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, a monk of St. Germain-des-Pres, was the author of a poetical relation of the siege of Paris by the Normans and Danes towards the end of the 9th century. He was himself of Normandy, and an eye-witness; and if not eminent as a poet, is at least a faithful and minute historian. His poem consists of twelve hundred verses, in two books, and has been admitted into Pithou’s and Duchesne’s collections; but a more correct edition, with notes, and a French translation, may be seen in the “Nouvelles Annales de Paris,” published by D. Toussaint Duplessis, a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, 1753, 4to. There are also “Five select Sermons” under his name in vol. IX. of D'Acheri’s Spicilegium; and in vol. V. Bibl. P. P. Colon. 1618, is “Abbonis Epistola ad Desiderium episc.” There was originally a third book to his History of the siege, addressed “to the Clergy,” which his editors omitted as having no connexion with the history.

, or Abbot of Fleuri, a Benedictine monk of the tenth century, was born in the territory of Orleans, and educated in the abbey of Fleuri, and afterwards at Paris and Rheims, where he distinguished himself in all the learning of the times, and particularly in mathematics, theology, and history. Oswald, bishop of Worcester, in 985, applied to the abbey of Fleuri to obtain a proper person to preside over the abbey of Ramsay, which he had founded, or rather re-established. Abbo was sent over to England for this purpose, and much caressed by king Ethelred and the nobility. Returning to Fleuri upon the death of the abbot, he was declared his successor. Here he experienced many vexations from some of the bishops, against whom he asserted the rights of the monastic order. His enemies charged him with some acrimony against his persecutors. In his justification, he wrote an apology, which he addressed to the kings Hugh and Robert. Some time afterwards he dedicated to the same princes a collection of canons on the duties of kings and the duties of subjects. King Robert, having sent him to Rome to appease the wrath of Gregory V. who had threatened to lay the kingdom under an interdict, the pope granted him all he requested. Abbo, on his return from this expedition, set about the reform of the abbey of Reole in Gascony. He was here slain in a quarrel that rose between the French and the Gascons, in 1004. His works are: 1. “Epitome de vitis Pontificum,” taken from Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and published with an edition of that author by Busscus, Mentz, 1602, 4to. 2. “Vita S. Edmundi Anglorum Orientalium regis & martyris,” printed in Surius’ Lives of the Saints. There is a ms. of it in the Cottonian Library. 3. “Collectio, seu epitome Canonum,” printed by Mabillon. 4. “Epistola ad abbatem Fuldensem,” in Baluze’s Miscellanies, 1678, 8vo. 5. “Letters to Hugh, king of France, to St. Bernard, Gregory,” &c. and his Apology, are inserted whole, or in fragments, in his Life by Aimonius, a monk of Fleuri, and his pupil.

An incident now occurred in his life, which has given him more popular renown than his abilities as a philosopher, a theologian, or a writer, could have conferred, but which has thrown a melancholy shade on his moral character. About this time, there was resident in Paris, Heloise, the niece of Fulbert, one of the canons of the cathedral church, a lady about eighteen years of age, of great personal beauty, and highly celebrated for her literary attainments. Abelard, who was now at the sober age of 40, conceived an illicit passion for this young lady, flattering himself that his personal attractions were yet irresistible. Fulbert, who thought himself honoured by the visits of so eminent a scholar and philosopher, while he had any reason to place them to his own account, welcomed him to his house, as a learned friend whose conversation might be instructive to his niece, and was therefore easily prevailed upon, by a handsome payment which Abelard offered for his board, to admit him into his family as an inmate. When this was -concluded upon, as he apprehended no danger from one of Abelard’s age and gravity, he requested him to devote some portion of his leisure to the instruction of Heloise, at the same time granting him full permission to treat her in all respects as his pupil. Abelard accepted the trust, and, we gather from his own evidence, with no other intention than to betray it. “I was no less surprized,” he says, “than if the canon had delivered up a tender lamb to a famished wolf,” &c. In this infamous design he succeeded but too well, and appears to have corrupted her mind, as, amidst the rage of her uncle, and the reflections which would naturally be made on such a transaction, every other sentiment in her breast was absorbed in a romantic and indecent passion for her seducer. Upon her pregnancy being discovered, it was thought necessary for her to quit her uncle’s house, and Abelard conveyed her to Bretagne, where she was delivered of a son, to whom they gave the name of Astrolabus, or Astrolabius. Abelard now proposed to Fulbert to marry his niece, provided the marriage might be kept secret, and Fulbert consented; but Heloise, partly out of regard to the interest of Abelard, whose profession bound him to celibacy, and partly from a less honourable notion, that love like hers ought not to submit to ordinary restraints, at first gave a peremptory refusal. Abelard, however, at last prevailed, and they were privately married at Paris; but in this state they did not experience the happy effects of mutual reconciliation. The uncle wished to disclose the marriage, but Heloise denied it; and from tbis time he treated her with such unkindness as furnished Abelard with a sufficient plea for removing her from his house, and placing her in the abbey of Benedictine nuns, in which she had been originally educated. Fulbert, while he gave the provocation, pretended that Abelard had taken this step in order to rid himself of an incumbrance which obstructed his future prospects. Deep resentment took possession of his soul, and he meditated revenge; in the pursuit of which he employed some ruffians to enter Abelard’s chamber by night, and inflict upon his person a disgraceful and cruel mutilation, which was accordingly perpetrated. The ruffians, however, were apprehended, and punished according to the law of retaliation; and Fulbert was deprived of his benefice, and his goods confiscated.

, a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born at St. Quintin, in Picardy, in 1609. He became celebrated as the editor of valuable manuscripts which lay buried in libraries. The first piece he published was the epistle ascribed to St. Barnabas. Father Hugh Menard, a monk of the same congregation, intended to publish this epistle, and for that purpose had illustrated it with notes, but having been prevented by death, D'Acheri gave an edition of it under the title of “Epistola Catholica S. Barnabas Appstoli, Gr. & Lat. cum notis Nic. Hug. Menardi, et eiogio ejusdem auctoris,” Paris, 1645, 4to. In 1648 he collected into one volume the “Life and Works of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury,” Paris, fol. The Life is taken from an ancient manuscript in the abbey of Bee; and. the works are, Commentaries on the epistles of St. Paul, taken from a manuscript in the abbey of St. Melaine de Rennes, and a treatise on the Sacrament, against Berenger. The appendix contains the Chronicle of the Abbey of Bee from its foundation in 1304 to 1437; the life of St. Herluinus, founder and first abbot, of some of his successors, and of St. Austin the apostle of England, and some treatises on the eucharist. His catalogue of ascetic works appeared the same year, entitled “Asceticorum, vulgo spiritual] nm opusculorum, quae inter Patrum opera reperiuntur, Indiculus,” Paris, 1648, 4to. This curious work was reprinted by father Remi, at Paris, in 1671. In 16.51, D'Aclieri published the “Life and Works of Guibert, abbot of Nogent-sous-Couci,” and the lives of some saints, and other pieces, Paris, fol. There is much antiquarian knowledge in this work, respecting the foundation, Sac. of abbeys, but the dates are not always correct. In 1653 he republished father Grimlaic’s “Regie des Solitaires,” 12mo, Paris, with notes and observations. His most considerable work is “Veterum aliquot scriptorum, qui in Gallice bibliothecis, rnaxime Benedictinorum, latuerunt, Spieilegium, &c.” 1653 1677, 13 vols. 4to. Under the modest title of Spicilegium, it contains a very curious collection of documents pertaining to ecclesiastical afiairs; as acts, canons, councils, chronicles, lives of the saints, letters, poetry, diplomas, charters, &c. taken from the libraries of the different monasteries. This work becoming scarce and much sought after, a new edition was published in 1725, in 3 vols. fol. by Louis-FrancisJoseph de la Barre, with some improvements in point of arrangement, but at the same time some improper liberties taken with the text of D‘Acheri, and particularly with his learned prefaces. D’Acheri contributed also to Mabillon’s “Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti,” &c. He lived a life of much retirement, seldom going out, or admitting trifling visits, and thus found leisure for those vast labours already noticed, and which procured him the esteem of the popes Alexander VII. and Clement X. who honoured him with medals. Although of an infirm habit, he attained the age of seventy-six, and died in the abbey of St, Germain-des-Pres, April 29, 1685. He was interred under the library of which he had had the care for so many years, and where his literary correspondence is preserved. There is a short eloge on him in the Journal de Trevoux for Nov. 26, 1685; but that of Maugendre, printed at Amiens in'1775, is more complete. Dupin says he was one of the first learned men that the congregation of St. Maur produced.

, a Grecian physician and philosopher, who flourished in the eighth century, under the emperor Tiberius II. He turned Benedictine at last, and left a great many tracts behind, some of which have been in so much credit as to be read in the schools. The principal are “De Pulsibus,” and “De Venenis.” Some think there is another of tnis name and profession, a Benedictine also, and physician to Philip Augustus king of France, to whom they attribute a work in Latin hexameters, on the same subject, Paris, 1528, in 4to; but this is perhaps only another version. Being accidentally wounded with an arrow, he would not suffer the wound to be dressed, that he might have an opportunity of exercising his fortitude in pain.

, successively bishop of Wilton and archbishop of Canterbury, and one of the greatest luminaries of his dark era, was the son of an earl of Kent, and after receiving a few scanty instructions from an ignorant secular priest, assumed the habit of the Benedictine order of monks in the monastery at Abingdon, over which Athelwold then presided, having been appointed abbot in the year 955. Athelwold, being created bishop of Winchester in the year 693, settled several of the Abingdon monks in his cathedral. Among these was Ælfric; who, in return for the benefit which he had formerly derived from the instructions of Alhelwold, was now eager to show his gratitude, by forwarding the wishes of his benefactor to instruct the youth of his diocese. With this view he drew tip his “Latin-Saxon Vocabulary,” and some “Latin Colloquies.” The former of these works was published by Somner, under the title of a Glossary, Oxon. 1659 (See Somner). During his residence in this city, Ælfric translated, from the Latin into the Saxon language, most of the historical books of the Old Testament: the greatest part of which translations has reached our time, having been printed at Oxford in 1698. Here, likewise, at the request of Wulfsine, bishop of Sherborn, he drew up what has been called his “Canons,” but might more properly be styled, a charge to be delivered by the bishops to their clergy. They are preserved in the first volume of Spelman’s Councils, and were composed, between the years 980 and 987. Some time about this last year, Ælfric was removed to Cerne Abbey, to instruct the monks, and regulate the affairs of that monastery. Here it was that he translated, from the Latin fathers, the first volume of his “Homilies.” After remaining in this place about a year, he was made abbot of St. Alban’s in the year 988, and composed a liturgy for the service of his abbey, which continued to be used there till Leland’s time. In the year 989 he was created Lishop of Wilton, and during his continuance in that see, translated, about the latter end of the year 991, a second volume of “Homilies.” These are the volumes of which Mrs. Elstob issued proposals for a translation, in 1713, accompanied with the original, but did not live to publish the work. Here also Ælfric wrote his “Grammar,” a supplement to his Homilies, and, probably, a tract dedicated to Sigeward or Sigeferth, containing two epistles oil the Old and New Testament, which his biographer concludes to have been written between the years 987 and 991. In 994, he was translated to Canterbury, where, after exerting himself for some years, with equal spirit and prudence, in defending his diocese against the incursions of the Danes, he died Nov. 16, 1005. He was buried at Abingdon, the place where he first embraced the profession of a monk, whence his remains were afterwards transferred to Canterbury, in the reign of Canute.

, a benedictine father, was professor of grammar, poetry, rhetoric, and lastly of history, at Salzburgh, where he died Jan. 17, 1705. He wrote commentaries on Tacitus, the Philippics of Cicero, and the first ten books of Livy; several treatises on the legislation, history, and manners of the early part of the Roman republic, and dissertations on various other subjects. The titles of his principal works, all printed at Salzburgh, are: I. “Theatrum Funebre, exhibens epitaphia nova, antiqua, seria, jocosa,” 1675, 4 vols. 4to. 2. “Hortus variarum Inacriptionum veterum et novarum,” 1676, 8vo. 3. “De Comitiis veterurn Romanorum,” 1678, 8vo. 4. “Iter oratorium,” 1675. 5. “Iter Poeticum,” 1674. 6. “Deprincipiis Cosmographiæ” 1678. 7. “Ephemerides ab anno 1687 usque ad 1699.”

, a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, who was born at Paris in 1654, and died at an advanced age at St. Denys in 1728, is known by two useful works 1. “La Medicine et la Chirurgie des pauvres,” Paris, in 12mo, 1738. This book contains remedies, cheap, and easily prepared, for both inward and outward ailments. 2. “Dictionnaire Botaniqne et Pharmaceutique,” in 8vo, several times reprinted; in which are found the principal properties of such minerals, vegetables, and animals as are used in medicine. A great number of remedies are pointed out, but not always with sufficient care in the selection. Dr. Alexander had a very extensive knowledge in simples. Equally pious and charitable, he employed it to the relief of his brethren, and especially the poor.

, a Benedictine monk in the abbey 0f Lyra, afterwards prior of Bussi au Perche, was living in 1505, and has left various pieces of poetry, which were highly esteemed in his time. The principal works that are known of his, are: 1. “Four Chants-royaux, presented at the Games du Puy at Rouen, in 4to, without date. 2.” Le Passe-terns de tout Hommeet de toute Femme,“Paris, in 8vo, and 4to, without date. The author informs us that he translated it from a work of Innocent III. It is a moral performance, on the miseries of man from the cradle to the grave. 3.” Le grand Blason des Faulses Amours, in 16, and in 4to, Paris, 1493; and in several editions of the Farce de Patelin, and of the Fifteen Joys of Marriage, Hague, 1726 and 1734, with notes by Jacob le Duchat. It is a dialogue on the evils brought on by love. In all his works he preserves the decency becoming his order, which one of his biographers remarks as rather extraordinary for the age in which he lived.

It remains that we conclude this article with a short notice of his death. In the year 392, Valentinian the emperor being assassinated by the contrivance of Argobastus, and Eugenius usurping the empire, Ambrose was obliged to leave Milan, but returned the year following, when Eugenius was defeated. He died at Milan the 4th of April, 397; and was buried in the great church at Milan, He wrote several works, the most considerable of which is that “De officiis,” a discourse, divided into three books, upon the duties of the clergy. It appears to have been written several years after he had been bishop, and very probably about the year 390 or 391, when peace was restored to the church, after the death of the tyrant Maximus, He has imitated in these three books the design and disposition of Cicero’s piece De officiis. He confirms, says Mr. Du Pin, the good maxims which that orator has advanced, he corrects those which are imperfect, he refutes those which are false, and adds a great many others which are more excellent, pure, and elevated. He is concise and sententious in his manner of writing, and full of turns of wit; his terms are well chosen, and his expressions noble, and he diversifies his subjects by an admirable copiousness of thought and language. He is very ingenious in giving an easy and natural turn to every thing he treats, and is frequently not without strength and pathos. This is part of the character which Du Pin gives him as a writer; but Erasmus tells us that he has many quaint and affected sentences, and is frequently very obscure; and it is certain that his writings are intermixed with many strange and peculiar opinions; derived, as we have already remarked, from his early attachment to the manner of Origen. He maintained, that all men indifferently are to pass through a fiery trial at the last day; that even the just are to suffer it, and to be purged from their sins, but the unjust are to continue in for ever; that the faithful will be raised gradually at the last day, according to the degree of their particular merit; that the bow which God promised Noah to place in the firmament after the deluge, as a sign that he never intended to drown the world again, was not to be understood of the rainbow, which can never appear in the night, but some visible token of the Almighty. He carries the esteem of virginity and celibacy so far, that he seems to regard matrimony as an indecent thing. But it must be observed with regard to all those selections of opinions, that great injustice has been done to his memory by frauds and interpolations, and entire works have been attributed to him, which he never wrote. His works, indeed, are divided into, 1. Those that are genuine. 2. Those that are doubtful. 3. Those that are fictitious: and 4. Those that are not extant. Paulinus, who was his amanuensis, wrote his life, and dedicated it to St. Augustin; it is prefixed to St. Ambrose’s works; the best edition of which is reckoned to be that published by the benedictine monks, in two volumes in folio, at Paris, in 1686, and 1690. His life was also published in 1678, by Godfrey Herment.

, a French historian, and ecclesiastical writer, was born in the Artois, in 1723, and became a Benedictine, but being appointed procurator of one of the houses of that order, he disappeared with the funds intrusted to his care. How he escaped afterwards, his biographer does not inform us, but he attached himself to the order of Malta, became an advocate of parliament, and doctor of laws of the faculty of Paris. He was afterwards made prior of Villeconin, and a member of the academies of Arras and of the arcades of Rome. He died about 1790, after having published: 1. “Dialogues sur l'utilité des moines rentés,” 1768, 12mo. 2. “Exposition sur le Cantique des Cantiques de Salomon,” 1770, 12mo. 3. “Histoire de S. Maur, abbé de Glanfeuil,” 1772, 12mo. The first part contains the life of St. Maur; the second and third give an account of his relics; and the fourth is a history of the abbey of St. Maur-des-Fosses. 4. “Eloge de Charles V. empereur,” from the Latin of J. Masenius, 1777, 12mo. 5. “Esprit de St. Vincent de Paul,” proposed as a pattern to ecclesiastics, 1780, 12mo. 6. “Histoire de Sainte Reine d‘Alise, et de I’abbaye de Flavigny,” 1783, 12mo. 7. “Histoire de S. Fiacre,” 1784, 12mo. 8. “Bibliotheque litteraire du Maine,” Chalons sur Marne, 1784, 8vo, in which he has revived the memory of above three hundred authors. The work was intended to consist of eight volumes, but no more was printed than this. 9. “La Vie de Gregoire Cortez, Benedictine, eveque d'Urbin, et cardinal,” 1786. Ansart, according to his biographer, was both ignorant and idle, and took the substance of all the works he published with his name, from the archives of the Regime, formerly at Germain-des-Pres.

, one of the early propagators. of Christianity, and the first who introduced it into Denmark and Sweden, and hence called the apostle of the north, was born at Picardy, Sept. 8, in the year 801. He was educated in a Benedictine convent at Corbie, from whence he went to Corvey, in Westphalia, where he made such progress in his studies, that, in the year 821, he was appointed rector of the school belonging to the convent. Harold, king of Denmark, who had been expelled from his dominions, and had found an asylum with Lewis, the son and successor of Charlemagne, who had induced him to receive Christian baptism, was about to return to his country, and Lewis enquired for some pious person, who might accompany him, and confirm both him and his attendants in the Christian religion. Vala, the abbot of Corbie, pointed out Anscarius, who readily undertook the perilous task, although against the remonstrances of his friends. Aubert, a monk of noble birth, offered to be his companion, and Harold accordingly set out with them, but neither he nor his attendants, who were rude and barbarous in their manners, were at all solicitous for the accommodation of the missionaries, who therefore suffered much in the beginning of their journey. When the company arrived at Cologne, Hadebald, the archbishop, commiserating the two strangers, gave them a bark, in which they might convey their effects; but, when they came to the frontiers of Denmark, Harold, finding access to his dominions impossible, because of the power of those who had usurped the sovereignty, remained in Friesland, where Anscarius and Aubert laboured with zeal and success, both among Christians and Pagans, for about two years, when Aubert died. In the year 829, many Swedes having expressed a desire to be instructed in Christianity, Anscarius received a commission from the emperor Lewis to visit Sweden. Another monk of Corbie, Vitmar, was assigned as his companion, and a pastor was left to attend on king Harold, in the room of Anscarius. In the passage, they fell in with pirates, who took the ship, and all its effects, On this occasion, Anscarius lost the emperor’s presents, and forty volumes, which he had collected for the use of the ministry. But his mind was determined, and he and his partner having reached land, they walked on foot a long way; now and then crossing some arms of the sea in boats. At length they arrived at Birca, from the ruins of which Stockholm took its rise, though built at some distance from it. The king of Sweden received them favourably, and his council unanimously agreed that they should remain in the country, and preach the gospel, which they did with very considerable success.

, abbot of Lobies, an old Benedictine motiastery upon the Sambre, in the diocese of Cambray, lived in the ninth century. Pithseus, Antonius, Augustinus, Valerius, Andreas, and others, being too implicit in following Trithemius, have made this Ansegisus and another of that name, archbishop of Sens, the same persons. Our Ansegisus of Lobies was in great esteem with the bishops and princes of his time, and his learning and conduct deserved it. In the year 827, he made a collection of the capitularies of Charlemagne, and Lewis his son, entitled “Capitula seu Edita Caroli Magni & Ludovici pii Imperatorum.” We have several editions of this work one printed in 1588, by Pithaeus, with additions, and notes of his own upon it: it was afterwards printed at Mentz in 1602, and by Sirmundus at Paris in 164-0, to which he added a collection of the capitularies of Charles the Bald. Lastly, in 1676, Baluzius furnished a new edition of all these ancient capitularies, with remarks upon them, two volumes in folio. But Baluzius’s impression differs considerably from those before him; for, besides a great many different readings, there are the 39th, 52d, 67th, 68th, 74th, and 79th chapters of the first book wanting: there are likewise added, the 89th and 90th chapters of the third book; and also the 76th and 77th chapters of the fourth book, which yet, as Le Cointe observes, are the same with the 29th and 24th chapters. There are three appendixes annexed to the four books in the Capitularies, the first of which, in the old editions, consists of 33 chapters, but in the Baluzian there are 35. The second, in the old editions, has 36 chapters, but the Baluzian impression reaches to 38. The third appendix contains 10 chapters; with these appendixes, several constitutions of the emperors Lotharius and Charles the Bald are mixed. He died in the year 834.

, a very learned and useful Spanish biographer, was born at Seville in 1617. His father was made president of the admiralty established in that city by Philip IV. He received his early education among the dorainicans, and studied philosophy and divinity afterwards at Salamanca, under the ablest masters, particularly Francis Ramos del Manzano, who was afterwards preceptor to the king and preceptor to Charles II. He then returned to Seville, and entirely devoted to study, passed the whole of his time in the Benedictine convent, where Benedict de la Serra, the abbot, had collected a very copious library, and where Antonio first planned and composed his valuable “Bibliotheca Hispana.” When considerably advanced in this work, he brought it with him to Rome in 1659, at which time he was sent thither by Philip IV. in the character of agent-general of affairs concerning the crown of Spain, the two Sicilies, and the inquisition, and he continued in this office twenty-two years, at the end of which Charles II. recalled him to Madrid, and made him a member of his council. Notwithstanding these profitable employments, he was so charitable to the poor, as frequently to be in want himself, but was considerably relieved by a canonry of Seville, which pope Alexander VII. bestowed upon him, on the recommendation of the cardinal of Aragon. He died at Madrid in 1684, and was then a ktiight of the order of St. James. It is said that among his papers was found a commission appointing him one of the supreme council of justice, but it is certain that he never filled that office. He left no property, but a library of thirty thousand volumes. His publications were, 1. “De exilio, sive de exilii poena antiqua et nova, exsulumque conditione et juribus, libri tres,” Antwerp, 1659, fol. The editor of the Biog. Universell-e speaks of a previous edition, 1641; but this we do not find in the author’s account in his “Bibl. Hispana.” This is said to have been written when he was only twenty-three years old. 2. “Bibliotheca Hispana Nova,” Rome, 1672, 2 vols. fol. and lately reprinted by Francis Perez Bayer, of Valeutia, at Madrid, 1783, 2 vols. fol. In this work, Antonio, according to the custom of the time, arranges his authors in the alphabetical order of their Christian names, a fault not conveniently remedied by his indexes, which are intended to divide his authors into classes. The collection is unquestionably creditable to Spanish learning and industry, b-ut many of the persons here recorded have long been in the land of oblivion, and among these we may surely reckon the greater part of an hundred and sixty authors who have written on the immaculate conception. 3. “Bibliotheca Hispana vetus, complectens scriptores qui ab Octaviani Augusti imperio usque ad annum M. floruerunt,” Rome, 1696, 2 vols. fol. The M. in this title should be M. D. Antonio having left no means of defraying the expence of this publication, cardinal d'Aguirre took the whole upon himself, and employed Emmanuel Mars, a learned Valentian, as editor. The authors are here ranged in chronological order, with proper indexes, &c. The “Bibliotheca Nova,” although published first, is in fact a sequel to this last, which has also been reprinted by Bayer at Madrid, 1788. Baillet prefers Antonio’s work to every thing of the kind, and Morhof considers it as a model. David Clement prefers it to all the Bibliothecas except that of Quetif and Echarcl. He thinks him blameable, however, for not giving the titles of books in their proper language, an objection to which other biographers, and particularly the French, until lately, have been justly liable. One other publication of Antonio was printed for the first time so lately as 1742, at Valentia, under the titla of “Censura de historias fabulas, obra postuma,” fol. ornamented with plates, and published by D. Gregoire Mayans y Siscar. We know not whether this be part of a work in which Antonio tells us he was long engaged, and which was to be called “Trophaeum historico-ecclesiasticum Deo veritatis erectum ex manubiis pseudo-historicorum, qui Flavii Lucii Dextri, M. Maximi, Helecoe, Braulionis, Luitprandi, et Juliani nomine circumferuntur; hoc est, Vindiciae verae atque iludum notae Hispanarum rerum historise, Germanarum nostros gentislaudum non ex GermanoFuldensibus chronicis emendicatarum in libertatem et puritatem plena assertio,” a work which Bayle thinks would have been of dangerous consequence, as people seldom like to be set right as to the fabulous stories which have long flattered their vanity.

