WOBO: Search for words and phrases in the texts here...

Mr. Scott’s first poetical essays were published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, “.the great receptacle for the ebullitions of youthful genius.” Mr. Hoole, his biographer, has not been able to discover all the pieces inserted by him in that work, but has reprinted three of them, which are added to his works in the late edition of the English poets. With the taste of the public during his retirement at Arnwell he could have little acquaintance. He had lived here about twenty years, at a distance from any literary society or information. His reading was chiefly confined to books of taste and criticism; but the latter at that time were not many nor very valuable. In the ancient or modern languages it does not appear that he made any progress. Mr. Hoole thinks he knew very little of Latin, and had no knowledge of either French or Italian. Those who know of what importance it is to improve genius by study, will regret that such a man was left, in the pliable days of youth, without any acquaintance with the noble models on which English poets have been formed. They will yet more regret, that the cause of this distance from literary society, the source of all generous and useful emulation, was a superstitious dread of the small-pox, already mentioned as obstructing his early studies, and which continued to prevail with his parents to such a der gree, that although at the distance of only twenty miles, their son had been permitted to visit London but once in twenty years. His chief occupation, when not in a humour to study, was in cultivating a garden, for which he had a particular fondness, and at length rendered one of trie most attractive objects to the visitors of Amwell.

About the year 1760, he began to make occasional; though cautious and short visits to London; and in the spring of this year, published his “Four Elegies, Descriptive and Moral,” epithets which may be applied to almost all his poetry. These were very favourably received, and not only praised by the public critics, but received the valuable commendations of Dr. Young, Mrs. Talbot, and Mrs. Carter, who loved poetry, and loved it most when in conjunction with piety. But for many years he abstained from farther publication, determined to put in no claims that were not strengthened by the utmost industry and frequent and careful revisal. This, probably, in some cases checked nis enthusiasm, and gave to his longer poems an appearance of labour.

In 1761, during the prevalence of the small-pox at Ware, he removed to St. Margaret’s, a small hamlet about two miles distant from Amwell, where, Mr. Hoole informs us, he became first acquainted with him, and saw the first sketch of his poem of Amwell, to which he then gave the title of “A Prospect of Ware and the Country adjacent,” In 1766, he became sensible of the many disadvantages he laboured under by living in continual dread of the smallpox, and had the courage to submit to the operation of inoculation, which was successfully performed by the late baron Dimsdale. He now visited London more frequently, and Mr. Hoole had the satisfaction to introduce him, among 'others, to Dr. Johnson. “Notwithstanding the great difference of their political principles, Scott had too much love for goodness and genius, not to be highly gratified in the opportunity of cultivating a friendship with that great exemplar of human virtues, and that great veteran of human learning; while the doctor, with a mind superior to the distinction of party, delighted with equal complacency in the amiable qualities of Scott, of whom he always spoke with feeling regard.”

In 1767, he married Sarah Frogley, the~daughter of his early friend and adviser Charles Frogley. The bride was, previous to her nuptials, admitted a member of the society of quakers. For her father he ever preserved the highest respect, and seems to have written his Eleventh Ode with a view to relieve the mind of that worthy man from the Apprehension of being neglected by bim. The connection he had formed in his family, however, was not of long duration. His wife died in childbed in 1768, and the same year he lost his father and his infant-child. For some time he was inconsolable, and removed from Amwell, where so many objects excited the bitter remembrance of all he held dear, to the house of a friend at Upton. Here, when time and reflection had mellowed his grief, he honoured the memory of his wife by an elegy in which tenderness and love are expressed in the genuine language of nature. As he did not wish to make a parade of his private feelings, a few copies only of this elegy were given to his friends, nor would he ever suffer it to be published for sale. It procured him the praise of Dr. Hawkesworth, and the friendship of Dr. Langhorne, who, about this time, had been visited by a similar calamity. His mother, it ought to have been mentioned, died in 1766; and, in 1769, he lost his friend and correspondent Mr. Turner.

In November 1770, he married his second wife, Mary de Home, daughter of the late Abraham de Home: “a lady whose amiable qualities promised him many years of uninterrupted happiness.” During his visit in London, he increased his literary circle of friends by an introduction to Mrs. Montagu’s parties. Among those who principally noticed him with respect, were lord Lyttelton, sir William Jones, Mr. Potter, Mr. Mickle, and Dr. Beattie, who paid him a cordial visit at Amwell in 1773, and again in 1781, and became one of his correspondents.

Although we have hitherto contemplated our author as a student and occasional poet, he rendered himself more conspicuous as one of those reflectors on public affairs who employ much of their time in endeavouring to be useful. Among other subjects, his attention had often been called to that glaring defect in human polity, the state of the poor; and having revolved the subject in his mind, with the assistance of many personal inquiries, he published in 1773 “Observations on the present state of the parochial and vagrant Poor.” It is needless to add, that his advice in this matter was rather approved than followed. Some of his propositions, indeed, were incorporated in Mr. Gilbert’s Bill, in 1782; but the whole was lost for want of parliamentary support.

In 1776 he published his “Amwell,” a descriptive poem, which he had long been preparing, and in which he fondly hoped to immortalize his favourite village. His biographer, however, has amply demonstrated the impossibility of communicating local enthusiasm by any attempt of this kind. The reflections occasionally introduced, and the historical or encomiastic digressions, are generally selected as the most pleasing passages in descriptive poetry; but all that is really descriptive, all that would remove us from the closet to the scene, is a hopeless attempt to do that by thte pen which can only be done by the pencil.

At, such intervals as our author could spare, he wrote various anonymous pamphlets and essays, on miscellaneous subjects, and is said to have appeared among the enemies of the measures of government who answered Dr. Johnson’s “Patriot,” “False Alarm,” and “Taxation no Tyranny.” On the commencement of the llowleian controversy, he took the part of Chatterton, and was among the first who questioned the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Rowley. This he discussed in some letters inserted in the Gentleman’s Magazine. Of course he was led to admire the wonderful powers ~of the young impostor, and in his XXIst ode pays a poetical tribute to his memory, in which, with others of his brethren at that time, he censures the unfeeling rich for depriving their country of a new Shakspeare or Milton.

These, however, were his amusements; the more valuable part of his time was devoted to such public business as is ever best conducted- by men of his pure and independent character. He gave regular attendance at turnpike-meetings, navigation trusts, and commissions of land tax*, and proposed and carried various schemes of local improvement, particularly the fine road between Ware and Hertford, and some useful alterations in the streets of Ware. Among his neighbours he frequently, by a judicious interference or arbitration, checked that spirit of litigation which destroys the felicity of a country life. During the meritorious employments of his public and political life, it can only be imputed to him that in his zeal for the principles he espoused, he sometimes betrayed too great warmth; and in

* When once asked whether he was that an oath and an affirmative are subin the commission of the peace, he stantially the same, and that the mode

In 1778, he published a work of great labour and utility, entitled “A Digest of the Highway and general Turnpike laws.” In this compilation, Mr. Hoole informs us, all the acts of parliament in force are collected together, and placed in one point of view; their contents are arranged under distinct heads, with the addition of many notes, and an appendix on the construction and preservation of public roads, probably the only scientific treatise on the subject. A part of this work appeared in 1773, under the title of a “Digest of the Highway Laws.” In the spring of 1782, he published what he had lorfg projected, a volume of poetry, including his elegies, Amwell, and a great variety of hitherto^unpublished pieces. On this volume it is evident he had bestowed great pains, and added the decorations of some beautiful engravings. A very favourable account was given of the whole of its contents in the Monthly Review; but the Critical having taken some personal liberties with the author, hinting that the ornaments were not quite suitable to the plainness and simplicity of a quaker, Mr. Scott thought proper to publish a letter addressed to the authors of that journal, in which he expostulated with them on their conduct, and defended his poetry. Every friend, however, must wish he had passed over their strictures in silence. His defence of his poetry betrays him into the error of which he complained, and we see far more of the conceited egotist than could have been supposed to belong to his simple and humble character.

After this contest, he began to prepare a work of the critical kind. He had been dissatisfied with some of Dr. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, and had amassed in the course of his own reading and reflection, a number of observations on Denham, Milton, Pope, Dyer, Goldsmith, and Thomson, which he sent to the press, under the title of “Critical Essays,” but did not live to publish them. On the 25th of October 1783, he accompanied Mrs. Scott to London for the benefit of medical advice for a complaint under which she laboured at that time; but on the 1st of December, while at his house at Radtliff, he was attacked by a putrid fever, which proved fatal on the 12th of that month, and he was interred on the 18th in the Quaker burying-­ground at Radcliff. He had arrived at his fifty-fourth year, and left behind a widow and a daughter, their only child, then about six years old. His death was the more lamented as he was in the vigour of life, and had the prospect of many years of usefulness. “In his person he was tall and slender, but his limbs were remarkably strong and muscular he was very active, and delighted much in the exercise of walking his countenance was cheerful and animated.” The portrait prefixed to his works is not a very correct likeness, nor was he himself satisfied with it.

His public and private character appears to have been in every respect worthy of imitation, but what his religious opinions were, except that he cherished a general reverence for piety, is somewhat doubtful. Professedly, he was one of the society called Quakers, but the paper which that society, or some of his relations, thought it necessary to publish after his death, seems to intimate that in their opinion, and finally in his own, his practice had riot in all respects been consistent.

His “Critical Essays” were published in 1785 by Mr, Hoole, who prefixed a life written with much affection, yet with impartiality. As a poet, Mr. Scott seems to rank among those who possess genius in a moderate degree, who please by short efforts and limited inspirations, but whose talents are better displayed in moral reflection and pathetic sentiment than flights of fancy. His “Elegies,” as they were the first, are among the best of his performances. Simplicity appears to have been his general aim, and he was of opinion that it was too little studied by modern writers. In the “Mexican prophecy,” however, and in “Serim,” there is a fire and spirit worthy of the highest school. His “Amwell” will ever deserve a distinguished place among descriptive poems, but it is liable to all the objections attached to descriptive poetry. His feeblest effort is the “Essay on Painting,” a hasty sketch, in which he professed himself, and that not in very humble terms, to be the rival of Hayley. Upon the whole, however, the vein of pious and moral reflection, and the benevolence and philanthropy which pervade all his poems, will continue to make them acceptable to those who read to be improved, and are of opinion that pleasure is not the sole end of poetry.

, of Balwirie, a learned Scotch author of the fifteenth century, made the tour of France and Germany, and was received with some distinction at the court of the emperor Frederick II. Having travelled enough to gratify his curiosity, he returned to Scotland, and gave himself up to study and contemplation. He was skilled in languages; and, considering the age in which he lived, was no mean proficient in philosophy, mathematics, and medicine. He translated into Latin from the Arabic, the history of animals by the celebrated physician Avicenna. He published the whole works of Aristotle, with notes, and affected much to reason on the principles of that great philosopher. He wrote a book concerning “The Secrets of Nature,” and a tract on “The nature of the Sun and Moon,” in which he shews his belief in the philosopher’s stone. He likewise published what he called “Mensa Philosophica,” a treatise replete with astrology and chiromancy. He was much admired in his day, and was even suspected of magic, and had Roger Bacon and Cornelius Agrippa for his panegyrists.

, a learned English gentleman, was a younger son of sir John Scot, of Scot’s-hall, near Smeeth in Kent, where he was probably born; and, at about seventeen, sent to Hart-hall, in Oxford. He retired to his native country without taking a degree, and settled at Smeetb; and, marrying soon after, gave himself up solely to reading, to the perusing of obscure authors, which had by the generality of scholars been neglected, and at times of leisure to husbandry and gardening. In 1576, he published a second edition, for we know nothing of the first, of “A perfect platform of a Hop-garden,” &c. in 4to and, in 1584, another work, which shewed the great depth of his researches, and the uncommon extent of his learning, entitled “The Discoverie of Witchcraft,” &c. reprinted in 1651, 4to, with this title: “Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft; proving the common opinion of witches contracting with devils, spirits, familiars, and their power to kill, torment, and consume, the bodies of men, women, and children, or other creatures, by diseases or otherwise, their flying in the air, &c. to be but imaginary erroneous conceptions and novelties. Wherein also the practices of witch. mongers, conjurors, inchanters, soothsayers, also the delusions of astrology, alchemy, legerdemain, and many other things, are opened, that have long lain hidden, though very necessary to be known for the undeceiving of judges, justices, and juries, and for the preservation of poor people, &c. With a treatise upon the nature of spirits and devils,” &c, In the preface to the reader he declares, that his design in this undertaking, was “first, that the glory of God be not so abridged and abased, as to be thrust into the hand or lip of a lewd old woman, whereby the work of the Creator should be attributed to the power of a creature secondly, that the religion of the gospel may be seen to stand without such peevish trumpery thirdly, that favour and Christian compassion be rather used, towards these poor souls, than rigour and extremity,” &c.

A doctrine of this nature, advanced in an age when the reality of witches was so universally believed, that even the great bishop Jewel, touching upon the subject in a sermon before queen Elizabeth, could “pray God they might never practise farther than upon the subject,” exposed the author to every species of obloquy and persecution; and accordingly Voetius, a foreign divine, informs us in his “Disput. Theolog.” vol. III. p. 564, though Wood says nothing of it, that his book was actually burnt. It was also opposed, and, as it should seem, by great authority too: for, James I. in the preface to his “Demonologie,” printed first at Edinburgh in 1597, and afterwards at London in 1603, observes, that be “wrote that book chiefly against the damnable opinions of Wierus and Scott; the latter of whom is not ashamed,” the king says, “in public print to deny, that there can be such a thing as witchcraft, and so maintains the old error of the Sadducees in the denying of spirits,” an inference which by no means follows from Scot’s premises. Dr. John Raynolds, in his “Praslectiones upon the Apocrypha/' animadverts on several passages in Scot’s” Discovery;“Meric Casaubon treats him as an illiterate person; and Mr. Joseph Glanvil, one of the greatest advocates for witchcraft, affirms, that” Mr. Scot doth little but tell odd tales and silly legends, which he confutes and laughs at, and pretends this to be a confutation of the being of witches and apparitions: in all which his reasonings are trifling and childish; and, when he ventures at philosophy, he is little better than absurd." Scot did not live to see the full effects of his endeavours to abate the prejudices of the times, nor could this indeed be the work of a single hand, contending against the king on the thfone, many very learned men, almost the whole body of the people, and what was the last to yield, the statutelaw of the land. His work, however, was reprinted in 1651, 4to, and in 1665, folio, with additions, and was translated into German.

This sensible, learned, upright, and pious man (for we know that he possessed the two first of these qualities, and he is universally allowed to have had also the two last) died in 1599, and was buried among his ancestors in the church at Smeeth.

, alias Rotheram (Thomas), a munificent benefactor to Lincoln college, Oxford, was born at Rotheram, in Yorkshire, from whence he took his name, but that of his family appears to have been Scot. He rose by his talents and learning to the highest ranks in church and state, having been successively fellow of King’s college, Cambridge, master of Pembroke Hall, chancellor of that university, prebendary of Sarum, chaplain to king Edward IV. provost of Beverley, keeper of the Privy Seal, secretary to four kings, bishop of Rochester and Lincoln, archbishop of York, and lord chancellor. His buildings at Cambridge, Whitehall, Southwell, and Thorp, are eminent proofs of his magnificent taste and spirit.

He was promoted to the see of Lincoln in 1471, and we learn from his preface to his body of statutes, that a visit through his diocese, in which Oxford then was, proved the occasion of his liberality to Lincoln college. On his arrival there, in 1474, John Tristroppe, the third rector of that society, preached the visitation sermon from Psalm Ixxx. 14, 15. “Behold and visit this vine, and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, &c.” In this discourse, which, as usual, was delivered in Latin, the preacher addressed his particular requests to the bishop, exhorting him to complete his college, now imperfect and defective both in buildings and government. Rotheram is said to have been so well pleased with the application of the text and subject, that he stood up and declared that he would do what was desired. Accordingly, besides what he contributed to the buildings, he increased the number of fellows from seven to twelve, and gave them the livings of of Twyford in Buckinghamshire, and Long Combe in Oxfordshire. He formed also in 1479, a body of statutes, in which, after noticing with an apparent degree of displeasure, that although Oxford was in the diocese of Lincoln, no college had yet made provision for the natives of that diocese, he enjoined that the rector should be of the diocese of Lincoln or York, and the fellows or scholars should be persons born in the dioceses of Lincoln and York, and one of Wells, with a preference, as to those from the diocese of York, to his native parish of Rotheram. This prelate died in 1500 at Cawoud, and was buried in the Chapel of St. Mary, under a marble tomb which he had built.

, an eminent Scotch divine, and second son of Patrick Scougal, bishop of Aberdeen, was born June 1650, at Salton, in East Lothian, where his father, the immediate predecessor of Bishop Burnet, was rector. His father, designing him for the sacred ministry, watched over his infant mind with peculiar care, and soon had the satisfaction of perceiving the most amiable dispositions unfold themselves, and his understanding rise at once into the vigour of manhood. Relinquishing the amusements of youth, young Scougal applied to his studies with ardour: and, agreeably to his father’s wish, at an early period directed his thoughts to sacred literature. He perused the historical parts of the bible with peculiar pleasure, and then began to examine its contents more minutely. He was struck with the peculiarities of the Jewish dispensation, and felt an anxiety to understand why its rites and ceremonies were abolished. The nature and evidences of the Christian religion also occupied his mind. He perused sermons with much attention, committed to writing those passages which most affected him, and could comprehend and remember their whole scope. Nor was he inattentive to polite literature. He read the Roman classics, and made considerable proficiency in the Greek, Hebrew, and other oriental languages. He was also well versed in history and mathematics. His diversions were of a manly kind. After becoming acquainted with Roman history, he formed, in concert with some of his companions, a little senate, where orations of their own composition were delivered.

At the age of fifteen he entered the university, where he behaved with great modesty, sobriety, and diligence. He disliked the philosophy then taught, and applied himself to the study of natural philosophy: and in consequence of this, when he was only about eighteen years of age, he wrote the reflections and short essays since published: which, though written in his youth, and some of them left unfinished, breathe a devotion, which shows that his mind was early impressed with the most important concerns of human life. In all the public meetings of the students he was unanimously chosen president, and had a singular deference paid to his judgment. No sooner had he finished his courses, than he was promoted to a professorship in the university of Aberdeen, where he conscientiously performed his duty in training up the youth under his care in such principles of religion and learning as might render them ornaments to church and state. When any divisions and animosities happened in the society, he was very instrumental in reconciling and bringing them to a good understanding. He maintained his authority among the students in such a way as to keep them in awe, and at the same time to gain their love and esteem. Sunday evenings were spent with his scholars in discoursing of, and encouraging religion in principle and practice. He allotted a considerable part of his yearly income for the poor; and many indigent families of different persuasions, were relieved in their difficulties by his bounty, although so secretly that they knew not whence their supply came.

Having been a professor of philosophy for four years, he was at the age of twenty-three admitted into holy orders, and settled at Auchterless, a small village about twenty miles from Aberdeen. Here his zeal and ability in his great Master’s service were eminently displayed. He catechised with great plainness and affection, and used the most endearing methods to recommend religion to his hearers. He endeavoured to bring them to a close attendance on public worship, and joined with them himself at the beginning of it. He revived the use of lectures, looking upon it as very edifying to comment upon and expound large portions of scripture. In the twenty-fifth year of his age, he was appointed professor of divinity in the King’s college, Aberdeen, which he at first declined, but when induced to accept it, he applied himself with zeal and diligence to the exercise of this office. After he had guarded his pupils agajnst the common artifices of the Romish missionaries in making proselytes, he proposed two subjects for public exercise the one, of the pastoral care, the other, of casuistical divinity.

The inward dispositions of this excellent man are best seen in his writings, to which his pious and blameless life was wholly conformable. His days, however, were soon numbered: in the twenty-seventh year of his age, he fell into a consumption, which wasted him by slow degrees: but during the whole time of his sickness he behaved with the utmost resignation, nor did he ever shew the least impatience. He died June 20, 1678, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, and was buried in King’s college church, in Old Aberdeen. His principal work is entitled “The Life of God in the Soul of Man,” which has undergone many editions, and has been thought alike valuable for the sublime spirit of piety which it breathes, and for the purity and elegance of its style. He left his books to the library of his college, and five thousand marks to the office of professor of divinity. He composed a form of morning and evening service for the cathedral church of Aberdeen, which may be seen in Orem’s “Description of the Chanonry of Old Aberdeen,” printed in No. 3 of the “Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica.” His treatise on the “Life of God,” &c. was first printed in his life-time by bishop Burnet about 1677, without a name, which the author’s modesty studiously concealed. It went through several -subsequent editions, and was patronised by the society for promoting Christian knowledge, and was reprinted in 1726 with the addition of “Nine discourses on important subjects,” by the same author, and his funeral sermon, by Dr. G. G.

, a Roman physician, lived in the reign of Claudius, and is said to have accompanied this emperor in his campaign in Britain. He wrote a treatise “De Compositione Medicamentorum,” which is very often quoted by Galen, but was pillaged by Marcellus the empiric, according to Dr. Freind. At a time when it was the practice of many physicians to keep their compositions secret, Scribonius published his, and expressed great confidence in their efficacy; but many of them are trifling, and founded in superstition, and his language is so inferior to that of his age, that some have supposed he wrote his work in Greek, and that it was translated into Latin by some later hand: but Freind and others seem of a different opinion. The treatise of Scribonius has been several times reprinted, and stands among the “Medicse Artis Principes” of Henry Stephens, 1567.

, one of the most learned men of the sixteenth century, was born at Dundee in Scotland, in 1506, and after making great progress in the Greek and Latin languages at the grammar school of that place, studied philosophy at St. Andrew’s university with equal success* He afterwards studied civil law at Paris and Bourges. At this latter city he became acquainted with the Greek professor, James Amiot, who recommended him to be tutor to two young gentlemen; and this served also to introduce him to Bernard Bornetel, bishop of Rennes, a celebrated political character, who invited Mr. Scrimzeor to accompany him to Italy. There he became acquainted with the most distinguished scholars of the country. The death of the noted Francis Spira * happened during his visit at Padua, and as the character and conduct of this remarkable person at that time engaged the attention of the world, Mr. Scrimzeor is said to have collected memoirs of him, which, however, does not appear in the catalogue of his works.

After he had stored his mind with the literature of foreign countries, and satisfied his curiosity as a traveller, it was his intention to have revisited Scotland; but, on his journey homeward, through Geneva, the syndics and other magistrates requested him to set up the profession of philosophy in that city; promising a suitable compensation. He accepted the proposal, and established the philosophical

* Francis Spira was a lawyer of great plied. Shortly after he fell into * reputation at Cittadella in the Venetian deep melancholy, lost his health, and State, at the beginning of the sixteenth was removed to Padua for the adcentury. He had imbibed the prin- vice of physicians and divines but ciples of 'he Reformation, and was ac- his disorders augmented. The recused before John de la Casa, arch- cantation, which he said he had made bishop of Benevento, the pope’s nun- from cowardice and interest, filled his cio at Venice. He made some con- mind with continual horror and remorse, cessions, and asked pardon of the pa- and no means being found to restore pal minister for hi* errors. But the either his health or peace of mind, be nuncio insisted upon a public recanta- fell a victim to his miserable situation tion. Spira was exceedingly averse to in 1548. Collier’s Diet. art. Spira. this measure but at the pressing in- There have been many editions of a stances of his wife and his friends, who “Life of Spira” published in England represented to him, that tie must lose and Scotland, as a “warning to aposhis practice and ruin his affairs by tales.” persisting against it, he at last comchair; but after he had taught for some time at Geneva, a fire broke out in his neighbourhood, by. which his house was consumed, and he himself reduced to great distress. At this time flourished at Augsburg that famous mercantile family, the. Fuggers. Ulric Fugger, its then representative, a man possessed of prodigious wealth, and a munificent patron of learned men, having heard of the misfortune which had befallen Mr. Scrimzeor, immediately sent him a pressing invitation to accept an asylum beneath his roof till his affairs could be re-established. Mr. Scrimzeor, gladly availing himself of such a hospitable kindness, lost no time in going to Germany.

Whilst residing at Augsburg with Mr. Fugger, he was much employed in augmenting his patron’s library by vast collections, purchased from every corner of Europe, particularly manuscripts of the Greek and Latin authors. He also composed many works of great learning- and ingenuity, whilst he continued in a situation so peculiarly agreeable to the views and habits of a scholar; and when he was desirous of returning to Geneva to print them, Fugger recommended him, for this purpose, to the very learned Henry Stephens, one of his pensioners.

Immediately on his arrival at Geneva, 1563, he was earnestly solicited by the magistrates to resume the chair of philosophy. With this he complied, and notwithstanding the dedication of much of his time to the study of physics, he, two years afterwards, instituted a course of lectures in the civil law,and had the honour of being its first professor at Geneva. Being now settled here, he intended to have printed his various works, but a suspicion which Henry Stephens entertained, that it was his intention to set up a rival press at Geneva, occasioned great dissentions between them. The result of the dispute was, that almost all Scrimzeor’s publications were posthumous-. Among them are critical and explanatory notes upon Athenaeus’s “Deipnosophists,” published by Isaac Casaubon at Leyden in 1600, but without distinguishing his own notes from those of Scrimzeor; also a commentary and emendations of Strabo, which were published in Casaubon’s edition of that geographer, 1620, but likewise without acknowledging the assistance he derived from Scrimzeor. Scrimzeor collated different manuscripts of all the works of Plutarch, probably with a view to an edition of that author, and also the ten books of Piogenes Laertius on the lives of the philosophers. His corrected text of this author, with notes full of erudition, came into Casaubon’s possession, and is supposed to have contributed much to the value of his edition of Laertius, printed at Paris in 1593. The works of Phornutus and Palsephatus were also among the collations of Mr. Scrimzeor. To the latter of these authors he made such considerable additions that the work became partly his own. Tht: manuscripts of both these were for some time preserved in the library of sir Peter Young, after that of his uncle Scrimzeor, which was brought into Scot-, laud in 1573, had been added to it. What became of this valuable bequest at the death of the former, is not known. Our learned philologer left also behind him, in manuscript, the orations of Demosthenes, Æschines, and Cicero, and the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, all carefully collated; and among his literary remains was a collection of his Latin epistles. But of the many performances which had exercised his pen, it does not appear that any were published by himself but his translation of “Justinian’s Novels” into Greek. This was printed at Paris in 1558, and again with Holoander’s Latin version at Antwerp in 1575. This work has been highly extolled both for the purity of its language and the accuracy of its execution. He wrote also a Latin translation of “The Basilica,” or Basilics, a collection of Roman Laws, which the Eastern emperors Basil and Leo, who reigned in the fifth century, commanded to be translated into Greek, and which preserved their authority till the dissolution of the Eastern empire.

, a considerable philologer and poet, was born at Harlem in 1576. He was educated at Harlem and at Leyden, where he read law in his early days, but devoted himself afterwards to a private and studious life, which ended April 30, 1660, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. His works are: “ Batavia illustrata.” “Batavise comitumq. omnium Historia.” “Miscellanea Philologica.” “Carmina Latina & Belgica.” “Populare Hollandise Chronicon.” “Collectanea Veterum Tragicorum.” He likewise corrected the copyof “Vegetius,” and enlarged and wrote notes upon Aquilius’s <c Chronicon Geldricum" and was the author or editor of various other works, classical and historical.

