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, a very ingenious mechanic of London, who introduced several improvements in the mechanism of time-keepers, for which he received premiums from the Board of Longitude. He was the inventor of the expansion balance, and of the present detached escapement, and the first artist who ever applied the gold cylindrical spring to the balance of a time-piece. He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, at Well-hall, near Eltham in Kent, August 25, 1799. The following publications may be consulted for an account of his improvements: “An account kept during thirteen months in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, of the going of a Pocket Chronometer, made on a new construction by John Arnold, having his new-invented balance spring, and a compensation for the effects of heat and cold in the balance. Published by permission of the Board of Longitude,” 4to, 1780. lf A Letter from Mr. Christian Meyer, astronomer to the elector Palatine, to Mr. N. N. on the going of a new Pendulum Clock, made by Mr. John Arnold, and set up in the elector’s observatory at Manheim, translated from the German,“4to, 1781.” On the Longitude; in a letter to the Commissioners of that Board; containing remarks on the accounts given of a Clock at Manheim, and tlaat of a Pocket Chronometer at Greenwich; both made by Mr. John Arnold,“4to, 1781.” An Answer from John Arnold to an anonymous letter on the Longitude, 4to, 1782.

At the beginning of the succeeding reign, his tide of prosperity began to turn and he received a sensible mortification presently after the coronation of king George I. Oct. 20, 1714, when, upon his offering to present his majesty (with a view, no doubt, of standing better in his favour) with the chair of state and royal canopy, his own perquisites as dean of Westminster, the offer was rejected, not without some evident marks of dislike to his person. At the close of this year he is supposed to have written a pamphlet, deemed a libel by government, “English Advice to the Freeholders of England.” Bolingbroke and Swift were also supposed to have had a hand in it. During the rebellion in Scotland, which broke out in the first year of this reign, Atterbury gave an instance of his growing disaffection to the established government, in refusing to sign the “Declaration” of the bishops. In that juncture of affairs, when the Pretender’s declaration was posted up in most market towns, and, in some places, his title proclaimed, it^was thought proper, by most bodies of men, to give the government all possible assurance of their fidelity iand allegiance and accordingly there was published “A Declaration of the archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishops in and near London, testifying their abhorrence of the present rebellion and an exhortation to the clergy, and people under their care, to be zealous in the discharge of their duties to his majesty king George.” This paper both Atterbury and Smalridge refused to sign, on pretence of a just offence taken at some unbecoming reflections cast on a party, not inferior to any, they said, in point of loyalty. But Atterbury' s refusal of signing the declaration of his episcopal brethren, during the rebellion in Scotland, was not the only testimony he at that time afforded of his disaffection to government. Another remarkable proof of it was his conduct to an ingenious and learned clergyman, Mr. Gibbin, curate of Gravesend. When the Dutch troops, which came over to assist in subduing the rebellion, were quartered at that place, the officers requested of Mr. Gibbin the use of his church one Sunday morning for their chaplain to preach to their soldiers, alleging that the like favour had been granted them in other parishes, and promising that the service should begin at six in the morning, that it might not interfere with that of the town. The request was granted, the chaplain preached, and his congregation was dismissed by nine o'clock. But Dr. Atterbury was so in^ censed at this transaction, that he suspended Mr. Gibbiu for three years. The suspension, however, was deemed so injurious by the inhabitants of Gravesend, that they subscribed a sum to Mr. Gibbin more than double the income of his church and the affair being represented to the king, his majesty* gave him the rectory of NorthFleet in Kent, which living he afterwards exchanged for Birch, near Colchester in Essex, where he died July 29, 1752. He was a very ingenious, learned, and worthy clergyman, who had greatly improved and enlarged his mind, by his travels into France, Italy, and other countries, with Mr. Addison. A farther striking instance (if true) of bishop Atterbury’s attachment to the Pretender, is related, by the author of the “Memoirs of lord Chesterfield,” from Dr. Birch’s manuscript papers, and was often mentioned by the late bishop Pearce (who appears to have been always severe on the memory of Atterbury) “Lord Harcourt leaving the old ministry, provoked Atterbury’s abusive tongue. He, in return, declared, that on the queen’s death, the bishop came to him and to lord Bolingbroke, and said, nothing remained but immediately to proclaim king James. He further offered, if they would give him a guard, to put on his lawn sleeves, and head the procession.” Whatever may be in this, it is certain that from the time he perceived himself slighted by tile king he constantly opposed the measures of the court in the House of Lords, and drew up some of the most violent protests with his own hand. In 1716, we find him advising dean Swift in the management of a refractory chapter.

Such early judgment determined his father to send him to France, that he might improve himself under that able and honest statesman, sir Amias Powlet, then the queen’s ambassador at Paris, and his behaviour while tinder the roof of that minister, was so prudent as to induce sir Amias to intrust him with a commission of importance to the queen, which required both secrecy and dispatch and this he executed so as to gain much credit both to the ambassador and to himself. He afterwards returned to Paris, but made occasional excursions into the provinces, where his attention appears to have been principally directed towards men and manners. He applied also with great assiduity to such studies as he conceived came within his father’s intention, and when he was but nineteen, wrote a very ingenious work, entitled, “A succinct view of the state of Europe,” which, it is plain, he had surveyed not only with the eye of a politician, but also of a philosopher. This work, it is probable, he improved on his return, when he was settled in Gray’s Inn. While thus employed abroad, the death of his father obliged him to return, and apply to some profession for his maintenance, as the money he inherited formed a very narrow provision. Accordingly, on his return, he resolved on the study of the common law, and for that purpose entered himself of the honourable society of Gray’s Inn, where his superior talents rendered him the ornament of the house, and the gentleness and affability of his deportment procured him the affection of all its members. The place itself was so agreeable to him, that he erected there a very elegant structure, which many years after was known by the name of “Lord Bacon’s Lodgings,” which he inhabited occasionally through the greatest part of his life. During the first years of his residence here, he did not confine his studies entirely to law, but indulged his excursive genius in a survey of the whole circle of science. It was here, and at that early age, where he formed, at least, if he did not mature, the plan of that great philosophical work, which has distinguished his name with such superior honour. Whether this first plan, or outlines, have descended to us, is a point upon which his biographers are not agreed. It was probably, however, the “Temporis Partus Masculus,” some part of which is preserved by Gruter in the Latin works of Bacon, which he published. The curious reader may receive much satisfaction on this subject from note D. of the Life of Bacon in the “Biographia Britannica.”

