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, the eccentric son of the preceding, was born at Odcombe, in 1577. He was first educated at Westminster-school, and became a commoner of Gloucester-hall, Oxford, in 1596; where continuing about three years, he attained, by mere dint of memory, some skill in logic, and more in the Greek and Latin languages. After he had been taken home for a time, he went to London, and was received into the family of Henry prince of Wales, either as a domestic, or, according to some, as a fool, an office which in former days was filled by a person hired for the purpose. In this situation he was exposed to the wits of the court, who, finding in him a strange mixture of sense and folly, made him their whetstone; and so, says Wood, he became too much known to all the world. In 1608, he took a journey to France, Italy, Germany, &c. which lasted five months, during which he had travelled 1975 miles, more than half upon one pair of shoes, which were once only mended, and on his return were hung up in the church of Odcombe. He published his travels under this title; “Crudities hastily gobbled up in five months travels in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, Helvetia, some parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands, 1611,” 4to, reprinted in 1776, 3 vols. 8vo. This work was ushered into the world by an Odcombian banquet, consisting of near 60 copies of verses, made by the best poets of that time, which, if they did not make Cory ate pass with the world for a man of great parts and learning, contributed not a little to the sale of his book. Among these poets were Ben Jonson, sir John Harrington, Inigo Jones the architect, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, &c. In the same year he published “Coryate’s Crambe, or his Colwort twice sodden, and now served in with other Macaronic dishes, as the second course of his Crudities,” 4to. In 1612, after he had taken leave of his countrymen, by an oration spoken at the cross in Odcombe, he took a long and large journey, with intention not to return till he had spent ten years in travelling. The first place he went to was Constantinople, where he made his usual desultory observations; and took from thence opportunities of viewing divers parts of Greece. In the Hellespont he took notice of the two castles Sestos and Abydos, which Mu­saeus has made famous in his poem of Hero and Leander, He saw Smyrna, from whence he found a passage to Alexandria in Egypt; and there he observed the pyramids near Grand Cairo. From thence he went to Jerusalem; and so on to the Dead Sea, to Aleppo in Syria, to Babylon in Chaldea, to the kingdom of Persia, and to Ispahan, where the king usually resided; to Seras, anciently called Shushan; to Candahor, the first province north-east under the subjection of the great mogul, and so to Lahore, the chief city but one belonging to that empire. From Lahore he went to Agra; where, being well received by the English factory, he made a halt. He staid here till he had learned the Turkish and Morisco, or Arabian languages, in which study he was always very apt, and some knowledge in the Persian and*Indostan tongues, all which were of great use to him in travelling up and down the great mogul’s dominions. In the Persian tongue he afterwards made an oration to the great mogul; and in the Indostan he had so great a command, that we are gravely told he actually silenced a laundry-woman, belonging to the English ambassador in that country, who used to scold all the day long. After he had visited several places in that part of the world, he went to Surat in East-India, where he was seized with a diarrhoea, of which he died in 1617.

, a very learned lawyer, and professor in the university of Leyden, was born at Flushing, in Zealand, 1586. He was sent to Leyden at the age of fourteen, where he made great progress in the Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Syriac languages, under Drusius; and, with his assistance, gained a deep knowledge in the Jewish antiquities. In the early part of his life he was in England, whither he had attended Ambrose llegemortes, his kinsman; and during his stay here, he, in one summer, accurately read over Homer, and most of the Greek poets. It appears that he was at first designed for divinity, by his maintaining theological theses under Arminius in 1605; but religious disputes running high at that time, he conceived a disgust to it, and applied himself to the belles lettres and the law. He was created LL. D. at Leyden in 161), at which time he was chosen professor of eloquence. He was afterwards made professor of politics; and in 1615 of civil law, which employment he held to his death, which happened in 1638. He was the author of several ingenious and learned works; and his little book, “Derepublica. Hebrceorum,” which is still held in high esteem, was made a text-book by the most celebrated professors. Nicolai, Goree, and Basnage have all published editions of it with notes and comments. His “Satyra Menippara in sui saeculi homines inepte erudites” was printed at Leyden in 1632, and as much admired for its wit as learning. He likewise published remarks upon Nonius’s “Dionysiaca,” and some inauguration and other speeches; with a translation of Julian’s Caesars. He was a man of great parts and learning; and we find Vossius, Casaubon, and other great men, speaking of him in the highest terms of applause, and paying the profoundest deference to his judgment. Scaliger says, that he was extremely learned, but of a melancholy humour. Burman published a volume of his “Epistolag,” which contain literary information and remarks, Leyden, 1725, 8vo.