, a French writer of eminence in his day, was descended from an ancient and noble family of Apt in Provence, and born at Havre-de-Grace in 1603. He spent part of his youth at Apt, and afterwards came and settled at Paris, where at first he subsisted by the efforts of his pen, particularly in poetry, and dramatic pieces, none of which are now in any estimation, and we may, therefore, be spared the trouble of giving their titles. In 1627 he published observations upon the “Cid” of Corneille, with a view of making his court to cardinal Richelieu, who was absurdly envious of that great poet, and did every thing he could to oppose the vast reputation and success of the “Cid:” and by his influence alone enabled even such a man as Scuderi “to balance,” as Voltaire says, “for some time, the reputation of Corneille.” Scuderi was received a member of the academy in 1650. He had before been made governor of the castle of Notre-Dame de la Garde, in Provence; and although this was a situation of very little profit, Scuderi, who was still more vain than indigent, gave a pompous description of it in a poem, which drew upon him the raillery of Chapelle and Bachaumont. Scuderi died at Paris, May 14, 1667, leaving a name now better known than his works.

, sister of the preceding, and his superior in talents, was born at Havre-de-Grace in 1607, and became very eminent for her wit and her writings. She went earty to Paris, where she gained admission into the assemblies of learning and fashion. Having recourse, like her brother, to the pen, she gratified the taste of the age for romances, by various productions of that kind, which were very eagerly read, and even procured her literary honours. The celebrated academy of the Ricovrati at Padua complimented her with a place in their society; and some great personages showed their regard by presents, and other marks of esteem. The prince of Paderborn, bishop of Munster, sent her his works and a medal; and Christina of Sweden often wrote to her, settled on her a pension, and sent her her picture. Cardinal Mazarin left her an annuity by his will: and Lewis XIV. in 1683, at the solicitation of M. de Maintenon, settled a good pension upon her, which was punctually paid. His majesty also appointed her a special audience to receive her acknowledgments, and paid her some very flattering compliments. She had an extensive correspondence with men of learning and wit: and her house at Paris was the rendezvous of all who would be thought to patronize genius. She died in 1701, aged 94; and two churches contended for the honour of possessing her remains, which was thought a point of so much consequence, that nothing less than the authority of the cardinal de Noailles, to whom the affair was referred, *was sufficient to decide it. She was a very voluminous writer as well as her brother, but of more merit; and it is remarkable of this lady, that she obtained the first prize of eloquence founded by the academy. There is much common-place panegyric upon her in the “Menagiana,” from the personal regard Menage had for her but her merits are better settled by Boileau, in the “Discours” prefixed to his dialogue entitled “Les Hero des Roman.” Her principal works are, “Artamene, ou le Grand Cyrus,” 1650, 10 vols. 8 vo; “Clelie,” 1660, 10 vols. 8vo; “Celanire, ou la Promenade de Versailles,” 1693, 12mo; “Ibrahim, ou l'Illustre Bassa,” 1641, 4 vols. 8vo “Almahide, ou PEsclave Reine,” 1660, 8 vols. 8vo Celine,“1661, 8vo” Mathilde d'Aguiiar,“1667, 8vo;” Conversations et Entretiens," 10 vols. c. These last conversations are thought the best of Mad Scuderi’s wo^ks, but there was a time when English translations of her prolix romances were read. What recommended them to the French public was the traits of living characters which she occasionally introduced.

, an eminent protestant divine, was born at Grumberg in Silesia, Aug. i?4, 1556, and after having studied there till 1582, was sent to BresUw to continue his progress in the sciences He was recalled soon after, his father, who had lost all his fortune in the fire of Grunberg, being no longer able to maintain him at the college, and therefore intending to bring him up to some trade. The young man was not at all pleased with such a proposal; and looked out for the place of a tutor, which he found in the family of a burgomaster of Freistad, and this gave him an opportunity of hearing the sermons of Melancthon and of Abraham Bucholtzer. In 1584 he took a journey into Poland, and went to Gorlitz in Lusatia the year following, and resided there above two years, constantly attending the public lectures, and reading private lectures to others. He employed himself in the same manner in the university of Wittemberg in 1588 and 1589, and afterwards in that of Heidelberg till he was admitted into the church in 1594. He officiated in a village of the palatinate for some months; after which he was sent for by the elector palatine to be one of his preachers. In 1598 he was appointed pastor of the church of St. Francis at Heidelberg, and two years after was made a member of the ecclesiastical senate. He was employed several times in visiting the churches and schools of the palatinate, and among these avocations wrote some works, which required great labour. He attended the prince of Anhalt to the war at Juliers in 1610, and applied himself with great prudence and vigilance to the re-settlement of the affairs of the reformed church in those parts. He attended Frederic V. prince palatine into England in 1612, and contracted an acquaintance with the most learned men of that kingdom, but Wood speaks of his having resided some time at Oxford in 1598. He took a journey to Brandenburg in 1614, the elector John Sigismond, who was about renouncing Lutheranism, being desirous of concerting measures with him with respect to that change; and on his return to Heidelberg he accepted the place of courtpreacher, which he relinquished when appointed professor of divinity in 1618. He was deputed soon after to the synod of Dort, where he endeavoured at first to procure a reconciliation of the contending parties; but finding nothing of that kind was to be expected, he opposed vigorously the doctrines of the Arminians. He preached at Francfort the year following during the electoral diet held there, his master having appointed him preacher to the deputies whom he sent thither. He also attended that prince in his journey into Bohemia; and retiring into Silesia after the fatal battle of Prague, resolved to return to Heidelberg in order to discharge the functions of his professorship there; but the fury of the war having dispersed the students, he went to Bretten, and afterwards to Schorndorf in the country of Wirtemberg, whence he removed to Embden in August 1622. The king of Bohemia his master had consented that the city of Embden should offer Scultetus the place of preacher, but he did not enjoy it very long; for he died October the 24th, 1625.

The principal works of this learned divine, who, as Freher says, was reckoned another Chrysostom, are, 1. “Confutatio disputationis Baronii de baptismo Constantini,” Neost. 1607, 4to. 2. “Annales Evangelii per Europara 15 Seculi renovati, Decad. 1 et 2,” Heidelberg, 1618, 8vo. In these annals of the reformation he has shown himself a very candid and credible historian. 3. “Axiomata concionancii,” Han. 1619, 8vo. 4. “Observationes in Pauli Epistolas ad Timotheum, Titum, et Philernonem.” 5. “Medulla Patrum,” 1634, 4to. So indefatigable was his application, that he wrote the following lines over his study door:

, a distinguished surgeon, was born in 1595, at Ulm, and studied medicine at Padua, where he took his degrees in that faculty in 1621. On his return to his native city, he practised with great reputation for twenty years, until being called to Stutgard to a patient, he was there attacked with a fit of apoplexy, which terminated his life December 1, 1645. He appears to have practised surgery extensively, and with great boldness in the operations of bronchotomy, of the trephine, and forempyema. His principal work is entitled “Armamentarium Chirurgicum, 43 tabulis acre incisis ornatum;” and was published after his death, at Ulm, in 1653. It subsequently passed through many editions, and was translated into most of the European languages.

, an ancient mathematician and geographer, was a native of Caryanda, in Caria, and is noticed by Herodotus, and by Suidas, who, however, has evidently confounded different persons of the same name. There is a Periplus which still remains, bearing the name of Scylax, and which is a brief survey of the countries along the shores of the Mediterranean and Euxine seas, together with part of the western coast of Africa surveyed by Hanno; but it seems doubtful to what Scylax it belongs. This Periplus has come down to us in a corrupted state: it was first published from a palatine ms by Hoeschelius and others in 1600. It was afterwards edited by Isaac Vossius in 1639, by Hudson in 1698, and by Gronovius in 1700.

, called also Cu­Ropalates, from an office he held in the household of the emperor of that name, was a Greek historian, known for his abridgment of history from the death of Nicephorus Logothetes, in 811, to the deposition of Nicephorus Botoniates, in 1081. This history, from 1067, is the same as that of Cedrenus, which has raised a doubt whether Cedre-. nus or Scylitza was the original author. Scylitza is thought to have been a native of Lesser Asia, and a prefect of the guards before he attained the dignity of curopalates. A Latin translation of his history entire, was published at Venice in 1570; and the part concerning which there is no dispute was printed in Greek and Latin conjointly with that author, at Paris, in 1647.

, an apothecary of Amsterdam, who died in 1736, prepared a splendid description, with plates, of his own museum, in four large folio volumes, which came out between 1-734 and 1765. His three lattervolumes were posthumous publications. Many Cape plants are here engraved, and amongst them one of the genus Sebea, so called, in honour of him. Yet Seba does not deserve to rank as a scientific botanist; nor did Linna3us, who knew him, an4 by whose recommendation he employed Artedi to arrange his fishes, ever think him worthy to be commemorated in a genus. If, however, we compare him with numbers who have been so commemorated, he will not appear to so much disadvantage; for as a collector he stands rather high.

, a very learned German, was descended from ancient and noble families; and born at Aurach, a town of Franconia, Dec. 20, 1626. He made good use of a liberal education, and was not only a master of the French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, but had also some skill in mathematics and the sciences, The great progress he made in his youth coming to the ears of Ernest the pious, duke of Saxe-Goth'a, this prince sent for him from Cobourg, where he then was, to be educated with his children. After remaining two years at Gotha, he went, in 1642, to Strasbnrg; but returned to Gotha in. 1646, and was made honorary librarian to the duke. In 1651, he was made an lie and ecclesiastical counsellor; and, in 1663, a counsellor of state, first minister, and sovereign director of the consistory. The year after, he went into the service of Maurice, duke of Saxe-Zeist, as counsellor of state and chancellor; and was no less regarded by this new master than he had been by the duke of SaxeGotha. He continued with him till his death, which happened in 1681; and then preferred a life of retirement, during which he composed a great many works; but Frederic III. elector of Brandenburg, again brought him into public life, and made him^. counsellor of state and chancellor of the university of Halle, dignities which he did not enjoy long, for he died at Halle Dec. 18, 1692, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. He was twice married, but had only one son, who survived him. Besides his knowledge of languages, he was learned in law, history, divinity; and is also said to have been a tolerable painter and engraver. Of his numerous writings, that in most estimation for its utility, was published at Francfort, 1692, 2 vols. folio, usually bound up in one, with the title, “Commentarius Historicus & Apologeticus de Lutheranisrno, sive de lleformatione Religionis ductu D. Martini Lutberi in magna Germania, aliisque regionibus, & speciatim in Saxonia, recepta & stabilita,” &c. This work, which is very valuable on many accounts, and particularly curious for several singular pieces and extracts that are to be found in it, still holds its repu^ tation, and is referred to by all writers on the reformation.

, an eminent English prelate, was born in 1693, at asmail village called Sibthorpe, in the vale of Belvoir, Nottinghamshire. His father was a Protestant dissenter, a pious, virtuous, and sensible man, who, having a small paternal fortune, followed no profession. His mother was the daughter of Mr. George Brough, of Shelton, in the county of Nottingham, a substantial gentleman farmer He received his education at several private schools in the country, being obliged by various accidents to change his masters frequently; yet at the age of nineteen he had not only made a considerable progress in Greek and Latin, and read the best and most difficult writers in both languages, but had acquired a knowledge of French, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac, had learned geography, logic, algebra, geometry, conic sections, and gone through a course of lectures on Jewish antiquities, and other points preparatory to the study of the Bible. At the same time, in one or other of theseacademies, he had an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with several persons of great abilities. Among the rest, in the academy of Mr. Jones at Tewkesbury, he laid the foundation of a strict friendship with Mr. Joseph Butler, afterwards bishop of Durham.

Mr, Seeker had been designed by his father for orders among the dissenters. With this view, his studies were directed chiefly, and very assiduously, to divinity, but not being able to decide upon certain doctrines, or determine absolutely what communion he should embrace, he resolved to pursue some profession, which should leave him at liberty to weigh these things more maturely in his thoughts, and therefore, about the end of 1716, he applied himself to the study of physic, both at London and Paris. During his stay at Paris, he kept up a constant correspondence with Mr. Butler, who was now preacher at the Rolls. Mr. Butler took occasion to mention his friend Mr. Seeker, without his knowledge, to Mr. Edward Talbot, who promised, in case he chose to take orders in the church of England, to engage the bishop, his father, to provide for him. This was communicated to Mr. Seeker, in a letter, about the beginning of May 1720. He had not at that time come to any resolution of quitting the study of physic, but he began to foresee many obstacles to his pursuing that profession: and having never discontinued his application to theology, his former difficulties, both with regard to conformity, and some other doubtful points, had gradually lessened, as his judgment became stronger, and his reading and knowledge more extensive. It appears also from two of his letters from Paris, both of them prior to the date of Mr. Butler’s communication above mentioned, that he was greatly dissatisfied with the divisions and disturbances which at that particular period prevailed among the dissenters. In this state of mind Mr. Butler’s unexpected proposal found him, and after deliberating carefully on the subject of such a change for upwards of two month*, he resolved to embrace the offer, and for that purpose quitted France about July 1720.

Mr. Talbot died a few months after his arrival in England, but not without recommending Mr. Seeker, Mr. Benson, and Mr. Butler, to his father’s notice. Mr. Seeker having, notwithstanding this loss, determined to persevere in his new plan, and it being judged necessary by his friends that he should have a degree at Oxford, and he being informed that if he should previously take the degree of doctor in physic at Leyden, it would probably help him in obtaining the other, he went thither for that purpose, and took his degree at Leyden, March 7, 1721, and as a thesis wrote and printed a dissertation cle mectirina statica. On his return, he entered himself, April 1, a gentleman commoner of Exeter college, Oxford, about a year after which he obtained the degree of B. A. without any difficulty, in consequence of a recommendatory letter from the chancellor. In Dec. 1722, bishop Talbot ordained him deacon, and not long after priest in St. James’s church, where he preached his first sermon, March 28, 1723. In 1724, the bishop gave him the rectory of Houghton le Spring, and this valuable living enabling him to settle in the world, in a manner agreeably to his inclinations, he married Oct. 23, 1725, Miss Catherine Benson, sister to bishop Benson. At the earnest desire of both, Mrs. Talbot, widow to his friend Mr. Edward Talbot, and her daughter, consented to live with them, and the two families from that time became one.

At Houghton Mr. Seeker applied himself with alacrity to all the duties of a country clergyman, omitting nothing which he thought could be of use to his Bock. He brought clown his conversation and his sermons to the level of their understandings; visited them in private, catechised the young and ignorant, received his country neighbours and tenants kindly and hospitably, and was of great service to the poorer sort by his skill in physic, which was the only use he ever made of it. Though this place was in a very remote part of the world, yet the solitude of it perfectly suited his studious disposition, and the income arising from it bounded his ambition. Here he would have been content to live and die here, as he has often been heard to declare, he spent some of the happiest hours of his life and it was no thought or choice of his own that removed "him to a higher and more public sphere. But Mrs. Seeker’s health, which was thought to have been injured by the dampness of the situation, obliged him to think of exchanging it for a more healthy one. On this account he procured an exchange of Houghton for a prebend of Durham, and the rectory of Ryton, in 1727; and for the two following years he lived chiefly at Durham, going over every week to officiate at Ryton, and spending there two or three months together in the summer. In July 1732, the duke of Grafton, then lord chamberlain, appointed him chaplain to the king. For this favour he was indebted to bishop Sherlock, who having heard him preach at Bath, thought his abilities worthy of being brought forward into public notice. From that time an intimacy commenced betwixt them, and he received from that prelate many solid proofs of esteem and friendship. This preferment produced him also the honour of a conversation with queen Caroline. Mr. Seeker’s character was now so well established, that on the resignation of Dr. Tyrwhit, he was instituted to the rectory of St. James’s, May 18, 1733, and in the beginning of July went to Oxford to take his degree of doctor of laws, not being of sufficient standing for that of divinity. On this occasion he preached his celebrated Act sermon, on the advantages and duties of academical education, which was printed at the desire of the heads of houses, and quickly passed through several editions. The queen, in a subsequent interview, expressed her high opinion of this sermon, which was also thought to have contributed not a little to his promotion to the bishopric of Bristol, to which he was consecrated Jan. 19, 1735.

Dr. Seeker immediately set about the visitation of his dioeese, confirmed in a great many places, preached in several churches, sometimes, twice a day, and from the information received in his progress, laid the foundation of a parochial account of his diocese, for the benefit of his successors. Finding at the same time, the affairs of his parish of St. James’s in great disorder, he took the trouble, in concert with a few others, to put the accounts of the several officers into a regular method. He also drew up for the use of his parishioners that course of “Lectures on the Church Catechism,” which have since been so often reprinted. “The sermons,” says bishop Porteus, “which he set himself to compose were truly excellent and original. His faculties were now in their full vigour, and he had an audience to speak before that rendered the utmost exertion of them necessary. He did not, however, seek to gratify the higher part by amusing them with refined speculations or ingenious essays, unintelligible to the lower part, and unprofitable to both; but he laid before them all, with equal freedom and plainness, the great Christian duties belonging to their respective stations, and reproved the follies and vices of every rank amongst them without distinction or palliation.” He was certainly one of the most popular preachers of his time, and though, as his biographer observes, his sermons, may not now afford the same pleasure, or produce the same effects in the closet, as they did from the pulpit, accompanied as they then were with all the advantages of his delivery, yet it will plainly appear that the applause they met with was founded no less on the matter they contained, than the manner in which they were spoken.

On the translation of Dr. Potter to the archbishopric of Canterbury, Dr. Seeker was translated to the bishopric of Oxford, in May 1737. When the unfortunate breach happened between the late king and the prince of Wales, his highness having removed to Norfolk-house, in the parish of St. James’s, attended divine service constantly at that church. Two stories are told of this matter, which, although without much foundation, served to amuse the public for a while. The one was, that the first time the prince made his appearance at church, the clerk in orders, Mr. Bonney, began the service with the sentence, “I will arise and go to my father,” &c- The other, that Dr. Seeker preached from the text, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” &c. Dr. Seeker had the honour of baptizing all his highness’s children except two, and though he did not attend his court, which was forbidden to those who went to the king’s, yet on every proper occasion he behaved with all the submission and respect due to his illustrious rank. In consequence of this, his influence with the prince being supposed much greater than it really was, he was sent, by the king’s direction, with a message to his royal highness; which not producing the effects expected from it, he had the misfortune to incur his majesty’s displeasure, who had been unhappily persuaded to think that he might have done more with the prince than he did, though indeed he could not For this reason, and because he sometimes acted with those who opposed the court, the king did not speak to him for a great number of years. The whole of Dr, Seeker’s parliamentary conduct appears to have been loyalj manly, and independent. His circular letter to his clergy, and his sermon on the subject of the rebellion in 1745, rank among the best and most efficacious documents of the kind which that melancholy event produced. In the spring of 1748 his wife died, to whom he had now been married upwards of twenty years.

In December 1750, he was promoted to the deanery of St. Paul’s, in exchange for the rectory of St. James’s and the prebend of Durham. Having now more leisure both to prosecute his own studies, and to encourage those of others, he gave Dr. Church considerable assistance in his “first and second Vindication of the Miraculous powers,” against Dr. Middleton, and in his " Analysis of Lord Bolingbroke’s Works,' 7 which appeared a few years afterwards. He likewise assisted archdeacon Sharpe in his controversy with the Hutchinsonians, which was carried on to the end of the year 1755.

During the whole time that he was dean of St. Paul’s, he attended divine service constantly in that cathedral twice every day, whether in residence or not and in concert with the three other residentiaries, established the custom of always- preaching their own turns in the afternoon, or exchanging with each other only, which, excepting the case of illness, or extraordinary accidents, was very punctually observed. He also introduced many salutary regulations in the financial concerns of the church, the keeping of the registers, &c. &c. In the summer months he resided constantly at his episcopal house at Ctiddesden, the vicinity of which to Oxford rendered it very pleasing to a man of his literary turn. His house was the resort of those who were most distinguished for academical merit, and his conversation such as was worthy of his guests, who always left him with a high esteem of his understanding and learning. And though in the warm contest in 1754, for representatives of the county (in which it was scarce possible for any person of eminence to remain neuter), he openly espoused that side 'which was thought most favourable to the principles of the revolution; yet it was without bitterness or vehemence, without ever departing from the decency of his profession, the dignity of his station, or the charity prescribed by his religion.

His conduct as a prelate was in the strictest sense of the word, exemplary. In his charges, he enjoined no duty, &nd imposed no burthen, on those under his jurisdiction, which he had not formerly undergone, or was not still ready, as far as became him, to undergo. He preached constantly in his church at Cuddesden every Sunday morning, and read a lecture on the catechism in the evening; (both which he continued to do in Lambeth chapel after he became archbishop) and in every other respect, within his own proper department, was himself that devout, discreet, disinterested, laborious, conscientious pastor, which he wished and exhorted every clergyman in his diocese to become. At length such distinguished merit prevailed over all the political obstacles to his advancement; and on the death of archbishop Hutton, he was appointed by the king to succeed him in the diocese of Canterbury, and was accordingly confirmed at Bow-church on April 21, 1758. The use he made of this dignity very clearly shewed that rank, and wealth, and power, had in no other light any charms for him, than as they enlarged the sphere of his active and industrious benevolence.

In little more than two years after his grace’s promotion to the see of Canterbury, died the late George II. Of what passed on that occasion, and of the form observed in proclaiming our present sovereign (in which the archbishop of course took the lead), his grace has left an account in writing. He did the same with regard to the subsequent ceremonials of marrying and crowning their present majesties, which in consequence of his station he had the honour to solemnize, and in which he found a great want of proper precedents and directions. He had before, when rector of St. James’s, baptized the new king (who was born in Norfolk-house, in that parish) and he was afterwards called upon to perform the same office for the greatest part of his majesty’s children a remarkable, and perhaps unexampled concurrence of such incidents in the life of one man.

As archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Seeker considered himself as the natural guardian, not only of that church over which he presided, but of learning, virtue, and religion at large; and, from the eminence on which he was placed, looked round with a watchful eye on every thing that concerned them, embracing readily all opportunities to promote their interests, and opposing, as far as he was able, all attempts to injure them. Men of real genius or extensive knowledge, he sought out and encouraged. Even tho^e- of humbler talents, provided their industry was great, and their intentions good, he treated with kindness and condescension. Both sorts he would frequently employ in undertakings suited to their respective abilities, and rewarded them in ways suited to their respective wants. He assisted them with books, promoted subscriptions to their 5 works, contributed largely to them himself, talked with them on their private concerns, entered warmly into their interests, used his credit for them with the great, and gave them preferments of his own. He expended upwards o 300l. in arranging and improving the ms library at Lambeth. Arid having observed with concern, that the library of printed books in that palace had received no accessions since the time of archbishop Tenison, he made it his business to collect books in all languages from most parts of Europe, at a very great expence, with a view of supplying that chasm; which he accordingly did, by leaving them to the library at his death.

All designs and institutions that tended to advance good morals and true religion he patronized with zeal and generosity. He contributed largely to the maintenance of schools for the poor, to rebuilding or repairing parsonagehouses and places of worship, and gave at one time no less than 500l. towards erecting a chapel in the parish of Lambeth, to which he afterwards added near 100l. more. To the society for promoting Christian knowledge he was a liberal benefactor; and to that for propagating the gospel in foreign parts, of which he was the president, he paid much attention, was constant at the meetings of its members, and superintended their deliberations with consummate prudence and temper. He was sincerely desirous to improve to the utmost that excellent institution, and to diffuse the knowledge and belief of Christianity as wide as the revenues of the society, and the extreme difficulty of establishing schools and missions amongst the Indians, and of making any effectual and durable impressions of religion on their uncivilized minds, would admit. But Dr. Mayhew, of Boston in New England, having in an angry pamphlet accused the society of not sufficiently answering these good purposes, and of departing widely from the spirit of their charter, with many injurious reflections interspersed on the church of England, and the design of appointing bishops in America, his grace on all these accounts thought himself called upon to confute his invectives, which he did in a short anonymous piece, entitled “An Answer to Dr. Mayhew’s Observations on the charter and conduct of the Society for propagating the Gospel,” London, 1764, reprinted in America. The strength of argument, as well as fairness and good temper, with which this answer was written, had a considerable effect on all impartial men; and even on the doctor himself, who plainly perceived that he had no common adversary to deal with; and could not help acknowledging him to be “a person of excellent sense, and of a happy talent at writing; apparently free from the sordid illiberal spirit of bigotry; one of a cool temper, who often shewed much candour, was well acquainted with the affairs of the society, and in general a fair reasoner.” He was therefore so far wrought upon by his “worthy answerer,” as to abate much in his reply of his former warmth and acrimony. But as he still would not allow himself to be “wrong in any material point,” nor forbear giving way too much to reproachful language and ludicrous misrepresentations, he was again animadverted upon by the late Mr. Apthorpe, in a sensible tract, entitled, “A Review of Dr. Mayhew’s Remarks,” &c. 1765. This put an end to the dispute. The doctor, on reading it, declared he should not answer it, and the following year he died.

It appeared evidently in the course of this controversy that Dr. Mayhew, and probably many other worthy men amongst the Dissenters, both at home and abroad, had conceived very unreasonable and groundless jealousies of the church of England, and its governors; and had, in particular, greatly misunderstood the proposal for appointing bishops in some of the colonies. The nature of that plan is fully explained in bishop Porteus’s life of our archbishop, to which we refer. The question is now of less importance, for notwithstanding the violent opposition to the measure, when Dr. Seeker espoused it, no sooner did the American provinces become independent states, than application was made to the English bishops by some of those states to consecrate bishops for them according to the rites of the church of England, and three bishops were actually consecrated in London some years ago: one for Pennsylvania, another for New York, and a third for Virginia.

Whenever any publications came to the archbishop’s knowledge that were manifestly calculated to corrupt good morals, or subvert the foundations of Christianity, he did his utmost to stop the circulation of them yet the wretched authors themselves he was so far from wishing to treat withany undue rigour, that he has more than once extended his bounty to them in distress. And when their writing* could not properly be suppressed (as was too often the case) by lawful authority, he engaged men of abilities to answer them, and rewarded them for their trouble. His attention was everywhere. Even the falsehoods and misrepresentations of writers in the newspapers, on religious or ecclesiastical subjects, he generally took care to have contradicted: and when they seemed likely to injure, in any material degree, the cause of virtue and religion, or the reputation of eminent and worthy men, he would sometimes take the trouble of answering them himselfOne instance of this kind, which does him honour, and deserves mention, was his defence of Bishop Butler, who, in a pamphlet, published in 1767, was accused of having died a papist.

The conduct which he observed towards the several ditisions and denominations of Christians in this kingdom, was such as shewed his way of thinking to be truly liberal and catholic. The dangerous spirit of popery, indeed, he thought should always be kept under proper legal resiraints, on account of its natural opposition, not only to the religious, but the civil rights of mankind. He therefore observed its movements with care, and exhorted his clergy to do the same, especially those who were situated in the midst of Roman catholic families: against whose influence they were charged to be upon their guard, and were furnished with proper books or instructions for the purpose. He took all opportunities of combating the errors of the church of Rome, in his own writings; and the best answers that were published to some bold apologiesfor popery were written at his instance, and under his direction.

With the dissenters his grace was sincerely desirous of cultivating a good understanding. He considered them, in general, as a conscientious and valuable class of men. With some of the most eminent of them, Watts, Doddridge *, Leland, Chandler, and Lardner, he maintained an

* The biographers of eminent dis- drulge’s Letters,“in his zeal, has* presenters, with all tlx-ir prejudices against duced two letters from archbishop Seckthe hierarchy, setm never to exult er to that dirine, forgetting; that he was more than when they can produce uot archbishop until several year after the correspondence of a distinguished Duddridge’s death, prelate. But the editor of” Dr. Dod intercourse of friendship or civility. By the most candid and considerate part of them he was highly reverenced and esteemed: and to such among them as needed help he shewed no less kindness and liberality than to those of his own communion.

Nor was his concern for the Protestant cause confined to his own country he was well known as the great patron and protector of it in various parts of Europe from whence he had frequent applications for assistance, which never failed of being favourably received. To several foreign Protestants he ailowed pensions, to others he gave occasional relief, and to some of their universities was an annual benefactor.