, a very ingenious and learned antiquary, was descended from a family ancient and wellesteemed, distinguished by its loyalty and affection for the crown. His grandfather, sir George Baker, knt. to whom our author erected a monument in the great church at Hull, almost ruined his family by his exertions for Charles I. Being recorder of Newcastle, he kept that town, 1639, against the Scots (as they themselves wrote to the parliament) with a “noble opposition.” He borrowed large sums upon his own credit, and sent the money to the king, or laid it out in his service. His father was George Baker, esq. of Crook, in the parish of Lanchester, in the county of Durham, who married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Forster of Edderston, in the county of Northumberland, csq. Mr. Baker was born at Crook, September 14, 1656. He was educated at the free-school at Durham, under Mr. Battersby, many years master, and thence removed with his elder brother George, to St. John’s college, Cambridge, and admitted, the former as pensioner, the latter as fellow-commoner, under the tuition of Mr. Sanderson, July 9, 1674. He proceeded, B. A. 1677; M. A. 1681; was elected fellow, March 1680; ordained deacon by bishop Compton of London, December 20, 1685; priest by bishop Barlow of Lincoln, December 19, 1686. Dr. Watson, tutor of the college, who was nominated, but not yet consecrated, bishop of St. David’s, offered to take him for his chaplain, which he declined, probably on the prospect of a like offer from Crew, lord bishop of Durham, which he soon after accepted. His lordship collated him to the rectory of Long- Newton in his diocese, and the same county, June 1687; and, as Dr. Grey was informed by some of the bishop’s family, intended to have given him that of Sedgefieid, worth six or seven hundred pounds ayear, with a golden prebend, had he not incurred his displeasure, and left his family, for refusing to read king James the Second’s declaration for liberty of conscience. Mr. Baker himself gives the following account of this affair: “When the king’s declaration was appointed to be read, the most condescending thing the bishop ever did was coming to my chambers (remote from his) to prevail with me to read it in his chapel at Auckland, which I could not do, having wrote to my curate not to read it at my living at Long-Newton. But he did prevail with the curate at Auckland to read it in his church, when the bishop was present to countenance the performance. When all was over, the bishop (as penance I presume) ordered me to go to the dean to require him to make a return to court of the names of all such as did not read it, which I did, though I was one of the number.” But this bishop, who disgraced Mr. Baker for this refusal, and was excepted out of king William’s pardon, took the oaths to that king, and kept his bishopric till his death. Mr. Baker resigned Long-Newton August 1, 1690, refusing to take the oaths; and retired to his fellowship at St. John’s, in which he was protected till January 20, 1717, when, with one-and-twenty others, he was dispossessed of it. This hurt him most of all, not for the profit he received from it but that some whom he thought his sincerest friends came so readily into the new measures. particularly Dr. Robert Jenkin the master, who wrote a defence of the profession of Dr. Lake, bishop of Chichester, concerning the new oaths and passive obedience, and resigned his precentorship of Chichester, and vicarage of Waterbeach, in the county of Cambridge. Mr. Baker could not persuade himself but he might have shewn the same indulgence to his scruples on that occasion, as he had done before while himself was of that way of thinking. Of all his sufferings none therefore gave him so much uneasiness. In a letter from Dr. Jenkin, addressed to Mr. Baker, fellow of St. John’s, he made the following remark on the superscription “I was so then I little thought it should be by him that I am now no fellow; but God is just, and I am a sinner.” After the passing the registering act, 1723, he was desired to register his annuity of forty pounds, which the last act required before it was amended and explained. Though this annuity left him by his father for his fortune, with twenty pounds per annum out of his collieries by his elder brother from the day of his death, August 1699, for the remaining part of the lease, which determined at Whitsuntide 1723, was now his whole subsistence, he could not be prevailed on to secure himself against the act, but wrote thus in answer to his friend “I thank you for your kind concern for me; and yet I was very well apprized of the late act, but do not think it worth while at this age, and under these infirmities, to give myself and friends so much trouble about it. I do not think that any living besides myself knows surely that my annuity is charged upon any part of my cousin Baker’s estate or if they do, I can hardly believe that any one, for so poor and uncertain a reward, will turn informer or if any one be found so poorly mean and base, I am so much acquainted with the hardships of the world, that I can bear it. I doubt not I shall live under the severest treatment of my enemies or, if I cannot live, I am sure I shall die, and that’s comfort enough to me. If a conveyance will secure us against the act, I am willing to make such a conveyance to them, not fraudulent or in trust, but in as full and absolute a manner as words can make it and if that shall be thought good security, I desire you will have such a conveyance drawn and sent me by the post, and I'll sign it and leave it with any friend you shall appoint till it can be sent to you.” He retained a lively resentment of his deprivations and wrote himself in all his books, as well as in those which he gave to the college library, “socius ejectus,” and in some “ejectus rector.” He continued to reside in the college as commoner-master till his death, which happened July 2, 1740, of a paralytic stroke, being found on the floor of his chamber. In the afternoon of June 29, being alone in his chamber, he was struck with a slight apoplectic fit, which abating a little, he recovered his senses, and knew all about him, who were his nephew Burton, Drs. Bedford and Heberden. He seemed perfectly satisfied and resigned and when Dr. Bedford desired him to take some medicine then ordered, he declined it, saying, he would only take his usual sustenance, which his bedmaker knew the times and quantities of giving he was thankful for the affection and care his friends shewed him, but, hoping the time of his dissolution was at hand, would by no means endeavour to retard it. His disorder increased, and the third day from this seizure he departed. He was buried in St. John’s outer chapel, near the monument of Mr. Ash ton, who founded his fellowship. No memorial has yet been erected over him, he having forbidden it in his will. Being appointed one of the executors of his elder brother’s will, by which a large sum was bequeathed to pious uses, he prevailed on the other two executors, who were his other brother Francis and the hon. Charles Montague, to layout 1310l. of the money upon an estate to be settled upon St. John’s college for six exhibitioners. Mr. Masters gives a singular instance f his unbiassed integrity in the disposal of these exhibitions. His friend Mr. Williams, rector of Doddington, had applied to Mr. Baker for one of them for his son, and received the following answer

Mr. Baker likewise gave the college lOOl. for the consideration of six pounds a-year (then legal interest) for his life and to the library several choice books, both printed and ms. medals, and coins besides what he left to it by his will which were “all such books, printed and ms. as he had, and were wanting there.” All that Mr. Baker printed was, 1. “Reflections on Learning, shewing the insufficiency thereof in its several particulars, in order to evince the usefulness and necessity of Revelation, London, 1710,” which went through eight editions; and Mr. Boswell, in his “Method of Study,” ranks it among the English classics for purity of style; a character perhaps too high, yet it is a very ingenious work, and was at one time one of the most popular books in our language. Its principal fault is, that the author has too much depreciated human learning, and is not always conclusive in his arguments. 2. “The preface to bishop Fisher’s funeral sermon for Margaret countess of Richmond and Derby, 1708” both without his name. Dr. Grey had the original ms. of both in his own hands. The latter piece is a sufficient specimen of the editor’s skill in antiquities to make us regret that he did not live to publish his “History of St. John’s college, from the foundation of old St. John’s house to the present time; with some occasional and incidental account of the affairs of the university, and of such private colleges as held communication or intercourse with the old house or college collected principally from Mss. and carlied on through a succession of masters to the end of bishop Gunning’s mastership, 1670.” The original, fit for the press, is among the Harleian Mss. No. 7028. His ms collections relative to the history and antiquities of the university of Cambridge, amounting to thirty-nine volumes in folio, and three in 4to, are divided between the British Museum and thfe public library at Cambridge the former possesses twenty-three volumes, which he bequeathed to the earl of Oxford, his friend and patron the latter sixteen, in folio, and three in 4to, which he bequeathed to the university. Dr. Knight styles him “the greatest master of the antiquities of this our university;” and Hearne says, “Optandum est ut sua quoqn^ collectanea de antiquitatibus Cantabrigiensibus juris taciat publici cl. Bakerus, quippe qui eruditione summa judicioque acri et subacto polleat.” Mr. Baker intended something like an Athenae Cantabrigienses on the plan oLthe Athenae Oxonienses. Had he lived to have completed his design, it would have far exceeded that work. With the application and industry of Mr. Wood, Mr. Baker united a penetrating judgment and a great correctness of style, and these improvements of the mind were crowned with those amiable qualities of the heart, candour and integrity. He is very frequently mentioned by the writers of his time, and always with high respect. Although firm in his principles, he corresponded with and assisted men of opposite ways of thinking, and with the utmost readiness made them welcome to his collections. Among his contemporaries who distinguished themselves in the same walk with himself, and derived assistance from him, may be reckoned Mr. Hearne, Dr. Knight, Dr. John Smith, Hilkiah Bedford, Browne Willis, Mr. Strype, Mr. Peck, Mr. Ames, Dr. Middleton, and professor Ward. Two large volumes of his letters to the first of these antiquaries are in the Bodleian library. There is an indifferent print of him by Simon from a xnemoriter picture but a very good likeness of him by C. Bridges. Vertue was privately engaged to draw his picture by stealth. Dr. Grey had his picture, of which Mr. Burton had a copy by Mr. Ilitz. The Society of Antiquaries have another portrait of him. It was his custom, in every book he had, or read, to write observations and an account of the author. Of these a considerable number are at St. John’s college, and several in the Bodleian library, among Dr. Rawiinson’s bequests. A fair transcript of his select ms observations on Dr. Drake’s edition of archbishop Parker, 1729, was some time ago in the hands of Mr. Nichols. Dr. John Bedford of Durham had Mr. Baker’s copy of the “Hereditary Right,” greatly enriched by him. Dr. Grey, who was advised with about the disposal of the books, had his copy of Spelman’s Glossary. Mr. Crow married a sister of Mr. Baker’s nephew, Burton; and, on Burton’s death intestate in the autumn after his uncle, became possessed of every thing. What few papers of Mr. Baker’s were among them, he let Mr. Smith of Burnhall see and they being thought of no account, were destroyed, excepting the deed concerning the exhibitions at St. John’s, his own copy of the historyof the college, notes on the foundress’s funeral sermon, and the deed drawn for creating him chaplain to bishop Crew, in the month and year of the revolution, the day left blank, and the deed unsubscribed by the bishop, as if rejected by him.

, the most successful and celebrated experimental farmer ever known in England, was born at Dishley in Leicestershire, about 1725 or 1726. His grandfather and father had resided on the same estate since the beginning of the last century; and his father, who died about the year 1760, had the reputation of being a very ingenious farmer. Mr. Bakewell having conducted the Dishley farm several years before the decease of his father, began about fifty -five years ago, that course of experiments which has procured him such extensive fame. He originally adopted a principle, a priori, which was confirmed by the whole experience of his future life. Having remarked that domestic animals, in general, produced others possessing qualities nearly similar to their own, he conceived he had only to select from the most valuable breeds such as promised to return the greatest possible emolument to the breeder; and that he should then be able, by careful attention to progressive improvements, to produce a race of sheep, or other animals, possessing a maximum of advantage. Under the influence of this excellent notion, Mr. Bakewell made excursions into different parts of England, to inspect the various breeds, and to ascertain those which were best adapted to his purposes, and the most valuable 0f their kinds.