, celebrated for his musical skill, lived in the eleventh century. He was a native of Arezzo, a city of Tuscany; and having been taught the practice of music in his youth, and probably retained as a chorister in the service of the Benedictine monastery founded in that city, he became a monk professed, and a brother of the order of St. Benedict.

, a Benedictine monk, and voluminous historian of his order, was born at Ancona, and after being admitted into the church became an abbé. He died in the monastery of Foligno, May 4, 1737. His works are, 1. “Bibliotheca Benedictino-Casinensis,” an account of the lives and writings of the members of the congregation of Mont-Cassin, 2 parts, fol. 1731, 1732. 2. “Catalog! tres monachorum, episcoporum reformatorum, et virorum sanctitate illustrium e congregatione Casinensi,” Assise, 1733, fol. The third of these catalogues was printed partly at Assise, and the rest at Rome, under the title “Continuatio catalogi, &c.” 1734. 3. “Additiones et correctiones bibliothecsE Benedicto-Casinensis,” Foligno, 1735, fol. Besides these he published, in Italian, a life of St. Margaret Corradi, in Italian, 1726, 12mo, said to be much inferior to what he wrote afterwards. He, also left in manuscript, as the conclusion of his labours in honour of the Benedictines, “Bibliotheca synoptica ordinis sancti Benedicti.”

, an Augustin monk, was torn at St. Philip of Agire, or Argire, an ancient town of Sicily, and became professor of church history in the university of Catania, and in 1758 provincial of his order in Sicily and Malta. He wrote, 1. a Bilancia della Verita,“Palermo, 1738, 4to. This was an answer to a book entitled” Paulus apostolus in Mari, quod hunc Venetus sinus dicifcur, naufragus," by P. Ignatius Giorgi, a Benedictine of Hagusa. The dispute respected the name of the island on which St. Paul was shipwrecked, called in Latin Melita. Giorgi was of opinion that it was an island in Dalmatia, now called Melada, while Attardi maintained the more common opinion that it was the well known island of Malta.

, a French Benedictine of the congregation of St. Vannes, was born at Deyvillier, near Epinal, in 1736, and became prior of the house of Commercy, in which he continued to live after the suppression of the monastic orders. He was a man in very general esteem for abilities and amiable manners, both among his fellow ecclesiastics, and with the public at large. He is likewise praised for his humility, of which the following instance is given. Having written his “Questions Philosophiques sur la religion naturelle,” he solicited permission from the keeper of the seals to publish it, without having first consulted the superiors of his order, and for this he was condemned to dine in the refectory, upon bread and water, and on his knees, to which he submitted. Among other literary works, he was employed to continue “L'Histoire des auteurs sacres et ecclesiastiques,” begun by Flavigny, which was submitted to the revisal and highly approved by the congregation of St. Maur; but as that ancient order, once so celebrated in the republic of letters, began to be remiss in their exertions, this work never appeared. In 1775, he published his “Ami philosophique,” a performance well received by the public, and which procured him a very flattering letter from prince Charles of Lorraine. D'Alembert also bestowed high praises on it, a circumstance we should have thought rather suspicious, if we were not assured that Aubry, in all his writings, was a zealous defender of religion. Besides this and the “Questions philosophiques” above mentioned, he published 1. “Theorie de Tame des betes et de celle qu'on attribue a la matiere organisee.” 2. “Questions metaphysiques sur l'existence et la nature de Dieu.” 3. “Questions aux philosophes du jour.” 4. “L'Anti Condillac, ou harangues aux ideologues modernes.” 5. “La nouvelle theorie des etres.” 6. “Aubade, ou lettres apologetiques, &c.” Aubry died about the end of the year 1809.

, commonly known by the name of Richard de Bury, was born at St. Edmundsbury, in Suffolk, in 1281. His father, sir Richard Aungervyle, knt. dying when he was young, his uncle John de Willowby, a priest, took particular care of his education and when he was fit sent him to Oxford, where he studied philosophy and divinity, and distinguished himself by his learning, and regular and exemplary life. When he had finished his studies there, he became a Benedictine monk at Durham. Soon after he was made tutor to prince Edward, afterwards king Edward III. Being treasurer of Guienne in 1325, he supplied queen Isobel, when she was plotting against her husband king Edward II. with a large sum of money out of that exchequer, for which being questioned by the king’s party, be narrowly escaped to Paris, where he was forced to hide himself seven days in the tower of a church. When king Edward III. came to the crown, he loaded his tutor Aungervyle with honours and preferments, making him, first, his cofferer, then treasurer of the wardrobe, archdeacon of Northampton, prebendary of Lincoln, Sarum, and Lichfield, and afterwards keeper of the privy seal. This last place he enjoyed five years, and was in that time sent twice ambassador to the pope. In 1333 he was promoted to the deanery of Wells, and before the end of the same year, being chosen bishop of Durham, he was consecrated about the end of December, in the abbey of the black canons of Chertsey in Surrey. He was soon afterwards enthroned at Durham, on which occasion he made a grand festival, and entertained in the hall of his palace at Durham, the king and queen of England, the queen-dowager of England, the king of Scotland, the two archbishops, and five bishops, seven earls with their ladies, all the nobility north of Trent, with a Tast concourse of knights, esquires, and other persons of distinction. The next year he was appointed high-chancellor, and in 1336, treasurer of England. In 1338 he was twice sent with other commissioners to treat -of a peace with the king of France, though to no purpose.

, an English Benedictine monk, and ecclesiastical historian and antiquary, the son of William Baker, gent, and nephew to Dr. David Lewes, judge of the admiralty, was born at Abergavenny, Dec. 9, 1575, and first educated at Christ’s hospital, London, whence he went to Oxford, in 1590, and became a commoner of Broadgate’s hall (now Pembroke college), which he left without a degree, and joined his brother Richard, a barrister of the middle temple, where he studied law, and in addition to the loose courses he followed, when at Oxford, now became a professed infidel. After the death of his brother, his father sent for him, and he was made recorder of Abergavenny, and practised with considerable success. While here, a miraculous escape from drowning recalled him to his senses as to religion, but probably having no proper advice at hand, he fell upon a course of Roman catholic writings, and was so captivated with them that he joined a small congregation of Benedictines then in London, and went with one of them to Italy, where, in 1605, he took the habit, and changed his name to Augustin Baker. A fit of sickness rendering it necessary to try his native air he returned to England, and finding his father oa his death-bed, reconciled him to the Catholic faith. From this time he appears to have resided in London and different places in the country, professing his religion as openly as could be done with safety. Some years before his death he spent at Canjbray, as spiritual director ‘of the English Benedictine nuns there, and employed his time in making collections for an English ecclesiastical historj’, in which, when at home, we are told, he was assisted by Camden, Cotton, Spelman, Selden, and bishop Godwin, to all of whom, Wood says, “he was most familiarly known,” but not, we presume, so sufficiently as this biographer supposes. Wood, indeed, tells us, that when at the house of gentlemen, he passed for a lawyer, a character which he supported in conversation by the knowledge he had acquired in the Temple. He died in Gray’s Inn lane Aug. 9, 1641, and was buried in St. Andrew’s church. He wrote a great many religious treatises, but none were published. They amounted to nine large folios in manuscript, and were long preserved in the English nunnery at Cambray. His six volumes of ecclesiastical history were lost, but out of them were taken father Reyner’s “Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia,” and a good deal of Cressy’s “Church History.” Wood has given a prolix account of this man, which was probably one of those articles in his Athenee that brought upon him the suspicion of being himself attached to popery. It is certainly written with all the abject submission of credulity.

, or de Bedesale, or Belesale, the tenth bishop of Ely, and founder of St. Peter’s college, or Peter-house, in Cambridge, was in all probability born at Balsham, in Cambridgeshire, from whence he took his surname, about the beginning of the thirteenth century. He was at first a monk, and afterwards sub-prior of the Benedictine monastery at Ely. In 1247, November 13, he was chosen, by his convent, bishop of Ely, in the room of William de Kilkenny, deceased, but king Henry III. who had recommended his chancellor, Henry de Wengham, being angry at the disobedience of the monks, refused to confirm the election, and wasted the manors and estates belonging to the bishoprick. He endeavoured at last to persuade the monks to proceed to a new election aU ledging, that it was not fit so strong a place as Ely should be intrusted with a man that had scarcely ever been out of his cloister, and who was utterly unacquainted with political affairs. Balsham, finding he was not likely to succeed at home, went to Rome, in order to be confirmed by the pope who then was allowed to dispose of all ec^ clesiastical preferments. In the mean time, Boniface, archbishop of Canterbury, used his interest at Rome to obstruct Balsham’s confirmation, though he could alledge jiothing against him and recommended Adam de Maris, a learned Minorite friar, to the bishopric but all his endeavours proved unsuccessful. As to Wengham, having been recommended by the king without his own desire and knowledge, he declined the honour, alledging that the two others, (Balsham and Maris), were more worthy of it than himself. This matter remained in suspense for above ten years, and was at length determined in favour of Balsham for Wengham being promoted to the bishopric of London, upon Folk de Basset’s decease, the pope confirmed Balsham’s election on the 10th of March, 1257, and he was, consecrated the 14th of October following. Being thus fived in his see, he applied himself to works of charity, and particularly in the year 1257, or 1259, according ta some, put in execution what he had designed, if not begun, before, the foundation of St. Peter’s college, the first college in the university of Cambridge. He built it without Trumpingtun gate, near the church of St. Peter, (since demolished), from whence it took its name and on the place where stood Jesus hostel, or de poenitentia Jcsu Christ i, and St. John’s hospital., which he purchased, and united. At first, he only provided lodgings for the scholars, who were before obliged to hire chambers of the townsmen at an extravagant rate and they, and the secular brethren of St. John the Baptist, lived together till the year 1280. Then the monks making over to him their right to the hospital above-mentioned, he endowed his college on the 30th of March of the same year, with maintenance for one master, fourteen fellows, two bible-clerks, and eight poor scholars, whose number might be increased or diminished, according to the improvement or abatement of their revenues. And he appointed his successors, the bishops of Ely, to be honorary patrons and visitors of that college. The revenues of it have since been augmented by several benefactors. The munificent founder had not the satisfaction to see all things finished before his decease. He died at Dodington, June 16, 1286, and was buried in the cathedral church of Ely, before the high altar.

, a celebrated antiquary, was born at Ragusa, a small republic situated in Dalmatia, on the coast of the Adriatic, and entered when young into the Benedictine order, in Meleda or Melita, an island not far from Ragusa. After taking the vows at Naples, he travelled over part of Italy, and intended to have settled at Florence, a place favourable for literary pursuits. During this journey his musical Skill, particularly on the organ, procured him a favourable reception at the different convents in his way, and enabled him to travel agreeably and without expense. On his arrival at Florence, although still ft very young man, he was found so able a linguist, that he was appointed to teach the learned languages in various religious houses of his order. The celebrated Montfaucon happening to visit Florence in 1700, he employed Banduri to examine the manuscripts which he wished to consult for a new edition of the works of St. Chrysostom, and conceived such an opinion of him as to recommend him to Cosmo II. grand duke of Tuscany, who then had a design of restoring the fame of the university of Pisa. But representing, at the same time, that it would be advantageous for so young a man to pass some years at Paris, in the abbey of St. Germain, for farther improvement, the grand duke consented, and Banduri arrived at Paris about the end of 1702, and was lodged in the abbey, where his patron Cosmo supplied him with every thing necessary and useful. His first studies here, agreeably to his original design, were turned to divinity, and ecclesiastial history, and in May 1705, he published the prospectus of an edition of the works of Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, with prefaces, dissertations, and notes. This he intended to be followed by an edition of Thfodoriis of IVIopsuesta’s commentary on the minor prophets, and other ancient commentators. Happcning, however, in the course of his researches, to meet with several documents relative to the antiquities of Constantinople, he was advised to publish them, along with ethers already published and this gave rise to his most celebrated work, “Imperium Orientale, sive Antiquitatis Constantinopolitanae,” &c. Paris, 1711, 2 vols. folio. This work, which forms a valuable, and indeed necessary, supplement to Du Gauge’s works on the same subject, is divided into four parts, and illustrated with commentaries, geographical and topographical tables, medals, &c. Casiniir Oudin made a feeble attack on the merit of this work, but without acquiring any credit. In preparing this work Banduri discovered Du Gangers defects in the medallic history, and therefore began to collect all the medals of the Roman emperors to the last Palaeologus, or the taking of Constantinople, which he published at Paris, under the title “Numismata Imperatorum Romanorum, cum Bibliotheca nummaria, sive auctorum qui de re nummaria scripserunt,” 2 vols. folio, 1718, reprinted by John Albert Fabricius at Hamburgh in 1719, 4to. In both these works Banduri was assisted by the abbe Lama, of Naples, and yet more by M. de la Barre, who was his associate in the academy of the belles lettres. In 1715 he was elected an honorary academician, and was very assiduous in his attendance on that learned body. In 1723 he announced his new edition of Nicephorus and Theodorus of Mopsuesta, as being ready for publication in 4 vols. folio, but they never appeared. In 1724 he was appointed librarian to the duke of Orleans, with apartments in the palace, and there he died of an attack of the gout, Jan. 14, 1743, aged about seventy-two or seventy-three years. His eloge, by M.Freret, is inserted in the Memoirs of the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres, vol. XVI.

, a learned father of the Romish church, and a monk of the Benedictine order, was born at Martres in the diocese of Rieux in Gascony, and entered into the order of the preaching friars at Toulouse in 1622. He taught divinity several years with applause in the convent of the same city, and was made prior there; as he was likewise at Avignon, and in the general novitiate of the suburb of St. Germain at Paris. He was definitor for his province in the general chapter held in 1656, in which he presided at the theses dedicated to pope Alexander VII. which gained him the esteem of all the city and his whole order. He was present at the assembly, in which the pope ordered the definitors and fathers of the chapter to be told, from him, that he was extremely grieved to see the Christian morality sunk into such a deplorable relaxation, as some of the new casuists had reduced it to, and that he exhorted them to compose another system of it, which should be conformable to the doctrine of St. Thomas. This was what engaged father Baron to undertake the works which he wrote upon that subject. He was again chosen provincial; and afterwards sent by the father general as commissary to Portugal, upon important affairs, which he managed with such success, that the queen, the court, and all the monks gave testimony of his merit by a public act. He returned to Paris to the general novitiate, and died there, Jan. 21, 1674, aged seventy years. Besides several Latin poems, which he left as instances of his capacity in polite literature, he published the following works: 1. “Theologia Moralis,” Paris, 1665, in 5 vols. 8vo, and again in 1667. 2. “Libri Apologetici contra Theophilum Rainaudum,” Paris, 1666, in 2 vols. 8vo. 3. “Mens sancti Augustini & Thorn ae de Gratia & Libertate,” 1666, 8vo. 4. “Ethica Christiana,” Paris, 1666, 2 vols. 8vo. 5. “Responsio ad Librum Cardense,” ibid, in 8vo. 6. “L'Heresie Convaincue,” Paris, 1668, 12mo. 7. “Panegyriques des Saints,” ibid. 1660, '4to. The first two volumes of his Moral Theology were prohibited. It relates to the principal points in dispute between the Dominicans and Jesuits.

, a celebrated French geographer, was born at Paris the 28th of July, 1633. His father, Stephen Baudrand, was first deputy of the procurator-general of the court of aids, treasurer of France for Montauban, and master of the requests of his royal highness Gaston of France, and his mother’s name was Frances Caule. He began his studies in the year 1640. His inclination for geography was first noticed when he studied at the Jesuits college of Clermont under father Briet, who was famous for his geography, which was then printing, the proof sheets of which were corrected by our author. After he had finished his course of philosophy at the college of Lisieux under Mr. Desperier, cardinal Antonio Barberini took him as his secretary at Rome, and he was present with his eminence at the conclave, in which pope Alexander VII. was elected; and afterwards at thaHn which Clement IX. was chosen pope. Upon his return to France, he applied himself to the revisal of Ferrarius’s Geographical Dictionary, which he enlarged by one half, and published at Paris, 1671, fol. In the same year he attended the marquis of Dangeau, who was employed by the king in the management of his affairs in Germany, and also went to England with the duchess of York, who was afterwards queen of England. His travels were of great advantage to linn in furnishing him with a variety of observations in geography. He returned to France in 1677, and composed his geographical dictionary in Latin. In 1691 he attended the cardinal of Camus, who was bishop of Grenoble, to Rome, and went with him into the conclave on the 27th of March, where he continued three months ancha half, till the election of pope Innocent XII. on July 12th, the same year. Upon his return to Paris he applied himself to the completing of his French geographical dictionary, but he was prevented from publishing it by his death, which happened at Paris the 29th of May 1700. He had been prior of Rouvres and Neuf-Marche. He left all his books and papers to the Benedictine monks of the abbey of St. Germain des Prez.

, otherwise named Bever, and in Latin Fiber, Fiberius, Castor, and Castorius, was a Benedictine monk in Westminster-abbey, and nourished about the beginning of the fourteenth century. He was a man of quick parts, and of great diligence and ingenuity: and applied himself particularly to the study of the history and antiquities of England. Among other things, he wrote a “Chronicle of the British and English Affairs,” from the coming in of Brute to his own time, now among the Cottonian Mss. Hearne issued proposals for publishing it in 1735, which his death prevented. He also wrote a book “De Rebus ccenobii Westmonasteriensis,” of Westminsterabbey, and the several transactions relating thereto. Leland commends him, as an historian of good credit; and he is also cited with respect by Stowe in his Survey of London and Westminster. Bale says he does not give a slight or superficial account, but a full and judicious relation, of things; and takes proper notice of the virtues and vices of the persons mentioned in his history.

On the other hand, Mr. Berington, in his “History of the reign of Henry If.” has attempted a vindication of Becket, in which he differs considerably from lord Lyttelton and other protestant historians, but for this w must refer to the book itself. Few men have had more biographers, if reliance could be placed on them, than Becket, but unfortunately the greater part of them were his panegyrists, and not his historians, and too much under the influence of the monkish principles of their days, to deserve much credit. The following list, however, of his biographers may afford some information to the curious inquirer, taken from Leland, Bale, Pits, and others. 1. Herbert Bosenham, or Bosscham, or de Hoscham, who was this archbishop’s secretary, and also present at the slaughter of him. 2. Edward, a monk, of Canterbury, the martyr’s most intimate friend. 3. Johannes Sarisburiensis, who accompanied Becket in his exile, but never countenanced his behaviour towards the king, being as sharp a writer against the encroachments of the papal see, as any man of his time. 4. Bartholomseus Iscanus, or Exonensis, bisiiop of Exeter, where he died in 118k 5. E. a monk of Eveshatn, who dedicated his book, or wrote it by way of epistle, to Henry, abbot of Croyland. 6. William Stephens, or Fitz-Stephen, a monk of Canterbury, and, for at reason, usually called Gulielmus Cantuariensis. He said to have written three several treatises of the life, martyrdom, and miracles of St. Thomas Becket; which are now in the Cotton library: But that, which there carries his name, seems to have been penned by Johannes Carnotensis, who is the same person with Sarisburiensis above mentioned, since, in the Quadripartite History, what we have from him is often to be found, in the same words, in the life there ascribed to Fitz-Stephen. 7. Benedictus Petroburgensis, abbot of Peterborough, who died in 1200. 8. Alanus Teukesburiensis, abbot of Tewkesbury, who died about the same time. 9. Roger, a monk of Croyland, who lived about 1214. It is observed, that St. Thomas’s miracles were become so numerous in this writer’s time, that he had matter for seven large volumes, in composing of which he spent no less than fifteen years. 10. Stephen Langton, a famous successor of Becket’s in the see of Canterbury, whose work on this subject is said be in the library of Bene't college. 11. Alexander de Hales, so called from the monastery of Hales in Gloucestershire, where he was educated, one of the most eminent schoolmen of his age, and master to Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, &c. 12. John Grandison, or Graunston, who died in 1369. 13. Quadrilogus, or the author of a book, entitled “De vita et processu S.Thomae Cantuariensiset Martyris super Libertate Ecclesiastica.” It is collected out of four historians, who were contemporary and conversant with Becket, viz. Herbert de Hoscham, Johannes Carnotensis, Gulielmus Canterburiensis, and Alanus Teukesburiensis, who are introduced as so many relaters of facts interchangeably. This book was first printed at Paris in 1495, and is often quoted by our historians, in the reign of Henry II. by the name of Quadripartita Historia. 14. Thomas Stapleton, the translator of Bede, in whose book De tribus Thomis, or Of the three Thomas’s, our saint makes as considerable a figure as either Thomas the Apostle, or Thomas Aquinas. 15. Laurence Vade, or Wade, a Benedictine monk of Canterbury, who lived and died we know not when, or where; unless perhaps he be the same person with 16. An anonymous writer of Becket’s life, who appears to have been a monk of that church, and whose book is said to be in the library at Lambeth. 17. Richard James, nephew of Dr. Thomas James, some time keeper of the Bodleian library; a very industrious and eminent antiquary, who endeavoured to overthrow the great design of all the above-mentioned authors, in his “Decanonizatio Thomse Cantuariensis et suorum,” which, with other manuscript pieces by the same hand, is in the public library at Oxford. These are the principal writers of our archbishop’s life besides whom, several other historians have spoken largely of him as John Bromton, Matthew Paris, Gervase, &c.

Mr. Warton justly observes, that Beda’s knowledge, if we consider his age, was extensive and profound: and it is amazing, in so rude a period, and during a life of no considerable length, he should have made so successful a progress, and such rapid improvements, in scientifical and philological studies, and have composed so many elaborate treatises on different subjects. It is diverting to see the French critics censuring Be da for credulity: they might as well have accused him of superstition. There is much perspicuity and facility in his Latin style: but it is void of elegance, and often of purity; it shews with what grace and propriety he would have written, had his mind been formed on better models. Whoever looks for digestion of materials, disposition of parts, and accuracy of narration, in this writer’s historical works, expects what could not exist at that time. He has recorded but few civil transactions: but, besides that his history professedly considers ecclesiastical affairs, we should remember, that the building of a church, the preferment of an abbot, the canoniza T tion of a martyr, and the importation into England of the shin-bone of an apostle, were necessarily matters qf m,uch more importance in Bede’s conceptions than victories or revolutions. He is fond of minute description; but particularities are the fault and often the merit of early historians. The first catalogue of Beda’s works, as vye liare before observed, we have from himself, at the end of his Ecclesiastical history, which contains all he had written before the year 731. This we find copied by Leland, who also mentions some other pieces he had met with of Beda’s, and points out likewise several that passed under his name, though in his judgment spurious. John Bale, in the first edition of his book, which he finished in 1548, mentions ninety-six treatises written by Beda; and in his last edition he swells these* to one hundred and forty-five tracts; and declares at the close of both his catalogues, that there were numberless pieces of our author’s besides, which he had not seen. Pits, according to his usual custom, has much enlarged even this catalogue; though, to do him justice, he appears to have taken great pains in drawing up this article, and mentions the libraries in which many of these treatises were to be found. The catalogues given by Trithemius, Dempster, and others, are much inferior to these. Several of Beda’s books were printed very early, and, for the most part, very incorrectly; but the first general coU lection of his works appeared at Paris in 1544, in three volumes in folio. They were printed again in 1554, at the same place, in eight volumes. They were published in the same size and number of volumes, at Basil, in 1563, reprinted at Cologne in 1612, and lastly at the same place in 1688. A very clear and distinct account of the contents of these volumes, the reader may find in the very learned and useful collection of Casimir Otidin. But the most exact and satisfactory detail of Beda’s life and writings, we owe to that accurate, judicious, and candid Benedictine, John Mabillon. Neither has any critic exerted his skill more effectually than he, though largely, and with copious extracts interspersed. But, perhaps, the easiest, plainest, and most concise representation of Beda’s writings, occurs in the learned Dr. Cave’s “Hist. Literaria,” which has been followed by the editors of the Biog. Britannica.