In public affairs, his grace acted the part of an honest citizen, and a worthy member of the British legislature. From his entrance into the House of Peers, his parliamentary conduct was uniformly upright and noble. He kept equally clear from the extremes of factious petulance and servile dependence: never wantonly thwarting administration from motives of party zeal or private pique, or personal attachment, or a passion for popularity: nor yet going every length with every minister, from views of interest or ambition. He seldom, however, spoke in parliament, except where the interests of religion and virtue seemed to require it: but whenever he did, he spoke with propriety and strength, and was heard with attention and deference. Though he never attached himself blindly to any set of men, yet his chief political connections were with the late duke of Newcastle, and lord chancellor Hardwicke. To these he owed principally his advancement: and he lived long enough to shew his gratitude to them or their descendants.

During more than ten years that Dr. Seeker enjoyed the see of Canterbury, he resided constantly at his archiepiscopal house at Lambeth. A few months before his death, the dreadful pains he felt had compelled him to think of trying the Bath waters: but that design was stopped by the fatal accident which put an end to his life. His grace had been for many years subject to th gout, which, in the latter part of his life, returned with more frequency and violence, and did not go off in a regular manner, but left the parts affected for a long time very weak, and was succeeded by pains in different parts of the body. About a year and a half before be died, after a fit of the gout, he was attacked with a pain in the arm, near the shoulder, which having continued about twelve months, a similar pain seized the upper and outer part of the opposite thigh, and the arm soon became easier. This was much more grievous than the former, as it quickly disabled him from walking, and kept him in almost continual torment, except when he was in a reclining position. During this time he had two or three fits of the goat: but neither the gout nor the medicines alleviated these pains, which, with the want of exercise, brought him into a general bad habit of body.

On Saturday July 30, 1768, he was seized, as he sat at dinner, with a sickness at his stomach. He recovered before night: but the next evening, while his physicians were attending, his servants raising him on his couch, he suddenly cried out that his thigh-bone was broken. He lay for some time in great agonies, but when the surgeons arrived, and discovered with certainty that the bone was broken, he was perfectly resigned, and never afterwards asked a question about the event. A fever soon ensued: on Tuesday he became lethargic, and continued so till about five o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, when he expired with great calmness, in the seventy- fifth year of his age. On examination, the thigh-bone was found to be carious about four inches in length, and at nearly the same distance from its head. He was buried, pursuant to his own directions, in a covered passage, leading from a private door of the palace to the north door of Lambeth church: and he forbade any monument or epitaph to be placed over him.

In person, Dr. Seeker was tall and comely in the early part of his life slender, and rather consumptive but as he advanced in years, his size increased, yet never to a degree of corpulency that was disproportionate or troublesome. His countenance was open, ingenuous, and expressive.

By his will, he appointed Dr. Daniel Burton, and Mrs. Catherine Talbot (daughter of the Rev. Mr. Edward Talhot), his executors; and left thirteen thousand pounds in the three per cent, annuities to Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton his chaplains, in trust, to pay the interest thereof to Mrs. Talbot and her daughter during their joint lives, or the life of the survivor; and, after the decease of both those ladies, eleven thousand to be transferred to the following charitable purposes: To the society for propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, for the general uses of the society, lOOOl.; to the same society, towards the establishment of a bishop or bishops in the king’s dominions in America, 1000; to the society for promoting Christian knowledge, 600l. to the Irish protestant working schools, 500l. to the corporation of the widows and children of the poor clergy, 500L to the society of the stewards of the said charity, 200l. to Bromley college in Kent, 500l. to the hospitals of the archbishop of Canterbury, at Croydon, St. John at Canterbury, and St. Nicholas Harbledown, 500l. each to St, George’s and London hospitals, and the Jying-in-hospital in Brownlow-s-treet, 500l. each; to the Asylum in the parish of Lambeth, 400l. to the Magdalen-hospital, the Lock-hospital, the Small- pox and Inoculation-h ispital, to each of which his grace was a subscriber, '6001. each to the incurables at St. Luke’s hospital, 500l. towards the repairing or rebuilding of houses belonging to ppor livings in the diocese of Canterbury, 2.00Q/.

Besides these donations, he left 100G/. to be distributed amongst his servants 200l. to such poor persons as he assisted in his life-time 5000l. to the two daughters of his nephew Mr. Frost 500l. to Mrs. Seeker, the widow of his nephew Dr. George Seeker, and 200l. to Dr. Daniel Burton. After the payment of those and some other smaller legacies, he left his real and the residue of his personal estate to Mr. Thomas Frost of Nottingham. The greatest part of his very noble collection of books he bequeathed to the Archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, the rest betwixt his two chaplains and two other friends. To the manuscript library in the same palace, he left a large number of very learned and valuable Mss. writtenby himself on a great variety of subjects, critical and theological. His well-known catechetical lectures, and his ms sermons he left to be revised by his two chaplains, Dr. Stinton and Dr. Porteus, by whom they were published in 1770. His options he gave to the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and the bishop of Winchester for the time being, in trust, to be disposed of by them (as they became vacant) to such persons as they should in their consciences think it would have been most reasonable for him to have given them, had he been living.

The life prefixed to his works was written by Dr. Porteus, the late very amiable and much admired bishop of London, and reprinted separately by his lordship in 1797, in consequence of bishop Kurd’s having, in his life of Warburton, “judged it expedient to introduce into his life of bishop Warburton, such observations on the talents, learning, and writings of archbishop Seeker, as appeared, both to Dr. Porteus and to many other of his grace’s friends extremely injurious to his literary character, and the credit of his numerous and useful publications; and therefore highly deserving of some notice from those who loved him in life, and revered him after death.” These observations are indeed fully refuted in this excellent piece of biography, as well as the other slanders which the steady and upright conduct of archbishop Seeker drew upon him from persons notoriously disaffected to religion and the church; and time, which never fails to do ample justice to such characters as his, has almost effaced the remembrance of them. Yet, as some have lately attempted to revive the calumny, and suppress the refutation, we have given some references in the note on this subject, not without confidence that archbishop Seeker’s character will suffer little while he has a Porteus for his defender, and a Hollis, a Walpole, a Blackburn, and a Wakefield for his accusers.

, a French historian, was born January 8, 1691, at Paris. He began to study the law in obedience to his father’s desire, who was an able advocate; but losing both his parents shortly after, he quitted the bar, for which he had not the least taste, and devoted himself wholly to the belles lettres, and French history. His unwearied application to books, which no other passion interrupted, soon made him known among the learned; and he was admitted into the academy of inscriptions in 1723, and chosen by chancellor d'Aguesseau five years after, to continue the great collection of statutes, made by the French kings, which M. de Laurier had begun. As Secousse possessed every talent necessary for such an important undertaking, the voiumes which he published were received with universal approbation. He died at Paris, March 15, 1754, aged sixty-three, leaving a library, the largest and most curious, in French history, that any private person had hitherto possessed. His works are, the continuation of the collection of statutes before mentioned, to the ninth volume inclusively, which was printed under the inspection of M. de Villevault, counsellor to the court of aids, who succeeded M. Secousse, and published a table, forming a tenth volume, and since, an eleventh and twelfth. Secousse also wrote many dissertations in the memoirs of the academy of inscriptions editions of several works, and of several curious pieces “Memoirs for the History of Charles the Bad,” 2 vols. 4to,

, a French dramatic writer, was born at Paris, June 4, 1719. Abandoned by his friends, he was, at the age of thirteen, obliged to quit his studies, in which he was little advanced, and to practise a trade for his subsistence. He was first a journeyman, and then a master mason* and architect; which businesses he conducted with uncommon probity. Natural inclination led him to cultivate literature, and particularly the drama, for which he wrote various small pieces and comic operas, the most popular of which were, “Le Deserteur;” and “Richard Coeur de Lion.”“All of them met with great success, and still continue to be performed, but the French critics think that his poetry is not written in the purest and most correct style, and that his pieces appear to more advantage on the stage than in the closet. He possessed, however, a quality of greater consequence to a dramatic writer the talent of producing stage effect. He was elected into the French academy, in consequence of the success of his” Richard Coeur de Lion," and was intimately connected with all the men of letters, and all the artists of his time. He died in May 1797, aged seventy-eight.

, a nonconformist divine, was born at Marlborough in Wiltshire, in 1600, and educated first at Queen’s college, and then at Magdalen-hall, Oxford. After taking his degrees in arts, he was ordained, and became chaplain to lord Horatio Vere, whom he accompanied into the Netherlands. After his return, he went again to Oxford, and was admitted to the reading of the sentences in 1629. Going then to London he preached at St. Mildred’s, Bread-street, until interrupted by the bishop, and in 1639 became vicar of Coggeshall in Essex, where he continued three or four years. The commencement of the rebellion allowing men of his sentiments unconstrained liberty, he returned to London, and preached frequently before the parliament, inveighing with extreme violence against the church and state: to the overthrow of both, his biographers cannot deny that he contributed his full share, in the various characters of one of the assembly of divines, a chaplain in the army, one of the triers, and pne of the ejectors of those who were called “ignorant and scandalous ministers.” In 1646 he became preacher at St. Paul’s, Covent-garden, where he appears to have continued until the decay of his health, when he retired to Marl borough, and died there in January 1658. As a divine, he was much admired in his day, and his printed works had considerable popularity. The principal of them are, “The Fountain opened,” 1657; “An exposition of Psalm xxiii.” 1658, 4to; “The Anatomy of Secret Sins,” 1660; “The Parable of the Prodigal,” 1660; “Synopsis of Christianity,” &c. &c. He had a brother, John, an ad*, herent to the "parliamentary cause, and a preacher, but of less note; and another brother Joseph, who became batler in Magdalen college in 1634, and B.A. in 1637, and then went to Cambridge, where he took his master’s degree, and, was elected fellow of Christ’s college. After the restora-^ tion he conformed, and was beneficed in the church; in 1675 he was made prebendary of Lincoln, and was also rector of Fisherton, where he died Sept. 22, 1702, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, leaving a son John Sedgwick, who succeeded him in the prebend, and was vicar of Burton Pedvvardine in Lincolnshire, where he died in 1717.

, a dramatic and miscellaneous writer, was the son of sir John Sedley, of Aylesford in Kent, by a daughter of sir Henry Savile, and was born about 1639. At seventeen, he became a fellowcommoner of Wadham college in Oxford; but, taking no degree, retired to his own country, without either traveling, or going to the inns of court. At the restoration he came to London, and commenced wit, courtier, poet, and man of gallantry. As a critic, he was so much admired, tfiat he became a kind of oracle among the poets; and no performance was approved or condemned, till sir Charles Sedley had given judgment. This made king Charles jestingly say to him, that Nature had given him a patent to be Apollo’s viceroy; and lord Rochester placed him in the first rank of poetical critics. With these accomplishments, he impaired his estate by profligate pleasures, and was one of that party of debauchees whom we have already mentioned in our account of Sackville lord Buckhurst, who having insulted public decency, were indicted for a riot, and all severely fined; sir Charles in 500l. The day for payment being appointed, sir Charles desired Mr. Henry Killigrew and another gentleman, both his friends, to apply to the king to get it remitted; which they undertook to do; but at the same time varied the application so far as to beg it for themselves, and they made Sedley pay the full sum.

After this affair, his mind took a more serious turn; and he began to apply himself to politics. He had been chosen to serve for Romney in Kent, in the parliament which begun May 8, 1661, and continued to sit for several parliaments after. He was extremely active for the revolution, which was at first thought extraordinary, as he had received favours from James II. but those were cancelled by that prince’s having taken his daughter into keeping, whom he created countess of Dorchester. This honour by no means satisfied sir Charles, who, libertine as he had been, considered his daughter’s disgrace as being thereby made more conspicuous. Still his wit prevailed over his resentment, at least in speaking on the subject; for, being asked, why he appeared so warm for the revolution, he is said to have answered, “From a principle of gratitude; for, since his majesty has made my daughter a countess, it is fit I should do all I can to make his daughter a queen.” He died Aug. 20, 1701.

His works were printed in 1719, 2 vols. 8vo; and consist of plays, translations, songs, prologues, epilogues, and small occasional pieces. His poems are generally of the licentious kind, and do not afford great marks of genius, and his dramas are quite forgotten. Pope, according to Spence, thought him very insipid, except in some of his little loveverses. Malone thinks he was the Luideius of Dryden’s “Essay on dramatic poetry,” and Dryden certainly shewed his respect for him by dedicating to him his “Assignation.”

, a priest and poet, either Irish or Scotch, of the fifth century, is recorded as the writer of an heroic poem, called “Carmen Paschale,” divided into five books. The first begins with the creation of the world, and comprehends the more remarkable passages of the Old Testament. The next three describe the life of Jesus Christ. This performance has been highly commended by Cassiodorus, Gregorius Turrinensis, and others. Sedulius afterwards wrote a piece on the same subjects in prose. The poem was printed by Aldus in the collection of sacred poets, in 1502. It is also in Maittaire’s “Corp. Poet.” and has since been published by itself, with learned notes, by Arntzenius, 1761, 8vo, and by Arevale at Rome, 1794, 4-to.

, an English divine, who was born at Clifton, near Penrith, in Cumberland, of which place his father was rector, had his school-education at Lowther, and his academical at Queen’s college, in Oxford. Of this society he was chosen fellow in 1732. The greatest part of his life was spent at Twickenham, where he was assistant or curate to Dr. Waterland. In 1741, he was presented by his college to the living of Enham in Hampshire, at which place he died in 1747, without ever having obtained any higher preferment, which he amply deserved. He was exemplary in his morals, orthodox in his opinions, had an able head, and a most amiable heart. A late romantic writer against the Athanasian doctrines, whose testimony we choose to give, as it is truth extorted from an adversary, speaks of him in the following terms: “Notwithstanding this gentleman’s being a contender for the Trinity, yet he was a benevolent man, an upright Christian, and a beautiful writer; exclusive of his zeal for the Trinity, he was in every thing else an excellent clergyman, and an admirable scholar. 1 knew him well, and on account of his amiable qualities very highly honour his memory; though no two ever differed more in religious sentiments.” He published in his life-time, “Discourses on several important Subjects,” 2 vols. 8vo and his “Posthumous Works, consisting of sermons, letters, essays, &c.” in 2 vols. 8vo, were published from his original manuscripts by Jos. Hall, M. A. fellow of Queen’s college, Oxford, 1750. They are all very ingenious, and full of good matter, but abound too much in antithesis and point.

, an eminent painter, was born at Antwerp in 1.589. Under the instructions of Henry van Balen, and Abraham Janssens, he had made considerable progress in the art before he went to Italy. On his arrival at Rome, he became the disciple of Bartolommeo Manfredi; and from him adopted a taste for the vigorous style of Michael Angelo Caravaggio, to which he added somewhat of the tone and colour he had brought with him from his native country; producing the powerful effect of candle-light, though often falsely applied in subjects which appertain to the milder illumination of the day. He at length accepted the invitation of cardinal Zapara, the Spanish ambassador at Rome, to accompany him to Madjrid, where he was presented to the king, and was engaged in his service, with a considerable pension. After some years he returned to Flanders, and his fellow-citizens were impatient to possess some of his productions; but they who had been accustomed to the style of Rubens and Vandyke, were unable to yield him that praise to which he had been accustomed, and he was obliged to change his manner, which he appears to have done with facility and advantage, as many of his latter pictures bear evident testimony. His most esteemed productions are, the principal altar-piece in the church of the Carmelites at Antwerp, the subject of which is the marriage of the virgin; and the adoration of the magi, the altar-piece in the cathedral of Bruges. The former is much after the manner of Rubens. Vandyke painted his portrait among the eminent artists of his country, which is engraved by Pontius. He died in 1651, aged sixty-two. His son Daniel, who was born at Antwerp in 1590, was a painter of fruit and flowers, which he, being a Jesuit, executed at his convent at Rome. He appears, indeed, to have painted more for the benefit of the society to which he had attached himself, than for his private advantage: and when he had produced his most celebrated picture, at the command of the prince of Orange, it was presented to that monarch in the name of the society, which was munificently recompensed in return. He frequently painted garlands of flowers, as borders for pictures, which were filled up with historical subjects by the first painters. He died at Antwerp in 1660, aged seventy.

, an early Italian writer, was born at Florence about the close of the fifteenth century. He was educated at Padua, where he became an accomplished classical scholar, but appears afterwards to have gone into public life, and was employed in various embassies and iiegociations by duke Cosmo, of Florence. He wrote an excellent history of Florence from 1527 to 1555, which, however, remained in ms. until 1723, when it appeared, together with a life of Niccolo Capponi, gonfalonier of Florence, Segni’s uncle. He likewise translated Aristotle’s Ethics. “L‘Etica d’Aristotele, tradotta in volga Fiorentino,” Florence, 1550, 4to, a very elegant book; and “DelP Anima d'Aristotele,” 1583, also the Rhetoric and Poetics of the same author, &c. He died in 1559.

, a French poet, was born at Caen in 1624, and first studied in the college of the Jesuits there. As he grew up, he applied himself to French poetry, and was so successful as to be enabled to rescue himself, four brothers, and two sisters, from the unhappy circumstances in which the extravagance of a father had left them. In his twentieth year he met with a patron who introduced him to Mad. de Montpensier, and this lady appointed him her gentleman in ordinary, in which station he remained many years, until obliged to quit her service, for opposing her marriage with count de Lauzun. He immediately found a new patroness in Mad. de la Fayette, who admitted him into her house, and assigned him apartments. Her he assisted in her two romances, “The princess of Cleves” and “Zaida.” After seven years, he retired to his own country, with a resolution to spend the rest of his days in solitude; and there married his cousin, a rich heiress, about 1679. Mad. de Maintenon invited him to court, as tutor to the duke of Maine: buthedid notchooseto exchange theindependenceof a retired life for the precarious favours of a court, and therefore continued where he was. He was admitted of the French academy in 1662; and was the means of re-establishing that of Caen. He died at this place, of a dropsy, in 1701. He was very deaf in the last years of his life, bufe was much courted for the sake of his conversation, which was replete with such anecdotes as the polite world had furnished him with. A great number of these are to be found in the “Segraisiana;” which was published many years after his death, with a preface by Mr. de la Monnoye; the best edition of it is that of Amsterdam, 1723, 12mo.

The prose writings of Segrais, though for the most part frivolous enough, yet have great merit as to their style, which may be considered as a standard. Of this kind are his “Nouvelles Francoises;” but he was chiefly admired for his poems, which consist of *' Diverses Poesies,“printed at Paris in 1658, 4to;” Athis," a pastoral and a translation of Virgil’s Georgics and Æneid. Of his eclogues, and particularly of his translation of Virgil, Boileau and D'Alembert speak very highly, but his Virgil is no longer read.

, one of the most learned men of the seventeenth century, wasthe son of John Selden, a yeoman, by Margaret his wife, only daughter of Mr. Thomas Baker of Rushington, descended from the family of th Bakers in Kent. He was born Dec, 16, 1584, at a house called the Lacies at Salvinton, near Terring in Sussex, and educated at the free-school at Chichester, where he made a very early progress in learning. In 159$, at fourteen years of age, as some say, but according to Wood, in 1600, he was entered of Hart-hall, Oxford, where under the tuition of Mr. Anthony Barker (brother to his schoolmaster at Chichester) and Mr. John Young, both of that hall, he studied about three years, and then removed to Clifford’s Inn, London, for the study of the law, and about two years afterwards exchanged that situation for the Inner Temple. Here he soon attained a great reputation for learning, and acquired the friendship of sir Robert Cotton, sir Henry Spelman, Camden, and Usher. In 1606, when only twentytwo years of age, he wrote a treatise on the civil government of Britain, before the coming in of the Normans, which was esteemed a very extraordinary performance for his years. It was not printed, however, until 1615, and then very incorrectly, at Francfort, under the title “Analects Anglo-Britannicwv Hbri duo, de civile administratione Britanniae Magnae usque ad Normanni adventum,” 4to. Nicolson is of opinion that these “Analecta” do not so clearly account for the religion, government, and revolutions of state among our Saxon ancestors, as they are reported to do. It was an excellent specimen, however, of what might be expected from a youth of such talents and application.

In 1610 he printed at London, his “Jani Anglorum facies altera,” 8vo, reprinted in 1681, and likewise translated into English by Dr. Adam Littleton, under his family name of Redman Westcot, 1683, fol. It consists of all that is met with in history concerning the common and statute law of English Britany to the death of Henry II. Selden had laid the foundation in a discourse which he published the same year and in the same form, entitled “England’s Epinomis” and this is also in Dr. Littleton’s volume, along with two other tracts, “The Original of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Testaments,” and “The Disposition or administration of Intestate goods,” both afterwards the production of Selden’s pen. In the same year, 1610, he published his “Duello, or single combat;” and in 1612, notes and illustrations on Drayton’s “Poly-Olbion,” folio. He seems to have been esteemed for his learning by the poets of that time; and although he had no great poetical turn himself, yet in 1613 he wrote Greek, Latin, and English verses on Browne’s “Britannia’s Pastorals,” and contributed other efforts of the kind to the works of several authors, which appear to have induced Suckling to introduce him in his “Session of the Poets,” as sitting “close by the chair of Apollo.”

In 1614 he published a work which has always been praised for utility, his “Titles of Honour,” Lond. 4to, with an encomiastic poem by his friend Ben Jonson. It was reprinted with additions in 1631, fol. and again in 1671, and translated into Latin by Simon John Arnold, Francfort, 1696, Nicolson remarks that a as to what concerns our nobility and gentry, all that come within either of those lists will allow, that Mr. Selden’s Titles of Honour ought first to be perused, for the gaining of a general notion of the distinction of a degree from an emperor down to a country gentleman.“In 1616 appeared his notes on sir John Fortescue’s work sc De laudibus legum Anglise,” and sir Ralph’s Hengham’s “Sums,” Lond. 8vo. In 1617 he drew up a dissertation upon the state of the Jews formerly living in England, for the use of Purchas, who printed it, although, as Selden complained, very defectively, in hi* “Pilgrimage.” In the same year he published his very learned work, “De Diis Syriis syntagmata duo.” This is not only a treatise on the idolatry of the ancient Syrians, but affords a commentary on all the passages in the Old Testament, where mention is made of any of the heathen deities. This first edition (Lond, 8vo.) being out of print, Ludovicus de Dieu printed an edition at Leyden in 1629, which was revised and enlarged by Selden. Andrew Beyer afterwards published two editions at Leipsic, in 1668 and 1672, with some additions, but, according to Le Clerc, of little importance. Le Clerc offers also some objections to the work itself, which, if just, imply that Selden had not always been judicious in his choice of his authorities, nor in the mode of treating the subject. It contributed, however, to enlarge the reputation which he already enjoyed both at home and abroad.

In his next, and one of his most memorable performances, he did not earn th*e fame of it without some danger. This was his “Treatise of Tythes,” the object of which was to prove that tithes were not due by divine right under Christianity, although the clergy are entitled to them by the laws of the land. This book was attacked by sir James Sempill in the Appendix to his treatise entitled “Sacrilege sacredly handled,” London, 1619, and by Dr. Richard Tillesley, archdeacon of Rochester, in his “Animadversions upon Mr. Selden’s History of Tithes,” London, 1621, 4to. Selden wrote an answer to Dr. Tillesley, which being dispersed in manuscript, the doctor published it with remarks in the second edition of his “Animadversions,” London, 1621, 4to, under this title, “Animadversions upon Mr. Selden’s History of Tithes, and his Review thereof. Before which (in lieu of the two first chapters purposely praetermitted) is premised a catalogue of 72 authors before the yeare 1215, maintaining the Jus divinum of Tythes, or more, to be paid to the Priesthood under the Gospell.” Selden’s book was likewise answered by Dr. Richard Montague in his “Diatribe,” London, 1621, 4to; by Stephen Nettles, B. D. in his “Answer to the Jewish Part of Mr. Selden’s History of Tythes,” Oxford, 1625; and by William Sclater in his “Arguments about Tithes,” London, 1623, in 4to. Selden’s work having been reprinted in 1680, 4to, with the old date put to it, Dr. Thomas Comber answered it in a treatise entitled, “An Historical Vindication of the Divine Right of Tithes, &c.” London, 1G&1, in 4to. This work also excited the displeasure of the court, and the author was called before some of the lords of the high commission, Jan. 28, 1618, and obliged to make a publicsubmission, which he did in these words: “My good Lords, I most humbly acknowledge my errour, which 1 have committed in publishing the ‘ History of Tithes,’ and especially in that I have at all, by shewing any interpretation of Holy Scriptures, by meddling with Councils, Fathers, or Canons, or by what else soever occures in it, offered any occasion of argument against any right of maintenance ' Juredivino* of the Ministers of the Gospell; beseeching your Lordships to receive this ingenuous and humble acknowledgment, together with the unfeined protestation of my griefe, for that through it I have so incurred both his Majestie’s and your Lordships’ displeasure conceix-ed against mee in behalfe of the Church of England.” We give this literally, because some of Mr. Selden’s admirers have asserted that he never recanted any thing in his book. The above is at least the language of recantation; yet he says himself in his answer to Dr. Tillesley, “I confesse, that I did most willingly acknowledge, not only before some Lords of the High Commission (not in the High Commission Court) but also to the Lords of his Majesty’s Privy Council, that I was most sorry for the publishing of that History, because it had offended. And his Majesty’s most gracious favour towards me received that satisfaction of the fault in so untimely printing it; and I profess still to all the world, that I am sorry for it. And so should I have been, if I had published a most orthodox Catechism, that had offended. But what is that to the doctrinal consequences of it, which the Doctor talks of? Is there a syllable of it of less truth, because I was sorry for the publishing of it Indeed, perhaps by the Doctor’s logic there is; and just so might he prove, that there is the more truth in his animadversions, because he was so glad of the printing them. And because he hopes, as he says, that my submission hath cleared my judgment touching the right of tithes: what dream made him hope so? There is not a word of tithes in that submission more than in mentioning the title; neither was my judgment at all in question, but my publishing it; and this the Doctor knows too, as I am assured.” Selden, therefore, if this means any thing, was not sorry for what he had written, but because he had published it, and he was sorry he had published it, because it gave offence to the court and to the clergy. In 1621, king James having, in his speech to the parliament, asserted that their privileges were originally grants from the crown^ Selden was consulted by the House of Lords on that question, and gave his opinion in favour of parliament; which being dissolved soon after, he was committed to the custody of the sheriff of London, as a principal promoter of the famous protest of the House of Commons, previous to its dissolution. From this confinement, which lasted only five weeks, he was released by the interest of Dr. Andrews, bishop of Winchester, and returned to his studies, the first fruits of which were> a learned epistle prefixed to Vincent’s “Discovery of errors in two editions of the Catalogue of Nobility by Ralph Brooke,” Lond. 1622, and the year following his “Spicilegium in Eadmeri sex libros Historiarum,” fol.