, a canon regular of St. Genevieve, and chancellor of the university of Paris, was born in 1692, and died at Paris in 1764. He joined his order early in life, and became distinguished for his knowledge and researches in civil and ecclesiastical history, and his numerous works afford a considerable proof of his industry. The principal are, 1. “Vindicise librorum deutero-canonicorum veteris Testamenti,” 1730, 12mo, a very ingenious attempt. 2. “Histoire generate cTAllemagne,” 1748, 11 vols. 4to, a work of vast labour, but has few of the elegant and fascinating charms of modern history, and is in many respects inaccurate. 3. “”Vie de rnarechal de Fabert,“1752, 2 vols. 12mo. 4.” Examen des defauts theologiques," Amst. 1744, 2 vols. 12mo. He also wrote notes to the edition of Bernard Van Espen’s works, 1753, 4 vols. fdrio; and about the time of his death had made some progress in a history of the courts of justice, of which he had published a prospectus in 1755.

, the wife of Dr. Joseph Verati, a very ingenious lady, was born in 1712, and died at Bologna, of which she was a native, in 1778. Such were her acknowledged talents and learning, that, in 1732, she was honoured with a Doctor’s degree, after, having disputed publicly in Latin, and her reputation became afterwards completely established by a course of lectures on experimental philosophy, which she delivered from 1745 to the time of her death. Madame tie Bocage, in her “Letters on Italy,” informs us that she attended one of those lectures, in which Madame Bassi developed the phenomena of irritability, with precision and depth. The greater part of the literati of Europe, to whom she was well known, bore testimony to her learning, particularly in the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian; nor was she less distinguished for her numerous exertions of charity to the poor and the orphan. We do not find that she published anything, but was the theme of much poetical praise.­A collection of these tributes of applause appeared in 1732, with her portrait, and an inscription, “L. M. C. Bassi, Phil. Doct. Coll. Academ. Institut. Scientiar. Societ. Ætat. Ann. xx.” and with the following allusion to Petrarch’s Laura:

, a very ingenious metaphysician and natural philosopher, was born in 1686, or 1687, at Old Aberdeen, in Scotland, of which city his father was a merchant, and educated in king’s college there. His principal employment was that of a private tutor to young gentlemen; and among other of his pupils were lord Grey, lord Blantyre, and Mr. Hay of Drummeizier. About 1724, he married the daughter of Mr. Mebane, a clergyman in the shire of Berwick. A few years after he published in 4to, “An Enquiry into the nature of the human Soul, wherein its immateriality is evinced from the principles of reason and philosophy;” without date. In 1741, he went abroad with Mr. Hay, and resided some years at Utrecht; having there also lord Blantyre under his care. He made excursions from thence into Flanders, France, and Germany; his wife and 'family residing in the mean time chiefly at Berwick upon Tweed. He returned to Scotland in 1747, and resided till his death at Whittingham, in the shire of East Lothian. He drew up, for the use of his pupils, and his son, a piece entitled “Matho: sive, Cosmotheoria puerilis, Dialogus. In quo prima elementa de mundi ordine et ornatu proponuntur, &c.” This was afterwards greatly enlarged, and published in English, in two volumes, 8vo. In 1750 was published, “An Appendix to his Enquiry into the nature of the human Soul” wherein he endeavours to remove some difficulties, which had been started against his notions of the “vis inertias” of matter, by Maclaurin, in his “Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries.” To this piece Mr. Baxter prefixed a dedication to Mr. John Wilkes, afterwards so well known in the political world, with whom he had commenced an acquaintance abroad. He died this year, April the 23d, after suffering for some months under, a complication of disorders, of which the gout was the chief, and was buried in the family vault of Mr. Hay, at Whittingham.

Having, in 1703, been appointed president of antiquities, he exhibited to the pope, a plan for forming a collection of sacred antiques, or an ecclesiastical museum, intended to furnish materials for ecclesiastical history but as this, would have been attended with very great expence, and the papal treasury was at this time very low, the scheme was abandoned. The pope, however, to console Bianchini, who had it very much at heart, gave him a canonry in the church of St. Mary Maggiore, and, in 1712, sent him to Paris with a cardinal’s hat for Armand de Rohan-Soubise, who was promoted to that dignity. The object was trifling, but the journey was important, as serving to introduce Bianchini to the literati of France, who received him with the utmost respect. At Paris he was constant in his attendance at the sittings of the academy of sciences, who had many years betore elected him an honorary member, and he presented them witii a very ingenious improvement in the construction of the larger telescopes, to prevent those of uncommon length from, bending in the middle, an inconvenience which had been thought without remedy. Reaumur wrote a description of this, which is inserted in the memoirs of the academy for 1713. Before returning to Rome, Bianchini took a trip to Lorraine, Holland, and Flanders, and thence into England, visiting and examining every museum and place where objects of curiosity were to be seen, and was every where received with the respect due to his talents. During his residence at Oxford, it is said that the university defrayed the expenses of his lodging such is his biographer’s ao count, by which is probably meant that he was invited to lodge in one of the colleges.

, president a mortier of the parliament of Dijon, and a member of the French academy, was born March 16, 1673. He began his studies under the direction of his father (who was also president a mortier of the same parliament) at the Jesuits’ college of Dijon, and finished them in 1638 with great approbation. Being as yet too young for the law schools, he studied the elements of that science in private, and perfected himself at the same time in the Greek language. He also learned Italian, Spanish, and acquired some knowledge of the Hebrew. After two years thus usefully employed, he went through a course of law at Paris and Orleans; and in 1692 he became counsellor of the parliament of Dijon. In 1704 he was appointed president, the duties of which office he executed until 1727, and with an assiduity and ability not very common. In this latter year he was elected into the academy, on the condition that he would quit Dijon and settle at Paris, to which condition he acceded, but was unable to perform his promise, for want of health. Though remote, however, from the capital, he could not remain in obscurity; but from the variety and extent of his learning‘, he was courted and consulted by the literati throughout Europe: and many learned men, who had availed themselves of his advice, dedicated their works to him. At length, his constitution being worn out with repeated attacks of the gout, he died March 17, 1746. A friend approaching his bed, within an hour of his death, found him in a seemingly profound meditation. He made a sign that he wished not to be disturbed, and with difficulty pronounced the words J’epie la mort “I am watching death.” Notwithstanding his business and high reputation as a lawyer, he contrived to employ much of his time in the cultivation of polite literature, and wrote many papers on Critical and classical subjects in the literary journals. Separately he published, 1. A poetical translation, not inelegant, but somewhat careless, of Petronius on the Civil War between Coesar and Pompey, with two epistles of Ovid, &c. Amst. 1737, 4to. Alluding to the negligence which sometimes appears in his poetry, his wife, a very ingenious lady, used to say, “Confine yourself to thinking, and let me write.” 2. “Remarques sur les Tusculanes de Ciceron, avec une dissertation sur Sardanapale, dernier roi d'Asyrie,” Paris, 1737, 12mo. 3. “Des Lettres sur les Therapeutes,” 1712. 4. “Dissertations sur Herodote,” with memoirs of the life of Bouhier, 1746, Dijon, 4to. 5. “Dissertation sur le grand pontifical des empereurs Remains,” 1742, 4to. 6. “Explications de quelques marbres antiques,” in the collection of M. Le Bret, 1733, 4to. 7. “Observations sur la Coutume de Bourgogne,” Dijon, 2 vols. fol. A complete edition of his law works was published in 1787, fol. by M. de Bevy. He wrote a very learned dissertation on the origin of the Greek and Latin letters, which is printed in Montfaucon’s Palaeography, Paris, 1708, p. 553 and his “Remarques sur Ciceron” were reprinted at Paris in 1746.

