise on the theory and practise of gunnery, and the first of the kind, he being the first writer on the flight and path of balls and shells. This work was translarH into English by Lucar, and printed at London in 1588, folio, with many notes and additions by the translator. Tartalea published at Venice, 1543, in folio, the whole books of Euclid, accompanied with many curious notes and commentaries. But the last and chief work of Tartalea was his “Trattato di Numeri etMisure,” 1556, and 1560, fol. This is an universal treatise on arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mensuration, c. It contains many other curious particulars of the disputes between our author and Cardan, which ended only with the death of Tartalea, before the last part of this work was published, or about 1558.

Mr. Tassie died in 1799, at which time his collection of engravings amounted to 20,000. For a number of years he practised the modelling of portraits in wax, which he afterwards moulded and cast in paste. In taking likenesses he was, in general, uncommonly happy: and it is remarkabie, that he believed there was a certain kind of inspiration (like that mentioned by the poets) necessary to give him, full success. The writer of his life in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in conversing with him on the subject, always found him fully persuaded of it. He mentioned many instances in which he had been directed by it: and even some, in which, after he had laboured in vain to realize his ideas on the wax, he had been able, by a sudden flash of imagination, to please himself in the likeness several days after he had seen the original. He possessed also an uncommon fine taste in architecture, and would have been eminent in that branch if he had followed it. In private life Mr. Tassie was universally esteemed for his uniform piety, and for the simplicity, the modesty, and benevolence, that shone in the whole of his character. ]

His son, Nahum, at the age of sixteen, was admitted of Dublin college, but does not appear to have followed any profession. It is observed by Warburton, in the notes to the Dunciad, that he was a cold writer, of no invention, but translated tolerably when befriended by Dryden, with whom he sometimes wrote in conjunction. He succeeded Shad well as poet-laureat, and continued in that office till his death, which happened Aug. 12, 1715, in the Mint, where he then resided as a place of refuge from the debts which he had contracted, and was buried in St. George’s church. The earl of Dorset was his patron; but the chief use he made of him was to screen himself from the persecutions of his creditors. Gildon speaks of him as a man of great honesty and modesty; but he seems to have been ill qualified to advance himself in the world, A person who died in 1763, at the age of ninety, remembered him well, and said he was remarkable for a down-cast look, and had seldom much to say for himself. Oidys also describes him as a free, good-natured, but intemperate companion. With these qualities it will not appear surprising that he was poor and despised. He was the author of nine dramatic performances, and a great number of poems; but is at present better known for his version of the Psalms, in which he joined with Dr. Brady, than any other of his works. His miscellaneous poems are enumerated in Gibber’s <c Lives,“and by Jacob, who says Tate’s poem on the Death of queen Anne, which was one of the last, is” one of the best poems he ever wrote.“His share in the” Second Part of Absalom and Achitophel“is far from inconsiderable; and may be seen in the English Poets. He published also” Memorials for the Learned, collected out of eminent authors in history,“&c. 1686, 8vo and his” Proposal for regulating of the Stage and Stage Plays," Feb. 6, 1698, is among bishop Gibson’s Mss. in the Lambeth library.

, a writer of the primitive church, was a Syrian by birth, and flourished about the year 170. He was a sophist by profession, very profound in all branches of literature, and acquired great reputation by teaching rhetoric. Being converted to Christianity, he became the scholar of Justin Martyr, whom he attended to Rome, and partook with him of the hatred of the philosopher Crescens: for he tells us himself, that Crescens laid wait for his life, as well as for Justin’s. While Justin lived he continued steady in the orthodox belief, but after his death became the author of a new set of fanciful opinions, which, after propagating them for some time at Rome, he carried into the east, and opened a school in Mesopotamia, and other places. Nothing is certainly known concerning his death.

, an ancient Greek writer of Alexandria, is supposed to have lived in the third century, but this is uncertain. According to Suidas, who calls him Statius, he embraced Christianity in the latter part of his life, and became a bishop. He wrote a book “Upon the Sphere,” which seems to have been nothing more than a commentary upon Aratus. Part of it is extant, and has been translated into Latin by father Petavius, under the title of “Isagoge in phænomena Arati.” He wrote also a romance, probably from its licentiousness when he was a heathen, entitled, “Of the Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe,” in eight books, which were first published in JLatin only, at Basil, 1554. This Latin version, made by Annibal Cruceius of Milan, was republished by Commelinus, with the Greek, at Heidelberg, 1608, 8 vo, with Longus and Parthenius, writers of the same class: after which, a more correct edition of the Greek was given by Salmaaius at Leyden, 1640, in 12mo, with Cruceius’ s version. The best edition is that of Boden, Gr. and Lat. Leipsic, 1776, 8vo.

, a writer famous among the mystical devotees, flourished in the fourteenth century. We have no certain account of the year or place of his birth, He was born in Germany, and became a monk of the Dominican order, and acquired great skill in philosophy and school-divinity; but he applied himself principally to mystical divinity; and as it was believed that he was favoured with revelations from heaven, he was styled the illuminated, divine. He had great talents for preaching, and there was no preacher in that age more followed than he. He reproved with great zeal and great freedom the faults of every body; and this made him odious to some monks, whose persecutions of him he bore patiently. He submitted witii the same resolution to other trials, and it was thought that he was thus visited by God, that he might not grow proud of the extraordinary gifts which he had received from heaven. The two principal cities in which he preached, were Cologne and Strasburg. He died in the latter after a long sickness, May 17, 1361, and was honourably interred there in the academical college, near the winter-auditory. He wrote several books; concerning which different judgments have been formed; some catholics have censured them, and some protestants have commended them. Among the latter, we may mention our Dr. Henry More, who exceedingly admired Taulerus’swork entitled “Theologia Germanica,” which Luther also praises. This was first translated from the German into Latin by Surius, and then by Sebastian Castalio, and went through a great many editions from 1518 to 1700, when it was printed in French at Amsterdam.

In the autumn of 1661, bishop Taylor, foreseeing a vacancy in the deanery of Connor, wrote to Cambridge for some able person, who might fill that dignity, and the proposition being made to Dr. George Rust, he was preferred as soon as the vacancy took place (See Rust); and thus a friendship commenced between these two great men, which continued with mutual warmth and admiration till it was interrupted by death. Dr. Rust was the survivor, and succeeded bishop Taylor in the see of Dromore, and preached his funeral sermon. In 1662-3, bishop Taylor published “Three Sermons” which he had preached at Christ’s church, Dublin “Eleven Sermons,” preached since the restoration and his “Discourse on Confirmation” In July 1663, he preached the funeral sermon of Dr. John Bramhall, archbishop of Armagh, from whose hands he had received confirmation. This was published, and contains a well-drawn character of the primate. In the same year, at the request of the bishops of Ireland, he published “A Dissuasive from Popery, addressed to the people of Ireland.” This work went through several editions, and some answers being published by the popish party, he wrote a second part of his “Dissuasive,” which however, did not appear until after his death. He had also began a discourse on the beatitudes, when he was attacked by a fever, which proved fatal in ten days. He died at Lisburn, August 13, 1667, and was interred in the choir of the cathedral of Dromore. Dr. Rust, as we have already observed, preached his funeral sermon, and entered largely into his character. He was indisputably, as Dr. Rust represents him, a man of the acutest penetration and sagacity, the richest and most lively imagination, the solidest judgment, and the profoundest learning. He was perfectly versed in all the Greek and Roman writers, and was not unacquainted with the refined wits of later ages, whether French or Italian. His skill was great, both in civil and canon law, in casuistical divinity, in fathers, and ecclesiastical writers ancient and modern. He was a man of the greatest humility and piety: it is believed, says Dr. Rust, that he spent the greatest part of his time in heaven, and that his solemn hours of prayer took up a considerable portion of his life. He was indeed a great devotee, and had in him much of natural enthusiasm. Dr. Rust concludes his character with observing, that “he had the goodhumour of *a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the aruter.ess of H schoolman, the profoundness of a philosopher, the wisdom of a chancellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the rrnson of an angel, and the piety of a saint. He had devotion enough for a cloister, learning enough for an university, and wit enough for a college of virtuosi; and had his parts and endowments been parcelled out among his clergy that he left In-hind him, it would, perhaps, have made one of the otst dioceses in the world.” Yet amidst the blaze of this panegyric, we must not forget that dispassionate criticism will assign as bishop Taylor’s highest excellence, his powers of moral suasion. He is always seen to most advantage as a moral writer, and his genius is every where inspired and invigorated by a love of what is good. Nor must it be forgot that he was one of the refiners of our language. His biographer has justly said that “English prose was in his time in a progressive state. It had been advanced very far by the genius of Sidney and the wisdom of Hooker; but the pedantry of the reign of James had done much to eclipse its lustre. In Taylor it broke out from its obscurity with energy and brightness. His polemical discourses exhibit a specimen of English composition superior to any that had gone before.”

The learned world at Cambridge was at that time divided into two parties: the polite scholars and the philologists. The former, at the head of which were Gray, Mason, &c. superciliously confined all merit to their own circle, and looked down with fastidious contempt on the rest of the world. It is needless to observe that Dr. Taylor belonged to the latter class. Dr. Kurd, a member of the former, a writer of celebrity, and eminent for his attachment to Warburton, of whose “school” he was a distinguished disciple, in a most unjustifiable pamphlet, published the same year, 1755, and directed against the amiable and modest Jortin , steps out of his way to express his contempt of Taylor, which was but the prelude to a more severe attack from Warburton himself. Our author in his Elements bad expressed his opinioa that the persecutions which the first Christians experienced from the Roman emperors proceeded not from any peculiar disapprobation of their tenets, but from a jealousy entertained of their nocturnal assemblies. In expressing this opinion, Taylor did not mention, and perhaps did not even think of Warburton: but as the latter in his Divine Legation had derived these persecutions from another source, the absurdities of Pagan religion and the iniquities of Pagan politics; the holding, and much more the publishing, of a contrary notion by any contemporary was too great an offence for that haughty dogmatist to pass with impunity. His prefaces and notes were, as was wittily observed of him, the established places of execution for the punishment of all who did not implicitly adopt liis sentiments, and having occasion soon after (in 1758) to publish a new edition of that celebrated work, he seized that opportunity to chastise Taylor, with all the virulence, wit, and ingenuity of distortion, which he could command.

, one of the most eminent and learned of the puritan divines, was born at Richmond in Yorkshire, in 1576, and was educated at Christ’s-college, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow, and acquired great fame for his literary accomplishments. He was chosen Hebrew lecturer of his college. At what time he took holy orders is not mentioned, but he appears to have incurred censure for non-conformity in one or two instances. On leaving the university, he settled first at Watford in Hertfordshire, then at Reading in Berkshire, and afterwards, in 1625, he obtained the living of St. Mary Alderm anbury, London, which he retained for the remainder of his life, lu his early days he had preached at Paul’s cross before queen Elizabeth, and afterwards before king James, and was every where admired and followed for the plainness, perspicuity, and soundness of his doctrines, and the great zeal and earnestness with which he laboured in the pastoral office for the space of thirty years. While he partook of the zeal, common to all his brethren, against popery, he was also an avowed enemy to Arminianism and Antinomianism. He died in the beginning of 1632, in the fifty-fifth year of his^ge, and was interred in St. Mary’s church. Leigh, Fuller, Wood, and all his contemporaries unite in giving him a high character for learning, piety, and usefulness. He was likewise a voluminous writer; his works, most of them printed separately, were collected in 3 vols. fol. 1659. They consist of commentaries, which were generally the substance of what he had preached on particular parts of scripture; and single sermons, or treatises. He and Dr. Thomas Beard of Huntingdon, were joint compilers of that singular and once very popular collection of stories, entitled “The Theatre of God’s Judgments,” 1648, &c. fol.

, a learned and laborious French writer, was born at Montpellier Jan. 28, 1632. He studied at Lunel, Orange, and other places, and having acquired a knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, and theology, he went to Paris, where he formed an acquaintance with some eminent men of the day, Pelisson, Conrart, Menage, and others, and on his return received the degree of doctor of laws at Bourges. He then went to Nismes, and practised at the bar, became a counsellor of the city, and a member of the Protestant consistory, and a member also of the newly-founded academy. In 1685, on the revocation of the edict of Nantz, he found it necessary to retire to Switzerland, and finally to Berlin, where the elector of Brandenburgh gave him the title of counsellor of embassy, and historiographer, with an annual pension of 300 crowns, which was afterwards increased. He died at Berlin, Sept. 7, 1715, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. He published several translations, from the works of St. Chrysostom; the lives of Calvin and Beza, from the Latin of Galeacius Carraccioli, and of Francis Spira; the eloges of eminent men, from Thuanus, of which there have been four editions, the best that of Leyden, 1715, 4 vols. 12mo; the epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, from the Greek; a treatise on martyrdom, from the Latin of Heidegger, &c. &c. This most useful work is entitled “Catalogus auctorum qui librorum catalogos, indices, bibliothecas, virorum literatorum elogia, vitas, ant orationes funebres scriptis consignarunt,” Geneva, 1686, 4to, with a supplement, in 1705. This is a greatly improved edition of Labbe’s “Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum.”

A chapel has been erected by his countrymen on the spot where he resided, and another on the rock where he landed: but, from the simplicity of the people, and of the times in which he lived, no particular honours or emoluments were assigned to his progeny, who appear to have lived in obscurity. The last male of his race, of whom we have any account, was John Martin Tell, of Attinghausen, who died in 1684. His descent in the female line became extinct in 1720. Crasser, a Swiss writer, long ago remarked the resemblance between the incident of the apple, as commonly related of Tell, and that told of Tocco, a Dane, by Saxo Grammaticus and from this coincidence, some have supposed the latter, at least, to be fictitious this, however, does not amount to a proof. It is possible, though perhaps not probable, that it may have happened twice.

, a very eminent statesman and writer, was the son of sir William Temple, of Sheen, in Surrey, master of the rolls and privy-counsellor in Ireland, 1 in the reign of Charles II. by a sister of the learned Dr.' Henry Hammond. His grandfather, sir William Temple, the founder of the family, was the younger son of the Temples, of Temple-hall, in Leicestershire. He was fellow of King’s college, in Cambridge, afterwards master of the free-school at Lincoln, then secretary successively to sir Philip Sidney, to William Davison, esq. one of queen Elizabeth’s secretaries, and to the celebrated earl of Essex, whom he served while he was lord-deputy of Ireland. In 1609, upon the importunate solicitation of Dr. James Usher, he accepted the provostship of Trinity college, in Dublin; after which he was knighted, and made one of the masters in chancery of Ireland. He died about 1626, aged sevetity-two, after having given proof of his abilities and learning, by several publications in Latin.

Sir William Temple was not only a very able statesman and negotiator, but also a polite and elegant writer. As many of his works have been published, at different times, as amount to two volumes in folio; which have also been printed more than once in octavo. His “Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands,” were published in one volume, 8vo, in 1672. His “Miscellanea,” consisting of ten tracts upon different subjects, were originally published in two volumes, 8vo. One of these tracts is upon ancient and modern learning; and what he advanced there, as it in some measure gave occasion to, so it involved him in, the controversy, which was soon after agitated here in England, concerning the superiority of the ancients and the moderns, His “Memoirs” also, of what had passed in his public employments, especially those abroad, make a very interesting part of his works. They were written in three parts; the first of which began with his journey to Munster, contained chiefly his negotiations of the triple alliance, and ended with his first retirement from public business, in 1671, a little before the second Dutch war. He began the second part with the approaches of the peace between England and Holland, in 1673, and concluded it with his being recalled from Holland in February 1678-9, after the conclusion of that of Nimeguen. The third part contains what passed from this peace to sir William’s retirement. The second part of these “Memoirs” was published in his life-time, and, it is believed, with his consent; though it is pretended that they were written only for the use of his son, and sent into the world without his knowledge. The third part was published by Swift, in 1709, many years after his death. The first part was never published at all; and Swift, in the preface to the third, tells us, that “Sir William often assured him he had burnt those Memoirs; and for that reason was content his letters during his embassies at the Hague and Aix-la-Chapelle (he might have added Minister) should be printed after his death, to supply that loss. What it was,” continues Swift, “that moved sir William Temple to burn those first Memoirs, may, perhaps, be conjectured from some passages in the second part formerly printed. In one place the author has these words: ‘ My lord Arlington, who made so great a figure in the former part of these Memoirs, was now grown out of all credit,’ &c. In other parts he tells us, ‘ That that lord was of the ministry which broke the triple-alliance, advised the Dutch war and French alliance; and, in short, was at the bottom of all those ruinous measures which the court of England was then taking; so that, as I have been told from a good hand, and as it seems very probable, he could not think that lord a person fit to be celebrated for his part in forwarding that famous league, while he was secretary of state, who had made such counterpaces to destroy it.’”

In 1674, the parishioners of St. Peter’s Manscroft, in Norwich, chose him their upper minister, with a salary of 100l. a year. In 1678 he published his “Discourse of Idolatry,” and the year following, some unpublished remains of lord Bacon, under the title “Baconiana,” with a preface giving an excellent analysis of his lordship’s works. In 1680 he took his degree of D. D. and in October of the same year, was presented by Charles II. being then one of his majesty’s chaplains, to the vicarage of St. Martin’s in the Fields. Here he continued the measures which Dr. Lloyd his predecessor had adopted to check the growth of popery, and became the founder of our parochial charity-schools. He also founded a library. Dr. Kennet says that in this office, Dr. Tenison did as much good as perhaps it was possible for one man to do, and the writer of his Hie assures us that there were not above two persons in his parish who turned Roman catholics while he was vicar. Indeed this large and important cure extending to Whitehall, and the whole court, rendered an unusual portion of courage and perseverance necessary in watching the proceedings of the popish party, who had too many friends in the highest station. Dr. Tenison, however, undauntedly took his share in the controversy which their conduct produced, and was soon marked as an antagonist not to be despised. In 1681 he preached and published “A Sermon of Discretion in giving- alms,” which being attacked by Andrew Pulton, who was at the head of the Jesuits in the Savoy, Dr. Tenison wrote a defence of it. In June 1684 an attempt was made to entrap him into an obscure house, on pretence of his receiving there some information respecting the murder of sir Edmondbury Godfrey; but by the precaution he taok, this design, whatever it might be, was defeated. In this year he published “The difference between the protestant aad the Socinian methods,” in answer to a book written by a papist entitled " The Protestant’s plea fora Socinian/ 1 In the mean time, in 1683, he had rivalled that party in their grace of charity, by distributing upwards of 300l. for the relief of his poor parishioners during the hard frost. He also now completed the designs before mentioned, of endowing a charity-school, and setting up a public library, both which still exist.

In the succeeding reign, Dr. Tenison is said to have acquired favour at court, on account of his moderation towards the dissenters. He was one of those who dwelt fondly on the hopes of a comprehension, as it was called, to be effected partly by a review of the Liturgy. Immediately after the revolution, he was promoted to be archdeacon of London, and was appointed one of the commissioners to prepare matters towards reconciling the dissenters for the convocation. He even wrote a defence of it, entitled “A Discourse on the Ecclesiastical commission, proving it agreeable to the word of God, useful to the convocation, &c.” 1689, 4to, but he soon found the main object to be unattainable, neither party being satisfied with the proposed alterations in the liturgy. It was this endeavour to conciliate the dissenters which is said to have induced queen Mary to solicit that he might have the bishopric of Lincoln, to which he was accordingly nominated Nov. 25, 1691, and consecrated at Lambeth, Jan. 10 following. The writer of his life, in 8vo, tells us that the earl of Jersey, then master of the horse to her majesty, endeavoured as much as possible to prejudice Dr. Tenison in her majesty’s opinion, in order to gain her interest for his friend Dr. John Scott, rector of St. Giles’s in the fields; and represente*d to her majesty, who was speaking of Dr. Tenison in terms of respect, that he had preached a funeral sermon, in which he had spoken favourably of Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn, one of king Charles lid’s mistresses. “What then” said the queen, “I have heard as much. This is a sign, that that poor unfortunate woman died penitent; for if I can read a man’s heart through his looks, had she not made a truly pious and Christian end, the doctor could never have been induced to speak well of her.”

, or Terence, an ancient dramatic writer among the Romans, was a native of Carthage, and born in the year of Rome 560. He was brought early to Rome, among other slaves, and fell into the hands of a generous master, Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, who was so taken with his uncommon parts, that he gave him first a good education, and afterwards his liberty. He received his name, as well as his liberty, from Terentius Lucanus, as the custom was; and thus, by a singular fatality, says madam Dacier, while he has immortalized the name of his master, he has not been able to preserve his own. His merit soon recommended him to the acquaintance and familiarity of the chief nobility; and such was his friendship with Scipio and Laelius, that his rivals and enemies took occasion from thence to say that his plays were composed by these noblemen. Suetonius relates a story from Cornelius Nepos, which may seem to confirm such a surmise: it is, that on the 1st of March, which was the feast of the Roman ladies, Laelius being desired by his wife to sup a little sooner than ordinary, he prayed her not to disturb him; and that, coming very late to supper that night, he said he had never composed any thing with more pleasure and success; when, being asked by the company what it was, he repeated some verses out of the third scene of the fourth act in the “Heautontimorumenos.” Terence takes notice of this report in his prologue to the “Adelphi,” and does not offer to refute it; but Suetonius says that he forbore, in complaisance to his patrons, who might possibly not be displeased with it; and, indeed, in the prologue to the “Heautontimorumenos,” Terence desired the auditors not to credit the slanderous reports of his brother writers. It is very possible that Scipio and Lselius might sometimes amuse themselves with composing a scene or two lor a poet, with whom they conversed so familiarly; but the plays were certainly Terence’s.

After this, Terence went into Greece, where he stayed about a year, in order, as it is thought, to collect some of Menander’s plays. He fell sick on his return from thence, and died at sea, according to some; at Stymphalis, a town in Arcadia, according to others. From the above account, we cannot have lost above one or two of Terence’s plays; for it is impossible to credit what Suetonius reports from one Consemius, an unknown author, namely, that Terence was returning with above an hundred of Menander’s plays, which he had translated, but that he lost them by shipwreck, and died of grief for the loss. Terence was of a middle size, very slender, and of a dark complexion-. He left a daughter behind him, who was afterwards married to a Roman knight. He left also a house and gardens on the Appian way, near the Villa Martis, so that the notion of his dying poor is very improbable. If he could be supposed to have reaped no advantages from the friendship of Scipio and Lselius, yet his plays must have brought him in considerable sums. He received eight thousand sesterces for his “Eunuch,” which was acted twice in one day; a piece of good fortune which perhaps never happened to any other play, for plays with the Romans were never designed to serve above two or three times. There is no doubt that he was well paid for the rest; for it appears from the prologue to the “Hecyra,” that the poets used to be paid every time their play was acted. At this rate, Terence must have made a handsome fortune before he died, for most of his plays were acted more than once in his life- time. It would be endless to mention the testimonies of the ancients in his favour, or the high commendations hestowed upon him by modern commentators and critics. Menander was his model, and from him he borrowed many of his materials. He was not content with a servile imitation of Menander, but always consulted his own. genius, and made such alterations as seemed to him expedient. His enemies blamed his conduct in this; but in the prologue to the “Andria,” he pleads guilty to the charge, and justifies what he had done by very sufficient reasons. The comedies of Terence were in great repute among the Romans; though Plautus, having more wit, more action, and more vigour, was sometimes more popular upon the stage. Terence’s chief excellence consists in these three points, beauty of characters, politeness of dialogue, and regularity of scene. His characters are natural, exact, and finished to the last degree; and no writer, perhaps, ever came up to him for propriety and decorum in this respect. If he had laid the scene at Rome, and made his characters Roman, instead of Grecian; or if there had been a greater variety in the general cast of his characters, the want of both which things have been objected to him; his plays might have been more agreeable, might have more affected those for whose entertainment they were written; yet in what he attempted he has been perfectly successful. The elegance of iiis dialogue, and the purity of his diction, are acknowledged by all: by Caesar, Cicero, Paterculus, and Quintilian, among the ancients; and by all the moderns. If Terence could not attain all the wit and humour of Menander, yet he fairly equalled him in chasteness and correctness of style.

The moderns have been no less united in their praise of the style of Terence. Erasmus says, that “the purity of the Roman language cannot be learned from any ancient author so well as from Terence; and many have given it as their opinion, that the Latin tongue cannot be lost while the comedies of Terence remain. This Roman urbanity and purity of diction shews Terence to have been made a slave very young, and his education to have been wholly Roman, since otherwise his style could never have been so free from the tincture of his African origin. Regularity of scene, or proper disposition and conduct of the drama, is a third excellence of Terence. His scene, as Congreve, who calls him the correctest writer in the world, has well observed, always proceeds in a regular connection, the per s ons going off and on for visible reasons, and to carry on the action of the play, and, upon the whole, the faults and imperfections are so few, that they scarcely deserve to be mentioned. Scaliger said, there were not three in the whole six plays: and the comica vis, which Caesar wishes for him, would probably have suited our taste less than his present delicate humour and wit. Madam Dacier has observed, that” it would be difficult to determine which of his six plays deserves the preference, since they have each of them their peculiar excellencies. The “Andria” and “Adelphi,” says she, “appear to excel in characters and manners; the” Eunuch“and” Phormio,“in vigorous action and lively intrigue; the” Heautontimorumenos’ 1 and “Hecyra,” in sentiment, passion, and simplicity of style."

, a French writer of more industry than genius, was born at St. Malu’s, in 1715. He entered for a time into the society of the Jesuits, where he taught the learned languages. Returning into the world, he was employed with Messrs. Freron and de la Porte, in some periodical publications. He was also a member of the literary and military society of Besangon, and of the academy at Angers. He died April 17, 1759, at the age of forty-four. Besides his periodical writings, he made himself known by several publications: 1. “An Abridgment of the History of England,” 3 vols. 12mo, which has the advantages of a chronological abridgment, without its dry ness. The narration is faithful, simple, and clear the style rather cold, but in general, pure, and of a good taste and the portraits drawn with accuracy yet the abridgment of the abbé Millet is generally preferred, as containing more original matter. 2 “Histoire des Conjurations et des Conspirations celebres,” 10 vols. 12 mo; an unequal compilation, but containing some interesting matters. 3, The two last volumes of the “Bibliotfaeque amusante.” 4. “L'Almanach des Beaux-Arts,” afterwards known by the title of te La France literaire.“He published a very imperfect sketch of it in 1752; but it has since been extended to several vols, 8vo. 5.” Memoires du Marquis de Choupes,“1753, 12mo. He had also a hand in the” History of Spain," published by M. Desormaux.

, the iirst Latin writer of the primitive church whose writings are come clown to us, was an African, and born at Carthage in the second century. His father was a centurion in* the troops which served under the proconsul of Africa. Tcrtullian was at first an heathen, and a man, as he himself owns in various parts of his works, of loose manners; but afterwards embraced the Christian religion, though it is not known when, or upon what occasion. He flourished chiefly under the reigns of the emperor Severus and Caracalla, from about the year 194 to 216 and it is probable that he lived several years, since Jerome mentions a report of his having attained to a decrepit old age. There is no passage in his writings whence it can be concluded that he was a priest; but Jerome affirms it so positively, that it cannot be doubted. He had great abilities and learning, which he employed vigorously in the cause of Christianity, and against heathens and heretics; but towards the latter part of his life quitted the church to follow the Montanists, which is the reason why his name has not been transmitted to us with the title of saint. The cause of his separation is not certainly known. Baronius has attributed it to jealousy, because Victor was preferred before him to the see of Rome; Pamelius hints at his disappointment, because he could not get the bishopric of Carthage; and Jerome says, that the envy which the Roman clergy bore him, and the outrageous manner with which they treated him, exasperated him against the church, and provoked him to quit it. What perhaps had as much weight as any of these reasons was the extraordinary austerity, which the sect of Montanus affected, which suited his monastic turn of mind. Whatever the cause, he not only joined them, but wrote in their defence, and treated the church from which he departed, with unbecoming contempt. Error, however* says a modern ecclesiastical historian, is very inconstant; for Tertullian afterwards left the Montanists, or nearly so, and formed a sect of his own, called Tertullianists, who continued in Africa till Augustine’s time, by whose labours their existence, as;i distinct body, was brought to a close. The character of Tertullian is very strongly delineated by himself in his own writings if there bad been any thing peculiarly Christian, which he had learned from the Montanists, his works must have shown it; but the only change discoverable is, that he increased in his austerities. He appears to have been married, and lived all his life, without separating from his wife upon his commencing priest, if, indeed, he did not marry her after. The time of his death is no where mentioned.

Many historians have spoken highly of the abilities and learning of this father, particularly Euscbius, who says that he was one of the ablest Latin writers, and particularly insists upon his being thoroughly conversant in the Roman laws; which may incline us to think that, like his scholar, Cyprian, he was bred to the bar. Cyprian used every day to read part of his works, and, when he called for the book, said, “Give me my master,” as Jerome relates. Lactantius allows him to have been skilled in all kinds of learning, yet censures him as an harsh, inelegant, and abstruse writer. Jerome, i n his Catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, calls him a man of a quick and sharp wit; and says, in his epistle to Magnus, that no author had more learning and subtlety; but in other places he reprehends his errors and defects; and, in his apology against Ruffinus, “commends his wit, but condemns his heresies.” Vicentius Lirinensis gives this character of him: “Tertullian was,” says he, “among the Latins, what Origen was among the Greeks; that is to say, the first and most considerable man they had. For who is more learned than he r who more versed both in ecclesiastical and profane knowledge? Has he not comprised in his vast capacious mind all the philosophy of the sages, the maxims of the different sects, with their histories, and whatever pertained to them? Did he ever attack any thing which he has not almost always either pierced by the vivacity of his wit, or overthrown by the force and weight of his reasonings? And who can sufficiently extol the beauties of his discourse, which is so well guarded and linked together by a continual chain of arguments, that he even forces the consent of those whom he cannot persuade? His words are so many sentences; his answers almost so many victories.”

, a miscellaneous writer and critic, was born at Sittingbourn in Kent, in which place his father was an eminent attorney. His grammatical learning he received at Isleworth in Middlesex, and afterwards applied himself to the law; but, finding that pursuit tedious and irksome, he quitted it for the profession of poetry. According to the editors of the “Biog. Dramatica,” his first appearance in this profession was not much to his credit. One Henry Mestayer, a watchmaker, had written a play, which he submitted to the correction of Theobald, who formed it into a tragedy, and procured it to be acted and printed as his own. This compelled the watchmaker to publish his own performance in 1716, with a dedication to Theobald. The editors of the Biog. Dram, who appear to have examined both pieces, observe that Theobald, although unmercifully ridiculed by Pope, never appeared so despicable as throughout this transaction. “We had seen him before only in the light of a puny critic:” But here the fell attorney prowls for prey.“Theobald engaged in a paper called” The Censor,“published in Mist’s” Weekly Journal;“and, by delivering his opinion with too little reserve concerning some eminent wits, exposed himself to their resentment. Upon the publication of Pope’s Homer, he praised it in the most extravagant terms; but afterwards thought proper to retract his opinion, and abused the very performance he had before affected to admire. Pope at first made \ lie*, a.d tin* Jhto of his” Dunciad;“but afterwards thought proper to disrobe him of that dignity, and bestow it upon another. In 1726, Theobald published apiece in 8vo, called” Shakespear Restored:“of this, it is said, he was so vain as to aver, in one of Mist’s” Journals,“ct that to expose any errors in it was impracticable;” and, in another, *; that whatever care might for the future be taken, either by Mr. Pope, or any other assistants, he would give above five hundred emendations, that would escape them all.“During two whole years, while Pope was preparing his edition, he published advertisements, requesting assistance, and promising satisfaction to any who would contribute to its greater perfection. But this restorer, who was at that time soliciting favours of him by letters, wholly concealed that he had any such design till after its publication; which he owned in the” Daily Journal of Nov. 26, 1728.“Theobald was not only thus obnoxious to the resentment of Pope, but we find him waging war with Mr. Dennis, who treated him with more roughness, though with less satire. Theobald, in” The Censor,“N 33, calls Dennis by the name of Furius. Dennis, to resent this, in his remarks on Pope’s Homer, thus mentions him:” There is a notorious idiot, one Hight Whacum; who, from an under-spur-leather to the law, is become an understrapper to the playhouse, who has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid, by a vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor." Such was the language of Dennis, when inflamed by contradiction.

As the name is not very common, it may be necessary to mention a later writer, a John Theobald, who had the degree of a doctor of physic, but does not appear to have been of the London college of physicians. He published a little volume of poetry in 1753, called “Musa Panegyrica,” and died May 17, 1760. Amongst many other performances, he produced a translation of Merope, translated from Voltaire, 1744, 8vo.

, an ancient Greek poet, was a Sicilian 1 and born at Syracuse, the son of Praxagoras and Philina. He is said to have been the scholar of Philetas, and Asclepiades, or Sicelidas: Philetas was an elegiac poet of the island of Cos, had the honour to be preceptor to Ptolemy Philadelphus, and is celebrated by Ovid and Propertius: Sieelidas was a Samian, a writer of epigcams: Theocritus mentions both these with honour in his seventh Idyllium. As to the age in which he flourished, it seems indisputably to be ascertained by two Idylliums that remain: one is addressed to Hiero king of Syracuse, and the other to Ptole^ ray Philadelphus, the Egyptian monarch. Hiero began his reign, as Casaubon asserts in his observations on Poly^­bius, in the second year of the 126th olympiad, or about 275 years before Christ; and Ptolemy in the fourth year of the 123d olympiad. Though the exploits of Hiero are recorded greatly to his advantage by Polybius, in the first book of his history; though he had many virtues, had frequently signalized his courage and conduct, and distinguishes himself by several achievements in war; yet he stems, at least in the early part of his reign, to have expressed no great affection for learning or men of letters: and this is supposed to have given occasion to the 16th Llyllinm, inscribed with the name of Hiero; where the poet asserts the dignity of his profession, complains that it met with neither favour nor protection, and in a very artful manner touches upon some of the virtues of this prince, and insinuates what an illustrious figure he would have made in poetry, had he been as noble a patron, as he was an argument for the Muses.

The compositions of this poet are distinguished among the ancients by the name of “I-iyllia,” in order to express the smallness and variety of their natures; they would novr be called “Miscellanies, or Poems on several Occasions.” The nine first and the eleventh are confessed to be true pastorals, and hence Theocritus has usually passed for nothing more than a pastoral poet: yet he is manifestly robbed of a great part of his fame, if his other poems have not their proper laurels. For though the greater part of his “Idyllia” cannot be called the songs of shepherds, yet they have certainly their respective merits. His pastorals doubtless ought to be considered as the foundation of his credit. He was the earliest known writer of pastorals, and will be acknowledged to have excelled all his imitators, as much as originals usually do their copies. There are, says Dr. Warton, “few images and sentiments in the Eclogues of Virgil, but what are drawn from the Idylliums of Theocritus: in whom there is a rural, romantic wildness of thought, heightened by the Doric dialect; with such, lively pictures of the passions, and of simple unadorned nature, as are infinitely pleasing to lovers and judges of true poetry. Theocritus is indeed the great store-house of pastoral description; and every succeeding painter of rural beauty (except Thomson in his Seasons) hath copied his images from him, without ever looking abroad upon the face of nature themselves.” The same elegant critic, in his dissertation on pastoral poetry, says, “If I might venture to speak of the merits of the several pastoral writers, I would say, that in Theocritus we are charmed with a certain sweetness, a romantic rusticity and wildness, heightened by the Doric dialect, that are almost inimitable. Several of his pieces indicate a genius of a higher class, far superior to pastoral, and equal to the sublimest species of poetry: such are particularly his Panegyric on Ptolemy, the fight between Amycus and Pollux, the Epithalamium of Helen, the young Hercules, the grief of Hercules for Hylas, the death of Pentheus, and the killing of the Neniean Lion.” At the same time it imi;t be allowed that Theocritus descends sometimes into gross and mean ideas, and makes his shepherds ahusive and immodest, which is never the case with Virgil.

