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

, a French Jesuit and painter, attached to the mission to Pekin, was born at Dole, in Tranche-Comté, July 31, 1702, and at first took lessons in painting, and made considerable proficiency under his father, who was an artist. He then went to Rome, under the patronage of the marquis de Brossa, and on his return, painted some pictures at Lyons, which procured him great reputation. In his thirtieth year he entered among the Jesuits, in the humble character of a lay- brother, and some, years afterwards, when the missionaries of Pekin demanded the services of a painter, he obtained the appointment, and went to China about the end of 1737. He had no sooner arrived at Pekin than he offered the emperor a painting of the Adoration of the Kings, with which the emperor was so much pleased that he ordered it to be placed in his interior apartment. Notwithstanding this promising outset, he underwent many mortifications, in being obliged to comply with the bad taste of the Chinese in what paintings he executed for them, and was so teazed by the emperor himself, that, in order to please him, he was obliged to take lessons from the Chinese artists but finding that a compliance with their instructions must spoil his performances, and injure his reputation, he declined painting for his majesty. Ddring the years, however, from 1753 to 1760, distinguished by many victories gained by the emperor Kien Long, he had frequent orders for battlepieces, &c. which he executed so much to the satisfaction of that monarch, that he created him a mandarin, and when Attiret refused to accept it, the minister of state told him he should have the revenues, although he declined the honour. The missionaries speak in the highest terms of his talents, modesty, and piety. He died at Pekin, Dec. 8, 1768, and the emperor defrayed the expences of his funeral the large pictures he painted for the emperor are in the palace, but never shown the missionaries can exhibit only one picture, “The Guardian Angel,” which is in the chapel of the Neophites, in the French missionary church at Pekin. There is nothing of Attiret' s in print, except a letter in the “Recueil des Lettres Edifiantes,” vol. XXVII. which was translated by the late Rev. Joseph Spence, under his assumed name of sir Harry Beaumont, entitled “A particular account of the emperor of China’s gardens near Pekin, in a letter from father Attiret, a French missionary, now employed by that emperor to paint the apartments in those gardens, to his friend at Paris,” London, 1752, 8vo.

, 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 French theorist of some note, was born in 1659, of a noble family in Lorraine. At the age of thirty-three he was appointed consul-general of Egypt, and held that situation with great credit for sixteen years. Having strenuously supported the interests of his sovereign, he was at length rewarded by being removed to Leghorn, which was esteemed the chief of the Frencb consulships. In 1715 he was employed to visit and inspect the other consulships of Barbary and the Levant, and fulfilled this commission so much to the satisfaction of his court, that he obtained leave to retire, with a considerable pension, to Marseilles, where he died in 1738, at the age of seventy-nine. De Maillet did not publish any thing himself, but left behind him papers and memoirs, from which some publications were formed. The first of these was published in 8vo, by the abbe Mascrier, under the feigned name of Telliamed, which is De Maillet reversed. The subject is the origin of our globe, and the editor has thrown the sentiments of his author into the form of dialogues between an Indian philosopher and a French missionary. The philosopher maintained that all the land of this earth, and its vegetable and animal inhabitants, rose from the bosom of the sea, on the successive contractions of the waters: that men had originally been tritons with tails; and that they, as well as other animals, had lost their marine, and acquired terrestrial forms by their agitations when left on dry ground. This extravagance had its day in France. The same editor also drew from the papers of this author, a description of Egypt, published in 1743, in 4to, and afterwards in two volumes 12mo.

1747. Of this work of acknowledged taste and learning“, Mr. Gray has been thought to speak too contemptuously in his Letters. His chief objection is, that the author has illustrated his subject from the Roman, and not from the Greek poets; that is, that he has not performed what he never undertook; nay, what he expressly did not undertake. A third edition appeared in folio in 1774, and the abridgment of it by N. Tindal has been frequently printed in 8vo. There is a pamphlet with Spence’s name to it in ms. as the author, called” Plain Matter of Fact, or, a short review of the reigns of our Popish Princes since the Reformation; in order to shew what we are to expect if another shouKl happen to reign over us. Part I.“1748, 12mo. He was installed prebendary of the seventh stall at Durham, May 24, 1754; and published in that year” An account of the Life, Character, and Poems of Mr. Blacklock, student of philosophy at Edinburgh,“8vo, which was afterwards prefixed to his poems. The prose pieces which he printed in” The Museum“he collected and published, with some others, in a pamphlet called” Moralities, by sir Harry Beaumont,“1753. Under that name he published,” Crito, or a Dialogue on Beauty,“and” A particular account of the emperor of China’s Gardens, near Pekin, in a letter from F. Attiret, a French missionary now employed by that emperor to paint the apartments in those gardens, to his friend at Paris;“both in 1752, Hvo, and both reprinted in Dodsley’s” Fugitive Pieces.“He wrote” An Epistle from a Swiss officer to his friend at Rome,“first printed in” The Museum,“and since in the third volume of” Dodsley’s Collection.“The several copies published under his name in the Oxford Verses are preserved by iNichols, in the” Select Collection,“1781. In 175S he published” A Parallel, in the manner of Plutarch, between a most celebrated Man of Florence (Magliabecchi), and one scarce ever heard of in England (Robert Hill, the Hebrew Taylor),“12mo, printed at Strawberry Hill. In the same year he took a tour into Scotland, which is well described in an affectionate letter to Mr. Shenstone, the collection of several letters published by Mr. Hull in 1778. In 17c3 he communicate i to Dr. Wartun several excellent remarks on Virgil, which he had made when he wasbroad, and some few of Mr. Pope’s. West Finchale Priory (the scene of the holy Godric’s miracles and austerities, who, from an itinerant merchant, turned hermit, and wore out three suits of iron cloaths), was now become Mr. Spence’s retreat, being part of his prebendal estate. In 1764 he was well pourtrayed by Mr. James Ridley, in his admirable” Tales of the G nil,“under the name of” Pbesoi Ecnep> (his name rrad backwar l>) iervise of the groves,“and a panegyrical letter from nim to that ingenious moralist, under the same signature, is inserted i-i 4k Lexers of Emi'-eni Persons,” vol. III. p. 139. In 1764 he paid the last kind office to the remains of his friend Mr. Dodsley, who died on a visit to him at Durham. He closed his literary labours with “Remarks and Dissertations on Virgil with some other classical observations; by the late Mr. Holdsworth. Published, with several notes and additional remarks, by Mr. Speutv,” 4to. This volume, of which the greater part was printed off in 1767, was published in February 1768; and on the iiOth of August following, Mr. Spence was unfortunately drowned in a caiidl in his garden at Byrieet in Surrey. Being, when the accident inppened, quite alone, it could only be conjectured in what manner it happened but it was generally supposed to have been occasioned by a fit while he was standing near the brink of the water. He was found flat upon his face, at the edge, where the water was too shallow to cover his head, or any part of his body. He was interred at Byfleet church, where is a marble tablet inscribed to his memory. The duke of Newcastle possesses some ms volumes of anecdotes of eminent writers, collected by Mr. Spence, who in his lifetime communicated to Dr. Warton as many of them as related to Pope; and, by permission of the noble owner, Dr. Johnson has made many extracts from them in his “Lives of the English Poets.” These have lately been announced for publication. Mr. Spence’s Explanation of an antique marble at Ciandon place, Surrey, is in “Gent. Mag.” 1772, p. 176 “Mr. Spence’s character,” says a gentleman who bad seen this memoir before it was transplanted into the present work, " is properly delineated and his Polymetis is justl vindicated from the petty criticisms of the; fastidious Gray *. In Dr. Johnson’s masterly preface to Dry den,