Although he had already been consulted by parliament on account of his knowledge of constitutional antiquities, he had not yet obtained a seat in that assembly; but in 1623 he was chosen a member for Lancaster, and in the parliament called in 1625, on the accession of Charles L he was chosen for Great Bed win in Wiltshire) and novr took an active p>rt in opposition to the measures of the court*. In 1626 he was chosen of the committee for

* In Trinity term, 1624, he was concerning him were respited until this chosen reader of Lyon’s-lnn, but re- term. Now this day being called agairt fused to perform that office. In the to the table, he doth absolutely refuse register of the Inner Temple is the fol- to read. The masters of the bench, lowing passage “Whereas an order taking into consideration his contempt was made at the Bench-Table this term, add offence, and for that it is without ince the last parliament, and entered precedent, that any man elect-d to into the buttery-book in these words; read in chancery has been discharged Jovtslldie Octobrls 1624. Memoran- in like case, much less has with such dum, that whereas John Selden, esq. wilfulness refused the same, have orone of the utter barristers of this house, dered, that he shall presently pay to *ras in Trinity term last, chosen reader the use of this house the sum of 20J. of Lyon’s-lnn by the gentlemen of the for his fine, and that he stand and be same house, according to the order of disabled ever to be called to the bench, their house, which he then refused to or to be a reader of this house. Now take upon him, and perform the same, at this parliament the said order is coriwithout some sufficient cause or good firmed; and it is further ordered, that reason, notwithstanding many ccwirte- if any of this house, which hereafter ous and fair persuasions and admoni- shall be chosen to read in chancery, tions by the masters of the bench made shall refuse to read, every such offender to him; forwhich cause he having been shall be fined, and be disabled to be twice convented before the masters of called to the bench, or to be a reader the bench, it was then ordered, that of this house.” However, in Michaelthere should be a nt reclpiatur entered mas term 1632, it was ordered, that upon his name, which was done accord- Mr. Seldea “shall stand enabled and ingly and in respect the beneh was be capable of any preferment in the not then full, the farther proceedings House, in such a manner as other drawing up articles of impeachment against the duke of Buckingham, and was afterwards appointed one of the managers for the House of Commons on his trial. In 1627 he opposed the loan which the king endeavoured to raise, and although he seldom made his appearance at the har, pleaded in the court of King’s Bench for Hampden, who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay his quota of that loan. After the third parliament of Charles I. in which he sat for Lancaster, had been prorogued, he retired to Wrest in Bedfordshire, a seat belonging to the earl of Kent, where he finished his edition of the” Marmora Arundelliana," Loud. 1621), 4to, reprinted by Prideaux, with additions at Oxford, in 1676, folio, and by Maittaire, at London, 1732, in folio.

In the next session of parliament he continued his activity against the measures of the court, to which he had made himself so obnoxious, that after that parliament was dissolved, he was committed to the Tower by an order of the Privy-council, where he remained about eight months, and as he then refused to give security for his good behaviour, he was removed to the King’s Bench prison, but was allowed the rules. It was about this time that he wrote his piece “De successionibns in bona defuncti, secundum leges Hebraeorum,” Lond. 1634, 4to; and another, “De successione in pontificatum Hebracorum libri duo,” reprinted at Leyden, 1638, 8vo, and Francfort, by Beckman, 1673, 4to, with some additions by the author. In May 1630 he was removed to the Gate-house at Westminster; and in conseqaence of this removal, he found means to obtain so much indulgence, as to pass the long vacation in Bedfordshire; but when his habeas corpus was brought, as usual, in Michaelmas term ensuing, it was refused by the court, and the judges complaining of the illegality of his removal to the Gate-house, he was remanded to the King’sbench, where he continued till May 1631, when he was admitted to bail, and bailed from term to term, until he. petitioned the king, in July 1634, and was finally released Iby the favour of archbishop Laud and the lord treasurer. During his confinement, having been always much attached totli study of Jewish antiquities, he wrote his treatises, “De Jure naturali et gentium, juxta disciplinam Hebneorum,”

utter barristers of this House are to all standing-; and accordingly he was called intents and purposes, any former act to the beach Michaelmas following.“of parliament to the contrary notwithand his” lixor Hebraica,“on the marriages, divorces, &c. of the ancient Hebrews. In 1633 he was one of the committee appointed for preparing the mask exhibited by the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, before the king and queen on Candlemas night, in order to show their disapprobation, of Prynne’s book against stage-plays, called” Histriomastix:" so various were Selden’s pursuits, that he could even, superintend mummery of this kind, while apparently under the displeasure of the court. His next publication, however, effectually reconciled the court and ministers.

During king James’s reign, Selden had been ordered by his majesty to make such collections as might shew the right of the crown of England to the dominion of the sea, and he had undertaken the work, but, in resentment for being imprisoned by James, declined the publication. An occasion offered now in which it might appear to advantage. In 1634, a dispute having arisen between the English and Dutch concerning the herring -fishery upon the British coast, to which the Dutch laid claim, and had their claims supported by Grotius, who, in his “Mare liberum” contended that fishing on the seas was a matter of common right, Selden now published his celebrated treatise of “Mare Clausum,” Lond. 1635, foL In this he effectually demonstrated, from the law of nature and nations, that a dominion over the sea may be acquired: and from the most authentic histories, that such a dominion has been claimed and enjoyed by several nations, and submitted to by others, for their common benefit; that this in fact was the case of the inhabitants of this island, who, at all times, and under every kind of government, had claimed, exercised, and constantly enjoyed such a dominion, which had been confessed by their neighbours frequently, and in the most solemn manner. This treatise, in the publication of which Selden is said to have been encouraged by archbishop Laud, greatly recommended him to the court, and was considered as so decisive on the question, that a copy of it was placed among the records of the crown, in the exchequer, and in the court of admiralty. This work was reprinted in 1636, 8vo. An edition also appeared in Holland, 12mo, with the title of London, but was prohibited by the king, because of some additions, and a preface by Boxhornius. It was jtranslated into English, by the noted Marchamont Needham, 1652, foL with some additional evidence and discourses, by special command, and a dedication of eighteen pages, addressed to “The supreme authoritie of the nation and parliament of the Commonwealth of England,” which is of course not prefixed to the translation by J. H. Gent published after the restoration in 1663. Nicolson observes, that when Selden wrote this book, he was not such an inveterate enemy to the prerogative doctrine of ship-money, as afterwards: for he professedly asserts, that in the defence of their sovereignty at sea, our kings constantly practised the levying great sums on their subjects without the concurrence of their parliaments. The work having been attacked by Peter Baptista Burgus, Selden published in 1653, 4to, a treatise in its defence, with rather a harsh title, “Vindicise secundum integritatem existimationis suae per eonvitium de scriptione Maris Clausi petulantissimum et mendacissimum Maris Liberi, &c.”

In 164-0$ Selden published another of those works which were the fruit of his researches into Jewish antiquities, already noticed under the title “De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta disciplinam Hebraeorum,” folio. PuiTendorff applauds this work highly; but his translator Barbeyrac observes, that “besides the extreme disorder and obscurity which are justly to be censured in his manner of writing, he does not derive his principles of nature from the pure light of reasoiij but merely from the seven precepts given to Noah; and frequently contents himself with citing the decisions of the Rabbin^ without giving himself the trouble to examine whether they be just or not.” Le Clerc says, that in this book Selden “has only copied the Rabbins, and scarcely ever reasons at all. His rabbinical principles are founded upon an uncertain Jewish tradition, namely, that God gave to Noah seven precepts, to be observed by all mankind; which, if it should be denied, the Jevys would find a difficulty to prove! besides, his ideas are very imperfect and embarrassed.” There is certainly somQ foundation for this; and what is said of his style may be jnore or less applied to all he wrote. He had a vast jnemory and prodigious learning; which impeded the use of his reasoning faculty, perplexed and embarrassed his ideas, and crowded his writings with citations and authori* ties, to supply the place of argument.

In this same year, 1640, Selden was chosen member for the university of Oxford, and that year and the following continued Jo oppose the measures of the court, but his. coneliiet may to some appear unsteady. In truth, he attempted what in those days was impossible, to steer a middle course. He supported the republican party in the measures preparatory to the sacrifice of the earl of Strafford, but was not one of their Committee for managing the impeachment, and his name was even inserted in a list of members, posted up in Old Palace Yard by some party zealots, and branded with the appellation of " enemies of justice.*' On the subject of church-government, although he seems to have entertained some predilection for the establishment, yet he made no effort to prevent its fall, at all commensurate to his knowledge and credit. In the debates on the question whether bishops sat in parliament as barons and peers of the realm, or as prelates, he gave it as his opinion that they sat as neither, but as representatives of the clergy; and this led to the expulsion of them from parliament. Afterwards we find him concurring with other members of the House of Commons in a protestation that they would maintain the protestant religion according to the doctrine of the church of England, and would defend the person and authority of the king, the privileges of parliament, and the rights of the subject. In the prosecution of archbishop Laud, Selden was among those who were appointed to draw up articles of impeachment against him, an office which must have produced a severe contest between his private feelings and his public duties.

Notwithstanding all this, the royalists were unwilling to believe that a man so learned and so well informed as Selden could be seriously hostile, and there were even some thoughts of taking the great seal from the lord keeper Littleton, and giving it to him. Clarendon tells us, that lord Falkland and himself, to whom his majesty referred the consideration of this measure, “did not doubt of Mr. Selden’s affection to the king; but withal they knew him so well, that they concluded he would absolutely refuse the place, if it were offered to him. He was in years, and of a tender constitution be had for many years enjoyed his ease, which he loved was rich, and would not have made a journey to York, or have lain out of his own bed, for any preferment, which he had never affected.” But in all probability his majesty’s advisers savy that his want of iirmness, and his love of safety, were the real impediments. When the king found him opposing in parliament the commission of array, he desired lord Falkhad to write to Selden on the subject, who vindicated his conduct on that point, but declared his intention to-be equally hostile to the ordinance for the militia, which was moved by the factious party, and which he justly declared to be without any shadow of law, or pretence of precedent, and most destructive to the government of the kingdom. Accordingly he performed his promise, but tins remarkable difference attended his efforts, that his opposition to the commission of array did the king great injury among many of his subjects, while the ordinance which armed the parliamentary leaders against the crown was carried: and, according to Whitelocke, Selden himself was made a deputy -lieutenant under it. There was an equally remarkable difference in the treatment he received for this double opposition. The king and his friends, convinced that he acted honestly, bore no resentment against him; but the popular leaders, most characteristically, inferred from this, that he must be hostile to their cause, and made vain endeavours to induce Waller to implicate him in the plot which he disclosed in 1643. Nor was his exculpation sufficient: for he was obliged, by an oath, to testify his hostility against the traitorous and horrible plot for the subversion of the parliament and state,

In 1643, he was appointed one of the lay-members to. sk in the assembly of divines at Westminster, in which, his admirers tell us, he frequently perplexed those divines with his vast learning; and, as Whitelocke relates, *‘ sometimes when they had cited a text of scripture to prove their assertion, he would tell them, ’ perhaps in your little pocket-bibles with gilt leaves,' which they would often pull out and read, < the translation may be thus’ but the Greel^ and the Hebrew signify thus and thus and so would totally silence them." This anecdote, which has often been repeated to Selden’s praise, may afford a proof of his wit, such as it was; but as a reflection on the divines of that assembly, it can do him no credit, many of them certainly understanding the original languages of the Bible as well as himself. It was in truth, as an able critic has observed, a piece of wanton insolence.

It is now necessary to revert to his publications, which were seldom long interrupted by his political engagements. In 1642, he published “A brief discourse concerning the power of peers and commons in parliament in point of judicature/' 4to, which some have, however, ascribed t sir Simonds D'Ewes. It was followed by” A discourse concerning the rights and privileges of the subjects, in a conference desired by the lords in 1628,“Lond. 1642, 4to” Privileges of the Baronage of England, when they sit in parliament,“ibid. 1642, and 1681, 8vo and an edition of Eutychius’s” Origines,“with a translation and notes, Lond. 4to, under this title,” Eutychii Ægyptii, Patriarchs orthodoxorum Alexandrini, Ecclesia* sine origines ex ejusdem Arabico, nunc primum edidit ac versione et commentario auxit Joannes Seldenus." Pocock (see Pocock, Vol. XXV. p. 91) inserted this work in his edition of the annals of Eutychius, which he translated at the desire of Mr. Selden, at whose expence they were printed at Oxford, in 1656, 4to. Mr. Selden’s book has been animadverted upon by several writers, particularly Abraham Ecchellensis, John Morin, and Eusebius Renaudot.

In 1643, he afforded every proof of his adherence to the republican party, by taking the covenant; and the same year, was by the parliament appointed keeper of the records in the Tower. In 1644, he was elected one of the twelve commissioners of the admiralty and nominated to the mastership of Trinity- college, in Cambridge, which he did not think proper to accept. In this year, he published his treatise “De Anno civili et Calendario Judaico,” 4to. In 1646, the parliament was so sensible of his services that they voted him the sum of 5000l. in consideration of his sufferings. What these were we have already related. In 1647, he published his learned “Dissertation annexed to (a book called) Fleta,” which he discovered in the Cottonian library. A second edition was published in 1685, but in both are said to be many typographical errors. In 1771, R. Kelham Esq. published a translation with notes. This work contains many curious particulars relating to those ancient authors on the laws of England, Bracton, Britton, Fleta, and Thornton, and shews what use was made of the imperial law in England, whilst the Romans governed here, at what time it was introduced into this nation, what use our ancestors made of it, how long it continued, and when the use of it totally ceased in the king’s courts at Westminster.

Selden continued to sit in Parliament after the murder of the king, and was the means of doing some good to learning, by his own reputation and influence in that reipect. He preserved archbishop Usher’s library from being sold, and rendered considerable services to the university of Oxford, taking all occasions, as in the cases of Pocock and Greaves, to moderate the tyranny of the parliamentary visitors, and often affording a generous protection to other eminent men who were about to be ejected for their adherence to the king. He also was instrumental in preserving the books and medals at St. James’s, by persuading his friend Whitelocke to accept the charge of them. Of his conduct while the death of the king was pending, we have no account at that critical period, he retired, it is said, as far as he could and it is certain that he refused to gratify Cromwell by writing an answer to the Eikoti Basilike. In 1650, he published his first book, “De Synedriis et prcefecturis Hebraeorum,” 4to; the second appeared in 1653, and the third after his death, in 1655. Many passages in this work have been animadverted upon by several eminent writers, especially what relates to excommunication. Dr. Hammond, in particular, has examined Selden’s notion concerning the power of binding and loosing, in his treatise concerning “The power of the Keys.” In 1652, he contributed a preface to the “Decem Scriptores Historic Anglicanae,” printed at London that year, in folio.

In the beginning of 1654 his health began to decline, and he began to see the emptiness of all human learning; and owned, that out of the numberless volumes he had read and digested, nothing stuck so close to his heart, or gave him such solid satisfaction as a single passage out of St. Paul’s Epistle to Titus, ii. 11, 12, 13, *14. On Nov. lOof that year, he sent to his friend Bulstrode Whitelocke, in order to make some alterations in his will, but when he came he found Selden’s weakness to be so much increased, that he was not able to perform his intention. He died Nov. 30, in the seventieth year of his age, in White Friars, at the house of Elizabeth, countess of Kent, with whom he had lived some years in such intimacy, that they were reported to be man and wife, and Dr. Wilkins supposes, that the wealth, which he left at his death, was chiefly owing to the generosity of that countess: but there is no good reason for either of these surmises. He was buried in the Temple church, where a monument was erected to him; and abp. Usher preached his funeral sermon. He left a most valuable and curious library to his executors, Matthew Hale, John Vaughan, and Rowland Jewks, esqs. which they generously would have bestowed on the society of the Inner Temple, if a proper place should be provided to receive it: but, this being neglected, they gave it to the university of Oxford. Selden, himself, had originally intended it for Oxford, and had left it so in his will, but was offended because when he applied for a manuscript in the Bodleian library, they asked, according to usual custom, a bond of 1OOO/. for its restitution. This made him declare, with some passion, that they should never have his collection. The executors, however, considered that they were executors of his will and not of his passion, and therefore destined the books, amounting to 8000 volumes, for Oxford, where a noble room was added to the library for their reception, Bumet says, this collection was valued at some thousands of pounds, and was believed to be one of the most curious in Europe. It is supposed that sir Matthew Hale gave some of Selden’s Mss respecting law to Lincoln’s-Inn library, as there is nothing of that kind among what were sent to the Bodleian; and a few Mr. Selden gave to the library of the college of physicians.

Selden was a man of extensive learning, and had as much skill in the Hebrew and Oriental languages as perhaps any man of his time, Pocock excepted. Grotius, over whom he triumphed in his “Mare clausum,” styles him “the glory of the English nation.” He was knowing in all laws, human and divine, yet did not greatly trouble himself with the practice of law: he seldom appeared at the bar, but sometimes gave counsel in his chamber. “His mind also,” says Whitelocke, “was as great as his learning; he was as hospitable and generous as any man, and as good company to those he liked.” Wilkins relates, that he was a man of uncommon gravity and greatness of soul, averse to flattery, liberal to scholars, charitable to the poor; and that, though he had a great latitude in his principles with regard to ecclesiastical power, yet he had a sincere regard for the church of England. Baxter remarks, that “he was a resolved se-> rious Christian, a great adversary, particularly, to Hobbes’s errors;” and that sir Matthew Hale affirmed, “how he had seen Selden openly oppose Hobbes so earnestly, as either to depart from him, or drive him out of the room.” But the noblest testimony in his favour is that of his intimate friend the earl of Clarendon, who thus describes him in all parts of his character: “Mr. Selden was a person,” says he, “whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his merit and virtue. He was of such stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages, as may appear from his excellent and transcendant writings, that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant among books, and had never spent an hour but in reading or writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability, was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good-nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh, and sometimes obscure; which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men, but to a little undervaluing the beauty of a style , and too much propensity to the language of antiquity: but in his conversation he was the most clear discourser, and had the best faculty in making hard things easy, and present to the understanding, of any man that hath been known.” His lordship also used to say, that *' he valued himself upon nothing more than upon having had Mr. Selden’s acquaintance, from the time he was very young; and held it with great delight as long as they were suffered to continue together in London: and he was very much troubled always when he heard him blamed, censured, and reproached for staving in London, and in the parliament, after they- were in rebellion, and in the worst times, which his age obliged him to do; and how wicked soever the actions were, which were every day done, he was confident he had not given his consent to them, but would have hindered them if he could with his own safety, to which he was always enough indulgent. If he had some infirmities with other men, they were weighed down with wonderful and prodigious abilities and excellences in the other scale.“The political part of Selden’s life, is that which the majority of readers will contemplate with least pleasure; but on this it is unnecessary to dwell. The same flexibility of spirit, which made him. crouch before the reprehension of James I. disfigured the rest of his life, and deprived him of that dignity and importance which would have resulted from his standing erect in any place he might have chosen. Clarendon seems to have hit the true cause of all, in that anxiety for his own safety to which, as he says,” he was always indulgent enough."

Several other works of his were printed after his death, or left in manuscript. I. “God made man, A Tract proving the nativity of our Saviour to be on the 25th of December,” Lond. 1661, 8vo, with his portrait. This was answered in the first postscript to a treatise entitled tc A brief (but true) account of the certain Year, Month, Day, and Minute of the birth of Jesus Christ,“Lond. 1671, 8vo, by John Butler, B. D. chaplain to James duke of Ormonde, and rector of Litchborow, in the diocese of Peterboroup-h. 2.” Discourse of the office of Lord Chancellor of England,“London, 1671, in fol. printed with Dugdale’s catalogue of lord chancellors and lord keepers of England from the Norman conquest. 3, Several treatises, viz.” England’s Epinomis;“already mentioned, published 1683, in fol. by Redman Westcot, alias Littleton, with the English translation of Selden’s” Jani Anglorum Facies altera.“4.” Ta. ble talk: being the discourses or his sense of various maU ters of weight and high consequence, relating especially to Religion and State,“London, 1689, 4to, published by Richard Mil ward, amanuensis to our author. Dr. Wilkins observes, that there are many things in this book inconsistent with Seiden’s great learning, principles, aud character. It has, however, acquired popularity, and still continues to be printed, as an amusing and edifying manual. 5.” Letters to learned men;“among which several to archbishop Usher are printed in the collection of letters at the end of Parr’s life of that prelate; and two letters of his to Mr. Thomas Greaves were first published from the originals by Thomas Birch, M. A. and F. R. 8. in the life prefixed to Birch’s edition of the” Miscellaneous works of Mr. John Greaves,“Lond. 1737, in two volumes, 8vo. 6.” Speeches, Arguments, Debates, &c. in Par! lament.“7. He had a considerable hand in, and gave directions and advice towards, the edition of” Plutarch’s Lives,“printed in 1657, with an addition of the year of the world, and the year of our Lord, together with many chronological notes and explications. His works were collected by Dr. David Wiljvins, and printed at London in three volumes fol. 1726. The two first volumes contain his Latin works, and the third his English. The editor has prefixed a long life of the author, and added several pieces never published before, particularly letters, poems, &c. In 1675 there was printed at London in 4to,” Joannis Seldeni Angli Liber de Nummis, &c. Huic accedit Bibliotheca Nummaria.“But this superficial tract was not written by our author, but by Alexander Sardo of Ferrara, and written before Selden was born, being published at Mentz, 1575, in 4to. The” Bibliotheca Nummaria" subjoined to it was written by father Labbe the Jesuit.

, whose adventures have given rise to the popular romance of Robinson Crusoe, was born at Largo, in Fifeshire, in Scotland, about 1676, and was bred a seaman. He left England in 1703, in the capacity of sailing-master of a small vessel, called the Cinque- PortsGalley, Charles Pickering captain and in the month of September, the same year, he sailed from Cork, in company with another ship of 26 guns and 120 men, called the St. George, commanded by captain William Dampier, intended to cruise against the Spaniards in the South sea. On the coast of Brasil, Pickering died, and was succeeded in the command by lieutenant Stradling. They proceeded round Cape Horn to the island of Juan Fernandez, whence they were driven by the appearance of two French ships of 36 guns each, and left five of Stradling’s men on shore, who were taken off by the French. Hence they sailed to the coast of America, where Dampier and Stradling quar^ relied, and separated by agreement. This was in the month of May 1704; and in the following September, Stradling came to the island of Juan Fernandez, where Selkirk and his captain having a quarrel, he determined to remain there alone. But when the ship was ready to sail, his resolution was shaken, and he desired to be taken on board; but now the captain refused his request, and he was left with hm clothes, bedding, a gun, and a small quantity of powder and ball, some trifling implements, and a few books, with certain mathematical and nautical instruments. Thus left sole monarch of the island, with plenty of the necessaries, of life, he found himself at first in a situation scarcely supportable; and such was his melancholy, that he frequently determined to put an end to his existence. It was full eighteen months, according to his own account, before he could reconcile himself to his lot. At length his mind became calm, and fully reconciled to his situation: he grew happy, employed his time in building and decorating his huts, chasing the goats, whom he soon equalled in speed, and scarcely ever failed of catching them. He also tamed young kids, and other animals, to be his companions. When his garments were worn out, he made others from the skins of the goats, whose flesh served him as food. His only liquor was water. He computed that he had caught, during his abode in the island, about 1000 goats, half of which he had suffered to go at large, having first marked them with a slit in the ear. Commodore Anson, who went there 30 years after, found the first goat which they shot, had been thus marked; and hence they concluded that it had been under the power of Selkirk. Though he constantly performed his devotions at stated hours, and read aloud, yet when he was taken from the island, his language, from disuse of conversation, had become scarcely intelligible. In this solitude he remained four years and four months, during which only two incidents occurred which he thought worthy of record. The first was, that pursuing a goat eagerly, he caught at the edge of a precipice, of which he was not aware, and he fell over to the bottom, where he lay some time senseless; but of the exact space of time in which he was bereaved of his active powers he could not ferm an accurate estimate. When, however, he came to himself, he found the goat lying under him dead. It was with difficulty that he could crawl to his habitation, and it was not till after a considerable time that he entirely recovered from his bruises. The other event was the arrival of a ship, which he at first supposed to be French, but, upon the crew’s landing, he found them to be Spaniards, of whom he had too great a dread to trust himself in their hands. They, however, had seen him, and he found it extremely difficult to make his escape. In this solitude Selkirk remained until the 2d of February, 1709, when he saw two ships come to the bay, and knew them to be English. He immediately lighted a fire as a signal, and he found, upon the landing of the men, that they were two privateers from Bristol, commanded by captains Rogers and Courtney. These, after a fortnight’s stay at Juan Fernandez, embarked, taking Selkirk with them, and returned byway of the East Indies to England, where they arrived on the 1st of October, 1711; Selkirk having been absent eight years. The public curiosity being much excited, he, after his return, drew up some account of what had occurred during his solitary exile, which he put into the hands of Defoe, vvho made it the foundation of his well-known work, entitled “Robinson Crusoe.” The time and place of Selkirk’s death are not on record. It is said, that so late as 1798, the chest and musket, which Selkirk had with him on the island, were in possession of a grand nephew, John Selkirk, a weaver in Largo, North Britain. Such are the particulars of this man’s history as recorded in “The Englishman,” No. 26, and elsewhere, but what credit is due to it, we do not pretend to say.

, a distinguished French physician, wag born in Gascony about the close of the seventeenth century, and is said to have been a doctor of the faculty of physic of Rheims, and a bachelor of that of Paris; which last degree he obtained in 1724 or 1725. He was a man of profound erudition, united with great modesty, and became possessed, by his industry in the practice of his profession, of much sound medical knowledge. His merits obtained for him the favour of the court, and he was appointed consulting physician to Louis XV. and subsequently succeeded Chicoyneau in the office of first physician to that monarch. He was also a member of the royal academy of sciences at Paris, and of the royal society of Nancy. He died in December 1770, at the age of about Seventy-seven years.

This able physician left some works of great reputation, particularly his “Traite de la Structure du Coeur, de son Action, et de ses Maladies,” Paris, 1749, in two volumes, 4to. An essay “De recondita febrium intermittentium et reuiittentium natura,” Amst. 1759, is generally ascribed to Senac. He also published an edition of Heister’s Anatomy, Paris, 1724, and afterwards “Discours sur la Methode de Franco, et sur celle de M. Rau touchant l'Operation de la Taille,” 1727. “Traite des Causes, des Accidens, et de la Cure de la Peste,” 1744. A work under the assumed name of Julien Morison, entitled “Lettres sur la Choix des Saignees,” 1730, was from his pen; but the “Nouveau Cours de Chymie suivant les Principes de Newton et de Stahl,” Paris, 1722 and 1737, has been attributed by mistake to Senac; it was in fact a compilation of notes taken at the lectures of Geoffroy by some students, and is unworthy of his pen.

His son Gabriel Senac de Meilhan possessed political talents which promoted him in the reigns of Louis XV. and XVI. to the places of master of the requests, and intendant for several provinces. On the breaking out of the revolution, he left France, and was received at some of the German courts with distinction. He afterwards went to St. Petersburgb, where Catherine II. gave him a pension of 6000 roubles, and wished him to write the annals of her reign. On her death he removed to Vienna, where he died Aug. 16, 1803. He published, “Memoires d'Anne de Gonzague,” “Consideration sur les Richesses et le Luxe;” a translation of Tacitus; and some political works on the revolution, with two volumes 8vo, of “Oeuvres phiJosophiques et litteraires.”

, an eloquent French divine, was born in 1601, at Paris, and was the son of Peter Senault, secretary to the council of the League. He entered young into the congregation of the oratory, then newly established by cardinal de Berulle, and was one of the most celebrated preachers and best directors of his time. He preached with uncommon reputation during forty years, at Paris, and in the principal cities of France, and wrote several books on pious and moral subjects, which were much esteemed by pious catholics. He appears to have been a disinterested man, for he refused some considerable pensions, and two bishoprics, but was elected general of the oratory in 1662. He died August 3, 1672, at Paris, aged seventy-one. His principal works are, “A Paraphrase on the Book oflob,” 8vo; “L' Usage des Passions,” 12mo; “L'Homme Chretien,” 4to; “L'Homme criminel,” 4to “Le Monarque, on les Devoirs du Souverain,” 12mo; “Panegyrics on the Saints,” 3 vols. 8vo; and the Lives of several persons illustrious for their piety, &c. It was this father, says L'Avocat, who banished from the pulpit that empty parade of profane learning, and that false taste, by which it was degraded, and who introduced a strong, sublime, and majestic eloquence, suited to the solemnity of our mysteries, and to the truths of our holy religion.