, an illustrious writer of the church, was born at Antioch about the year 386, of parents who were both pious and opulent. His birth has been represented as accompanied with miracles before and after, according to his own account, in his “Religious History;” in which he gravely informs us, that it was by the prayers of a religious man, called Macedonius, that God granted his motirer to conceive a son, and bring him into the world. When the holy anchorite promised her this blessing, she engaged herself on her part to devote him to God; and accordingly called him Theodoretus, which signifies either given by God, or devoted to God. To promote this latter design, he was sent at seven years of age to a monastery, where he learned the sciences, theology, and devotion. He had for his masters Theodore of Mopsuestia, and St. John Chrysostom, and made under them a very uncommon progress. His learning and piety becoming known to the bishops of Antioch, they admitted him into holy orders; yet he did not upon that account change either his habitation or manner of living, but endeavoured to reconcile the exercises of a religious life with tha function of a clergyman. ' After the death of his parents, he distributed his whole inheritance to the poor, and reserved nothing to himself. The bishopric of Cyrus becoming vacant about the year 420, the bishop of Antioch ordained Theodoret against his will, and sent him to govern that dumb. Cyrus was a city of Syria, in the province of Euphratesia, an unpleasant and barren country, but very populous. The inhabitants commonly spake the Syriac to;ig.e, Tew of them understanding Greek; they were almost all poor, rude, and barbarous; many of them were engaged in profane superbtitions, or in such gross errors as shewed them to be rather Heathens than Christians. The learning and worth of Theodoret, which were really very great, seemed to qualify him for a better see; yet he remained in this, and discharged all the offices of a good bishop and good man. He was afterwards engaged in the Nestorian dispute, very much against his will; but at length retired to his see, spent his life in composing books, and in acts of piety and charity, and died there in the year 457, aged seventy and upwards. He wrote “Commentaries upon the Holy Scriptures” an “Ecclesiastical History” a “Religious Histor\ T” containing the lives and praises of thirty monks, and several other things, which are still extant.

Great encomiums have been bestowed upon this writer, particularly by Dupin, who asserts that “Of all the fathers who have composed works of different kinds, Theodoret is one of those who has succeeded the very best in every kind. Some have been excellent writers in matters of controversy, but bad interpreters of Scripture; others have been good historians, but bad divines; some have had good success in morality, who have had no skill in doctrinal points; those who have applied themselves to confute Paganism by their own principles and authors, have usually Lad little knowledge in the mysteries of our religion; and lastly, it is very rare for those. who have addicted themselves to works of piety to be good critics. Theodoret had all these qualities; and it may be said, that he has equally deserved the name of a good interpreter, divine, historian, writer in controversy, apologist for religion, and author of works of piety. But he hath principally excelled in his compositions on Holy Scripture, and has outdone almost all other commentators, according to the judgment of the learned Phqtius. His style, says that able critic, is veryproper for a commentary; for he explains, in just and significant terms, whatsoever is obscure and difficult in the text, and render* the mind more fit to read and understand it by the elegance of his style. He never wearies his reader with long digressions, but on the contrary labours to instruct him clearly, neatly, and methodically, in every thing that seems hard. He never departs from the purity and elegance of the Attic dialect, unless when he is obliged to speak of abstruse matters, to which the ears are not accustomed: for it is certain that he passes over nothing that needs explication; and it is almost impossible to find any interpreter who unfolds all manner of difficulties better, and teaves fewer things obscure. We may find many others who write elegantly and explain clearly, but we shall find few who have forgotten nothing which needed illustration, without being too diffuse, and without running out into digressions, at least such as are not absolutely necessary to clear the matter in hand. Yet this is what Theodoret has observed throughout his commentaries, in. which he hath opened the text admirably well by his accurate inquiries.” Other writers, however, have not expressed so high an opinion of Theodoret. Beausobre, in his History of the Manichees, says that “Theodoret is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable of the fathers. He is learned; he reasons well, especially in his dialogues against the Greek heresies of his times: he is a good literal interpreter of the Scriptures. I cannot help admiring his prudence and moderation, when I consider that he ended his Ecclesiastical History at the time when the Nestorian quarrels, in which he was so deeply interested, began. But, I fear, his zeal against heretics imposed upon him almost as much, as his admiration for the heroes of the ascetic life, with whom he was charmed. Monasteries have undoubtedly sent forth great men into the world, but these disciples of the monks contracted there in their youth a superstitious disposition, which is hardly ever thrown off; and the weak side of this able man seems to have been an excessive credulity.” In truth, Theodoret surpasses all other writers in admiration of monastic institutions, and is credulous beyond measure in subjects of that nature. Yet he was undoubtedly one of the most learned and best men in the Eastern church. His pacific conduct displeased the bigots, during the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies, and because he inclined to healing methods, he was condemned at one of the synods, and was not without difficulty reinstated. “His works,” says Milner, “are large, on a variety of subjects; but they speak not for him equally with his life; and it will be sufficient to say, that his theology, with a stronger mixture of superstitioiij was of the same kind as that of Chrysostom. But his spirit was humble, heavenly, charitable; and he seems to have walked in the iaith, hope, and love of the gospel, a shining ornament in a dark age and country.”

, of Antioch, a writer and bishop of the primitive church, was educated a heathen, and afterwards converted to Christianity. Some have imagined that he is the person to whom St. Luke dedicates the “Acts of the Apostles;” but this is impossible, as he was not ordained bishop of Antioch till the year 170, and he governed this church twelve or thirteen years, at the end of which be died. He was a vigorous opposer of certain heretics of his time, and composed a great number of works, all of which are lost, except three books to Autolycus, a learned heathen of his acquaintance, who had undertaken to vindicate his own religion against that of the Christians. The first book is properly a discourse between him and Autoly* cus, in answer to what this heathen had said against Christianity. The second is to convince him of the falshood of his own, and the truth of the Christian religion. In the third, after having proved that the writings of the heathens are full of absurdities and contradictions, he vindicates the doctrine and the lives of the Christians from those false and scandalous imputations which were then brought against them. Lastly, at the end of his work, he adds an historical chronology from the beginning of the world to his own time, to prove, that the history of Moses is at once the most ancient and the truest; and it appears from this little epitome, that he was well acquainted with profane history. In these books are a great variety of curious disquisitions concerning the opinions of the poets and philosophers, but few things in them relating immediately to the doctrines of the Christian religion, the reason of which is, that having composed his woiks for the conviction of a Pagan, he insisted rather on the external evidences of Christianity, vis better adapted, in his opinion, to the purpose. His style is elegant, and he was doubtless a man of considerable parts and learning. These boots were published, with a Latin version, by Conradus Gesner, at Zurich, in 154-6. They were afterwards subjoined to Justin Martyr’s works, printed at Paris in 1615 and 1636; then published at Oxford, 1684, in 12mo, under the inspection of Dr. Fell; and, lastly, by Jo. Christ. Wolfius, at Hamburgh, 1723, in 8vo. It has been said, that this Theophilus of Antioch was the h'rst who applied the term Trinity to express the three persons in the Godhead.

, archbishop of Achridia, and metropolitan of all Bulgaria, an eminent ecclesiastical writer, flourished in the eleventh century. He was born and educated at Constantinople. After he was made bishop he laboured diligently to extend the faith of Christ in his diocese, when there were still many infidels; but met with much difficulty, and many evils, of which he occasionally complains in his epistles. He was bishop in 1077, and probably some years earlier. How long he lived is uncertain. The works of this bishop are various 1. “Comxnentaria in qtlatuor Evangelia,” Paris, 1631, folio. These as well as the rest of his commentaries are very much taken from St. Chrysostom. 2. “Commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles,” Greek and Latin, published with some orations of other fathers, Colon. 1568. 3. “Commentaries on St. Paul’s epistles,” Greek and Latin, Lond. 1636, folio. 4. “Commentaries on Four of the Minor Prophets:” namely, Habbakuk, Jonas, Nahum, and Hosea, Latin, Paris, 1589, 8vo. The commentaries of Theophylact on all the twelve minor prophets are extant in Greek, in the library of Strasburgh, and have been described by Michaelis in his “Bibliotheca Orientalis.” 5. * c Seventy-five Epistles," published in Greek, with notes, by John Meursius, Leyden, 1617, 4to. They are also in the Bibliotheca Patrum. 6. Three or four smaller tracts, some of which are rather doubtful.

, librarian to the king of France, and a celebrated writer of travels, was born at Paris in 1621, and had scarcely gone through his academical studies, when he discovered a strong passion for visiting foreign countries. At first he saw only part of Europe; but accumulated very particular informations and memoirs from those who had travelled over other parts of the globe, and out of those composed his “Voyages and Travels.” He laid down, among other things, some rules, together with the invention of an instrument, for the better finding out of the longitude, and the declination of the needle; which, some have thought, constitute the most valuable part of his works. Thevenot was likewise a great collector of scarce books in all sciences, especially in philosophy, mathematics, and history; and in this he may be said to have spent his whole life. When he iiad the care of the king’s library, though it is one of the best furnished in Europe, he found two thousand volumes wanting in it, which he had in his own. Besides printed books, he brought a great many manuscripts in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Turkish, and Persic. The marbles presented to him by Mr. Nointel, at his return from his embassy to Constantinople, upon which there are bas-reliefs and inscriptions of almost two thousand years old, may be reckoned among the curiosities of his library. He spent most of his time among his books, without aiming at any post of figure or profit; he had, however, two honourable employments; for he assisted at a conclave held after the death of pope Innocent X. and was the French king’s envoy at Genoa. He was attacked with a slow fever in 1692, and died October the same year at the age of seventy-one. According to the account given, he managed himself very improperly in this illness: for he diminished his v strength by abstinence, while he should have increased it with hearty food and strong wines, which was yet the more necessary Oh account of his great age. “7'hevenot’s Travels into the Levant, &c.” were published in English, in 1687, folio; they had been published in French, at Paris, 1663, folio. He wrote also “L'Art de nager,” the Art of Swimming, 12 mo, 1696.

, a writer of some note in the 16th century, was horn at Angflulesme, and entered the Franciscan order, and afterwards visited Italy, the Holy Land, Egypt, Greece, and Brasil. At his return to France in 1556, he quitted the cordelier’s habit, took that of an ecclesiastic, and was appointed almoner to queen Catherine de Medicis. He had the titles of historiographer of France, and cosmographer to the king, and received the profits of those offices. He died Nov. 23, 1590, aged eighty-tight, leaving “Cosmographie de Levant,” Lyons, 1554, 4to; “A History of illustrious Men/' 1671, 8 vols. 12mo, or 1684, 2 vols. fol. a work of very little merit; but the folio edition is esteemed of some price on account of the portraits. He wrote also” Singularity’s de la France Aniarctique," Paris, 1558, 4to, and several other books, from which the author appears to have been a great reader, but at the same time, to have possessed great credulity, and little judgment.

, or Theodoric de Niem, a native of Paderborn in Westphalia, who was under- secretary at Rome to Gregory XL Urban VI. &c. attended John XXIIL to the council of Constance, as writer of the Apostolical Letters, and abhreviator; but after that pontiff’s flight, wrote a very violent invective against him, and died about 1417, leaving the following works: “A History of the Schism,” which is very curious, and ends in 1410, Norernberg, 1592, fol.; a book concerning “The Privileges and Rights of the Emperors in the Investitures of Bishops,” printed in “Schardii Syntagma de Imperiali Jurisdictione,” Argent. 1609, fol.; “A History of John XXIII.” Francfort, 1620, 4to; and “A Journal of the Council of Constance.” This fcuthor’s style in Latin is dry and unpleasant, but very forcible, and his narrations are accurate and faithful. Some attribute to him the treatise “On the necessity of Reformation in the Church, both with respect to its head and its members,” which others give to Peter d'Ailli.

, a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, and a celebrated writer of the seventeenth century, was born at Chartres, about 1636. He professed belleslettres at Paris, and became curate of Vibray, in the diocese of Mans, where he composed several of his works, and where he died February 28, 1703, aged sixty-five. He left a great many works, which are tiow but seldom read, though they are very learned, and very often singular.

As the edition of “Justin Martyr” was the magnum opus of Dr. Thirlby, and he is a writer of whom little has ever hitherto been said, this article may be enlarged with, the opinions of some eminent scholars on that performance.

“Perception is a passive affection, produced by some external object, either in the intellectual sense, or in the inclination of the will. Essence is that without which a thing cannot be perceived. God is not perceived by the intellectual sense, but by the inclination of the will: for creatures affect the brain; but God, the heart. All creatures are in God: nothing is exterior to him. Creation is extension produced from nothing by the divine power. Creatures are of two kinds, passive and active; the former is mattr r; the latter, spirit. Matter is dark and cold, and capable of being acted upon by spirit, which is light, warm, and active. Spirit may subsist without matter, but desires a union with it. All bodies consist of matter and spirit, and have therefore some kind of life. Spirit attracts spirit, and thus sensibly operates upon matter united to spirit. This attraction in man is called love; in other bodies, sympathy. A finite spirit may be cgnsidcred as a limited sphere in which rays, luminous, warm, and active, flow from a centre. Spirit is the region of the body to which it is united. The region of finite spirits is God. The human soul is a ray From the divine nature; whence it desires union with God, who is love. Since the essence of spirit consists in action, and of body in passion, spirit may exist without thought: of this kind are light, ether, and other active principles in nature.” Fortunately, says a very judicious writer, this jargon is as unintelligible as the categories of Kant, and the blasphemies of Spinosa.

, a learned writer of the sixteenth century, was born in Wales, and was at least of Welsh extraction, and educated at Oxford. Wood says that one of both his names was, in 1529, admitted bachelor of canon law, but does not say that it was this person. In 1544, being obliged to quit the kingdom on account of some misfortune, he went to Italy, and in 1546 was at Bologne, and afterwards ai Padua. In 151-9, he was again in London, and on account of his knowledge of modern languages, was made clerk of the council to king Edward VI. who soon after gave him a prebend of St. Paul’s, and the living of Presthend in South Wales. According to Strype, he acted very unfairly in procuring the prebend, not being a spiritual person; and the same objection undoubtedly rests against his other promotion. On the accession of queen Mary, he was deprived of his employment at court, and is said to have meditated the death of the queen; but Bale says it was Gardiner whom he formed a design of murderiug. Others think that he was concerned in Wyat’s rebellion. It is certain that for some of these charges, he was committed to the Tower in 1553, together with William Winter and sir Nicholas Throgmorton. Wood says, “He was a man of a hot fiery spirit, had sucked in damnable principles by his frequent conversations with Christopher Goodman, that violent enemy to the rule of women.” It appears that he had no rule over himself, for about a week after his commitment, he attempted suicide, but the wound not proving mortal, he was arraigned at Guildhall, May 9, 1553, and hanged at Tyburn, on the 18th.

He published in his life-time, “An Apology for the Church of England, 1678-9,” 8vo. “A Sermon preached at Caermarthen Assizes,” printed in 1657. “The Mammon of Unrighteousness,”, a sermon preached at the cathedral church of Worcester when he was in a very languishing state of health. His “Letter to the Clergy,” and an imperfect work, entitled “Roman Oracles silenced,” were published after his death. All these shew him to have been a good bishop and industrious divine, but not a writer of parts or genius; his style is harder and more antiquated than that of most writers of his time; but his matter shews the simplicity and humility of his heart; for meekness and unaffected humility were his chief ornaments. These rendered him peaceable and quiet, patient of contradiction, and contented in all conditions, the same easy man when sequestered as when bishop and with the same easy- tranquillity and cheerfulness of mind he prepared to lay down his bishopric, as in his younger years he had done his vicarage. He was never known to have been in a passion. When he was dean of Worcester, one of the prebendaries in chapter fell into a sudden and violent emotion upon no great provocation, which made the dean say to him. “Brother, brother, God give you more patience.” To which the angry gentleman replied, “Mr. Dean, Mr. Dean, God give you more passion.” The good man made no reply, but by a smile. His memory was very good, for though he penned his sermons with great' accuracy, yet he always delivered them memoriter. He was of a stature somewhat tall anci slender, of a long visage, his forehead large, his countenance graceful, and his aspect venerable. The constitution of his body in his younger years was strong and healthful, though afterwards much broken by frequent infirmities, particularly the gout; to frequent and violent fits of which he was subject for upwards of four and twenty years: and that disorder would much sooner have brought him to an end, if it had not been checked by his great temperance and repeated abstinence.

, a miscellaneous writer of no great fame, was the son of a merchant at Hull, where he was born about 1738. He was educated at Beverley, under the Rev. Mr. Clarke, and thence removed to Hampstead, unHer the care of Dr. Cox. He early embraced a maritime life, and in 1750 sailed on a voyage to Greenland. In 1754 he was engaged on board an Indiaman, and became what is called “a guinea pig,” though other accounts say that he went to the East Indies with sir Peter Dennis, on board the Dorsetshire, and was in the memorable action off Quiheron Bay. By his “Sailor’s Letters,” it appears that he was at Madras, Ceylon, and Bengal. In 1759 he was engaged in Hawke’s celebrated battle with Gentians. His other naval movements seem to have been of little importance, and on the peace in 1762 he became unemployed He now wrote a licentious poem, celebrating the most remarkable women of the town, which he published under the title of the “Meretriciad.” This seems to have been the means of introducing him to the acquaintance of Churchill, with whom he boasts on many occasions to have lived on terms of intimacy, and with whose principles, political and moral, he appears to have been at perfect agreement. Of this, his subsequent poems, “The Soldier,” “The Courtezan,” and the “Demirep,” afford sufficient proof. In 1765, he was more laudably employed in soliciting parliament for an increase of half-pay for the lieutenants of the navy, an application which was attended with success.

As a writer, says Dr. Johnson, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye which Nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every thing represented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a,rrind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute The reader of the “Seasons” wonders that he never saw before what Thomson shews him, and that he never yet has felt what Thomson impresses. His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly used; Thomson’s wide expansion of general views, and his enumeration of circumstantial varieties, would have been obstructed and embarrassed by the frequent interruptions of the sense, which are the necessary effects of rhyme. His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects bring before us the whole magnificence of Nature, whether pleasing or dreadful. The gaiety of Spring, the splendour of Summer, the tranquillity of Autumn, aad the horror of Winter, take in their turns possession of the mind. The poet leads us through the appearances of things as they are successively Taried by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts to us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts expand with his imagery, and kindle with his sentiments. Nor is the naturalist without his part in the entertainment; for he is assisted to recollect and to combine, to arrange his discoveries, and to amplify the sphere of his contemplation. The great defect of the “Seasons” is want of method; but for this, perhaps, there was not any remedy. Of many appearances subsisting all at once, no rule can be given why one should be mentioned before another; yet the memory wants the help of order, and the curiosity is not excited by suspense or expectation. His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant, such as may be said to be to his images and thoughts both their lustre and their shade; such as invests them with splendour, through which, perhaps, they are not always easily discerned. It is too exuberant, and sometimes may be charged with filling the ear more than the mind. The highest praise, adds Dr. Johnson, which he has received, ought not to be suppressed: it is said by lord Lyttelton, in the prologue to his posthumous play, that his works contained “No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.”

He died in 1725, in his sixty-eighth year, and was interred among his ancestors in St. Peter’s church at Leeds. His character for learning is best seen in the books he published, which shew him to have been a great master of the history and antiquities of his own country; to attain which, it became necessary for him to be skilled, as he was, in genealogy and heraldry. He appears from these books to have been also an industrious biographer: but that. which sets his reputation the highest as a scholar, was his uncommon knowledge of coins and medals. He had long formed a design of doing honour to his native town and its environs, by writing the history of them; and had accumulated a vast quantity of materials for the work, which was published in 1715, under the title of “Ducatus Leodiensis; or, The Topography of Leeds and the parts adjacent,” fol. To which is subjoined, “Museum Thoresbeianum; or, a Catalogue of the Antiquities, &c. in the Repository of Ralph Thoresby, gent. &c.” In the former piece, he frequently refers to the historical part, intended for giving a view of the state of the northern parts of the kingdom during the dark ages of the Britons and the Romans and of the alterations afterwards made by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans: and he proceeded so far, as to bring his narration in a fair copy nearly to the end of the sixth century, illustrating and confirming his history byhis coins. This curious unfinished manuscript is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, in order to excite some able writer to carry it on, and complete the noble design of the author. His advancement in years hindering him from completing this work, he contented himself with committing to the press his “Viearia Leodiensis: or, The History of the Church of Leeds, &c.”, which was published in 1724, 8vo. The subject of this work being narrow and confined, he has enriched it with observations on the original of parochial churches, and the ancient manner of building them; as also on the' old way of passing estates by delivery of pledges, subscription of golden crosses, pendent seals, &c. and, besides the memoirs of many worthy divines successively vicars of Leeds, he has added the lives of the doc-, tors, Matthew Hutton, Edwyn Sandys, Tobie Matthews, John Thoresby, archbishops of York, and of Henry earl of Huntingdon. His character is thus given by his biographer: “However diligent he was in cultivating the laudable accomplishments of the gentleman and the scholar, yet he never suffered his beloved studies to interfere with his religion, but managed all his affairs in subserviency to it. He often lamented the great consumption of time, occasioned by the numerous visitants to see his museum, but took care that they should not hinder his private or public worship. In his principles, after his conversion, he was orthodox; in his affections, catholic, comprehending therein all denominations of Christians. He was modest and pure, temperate, and abstemious to an uncommon degree; though, being one of the lords of the manor, and a governing member 'of the corporation, he could not always avoid public meetings and festivities, yet he was a sparing partaker, even of innocent diversions. He was constant and regular at his private devotions, which were invigorated with an unusual degree of fervency. Ex emplary in the government of his family, he called them together morning and evening to prayer, and reading the Scriptures. Extremely careful of the religious instruction of his children, he was not unmindful of the moral behaviour of his servants. He was a kind relation, compromising the distressed affairs of some that were very near to him, by expensive journeys, irksome applications, and money almost beyond his abilities. He was very charitable to the utmost of his power, not seldom solicited others, and was always a faithful dispenser of whatever was entrusted to his care.”

, a miscellaneous writer of genuine humour, and the colleague of Mr. Colman in many of his literary labours, was the son of an apothecary, and born in Maiden-lane, London, in 1724. After the usual course of education at Westminster school, he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1743. The first publication in which he was concerned, was “The Student, or the Oxford Monthly Misrellany;” afterwards altered to “The Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Monthly Miscellany.” This entertaining medley appeared in monthly numbers, printed at Oxford, for Mr. Newbery, in St. Paul’s churchyard. Smart was the principal conductor, but Thornton and other >wits of both universities occasionally assisted. Thornton’s first attempt appeared in the first number, “The Comforts of a Retired Life,” an elegy in imitation of Tibullus. Mr. Thomas Warton was also a writer in the poetical department; and Dr. Johnson, probably at Mr. Newbery’s request, wrote his “Life of Cheynel,” in one of the latter numbers. The whole were afterwards collected and published in 1748, 2 vols. 8vo. In 1752 he began a periodical work entitled “Have at ye all, or the Drury Lane Journal,” in opposition to Fielding’s “Coventgarden Journal.” It contains some humorous remarks on reigning follies, but with too frequent mixture of personal ridicule. How long it lasted is uncertain. The copy before us contains only twelve numbers.

As an occasional writer, however, unfettered by times and seasons, Mr. Thornton was profuse in his contributions to magazines and newspapers. Scarce any popular topic offered of whatever kind, which did not afford him a subject for a pamphlet, an essay, a piece of poetry, or some whimsical paragraphs for the newspapers. His contributions to the Public Advertiser were very considerable, and when the St. James’s Chronicle was projected (and the first thought of it was imparted to him) he became a proprietor, and a valuable contributor. A collection of the best pieces of the first year of that paper was published at the close of it, under the title of “The Yearly Chronicle for 1761; or a collection of the most interesting and striking essays, &c. with a diary of events,” &c. This was handsomely printed in an octavo volume, but notwithstanding the convenience of the plan, and the popularity of the contents, it did not succeed so well as to encourage a continuation. About this time our author had it in contemplation to treat with Mr. Rich for the patent of Covent-gardeii theatre, but the negociation proved abortive. Ho had now given up all thoughts of the employment to which he was bred, and became an author by profession, and a general satirist, oor was it with his pen only that he exercised his humour. He projected an exhibition of sign paintings, a scheme which at first appeared preposterous, beyond all hopes of encouragement, but which actually took place at his house in Bow-street, Covent-garden. The object was to convey satire on temporary events, objects, and persons, and for some time it had considerable success. It was, however, one of those odd schemes which could not be expected to last, or to be repeated, and which the public, at a less good-humoured period, might in all probability be disposed to consider as an insult.

In such compositions Mr. Thornton’s imagination was particularly original and fertile, and so various that no writer has ever excelled in so many species of wit, both of the superior and inferior kinds, although his inclination and sometimes his subjects led him more frequently to the latter. What reputation this might have conferred, however, has been in a great measure lost, from his writing anonymously, and upon subjects that had no permanent interest with the public, and from no collection having been made of his pieces when they could be ascertained, and attributed to the proper author. Mr. Colman once announced to his friends, a design to collect all his partner’s works, but neglected it until his other engagements rendered it impracticable. In 1766 Thornton published two volumes, afterwards completed in five, of a translation of “Plautus,” in blank verse, assisted by Warner and Colman; a work, which, although not very successful, was generally approved, and Warburton said “he never read so just a translation in so pure and elegant a style.” In 1767 he published “The battle of the Wigs,” as an additional canto to Garth’s “Dispensary,” the subject of which was the dispute then subsisting between the fellows and licentiates of the college of physicians. This was followed by his “City Latin^” in ridicule of the inscription on Blackfriars Bridge. Besides these publications, he is said to have written the papers in the “Adventurer,” marked A.

, a topographical writer, whose writ* ings, where they occur, may probably excite some curi-r osity alter his name, was born in 1740. Of his early history we have no account. He was for many years parish clerk of St. Martin’s Leicester, and a man of fine natural parts, and much laudable curiosity. During the vicissi* tudes of a life remarkably checquered, he rendered himself conspicuous as a draughtsman and topographer. He attempted many expedients for the maintenance of a numerous family, few of which answered his purpose; and his last days would have been shaded with penury and disappointment, hut for the assistance of those friends who knew his worth, and justly appreciated him as a man of honesty, integrity, and merit. He died Feb. 3, 1803, ai>ed sixtythree, and is recorded, on a tablet over the vestiy door at Sl Ma tin’s, to have been “of a peaceable disposition; who lived respected, and died an humble member of the church of Christ.” His publications were, 1. “The Me* moirs of the Town and County of Leicester,” 1777, 6 vols. 12mo. 2. “Select Views in Leicestershire, from original Drawings,” 1789, 4to, 3. “A Supplementary volume to the Leicestershire Views, containing a series of Excursions, in 1790, to the villages and places of note in the county,” J 790, 4to. 4. “The History and Antiquities of the ancient town of Leicester,” 1791, 4to. 5. “Letters on the Roman Cloaca at Leicester,” 1793. It is almost needless to add, that all these works on Leicestershire have been since superseded by Mr. Nichols’s elaborate history of that county. 6. “Thoughts on the Provincial Corps raised, and now raising, in support of the British constitution at this awful period,” 1795, 8vo. 7. “Thoroton’s History of Nottinghamshire, re-published with large additions, and embellished with picturesque and select views of seats of the nobility and gentry, towns, villages, churches, and ruins,” 1797, 3 vols. 4to.

Hearne published “A discourse of the Dutye and Office of an Heraulde of Armes,” written by Thynne, the 3d day of March, 1605. In 1651 were printed his “Histories concerning Ambassadors and their Functions,” dedicated to his good friend William, lord Cobham. He continued the Chronicle, known by the name of Holingshed’s, finishing Uie annals of Scotland, from 1586 down to where they now end. He drew up a list of English cardinals, added to the reign of Mary I. He wrote the catalogue of English historical writers; but his “Discourses” upon the earls of Leicester, archbishops of Canterbury, lords Cobham, and the catalogue of the wardens of the Cinque ports, were suppressed. He also wrote the history of Dover Castle and the Cinque Ports; the genealogical history of the Cobhams; discourses of arms, concerning the Bath and bachelor knights; the history and lives of the lord treasurers, mentioned in a manuscript life of him in the collection of sir Joseph Ayloffe, barr. Numerous as these works are, yet there are various other literary productions of his: some of them are preserved in the Cotton library, others were possessed by Anstis, sen. garter. His heraldic collections are in the college of arms, and in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Some of his manuscripts are collections of antiquities, sepulchral inscriptions, taken by him from English churches, and elsewhere. He intended to have published an edition of Chaucer’s works, but declining that, gave his labours relative to it to Speght, who published them in his edition of that poet’s works, with his own notes, and those of his father, who printed an edition of this ancient writer in 1542. Thynne had meant to have written a comment upon the text, and some verses of his are prefixed to Speght’s edition.

As to his character, Horace, with whom he was intimately acquainted, as well as with the other wits of the Augustan age, gives him that of a fine writer and good critic:

, son of the rev. Richard Tickell, was born in 1686 at Bridekirk in Cumberland; and in April 1701 became a member of Queen’s college, in Oxford; in 1708 he was made M. A. and two years afterwards was chosen fellow; for which, as he did not comply with the statutes by taking orders, he obtained a dispensation from, the crown. He held his fellowship till 1726, and then vacated it by marrying in that year, at Dublin. Tickell was not one of those scholars who wear away their lives in closets; he entered early into the world, and was long busy in public affairs, in which he was initiated under the patronage of Addison, whose notice he is said to have gained by his verses in praise of “Rosamond.” He produced another piece of the same kind at the appearance of “Cato,” with equal skill, but not equal happiness. When the ministers of queen Anne were negociating with France, Tickell published “The Prospect of Peace,” a poem, of which the tendency was to reclaim the nation from the pride of conquest to the pleasures of tranquillity. Mr. Addison, however he hated the men then in power, suffered his friendship to prevail over the public spirit, and gave in the “Spectator” such praises of Tickell’s poem, that when, after having long wished to peruse it, Dr. Johnson laid hold on it at last, he thought it unequal to the honours which it had received, and found it a piece to be approved rather than admired. But the hope excited by a work of genius, being general and indefinite, is rarely gratified. It was read at that time with so much favour that six editions were sold. At the arrival of king George he sung “The Royal Progress;” which, being inserted in the *' Spectator,“is well known. The poetical incident of most importance in Tickell’s life was his publication of the first book of the” Iliad,“as translated by himself, in apparent opposition to Pope’s” Homer,“of which the first part made its entrance into the world at the same time. Addison declared that the rival versions were both good; but that Tickell’s was the best that ever was made; and with Addison those wits who were his adherents and followers, were certain to concur. Pope does not appear to have been much dismayed;” for,“says he,” I have the town, that is, the mob, on my side.“But he remarks, that it is common for the smaller party to make up in diligence what they want in numbers;” he “appeals to the people as his proper judges; and if they are not inclined to condemn him, he is in little care about the high-flyers at Button’s.” Pope did not long think Addison an impartial judge; for he considered him as the writer of TickelPs version. The reasons for his suspicion we shall literally transcribe from Mr. Spence’s collection. “There had been a coldness between Mr. Addison and me for some time; and we had not been in company together for a good while, any where but at Button’s coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day. On his meeting me there, one day in particular, he took me aside, and said he should be glad to dine with me at such a tavern, if 1 stayed till those people were gone (Budgell and Philips). We went accordingly; and after dinner Mr. Addison said * that he had wanted for some time to talk with me; that his friend Tickell had formerly, whilst at Oxford, translated the first book of the Iliad; that he designed to print it, and had desired him to look it over; that he must therefore beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book, because, if he did, it would have the air of doubledealing.‘ I assured him that < I did not at all take it ill of Mr. Tickell that he was going to publish his translation; that he certainly had as much right to translate any author as myself; and that publishing both was entering on a fair stage. I then added, that I would not desire him to look over my first book of the ’ Iliad,' because he had looked over Mr. Tickeli’s; but could wish to have the benefit of his observations on my second, which I had then finished, and which Mr. Tickell had not touched upon.‘ Accordingly I sent him the second book the next morning; and Mr. Addison a few days after returned it, with very high commendations. Soon after it was generally known that Mr. Tickell was publishing the first book of the ’ Iliad,‘ I met Dr. Young in the street; and, upon our falling into that subject, the doctor expressed a great deal of surprise at Tickell’ s having had such a translation so long by him. He said, that c it was inconceivable to him, and that there must be some mistake in the matter; that each used to communicate to the other whatever verses they wrote, even to the least things; that Tickell could not have been busied in so long a work there without his knowing something of the matter; and that he had never heard a single word of it till on this occasion.' This surprise of Dr. Young, together with what Steele had said against Tickell in relation to this affair, makes it highly probable that there was some underhand dealing in that business; and indeed Tickelt himself, who is a very fair worthy man, has since in a manner as good as owned it to me. [When it was introduced into a conversation between Mr. Tickell and Mr. Pope by a third person, Tickell did not deny it; which, considering his honour and zeal for his departed friend, was the same as owning it.]” Upon these suspicions, with which Dr. Warburton hints that other circumstances concurred, Pope always, in his “Art of Sinking,” quotes this book as the work of Addison. (See Pope, vol. XXV. p. 168.) When the Hanover succession was disputed, Tickeli gave what assistance his pen would supply. His “Letter to Avignon” stands high among party-poems; it expresses contempt without coarseness, and superiority without insolence. It had the success which it deserved, being five times printed. He was now intimately united to Mr. Addison, who, when he went into Ireland as secretary to the lord Sunderland, took him thither, and employed him in public business; and, when (1717) afterwards he rose to be secretary of state, made him under-secretary. ' Their friendship seems to have continued without abatement; for when Addison died, he left him the charge of publishing his works, with a solemn recommendation to the patronage of Craggs. To these works he prefixed an elegy on the author, which could owe none of its beauties to the assistance which might be suspected to have strengthened or embellished his earlier compositions; but neither he not Addison ever produced nobler lines than are contained in the third and fourth paragraphs, nor is a more sublime or more elegant funeral poem to be found in the whole compass of English literature. He was afterwards (in June 1724) made secretary to the lords justices of Ireland, a place of great honour; in which he continued till 1740, when he died April 23, at Bath. To Tickell cannot be refused a high place among the minor poets; nor should it be forgotten that he was one of the contributors to the “Spectator.” With respect to his personal character, he is said to have been a man of gay conversation, at least a temperate lover of wine and company, and in his domestic relations without censure.

, an ingenious writer, who first appeared as an author about 1778, in a poem entitled, “The Project,” is supposed to have been a descendant of the preceding, or rather of his brother Richard Tickel), esq. who was appointed secretary at war in 1724, and held that post till his death in 1740. Another account states that our author was the son of Richard Tickell, esq. who died in 1793, who was the son of Addison’s friend. Soon, after the appearance of Mr. Tickell’s “Project,” his “Wreath of Fashion” was published, and was allowed to have considerable merit. But that which raised him to immediate celebrity was his admirable political pamphlet, called “Anticipation;” in which, with the most successful humour, he imitated the manner of the principal speakers then in parliament, and defeated the force of the argument of the opposition, by preoccupying them. This appeared in 1778. Two other political pamphlets are attributed to him; namely, “The English Green-box,” 1779, and “Common-place Arguments,” in 1780. He produced also for the theatre, an alteration of Allan Ramsay’s “Gentle Shepherd,” which was acted at Drury-lane, in 1781; and “The Carnival of Venice,” a comic opera, written by himself, and acted the same year; but of these two pieces only the songs were printed.