In 1744, Mr. Bowyer is supposed to have written a small pamphlet on the present state of Europe, taken principally from Pufendorff. In 1746, he projected, what during his whole life he had in view, a regular edition of Cicero’s Letters, in a chronological order, on a plan which it is to be lamented that he did not complete; as an uniform series thus properly arranged would have formed a real history of Tully’s life, and those which cannot be dated might be thrown to the end without any inconvenience. In the same year he published “The Life of the Emperor Julian,” translated from the French of M. Bleterie, and improve^ with twelve pages of curious notes, and a genealogical table. The notes were not entirely Mr. Bowyer’s, but were drawn up, in part, by Mr. Clarke and other learned men. The translation, by Miss Anne Williams (Dr. Johnson’s inmate), and the two sisters of the name of Wilkinson, was made under Mr. Bowyr’s immediate inspection. In this year also, he printed, and is supposed to have assisted in thp composition of, “A Dissertation, in which the objections of a late pampinet (by bishop Ross) to the writings of the anci nits, after the mariner of Mr. Maryland, are clearly answered: those passages in Tuily corrected, on which some of the objections are founded; with Amendments of a few pieces of criticism in Mr. Maryland’s Epistola Critica,” 8vo. On the 2d of August, 1747, Mr. Bowyer entered a second time into the matrimonial state, with a most benevolent and worthy woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Bill, by whom he had no children. In 1750, he had the honour of sharing, with Dr. Burton, in the invectives most liberally bestowed by Dr. King, in his “Elogium Famse inserviens Jacci Etouensis, sive Gigantis: or, the Praises of Jack of Eaton, commonly called Jack the Giant.” Dr. King’s abuse was probably owing to his having heard that our learned printer had hinted, in conversation, his doubts concerning the doctor’s Latiriity. Mr. Bowyer drew up strictures in his own defence, which he intended to insert at the conclusion of a preface to Montesquieu’s Reflections, &c.; but, in consequence ol Mr. Clarke’s advice, they were omitted. In the same year, a prefatory critical dissertation, and some valuable notes, were annexed, by our author, to Kuster’s Treatise “De vero usu Verborum Mediorum;” a new edition of which work, with further improvements, appeared in 1773. He wrote, likewise, about the same time, a Latin preface to Leedes’s “Veteres Poeta? citati, &c.” Being soon after employed to print an edition of colonel Bladen’s translation of Cæsar’s Commentaries, that work received considerable improvements from. Mr. Bowyer’s hands, and the addition of such notes in it as are signed Typogr. In the subsequent editions of this work, though printed by another person, and in our author’s life-time, the same signature, contrary to decorum, and even justice, was still retained. In 1751, he wrote a long preface to Montesquieu’s “Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Rouian Empire;” translated the Dialogue between Sylla and Socrates; made several corrections to the work from the Baron’s “Spirit of Laws,” and improved it with his own notes. A new edition, with many; new notes, was printed in 1759. He gave likewise to the public, in 1751, with a preface, the first translation that was made of Rousseau’s paradoxical oration on the effects of the arts and sciences, which gained the prize at the academy of Dijon, in 1750; and which first announced that singular genius to the attention and admiration of Europe. On the publication of the third edition of lord Orrery’s “Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift,” in 1752, Mr. Bowyer wrote and printed, but never published, “Two Letters from Dr. Bentley in the shades below, to lord Orrery in a land of thick darkness.” The notes signed B, in the ninth quarto volume of Swift’s works, are extracted from these Letters, which are reprinted at large in his “Tracts.” In 1752, when Bp. Clayton published his “Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament, in answer to the Objections of Lord Bolingbroke,” Mr. Bowyer drew up an analysis of the same, with an intention of sending it to the Gentleman’s Magazine: it is now printed in Mr. Nichols’s “Anecdotes.” In 1753, to allay the ferment occasioned by the Jew bill, he published, in quarto, “Remarks on a Speech made in Common Council, on the Bill for permitting persons professing the Jewish Religion to be naturalized, so far as Prophecies are supposed to be affected by it.” The design of this sensible little tract, which was written with spirit, and well received by those who were superior to narrow prejudices, was to shew, that whatever political reasons might be alleged against the Bill, Christianity would in no degree be prejudiced by the indulgence proposed to be gVanted to the Jews. In the same year, some of Mr. Bowyer’s notes were annexed to bishop Clayton’s translation of “A Journal from Grand Cairo to Mount Sinai, and back again.” In 1754, with a view of lessening his fatigue, he entered into partnership with a relation; but some disagreements arising, the connection was dissolved in 1757, and he resumed the active part of business. In 1760 he superintended a second edition of Arnald’s “Commentary on the Book of Wisdom,” and enriched it with the remarks of Mr. Markland. Upon the death of Mr. Richardson, in 1761, Mr. Bowyer, through the patronage of the late earl of Macclesfield, was appointed printer to the Royal Society; and, under the friendship of five successive presidents, had the satisfaction of continuing in that employment till his death. In the same year (1761), appeared “Verses on the Coronation of their late majesties, king George the Second and queen Caroline, October 4, 1727, spoken by the Scholars of Westminster school (some of them now the ornaments of the Nation) on January 15th following, being the Day of the Inauguration of Queen Elizabeth, their foundress with a Translation of all the Latin copies The whole placed in order of the transactions of that important day. Adorned with the Coronation Medals pf the Royal Pair, and a bust of our present king. To which is subjoined the Ceremonial of the august Procession, very proper to be compared with the approaching one; and a Catalogue of the Coronation Medals of the Kings and Queens of England.” The original part of this pamphlet, in which a great deal of humour is displayed, was entirely Mr. Bowyer' s: the Latin verses were translated partly by him, but principally by Mr. Nichols. Our learned printer’s next publication was of a more serious and weighty nature, an excellent edition of the Greek Testament, in two volumes, 1763, 12mo, under the following title: “Novum Testamentum Greecum, ad Fidem GrascorUm solum Codicum Mss. nunc primum expressum, adstipulante Joanne Jacobo Wetstenio, juxta Sectiones Jo. Albert! Bengelii divisum; et nova Interpunctione saepius illustratum. Accessere in altero Volumine Emendationes conjecturales virorum doctorum undecunque collectse.” This sold with great rapidity; though Mr. Bowyer, in his advertisements of it in the public papers, was pleased to add, that it boasted neither elegance of type nor paper, but trusted to other merits. The conjectural emendations are a very valuable addition to the Greek Testament, and were extremely well received by the learned. In a letter of thanks, from the president and fellows of Harvard college, in Cambridge, New-England, to Mr. Bowyer, in 1767, for several benefactions of his to that college, they express themselves as follows: “It is a particular pleasure to us to mention your very curious edition of the Greek Testament, in two volumes, with critical notes, and many happy conjectures, especially as to the punctuation, an affair of the utmost importance as to ascertaining the sense. This work, though small in bulk, we esteem as a rich treasure of sacred learning, and of more intrinsic value than many large volumes of the commentators.” A second edition of the Conjectures on the New Testament, with very considerable enlargements, was separately published, in one volume, 8vo, in 1772, a third in 4to, 1782, and a fourth from the interleaved -copy of Dr. Owen, which he bequeathed to the honourable and right reverend Dr. Shute Barrington, bishop of Durham, is just published (1812). Bishop Wavbnrton having censured apassage in the first edition, Mr. Bowyer sent him a copy of the second, with a conciliatory letter. In 1765, at the request of Thomas Hollis, esq. our learned printer wrote a short Latin preface to Dr. Wallis’s “Grammatica Linguae Anglicanse.” A larger English preface, which was written by him, and intended for that work, is printed in his “Tracts.” Some copies of this book were sent by him to the rev. Edward Clarke, when, chaplain to the earl of Bristol at Madrid, to be given to the Spanish literati. Towards the latter end of the same year, in consequence of overtures from a few respectable friends at Cambridge, Mr. Bowyer had some inclination to have undertaken the management of the University press, by purchasing a lease of its exclusive privileges. He went, accordingly, to Cambridge for this purpose; but the treaty proved fruitless, and he did not much regret the disappointment. In the beginning of 1766, by engaging in a partnership with Mr. Nichols, he was again enabled to withdraw, in some degree, from that close application, which had begun to be prejudicial to his health. His new associate had been trained by him to the profession, and had assisted him several years in the management of business. He was very happy in this connection; and it is unnecessary to add how successfully Mr. Nichols has trod in the steps of his worthy and learned friend and partner. In, that year (1766) Mr. Bowyer wrote an excellent Latin preface to “Joannis Harduini, Jesuitae, ad Censuram Scriptorum veterum Prolegomena; juxta Autographum.” In this preface he gives an account of the nature of the work, and of the manner in which it had been preserved. Mr. De Missy’s remarks on the celebrated Jesuit’s extraordinary production were published about the same time, in a letter to Mr. Bowyer, written in Latin. In 1767, he was appointed to print the Journals of the House of Lords, and the Rolls of Parliament. The noble peer to whom he was indebted for this appointment, and his gratitude to whom is testified in the inscription which he left behind him, to be placed in Stationers Hall, was the earl of Marchmont. Mr. Bowyer was now compelled, from the want of sufficient room, to exchange White Fryars for Red Lion-passage; and it was not without reluctance that he quitted a residence to which he had been accustomed from his infancy. His new printing-house was opened with the sign of his favourite Cicero’s Head: under which was inscribed, “M, T, Cicero, A Quo Primordia Preli,” in allusion to the well-known early editions of Tally’s Offices. Having printed this year Mr. Clarke’s excellent and learned work on “The Connexion of the Roman, Saxon, and English Coins,” he wrote some notes upon it, which are interspersed throughout the volume with those of the author. Part of the dissertation on the Roman Sesterce was, likewise, Mr. Bowyer’s production; and the index, which is an uncommonly good one, and on which he did not a little pride himself, was drawn up entirely by him. On the 14th of January, 177 J, he lost his second wife, who died at the age of seventy. His old friend, Mr. Clarke, who had administered consolation to him, on a similar occasion, nearly forty years before, again addressed him with tenderness on this event. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1771, was printed a very ingenious “Enquiry intothe value of the antient Greek and Roman Money,” by the late Matthew Raper, esq. The opinions advanced by this respectable gentleman, on these subjects, not coinciding with those of Mr. Bowyer, he printed a small pamphlet, entitled, “Remarks, occasioned by a late Dissertation on the Greek and Roman Money.” The pamphlet was intended as an appendix to Mr. Clarke’s Treatise on Coins. The opinions of many excellent writers in Germany and France having been ably controverted in that elaborate work, Mr. Bowyer transmitted a copy of it to the French king’s library, and inscribed his little appendix,