, an eminent Stoic philosopher, was born at Corduba in Spain, the year before the beginning of the Christian sera, of an equestrian family, which had probably been transplanted thither in a colony from Rome. He was the second son of Marcus Annseus Seneca, commonly called the rhetorician, whose remains are printed under the title of “Stiasorise & Controversise, cum Declainationum Excerptis;” and his youngest brother Annæus Mela (for there were three of them) was memorable for being the father of the poet Lucan. He was re* jnoved to Rome, while he was yet in his infancy, by his aunt, who accompanied him on account of the delicacy of his health. There he was educated in the most liberal manner, and under the best masters. He learned his eloquence from his father; but preferring philosophy to the declamations of the rhetoricians, he put himself under the stoics Attalus, Sotion, and Papirius Fabianus, of whom he has made honourable mention in his writings. It is probable too, that he travelled when he was young, since we find in several parts of his works, particularly in hij “Quæstiones Naturales,” some correct and curious observations on Egypt and the Nile. But these pursuits did not at all correspond with that scheme of life which his father designed; and to please him, Seneca engaged in the business of the courts, with considerable success, although he was rather an argumentative than an eloquent pleader. As soon as he arrived at manhood, he aspired to the honours of the state, and became questor, praetor, and, as Lipsius will have it, even consul, but the particulars of his public life are not preserved.

In the first year of Claudius, when Julia, the daughter of Germanicus, was accused of adultery by Messalina (a woman very unworthy of credit), and banished, Seneca was involved both in the charge and the punishment, and exiled to Corsica, where he lived eight years; happy, as he told his mother, in the midst of those things which usually make other people miserable. Here he wrote his books “Of Consolation,” addressed to his mother Helvia, and to his friend Polybius. But, as Brucker remarks, it may be questioned whether stoic ostentation had not some share in all this, for we find him, in another place, expressing much distress on account of his misfortune, and courting the emperor in a strain of servile adulation, little worthy of so eminent a philosopher. When Agrippina was married to Claudius, upon the death of Messalina, she prevailed with the emperor to recall Seneca from banishment; and afterwards procured him to be tutor to her son Nero, and Afranius Burrhus, a praetorian praefect, was joined with him iii this important charge. These two preceptors executed their trust with perfect harmony, and with some degree of success Burrhus instructing his pupil in the military art, and inuring him to wholesome discipline and Seneca furnishing him with the principles of philosophy, and the precepts of wisdom and eloquence; and both endeavouring to confine their pupil within the limits of decorum and virtue. While these preceptors united their authority, Nero was restrained from indulging his natural propensities; but after the death of Burrhus, the influence of Seneca declined, and the young prince began to disclose that depravity which afterwards stained his character with eternal infamy. Still, however, Seneca enjoyed the favour of his prince, and after Nero was advanced to the empire, he long continued to load his preceptor with honours and riches. Seneca’s houses and walks were the most magnificent in Rome, and he had immense sums of money placed out at interest in almost every part of the world. Suilius, one of his enemies, says, that during four years of imperial favour, he amassed the immense sum of 300,000 seslertiae, or 2,42 1,87 5l. of our money.

All this wealth, however, together with the luxury and effeminacy of a court, are said not to have produced any improper effect upon the temper and disposition of Seneca. He continued abstemious, correct in his manners, and, above all, free from flattery and ambition. “I had rather,” said he to Nero, “offend you by speaking the truth, than please you by lying and flattery.” It is certain that while he had any influence, that is, during the first five years of Nero’s reign, that period had always been considered as a pattern of good government. But when Poppgea and Tigellinus had insinuated themselves into the confidence of the emperor, and hurried him into the most extravagant and abominable vices, he naturally grew weary of his master, whose life must indeed have been a constant rebuke to him. When Seneca perceived that his favour declined at court 3 and that he had many accusers about the prince, who were perpetually whispering in his ears his great riches, his magnificent houses, his fine gardens, and his dangerous popularity, he offered to return all his opulence and favours to the tyrant, who, however, refused to accept them, and assured him of the continuance of his esteem; but the philosopher knew his disposition too well to re l y on his promises, and as Tacitus relates, “kept no more levees, declined the usual civilities which had been paid to him, and, tinder a pretence of indisposition or engagement, avoided as much as possible to appear in public.” It was not long before Seneca was convinced that he had made a just estimate of the sincerity of Nero, who now attempted, by means of Cleonicus, a freedman of Seneca, to take him olF by poison; but this did not succeed. In the mean time Antonius Natalis, who had been concerned in the conspiracy of Piso, upon his examination, in order to court the favour of Nero, or perhaps even at his instigation, mentioned Seneca among the number of the conspirators, and to give some colour to the accusation, pretended, that hehad been sent by Piso to visit Seneca whilst he was sick, und to complain of his having refused to see Piso, who as a friend might have expected free access to him upon all occasions; and that Seneca, in reply, had said, that frequent conversations could be of no service to either party, bufc that he considered his own safety as involved in that of Piso. Granius Syivanus, tribune of the praetorian cohort, was sent to ask Seneca, whether he recollected what had passed between himself and Natalis. Seneca, whether by accident 0r design is uncertain, had that day left Cajnpania, and was at his country-seat, about four miles from the city. In the evening, while he was at supper with his wife Paullina and two friends, the tribune, with a military band, came to the house, and delivered the emperor’s message, Seneca’s answer was, that he had received no complaint from Piso, of his having refused to see him; and that the State of his health, which required repose, had been his apology. He added, that he saw no reason why he should prefer the safety of any other individual to his own; and that no one was better acquainted than Nero, with his independent spirit.

This reply kindled the emperor’s indignation, and learning from the messenger that Seneca betrayed no symptoms of terror or distress, sent him a peremptory command immediately to put himself to death. This too Seneca received with perfect composure, and asked permission of the officer who brought the conjmand, to alter his will; but that being refused, he requested of his friends, that since he was not allowed to leave them any other legacy, they would preserve the example of his life, and exhorted them to exercise that fortitude, which philosophy taught. After some farther conversation with these friends, he embraced his wife, and intreated her to console herself with the recollection of his virtues: but Paullina refused every consolation, except that of dying with her husband, and earnestly solicited the friendly hand of the executioner. Seneca, after expressing his admiration of his wife’s fortitude, proceeded to obey the emperor’s fatal mandate, by opening a vein in each arm but, through his advanced age, the vital stream flowed so reluctantly, that it was necessary also to open the veins of his legs. Still finding his strength exhausted without any prospect of a speedy release; in order to alleviate, if possible, the anguish of his wife, who was a spectator of the scene, and to save himself the torture of witnessing her distress, he persuaded her to withdraw to another chamber. In this situation, Seneca, with wonderful recollection and self-command, dictated many philosophical reflections to his secretary. After a long interval, his friend Statius Annaeus, to whom he complained of the tedious delay of death, gave him a strong dose of poison; but even this, through the feeble state of his vital powers, produced little effect. At last, he ordered the attendants to convey him into a warm bath; and, as he entered, he sprinkled those who stood near, saying, " I offer this libation to Jupiter the deliverer/ 1 Then, plunging into the bath, he was soon suffocated. His body was consumed, according to his own express order, in a will which he had made in the height of his prosperity, -without any funeral pomp.

The character, the system, and the writings of this philosopher have been subjects of much dispute among the learned. Concerning his character, a candid judge, who considers the virtuous sentiments with which his writings abound, the temperate and abstemious plan of life which he pursued in the midst of a luxurious court, and the fortitude with which he met his fate, will not hastily pronounce him to have been guilty of adultery, upon the evidence of the infamous Messalina; or conclude his wealth to have been the reward of a servile compliance with the base passions of his prince. It has been questioned whether Seneca ought to be ranked among the stoic or the eclectic philosophers; and the freedom of judgment which he expressly claims, together with the respect which he pays to philosophers of different sects, clearly prove, that he did not implicitly addict himself to the system of Zeno; nor can the contrary be inferred from his speaking of our Chrysippus, and our Cleanthes; for he speaks also of our Demetrius, and our Epicurus. It is evident, however, from the general tenor and spirit of his writings, that he adhered, if) the main, to the stoic system. With respect to his writings, he is justly censured by Quintilian, and other critics, as among the Romans the first corrupter of style; yet his works are exceedingly valuable, on account of the great number of just and beautiful moral sentiments which they contain, the extensive erudition which they discover, and the happy mixture of freedom and urbanity, with which they censure vice, and inculcate good morals. The writings of Seneca, except his books of “Physical Questions,” are chiefly of the moral kind: they consist of one hundred and twenty-four “Epistles,” and distinct treatises, ' On Anger; Consolation; Providence; Tranquillity of Mind y Constancy; Clemency; the Shortness of Life; a Happy Life; Retirement; Benefits."

From the -excellence of many of his precepts, some have imagined, that he was a Christian, and it has been reported that he held a correspondence with St. Paul by letters; but although he must have heard of Christ and his doctrine, and Ms curiosity plight lead him tp make some inquiry 3.bout them, the letters published under the names of the Philosopher and Apostle, have long been declared spurious by the critics, and perfectly unworthy of either of them. A number of tragedies are extant under the name of Seneca, written in a bad style, but it is uncertain whether the whole or any of them were by this Seneca. Of his acknowledged works Justus Lipsius published the first good edition, which was succeeded by the Variorum, 1672, 3 vols. 8vo, and others. Of the tragedies, the best are those of Scriverius, 1621, the Variorum, 1651, &c. and Schroeder’s, 1728, 4to.

, an eminent physician of Germany, was born at Breslaw, where his father was a shoemaker, Nov. 25, 1572. He was sent to the university of Wittemberg in 1593, and there made a great progress in philosophy and physic, after which he visited the universities of Leipsic, Jena, and Francfort upon the Oder; and went to Berlin in 1601, whence he returned to Wittemberg the same year, and was promoted to the degree of doctor in physic, and soon after to a professorship in the same faculty. He was the first who introduced the study of chemistry into that university. He gained great reputation by his writings and practice; patients came to him from all parts, among whom were persons of the first rank; his custom was to take what was offered him for his advice, but demanded nothing, and restored to the poor what they gave him. The plague was about seven times at Wittemberg while he was professor there but he never retired, nor refused to assist the sick: and the elector of Saxony, whom he had cured of a dangerous illness in 1638, though he had appointed him one of his physicians in ordinary, yet gave him leave to continue at Wittemberg. He probably fell a sacrifice to his humanity, for he died of the plague at Wittemberg, July 21, 1637.

Sennertus was a voluminous writer, and has been characterized, by some critics, as a mere compiler from the works of the ancients. It is true that his writings contain an epitome, but, it must be added, a most comprehensive, clear, and judicious epitome, of the learning of the Greeks and Arabians, which renders them, eyen at this day, of considerable value as books of reference, and is highly creditable, considering the age in which they were composed, to his learning and discrimination. It must not be forgot that he also attained some fame as a philosopher, and was the first restorer of the Epicurean system among the moderns. In a distinct chapter of his “Hypomnemata Physica,” or “Heads of Physics,” trrating of atoms and mixture, he embraces the atomic system, which- he derives from Mochus the Phoenician. He supposes that the primary corpuscles not' only unite in the formation of bodies, but that in their mutual action and passion they undergo such modifications, that they cease to be what they were before their union; and maintains, that by their combination all material forms are produced. Sennertus, however, confounded the corpuscles of the more ancient philosophers with the atoms of Democritus and Epictetus, and held that each element has primary particles peculiar to itself. His works have often been printed in France and Italy. The last edition is that of Lyons, 1676, in 6 vols. folio, to which his life is prefixed.

, an Italian physician of celebrity, was born at Milan, in February 1552. He evinced great talents from his early childhood, and at the age of sixteen defended some theses on the subject of natural philosophy with much acuteness. His inclination leading him to the medical profession,* he repaired to Pavia, for the study of it, and obtained the degree of doctor in his twenty-first year, and was even appointed to a chair in this celebrated university two years after. At the end of four more years he resigned his professorship to devote himself entirely to practice at Milan, and while here Philip III. king of Spain, selected him for his historiographer; but neither this, nor many other honours, that were offered to him, could induce him to quit his native city, to which he was ardently attached. The only honour which he accepted was the appointment of chief physician to the state of Milan, which Philip IV. conferred upon him in 1627, as a reward for his virtues and talents. In 1628, during the plague at Milan, Septalius, while attending the infected, was himself seized with the disease, and although he recovered, he had afterwards a paralytic attack, which greatly impaired his health. He died in September 1633, at the age of eighty-one. Septalius was a man of acute powers, and solid judgment, and was reputed extremely successful in his practice. He was warmly attached to the doctrines of Hippocrates, whose work? he never ceased to study. He was author of various works, among which are <k In Lihrum Hippocratis Coi, de Aeribus, Aquis, et Locis, Commentarii quinquc,“1590;” In Aristotelis Problemata Commentaria Latina,“torn. I. 1602, II. 1607;” Animadversionum et Cautionum Meriicarmn Libri duo, septem aliis additi,“1629; the result of 40 years of practice, and equal to any of its contemporaries of the seventeenth century.” De Margaritis Judicium,“1618;” De Peste et Pestiferis Affectibus Libri V.“1622” Analyticarum et Animasticarum Dissertationum Libri II." 1626, &c. &c.

, a Spanish writer of no good fame, was born at Cordova in 1491, and became historiographer to the Emperor Charles V. He is memorable for writing a “Vindication of the Cruelties of the Spaniards against the Incliana,” in opposition to the benevolent pen of Barthelemi de la Casas. Sepulveda affirmed, that such cruelties were justifiable both by human and divine laws, as well as by the rights of war. It is an act of justice to Charles V. to mention that he suppressed the publication of Sepulveda’s book in his dominions; but it was published at Rome. This advocate for the greatest barbarities that ever disgraced human nature, died at Salamanca in 1572. He was author of various works besides that above mentioned; in particular, of some Latin letters, a translation from Aristotle, with notes, a life of Charles V. &c. printed together at Madrid in 1780, 4 vols. 4to. under the care of the royal academy of history, a proof that he still holds his rank among Spanish authors.

, or John the son of Serapion, an Arabian physician, lived between the time of Mesne and Rhazes, and was probably the first writer on physic in the Arabic language. Haly Abbas, when giving an account of the works of his countrymen, describes the writings of Ser.ipion, as containing only an account of the cure of diseases, without any precepts concerning the preservation of health, or relating to surgery; and he makes many critical observations, which, Dr. Freind observes, are sufficient proofs of the genuine existence of the works ascribed to Serapion, from their truth and correctness. Rhazes also quotes them frequently in his “Continent.” Serapion must have lived towards the middle of the ninth century, and not in the reign of Leo Isaurus, about the year 730, as some have stated. One circumstance remarkable in Serapion, Dr. Freind observes, is, that he often transcribes the writings of Alexander Trailian, an author with whom few of the other Arabians appear to be much acquainted. This work of Serapion has been published, in translations, by Gerard of Cremona, under the title of “Practica, Dicta Breviarum;” and by Torinus, under that of “Therapeutica Methodus.” There is another Serapion, whom Sprengel calls the younger, and places 180 years later than the former, and who was probably the author of a work on the materia medica, entitled “De Medicamentis tarn simplicibus, quam compositis.” This work hears intrinsic evidence of being produced at a much later period, since authors are quoted who lived much posterior to Rhazes.

, a learned Jesuit and commentator on the Scriptures, was born in 1555, at Ram her wilier in Lorrain, After studying the languages, he taught ethics, philosophy, and theology at Wurtzberg and Mentz, in which last city he died, May 20, 1610, leaving many works, of which the following are the principal: “Commentaries on several Books of the Bible,” Mogunt. 1611; “Opuscula Theologica,” 3 torn. fol.; and others which are collected in J6 vols. fol. Dupin gives this author some praise, but objects to him as dealing too much in digression, and as frequently being a trifling and inconclusive reasoner.

, an Italian biographer, was born at Bergamo in 1721, and at the age of twenty had so distinguished himself as to be elected a member of the academy of Transforrnati at Milan, and on his return to Bergamo, was appointed professor of the belles lettres. In 1742, he published his “Opinion concerning the country of Bernardo and of Torquato Tasso,” a tract in which he vindicated, to the district of Bergamo, the honour of being the native country of these poets, which had been denied by Seghezzi, the author of a very elegant life of Bernardo; but Seghezzi now candidly confessed that his opponent was right, and that he should treat the subject differently, were he again to write on it. In the succeeding years, Serassi published editions of several of the best Italian writers, with their lives, particularly Maffei, Molza, Politian, Capelia, Dante, Petrarch, &c. The most distinguished of his biographical productions, however, was his life of Tasso, 17b5, 2 vols. 4to, on which he had been employed during twenty years. Mr. Black, in his life of that eminent poet, has availed himself of Serassi' s work, but not without discovering its delects. Serassi also published a life of “Jacopo Mazzoni, patrician of Cessena,” 3. personage little known, but whose history he has rendered interesting. Serassi was employed in some offices under the papal government, and in the college of Propaganda. he died Feb. 19, 1791, at Rome, in the seventieth year of his age. A monument was erected to his memory in the church of St. Maria, in Via lata, where he-was interred; and the city of Bergamo ordered a medal to be struck to his honour, with the inscription “Propagatori pcitriae laudis.”

, an eminent satirist, was born at Sienna in the seventeenth century, and going to Rome, became so distinguished for his talents that he was made a bishop. His Latin <l Satires“were published under the name of Quintus Sectanus, and are said to rank among the purest imitations of Horace’s style and manner. He would have deserved to have been considered as the first of moral satirists, had he confined himself to the vices and follies of his time, but much of his ridicule is bestowed on the celebrated Gravina, who, with all his failings, ought to have been exempted from an attack of this kind. Sergardi died in 1727. The editions of his satires are: 1.” Sectani Satyrse xix. in Phylodemum, cum notis variorum.“-Colon. 1698, 8vo. 2.” Satyra? numero auctae, mendis purgatae, &c.cum notis anonymi: concinnante P. Antoniano.“Amst. Elzevir (Naples), 1700, 2 vols. 8vo. 3.” Sergardii Lud. antehac Q. Sectani, Satyrs, et alia opera." Luc. 1783, 4 vols. 8vo.

, or John de Serres, a learned Frenchman, was born in the sixteenth century, and was of the reformed religion. His parents sent him to Lausanne, where he was taught Latin and Greek, and attached himself much to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle; but, on his return to France, he studied divinity, in order to qualify himself for the ministry. He began to distinguish himself by his writings in 1570; and, in 1573, was obliged to take refuge in Lausanne, after the dreadful massacre on St. Bartholomew’s day. Returning soon to France, he published a piece in French, called “A Remonstrance to the king upon some pernicious principles in Bodin’s book de Republica:” in which he was thought to treat Bodin so injuriously, that Henry III. ordered him to prison. Obtaining his liberty, he became a minister of Nismes in 1582, but never was looked upon as a very zealous protestant; and some have gone so far as to say, but without sufficient foundation, that he actually abjured it. He is, however, supposed to have been one of those four ministers, who declared to Henry IV. that a man might be saved in the popish as well as the protestant religion; a concession which certainly did not please his brethren. He published, in 1597, with a view to reconcile the two religions, “De Fide Catholica, sive de principiis religionis Christiana?, communi omnium consensu semper et ubique ratis;” a work as little relished by the catholics, as by the protestants. He died suddenly in 1598, when he was not more than fifty, and the popish party circulated a report that his brethren of Geneva had poisoned him.

He published several works in Latin and in French, relating to the history of France among the rest, in French “Memoires de la troisieme Guerre Civile, et derniers troubles de France sous Charles IX., &c.” “Inventaire general de l‘Histoire de France, illustre par la conference de i’Eglise et de i'Empire, &c.” “Recueil des choses memorables avenues en France sous Henri II. Francois II. Charles IX. et Henri III.” &c. These have been many times reprinted, with continuations and improvements; but it is objected that Serranus is not always impartial. Besides his theological works, he is perhaps best known for his “Latin version of Plato,” which was printed with Henry Stephens’s magnificent edition of that author’s works, 1578, 3 vols. fol. This translation, although more elegant, is not thought so faithful as that of Ficinus. Stephens had a very high opinion of Serranus, and printed in 1575, twenty-four of the Psalms, translated by Serranus into Greek verse, with two “Idyllia” from Daniel and Isaiah. Of this very rare volume, Francis Okely published anew edition at London in 1772, 12mo.

, an ingenious architect and machinist, was born at Florence in 1695. He rendered himself famous by his exquisite taste in architecture, and by his genius for decorations, fetes, and buildings. He was employed and rewarded by most of the princes of Europe. He was honoured in Portugal with the order of Christ. In France he was architect and painter to the King, and member of the different academies established for the advancement of these arts. He received the same titles from the kings of Britain, Spain, Poland, and from the duke of Wirtemberg; but notwithstanding these advantages, his want of economy was so great, that he left nothing behind him. He died at Paris in 1766. Paris is indebted to him for many of its ornaments. He made decorations also for the theatres of London and Dresden. The French king’s theatre, called la salle des machines, was under his management for some time. He was permitted to exhibit shows consisting of single decorations, some of which are said to have been astonishingly sublime, as his representations of St. Peter’s of Rome; the descent of JEneas into hell; the enchanted forest; and the triumph of conjugal love; the travels of Ulysses; Hero and Leander; and the conquest of the Mogul by Thamas Koulikan. He built and embellished a theatre at Chambon for Mareschal Saxe, and had the management of a great number of fetes in Paris, Vienna, London, and Lisbon. Frederick prince of Wales, too, engaged him in his service: but the death of his royal highness prevented the execution of the designs which had been projected. Among his most admired architectural performances, are the portal, and many of the interior decorations of the church of St. Sulpice, at Paris the great parish church of Coulanges in Burgundy the great altar of the metropolitan church of Sens and of the Chartreux at Lyons, &c. &c.

, a famous Anti-trinitarian, and the great martyr of the Socinian sect, was born in 1509, at Villaneuva in Arragon, or at Tudela in Navarre, in 1511. His father, who was a notary, sent him to the university of Toulouse, to study the civil law: and there, or as some say, when in Italy, he imbibed his peculiar notions respecting the doctrine of the Trinity. After he had been two or three years at Toulouse he resolved to remove into Germany, and propagate his opinions. He went to Basil, by way of Lyons and Geneva; and, having had some conferences at Basil with Oecolampadius, set out for Strasburg, to converse with Bucer and Capito, two celebrated reformers of that city., At his departure from Basil he left a manuscript, entitled “De Trinitatis Erroribus,” in the bands of a bookseller, who sent it afterwards to Haguenau, whither Servetus went, and had it printed in 1531. The next year, he printed likewise at Haguenau another book, with this title, “Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo:” in an advertisement to which he retracts v/hat he had written in his former book against the Trinity, not as it was false, but because it was written imperfectly and confusedly^ He then resolved to return to France, because he was poor, and did not understandthe German language; as he alleged upon his trial to the judges, when they asked him why he left Germany. He went accordingly to Basil, thence to Lyons, where he lived two or three years, and afterwards to Paris, where, having studied physic under Sylvius, Fernelius., and other professors, he took his degree of master of arts, and was admitted doctor of physic in the university. He now settled as a practitioner for two or three years in a town near Lyons, and then at Vienne in Dauphiny, for the space of ten or twelve. In the mean time, his writings against the Trinity had excited the indignation of the German divines, and spread his name throughout all Europe. In 1533, before he had left Lyons, Melancthon wrote a letter to Camerarius, in which he allowed that Servetus was evidently an acute and crafty disputant, but confused and indigested in his thoughts, and certainly wanting in point of gravity. While Servetus was at Paris, his books being dispersed in Italy, were very much approved by many who had thoughts of forsaking the church of Rome: which, in 1539, excited Melancthon to write a letter to the senate of Venice, importing, that “a book of Servetus, who had revived the error of Paulus Samosatenus, was handed about in their country, and beseeching them to take care, that the impious error of that man may be avoided, rejected, and abhorred.” Servetus was at Lyons in 1542, before he settled in Vienne; and corrected the proofs of a Latin Bible that was printing there, to which he added a preface and some marginal notes, under the name of Villanovanus, from the town where he was born.

During this time, Calvin, who was the head of the church at Geneva, kept a constant correspondence with Servetus by letters, and as he tells us, endeavoured, for the space of sixteen years, to reclaim that physician from his errors. Beza informs us, that Calvin knew Servetus at Paris, and opposed his doctrine; and adds, that Servetus, having engaged to dispute with Calvin, dur&t not appear at the time and place appointed. Servetus wrote several letters to Calvin at Geneva from Lyons and Danphine, and consulted him about several points: he also sent him a manuscript for his opinion, which, with some of his private letters, Calvin is said to have produced against him at his trial.

Servetus, however, was inflexible in his opinions, and determined to publish a third work in favour of them. This came out in 1553, at Vienne, with this title, “Christianismi Restuutio,” &c. without his name, but being discovered to be the author, he was imprisoned at Vienne, and would certainly have been burnt alive if he had not made his escape; however, sentence was passed on him, and his effigies was carried to the place of execution, fastened to a gibbet, and afterwards burned, with five bales of his books. Servetus in the mean time was retiring to Naples, where he hoped to practise physic with the same high reputation as he had practised at Vienne; yet was so imprudent as to take his way through Geneva, where he was seized and cast into prison; and a prosecution was presently commenced against him for heresy and blasphemy. The articles of his accusation were numerous, and extracted from his various writings; some of them are decidedly on the point of his anti-trinitarianism, others are more trivial. The magistrates, however, being sensible that the trial of Servetus was a thing of the highest consequence, did not think fit to give sentence, without consulting the magistrates of the Protestant cantons of Switzerland: to whom, therefore, they sent Servetus’s book, printed at Vienne, and also the writings of Calvin, with Servetus’s answers; and at the same time desired to have the opinion of their divines about that affair. They all gave vote against him, as Beza himself relates; in consequence of which he was condemned and burnt alive, Oct. 27, 1553. His death has been made the occasion of numerous attacks on the character and memory of Calvin, who, however, has a very able advocate in the life of Servetus by Chaufepie, translated by the Rev. James Yair, minister of the Scots church in Campvere, 1771, 8vo. Servetus’s death may more properly be referred to the spirit of the times, and may justly form a reflection on the reformers in general, who were adopting the intolerant practices of the church which they had left.

Servetus was a man of great acuteness and learning. He was not only deeply versed in what we usually call sacred and prophane literature, but also an adept in the arts and sciences. He observed upon hjs trial, that he had professed mathematics at Paris; although we do not find when, nor under what circumstances. He was so admirably skilled in his own profession, that he appears to have had some knowledge of the circulation of the blood; although very short of the clear and full discovery made by Harvey. Our learned Wotton says, " The first that I could ever find, who had a distinct idea of this matter, was Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician, who was bornt for Arianism at Geneva, near 140 years ago. Well had it been for the church of Christ, if he had wholly confined himself to his own profession His sagacity in this particular, before so much in the dark, gives us great reason to believe, that the world might then have just cause to have blessed his memory. In a book of his, entitled l Christianismi Restitutio, 7 printed in 1553, he clearly asserts, that the blood passes through the lungs, from the left to the right ventricle of the heart, and not through the partition which divides the two ventricles, as was at that time commonly believed. How he introduces it, or in which of the six discourses, into which Servetus divides his book, it is to be found, I know not, having never seen the book myself. Mr. Charles Bernard, a very learned and eminent surgeon of London, who did *ne the favour to communicate this passage to me, set down at length in the margin, which was transcribed out of Servetus, could inform me no farther, only that he had it from a learned friend of his, who had himself copied it from Servetus.' 7 The original editions of Servetus’s works are very scarce, and they have not been often reprinted, but his doctrines may be traced in various Socinian systems.

, a celebrated lawyer in France, who flourished at the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, was descended of a good family in the Vendomois. In 1589 he was appointed advocate -general to the parliament of Paris, and distinguished himself in that station by his zealous support of the liberties of the Galiican church, and his opposition to the pretensions of the court of Rome. In 1590 he published a work in favour of Henry IV. who had succeeded to the crown, entitled “Vindicire secundum Libertatem Ecclesiue Gallicanse, et Defensio Regii Status Gallj-Francorum sub Henrico IV. Rege.” In 1598, being joined in a commission for the reformation of the university of Paris, he delivered “a remonstrance” on the subject, which was printed. To him also is attributed a work in favour of the republic of Venice in the affairs of the interdict. In the reign of Lewis XIII. at a bed of justice holden in 1620, he made strong and animated remonstrances in favour of the right of parliament to register royal edicts. On another similar occasion, in 1626, for the purpose of compelling the registry of some financial edicts, as he was firmly but respectfully making fresh remonstrances to his majesty, he suddenly fell and expired at the king’s feet.