In 1682, the dean gave the public, from the manuscript! of bishop Wilkins, a volume in 8vo, of fifteen sermons; which he introduced with a preface, in defence of that prelate’s character, against the reflections cast upon it in the “Historia & antiquitates universitatis Oxoniensis.” Thi* was printed in 1674, under the inspection of bishop Fell; who is supposed to have made the alterations and additions, which are seen in that edition of Anthony Wood’s work. The task of preparing “Dr. Barrow’s Sermons” for the press, which had employed the dean for several years, -and cost him as much pains as would have produced many more of his own, was now finished; and the edition published at London in 1633, folio. The laborious office of an editor of such voluminous writings as those of Barrow, undertaken by one who had many years before appeared to so much advantage as an original writer, was as clear an evidence of modesty, as it was of sincere friendship, in Dr. Tillotson. The discovery of the R\e house plot the same year opened a melancholy scene, in which he had a large share of distress, on account of his friendship for lord Russel. He and Dr. Burnet were sent for by that lord, and both attended him till his death: and it i* remarkable, that they both urged him to disown the principle of resisting the powers above, for which they were severely censured, an<l doubtless afterwards felt reason to censure themselves. He published a discourse against “eransuh-tantiation,” in the Utter end of king Charles’s reign, and another against “purgatory” in the beginning of king James’s. The former debate upon that doctrine gave occasion to several tracts on both sides of the question, pubii>hecl during the controversy with the papists, which subsisted through king James’s reign; and which produced so many pieces, that the vast collection, in three volumes, folio, published many years ago, under the direction of Gibson, bishop of London, is only a part of those written by protestants.

The king’s nomination of him to the archbishopric was agreed between them, as it appears, to be postponed till after the breaking up of the session of parliament, which was prorogued the 5th of January 1691; and then it was thought proper to defer it stiil longer, till the king should return from Holland, whither he was then going. He arrived at Whitehall the 13th of April, and nominated Tiilotson to the council on the 23d, who was consecrated the 31st of May, being Whitsunday, in Bow-church, by Mews, bishop of Winchester, Lioyd, bishop of St. Asaph. Burnet, bishop of Sarurn, Stillingrleet, bishop of Worcester, Iron* side, bishop of Bristol, and Hough, bishop of Oxford, in the presence of the duke of Norfolk, the marquis of Carmarthen, lord-president of the council, the earl of Devonshire, the earl of Dorset, the earl of Macclesfield, the carl of Fauconberg, and other persons of rank; and four days after his consecration was sworn of the privycouncil. His promotion was attended with the usual compliments of congratulation, out of respect either to himself or his station, which, however, were soon followed by a very opposite treatment froai the nonjuring party; the greatest part of whom, from the moment of his acceptance of the archbishopric, pursued him with an unrelenting rage, which lasted during his life, and was by no means appeased after his death. Before his consecration, the learned Mr. Dndwell, who was afterwards deprived of Camden’s historical lecture at Oxford, wrote him a letter, dated the 12th of May, to dissuade him from being, says he, “the aggressor in the new-designed schism, in erecting another altar against the hitherto acknowledged altar of your deprived fathers and brethren. If their places be not vacant, the new consecration must, by the nature of the spiritual monarchy, he null and invalid, and schisnuitical.” This letter of Mr. Dodwell was written with much greater mildness and moderation than another which was sent to the archbishop’s lady for him, and a copy of it to the countess of Derby, for the queen; and printed soon after. It called upon him to reconcile his acting since the Revolution with the principles either of natural or revealed religion, or with those of his own letter to lord iiussel, which was reprinted upon this occasion. The writer of it is said, by Dr. Hickes, to be a person of great candour and judgment, and once a great admirer of the archbishop, though he became so much prejudiced against him as to declare after his death to Dr. Hickes, that he thought him “an atheist, as much as a man could be, though the gravest certainly,” said he, “that ever was.” But these and other libels were so far from exasperating the archbishop against those who wt re concerned in dispersing them, that wht n some were seized on that account, he used all his interest with the government to screen them from punishment.

As good sense, sound reasoning, and profound knowledge, justly entitled archbishop Tillotson to the character of a great and excellent divine, so copiousness of style, and ease of composition, have made him also esteemed and admired as an orator. Yet a polite writer of our own country, Melmoth, in “Fitzosborne’s Letters,” cannot allow this to him, but, on the contrary, “thinks that no man had ever less pretensions to genuine oratory, than this celebrated preacher. One cannot indeed but regret,” says he, “that Dr. Tillotson, who abounds with such noble and generous sentiments, should want the art of setting them off with all the advantage they deserve; that the sublime in morals should not be attended with a suitable elevation of language. The truth, however, is, his words are frequently ill chosen, and almost always ill placed; his periods are both tedious and unharmonious; as his metaphors are generally mean, and often ridiculous.” He imputes this chiefly to his “having had no sort of notion of rhetorical numbers,” which seems, indeed, to have been in some measure the case and, as far as this can detract from the character of a complete orator, it is necessary to make some abatement: yet there is certainly great copiousness, and, as this gentleman allows, “a noble simplicity,” in his discourses. As for his language, notwithstanding some exceptionable passages with regard to the use of metaphors, incident to the best authors, Dryden frequently owned with pleasure, that, if he had any talent for English prose (as certainly he had a very great one), it was owing to his having often read the writings of archbishop Tillotson. Addison likewise considered Tiltotson’s writings as the chief standard of our language and accordingly marked the particular pbrases in the sermons published during his life-time, as the ground-work of an English dictionary, which he had projected. But there are some very just sentiments of Tillotson in one of Warbiirton’s letters, which deserve more attention. Tillotson, Warburton says, “was certainly a virtuous, pious, humane, and moderate man, which last quality was a kind of rarity in those times. His notions of civil society were but confused and imperfect, as appears in the affair of lord Russel. As to religion, he was among the class of latitudinarian divines. I think the sermons published in Iris life-time are fine moral discourses. They bear indeed the character of their author, simple, elegant, candid, clear, and rational. No orator in the Greek and Roman sense of the word, like Taylor; nor a discourser in their sense, like Barrow: free from their irregularities, but not able to reach their heights. On which account I prefer them infinitely to him. You cannot sleep with Taylor; you cannot forbear thinking with Barrow. But you may be much at your ease in the mi^lst of a long lecture from Tillotson: clear, and rational, and equable as he is. Perhaps the last quality may account for it.”

, an English deistical writer, was the son of a clergyman of Beer-ferres, in Devonshire, and born about 1657. He became a commoner of Lincoln college, m Oxford, in 1672, where he had the famous Dr. Hickes for his tutor, and thence removed to Exeter college. In 1676 he took the degree of bachelor of arts, and was afterwards elected fellow of All Souls college In 1679 he took a bachelor of laws degree; and in July 1685, became a doctor in that faculty. In the reign of James II. he declared himself a Roman catholic, but afterwards renounced that religion. Wood says that he did not return to the protestant religion till after that king had left the nation; but, according to his own account, he returned to it before that memorable epocha. In 1694 he published, at London, in 4to, “An Esay concerning obedience to the supreme powers, and the duty of subjects iti all revolutions; with some considerations touching the present juncture of affairs;” and “An Essay concerning the Laws of Nations and the right of sovereigns,” &c. He published also some other pamphlets on the same subjects, particularly one concerning the doctrine of the Trinity and the Athanasian. creed; but was first particularly noticed for a publication which came out in 1706, v\itn this title, “The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, against the Romish and all other priests, who claim an independent power over it; with a preface concerning the government of the Church of England, as by law established,” 8vo. Tindal was aware of the. offence this work would give, and even took some pleasure in it; for, as Dr. Hickes relates, he told a gentleman who found him at it with pen in hand, that “he was writing a book which would make the clergy mad.” Perhaps few books were ever published which they more resented; and, accordingly, numbers among them immediately wrote against it. 'Among the most distinguished of his answerers were, I. “The Rights of the Clergy in the Christian Church asserted in a sermon preached at Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, Sept. 2, 1706, at the primary visitation of the right reverend father in God, William lord bishop of Lincoln; by W. Wotton, B. D.” II. “The second pa/t of the Wolf stripped of Shepherd’s cloa thing, in answer to a late book entitled The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, published at London in March,” 1707. III. “Two treatises, one of the Christian Priesthood, the other of the dignity of the Episcopal Order, formerly written, and npw published to obviate the erroneous opinions, fallacious reasonings, and bold and false assertions, in a late book entitled The Rights of the Christian Church; with a large prefatory discourse, wherein is contained an Answer to the said book; all written by George Hickes, D. D.” London, 1707. IV. “A thorough examination of the false principles and fallacious arguments advanced against the Christian Church, Priesthood, and Religion, in a late pernicious book, ironically entitled The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, &c. in a dialogue between Demas and Hierarcha: humbly offered to the consideration of the nobility and gentry of England; by Samuel Hill, rector of Kilmington, and archdeacon of Wells.” London, 1707, 8vo. V. “Three short treatises, viz. 1. A modest plea for the Clergy, &c. 2. A Sermon of the Sacerdotal Benediction, &c. 3. A Discourse published to undeceive the people in point of Tithes, &c. formerly printed, and now again published, by Dr. George Hickes, in defence of the priesthood and true rights of the church against the slanderous and reproachful treatment of The Rights of the Christian Church,” London, 1709, 8vo. VI. “Adversaria; or truths opposed to some of the falsehoods contained in a book called The Rights of the Christian Church asserted,” c.; by Conyers Place, M. A. London, 1709, 8vo. VII. “A Dialogue between Timothy and Philatheus in which the principles and projects of a late whimsical book entitled The Rights of the Christian Church, &c. are fairly stated, and answered in their kinds, &c. written by a layman,” London, 3 vols. 8vo. Mr. Oldisworth was the author. Swift also wrote “Remarks” on Tindal’s book, which are in his works, but were left unfinished by the author. But, whatever disturbance this work might create at home, and whatever prejudices it might raise against its author, among the clergy of the church of England, some of the protestants abroad judged very differently, and even spoke of it in terms of approbation and applause. Le Clerc gave an account of it in his “Bibliotheque choisie,” which begins in these words: “We hear that this book has made a great noise in England, and it is not at all surprising, since the author attacks, with all his might, the pretensions of those who are called highchurchmen; that is, of those who carry the rights of bishops so far as to make them independent in ecclesiastical affairs of prince and people, and who consider everything that has been done to prevent the dependence of the laity on bishops, as an usurpation of the laics against divine right. I am far from taking part in any particular disputes, which the learned of England may have with one another, concerning the independent power and authority of their bishops, and farther still from desiring to hurt in any way the church of England, which I respect and honour as the most illustrious of all protestant churches; but I am persuaded that the wise and moderate members of this church can never be alarmed at such a book as this, as if the church was actually in danger. I believe the author, as himself says, had no design against the present establishment, which he approves^ but only against some excessive pretensions, which are even contrary to the laws of the land, ana* to the authority of the king and parlialiament. As I do not know, nor have any connection with him, I have no particular interest to serve by defending him, and I do not undertake it. His book is too full of matter for me to give an exact abridgment of it, and they who understand English will do well to read the original: they have never read a book so strong and so supported in favour of the principles which protestants on this side the water hold in common.”

, an English writer, one of the founders of modern Deism, was born Nov. 30, 1669, in the most northern peninsula of Ireland, in the isthmus of which stands Londonderry. His Christian name was Janus funius; but, the boys at school making a jest of it, the master ordered him to be called John, which name he retained ever after. Some say he was of a good family, but that his parents were Papists. This last particular we learn from himself; for he tells us, that he “was educated from his cradle in the grossest superstition and idolatry; but God was pleased to make his own reason, and such as made use of theirs, the happy instruments of his conversion for he was not sixteen years old when he became as zealous against Popery, as he ever since continued.” Others have affirmed, that his father was a Popish priest; and this seems to be the general opinion, although one of his biographers has somewhat hardily asserted, that “the contrary is notorious, and has been proved.”

Upon the passing of an act of parliament, in June 1701, for settling the crown, after the decease of king William and the princess Anne, and in default of their issue, upon the princess Sophia, electress dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants, Toland published his “Anglia libera, or, the limitation and succession of the crown of England explained and asserted, c.” 8vo; and when the earl of Macclesfield was sent to Haribver with this act, Toland attended him. He presented his “Anglia libera' 7 to her electoral highness, and was the first who had the honour of kissing her hand upon the act of succession. The earl recommended him particularly to her highness, and he stayed there five or six weeks; and on his departure he was presented with gold medals and pictures of the electress dowager, the elector, the young prince, and the queen of Prussia. He then made an excursion to the court of Berlin, where he had a remarkable conversation with M. Beausobre, upon the subject of religion, in the presence of the queen of Prussia. Beausobre communicated an account of it to the authors of the” Bibliotheque Germanique,“who printed it in that journal; and from thence we learn, that it was concerning the authority of the books of the New Testament, which Mr. Toland, with his usual self-sufficiency, undertook to question and invalidate. On the llth of November, 1701, a proclamation was issued out, for dissolving the parliament, and calling another to meet in December. While the candidates were making interest in their respective countries, Toland published the following advertisement in the Post-man:” There having been a public report, as if Mr. Toland stood for Blechingly in Surrey, it is thought fit to advertise, that sir Robert Clayton has given his interest in that borough to an eminent citizen, and that Mr. Toland hath no thoughts of standing there or any where else.“This advertisement afforded matter of pleasantry to an anonymous writer, who published a little pamphlet, entitled” Modesty mistaken: or, a Letter to Mr. Toland, upon his declining to appear in the ensuing parliament."

, a man of very considerable literary abilities, but more famous as a political adventurer, was the son of John Home, a poulterer in Newport-market, and was born in Newport street in June 1736. He was educated both at Westminster and Eton schools, and after remaining at these seminaries about five or six years, was sent to St. John’s college, Cambridge, in 1755, which he quitted in 1758, after taking his bachelor’s degree. Little seems to be known of his conduct or proficiency in his studies, but his future works showed that the latter could not have been neglected; nor have we much accurate information as to his proceedings when he left college, dates, evidently wrong, being assigned by all who have professed to give any account of him. We can only, therefore, say generally that he was for some time an usher at Mr. Jennings’s school at Blackheath, that he took deacon’s orders at the request of his father, who had probably given him a learned education with that view, and that he first served a curacy in Kent. His own choice is said to have been the law, for which he was well qualified, but he was unable to resist the importunities of his family, and therefore entered into the church, for which he undoubtedly was the most unfit man that ever disgraced the profession. This was a radical error in his outset, and eventually the cause of much of the obloquy which attended his life. It is, as a very acute writer has observed, very necessary to keep steadily in view, in order to form a correct and candid estimate of his character, “that he was from beginning to end, a man labouring under great, perpetual, irremoveable civil disabilities.” It was a real misfortune to a man of an enterprizing disposition, and one regardless, as Home Tooke was, of the means by which such a disposition may be indulged, to become a member of an order, in which propriety and duty enjoin a sparing and partial interference with the concerns of the world, and in which, if propriety and duty are found too feeble restraints, the law interposes with a strong arm, to curb profane activity and unprofessional exertions.

In 1775, Mr. Home having published an advertisement, accusing the king’s troops of barbarously murdering the Americans at Lexington, he was prosecuted and tried at Guildhall, where he pleaded his own cause; but even in those factious days, the libel was too gross for success, and being found guilty, he was sentenced to an imprisonment of twelve months in the king’s bench, and a fine of 200/, It was in consequence of this verdict, that he wrote a “Letter to Mr. Dunning,” which contained the germ of his subsequent philological work. In this, says the acute writer, whom we have already quoted, “he comes hot from the court of King’s Bench to discuss the nature of particles, of which, it seems, a shameful ignorance, on the part of the judges, had just been manifested in a verdict against him. His head is never clear from the politics of the day long enough to write five pages together without alluding to them: and he constantly rouses his readers from calm meditation upon the origin of but and to andyhwi, by smart epigrams upon the natural objects of his hostility, the prime minister and the chief justice for the time being.”

In spite of labour and dissipation his life was protracted to a period which indicated an originally sound and vigorous frame. For the last twenty years, however, he was subject to severe, distressing, and incurable infirmities. These he bore with a patience and firmness which it was impossible not to admire. What remains untouched of his character shall be given nearly in the words of a writer to whom we have already been indebted, and who appears, of all who have written on the subject, to have appreciated his character with most candour and impartiality.

Mr. Toup’s next work was the “Appendiculum notarum in Suidam,” 177.5, which may be considered as a fourth volume of his “Emendationes.” He closed his labours in 1773 by his edition of “Longinus,” which places his fame as a critic, on an imperishable basis. Indeed as a writer of profound learning, and singular critical sagacity, Mr. Toup must be acknowledged to rank wirli the most eminent men, in those departments. Dr. Buruey, uhose right to judge cannot easily be disputed, place* him as one of the seven pre-eminent scholars who were the critical luminaries of the eighteenth century. As his life was passed in literary retirement, his personal character was known to few. Hrefailings seem principally confined to his works, in which we are often led to lament an excess of conceit, and a petulant manner of noticing his contemporaries. He censured too freely, and praised too sparingly. In private life he was a kind neighbour, an indulgent master, and an affectionate and tender relation. He was a man, too, of great humanity, which he delighted to extend to the brute creation. We may suppose he also carefully attended to his duties as a parish priest, for, of all things, he expressed the greatest aversion to non-residence, and rejected every proposal to quit his situation upon such terms. Mr. Toup died Jan. 19, 1785, in the seventy-second year of his age, and was buried under the communion table in his church of St. Martin. He bequeathed his property to a half-sister, a widow, and her daughters, who lived with him. It was one of his whims, in his latter writings to call himself Joannes, instead of Jonathan Toup. Many additional particulars respecting this excellent scholar may be found in our authority.

, a French writer, and one of the Encyclopedists, was born at Paris in 1715, and was bred an advocate, but forsook the bar to cultivate general literature. In his youth he is thought to have been somewhat fanatical, as he wrote Latin hymns in praise of the abb Paris, at whose tomb extraordinary miracles were performed. (See Paris). An enthusiasm of a very opposite kind connected him with the philosophers who were exerting their powers against revealed religion, and in 1748 he contributed his first share by his book called “Moeurs,” or “Manners,” in which, although tolerably disguised, are some of those bold attacks, both on Christianity and morals, which afterwards appeared more plainly in the writings of his associates D'Alembert, Diderot, &c. This work procured him, however, a name in the world, although some have endeavoured to deprive him of it, by asserting that the work was written by an impious priest, and that Toussaint consented to bear the praise or blame. For this, however, there seems little foundation, if, according to the abbe Barruel, he afterwards publicly recanted his errors. In the mean time he published “Eciaircissemens sur les Mceurs,” 1764, which he meant as an apology for the former, but it was condemned by the parliament of Paris, and the author made his escape to Brussels, where he became editor of a French paper, devoted to the inte^ rests of the house of Austria. In this, of course, he treated the king of Prussia with little respect, even using the epithet, the “highwayman of the North,” and the philosopherking was not ignorant of this, but had been so much pleased with his book on “Manners,' 7 that he bestowed on him the professorship of logic and rhetoric at Berlin, where Tous* saint died in 1772. While there he published an excellent translation of Gellert’s Fables; and while in France had contributed some articles on jurisprudence to the Encyclopaedia, and assisted in a Dictionary of Medicine, published in 6 vols. folio. His” Mceurs" were translated into English about 1750.

, a political and miscellaneous writer, was born in Southwark, March 31, 1737, where his father was a dealer in second-hand books, the easy access to which gave his son a taste for reading, and enabled him at an early period of life to accumulate a fund of useful knowledge. He appears to have had no regular education, for when scarcely twelve years old, he was placed, as an errand boy, in the shop of a stationer under the Royal Exchange. With him he remained some years, until in 3754, he was bound apprentice to Mr. Robert Goadby, printer at Sherborne in Dorsetshire. During his first years here, he applied at his leisure hours to the Latin and Greek languages, and acquired a competent knowledge of both, and by carefully perusing the best books in other branches of learning, he very successfully supplied the want of a regular education, although he never could be reckoned a profound scholar in any pursuit.

Though an indefatigable writer, Mr. Townley never printed any thing but a dissertation on the Ribchester helmet, in the “Vetusta Monumenta” of the Society of Antiquaries. The reason of this reserve may partly have been much native delicacy of mind, and partly a consciousness that his English style was tinctured witl\ foreign idioms. Indeed, he never spoke his native tongue but with some hesitation, and had frequent recourse to French and Italian words to remove his embarrassment. He had much native delicacy of mind; a quality never more conspicuous than in the familiar, extenuating manner in which he spoke of his own antiquarian treasures: treasures such as the Medici might have boasted of.

, an English political writer, of the democratic cast, was descended of an ancient family, the son of sir John Trenchard, secretary of state to king William III. and was born in 1669. “”He had a liberal education, and was bred to the law, in which he was well skilled; but politics, and his place of commissioner of the forfeited estates in Ireland, which he had enjoyed in the reign of king William, took him from the bar, whither he had never any inclination to return. He was also rendered independent by the death of an uncle, and by his marriage, and determined to employ his time in political discussions. His first publication of this kind, in conjunction with Mr. Moyle, appeared in 1698, entitled “An Argument, shewing that a standing army is inconsistent with a free government, and absolutely destructive to the constitution of the English monarchy;” and, in 1698, “A short history of Standing Armies in England;” which two pamphlets produced several answers. In November 1720, in conjunction with Mr. Thomas Gordon, he began to publish, in the “London,' 7 and afterwards in the” British Journal,“a series of letters, under the name of” Cato,“upon various and important subjects relating to the public. These were continued for almost three years with very great reputation among those who were not very closely attached to the government or the church; but there were some papers among them, written by Mr. Trenchard, under the name of” Diogenes,“upon several points of religion, which were thought exceptionable, and animadverted upon, particularly by Mr. John Jackson, in a” Defence of human Liberty.“Dr. Clarke also wrote some animadversions upon Trenchard’s principles, but which were never published. They are inserted in the General Dictionary. Mr. Gordon afterwards collected the papers written by Mr. Trenchard and himself, and published them in four volumes, 12mo, under the title of” Cato’s Letters, or Essays on Liberty, civil or religions, and other important subjects;“the fourth edition of which, corrected, was printed in 1737. It was imagined at the time, that lord Molesworth had a chief, at least a considerable, hand in those letters; but Mr. Gordon assures us, in the dedication of them to John Milner, esq. that this noble person never wrote a line in them, nor contributed a thought towards them. As to the purport and design of them, Mr. Gordon says, that” as they were the work of no faction or cabal, nor calculated for any lucrative or ambitious ends, or to serve the purposes of any party whatsoever, but attacked falsehood and dishonesty in all shapes and parties, without temporising with any, doing justice to all, even to the weakest and most unfashionable, and maintaining the principles of liberty against the practices of boih parties; so they were dropped without any sordid composition, and without any consideration, save that it was judged that the public, after all its terrible convulsions, was become calm and safe. They had treated of most of the subjects important to the world, and meddled with public measures and public men only in great instances.“He wrote also in” The Independent Whig," another paper hostile to 'the hierarchy.

, an Italian poet, who endeavoured to reform the style of his country, was born at Vicenza, July 3, 1478, and was descended from one of the most ancient families of that place. It has been said that it was late in life before he began his studies, but as the same writer who gives us this information, adds that upon his father’s death, when he was only seven years old, he applied to them with spirit, it is evident he could not have lost much time. He was first educated at Vicenza, under a priest named Francis Gragnuola, and afterwards at Milan under the celebrated Demetrius Cbalcondylcs. To the memory of this last master, who died in 1511, Trissino erected a monument in the church of St. Mary at Milan, or us others say, in that of San Salvador, with an inscription. From the Greek and Latin language, he proceeded to the' study of mathematics, architecture, natural philosophy, and other branches which form a liberal education. In 1503 he married; and with a view to domestic happiness and literary retirement, went to reside on one of his estates, for he was left very opulent, at Criccoli on the Astego. Herv he built a magnificent house, from his own design, on which he employed one of his pupils in architecture, the afterwards justly celebrated Paliadio.

, a French poet and dramatic writer, was born in the castle of Souliers, in the province of la Marche, in 1601. When attached to the household of the marquis de Verncuil, natural son of Henry IV. he fought a duel, in which his antagonist, one of the guards, was killed, and fled for some time to England. Returning to Poitou, he found friends who obtained his pardon from Louis XIII.; and Gaston of Orleans made him one of his gentlemen in ordinary. His life became then divided between poetry, gallantry, and gaming, and he experienced all the reverses and vicissitudes to which such a life is exposed, many of which he had alluded to in his “Page disgracie,” a romance published in 16-13, 4to. He wrote much for the stage, and was seldom unsuccessful. His tragedy of “Mariamne” still keeps his reputation alive, although it was fatal to the actor, Mondori, who performed the character of Herod, and died of violent exertion. Tristan was admitted into the French academy in 1649, but always lived poor. He died Sept. 7, 1655, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. His dramas and other poems were primed in '') vols. 4to. There were two others of this name: John Baptist Tristan L'Hermite Souliers, who was gentleman of his majesty’s bedchamber, and brother to the preceding. He was author of the genealogies of several families; “L'Histoire geneologique cle la Noblesse de Touraine,” 1669, fol.; “La Toscane Francoise,” 1661, 4to; “Les Corses Francoise,” 1662, 12mo; “Naples Francoise,” 1663, 4to, &c. containing the history of such persons in those countries as have been attached to France. There was also John Tristan, son of Charles Tristan, auditor of accounts at Paris. He attached himself to Gaston of France, duke of Orleans, was well skilled in antiquity and medals, and published a “Historical Commentary on the Lives of the Emperors,” 1644, 3 vols. fol. a work full of curious observations; but Angeloni and father Sirmond found several faults in it, which Tristan answered with great asperity. He was living in 1656.

, a French abb of temporary fame, but who is upon the whole rather faintly praised by his countrymen, was born at St. Malo in Dec. 1697. He was related to the celebrated Maupertuis, who dedicated the third volume of his works to him. His first appearance as an author was in 1717, in his twentieth year, when he published in the French “Mercure,” his “Reflections on Telemachus,” which served to introduce him to La Motte and Fontenelle, who became afterwards not only the objects of his constant esteem, but of a species of idolatry which exposed him to the ridicule of the wits of his day. There are no memoirs of his education and early progress, but it appears that he was treasurer of the church of Nantes, and afterwards archdeacon and canon of St. Malo. For some time he lived in intimacy with cardinal Tencin, and visited Rome with him, but having no inclination to a life of dependence, whatever advantages it might bring, he returned to Paris, and employed his time in literary pursuits. His irreproachable conduct and agreeable manners procured him very general esteem as a man, but as a writer he never ranked high in the public opinion, and although very ambitious of a seat in the French academy, he did not reach that honour until 1761. About six years afterwards he retired to his native place, where he died in March 1770. His principal works were, I. “Essais de litterature et de morale,” 4 vols. 12mo, which have been often reprinted and translated into other languages. These essays, although the author was neither gifted with the elegance of La Bruyere, nor with the penetration of La Rochefoucault, contain much good sense and knowledge of books and men. 2. “Panegyriques ties Saints,” a work feebly written, but to which he prefixed some valuable reflections on eloquence. It was in this work he incurred the displeasure of Voltaire. He in general disliked the poetry of his country, and had not only the courage and imprudence to say that he thought it in general monotonous, but that he was unable to read even the “Henriade” of Voltaire without yawning. Voltaire resented this in a satire, entitled “Le Pauvre Diable,” but afterwards became reconciled to the abbe. 3. “Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de Messieurs de la Motte et de Fontenelle,” Amst. 1761. He was a contributor also to the “Journal des Savans,” and to the “Journal Chretien,” which was established in defence of religion against the infidel writers of that time.

, an ingenious English writer, was born in London Sept. 2, 1705, of a Somersetshire family; his father was a merchant, his mother was Judith, daughter of Abraham Tillard, esq. Both his parents died before he was two years old, and left him under the care of his grandmother Tillard and his maternal uncle sir Isaac Tillard, a man of strict piety and morality, of whose memory Mr. Tucker always spoke with the highest veneration and regard, and who took the utmost pains to give his nephew principles of integrity, benevolence, and candour, with a disposition to unwearied application and industry in his pursuits. He was educated at Bishop’s Stortford, and in 1721 was entered as a gentleman commoner in Merlon-college, Oxford, where his favourite studies were metaphysics and the mathematics. He there engaged masters to teach him French, Italian, and music, of which last he was very fond. In 1726 he was entered of the Inner Temple. Soon afterwards, and just before he came of age, he lost his guardian sir Isaac. He studied enough of the law to be useful to himself and his friends; but his fortune not requiring it, and his constitution not being strong, he was never called to the bar. He usually spent the summer vacations in tours through different parts of England, Wales, and Scotland, and once passed six weeks in France and Flanders. In 1727 he purchased Betchworth-castle with its estate. He then turned his attention more to rural affairs, and with his usual industry wrote down numberless observations which he collected in discourses with his farmers, or extracted from various authors on the subject. On the 3d of February, 1736, he married Dorothy, daughter of Edward Barker, esq. afterwards cursitor baron of the exchequer, and receiver of the tenths. By her he had three daughters, Dorothy, who died under three years old, Judith, and Dorothea- Maria, who, on the 27th of October, 1763, married sir Henry Paulett St. John, bart. and died on the 5th of May, 1768, leaving one son. Mrs. Tucker died the 7th of May, 1754, aged 48. As they had lived together in the tenderest harmony, the loss was a very severe stroke to Mr. Tucker. His first amusement was. to collect all the letters which had passed between them whenever they happened to be absent from each other, which he copied out in books twice over, under the title of “The Picture of artless Love;” one copy he gave to her father, who survived her five years, and the other he kept to read over to his daughters frequently. His principal attention then was to instruct his daughters; he taught them French and Italian, and whatever else he thought might be useful to them to know. In 1755, at the request of a friend in the west of England, he worked up some materials which he sent him into the form of a pamphlet, then published under the title of “The Country Gentleman’s Advice to his Son on the Subject of Party Clubs,” printed by Owen, Temple-bar; and he soon after began writing “The Light of Nature pursued,” of which he not only formed and wrote over several sketches before he fixed on the method he determined to pursue, but wrote the complete copy twice with his own hand; but thinking his style was naturally still and laboured, in order to improve it, he had employed much time in studying the most elegant writers and orators, and translating many orations of Cicero, Demosthenes, &c. and, twice over, “Cicero de Oratore.” After this he composed a little treatise called “Vocal Sounds,” printed, but never published; contriving, with a few additional letters, to fix the pronunciation to the whole alphabet in such manner, that the sound of any word may be conveyed on puper as exactly as by the voice. His usual method of spending his time was to rise very early to his studies, in winter bu ‘ning a lamp in order to light his own fire before his servants were stirring. After breakfast he returned to his studies for two or three hours, and then took a ride on horseback, or walked. The evenings in summer he often spent in walking over his farms and setting down his remarks; and in the winter, while in the country, reading to his wife, and afterwards to his daughters. In London, where he passed some months every winter and spring, he passed much time in the same manner, only that his evenings were more frequently spent in friendly parties with some of his relations who lived near, and with some of his old fellow collegiates or Temple friends. His walks there were chiefly to transact any business he had in town, always preferring to walk on all his own errands, to sending orders by a servant, and frequently when he found no other, would walk, he said, to the Bank to see what it was o’clock. Besides his knowledge in the classics and the sciences, he was perfectly skilled in merchant’s accompts, and kept all his books with the exactness of an accompting-house; and he was ready to serve his neighbours by acting as justice of peace. His close application to his studies, and writing latterly much by candle and lamp-light, weakened his sight, and hrought on cataracts, which grew so much worse after a fever in the spring, 1771, that he could no longer amuse himself with reading or writing, and at last could not walk, except in his own garden, without leading. This was a great trial on his philosophy, yet it did not fail him i he not only bore it with patience, but cheerfulness, frequently being much diverted with the mistakes his infirmity occasioned him to make. His last illness carried him off on the 20th of November, 1774, perfectly sensible, and as he had lived, easy and resigned, to the last. He published a pamphlet entitled a Man in quest of himself,“in reply to some strictures on a note to his” Free Will.“He had no turn for politics or public life, and never could be induced to become a candidate to represent the county of Surrey, to which his fortune, abilities, and character gave him full pretensions.” My thoughts,“says Mr. Tucker of himself,” have taken a turn, from my earliest youth, towards searching into the foundations and measures of right and wrong; my love for retirement has furnished me with continual leisure; and the exercise of my reason has been my daily employment." He once, however, was induced to attend a public meeting at Epsom in the beginning of the present reign, when party ran very high, and when sir Joseph Mawbey began to exercise his talent for poetry by a ballad on the occasion, in which he introduced Mr. Tucker and other gentlemen who differed from him in their opinions. So far from being hurt by this, Mr. Tucker was highly amused at the representation given of himself, and actually set the ballad to music.

, a learned English divine, but more celebrated as a political writer, was born at Laugharn, in Carmarthenshire, in 1712. His father was a farmer, and having a small estate left him near Aberystwith, in Cardiganshire, he removed thither; and perceiving that his son had a turn for learning, he sent him to Ruthin school in Denbighshire, where he made so great progress in the classics that he obtained an exhibition at St. John’s college, Oxford. The journey from his native place to the university was long, and at that time very tedious, on account of the badness of the roads. He travelled therefore for some time on foot, until old Mr. Tucker, feeling for his son’s reputation, as well as for his ease, gave him his own horse. But upon his return, young Josiah, with true filial affection, considered that it was better for him to walk to Oxford than for his father to repair on foot to the neighbouring markets and fairs, which had been the case, owing to this new regulation. The horse was accordingly returned; and our student, for the remainder of the time he continued at the university, travelled on foot backward and forward with his baggage at his back.

At the age of twenty-three he entered into holy orders, and served a curacy for some time in Gloucestershire. About 1737 he became curate of St. Stephen’s church, Bristol, and was appointed minor canon in the cathedral of that city. Here he attracted the notice of Dr. Joseph Butler, then bishop of Bristol, and afterwards of Durham, who appointed Mr. Tucker his domestic chaplain. By the interest of this prelate Mr. Tucker obtained a prebendal stall in the cathedral of Bristol; and on the death of Mr. Catcott, well known by his treatise on the deluge, he became rector of St. Stephen. The inhabitants of that parish consist chiefly of merchants and tradesmen, a circumstance which greatly aided his natural inclination for commercial and political studies. When the famous bill was brought into the House of Commons for the naturalization of the Jews, Mr. Tucker took a decided part in favour of the measure, and was, indeed, its most able advocate; but for this he was severely attacked in pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines; and the people of Bristol burnt his effigy dressed in canonicals, together with his letters on. behalf of naturalization . In 1753 he published an able pamphlet on the “Turkey Trade,” in which he demonstrates the evils that result to trade in general from chartered companies. At this period lord Clare (afterwards Ccirl Nugent) was returned to parliament for Bristol, which honour he obtained chiefly through the strerruous exertions of Mr. Tucker, whose influence in his large and wealthy parish was almost decisive on such an occasion. In return for this favour the earl procured for him the deanery of Gloucester, in 1758, at which time he took his degree of D. D. So great was his reputation for commercial knowledge, that Dr. Thomas Hayter, afterwards bishop of London, who was then tutor to his present majesty, applied to Dr. Tucker to draw up a dissertation on this subject for the perusal of his royal pupil. It was accordingly done, and gave great satisfaction. This work, under the title of “The Elements of Commerce,” was printed in quarto, but never published. Dr. Warburton, however, who, after having been member of the same chapter with the dean, at Bristol, became bishop of Gloucester, thought very differently from the rest of mankind, in respect to his talents and favourite pursuits; and said once, in his coarse manner, that “his Dean’s trade was religion, and religion his trade.” The dean on being once asked concerning the coolness which subsisted between him and ^Varburton, his answer was to the following purpose: “The bishop affects to consider me with contempt; to which I say nothing. He has sometimes spoken coarsely of me; to which I replied nothing. He has said that religion is my trade, and trade is my religion. Commerce, and its connections have, it is true, been favourite objects of my attention, and where is jthe crime? And as for religion, I have attended carefully to the duties of my parish: nor have I neglected my cathedral. The world knows something of me as a writer on religious subjects; and I will add, which the world does not know, that I have written near three hundred sermons, preached them all, again and again. My heart is at ease on that score, and my conscience, thank God, does not accuse me.” The fact is, that although there is no possible connection between the business of commerce and the duties of a clergyman, he had studied theology in all its branches scientifically, and his various publications on moral and religious subjects show him to be deeply versed in theology.