, a famous abbot in the seventh century, was born of a noble family among the English Saxons, and flourished under Oswi and Egfrid kings of Northumberland. In the twenty-fifth year of his age, he abandoned all temporal views and possessions, to devote himself wholly to religion, and for this purpose travelled to Rome in the year 653, where he acquired a knowledge of ecclesiastical discipline, which, upon his return home, he laboured to establish in Britain. In the year 665, he took a second journey to Rome; and after some months stay in that city, he received the tonsure in. the monastery of Lerins, where he continued about two years in a strict observance of the monastic discipline. He was sent back by pope Vitalian, and upon his return, took upon himself the government of the monastery of Canterbury, to which he had been elected in his absence. Two years after, he resigned the abbey to Adrian, an abbot, and went a third time to Rome, and returned with a very large collection of the most valuable books. Then he went to the court of Egfrid, king of Northumberland, who had succeeded Oswi. That prince, with whom he was highly in favour, gave him a tract of land on the east side of the mouth of the river Were; where he built a large monastery, called, from its situation, Weremouth; in which, it is said, he placed three hundred Benedictine monks. The church of this convent was built of stone after the Roman architecture, and the windows glazed by artificers brought from France, in the year of Christ 674, and the fourth of king Egfrid; and both the monastery and the church were dedicated to St. Peter. In the year 678, Benedict took a fourth journey to Rome, and was kindly received by pope Agatho. From this expedition he returned loaded with books, relics of the apostles and martyrs, images, and pictures, when, with the pope’s consent, he brought over with him John, arch-chanter of St. Peter’s, and abbot of St. Martin’s, who introduced the Roman manner of singing mass. In the year 682 kingEgfrid gave him another piece of ground, on the banks of the Tyne, four miles from Newcastle where he built another monastery called Girwy or Jarrow, dedicated to St. Paul, and placed therein seventeen monks under an abbot named Ceolfrid. About the same time he appointed a Presbyter named Easterwinus to be a joint abbot with himself of the monastery of Weremouth soou after which, he took his fifth and last journey to Rome, and, as before, came back enriched with a farther supply of ecclesiastical books and pictures. He had not been long at home before he was seized with the palsy, which put an end to his life on the 12th of January, 690. His behaviour during his sickness appears to have been truly Christian and exemplary. He was buried in his own monastery of Weremouth. He wrote some pieces, but Leland ascribes to him only a treatise on the Agreement of the rule of the Monastic life. Bale and Pits give this book N the title of “Concordia Regularum,” and the last-mentioned author informs us, that the design of this book was to prove, that the rules of all the holy fathers tallied exactly with that of St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictines. He wrote likewise “Exhortationes ad Monachos;” “De suo Privilegio.” And “De celebratione Festorum totius anni.” Mr. Warton, in his History of Poetry, mentions Benedict Biscop as one of the most distinguished of the Saxon ecclesiastics. The library which he added to his monastery, was stored with Greek and Latin volumes. Bede has thought it worthy to be recorded, that Ceolfrid, his successor in the government of Weremouth abbey, augmented this collection with three volumes of Pandects, and a book of cosmography, wonderfully enriched with curious workmanship, and bought at Rome. The historian Bede, who wrote the lives of four of the abbots of Weremouth and Jarrow, was one of the monks in those convents, and pronounced a homily on the death of Benedict. His body was deposited in the monastery of Thorney, in Cambridgeshire.

, or Bryckinton, or Brickington, so called from Birchington, in the isle of Thanet, where he was born, was a Benedictine monk, belonging to the church of Canterbury, into which order he entered about the year 1382. He wrote a history of the archbishops of Canterbury to the year 1368, which forms the first article in the first volume of Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, who copied it from the ms. in the Lambeth library. Other historical Mss. in the same library are attributed to him, but remain unpublished. He is supposed to have died in 1407.

, was born at Florence in 1515 of a noble family, and became a Benedictine monk in 1531. He was one of the persons appointed to correct the Decameron of Boccace, by order of the council of Trent, and performed this curious task for the edition of Florence, 1573, 8vo. But the best known of his works, and which did him the most honour, is that entitled, “Discovsi di M. Vincenzo Borghini,” printed at Florence 1584 and 1585, in 2 vols. 4to, and reprinted at the same place in 1755, with annotations. In these dissertations he treats of the origin of Florence, and of several interesting particulars of its history, of its families, of its coins, &c. Borghini died in 1680, after having refused, through humility, the archbishopric of Pisa, which was offered to him some time before his death. His only promotion was that of prior of the hospital of St. Maria degh Innocenti in Florence. Another writer of the same name [IlAFAELLO Borghini], was author of several comedies, and of a tract on painting and sculpture, in some estimation, under the title of “Riposo della Pittura, e della Scukura,” published at Florence in 1584, 8vo.

, a lady, who merits some notice as a specimen of French female piety in former days, was born Jan. 8, 1618. Her parents, who were of noble rank, and distinguished for their piety, gave her a suitable education, and from the age of five she was brought up with one of her aunts in the abbey royal of the Holy Trinity at Caen. When eleven, at her own earnest request, she was admitted to take the habit, and such was her wise conduct, that only four years after, she was appointed mistress of the novices. She was soon after chosen prioress, and then commenced her great work, the “Annee Benedictine,” or lives of the saints, the application to which, however, did not make her relax from the duties of her office. One of the consequences of her biographical labours, was a more enlarged sense of what, in her opinion, she ought to do, and to be, after the example of the Saints whose lives she was writing. She blushed, we are told, to praise and to record what she did not practise (not a common feeling among biographers), and although she knew that the kingdom of heaven was not to be gained by abstinence from certain meats, yet she firmly believed that in order to be the exact imitator of St. Benedict, she must join that privation to her other rules: and had an occasion to bring her principles to the test, when the duchess of Mecklenburgh formed the design of a new establishment at Chatillon of the female Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament, and requested her to be one of the number. Madame Bouette assented, although then sixty years old, and from the rank of prioress in the abbey of St. Trinity, condescended to the humble state of a novice in this new establishment, and afterwards preferred the lowest place in it to the rank of abbess which was afterwards offered to her. In her last days, her strength, bodily and mental, decayed: she became blind, and lame, and lost the use of speech, in which state she died March 24, 1696, leaving the following momuments of her industry: 1. “L‘ Annie Benedictine, ou, Les Vies des Saints de l’ordre de St. Benoit,” Paris, 1667, 7 vols. 4to. 2. “Eloges de plusieurs personnes illustres en piete de l'ordre de St. Benoit,” 2 vols. 4to. 3. “Vie de Fourrier de Matin court.” 4. “Exercices de la Mort.” 5. “Vies des Saintes,” 2 vols. fol. 6. “Monologue historique de la Mere de Dieu,” Paris, 1682, 4to. These works are written with some degree of elegance of style, but her lives are replete with those pious fables which amused the religious houses, and those superstitious austerities which regulated their conduct in former times.

, an eminent French historian and antiquary, was a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, and born at Amiens, Aug. 6, 1685. After finishing his course of philosophy and divinity, he studied the learned languages with great success, and his superiors observing his decided taste for literature, made him librarian of St. Germain- des-prez. He afterwards assisted the celebrated Montfaucon in some of his works, and undertook himself an edition of Josephus. When, however, he had made considerable progress in this, he understood that a man of learning in Holland was employed on a similar design, and therefore, with a liberality not very common, sent to him all the collections he had formed for the work. On the death of father Le Long, of the oratory, in 1721, Bouquet was employed in making a collection of the historians of France. Of this important work, a brief account will not be uninteresting.

The first who attempted a collection of the kind was the famous Peter Pithou. It was his intention to have published a complete body of French historians, extracted from printed books and Mss. but he died in 1596, having published only two volumes on the subject, one in 8vo, the other in 4to. These carried the history no lower than the year 1285. Nothing more was done till 1635, when Du Chesne, who is called the Father of French history, took up the subject again, and published a prospectus for a history, to be comprised in fourteen volumes fol. and end with the reign of Henry II. The first two volumes accordingly came out in 1636, but the author died whilst the two next were in the press. These, however, were published in 1641, by his sou, who added a fifth volume, ending with the life of Philippe le Bel, in 1649. The next attempts were vain, though made under the auspices of such men as Colbert, Louvois, and chancellor D'Aguesseau: the plan proposed by the first miscarried through the obstinacy of the famous Ducange (who would have the work done in his own way, or have nothing to do with it) and the modesty of Mabillon. Another was, as we have just mentioned, put a stop to by the death of Le Long, who, having pointed out the materials in his “Bibliotheque Historique de la France,” was the fittest to have made use of them. In this state of things the Benedictine congregation of St. Maur recommended Bouquet, who accordingly went to work under the inspection of a society of teamed men named by the chancellor, in whose presence the plan of the work, and the materials fit to be made use of, were discussed. Bouquet was so assiduous in his labour, that about the end of the year 1729 he was ready with two volumes; but, owing to his removal to the abbey of St. John de Laon, they were not published until 1738, when the chancellor D'Aguesseau called him to Paris, and he then proceeded so rapidly, that the eighth was published in 1752. He had begun the ninth, in which he hoped to have completed what regarded the second race of the French kings; but, in 1754, was seized with a violent disorder, which proved fatal in tour days, April 6. He was a man of extensive learning, connected with all the learned men and learned societies of his time, and beloved for his personal virtues. For many years the work was continued by the congregation of St. Maur, but without the name of any editor. Seven more volumes have appeared since Bouquet’s death, and the sixteenth is now in the press, and almost ready for publication.

, was born at the village of Beaumains near Falaise, in the diocese of Seez, in 1724. He was educated at the grammar-school at Caen, whence he was removed to that university, and pursued his studies with great diligence and success till 1745, when he became a Benedictine monk of the abbey of St. Martin de Seez, then en regie, that is, under the direction of a conventual abbot. Some time after this, Dom Bourget was appointed prior claustral of the said abbey, and continued six years in that office, when he was nominated prior of Tiron en Perche; whence being translated to the abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, in the capacity of sub-prior, he managed the temporalities of that religious house during two years, as he did their spiritualities for one year longer; after which, according to the custom of the house, he resigned his office. His superiors, sensible of his merit and learning, removed him thence to the abbey of Bee, where he resided till 1764. He was elected an honorary member of the society of antiquaries of London, Jan. 10, 1765; in which year he returned to the abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, where he continued to the time of his death. These honourable offices, to which he was promoted on account of his great abilities, enabled him not only to pursue his favourite study of the history and antiquities of some of the principal Benedictine abbie.s in Normandy, but likewise gave him access to all their charters, deeds, register-books, &c. &c. These he examined with great care, and left behind him in ms. large and accurate accounts of the abbies of St. Peter de Jumieges, St. Stephen, and the Holy Trinity at Caen (founded by William the Conqueror and his queen Matilda), and a very particular history of the abbey of Bee. These were all written in French. The History of the royal abbey of Bee (which he presented to Dr. Ducarel in 1764) is only an abstract of his larger work. This ancient abbey, (which has produced several archbishops of Canterbury and other illustrious prelates of this kingdom) is frequently mentioned by our old historians. The death of this worthy Benedictine (which happened on new-year’s day, 1776) was occasioned by his unfortunate neglect of a hurt he got in his leg by falling down two or three steps in going from the hall to the cloister of the abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, being deceived by the ambiguous feeble light of a glimmering and dying lamp that was placed in that passage. He lived universally esteemed, and died sincerely regretted by all those who were acquainted with him and was buried in the church of the said abbey, Jan. 3, 1776.

, born at Serrieres in the Maconnois in 1708, quitted his country in order to pursue his studies at Geneva, from whence he went to the Hague, where he had some relations, and there he became a Calvinist. A dispute with some divines obliging him to leave Holland, he retired into Germany, from whence he returned to France. He there recanted, and died some time after at Dijon, in 1738, being only thirty years old. He published 1. “Critique desinteressee des journaux litteraires,” 1730, 3 vols. 12mo. 2. “History of the Popes,” from St. Peter to Benedict XIII. inclusive, 1732, 5 vols. 4to. 3. “Mernoires historiques, critiques, et litteraires,” 2 vols. 12mo, in which are many anecdotes of the characters and works of the learned men he had been acquainted with in the different countries he had visited. The first title of this work, was: “Reflexions serieuses et badines sur les Swisses, les Hollandois, et les Allemans, &c.” which he thought proper to change. 4. “Reflexions en forme de lettres adressees au prochain synod qui doit s’assembler a la Haye, sur l'affaire de M. Saurin, et sur celle de M. Maty,” Hague, 1730, 12mo. This alludes to a dispute with Saurin and Maty, which latter had been deposed from his ministry for his opinions on the Trinity. Bruys concealed his name in this work under the letters M. F. B. D. S. E. M. P. D. G. (i. e. Francois Bruys, de Serrieres en Magonnois, professeur de Grammaire.) 5. Tacite avec des notes historiques et politiques, pour servir de continuation a ce que M. Amelot de Houssai avoit traduit de cetauteur,“Hague, 1730, 6 vols. 12mo. 6.” Le postilion, ouvrage historique, critique, politique, &c." 1733—6, 4 vols. 12mo. His history of the popes was said to have been the production of a Benedictine of St. Maur, and the plan and some of the chapters having fallen into the hands of Bruys, he prepared it for the press in the shape we now find it.

, a learned Benedictine of the college of St. Vanncs, was born at Mesnil-la-Horgue, near Commercy, Feb. 26, 1672, and was first educated in the priory of Breuii. In 1687 he went to study at the university of Pont-a-Mousson, where he was taught a course of rhetoric. On leaving this class, he entered among the Benedictines in the abbey of St. Mansuy, in the fauxbourg of Toul, Oct. 17, 1688, and mad,e profession in the same place Oct. 23, 1689. He began his philosophical course in the abbey of fcfe. Evre, and completed that and his theological studies in the abbey of St. Munster. At his leisure hours he studied the Hebrew language with great attention and success, and likewise improved his knowledge of the Greek. In 1696 he was sent with some of his companions to the abbey of Moyenmoutier, where they studied the Holy Scriptures under P. D. Hyacinthe Alliot. Two years aftef, in 1698, Calmet was appointed to teach philosophy and theology to the young religious of that monastery, an employment which he filled until 1704, when he was sent, with the rank of sub-prior, to the abbey of Munster. There he was at the head of an academy of eight or ten religious, with whom he pursued his biblical studies, and having, while at Moyenmoutier written commentaries and dissertations, on various parts of the Bible, he here retouched and improved these, although without any other design, at this time, than his own instruction. During a visit, however, at Paris, in 1706, he was advised by the abbe Duguet, to whom he had been recommended by Mabillon, to publish his commentaries in French, and the first volume accordingly appeared in 1707. In 1715 he became prior of Lay, and in 1718 the chapter-general appointed bim abb 6 of St. Leopold, of Nancy, and the year following he was made visitor of the congregation. In 1728 he was chosen abbe* of Senones, on which occasion he resigned his priory of Lay. When pope Benedict XIII. confirmed his election, the cardinals proposed to his holiness that Calmet should also have the title of bishop in partibus infiddium, with power to exercise the episcopal functions in those parts of the province which are exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary; but this Calmet refused, and wrote on the subject to Rome. The pope in Sept. 1729, addressed a brief to him, accepting of his excuses, and some time after sent him a present of his works, in 3 vols. fol. Calmet took possession of the abbey of Senones, January 3, 1729, and continued his studies, and increased the library and museum belonging to the abbey with several valuable purchases, particularly of the medals of the deceased M. de Corberon, secretary of slate, and of the natural curiosities of M, Voile. Here be died Oct. 25, 1757, respected by all ranks, Roman catholics and Protestants, for his learning and candour, and by his more particular friends and those of his own order, for his amiable temper and personal virtues. His learning, indeed, was most extensive, as the greater part of his long life was devoted to study, but amidst such vast accumulation of materials, we are not surprized that he was sometimes deficient in selection, and appears rather as a collector of facts, than as an original thinker. His principal works are, 1. “Commentaire litteral sur tous les livres de l'Aneten et da Nouyeau Testament,” 1707 1716, 23 vols. 4to; reprinted in 26 vols. 4to, and fol. and abridged in 14 vols. 4to. Rondet published a new edition of this abridgment in 17 vols. 4to, Avignon, 1767 1773. M. Fourmont, Arabic professor in the royal college, had begun an attack on this commentary, because Calmet had not, as he thought, paid sufficient respect to the rabbins, but the king (Louis XIV.) and the cardinal de Noailles obliged him to desist. The celebrated father Simon wrote some letters against Calmet, which were communicated to him by Pinsonnat, the Hebrew professor, who did not approve of them, nor did Anquetille, the librarian of Tellier, archbishop of Rheims, nor were they published until eighteen or twenty years afterwards, and even then the censors expunged many illiberal passages respecting Calmet. 2. The “Dissertations and Prefaces” belonging to his commentary, published separately with nineteen new Dissertations, Paris, 1720, 2 vols. 4to. 3. “Histoire de PAncien et du Nouveau Testament,” intended as an introduction to Fleury’s “Ecclesiastical History,” 2 and 4 vols. 4to; and 5 and 7 vols. 12mo. 4. “Dictionnaire historique, critique, et chronologique de la Bible.” Paris, 1730, 4 vols. fol. This work, which is a valuable treasure of sacred history and criticism, was soon made known to the English public by a translation, in 3 vols. fol. London, 1732, by Sam.D'Oyly, M. A. vicar of St. Nicholas, Rochester, and John Colson, F. R. S. vicar of Chalk, in Kent, a work elegantly printed and embellished with a profusion of fine engravings. A new edition appeared in 17^5, 4to, with valuable additions from subsequent critics, travellers, and philosophers. 5. “Histoire ecclesiasiique et civile de la Lorraine,” 3 vols. fol. reprinted 1745, in 5 vols. fol. 6. “Bibliotheque des Ecrivains de Lorraine,” fol, 1751. 7. “Histoire universelle sacrée et profane,” 15 vols. 4to. This Calmet did not live to finish, and in other respects it is not his best work. 7. “Dissertations sur les apparitions des Anges, des Demons, et des Esprits, et sur les Revenans et Vampires de Hongrie,” Paris, 1746, 12mo, and Einfidlen, 1749, 12mo, a work, say the French critics, in which there are many symptoms of old age, and its credulous weaknesses. It was however translated and published in English in 1759, 8vo. The author admits the reality of apparitions, on the authority of the scriptures, but discredits many of the miraculous stories concerning them to which his own church has given currency. 9. f Commentaire litteral, historique, et moral, sur la Regie de St. Benoit,“1754, 2 vols. 4to. 10.” De la Poesie et Musique des anciens Hebreux," Amst. 1723, 8vo. His conjectures on this subject, Dr. Burney thinks, are perhaps as probable as those of any one of the numerous authors who have exercised their skill in expounding and defining what some have long since thought involved in Cimmerian darkness. Calmet also left a vast number of manuscripts, or rather manuscript collections, as it had long been his practice to copy, or employ others to copy, whatever he found curious in books. In 1733, he deposited in the royal library, a correct transcript of the Vedam, a work which the natives of Hiudostan attribute to their legislator Brama, who received it, according to their tradition, from God himself. This copy came into Calmet' s possession by means of a bramin who had been converted by the Jesuit missionaries. Calmet’s life was written by Dom Fange, his nephew and successor in the abbey of Senones, and published in 8vo. It was afterwards translated into Italian by Benedetto Passionei, and published at Rome in 1770.

, an eminent classical scholar and Greek professor, was born at Mondidier, a small town in Picardy, May 1, 1671. For some time his father, who was a tanner, employed him in that business, but he early contracted a fondness for reading, and even taught himself, at his leisure hours, the elements of Latin. About the beginning of 1685, Charles de St. Leger, his uncle, a Benedictine of the abbey of Corbie, happening, on a visit to Mondidier, to discover his nephew’s predilection, advised his parents to send him to the college of Mondidier, where the Benedictines of Cluny then taught Latin. There Capperonnier studied for eighteen months, and by an un% common effort of diligence combined the study of Greek with Latin, two languages which he considered as mutually aiding each other, and which he made the subject of all his future researches. In 1686 he continued his education at Amiens among the Jesuits, for two years, under father Longuemare, who observing his application to be far more incessant than that of his fellow-scholars, gave him private lessons in Greek. In 1688 he came to Paris, where at the seminary of the Trente-trois, he entered upon a course of philosophy and theology, during which he never failed to compare the fathers of the church with the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. In 1693 and 1694 he studied the Oriental languages in the college of Ave-Maria, and in the latter year, the bishop of his diocese sent him to the community of St. George d' Abbeville to assist the ecclesiastical students in the Greek language, and in 1695 to that of St. Valois cle Monstreuil to teach humanity and philosophy; but the sea air and his excessive application disagreeing with his health, he returned to Paris in 1696, took the degree of master of arts, and followed the business of education until he found that it interfered too much with his studies. Contenting himself, therefore, with the small profits arising from giving a few lessons, he took up his abode, in May 1697, in one of the colleges, and when he had taken his bachelor’s degree in divinity went to Amiens to take orders. Returning to Paris, he became a licentiate, and obtained the friendship and patronage of cardinal Rohan, the abbe Louvois, and other persons of note. At this time, some lessons which he gave in the Greek, and a chapel ry of very moderate income in the church of St. Andr6 des Arcs, were his only resources, with which he lived a life of study and temperance, defrayed the expences of his licentiate, and even could purchase books. Mr. Colesson, however, a law- professor, and who from being his scholar had become his friend, seeing with what difficulty he could maintain himself, made him an offer of his house and table, which, after many scruples, he consented to accept. He went to his new habitation in 1700, and in the following year resigned his duty in the chapel, the only benefice he had, because it took up that time which he thought completely lost if not employed in study. In 1706, M. Viel, then rector of the university of Paris, and M. Pourchot, t.he syndic, admiring his disinterested spirit, procured him a pension of four hundred livres on the faculty of arts, to which no other condition was annexed than that he should revise the Greek booksused in the classes. M. Capperonnier expressed his gratitude on this occasion in a Greek poem, which was printed with a Latin translation by M. Viel, 4to, a pamphlet of six pages.

, a man of eminence in many respects, and called by way of distinction “the senator,” was born at Squillace, in Calabria, about the year 4i>7. He had as liberal an education as the growing barbarism of his times afforded; and soon recommended himself by his eloquence, his learning, and his wisdom, to Theodoric king of the Goths in Italy. Theodoric first made him governor of Sicily; and when he had Sufficiently proved his abilities and prudence in the administration of that province, admitted him afterwards to his cabinet-councils, and appointed him to be his secretary. After this he had all the places and honours at his command, which Theodoric had to bestow; and, having passed through all the employments of the government, was raised to the consulate, which he administered alone, in the year 514. He was continued in the same degree of confidence and favour by Athalaric, who succeeded Theodoric, about the year 524; but afterwards, in the year 537, being discarded from all his offices by king Vitiges, he renounced a secular life, and retired into a monastery of his own founding in the extreme parts of Calabria. Here he led the life of a man of letters, a philosopher, and a Christian. He entertained himself with forming and improving several curious pieces of mechanism, such as sun-dials, water clocks, perpetual lamps, &c. He collected a very noble and curious library, which he enlarged and improved by several books of his own composing. About the year 556, he wrote two books “De Divinis Lectionibus;” and afterwards a book “De Orthographia,” in the preface to which he tells us, that he was then in his ninety-third year. There are extant of his twelve books of letters, ten of which he wrote as secretary of state, in the name of kings Theodoric and Athalaric, and two in his own. He composed also twelve books “De rebus gestis Gothorum,” which are only extant in the abridgment of Jornandes; though it has been surmised that a manuscript of Cassiodorus is still remaining in some of the libraries in France. He wrote also a commentary upon the Psalms, and several other pieces, theological and critical. Father Simon has ?poken of him thus “There is no need,” says he, “of examining Cassiodorus’s Commentaries on the Psalms, which is almost but an abridgment of St. Augustin’s Commentaries, as he owns in his preface. But besides these commentaries, we have an excellent treatise of this author’s, entitled < De institutione ad Divinas Lectiones,' which shews, that he understood the criticism of the scriptures, and that he had marked out what were the best things of this nature in the ancient doctors of the church. In the same book Cassiodorus gives many useful rules for the criticism of the scriptures; and he takes particular notice of those fathers who have made commentaries upon the Bible, &c.” It seems generally agreed that he was in all views a very extraordinary man; and we think that those have done him no more than justice, who have considered him as a star, which shone out amidst the darkness of a barbarous age. When he died we cannot precisely determine, but most writers seem to be of opinion this happened in the year 575. His works have been collected and printed several times; the best edition is that of Rohan, 1679, 2 vols. fol. with the notes and dissertations of John Garret, a Benedictine monk. In 1721, Signer Scipio Maffei published a work of Cassiodorus, which had long been missing; and in the following year the same was published at London, by Mr. Samuel Chandler, entitled “Complexions, or short Commentaries upon the Epistles, the Acts, and the Revelation,” which Dr. Lardner has enumerated among the testimonies to the credibility of the gospel history.