We come now to that period of his life, by which he has been most known, though for reasons which have justly rendered him least regarded. He was certainly a man of uncommon parts, learning, and application; and might have distinguished himself in the scientific world if he had been possessed of solid judgment; but he was very credulous, superstitious, extremely vain, and, we suspect, a little roguish; but we are told that it was his ambition to surpass all men in knowledge, which carried him at length to a desire of knowing beyond the bounds of human faculties. In short, he suffered himself to be deluded into an opinion, that by certain invocations an intercourse or communication with spirits might be obtained; from whence he promised himself an insight into the occult sciences. He found a young man, one Edward Kelly, a native of Worcestershire, who was already either rogue or fool enough for his purpose, and readily undertook to assist him, for which he was to pay him 50l. per annum. Dec. 2, 1581, they began their incantations; in consequence of which, Kelly was, by the inspection of a certain table, consecrated for that purpose with many superstitious ceremonies, enabled to acquaint Dee with what the spirits thought fit to shew and discover. These conferences were continued for about two years, and the subjects of them were committed to writing, but never published, though still preserved in Ashmole’s museum. In the mean time, there came over hither a Polish lord, one Albert Laski, palatine of Siradia, a man of great parts and learning; and, as a late writer observes, of large fortune too, or he would not have answered their purpose. This nobleman was introduced by the earl of Leicester to Dee, and became his constant visitant. Having: himself a bias to those superstitious arts, he was, after much intreaty, received by Dee into their company, and into a participation of their secrets. Within a short time, the palatine of Siradia, returning to his own country, prevailed with Dee and Kelly to accompany him, upon the assurance of an ample provision there; and accordingly they went all privately from Mortlake, in order to embark for Holland; from whence they travelled by land through Germany into Poland, where, Feb. 3, 1584, they arrived at the principal castle belonging to Albert Laski. When Laski had been sufficiently amused with their fanatical pretences to a conversation with spirits, and was probably satisfied that they were impostors, he contrived to send them to the emperor Rodolph II. who, being quickly disgusted with their impertinence, declined all farther interviews. Upon this Dee applied himself to Laski, to introduce him to Stephen king of Poland; which accordingly he did at Cracow, April 1585. But that prince soon detecting his delusions, and treating him with contempt, he returned to the emperor’s court at Prague; from whose dominions he was soon banished at the instigation of the pope’s nuncio, who gave the emperor to understand, how scandalous it appeared to the Christian world, that he should entertain two such magicians as Dee and Kelly. At this time, and while these confederates were reduced to the greatest distress, a young nobleman of great power and fortune in Bohemia, and one of their pupils, gave them shelter in the castle of Trebona; where they not only remained in safety, but lived in splendour, Kelly having in his possession, as is reported, that philosophical powder of projection, by which they were furnished with money very profusely. Some jealousies and heart-burnings afterwards happened between Dee and Kelly, that brought on at length an absolute rupture. Kelly, however, who was a younger man than Dee, seems to have acted a much wiser part; since it appears, from an entry in Dee’s diary, that he was so far intimidated as to deliver up to Kelly, Jan. 1589, the powder, about which it is said he had learned from the German chemists many secrets which he had not communicated to Dee.

