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, or more properly Andrea Del Sarto, so called from his father’s trade, that of a tailor, but whose family name was Venucci, was born at Florence in 1488, and at first instructed in his art by Barile, a mean painter, with whom he spent three years, at the end of which Barile placed him with Peter Cosimo, then accounted one of the best painters in Italy. Under him, he made astonishing proficiency, and his abilities began to be acknowledged, but Cosimo' s morose temper obliged him to leave him, and seek instruction in the works of other artists. As he had, while with Cosimo, employed himself in designing after Vinci, Raphael, and Buonaroti, to whose works he had access at Florence, he persisted in the same practice, formed an admirable taste, and excelled his young rivals at home or abroad, in correctness, colouring, and knowledge of his art. Having contracted a friendship with Francesco Bigio, they determined to live together, and painted a great many works in the churches and convents of Florence, jointly, but Andrea’s reputation began to predominate, and seemed fixed by his representation of the preaching of St. John, executed for the Carmelites at Florence. Some time after this, he went to Rome to study the models of art in that city, but it is thought he did not remain there long enough to reap all the benefit which he might. The excellence of his pencil, and his power of imitation, were remarkably displayed in the copy he made of Leo X. between cardinal Medici and cardinal Rom, the head and hands by Raphael, and the draperies by Julio Romano. The imitation was so exact, that Julio, after the most minute inspection, and being told that it was a copy, could not distinguish it from the original. His superior talents might have raised him to opulence, if his imprudence had not reduced him to shame and poverty. The French king, Francis I. who was extremely partial to his works, invited him to his court, defrayed the expences of his journey, and made him many valuable presents. For a portrait, only, of the Dauphin, an infant, he received tjjree hundred crowns of gold, and he painted many other pictures for the court and nobility, for which he was liberally rewarded. While employed on a picture of St. Jerome, for the queen dowager, he received letters from his wife, soliciting his return to Florence, and, to indulge her, of whom he was excessively fond, he asked, and obtained a few months absence. It was on this occasion that the king, confiding in his integrity, made him several princely presents, and intrusted him with large sums of money to purchase statues, paintings, &c.; but Andrea instead of executing his commission, squandered away not only his own, but the money intrusted to him, became poor, and despised, and at last died of the plague, in his forty-second year, abandoned by his wife, and by all those friends who had partaken of his extravagance. His principal works were at Florence, but there were formerly specimens in many of the palaces and churches of Italy and France. All the biographers and critics of painters, except perhaps Baldinucci, have been lavish in their praises of Andrea. Mr. Fuseli, in his much improved edition of Pilkington, observes, that, on comparing the merits of his works, they seem to have obtained their full share of justice. As a Tuscan, says that judicious critic, the suavity of his tone, and facility of practice, contrast more strikingly with the general austerity and elaborate pedantry of that school, and gain-him greater praise than they would, had he been a Bolognese or Lombard. It cannot, however, be denied, that his sweetness sometimes borders on insipidity; the modesty, or rather pusillanimity of his character, checked the full exertion of his powers; his faults are of the negative kind, and defects rather than, blemishes. He had no notions of nature beyond the model, and concentrated all female beauty in his Lucrezia (his wife), and if it be true that he sacrificed his fortune and Francis I. to her charms, she must at least have equalled in form and feature his celebrated Madonna del Sacco; hence it was not unnatural that the proportions of Albert Durer should attract him more than those of Michael Angelo. His design and his conceptions, which seldom rose above the sphere of common or domestic life, kept pace with each other; here his observation was acute, and his ear open to every whisper of social intercourse or emotion. The great peculiarity, perhaps the great prerogative, of Andrea appears to be that parallelism of composition, which distinguishes the best of his historical works, seemingly as natural, obvious, and easy, as inimitable. In solemn effects, in alternate balance of action and repose, he excels all the moderns, and if he was often unable to conceive the actors themselves, he gives them probability and importance, by place and posture. Of costume he was ignorant, but none ever excelled, and few approached him in breadth, form, and style of that drapery which ought to distinguish solemn, grave, or religious subjects.