In 1738 he published a translation of the First Three Books of Tasso, of which it is sufficient praise that Hoole says: “It is at once so harmonious and so spirited, that I think an entire translation of Tasso by him would not only have rendered my task unnecessary, but have discouraged those from the attempt whose poetical abilities are much superior to mine.” He was, however, diverted from completing his translation, by his political friends, who, among other plans of hostility against the minister of the day, endeavoured to turn all the weapons of literature against him, Their prose writers were numerous, but principally essayists and pamphleteers: from their poets they had greater expectations; Paul Whitehead wrote satires; Fielding, comedies and farces; Glover, an epic poem; and now Brooke was encouraged to introduce Walpole in a tragedy. This was entitled “Gustavus Vasa, the deliverer of his country,” and was accepted by Drury-lane theatre, and almost quite ready for performance, when an order came from the lord chamberlain to prohibit it. That it contains a considerable portion of party-spirit cannot be denied, and the character of Trollio, the Swedish minister, however unjustly, was certainly intended for sir Robert Walpole; but it may be doubted whether this minister gained much by prohibiting the acting of a play which he had not the courage to suppress when published, and when the sentiments, considered deliberately in the closet, might be nearly as injurious as when delivered by a mouthing actor. The press, however, remained open, and the prohibition having excited an uncommon degree of curiosity, the author was more richly rewarded than he could been by the profits of the stage. Above a thousand copies were subscribed for at five shillings each, and by the sale of the subsequent editions, the author is said to have cleared nearly a thousand pounds. The editor of the Biographia Dramatica says that it was acted in 1742, with some alterations, on the Irish stage, by the title of “The Patriot.” Dr, Johnson, who at this time ranked among the discontented, wrote a very ingenious satirical pamphlet in favour of the author, entitled “A complete vindication of the Licensers of the Stage from the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke, author of GustavusVasa,” 1739, 4to.

, esq. F. R. S. and a very ingenious and elegant poet of the last century, was born at Burton-upon-Trent, January 21, 1705-6; and was the son of the rev. William Browne, minister of that parish, where he chiefly resided, vicar of Winge, in Buckinghamshire, and a prebendary of Litchfield, which last preferment was given him by the excellent bishop Hough. He was possessed, also, of a small paternal inheritance, which he greatly increased by his marriage with Anne, daughter of Isaac Hawkins, esq. all whose estate, at length, came to his only grandson and heir-at-law, the subject of this article. Our author received his grammatical education, first at Litchfield, and then at Westminster, where he was much distinguished for the brilliancy of his parts^ and the steadiness of his application. The uncommon rapidity with which he passed through the several forms or classes of Westminster school, attracted the notice, and soon brought him under the direction of the head master, Dr. Freind, with whom he was a peculiar favourite. Mr. Browne stayed above a year in the sixth, or head form, with a view of confirming and improving his taste for classical learning and composition, under so polite and able a scholar. When he was little more than sixteen years of age, he was removed to Trinity-college, Cambridge, of which college his father had been fellow. He remained at the university till he had taken his degree of M. A. and though during his residence there he continued his taste for classical literature, which through his whole life was his principal object and pursuit, he did not omit the peculiar studies of the place, but applied himself with vigour and success to all the branches of mathematical science, and the principles of the Newtonian philosophy. When in May 1724, king George the First established at both universities, a foundation for the study of modern history and languages, with the design of qualifying young men for employments at court, and foreign embassies, Mr. Browne was among the earliest of those who were selected to be scholars upon this foundation. On the death of that prince, he wrote an university copy of verses, which was the first of his poems that had been printed, and was much admired. About the year 1727, Mr. Browne, who had been always intended for the bar, settled at Lincoln’s-inn. Here he prosecuted, for several years, with great attention, the study of the law, and acquired in it a considerable degree of professional knowledge, though he never arrived to any eminence in the practice of it, and entirely gave it up long before his death. He was the less solicitous about the practice of his profession, and it was of the less consequence to him, as he was possessed of a fortune adequate to his desires; which, by preserving the happy mean between extravagance and avarice, he neither diminished nor increased.

, esq. a very ingenious but unfortunate writer, was born at St. Thomas, near Exeter, about 1685, and educated at Christ-church, Oxford. His father, Gilbert Budgell, D. D. descended of an ancient family in Devonshire; his mother, Mary, was only daughter of Dr. William Gulston, bishop of Bristol, whose sister Jane married dean Addison, and was mother to the famous Addison. After some years stay in the university, Mr. Budgell went to London, and was entered of the Inner Temple, in order to study law, for which his father always intended him; but his inclinations led him more to study polite literature, and keep company with the genteelest persons in town. During his stay at the Temple, he contracted a strict intimacy and friendship with Addison, who was first cousin to his mother; and when Addison was appointed secretary to lord Wharton, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, he offered to make his friend Eustace one of the clerks of his office, which Mr. Budgell readily accepted. This was in April 1710, when he was about twenty-five years of age. He had by this time read the classics, the most reputed historian^ and the best French, English, and Italian writers, and became concerned with Steele and Addison, not in writing the Tatler, as has been asserted, but the Spectator, which was begun in 1711. Ail the papers marked with an X were written by him, and the whole eighth volume is attributed to Addison and himself, without the assistance of Steele. Several little epigrams and songs, which have a good deal of wit in them, together with the epilogue to the “Distressed Mother,” which had a greater run than any thing of the kind before, were also written by Mr. Budgell near this time; all which, together with the known affection of Addison for him, raised his character so much as to give him considerable consequence in the literary and political world. Upon the laying down of the Spectator, the Guardian was set up; and to this work our author contributed, along with Addison and Steele. In the preface it is said, that those papers marked with an asterisk were written by Mr. Budgell.

, author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy,” the younger brother of William Burton, the antiquary, the subject of the next article but one, was born at Lindley, Feb. 8, 1576, and had his grammatical education at Sutton-Colfield; after which, in 1593, he was admitted a commoner of Brazen-nose college, and elected a student of Christ church, in 1599, under the tuition (though only for form’s sake) of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards bishop of Oxford. He took the degree of B. D. in 16 14, and was in that year admitted to the reading of the sentences. In 1616, the dean and chapter of Christ church presented him to the Vicarage of St. Thomas in Oxford, in which parish he always gave the sacrament in wafers; and George lord Berkeley bestowed upon him the rectory of Segrave in Leicestershire. Both these preferments he held till his decease, which happened at Christ church, January 25, 1639—4O. He was a curious calculator of nativities, and among others, of his own; and the time of his death answering exactly to his own predictions, it was whispered in the college, that (to use Anthony Wood’s language), rather than there should be any mistake in the calculation, he sent up his soul to heaven through a slip about his neck; but for this insinuation there appears little foundation. He was a general scholar and severe student, of a melancholy yet humourous disposition, and appears to have been a man of extensive learning, which his memory enabled him to produce upon every subject. In his moral character, he was a man of great integrity, plain-dealing, and chanty. He was principally known as the author of a very celebrated and popular work, entitled “The Anatomy of Melancholy,” published first in quarto, and which afterwards went through several editions in folio, so that the bookseller acquired an estate by it. This book was compiled by our learned writer with a view of relieving his own melancholy; but it encreased to such a degree, that nothing could divert him but going to the bridge foot, and hearing the ribaldry of the bargemen, which seldom failed to throw him into a violent fit of laughter. In the intervals of his vapours, he was one of the most facetious companions in the university. The “Anatomy of Melancholy” is for the greater part a cento, though a very ingenious one. The quotations, which abound in every page, are pertinent; but if the author had made freer use of his invention, and less of his common -place book, his work, perhaps, would have been more valuable. However, he generally avoids the affected language, and ridiculous metaphors, which were common in that age. On Mr. Burton’s monument in Christ church is his bust, with his nativity, and this description by himself, put up by his brother: “Faucis notus, paucioribus ignotus, hie jacet Democritusjunior, cui vitam dedit et mortem Melancholia. Obiit viii. Id. Jan. A. C. MDCXXXIX.” He left behind him a choice collection of books, many of which he bequeathed to the Bodleian library, and that of Brazen-nose college. He left also a hundred pounds, for a fund to purchase five pounds’ worth of books, every year, for the library of Christ church.