, a celebrated grammarian and critic of antiquity, flourished in the fifth century. He is known now chiefly by his commentaries upon Virgil, which Barthius and others have supposed to be nothing more than a collection of ancient criticisms and remarks upon that poet, made by Servius. They were first published by Valdarfer in 1471, and reprinted several times in that century, afterwards in an edition of Virgil, at Paris, by Robert Stephens, 1532, in folio, and by Fulvius Ursinus, in 1569, 8vo. A better edition was given by Peter Daniel at Paris, in 1600; but the best is that printed with the edition of Virgil, by Masvicius, in 1717, 4to. Burman, in his edition of 1746, has so blended these notes with those of Heinsius, as to render it difficult to determine how he reconciles their opposite authorities. There is also extant, and printed in several editions of the ancient grammarians, a piece of Servius upon the feet of verses and the quantity of syllables, called “Centiaietrum.” This was first printed in 1476. Macrobius has spoken highly of Servius, and makes him one of the speakers in his “Saturnalia.”

, a poetaster, much noticed in poetical history, and of whom, therefore, some account may be expected, was the son of Joseph Settle, of Dunstable, in Bedfordshire, and was born in 1648. In 1666 he was entered a commoner of Trinity college, Oxford, but quitted the university and came to London probably in the following year, when he commenced author and politician. At his outset he joined the whigs, who were then, though the minor, yet a powerful party, and employed his talents in their support. Afterwards, he went over to the other side, and wrote for the tories with as much spirit, and doubtless as much principle, as he had employed for the whigs. Among other effusions, he published a heroic poem on the coronation of James II.; and wrote paragraphs and essays in the newspapers in support of the administration. In this change of party he had woefully miscalculated; the revolution took place, and from that period having lost the little credit he had, he lived poor and despised, subject to all the miseries of the most abject state of indigence, and destitute of any advantageous and reputable connection. In 1680 he was so violent a whig, that the famous ceremony of pope-burning on the 17th of November was entrusted to his management, and he seems to have been at that time much in the confidence of those who opposed government. After his change he became equally violent against those with whom he had before associated, and actually entered himself a trooper in king James’s army at Hounslow Heath. In the latter part of his life he was so reduced as to attend a booth in Bartholomew-fair, the keepers of which gave him a salary for writing drolls. He also was obliged to appear in his old age as a performer in these wretched theatrical exhibitions, and, in a farce called “St. George for England,” acted a dragon inclosed in a case of green leather of his own invention. To this circumstance, Dr. Young refers in the following lines of his epistle to Mr. Pope:

And found his manners suited to his shape, &c."

In the end, he obtained admission into the Charter-house, and died there Feb. 12, 1723-4. The writer of a periodical paper, called The Briton,“Feb. 19, 1724, speaks of him as then just dead, and adds,” he was a man of tall stature, red face, short black hair, lived in the city, and had a numerous poetical issue, but shared the misfortune of several other gentlemen, to survive them all."

Settle had a pension from the city, for an annual panegyric to celebrate the festival of the lord-mayor, in consequence of which he wrote various poems, called “Triumphs for the Inauguration of the Lord-mayor,” the last of which was in 1708. His dramatic pieces, all now forgot^ amount to nineteen. His poems it would be difficult to enumerate, and not worth the labour.

, a distinguished physician, was born at Tarsia, in Calabria, in 1580, and having, after some intention of studying law, given the preference to medicine, he received the degree of doctor in the university of Naples, where he taught anatomy and surgery with such reputation, as to attract a crowd of students to the university. As a practitioner, however, his method was harsh, and he carried the use of the actual cautery to a great extent. He died at Naples, July 15, 1656, at the age of seventy-six. He was a man of bold and original mind, but somewhat attached to paradox; and was the author of several publications, a list of which may be seen in our authority, and at the time of his death, was preparing for publication some papers, which he meant to illustrate by engravings; they were published together, under the title of “Antiperipatias, hoc est, adversus Aristoteleos de respiratione piscium Diatriba.” “Commentarius in Theophrastum de piscibtis in sicco viventibus.” “Phoca anatomice spectatus,” 1661. A sort of extract or abridgment of his writings on surgery was also published in 1664, with the title of “Synopseos Chtrurgicge Libri vi.” and so late as 1724, a new edition in 4to, of “De AUscessuum recondita natura.”

, was an ancient Latin poet of the Augustan age, whose “Ætna” was published with notes and a prose interpretation by Le Clerc, at Amsterdam, 1703, in 12mo, but some copies have the date 1715. It is annexed to “Petri Bembi jEtna,” and is also in Maittaire’s “Corpus Poet.” It had been before inserted among the “Catalecta Virgilii,” published by Scaliger; whose notes, as well as those of Lindebrogius and Nicolas Heinsius, Le Clerc has mixed -.nth his own. Quintilian calls Severus “a versificator,” rather than a poet; yet adds, that “if he had finished the Sicilian war,” probably, between Augustus and Sextus Pompeius, “in the manner he had written the first book, he might have claimed a much higher rank. But though an immature death prevented him from doing this, yet his juvenile works shew the greatest genius.” Ovid addresses him, not only as his friend, but as a court favourite and a great poet.

was the only daughter of Celse Benigne de Rabutin, baron de Chantal, &c head of the elder branch of Rabutin, and Mary de Coulanges. She was born February 5, 1626, and lost her father the year following, who commanded the squadron of gentlemen volunteers in the isle of Rhe, when the English made a descent there. In August 1644, at the age of eighteen, she married Henry, marquis de Sevigne, descended of a very ancient family of Bretagne. He was a major-general and governor of Fougeres. She had by him a son and a daughter. It is said that her husband was not so much attached to her as she deserved, which, however, did not prevent madam de Sevigne" from sincerely lamenting his death, which happened in 1651, in a duel.

Her tenderness for her children appeared, not only by the care which she took of their education, but also by her attention in re-establishing the affairs of the house of Sevigne. Charles, marquis of Sevigne, her son, acquired a laudable reputation in the world; and Frances Margaret, her daughter, appeared in it with great advantages. The fame of her wit, beauty, and discretion, had already been announced at court, when her mother brought her thither for the first time in 1663, and in 1669, this young lady was married to Francis Adhemar de Monteil, count da Grignan. The mother being now necessarily separated from her daughter, for whom she had an uncommon degree^ of affection, it is to this circumstance we owe the celebrated “Letters” so often published, and so much admired, particularly in France, as models of epistolary correspondence. They turn indeed very much upon trifles, the incidents of the day, and the news of the town; and they are overloaded with extravagant compliments, and expressions of fondness, to her favourite daughter; but withal, they show such perpetual sprightliness, they contain such easy and varied narration, and so many strokes of the most lively and beautiful painting, perfectly free from any affectation, that they are justly entitled to high praise.

Madam Sevigne often visited her daughter, and in her last journey to Grignan, after having gone through incredible fatigue during a long illness of this darling child, she was herself seized with a fever, of which she died in 1696. The best edition of madame de Sevigne’s “Letters,” published by the chevalier Perrin, is Paris, 1775, 8 vols. 12mo. This contains the “Select Letters” of her society, but not those from madame de Sevign6 to M. de Pompone, on M. Fouquet’s disgrace; nor those that are in the “Collection, of Bussy Rabutin’s Letters,” which may be met with separately. A collection of “Ingenious thoughts; literary, historical, and moral anecdotes,” which are dispersed through these letters, were published, 1756, 12mo, under the title “Sevigniana.” Her Letters have long been known in this country, by a translation published about 1758 60.

, a poetess and literary lady of considerable celebrity, was the daughter of the rev. Thomas Seward, rector of Eyam in Derbyshire, prebendary of Salisbury, and canon residentiary of Lichfield. In his youth he had travelled as tutor with lord Charles Fitzroy, third son of the duke of Grafton, a hopeful young nobleman, who died upon his travels in 1739. Mr. Seward returned to England, and soon after married Miss Elizabeth Hunter, daughter of Mr. Hunter, head-master of the school at Lichfield, the preceptor of Johnson, and other eminent nterary characters. Mr. Seward, upon his marriage, settled at his rectory of Eyam. In 1747, the secoud year of his marriage, Miss Seward was born.

Mr. Seward was himself a poet, and a contributor to Dodsley’s collection; he was also an admirer of our ancient drama, and in 1750 published an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays. Thus accomplished himself, the talents of his daughter did not long escape his observation, and tinder his instructions she laid the foundation of a taste for poetry. The authors he recommended to her were those of queen Anne’s reign. She wasea.ly familiar with Pope, Young, Prior, and their predecessor Dry den, and in later life, used to make little allowance for poetry of an uider date, excepting only that of Sbakspeare and Milton. The desire of imitating the compositions which gave her pleasure, very early displayed itself. She attempted metrical versions of the Psalms, and even exercised herself in original composition, before she was ten years old. An “Address to the first fine day of a backward spring,” which has been preserved, intimates considerable command of numbers and language, though the ideas cannot be called original.

About 1754, Mr. Seward removed with his family to Liehfield, which continued ever afterwards to be his daughter’s residence, although varied, during her father’s life, by occasional visits to his rectory at Eyam. For the first ten years of Miss Seward’s residence here, she was^rather checked than encouraged in the cultivation of her poetical talents. Her mother possessed no taste for her daughter’s favourite amusements, and even her father withdrew his countenance from them, under the apprehension that his continued encouragement might produce in his daughter that dreaded phenomenon, a learned lady. Poetry was therefore prohibited, and Miss Seward resorted to other amusements, and to the practice of ornamental needlework, in which she is said to have excelled. When, however, she arrived at an age to select her own society and studies, her love of literature was indulged, and the sphere in which she moved was such as to increase her taste for its pursuits. Dr. Darwin, the enthusiast Mr. Day, Mr. Edgeworth, sir Brooke Bootbby, and other names, well known in the literary world, then formed part of the Lichfield society. Dr. Johnson was an occasional visitor in their circles, but not much of a favourite with Dr. Darwin or Miss Seward. He neither agreed with the one, nor flattered the other.

In the mean time Miss Seward’s poetical powers appear to have lain dormant, or to have been very sparingly exercised, until her acquaintance with lady Miller, whose fanciful and romantic institution at Bath Easton, was alternately the subject of public attention and of some degree of ridicule. Miss Seward, however, became a contributor to the vase, and the applause she received encouraged hec to commit some of her essays to the press, particularly her poems on major Andre and captain Cook, which were received hy the public with great favour, and certainly were calculated to couvey a very high impression of the original powers of their author, and procured her the admiration and correspondence of many of the most distinguished literary characters of that time.

In 1780, Mrs. Seward died, and the~are of attending her surviving parent devolved entirely upon his daughter. This was soon embittered by a frequent recurrence of paralytic and apoplectic affections, which broke Mr. Seward’s health, and gradually impaired the torje of his mind. His frame resisted these repeated assaults for ten years, during which, Miss Seward had the melancholy satisfaction to see, that even when he had tost consciousness of every thing else, her father retained a sense of her constant and unremitting attentions. In 179O this scene closed, by the death of Mr. Seward. His daughter remained mistress of an easy and iudependent fortune, and continued to inhabit the bishop’s palace at Lichfield, which had been long her father’s residence, and was her’s until her death.

While engaged in attendance upon her father, Miss Seward, besides other occasional pieces, published, in 1782, her poetical novel, entitled “Louisa,” which rapidly passed through several editions. Other pieces, chiefly on occasional topics, fell from her pen; some of which found their way to the public, and others have been printed from manuscript, in the late collection of her poems. In 1799 she published a collection of original “Sonnets.” They were intended to restore the strict rules of the legitimate sonnet, and contain some beautiful examples of that species of composition. In 1804 she published a“Life of Dr. Darwin,” which, although a desultory performance, and written in that affected style which she had now adopted, and which prevails throughout her correspondence, is valuable as a collection of literary anecdote. In this publication she laid her claim to the first fifty verses in the “Botanic Garden,” which she had written in compliment to Dr. Darwin, but which he had inserted in his poem without any acknowledgment.

After the publication of the “Sonnets,” Miss Seward did not undertake any large poem, yet she continued to pour forth her poeitcal effusions upon such occasions as interested her feelings, or excited her imagination. These efforts, however, were unequal to those of her earlier muse. Age was now approaching with its usual attendants, declining health, and the loss of friends. Yet her interest in literature and poetry continued unabated, and she maintained an unrelaxed correspondence, not only with her former friends, but with those later candidates for poetical distinction, whose exertions she approved of. For a year or two preceding 1807, Miss Seward had been occasionally engaged in arranging and preparing for the press the edition of her poems published after her death by Mr. Scott, and which she would probably have published herself, but her constitution, infirm for years, was now rapidly declining, and after nearly two years of much suffering from bodily complaints, she expired, March 25, 1809. To Waiter Scott, esq. she bequeathed her literary performances, and particularly the works she had so long intended for the press; and her “Letters” to Mr. Constable, the eminent bookseller of Edinburgh. In the same year, 18)0, these gentlemen executed the trust reposed in them; the latter, by an elegant publication of her “Letters,' 7 in 6 vols. and the former by a publication of her” Poems,“and some literary correspondence, in 3 vols. 8vo, with a biographical preface, written with Mr. Scott’s usual taste and acumen. The” Poems“will always remain a monument of Miss Seward’s talents, and place her in an honourable rank among the female candidates for literary honours. Her” Letters," however, are, in our opinion, less calculated to leave a favourable impression of her character. They may be justly considered as the annals of vanity and flattery, and in point of style exhibit every defect which bad taste could introduce.

, a biographical writer, was the son of Mr. Seward, partner in the brewhouse under the firm of Calvert and Seward, and was born in January 1747. He first went to a small seminary in the neighbourhood of Cripplegate, and afterwards to the Charter-house school, where he acquired a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin, which he improved at Oxford. Having no inclination to engage in business, he relinquished his concern in the brewhouse at his father’s death; and being possessed of an easy fortune, did not apply to any profession, but devoted his time to learned leisure, and, among other pursuits, amus,ed himself with collecting the materials for what he called “Drossiana,” in the European Magazine, which he began in October 17 89, and continued without intermission to the end of his life* After he had published in this manner for some time, he was advised to make a selection, which, in 1794, he began with two volumes, and these were followed in the three succeeding years by three more, under the title of “Anecdotes of some distinguished Persons, chiefly of the present and two preceding Centuries;” a work which met with, general approbation, and has been since reprinted. In 1799 he published two volumes more on the plan of the former work, which he entitled “Biographiana.” These were finished a very short time before his death.

Mr. Seward was in every respect a desirable acquaintance; he had travelled abroad with great improvement, and was known to most o/ those who had distinguished themselves by genius or learning, by natural or acquired endowments, or even by eccentricity of character; and he had stored his memory with anecdotes which made his conversation extremely entertaining. But though he wished to observe the manner of eminent or extraordinary men, he did not indiscriminately form friendships with them. He knew many, but was intimate with few. He was the friend of Dr. Johnson, bad conversed with Mr. Howard, and condescended to know Tom Paine. Party distinctions, appeared to have but little weight with him. He visited and received the visits of many whose opinions were directly opposite to each other, and equally to his own.

He spent his time like an English gentleman, with hospitality and without ostentation. In the winter he resided in London; and of late years, in the summer, he varied his place of abode. At one time he resided at Mr. Coxe’s house, near Salisbury; at another, near Reading; and the summer preceding his death, he made Richmond his residence. At all these places, and, indeed, wherever he came, he found acquaintances who respected and valued him for his amiable qualities. He bore a tedious illness with fortitude and resignation. Without expressing any impatience, he viewed the progress of his disorder, which he early discovered was a dangerous one; and continued his literary pursuits, and received his friends, until a few hours of his dissolution, which took place the 24th April 1799; and, a few days after, his remains were interred in the family vault at Finchley.

, an English poet and physician, was born at Windsor, where his father was treasurer and chapter-clerk of the college; received his education at Eton-school, and Peter-house, Cambridge; where having taken the degree of B. M. he went to Leyden, to study under Boerhaave, and on his return practised physic in the metropolis with reputation. In the latter part of his life he retired to Hampstead, where he pursued his profession with some degree of success, till three other physicians came to settle at the same place, when his practice so far declined as to yield him very little advantage. He kept no house, but was a boarder. He was much esteemed, and so frequently invited to the tables of gentlemen in the neighbourhood., that he had seldom occasion to dine at home. He died Feb. 8, 1726; and was supposed to be very indigent at the time of his death, as he was interred on the 12th of the same month in the meanest manner, his coffin being little better than those allotted by the parish to the poor who are buried from the workhouse; neither did a single friend or relation attend him to the grave. No memorial was placed over his remains; but they lie just under a hollow tree which formed a part of a hedge-row that was once the boundary of the church-yard. He was greatly esteemed for his amiable disposition; and is represented by some writers as a Tory in his political principles, but of this there is no other proof given than his writing some pamphlets against bishop Burnet. It is certain, that a true spirit of liberty breathes in many of his works; and he expresses, on many occasions, a warm attachment to the Hanover succession. Besides seven controversial pamphlets, he wrote, 1. “The Life of John Philips.” 2, “A vindication of the English Stage, exemplified in the Cato of Mr. Addison, 1716;” 3. “Sir Walter Raleigh, a tragedy, acted at Lincoln’s-inn-fields, 1719;” and part of another play, intended to be called “Richard the First,” the fragments of which were published in 1718, with “Two moral Essays on the Government of the Thoughts, and on Death,” and a collection of “Several poems published in his life-time^” Dr. Sewell was an occasional assistant to Harrison in the fifth volume of “The Tatler; was a, principal writer in the ninth volume of” The Spectator; and published a translation of “Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in opposition to the edition of Garth and an edition of Shakspeare’s Poems. Jacob and Gibber have enumerated a considerable number of his single poems; and in Mr. Nichols’s” Collection" are some valuable ones, unnoticed by these writers.

, the historian of the Quakers, was the son of Jacob Williamson Sewell, a citizen of Amsterdam, and a surgeon, and appears to have been born therein 1650. His grandfather, William Sewell, was an Englishman, and had resided at Kidderminster; but being one of the sect of the Brownists, left his native country for the more free enjoyment of his principles in Holland, married a Dutch woman of Utrecht, and settled there. The parents of the subject of this article both died when he was young, but had instructed him in the principles of the Quakers, to which he steadily adhered during life. His education in other respects appears to have been the fruit of his own application; and the time he could spare from the business to which he was apprenticed (that of a weaver) he employed with good success in attaining a knowledge of the Greek, Latin, English, French, and High Dutch, languages. His natural abilities being good, his application unwearied, and his habits strictly temperate, he soon became noticed by some of the most respectable booksellers in Holland; and the translation of works of credit, chiefly from the Latin and English tongues, into Low Dutch, seems to have been one of the principal sources from which his moderate income was derived, in addition to the part he took, at different times, in several approved periodical publications. His modest, unassuming manners gained him the esteem of several literary men, whose productions, there is reason to believe, were not unfrequently revised and prepared for the press by him. His knowledge of his native tongue was profound: his “Dictionary,” “Grammar,” and other treatises on it, having left very little room for succeeding improvement: and he assisted materially in the compilation of Halma’s French and Dutch Dictionary. His “History of the people called Quakers,” written first in Low Dutch, and afterwards, by himself, in English (dedicated to George I.) was a very laborious undertaking, as he was scrupulously nice in the selection of his materials, which he had been during many years engaged in collecting. Of the English edition, for it cannot properly be called a translation, it may be truly said, that as the production of a foreigner, who had spent only about ten months in England, and that above forty years before, the style is far superior to what could have been reasonably expected. One principal object with the author was, a desire to correct what he conceived to be gross misrepresentations in Gerard Croese’s “History of Quakerism.” The exact time of SewelPs death does not appear; but in, a note of the editor’s to the third edition of his “Dictionary,” in 1726, he is mentioned as being lately deceased. His “History of the Quakers” appears to have been first published in 1722, folio, and reprinted in 1725.

, a Pythagorean philosopher, who flourished in the time of Augustus, seemed formed to rise in the republic, but he shrunk from civil honours, and declined accepting the rank of senator when it was offered him by Julius Caesar, that he might have time to apply to philosophy. It appears that he wished to establish a school at Rome, and that his tenets, though chiefly drawn from the doctrines of Pythagoras, in some particulars resembled those of the Stoics. He soon found himself involved in many difficulties. His laws were remarkably severe, and in an early period of his establishment, he found his mind so harassed, and the harshness of the doctrines which he wished to establish so repulsive to his feelings, that he had nearly worked himself up to such an height of desperation as to resolve on putting a period to his existence. Of the school of Sextius were Fabianus, Sotion, Flavianus, Crassitius, and Celsus. Of his works only a few fragments remain; and whether any of them formed a part of the work which Seneca admired so much, cannot now be determined. Some of his maxims are valuable. He recommended an examination of the actions of the day to his scholars when they retired to rest; he taught that the road to heaven (ad astra) was by frugality, temperance, and fortitude. He used to recommend holding a looking-glass before persons disordered with passion. He enjoined his scholars to abstain from animal food. Brucker seems to doubt, however, whether the “Sententise Sexti Pythagorei,” so often printed by Gale and others, be the genuine work of this moralist.

, an ancient Greek author, and most acute defender of the Pyrrhonian or sceptical philosophy, was a physician, and seems to have flourished under the reign of Cornmodus, or perhaps a little later. He was, against what has usually been imagined, a different person from Sextus, a Stoic philosopher of Cseronea, and nephew of Plutarch: but no particular circumstances of his life are recorded. Of a great many, that have perished, two works of his are still extant: three books of “Institutes of Pyrrhonism,” and ten books against the “Mathematics,” by whom he means all kinds of dogmatists. His works discover great erudition, and an extensive acquaintance with the ancient systems of philosophy; and, on this account chiefly, Brucker says, merit an attentive perusal. Henry Stephens first made, and then printed in 1592, 8vo, a Latin version from the Greek of the former of these works; and a version of the latter, by Hervetus, had been printed by Plantin in 1569. Both these versions were printed again with the Greek; which first appeared at Geneva in 1621, folio, but the best edition of Sextus Empiricus is that of John Albert Fabricius, in Greek and Latin, Leipsic, 1718, folio.

, duke of Somerset, and uncle to Edward VI. was eldest son of sir John Seymour of Wolfhall, in the county of Wilts, knt. by Elizabeth daughter of sir Henry Wentworth, of Nettlested in Suffolk. He was educated at the university of Oxford, whence returning to his father at court, when martial achievements were encouraged by Henry VIII. he joined the army, and accompanying the duke of Suffolk in his expedition to France in 1533, was knighted by him Nov. 1, of that year. Upon his sister’s marriage with the king in 1536, he had the tide of viscount Beauchamp bestowed upon him, in consequence of his descent from an heir female of that house; and in Oct. 1537 was created earl of Hertford. In 1540 he was sent to France to dispute the limits of the English borders, and on his return was elected knight of the garter. In 1542 he attended the duke of Norfolk in his expedition into Scotland, and the same year was made lord great chamberlain of England for life. In 154-4, being made lieutenant-general of the north, he embarked for Scotland with two hundred sail of ships, on account of the Scots refusing to marry their young queen to prince Edward; and landing in the Frith, took Leith and Edinburgh, and after plundering and burning them, marched by land into England. In August of the same year, he went to the assistance of the king at the siege of Boulogne, with several German and Flemish troops; and after taking it, defeated an army of 14,000 French, who lay encamped near it. By the will of Henry VIII. he was appointed one of the sixteen persons, who were to be his majesty’s executors, and governors of his son, till he should be eighteen years of age. Upon Edward’s accession to the crown, it was proposed in council, that one of the sixteen should be chosen, to whom the ambassadors should address themselves, and who should have the chief direction of affairs, though restrained from acting without the consent of the major part of the rest. The lord chancellor Wriothesly, who thought the precedence in secular affairs belonging to him by his office, opposed this strongly, and urged, that it was changing the king’s will, who had made them equal in power and dignity; and if any was raised above the rest in title, it would be impossible to keep him within just bounds, since greater titles made way for exorbitant power. But the earl of Hertford had so prepared his friends, that he was declared governor of the king’s person, and protector of the king*, dom, with this restriction, that he should not act without the advice and consent of the rest. In consequence of this measure, two distinct parties were formed; the one headed by the new protector, and the other by the chancellor; the favourers of the reformation declaring for the former, and the enemies of it for the latter. On Feb. 10, 1547-8, the protector was appointed lord treasurer, and the next day created duke of Somerset, and on the 17th of that month, had a grant of the office of earl marshal of England for life. On March 12th following, he had a patent for the office of protector and governor of the king and his realms. By this patent he had a negative in the council, but they had none on him; and he could either bring his own adherents into it, or select a cabinet-council out of it at pleasure; while the other executors,' having thus delivered up their authority to him, were only privy-counsellors like the rest, without retaining any authority peculiar to themselves, as was particularly provided by Hemy Vlllth’s will. In August 1548 the protector took a commission to be general, and to make war in Scotland, and accordingly entered that kingdom, and, on Sept. 10, gained a complete victory at Musselburgh, and on the 29th returned to England triumphantly, having, with the loss of but sixty men in the whole expedition, taken eighty pieces of cannon, bridled the two chief rivers of the kingdom by garrisons, and gained several strong places.

It may easily be imagined how much these successes raised his reputation in England, especially when it was remembered what great services he had done formerly against France so that the nation in general had vast expectations from his government but the breach between him and his brother, the lord high admiral of England, lost him the present advantages. The death of the admiral also, in March 1548, drew much censure on the protector; though others were of opinion that it was scarce possible for him to do more for the gaining his brother than he had done. In September 1549, a strong faction appeared against him, under the influence and direction of Wriothesly earl of Southampton, who hated him on account of losing the office of lord chancellor, and Dudley earl of Warwick, who expected to have the principal administration of affairs upon his removal; and other circumstances concurred to raise him enemies. His partiality to the commons provoked the gentry; his consenting to the execution of his brother, and his palace in the Strand, erected on the ruins of several churches and other religious buildings, in a time both of war and pestilence, disgusted the people, The clergy hated him, not only for promoting the changes in religion, but likewise for his enjoying so many of the best manors of the bishops; and his entertaining foreign troops, both German and Italian, though done by the consent of the council, gave general disgust. The privy counsellors complained of his being arbitrary in his proceedings, and of many other offences, which exasperated the whole body of them against him, except archbishop Cranmer, sir William Paget, and sir Thomas Smith, secretary of state. The first discovery of their designs induced him to remove the king to Hampton Ctuirt, and then to Windsor; but finding the party against him too formidable to oppose, he submitted to the council, and on the 14th of October was committed to the Tower, and in January following was fined in the sum of two thousand pounds a year, with thg loss of all his offices and goods. However, on the 16th of February, 1549-50, he obtained a full pardon, and so managed his interest with the king, that he was brought both to the court and council in April following: and to confirm the reconciliation between him and the earl of Warwick, the duke’s daughter was married, on the 3d of June, 1550, to the lord viscount Lisle, the earl’s son. But this friendship did not continue long; for in October 1551, the earl, now created duke of Northumberland, caused the duke of Somerset to be sent to the Tower, alledging^ that the latter had formed a design of raising the people; and that when himself, and the marquis of Northampton^ and the earl of Pembroke, had been invited to dine at the lord Paget’s, Somerset determined to have set upon them by the way, or to have killed them at dinner; with other particulars of that kind, which were related to the king in so aggravated a manner, that he was entirely alienated from his uncle. On the first of December the duke was brought to his trial, and though acquitted of treason, was found guilty of felony in intending to imprison the duke of Northumberland. He was beheaded on Tower-hill on the 22d of January, 1551-2, and died with great serenity. It was generally believed, that the conspiracy, for which he suffered, was a mere forgery; and indeed the not bringing the witnesses into the court, but only the depositions, and the parties themselves sitting as judges, gave great occasion to condemn the proceedings against him. Besides, his four friends, who were executed for the same cause, ended their lives with the most solemn protestations of their innocence.