, the founder of the Clares, an order of nuns so called from her, was born at Assisi, in 1193, and was a model of piety and devotion from her infancy, according to her biographers, whose account is certainly a model of credulity and superstition. Her parents were persons of rank, from whom in 1212 she ran away, and went to St. Francis, who cloathed her in his habit, a piece of sackcloth tied about her with a cord, and sent her to a Benedictine nunnery, and from this epoch the poor Clares date their foundation. She was next placed by St. Francis in a new house of nuns, of which she was appointed the superior, and which was soon crowded with devotees of rank. This female community practised austerities, “of which,” we are told, “people in the world have hardly any conception.” They not only went without shoes and stockings, lay on the ground, and kept perpetual abstinence, but were enjoined profound silence, unless in cases of the greatest necessity. Pope Innocent IV. in 1251, confirmed to this order the privilege of poverty, without any property in common. St. Clare’s abstinence and mortifications brought her into a miserable state of disease, from which she was released Aug. 11, 1253, and was buried the day following, on which her festival is kept. Alexander IV. canonized her in 1255. The nuns of St. Clans are divided into Damianists and Urbanists. The former follow the rule given by St. Francis to St. Clare; the latter are mitigated, and follow the rules given by Urban IV. From their name, Minoresses, sometimes given them, our Minories near Aldgate, is derived, where they had a nunnery from the year 1293.

, a learned French historian,- and a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maure, was born at Beze in Burgundy, April 7, 1714, After his first studies at the college of Dijon, he embraced the monastic life in the abbey of Vendome, where he studied so hard as to injure his health. Being afterwards ordered to Paris by his superiors, he devoted himself principally to history, to which his attention was drawn by that vast collection of French historical documents, of which we have already spoken so largely in the lives of Bouquet and Andrew du Chesne, and which was continued by Haudiquier, Housseau, Precieux, and Poirier. Clement became now their successor in this great work, and in conjunction with father B rial, published in 1770 the twelfth volume, and in 1786 the thirteenth, enriched by two hundred articles of great value and curiosity. Clement wrote also, 1. “Nouveaux eclaircissemens sur l'origine de Pentateuque des Samaritains,” a work begun by Poncet, and completed with a preface, &c. by Clement. 2. “A Catalogue of the Mss. in the library of the Jesuits at St. Germain-des-Pres. 3.” L'art de verifier les dates,“1780 1792, 3 vols. folio. This work, which is accounted in France a master-piece of learning, was begun by the Benedictins Antine, Clemencet, and Durand, whose labours, however, are far inferior to those of Clement, who employed thirty years of his life upon it, almost without any intermission. The only objection is to the chronological table, or index, which is said to be somewhat inaccurate. Clement was a free associate of the academy of inscriptions, but his studies were interrupted by the revolution, which obliged him to quit one convent after another, and at last seek an asylum with a nephew. The remainder of his days were employed in a work to introduce the former, under the title of” L'art de verifier les dates avant J. C." In this he had made considerable progress, when he was carried oft by a stroke of apoplexy, March 29, 1793.

, a learned cardinal, was born of a noble and ancient family at Modena, and was auditor of the causes under Leo X. and afterwards entered the Benedictine order, in which his merit raised him to the highest offices. Paul III. created him cardinal in 1542. He died at Rome in 1548, leaving “Epistolarum familiavium Liber,” 1575, 4to, and other works, chiefly ou subjects of divinity, which are now forgot, but his letters contain a considerable portion of literary history and anecdote.

, a learned Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maure, was born at Compiegne in 1654, and died at Paris October 18, 1721, in the abbey of St. Germain des Pres, of which he was dean. He employed much of his time, as was the case with other learned men of his order, in preparing editions of the fathers. In 1693, he published an edition of St. Hilary, folio, and in 1706 undertook the defence of Mabillon on the subject of establishing rules for distinguishing genuine from fictitious writings, and wrote against Mabillon’s antagonist, father Germon$ a Jesuit, “Vindicise ms. codicum a R. P. Barth. Germon impugnatorum, cum appendice in qua S. Hilarii quidam loci ab anonymo (the abbe Faydit) obscurati et depravati illustrantur et explicantur.” In 1715 he published “Vindiciae veterum codicum confirmatae,” against another work of the same Germon’s, “De veteribus hrcreticis ecclesiasticorum codicum corruptoribus.” He also assisted in the Benedictine edition of St. Augustin’s works, and published “The Letters of the Popes,” at Paris, folio, with a preface and notes, 1721. He was, as to private character, a man of unbounded charity, and, his biographer says, not only loved the poor, but poverty itself.

After this, he was much inclined to become a monk of the Carthusian order, and had thoughts of entering into the monastery of English Carthusians at Newport, in Flanders, but from this he was dissuaded by some of his zealous countrymen, who were desirous that he should continue to employ his pen in defence of their religion, for which the severe discipline of that order would have allowed him but little time; and therefore by their advice he laid aside that design, and being recommended to Henrietta-Maria, queen-dowager of England, he was taken under her protection, and being invited by the Benedictine college of English monks at Douay, in Flanders, he at length resolved to retire thither, and for the expence of his journey received one hundred crowns as a bounty from that princess, who could but ill spare even so small a sura at that time. Some time after his arrival at Douay he entered into the Benedictine order, and upon that occasion changed the name he received at his baptism, of Hugh Paulin, for that of Serenus de Cressey, by which he was afterwards known to the learned world. He remained about seven years or more in that college, and during his residence tnere published a large work, of the mystical kind, entitled “Sancta Sophia, or directions for the prayers of contemplation, &c. extracted out of more than XL treatises, written by the late reverend father Aug. Baker, a monk of the English congregation of the holy order of St. Benedict,” Douay, 1657, 2 vols. 8vo. To which are added, “Certain patterns of devout exercises of immediate acts and affections of the will.” This father Augustine Baker, whose true name was David Baker, who had studied the law in the Middle temple, and who from being little better than an atheist, became a convert to popery, and a very zealous devotionist, had once, it seems, some intention of writing the Ecclesiastical History of England, for which he had made very copious collections, that were of great service to Cressey, when he entered upon the execution of the same project.

After the restoration, and the marriage of king Charles II. queen Catharine appointed our author, who was then become one of the mission in England, her chaplain, and from that time he resided in Somerset-house, in the Strand. The great regularity of his life, his sincere and unaffected piety, his modest and mild behaviour, his respectful deportment to persons of distinction, with whom he was formerly acquainted when a protestant, and the care he took to avoid all concern in political affairs or intrigues of state, preserved him in quiet and safety, even in the most troublesome times- He was, however, a very zealous champion in the cause of the church of Rome, and was continually writing in defence of her doctrines, or in answer to the books of controversy written by protestants of distinguished learning or figure; and as this engaged him in a variety of disputes, he had the good fortune to acquire great reputation with both parties, the papists looking upon him to be one of their ablest advocates, and the protestants allowing that he was a grave, a sensible, and a candid writer. Among the works he published after his return to England, were: 1. “A non est inventus returned to Mr. Edward Bagshaw’s enquiry and vainly boasted discovery of weakness in the Grounds of the Church’s Infallibility,” 1662, 8vo. 2. “A Letter to an English gentleman, dated July 6th, 1662, wherein bishop Morley is concerned, printed amongst some of the treatises of that reverend prelate,” 3. “Roman Catholic Doctrines no Novelties; or, an answer to Dr. Pierce’s court-sermon, miscalled The primitive rule of Reformation,” 1663, 8vo; answered by Dr. Daniel Whitby. But that which contributed to make him most known, was his large and copious ecclesiastical history, entitled “The Church History of Britanny,” Roan, 1668, fol. which was indeed a work of great pains and labour, and executed with much accuracy and diligence. He had observed that nothing made a greater impression upon the people in general of his communion, than the reputation of the great antiquity of their church, and the fame of the old saints of both sexes, that had flourished in this island; and therefore he judged that nothing could be more serviceable in promoting what he styled the catholic interest, than to write such a history as might set these points in the fairest and fullest light possible. He had before him the example of a famous Jesuit, Michael Alford, alias Griffith, who had adjusted the same history under the years in which the principal events happened, in four large volumes, collected from our ancient historians; but, as this was written in Latin, he judged that it was less suited to the wants of common readers, and therefore he translated what suited his purpose into English, with such helps and improvements as he thought necessary. His history was very much approved by the most learned of his countrymen of the same religion, as appears by the testimonies prefixed to it. Much indeed may be said in favour of the order, regularity, and coherence of the facts, and the care and punctuality shewn in citing his authorities. On the other hand, he has too frequently adopted the superstitious notions of many of our old writers; transcribing from them such fabulous passages as have been long ago exploded by the inquisitive and impartial critics of his own faith. The book, however, long maintained its credit among the Romanists, as a most authentic ecclesiastical chronicle, and is frequently cited by their most considerable authors. He proposed to have published another volume of this history, which was to have carried it as low as the dissolution of monasteries by king Henry VIII. but he died before he had proceeded full three hundred years lower than the Norman conquest. Dodd, however, informs us that a considerable part of the second volume was preserved in ms. in the Benedictine monastery at Douay, and that it was never published “upon account of some nice controversies between the see of Rome, and some of our English kings, which might give offence.” While engaged on this work, he found leisure to interfere in all the controversies of the times, as will presently be noticed. His last dispute was in reference to a book written by the learned Dr. Stillingfleet, afterwards bishop of Worcester, to which, though several answers were given by the ablest of the popish writers, there was none that seemed to merit reply, excepting that penned by father Cressey, and this procured him the honour of a very illustrious antagonist, his old friend and acquaintance at Oxford, Edward earl of Clarendon. Being now grown far in years, and having no very promising scene before his eyes, from the warm spirit that appeared against popery amongst all ranks of people, and the many excellent books written to confute it by the most learned of the clergy, he was the more willing to seek for peace in the silence of a country retirement; and accordingly withdrew for some time to the house of Richard Caryll, esq. a gentleman of an ancient family and affluent fortune, at East Grinstead, co. Sussex, and dying upon the 10th of August 1674, being then near the seventieth year of his age, was buried in the parish church there. His loss was much regretted by those of his communion, as being one of their ablest champions, ready to draw his pen in their defence on every occasion, and sure of having his pieces read with singular favour and attention. His memory also was revered by the protestants, as well on account of the purity of his manners, and his mild and humble deportment, as for the plainness, candour, and decency with which he had managed all the controversies that he had been engaged in, and which had procured him, in return, much more of kindness and respect, than almost any other of his party had met with, or indeed deserved. It is very remarkable, however, that he thought it necessary to apologize to his popish readers for the respectful mention he made of the prelates of our church. Why this should require an apology, we shall not Inquire, but that his candour and politeness deserve the highest commendation will appear from what he says of archbishop Usher: “As for B. Usher, his admirable abilities in ‘chronological and historical erudition,’ as also his faithfulness and ingenuous sincerity in delivering without any provoking reflection*, what with great labour he has observed, ought certainly at least to exempt him from being treated by any one rudely and contemptuously, especially by me, who am moreover always obliged to preserve a just remembrance of very many kind effects of friendship, which I received from, him.” We have already taken notice of his inclination to the mystic divinity, which led him to take so much pains about the works of father Baker, and from the same disposition he also published “Sixteen revelations of divine love, shewed to a devout servant of our Lord, called mother Juliana, an anchorete of Norwich, who lived in the days of king Edward Hi.” He left also in ms. “An Abridgment of the book called The cloud of unknowing, and of the counsel referring to the same.” His next performance, was in answer to a famous treatise, written by Dr. Stillingfleet, against the church of Rome, which made a very great noise in those days, and put for some time a stop to the encroachments their missionaries were daily making, which highly provoked those of the Roman communion. This was entitled “Answer to part of Dr. Stillingfleet’s book, entitled Idolatry practised in the church of Rome,” 1672, 8vo, and was followed by “Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholic Church by Dr. Stillingfleet, and the imputation refuted and retorted,” &c. 1672, 8vo, and “Question, Why are you a Catholic? Question, Why are you a Protestant?” 1673, 8vo. In support of Dr. Stillingfleet, the earl of Clarendon wrote “Animadversions” upon our author’s answer; in which he very plainly tells him and the world, that it was not devotion, but necessity and want of a subsistence, which drove him first out of the church of England, and then into a monastery. As this noble peer knew him well at Oxford, it may be very easily imagined that what he said made a very strong impression, and it was to efface this, that our author thought tit to send abroad an answer under the title of “Epistle apologetical to a person of honour, touching his vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet,' 1 1674, 8vo. In this work he gives a large relation of the state and condition of his affairs, at the time of what he styles his conversion, in order to remove the imputation of quitting his faith to obtain bread. The last work that he published was entitled” Remarks upon the Oath of Supremacy."

, bishop of Durham, the fifth sen of John lord Crewe, of Stean, co. Northampton, by Jemima, daughter and coheir of Edward Walgrave, of Lawford, in Essex, esq. was born at Stean, the 3 1st of January, 1633; and in 1652 admitted commoner of Lincoln college, in Oxford, where he took the degree of B. A. Feb. 1, 1655-6; soon after which he was chosen fellow of that college. On June 29th, 1658, he took the degree of M. A. At the restoration he declared heartily in favour of the crown and hierarchy; and in 1663 was one of the proctors of the university. The year following, on the 2d of July, he took the degree of LL. D.; and soon after went into holy orders. August the 12th, 1668, he was elected rector of Lincoln -college, upon the decease of Dr. Paul Hood. On the 29th of April, 1669, he was installed dean of Chichester, and held with that dignity, the praecentorship, in which he had been installed the day before. He was also appointed clerk of the closet to king Charles II. In 1671, upon the translation of Dr. Blandford to the see of Worcester, he was elected hishop of Oxford in his room, on the 16th of June, confirmed June the ISth, consecrated July the 2d, and enthroned the 5th of the same month; being allowed to hold with it, in commendam, the living of Whitney, and the rectorship of Lincoln college, which last he resigned in October 1672. In 1673 he performed the ceremony of the marriage of James duke of York with Maria of Este; and through that prince’s interest, to whom he appears to have been subservient, he was translated, the 22d of October, 1674, to the bishopric of Durham. In the beginning of J6.75, he baptized Katharina- Laura, the new-born daughter of James duke of York. The 26th of April, 1676, he was sworn of the privy council to king Charles II. and upon the accession of king James II. to the crown, he was in great favour with that prince; he was made dean of his majesty’s royal chapel in 1685, in the room of Compton, bishop of London, who had been removed; and within a few days after, was admitted into the privy council. In 1686 he was appointed one of the commissioners in the new ecclesiastical commission erected by king James, an honoqr which he is said to have valued beyond its worth. By virtue of that commission, he appeared on the 9th of August, at the proceedings against Henry bishop of London, and was for suspending him during the king’s pleasure; though the earl and bishop of Rochester, and chief justice Herbert, were against it. Immediately after that bishop’s suspension, commissioners were appointed to exercise all manner of ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the diocese of London, of which bishop Crewe was one. The 20th of November following, he was present at, and consenting to, the degradation of Mr. Samuel Johnson, previously to the most severe punishment that was inflicted on that eminent divine; and countenanced with his presence a prosecution carried on, in May 1687, against Dr. Peachy, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, for refusing to admit one Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, to the degree of master of arts in that university, without taking the oaths. In July the same year, he offered to attend the pope’s nuncio at his public entry into London; but we are told his coachman refused to "drive lijm that way. His name was put again in a new ecclesiastical commission issued out this year, in October; in which he acted, during the severe proceedings against Magdalen college in Oxford, for refusing to elect one Anthony Farmer their president, pursuant to the king’s mandate. The bishop continued acting as an ecclesiastical commissioner till October 1688; when that commission was abolished. Towards the end of the year 1687, he was employed, with the bishops of Rochester and Peterborough, to draw up a form of thanksgiving for the queen’s being with child. But finding that the prince of Orange’s party was likely to' prevail, he absented himself from the council-board, and told the archbishop of Canterbury, that he was sorry for having so long concurred with the courtand desired now to be reconciled to his grace, and the other bishops. Even in the convention that met January 22, 1688-9, to consider of filling the throne, he was one of those who voted, on the 6th of February, that king James II. had abdicated the kingdom. Yet his past conduct was too recent to be forgotten, and therefore he was excepted by name out of the pardon granted by king William and queen Mary, May 23, 1690, which so terrified him, that he went over to Holland, and returned just in time to take the oaths to the new government, and preserved his bishopric. But, in order to secure to himself the possession of that dignity, he was forced to permit the crown to dispose of, or at least to nominate to, his prebends of Durham, as they should become vacant. By the death of his two elder brothers, he became in 1691, baron Crewe of Stean; and, about the 21st of December the same year, he married, but left no issue. During the rest of king William’s reign, he remained quiet and unmolested; and in the year 1710, he was one of the lords that opposed the prosecution then carried on against Dr. Sacheverell, and declared him not guilty; and likewise protested against several steps taken in that affair. He applied himself chiefly, in the latter part of his life, to works of munificence and charity. Particularly, he was a very great benefactor to Lincoln college, of which he had been fellow and rector; and laid out large sums in beautifying the bishop’s palace at Durham; besides many other instances of generosity and munificence of a more private nature. At length, his lordship departed this life on Monday September 18, 1721, aged eighty-eight; and was buried in his chapel at Stean, the 30th of the same month, with an inscription on his monument. He held the see of Durham forty-seven years. Dying without issue, the title of Baron Crewe of Stean became extinct with him.

, a learned French writer, was born at Nantes, Dec. 4, 1661. His father, who was a merchant, was also a man of letters, and bestowed much pains on the education of his son, who answered his expectations by the proficiency he made in classical studies. He had, however, provided him with a private tutor, who happened to disgust him by the severity of his manners, and upon this account partly, at the age of fourteen, he desired to take a voyage to some of the West India islands, to which his father traded; but his principal inducement was what he had read in books of voyages, and the conversation of persons who had been in America, all which raised his curiosity to visit the new world. He embarked on board a French ship, with no other books than Erasmus’s Colloquies, and the Gradus ad Parnassum. His passage was not unpleasant, and during his residence at Guadeloupe he borrowed all the Latin books he could discover, and read them with avidity; but the chief advantage he seems to have derived here was an opportunity to learn the English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese San^uasres. To these he afterwards added an acquaintance with the German, Sclavonic, and AngloSaxon; and studied with much attention the ancient and modern Greek, the Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Hebrew, Arabic, and even the Chinese. On his return to Nantes in 1677, he found his father’s affairs somewhat deranged, and was obliged to take a part in the business. Medicine appears to have been first suggested to him as a profession, but he found little inclination for that study; and some conferences he happened to have with the Benedictines of the congregation of St. Maur determined him to enter their society. He accordingly made his noviciate in 1673, and applied himself to the study of theology. In 1682 he formally became a member of the congregation. His residence at Paris, in the abbey of St. Germain des Pres, the vast number of books within his reach, and particularly of manuscripts, increased his knowledge and his thirst for knowledge, and some of his earliest labours were bestowed in preparing materials, collecting Mss. &c. for new editions of the works of St. Clement of Alexandria, and St. Gregory Nazianzen. But these were interrupted by certain differences which occurred in the abbey to which he belonged, and of which we have various accounts. The prior of St. Germain, father Loo, had a great aversion to the study of classical and polite literature, and was for confining the members to the strict religious duties of the house. This could not fail to be disgusting to a man of La Croze’s taste: but, according to other accounts, which seem more prohable, he began to entertain religious scruples about this time (lr.96), which induced him to withdraw himself. It is said that his superiors found among his papers a treatise against transubstantiation in his hand-writing, and which they believed to be his composition; but they discovered afterwards that it uas a translation from the English of Stillingfleet. Some other manuscripts, however, sufficiently proved that he had changed his opinion on religious matters; and the dread of persecution obliged him to make his escape to Basil, which he successfully accomplished in May 1696. Here he renounced the Roman catholic religion, and as his intention was to take up his residence, he was matriculated as a student of the college of Basil. He remained in this place, however, only till September, when he departed, provided with the most honourable testimonies of his learning and character from Buxtorf, the Hebrew professor, and Werenfels, dean of the faculty of theology. He then went to Berlin, where his object was to secure a iixed residence, devote himself to study, and endeavour to forget France. In order to introduce himself, he began with offering to educate young men, the sons of protestant parents, which appears to have answered his purpose, as in 1697 we find him appointed librarian to the king of Prussia; but his biographers are not agreed upon the terms. To this place a pension was attached, but not sufficient to enable him to live without continuing his school; and some assert that he was very poor at this time. The probability is, that his circumstances were improved as he became better known, and his reputation among the learned was already extensive. In June of 1697 he went to Francfort to visit the literati of that place, and their fine library, and visited also Brandenburgh for the same purpose. In November 1697 (or, as Chaufepie says, in 1702), he married Elizabeth Rose, a lady originally of Dauphiny, and thus, adds one of his Roman catholic biographers, completed the abjuration of the true religion. In 1698 he first commenced author, and from time to time published those works on which his fame rests. Soon after he became acquainted with the celebrated Leibnitz, with whom he carried on an intimate correspondence. In 17 13 he went to Hamburgh, where he paid many visits to the learned Fabricius, and in his letters speaks with great warmth of the pleasure this journey afforded; but this year, 17 J 3, was not in other respects a vei'y fortunate one to La Croze, and he formed the design of quitting Germany. He had been appointed tutor to the margrave of Schwel, and this employment terminating in 1714, he lost the pension annexed to it, and was reduced to considerable difficulties, of which he wrote to Leibnitz, as to a friend in whom he could confide. Leibnitz, by way of answer, sent him a copy of a letter which he had written to M. BernsdorfT, prime minister to the elector of Hanover, in his behalf. The object likely to be attained by this interest was a professorship at Helmstadt; but as it required subscription to the articles of the Lutheran church, M. la Croze, notwithstanding the persuasions Leibnitz employed, declined accepting it. His affairs, however, soon after wore a more promising aspect, partly in consequence of a prize he gained in the Dutch lottery. In 1717 he had the honour to be engaged as private tutor to the princess royal of Prussia, afterwards margravine of Bareoth. In 1724, for several months his studies were interrupted by a violent fit of the gravel; and on his recovery, the queen of Prussia, who always patronized La Croze, obtained for him the professorship of philosophy in the French college at Berlin, vacant by the death of M. Chauvin. This imposed on him the necessity of drawing up a course of philosophy, but as he never intended to print it, it is said not to have been executed with the care he bestowed on his other works. In 1713 father Bernard Pez, the Benedictine, made him liberal offers if he would return to the church he had forsaken, but this he declined with politeness, offering the arguments which influenced his mind to remain in the protestant church. In 1739 an inflammation appeared on his leg, which inApril put on appearances of mortification, hut did not prove fatal until May 21. About a quarter of an bour before his death he desired his servant to read the 51st and 77th psalms, during which he expired, in the seventy -first year of his age. He was reckoned one of the most learned men of his time, and was frequently called a living library. So extensive was his reading, and so vast iiis memory, that no one ever consulted him without obtaining prompt information. In dates, facts, and references he was correct and ready. We have already noticed how many languages he had learned, but it appears that he made the least progress in the Chinese, to which Leihnitz, in his letters, is perpetuiiy iirging him. The greater part of his life was employed in study, and he had no other pleasures. There was scarcely a book in his library whicli he had not perused, and he wrote ms notes on most of them. His conversation could not fail to be acceptable to men of literary research, as his memory was stored with anecdotes, which he told in a very agreeable manner. He was conscientiously attached to the principles of the reformed religion. He had always on his table the Hebrew Psalter, the Greek Testament, and Thomas a Kempis in Latin: the latter he almost had by heart, as well as Buchanan’s Psalms. His consistent piety and charity are noticed by all his biographers.