, bishop of Carthage, has likewise the credit of having given the name to the sect of Donatists, founded it is said, by the former, but which took its name from this Donatus, as being the more considerable man of the two. He maintained, that though the three persons in the trinity were of the same substance, yet the son was inferior to the father, and the holy ghost to the son. He began to be known about the year 329, and greatly confirmed his faction by his character and writings. He was a man of great parts and learning; but of greater pride. He did not spare even the emperors themselves; for when Paulus and Macarius were sent by Constans with presents to the churches of Africa, and with alms to relieve the poor, he received them in the most reproachful manner, rejected their presents with scorn, and asked in a kind of fury, “What had the emperor to do with the church?” He was banished from Carthage about the year 356, according to Jerom, and died in exile: though authors are not agreed as to the precise time either of his banishment or of his death. The emperors were obliged to issue many severe edicts to restrain the fury and intemperance of this very factious sect. The Donatists had a great number of bishops and laity of their party; some of whom distinguished themselves by committing outrages upon those who differed from them. They had a maxim which they firmly maintained upon all occasions, “That the church was every where sunk and extinguished, excepting in the small remainder amongst themselves in Africa.” They also affirmed baptism in other churches to be null, and of no effect; while other churches allowed it to be valid in theirs; from which they inferred, that it was the safer to join that community where baptism was acknowledged by both parties to be valid, than that where it was allowed to be so only by one.

, an illustrious father of the church, and a man of great parts and learning, was born at Alexandria in Egypt about the year 185; and afterwards obtained the surname of Adamantius, either because of that adamantine strength of mind which enabled him to go through so many vast works, or for that invincible firmness with which he resisted the sharpest persecutions. Porphyry represents him as having been born and educated a heathen; but JEusebius has clearly proved, that his parents were Christian. His father Leonides took him at first under his own management, and trained him at home for some time: he taught him languages and profane learning, but had a particular view to his understanding the Holy Scriptures; some portion of which he gave him to learn and repeat every day. The son’s inclination suited exactly with the father’s design, so far as that he pursued his studies with most extraordinary zeal and ardour: but being endued with a quick apprehension and a strong imagination, would not content himself with that sense which at first presented itself, but farther endeavoured to dive into mysterious and allegorical explications of the sacred books. This probably suggested to his father that he might fall into that mode of interpreting, which in fact, proved afterwards the source of all his errors, and he therefore cautiously advised him not to attempt to penetrate too far in the study of the Holy Scriptures, but to content himself with their most clear, obvious, and natural sense. But it appears that from a forward conceit of his talents, he was already deeply infected with that “furor allegoricus,” as a learned modern calls it; that rage of expounding the Scriptures allegorically, which grew afterwards to be even a distemper, and carried him to excesses which can never be excused.

, a man of great parts and learning, was the son of Gerard John Vossius, and born of his second wife at Leyden, in 1618. The particulars of his life will be comprised in a short compass: he had no master but his father in any thing; and his whole life was spent in studying. His merit having recommended him to the notice of Christina of Sweden, the queen submitted to correspond with him by letters, and employed him in some literary commissions. He even made several journeys into Sweden by her order, and had the honour of teaching her majesty the Greek language: but, being there in 1662 with M. Huet and Bochart, she refused to see him, because she had heard that he intended to write against Salmasius, for whom she had at that time a particular regard. In 1663, he received a handsome present of money from Lewis XIV. of France, and at the same time the following obliging letter from Mons. Colbert. “Sir, Though the king be not your sovereign, he is willing nevertheless to be your benefactor; and has commanded me to send you the bill of exchange, hereunto annexed, as a mark of his esteem, and as a pledge of his protection. Every one knows, that you worthily follow the example of the famous Vossius your father; and that, having received from him a name which hath rendered him illustrious by his writings, you will preserve the glory of it by yours. These things being known to his majesty, it is with pleasure that he makes this acknowledgment of your merit,” &c. After the death of his father, he was offered the history-professorship, but refused it; preferring a studious retirement to any honours. In 1670 he came over to England, and was that year created doctor of laws at Oxford; “after he had been,” says Wood, “with great humanity and friendship entertained by some of the chief heads of colleges, as his father had been before in 1629.” In 1673, Charles II. made him canon of Windsor, assigning him lodgings in the castle, where he died Feb. the 10th, 1638. He left behind him the best private library, as it was then supposed, in the world; which, to the shame and reproach of England, was suffered to be purchased and carried away by the university of Leyden.