, a gentleman of an ancient family in Yorkshire, deserves honourable mention in this work, although we can say little as to his biography, as the first inventor of the drill-plough, and the first Englishman, perhaps the first writer ancient or modern, who attempted with any tolerable degree of success to reduce agriculture to certain and uniform principles. After an education at one of our universities, and being admitted a barrister of the Temple, he made the tour of Europe, and, in every country through which he passed, was a diligent observer of the soil, culture, and vegetable productions. On his return to England he married, and settled in a paternal farm in Oxfordshire, where he pursued an infinite number of agricultural experiments, till by intense application, vexatious toil, and too frequently exposing himself to the vicissitudes of heat and cold in the open fields, he contracted a disorder in his breast, which, not being found curable in England, obliged him a second time to travel, and to seek a cure in the milder climates of France and Italy. Here he again attended more minutely to the culture of those countries; and, having little else to do, he employed himself, during three years residence abroad, to reduce his observations to writing, with a view of once more endeavouring to introduce them into practice, if ever he should be so happy as to recover his health, and be able to undergo the fatigues of a second attempt. From the climate of Montpelier, and the waters of that salutary spring, he found in a few months that relief which all the power of physic could not afford him at home; and he returned to appearance perfectly repaired in his constitution, but greatly embarrassed in his fortune. Part of his estate in Oxfordshire he had sold, and before his departure had settled his family on a farm of his own, called Prosperous Farm, near Hungerford in Berkshire, where he returned with a firm resolution to perfect his former undertaking, having, as he thought, devised means during his absence to obviate all difficulties, and to force his new husbandry into practice by the success of it, in spite of all the opposition that should be raised by the lower class of husbandmen against it. He revised and rectified all his old instruments, and contrived new ones proper for the different soils of his new farm; and he now went on pretty successfully, though not rapidly, nor much less expensively, in the prosecution of his new system. He demonstrated to all the world the good effects of his horsehoeing culture; and by raising crops of wheat without dunging for thirteen years together in the same field, equal in quantity, and superior in quality, to those of his neighbours in the ordinary course, he demonstrated the truth of his own doctrine, that labour and arrangement would snpply the place of dung and fallow, and would produce more corn at an equal or less expence. But though Mr. Tull was successful in demonstrating that this might be done, he was not so happy in doing it himself. His expences were enhanced various ways, but chiefly by the stupidity of workmen in constructing his instruments, and in the awkwardness and wickedness of his servants, who, because they did not or would not comprehend the use of them, seldom failed to break some essential part or other, in order to render them useless. These disadvantages were discernible only to Mr. Tull himself; the advantages attending the new husbandry were now visible to all the world; and it was now that Mr. Tull was prevailed upon, by the solicitations of the neighbouring gentlemen who were witnesses of its utility, to publish his theory, illustrated by a genuine account of the result of it in practice, which he engaged to do, and faithfully performed at no trivial expence.

His first publication was a “Specimen” only, in 1731; which was followed in 1733 by “An Essay on Horse-hoeing Husbandry,” 1733, folio; a work of so much refutation, that it was translated into French by Mr. Du Hamel. From this time to 1739, he continued to make several improvements in his method of cultivating wheat; and to publish at different times answers to such objections as had been made to his husbandry by “those literary vermin that are as injurious to the agriculture of England, as the fly is to our turnips.” We use here the words of a noble writer, vvho condescended to prefix an advertisement to a posthumous publication of the late Mr. Francis Forbes, entitled “The extensive Practice of the New Husbandry,” 1778, 8vo, a work which endeavoured to revive the ideas and practice of Mr. Tull, who died Jan. 3, 1740, at his seat at Prosperous,

, a learned English divine and controversial writer, was born in St. Martin’s parish in the city of Carlisle, July 22, 1620, and was educated partly at the free-school there, and afterwards at Barton-kirk in Westmoreland. He was entered of Queen’s college, Oxford, in 1634, where Gerard Langbaine was his tutor, and attained a fellowship. In 1642 he was created M. A. and became master of the grammar-school at Tetbury in Gloucestershire; but this he seems to have accepted rather as a retreat, while Oxford was garrisoned during the rebellion, for after the surrender of the garrison, he returned to his college, and became a noted tutor and preacher, and in 1657 was admitted bachelor of divinity. He was soon after made principal of Edmund-hall, which he found almost empty, but raised it, as Wood informs us, to a state as flourishing as that of any hall in Oxford. After the restoration, he was created D. D. and was made chaplain to his majesty. He was also presented to the rectory of Griggleton, or Grittleton, near Malmsbury in Wiltshire, by Thomas Gore of Alderton, esq. who had been one of his pupils, and in 1675 the king conferred upon him the deanery of Rippon, which he did not long enjoy, as he died on January 14 following, 1675-6, at the parsonage house at Griggleton, and was interred in the chancel of that church.

There was another of this name, George Tully, son of Isaac Tully of Carlisle, who, we conjecture, was a nephew of the above Dr. Tully. He was educated at Queen’s college, Oxford, and was beneficed in Yorkshire. He died rector of Gateside near Newcastle, subdean of York, &c. in 1697. He was a zealous writer against popery, and was suspended for a sermon he preached and published in 1686, against the worship of images, and had the honour, as he terms it himself, to be the first clergyman in England who suffered in the reign of James II. “in defence of our religion against popish superstition and idolatry.” He was one of the translators of “Plutarch’s Morals,” “Cornelius Nepos,” and “Suetonius,” all which were, according to the phrase in use, “done into English by several hands.” Thomas Tully, author of the funeral sermon on the death of bishop Rainbow, which is appended to Banks’s Life of that prelate, was, we presume, of the same family as the preceding. He died chancellor of Carlisle about 1727.

His first work on the subject of plants was printed at Cologn, under the title of “Historia de naturis herbarum, scholiis et notis vallata,” 1544, 8vo. Bumaldus is the only writer who mentions this work, and it probably was not reprinted in England. It was followed by a small volume under the title of “Names of Herbes, in Greek, Latin, English, Dutch and French,” Lond. 1548. As his knowledge in natural history was not confined to botany, he published a treatise on birds, entitled “Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia,” Cologn. 1543, 8vo. By a letter of his prefixed to Gesner’s “Historia Animalium,” edit. 1620, relating to the English fishes, it appears that he had no inconsiderable degree of knowledge in that part of zoology. But the work which secured his reputation to posterity, and entitles him to the character of an original writer on that subject, in England, is his “History of Plants,” printed at different times, in three parts, in fol. with cuts, under the title of a “New Herbal,” Lond. 1551, part first; part second at Cologn, in 1562; with this was reprinted the first part, and his “Book on the Bathes of England and Germany.” These were reprinted, with a third part, in 1568. Dr. Pulteney has given a minute account of the contents and progress of this work, and observes, that when we regard the time in which Dr. Turner lived, and the little assistance he could derive from his contemporaries, he will appear to have exhibited uncommon diligence, and great erudition, and fully to deserve the character of an original writer. He also paid early attention to mineral waters, and to wines; and wrote on both subjects.

, a party writer in the reign of king James the second, very early in life became obnoxious to the government from the virulence of his writings. He was prosecuted for a political performance on the side of Monmouth, and being found guilty, was sentenced by Jefferies to be whipped through several market- towns in the west. To avoid this severe punishment he petitioned the king that the sentence might be changed to hanging. At the death of this unfortunate monarch he wrote an invective against his memory, which even the severity of his sufferings can hardly excuse. He was the author of “The Observator,” which was begun April I, 1702. Becoming obnoxious to the tories, he received a severe beating in August 1707, and died in much distress in the Mint, the 23d of September following, at the age of forty-seven. In some verses on his death he is called captain Tutchin. Besides political and poetical effusions, he wrote a drama entitled “The unfortunate Shepherd,” 1685," 8vo, which is printed in a collection of his poems.

, a miscellaneous writer of considerable talents, was one of the two sons of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the original embellisher of Vauxhall gardens, of which he was himself a joint proprietor till the end of the season of 1785, when he sold his share to his brother’s family. He was born in 1726, and being intended for one of the learned professions, was sent very early in life to the university of Oxford, where he entered of Exeter college, and was so young when he took his bachelor’s degree that he was called the boy bachelor. That of master of arts he completed in April 1745, when he was only nineteen. In 1753 he was admitted a student of the Inner Temple, and became, after he had kept his terms, a barrister in that house; but he tells us that, although his father hoped he would apply to the law, take notes, and make a figure in Westminster-hall, he never undertook any causes, nor went a single circuit. He loved his ease too much to acquire a character in that or any other profession. It is said that the character of Tom Restless (in the Idler, N 8 48) was intended by Dr. Johnson for Mr. Tyers, but he was certainly a man of superior cast to the person described under that name. It could not be said of Mr. Tyers that he sought wisdom more in conversation than in his library, for few men read more, and he was heard to say, not long before his death, that for the last forty years, he had not been a single day, when in health, without a book or a pen in his hand, “nulla dies sine linea.”

He began early to write, and when at college, or very soon after, published two pastorals, “Lucy,” inscribed to lord Chesterfield, and “Rosalind,” to earl Grenville. He was also the author of a great deal of vocal poetry, or what he called “sing song,” principally for Vauxhall-gardens; and the satisfactory description ofVauxhall, published in Mr. Nichols’s “History of Lambeth,” was drawriup by him. Having inherited from his father an easy fortune, and from nature an inclination to indulge in learned leisure, he was happily enabled “to see what friends and read what books he pleased.” He was, if any man could be said to be so, most perfectly master of his own time, which he divided at his pleasure between his villa at Ashted, near Epsom, and his apartments in Southampton-street. Indefatigable in reading the newest publications, either of belles lettres or politics, and blest with a retentive memory, he was every where a welcome guest; and, having the agreeable faculty of always repeating the good-natured side of a story, the anecdotes he retailed pretty copiously were rarely found either tedious or disagreeable. In the country he was considered by all the surrounding gentry as a man of profound learning, who had some little peculiarities in his manners, which were amply atoned for by a thousand good qualities both of the head and heart. In London he was in habits of intimacy with many whom the world have agreed to call both great and good. Dr. Johnson loved him, lord Hardwicke esteemed him, and even the mitred Lowth respected him. The literati in general had more regard for him than authors usually have for each other; as Mr. Tyers, though known for many years to have been a writer, was rather considered by them as an amateur than a professor of the art. He was certainly among the number of “gentlemen who wrote with ease;” witness hi* “Rhapsodies” on Pope and Addison; and particularly his Biographical sketches of Johnson, warm from the heart when his friend was scarcely buried, and which have not been exceeded by any one of our great moralist’s biographers. The “Political Conferences” of Mr. Tyers, however, will place him in a higher point of view; in that production, much ingenuity and sound political knowledge are displayed; and the work has received the plaudits it so well deserved, and passed through two editions. One part of Mr. Tyers’s knowledge he would have been happier had he not possessed. He had a turn for the study of medicine, and its operations on the human frame, which gave him somewhat of a propensity to hypochondriasm, and often led from imaginary to real ailments. Hence the least variation of the atmosphere had not unfrequently an effect both on his mind and body. The last year or two of his life were also embittered by the death of several near and dear friends, whose loss made a deep impression on his sensibility, particularly that of a very amiable lady, to whom he was once attached, and that of his only sister, Mrs. Rogers, of Southampton, who died but a few months before him. He died at his house at Ashted, after a lingering illness, Feb. 1, 1787, in his sixty-first year.

The publications of this excellent scholar were, I. “An Epistle to Florio (Mr. Ellis, of Christ-church) at Oxford,” Lond. 1749,4to. 2. “Translations in Verse; Pope’s Messiah; Philips’s Splendid Shilling, in Latin,” and “the eighth Isthmian of Pindar, in English,” 1752, 4to. 3. “Observations and Conjectures on some passages in Sbakspeare,” 1766, 8vo. Mr. Tyrwhitt afterwards communicated many judicious remarks on our national bard to Mr. Steevens and Mr. Reed for the editions of 1778 and 1785. 4 “Proceedings and Debates in the House of Commons in 1620 and 1621, from the original ms. in the library of Queen’s college, Oxford, with an appendix, printed at the Clarendon press, 1766, 2 vols. 8vo. 5.” The manner of holding parliaments in England; by Henry Elsynge, Cler. Par. corrected and enlarged from the author’s original ms.“Lond. 1768, 8vo. With a view to raise a spirit of research into ancient classical Mss. his first critical publication in literature was, 6.” Fragmenta duo Plutarchi, 1773, from an Harleian ms. 5612.“He observes himself of this, that it had no great merit, and was only published to stimulate similar inquiries. 7.” The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer,“in 4 vols. 8vo, to which he afterwards added a 5th volume in 1778. There has since been a splendid edition printed at Oxford in 2 vols. 4to. This is certainly the best edited English classic that has ever appeared. 8.” Dissertatio de Babrio, Fabularum jsopicarum scriptore. Inseruntur fabnlse quaedam Æsopese nunquam antehac editae ex cod.ms. Bodl. AcceduntBabriifragmenta. 1776.“The object of this publication, which, though small in sjze, evinced the greatest critical acumen, was to shew, that many of the fables which pass under the name of Æsop, were from another antient writer of the name of Babrius, whose fragments are preserved in Suidas in verse. 9.” Notes on Euripides,“which, in Dr. Harwood’s opinion, form the most valuable part of Musgrave’s edition, 1778. 10.” Poems, supposed to have been written at Bristol in the 15th century, by Rowley and others; with a preface, an account of the Poems, and a Glossary.“This was twice re-published in 1778, with an appendix tending to prove that they were written, not by any antient author, but by Chatterton. This became the subject of warm controversy, which, however, was settled, by 11” A Vindication of the Appendix to the Poems called Rowley’s, in reply to the dean of Exeter, Jacob Bryant, esq. and others, by Thomas Tyrwhitt.“Mr. Tyrwhitt’s next work was of a different kind, namely, 12.” Περι Λιθων; de Lapidibus, Poema Orpheo a quibusdam adscriptum, Græce et Latine, ex edit. Jo. Matthæi Gesneri. Recensuit, notasque adjecit, Thomas Tyrwhitt. Simul prodit auctarium dissertationis de Babrio.“Mr. Tyrwhitt in this critical work, refers the poem” on Stones“to the age of Constant! us. He next printed for his private friends, 13.” Conjecturas in Strabonem;“and be also superintended, 14.” Two Dissertations on the Grecian Mythology, and an examination of sir Isaac Newton’s objection to the Chronology of the Olympiads,“by Dr. Musgrave. For this work a very liberal subscription was raised for the doctor’s family, entirely by the exertions of Mr. Tyrwhitt, who had before given up to the widow a bond for several hundred pounds which the Doctor had borrowed of him. His last literary labour was, 15.” A newly discovered Oration of Isaeus against Menecles," which Mr. Tyrwhitt revised in 1785, and enriched with valuable notes, at the request of lord Sandys. These few specimens are from the Medicean Library, and are sufficient to shew Mr. Tyrwhitt’s powers, and to make us regret that his modesty declined the proposal made to him of directing the publication of the second volume of Inscriptions collected by Mr. Chishull, and first laid open to the public by the sale of Dr. Askew’s Mss. How he succeeded in the illustration of such subjects will best appear by that most happy explanation of the Greek inscription on the Corbridge altar, which had baffled the skill of all preceding critics, and will be a lasting proof how critical acumen transcends elaborate conjecture. (See Archseologia, vol. III. p. 324, compared with vol. II. pp. 92, 98.) Nor raust his observations on some other Greek inscriptions in Archseologia, vol. III. p. 230, be forgotten.

, a learned physician, the son of Edward Tyson, of Clevedon, in Somersetshire, gent, was born in 1649, and admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1667, where, after taking the degree of M. A. he entered on the study of medicine, was made fellow of the royal society, and proceeded M. D. at Cambridge in 1680. Soon after this he became fellow of the college of physicians, reader of the anatomical lecture in surgeons’ ­ball, and physician to the hospitals of Bethlevn and Bridewell, London, in which station he died Aug. 1, 1708. He was a skilful anatomist, and an ingenious writer, as appears by his essays in the Philosophical Transactions, and Mr. Hook’s collections. He published also “The anatomy of a Porpoise dissected at Gresham college,” Lond. 1680. “The anatomy of a Pigmy, compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man,” Lond. 4to, with a “Philosophical essay concerning the Pygmies of the ancients,” ibid.

, an ingenious writer on historical and miscellaneous subjects, was born at Edinburgh, Oct. 12, 1711. He was the son of Mr. Alexander Tytler, writer (or attorney) in Edinburgh, by Jane, daughter of Mr, William Leslie, merchant in Aberdeen, and grand-daughter of sir Patrick Leslie of Iden, provost of that city. He was educated at the high school, and at the university of Edinburgh, and distinguished himself by an early proficiency in those classical studies, which, to the latest period of his life, were the occupation of his leisure hours, and a principal source of his mental enjoyments. At the age of thirty-one, Mr. Tytler was admitted into the society of writers to his majesty’s signet, and continued the practice of that profession with very good success, and with equal respect from his clients and the public, till his death, which happened Sept 12, 1792.

Mr. Upton’s chief publication was an edition of Arrian’s “Epictetus,” printed at London, 1739 41, 2 vols. 4to. This Harwood accounts the most perfect edition that ever was given of a Greek ethical writer. There is his own copy of this edition in the possession of a gentleman of Exeter college, with his curte secundtf, written by him in the margins, and they are very copious and frequent. In 1758 he published an excellent edition of Spencer’s “Fairie Queene,” with a glossary and notes, explanatory and critical, 2 vols. 4to; and “Observations on Shakspeare,” of which Dr. Johnson, in his preface to his edition of that hard, gives no vry favourable opinion, nor indeed a just one.

, a writer of romances, was born February 11, 1567, at Marseilles, and was descended from an illustrious house of Forez, originally of Suabia. He was educated among the Jesuits, and sent to Malta, but returned to Forez. In 1574 Anne d'Urfé, his brother, married Diana de Chateau-Morancl, a rich lady, sole heiress of that bouse; but having procured his marriage to be declared null in 1596, he took the ecclesiastical habit, and Honore“d'Urfe, whose interest it was to keep Diana’s very large fortune in his own family, married her, about 1601. Their union did not however prove happy, for the lady, then above forty, had rendered herself otherwise disgusting by having her apartments always filled with great dogs, and as she brought him no children, he left her, and retired to Piedmont, where he died, 1625, aged fifty-eight. His principal work is a celebrated romance, entitled” L' Astrée,“4 vols. 8vo, to which Baro, his secretary, added a fifth. It was reprinted, 1733, 10 vols. 12mo, and was read throughout Europe at one time as the first work of the kind, and was perhaps relished by some from the notion that it contained an account of the gallantries of Henry the Fourth 1 s reign. His other works are: a poem, entitled” La Sirene,“I6.ll, 8vo;” Epitres morales,“1620, 12mo;” La Savoysiade,“a poem, of which only part is in print; a pastoral in blank verse, entitled” La Sylvaniere,“8vo, and some” Sonnets.“Anne d'Urfe”, his eldest brother, was count de Lyon, lived in a very exemplary manner, and died 1621, aged sixty-six. He also was a literary man, and has left “Sonnets,” “Hymns,” and other poetical pieces 5 1603, 4to.

, a writer distinguished for his skill in astronomy, was born at Henstedt in Dhhmarsen, which is part of the dukedom of Holstein, about 1550. He was a swineherd in his younger years, and did not begin to read till he was eighteen; and then he employed all the hours he could spare from his labours in learning to read and write. He afterwards applied himself to the study of the languages; and, having a good capacity and memory, made a very swift progress in Latin and Greek. He also learned the French tongue, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy; and most of them without the assistance of a master. Having left his native country, he gained a livelihood by teaching which he did in Denmark in 1584, and on the frontiers of Pomerania and Poland in 1585. It was in this last place that he invented a new system of astronomy, very little different from that of Tycho Brahe. He communicated it in 1586 to the landgrave of Hesse, which gave rise to an angry dispute between him and Tycho Brahe. Tycho charged him with being a plagiary; who, as he related, happening to come with his master into his study, saw there, on a piece of paper, the figure of his system; and afterwards insolently boasted, that himself was the inventor of it. Ursus, upon this accusation, wrote with great severity against Tycho; called the honour of his invention into question, ascribing the system which he pretended was his own to Apollonius PergsBUs; and made use of such language, as almost brought on prosecution. He was afterwards invited, by his imperial majesty, to teach the mathematics in Prague, from which city, to avoid the presence of Tycho Brahe, he withdrew silently in 1589, and died soon after. He made some improvements in trigonometry, and wrote several works, which discover the marks of his hasty studies; his erudition being indigested, and his style incorrect, as is almost always the case with those who begin their studies late in life.

, an ingenious writer, was the son of a gentleman-farmer in the county of Dublin, where he was born about 1720. He was descended from the venerable prelate of whom we have just given an account, but was of a Roman catholic family. He received a good classical education, though with no view to any of the learned professious. When grown up, he became a farmer, in imitation of his father, but after some years’ experience, had little success, and having sold his farm, stock, &c. settled for some time as a linen-draper in Dublin: for this business, however, he seems to have been as little qualified as for the other, and was a great loser. In truth he had that secret love of literature about him which generally inspired a train of thought not very compatible with the attention which trade requires: and finding himself, after some years, a widower with a family of four children, and but little prospect of providing for them in any business, he took orders in the church of Rome, sent his three sons for education to the college of Lombard in Paris, and his daughter to a monastery, where she soon after died. He then came to London, and while revolving plans for his support, and the education of his children, Mr. Molloy, an Irish gentleman, who had formerly been a political writer against sir Robert Walpole, died, and left him a legacy of three hundred pounds. With this money Mr. Usher thought of setting up a school, as the most likely way of providing for his sons; and with this view he communicated his intentions to the late Mr. John Walker, author of the Pronouncing Dictionary, and many other approved ' works on the construction and elegance of the English language. Mr. Walker not only approved the plan, but joined him as a partner in the business, and they opened a school under this firm at Kensington Gravel-pits. Mr. Usher’s acquaintance with Mr. Walker commenced during the former’s excursions from Dublin to Bristol, which latter place Mr. Walker’s business led him to visit occasionally. Their acquaintance soon grew into a friendship, which continued unbroken and undiminished to the close of Mr. Usher’s life. But the school these gentlemen were embarked in, did not altogether answer Mr. Walker’s purposes. Whether the profits were too little to divide, or whether he thought he could -do better as a private teacher, it is difficult to say; but Mr. Walker, after trying it for some time, quitted the connection, and commenced a private teacher, which he very successfully continued to the last. They parted, however, with the same cordiality they commenced, and the civilities and friendships of life were mutually continued.

, in German Von Watte, one of the most learned men of his nation or time, was born at St. Gal, Nov. 29, 1484, of which city his father, Joachim Von Watte, was a senator. After some education at home he was sent to Vienna to pursue the higher studies, but for some time entered more into the gaieties of the place, and was distinguished particularly for his quarrels and his duels, until by the sensible and affectionate remonstrances of a merchant of that city, to whose care his father had confided him, he was induced to devote his whole time and attention to books, and never relapsed into his former follies. When he had acquired a competent share of learning he wished to relieve his father from any farther expence, and with that honourable view taught a school at Villach, in Carinthia; but finding this place too remote from literary society, he returned to Vienna, and in a short time was chosen professor of the belles lettres, and acquitted himself with such credit, and gained such reputation by some poetry which he published, that the emperor Maximilian I. honoured him with the laurel crown at Lintz in 1514. After some hesitation between law and physic, both of which he had studied, he determined in favour of the latter, as a profession, and took his doctor’s degree at Vienna in 1518. He appears to have practised in that city, and afterwards at St. Gal, until the controversies arose respecting the reformation. After examining the arguments of the contending parties, he embraced the cause of the reformers; and besides many writings in favour of their principles, befriended them in his rank of senator, to which he had been raised. In 1526 he was farther promoted to the dignity of consul of St. Gal, the duties of which he performed so much to the satisfaction of his constituents that he was re-elected to the same office seven times. He died April 6, 1551, in his sixty-sixth year. He bequeathed his books to the senate of St. Gal, which were ordered to be placed in the public library of the city, with an inscription, honourable both to his character and talents. The latter were very extensive, for he was well versed and wrote well on mathematics, geography, philosophy, and medicine. He was also a good Latin poet, and, above all, a sound divine and an able controversial writer. Joseph Scaliger places him among the most learned men of Germany. He was intimate with our illustrious prelate, archbishop Cranmer, but preceded him in some of the doctrines of the reformation. About 1536 he wrote a book entitled “Aphorismorum libri sex de consideratione Eucharistiae,” &c. which was levelled at the popish doctrine of the corporal presence, and thinking it a proper work for the archbishop to patronize, presented it to him; but Cranmer had not yet considered the question in that view, and therefore informed Vadian that his book had not made a convert of him, and that he was hurt with the idea of being thought the patron of such unscriptural opinions. Vadian therefore pursued the subject at home, and wrote two more volumes on it. The only medical work he published was his “Consilium contra Pestem, Basil, 1546, 4to. Those by which he is best known in the learned world, are, 1. A collection of remarks on various Latin authors, in his” Epistola responsoria ad Rudulphi Agricolas epistolam,“ibid. 1515, 4to. 2. His edition of” Pomponius Mela,“first printed at Vienna in 1518, fol. and often reprinted. 3.” Scholia qoaedam in C. Plinii de Nat. Hist, librum secundum,“Basil, 153 1, fol. 4.” Chronologia Ablmtum Monasterii St.Galli“”De obscuris verborum significationibus epistola;“” Farrago antiquitatum Alamannicarum,“&c. and some other treatises, which are inserted in Goldnst’s” Alamanniae Scnptores."

, author of the heretical sect called Valeutinians, was an Egyptian, and, according to Danaeus, was educated at Alexandria. He aspired to the episcopal dignity; but being set aside by another, who was afterwards martyred, he formed the design to oppose the true doctrine of Christ. He came to Rome A.D. 140, during the pontificate of Hyginus, and there created great disturbances. In 143, he was censured by the church, and excluded the congregation; which was so far from humbling him, that he retired into Cyprus, where he propagated his erroneous doctrines with still greater boldness: He was learned, eloquent, and had studied the Grecian language, particularly the Platonic philosophy. Thus, from nice and witty, or sophistical, distinctions, mixing the doctrine of ideas, and the mysteries of numbers with the Theogony of Hesiod, and the Gospel of St. John, which was the only one received by him, he formed a system of religious philosophy, not very different from that of Basilides and the Gnostics, and in some respects more absurd than either. The rise of his heresy was in the reign of Adrian. Fleury places it A. D. 143, as do Danasus, Tillemont, and Echard. Valentine himself died A.D. 160. His errors spread at Rome, in Gaul, and Syria, but particularly in the Isle of Cyprus and Egypt, and continued until the fourth century. Bishop Hooper, in his tract “De Haeresi Valentiniana,” has deduced this heresy from the Egyptian mysteries. Irenseus was the principal writer against Valentinus, to whom may be added Tertullian, Clemens Alexandriuus, &c. and among the moderns, Buddeus “Dissert. de hreresi Valentiniana.” The author of this heresy is said to have at last abjured his errors, and was received into the church again, but we have no farther account of his personal history.

, a botanical and medical writer, was born at Giessen in Germany, Nov. 26, 1657, and having studied medicine, became a professor of the science in his native place, where he died March 13, 1726. He wrote a great many works on the subject of his profession, but is thought to have succeeded best in those which concern botany. Among his writings of both kinds are, 1. “Historia simplicimn reformata, Francfort, 1716, fol. 1726, both with plates. 2.” Amphitheatrurn Zootomicum,“ibid. 1720, fol. This was Becker’s translation from the original, published in German in 1704 1714, 3 vols. fol. and subjoined is a life of Valentinus, written in verse by himself. 3.” Medicina nova-antiqua,“ibid. 1713, 4to. 4.” Cynosura materiiE medicse,“Strasburgh, 1726, 3 vols. 5.” Viridarium reformatum,“Francfort, 1720, fol. with fine plates. 6.” Corpus juris medicolegale,“ibid. 1722, fol.; but this appears to be a second edition of his” Novellaj Medico-legales,“printed in 1711, 4to, and contains many curious cases and questions which illustrate the state of medical jurisprudence at a time when it was not much freed from superstition and credulity. Valentinus published also a” Praxis medicinae infallibilis,“in which he describes the filtering-stone now so well known; and another work, giving a history of philosophy,” Armamentarium Naturae systematic am, seu Introductio ad philosophiam modernorum naturalem,“Giessen, 4to. To this he adds an abridgment of the most remarkable papers on natural history from the transactions of the society” Naturae Curiosorum."

, an ancient Latin writer, of whom remain “libri novem factorum dictorumque memorabilium,” dedicated to Tiberius Caesar, appears to have been a Roman, and lived under the reign of Tiberius Caesar, probably about 32 of the Christian usra; for, he treats the memory of Sejanus with scorn and abhorrence, though he does not expressly mention him. His style is not so pure as might be expected from the age he lived in; and therefore many learned men conjectured, that what we have is not the original work, but only an epitome made by some later writer. Fabricius calls it “opus jucundum, varium, utiLe,” as indeed it is; and many eminent critics have employed their lucubrations upon it. The first edition, of uncommon rarity and price, is that printed atMentz, 1471, fol. It was reprinted at Venice in the same year. The best editions since are, that by Thysius “cum Notis Variorum,” 1670, 8vo; that “in usum Delphini,” 1679, 4to; that by Torrenius at Leyden, 1726, in 2 vols. 4to, “cum notis integris Lipsii, Pighii, Vorstii, Perizonii, &c.” and that by Kappius, at Leipsic, 1782, 8vo.

, a French miscellaneous writer, was born in 1653, of a good family, at St. Quentin in Picardy. He became secretary to the king’s closet, to the marine, a member of the French academy, an honorary member of the academy of sciences, and historiographer to his majesty. M. de Valincour had collected a great number of very curious and important memoirs respecting marine affairs; but these Mss. were consumed with his library by a fire, which burnt his house at St. Cloud in the night, between the thirteenth and fourteenth of January, 1725. He died January 5, 1730, at Paris, aged seventy. His works are, A Criticism on the romance of the princess of Cleves, entitled “Lettres a Madame la Marquise de sur le sujet de la Princesse de Cleves,” Paris, 1678, 12mo, which is much esteemed. A good “Life of Francis de Lorraine, duke of Guise,” 1681, 12mo. “Observations critiques sur PCEdipe de Sophocle,” and several short poetical pieces in Pere Boiihours’ collection.

As Valla had formerly entertained thoughts of a clerical life, he declined forming any matrimonial engagement, but is reproached by Poggio with having debauched his sister’s husband’s maid, by whom he had three children, and of whom he speaks, for he does not deny this charge, with tenderness and affection. He afterwards became a canon of St. John Lateran, and secretary and apostolical writer to the pope. He died in 1457, in his fiftieth year, and was buried in the church of which he was canon, where there is a monument and inscription, the latter wrong in stating his death to have happened in 1465. Of all his writings his “Elegantiae linguae Latinos” only serves now to preserve him in the rank of eminent schotars of his time. His irritable temper rendered his life a perpetual literary warfare, but at no time were the quarrels of authors more disgraceful than at the revival of literature.

Thus far the satirist was well founded party-rage warped his understanding when he censured Vanbrugh’s plays, and left him no more judgment to see their beauties than sir John had when he perceived not that they were the only beauties he was formed to compose.“Walpole, perhaps, was not aware of the handsome apology Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope have made, in the joint preface to their miscellanies” In regard to two persons only we wish our raillery, though ever so tender, or resentment, though ever so just, had not been indulged. We speak of sir John Vanbrugh, who was a man of wit, and of honour; and of Mr. Addison, whose name deserves all the respect from every lover of learning.“And notwithstanding Walpole’s own contribution of wit and flippancy to depreciate the character of Vanbrugh’s Blenheim and Castle-Howard, we are far more inclined to the opinion of our illustrious artist and elegant writer, str Joshua Reynolds, delivered, as it is, with the modesty that distinguishes, however seldom it accompanies, superior genius.” In the buildings of Vanbrugh, who was a poet as well as an architect, there is a greater display of imagination than we shall find, perhaps, in any other; and this is the ground of the effect we feel it) many of his works, notwithstanding the faults with which many of them are charged. For this purpose Vanbrugh appears to have had recourse to some principles of the Gothic architectore, which, thoueh not so ancient as the Grecian, is more so to

, a learned writer, was born in Holland, Nov. 8, 1638. He early discovered an eager taste for acquiring the languages, which, for some time, his parents obliged him to give up for the more profitable pursuit of commerce. He, however, resumed his studies when about thirty years of age, acquired skill in Greek and Latin antiquities, and took his degrees in physic, which science he practised with success. He was also for some time a preacher in the sect of the Mennonites (a species of Anabaptists: see Menno) and seems, upon the whole, to have cultivated theological as much as medical studies. The latter, however, were not neglected, and he died at Harlem, physician to the hospital in that city, November 28, 1708. He wrote in Latin some learned dissertations “on the Heathen Oracles,” Amsterdam, 1700, 4to, in which he maintained that they were frauds of the idolatrous priests. Fontenelle has given an excellent abridgment of this work in French in his treatise “des Oracles.”; Van-Dale also published a treatise on the “Origin and progress of Idolatry,” 169G, 4to; “Dissertatio super Aristea, de 70 interpretibus,” Amsterdam, 1705, 4to, and “Dissertations” on important subjects, 1712, 4to, and 1743, 4to. All his works discover deep learning and great critical skill; but are defective in order and method.

, a writer who has generally been distinguished by the title of Atheist, was born at Tourosano, in the kingdom of Naples, in 1585; and was the son of John Baptist Vanini, steward to Don Francis de Castro, duke of Tourosano, and viceroy of Naples. His Christian name was Lucilio: but it was customary with him to assume different names in different countries. In Gascony, he called himself Pompeio; in Holland, Julius Ceesar, which name he placed in the title-pages of his books; and, at Toulouse, when he was tried, he was called Lucilio. He had an early taste for literature, and his father sent him to Rome to study philosophy and divinity, and on his return to Naples, he continued his studies in philosophy, and applied himself some time to physic. Astronomy likewise employed him much, which insensibly threw him into the reveries of astrology: but he bestowed the principal part of his time upon divinity. The title of “Doctor in utroque Jure,” which he assumes in the title-page of his dialogues, may indicate that he had applied himself to the civil and canon law; and from his writings, it certainly appears that he understood both. He finished his studies at Padua, where he resided some years, and procured himself to be ordained priest, and became a preacher, with what success is not known. His mind appears to have been perverted or confused by the reading of Aristotle, Averroes, Cardan, and Pomponatius, who became his favourite guides. His admiration of Aristotle was such, that he calls him “the god of philosophers, the dictator of human nature, and the sovereign pontiff of the sages.” The system of Averroes, which is but a branch of that of Aristotle, was so highly approved of by him, that he recommended it to his scholars at their first entrance upon the study of philosophy. He styles Pomponatius his “divine master,” and bestows great encomiums upon his works. He studied Cardan very much, and gives him the character of “a man of great sense, and not at all affected with superstition.” It is supposed that he derived from these authors those infidel doctrines which he afterwards endeavoured to propagate. Father Mersene assures us, that Vanini, before he was executed at Toulouse, confessed to the parliament, that at Naples he had agreed with thirteen of his friends to travel throughout Europe, for the sake of propagating atheism, and that France had fallen to his share: but this is very improbable, as the president Gramond, who was upon the spot, says nothing of such a scheme in his account of Vanini’s trial and execution. It is more probable, that his inclination to travelling, or perhaps the hopes of procuring an agreeable settlement, led him to the several places through which he passed; and that he spread his singular sentiments according as he had opportunity.