, the son of a tailor at Menin, was one of many who experienced the oppression of Olivarez duke of Alva, who, being appointed by Philip II. governor of the seventeen provinces, endeavoured, with execrable policy, to establish over all the Netherlands an irreligious and horrible court of judicature, on the model of the Spanish inquisition. By consequence, in 1567, great numbers of industrious, thriving, and worthy people were imprisoned by the rigorous orders of this petty tyrant, and treated with great injustice and cruelty. Courten had the good fortune to escape from prison; and in the year following, 1568, arrived safe in London, with his wife Margaret Casiere, a daughter named Margaret, her husband, son of a mercantile broker at Antwerp of the name of Boudean, and as much property as they could hastily collect under such disadvantages. Soon after their arrival, they took a house in Abchurch-lane, where they lived together, following for some time the business of making what were commonly called French hoods, much worn in those days and long after, which they vended in wholesale to the shopkeepers who sold them in retail. Encouraged by great success in this employment, they soon removed to a larger house in Pudding-lane or Love-lane, in the parish of St. Mary Hill, where they entered on a partnership trade, in silks, fine linens, and such articles as they had dealt in before when in Flanders. Michael Boudean, the daughter Margaret’s husband, died first, leaving behind him, unfortunately for the family, a son and only child, named Peter, after an uncle certainly not much older than himself. The widow married John Money, a merchant in London, who instantly became an inmate with the family, which was moreover increased by the parents themselves, with two sons, William, born in 1572, and Peter, born in 1581. The young men, being instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, were early initiated in business, and soon after sent abroad as factors for the family: William to Haerlem, Peter to Cologne, and Peter Boudean the grandchild to Middleburg. At what time William Courten and Margaret Casiere died is at present uncertain most probably their deaths happened about the end of queen Elizabeth’s, or in the beginning of king James’s reign; but it seems certain, that they left their descendants not only in easy, but even in affluent circumstances. At the following aera of this little history it does not appear clearly, whether the old people were actually dead, or had only declined all farther active, responsible concern in business: but, in 1606, William and Peter Courtens entered into partnership with John Money, their sister Margaret’s second husband, to trade in silks and fine linen. Two parts, or the moiety of the joint stock, belonged to William Courten, and to each of the others, Peter Courten and John Money, a fourth share. As for Peter Boudean, the son of Margaret Courten by her first husband, he seems to have been employed to negotiate for the partnership at Middleburg on some stipulated or discretionary salary; for it does not appear that he had any certain or determinate share in the trade, which was carried on prosperously till 1631, with a return, it is said, one year with another, of 150,000l. During the course of this copartnership, there is nothing upon record unfavourable to the character of John Money. The characters too of William and Peter Courtens appear unexceptionable, fair, and illustrious. They prospered, it seems, remarkably in all their undertakings, for twenty years and more; in the course of which time they were both dignified with the honours of knighthood.

Our hero is said to have been put apprentice to a tailor in London: “but soon,” says Fuller, “turned his needle into a sword, and his thimble into a shield,” being prest into the service of Edward III. for his French wars, where he behaved himself so valiantly, that from a common soldier he was promoted to the rank of captain; and for some farther good service had the honour of knighthood conferred on him by that king, though he was accounted the poorest knight in the army. His general, the black prince, highly esteemed him for his valour and conduct, of which he gave extraordinary proofs at the battle of Poictiers.

Lilly, a little before his death, adopted one Henry Coley, a tailor, for his son, by the name of Merlin Junior, and made him a present of the copyright, or good-will of his almanack, which had been printed six and thirty years successively; and Coley carried it on for some time. Lilly bequeathed his estate at Hersham to one of the sons of his friend and patron Bulstrode Whitelock; and his magical utensils came all into the hands of Dr. Case, his successor, of facetious memory.

, sometimes called Abre Anam, or father of Anam, was a philosopher of great account among the Easterns, but his personal history is involved in much obscurity, and what we have is probably fabulous. Some say he was an Abyssinian of Ethiopia or Nubia, and was sold as a slave among the Israelites, in the reigns of David and Solomon. According to the Arabians, he was tlje son of Baura, son or grandson of a sister or aunt of Job. Some say he worked as a carpenter, others as a tailor, while a third sort will have him to be a shepherd; however that be, he was certainly an extraordinary person, endowed with great wisdom and eloquence, and we have an account of the particular manner in which he received these divine gifts; being one day asleep about noon, the angels saluted Lokman without making themselves visible, in these terms: “We are the messengers of God, thy creator and ours; and he has sent us to declare to thee that he will make thee a monarch, and his vice-gerent upon earth.” Lokman replied, “If it is by an absolute command of God that I am to become such a one as you say, his will be done in all things; and I hope if this should happen, that he will bestow on me all the grace necessary for enabling me to execute his commands faithfully; however, if he would grant me the liberty to chuse my condition of life, I had rather continue in my present state, and be kept from offending him; otherwise, all the grandeur and splendours of the world would be troublesome to me.” This answer, we are told, was so pleasing to God, that he immediately bestowed on him the gift of wisdom in an eminent degree; and he was able to instruct all men, by a multitude of maxims, sentences, and parables, amounting to ten thousand in number, every one of which his admirers reckon greater than the whole world in value.