1 Gen. Diet. Biog. Brit. Richardsoniana, p. 259. See also an account of his conduct in Scotland in “A true relation of the Pursuit of the Rebels in the North, and of their Surrender at Preston to lieutenant-general Carpenter, commanding in chief his majesty’s forces there,” joined to a plan published under this title, “An exact Plan of the Town of Preston, with the barricades of the Rebels, and the disposition of the king’s forces, under the command of lieutenant-general Carpenter and major-general Wills.” See likewise “The Poltarchbishop Usher, then at Oxford, who admired his talents and piety, took him with him to Ireland, and made him one of his chaplains, and tutor to the king’s wards in Dublin. These king’s wards were the sons of Roman catholics who had fled for their religion, leaving them in their minority; and Mr. Carpenter’s charge was to bring them up in the protestant religion. Soon after he came to Ireland he was advanced to a deanery, but what deanery is not mentioned. He died at Dublin in 1635, according to Fuller, or in 1628, according to Wood. Dr. Robert Usher, afterwards bishop of Kildare, and brother to the archbishop, preached his funeral sermon, and gave a high character of him, which seems to be confirmed by all his contemporaries. He published, 1.” Philosophia libera, triplici exercitationum decade proposita,“Francfort, 1621, under the name of Cosmopolitanus London, 1622, 8vo, with additions, Oxford, 1636, 1675. This was considered as a very ingenious work, and one of the earliest attacks on the Aristotelian philosophy. Brucker, who has given our author a place among the” modern attempters to improve natural philosophy/* adds, that he has advanced many paradoxical notions, sufficiently remote from the received doctrines of the schools. 2. “Geography,” in two books, Oxford, 1625, and corrected and enlarged 1635, 4to. In the latter part he maintains that mountainous people are more stout, warlike, and generous than the inhabitants of flat countries, and supports this doctrine by an appeal to his countrymen in Devonshire. 3. “Achitophel or the picture of a wicked Politician, in three parts,” Dublin, 1627, 8vo, Oxford, 1628, 4to, 1640, 12mo. These three parts are the substance of three sermons on 2 Sam. xvii. 23. which he had formerly preached at Oxford. Some objections being made to several passages against (not, as Mr. Malone says, in favour of) Arminianism (for Carpenter was a Caivinist), the book was castrated by archbishop Laud in various places. “The scene,” says the writer in a dedication to archbishop Usher, “wherein I have bounded my discourse, presents unto your grace a sacred tragedy, consisting of four chief actors, viz. David, an anointed king; Absalom, an ambitious prince Achitophel, a wicked politician and Cushay, a loyal subject a passage of history, for variety pleasant, for instruction useful* for event admirable.” He inveighs in general against the inordinate ambition and subtle practices of courts and courtiers. Mr. Malone takes more pains than necessary to prove that Dry den adopted no hint from it for his “Absalom and Achitophel.” 4. “Chorazin and Bethsaida’s woe and warning,” Oxford, 1640. He wrote also a “Treatise of Optics,” of which there were some imperfect copies in Mss. but the original was by some means lost.

The conversation and study of the university scholars, in his time, turned chiefly upon the controversies between the church of England and the church of Rome, occasioned by the uncommon liberty allowed the Romish priests by James I. and Charles I. Several of them lived at or near Oxford, and made frequent attempts upon the young scholars; some of whom they deluded to the Romish religion, and afterwards conveyed to the English seminaries beyond sea. Among these there was the famous Jesuit, John Fisher, alias John Perse, for that was his true name, who was then much at Oxford and Chillingworth being accounted a very ingenious man, Fisher used all possible means of being acquainted with him. Their conversation, soon turned upon the points controverted between the two churches, but particularly on the necessity of an infallible living judge in matters of faith. Chillingworth found himself unable to answer the arguments of the Jesuit on this head; and being convinced of the necessity of such a judge, he was easily brought to believe that this judge was to be found in the church of Rome; that therefore the church of Rome must be the true church, and the only church in which men could be saved. Upon this he forsook the communion of the church of England, and cordially embraced the Romish religion.

, a name almost proverbial in the schools of arithmetic, was a very ingenious penman and engraver, and born, probably in London, in 163f. He became deservedly reckoned among the improvers of the arts of writing and arithmetic, having published no less than fourteen copy-books, engraved by his own hand. Some of his calligraphical pieces, which were done on silver plates, have a neatness and delicacy superior to the rest. Mr Evelyn mentions Cocker, Gery, Gething, and Billingsley, as comparable to the Italian masters both for letters and flourishes. His Vulgar Arithmetic has been often printed, first in 1677, a fortieth edition in 1723, and often since. His Decimal Arithmetic appeared in 1695, but has been less popular. He also compiled a small dictionary, and a book of sentences for writing, called Cocker’s Morals. He died in 1677, and his two books on arithmetic were published from his Mss. after his death.

In 17 13, Collier, as is confidently related, was consecrated a bishop by Dr. George Hickes, who had himself been consecrated suffragan of Thetford by the deprived bishops of Norwich, Ely, and Peterborough, Feb. 23, 1694. As he grew in years, his health became impaired by frequent attacks of the stone, to which his sedentary life probably contributed: so that he published nothing more but a volume of “Practical Discourses” in 1725, and an additional sermon “upon God not the origin of Evil,” in 1726. Besides what has been mentioned, he wrote some prefaces to other men’s works; and published also an advertisement against bishop Burnet’s “History of his own Times:”' this was printed on a slip of paper, and dispersed in all the coffee-houses in 1724, and is to be seen in the “Evening-post, No. 2254.” He died of the stone, April 26, 1726, aged seventy-six; an.d was interred three days after in the church-yard of St. Pancras near London. Hs was a very ingenious, learned, moral, and religious man* and though stiff in his opinions, is aid to have had nothing stiff or pedantic in his behaviour, but a great deal of life, spirit, and innocent freedom. It ought never to be forgot, that Collier was a man of strict principle, and great sincerity, for to that he sacrificed all the most flattering prospects that could have been presented to him, and died at an advanced age in the profession and belief in which he had lived. He will long be remembered as the reformer of the stage, an attempt which he made, and in which he was successful, single-handed, against a confederacy of dramatic talents the most brilliant that ever appeared on the British stage. His reputation as a man of letters was not confined to his own country: for the learned father Courbeville, who translated into French “The Hero of Balthazar Gratian,” in his preface to that work, speaks in high terms of his “Miscellaneous Essays;” which, he says, set him upon a level with Montaigne, St. Evremond, La Bruyere, &c. The same person translated into French his “Short View of the English Stage;” where he speaks of him again in strong expressions of admiration and esteem.

, a Russian by birth, was a landscape painter in London, but chiefly practised as a drawing-master. He taught in a way that was new and peculiar, and which appears to have been adopted from the hint given by Leonardo da Vinci, who recommends selecting the ideas of landscape from the stains of an old plaster wall, and his method of composing his drawings may be considered as an improvement upon the advice of Da Vinci. His process was to dash out, upon several pieces of paper, a number of accidental large blots and loose flourishes, from which he selected forms, and sometimes produced very grand ideas; but they were in general too indefinite in their execution, and unpleasing in their colour. He published a small tract upon this method of composing landscapes, in which he has demonstrated his process. He also published some other works, the most considerable of which was a folio, entitled “The Principles of Beauty relative to the Human Head,” 1778, French and English, a very ingenious, but somewhat fanciful work, illustrated with engravings by Bartolozzi, showing the gradations of character, from the outline of a feature, 'to the outline of the face, and to each face is applied an head dress in the style of the antique. He also published “The various species of Composition in Nature, in sixteen subjects, on four plates,” with observations and instructions and “The shape, skeleton, and foliage of thirty-two species of Trees,” 1771, reprinted 1736; but, in Mr. Edwards’s opinion, not very creditable to the artist. As a drawingmaster, he had very considerable reputation and employment. He attended for some years at Eton school, and among other pupils of high rank, had the honour of giving some lessons to his royal highness the prince of Wales, He died at his house in Leicester-street, Leicester-square, April, 1786, leaving a son John Cozens, who greatly excelled him as a landscape painter: rejecting his lather’s method of fortuitous blots and dashes, he followed the arrangements of nature, which he saw with an enchanted eye, and drew with an enchanted hand. He owes his fame to those tinted drawings, of which, Mr. Fuseli says, the method has been imitated with more success than the sentiment which inspired them. A collection of his drawings, amounting to ninety-four, the property of Mr. Beckford, were sold by Christie in 1805, and produced 510l. He visited Italy twice, where he appears to have drawn most of these In 1794, he was seized with a mental derangement which continued to his death in 1799.