At his return to his own country he was received with unusual respect, and soon after painted the representation of the Terrestrial Paradise, which procured him great honour, and a picture of the Deluge, which was highly applauded for the composition and expression, as it described all the passions of grief, fear, terror, horror, and despair, with a sensible and affecting variety. In general he was esteemed a good painter of landscape; the choice in his trees was judicious, his figures were well designed, his colouring was agreeable, and his composition full of spirit; though, in the advanced part of his life he appeared to have somewhat of the mannerist. This artist distinguished himself not only as a painter, but as a writer. He composed tragedies and comedies, which were acted with applause; and, what is very uncommon, he painted also the decorations of the theatre. At Haerlem he introduced an academy, to diffuse among his countrymen a taste for the Italian masters; and the world is indebted eminently to Van Mander for searching out, and transmitting to posterity, the characters and merits of so many memorable artists as are comprised in his “Lives of the Painters.” He died in 1605, aged fifty-eight.

, a French writer, more known than esteemed for several historical works, was descended from a good family, and born at Gueret in 1624. After a liberal education, of which he made the proper advantage, he became a private tutor to some young persons of quality; and then went to Paris, where he was well received as a man of letters, and had access to the Dupuy’s, whose house was the common rendezvous of the learned. He obtained afterwards a place in the kings’ library, by his interest with Nicolas Colbert, who was made librarian after the death of James Dupuy in 1655. Mr. Colbert, afterwards minister of state, commissioned his brother Nicolas to find out a man capable of collating certain manuscripts. Varillzte was recommended, and had the abbe" of St. Real for his coadjutor; and handsome pensions were settled upon both. But whether Varillas was negligent and careless, or had not a turn for this employment, he did not give satisfaction, and was therefore dismissed from his employment in 1662; yet had his pension continued till 1670. He then retired from the royal library, and spent the remainder of his days in study, refusing, it is said, several advantageous offers. He lived frugally and with oeconomy, and yet not through necessity, for his circumstances were easy. St. Come was the seat of his retirement; where he died June 9, 1696, aged seventy-two.

, usually styled the most learned of all the Romans, was born in the year of Rome 638, or 28 B.C. His immense learning made him the admiration of his time; which yet was the most flourishing for arts and glory that Rome ever knew. He was an intimate friend of Cicero; and his friendship was confirmed and immortalized by a mutual dedication of their learned works to each other. Thus Cicero dedicated his “Academic Questions” to Varro; and Varro dedicated his “Treatise on the Latin tongue” to Cicero, who, in a letter in which he recommends him as questor to Brutus, assures the commander, that he would find him perfectly qualified for the post, and particularly insists upon his good sense, his indifference to pleasure, and his patient perseverance in business. To these virtues he added uncommon abilities, and large stores of knowledge, which qualified him for the highest offices of the state. He attached himself to the party of Pompey, and in the time of the triumvirate was proscribed with Cicero: and, though he escaped with his life, he suffered the loss of his library, and of his own writings; a loss which would be severely felt by one who had devoted a great part of his hfe to letters. Returning, at length, to Rome, he spent his last years in literary leisure. He died in the 727th year of the city. His prose writings were exceedingly numerous, and treated of various topics in antiquities, chronology, geography, natural and civil history, philosophy, and criticism. He was, besides, a poet of some distinction, and wrote in almost every kind of verse. He is said to have been eighty when he wrote his three books “De Re Rustica,” which are still extant. Five of his books “De Lingua Latina,” which he addressed to Cicero, are also extant, and some fragments of his works, particularly of his “Menippean Satires,” which are medleys of prose and verse. Scaliger has likewise collected some of his epigrams from among the “Catalecta Virgilii. The first edition of Varro” De Lingua Latina“is a quarto, without date or place, but supposed to be Rome, 1471. There is a second, at Venice, 1474, 4to, and a third at Rome, 1474, fol. His whole works, with the notes of Scaliger, Turnebus, &c. were printed by Henry Stephens, 1573, 8vo, reprinted 1581; but the former edition is in greatest request among the curious, on account of a note of Scaliger' s, p. 212, of the second part, which was omitted in the subsequent editions. Varro” De Re Rustica“is inserted among the” Auctores de Re Rustica." The use which Virgil makes of this work in his Georgics entitles it *o some respect; and it is amusing as giving us a notion of the agriculture of his time, and the method of laying out gardens, and providing the luxuries of the table, in which the Romans were particularly extravagant. It contains many absurdities, however, and many of those remarks and pieces of information which would now be thought a disgrace to the meanest writer on agriculture. The rev. T. Owen, of Queen’s college, Oxford, and rector of Upper Scudamore, in Wiltshire, published a good translation of this work in 1800, 8vo.

, an elegant French writer, was born of an ancient family at Chamberry in 1585. His father Antoine Favre, or Antony Faber, was first president of the senate of Chamberry, and published several learned works upon law-subjects. (See Favre.) Vaugelas was sent to the court very young, and there spent his whole life. He was gentleman in ordinary, and afterwards chamberlain, to the duke of Orleans, whom he attended in all his retreats out of the kingdom, and was afterwards governor to the children of prince Thomas. He had a pension from the crown early settled on him; but it never was paid him till Cardinal Richelieu employed the French academy upon forming a dictionary of the language. On that occasion the academy represented to the cardinal, that the only way to have one well executed, was to commit the chief management of it to Vaugelas. His pension was then re-established and punctually paid. But, although he had other advantages besides this, and a handsome patrimony from his father, and was not a man of luxury or extravagance, yet when he died in 1605, he did not leave enough to satisfy his creditors.

, a Latin poet and moral writer, was the son of Walter Vaughan, of the Golden Grove, in Carmarthenshire, esq. and younger brother to sir John Vaughan, first earl of Carbery, and patron of bishop Jeremy Taylor. He was born at Golden Grove in 1577, and became a commoner of Jesus college, Oxford, in 1591, where he took his degrees in arts. The fruits of his scholastic attainments began to appear uncommonly early, as he was only in his fifteenth year when he prepared for printing an easy paraphrase of Persius in English and Latin; and his publications which appeared in 1597 and 1598 bespeak a prematurity of genius. After taking his degrees in arts, he applied to the study of the law, but before he proceeded in that faculty, set out on his travels, and at Vienna performed the necessary exercises for a doctor’s degree, in which he was incorporated at Oxford in 1605. He afterwards appears to have meditated a settlement in Cambriol, Newfoundland, where he was living in 1628, but the time of his death is not mentioned. His Latin poems are, 1. the “Song of Solomon, and some of the Psalms,” translated, Lond. 1597. 2. “Varia Poemata de Sphaerarum online,” 1589, 8vo. 3. “Poemata continent. Encom. Roberti Comitis Essex,” 1598, 8vo. 4. “Cambrensium Caroleia,” &c. a poem on the nuptials of Charles I. 1625 or 1630, 8vo. His English works are, “The Golden Grove, moralized in three books,” 1608, 8vo, which seems to have suggested to bishop Taylor the title of one of his most popular works; and “The Golden Fleece,” 1626, 4to: both works of the moral kind, and replete with observations on the manners of the times, and the principal personages. A particular account of both is given in the “Bibliographer,” vol. II. by which it appears that Vaughan had translated a part of Boccalini’s Advices from Parnassus, and had published “Circles called the Spirit of Detraction, conjured and convicted,” and “Commentaries upon, and paraphrase of, Juvenal and Persius,” all in early life.

, a French writer of considerable talents, was the son of John Vauvilliers, professor of rhetoric in the university of Paris, and of Greek in the royal college, who is known to the learned world by several Latin dissertations, particularly one “De praestantia Grsecarum literarum,” &c. He was born about 1736, and applied so diligently to his studies that he was able to assist his father in his rhetorical lectures. In 1767 he was appointed assistant to Vatry, the Greek professor in the royal college, and succeeding him, held that office for twenty years. On the commencement of the revolution he joined the revolutionists, and was for some time president of the first commune of Paris, and lieutenant to the mayor. In this office he had the care of furnishing Paris with'provisions, which he performed with great skill and success; but finding the mob gaining the superiority, resigned his office, and not only refused to sit in the constituent assembly, to which he was called, but published an opinion on the constitution of the clergy, which was so much in hostility to the measures then pursuing, that he was obliged for a time to conceal himself. He survived the worst period of the revolution, however, and in 1797 was chosen a member of the council of 500, but having joined the party of Clichy, was sentenced to transportation. On this he disappeared again, and found a refuge in St. Petersburgh, where the emperor Paul appointed him a member of the academy of sciences. The climate, however, and the sufferings he had been subjected to at home, did not permit him a long enjoyment of his present tranquillity. He died at St. Petersburg, July 23, 1800, in the sixtyfourth year of his age. He is characterised as a man of great simplicity of manners, joined to a tolerant and enlightened piety, and a contempt of riches. All his property, when confiscated at Paris, did not produce more than 1800 livres, and in Russia he scarcely left enough to pay for his funeral.

, an ancient Latin writer, lived in the fourth century, under the reign of Valentinian, to whom he dedicates a work, entitled “Epitome iflstitutorum rei militaris.” This is a compilation from many authors: yet the subject is treated with much method and exactness, and the Latinity, all things considered, exceedingly pure. Of the author little is known; he probably was a military man, and has the title of Conies. His work was first published without date or place, supposed at Utrecht, about 1473. The best editions since, are that of Schwebelius, 1767, 4to of Valart, Paris, 1762; and of Strasburgh, 1806, 8vo. It was also published, with other writers upon “Tactics,” Frontinus, Ælian, and Mnezs, at Leyden, 1644, in 12mo; and afterwards “Vesaliae Clivorum,” 1670, 8vo. There are also extant, under Vegetius’s name, if indeed the same Vegetius, of which Fabricius doubts, “Artis Veterinarise sive Mulomedidnae libri quatuor,” Basil, 1524, 4to; and afterwards, 1574, 4to.

, a learned civilian, and celebrated writer of Germany, was descended of an ancient and wealthy family, and born at Augsburg, June 20, 1558. He was educated with great care; and, as he discovered a love for polite literature, was sent very young to Rome, where he was a pupil of Antony Muretus, in 1575. He joined to the study of antiquity that of the Italian tongue, and wrote it with great elegance. Upon his return to his own country he applied himself to the bar in 1589; obtained the dignity of a senator in 1592; was advanced to be a member of the little council in 1594; and was elected praetor in 1600. He discharged all these offices with great reputation, and was the ornament of his country. He loved and patronized learning and learned men; and never any person had more friends in the republic of letters. He furnished assistance to several authors; and particularly contributed to the great collection of inscriptions published by Gruter. He gave the security of a thousand florins, in order to procure to Rittershusius a manuscript of the epistles of Isodorus Pelusiota, which was in the library of the duke of Bavaria, and could not be had without such security; and, what made this act of generosity the greater, he did it without Rittershusius’s knowledge. He was also the author of several works of reputation himself. His first essay, according to Melchior Adam, was a work which he published at Venice in 1594, thus entitled: “Reruin Augustanarum Vindelicarum Libri Octo, quibus a prima Rhaetorum ac Vindelicorum origine ad annum usque 552 a Nato Christo nobilissimae gentis Historia et Antiquitates traduntur; ac antiqua monumenta, tarn quae Augusta?, quam quae in agro Augustano, quia et quae alibi extant ad res Augustanas spectantia sere incisa et notis illustrata exhibentur.” In 1602 he published, at Augsburg, “Rerum Boicarum libri quinque, Historiam a gentis origine ad Carolum Magnum complexi,” containing the history of Bavaria from the year 600, when Sigoves led the Boii from Gaul to Germany, to the year 788, when Charlemagne dethroned the last Bavarian duke Tassilo II. and confined him in a cloister. Velser intended to continue this work, which is reckoned his best, and had already collected materials for it, and nearly composed two additional books, but was prevented by death from finishing his task; and the two books were a long time supposed to be lost. One of these, however, was discovered in 1778, by M. de Lippert, in the university library at Ingolstadt, and published at Augsburgh in that year. Velser published, at different times, the lives of several martyrs at Augsburg. His works were collected and reprinted at Nuremburg 1682, in folio, under the inspection and care of Arnoldus, professor there, who wrote “Prolegomena,” in which he informs us of many particulars concerning him. As Velserus held a great correspondence with the learned of Italy, and several other countries, many of his Latin and Italian letters were collected and inserted in this edition. He passed for the author of a celebrated piece called Squittinio della liberta Veneta," which was published in 1612. Gassendi having observed that several ascribed this book to Peiresc, adds, that they were deceived; and that it was probably written bv the illustrious Yemenis, as he calls him. Velserus’s genius, liberality of mind, his fine taste, and his classical diction, enabled him to communicate his historical acquisitions to the public with success and applause. He died June 13, 1614, and left no issue by his marriage. He was one of those who never would suffer his picture to be drawn; yet it was done without his knowledge, as Gassendi informs us in hi> life of Peiresc.

His character appears to have been marked with haughtiness, vanity, and affectation. He aped Italian dresses, and was called “the mirror of Tuscanismo.” His rank, however, and his illustrious family commanded the respect of a large portion of the literary world, and among his eulogists were the contemporary writers, Watson, Lily, Golding, Munday, Greene, Lock, and Spenser. Scattered pieces of his poetry are found in the collections of the times, and particularly in the “Paradise of dayntie devises,” lately reprinted in the Bibliographer. In these there appear the same traits as are said to have been exhibited in his character. They are generally affected, full of conceit and antithesis, and obscure. He is said also to have written comedies, and to have been reckoned the best writer of comedy in his time, but the very names of these plays are lost. His lady, Anne, has lately been introduced to public observation, as a poetess, by Mr. George Steeveris, the editor of Shakspeare. Her poetical attempts are to be found in a collection of odes and sonnets, entitled “Diana,” published by one John Southern or Soothern. Some account of these, which seem to be below mediocrity, is given by Mr. Park as a supplementary article to Walpole’s “Royal and Noble Authors.”

, abbot of St. Cyran, famous in the seventeenth century as a controversial writer, was born in 1581, at Bayonne, of a good family. He pursued his studies at Lou vain, and formed a strict friendship with the celebrated Jansenius, his fellow student. In 1610 he was made abbot of St. Cyran, on the resignation ( of Henry Lewis Chateignier de la Roche-Posai, bishop of Poitiers. The new abbot read the fathers and the councils with Jansenius, and took great pains to impress him with his sentiments and opinions, as well as a number of divines with whom he corresponded; nor did he leave any means untried to inspire M. le Maitre, M. Arnauld, M. d'Andilly, and several more disciples whom he had gained, with the same opinions. This conduct making much noise, cardinal Richelieu, who was besides piqued that the abbot of St. Cyran refused to declare himself for the nullity of the marriage between Gaston, duke of Orleans, the brother of Louis the thirteenth, and Margaret of Lorraine, confined him at Vincennes, May 11, 1638. After this minister’s death, the abbot regained his liberty, but did not enjoy it long, for he died at Paris, October 18, 1643, aged sixtytwo, and was buried at St. Jacques du Haut-Pas, where his epitaph may be seen on one side of the high altar. His works are, 1. “Lettres Spirituelles,” 2 vols. 4to, or 8vo, reprinted at Lyons, 1679, 3 vols. 12mo, to which a fourth has been added, containing several small tracts written by M. de St. Cyran, and printed separately. 2. “Question Royale,” in which he examines in what extremity a subject might be obliged to save the life of his prince at the expence of his own, 1609, 12mo. This last was much talked of, and his enemies drew inferences and consequences from it, which neither he nor his disciples by any means approved 3. “L‘Aumône Chrétienne, ou Tradition de l’Eglise touchant la charité envers les Pauvres,” 2 vols. 12mo. The second part of this work is entitled “L'Aumône ecclesiastique.” M. Anthony le Maitre had a greater share in the last-mentioned book than the abbot of St. Cyran. He published some other works of a similar cast, but his last appears to deserve most notice. It is entitled “Petrus Aurelius,” -and is a defence of the ecclesiastical hierarchy against the Jesuits. He was assisted in this book by his nephew, the abbé de Baicos, and it seems to have done him the most honour of all his works, though it must be acknowledged, says the abbé L'Avocat, that if all the abuse of the Jesuits, and the invectives against their order, were taken from this great volume, very little would remain. L'Avocat is also of opinion that M. Hallier’s small tract on the same subject, occasioned by the censure of the clergy in 1635, is more solid, much deeper, and contains better arguments, than any that are to be found in the great volume of “Petrus Aurelius.” The first edition of this book is the collection of different parts, printed between 1632 and 1635, for which the printer Morel was paid by the clergy, though it was done without their order. The assembly held in 1641 caused an edition to be published in 1642, which the Jesuits seized; but it was nevertheless dispersed on the remonstrances of the clergy. This edition contains two pieces, “Confutatio collections locorum quos Jesuits compilarunt, &c.” that are not in the third edition, which was also published at the clergy’s expence in 1646. But to this third edition is prefixed the eulogy, written by M. Godeau on the author, by order of the clergy, and the verbal process which orders it; whence it appears that their sentiments respecting him, differed widely from those of the Jesuits and their adherents. The abbot de St. Cyran was a man of much simplicity in his manners and practice: he told his beads; he exorcised heretical books before he read them: this simplicity, however, concealed a great fund of learning, and great talents for persuasion, without which he could never have gained so many illustrious and distinguished disciples, as Mess. Arnauld, le Maltre de Sacy, Arnauld d'Andilly, and the other literati of Port Royal, who all had the highest veneration for him, and placed the most unbounded confidence in him. But whatever talents he might have for speaking, persuading, and directing, he certainly had none for writing; nor are his books answerable to his high reputation.

, a writer who did not want either genius or learning, was born at Urbino, in Italy, in the fifteenth century; but the year is not named, nor have we any account of his early history. He was first known in the literary world by “A Collection of Proverbs,” 1498, and this being the first work of the kind, it occasioned some jealousy between him and Erasmus. When Erasmus afterwards published his “Adagia,” and did not take notice of his work, Vergil reproached him in terms not civil, in the preface to his book “De llerum Inventoribus.” Their friendship, however, does not seem to have been interrupted by it; and Vergil, at the instigation of Erasmus, left the passage out in the later editions. These “Adagia” of Polydore Vergil were printed three or four times in a very short space; and this success encouraged him to undertake a more difficult work, his book “De Rerum Inventoribus,” printed in 1499. At the end of the 4th edition at Basil, 1536, 12mo, is subjoined a short commentary of his upon the Lord’s prayer. After this, he was sent into England by pope Alexander VI. to collect the papal tribute, called Peter-pence, and was the last collector of that oppressive tax. He recommended himself in this country so effectually to the powers in being, and was so well pleased with' it, that, having obtained the rectory of Church Langton in Leicestershire, he resolved to spend the remainder of his life in England. In 1507 he was presented to the archdeaconry of Wells, and prebend of Nonnington, in the church of Hereford; and was the same year collated to the prebehd of Scamelsby in the church of Lincoln, which he resigned in 1513 for the prebend of Oxgate in that of St. Paul’s. In 1517 he published at London a new edition of his work “De Rerum Inventoribus,” then consisting of six books, with a prefatory address to his brother John Matthew Vergil. About 1521 he undertook a considerable work at the command of Henry VIII.; upon which he spent above twelve years. It was a “History of England,” which he published and dedicated in 1533 to his royal patron. The purity of his language is generally allowed, and he excelled most of the writers of this age for elegance and clearness of style, but his work is chargeable with great partiality, and even falsehood, and this charge has been advanced by sir Henry Savile and Humphrey Lloyd, who reproaches him in very severe terms. Caius, in his book “De Antiquitatibus Cantabrigiae,” mentions it as a thing “not only reported, but even certainly known, that Polydore Vergil, to prevent the discovery of the faults in his history, most wickedly committed as many of our ancient and manuscript histories to the flames as a waggon could hold.” For this, however, we have no direct authority. His greatest fault is, that he gives a very unfair account of the reformation, and of the conduct of the protestants. Yet his work has been printed several times, and very much read; and is necessary to supply a chasm of almost seventy years in our history, including particularly the lives of Edward IV. and Edward V. which period is hardly to be found in Latin in any other author.

, count de Tressan, a lively French writer, was born at Mons, Nov. 4, 1705, of a noble family originally from Languedoc, one branch of which had been protestants, and fought on that side in the civil wars preceding the massacre. He came early in life to Paris, and attached himself to Voltaire and Fontenelle, who initiated him in the belles lettres, and in those principles which afterwards made him be ranked among the philosophers of France. He served afterwards in the French army, and attained the rank of lieutenant-general. In 1750 he was admitted a free associate of the French academy, and contributed a memoir on Electricity, a subject then not much known, and written with so much ability that it was supposed he might have acquired no small fame in pursuing scientific subjects. This, however, was not agreeable to his disposition. After the battle of Fontenoy, in 1741, in which he served as aide-de-camp to Louis XV. he went to the court of Stanislaus, king of Poland, at Luneville, where he recommended himself by the sprightliness of his temper, and by the freedom of his remarks, but at the same time made some enemies by his satirical and epigrammatic productions. On the death of Stanislaus, he retired from active life, and devoted his time to the composition of a variety of works, particularly romances. Some of which were however translations, and others abridgments. These fill 12 octavo volumes published in 1791. His translation of Ariosto seems to have done him most credit. A light, trifling spirit never deserted him, but still sported even in his grey-hairs, until death put a serious end to it, Oct. 31, 1782, in his seventy-seventh year. Almost up to this period he was abridging Amadis de Gaul, and writing tales of chivalry, after having begun his career with the grave and abstruse parts of science. While in this latter employment he was, in 1749, chosen a member of our Royal Society.

, of whose personal history we have no account, deserves some notice, as the first anatomical writer in the English language. He was a citizen of Londdn, serjeant-surgeon to Henry VIII. Edward VI. Mary I. and Elizabeth and chief surgeon of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, His book is entitled “A Treasure for Englishmen; containing the Anatomic of Man’s Bodie, 1548;” or, as given by Ames, “A profitable Treatise of the Anatomy of Man’s Body; compiled by T. Vicary, and published by the Surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital,” 1577, 12mo, and in 1633 in 4to; together with several other medical and chirurgical tracts’. It is a short piece, designed for the use of his more unlearned brethren, and taken almost entirely from Galen and the Arabians. Before the latter editions is prefixed a rude figure of a skeleton.

, an eminent architect and writer on the subject, was the son of Clement Barozzio, of one of the best families of Milan, but who being ruined by the civil wars, retired to Vignola, a small town in the marquisate of that name, situated in the territory of Bologna. It was there that his son, the subject of this article, was born, Oct. 1, 1507, and became afterwards generally known by the name of his native place. His father dying when he was almost in his infancy, and leaving him little provision, he wished to have recourse to painting; and having some knowledge of the first principles of the art, he went to Bologna to be farther instructed, but soon changed his mind, and determined to confine himself to architecture and perspective. He was no sooner known in this profession, than several persons applied to him for designs for buildings, and he executed some for the governor of Bologna, which were very much admired. On such occasions, in order to see the effect of what he laid down, he had models made in wood by Damien de Bergamo, a Dominican, who excelled in that species of ingenuity, and used to express, by means of coloured woods, every kind of material to be used in the building.

after, he became speechless, and died on the same night. His body was buried in Westminster-abbey. As to his personal character, it is impossible to say any thing in its vindication; for though his severest enemies acknowledge him to have possessed great vivacity and a quickness of parts peculiarly adapted to the purposes of ridicule, yet his warmest advocates have never attributed to him a single virtue. His generosity was profuseness, his wit malevolence, the gratification of his passions his sole aim through life, his very talents caprice, and even his gallantry the mere love of pleasure. But it is impossible to draw his character with equal beauty, or with more justice, than iti that given of him by Dryden, in his “Absalom and Achitophel,” under the name of Zimri, to which we shall refer our readers. If he appears inferior to his father as a statesman, he was certainly superior to him as a wit, and wanted only application and steadiness to have made as conspicuous a figure in the senate and the cabinet as he did in the drawing-room. But his love of pleasure was so immoderate, and his eagerness in the pursuit of it so ungovernable, that they were perpetual bars against the execution of even any plan he might have formed solid or praise-worthy. In consequence of which, with the possession of a fortune that might have enabled him to render himself an object of almost adoration, we do not find him on record for any one deservedly generous action. As he had lived a profligate, he died a beggar; and as he had raised no friend in his life, he found none to lament him at his death. As a writer, however, he has very considerable merit. His poems, indeed, are very indifferent, but his memory will owe much to his celebrated comedy of “The Rehearsal,” 1672, which is a master-piece of wit, and every way an original.

But neither his amusements nor his studies were ever suffered to interfere with his public or professional duties. In the church, in the school^ among his parishioners, or among his boys, he was always active and assiduous: fully prepared for the task of the day, whether to preach or teach; to illustrate the classics, or expound the Scriptures. His mode of instructing the boys on the foundation at Westminster, is admirably described by a well-informed writer in the Gent. Mag. 1815. “The under-master,” he says, “has the care of the college; and in his hands are the preservation of its discipline, the guardianship of its morals, and the charge of its religious instruction. With a steadiness and fidelity rarely equalled Dr. Vincent discharged these difficult functions; but perhaps there never existed a man who rivalled him in the art of attracting from boys attention to his lectures. Four times a year, each week preparatory to receiving the sacrament, Dr. V. explained the nature of that religious rite; its institution, its importance, and its benefits. And we believe, such was his happy mode of imparting instruction, that there never was known an instance of any boy treating the disquisition with levity, or not shewing an eagerness to be present at, and to profit by, the lesson. A clear sonorous voice, a fluent, easy, yet correct delivery, an expression at once familiar and impressive, rendered him a delightful speaker. These advantages he possessed in common conversation, but he displayed them more especially on. public occasions, and never to greater advantage than in the pulpit.”

In the attempt to do this, neither Lipsius, Fabricius, nor even Drakenborch, the most famous editor of Livy, appeared to have succeeded; and their conjectures for the purpose could not be admitted, without considerable violence to the text. How well Dr. Vincent succeeded appeared by the generous approbation of the illustrious Heyne on the continent, and of the no less acute Porson at home. The few points in which these critics differed from him, the author fairly states in a short preface, and endeavours to answer but leaves the ultimate decision to the reader. Two successive years produced two publications, the result of our author’s long and careful study of the analysis of languages. The first of these, entitled “The Origination of the Greek Verb, an Hypothesis,” appeared in 1794; and was followed, in 1795, by “The Greek Verb analyzed, an Hypothesis, in which the source and structure of the Greek language in general is considered.” The latter of these was principally a sequel to the first, and an extension of its theory. Sagacity and learning are eminently displayed in both these publications; nor is it easy to say which quality is most conspicuous in them, sagacity in sug* gesting probable reasons for the various inflections of verbs in the Greek, and afterwards in other languages; or learning, in the production of proofs or illustrations in support of every fact assumed. The principal notion is, that such inflections were derived from some simple and very short original verb, signifying to do or to exist, which being afterward subjoined to radicals denoting various actions or modes of being, formed their tenses, modes, and other variations. The idea was happy, and it is astonishing how far it may be pursued; and nothing can more fully prove its foundation in probable conjecture, than that it had occurred, nearly at the same time, to a writer at Edinburgh, who published it in the “Encyclopaedia Britannica:” the time of composition so exactly coincided, that neither author could possibly have seen or heard of the theory of the other. In both it was equally original.

It is observable, that in both these tracts, Dr. Vincent terms his doctrine only “An Hypothesis.” A more presumptuous author would have called it a discovery. But it would have been perfectly unlike him to assume a particle of merit more than he had an undoubted right to claim; and the manly passage, in the second of these tracts, in which he repels every charge and suspicion of plagiarism, while it strongly marks the character of the writer, proves also how long the subject had been considered and revolved in his mind. “I have been accused,” he says, “of appropriating to myself the discoveries of others, without due acknowledgment, but I must say, in my defence, that, wherever I was sensible of an obligation, I have owned it. I wished to defraud no writer of his honours; but, in treating a subject, which had long been in contemplation, I could not always say from whence the source of my opinion was derived. In a course of years, I have consulted more authors than Fean readily enumerate; and I am still, on the other hand, accused of not consulting a sufficient number. There is no end to this; and I am equally indifferent to the charge on either side. If what I have said is true, it will support itself; if otherwise, it cannot be bolstered up by authorities.” The speculations of lord Mon bod-do, and other metaphysicians, at home and abroad, had probably led both Dr. Vincent and the northern grammarian, into this train of investigation.

“The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea,” though usually called Adrian’s, is confessedly not the work of the author of the Voyage of Nearchus. This is avowed by Dr. Vincent, in entering upon the subject. It had probably been imputed to Arrian in later times, from his having written the Periplus of the Euxine Sea. Whether ewn i<<e name properly belonged to this writer is altogether uncertain; and the probability is rather against it: but, from the most accurate examination of the work, Dr. Vincent thinks that the author, whatever was his true name, was a Greek merchant of Alexandria, between the times of the emperors Claudius and Adrian, in the first or second century, and probably by near a century prior to Arrian of Nicornedia. The author was certainly a man who had sailed ora board of a Greek fleet from Egypt to the Gulph of Cambay, if not beyond it. Those who had assigned a different age or character to his author, Dr. Vincent has answered in a manner the most satisfactory.

Soon after the appearance of the first part of the “Periplus,” Dr. Vincent, being then past sixty, began to feel the effects of constant exertion and confinement in the deteriorated state of his health. He had been, at that time, eleven years head master of Westminster, and thirty-nine years in his various situations in the school, and very naturally began to entertain a wish for retirement; and having been presented in 1801 to a stall in the church of Westminster, he immediately determined to carry hi* wish into effect at a very early period. But he was first to render an essential service, not only to Westminster, but to all dur public schools. These schools, whose plans and regulations have been matured by the practice of ages, had lately been the subject of attack by two very eminent divines, who complained that religion was neglected in the systems and conduct of our publicschools. Dr. Vincent was naturally roused at this alarming accusation unjust as he felt it to be, and unfounded as he immediately undertook to prove it, with respect, at least, to the great school over which he so honourably presided; and for which alone he thought himself responsible. He published almost immediately “A Defence of Public Education,” addressed to a learned prelate, whose attack upon it had 'been most conspicuous. Confining himself to such facts as he could assert upon his own knowledge, he took little notice of other schools than his own; but his defence was conducted with such manly plainness, and at the same time with such becoming zeal for religion as well as for education, that -its effect was irresistible. It passed through three editionsj in a period surprisingly short, and taught him, for tb first time, what it is to be a popular writer. It was, in fact, the only publication from which he ever derived pecuniary profit; and that profit, as the first fruits of his authorship, he good-huroouredly presented to Mrs. Vincent. Compliments upon his defence were now poured in from various quarters; and he had the gratificatioa afterwards of knowing that the king, whose judgment rarely erred in matters to which he seriously applied it, was particularly pleased to have his public schools defended, and still more with the spirit and effect of the defence.

But though he continued his remarks and additions to the Ancient Commerce, as his further reading enabled him, he had in truth dismissed all thoughts of further publication on that subject. But the opinion of his friend, Mr. archdeacon Nares, after some time prevailed upon him to add a supplemental volume, for the sake of adding to his work the Greek text of Arrian’s Indica, (including the Journal of Nearchus) with that of the Pseudo-Arrian, which was before too scarce for scholars in general to obtain. This volume concluded the dean’s separate publications. He printed, indeed, afterwards, a letter in French to a M. Barbié (as he chose to write himself, but more probably Barbier) du Bocage, who had very unhandsomely attacked his voyage of Nearchus; but this he never published. It contained a dignified remonstrance, without asperity, with a man whom the writer treats with a respect, little merited by the mode of the attack.

Parthenope cecini Pascua, Kura, Duces." His bones were carried to Naples, according to his earnest request; and a monument was erected at a small distance from the city. He was of a swarthy complexion, tall, of a sickly constitution, afflicted with frequent head-aches and spitting of blood, very temperate, sober, and chaste, whatever may have been surmised to the contrary. That he wrote in his youth some indecent verses is not to he doubted, since the younger Pliny, who had done the same, justifies himself by his example; and, in his “Bucolics,” he relates very criminal passions; but it does not thence follow that he was tainted with them. On the contrary, it is delivered down to us as a certain truth, that the inhabitants of Naples gave him the name of Parthenias, on account of the purity of his words and manners. He was so very bashful, that he frequently ran into the shops, to prevent being gazed at in the streets; yet so honoured by the Roman people, that once, coming into the theatre, the whole audience rose, out of respect to him. He was of a thoughtful and melancholy temper, spoke little, loved retirement and contemplation. His fortune was not only easy, but affluent: he had a delightful villa in Sicily, and a fine house and well furnished library near Maecenas’s gardens on the Esquiline-hill at Rome. He revised his verses with prodigious severity, and used to compare himself to a she-bear, which licks her cubs into shape. He was so benevolent and inoffensive, that most of his contemporary poets, though they envied each other, agreed in loving and esteeming him. Among Caligula’s follies we may undoubtedly reckon his contempt and hatred of Virgil; who, he had the confidence to say, had neither wit nor learning, and whose writings and effigy he endeavoured to remove out of all libraries. The emperor Alexander Severus, on the contrary, called him the Plato of the poets, and placed his picture with that of Cicero in the temple in which he had placed Achilles and other great men. So did Silius Italicus the poet, when he kept Virgil’s birthday, as Pliny relates, with greater solemnity than his own; and so did our sir William Temple, who did “not wonder that the famous Dr. Harvey, when he was reading Virgil, should sometimes throw him down upon the table, and say, `He had a devil'.” With regard to the characteristical difference between Virgil and Homer, so much disputed, it may with truth be affirmed, that the former excelled all other poets in judgment, and the latter in invention; the former is the greater genius, the latter the most correct writer. “Methinks the two poets,” says Mr. Pope, “resemble the heroes they celebrate. Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more, as the tumult increases Virgil, calmly daring, like Æneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action, disperses all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. Or, when we look on their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens: Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, Jaying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation.”

, or Vitello, a Polish mathematician of the 13th century, flourished about 1254. We have of his a large “Treatise on Optics,” the best edition of which is that of 1572, fol. Vitello was the first optical writer of any consequence among the modern Europeans. He collected all that was given by Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolomy, and Alhazen; though his work is but of little use now.

, once celebrated as an elegant French writer, was the son of a wine-merchant, and born at Amiens in 1598. His talents and taste for the Belles Lettres gave him considerable celebrity, and easily introduced him to the polite world. He was the first in France distinguished for what is called a bel esprit; and, though this is all the merit of his writings, yet this merit was then great, because it was uncommon. His reputation opened his way to court, and procured him pensions and honourable employments. He was sent to Spain about some affairs, whence out of curiosity he passed over to Africa. He was mightily caressed at Madrid, where he composed verses in such pure and natural Spanish, that every body ascribed them to Lopez de Veo;a. It appears by his “Letters,” that he was in England in 1633. He made two journeys to Rome, where in 1633 he was admitted a member of the academy of Humoristi; as he had been of the French academy in 1634. He was the person employed to carry the news of the birth of Lewis XIV. to Florence; and had a place in the household of that monarch. He had several considerable pensions from the court; but the love of play and women kept him from being rich. He died in 1648. He wrote verses in French, Spanish, and Italian; and there are some very fine lines written by him, but they are but few. His letters make the bulk of his works; and have been often printed in 2 vols. 12mo. They are elegant, polite, and easy; but, like the genius of the writer, without nerves or strength. Boileau praises Voiture excessively; and doubtless, considered as a polisher and refiner in a barbarous age, he was a writer to be valued; yet his letters would not now be thought models, and are indeed seldom read. Voiture, ( says Voltaire, gave some idea “of the superficial graces of that epistolary style, which is by no means the best, because it aims at nothing higher than pleasantry and amusement. His two volumes of letters are the mere pastime of a wanton imagination, in which we meet not with one that is instructive, not one that flows from the heart, that paints the manners of the times, or the characters of men: they are rather an abuse than an exercise of wit.” With all this insignificance, Voiture’s letters cost him much labour: a single one took nearly a fortnight, a proof that his wit came slower in writing than in conversation, otherwise he would never have been the delight of every company. Pope appears to have had a good opinion of these letters, as he thought them a suitable present for Miss Blount, and never seems to have suspected that this was not paying that lady’s delicacy any great compliment.