After nine weeks confinement in the Marshalsea, he was set at liberty, by the intercession of sir Thomas Holcroft, knight-marshal. This, however, was not accomplished without much difficulty, and so intent was Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, on bringing Sandys to the stake, that it required some management on the part of sir Thomas before he could succeed; and no sooner was Sandys liberated than Gardiner, being told that he had set at liberty one of the greatest heretics in the kingdom, procured orders to be issued to all the constables of London to search for, and apprehend him. In Sandys* s final escape, as related by his late biographer, the hand of Providence was strikingly visible. While he was in the Tower, wanting a pair of new hose, a tailor was sent for, who, not being permitted to measure him, had made them too long, and While he was now concealed at the house of one Hurleston, a skinner in Cornhill, he sent them, as Hurleston’s own, to a tailor to be shortened. This happened to be honest Benjamin the maker, a good protestant, who immediately recognized his own handy work, and required to be shown, to the house where Dr. Sandys was, that he might speak with him for his good. At midnight he was admitted, and informed Dr. Sandys, that all the constables of the city, of whom he himself was one, were employed to apprehend him, thai it was well known that his servant had provided two geldings, and that he meant to ride out at Aldgate tomorrow. “But,” said he, “follow my advice, and, by God’s grace, you shall escape. Let your man walk all the day to-morrow in the street where your horses are stabled, booted and prepared for a journey. The servant of the man of the house shall take the horses to Bethnalgreen. The man himself shall follow, and be booted as if he meant to ride. About eight in the morning I will be with you, and here we will break our fast. It is both term and parliament time, and the street by that hour will be full of people; we will then go forth look wildly, and, if you meet your own brother in the street, do not shun, but outface him, and assure him that you know him not.” Dr. Sand3's accordingly complied, and came out at the appointed hour, clothed in all respects as a layman and a gentleman. Benjamin carried him through bye-lanes to Moorgate, where the horses were ready, and Hurleston as his man. That night he rode to his father-in-law’s house, but had not been there two hours, when intelligence was brought, that two of, the guard had been dispatched to apprehend him, and would be there that night. He was then immediately conducted to the house of a farmer near the sea-side, where he remained two days and two nights in a solitary chamber. Afterwards he removed to the house of one James Mower, a ship-master, near Milton-shore, where was a fleet of merchant-men awaiting a wind for Flanders. While he was there, Mower gathered a congregation of forty or fifty seamen, to whom he gave an exhortation, with which they were so much delighted, that they promised to defend him at the expence of their lives. On Sunday May 6, he embarked in the. same vessel with Dr. Coxe, afterwards bishop of Ely, and the ship was yet in sight, when two of the guard arrived on the shore to apprehend Dr. Sandys.

, or Vannucchi, a famous Italian painter, was the son of a tailor, whence he had the name of Sarto, and was born at Florence in 1471. He was apprenticed to a goldsmith, with whom he lived some time; but was then placed with John Basile, an ordinary painter, who taught him the rudiments of his art; and afterwards with Peter Cosimo, and while with him, studied the cartoons of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci; and by these means arrived at a mastery in his art. Being at last dissatisfied with his master, he associated with Francis Bigio, and they painted various pieces in conjunction, at Florence and about it, for the monasteries. At length some of Sarto’s pieces falling under the notice of Francis I. that monarch was so pleased with them, that he invited Sarto into France, and treated him with great liberality. He executed many pictures for the king and the nobiiity; but, while employed upon a St. Jerome for the queenxnother, he received letters from his wife, with whom he was infatuated, which made him resolve to return thither. He pretended domestic affairs, yet promised the king not only to return, but also to bring with him a good collection of pictures and sculptures. In this, however, he was overruled by his wife, and, never returning, gave Francis, who liad trusted him with a considerable sum of money, so bad an opinion of Florentine painters, that he would not look favourably on them for some years after. Sarto afterwards gave himself up wholly to pleasure, and became at length very poor. He was naturally mild and diffident, and set but very little value upon his own performances: yet the Florentines had so great an esteem for his works, that, during the fury of the popular factions among them, they preserved them from the flames. Sarto died of the plague in 1520, when only 42. Sarto’s works, in Mr. Fuseli’s opinion seem to have obtained their full share of justice. As a Tuscan, the suavity of his tone and facility of practice contrast more strikingly with the general austerity and elaborate pedantry of that school, and gain him greater praise than they would, had he been a Bolognese or Lombard. It cannot, however, be denied that his sweetness sometimes borders on insipidity: the modesty or rather pusillanimity of his character checked the full exertion of his powers; his faults are of the negative kind, and defects rather than blemishes. He had no notions of nature beyond the model, and concentrated all female beauty in his wife, Lucretia; and if it be true that he sacrificed his fortune and Francis I. to her charms, she must at least have equalled in form and feature his celebrated Madonna del Sacca: hence it was not unnatural that the proportions of Albert Durer should attract him more than those of Michaelagnolo. His design and his conceptions, which seldom rose above the sphere of common or domestic life, kept pace with each other; here his observation was acute, and his ear open to every whisper of social intercourse or emotion. The great peculiarity, perhaps the great prerogative, of Andrea appears to me that parallelism of composition, which distinguishes the best of his historic works, seemingly as natural, obvious and easy, as inimitable. In solemn effects, in alternate balance of action and repose, he excels all the moderns; and if he was often unable to conceive the actors themselves, he gives them probability and importance by place and posture. Of costume he was ignorant, but none ever excelled and few approached him in breadth, form, and style of that drapery which ought to distinguish solemn, grave, or religious subjects.