, a very ingenious and learned Frenchman, was born at Roan, Feb. 8, 1649; and in Sept. 1667, entered as a novitiate into the society of the Jesuits, He read lectures upon polite literature, upon philosophy, and theology, at several places in the early part of his life by the desire of his superiors, after which he appears to have devoted his time to his historical and controversial works. One of his earliest productions was his “Voyage to the world of Descartes,” a satirical confutation of the Cartesian philosophy, under the appearance of a romance, which was so well received, that it was soon translated into several languages into English, into Italian, &c. It has undergone several editions, which have been revised and enlarged by the author; and to that printed in 1703 there were added, by way of supplement, two or three pieces, which have a connection with the subject. They are entitled, “New difficulties proposed to the author of the Voyage,” &c. concerning the consciousness or perception of brutes: with a refutation of two defences of Descartes’s general system of the world.

, a learned German divine of the Lutheran church, and whose talents contributed greatly to raise the reputation of the university of Jena, was born Feb. 1, 1654, at Sandhusen, a village near Gotha. He appears to have obtained the patronage of the duke Frederick, who defrayed the expence of his education, both at school, and at the university of Wittemberg, where he took his master’s degree in 1676. Having devoted much of his attention to the Hebrew language and antiquities, he went to Hamburgh, where he profited by the assistance of Esdras Edzardi and other learned Jews, and was enabled to read the rabbinical writings with facility. From Hamburgh he went to Leipsic, and thence to Jena, from which in 1683 he visited Holland and England, acquiring in both countries the acquaintance of men of learning. On his return, having determined to settle at Jena, he was appointed professor extraordinary of the oriental languages, and on the death of the learned Frischmuth, was advanced to be professorordinary. In these offices he acquired great reputation, and attracted a number of foreign students. Some time after, he was appointed professor of divinity, in which he was no less popular. He died of a stroke of apoplexy, Dec. 20, 1727. He wrote, among many other works, “Sinceritas sacrae Scripturae veteris testamenti triumphans, cujus prodromus Sinceritas Scriptuvae Vet. Test, prevalente Keri vacillans,” Jena, 1713, 4to; and various dissertations in Latin, in controversy with the Jews, or on topics of Jewish antiquities, particularly “Divina Elohim inter coaequales de primo homine condendo deliberatio,” 1712 “Inauguratio Christi haud obscurior Mosaica, decem dissert, asserta,” Jena, 1717, 4to and a very ingenious tract entitled “Davidis in Ammonitas devictos mitigata crudelitas,” 1713.

Dr. Delany, on the 9tti of June 1743, married a second time. The lady with whom he formed this connexion was Mrs. Pendarves, the relict of Alexander Pen Janes, esq a very ingenious and excellent woman; of whom some account will be given in the next article. The doctor had lost his first wife December 6, 1741. March 13, 1744, our author preached a sermon before the society for promoting protestant working schools in Ireland. In May 1744, he was raised to the highest preferment which he ever attained, the deanry of Down, in the room of Dr. Thomas Fletcher, appointed to be bishop of Dro no re. In the same year, previously to this promotion, our author published a volume of sermons upon social duties, fifteen in number, to which in a second edition, 1747, were added five more, on the opposite vices. This is the most useful of Dr. Delany’s performances; the objects to which rt relates being of very important and general concern. Dr. Delany’s next publication was not till 174-8, and that was only a sixpenny pamphlet. It was entitled “An Essay towards evidencing the divine original of Tythes,” and had at first been drawn up, and probably preached as a sermon. The text, rather a singular one, was the tenth commandment, which forbids us to covet any thing that is our neighbour’s; and it required some ingenuity to deduce the divine original of tithes from that particular prohibition. After an interval of six years, Dr. Delany again appeared in the world as an author, in answer to the earl of Orrery’s “Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Swift.” Many of Su ill’s zealous admirers were not a little displeased with the representations which the noble lord had given of him in various respects. Of this number was Dr. Delany, who determined therefore to do justice to the memory of his old friend; for which few were better qualified, having been in the habits of intimacy with the dean of St. Patrick’s, from his first coming over to Ireland, and long before lord Orrery could have known any thing concerning him. On the whole, it was thought that this production of the doctor’s enabled the public to form a far more clear estimation of the real character of the dean of St. Patrick’s, than any account of him which had hitherto been given to the world; yet perhaps the fairest estimate must be made by a comparison of both. However zealous Dr. Delany might be for the honour of his friend, he did not satisfy Deane Swift, esq. who, in his Essay upon the life, writings, and character of his relation, treated our author with extreme ill manners and gross abuse; to which he thought proper to give an answer, in a letter to Mr. Swift, published in 1755. In this letter the doctor justified himself; and he did it with so much temper and ingenuity, so much candour, and yet with so much spirit, that the polite gentleman, and the worthy divine, were apparent in every page of his little pamphlet. The year 1754 also produced another volume of sermons; the larger part of them are practical, and these are entitled to great commendation, particularly two discourses on the folly, iniquity, ad absurdity of duelling. During this part of Dr. Delany’s life, he was involved in a law-suit of great consequence, and which, from its commencement to its final termination, lasted more than nine years. It related to the personal estate of his first lady; and although a shade was cast on his character by the decision of the Irish court of chancery, his conduct was completely vindicated by that decree being reversed in the house of lords in England. But he was not so deeply engaged in the prosecution of his law-suit as entirely to forget his disposition to be often appearing in. the world as an author. In 1757 he began a periodical paper called “The Humanist,” whicli was carried on through 15 numbers, and then dropped. In 1761 Dr. Delany published a tract, entitled “An humble apology for Christian Orthodoxy,” and several sermons. It was in 1763, after an interval of nearly thirty years from the publication of his former volumes, that he gave to the world the third and last volume of his “Revelation examined with candour.” In the preface the doctor has indulged himself in some peevish remarks upon Reviewers of works of literature; but from complaints of this kind few writers have ever derived any material advantage. With regard to the volume itself, it has been thought to exhibit more numerous instances of the prevalence of imagination, over judgment than had occurred in the former part of the undertaking. In 1766 Dr. Delany published a sermon against transubstantiation; which was succeeded in the same year by his last publication, which was a volume containing 18 discourses. Dr. Delany departed this life at Bath, in May 1763, in the 83d year of his age. Though in general he was an inhabitant of Ireland, it appears from several circumstances, and especially from his writings, almost all of which were published in London, that he frequently came over to England, and occasionally resided there for a considerable time. Of his literary character an estimate may be formed from what has been already said. With regard to two of his principal works, the “Revelation examined with candour,” and the “Life of David,” they contain so many fanciful ^ul doubtful positions, that all the ability and learning i.,i., played in them will scarcely suffice to hand them down, with any eminent degree of reputation, to future ages. It is on his sermons, and particularly on those which relate to social duties, that will principally depend the perpetuity of his fame. With respect to his personal character, he appears to have been a gentleman of unquestionable piety and goodness, and of an uncommon warmth of heart. This warmth of heart was, however, accompanied with some inequality, impetuosity, and irritability of temper. Few excelled him in charity, generosity, and hospitality. His income, which for the last twenty years of his life was 3006J. per annum, sunk under the exercise of these virtues, and he left little behind him besides books, plate, and furniture. Of a literary diligence, protracted to above fourscore years, Dr. Delany has afforded a striking example; though it may possibly be thought, that if, wben his body and mind grew enfeebled, he had remembered the solve senescentem equum, it would hate been of no disadvantage to his reputation.

He soon alter commenced that work which has established his literary and political fame, entitled “The Constitution of England; or an account of the English Government: in which it is compared, both with the republican form of government, and the other monarchies in Europe.” It was applauded, on its first appearance (in Holland) in the French language, as a very ingenious and spirited performance, combining originality of thought with justness of remark and perspicuity of expression. A translation of it being earnestly desired, the author enlarged and improved it, and published the first English edition in June 1775, 8vo. It was supposed that he was the translator of his own work from the French; and his great knowledge of our language was the subject of high encomium. But if the general style of the work be compared with that of the dedication, which, in every sentence, bears marks of a foreign pen, it will readily be concluded, that the body of the publication was chiefly translated by an Englishman, under the author’s eye.

His next publication is said to have proceeded from his aversion to superstition, but it is scarcely reconcileable to decorum in style or matter. This was his “History of the Flagellants; or, Memorials of Human Superstition,” 1783, 4to. His attention being afterwards more usefully called to the subject of the legislative union between England and Scotland, by an intended re-publication of De Foe’s history of that memorable transaction, he wrote, in 1787, a judicious essay, calculated for an introduction to that work. In the following year he published observations relative to the tax upon window-lights, the shop-tax, and the impost upon hawkers and pedlars. In these he urges his objections with humour as well as argument. When the question of the regency agitated the minds of the public, he wrote, in 1789, “Observations upon the National Embarrassment, and the proceedings in parliament relative to the same.” In this pamphlet ho coincides with the plan proposed by Mr. Pitt, and adopted by the par^ liament, with the concurrence of the gre::t majority or the nation. These are supposed to be all Mr. De Lolme’s avowed publications; but he wrote some letters in the newspapers, particularly, we remember, a very ingenious paper on the question, “whether the impeachment of Mr. Hastings abated by a dissolution of parliament?” At what time he left England we have not been able to discover, but he died in Swisserland in 1807, leaving a name certainly of considerable eminence in the annals of literature. His perception was acute, and his mind vigorous. Not content with a hasty or superficial observation of the characters of men and the affairs of states, he examined them with a philosophic spirit and a discerning eye. He could ably speculate on the different modes of government, develope the disguised views of princes and ministers, and detect, the arts and intrigues of demagogues and pseudopatriots. His work on the Constitution of England has been generally supposed the most rational and enlightened survey of the subject; and his last editor is of opinion that even the labours of professor Millar and other British writers do not appear to have discredited or falsified this high character of the work.