He was a person of great virtues; eminent for his piety courteous, and affable in his greatness sincere and candid in all his transactions a patron of the poor and oppressed; but a better general than a counsellor. He had, however, a tincture of vanity, and a fondness for his own notions; and being a man of no extraordinary parts, was too much at the disposal of those who by flattery and submission insinuated themselves into his esteem and confidence. He made likewise too great haste to raise a vast estate to be altogether innocent. But to balance these defects, he was never charged with personal disofders, nor guilty of falsehood, of perverting justice, of cruelty, or oppression. Lord Orford remarks that his contributing to the ruin of the Howards hurt him much in the eves of the nation: his severity to his own brother, though a vain and worthless man, was still less excusable; but having fallen by the policy of a man more artful, more ambitious, and much less virtuous than himself, he died lamented by the people.

He appears to have been an author. While he was lord protector, there went under his name, “Epistola exhortatoria missa ad Nobilitatem ac Plebem universumque populum regni Scotiae, Lond.” 1548, 4to, which lord Orford thinks might possibly be composed by some dependent. His other works were penned during his troubles, when he does not appear to have had many flatterers. During his first imprisonment he caused to be printed a translation by Miles Covevdale, from the German of Wormulus, of a treatise called “A spirituall and most precious pearl, teaching all men to love and embrace the cross, as a most sweet and necessary thing,” &c. Lond. 1550, 16mo. To thia the duke wrote a recommendatory preface. About thattime he had great respect paid to him by the celebrated reformers, Calvin, and Peter Martyr. The former wrote to him an epistle of “godly consolation,” composed before the time and knowledge of his disgrace; but being delivered to him in the Tower, his grace translated it from French into English, and it was printed in 1550, under the title of “An Epistle of Godly Consolacion,” &c. Peter Martyr also wrote an epistle to him in Latin, about the same time, which pleased the duke so much, that at his desire it was translated into English by Thomas Norton, and printed in 1550, 8vo. In Strype is a prayer of the duke “For God’s assistance in the high office of protector and governor, now committed to him;” and some of his letters are preserved in the library of Jesus colkge, Cambridge, and among the Harleian Mss.

Somerset left three daughters, Anne, Margaret, and Jane, who were distinguished for their poetical talents. They composed a century of Latin distichs on the death of Margaret de Valois, queen of France, which were translated into the French, Greek, and Italian languages, and printed in Paris in 1551. Anne, the eldest of these ladies, married first the earl of Warwick, the son of the duke of Northumberland, already mentioned, and afterwards sir Edward Hunton. The other two died single. Jane was maid of honour to queen Elizabeth.

, an English dramatic poet, was descended of a good family in the county of Stafford, but born at Stanton-hail, in Norfolk, a seat of his father’s, about 1640. He was educated at Cains college in Cambridge, and afterwards placed in the Middle Temple; where he studied the law some time, and then went abroad. Upon his return from his travels he applied himself to the drama, and wrote seventeen plays, with a success which introduced him to the notice of several persons of wit and rank, by whom he was highly esteemed. At the Revolution he was, by his interest with the earl of Dorset, made historiographer and poet-laureat; and when some persons urged that there were authors who had better pretensions to the laurel, his lordship is said to have replied, " that he did not pretend to determine how great a poet Shadwell might be, but was sure that he was an honest man.' 7 He succeeded Dryden as poet-laureat; for Dryden had so warmly espoused the opposite interest, that at the Revolution he was dispossessed of his place. This, however, Dryden considered as an indignity, and resented it very warmly. He had once been on friendly terms with Shadwell, but some critical differences appear to have first separated them, and now Dryden introduced Shadwell in his Mac-Fleckno, in these lines:

which certainly was unjust, for though as a poet Shadwell is not to be mentioned with Dryden, as a writer of comedy he had no superior in that age. His comedies abound in original characters, strongly marked and well sustained, and the manners of the time are more faithfully and minutely delineated than in any author we are acquainted with. Shadwell is said to have written rapidly, and in the preface to his “Psyche” he tells us that that tragedy, by no means, however, his best performance, was written by him in five weeks.

Lord Rochester had such an opinion of his conversation that he said “if Shadwell had burnt all he wrote, and printed all he spoke, he would have had more wit and humour than any other poet.” Considering Rochester’s cha-“racter, this, we are afraid, confirms the account of some contemporary writers, that Shadwell, in conversation, was often grossly indecent and profane. Shadwell was a great favourite with Otway, and lived in intimacy with him; which might, perhaps, be the occasion of Dryden’s expressing so much contempt for Otway, which was surely less excusable than his hostility towards our author. Shadwell died Dec. 6, 16U2; and his death was occasioned, as some say, by a too large dose of opium, given him by mistake. A white marble monument with his bust is erected in Westminster abbey by his son sir John Shadwell, and his funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Nicolas Brady, the translator of the Psalms, who tells us that” he was a man of great honesty and integrity, and had a real love of truth and sincerity, an inviolable fidelity and strictness to his word, an unalterable friendship wheresoever he professed it, and (however the world may be deceived in him) a much deeper sense of religion than many others have, who pretend to it more openly."

Our author’s son, Dr. John Shadwell, was physician to queen Anne, George I. and George II. by the former of whom he was knighted. In August 1609, he attended the earl of Manchester, who then went to Paris as ambassador extraordinary to Louis XIV. and continued there with that nobleman till his return to England in Sept. 1701. He died Dec. 4, 1747.

There was a Charles Shadwell, a dramatic writer, who, Jacob tells us, was nephew to the poet-laureat, but Chetwood, in his “British Theatre,” says he was his younger son. He had served in Portugal, and enjoyed a post in the revenue in Dublin, in which city he died August 12, 1726. He wrote seven dramatic pieces, all which, excepting the “Fair Quaker of Deal,” and the “Humours of the Army,” made their appearance on the Irish stage only, and are printed together in one volume, 1720, 12m.

, the most illustrious name in the history of English dramatic poetry, was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, on the 23d day of April, 1564. Of the rank of his family it is not easy to form an opinion. Mr. Howe says, that by the register and certain public writings relating to Stratford, it appears that his ancestors were “of good figure and fashion” in that town, and are mentioned as “gentlemen,” an epithet which was certainly more determinate then than at present, when it has become an unlimited phrase of courtesy. His father, John

, was a considerable dealer in wool, and had been an officer and bailiff (probably high-bailiff or mayor) of the body corporate of Stratford. He held also the office of justice of the peace, and at one time, it is said, possessed lands and tenements to the amount of 500l. the reward of his grandfather’s faithful and approved services to king Henry VII. This, however, has been asserted upon very doubtful authority. Mr. Malone thinks ft it is highly probable that he distinguished himself in Bosworth field on the side of king Henry, and that he was rewarded for his military services by the bounty of that parsimonious prince, though not with a grant of lands. No such grant appears in the chapel of the Rolls, from the beginning to the end of Henry’s reign.“But whatever may have been his former wealth, it appears to have been” greatly reduced in the latter part of his life, as we find, from the books of the corporation, that in 1579 he was excused the trifling weekly tax of four-pence levied on all the aldermen; and that in 1586 another alderman was appointed in his room, in consequence of his declining to attend on the business of that office. It is even said by Aubrey, a man sufficiently accurate in facts, although credulous in superstitious narratives and traditions, that he followed for some time the occupation of a butcher, which Mr. Malone thinks not inconsistent with probability. It must have been, however, at this time, no inconsiderable addition to his difficulties that he had a family of ten children. His wife was the daughter and heiress of Robert Arden, of Wellingcote, in the county of Warwick, who is styled “a gentleman of worship.” The family of Arden is very ancient, Robert Arden of Bromich, esq. being in the list of the gentry of this county returned by the commissioners in the twelfth year of king Henry VI. A. D. 1433. Edward Arden was sheriff of the county in 1568. The woodland part of this county was anciently called Ardern, afterwards softened to Arden; and hence the name. Our illustrious poet was the eldest son, and received his early education, whether narrow or liberal, at a free school, probably that founded at Stratford; but from this he appears to have been soon removed, and placed, according to Mr. Malone’s opinion, in the office of some country attorney, or the seneschal of some manor court, where it is highly probable he picked up those technical law phrases that so frequently occur in his plays, and could not have been in common use unless among professional men. Mr. Capell conjectures that his early marriage prevented his being sent to some university. It appears, however, as Dr. Farmer observes, that his early life was incompatible with a course of education, and it is certain that “his contemporaries, friends and foes, nay, and himself likewise, agree in his want of what is usually termed literature.” It is, indeed, a strong argument in favour of Shakspeare’s illiterature, that it was maintained by all his contemporaries, many of whom have left upon record every merit they could bestow on him and by his successors, who lived nearest to his time, when “his memory was green” and that it has been denied only by Gildon, Sewell, and others down to Upton, who could have no means of ascertaining the truth.

In his eighteenth year, or perhaps a little sooner, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than himself, the daughter of one Hathaway, who is said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford. Of his domestic ceconomy, or professional occupation at this time, we have no information; but it would appear that both were in a considerable degree neglected by his associating with a gang of deer-stealers. Being detected with them in robbing the park of sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford, he was so rigorously prosecuted by that gentleman as to be obliged to leave his family and business, and take shelter in London. Sir Thomas, on this occasion, is said to have been exasperated by a ballad Shakspeare wrote, probably his first essay in poetry, of which the following stanza was communicated to Mr. Oldys.

These lines, it must be confessed, do no great honour to our poet, and probably were unjust, for although some of his admirers have recorded sir Thomas as a “vain, weak, and vindictive magistrate,” he was certainly exerting no very violent act of oppression, in protecting his property against a man who was degrading the commonest rank of life, and had at this time bespoke no indulgence by superior talents. The ballad, however, must have made some noise at sir Thomas’s expence, as the author took care it should be affixed to his park-gates, and liberally circulated among his neighbours.

On his arrival in London, which was probably in 1586, when he was twenty -two years old, he is said to have made his first acquaintance in the play-house, to which idleness or taste may have directed him, and where his necessities, if tradition may be credited, obliged him to accept the office of call-boy, or prompter’s attendant. This is a menial, whose employment it is to give the performers notice to be ready to enter, as often as the business of the play requires their appearance on the stage. Pope, however, relates a story, communicated to him by Rowe, but which Rowe did not think deserving of a place in the life he wrote, that must a little retard the advancement of our poet to the office just mentioned. According to this story, Shakspeare’s first employment was to wait at the door of the play-house, and hold the horses of those who had no servants, that they might be ready after the performance. But “I cannot,” says his acute commentator, Mr. Steevens, “dismiss this anecdote without observing, that it seems to want every mark of probability. Though Shakspeare quitted Stratford on account of a juvenile irregularity, we have no reason to suppose that he had forfeited the protection of his father, who was engaged in a lucrative business 3 or the love of his wife, who had already brought him two children, and was herself the daughter of a substantial yeoman. It is unlikely, therefore, when he was beyond the reach of his prosecutor, that he should conceal his plan of life, or place of residence, from those who, if he found himself distressed, could not fail to afford him such supplies as would have set him above the necessity of holding horses for subsistence. Mr. Malone has remarked in his ‘Attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays of Shakspeare were written,’ that he might have found an easy introduction to the stage; for Thomas Green, a celebrated comedian of that period, was his townsman, and perhaps his relation. The genius of our author prompted him to write poetry; his connexion with a player might have given his productions a dramatic turn; or his own sagacity might have taught him that fame was not incompatible with profit, and that the theatre was an avenue to both. That it was once the general custom to ride on horse-back to the play, I am likewise yet to learn. The most popular of the theatres were on the Bank-side; and we are told by the satirical pamphleteers of that time, that the usual mode of conveyance to these places of amusement was by water, but not a single writer so much as hints at the custom of riding to them, or at the practice of having horses held during the hours of exhibition. Some allusion to this usage (if it had existed) must, I think, have been discovered in the course of our researches after contemporary fashions. Let it be remembered too, that we receive this tale on no higher authority than that of Gibber’s Lives of the Poets, vol. I. p. 130. Sir Win. Davenant told it to Mr. Betterton, who communicated it to Mr. Howe, who, according to Dr. Johnson, related it to Mr. Pope.” Mr. Malone concurs in opinion that this story stands on a very slender foundation, while he differs from Mr. Steevens as to the fact of gentlemen going to the theatre on horseback. With respect likewise to Shakspeare’s father being “engaged in a lucrative business,” we may remark, that this could not have been the case at the time our author came to London, if the preceding dates be correct. He is said to have arrived in London in 1586, the year in which his father resigned the office of alderman, unless, indeed, we are permitted to conjecture that his resignation was not the consequence of his necessities.

Some distinction he probably first acquired as an actor, although Mr. Kowe has not been able to discover any character in which he appeared to more advantage thaii that of the ghost in Hamlet. The instructions given to the player in that tragedy, and other passages of his works, show an intimate acquaintance with the skill of acting, and such as is scarcely surpassed in our, own days. He appears to have studied nature in acting as much as in writing; But all this might have been mere theory. Mr. M alone is of opinion he was no great actor. The distinction, however, which he obtained as an actor, could only be in his own plays, in which he would be assisted by the novel appearance of author and actor combined. Before his time, it does not appear that any actor of genius could appear to advantage in the wretched pieces represented on the stage.

Mr. Rowe regrets that he cannot inform us which was the first play he wrote. More skilful research has since found that Romeo and Juliet, and Richard II. and III. were printed in 1597, when he was thirty-three years old; there is also some reason to think that he commenced a dramatic writer in 1592, and Mr. Malone even places his first, play, “First part of Henry VI.” in 1589. His plays, however, must have been not only popular, but approved by persons of the higher order, as we are certain that he enjoyed the gracious favour of Queen Elizabeth, who was very fond of the stage, and the particular and affectionate patronage of the earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his poems of “Venus and Adonis,” and his “Rape of Lucrece.” On sir William Davenant’s authority, it has been asserted that this nobleman at one time gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to complete a purchase. At the conclusion of the advertisement prefixed to Lintot*s edition of Shakspeare’s Poems, it is said, “That most learned prince and great patron of learning, king James the first, was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter to Mr. Shakspeare: which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of sir William D'Avenant, as a credible person now living can testify.” Dr. Farmer with great probability supposes, that this letter was written by king James, in return for the compliment paid to him in Macbeth. The relator of the anecdote was Sheffield, duke of Buckingham. These brief notices, meagre as they are, may show that our author enjoyed high favour in his day. Whatever we may think of king James as a “learned prince,” his patronage, as well as that of his predecessor, was sufficient to give celebrhy to the founder of a new stage. It may be added, that Shakspeare’s uncommon merit, his candour, and good-nature, are supposed to have procured him the admiration and acquaintance of every person distinguished for such qualities. It is not difficult, indeed, to suppose that Shakspeare was a man of humour, and a social companion, and probably excelled in that species of minor wit, not ill adapted to conversation, of which it could have been wished he had been more sparing in his writings.

How long he acted has not been discovered, but he continued to write till the year 1614. During his dramatic career he acquired a property in the theatre, which he must have disposed of when he retired, as no mention of it occurs in his will. His connexion with Ben Jonson has been variously related. It is said, that when Jonson was unknown to the world, he offered a play to the theatre, which was rejected after a very careless perusal; but that Shakspeare having accidentally cast his eye on it, conceived a favourable opinion of it, and afterwards recommended Jonson and his writings to the public. For this candour he was repaid by Jonson, when the latter became a poet of note, with an envious disrespect. Jonson acquired reputation by the variety of his pieces, and endeavoured to arrogate the supremacy in dramatic genius. Like a French critic, he insinuated Shakspeare’s incorrectness, his careless manner of writing, and his want of judgment; and as he was a remarkably slow writer himself, he could not endure the praise frequently bestowed on Shakspeare, of seldom altering or blotting out what he had written. Mr. Malone says, that “not long after the year 1600, a coolness arose between Shakspeare and him, which, however he may talk of his almost idolatrous affection, produced on his part, from that time to the death of our author, and for many years afterwards, much clumsy sarcasm, and many malevolent reflections.” But from these, which are the commonly received opinions on this subject, Dr. Farmer is inclined to depart, and to think Jonson’s hostility to Shakspeare absolutely groundless; so uncertain is every circumstance we attempt to recover of our great poet’s life. Jonson had only one advantage over Shakspeare, that of superior learning, which might in certain situations be of some importance, but could never promote his rivalship with a man who attained the highest excellence without it. Nor will Shakspeare suffer by its being known that all the dramatic poets before he appeared were scholars. Greene, Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, Nashe, Lily, and Kyd, had all, says Mr. Malone, a regular university education, and, as scholars in our universities, frequently composed and acted plays on historical subjects.

The latter part of Shakspeare’s life was spent in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. He had accumulated considerable property, which Gildon (in his “Letters and Essays,” 1694,) stated to amount to 300l. per annum, a sum at least equal to Iooo/. in our days; but Mr. Malone doubts whether all his property amounted to much more than 2001. per annum, which yet was a considerable fortune in those times; and it is supposed that he might have derived 200l. per annum from the theatre while he continued to act.

He retired, some years before his death, to a house in Stratford, of which it has been thought important to give the history. It was built by sir Hugh Clopton, a younger bro her of an ancient family in that neighbourhood. Sir Hugh was sheriff of London in the reign of Richard III. and lord mayor in the reign of Henry VII. By his will he bequeathed to his elder brother’s son his manor of Clopton, &c, and his house, by the name of the Great House) in Stratford. A good part of the estate was in possession of Edward Clopton, esq. and sir Hugh Clopton, knight, in 1733. The principal estate had been sold out of the Clopton family for above a century, at the time when Shakspeare became the purchaser, who having repaired and modelled it to his own mind, changed the name to New Place y which the mansion-house afterwards erected, in the room of the poet’s house, retained for many years. The house and lands belonging to it continued in the possession of Shakspeare’s descendants to the time of the Restoration, when they were re-purchased by the Clopton family. Here, in May 1742, when Mr. Garrick, Mr. Macklin, and Mr. Delane, visited Stratford, they were hospitably entertained under Shakspeare’s mulberry-tree, by sir Hugh Clopton. He was a barrister at law, was knighted by king George I. and died in the eightieth year of his age, in December 1751. His executor, about 1752, sold New Place to the Rev. Mr. Gastrell, a man of large fortune, who resided in it but a few years, in consequence of a disagreement with the inhabitants of Stratford. As he resided part of the year at Lichfield, he thought he was assessed too highly in the monthly rate towards the maintenance of the poor; but, being very properly compelled by the magistrates of Stratford to pay the whole of what was levied on him, on the principle that his house was occupied by his servants in his absence, he peevishly declared, that that house should never be assessed again: and soon afterwards pulled it down, sold the materials, and left the town. He had some time before cut down Shakspeare’s mulberry-tree, to save himself the trouble of showing it to those whose admiration of our great poet led them to visit the classic ground on which it stood. That Shakspeare planted this tree appears to be sufficiently authenticated. Where New Place stood is now a garden. Before concluding this history, it may be necessary to mention, that the poet’s house was once honoured by the temporary residence of Henrietta Maria, queen to Charles I. Theobald has given an inaccurate account of this, as if she had been obliged to take refuge in Stratford from the rebels, which was not the case. She marched from Newark, June 16, 1643, and entered Stratford triumphantly, about the 22nd of the same month, at the head of 3000 foot and 1500 horse, with 15o waggons, and a train of artillery. Here she was met by prince Rupert, accompanied by a large body of troops. She rested about three weeks at our poet’s house, which was then possessed by his grand-daughter Mrs. Nash, and her husband.

During Shakspeare’s abode in this house, his pleasureable wit and good-nature, says Mr. Rowe, engaged him the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friend hip of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Among these Mr. Rowe tells a traditional story of a miser, or usurer, named Combe, who, in conversation with Shakspeare, said he fancied the poet intended to write his epitaph if he should survive him, and desired to know what he meant to say. On this Shakspeare gave him the following, probably extempore

‘ Oh ho’ quoth the devil, ‘tis my John-a-CombeY’ The sharpness of the satire is said to have stung the man so severely that he never forgave it. These lines, however, or some which nearly resemble them, appeared in various collections both before and after the time they were said to have been composed; and the inquiries of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone satisfactorily prove that the whole story is a fabrication. Betterton is said to have heard it when he visited Warwickshire, on purpose to collect anecdotes of our poet, and probably thought it of too much importance to be nicely examined. We know not whether it be worth adding of a story which we have rejected, that a usurer in Shakspeare’s time did not mean one who took exorbitant, but any interest or usance for money, and that ten in the hundred, or ten per cent, was then the ordinary interest of money. It is of more consequence, however, to record the opinion of Mr. Malone, that Shakspeare, during his retirement, wrote the play of “Twelfth Night.”

He died on his birth-day, Tuesday April 23, 1616, when he had exactly completed his fifty-second year*, and was buried on the north side of the chancel, in the great church at Stratford, where a monument is placed in the wall, on which he is represented under an arch, in a sitting posture, a cushion spread before him, with a pen in his right hand, and his left rested on a scroll of paper; The following Latin distich is engraved under the cushion:

“The first syllable in Socratem,” says Mr. Steevens, "is here made short, which cannot be allowed. Perhaps we should read Sophoclem. Shakspeare is then appositely compared with a dramatick author among the ancients; but still it should be remembered that the elogium is lessened while the metre is reformed; and it is well known that some of our early writers of Latin poetry were uncommonly negligent in their prosody, especially in proper names. The thought of this distich, as Mr. Toilet observes, might have been taken from ‘The Faery Queene’ of Spenser, B. II. c. ix. st. 48, and c. x. st. 3.

“It appears from the verses of Leonard Digges’, that our author’s monument was erected before the year 1623. It has been engraved by Vertue, and done in mezzotinto by Miller.”

We have no account of the malady which, at no very advanced age, closed the life and labours of this unrivalled and incomparable genius.

His family consisted of two daughters, and a son named Hamnet, who died in 1596, in the 12th year of his age. Susannah, the eldest daughter, and her father’s favourite, was married to Dr. John Hall, a physician, who died Nov. 1635, aged 60. Mrs. Hall died July 11, 1649, aged 66 They left only one child, Elizabeth, born 1607-8, and married April 22, 1626, to Thomas Nashe, esq. who died in 1647, and afterwards to sir John Barnard of Abmgton, in Northamptonshire, but died without issue by either husband. Jn.iith, Shakspeare' s youngest daughter, was married to a Mr. Thomas Quiney, and died Feb. 1661-62, in her 77th year. By Mr. Quiney she had three sons, Shakspeare, Richard, and Thomas, who all died unmarried. Sir Hugh Ciopton, who was born two years after the death of lady Barnard, which happened in 1669-70, related to Mr. Macklin, in 1742, an old tradition, that she had carried away with her from Stratford many of her grandfather’s papers. On the death of sir John Barnard, Mr. Malone thinks these must have fallen into the hands of Mr. Edward Bagley, lady Barnard’s executor, and if any descendant of that gentleman be now living, in his custody they probably remain. To this account of Shakspeare’s family, we have now to add that among Oldys’s papers, is another traditional story of his having been the father of sir William Davenant. Oldys’s relation is thus given:

“If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often baited at the Crown inn or tavern in Oxford, in his journey to and from London. The landlady was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit, and her husband, Mr. John Davenant, (afterwards mayor of that city) a grave melancholy man; xvho, as well as his wife, used much to delight in Shaks^ peare’s pleasant company. Their son, young Will. Davenant, (afterwards sir William) was then a little school-boy in the town, of about seven or eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would fly from school to see him. One day an old townsman observing the boy running homeward almost out of breath, asked him whither he was posting in that heat and hurry. He answered to see his god-father Shakspeare. `There’s a good boy,‘ said the other, ’but have a care that you don‘t take God’s name in vain.’ This story Mr. Pope told me at the earl of Oxford’s table, upon occasion of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare’s monument then newly erected in Westminster abbey.”

This story appears to have originated with Anthony Wood, and it has been thought a presumption of its being true that, after careful examination, Mr. Thomas Warton was inclined to believe it. Mr. Steevens, however, treats it with the utmost contempt, but does not perhaps argue with his usual attention to experience when he brings sir William Davenant’s “heavy, vulgar, unmeaning face,” as a proof that he could not be Shakspeare’s son.

In the year 1741, a monument was erected to our poet in Westminster Abbey, by the direction of the earl of Burlington, Dr. Mead, Mr. Pope, and Mr. Martyn. It was the work of Scheemaker (who received 300l. for it), after a design of Kent, and was opened in January of that year. The performers of each of the London theatres gave a benefit to defray the expences, and the Dean and Chapter of Westminster took nothing for the ground. The money received by the performers at Drury-Iane theatre amounted to above 200l. but the receipts at Covent-garden did not exceed 100l. From these imperfect notices, which are all we have been able to collect from the labours of his biographers* and commentators, our readers will perceive that less is known of Shakspeare than of almost any writer who has been considered as an object of laudable curiosity. Nothing could be more highly gratifying than an account of the early studies of this wonderful man, the progress of his pen, his moral and social qualities, his friendships, his failings, and whatever else constitutes personal history. But on all these topics his contemporaries and his immediate successors have been equally silent, and if aught can hereafter be discovered, it must be by exploring sources which have hitherto escaped the anxious researches of those who have devoted their whole lives, and their most vigorous talents, to revive his memory and illustrate his writings. In the sketch. we have given, if the dates of his birth and death be excepted, what is there on which the reader can depend, or for which, if he contend eagerly, he may not be involved in controversy, and perplexed with contradictory opinions and authorities

It is usually said that the life of an author can be little else than a history of his works; but this opinion is liable to many exceptions. If an author, indeed, has passed his days in retirement, his life can afford little more variety than that of any other man who has lived in retirement; but if, as is generally the case with writers of great celebrity, he has acquired a pre-eminence over his contemporaries, if he has excited rival contentions, and defeated the attacks of criticism or of malignity, or if he has plunged into the controversies of his age, and performed the part cither of a tyrant or a hero in literature, his history may be rendered as interesting as that of any other public character. But whatever weight may be allowed to this remark, the decision will not be of much consequence in the case of Shakspeare. Unfortunately we know as little of the progress of his writings, as of his personal history. The industry of his illustrators for the last thirty years has been such as probably never was surpassed in the annals of literary investigation, yet so far are we from information of the conclusive or satisfactory kind, that even the order in which his plays were written, rests principally on conjecture, and of some plays usually printed among his works, it is not yet determined whether he wrote the whole, or any part. Much of our ignorance of every thing which it would be desirable to know respecting Shakspeare’s works, must be imputed to the author himself. If we look merely at the state in which he left his productions, we should be apt to conclude, either that he was insensible of their value, or that while he was the greatest, he was at the same time the humblest writer the world ever produced; “that he thought his works unworthy of posterity, that he levied no ideal tribute upon future times, nor had any further prospect, than that of present popularity and present profit.” And such an opinion, although it apparently partakes of the ease and looseness of conjecture, may not be far from probability. But before we allow it any higher merit, or attempt to decide upon the affection or neglect with which he reviewed his labours, it may be necessary to consider their precise nature, and certain circumstances in his situation which affected them; and, above all, we must take into our account the character and predominant occupations of the times in which he lived, and of those which followed his decease.