Voltaire was a voluminous writer, and there is in his works, as perhaps in those of all voluminous writers, a very strange mixture of good, bad, and indifferent. Whether many of them will long survive his living reputation, may be doubted. Of late, we understand, that few of his separate pieces have been called for, except the Henriade, which will always be considered as a national work, and his plays. There have been lately some splendid editions of his whole works, for libraries and men of fortune and now we hear that the French editors and booksellers find their interest in offering the public only his “CEuvres choisies.” When the misery he so largely contributed to bring on his country shall be more accurately estimated, and a reverence for revealed religion is revived, Voltaire will probably be remembered chiefly, as a terrifying example of the prostitution of the finest talents to the worst of purposes.

, a very celebrated Dutch poet, was born Nov. 17, 1587. He was bred an anabaptist; afterwards joined the Arminians, for whose defence he employed his pen with great zeal; and in his old age turned Roman Catholic. His verses, it is said, would have equalled those of the greatest poets, had he been acquainted with the ancients; but he had no other master than his own genius, and did not begin to learn Latin till he was near thirty. Vondel married Mary de Wolf in 1610, and opened a hosier’s shop at Amsterdam, leaving however all the care of it to his wife, while he was wholly occupied with poetry. The profligacy of his son having at length deranged his affairs, he obtained a place worth 650 livres yearly, but discharged the business of it so negligently, that in compassion to his situation he was permitted to keep the place as a sinecure. He died February 5, 1679, in his ninety-second year. Vondel’s poems have been collected in 9 vols. 4to. The most celebrated are, “The Park of Animals;” “The Heroes of God;” “The Destruction of Jerusalem,” a tragedy; “The Grandeur of Solomon;” Jl1 Palamede, or Innocence oppressed,“a celebrated tragedy, which he wrote while an Arminian. By Palamede he meant the famous Barneveldt, who was condemned to death by prince Maurice. Vondel exclaims in this piece against both the prince and the synod of Dort, in terms which sufficiently point them out, and was near being carried to the Hague, and tried in consequence of it; but some magistrates saved him, and he escaped by paying a fine of 300 florins. He wrote also satires against the protestant ministers, full of passion and invective; and a poem in favour of the catholic church, entitled” The Mysteries, or Secrets of the Altar," &c. He translated one of Grotius’s tragedies into Dutch, on which that celebrated writer expressed a high sense of Venders friendship, in condescending to translate his works, when he could write much better of his own.

, a very learned writer, was born in Germany, at a town in the neighbourhood of Heidelberg, in 1577. His father was a native of Ruremond; but, upon embracing the reformed religion, left that place, and went into the Palatinate, where he studied divinity, and became a minister in 1575. He removed to Leyden the year after this son was born, and was admitted a member of the university there, but finally settled at Dort; where he buried his first wife, married a second, and died about three months after. Gerard John Vossius was only in his eighth year when he lost his father; and the circumstances in which he was left not being sufficient to procure an education suitable to his very promising talents, he endeavoured to make up for this defect by assiduity and unwearied application. He began his studies at Dort, and had Erycius Puteanus for his school-fellow; with whom he ever afterwards lived in the closest intimacy and friendship. Here he learned Latin, Greek, and philosophy; and in 1595, went to Leyden, where he joined mathematics to these studies, and was made master of arts and doctor in philosophy in 1598. He then applied himself to divinity and the Hebrew tongue; and, his father having left him a library well furnished with books of ecclesiastical history and theology, he early acquired an extensive knowledge in these branches. The curators of the academy were upon the point of choosing him professor of physic, when he was invited to be director of the college at Dort; which would have been thought a place of too much importance for so young a man, if there had not been something very extraordinary in his character.

Of Wace’s personal history we have no farther account, but with regard to the advantages attending the perusal of the productions of Wace, his biographer says very truly, that “The antiquary will at first remark with astonishment, that their language (that of the Normans) has been preserved even to our own days in the countries of Lower Normandy. He will perceive their progress in the various arts; their attainments in that of war; their arms and their military customs their method of attacking castles and strong holds the state of their marine and their commerce; the height to which they have carried architecture and other sciences, together with the monuments they have left us. The genealogist will find many curious and interesting facts relating to ancient families; he will feel himself rewarded in the perusal of the names of the knights who were present at the battle of Hastings; and of the noble actions by which each of them signalized his valour. In a word, the historian will learn with pleasure many circumstances and details which are not to be found in any other writer.”

, a learned nonjuring divine and able writer, was of a gentleman’s family in Warwickshire, and was born February 15, 1645. He was educated at the Charterhouse school under Mr. Wood. In Lent-­term 1660, he was admitted commoner of New-Inn at Oxford, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts October 15, 1664, and that of master June 20, 1G67. He was ordained deacon by Dr. John Hacket, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, June 6, 1669; and priest by Dr. Joseph Henshaw, bishop of Peterborough, November 19, 1669. He was instituted to the rectory of Martins-Thorpe in the county of Rutland, by Joseph, bishop of Peterborough, November 19, 1669. After that he lived in the family of sir Richard Temple at Stow, in the county of Bucks, and entered upon the curacy of that church April 12, 1676. In December 1684, he was presented by king Charles II. and instituted by William, archbishop of Canterbury, to the chancellorship of the cathedral church of Lichfield, together with the prebendary of Alderwas in the same church. In March 1684 he was presented by Henry, bishop of London, to the rectory of St. Margaret Pattens in London. Upon the revolution, being deprived of his preferments for not taking the new oaths, he practised physic for many years afterwards in the City of London with good success, and wore his gown all the while. In February 1693 he vvas consecrated bishop by Dr. William Lloyd, bishop of Norwich, Dr. Francis Turner, bishop of Ely, and Dr. Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, at the bishop of Peterborough’s lodgings, at the reverend Mr. Giffard’s house at Southgate, at which solemnity Henry earl of Clarendon was present Mr. Wagstaffe was consecrated suffragan of Ipswich, and Dr. Hickes at the same time suffragan of Thetford. Mr. Wagstaffe died October 17, 1712, in the sixty- seventh year of his age. He published few sermons, but wrote many pieces in defence of the constitution both in Church and State, with great strength of reason and perspicuity.

While in France he is said to have made a considerable figure in the learned world, and was applied to by Dr., now bishop Fell, to procure the collation of some valuable Greek Mss. of the New Testament at Paris, for the use of Dr. Mill, whose edition Dr. Fell patronised. In the beginning of the reign of James II. he returned home with lord Preston, and was soon after chosen preacher to the honourable society of Gray’s Inn. This, it would appear, was against the wish of the king, who, on the death of his predecessor, Dr. Claget, sent a message to the society, desiring them not to proceed to an election until they heard from him, but they returned an answer that they bad already chosen Dr. Wake. During his residence in France an incident occurred which occasioned his first appearance as an author, and his being known as an able writer both at home and abroad. Bossuet, the bishop of Meaux (See Bossuet) had now published his very artful “Exposition of the Roman Catholic Faith,” a copy of which came into the hands of Mr. Wake, who, in the preface to his Answer, gives a very curious account of the different alterations the work had undergone, in order to answer the real purposes for which it was written. He observes, that “the first design of monsieur de Meaux’s book was either to satisfy or to seduce the late mareschal de Turenne. How far it contributed thereunto I am not able to say, but am willing to believe that the change that honourable person made of his religion was upon somewhat better grounds than the bare Exposition of a few articles of the Roman faith; and that the author supplied either in his personal conferences with him, or by some other papers to us unknown, what was wanting to the first draught, which we have seen of this. The manuscript copy which then appeared, and for about four years together passed up and down in private hands with great applause, wanted all those chapters of the Eucharist, Tradition, the Authority of the Church and Pope, which now make up the most considerable part of it; and in the other points which it handled, seemed so loosely and favourably to propose the opinions of the church of Rome, that not only many undesigning persons of that communion were offended at it, but the protestants, who saw it, generally believed that monsieur de Meaux durst not publicly own what in his Exposition he privately pretended to be their doctrine. And the event shewed that they were not altogether mistaken. For in the beginning of 1671 the Exposition being with great care, and after the consideration of many years, reduced into the form in which we now see it, and to secure all, fortified with the approbation of the archbishop of Rheims, and nine otheV bishops, who profess that ‘ having examined it with all the care which the importance of the matter required, they found it conformable to the doctrine of the church, and as such recommended it to the people which God had committed to their conduct,’ it was sent to the press. The impression being finished and just ready to come abroad, the author, who desired to appear with all advantage to himself and his cause that was possible, sent it to some of the doctors of the Sorbonne for their approbation to he joined to that of the bishops, that so no authority, ordinary or extraordinary, might be wanting to assert the* doctrine contained in it to be so far from the suspicion the Protestants had conceived of it, that it was truly and without disguise Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman. But, to the great surprise of monsieur de Meaux, and those who had so much cried up his treatise before, the doctors of the Sorbonne, to whom it was communicated, instead of the approbation that was expected, confirmed what the Protestants had said of it; and, as became their faculty, marked several of the most considerable parts of it, wherein the Exposition by the too great desire of palliating had absolutely perverted the doctrine of their church. To prevent the open scandal, which such a censure might have caused, with great industry and all the secrecy possible the whole edition was suppressed, and the several places, which the doctors had marked, changed; and the copy so speedily sent back to the press again, that in the end of the same year another much altered was publicly exposed, as the first impression that had at all been made of it. Yet this could not be so privately carried on, but that it soon came to a public knowledge; insomuch that one of the first answers that was made to it, charged monsieur de Meaux with this change. I do not hear, that he has ever yet thought fit to deny the relation, either in the advertisement prefixed to the later editions of his book, wherein yet he replies to some other passages of the same treatise, or in any other vindication: whether it be that such an imputation was not considerable enough to be taken notice of, or that it was too true to be denied, let the reader judge. But certainly it appears to us not only to give a clear account of the design and genius of the whole book, but to be a plain demonstration, how improbable soever monsieur de Meaux would represent it, * that it is not impossible for a bishop of the Church of Rome, either not to be sufficiently instructed in his religion to know what is the doctrine of it; or not sufficiently sincere, as without disguise to represent it.' And since a copy of that very book so marked, as has been said, by the doctors of the Sorbonne, is fallen into my hands, I shall gratify the reader’s curiosity with a particular view of the changes that have been made, that so he may judge whether of the two was the cause of those great advances which the author in that first edition had thought fit to make towards us.” Such was part of the preface to Mr. Wake’s “Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England,” 1686, 4to, which he was induced to undertake, by having observed that the French catholics with whom he had conversed, had, from ignorance, or the misrepresentations of their instructors, entertained very false notions of the points in controversy between the Churches of Rome and England.

, a learned divine in the reign of Henry VIII. was born in the north of England, and educated at the university of Cambridge, whence, after taking his degrees in arts, he went abroad to study the Oriental languages. In a few years he made a considerable progress in the Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac; and taught those languages both in Paris and in Germany. In 1519 he was Hebrew professor at Louvain, but after holding that office only a few months, he returned home, and became chaplain to Dr. Pace, then dean of St. Paul’s, who recommending him to the king as an able linguist, he was sent to Cambridge, and there honoured with the degree of B. D. which qualified him for ecclesiastical preferments. When the controversy relating to king Henry VIII.'s divorce commenced, Wakefield is said to have been of the queen’s party, and thought the divorce unjustifiable, but was afterwards induced to be of the king’s opinion. Dodd says that the reason he gave for changing sides was the circumstance of prince Arthur’s having consummated the marriage, of which he was not before aware; and Dodd adds, that “as the world is apt to judge the worst of things of this nature, Mr. Wakefield was represented as a mercenary writer, especially by those that maintained the queen’s cause.” We have, however, the evidence of another Roman catholic biographer that the world was not much to blame for its unfavourable opinion. Phillips, in his Life of cardinal Pole, assures us, that a letter is extant, “to Wakefield’s eternal infamy,” addressed by secretary Pace to the king, in which he informs him, that “he had treated with Dr. Wakefield of the divorce, and that the doctor was ready to solve the question, either in the negative or affirmative, just as the king thought proper, and in such a manner as all the divines in England should not be able to make any reply.” This letter is dated 1526. Accordingly he soon after wrote a work in favour of the divorce; and in 1530, the king sent him to Oxford, and made him public professor of Hebrew; by which means he had an opportunity of being more serviceable to his majesty. In 1532, he was made a canon of Wolsey’scollege, and incorporated bachelor of divinity. He appears to have been a lover of learning, and when, in 1536, the lesser monasteries were dissolved, he took care to save from destruction several valuable books and Mss. especially such as were in Greek and Hebrew; and, among others, several curious Mss. in Ramsay-abbey, particularly a Hebrew dictionary, which had been lodged there by Robert Holbeach, a monk of that monastery in the reign of Henry IV. Wakefield died at London, Oct. 8, 1537. He left some learned works, as, 1, “Oratio de laudibus et militate trium linguarum, Arabics, Chaidaicae, et liebraicae, atque id -viaicis qua- ii utfoque Testajnr- io niveniuntur,” 15^4, 4to. Thepmuei w. Wynix lie Worde; and the author complains, that he was obliged to omit his whole third part, because the printer had no Hebrew types. Some few Hebrew and Arabic characters, however, are introduced, but extremely rude, and evidently cut in wood. They are the first of the sort used in England. 2. “Koster Codicis,” &c. the same mentioned by Bale and Pits, with the title “De non ducenda fratria,” and is the book he wrote in favour of king Henry’s -divorce, Lond. 1628, 4to. Tanner and Wood attribute other pieces to him, but they are probably in ms. except “Syntagma de Hebraeorum codicum incorruptione,” 4to, without date; and " Paraphrasis in Hbrum Koheleth (Ecclesiasticen) succincta, clara, et fidelis, 4to.

On his return he communicated to the royal society an excellent paper of observations made at that station, which was inserted in their Transactions; and the year following, his general observations made at Hudson’s Bay were published in a large quarto volume. He next, in the character of astronomer, accompanied capt. Cook in his first voyage. 1772 1774, and again iti his other voyage of 1776 1779. In 1777 appeared his “Observations on a Voyage with captain Cook;” and in 1778, “Remarks on Dr. Fovster’s Account of the Voyage,” in which he showed considerable talents as a controversial writer. Soon after his return from his last voyage he was elected a fellow of the royal society, and proved a very useful member; and on the death of Mr. Daniel Harris he was appointed mathematical master to Christ’s Hospital, London, and some years after, secretary to the board of longitude, both which offices he held till the time of his death, which happened in 1798, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. In 1781 he published an “Enquiry into the state of the Population in England and Wales,” and in 1794 his treatise on the longitude by time-keepers. He published also an ingenious restoration of one of the lost pieces of Apollonius; and it has been said, was author of one of the dissertations on the achronical rising of the Pleiades, annexed to Dr. Vincent’s Voyage of Nearch us. Besides these he wrote some ingenious papers in the Philosophical Transactions, and in various periodical publications, particularly the “Ladies Diary,” sometimes signed with his own name, and sometimes under certain fictitious signatures. T

, an useful historical writer and herald, was son of Edward Walker, of Roobers, in Neiherstowey in Somersetshire, gent by Barbara, daughter of Edward Salkerid, of Corby-Castle in Cumberland, esq.; and his grandfather, John Walker, was son of Edward, second son of Humphrey Walker, of Staffordshire, esq. He was originally a domestic servant to the earl of Arundel, and was appointed by him secretary at war, in the expedition into Scotland in 1639. There is little doubt but that his father’s being a Roman catholic recommended him to that nobleman’s notice. From this peer’s service it is easy to suppose he went into that of the sovereign, because he had shewn himself equally faithful and dexterous. Charles I. gave him the same post, to which, in June 1644, he added that of clerk extraordinary of the privy council. He steadily adhered to the king in all his misfortunes. After the battle of Cropredy Bridge, in 1644, being desired to wait upon sir William Waller, one of the parliament generals, with a message of grace, he requested that a trumpet might first be sent for a pass, because “the barbarity of that people was notorious, so that they regarded not the law of arms or of nations.” His precaution was not unnecessary, the trumpeter being sent back with the most marked eontempt.

Mr. Walker published “A true Account of the Siege of Londonderry,” London, 1689, 4to; and some attacks being made on it, he published the same year, “A Vindication,” while an anonymous writer produced “An Apology for the failures charged on the rev. G. Walker’s printed account of the late siege of Derry, &c.” same year, 4 to. One John Mackenzie, chaplain to a regiment at Derry during the siege, wrote “A Narrative of the siege, &c. or, the late memorable transactions of that city faithfully represented, to rectify the mistakes, and supply the omissions of Mr. Walker’s account,” Lond. 1690, 4to, which was answered by a friend of Mr. Walker’s, in a pamphlet entitled “Mr. John Mackenzie’s narrative a false libel,” ibid, same year.

, a learned physician and medical writer, was born at Powick, in Worcestershire, 1708. He was the son of Mr. John Wall, an opulent tradesman of the city of Worcester, who served the office of mayor in 1703. He received the early part of his education at a grammar-school at Leigh-Sinton, and at the college school of Worcester, whence he was elected scholar of Worcester-college, Oxford, in June 1726. In 1735, he was elected fellow of Merton -college, soon after which he took the degree of bachelor of physic, and removed to the city of Worcester, where he was many years settled in practice. In 1759, he took the degree of M. D. Besides an ingenious “Treatise on the virtues of Malvern-waters,” which he brought into reputation, he enriched the repositories of medical knowledge with many valuable tracts, which, since his death, have been collected into an octavo edition, by his son, the present learned Dr. Martin Wall, F. R. S. clinical-professor of. the university, and were printed at Oxford in 1780. He married Catherine youngest daughter of Martin Sandys, esq. of the city of Worcester, barrister at law, and uncle to the first lord Sandys. Dr. Wall was a man of extraordinary genius, which he improved by early and indefatigable industry in the pursuit of science; but he was more particularly eminent in those branches of natural philosophy which have an immediate connexion with the arts, and with medicine. He was distinguished likewise through his whole life by an uncommon sweetness of manners, and cheerfulness of disposition, which, still more than his great abilities, made his acquaintance courted, and his conversation sought, by persons of all ranks and ages. His practice, as a physician, was extended far beyond the common circle of practitioners in the country, and he was particularly eminent for benevolence, courtesy, penetration, and success. His native country still boasts many monuments of the application of his eminent talents to her interests. To his distinguished skill in chemistry, and his assiduous researches (in conjunction with some other chemists) to discover materials proper for the china-ware, the city of Worcester owes the establishment of its porcelain-manufacture. Besides the improvements he suggested and put in execution for the accommodation of visitors at Malvern, it was to his zeal and diligence the county of Worcester is in no small degree indebted for the advantages of the infirmary, which he regularly attended during his whole life. His principal amusement was painting; and it has been said of him, that, if he had not been one of the best physicians, he would have been the best painter of his age. This praise is perhaps too high, yet his designs for the two frontispieces to “Hervey’s Meditations,” that for Cambridge’s “Scribleriad,” and for the East window of the chapel of Oriel-college, Oxford, are very creditable specimens of his talents. He died at Bath, after a lingering disorder, June 27, 1776, and lies buried in the abbey-church. The tracts published by his son, are, 1. “Of the extraordinary effects of Musk in convulsive disorders.” 2. “Of the use of the Peruvian Bark in the small-pox.” 3. “Of the cure of the putrid sore-throat.” 4. “Mr. Oram’s account of the Norfolk-boy.” 5. “Observations on that case, and on the efficacy of oil in wormcases.” 6. “Experiments and Observations on the Mal­* vern- waters.” 7. “Letters to Sir George Baker, &c. on the poison of lead, and the impregnation of cyder with that metal.” 8. “A Letter to Dr. Heberden on the Angina Pectoris.” 9. “Supplement; containing an account of the epidemic fever of 1740, 1741, and 1742.” The editor has enriched this publication with various notes, which discover an extensive acquaintance with the subjects in question, and a candid and liberal turn of mind. To the treatise on Malvern-waters Dr. Martin Wall has also subjoined an appendix of some length, containing an experimental inquiry into their nature; from which it appears, that the Holywell-water at Malvern owes its virtues principally to its extreme purity, assisted by the fixed air which it contains.

, the able defender of infant-baptism, was born in 1646, but where educated, or any further particulars of his early life, are not upon record. He was vicar of Shoreham in Kent, where he died in 1728, at the age of eighty-two, and was considerably advanced when he slept forth as the champion of infant baptism, in opposition to Dr. John Gale, the ablest writer of his time on the baptist side. Mr. Wall published his “History of Infant Baptism” in 1707; and Dr. Gale, in 1711, published “Reflections” on it (See Gale.) In 1719, a friendly conference was held on the subject between him and Mr. Wall, which ended without any change of opinion on either side. Mr. Wall, in the same year, published his “Defence of the History of Infant Baptism,” which was accounted a performance of such ability and so decisive on the question, that the university of Oxford, to mark their high opinion of the book, and of the talents of the author, conferred on him the degree of D. D. in the following year. After his death were published “Critical Notes on the Old Testament, wherein the present Hebrew text is explained, and in many places amended, from the ancient versions, more particularly from that of the LXX. To which is prefixed, a large introduction, adjusting the authority of the Masoretic Bible, and vindicating it from the objections of Mr. Whiston, and the author of the ‘ Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion.’ By the late learned William Wall, D. D. author of the” History of Infant Baptism," 1733, 2 vols. 8vo.

nable drunke at Somerset House, where, company without drinking but Ned Waller.“The praisegiven him by St. Evremond is a proof of his reputation; for it was only by his reputation that he could be known, as a writer, to a man who, though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, never condescended ta understand the language of the nation that maintained him. In parliament, Burnet says, Waller was the delight of the house, and though old, said the- liveliest things of any among them. 1 * His name as a speaker often occurs in Grey’s” Debates," but Dr. Johnson, who examined them, says he found no extracts that could be more quoted as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency of argument. He was, however, of strch consideration, that his remarks were circulated and recorded; nor did he suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which might easily happen in a long life; but renewed his claim to poetical distinction, as occasions were offered, either by public events, or private incidents; and contenting himself with the influence of his* muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he never accepted any office of magistracy. He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune; for he asked from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton college, and obtained it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, alleging that it could be held only by a clergyman. It is known that sir Henry Wotton qualified himself for it by deacon’s orders.

Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be improper, says Dr. Johnson, to make some remarks. He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in the city.*' He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an age, before which few men are conspicuous much to their advantage. He was known, however, in parliament and at court; and, if he spent part of his time in privacy, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he endeavoured the improvement of his mind as well as of his fortune. That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the more probable, because he has evidently mistaken the commencement of his poetry, which he supposes him not to have attempted before thirty. As his first pieces were perhaps not printed, the succession of his compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who cannot be imagined to have been very studious of poetry, did not rectify his first opinion by consulting Waller’s book. Clarendon observes also, that he was introduced to the wits of the age by Dr. Morley; but the writer of his Life relates that he was already among them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and inquiring the cause, they found a son of Ben Jonson under an arrest. This was Morley, whom Waller set free at the expence of 100l. took him into the country as director of his studies, and then procured him admission into the company of the friends of literature. But of this fact, says Johnson, Clarendon had a nearer knowledge than the biographer, and is therefore more to be credited.

, a worthy English divine, and botanical writer, was born in 1714, in or near the parish of Ireby, in Cumberland. He was of Queen’s college, Oxford, where he took his degree of M. A. in 1740, and acquired some reputation as a sound scholar. Though possessed of good natural abilities, and no small share of acquired knowledge, he lived and died in an humble station. His disposition was so mild, and his sense of duty so proper, that he passed through life without a murmur at his lot. Early in life he married a lady near Portsmouth, where he at that time resided on a curacy. For fifty-six years they enjoyed the happiness of their'matrimonial connexion an happiness that became almost proverbial in their neighbourhood. After spending a few years in the south of England, he became curate of Simonburn, in Northumberland; and while here, indulged his taste for the study of botany, and filled his little garden with curious plants. This amusement led him gradually into deeper researches into natural history; and, in 1769, he published a “History of Northumberland,” 2 vols. 4to, the first of which, containing an account of minerals, fossils, &c. found in that country, is reckoned the most valuable. In other respects, as to antiquities, &c. it is rather imperfect, and unconnected. His fortune, however, did not improve with the reputation which this work brought him, and a dispute with his rector occasioned him to leave his situation, when he and his wife were received into the family of a clergyman who had formerly been his friend at college. He was curate for a short time at Haughton, near Darlington, in 1775, and soon afterwards removed to Billingham, near Stockton, where he continued until increasing infirmities obliged him to resign. He then removed to the village of Norton, where he died July 23, 1793, in the seventyninth year of his age. About two years before his death a small estate fell to him by the death of a brother; and to the honour of the present bishop of Durham (but certainly not to the surprize of any one that knows that munificent prelate), when the circumstances and situation of Mr. Wallis were represented to him, he allowed him an annual pension from the time of his resigning his curacy. From a sense of gratitude, Mr. Wallis, just at the close of life, was employed in packing up an ancient statue of Apollo, found at Carvoran, a Roman station on the wall, on the confines of Northumberland, as a present to the learned Daines Barrington, brother to the bishop. In the earlier part of his life Mr. Wallis published a volume of letters to a pupil, on entering into holy orders.

His intervals of leisure, health, and spirits, he employed in the works above mentioned, most of which have been favourites with the public, although they are of very opposite merits. He was alternately a poet, an historian, a politician, an antiquary, and a writer of dramas and romances. Of all his works his own opinion appeared to be humble but this was mere affectation, for he was pertinacious in maintaining what he had once asserted and being possessed of' kee*n powers of controversy, he betrayed all the irascibility of the author, while he affected to be considered only is a gentleman writing for his amusement. In his latter days he determined to vindicate his claims to literary rank, and employed himself in preparing for the press that splendid and complete edition of his works, which was published the year after his death, and was bought up with avidity, as an important addition to every library. He had begun to print this edition as far back as 1768, and nearly two volumes were completed at his private press.

Mr. Walpole valued highly his talent for letter-writing, and many have regarded him as the best letter- writer of his day. If they had 'said the most lively, or the most witty, thev would have been nearer the truth. But whatever the particular merit of his correspondence, it has since proved fatal to his personal character in a very important feature. Letter-writing seems to have been with him a species of patronage, of grace and favour conferred upon his literary contemporaries, on whom he bestowed no other favours. Whatever else he might disappoint them in, they were sure to receive a letter full of praise, and Mr. Waipole’s praise was once thought of considerable importance. But since his printed correspondence has been compared with many hundred letters now extant that never were intended for the press, the evidence ofhis insincerity, of his extreme vanity, and duplicity towards those whom he most lavishly flattered, is too full and clear to admit of any hesitation in pronouncing that these degrading meannesses belonged to him in no common degree. One very gross instance of his treacherous correspondence may be seen in Stewart’s Life of Dr. Robertson; but more, and perhaps fuller, proofs exist in -his correspondence with the late Rev. William Cole of Milton, tiowin the British Museum.

, a celebrated writer on the art of angling, and the author of some valuable lives, was born at Stafford in August 1593. His first settlement in London, as a shopkeeper, was in the Royal Burse in Cornhill, built by sir T. Gresharn, and finished in 1567. In this situation he could scarcely be said to“have had elbow-room; for, the shops over the Burse were but seven feet and a half long, and five wide; yet he carried on his trade till some time before 1624, when” he dwelt on the north side of Fleet- street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow;“by which sign the old timber -house at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane, in Fleet-street, till within these few years, was known. A citizen of this age would almost as much disdain to admit of a tenant for half his shop, as a knight would to ride double; though the brethren of one of the most ancient orders of the world were so little above this practice, that their common seal was the device of two riding one horse. He married probably about 1632; for in that year he lived in a house in Chancery-lane, a few doors higher up on the left hand than the former, and described by the occupation of a sempster or milliner. The former of these might be his own proper trade; and the latter, as being a feminine occupation, might be carried on by his wife: she, it appears, was Anne, the daughter of Mr, Thomas Ken, of Furnival’s-inn, and sister of Thomas, afterwards Dr. Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells. About 1643 he left London, and, with a fortune very far short of what would now be called a eompetencv, seems to have retired altogether from business. While he continued in London, his favourite recreation was angling, in which he was the greatest proficient of his time; and, indeed, so great were his skill and experience in that art, that there is scarcely any writer on the subject since his time who has not made the rules and practice of Walton his very foundation. It is, therefore, with the greatest propriety that Langbaine calls him” the common father of all anglers." The river that he seems mostly to have frequented for this purpose was the Lea, which has it source above Ware in Hertfordshire, and falls into the Thames a little below Blackwall; unless we will suppose that the vicinity of the New River to the place of his habitation might sometimes tempt him out with his friends, honest Nat. and R. Roe, whose loss he so pathetically mentions, to spend an afternoon there. In 1662 he was by death deprived of the solace and comfort of a good wife, as appears by a monumental inscription in the cathedral church of Worcester.

, a heraldic writer and antiquary, was the son of Benjamin Warburton, of Bury in Lancashire, by Mary, his wife, eldest daughter, and at length heiress of Michael Buxton, of Buxton, in Derbyshire. He was born Feb. 28, 1681-2. According to Mr. Grose, he received no education, and was originally an exciseman; Mr. Grose adds that he was ignorant not only of the Latin, but of his native language, and so far from understanding mathematics, he did not even understand guaging, which, “like navigation, as practised by our ordinary seamen, consists only in multiplying and dividing certain numbers, or writing by an instrument, the rationale of both which they are totally ignorant of.” It appears from Mr. Brooke Somerset’s notes, that Toms, who owed his rise to him, told that gentleman that he had great natural abilities, but no education. Grose observes, that “his life was one continued scene of squabbles and disputes with his brethren, by whom he was despised and detested.” Toms remarks, that “though his conduct was faulty, yet he was extremely illused, especially by the younger Anstis, who was of a violent tyrannical disposition,” and there seems reason to suspect that his quarrelsome disposition, rather than his incapacity, has occasioned many of the discreditable reports which have accompanied his name. As a collector of antiquities he appears to have been indefatigable.

, an English prelate of great abilities and eminence, was born at Newark-upon-Trent, in the county of Nottingham, Dec. 24, 1698. His father was George Warburton, an attorney and town-clerk of the place in which this his eldest son received his birth and education. His mother was Elizabeth, the daughter of William Hobman, an alderman of the same town; and his parents were married about 1696. The family of Dr. Warburton came originally from the county of Chester, where his great-grandfather resided. His grandfather, William Warburton, a royalist during the rebellion, was the first that settled at Newark, where he practised the law, and was coroner of the county of Nottingham. George Warburton, the father, died about 1706, leaving his widow and five children, two sons and three daughters, of which the second son, George, died young; but, of the daughters, one- survived her brother. The bishop received the early part of his education under Mr. Twells, whose son afterwards married his sister Elizabeth; but he was principally trained under Mr. Wright, then master of Okehamschool in Rutlandshire, and afterwards vicar of Campden in Gloucestershire. Here he continued till the beginning of 1714, when his cousin Mr. William Warburton being made head -master of Newark-school, he returned to his native place, and was for a short time under the care of that learned gentleman. During his stay at school, he did not distinguish himself by any extraordinary efforts of genius or application, yet is supposed to have acquired a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin. His original designation was to the same profession as that of his father and grandfather; and he was accordingly placed clerk to Mr. Kirke, an attorney at East Markham in Nottinghamshire, with whom he continued till April 1719, when he was qualified to engage in business upon his own account. He was then admitted to one of the courts at Westminster, and for some years continued the employment of an attorney and solicitor at the place of his birth. The success he met with as a man of business was probably not great. It was certainly insufficient to induce him to devote the rest of his life to it: and it is probable, that his want of encouragement might tempt him to turn his thoughts towards a profession in which his literary acquisitions would be more valuable, and in which he might more easily pursue the bent of his inclination. He appears to have brought from school more learning than was requisite for a practising lawyer. This might rather impede than forward his progress; as it has been generally observed, that an attention to literary concerns, and the bustle of an attorney’s office, with only a moderate share of business, are wholly incompatible. It is therefore no wonder that he preferred retirement to noise, and relinquished what advantages he might expect from continuing to follow the law. It has been suggested by an ingenious writer, that he was for some time usher to a school, but this probably was founded on his giving some assistance to his relation at Newark, who in his turn assisted him in those private studies to which he was now attached; and his love of letters continually growing stronger, the seriousness of his temper, and purity of his morals, concurring, determined him to quit his profession for the church. In 1723 he received deacon’s orders from archbishop Dawes and his first printed work then appeared, consisting of translations from Cæsar, Pliny, Claudian, and others, under the title of “Miscellaneous Translations in Prose and Verse, from Roman Poets, Orators, and Historians,” 12mo. It is dedicated to hig early patron, sir Robert Sutton, who, in 1726, when Mr. Warburton had received priest’s orders from bishop Gibson, employed his interest to procure him the small vicarage of Gryesly in Nottinghamshire. About Christmas, 1726, he came to London, and, while there, was introduced to Theobald, Concanen, and other of Mr. Pope’s enemies, the novelty of whose conversation had at this time many charms for him, and he entered too eagerly into their cabals and prejudices. It was at this time that he wrote a letter to Concanen, dated Jan. 2, 1726, very disrespectful to Pope, which, by accident, falling into the hands of the late Dr. Akenside, was produced to most of that gentleman’s friends, and became the subject of much speculation. About this time he also communicated to Theobald some notes on Shakspeare, which afterwards appeared in that critic’s edition of our great dramatic poet. In 1727, his second work, entitled “A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, as related by Historians,” &c. was published in 12mo, and was also dedicated to sir Robert Sutton in a prolix article of twenty pages. In 1727 he published a treatise, under the title of “The Legal Judicature in Chancery stated,” which he undertook at the particular request of Samuel Burroughs, esq. afterwards a master in Chancery, who put the materials into his hands, and spent some time in the country with him during the compilation of the work. On April 25, 1728, by the interest of sir Robert Sutton, he had the honour to be in the king’s list of masters of arts, created at Cambridge on his majesty’s visit to that university. In June, the same year, he was presented by sir Robert Sutton to the rectory of Burnt or Brand Broughton, in the diocese of Lincoln, and neighbourhood of Newark, where he fixed himself accompanied by his mother and sisters, to whom he was ever a most affectionate relative. Here he spent a considerable part of the prime of life in a studious retirement, devoted entirely to letters, and there planned, and in part executed, some of his most important works. They, says his biographer, who are unacquainted with the enthusiasm which true genius inspires, will hardly conceive the possibility of that intense application, with which Mr. Warburton pursued his studies in this retirement. Impatient of any interruptions, he spent the whole of his time that could be spared from the duties of his parish, in reading and writing. His constitution was strong, and his temperance extreme; so that he needed no exercise but that of walking; and a change of reading, or study, was his only amusement.