, a tailor, who, from an extraordinary love of study, became a professor of the Oriental languages, was born in the city of Norwich about 1684, where he was educated at a grammar-school till he was almost qualified for the university; but his friends, wanting fortune and interest to maintain him there, bound him apprentice to a tailor, with whom he served seven years, and afterwards worked seven years more as a journeyman. About the end of the last seven years, he was seized with a fever and ague, which continued with him two or three years, and at last reduced him so low as to disable him from working at his trade. In this situation he amused himself with some old books of controversial divinity, in which he found great stress laid on the Hebrew original of several texts of scripture; and, though he had almost lost the learning he had obtained at school, his strong desire of knowledge excited him to attempt to make himself master of that language. He was at first obliged to make use of an English Hebrew grammar and lexicon; but, by degrees, recovered the knowledge of the Latin tongue, which he had learned at school. On the recovery of his health, he divided his time between his business and his studies, xvhich last employed the greatest part of his nights. Thus, self-taught, and assisted only by his great genius, he, "by dint of continual application, added to the knowledge of the Hebrew that of all or most of the oriental Ianguages, but still laboured in obscurity, till at length he was accidentally discovered. The worthy Dr. Prideaux, dean of Norwich, being offered some Arabic manuscripts in parchment, by a bookseller of that city, thinking, perhaps, that the price demanded for them was too great, declined buying them; but, soon after, Mr. Wild hearing of them, purchased them; and the dean, on calling at the shop and inquiring for the manuscripts, was informed of their being sold. Chagrined at this disappointment, he asked of the bookseller the name and profession of the person who had bought them; and, being told he was a tailor, he bad him instantly to run and fetch them, if they were riot cut in pieces to make measures: but he was soon relieved from his fears by Mr. Wild’s appearance with the manuscripts, though, on the dean’s inquiring whether he would part with them, he answered in the negative. The dean then asked hastily what he did with them: he replied, that he read them. He was desired to read them, which he did. He was then bid to render a passage or two into English, which he readily performed, and with great exactness. Amazed at this, the dean, partly at his own expence, and partly by a subscription raised among persons whose inclinations led them to this kind of knowledge, sent him to Oxford; where, though he was never a member of the university, he was by the dean’s interest admitted into the Bodleian library, and employed for some, years in translating or making extracts out of Oriental manuscripts, and thus bad adieu to his needle. This appears to have been some time before 1718. At Oxford, he was known by the name of the Arabian tailor. He constantly attended the library all the hours it was open, and, when it was shut, employed most of his leisure-time in teaching the Oriental languages to young gentlemen, at the moderate price of half a guinea a lesson, except for the Arabic, for which he had a guinea, and his subscriptions for teaching amounted to no more than 20 or 30l. a year. Unhappily for him, the branch of learning in which he excelled was cultivated but by few; and the reverend Mr. Gagnier, a Frenchman, skilled in the Oriental tongues, was in possession of all the favours the university could Bestow in this way, being recommended by the heads of colleges to instruct young gentlemen, and employed by the professors of these languages to read public lectures in their absence.