The works of this father and confessor have been often printed. The first edition of any note was that of Rigaltius, printed at Paris in 1648; afterwards in 1666, with very great additions. This edition of Rigaltius was considerably improved by Fell, bishop of Oxford; at which place it was handsomely printed in 1682, with the “Annales Cyprianici” of bishop Pearson prefixed. Fell’s edition was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1700; after which a Benedictine monk published another edition of this father at Paris in 1727. The works of Cyprian have been translated into English by Dr. Marshal in 1717; for this reason chiefly, that of all the fathers none are capable of being so usefully quoted, in supporting the doctrines and discipline of our church, as he. His letters are particularly valuable, as they not only afford more particulars of his life than Pontius has given, but are a valuable treasure of ecclesiastical history. The spirit, taste, discipline, and habits of the times, among Christians, are strongly delineated; nor have we in all the third century any account. to be compared with them. In his general style, he is the most eloquent and perspicuous of all the Latin fathers.

, an eminent cardinal, was born at Ravenna in the beginning of the eleventh century, became a Benedictine, and, it is thought, would always have preferred solitude to the dignities of the church, if he had not been in some measure forced to accept them. In 1057 he was created cardinal by pope Stephen IX. and under pope Nicolas II. was sent as papal legate to Milan, to reform certain clerical abuses, which he successfully accomplished, and even turned his arguments against his superiors, whom he found licentious, without any respect for their rank or power. Among other proofs of his zeal, he publicly condemned the liberty which the popes took of opposing the emperors in cases of war; affirming, that the offices of emperor and pope are distinct, and that the emperors ought not to meddle with what belongs to the popes, nor the popes with what belongs to the emperors. “As the son of God,” says he, “surmounted all the obstacles of worldly power, not by the severity of vengeance, but by the lively majesty of an invincible patience, so has he taught us rather to bear the fury of the world with constancy, than to take up arms against those who offend us; especially since between the royalty and the priesthood there is such a distinction of offices, that it belongs to the king to use secular arms, and to the priest to gird on the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God,” &c. Damian described also in a very lively manner the enormous vices of his age, in several of his works;, in his Gomorrhaetis particularly, which, though pope Alexander II. thought fit to suppress it, has nevertheless been preserved. Disappointed, however, in his hopes of producing any favourable change, he resigned all his preferments in the church in 1061, although he appears afterwards to have been employed on missions as legate. He died in 1073, and his writings, while in ms. must have been frequently read and admired, as we find that between five and six centuries after his deaih they were ordered to be printed by Clement VIII. who employed Constantino Cajetan as editor. This first edition was published at Home in 3 vols. fol. 160b, 1608, 1615, and reprinted at Leyden, 1623, fol. In 1640 Cajeta 1 added a fourth volume. The whole were afterwards reprinted at Paris in 1642 and 1663, in a thick folio. These works consist of

D'Antine (Francis), a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born at Gouvieux in the diocese of Liege, in 1688, and made himself highly respected among his brethren by his piety and charitable attention to the poor and afflicted. To the learned world he is known as the editor of the first five volumes of the new edition of Du Gauge’s Glossary, in 1736, which he very much improved and enlarged. He was also one of the editors of the great collection of French historians begun by Bouquet, and of the “Art de verifier les dates,” of which a new edition was published by Clement in 1770, folio. D'Amine translated the Psalms from the Hebrew, Paris, 1739 and 1740. He died in 1746.

, a learned Benedictine, was a native of Flanders, born in 1597. In 1640 he took his degree of D. D. at Douay, where he was prefect and superior of the college belonging to his monastery, and lastly, grand prior and official of the spiritual court of Anchin. He was most celebrated for mathematical knowledge, and on this account was requested by his majesty to teach that science at Douay, where he died March 28, 1664. He was not only a good author, but an ingenious instrument maker, and constructed an iron sphere, with curious clock-work, to shew the motions of the heavenly bodies. His principal works are, 1. “Gloria sanctissimi monachorum patriarchs Benedicti.” 2. “Calendarium novum ad legendas horas canonicas, secundum ritum breviarii Romani.” 3. “Vindicite Trithemianse, sive specimen steganographiae Joannis Trithemii, quo auctoris ingenuitas demonstratur, et opus superstitione absolvitur,” Doway, 1641, 4to. 4. “Auctorjtas Scripturae sacra Hebraic;*-, Grcecae, et Latino?, hoc est textus Hebraici, versionis septuaginta interpretum, et versionis vulgatae,” ibid. 1651, 4to. 5. “Commentarius in psalteriurn David icum, quo sensus litteralis tarn textus Hebraici quain vulgatoe breviter exponitur.” 6. “Calendarium Romanum novum, et Astronomia Aquicinctina (Anchin),” ibid. 1657, fol.

The doctor gave a ms abstract of the large history of the Benedictine abbey of Bee in Normandy, drawn up by Dom John Bourget (see Bourget), monk of that house, and F. A. S. of London, to Mr. Nichols, who printed it in 1771', 8vo, with an appendix of original deeds; and who likewise printed, in the same year, in two volumes, 8vo. “Some account of the Alien Priories, and of such lands as they are known to have possessed in England and Wales,” collected by John Warburton, esq. Somerset herald, and Dr. Ducarel (who did not, however, at the time, permit his name to be mentioned); and considerably augmented by Mr. Gough and some other learned friends of the publisher; to which was prefixed, a general description of the seven Norman cathedrals, with very neat prints of them, The very useful and excellent “Collection of Royal and Noble Wills,” from the conqueror to Henry VII. printed by Mr. Nichols in 1780, was given to the world in consequence of the suggestions of Dr. Ducarel; from whose stores the far greater part of the materials was purchased by the printer at a very considerable price.

He was afterwards remanded to the Tower, where he continued till queen Mary’s accession to the crown in 1553; but was then released, and made chaplain to the queen. He became also again chaplain to Bonner, prebendary of St. Paul’s, dean of St. Paul’s, rector of Finchley in Middlesex, which he held only a few months; and then rector of Greenford in the same county. In 1554, he was one of the disputants at Oxford against Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, before they suffered martyrdom, but said very little against them; and during Mary’s reign, he was constantly employed in doing good offices to the afflicted protestants from the highest to the lowest. Francis Russel earl of Bedford, Ambrose and Robert Dudley, afterwards earls of Warwick and-Leicester, were benefited by his kindness; as was also sir John Cheke, whose life he and sir Thomas Pope, the founder of Trinity college, Oxford, are said to have saved, by a joint application to queen Mary. Feckenham was very intimate with sir Thomas, and often visited him at Tyttenhanger-house. Feckenham also interceded with queen Mary for the lady Elizabeth’s enlargement out of prison, and that so earnestly, that the queen was actually displeased with him for some time. In May 1556, he was complimented by the university of Oxford with the degree of doctor in divinity; being then in universal esteem for his learning, piety, charity, moderation, humility, and other virtues. The September following, he was made abbot of Westminster, which was then restored by queen Mary; and fourteen Benedictine monks placed there under his government, with episcopal power.

, son of the preceding, succeeded his father in all his places, and seemed to inherit his taste in the fine arts. He died in 1733. Some works written by him must not be confounded with those of his father: namely, 1. “An historical Collection of the Lives and Works of the most celebrated Architects,” Paris, 1687, 4to, frequently subjoined to his father’s account of the painters. 2. “Description of Versailles, ancient and modern,” 12mo. 3. “Description of the Church of the Invalids,” 1706, fol. reprinted in 1756. There were also two more Felibiens, who were authors: James, brother of Andrew, a canon and archdeacon of Chartres, who died in 1716, and had published, among other works, one entitled “Pentateuchus Historicus,” 1704, 4to, part of which he was obliged afterwards to suppress, and consequently the uncastrated copies are most valued; and Michael, another of his sons, a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, who was born in 1666, and died in 1719. The latter wrote a history of the abbey of St. Denys, in folio, published in 1706; and began the history of Paris, which was afterwards continued and published by Lobineau.

, a native of Venice, who flourished about the middle of the sixteenth century, established a great reputation at that time by his translations from Greek authors, a task which few, comparatively, were then able to perform. He translated, among others, the sixth book of Paul ^gineta, 1533 Aristotle’s Ethics, Venice, 1541, fol.; “Alexandri Aphrodisiensis Commentarius in primum priorum Analyticbrum Aristotelis,” ibid. 1542, fol. “Ammonii Hermeae Comment, in Isagogen Porphyrii,” ibid. 1545, 8vo “Porphyrius de abstinentia animalium,” ibid. 1547, 4to and “Oecumenius in Acta et Epistolas Catholicas,” Basil, 1552, 8vo. We have no account of his life or death, but he appears to have been a priest of the Benedictine order, and esteemed for his learning.

, of Vincenza, was a Benedictine monk, and eminent as an antiquary. In 1672 he published, at Verona, his “Musae Lapidariae,” in folio, which is a colledlion, though by no means complete or correct, of the verses found inscribed on ancient monuments. Burman the younger, in his preface to the “Anthologia Latino,” seems to confound this Ferreti with him who flourished in the fourteenth century, speaking of his history of his own times. The exact periods of this author’s birth and death are not known.

, was born at Mantua in 1490, and at the age of sixteen he entered into a Benedictine monastery in his native city, where his talents and industry obtained for him a high reputation for proficiency in literature and sacred criticism, while the excellence of his disposition rendered him an object of general esteem. He was selected to fill the most important and distinguished stations in his order, and he was afterwards chosen by pope Paul IV. as visitor of the Benedictine foundations in Spain. When he had performed this task, he had returned to his native country, and devoted himself almost wholly to theological studies, in the course of which he conceived the hopeless project of uniting Catholics and Protestants in one communion. After a life spent in the service of his fellow creatures, he died in 1559, in his seventieth year. He left behind him many theological works, of which the principal were “Commentaries upon the Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, and the first Epistle of St. John,” published in 1551, in 8vo; also a “Commentary upon the Psalms.” These works must have had more than common merit in respect to liberality of sentiment, as they were prohibited by his church. His “Commentary on the Psalms” indeed was reprinted in 1585, but revised and curtailed. Dupin says that he “writes purely and nobly” and Thuanus had reason to say, “that no man will ever repent the reading of his Commentaries.”

, more known by his assumed name of Merlin Coccaio, was born Nov. 8, 1491, of a noble family at Mantua studied the languages under Virago Coccaio and then went to Bologna, where he cultivated philosophy under Peter Pomponatius. His preceptor, Coceaio, accompanied him there, but his taste and vivacity of genius led him to poetry, and defeated the endeavours of ins master to fix him to serious studies. His first work was a poem, entitled, “Orlandino,” in which he took the name of Limerno Pictoco. It displays considerable vigour of imagination, and may be read with pleasure. He afierwards was obliged, as well as his master, to quit Bologna precipitately, to avoid being apprehended, but what was the subject of the proceeding against him is not known. His father not leceiving him kindly, he entered into the army, but grew tired of it, and became a Benedictine in the monastery of St. Euphemia, where healready had a brother. Folengo here indulged his vein for satire and burlesque, by which he attracted the enmity of his brethren, who would have made him feel their resentment had he not been very powerfully protected. He died in 1544, aged fifty-one, at his priory, della Santa Croc e, near Bassano. The most known among his works is, 1. the “Opus Macaronicum,” printed at Venice in 1651, &c. written in that kind of mock Latin, made up of vernacular words and expressions, which has since been called from this original, macaronic. It is, however, an easy species of wit, and in a man of any abilities requires only that he should condescend to attempt it to ensure tfce greatest degree of success. He named it macaronic, from Maccherone, a gross feeder, or buffoon; a violent eater of macaroni. His poem was received with abundant ap plause, in an age much addicted to pedantic buffoonery. It must be confessed, that he sometimes rises a little above his burlesque style, to intersperse moral and characteristic reflections. A few more of his productions are also known. 52. “Caos del Tri per uno;” a poem on the three ages of man, and including much of his own history, but in a style more extravagant than his “Orlandino, 1527. 3.” La Humanita del Figlio di Dio, in ottava rima," Vinegia, 1533. This was written as some atonement for the licentiousness of his former writings, but probably had fewer readers. Many other works by him are mentioned by his, biographers, which are now confined to the libraries of the curious.

, a celebrated Benedictine, a zealous partizan of the league in France, and a writer for it, but also a learned writer in theology, was born at Riom in Auvergne, in 1537. He studied at Paris, and having acquired a profound knowledge of Hebrew, was professor of that language at the royal college for thirteen years. He was twice named for episcopacy, yet never obtained it, and at last died in a kind of exile at his priory of Semur in Burgundy, in consequence of the violence of his writings against Henry IV. As a polemic as well as a politician, he was a most violent and abusive writer, but is said to have been more prudent in his conduct than in his style. He died in 1597. The following verse, which was placed upon his tomb, served rather to prove the perishable nature of fame, than the merit of the man:

, or rather Gerard Tenque, founder of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, was born either in a small island in Provence, or, as is thought more probable, at Amain". He was the institutor, and the first grand master of the knights hospitalers of Jerusalem, who afterwards became knights of Malta. Some Italian merchants, while Jerusalem was yet in the hands of the infidels, ob-. tained permission to build a Benedictine monastery opposite to the holy sepulchre for the reception of pilgrims. In 1081, an abbot of that monastery founded also an hospital, the direction of which he gave to Gerard, who Was distinguished for his piety. In 1100 Gerard took a religious habit, and associated with others under a particular yew to relieve all Christians in distress, besides the three great vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. Gerard died in 1120. His order was protected by the church from the beginning, and in 1154 was confirmed by a bqll of Anastasius IV. which distinguished the subdivisions of the order into knights, companions, clerks, and serving brothers. The successor of Gerard, as grand master, was Raymond du Puy.

, a famous writer in favour of Jansenism, was born at Saint Calais, in the French province of Maine, in 1628, and was first of the oratory, and then became a Benedictine in the congregation of St. Maur, in 1649. He there taught theology for some years with considerable success, but being too free in his opinions in favour of the Jansenists, was ordered to be arrested by Louis XIV. in 1682, at the abbey of Corbie. He contrived, however, to escape into Holland, but the air of that country disagreeing with him, he changed his situation for the Low Countries. In 1703 he was taken into custody by the bishop of Mechlin, and being condemned for errors on the doctrine of grace, suffered imprisonment at Amiens, and in the castle of Vincennes. No sufferings could shake his zeal for what he thought the truth, and in 17 10 he was given up to the superiors of his own order, who sent him to the abbey of St. Denis, where he died in 1711. He was author of many works on the subjects of controversy then agitated, particularly a general History of Jansenism, 3 vols. 12mo, Amsterdam, 1703, for which he was called a violent Jansenist. His other principal works were, edi-> tions of Marius Mercator, St. Anselm, and Baius; the Apology of Rupert, abbot of Tuy, respecting the Eucharist, in Latin, 8vo; “Le veritable Penitent, ou Apologie cte ja Penitence,” 12mo, against P. Hazard, a Jesuit “La verit6 Catholique victorieuse, sur la Predestination et la Grace efficase” “Traité historique sur la Grace” “Lettres a M. Bossuet, Eveque de Meaux” “La confiance Chretienne” “Le Chretien disabuse”“” La Regie des Moeurs contre les fausses Maximes de la Morale corrompue,“12mo;” La Defense de l‘Eglise Romaine’.' and “Avis salutaires de la Sainte Vierge a ses Devots indiscrets.” This last is a translation of the “Monita Salutaria” of Adam Windelfels, a German lawyer* Many others are enumerated by Moreri.

, a French missionary, was a native of Paris, and the son of M. Gervaise, physician to M. Fouquet, superintendant of the finances. He had not arrived at his twentieth year, when he embarked with some ecclesiastics, who were going as missionaries to the kingdom of Siam. Here he remained four years, made himself master of the language, conversed with the learned, and, at his return, published “Hist, naturelle et politique du Royaume de Siatn,” 1G88, 4to, and “Description historique du Iloyaume de Macacar,” 12moj two very curious works. He was afterwards curate of Vannes in Brettany, then provost of the church of St. Martin at Tours. His new dignity induced him to write a life of St. Martin, 4-to, which was criticised by Dom. Stephen Badier, a Benedictine; and, sixteen years after, he printed “Hist, de Boe'ce” at Paris. Being consecrated bishop of Horren, some time after, at Rome, he embarked for the place of his mission; but the Caribbees murdered him and all his clergy on their arrival, November 20, 1729. He wrote several other books, but of less consequence than those above mentioned.

, a Benedictine monk, first of St. Germaine d'Auxerre, and afterwards of Cluni, and a man of superstitious credulity, flourished in the eleventh century, and wrote a “Chronicle or History of France,” in the Latin language. It consists of five books, of which the first relates to the events of the monarchy previously to Hugh Capet, and the four subsequent ones to those following it, as far down as 1046. This work is defective as a composition, and, at the same time, full of fabulous stories, yet it contains much valuable information relative to those remote ages. It was printed in the collections of Pithou and Duchesne. He was author of a life of William, abbot of St. Benignus at Dijon.

, a celebrated Benedictine of the twelfth century, was born at Chiusi, and spent near twenty-four years at the monastery of Bologna in composing a work which has gained him great fame, and which he published about 1151, under the title of “Decretal,” or “Concordantia discordantium Canon um,” in which he endeavours to reconcile those canons which seem to contradict each other; but as this author has been guilty of some errors, by mistaking a canon of one council, or a passage of one father, for another, and has frequentlyfquoted spurious decretals, several writers have endeavoured to correct these faults, particularly Anthony Augustine in his valuable work entitled “De emendatione Gratiani,” an excellent edition of which was published by Baluze. The popes are indebted principally to Gratian’s Decretal for the high authority they exercised in the thirteenth and following centuries; but all their pretensions are supported in this work upon suppositious canons, which that age was too ignorant to suspect. This work forms one of the principal parts of the canon law. The editions of Rome, 1582, 4 vols. folio, and of Lyons, 1671, 3 vols. folio, are the best. There is a separate edition of this Decretal, Mentz, 1472, folio.

, a learned Benedictine, of the congregation of St. Maur, born 1678, in the diocese of Rouen, near the forest of Lyons, taught Greek and Hebrew with great credit in his congregation, and died librarian of St. Germain-de-Pres, at Paris, December 29, 1729. He left a “Hebrew Grammar,” in Latin, 1724 and 1726, 2 vols. 4to, and a “Hebrew Lexicon,” in Latin, also printed after his death, in 1746, 2 vols. 4to. Guarin continued this work only to the letter Mm, inclusively; but it was finished by M. le Toiirnois. He had objected to M. Masclef’s method in his grammar, and was answered by M. de la Bletterie, in the edition of Masclef’s grammar, 1730, 2 vols. 12mo.

, a learned Benedictine, was born in 1641, at Rouen. While he was assisting Delfau in the revisal of St. Augustine’s works, he was accused of being concerned in a book entitled “L'abbé Commandataire,” and confined at Ambournay in Bugey. He took advantage of this exile to make a diligent search for ancient Mss. and discovered a great number; among others, St. Augustine’s book against Julian, entitled “Opus imperfectum,” of which only two copies were at that time known, and sent an exact copy of it to his brethren at Paris. Guerard was afterwards sent to Fescamp, and then to Rouen, where he died, Jan. 2, 1715. He left “Abrege* de la Bible, en forme de Questions et de Re*ponses familieres,” 2 vols. If mo. This work is esteemed, and has gone through several editions.

, a monk of St. Alban’s, and a Latin poet of the twelfth century, was a native of this country, and educated at Oxford, where he took a master’s degree. He is said to have travelled through a great part of Europe, and during a long residence at Paris, studied rhetoric, and was distinguished for his taste even among the numerous and polite scholars of that flourishing seminary. On his return to England, he became a Benedictine monk in the abbey of St. Alban’s, where he died about the beginning of the thirteenth century. He wrote a long Latin poem in nine books, dedicated to Walter bishop of Rouen, entitled “Architrenius,” which Warton, who has given a long specimen of it, pronounces a learned, ingenious, and very entertaining performance, containing a mixture of satire and panegyric on public vice and virtue, with some historical digressions, but not enough to justify Simlerus’s blunder in the epitome of Gesner’s Bibliotheca, where he says the subject is *' de antiquitatibus Britannise." This work was printed at Paris, 1517, 4to, and is scarce; but there are two manuscripts of it in the Bodleian library, with some epistles, epigrams, and other poems by the same hand.

, a Scotch poet of the reign of Henry VIII. is unknown, except by his works. Mr. Henry styles him chief school-master of Dunfermline; and lord Hailes conjectures that he officiated as preceptor in the Benedictine convent. His “Fabils” were printed at Edinburgh by Andrew Hart, in 1621, and there is a ms copy in the Harleian library, dated 1571, collected, as Mr. Pinkerton thinks, near a century after Henryson’s death, which of course removes him to a more distant period than the reign of Henry VIII. These “Fabils” are likewise in Bannatyne’s Mss. His “Testament of Faire Creseide,” the subject of which was suggested by the perusal of Chaucer’s “Troilus and Creseide,” occurs in the common editions of Chaucer’s Works. His oenius seems to have been well adapted to didactic poetry; and in point of versification and fancy, he is not inferior to any of his contemporaries. Very favourable specimens of his talents may be seen in our authorities.

, the author of an old chronicle, not in much estimation, was a Benedictine of St. Werberg’s monastery in Chester, where he died about 1360, aged between eighty and ninety. He is thought to have borrowed much from another monk of his monastery, Roger Cestrensis, but probably both were indebted to the same original materials, and both were sufficiently admirers of the marvellous to compile works rather of curiosity than of use, unless where they present us with the transactions of their own time. Higden’s work was entitled “Polychronicon;” Dr. Gale published that part which relates to the Britons and Saxons among his“Quindecem Scriptores, &c.” But the greatest curiosity among collectors is the English translation of the “Polychronicon,” by John de Trevisa, printed by Caxton in 14S2, folio, in seven books, to which Caxton added an eighth. The most magnificent copy of this work extant is in the library of earl Spencer. There are also copies in his majesty’s collection, in the Bodleian and British Museum, and in Mr. Heber’s library. The “Chester Mysteries,” exhibited in that city in 1328, at the expence of the several trading corporations, have been ascribed to our Chronicler.

, or Geoffrey, of Monmouth (ap Arthur), the famous British historian, who flourished in the time of Henry I. was born at Monmouth, and probably educated in the Benedictine monastery near that place; for Oxford and Cambridge had not yet risen to any great height, and bad been lately depressed by the Danish invasion so that monasteries were at this time the principal seminaries of learning. Tradition still points out a small apartment of the above monastery as his library; it bears in the ceiling and windows remains of former magnificence, but is much more modern than the age of Jeffery. He was made archdeacon of Monmouth, and afterwards promoted to the bishopric of St. Asaph in 1152. He is said by some to have been raised to the dignity of a cardinal also, but on no apparent good grounds. Robert earl of Gloucester, natural son of Henry I. and Alexander bishop of Lincoln, were his particular patrons; the first a person of great eminence and authority in the kingdom, and celebrated for his learning; the latter, for being the greatest patron of learned men in that time, and himself a great scholar and statesman.