Several years elapsed after obtaining this preferment, before Mr. Warburton appeared again in the world as a writer. In 1736 he exhibited a plan of a new edition of Velleius Paierculus, which he printed in the “Bibliotheque Britannique, ou Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans de la Grande Bretagne, pour les mois’ Juillet, Aout, & Sept. 1736. A la Haye.” The design never was completed. Dr. Middleton, in a letter to him dated April 9, 1737, returns him thanks for his letters, as well as the Journal, which, says he, “came to my hands soon after the date of my last. I had before seen theforce of your critical genius very successfully employed o'n Shakspeare, but did not know you had ever tried it on the Latin authors. I am pleased with several of your emendations, and transcribed them into the margin of my editions; though not equally with them all. It is a laudable and liberal amusement, to try now and then in our reading the success of a conjecture but, in the present state of the generality of the old writers, it can hardly be thought a study fit to employ a life upon, at least not worthy, I am sure, of your talents and industry, which, instead of trifling on words, seem calculated rather to correct the opinions and manners of the world.” These sentiments of his friend appear to have had their due weight; for, from that time, the intended edition was laid aside, and never afterwards resumed. It was in this year, 1736, that he may be said to have emerged from the obscurity of a private life into the notice of the world. The first publication, which rendered him afterwards famous, now appeared, under the title of “The Alliance between Church and State; or, the necessity and equity of an established religion and a test-law, demonstrated from the essence and end of civil society, upon the fundamental principles of the law of nature and nations.” In this acute and comprehensive work he discusses the obligation which lies upon every Christian community to tolerate the sentiments, and even the religious exercises of those who, in the incurable diversity of human opinion, dissent from her doctrines; and the duty which she owes to herself of prohibiting by some test the intrusion into civil offices of men who would otherwise endanger her existence by open hostility, or by secret treachery. His biographer, bishop Kurd, remarks, that this work was neither calculated to please the high church divines, nor the low but, he adds, that “although few at that time were convinced, all were struck by this essay of an original writer, and could not dissemble their admiration of the ability which appeared in the construction of it.” “There was, indeed,” continues Hurd, “a reach of thought in this system of church policy, which would prevent its making its way at once. It required time and attention, even in the most capable of its readers, to apprehend the force of the argumentation, and a more than common share of candour to adopt the conclusion, when they did. The author ha^i therefore reason to be satisfied with the reception of his theory, such as it was; and having thoroughly persuaded himself of its truth, as well as importance, he continued to enlarge and improve it in several subsequent editions; and in the last, by the opportunity which some elaborate attempts of his adversaries to overturn it, had afforded him, he exerted his whole strength upon it, and has left it in a condition to brave the utmost efforts of future criticism.” The late bishop Horsley, in his “Review of the case of the Protestant Dissenters” published in 1787, says that Warburton has in this work “shewn the general good policy of an establishment, and the necessity of a test for its security, upon principles which republicans themselves cannot easily deny. His work is one of the finest specimens that are to be found, perhaps, in any language, of scientific reasoning applied to a political subject.”

Warburton’s Divine Legation, says the same masterly writer to whom we are indebted for the preceding observavations , is one of the few theological, and still fewer controversial works, which scholars perfectly indifferent to such subjects will ever read with delight. The novelty of the hypothesis, the masterly conduct of the argument, the hard blows which this champion of faith and orthodoxy is ever dealing about him against the enemies of both, the scorn with which he represses shallow petulance, and the inimitable acuteness with which he exposes dishonest sophistry, the compass of literature which he displays, his widely extended views of ancient polity and religion, but, above all, that irradiation of unfailing and indefectible genius which, like the rich sunshine of an Italian landscape, illuminates the whole, — all these excellences will rivet alike the attention of taste, and reason, and erudition, as Jong as English literature shall exist while many a< standard work, perhaps equally learned and more convincing, is permitted to repose upon the shelf. But it is in his episodes and digressions that Warburton'S powers of reason and brilliancy of fancy are most conspicuous. They resemble the wanton movements of some powerful and half-broken quadruped, who, disdaining to pace along the highway under a burden which would subdue any other animal of his species, starts aside at every turn to exercise the native elasticity of his muscles, and throw off the waste exuberance of his strength and spirits. Of these the most remarkable are his unfortunate hypothesis concerning the origin and late antiquity of the Book of Job, his elaborate and successful Disquisition on Hieroglyphics and Picturewriting, and his profound and original Investigation of the Mysteries.

"But what, it may be asked, is the evidence by which a fact so astonishing is supported Not the triumphant declamations of Christian, even of contemporary Christian writers, who, after all, with one voice, and with little variety of circumstances, bear witness to the truth of it, but that of^ friend of Julian himself, a soldier of rank, an heathen though candid and unprejudiced; in one word, the inquisitive, the honest, the judging Am. Marcellinus. The story is told by that writer, though in his own awkward latinity, very expressively and distinctly. We will add as a specimen of our author’s power, both in conception and language, the following rules for the qualification of an unexceptionable witness.

, a poet and miscellaneous writer, was of low extraction, and born in Oxfordshire about 1667. Jacob said of him, in his Lives of the Poets, that he kept a public house in the city, but in a genteel way, which was much frequented by those who were adverse to the Whig administration. Ward, however, was affronted when he read this account, not because it made him an enemy to the Whigs, or the keeper of a public house, but because his house was said to be in the city. In a book, therefore, called “Apollo’s Maggot,” he declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his public house was not in the city, but in Moorfelds. Oldys says he lived a while in Gray’s-­Inn, and for some years after kept a public house in Moorfields, then in Clerkenwell, and lastly a punch-house in Fulwood’s-Rents, within one door of Gray’s-Inn, where he would entertain any company who invited him with many stories and adventures of the poets and authors he had acquaintance with. He was honoured with a place in the “Dunciad” by Pope, whom, however he contrived to vex, by retorting with some spirit. He died June 20, 1731, and was buried the 27th of the same month in St. Pancras church-yard, with one mourning-coach for his wife and daughter to attend his hearse, as himself had directed in his poetical will, which was written by him June 24, 1725. This will was printed in Appleby’s Journal, Sept. 28, 1731. Ward is most distinguished by his well-known “London Spy,” a coarse, but in some respect a true, description of London manners. He wrote one dramatic piece, called “The Humours of a Coffee-house,” and some poems in the Hudibrastic style, but not “England’s Reformation,” as asserted in Mr. Reed’s edition of the Biog. Dram. 1782. That was the production of Thomas Ward, who will be mentioned hereafter.

, a learned and useful writer, was born in London about 1679. His father was a dissenting minister of the same name, born at Tysoe, in Warwickshire, who married Constancy Rayner, a woman of extraordinary piety and excellence of temper, by whom he had fourteen children. She died in April 1697, when her funeral sermon was preached and printed by the Rev. Walter Crosse; and Mr. Ward survived her twenty years, dying Dec. 28, 1717, in the eighty-second year of his age. Of his numerous family he left only two, a daughter, and the subject of this article.

Of Robert Ware some farther notice must be taken, as he was a writer of considerable note in his day. He had by those writings appeared so averse to the Roman catholic interest of Ireland in the reign of Charles II. that, fearing the resentment of that party, which he had reason to believe would be severe enough, and being advised by the earl of Clarendon, then lord lieutenant, he removed with his family into England on the same day that lord Tyrcon* nel landed in Ireland to take upon him the government, which he continued until the revolution. Mr. Ware died March 1696, after publishing, I. “The Examinations of Faithful Commin and Thomas Heath,” &c. Dublin, 1671, 4to. 2. “The Conversion of Philip Corwine, a Franciscan Friari to the protestant religion^ in 1569,” ibid. 1681, 4to. 3. “The Reformation of the Church of Ireland, in the life and death of George Brown, sometime archbishop of Dublin,” ibid. 1681, 4to. This stands the first in the English edition of sir James Ware’s Works, Dublin, 1705, fol. and is also reprinted in the “Phoenix,” vol. I. 4. “Foxes and Firebrands or a specimen of the danger and harmony of popery and separation wherein is proved from undeniable matter of fact and reason, that separation from the Church of England is, in the judgment of papists, and by sad experience, found the most compendious way to introduce popery, and to ruin the protestant religion, in two parts,” London, 1680, 4to, Dublin, 1682, 8vo. The first part, with the examinations of Commin and Heath, was published by Dr. John Nalson in 1678, 8vq, and the second part was added by Mr. Robert Ware. 5. “The hunting of the Romish Fox, and the quenching of sectarian firebrands; being a specimen of popery and separation,” Dublin, 1683, 8vo. 6. “Foxes and Firebrands, the third part,” Loud. 1689, 8vo. 7. “Pope Joan; or an account that there was such a she-pope, proved from Romish authors before Luther,” &c. ibid. 1689, 4to. Mr. Ware left also an unfinished and imperfect ms. on the history and antiquities of the city and university of Dublin.

, a very voluminous writer, was born in 1703, but where we are not told. He was of Jesus college, Cambridge, according to Mr. Cole, but we do not find his name among the graduates of that university. In 1730 he became vicar of Ronde, in Wiltshire; in 1746 rector of St. Michael Queenhithe, London, and in 1758 rector of Barnes, in Surrey. He also styles himself chaplain to the lord chancellor, and LL. D.; the latter title probably obtained from some northern university. He died Oct. 3, 1768, aged sixty-five. Dr. Warner was a laborious man, and having deservedly attained the character of a judicious and useful writer, as well as a popular preacher, he was frequently engaged in compilations for the booksellers, which, however, he executed in a very superior manner, and gave many proofs of diligent research and judgment, both in his reflections and in the use he made of his materials. The following we believe to be a complete, or nearly complete list of his publications 1. “A Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor, January 30, 1748.” 2. “A Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor, on September 2,” 1749. 3. “A system of Divinity and Morality, containing a series of discourses on the principal and most important points of natural and revealed Religion; compiled from the works of the most eminent divines of the Church of England,” 1750, 5 vols. J2mo. This was reprinted in 1756, 4 vols. 8vo. 4. “A scheme for a Fund for the better Maintenance of the Widows and Children of the clergy,” 1753, 8vo. For this scheme, when carried into execution, he received the thanks of the London clergy, assembled in Sion college, May 21, 1765, and published another pamphlet, hereafter to be mentioned. 5. “An illustration of the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the Church of England,” &c. 1754, folio. In this year he took the degree of LL. D. probably, as we have already suggested, at some northern university. 6. “Bolingbroke, or a dialogue on the origin and authority of Revelation,” 1755, 8vo. 7. “A free and necessary enquiry whether the Church of England in her Liturgy, and many of her learned divines in their writings, have not, by some unwary expressions relating to Transubstantiation and the real presence, given so great an advantage to papists and deists as may prove fatal to true religion, unless some remedy be speedily supplied; with remarks on the power of priestly absolution,” 1755, 8vo. 8. In 1756 he published the first volume of his “Ecclesiastical History to the Eighteenth Century,” folio; the second volume in 1757. This is the most valuable of all his works, and has frequently been quoted with approbation. 9. “Memoirs of the Life of sir Thomas More, lord high chancellor of England in the reign of Henry VIII. 1758,” 8vo. This is dedicated to sir Rcbert Henley, afterwards lord chancellor Northington, who is complimented for the favours he had conferred on him on his receiving the seals; probably for the rectory of Barnes, with which he held Queenhithe and Trinity the Less. 10. “Remarks on the History of Fingal and other poems of Ossian, translated by Mr. Macpherson, in a letter to the right hon. the lord L (Lyttelton),” 1762,

, an old English poet, is called by Phillips, “a good honest plain writer of moral rules and precepts, in that old-fashioned kind ef seven-footed verse, which yet sometimes is in use, though in different manner, that is to say, divided into two. He may be reckoned with several other writers of the same time^ i. e> Queen Elizabeth’s reign: who, though inferior to Sidney, Spenser, Drayton, and Daniel, yet have been thought by some not unworthy to be remembered and quoted: namely George Gascoigne, Thomas Hudson, John Markham, Thomas Achely, John Weever, Charles Middleton, George TurberviTle, Henry Constable, sirEdward Dyer, Thomas Churchyard, Charles Fitzgeoffry.”

Warner was a writer of prose. His work was entitled “Syrinx, or a seauenfold Historic, handled with varietie of pleasant and profitable, both comical and tragical argument,” printed in 1597. Warton calls it a novel, or rather a suite of stories, much in the style of the adventures of Heliodorus’s Ethiopic romance. He appears also to have translated Plautus’s “Mencechmi,” published in 1595. Ritson informs us, that by an entry in the Stationers’ ­book,' v on the 17th of October, 1586, “The Wardens, upon serche of Roger Ward’s house, dyd find there in printing, a book in verse, intytled” England’s Albion, beinge in English, and not aucthorised to be printed, which he had been forbidden to prynte, aswell by the L. archb. of Canterburye, as also by the said wardens at his own house;“and forasmuch as he had done this” contrary to the late decrees of the, hon. court of Starre-chamber, the said wardens seised three heaps of the said * England’s Albion'.“Why this work was prohibited, except for the indelicacies already noticed, is not very apparent. We know that bishop Hall’s satires incurred the displeasure of the guardians of the press at no long distance from this time. Mr. Headley, who has extracted many beauties from Warner, says, that his tales, though often tedious, and not unfrequently indelicate, abound with all the unaffected incident and artless ease of the best old ballads, without their cant and puerility. The pastoral pieces that occur are superior to all the eclogues in our language, those of Collins only excepted. He also quotes Drayton’s lines on Warner, which the reader will find in his piece of V Poets and Poesy.”

ver, one of Mr. Warton’s pupils, who could not write for themselves. Kiddington, Oxon. on the presentation of George Henry earl of Litchfield, then chancellor of the university, a nobleman whose memory he afterwards honoured by an epitaph. In 1774 he published the first volume of his “History of English Poetry,” the most important of all his works, and to the completion of which the studies of his whole life appear to have been bent. How much it is to be regretted that he did not live to complete his plan, every student in ancient literature must be deeply sensible. He intended to have carried the history down to the commencement 6f the eighteenth century. A second volume accordingly appeared in 1778, and a third in 1781, after which he probably relaxed from his pursuit, as at the period of his death in 1.790, a few sheets only of the fourth volume were printed, and no part left in a state for printing. His original intention was to have comprised the whole in two or three volumes, but it is now evident, and he probably soon became aware, that five would have scarcely been sufficient if he continued to write on the same scale, and to deviate occasionally into notices of manners, laws, customs, &c. that had either a remote, or an immediate connection with his principal subject. What his reasons were for discontinuing his labours, cannot now be ascertained. It is well known to every writer that a work of great magnitude requires temporary relaxation, or a change of employment, and may admit of both without injury; but he might probably find that it was now less easy to return with spirit to his magnum opus, than in the days of more vigour and activity. It is certain that he wished the public to think that he was making his usual progress, for in 1785, when he published “Milton’s Juvenile Poems,” he announced the speedy publication of the fourth volume of the history, of which, from that time to his death, ten sheets only were finished. His brother, Dr. Joseph, was long supposed to be engaged in completing this fourth volume. In one of his letters lately published by Mr. Wooll, and dated 1792, he says, “At any leisure I get busied in finishing the last volume of Mr. Warton’s History of Poetry, which I have engaged to do, for the booksellers are clamorous to have the book finished (though the ground I am to go over is so beaten) that it may be a complete work.” Yet on his death in 1800, it did not appear that he had made any progress . Mr. Warton’s biographer has traced the origin of this work to Pope, who, according to Ruffhead, had sketched a plan of a history of poetry, dividing the poets into classes or schools; but Ruffhead’s list of poets is grossly erroneous. Gray, however, Mr. Mason informs us, had meditated a history of English poetry, in which Mason was to assist him. Their design was to introduce specimens of the Provencal poetry, and of the Scaidic, British, and Saxon, as preliminary to what first deserved to be called English poetry about the time of Chaucer, from whence their history, properly so called, was to commence. Gray, however, was deterred by the magnitude of the undertaking; and being informed that Warton was employed on a similar design, more readily relinquished his own.

"Your plan for the History of English Poetry is admirably constructed and much improved from an idea of Pope, which Mr. Mason obligingly sent me by application from our friend Dr. Hurd. I regret that a writer of your consummate taste should not have executed it.

Instances of Warton’s tenderness of heart, affectionate regard for children, and general humanity, have been accumulated by all who knew him. Nor is this wonderful. for he knew nothing of one quality which ever keeps the heart shut. He had no avarice, no ambition to acquire the superiority which wealth is supposed 1 to confer. For many years he lived on his maintenance from college, and from the profits of a small living, with the occasional fruits of his labour as a teacher or as a writer. It cannot be doubted that as he had been tutor to the son of the prime-minister (lord North), and to the sons of other persons of rank, he might reasonably have expected higher preferment. But it happens with preferment more generally than the world suspects, that what is not asked is not given. Warton had a mind above servile submission, yet he would have asked where asking is a matter of course, had not his contented indolence, or perhaps the dread of a refusal, induced him to sit down with the emoluments which cost neither trouble nor anxiety. What he got by his writings could not be much. However excellent in themselves, they were not calculated for quick and extensive sale, and it is said he sold the copy-right of his “History of Poetry,” for less than four hundred pounds.

During 1753 he was invited to assist in the “Adventurer,” which was begun by Hawkesworth in 1752. The invitation came from his friend Dr. Johnson, who informed him that the literary partners wished to assign to him the province of criticism. His contributions to the Adventurer amount to twenty-four papers. Of these a few are of the humourous cast, but the greater part consist of elegant criticism, not that of cold sagacity, but warm from the heart, and powerfully addressed to the finer feelings as well as to the judgment. His critical papers on Lear have never been exceeded for just taste and discrimination. His disposition lay in selecting and illustrating those beauties of ancient and modern poetry, which, like the beauties of nature, strike and please many who are yet incapable of describing or analysing them. No. 101, on the blemishes in the Paradise Lost, is an example of the delicacy and impartiality with which writings of established fame ought to be examined. His observations on the Odyssey, in Nos. 75, 80, and 83, are original and judicious, but it may be doubted whether they have detached many scholars from the accustomed preference given to the Iliad. If any objection may be made to Dr. Warton’s critical papers, it is that his Greek occurs too frequently in a work intended for domestic instruction. His style is always pure and perspicuous, but sometimes it may be discovered without any other information, that “he kept company with Dr. son.” The first part of No. 139, if found detached, might have been attributed to that writer. It has all his manner, not merely “the contortions of the sybil,” but somewhat of the “inspiration.”

In this work our author produced no new doctrine. The severe arrangement of poets in his dedication to Young, which announced the principles he intended to apply to Pope, and to the whole body of English poetry, was evidently taken from Philips, the nephew of Milton. In the preface to the Theatrum of this writer, it is asserted, that “wit, ingenuity, and learning in verse, even elegancy itself, though that comes nearest, are one thing true native poetry is another in which there is a certain air and spirit, which, perhaps, the most learned and judicious in other arts do not perfectly apprehend; much less is it attainable by any art or study.” On this text the whole

, a political writer and historian of the seventeenth century, was by birth a gentleman, descended from the Warwicks of Warthwykes of Warwicke in Cumberland, and bearing the same arms: “Vert, 3 lions rampant Argent.” His grandfather, Thomas Warwick, is (in the visitation of Kent, by sir Edward Bysche, in 1667), styled of Hereford, but whom he married is not mentioned. His father, Thomas Warwick, was very eminent for his skill in the theory of music, having composed a song of forty parts, for forty several persons, each of them to have his part entire from the other. He was a commissioner for granting dispensations for converting arable land into pasture, and was some time organist of Westminster-abbey and the Chapel-royal. He married Elizabeth daughter and co-heir of John Somerville, of Somerville Aston le Warwick; by whom he had issue: one son, Philip, our author, and two daughters; Arabella, married to Henry Clerke, esq. and afterwards married to Christopher Turnor, of the Middle Temple, esq. barrister at law, who, at the Restoration, was knighted, and made a baron of the exchequer.

, a heraldic and miscellaneous writer, was born in 1619. He had a learned education, and resided some time at Oxford, for the sake of the Bodleian Library there; but was not a member of that university. Soon after the passing of the second charter of the Royal Society, he was proposed on the 22d July, 1668, candidate for election into it; and chosen the 29th of the same month being admitted the 5th August. He afterwards entered into holy orders, by the persuasion of Dr. Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1668. He was twice married: to his first wife he had Mary, daughter and heiress of Robert Smith, alias Carrington, by Magdalen his wife, daughter of Robert Hervey, esq. comptroller of the custom-house to James the First; secondly to Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Richard Bateman of Hartington in Derbyshire, and London, esq. by Christiana, his first wife, daughter of William Stone, of London, esq. who died, leaving him one son, and two daughters; the daughters only survived him. He died 30th May, 1670, aged fifty-one, at his house at Mile-end-green, and was interred June 2d, at Greenford in Middlesex, where he had an estate. He was author of the following works, some of which are much sought after at present: 1. “An Apology for Learning and Learned Men,” 1653, 8vo. 2. “Two Contemplations of Magnanimity and Acquaintance with God,” 1653, 8vo. 3. “A Discourse of the Piety, Policy, and Charity of Elder Times, and Christians,” 1655, 12mo. 4. “A Defence of Arms and Armory,” 1660, 8vo; with a frontispiece of his quarterings. 5. “Fortescutus illustratus; or, a Commentary on sir John Fortescue, lord chancellour to Henry VI. his book, De Laudibus legum AngUsfe,*' 1663, fol. with a fine portrait of Waterhouse, by Loggan, and of sir John Fortescue, by Faithorne. 6.” The Gentleman’s Monitor," 1665, 8vo, with a portrait by Horlocks.

“A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Landaff in June 1805,” was published in that year; and another in 1808: “Two Apologies, one for Christianity against Gibbon, and the other for the Bible against Paine, published together with two Sermons and a Charge in Defence of Revealed Religion,” in 1806, 8vo: “A Second Defence of Revealed Religion, in two Sermons; preached in the Chapel-royal, St. James’s, 1807.” “Communica r tion to the Board of Agriculture, on Planting and Waste Lands,” 1808. His lordship’s latest publication was a collection, of “Miscellaneous Tracts on Religious, Political, and Agricultural subjects,” 1815, 2 vols. 8vo. Some articles by him occur in the Transactions of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was one of the earliest members, During the last years of his life his lordship employed his leisure upon a history of his own times, after the manner of bishop Burnet’s celebrated work; and left directions for its publication after his decease. Such a performance from so, eminent a character will, of course, be expected with no ordinary anxiety by the political as well as the literary world, and will throw light on those parts of his own character and conduct which have been the subject of some difference of opinion. In the mean time it may be said of him, that he was an excellent public speaker, both in the pulpit and in the senate; his action graceful, his voice full and harmonious, and his delivery chaste and correct. As far as his influence extended, he was invariably the patron of merit. As a writer, bishop Watson united the knowledge of a scholar with the liberality of a gentlemaa, and in the course of a long, active, and conspicuous life, his lordship’s demeanour was marked by the characteristics of a very superior mind. His partiality to unlimited toleration in regard to religious opinion called down upon him the applauses of one part of the community, and the censures of the other. He uniformly exerted his endeavours to procure the abolition of the corporation and test-acts. In his private deportment, though somewhat reserved, he was remarkable for the simplicity of his manners, and the equality of his temper; enjoying all the emoluments of his stations, and the fame arising from his writings, in rural retirement, at Calgarth-park, Westmorland, a beautiful sequestered situation on the celebrated Lakes, a retreat which he had not only adorned and improved, but in some measure created, and where he passed much of his time in the indulgence of those deep studies to which his whole life was addicted. His plantations here were very extensive, and in 1789 gained him a premium from the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. On the whole, Dr. Watson may justly be pronounced a prelate of distinguished abilities, learning, research, and industry. He had a numerous family, and many distinguished personages were attached to him by the ties of friendship; amongst whom, the late duke of Grafton, to the close of his life, was long one of the most conspicuous.

, a modern German poet and miscellaneous writer of great fame in his country, was a native of Saxony, where he was born in 1726. He appears to have devoted the principal part of his life to literary pursuits, particularly poetry, the drama, and the principles of education. He obtained the place of electoral receiver for the circle of Upper Saxony, which probably made his circumstances easy, while it did not interrupt his numerous dramatic and other compositions. He died at Leipsic, Dec. 15, 1804, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He wrote a great many tragedies and comedies, the former of which are esteemed by his countrymen equal to those of Racine, and his comedies had great success, although the German critics give the preference to his comic operas. They also speak in the highest terms of his Anacreontic odes, his Amazonian songs, and his translation of Tyrtaeus. He was a long time editor of the “Library of the Belles Lettres,” a much esteemed German literary journal. He published also a periodical work from 1776 to 1782, called the “Friend of Children,” collected afterwards into volumes, and consisting of many interesting articles calculated to promote a love of virtue and of instruction in young minds. In this he has had several imitators; and Berquin’s “Ami des enfans” is said to be little more than a translation or imitation of Weisse’s work. He published also “The correspondence of the family of the Friend of children,” in a periodical form, but which is said to be a new edition, in a more convenient shape, of his preceding work.

, a minor poet and miscellaneous writer, born at Abington in Northamptonshire in 1689, received the rudiments of his education in Westminsterschool, where he wrote the celebrated little poem called “Apple-Pie,” which was universally attributed to Dr. King, and as such had been incorporated in his works. Very early inlife Mr. Welsted obtained a place in the office of ordnance, by the interest of his friend the earl of Clare, to whom, in 1715, he addressed a small poem (which Jacob calls “a very good one”) on his being created duke of Newcastle; and to whom, in 1724, he dedicated an octavo volume, under the title of “Epistles, Odes, &c. written on several subjects; with a translation of Longinus’s Treatise on the Sublime.” In 1717 he wrote “The Genius, on occasion of the duke of Marlborough’s Apoplexy;” an ode much commended by Steele, and so generally admired as to be attributed to Addison; and afterwards ' An Epistle to Dr. Garth, on the Duke’s death.“He addressed a poem to the countess of Warwick, on her marriage with Mr Addison; a poetical epistle to the duke of Chandos; and an ode to earl Cadogan, which was highly extolled by Dean Smedley. Sir Richard Steele was indebted to him for boih the prologue and epilogue to” The Conscious Lovers;“and Mr. Philips, for a complimentary poem on his tragedy of” Humfrey duke of Gloucester.“In 1718, he wrote” The Triumvirate, or a letter in verse from Palemon to Celia, from Bath,“which was considered as a satire against Mr. Pope. He wrote several other occasional pieces against this gentleman, who, in recompence for his enmity, thus mentioned him in his” Dunciad:"

, the supposed author of a law work of great reputation and authority, was born in 1567, in Oxfordshire, of the family of the Wentworths, of Northamptonshire. He was entered of University college, Oxford, in 1584, and after remaining three years there> removed to Lincoln’s Tnn, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In September 1607 he was elected recorder of Oxford, and in 1611 was Lent reader at Lincoln’s Inn. He also sat in several parliaments in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. for the city of Oxford. Wood says that in parliament he shewed himself “a troublesome and factious person,” and was more than once imprisoned. According to the same writer, he behaved so turbulently at Oxford, that he was discommoned with disgrace, but was afterwards restored. His restless spirit, however, returning, his friends advised him to retire, which he did to Henley. Some time after he went to London, and died in or near Lincoln’s Inn, in Sept. 1627. Such is Wood’s account. The work attributed to him is entitled “The office and duty of Executors,” &c. which, according to Wood> was published in 1612, 8vo, and has been often reprinted; the last edition in 1774, revised, with additions by the late serjeant Wilson. But there seems reason to doubt whether Wentworth was the original writer, for it has been ascribed by several authors to judge Dodderidge.

His public, and much of his private character, have been appreciated according to the views of the parties who were interested in his success. He was unquestionably a good scholar, and as a writer was entitled to considerable reputation. His talents for the pulpit have also been praised, and it is certain they were successfully employed. He is said to have succeeded best in his studied compositions, but his many engagements seldom afforded him time for such. He has been praised for his placability, but some of those in controversy with him reluctantly subscribe to this. That he was extremely charitable and disinterested has never been denied. He died comparatively poor, after having had in a principal degree the management of the whole funds of the society. He lived upon little himself, and his allowance to his preachers was very moderate. On the past or future effects of the vast society he formed, we shall not hazard an opinion. That he originally did good, great good, to the lower classes, is incontestable. He certainly contributed to meliorate that important part of society, and to produce a moral effect that had never before been so evident, or so extensive. In his system, however, his great machine, we see too much of human policy acting on the imperfections of human nature, to admire it much.

, a very estimable writer, was the son of Dr. West, the editor of “Pindar” in 1^697, who died in 1716, and his mother was sister to sir Richard Temple, afterwards lord Cobham. His father, purposing to educate him for the church, sent him first to Eton, and afterwards to Oxford; but he was seduced to a more airy mode of life by a commission in a troop of horse, procured him by his uncle. He continued some time in the army, but probably never lost the love, or neglected the pursuit of learning; and afterwards, finding himself more inclined to civil employment, he laid down his commission, and engaged in business under lord Townshend, then secretary of state, with whom he attended the king to Hanover. His adherence to lord Townshend ended in nothing but a nominatioin (May 1729) to be clerk-extraordinary of the Privy. Council, which produced no immediate profit; for it only placed him in a state of expectation and ri^ht of succession, and it was very long before a vacancy admitted him to profit.

Soon after this event, Wharton was severely attacked in “The Examiner,” and other political papers, on account of his administration of that kingdom; and by no writer with more asperity than Swift *, who endeavoured to expose him under the character of Verres, although he had, not long before, solicited in very abject terms to be admitted his lordship’s chaplain. Swift’s character of him in vol. V. of his Works, is perhaps the bitterest satire ever written on any man, but it may be observed that it relates in some measure to his morals, and those have been generally represented as very bad. On the other hand, the author of the Spectator, who dedicated the fifth volume of that work to him, affords a very favourable idea of his conduct in public life. He (probably Addison) observes that it was his lordship’s particular distinction, that he was master of the whole compass of business, and had signalized himself in the different scenes of it; that some are admired for the dignity, others for the popularity of their behaviour; some for their clearness of judgment, others for their happiness of expression; some for laying of schemes, and others for putting them in execution; but that it was his lordship only, who enjoyed these several talents united, and that too in as great perfection, as others possessed them singly; that his lordship’s enemies acknowledged this great extent

The marquis of Wharton was twice married, and both his wives had literary pretensions. The first was Anne, daughter and coheiress of sir Henry Lee, of Ditchly in Oxfordshire, by whom his lordship had no issue. She wrote some poetical essays of considerable merit, and was a pleasing letter-writer. His second lady was Lucy, daughter of lord Lisburne, by whom he bad his celebrated son, the subject of our next article, and two daughters. This marchioness wrote some verses, inserted in Mr. Nichols’s collection. Swift, in his scandalous character of the marquis, has not hesitated to blacken the character of this lady in a most infamous manner, if unfounded.

In 1692 he published, in 8vo, “A Defence of Pluralities,” in which the subject is handled with great ingenuity; and the same year was printed, in two volumes folio, his “Anglia Sacra, sive Collectio Historiarum, partim antiquitus, partim recenter, scriptarum, de Archiepiscopis &, Episcopis Anglise, a prima Fidei Christianas susceptione ad annum MDXL.” He has been generally commended for having done great service to the ecclesiastical history of this kingdom by this work yet bishop Burnet, in his “Reflections” on Atterbury’s book of “The Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of an English Convocation,” tells us, that “he had in his hands a whole treatise, which contained only the faults of ten leaves of one of the volumes of the ‘ Anglia Sacra.’ They are, indeed,” adds he, “so many, and so gross.^ that often the faults are as many as the lines: sometimes they are two for one.” This may be perhaps asserting too much, but unquestionably the errors in transcription, from haste, or from employing improper amanuenses, are so considerable as to render it necessary to peruse it with great caution, otherwise it is a truly valuable collection. There is a copy of it in the Bodleian? library, among Mr. Gough’s books, with an immense addition of ms notes by bishop Kennet. Jn 1693, Wharton published, in 4to, “Bedae Venerabilis Opera queedam Theologica, nunc primum edita; nee non Historica antea semel edita:” and the same year, under the name of Anthony Harmer, “A Specimen of some errors and defects in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England, written by Gilbert Burnet, D. D.” 8vo. In the answer to this, addressed by way of letter to Dr. Lloyd bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Dr. Burnet observes, that “he had not seen any one thing relating to his history which had pleased him so much as this specimen. It is plain,” says he, “that here is a writer, who has considered those times and that matter with much application; and that he is a master of this subject. He has the art of writing skilfully; and how much soever he may be wanting in a Christian temper, and in the decency that one who owns himself of our communion owed to the station I hold in it, yet in other respects he seems to be a very valuable man; so valuable, that I cannot, without a very sensible regret, see such parts and such industry like to be soured and spoiled with so ill a temper.” And afterwards, in his “Reflections’ 1 upon Atterbury’s book just mentioned, he speaks of the specimen in these words” Some years ago, a rude attack was made upon me under the disguised name of Anthony Harmer. His true name is well enough known, as also who was his patron: but I answered that specimen with the firmness that became me; and I charged the writer home to publish the rest of his “Reflections.” He had intimated, that he gave then but the sample, and that he had great store yet in reserve. I told him upon that, I would expect to see him make that good, and bring out all he had to say; otherwise, they must pass for slander and detraction. He did not think fit to write any more upon that, though he was as much solicited to it by some as he was provoked to it by myself.“In 1695 he published, in folio,” The History of the Troubles and Trials of Archbishop Laud;“the second part or volume of which was published after his death by his father, the Rev. Edmund Wharton, in 1700. This is one of the most useful collections of facts illustrative of the times in which Laud lived, that we are in possession of. He published also a new edition of Becatelli’s Life of Cardinal Pole, in Latin, with the confest between the ambassadors of England and France at the council of Constance. He published in 8vo,” Historia deEpiseopis & Decanis Londinensilxus, nee non de Episcopis & Decanis Assavensibus, a prima sedis utriusque fundatione ad annum MDXL.“Besides these works he left several pieces behind him, about which he had taken great pains: and two volumes of his” Sermons“have been printed in 8vo since his death. Among his Mss, are several English historians not yet published, which he had transcribed and collated with the originals, and prepared for the press; viz. 1.” Benedictus Abbas de Gestis Henrici secundi Regis Angliae, A. D. U70.“2.” Chronicon Nicolai Tribettt (vulgo de Trebeth) Dominicani, ab ann. 1136 ad ann, 1307.“3?” Chronicon Petri Ickham, Compilatio de Gestis Britonum & Anglorum.“4.” Stephani Birchington Monachi Cantuariensis Historia de regibus Angliae post conquestum.“5.” Liber nonus de miraculis Anglorum.“In some of these are contained vast collections out of the ancient and modem records relating to church affairs. Among his manuscripts was likewise” An Account of the Mss. in Lambeth Library“in which, besides giving a most exact catalogue of them, he had under every book transcribed all those treatises contained in them which were not yet published. Among the printed books, towards a new and more correct edition of which Wharton had considerably contributed, were the following: 1.” Historia Matt. Parkeri Archiepiscopi Cantuar. de antiquitate Britaonicae Ecclesiae,“&c. enlarged with notes, collections, and additions, partly made by Parker himself, and partly by others, and several by Wharton; together with the Life of the said Archbishop, as also that of St. Austin of Canterbury, written by George Acworth. 2.” Franciscus Godwinus de Praesulibus Angliae," with some notes. 3. Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthew of Westminster, both with many notes, corrections, and additions. He had likewise made notes on several of his own books already published by him; which it is probable were designed for additions to those books whenever they should receive a new impression. All these, which were purchased by archbishop Tenison, are now in the Lambeth Library.

"The whole foundation of any pretence at all was no more than this. Mr. Wharton lived with me as an amanuensis at that time I resumed my design of the Hist. Liter. Besides his writing, as I dictated to him, I employed him to transcribe several things, particularly the titles of the fathers’ works, as they stand before their several editions, adding myself what short notes I thought fit to any of them and sometimes, though not very often> where the opinion of an author concerning an ecclesiastical writer was large, I set him down to draw it into a few lines, but still under my own direction and alteration. This, for instance, was the case of Origen’s works, and of what he pleasantly calls, p. 81, Dissertationem de Origenis operibus proprio martt compositarn, which was no more than thus. J sett him to collect the writings of Origen mentioned in Huetius’s Origeniana adding, what I thought fitt to them, as also the heads of his Dogmata, as they stand in the several sections of Huet’s book, and which accordingly, p. 82, I have acknowledged to have been extracted thence. la Cyprian I set him to take out his works as they are placed according to order of time in the Oxford edition, and to reduce the titles of the last Paris edition to them. In St. Augustine, I sent him to look over three or four volumes, (which were all could then be had) of the New Benedictine edition, and observe what alterations they had made from former editions, and they are mentioned up and down in the account of St. Augustin’s works. In St. Chrysostom, I employed him to transcribe the titles of his works as they stand before the several volumes qf sir H. Savil, and to recluce those of Fr. Ducseus to them, which accordingly are sett down column-wise, p. 255, &c. In reading to me out of bishop Usher’s Bibliotheca Theologica, concerning Chrysostom, (and the like concerning some others), I ordered him to copy out several passages which you have in the bishop’s own words from p. 270, and so on. In Theodoret, I directed him to coliect'his works as they are reckoned up in Garnerius’s dissertation De Vit. et Libns Theodoriti, which I refer to p. 319. Thus I sent him to your grace’s library, St. Martin’s, to collate a new edition of Zonures with the former, and he brought me an account of what was in the new; as also to the library at Lambeth, to run over three or four volumes of Lambecius. His extracts Ihave still by me somewhere, but in my own words and way I made use of.