With respect to himself, it does not appear that he printed any one of his plays, and only eleven of them were printed in his life-time. The reason assigned for this is, that he wrote them for a particular theatre, sold them to the managers when only an actor, reserved them in manuscript when himself a manager, and when he disposed of his property in the theatre, they were still preserved in manuscript to prevent their being acted by the rival houses. Copies of some of them appear to have been surreptitiously obtained, and published in a very incorrect state, but we may suppose that it was wiser in the author or managers to overlook this fraud, than to publish a correct edition, and so destroy the exclusive property they enjoyed. It is clear, therefore, that any publication of his plays by himself would have interfered, at first with his own interest, and afterwards with the interest of those to whom he had made over his share in them. But even had this obstacle been removed, we are not sure that he would have gained much by publication. If he had no other copies but those belonging to the theatre, the business of correction for the press must have been a toil which we are afraid the taste of the public at that time would have poorly rewarded. We know not the exact portion of fame he enjoyed; it was probably the highest which dramatic genius could confer, but dramatic genius was a new excellence, and not well understood. Its claims were probably not heard out of the jurisdiction of the master of the revels, certainly not beyond the metropolis. Yet such was Shakspeare’s reputation, that we are tolcl his name was put to pieces which he never wrote, and that he felt himself too confident in popular favour to undeceive the public. This was singular resolution in a man who wrote so unequally, that. at this day the test of internal evidence must be applied to his doubtful productions with the greatest caution. But still, how far his character would have been elevated by an examination of his plays in the closet, in an age when the refinements of criticism were not understood, and the sympathies of taste were seldom felt, may admit of a question. “His language,” says Dr. Johnson, “not being designed for the readers desk, was all that he desired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the audience.”

Shakspeare died in 1616, and seven years afterwards appeared the first edition of his plays, published at the charges of four booksellers, a circumstance from which Mr. Malone infers, “that no single publisher was at that time willing to risk his money on a complete collection of our author’s plays.” This edition was printed from the copies in the hands of his fellow-managers, Heminge and Condell, which had been in a series of years frequently altered through convenience, caprice, or ignorance. Heminge and Condell had now retired from the stage, and, we may suppose, were guilty of no injury to their successors, in printing what their own interest only had formerly withheld. Of this, although we have no documents amounting t^ demonstration, we may be convinced, by adverting to a circumstance which will, in our days, appear very extraordinary, namely, the declension of Shakspeare’s popularity. We have seen that the publication of his works was accounted a doubtful speculation, and it is yet more certain that so much had the public taste turned from him in quest of variety, that for several years after his death the plays of Fletcher were more frequently acted than his, and during the whole of the seventeenth century, they were made to give place to performances, the greater part of which cannot now be endured. During the same period only four editions of his works were published, all in folio; and perhaps this unwieldy size of volume may be an additional proof that they were not popular; nor is it thought that the impressions were numerous. These circumstances which attach to our author and to his works, must be allowed a plausible weight in accounting for onr deficiencies in his biography and literary career; but there were circumstances enough in the history of the times to suspend the progress of that more regular drama, of which he had set the example, and may be considered as the founder. If we wonder why we know so much less of Shakspeare than of his contemporaries, let us recollect that his genius, however highly and justly we now rate it, took a direction which was not calculated for permanent admiration, either in the age in which he lived, or in that which followed. Shakspeare was a writer of plays, a promoter of an amusement just emerging from barbarism; and an amusement which, although it has been classed among the schools of morality, has ever had such a strong tendency to deviate from moral purposes, that the force of law has in all ages been called in to preserve it within the bounds of common decency. The church has ever been unfriendly to the stage. A part of the injunctions of queen Elizabeth is particularly directed against the printing of plays; and, according to an entry in the books of the Stationers’ Company, in the 4 1 st year of her reign, it is ordered that no plays be printed, except allowed by persons in authority. Dr. Farmer also remarks, that in that age, poetry and novels were destroyed publicly by the bishops, and privately by the puritans. The main transactions, indeed, of that period could not admit of much attention to matters of amusement. The reformation required all the circumspection and policy of a long reign to render it so firmly established in popular favour as to brave the caprice of any succeeding sovereign. This was effected in a great measure by the diffusion of religious controversy, which was encouraged by the church, and especially by the puritans, who were the immediate teachers of the lower classes, were listened to with veneration, and usually inveighed against all public amusements, as inconsistent with the Christian profession. These controversies continued during the reign of James I. and were in a considerable degree promoted by him, although he, like Elizabeth, was a favourer of the stage as an appemiage to the grandeur and pleasures of the court. But the commotions which followed in the unhappy reign of Charles I. when the stage was totally abolished, are sufficient to account for the oblivion thrown on the history and works of our great bard. From this time no inquiry was made, until it was too late to obtain any information more satisfactory than the few hearsay scraps and contested traditions above detailed. “How little,” says Mr. Steevens, “Shakspeare was once read, may be understood from Tate, who, in his dedication to the altered play of king Lear, speaks of the original as an obscure piece, recommended to his notice by a friend; and the author of the Tatler having occasion to quote a few lines out of Macbeth, was con^ tent to receive them from D'Avenant’s alteration of that celebrated drama, in which almost every original beauty is either aukwardly disguised, or arbitrarily omitted.”

In fifty years after his death, Dry den mentions that he was then become “a little obsolete.” In the beginning of the last century, Lord Shaftesbury complains of his “rude unpolished style, and his antiquated phrase and wit.” It is certain that for nearly an hundred years after his death, partly owing to the immediate revolution and rebellion, and partly to the licentious taste encouraged in Charles I I.'s time, and perhaps partly to the Incorrect state of his works, he was almost entirely neglected. -Mr. Malone has justly remarked, that “if he had been read, admired, studied, and imitated, in the same degree as he is now, the enthusiasm of some one or other of his admirers in the last age would have induced him to make some inquiries concerning the history of his theatrical career, and the anecdotes of his private life.”

His admirers, however, if he had admirers in that age, possessed no portion of such enthusiasm. That curiosity which in our days has raised biography to the rank of an independent study, was scarcely known, and where known, confined principally to the public transactions of eminent characters. And if, in addition to the circumstances already stated, we consider how little is known of the personal history of Shakspeare’s contemporaries, we may easily resolve the question why, of all men who have ever claimed admiration by genius, wisdom, or valour, who have eminently contributed to enlarge the taste, or increase the reputation of their country, we know the least of Shakspeare; and why, of the few particulars which seem entitled to credit, when simply related, and in which there is no manifest violation of probability, or promise of importance, there is scarcely one which has not swelled into a controversy. After a careful examination of all that modern research has discovered, we know not how to trust our curiosity beyond the limits of those barren dates which afford no personal history. The nature of Shakspeare’s writings prevents that appeal to internal evidence which in other cases has been found to throw light on character. The purity of his morals, for example, if sought in his plays, must be measured against the licentiousness of his language, and the question will then be, how much did he write from conviction, and how much to gratify the taste of his hearers How much did he add to the age, and how much did he borrow from it Pope says, “he was obliged to please the lowest of the people, and to keep the worst of company;” and Pope might have said more, for although we hope' it was not true, we have no means of proving that it was false.

The only life which has been prefixed to all the editions of Shakspeare of the eighteenth century is that drawn tip by Mr. Rowe, and which he modestly calls “Some Account, &c.” In this we have what Rowe could collect when every legitimate^source of information was closed, a few traditions that- were*' floating nearly a century after the author’s death. Some inaccuracies in his account have been detected in the valuable notes of Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone, who, in other parts of their respective editions, have scattered a few brief notices which are incorporated in the present sketch. The whole, however, is unsatisfactory. Shakspeare in his private character, in his friendships, in his amusements, in his closet, in his family, is no where before us; and such was the nature of the writings on which his fame depends, and of that employment in which he was engaged, that being in no important respect connected with the history of his age, it is in vain to look into the latter for any information concerning him.

Mr. Capell is of opinion that he wrote some prose works, because “it can hardly be supposed that he, who had so considerable a share in the confidence of the earls of Essex and Southampton, could be a mute spectator only of controversies in which they were so much interested.” This editor, however, appears to have taken for granted a degree of confidence with these two statesmen, which he ought first to have proved. Shakspeare might have enjoyed the confidence of their social hours, but it is mere conjecture that they admitted him into the confidence of their state affairs. Mr. Malone, whose opinions are entitled to a higher degree of credit, thinks that his prose compositions, if they should be discovered, would exhibit the same perspicuity, the same cadence, the same elegance and vigour, which we find in his plays. It is unfortunate, however, for all wishes and all conjectures, that not a line of Shakspeare' s manuscript is known to exist, and his prose writings are nowhere hinted at. We have only printed copies of his plays and poems, and those so depraved by carelessness or ignorance, that all the labour of all his commentators has not yet been able to restore them to a probable purity. Many of the greatest difficulties attending the perusal of them yet remain, and will require, what it is scarcely possible to expect, greater sagacity and more happy conjecture than have hitherto been employed.

Of his poems, it is perhaps necessary that some notice should be taken, although they have never been favourites with the public, and have seldom been reprinted with his plays. Shortly after his death, Mr. Malone informs us, a very incorrect impression of them was issued out, which in every subsequent edition was implicitly followed, until he published a correct edition in 1780, with illustrations, &c. But the peremptory decision of Mr. Steevens on the merits of these poems must not be omitted. “We have not reprinted the Sonnets, &c. of Shakspeare, because the strongest act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service. Had Shakspeare produced no other works than these, his name would have reached us with as little celebrity as time has conferred on that of Thomas Watson, an older and much more elegant sonneteer.” Severe as this may appear, it only amounts to the general conclusion which modern critics have formed. Still it cannot be denied that there are many scattered beauties among his Sonnets, and although they are now lost in the blaze of his dramatic genius, Mr. Malone remarks that they seem to have gained him more reputation than his plays; at least, they are oftener mentioned or alluded to.

The elegant preface of Dr. Johnson gives an account of the attempts made in the early part of the last century, to revive the memory and reputation of our poet, by Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton, whose respective merits he has characterized with candour, and with singular felicity of expression. Shakspeare’s works may be overloaded with criticism, for what writer has excited so much curiosity, and so many opinions but Johnson’s preface is an accompaniment worthy of the genius it celebrates. His own edition followed in 1765, and a second, in conjunction with Mr. Steevens, in 1773. The third edition of the joint editors appeared in 1785, the fourth in 1793, the fifth in 1803, in 21 volumes octavo, which has since been reprinted. Mr. Malone’s edition was published in 1790 in 10 volumes, crown octavo, and is now become exceedingly scarce. His original notes and improvements, however, are incorporated in the editions of 1793 and 1803 by Mr. Steevens. Mr. Malone says, that from 1716 to the date of his edition in 1790, that is, in seventy-four years, “above 3-0,000 copies of Shakspeare have been dispersed through England.” To this we may add with confidence, that since 1790 that number has been more than doubled. During 1803 no fewer than nine editions were in the press, belonging to the booksellers of London; and if we add the editions printed by others, and those published in Scotland, Ireland, and America, we may surely fix the present as the highest aera of Shakspeare’s popularity. Nor among the honours paid to his genius, ought we to forget the very magnificent edition undertaken by Messrs. Boydell. Still less ought it to be forgotten how much the reputation of Shakspeare was revived by the unrivalled excellence of Garrick’s performance. His share in directing the public taste towards the study of Shakspeare was perhaps greater than that of any individual in his time; and such was his zeal, and such hrs success in this laudable attempt, that he may readily be forgiven the foolish mummery of the Stratford Jubilee.

When public opinion had begun to assign to Shakspeare the very high rank he was destined to hold, he became the promising object of fraud and imposture. This, we have already observed, he did not wholly escape in his own time, and he had the spirit or policy to despise it. It was reserved for modern impostors, however, to avail themselves of the obscurity in which his history is involved. In 1751 a book was published, entitled “A Compendious or briefe examination of certayne ordinary Complaints of diuers of our Countrymen in those our days; which, although they are in some parte unjust and frivolous, yet are they all by way of dialogue, throughly debated and discussed by William Shakspeare, gentleman.” This had been originally published in 1581, but Dr. Farmer has clearly proved that W. S. gent, the only authority for attributing it to Shakspeare in the reprinted edition, meant William Stafford, gent. Theobald, the same accurate critic informs us, was desirous of palming upon the world a play called “Double Falsehood,” for a posthumous one of Shakspeare. In 1770 was reprinted at Feversham, an old play, called “The Tragedy of Arden of Feversham and Black Will,” with a preface attributing it to Shakspeare, without the smallest foundation. But these were trifles compared to the -atrocious attempt made in 1795-6, when, besides a vast mass of prose and verse, letters, &c. pretendedly in the hand-writing of Shakspeare and his correspondents, an entire play, entitled “Vortigern,” was not only brought forward for the astonishment of the admirers of Shakspeare, but actually performed on Drurylane stage. It would be unnecessary to expatiate on the merits of this play, which Mr. Steevens has very happily characterized as “the performance of a madman without a lucid interval,” or to enter more at large into the nature of a fraud so recent, and so soon acknowledged by the authors of it. It produced, however, an interesting controversy between Mr. Malone and Mr. George Chalmers, which, although mixed with some unpleasant asperities, was extended to inquiries into the history and antiquities of the stage, from which future critics and historians may derive considerable information.

, an eminent mathematician, mechanist, and astronomer, was descended from an ancient family at Little-Horton, near Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he was born about 1651. He was at first apprenticed to a merchant at Manchester, but his inclination and genius being decidedly for mathematics, he obtained a release from his master, and removed to Liverpool, where be gave himself up wholly to the study of mathematics, astronomy, &c. and for a subsistence, opened a school, and taught writing and accounts, &c. Before he had been long at Liverpool, he accidentally met with a merchant or tradesman visiting that town from London, in whose house the astronomer Mr. Flamsteed then lodged; and such was Sharp’s enthusiasm for his favourite studies, that with the view of becoming acquainted with this emiment man, he engaged himself to the merchant as a bookkeeper. Having been thus introduced, he acquired the friendship of Mr. Flamsteed, who obtained for him a profitable employment in the dock-yard at Chatham. In this he continued till his friend and patron, knowing his great merit in astronomy and mechanics, called him to his assistance, in completing the astronomical apparatus in the royal observatory at Greenwich, which had been built about the year 1676.

In this situation he continued to assist Mr. Flamsteed in making observations (with the mural arch, of 80 inches radius, and 140 degrees on the limb, contrived and graduated by Mr. Sharp) on the meridional zenith distances of the fixed stars, sun, moon, and planets, with the times of their transits over the meridian; also the diameters of the sun and moon, and their eclipses, with those of Jupiter’s satellites, the variation of the compass, &c. He assisted him also in making a catalogue of near 3000 fixed stars, as to their longitudes and magnitudes, their right ascensions and polar distances, with the variations of the same while they change their longitude by one degree. But from the fatigue of continually observing the stars ac night, in a cold thin air, joined to a weakly constitution, he was reduced to a bad state of health for the recovery of which he desired leave to retire to his house at Horton where, as soon as he began to recover, he fitted up an observatory of his own; having first made an elegant and curious engine for turning all kinds of work in wood" or brass, with a maundrii for turning irregular figures, as ovals, roses, wreathed pillars, &c. Beside these, he made himself most of the tools used by joiners, clockmakers, opticians, mathematical instrument-makers, &c. The limbs or arcs of his large equatorial instrument, sextant, quadrant, &c. he graduated with the nicest accuracy, by diagonal divisions into degrees and minutes. The telescopes he made use of were all of his own making, and the lenses ground, figured, and adjusted with his own hands.

It was at this time that he assisted Mr. Flamsteed in calculating most of the tables in the second volume of his “Historia Ccelestis,” as appears by their letters, in the hands of Mr. Sharp’s friends at Horton. Likewise the curious drawings of the charts of all the constellations visible in our hemisphere, with the still more excellent drawings of the planispheres both of the northern and southern constellations. And though these drawings of the constellations were sent to be engraved at Amsterdam by a masterly hand, yet the originals far exceeded the engravings in point of beauty and elegance: these were published by Mr. Flamsteed, and both copies may be seen at Horton.

The mathematician meets with something extraordinary in Sharp’s elaborate treatise of “Geometry Improved,” (1717, 4to, signed A. S. Philomath.) 1st, by a large and accurate table of segments of circles, its construction and various uses in the solution of several difficult problems, with compendious tables for finding a true proportional part; and their use in these or any other tables exemplified in making logarithms’, or their natural numbers, to 60 places of figures; there being a table of them for all primes to 1100, true to 61 figures. 2d. His concise treatise of Polyedra, or solid bodies of many bases, both the regular ones and others: to which are added twelve new ones, with various methods of forming them, and their exact dimensions in surds, or species, and in numbers: illustrated with a variety of copper-plates, neatly engraved with his own hands. Also the models of these polyedra he cut out in box- wood with amazing neatness and accuracy. Indeed few or none of the mathematical instrument-makers could exceed him in exactly graduating or neatly engraving any mathematical or astronomical instrument, as may be seen in the equatorial instrument above mentioned, or in his sextant, quadrants and dials of various sorts; also in a curious armillary sphere, which, beside the common properties, has moveable circles, c. for exhibiting and resolving all spherical triangles; also his double sector, with many other instruments, all contrived, graduated, and finished, in a most elegant manner, by himself. In short, he possessed at once a remarkably clear head for contriving, and an extraordinary hand for executing, any thing, not only in mechanics, but likewise in drawing, writing, and making the most exact and beautiful schemes or figures in all his calculations and geometrical constructions. The quadrature of the circle was undertaken by him for his own private amusement, in 1699, deduced from two different series, by which the truth of it was proved to 72 places of figures as may be seen in the introduction to S'herwin’s tables of logarithms and in Sherwin may also be seen his ingenious improvements on the making of logarithms, and the constructing of the natural sines, tangents, and secants. He calculated the natural and logarithmic sines, tangents, and secants, to every second in the first minute of the quadrant: the laborious investigation of which may probably be seen in the archives of the Royal Society, as they were presented to Mr. Patrick Murdoch for that purpose; exhibiting his very neat and accurate manner of writing and arranging his figures, not to be equalled perhaps by the best penman now living.

The late ingenious Mr. Smea‘ton says (Philos. Trans, an. 1786, p. 5, &c). ’ In the year 1689, Mr. Flamsteed com^ pleted his mural arc at Greenwich; and, in the prolegomena to his “Historia Ccelestis,” he makes an ample acknowledgment of the particular assistance, care, and industry of Mr. Abraham Sharp; whom, in the month of Aug. 1688, he brought into the observatory as his amanuensis, and being, as Mr. Flamsteed tells us, not only a very skilful mathematician, but exceedingly expert in mechanical operations, he was principally employed in the construction of the mural arc; which in the compass of fourteen months he finished, so greatly to the satisfaction of Mr. Flamsteed, that he speaks of him in the highest terms of praise.

“This celebrated instrument, of which he also gives the figure at the end of the prolegomena, was of the radius of 6 feet 7| inches; and, in like manner as the sextant, was furnished both with screw and diagonal divisions, all performed by the accurate hand of Mr. Sharp. But yet, whoever compares the different parts of the table for conversion of the revolutions and parts of the screw belonging to the mural arc into degrees, minutes, and seconds, with each other, at the same distance from the zenith on different sides; and with their halves, quarters, &c. will find as notable a disagreement of the screw-work from the hand divisions, as had appeared before in the work of Mr. Tompion: and hence we may conclude, that the method of Dr. Hook, being executed by two such masterly hands as Tompion and Sharp, and found defective, is in reality not to be depended upon in nice matters. ”From the account of Mr. Flamsteed it appears also, that Mr. Sharp obtained the zenith point of the instrument, or line of collimation, by observation of the zenith stars, with the face of the instrument on the east and on the west side of the wall: and that having made the index stronger (to prevent flexure) than that of the sextant, and thereby heavier, he contrived, by means of pulleys and balancing weights, to relieve the hand that was to move it from a great part of its gravity. Mr. Sharp continued in strict correspondence with Mr. Fiamsteed as long as he lived, as appeared by letters of Mr. Flamsteed’s found after Mr. Sharp’s death; many of which I have seen.

“I have been the more particular relating to Mr. Sharp, in the business of constructing this mural arc not only because we may suppose it the first good and valid instrument of the kind, but because I look upon Mr. Sharp to have been the first person that cut accurate and delicate divisions upon astronomical instruments; of which, independent of Mr. Flamsteed’s testimony, there still remain considerable proofs: for, after leaving Mr. Flamsteed, and quitting the department above mentioned, he retired into Yorkshire, to the village of Little Horton, near Bradford, where he ended his days about the year 1743 (should be, in 1742); and where I have seen not only a large and very fine collection of mechanical tools, the principal ones being made with his own hands, but also a great variety of scales and instruments made with them, both in wood and brass, the divisions of which were so exquisite, as would pot discredit the first artists of the present times: and I believe there is now remaining a quadrant, of 4 or 5 feet radius, framed of wood, but the limb covered with a brass plate; the subdivisions being done by diagonals, the lines of which are as finely cut as those upon the quadrants at Greenwich. The delicacy of Mr. Sharp’s hand will indeed permanently appear from the copper-plates in a quarto book, published in the year 1718, entitled Geometry Improved' by A. Sharp, Philomath, (or rather 1717, by A. S. Philomath.) whereof not only the geometrical lines upon the plates, but the whole of the engraving of letters and figures, were done by himself, as 1 was told by a person in the mathematical line, who very frequently attended Mr, Sharp in the latter part of his life. I therefore look upon Mr. Sharp as the first person that brought the affair of hand division to any degree of perfection.” Mr. Sharp kept up a correspondence by letters with most of the eminent mathematicians and astronomers of his time, as Mr. Flainsteed, sir Isaac Newton, Dr. H alley, Dr. VVallis, Mr. Hodgson, Mr. Sherwin, &c. the answers to which letters are all written upon the backs, or empty spaces, of the letters he received, in a short- hand of his own contrivance. From a great variety of letters (of which a large chest-full remain with his friends) from these and many other celebrated mathematicians, it is evident that Mr. Sharp spared neither pains nor time to promote real science. Indeed, being one of the most accurate and indefatigable computers that ever existed, he was for many years the common resource for Mr. Flainsteed, sir Jonas Moore, Dr. Halley, and others, in all sorts of troublesome and delicate calculations.

Mr. Sharp continued all his life a bachelor, and spent his time as recluse as a hermit. He was of a middle stature, but very thin, being of a weakly constitution; he was remarkably feeble the last three or four years before he died, which was on the 18th of July, 1742, in the ninety-first year of his age.

In his retirement at Little Horton, he employed four or five rooms or apartments in his house for different purposes, into which none of his family, could possibly enter at any time without his permission. He was seldom visited by any persons, except two gentlemen of Bradford, the one a mathematician, and the other an ingenious apothecary: these were admitted, when he chose to be seen by them, by the signal of rubbing a stone against a certain part of the outside wall of the house. He duly attended the dissenting chapel at Bradford, of which he was a member, every Sunday; at which time he took care to be provided with plenty of halfpence, which he very charitably suffered to be taken singly out of his hand, held behind him during his walk to the chapel, by a number of poor people who followed him, without his ever looking back, or asking a single question.

Mr. Sharp was very irregular as to his meals, and remarkably sparing in his diet, which he frequently took in the following manner: A little square hole, something like a window, made a communication between the room where he was usually employed in calculations, and another chamber or room in the house where a servant could enter; and before this hole he had contrived a sliding board: the servant always placed his victuals in this hole, without speaking or making any the least noise; and when he had a little leisure he visited his cupboard to see what it afforded to satisfy his hunger or thirst. But it often happened, that the breakfast, dinner, and supper, have remained untouched by him, when the servant has gone to remove what was left so deeply engaged had he been in calculations. Cavities might easily be perceived in an old English oak table where he sat to write, by the frequent rubbing and wearing of his elbows. By his epitaph it appears that he was related to archbishop Sharp, but in what degree is not mentioned. It is certain he was born in the same place. One of his nephews was the father of Mr. Ramsden the celebrated instrument-maker, who said that this his granduncle was for some time in his younger days an exciseman, but quitted that occupation on coming to a patrimonial estate of about 200l. a year. Mr. Thoresby, who often mentions him, had a declining dial for his library window, made by Sharp.

, archbishop of St. Andrew’s, and the third prelate of that see who suffered from popular or private revenge, was born of a good family in Banffshire in 1618. In his youth he displayed such a capacity as determined his father to dedicate him to the church, and to send him to the university of Aberdeen, whence, on account of the Scottish covenant, made in 1638, he retired into England, and was in a fair way of obtaining promotion from his acquaintance with doctors Sanderson, Hammond, Taylor, and other of our most eminent divines, when he was obliged to return to his native country on account of the rebellion, and a bad state of health. Happening by the way to fall into company with lord Oxenford, that nobleman was pleased with his conversation, and carried him to his own house in the country. Here he became known to several of the nobility, particularly to John Lesley, earl of Rothes, who patronized him on account of his merit, and procured him a professorship in St. Andrew’s. After some stay here with growing reputation, through the friendship of the earl of Cranford, he was appointed minister of Crail. In this town he acquitted himself of his ministry in an exemplary and acceptable manner; only some of the more rigid sort would sometimes intimate their fears that he was not sound; and it is very certain that he was not sincere.

About this time the covenanting presbyterians in Scotland split into two parties. The spirit raged with great violence; and the privy-council established in that country could not restrain it, and therefore referred them to Cromwell himself, then protector. These parties were called public resolutioners, and protestators or remonstrators. They sent deputies up to London the former, Mr. Sharp, knowing his activity, address, and penetration the latter, Mr. Guthrie, a noted adherent to the covenant. A day being appointed for hearing the two agents, Guthrie spoke first, and spoke so long that, when he ended, the protector told Sharp, he would hear him another time; for his hour ior other business was approaching. But Sharp begged to be heard, promising to be short; and, being permitted to speak, in a few words urged his cause so well as to incline Oliver to his party. Having succeeded in this important affair, he returned to the exercise of his function; and always kept a good understanding with the chief of the opposite party that were most eminent for worth and learning. When general Monk advanced to London, the chief of the kirk sent Sharp to attend him, to acquaint him with the state of things, and to put him in mind of what was necessary; instructing him to use his utmost endeavours to secure the freedom and privileges of their established judicatures; and to represent the sinfulness and offensiveness of the late established toleration, by which a door was opened to many gross errors and loose practices in their church.

The earl of Lauderdale and he had a meeting with ten of the chief presbyterian ministers in London, who all agreed upon the necessity of bringing in the king upon covenant terms. At the earnest desire of Monk and the leading presbyterians of Scotland, Sharp was sent over to king Charles to Breda, to solicit him to own the cause of presbytery. He returned to London, and acquainted his friends, “that he found the king very affectionate to Scotland, and resolved not to wrong the settled government of their church:” at last he came to Scotland, and delivered to some of the ministers of Edinburgh a letter from the king, in which his majesty promised to protect and preserve the government of the church of Scotland, “as it is settled by law.” The clergy, understanding this declaration in its obvious meaning, felt all the satisfaction which such a communication could not fail to impart; but Sharp, who had composed the letter, took this very step to hasten the subversion of the presbyterian church government, and nothing could appear more flagitious than the manner in which he had contrived it should operate. When the earl of Middleton, who was appointed to open the parliament in Scotland as his majesty’s commissioner, first read this extraordinary letter, he was amazed, and reproached Sharp for having abandoned the cause of episcopacy, to which he had previously agreed. But Sharp pleaded that, while this letter would serve to keep the presbyterians quiet, it laid his majesty under no obligation, because, as he bound himself to support the ecclesiastical government “settled by law,” parliament had only thus to settle episcopacy, to transfer to it the pledge of the monarch. Even Middleton, a man of loose morals, was shocked with such disingenuity, and honestly answered, that the thing might be done, but that for his share, he did not love the way, which made his majesty’s first appearance in Scotland to be in a cheat. The presbyterian government being overturned by the parliament, and the bishops restored, Sharp was appointed archbishop of St. Andrew’s; and still, in consistence with his treacherous character, endeavoured to persuade his old friends, that he had accepted this high office, to prevent its being filled with one who might act with violence against the presbyterians.