Jerom was as exceptionable in many parts of his literary character, as he was in his moral, whatever Erasmus or his panegyrists may have said to the contrary instead of an orator, he was rather a declaimer and, though he undertook to translate so many things out of Greek and Hebrew, he was not accurately skilled in either of those languages; and did not reason clearly, consistently, and precisely, upon any subject. This has been shewn in part already by Le Clerc, in a book entitled “Quaestiones Hieronymianae,” printed at Amsterdam in 1700, by way of critique upon the Benedictine edition of his works. In the mean time we are ready to acknowledge, that the writings of Jerom are useful, and deserve to be read by all who have any regard for sacred antiquity. They have many uses in common with other writings of ecclesiastical authors, and many peculiar to themselves. The writings of Jerom teach us the doctrines, the rites, the manners, and the learning of the age in which he lived; and these also we learn from the writings of other fathers. But the peculiar use of JeronVs works is, 1. Their exhibiting to us more fragments of the ancient Greek translators of the Bible, than the works of any other father 2. Their informing us of the opinions which the Jews of that age had of the signification of many Hebrew words, and of the sense and meaning they put upon many passages in the Old Testament; and, 3. Their conveying to us the opinion of Jerom himself; who, though he must always be read with caution, on account of his declamatory and hyperbolical style, and the liberties he allowed himself of feigning and prevaricating upon certain occasions, will perhaps, upon the whole, be found to have had more judgment as well as more learning than any father who went before him.

The principal of his works, which are enumerated by Cave and Dupin, are, a new Latin version of the whole “Old Testament,” from the Hebrew, accompanied with a corrected edition of the ancient version of the “New Testament,” which, after having been at first much opposed, was adopted by the Catholic church, and is commonly distinguished by the appellation of “Vulgate;” “Commentaries” on most of the books of the Old and New Testament “A Treatise on the Lives and Writings of Ecclesiastical Authors” “A continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius” moral, critical, historical, and miscellaneous “Letters.” The first printed edition of his works was that at Basil, under the care of Erasmus, 1516 1526, in six vols. folio, of which there have been several subsequent impressions at Lyons, Rome, Paris, and Antwerp. The most correct edition is that of Paris, by father Martianay, a Benedictine monk of the congregation of St. Maur, and Anthony Pouget, 1693 1706, in 5 vols. folio. There is, however, a more recent edition, with notes by Vallarsius, printed at Verona in 1734 -42, in eleven volumes, folio. The eleventh contains the life of Jerom, certain pieces attributed to him on doubtful authority, and an Index. Of his “Letters, or Epistles,” there are many editions executed about the infancy of printing, which are of great beauty, rarity, and value.

, a learned English Benedictine, “was born in London in 1575, although originally of a family of Brecknockshire. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ school, from whence he was elected a scholar of St. John’s college, Oxford, in 1591, where he was chamber-fellow with Mr. Laud, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. Here he studied civil law, took a bachelor’s degree in that faculty, and was made a fellow of the college. In consequence of a course of reading on the controversies of the time, he embraced the doctrines of popery, and, going abroad, became a Benedictine monk in Spain, assuming the name of Leander a Sancto Martino. He then pursued his studies at Compostella, and was created D. D. When the English religious of his order had formed themselves into a congregation, he was invited to Douay, and made professor of Hebrew and divinity in St. Vedast’s college, during which time he was very instrumental in founding a monastery of Benedictine nuns at Cambray. He was also appointed their confessor, prior of the monastery of Douay, and twice president of the English congregation. It has been said that archbishop Laud gave him an invitation to England, for which various reasons were assigned, and, among others, that they might consult about the reunion of the churches of England and Rome; but there seems no great foundation for this story. That he did return to England, however, is certain, as he died at London Dec. 17, 1636, and was buried in the chapel at Somerset-house. He wrote, 1.” Sacra ars memoriae, ad Scripturas divinas in promptu habendas, &c. accommodata,“Douay, 1623, 8vo. 2.” Conciliatio locorum communium totius Scripturae,“ibid. 1623. He also edited” Biblia Sacra, cum glossa interlineari,“6 vols. fol.” Opera Blosii“and” Arnobius contra gentes,“with notes, Douay, 1634; and had some hand in father Reyner’s” Apostolatus Benedictinorum," 1626.

, a celebrated capuchin, better known by the name of Father Joseph, was born November 4, 1577, at Paris, where his father, John de Clerc, had an office in the palace. After pursuing his studies with success, he visited Italy and Germany, entered into the army, and gave his family the most flattering expectations of his future fortune, when he suddenly renounced the world, and took the capuchins’ habit in 1599. He afterwards preached, and discharged the office of a missionary with reputation, was entrusted with the most important commissions by the court, and contributed much to the reformation of Fontevrauld. He sent capuchin missionaries into England, Canada, and Turkey, and was the intimate confidant of cardinal Richelieu, to whotn he was servilely devoted. Father Joseph founded the new order of Benedictine nuns of Calvary, for whom he procured establishments at Angers. Louis XIII. had nominated him to the cardinalate, but he died at Reuel, before he had received that dignity, December 18, 1638. The parliament attended his funeral in a body. The abbe Richard has published two lives of this capuchin, in one of which, in 2 vols. 12mo, he represents him as a saint; and in the other, entitled “Le veritable Pere Joseph,” as an artful politician, and courtier. This last is most esteemed, and probably most to be credited.

, an ecclesiastic and antiquary, was born in Worcestershire towards the latter end of the fifteenth century. When he was about fifteen years of age, he was received into the monastery of Benedictine monks at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire; whence, being professed one of that order, he was sent to Gloucester-hall, Oxford, which was then a school for young Benedictines. After studying there four years, he was recalled to his monastery, and made principal chapjain; and his good conduct procured him to be chosen abbot in 1487. He had considerable reputation as a scholar and a promoter of learning; and was an exact observer and reformer of the discipline of his house. In one of his visits to Oxford, which were frequent, he took the degree of D. D. in 1500. He also visited Rome on some affairs belonging to his order, and on his return acquired much reputation as a preacher in the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. In 1515, when there was a great debate between the clergy and the laity concerning exceptions; some asserting that what is called the “benefit of clergy,” should not be extended but to the higher orders, our abbot contended that the minor or inferior orders should also be included. He died in 1531, leaving “Tractatus contra doctrinam Lutheri,” 1521, one of the first attacks on that reformer’s doctrines from this country. But he was more known for his history of the foundation of Winchcombe monastery a list of its abbots and its charters and privileges manuscripts which have been partly lost.

, a pious and learned Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born in 1636 of & noble family at a village called Montyreau, in the diocese of Chartres. He went first into the army, but entered the Benedictine order, 1659, and applied so closely to his studies, that he became an able philosopher, a judicious divine, and one of the best writers of his time. He died April 4, 1711, at St. Denis. His works are numerous, and much esteemed in France. They are, 1. “Traite” de la connoissance de soi-mme,“1700, 6 vols. 12mo; 2.” De la Vérité évidente de la Religion Chretienne;“3.” Nouvel Athéisme renversé“,” against Spinoza, 12mo, and in the refutations of Spinoza, collected by the abbé Lenglet, Brussels, 1731, 12mo; 4. “L'Incréclule amené à la Religion par la Raison;” 5. “Letters, theological and moral;” 6. “Lettres Philosophiques sur divers sujets;” 7. “Conjectures Physiques sur divers effets du Tonnerre,” 1689, with an addition published the same year; this little tract is very curious; 8. “De la connoissance et de l'amour de Dieu;” 9. “La Rhetorique de College, trahie par son Apologiste,” against the famous Gibert, professor of rhetoric in the Mazarine college; 10. “Les Gemissemens de l'Amo sous la Tyrannic du Corps;” 11. “Les premiers Klemens, ou entree aux connoissances solides,” to which is added an essay on logic in form of dialogues each of these works is in one vol. 12mo; 12. “A Letter to Mallebranche on disinterested love,” with some other Letters on philosophical subjects, 1699, 8vo; 13. “A Refutation of M. Nicole’s system of universal grace,” &c. &c. His style in all these is generally polished and correct.

Several of our ancient historians who were almost his contemporaries, speak in very advantageous terms of the genius and erudition of Lanfranc; and some of them who were personally acquainted with him, represent him as the most learned man of the age in which he flourished. His charity is said to have been so great, that he bestowed in that way no less than 500l. a year, a very great sum in those days, and equal to 1500l. in ours. Besides this he rebuilt the cathedral of Canterbury, re-established the chapter there, founded the hospitals of St. Nicholas at Herbaldown and St. John at Canterbury, repaired several churches and monasteries in his diocese, obtained a restoration of the estates of the church which had been alienated, and maintained the ecclesiastical immunities. A remarkable suit, which he carried against Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, put him in possession of five and twenty estates, which had been usurped by that prelate. Lanfranc, besides his piece against Berenger already mentioned, wrote several others, which were published in one volume, folio, in 1647, by father Luke D'Achery, a Benedictine monk, of the congregation of St. Maur. They consist of commentaries on the epistles of St. Paul, and on the Psalms a treatise on confession, letters, &C.

, a Benedictine of the congregation de St. Maur, was born 1663, at Rennes. He entered his order in 1683, devoted his whole life to the study of history, and died at an abbey near St. Malo, June 3, 1727, aged sixty-one. His principal work is a “History of Bretany,” in 2 vols. fol. but the second only, which contains the titles, is valued. The abbé Vertot, and the abbé Claudius Moulinet, sieur des Thuilleries, have violently attacked that part of this history, in which his partiality to his own country has led him to disregard the rights of Normandy. Lobineau also translated a “History of the two Conquests of Spain by the Moors,” &c. from the Spanish of Miguel de Luna, a work of no authority. He was more usefully employed in completing and publishing the “History of the City of Paris,” 5 vols. fol. which Felibien had begun and made a considerable progress in before his death. The last three volumes contain many curious and interesting pieces; and an excellent dissertation is prefixed to the first volume, on the origin of the H6tel de Ville, and the corps municipal, by M. le Hoi, senior master jd warden of the goldsmiths, and controller of the rents of the Hotel de Ville. A satirical work, entitled “Les Avantures de Pomponius, chevalier Romain,” 12mo, has been attributed to Dom. Lobiweau, but without sufficient authority.

He was, says Warton, who of all our modern critics has considered him with most attention, a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Bury in Suffolk. After a short education at Oxford, he travelled into France and Italy; and returned a complete master of the language and the literature of both countries. He chiefly studied the Italian and French poets, particularly Dante, Boccaccio, and Alain Chartier; and became so distinguished a proficient in polite learning, that he opened a school in his monastery, for teaching the sons of the nobility the arts of versification, and the elegancies of composition. Yet, although philology was his object, he was not unfamiliar with the fashionable philosophy: he was not only a poet and a rhetorician, but a geometrician, an astronomer, a theologist, and a disputant. Mr. Warton is of opinion that he made considerable additions to those amplifications of our language, in which Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve, led the way; and that be is the first of our writers whose style is clothed wjth that perspicuity in which the English phraseology appears at this day to an English reader.

The next piece which Malebranche published, was his “Conversations Chretiennes, dans lesquelles sont justifié la verite de la religion & de la morale de J. C.” Paris, 1676. He was moved, it is said, to write this piece, at the desire of the duke de Chevreuse, to shew the consistency and agreement between his philosophy and religion. His “Traité de la nature & de la grace,” 1680, was occaioned by a conference he had with M. Arnaud, about those peculiar notions of grace into which Malebranche’s system had led that divine. This was followed by other pieces, which were all the result of the philosophical and theological dispute our author had with M. Arnaud. In 1688, he published his “Entretien sur la inetaphysique & la religion:” in which work he collected what he had written against M. Arnaud, but disengaged it from that air of dispute which is not agreeable to every reader. In 1697, he published his “Traite de P amour de Dieu.” When the doctrine of the new mystics began to be much talked of in France, father Lamy, a Benedictine, in his book “De la connoissance de soi-mme,” cited some passages out of this author’s “Recherche de la verit6,” as favourable to that party; upon this, Malebranche thought proper to defend himself in this book, by shewing in what sense it may be said, without clashing with the authority of the church or reason, that the love of God is disinterested. In 1708, he published his “Entretiens d‘un philosophe Chretien, & d’un philosophe Chinois sur l'existence & la nature de Dieu:” or, “Dialogues between a Christian philosopher and a Chinese philosopher, upon the existence and nature of God.” The bishop of Rozalie having remarked some conformity between the opinions of the Chinese, and the notions laid down in the “Recherche de la Verite”,“mentioned it to the author, who on that account thought himself obliged to write this tract. Malebranche wrote many other pieces besides what we have mentioned, all tending some way or other to confirm his main system established in the” Recherche," and to clear it from the objections which were brought against it, or from the consequences which were deduced from it: and, if he has not attained what he aimed at in these several productions, he has certainly shewn great ingenuity and abilities.

, a benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born in 1654, at St. Jean-deLosne, in the diocese of Langres. Among his brethren, so highly famous for arduous efforts in literature, he was distinguished for his very laborious researches, no less than for his eminent virtues. The vast extent of his learning did not interfere with the simplicity of his manners, any more than his great attachment to study, with his attention to monastic duties. He died of an apoplexy in 1739, at the age of 85. His principal works are, 1. “A Latin Commentary on the monastic rules of St, Benedict,” a work of curious research on that subject, Paris, 1690, 4to. 2. “De antiquis monachorum ritibus,” Lyons, 1690, 2 vols. 4to. Many curious points of history, besides the concerns of the Monks, are illustrated by these volumes. 3. A Latin treatise, “on the ancient Ecclesiastical Rites, and on the Sacraments,” Rheims, 1700 and 1701, 3 vols. 4to. 4. A Latin treatise on the Discipline of the Church. 5. “Thesaurus anecdotorum novus,” 1717, 5 vols. folio, a valuable collection of ecclesiastical documents. 6. “Voyage Literaire de deux Benedictins,” Paris, 1717, 4to. 7. “Veterum Scriptorum et Monumentorum Ecclesiasticorum, et dogmaticorum, amplissima collectio,” 1724, 9 vols, folio. In this he was assisted by Durand. All these works are full of learned labour but the author is content to amass, without giving much grace to the materials he compiles.

, a Benedictine monk, who distinguished himself by an edition of St. Jerome, was born at St. Sever, a village in Gascony, in 1647. He entered into the congregation of St. Maur at twenty years of age; and applied himself to the study of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. He read lectures upon the holy scriptures in several monasteries, at x\rles, at Avignon, at Bourdeaux: in the last of which places he accidentally met with father Pezron’s book called “The antiquity of time re-established;” “L'Antiquite du temps retablie.” The authority of the Hebrew text, and the chronology of the Vulgate, being attacked in this work, Martianay resolved to defend them in two or three pieces, published against Pezron and Isaac Vossius, who maintained the Septuagint version. This monk died of an apoplexy in 1717, after having spent fifty years in a scrupulous observance of all the duties belonging to his order, and in writing more than twenty works, of which the most distinguished is his edition of the works of St. Jerome, in 5 vols. folio; the first of which was published at Paris in 1693, the second in 1699. In his notes on these two volumes he criticized several learned men, as well papists as protestants, with much severity, and even contumely; which provoked Le Clerc, who was one of them, to examine the merits of this edition and of the editor. This he did in a volume published in 12mo, at Amsterdam, in 1700, with this title, “Quaestiones Hie,ronymianae, in qnibus expenditur Hieronymi nupera editio Parisina, &c.” in which he endeavours to shew that Martianay, notwithstanding the indecent petulances he had exercised towards other critics, had none of the requisites to qualify him for an editor of St. Jerome; that he had not a competent skill either in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, or in the ancient interpreters of scripture, or in profane authors, or in the science of manuscripts, for this work. Martianay published the third volume in 1704, the fourth in 1705, and the fifth in 1706; and Le Clerc published, in the seventeenth tome of his “Bibliotheque choisee,” some copious remarks upon these three last volumes, in order to confirm the judgment he had passed on the two first. Nevertheless, Martianay’s edition of Jerome was by many thought the best, even after the appearance of Vallarsius’s edition.

, a learned Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born at Tanjaux in Upper Languedoc, in 1694, and became a Benedictine in 1709. After having taught the learned languages in his native province, he removed to the capital in 1727. He was there regarded as a man of a singular and violent temper; rather whimsical as a scholar, and not always sufficiently prudent or modest as a writer; yet he was one of the ablest authors produced by the congregation of St. Maur, and would have been excellent had he met with any judicious friend to correct the sallies of his too active imagination. His latter years were much embittered by the gravel and the gout, under the torments of which complaints he suffered, with great piety, a kind of lingering death, which did not dismiss him from his sufferings till 1751, when he was in his seventieth year. He wrote, 1. “A treatise on the Religion of the ancient Gauls,” Paris, 1727, 2 vols. 4to. This book is much esteemed for the curious and learned researches of the author; but contains some uncommon opinions, which have not been generally adopted by his readers. One point which he particularly labours, is to derive the religion of the ancient Gauls from that of the patriarchs. Tbis subject has been more successfully handled lately by Mr. Maurice, with the aid of oriental knowledge. 2. “History of the Gauls, &c. from their origin to the foundation of the French monarchy,” 1754, 2 vols. 4to, continued and published by his nephew de Brezillac, and much esteemed. 3. “An Explication of several difficult Texts of Scripture,” Paris, 1730, 2 vols. 4to. The fire, the ingenuity, and the presumption of the author, are sufficiently manifest in this book; which would be much more valuable if deprived of several discussions and citations about trifles, and some points by no means suited to a book of divinity. 4. “An Explanation of ancient Monuments, &c. wiih an examination of an edition of St. Jerom, and a treatise on Judicial Astrology,” Paris, 173u, 4to. Besides a vast scope of erudition, this book is adorned by many lively traits, and a very animated style. 5. “A Project for an Alphabetical Library,” containing much learning, and many misplaced witticisms. 6. “A Translation of -the Confessions of St. Augustin,” which is exact, and is accompanied with judicious notes.

, a very learned Benedictine, of the congregation of St. Maur, was born at S. Owen de Macelles, in 1665. He is chiefly known for the new edition of St. Irenceus, which he published in 1710, fol. Gr. & Lat. He consulted, for that purpose, several manuscripts, which had never been examined; and made new notes and learned dissertations, prefixed to the work. The first of these dissertations is employed upon the person, character, and condition of Irenoeus, and sets forth particularly the writings and tenets of the heretics he encountered; the second enlarges further upon the life, actions, martyrdom, and writings of this saint; and the third relates his sentiments and doctrine. But, although this edition is reckoned better and more correct than any which had appeared before it, Salomon Deyling published a work at Leipsic in 1721, in order to expose the unfair representations Massuet had made of the opinions of Irenocus. Massuet was afterwards engaged to write a continuation of the acts and annals of the saints of the order of St.Benedict and accordingly he published a fifth volume. He died, aged 50, Jan. 19, 1716, after having written and published several other works.

, an English historian, who flourished, according to some, in 1377; while Nicolson thinks he did not outlive 1307, was a Benedictine of the abbey at Westminster, and thence has taken his name. From the title of his history, “Flores historiarum,” he has often been called Florilegus. His history commences from the foundation of the world, but the chief object of which is the English part. It is entitled, “Flores Historiarum, per Matthoeum Wesmonasteriensem collecti, prsecipue de Rebus Britannicis, ab exordio mundi, usque ad annum 1307,” published at London in 1567, and at Franckfort in 1601, both in folio. It is divided into six ages, butis comprised in three books. The first extends from the creation to the Christian aera; the second, from the birth of Christ to the Norman conquest; the third, from that period to the beginning of Edward the Second’s reign. Seventy years more were afterwards added, which carried it down to the death of Edward III. in 1377. He formed his work very much upon the model and plan of Matthew Paris, whom he imitated with great care. He wrote with so scrupulous a veracity/ that he is never found to wander a tittle from the truth; and with such diligence, that he omitted nothing worthy of remark. He is commended also for his acuteness in tracing, and his judgment in selecting facts, his regularity in the method or his plan, and his skill in chronological computations. He is, on the whole, except by bishop Nicolson, very highly esteemed, as one of the most venerable fathers of English history.

, a writer on the history of the saints, was born at Paris in 1587, and became a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, among whom he was one of the first who applied severely to study. He died Jan. 21, 1644, at the age of fifty-seven. We have by him, 1. “Marty rologium San m ordinis S. Benedicti,” 1629. 2. “Concordia Regularum,” a comparison of the life of St. Benedict, with the rules of his order. 3. “Sacramentarium Sancti Gregorii Magni,” 1642, 4to. 4. “Diatriba deunico Dionysio,” 1643, 8vo. All these works display a taste for research, and a talent for sound criticism. He found the epistle of St. Barnabas, in an ancient-Aanuscript, in the abbey of Corbie.

, a Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, and one of the most learned antiquaries France has produced, was born Jan. 17, 1655, at Soulage in Langnedoc, whither his parents had removed on some business; and was educated at the castle of Roquetaillade in the diocese of Alet, where they ordinarily resided. His family was originally of Gascony, and of the ancient lords of Montfaucon-le-Vieux, first barons of the comte de Comminges. The pedigree of a man of learning is not of much importance, but Montfaucon was an antiquary, and has given us his genealogy in his “Bibl. Bibliothecarum manuscriptorum,” and it must not, therefore, be forgotten, that besides his honourable ancestors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, he was the son of Timoleon de Montfaucon, lord of Roquetaillacle and Conillac in the diocrse of Alet, by Flora de Maignan, daughter of the baron d'Albieres. He was the second of four brothers. From his early studies in his father’s house he was removed to Limoux, where he continued them under the fathers of the Christian doctrine, and it is said that the reading of Plutarch’s Lives inspired him first with a love for history and criticism. A literary profession, however, was not his original destination, for we find that he set out with being a cadet in the regiment of Perpignan, and served one or two campaigns in Germany in the army of marshal Turenne. He also gave a proof of his courage by accepting a challenge from a brother bfficer who wished to put it to the tfcst. About two years after entering the army, the death of his parents, and of an officer of distinction under whom he served, with other circumstances that occurred about the same time, appear to have given him a dislike to the military life, and induced him to enter the congregation of St. Maur in 1675 at the age of twenty. In this learned society, for such it was for many years, he had every opportunity to improve his early education, and follow the literary pursuits most agreeable to him. The first fruits of his application appeared in a kind of supplement to Cottelerius, entitled “Analecta Graeca sive vuria opuscula, Gr. & Lat.” Paris, 4to, 1688, with notes by him, Antony Pouget and James Lopin. In 1690 he published a small volume 12mo, entitled “La verite de l'Histoire de Judith,” in which he attempts to vindicate the authenticity of that apocryphal book, and throws considerable light on the history of the Medes and Assyrians. His next publication of much importance was a new edition in Gr. & Lat. of the works of St. Athanasius, which came out in 1698, 3 vols. fol. This, which is generally known by the name of the Benedictine edition, gave the world the first favourable impression of Montfaucon’s extensive learning and judgment. He had some assistance in it from father Lopin, before-mentioned, who, however, died before the publication.

, born in 1686, at Paris, was the son of Guy Carre“, maitre des requetes. He was but twenty-five when he purchased a counsellor’s place in the parliament, and acquired some degree of credit in that situation by his wit and exterior accomplishments. He had, by his own account, given himself up to all manner of licentiousness, for which his conscience frequently checked him, and although he endeavoured to console himself with the principles of infidelity, his mind was still harassed, when accident or design led him to visit the tomb of M. Paris the deacon, September 7, 1731, with the crowd which, from various motives, were assembled there. If we may believe his own account, he went merely to scrutinize, with the utmost severity, the (pretended) miracles wrought there, but felt himself, as he says, suddenly struck and overwhelmed by a thousand rays of light, which illuminated him, and, from an infidel, he immediately became a Christian, but in truth was devoted from that moment to fanaticism, with the same violence and impetuosity of temper which had before led him into the most scandalous excesses. In 1732 he was involved in a quarrel which the parliament had with the court, and was, with others, banished to Auvergne. Here he formed a plan for collecting the proofs of the miracles wrought at the tomb of the abbe Paris, making them clear to demonstration, as he called it, and presenting them to the king. At his return to Paris, he prepared to put this plan in execution, went to Versailles, July 29, 1737, and presented the king with a quarto volume magnificently bound, which he accompanied with a speech. In consequence of this step Montgeron was sent to thebastile, then confined some months in a Benedictine abbey belonging to the diocese of Avignon, removed soon after to Viviers, and carried from thence to be shut up in the citadel of Valence, where he died in 1754, aged sixty-eight. The work which he presented to the king is entitled” La Verite des Miracles operes par l'Intercession de M. de Paris,“&c. 4to. This first volume by M. Montgeron has been followed by two more, and he is said also to have left a work in ms. against the incredulous, written while he was a prisoner. De Montgeron would, however, have scarcely deserved a place here, if bishop Douglas, in his” Criterion," had not bestowed so much pains on examining the pretended miracles which he records, and thus rendered his history an object of some curiosity.