, is an author of whom very little is known. From the circumstance of his being a kinsman to serjeant Fleetwood, recorder of London, it is probable that he was of a good family. It appears that he first tried his fortune at court, where he consumed his patrimony in fruitless expectation of preferment. Being now destitute of subsistence, he commenced soldier, and served abroad, though in what capacity is unknown. Such, however, was his gallant behaviour, that his services were rewarded with additional pay. He returned from the wars with honour, but with little profit; and his prospect of advancement was so small, that he determined to turn farmer, but being unsuccessful in that undertaking, was under the necessity of applying to the generosity of his friends. This he found to be “a broken reed, and worse than common beggary of charity from strangers. Now craft accosted him in his sleep, and tempted him with the proposals of several professions; but for the knavery or slavery of them, he rejected all: his munificence constrained him to love money, and his magnanimity to hate all the ways of getting it.” At last he resolved to seek his fortune at sea, and accordingly embarked with sir Humphrey Gilbert in the expedition to Newfoundland, which was rendered unsuccessful by an engagement with the Spanish fleet. From this period, Mr. Whetstone seems to have depended entirely on his pen for subsistence. Where or when he died has not been ascertained. He is entitled to some notice as a writer whose works are in request as literary curiosities, but of little intrinsic value. Mr. Steevens pronounced him “the most quaint and contemptible writer, both in prose and verse, he ever met with.” He wrote, 1. “The Rock of Regard,” a poem in four parts. 2. “The Life of George Gascoigne,” 1577, 4to. A reprint of this may be seen in the late edition of the “English Poets,” 1810, 21 vols. 8vo. The only original copy known of late years, was purchased by Mr. Maione for forty guineas! 3. “Promus and Cassandra,” a comedy, 1578, 4to, on this play Shakspeare founded his “Measure for Measure.” 4. “Heptameron of civil discourses,” 1582, 4to. 5. “The remembrance of the life and death of Thomas, late earl of Sussex,” 1583, 4to. 6. “A mirrour of true honour, &c. in the life and death, &c, of Francis earl of Bedford,” &c. 1,585, 4to. 7. “The English mirror, wherein all estates may behold the conquest of error,” 1586. This contains much of the state history of the times. 8. “Censure of a dutiful subject of certain noted speech and behaviour of those fourteen noted traytors at the place of execution on the 20th and 21st of Sept.” no date. 9. A poem “on the life and death of sir Philip Sidney” by him, and supposed unique, a very few leaves only, was lately sold at Messrs. King and Lochee’s to Mr. Harding for 261. 5s. An account of some of these curiosities may be seen in our authorities.

, a learned English divine, and able antiquary, was born at Manchester, about 1735. He went early to Oxford, where he was elected fellow of Corpus Chrisii college, and where he discovered, in a very short tune, those fine originalities, those peculiarities of rniiui, which afterwards so strongly marked him as an author and as a man. He took the degree of' M. A. 1759; and proceeded B. D. 1767. His uncommon vigour of intellect at once displayed itself among hisacquaintance but, whilst his animated conversation drew many around him, a few were repelled from the circle by his impatience of contradiction (a failing which frequently accompanies powers like his), and by the consciousness, his biographer thinks, of their own inferiority. The character of his gepjus, however, was soon decided in literary composition. In 1771, Mr. W. published the first volume of his “History of Manchester,*' in quarto; a work which, for acute* ness of research, bold imagination, independent sentiment, and correct information, has scarcely its parallel in the literature of the country. Nor does its composition less merit our applause, whether we have respect to the arrangement of the materials, the style, or the language. In some passages there is” supreme elegance;“in others a magnificence of thought, a force of expression, a glow of diction, truly astonishing. The introduction of Christianity into this island, in particular, is uncommonly beautiful. With regard to the general subject of the” Manchester,“he was the first writer who could so light up the region of antiquarianism as to dissipate its obscurity, even to the eyes pf ordinary spectators; his” Manchester“being perhaps the book in which the truth of our island history has been test elucidatedr It is rather singular that this work was in the order of merit, as well as time, the first of Mr.Wbitaker’s publications. In proportion as he advanced in life, his imagination seems, by a strange inversion of what is characteristic of our nature, to have gained an ascendancy pver his judgment; and we shall perceive more of fancy and passion, of conjecture and hypothesis, in some of his subsequent productions, than of just opinion, or deliberate investigation. Mr. Whitaker’s” Genuine History of the Britons asserted,“an octavo volume, published in 1772, may be considered as a sequel to the” Manchester.“It contains a complete refutation of” the unhappy Macpherson,“whose” Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland" is full of palpable mistakes and misrepresentations.

In criticism, (where writing anonymously he would probably have written with the less restraint) we find him for the most part candid and good-natured, not sparing of censure, yet lavish of applause; and affording, in numerous instances, the most agreeable proofs of genuine benevolence. Even in the instance of Gibbon, where he has been thought severe beyond all former example, we have a large mixture of sweet with the bitter. It was his critique on Gibbon which contributed principally to the reputation of the “English Review;” in which Mr. W. was the author of many valuable articles. To his pen. also the “British Critic,” and “The Antijacobiu Review,*' were indebted for various pieces of criticism. But the strength of his principles is no where more apparent than in those articles where he comes forward, armed with the panoply of truth, in defence of our civil and ecclesiastical Constitution. He was also a poet. That he contributed some fine pieces of poetry to” The Cornwall and Devon Poets,“is well known. These were published in two small octavo volumes. He occasionally displayed his powers in the several departments of the Historian, the Theologist, the Critic, the Politician, and the Poet. Versatility like Whitaker’s is, in truth, of rare occurrence. But still more rare is the splendor of original genius, exhibited in walks so various. Not that Mr. W. was equally happy in them all. His characteristic traits as a writer were, acute discernment, and a Velocity of ideas which acquired new force in composition, and a power of combining images in a manner peculiarly striking, and of flinging on every topic of discussion the strongest illustration. With little scruple, therefore, we hazard an opinion, that though hi* chief excellence be recognized in antiquarian research, he would have risen to higher eminence as a poet, had he cultivated in early youth the favour of the Muses. Be this, however, as it may; there are none who will deny him the praise of a” great“literary character. That he was” good“as well as great, would sufficiently appear in the recollection of any period of his life; whether we saw him abandoning preferment from principle, and heard him” reasoning of righteousness and judgment to come,“until a Gibbon trembled; or whether, among his parishioners, we witnessed his unaffected earnestness of preaching, his humility in conversing with the poorest cottagers, his sincerity in assisting them with advice, his tenderness in offering them consolation, and his charity in relieving -their distresses. It is true, to the same warmth of temper, together with a sense of good intentions, we must attribute an irritability at times destructive of social comfort; and an impetuousness that brooked not opposition, and bore down all before it. This precipitation was in part also to be traced to his ignorance of the world; to his simplicity in believing others like himself precisely what they seemed to be; and, oo the detection of his error, his anger at dissimulation or hypocrisy. But his general good humour, his hospitality, and his convivial pleasantry, were surely enough to atone for those sudden bursts of passion, those flashes, which betrayed his human frailty, but still argued genius. And they who knew how” fearfully and wonderfully he was made," could bear from a Whitaker what they would certainly have resented in another. We should add, that in his family Mr. Whitaker was uniformly regular; nor did he suffer, at any time, his literary cares to trench on his domestic duties.

Not many months before his death the writer of this article heard him speak of “Notes on Shakspeare,” and “Illustrations of the Bible.” But he wished to finish his “Oxford,” his “London,” and his “St. Neot,” (already mentioned as projected publications) before he resumed his “Shakspeare,” on which he had occasionally written notes; and, to lay aside his “Shakspeare,” before he took up his 'Bible." To the Bible he meant at last to withdraw himself from all other studies.

Although we have called Whitefield the founder of the Calvinistic rnethoclists, it would perhaps be more proper to say that he was the reviver of Calvinism in these kingdoms. He left indeed a few places of worship, yet in most instances, he was satisfied with impressing upon the multitudes who flocked to hear him, the importance of their salvation, and leaving them to the constant care of their regular clergymen, or dissenting ministers with whom he maintained communion. But to those distinct congregations which he had raised, have been added, what is called lady Huntingdon’s connection; and since his death the successors at his chapels have laboured diligently to extend their pale, and have formed what is called the union of the Calvinist methodists, which may be considered as having amalgamated the different parties into one body. It has been remarked by a late writer, as a striking difference between Wesley and Whitefield, that “while Wesley was drilling his followers into a regular system, with all the policy of the catholic fathers of Paraguay, and thus raising a well-disciplined army, which moved obsequious to his commanding voice; his less politic brother neglected to provide for the perpetuity of his name, and with generous indifference to self, raised only a popular standard, around which detached parties of flying troops voluntarily ranged themselves.” Whitefield’s Works, practical and controversial, were published in 6 vols. 8vo.

Mr. Mason complains that these elegies were not popular, and states various objections made to them; he does not add by whom: but takes care to inform us that the poet bore his fate contentcrdly, because he was no longer under the necessity of adapting himself to the public taste in order to become a popular writer. He had received, while yet in Italy, two genteel patent placesf, usually united, the badges of secretary and register of the order of the Bath; and two years after, on 'he death of old Gibber, he was appointee) poet laureat. This last place was offered to Gray, by Mr. Mason’s mediation, and an apology was made for passing over Mr. Mason himself, “that being in orders, he was thought, merely on that account, less eligible for the office than a layman.” Mr. Mason says, he was glad to hear this reason assigned, and did not think it a weak one. It appears, however, that a higher respect was paid to Gray than to Whitehead, in the offer of the appointment. Gray was to hold it as a sinecure, but Whitehead was expected to do the duties of the Laureat. In this dilemma, if it may be so called, Mr. Mason endeavoured to relieve his friend by an expedient not very promising. He advised him to employ a deputy to write his annual odes, and reserve his own pen for certain great occasions, as a peace, or a royal marriage: and he pointed out to him two or three needy poets who, for the reward of five or ten guineas, would be humble enough to write under the eye of the musical composer. Whitehead had more confidence in his powers, or more respect for his royal patron, than to take this advice, and set himself to compose his annual odes with the zeal that he employed on his voluntary effusions. But although he had little to fear from the fame of his predecessor, he was not allowed to enjoy all the benefits of comparison. His odes were confessedly superior to those of Gibber, but the office itself, under Gibber’s possession, had become so ridiculous, that it was no easy task to restore it to some degree of public respect. Whitehead, however, was perhaps the man of all others, his contemporaries, who could perform this with most ease to himself. Attacked as he was, in every way, by “the little fry” of the poetical profession, he was never provoked into retaliation, aud bore even the more dangerous abuse of Churchill, with a real or apparent indifference, which to that turbulent libeller must have been truly mortifying. He was not, however, insensible of the inconvenience, to say the least, of -a situation which obliges a man to write two poems yearly upon the same subjects; and with this feeling wrote “The Pathetic Apology for all Laureats,” which, from the motto, he appears to have intended to reach that quarter where only redress could be obtained, but it was not published till after his death.

Unless, with Mr. Mason, we conclude that where Whitehead was unsuccessful, the public was to blame, it will not be easy to prove his right to a very high station among English poets. Yet perhaps he did not so often fall short from a defect of genius, as from a timidity which inclined him to listen too frequently to the corrections of his friends, and to believe that what was first written could never be the best. Although destitute neither of invention nor ease, he repressed both by adhering, like his biographer, to certain standards of taste which the age would not accept, and like him too, consoled himself in the hope of some distant sera when his superior worth should be acknowledged. As a prose writer, he has given proofs of classical taste and reading in his “Observations on the Shield of Æneas,” originally published in Dodsley’s Museum, and afterwards annexed to Warton’s Virgil; and of genuine and delicate humour in three papers of The World, No. 12, 19, and 58, which he reprinted in the edition of his Works, published in 1774.

He was interred in the parish church of Croydon, where a monument was erected, with an inscription to his memory. He is described as being in person of a middle stature, a grave countenance, and brown complexion, black hair and eyes. He wore his beard neither long nor thick. He was small-boned, and of good agility, being straight and weli shaped in all his limbs, to the light habit of his body, which began somewhat to spread and fill out towards his latter years. His learning seems to have been confined to the Latin language, as Hugh Broughton often objected to him, nor does he appear to have been much skilled in the deeper points of theology; but he was an admired and diligent preacher, and took delight in exercising his talent that way; it was, however, in ecclesiastical government that his/brte lay, in the administration of which he was both indefatigable and intrepid. It is by his conduct in this that his character has been estimated by posterity, and has been variously estimated according to the writer’s regard for, or aversion to, the constitution of the church of England.

The principles which this eminent reformer endeavoured to introduce may be gathered from the nineteen articles before-mentioned, which were extracted from his public lectures and sermons, by the monks, and sent to the pope. It appears that he held the doctrine of predestination in as strong a sense as any who have since supported it, and, in the opinion of a late writer, carries it much farther than any modern or ancient writers have attempted. He was, indeed, an absolute necessitarian, and among certain articles extracted from his works by Thomas Netter (commonly called Thomas of Walden, who flourished about 1409) we find the following, “That all things come to pass by fatal necessity; that God could not make the world otherwise than it is made; and that God cannot do any thing which he doth not do.” Other less unguarded expressions have been laid to his charge, of which Fuller observes, that were all his works extant, “we might read the occasion, intention, and connection of what he spake, together with the limitations, restrictions, distinctions, and qualifications, of what he maintained. There we might see what was the overplus of his passion, and what the just measure of his judgment.” He maintained, with the church in after-times, the doctrine of pardon and justification by the alone death and righteousness of Christ. The several points in which he differed from the then established popery were these; the reading of the bible in the vulgar tongue, and making them the sole rule of a Christian’s faith and practice, without faith in tradition, or any human authority; his opposing the pope’s supremacy and infallibility; his rejecting and condemning transubstantiation, indulgences, confession, and absolution, extreme unction; the celibacy of the clergy; forced vows of chastity; prayers to, and worship of saints, shrines and pilgrimages. But the opinions which rendered him most obnoxious in his day, were those which struck at the temporal dominion of the pope, and which occasioned many of his followers to be persecuted in the subsequent reigns of Richard II. Henry IV. and Henry V.

, a voluminous German writer who has been complimented with the title of the Voltaire of Germany, was born in 1733, at Biberach. Of his life no authentic account has, as far as we know, reached this country, but the following few particulars, gleaned from various sources, may perhaps be genuine, His father was a clergyman, who gave him a good education, and his attachment to the Muses discovered itself very early. At the age of fourteen, he wrote a poem on the destruction of Jerusalem, Two years after he was sent to Erfurt to study the sciences, where he became enamoured of Sophia de Gusterman, afterwards known by the name of Madame de la Roche. The youthful lovers swore eternal fidelity to each other, but Wieland’s father thought proper to interrupt the connection, and sent his son to Tubingen to study law. For this he probably had little inclination, and employed most of his thoughts and time on poetry, producing at the age of eighteen an “Art of Love” in the manner of Ovid, and a poem “On the nature of things,” in which we are told he combined the philosophy of Plato and Leibnitz. After this he appears to have devoted himself entirely to study and writing, and acquired considerable reputation as a poet of taste and fancy. For some time he appears to have resided in Swisserland, and in 1760 he returned to his native place, where he was appointed to the office of director of the chancery, and during his leisure hours wrote some of those works which completely established him in the opinion of his countrymen, as one or the greatest geniuses of the age, and honours were liberally bestowed upon him. The elector of Mentz made him professor of philosophy and polite literature at Erfurt, and he was soon after appointed tutor to the two young princes of Saxe Weimar; he was also aulic counsellor to the duke, who gave him a pension; and counsellor of government to the elector of Mentz. In 1765 he married a lady at Augsburgh, of whom he speaks so highly that we may conclude ke had overcome or moderated his attachment to the object of his first love. In 1808 Bonaparte sent him the cross of the legion of honour, and after the battle of Jena, partook of a repast with Wieland, and, we are gravely told, “conversed with him at great length on the folly and horrors of war and on various projects for the establishment of a perpetual peace!” Wieland’s latter days were employed in translating Cicero’s Letters. A paralysis of the abdominal viscera was the prelude to his death, which took place at Weimar, in January 1813, in the eighty-first year of his age.

, a late amiable and ingenious writer, was the only son of Dr. Joseph Wilcocks, of whom we have the following particulars. He waa born in 1673, and was educated at Magdalen-college, Oxford, where he formed a lasting friendship with Mr. Boulter, afterwards primate of Ireland; Mr. Wilcocks was chosen a demy of his college at the same election with Boulter and Addison, and from the merit and learning of the elect, this was commonly called by Dr. Hough, president of the college, “the golden election.” He was ordained by bishop Sprat, and while a young man, went chaplain to the English factory at Lisbon; where, as in all the other scenes of his life, he acquired the public love and esteem, and was long remembered with grateful respect. While here, such was his sympathy and his courage, that although he had not then had the small-pox, yet when that dreadful malady broke out in the factory, he constantly attended the sick and dying. On his return to England, he was appointed chaplain to George I. and preceptor to his royal granddaughters, the children of George II. He also had a prebend of Westminster, and in 1721 was made bishop of Gloucester, the episcopal palace of which he repaired, which for a considerable time before had stood uninhabited; and thus he became the means of fixing the residence of future bishops in that see. In 1731 he was translated to the bishopric of Rochester, with which he held the deanry of Westminster. Seated in this little diocese, he declined any higher promotion, even that of the archbishopric of York, frequently using the memorable expression t>f bishop Fisher, one of his predecessors, “Though this my wife be poor, I must not think of changing her for one more opulent.” The magnificence of the west-front of Westminster-abbey, during his being dean, is recorded as a splendid monument of his zeal for promoting public works, in suitable proportion to his station in life. He wouJd doubtless have been equally zealous in adorning and enlarging his cathedral at Rochester, had there been ground to hope for national assistance in that undertaking; but its episcopal revenues were very inadequate to the expence. He was constantly resident upon his diocese, and from the fatigue of his last Visitation there, he contracted the illness which terminated his life by a gradual decay, March 9, 1756, aged eighty-three. He was buried in a vault in Westminster-abbey, under the consistory court, which he had built the year before, by permission from the Chapter. His son erected a monument for him next to that of Dr. Pearce. He married Jane, the daughter of John Milner, esq. sometime his Britannic majesty’s consul at Lisbon, who died in her twenty-eighth year. By her he hd Joseph, the more immediate subject of the present article.

Mr. Wild’s person was thin and meagre, and his stature moderately tall. He had an extraordinary memory; and, as his pupils frequently invited him to spend an evening with them, he would often entertain them with long and curious details out of the Roman, Greek, and Arabic, histories. His morals were good; he was addicted to no vice, but was sober, temperate, modest, and diffident of himself, without the least tincture of vanity. About 1720 he removed to London, where he spent the remainder of his life under the patronage of Dr. Mead. When he died is not known, but in 1734, which is supposed to have been after his death, was published his translation from the Arabic of “Mahomet’s Journey to Heaven,” which is the only piece of his that was ever printed. The writer of his life informs us that it was once suspected that he was a Jesuit in disguise, but for this there appears to have been no foundation. Before he went to Oxford, we have the following notice respecting him in a letter from Dr. Turner to Dr. Charlett, dated Norwich, March 4, 1714. “A taylor of this town, of about thirty years of age, ha within seven years, mastered seven languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic, and Persic. Mr. Professor Ockley being here since Christmas has examined him, and given him an ample testimonial in writing of his skill in the Oriental languages. Our dean also thinks him very extraordinary. But he is very poor, and his landlord lately seized a Polyglot Bible (which he had made shift to purchase) for rent. But there is care taken to clear his debts, and if a way could be thought of to make him more useful, I believe we could get a subscription towards part of his maintenance.” This we find by the above narrative was accordingly done.

The years 1765 and 1766 he passed in a journey through Italy. But as he knew too well the nature of the multitude, not to be aware that a long retirement would soon cause him to be forgotten, even by those whose sympathy in his favour was most warm, when the duke of Grafton became minister, towards the end of 1766, Mr. Wilkes solicited, in a letter to him, the clemency of his sovereign; and finding. his address but faintly listened to, he, in a second letter to the same nobleman, again called the public attention to his case. He endeavoured also to keep his name alive, by publishing in 1767, “A collection of the genuine Papers, Letters, &c. in the Case of J. Wilkes, late member for Aylesbury in the county of Bucks; a Paris, chez J. W. imprimeur, Run du Columhier, Fauxburgk St. Germain, a I' Hotel de Saxe” In 1768 he again appeared personally upon the theatre of public action. On the 4th of March he addressed a letter of submission to the king, which was delivered by his servant at Buckingham Gate. This, like his first letter to the duke of Grafton, supplicated pardon, which one of his biographers says he was enabled to do without meanness, because “in no one syllable of his otherwise offensive publications had he offended against the personal respect due to the prince on the throne.” But this writer surely forgets the obvious tenour-of his No. 45, as well as the repeated and atrocious attacks he made on the princess dowager, his majesty’s mother.

As a professional writer, Dr. Willan appeared early, in his contributions to the periodical works. On his arrival in London, he became a member of a private medical society, which held its meetings at a coffee-house, in Cecilstreet, and which published two volumes of papers, under the title of “Medical Communications,” in 1784 and 1790. In the second of these volumes he published the history of “A remarkable case of Abstinence,” in a hypochondriacal young man, which was uninterrupted for the space of sixty-one days, and terminated fatally. We believe that this was the only medical society of which he was ever a member. Several communications from him were also printed in the London MedicalJournal, edited between the years 1781 and 1790 by Dr. Simmons. In the fourth volume, p. 421, a short letter of his appears, stating the character of a non-descript Byssus, found in the sulphureous waters of Aix; and in the sixth volume of the same Journal, he relates a fatal case of obstruction in the bowels, to which last he appended some useful reflections on the diagnostic symptoms of these obstructions, as occurring in the large or in the small intestines. He has also some communications in the seventh and eighth volumes. After the publication of the eleventh volume of this Journal, Dr. Simmons commenced a new series, under the title of “Medical Facts and Observations” in the third volume of which a paper of Dr. Willan’s appeared, containing a description of several cases of iscuria renalis in children.

Some time after the death of his wife, he married in 1701, as his second, Jane, the widow of Mr. Francis Barkstead, and the daughter of one Guill, a French refugee; by her also he had a very considerable fortune, which he devoted to the purposes of liberality. Of his political sentiments, we Jearn only, that he was an enemy to the bill against occasional conformity, and a staunch friend to the union with Scotland. When on a visit to that country in 1709, he received a diploma for the degree of D. D. from the university of Edinburgh, and another from Glasgow, Qne of his biographers gives us the following account of his conduct on this occasion. “He was so far from seeking or expecting thjs honour, that he was greatly displeased with the occasion of it, and with great modesty he entreated Mr. Carstairs, the principal of the college at Edinburgh, to prevent it. But the dispatch was made before that desire of his could reach them. I have often heard Jiim express his dislike of the thing itself, and much more his distaste at the pfficious vanity of some who thought they had much obliged him when they moved for the procuring it; and this, not that he despised the honour of being a graduate in form in that profession in which he was now a truly reverend father; nor in the least, that he refused to receive any favours from the ministers of the church gf Scotland, for whom he preserved a very great esteem, and on many occasions gave signal testimonies of his respect; but he thought it savoured of an extraordinary franity? that the English presbyterians should accept a nominal distinction, which the ministers of the church of Scotland declined for themselves, and did so lest it should break in upon that parity which they so severely maintained; which parity among the ministers of the gospel, the presbyterians in England acknowledged also to be agreeable to that scripture rule, ‘ Whosoever will be greatest among you let him be as the younger,’ Luke xxii. 26 and Matt, xxiii. 8, `Be ye not called Rabbi,' of which text a learned writer says, it should have been translated, `Be ye not called doctors’ and the Jewish writers and expositors of their law, are by some authors styled Jewish Rabbins, by others, and that more frequently, doctors, &c. &c.” Our readers need scarcely be told that this is another point on which Dr. Williams differs much from his successors, who are as ambitious of the honour of being called doctor, as he was to avoid it.

, a literary and religious projector of some note, was born at a village near Cardigan, in 1738, and after receiving the rudiments of education, was placed in a school or college at Carmarthen, preparatory to the dissenting ministry; which profession he entered upon in obedience to parental authority, but very contrary to his own inclination. His abilities and acquirements even then appeared of a superior order; but he has often in the latter part of his life stated to the writer of his memoirs, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, that he had long considered it &s a severe misfortune, that the most injurious impressions were made upon his youthful and ardent mind by the cold, austere, oppressive, and unarniable manner in which the doctrines and duties of religion were disguised in the stern and rigid habits of a severe puritanical master. From this college he took the office of teacher to a small congregation at Frome, in Somersetshire, and after a short residence was removed to a more weighty charge at Exeter. There the eminent abilities and engaging manners of the young preacher opened to him the seductive path of pleasure; when the reproof that some elder members of the society thought necessary, being administered in a manner to awaken resentment rather than contrition; and the eagle eye of anger discovering in his accusers imperfections of a different character indeed, but of tendency little suited to a public disclosure, the threatened recrimination suspended the proceedings, and an accommodation took place, by which Mr. Williams left Exeter, and was engaged to the superintendence of a dissenting congregation at Highgate. After a residence there of a year or two, he made his first appearance in 1770, as an author, by a “Letter to David Garrick,” a judicious and masterly critique on the actor, but a sarcastic personal attack qn the man, intended to rescue Mossop from the supposed unjust displeasure of the modern Roscius: this effect was produced, Mossop was liberated, and the letter withdrawn from the booksellers, Shortly after appeared “The Philosopher, in three Conversations,” which were much read, and attracted considerable notice. This was soon followed by “Essays on Public Worship, Patriotism, and Projects of Reformation;” written and published upon the occasion of the leading religious controversy of the day; but though they obtained considerable circulation, they appear not to have softened the asperities of either of the contending parties. The Appendix to these Essays gave a strong indication of that detestation of intolerance, bigotry, and hypocrisy which formed the leading character of his subsequent life, and which had been gradually taking possession of his mind from the conduct of softie of the circle of associates into which his profession had thrown him.

, an able divine, and bishop of Chichester, was born in Northamptonshire in 1634. In 1651 he entered a commoner of Magdalen-hall, Oxford, where in 1658 he completed his degrees in arts, and was ordained. In 1673 he was collated to the rectory of St. Mildred in the Poultry, London, and in 1683 to the prebend of Reymere in the cathedral of St. Paul. After the revolution he became chaplain to king William and queen Mary, and was preferred to a prebend of Canterbury, and in December 1696 advanced to the bishopric of Chichester, in which he died in 1709. He was a considerable writer in the controversies with the papists and dissenters, and preached the lectures founded by Mr. Boyle, his sermons on that occasion being published in 1695, 4to, under the title of “The characters of Divine Revelation.” He wrote also a “History of the Gunpowder Treason,” and many controversial pamphlets enumerated by Wood. He lived in great intimacy with Tillotson, who says of him, “Mr. Williams is really one of the best men I know, and most unwearied in doing good, and his preaching is very weighty and judicious.” When Firmin, the Socinian, published his “Considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity,” Pr. Williams wrote the same year (1694) a “Vindication of archbishop Tillotson’s Four Sermons (concerning the divinity and incarnation of our blessed Saviour) and of the bishop of Worcester’s sermon on the mysteries of the Christian faith.” In this, which was not published till 1695, after 'Tillotson’s death, Dr. Williams observes that it was not without the archbishop’s direction and encouragement, that he entered upon it, and that had he lived to have perused the whole, as he did a part of it a few days before his last hours, it had come with greater advantage into the world, &c.

, an English historian, was the son of Richard Wilson, of Yarmouth, in the county of Norfolk, gentleman; and was born in that county, 1596. In 1609 he went to France, where he continued almost two years; and upon his return to England was placed with sir Henry Spiller, to be one of his clerks in the exchequer office; in whose family he resided till having written some satirical verses upon one of the maid-servants, he was dismissed at lady Spiller’s instigation. In 1613 he took a lodging in Holborn, where he applied himself to reading and poetry for some time; and, the year after, was taken into the family of Robert earl of Essex, whom he attended into the Palatinate in 1620; to the siege of Dornick, in Holland, in 1621 to that of Rees in 1622 to Arnheim, in 1623 to the siege of Breda in 1624 and in the expedition to Cadiz in 1625. In 1630 he was discharged the earl’s service, at the importunity of his lady, who had conceived an aversion to him, because she had supposed him to have been against the earl’s marrying her. He tells us, in his own life, that this lady’s name, before she marrie,d the earl, was Elizabeth Paulet; that “she appeared to the eye a beauty, full of harmless sweetness; that her conversation was affable and gentle; and, as he was firmly persuaded, that it was not forced, but natural. But the height of her marriage and greatness being an accident, altered her very nature; for,” he says, “she was the true image of Pandora’s box,” nor was he much mistaken, for this lady was divorced for adultery two years after her marriage. In 1631 he retired to Oxford, and became gentlman commoner of Trinity college, where he stayed almost two years, and was punctual in his compliance with the laws of the university. Then he was sent for to be steward to the earl of Warwick, whom he attended in 1637 to the siege of Breda. He died in 1652, at Felstead, in Essex, and his will was proved in October of that year. The earl and countess of Warwick received from him the whole of his library, and 50l. to be laid out in purchasing a piece of gold plate, as a memorial, particularly applying to the Jatter, “in testimony,” as he adds, “of my humble duty and gratitude for all her noble and 1 undeserved favours to me.” Gratitude seems to have been a strong principle with Wilson, as appears from his life, written by himself, and printed in Peck’s “Desiderata.” Wood’s account of him is, that “he had little skill in the Latin tongue, less in the Greek, a good readiness in the French, and some smattering in the Dutch. He was well seen in the mathematics and poetry, and sometimes in the common law of the nation. He had composed some comedies, which were acted at the Black Friars, in London, by the king’s players, and in the act-time at Oxford, with good applause, himself being- present; but whether they are printed I cannot yet tell; sure lam, that I have several specimens of his poetry printed in divers books. His carriage was very courteous and obliging, and such as did become a wellbred gentleman. He also had a great command of the English tongue, as well in writing as speaking; and, had he bestowed his endeavours on any other subject than that of history, they would without doubt have seemed better. For, in those things which he hath done, are wanting the principal matters conducing to the completion of that” faculty, viz. matter from record, exact time, name, and place, which, by his endeavouring too much to set out his bare collections in an affected and bombastic style, are much neglected.“The history here alluded to by Wood, is” The Life and Reign of king James I.“printed in London in 1653, folio; that is, the year after his death and reprinted in the 2d volume of” -The complete History of England,“in 1706, folio. This history has been severely treated by many writers. Mr. William Sanderson says, that,” to give Wilson his due, we may find truth and falsehood finely put together in it.“Heylin, in the-general preface to his” Examen,“styles Wilson’s history” a most famous pasquil of the reign of king James; in which it is not easy to judge whether the matter be more false, or the style more reproachful to all parts thereof.“Mr. Thomas Fuller, in his” Appeal of injured Innocence,“observes, how Robert earl of Warwick told him at Beddington, that, whenWilson’s book in manuscript was brought to him, his lordship expunged more than an hundred offensive passages: to which Mr. Fuller replied,” My lord, you have done well; and you had done better if you had put out a hundred more.“Mr. Wood’s sentence is,” that, in our author’s history, may easily be discerned a partial presbyterian vein, that constantly goes through the whole work: and it being the genius of those people to pry more than they should into the courts and comportments of princes, they do take occasion thereupon to traduce and bespatter them. Further also, our author, having endeavoured in many things to make the world believe that king James and his son after him were inclined to Popery, and to bring that religion into England, hath made him subject to many errors and misrepresentations.“On the other band, archdeacon Echard tells us, that” Wilson’s History of the life and reign of king James, though written not without some prejudices and rancour in respect to some persons, and too much with the air of a romance, is thought to be the best of that kind extant:“and the writer of the notes on the edition of it in the” Complete History of England“remarks, that, as to the style of our author’s history,” it is harsh and broken, the periods often obscure, and sometimes without connection; faults, that were common in most writers of that time. Though he finished that history in the year 1652, a little before his death, when both the monarchy and hierarchy were overturned, it does not appear he was an enemy to either, but only to the corruptions of them; as he intimates in the picture he draws of himself before that hook."

, an English divine and writer, was born in 1689, and became a member of Trinity-college, Oxford, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1712, and that of A. M. in 1719. In the following year he was pre^ bendary of Lowtb, and afterwards of Scamblesbey in the church of Lincoln in 1727, about which time he was also vicar of Newark in Nottinghamshire, master of the hospital there, and an alderman. He is thought to have owed his preferments chiefly to bishop Reynolds of Lincoln. From the crown he had a prebend of Worcester, and another of Carborough in LichnVld, where he had a house given him by bishop Chandler. In July 1735, he was presented to Bottesford in Leicestershire, but never took possession of it. In 1737 he took his degree of D. D. He died April 30, 1772, aged eighty-three, and was interred in the church of Newark with an inscription, extolling his extensive benevolence, by his nephew Robert Wilson Cracroft, esq.

, D. D. only surviving son of the preceding, was born. Aug. 24, 1703, in the parish of Kirk-­Michael, in the Isle of Man, and after such an institution there as he must have received under the eye of so excellent a father, was entered of Christ Church, Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. Dec. 16, 1727. On the 10th of May, 1739, having previously become possessed of his mother’s jointure, which devolved to him on her decease, he accumulated the degrees of B. and D. D. May 10, 1739, when he went out grand compounder. He was many years senior prebendary of Westminster, and minister of St. Margaret’s there; and rector of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, forty-six years; in which last he succeeded Dr. Watson, on the presentation of lord-chancellor Hardwicke. In 1761 was published a pamphlet entitled “The Ornaments of Churches considered; with a particular view to the late decoration of the parish church of St. Margaret, Westminster. To which is subjoined an appendix, containing the history of the said church, an account of the altar-piece and stained glass window erected over it, a state of the prosecution it has occasioned, and other papers,” 4to. To the second edition of this pamphlet was prefixed a view of the inside of St. Margaret’s church, with the late excellent speaker, Arthur Onslow, in his seat. This pamphlet has been by some ascribed to a son of Dr. Shebbeare, as published under Dr. Wilson’s inspection. The reason for such conjecture is not given, and the fact is therefore doubtful. We know of no son of Dr. Shebbeare’s, and at this time Dr. Shebbeare himself was a well-known writer, and sufficiently practised in deceptions, had any been necessary. Another report is that the work was chiefly the composition of the late archdeacon Hole; Dr. Wilson having borrowed a ms treatise on the subject written by the archdeacon, and then printed almost the whole of it, inserting here and there a few notes, c. of his own. This assertion is made by an anonymous writer in the Gent. Mag. for 17S6, but who the late archdeacon Hole was, we haye not been able to discover; Mr. William Hole, archdeacon of Sarum, was then alive, and died in 1791. Another pamphlet ascribed to Dr. Wilson was, “A review of the project for building a new square at Westminster, said to be for the use of Westminster-school. By a Sufferer. Part I.” 1757, 8vo. The injury here complained of was the supposed undervaluation of the doctor’s prebendal house, which was to have made way for the project alluded to. He was also the supposed author of a pamphlet entitled “Distilled Liquors the bane of the nation;” which recommended him to sir Joseph Jekyil, then master of the rolls, who interested himself in procuring him his rectory. Even concerning this a doubt has been suggested, as Dr. Hales printed a pamphlet with exactly the same title. That elaborate and excellent work of Dr. Leland’s, entitled “A view of the principal Deistical Writers,” was originally addressed in a series of letters, in the form they now appear, to Dr. Wilson, who finding that the booksellers would not give the author any adequate remuneration (50l. only were offered) printed the first edition at his own risk.