, a learned Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born 1685, at Rheims, and died 1724, aged 39. He composed some hymns in Latin, which are much admired, and assisted father Constant in his “Collection of the Popes’ Letters,” to which he wrote the dedication and preface. This preface having displeased the court of Rome, Mopinot defended it by several letters. He also wrote the epistle dedicatory which is prefixed to the “Thesaurus Anecdotorum;” and had finished the second volume of the Collection of the Popes’ letters before his death.

The first edition of his “Dictionary” was comprized in one vol. folio, which he soon found very defective, and therefore applied himself with great vigour to enlarge it; which he did in two volumes, and the year after his death it was printed at Paris in 1681. The third edition, in 1683, is likewise in two volumes, and was copied from the second. The two following editions, of which the fourth was printed in 1687, and the fifth in 1683, were published at Lyons in two volumes, and were the same with that of 1683, except that some articles were added. It was afterwards thought proper to give a “Supplement or third Volume of the Historical Dictionary,” which was printed in 1689 in folio. The sixth edition, in which is inserted the Supplement in the same alphabetical order, corrected in a great number of places, and enlarged by many important articles and Remarks, was printed at Amsterdam in 1691 in four volumes in folio. Le Clerc had the care of this edition, in which the articles of the Supplement are incorporated, and made the additions, consisting either of new articles, or improvements of other articles. Three more editions followed, almost the same, in 1694, 1698, and 1699, all in 4 vols. folio. The tenth was printed from the edition revised by Le Clerc, at Amsterdam, 1702, in 4 vols. folio. The eleventh was published by Mons. Vaultier with new additions, at Paris, 1704, 4 vols. folio. It was preceded by a piece entitled “Projet pour la Correction du Dictionnaire Historique de M. Moreri, deja revu, corrigé, & angmenté dans le derniere Edition de Paris par M. Vaultier,” Paris, 1701, 4to. It was followed by a piece entitled “Remarques Critiques sur ia Nouvelle Edition du Dictionnaire Historique de Moreri, donneé en 1704.” The second edition of this piece, printed at Rotterdam in 1706, 12mo, is enlarged with a preface and a great many notes by another author, viz. Bayle, who published this edition. The twelfth edition of Moreri was printed at Paris in 1707, 4 vols. folio, and the thirteenth in 1712, in 5 vols. folio. Dupin had a considerable share in it, as also in the following editions. In 1714, there was printed separately in that city a large Supplement, composed, as is said in the advertisements, of new articles, corrected in the last edition of 1712, to serve as a supplement to the preceding editions. This supplement was reprinted with great additions by Bernard at Amsterdam in 1716 in two volumes, folio. The fourteenth edition of Moreri was printed at Amsterdam in 1717, in six volumes, folio, with the Supplement, which is not incorporated in the body of the work. The fifteenth edition was printed at Parisj 1718, 5 vols. fol. The articles of the Supplement published in Holland are inserted in their proper places, with some additions. This edition has been greatly criticised. The authors of the “Europe Sçavante” have inserted in their fourth volume, p. 230, a memoir, in which is shewn, that in the single letter Z, which is one of the shortest, there are a great many faults, and several articles omitted. The abbé Le Clerc also published “Remarks upon different Articles,” in the three first volumes, printed in three volumes 8vo; the first in 1719, the second in 1720, and the third in 1721. Father Francis Meri, a Benedictine Monk, published likewise upon this subject a pamphlet, entitled “Discussion Critique & Theologique des Remarques de M. sur le Dictionnaire de Moreri de 1718,” 1720, 8vo. It is a defence of some passages of the Dictionary against the criticism of the abbé Le Clerc. The sixteenth edition of Moreri was printed at Paris in 1724, in 6 vols. folio. Monsieur de la Barre had the care of it. What relates to genealogy was revised by Monsieur Vailly, an advocate; and the abbé Le Clerc furnished five or six thousand corrections, as he informs us in his “Bibliotheque de Richelet.” The seventeenth edition was printed at Basil in 1731; and the eighteenth at Paris, in 1732, 6 vols. folio, to which supplementary volumes were added. The last and best edition, in which all these were incorporated, is that of 1759, 10 vols. folio. This is still a work of great value and utility, particularly the biographical part, but much of the historical and geographical part has become almost obsolete, owing to the more correct information and improvements introduced in those branches.

, a French historian, who flourished in the fourteenth century, was a Benedictine monk of the abbey of St. Denis, and supposed to have taken his name from the place where he was born. He wrote the lives of St. Lewis, and of Philip le Hardi, and two chronicles; the first from the creation to 1300, the second a chronicle generally of the kings of France. The lives were printed, for the first time, in Pithou’s collection in 1596, and the chronicle from 1113, in the “Spicilegium” of D. Luc d' Archery. The life of St. Lewis was again reprinted along with Joinville’s history of the same prince, with a glossary, &c. by J. B. Mellot, Ch. Sallier, and J. Capperonier, at Paris in 1761, fol.

After his return from Portugal, in 1561, Nicot retired from public, and devoted himself to literary employment. In 1567 he published an edition of the life of Aimon, a Benedictine of the abbey of Fleury, which Dupin has improperly attributed to Pichon. He also improved Aimar de Rangonnet’s French Dictionary, so as to render it almost a new work. It did not appear, however, until after his death, when it was entitled “Tresor de la langue Frangaise tant ancienne que moderne,” 1606, fol. and was reprinted at least four times. Nicot died at Paris May 5, 1600. He left several Mss. particularly a kind of history or dictionary of navigation.

, a learned Benedictine of the congregation of St. Maur, was born at Dieppe in 1647$ and devoted his early years to the study of ecclesiastical antiquities, in which he was allowed to have attained very great knowledge. His first literary employment was on an edition of the works of Cassiodorus, which he prepared for the press in conjunction with father Garet, contributing the life, prefaces, and tables. He was next engaged on the works of St. Ambrose, published in 1686 1691. His most important work was his “Apparatus ad Bibliothecam max. veterum Patrum,” Paris, 1715, 2 vols. folio, intended as a supplement to Despont’s “Bibl. Patrum,” 27 vols. folio, but which is not always found with it. It contains a number of curious and learned dissertations on the lives, writings, and sentiments, of the fathers, with illustrations of many obscure passages. In 1710, Nourry published “Lucius Caecilius de mortibus persecutorum,” 8vo, which he contended was not the production of Lactantius (see Lactantius) but although he has supplied many useful notes and comments on this work, he failed in making converts to this last opinion. Nourry died at Paris, March 24, 1724, aged seventy-seven.

, or of Kent, so called because he was a native of that county in England, where he flourished in the twelfth century, was a Benedictine monk, of which order his learning and eloquence raised him to be prior and abbot, first of St. Saviour’s, and afterwards of Battleabbey. He died in March 1200. Thomas a Becket was his friend, and his panegyric was made by John of Salisbury. He composed several works, as “Commentaries upon the Pentateuch;” “Moral Reflections upon the Psalms, the Old Testament, and the Gospels;” a treatise entitled, “De onere Philistini;” another, “De raoribus ecclesiasticis” a third, “De vitiis & virtutibus animae,” &c. Besides these, a “Letter to a brother novitiate,” in the abbey of Igny, is printed by Mabillon in the first tome of “Analects;” and another “Letter to Philip earl of Flanders,” about 1171, upon the miracles of St. Thomas, is in the “Collectio amplissima veterum monumentorum,” p. 882, published by the fathers Martenne and Durand, Benedictines.

His mind becoming easier by degrees, he returned to his favourite studies, and through the course of the year 1751, he published his “Amusements Periodiques,” a monthly publication, in which he entered with great freedom into the controversy between the protestant and Romish churches, and they were therefore soon prohibited both in Portugal and Rome. In 1753 he retired to a house at Kentish town, where he divided his time between the care of a small garden, the pursuit of his studies, and the conversation of several learned friends who frequently visited him. When the news arrived of the dreadful earthquake at Lisbon in December 1755, he published his “Discours Pathetique” early in 1756, addressed to his countrymen, but particularly to the king of Portugal. The rapid sale of several editions of this work, both in French and English, in the course of a few weeks, was no inconsiderable proof of its merit; but while it made him more known and esteemed in this and other countries, it drew upon him the resentment of some of his countrymen, and particularly of the inquisitors, who now laid a prohibition on all his works in geaeral. Even his brother, Thomas de Aquinas, a Benedictine monk, wrote to exhort him to retract his errors. This occasioned the chevalier to publish a second part, or “Suite de Discours pathetique,” 1757, in which he not only answered the objections made to the “Discours,” but inserted his brother’s letter, with a suitable answer.

All Origen’s works, which remain only in Latin, were collected by Merlinus, and afterwards by Erasmus, and printed at Paris, in 1512, and at Basil in 1536, in 2 vols. folio. Genebrard has since made a larger collection, which was printed at Paris, in 1574, 1604, 1619, 2 vols. folio. All the Greek fragments of Origen upon the Scriptures were published, with a Latin translation by Huetius, and printed in 1668, 1679, and 1685, 2 vols, folio; to which are prefixed by the editor large Prolegomena, under the title of “Origeniana,” in which are given, in three books, a very copious and learned account of the life, the doctrines, and the writings of Origen. The eight books against U Oelsus,“an Epicurean philosopher, which are by far the most valuable of his works, were published in Greek, with the” Translation of Gelenius,“and the” Notes of Hoeschelius,“in 1605, 4to; and afterwards very correctly at Cambridge, in 1658, 4to, by William Spencer, fellow of Trinity-college, who corrected the translation, and also added notes of his own. To this edition are subjoined the” Philocalia, sive de obscuris sacrse scripturae locis,“of Origen. Wetstein, Greek-professor at Basil, caused to be printed there, with a Latin version and notes, in 1674, 4to,” The Dialogue against Marcion“(which, by the way, is supposed by Huetius to be a spurious piece), the” Exhortation to Martyrdom,“and the” Letters of Africanus and Origen, concerning the “History of Susannah and lastly, the book” De Oratione,“was published at London, in 1718, 4to, with notes by Dr. Ashton and Mr. Reading. An edition of all Origen’s works was undertaken by Charles Delarue, a Benedictine monk, who began to publish it at Paris, in 1733, folio; and though the four volumes he has given us do not complete his plan, yet they contain the best, and indeed the only part of Origen’s works wprth any attention. This was reprinted by Oberthur, in 1780, 15 vols. 8vo. The celebrated Montfaucon has published in 2 vols, folio, some remains and fragments of his” Hexapla," and more recently Bahrdt published at Leipsic the Hexapla, 1769, in 2 vols. 8vo.

, an English historian, was a Benedictine monk of the congregation of Clugny, in the monastery of St. Alban’s, the habit of which order he took in 1217. He was an universal scholar; understood, and had a good taste both in painting and architecture. He was also a mathematician, a poet, an orator, a divine, an historian, and a man of distinguished probity. Such rare accomplishments and qualities as these, did not fail to place him very high in the esteem of his contemporaries; and he was frequently employed in reforming some monasteries, visiting others, and establishing the monastic discipline in all. He reproved vice without distinction of persons, and did not even spare the English court itself; at the same time he shewed a hearty affection for his country in maintaining its privileges against the encroachments of the pope. Of this we have a clear, though unwilling, evidence in Baronius, who observes, that this author remonstrated with too sharp and bitter a spirit against the court of Rome; and that, except in this particular only, his history was an incomparable work. He died at St. Alban’s in 1259. His principal work, entitled “Historia Major,” consists of two parts: The first, from the creation of the world to William the Conqueror; the second, from that king’s reign to 1250. He carried on this history afterwards to the year of his death in 1259. Rishanger, a monk of the monastery of St. Alban’s, continued it to 1272 or 1273, the year of the death of Henry III. It was first printed at London in 1571, and reprinted 1640, 1684, fol. besides several foreign editions. There are various ms copies in our public libraries, particularly one which he presented to Henry III. and which is now in the British Museum. From Jiis Mss. have also been published “Vitas duorum Offarum, Merciae regum, S, Albani fundatorum” <c Gesta viginti duo abbatum S. Albani“”Additamenta chronicorum ad historian) majorern,“all which accompany the editions of his” Historia Major“printed in 1640 -and 1684. Among his unpublished Mss. are an epitome of his” Historia Major," and a history from Adam to the conquest, principally from Matthew of Westminster. This is in the library of Bene't college, Cambridge. The titles of some other works, but of doubtful authority, may be seen in Bale and Pits.

, a celebrated Benedictine of the ninth century, was born at Soissons, and carefully educated by the monks of Notre Dame in his native city, in the exterior part of their abbey. He afterwards took the religious habit under St. Adelard in the abbey of Corbey, and daring the exile of his abbot Wala, who succeeded Adelard, wrote, about the year 831, a treatise “On the Body and Blood of Christ” for the instruction of the young monks at New Corbey in Saxony, where he teaches, that the same body of Christ which was born of the Virgin, which was crucified, rose again, and ascended into heaven, is really present in the Eucharist. This treatise made a great noise in the reign of Charles the Bald. Bertram (otherwise Ratram), John Scotus Erigena, and some others, wrote against Paschasius, who was then abbot of Corbey; and Frudegard, abbot of New Corbey, wrote to him on the subject about the year 864, informing him that many persons understood in a figurative sense the words “this is my Body; this is my Blood,” in the institution of the Eucharist, and supported themselves on the authority of St. Augustine. Paschasius on the other side maintained that he taught nothing in his treatise different from the faith of the church, nor from what had been universally believed from the time of the apostles; but these disputes, together with some disturbances raised against him, induced him to resign his abbey, and he died soon after, April 26, in the year 865. He was only a deacon, having declined taking priest’s orders from a principle of humility. Claude, and several other protestant writers, have asserted that Paschasius was the first who taught the doctrine of the real presence; but the popish writers maintain that this doctrine has been always believed and taught in the Romish church. His remaining works are, “Commentaries” on St. Matthew, on Psalm xliv. and on the Lamentations of Jeremiah; “The Life of St. Adelard,” and other works in the Library of the Fathers, which Father Sirmond printed separately at Paris, 1618, folio. Father d'Acheri, in torn. XII. of his “Spicilegium, has published Paschasius Ratbert’s treatise” De Partu Virginis;“another question much agitated in the ninth century. His treatise” De Corpora Christ!" has been inserted by Martenne in his collection, where it is more accurate than in P. Sirmond’s edition.

, a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, was born at Cormery, in Touraine, in 1500. He took the Benedictine habit in the abbey of this name, 1517, and died there about 1559, aged near sixty. Among his writings are four “Dialogues,” in Latin, on the origin of the French language, and its resemblance to the Greek, Paris, 1555, 8vo; some tracts in defence of Aristotle and Cicero, against Peter Ranius, 8vo Latin translations of some books of Plato, Aristotle, St. John Damascenus, &c. “Loci Theologici,” Paris, 1549, 8vo. He wrote in more elegant Latin than was common with the divines of that age; but his accuracy and critical skill have been in many respects justly called in question.

, better known by the name of cardinal de Granvelle, was born 1517, at Besançon, and was son of Nicholas Perrenot, seigneur de Granvelle, chancellor to the emperor Charles V. Born with an ambitious, intriguing, and firm temper, joined to great abilities, he speedily raised himself, was made canon and archdeacon of Besançon, then bishop of Arras, in which character he spoke very forcibly at the council of Trent when but twenty-four years of age, and afterwards served the emperor Charles V. in several embassies to France, England, and elsewhere. This prince had so particular an esteem for Granvelle, and such confidence in him, that on abdicating the empire, he recommended him to his son Philip II. who scarce ever took any step relative either to private or public affairs, without his advice and assistance. Granvelle was afterwards appointed the first archbishop of Malines, was made cardinal in 1561, by Pius IV. and at length counsellor to Margaret of Parma, governess of the Netherlands, where, according to Strada’s account, his ambition and cruelty occasioned part of the outrages which were committed. Philip II. recalled him a second time to court, and entrusted him with all the affairs of the Spanish monarchy. Cardinal de Granvelle died at Madrid September 21, 1586, aged seventy, after having been nominated to the archbishopric of Besançon. His Life, written by D. Prosper Levêque, a Benedictine, was printed at Paris, 1753, 2 vols. 12mo. It is interesting, but the author is unpardonably partial, and conceals the cruelty, ambition, and other faults of this celebrated cardinal.

, a celebrated Benedictine, of the congregation of St. Vannes, was born December 18, 1659, at St. Nicholas in Lorrain. He taught philosophy and theology in the abbey de St. Michael; was made abbot of Senones 1715, and bishop of Macra 1726. He died June 14, 1728, aged 69. The principal among his numerous works are, 3 vols. 8vo, of “Remarks on M. Dupin’s Ecclesiastical Library;” and “An Apology for M. Pascal’s Provincial Letters,” in seventeen letters. This work he afterwards disavowed in a letter to cardinal Corradini, dated September 30, 1726, where he declares that these seventeen letters have been rashly and falsely attributed to him; but l'Avocat says, that it is nevertheless certain that he wrote them. He wrote also a treatise “On the Pope’s Infallibility,” in favour of the Holy See, and against the liberties of the Gallican church, Luxemburg, 1724, 12mo; and a “Dissertation on the Council of Constance,” 1725, 12mo. He not only accepted the constitution “Unigenitus,” but wrote in its defence, and by that means gained the abbey of Senones, which the person to whom it bad lapsed disputed with him.

, a learned and ingenious Frenchman, was born at Hennebon in Bretagne, in 1639 and admitted of the order of Cistercians in 1660. He made the scriptures the principal object of his study: aware of the assistance to be derived from profane history, he read with attention the ancient Greek and Latin historians. His judgment, however, did not improve with his erudition, as appeared by a new system, which he communicated to the public, in a work printed at Paris in 1687, 4to, and called “L‘Antiquite’ des temps retablie,” &c. that is, “The Antiquity of Time restored, and defended, against the Jews and modem Chronologers.” His design here is to prove, upon the authorities of the septuagint and profane history, that the world is more ancient than modern chronologers have supposed; and that, instead of 4000 years between the creation of the world and the birth of Christ, there were almost 6000. The great principle on which this supposition is built is, that the Hebrew text has been corrupted, since the destruction of Jerusalem by the Jews, who otherwise must have been forced to acknowledge, upon their own principles, that the Messiah was actually come. Pezron’s book was extremely admired for the ingenuity and learning of it; yet created, as was natural, no small alarm among the religious. Martianay, a Benedictine, and Le Quien, a Dominican, wrote against tnis new system, and undertook the defence of the Hebrew text Martianay with great zeal and heat, Le Quien with more judgment and knowledge. Pezron published, “Defense de l'Antiquite des temps,” in 1691, 4to; which, like the work itself, abounded with curious and learned researches. Le Quien replied, but Martianay brought the affair into another court; and, in 1693, laid the books and principles of Pezron before M. de Harlai, archbishop of Paris. Harlai communicated the representation of this adversary to Pezron; who defended himself with so much ingenuity as to render the accusation of no effect.

, is said to have been the real name of a German author, who, tinder the fictitious one of Publius Porcius Porcellus, wrote the Latin poem entitled “Pugna porcorum,” consisting of 360 verses, in which every word begins with a P. It was published separately at Antwerp, in 1530, and is in the “Nugae venales,” &c. We have followed Baillet in- calling him Peter Placentinus, but Le Clerc says that his name was John Leo Placentius, a Dominican monk, who died about 1548, and that he composed an history of the bishops of Tongres, Maestricht, and Liege, taken out of fabulous memoirs, and several poems besides the “Pugna Porcorum.” In this last he imitated one Theobaldus,. a Benedictine monk, who flourished in the time of Charles the Bald, to whom he presented a panegyric on baldness, every word of which began with the letter C (calvities, baldness). Placentinus is said to have had another object,

, a laborious Benedictine of the congregation de St. Maur, was born in 1617, at Rouen. After a suitable education, he refused all offices in his order, that he might devote himself wholly to study. He died of an apoplexy at the house of the learned M. Bulreau, to whom he was paying a visit, Oct. 28, 1687, aged seventy. His works are, “L'Histoire de TAbbaye de S. Ouen de Rouen, folio and a” History of the Archbishops of Rouen,“folio, which is his best work. He published also a” Collection of the Councils and Synods of Rouen,“4to” L'Histoire de la Cath&irale de Rouen,“4to” Pratique journaliere de TAumone," a small book, exhorting to give alms to those who beg for the poor. This Benedictine’s works are not written in a pleasing style, nor are they every where accurate, but they contain many curious observations.

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

In 1532, he published at Lyons some pieces of Hippocrates and Galen, with a dedication to the bishop of Mailezais in which he tells him, that he had read lectures upon the aphorisms of Hippocrates, and the “ars medica” of Galen, before numerous audiences in the university of Montpellier. This was the last year of his cootinuance in that place for the year after he went to Lyons, where he became physician to the hospital, and joined lectures with practice for some years following. John du Bellay, bishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, with whom he had been acquainted in his early years, going to Rome in? 1534, upon the business of Henry VIITs divorce from Catherine of Spain, and passing through Lyons, carried Rabelais with him, in quality of his physician who returned home, however, in about six months. He had sometime before quitted his religious connections for the sake of leading a life more suitable to his taste and humour; but now renewed them, and in a second journey to Rome, obtained in 1536, by his interest with some cardinals, a brief from pope Paul III. to qualify him for holding ecclesiastical benefices. John du Bellay, had procured the abbey of St. Maur near Paris to be secularized; and into this was Rabelais, now a Benedictine monk, received as a secular canon. Here he is supposed to have begun his famous romance, entitled “The lives, heroic deeds, and sayings of Gargantua and Pantagruel.” He continued ifi this retreat till 1545, when Du Bellay, his friend and patron, and now a cardinal, nominated him to the cure of Meudon, which he is said to have filled with great zeal and application to the end of his life. His profound knowledge and skill in physic made him doubly useful to the people under his care and he was ready upon all occasions to relieve them under indispositions of body as well as mind. He died in 1553. As he was a great wit, many witticisms and facetious sayings are laid to his charge, of which he knew nothing and many ridiculous circumstances are related of him by some of his biographers, to which probably little credit is due.

, a learned Benedictine, abbot of Prum towards the end of the ninth century, has left a good “Chronicle,” in the collection of German historians by Pistorius, 1583, 3 vols. folio, and a collection of canons and ecclesiastical rules, entitled, “De Disciplinis ecclesiasticis, et de Religione Christiana.” This last he compiled at the solicitation of Rathbode, archbishop of Treves, to which city he had retired, after being obliged to quit his abbey, in the year 899. M. Baluze has published an excellent edition of this collection, with notes, in 1671, 8vo. Regino died at Treves, in the year 915.

, was a learned French Benedictine monk in the ninth century, and brought up in the abbey of St. Germain, at Auxerre, whence he derived that appendix to his name by which he is distinguished. Having made great proficiency in profane and sacred literature, he was appointed principal teacher in the schools belonging to his monastery, and afterwards taught at Rheims with great reputation, until he went to Paris, and opened the first public school in that city, after learning had sunk under the ravages of the Normans. His works are, 1. “Commentarius in omnes Davidis Psalmos,” Cologne, 1536, a methodized collection of opinions from the fathers. 2. “Enarrationes in posteriores XI. minores Prophetas,” Antwerp, 1545, with the “Commentaries” of Oecumenius upon the Acts of the Apostles, and their Epistles, and those of Aretbas upon the book of Revelation and “Expositio Missa;.” A “Commentary upon the Epistles of St. Paul,” has been also ascribed to him, but on doubtful authority. It is move certain that he left behind him “A Commentary on the Musical Treatise of Martianus Capella,” which is among the Mss. in the king of France’s library, No. 5304.

, an English historian, so named from his birth-place, flourished in the fourteenth century. No (races of his family or connections can be discovered, but they appear to have been such as to afford him a liberal education. In 13 50 “he entered into the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter, Westminster, and his name occurs in various documents of that establishment in 1387, 1397, and 1399. He devoted his leisure hours to the study of British and Anglo-Saxon history and antiquities, in which he made such proficiency, that he is said to have been honoured with the name of the Historiographer. Pits informs us, without specifying his authority, that Richard visited different libraries and ecclesiastical establishments in England, in order to collect materials. It is at least certain that he obtained a licence to visit Rome, from his abbot, William of Colchester, in 1391, and there can be little doubt that a man of his curiosity would improve his knowledge on such an occasion. He is supposed to Have performed this journey in the interval between 1391 and 1397, for he appears to have been confined in the abbey infirmary in 1401, and died in that or the following year. His works are,” Historia ab Hengista ad ann. 1348,“in two parts. The first contains the period from the coming of the Saxons to the death of Harold, and is preserved in the public library of Cambridge. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, speaks of this as evincing very little knowledge or judgment; the second part is probably a ms. in the library of the Royal Society, p. 137, with the title of” Britonum Anglorum et Saxonurn Historia.“In the library of Bene't college, Cambridge, is” Epitome Chronic. Ric. Cor. West. Lib. I.“Other works of our author are supposed to be preserved in the Lambeth library, and at Oxford. His theological writings were,” Tractatus super Symbolum Majus et Minus,“and” Liber de Officiis Ecclesiasticis,“in the Peterborough library. But the treatise to which he owes his celebrity, is that on the ancient state of Great Britain,” De situ Britanniae,“first discovered by Charles Julius Bertram, professor of the English language in the royal marine academy at Copenhagen, who transmitted to Dr. Stukeley a transcript of the whole in letters, together with a copy of the map. From this transcript Stukeley published an analysis of the work, with the itinerary, first in a thin quarto, 1757, and afterwards in the second volume of his ” Itinerarium Curiosum.“In the same year the original itself was published by professor Bertram at Copenhagen, in a small octavo volume, with the remains of Gildas and Nennius, under the title” Britannicarum gentium Historiae Antiquæ scriptores tres, Ricardns Corinensis, Gildas Badonicus, Nennius Banchorensis, &c.“This work has long been scarce, and in very few libraries; but in 1809, a new edition, with an English translation, &c. was published at London. To this the editor, Mr. Hatchard, has prefixed an account of Richard’s life, from which we have extracted the above particulars, and an able defence of his merit and fidelity as a historian, against the objections of certain writers. Among these we observe that Gibbon cannot be reckoned, for he says that Richard of Cirencester” shews a genuine knowledge of antiquity, very extraordinary for a monk of the fourteenth century.“This useful and accurate republication is entitled” The Description of Britain, translated from Richard of Cirencester; with the original treatise de situ Britanniæ; and a commentary on the Itinerary; illustrated with maps," 8vo.

, of the same family as the preceding, but descended from a catholic branch, was born October 30, 1683, at Confolens, a small town in Poictiers. He studied philosophy under the Jacobins at Poictiers, but an escape from very imminent danger determined him to put on the Benedictine habit, which he accordingly did at Marmoutier in 1704, and took his vows therein 1705. In 1716 he was transferred to the monastery of St. Cyprian, and summoned to Paris the year following, to assist some other monks in compiling a history of illustrious men of the Benedictine order; but this project failing, Rivet turned his thoughts entirely to the literary history of France, which he had before formed a design of writing, and which employed the rest of his trfe, He was-assisted in this work by three of his brethren, Joseph Duclou, Maurice Poncet, and John Colomb, who were all his particular friends, good critics, and accurate and industrious writers. In 1723 Rivet published at Amsterdam “Le Necrologe de Port Royal des Champs,” a work of which he was very fond, and added to it a long historical preface. This publication, joined to his warm opposition to the bull Unrgenitus, from which he had appealed, obliged him to retire -iiftb the abbey of St. Vincent at Mans, the same year, where he laboured assiduously during more than thirty years to complete his “Literary History of France.” >' He published the first volume in 1733, 4to, and was finishing the ninth, which contains the first years of the 12th century, when he died, February 7, 1749, in his sixty-sixth year, worn out with intense application, austerities, and the strict and rigorous observation of his rule, from which he never departed. His history was afterwards extended to 12 volumes, to which Clemencet added a 13th. It is a very useful work, but the French literati have never thought of completing it.

, a French writer of very great abilities, was the second son of a master-cutler at Paris and born there Jan. 30, 1661. He was intended, as well as his elder brother, for his father’s profession; when a Benedictine, perceiving in him a peculiar turn for letters, communicated this to his mother, and pressed her to give him a liberal education. The proposal was flattering, but as she had been left a widow, and had nothing to depend upon but the continuation of her late husband’s business, and was incapable of providing for his education, she was reluctant to lose the advantages of her son’s skill. The good Benedictine, however, removed part of her fears, by procuring the youth a pension in the college of Du Plessis, and Roliin was now suffered to pursue the natural bent of his inclination. He distinguished himself immediately by parts and application, and easily obtained the first rank among his felloe-students. Many stories are told to his advantage in this respect, and how he became known and esteemed by the minister Pelletier, whose two eldest sons were of Rollin’s class. He studied rhetoric in the college of Du Plessis under Mr. Hersan, whose custom it was to create emulation among his scholars, by bestowing on them epithets, each according to his merit; and is said to have declared in public, that he knew not sufficiently to distinguish the young Roliin otherwise than by giving hirn. the title of “Divine:” and when Hersan was asked for any piece in verse or prose, he used to refer them to Roliin, “who,” he said, “would do it better than he could.” Hersan intended Roliin for his successor, therefore first took him as an assistant in 1683, and afterwards, in. 1687, gave up the chair to him. The year after, Hersan, with the king’s leave and approbation, declined the professorship of eloquence in the royal college in favour of his beloved disciple Roliin, who was admitted into it. No man ever exercised the functions of it with greater eclat: he often made Latin orations, to celebrate the memorable events of the times; and frequently accompanied them with poems, which wer^ generally read and esteemed. In 1694, he was chosen rector of the university, and continued in that office two years, which was then a great mark of distinction. By virtue of his office, he spoke the annual panegyric upon Louis XIV. He made many useful regulations in the university, and particularly revived the study of the Greek language, which was then growing into neglect. He was a man of indefatigable attention, and trained innumerable persons, who did honour to the church, the state, and the army. The first president Portail was pleased one day to reproach Roilin in a jocular strain, as if he exceeded even himself in doing business: to whom Roilin replied, with that plainness and sincerity which was natural to him, “It becomes you well, Sir, to reproach me with this: it is this habit of labour in me, which has distinguished you in the place of advocate general, which has raised you to that of first president: you owe the greatness of your fortune to me,” Upon the expiration of the rectorship, cardinal Noailles engaged him to superintend the studies of his nephews, who were in the college of Laon; and in this office he was agreeably employed, when, in 1699, he was with great reluctance made coadjutor to the principal of the college of Beauvais. This college was then a kind of a desert, inhabited by very few students, and without any manner of discipline: but Rollings great reputation and industry soon made it a most flourishing society. In this situation he remained till 1712; when, the contests between the Jesuits and the Jansenists drawing towards a crisis, he fell a sacrifice to the prevalence of the former. F. Le Tellier, the king’s confessor, and bigoted agent of the Jesuits, infused into his master prejudices against Rollin, whose connections with cardinal de Noailles would alone have sufficed to have made him a Jansenist; and on this account he lost his share in the principality of Beauvais. No man, however, could have lost less in this than Rollin, who had every thing left him that was necessary to make him happy; retirement, books, and a decent competence. He now began to employ himself upon Quintilian; an author he justly valued, and not without uneasiness saw neglected. He retrenched in him whatever he thought rather curious than useful for the instruction of youth: he placed summaries or contents at the head of each chapter; and he accompanied the text with short select notes. His edition appeared in 1715, in 2 vols. 12mo, with an elegant preface, setting forth his method and views.

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

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

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

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

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

, a dramatic poet, was the third son of Richard Stapleton, esq. of Carleton, in Yorkshire, and uncle to sir Miles Stapleton, and Dr. Stapleton, a Benedictine monk. As his family were zealous Roman catholics, he was educated in the same religion in the college of the English Benedictines at Douay: hut, being born with a poetical turn, and too volatile to be confined within the walls of a cloister, he threw off the restraint of his education, quitted a recluse life, came over to England, and turned protestant. Having good interest, which was perhaps also promoted by the change of his religion, he was made gentleman-usher of the privy-chamber to the prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II. We find him constantly adhering to, the interest of his royal master; for when his majesty was driven out of London by the threatenings and tumults of the discontented, he followed him, and, in 1642, received the honour of knighthood. After the battle of Edgehill, when his majesty was obliged to retire to Oxford, our author then attended hi.n, and was created doctor of the civil laws. When the royal cause declined, Stapleton thought proper to retire and apply himself to study; and, as he was not amongst the most conspicuous of the royalists, he was suffered to enjoy his solitude unmolested. At the restoration he was again promoted in the service of Charles II. and held a place in that monarch’s esteem till his death, July 11, 1C69. He was interred near the vestry door in Westminster-abbey. Langbaine says that his writings have “made him not only known, but admired, throughout all England, and while Musæus and Juvenal are in esteem with the learned, sir Robert’s fame will still survive the translation of these two authors having placed his name in the temple of immortality.” “The Loves of Hero and Leander, from the Greek of Musaeus, with notes,” was published, Lond. 1647, 8vo, and such was Stapleton’s regard for Musseus, that he afterwards reduced the story into a dramatic poem. His “Juvenal” was published in 1647, 8vo, and was thought to be preferable to Holyday’s, but they are both too literal. In 1650 he published a translation of Strada’s “History of the Belgic War,” fol. His dramatic pieces are, l.“The Slighted Maid”, 1663. 2. “The Step-mother,” 1664. 3. “Hero and Leander,” 1669 and, according to the books of the stationers’ company, 4. “The Royal Choice.”

, a Benedictine of the congregation de St.Maur, was born in 1685 at Coucy in the diocese of Laon, and taught philosophy and theology in the abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres at Paris. He afterwards became sub-prior of that abbey, and died there, Jan. 12, 1736. His best performance is an excellent French translation of Polybius, with a commentary by the chevalier Follard, 6 vols. 4to. He also acquired fame as a theologian by two “Letters,” on the revocation of his appeal from the bull Unigenitus; and some other pieces, chiefly in favour of the constitution Unigenitus, after he had revoked his appeal which made a great noise in his congregation.

, a celebrated abbot of the Benedictine order, and one of the most learned men in the fifteenth century, was born February 1, 1462, at Tritenheim, in the diocese of Treves. After finishing his studies he took the Benedictine habit, and was made abbot of Spanheim in the diocese of Mentz, in 1483, which abbey ke governed till 1506, and resigned it to be abbot of St. James at Wirtzberg. He died Dec. 13, 1516. Trithemius was well acquainted both with sacred and profane literature, and left various works, historical and biographical, among which the principal are, a treatise “On the illustrious ecclesiastical Writers,” Cologn, 1546, 4to; in this book he gives some account of 870 authors; another “On the illustrious Men of Germany;” and a third on those of the “Benedictine Order,” 1606, 4to, translated into French, 1625, 4to; six books “On Polygraphy,” 1601, fol. translated into French; a treatise “On Steganography,” i.e. the various methods of writing in cyphers, 1621, 4to, Nuremberg, 1721. There is a scarce book on this work, attributed to Augustus, duke of Brunswick, entitled “Gustavi Seleni Enodatio Steganographiæ J. Trithemii,” 1624, fol. There are also various “Chronicles,” in “Trithemii Opera historica,” 1701, fol. 2 vols, published by Freher, to which we may add his works on religious subjects, 1605, fol. “Annales Hirsaugienses,” 2 vols. folio, a carious and important work, and others.

, one of a family of Swiss writers, and laudanum of the canton of Glarus, was born in 1505. He devoted much of his time to historical researches, and produced, among other works of less note, a “Chronicle,” which, whatever its merits, remained in manuscript until 1734, when it was published at Basle in 2 vols. fol. He died in 1572. Another of the family, Dominick Tscudi, who died in 1654, wrote in Latin, on the “Constitution of the Benedictine congregation in Switzerland,” and an account of the founders of that abbey, which was printed in 1651, 8vo. A third, John Henry Tscudi, who died in 1729, and was a zealous protestant, his predecessors being equally zealous catholics, was the author of an account of the abbes of St. Gall, 1711, 4to; a “Chronicle” of the canton of Claris, 1714, 8vo, both in German. He also conducted a literary journal from 1714 to 1726, which was ordered to be burnt by the public executioner in consequence of the freedoms he took with popery. There was also a John Peter Tscudi, who wrote in German a “History of Werdenberg,” published in 1126.

, an eminent canonist, was a native of Sicily, and commonly called Panormitanus, from his being at the head of a Benedictine abbey in Palermo, and afterwards archbishop of that city. He was born probably towards the close of the fourteenth century, some say in 1336, and became one of the most celebrated canonists of his time. He was present at the council of Basil, and had a considerable hand in the proceedings there against pope Eugenius; in recompense for which service he was made a 1 cardinal by Felix V. in 1440. He was afterwards obliged, by the orders of the king of Arragon his master, to return to his archbishopric, where he died of the plague in 1445. There is a complete edition of his works, Venice, 1617, in 9 vols. fol. Dupin mentions as his principal work a treatise on the council of Basil, which was translated into French about the end of the seventeenth century by Dr. Gerbais, of the Sorbonne, and printed at Paris.

, a French historian, was born in 1685, at Gaillac in Agenois. He was for some time king’s attorney in the country of the Albigenses, but in 1711 entered the Benedictine order in the priory of la Daurade at Toulouse. His studious turn, and taste for history, induced his superiors to send for him to Paris in 1713, where they employed him in writing the history of Languedoc with Claude de Vic. The first volume appeared 1730, and de Vic dying in 1734, the whole of this great work devolved on Vaissette, who executed it with success, and published the four other volumes. At the end of each are learned and curious notes, and throughout the whole he is candid and impartial, especially in speaking of the protestants. He had before written a small piece “On the Origin of the French Monarchy,” which was well received; and afterwards published an abridgment of his “History of Languedoc,” 1749, 6 vols. 12mo. Vaissette has also left a “Universal Geography,” 4 vols. 4to, and 12 vols. 12mo, which was formerly thought one of the best the French had, though not wholly free from errors. He died in the abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres’at Paris, April 10, 1756.

Those who make him a native of Erfurt tell us likewise that he was a Benedictine monk, and that after making some experiments on the stibium of the ancients, he threw a quantity of it to the hogs, whom it first purged and afterwards fattened. This suggested to him that it might be useful in order to give a little of the embonpoint to his brother monks, who had become lean by fasting and mortification. He accordingly prescribed it, and they all died, whence the medicine was afterwards known by the name of antimony, quasi anti-monk. It is added that his works were not known for a long time after his death, until on opening one of the pillars of the church of Erfurt, they were miraculously discovered. But unfortunately for these stories, Boerhaave has proved that there never was a monastery of Benedictines at Erfurt, and we have already proved that the books published under the name of Basil Valentine could not have been written in the beginning of the fifteenth century. It appears, however, whatever their date, that they were originally written in Dutch, and that a part only have been translated into Latin, and probably have received additions from other hands. All that have been published are still in considerable request, and are become scarce. Among them are; 1. “De microcosmo, deque magno mundi ministerio et medicina hominis,” Marpurg, 1609, 8vo. 2. “Azoth, sive Aureliae philosophorum,” Francfort, 1613, 4to. 3. “Practice, una cum duodecim clavibus et appendice,” ibid. 1618, 4to. 4. “Apocalypsis chymica,” Erfurt, 1624, 8vo. 5. “Manifestatio artificiorum,” Erfurt, 1624, 4to. 6. “Currus triumphalis antimonii,” Leip. 1624, 8vo, reprinted at Amsterdam, 1671, 12mo, “cum commentariis Theod. Kerkringii.” 7. “Tractatus chimicophilosophus de rebus naturalibus et praeternaftiralibus metallorum et mineralium,” Francfort, 1676, 8vo. 8. “HaKographia, de praeparatione, usu, ac virtutibus omnium salium mineralium, animalium, ac vegetabiliuni, ex manuscriptis Basilii Valentini collecta ab Ant. Salimncio,” Bologna, 1644, 8vo. There are editions of these in Dutch, and translations into French, English, and other languages of most of them. Whoever Basil was, his experiments are always to be depended on, and his style is clear and precise, unless where he talks of his arcana and the philosopher’s stone, on which he is as obscure as any of his brethren. After every preparation, he gives its medicinal uses, and it has been said that Van Helmont, Lemery, the father, and other moderns, are under greater obligations to his works than they have thought proper to acknowledge. He was the first who recommended the internal use of antimony, and he has enriched the pharmacopoeia with various preparations of that metal, particularly the empyreumatic carbonate of antimony, of which Sylvius Deleboe claimed the discovery.

But the king returned him the key and the ribbon. Things assumed a different aspect when he took shelter with the duchess of Saxe Gotha. Maupertuis, as Voltaire himself related, took the advantage of misrepresenting him in his absence; and he was detained by the king’s order, at Francfort on the Maine, till he had given up a volume of“Royal Verses.” Having regained his liberty, be endeavoured to negociate a return to Paris; but this he was not able to accomplish, since one of his poems, the “Pucelle D' Orleans,” which was both impious and obscene, had begun to make a noise. He was resident for about a year at Colwar, whence retiring to Geneva, he purchased a beautiful villa near that city, where he enjoyed the homages of the Genevans, and of occasional travellers; and for a short time was charmed with his agreeable retirement, which the quarrels that agitated the little republic of Geneva compelled him soon to quit. He was accused of privately fomenting the disputes, of leaning towards the prevailing party, and laughing at both. Compelled to abandon Les Delices (which was the name of his countryhouse), he fixed himself in France, within a league of Geneva, in Le Pays de Gex, an almost savage desert, which he had the satisfaction of fertilizing. The village of Ferney, which contained not above 50 inhabitants, became by his means a colony of 1200 persons, successfully employed for themselves and for the state. Numbers of artists, particularly watchmakers, established their manufactures under the auspices of Voltaire, and exported their wares to Russia, Spain, Germany, Holland, and Italy. He rendered his solitude still more illustrious by inviting thither the great niece of the famous Corneille, and by preserving from ignominy and oppression Sirven and the family of Calas, whose memory he caused to be restored. In this retirement Voltaire erected a tribunal, at which he arraigned almost all the human race. Men in power, dreading the force of his pen, endeavoured to secure his esteem. Aretin, in the sixteenth century, received as many insults as rewards. Voltaire, with far more wit and address, obtained implicit homage. This homage, and some generous actions, which he himself occasionally took care to proclaim, either with a view that they should reach posterity, or to please the curious, contributed as much to extend his reputation as the marks of esteem and bounty he had received from sovereign princes. The king of Prussia, with whom he still maintained an uninterrupted correspondence, had his statue made in porcelain, and sent to him, with the word Immortali engraven on its base. The empress of Russia sent him a present of some magnificent furs, and a. box turned by her own hands, and adorned with hi& portrait and 20 diamonds. These distinctions did not prevent his sighs for Paris. Overloaded with glory and wealth, he was not happy, because he never could content himself with what he possessed. At length, in the beginning of 1778, he determined to exchange the tranquillity of Ferney for the incense and bustle of the capital, where he met with the most flattering reception. Such honours were decreed him by the academies as till then had been unknown; he was crowned in a full theatre, and distinguished by the public with the strongest enthusiasm. But the philosopher of fourscore soon fell a victim to thi* indiscreet officiousness: the fatigue of visits and attendance at theatrical representations, the change of regimen and mode of living, inflamed his blood, already too much disordered. On his arrival, he had a violent haemorrhage, which greatly impaired him. Some days before his last illness, the idea of approaching death tormented him. Sitting at table with the marchioness de Villette, at whose house he had taken up his abode, after a solemn reverie, he said, “You are like the kings of Egypt, who, when they were at meat, had a death’s head beTore them.” On his arrival at Paris, he said, “he was come to seek glory and death;” and to an artist, who presented him the picture of his triumph, replied, “A tomb would be fitter for me than a triumph.” At last, not being able to obtain sleep, he took a large dose of opium, which deprived him of his senses. He died May 30, 1778; and was buried at Sellices, a Benedictine abbey between Nogent and Troyes; Many accounts have been published respecting his behaviour when in the nearer view of death. Some of these are so contradictory, that it is difficult to attain the exact truth. His infidel friends, Diderot, D'Alembert, and others, took every pains to represent that he died as he had lived, a hardened infidel, and a blasphemer; but they have not been credited, and it is more generally believed that he was visited on this awful occasion with the remorse of a man, whose whole life had been a continued attempt to erect vice and immorality on the ruins of revealed religion. The mareschal cle Richelieu is said to have fled from the bed-side, declaring it to be a sight too terrible to be sustained; andTronchin, the physician, asserted that the furies of Orestes could give but*a faint idea of those of Voltaire.

, D. D. and F. R, S. was an English Benedictine monk, and a Roman catholic bishop also senior bishop and vicar apostolic of the western district, as well as doctor of theology of the Sorbonne. He died at Bath in 1797, in the seventy-sixth year of his age; and the forty-first of his episcopacy. He was the last survivor of those eminent mathematicians who were concerned in regulating the chronological style in England, which produced a change of the style in this country in 1752. Besides some ingenious astronomical essays in the Philosophical Transactions, he printed several separate works, both on mathematics and theology; as, 1. “Analyse cles Mesures des Rapports et des Angles,” 1749, 4to, being an extension and explanation of Cotes’ s '“Harmonia Mensurarum.” 2. “Theorie du monument des Aspides,” 1749, 8vo. 3. “De inaequalitatibus motuum Lunarium,” 1758, 4to. 4. “An Explanation of the Apocalypse, Ezekiel’s Vision,” &c. By the fire at Bath in the time of the riots, 1780, several valuable manuscripts which he had compiled in the course of his life and travels through many countries, were irretrievably lost.

, one of the best English historians of the fifteenth century, was a native of Norfolk, a Benedictine of St. Albans, and historiographer royal, about 1440, in the reign of Henry VI. He compiled two historical works of considerable length, the one “A History of England,” beginning at the 57th Henry III. the year 1273, and concluding with the funeral oF Henry V. and the appointment of Humphrey duke of Gloucester to the regency of England. His other work is entitled “Ypodigma Neustrise,” a sort of history of Normandy, an* ciently called Neustria, interspersed with the affairs of England from the beginning of the tenth century to 1418. In the dedication of this work, which, with the other, was published by archbishop Parker in 1574, Fol. he tells Henry V. that when he reflected on the cunning intrigues, frauds, and breaches of treaties in his enemies the French, he was tormented with fears that they would deceive him: and had composed that work, which contained many examples of their perfidy, to put him upon his guard. Walsingham himself allows that his style is rude and unpolished, and he relates many ridiculous stories of visions, miracles, and portents, but all this was the credulity of the age. In what belongs to himself he is more to be praised: his narrative is far more full, circumstantial, and satisfactory, than that of the other annalists of those times, and contains many things no where else to be found.

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

, usually mentioned with the epithet Ephesius, from the place of his birth, to distinguish him from the above Xenophon Socraticus, is the author of five books “Of the loves of Habrocomes and Anthia,” which are entitled “Ephesiaca,” although they have no more to do with the town of Ephesus than the “Ethiopics of Heliodorus,” which is a love-romance also, have with the affairs of Ethiopia. His late editor thinks that Xenophon lived about the end of the second, or the beginning of the third century of the Christian jera. It is at least very probable that he is one of the most ancient of the Authores Erotici, from the purity and simplicity of his style, in which there is little of those affected ornaments so common in writers of a later period. The only Mss. in which the history of Habrocomes and Anthia has been transmitted to posterity, is preserved in the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, at Florence, and is written in so small a character, that the whole work is comprised in no more than nine leaves, 4to. The first person who copied it was Salvini, who likewise, in 1723, translated this romance into the Italian language. Of the Greek text itself, the first edition was prepared by the celebrated physician Anthony Cocchi, and published at London in 1726, 4to, although his late editor baron Locellst asserts that London was put in the title instead of Florence. But the fact was that it was printed at London by Bowyer, as is proved in Mr. Nichols’s life of that celebrated printer. Two other editions, of 1781 and 1793, have likewise appeared, but they are all incorrect. At length in 1796 the work was rendered not unworthy of the classical scholar, by baron Locella, a gentleman, not a philologist by profession, but a man of business, who dedicated the leisure of his declining years to the Greek muses. His edition, which was elegantly printed at Vienna, 4to, is entided, “Xenophontis Ephesii de Anthia et Habrooome Ephesiacorum libri quinque, Gr. et Lat. Recensuit et supplevit, emendavit, Latine vertit, ad notationibus aliorum et suis illustravit, indicibus instruxit Aloys. Emerie. Liber Baro Locella, S. C. R. A. M. a cons, aulae.”