Soon after the restoration, he returned to England,* where he was graciously received by Charles II. and made captain of the band of pensioners. In the gaieties of that age, he was tempted to indulge a violent passion for gaming; by which he frequently hazarded his life in duels, and exceeded the bounds of a moderate fortune. A dispute with the lord privy seal, about part of his estate, obliging him to revisit his native country, he resigned his post in the English court; and, soon after his arrival at Dublin, the duke of Ormond appointed him to be captain of the guards. Mrs. Catharine Phillips, in a letter to sir Charles Cotterel, Dublin, Oct. 19, 1662, styles him “a very ingenious person, of excellent natural parts, and certainly the most hopeful young nobleman in Ireland.” However, he still retained the same fatal affection for gaming; and, this engaging him in adventures, he was near being assassinated one night by three ruffians, who attacked him in the dark; but defended himself with so much resolution, that he dispatched one of them, while a gentleman coming up, disarmed another; and the third secured himself by flight. This generous assistant w r as a disbanded officer, of a good family and fair reputation, but whose circumstances were such, that he wanted even cloaths to appear decently at the castle. Lord Roscommon, on this occasion, presenting him to the duke of Ormond, obtained his grace’s leave to resign to him his post of captain of the guards: which for about three years the gentleman enjoyed; and upon his death the duke returned the commission to his generous benefactor.

, a very ingenious physician, was born at Sandwich in Kent, Nov. 6, 1604; and, after regularly going through a course of classical instruction, was sent to Sidney college in Cambridge. He afterwards travelled on the continent, and received the degree of doctor of physic at Padua. After his return home, he became eminent for his practice, during the times of the usurpation, was chosen fellow, and afterwards president, of the college of physicians; and at length had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him by Charles II. He died at London, Oct. 13, 1689, and was buried in the church of St. Laurence Jewry. He was intimate with the celebrated Harvey, whom he learnedly defended in a piece entitled “Apologia pro Circulatione Sanguinis contra Æmilium Parisanum, 1641,” in 8vo. He also travelled to Italy in company with Harvey in 1649; and in 1651 he prevailed with him to consent to the publication of his “Exercitationes de generatione animalium;” which he himself superintended, and presented to the president and fellows of the college of physicians in a sensible and elegant dedication. Aubrey says he translated the whole into Latin. He published also, “Animadversiones in Malachiae Thrustoni, M. D. diatribam de respirationis usu primario, 1679,” 8v6; before which, says Wood, is his picture in a long peruke. In the Philosophical Transactions, number 14, ann. 1691, are sir George Ent’s “Observationes ponderis testudinis, cum in autumno terram subiret, cum ejusdem ex terra verno tempore exeuntis pondere comparati, per plures annos repetitae.” Wood thinks that sir George was the author of more things: but they had not come to his knowledge. His whole works were, however, published at Leyden in 1687, 8vo.

, a very ingenious and benevolent French abbé, and the extensive promoter, if not the inventor, of a method of relieving the deaf and dumb, and rendering them useful members of society, was the son of an architect, who educated him for the church. Having obtained a canonry of Troyes, by the presentation of the bishop of that diocese, he soon became intimate with the prelate Soanen, famous for his attachment to Quesnel, and his opposition to the bull Unigenitus, and coinciding in his religious opinions, shared in the persecution of which Soanen was the object, and was laid under an interdict. He was first induced to turn his thoughts towards the unhappy case of the deaf and dumb, from observing two young girls in that situation, and although some not altogether unsuccessful attempts had been made before his time, in individual cases, the abbé L'Epee soon outdid the most skilful of his predecessors, by reducing his means to a sort of system. Under his care numerous pupils acquired useful knowledge, and were enabled to hold a communication with their friends. Some of them were enabled to learn several languages; others became profound mathematicians, and others obtained academical prizes by poetical and literary works. Without other means than a moderate personal fortune, for he held no place or preferment, he defrayed the whole expences of his establishment, and always deprived himself of luxuries, and often of necessaries, that his poor pupils might not want. When the emperor Joseph II. came to Paris, he admired the institution and its founder, and asked permission to place under his care an intelligent man, who might diffuse through Germany the blessings of his labours; and he sent him a magnificent gold box with his picture. In 1780 the Russian ambassador came to offer him the compliments of his sovereign, and a considerable present. “Tell Catherine,” said L'Epee, “that I never receive gold; but that if my labours have any claim to her esteem, all I ask of her is to send me from her vast dominions one born deaf and dumb to educate.” This amiable man died in February 1790, justly regretted by his country, and was succeeded in his school by the abbé Sicard. L'Epee wrote, 1. “An Account of the Complaint and Cure of Marianne Pigalle,” 1759, 12mo. 2. “Institution des Sourds et Muets, par la voie des signes methodiques,” 1776, 12mo, reprinted in 1784, under the title “La veritable maniere d'instruire les Sourds et Muets, confirmee par une longue experience.” A translation of this was published in London, 1801, 8vo. We cannot conclude this article without adverting to the success of the methods of teaching the deaf and dumb as now practised in this country, and eminently promoted by the “Society for the Deaf and Dumb,” in their Asylum, Kent Road: few charitable foundations have been more wisely laid, more judiciously conducted, or more liberally supported.

From Daventer, Erasmus was immediately removed to Tergou, the plague being in the house where he lodged; and now, about fourteen years o/ age, was left entirely to the care of guardians, who used him very ill; and although he was of an age to be sent to a university, they determined to force him into a monastery, that they might possess his patrimony; amd they feared that an university might create in him a disgust to that way of life. The chief in this plot was one Peter Winkell, a schoolmaster of Tergou, to whom there is a very ingenious epistle of Erasmus extant, in which he expostulates with him for his ill management and behaviour. They sent him first to a convent of friars at Bois-le-duc, in Brabant, where he lived, or rather, as he expresses it, lost three years of his life, having an utter aversion to the monastic state. Then he was sent to another religious house at Sion, near Delft; and afterwards, no effect towards changing his resolutions having been wrought upon him at Sion, to a third, namely, Stein, near Tergou. Here, unable to sustain the conflict any longer with his guardians and their agents, he entered among the regular canons there, in 1486. Though great civilities were shewn to him upon his entrance into this convent, and in compliance with his humour some laws and ceremonies were dispensed with, yet he had a design of leaving it before he made his profession; but the restless contrivances of his guardians, and particularly the ill state of his affairs, got the better of his inclinations, and he was at length induced to make it. A monastery, as monasteries then were, and such as Erasmus afterwards described them, devoid of all good learning and sound religion, must needs be an irksome place to one of his turn: at Stein, however, it was no small comfort to him to lind a young man of parts, who had the same taste for letters with himself, and who afterwards distinguished himself by a collection of elegant poems, which he published under the title of “Dearum Sylva.” This was William Hermann, of Tergou, with whom he contracted a very intimate friendship, which continued after his departure from Stein; and accordingly, we find among his letters some that were written to Hermann. The two earliest letters now extant, of Erasmus, were written from this monastery of Stein to Cornelius Aurotinus, a priest of Tergou; in which he defends with great zeal the celebrated Laurentius Valla against the contemptuous treatment of Aurotinus.

, or Farrars, a Warwickshire gentleman of good family, bred at Oxford, a poet likewise, and much in the good graces of Henry VIII. Wood calls him a very ingenious man; and says, that he wrote several tragedies and comedies, none of which are extant. He died in the year 1564.

, or Nicolaus Faber, a very ingenious, learned, and pious man, was born at Paris, June 2, 1544, or according to Perrault, July 4, 1543; and liberally educated by his mother, his father dying in his infancy. During the course of his studies, as he was cutting a pen, a piece of the quill flew into his eye, and gave him such excessive pain, that hastily lifting up his hand to it, he struck it out with the knife. Having finished his application to the languages, he was sent to study the civil law at Tholouse, Padua, and Bologna. He did not come back till he had travelled through Italy: and he resided eighteen months in Rome, about 1571, where he cultivated a friendship with Sigonius, Muretus, and other learned men. He there acquired his taste for the investigation of antiquities, and brought away with him many curiosities. Upon hi$ return to France, he applied himself wholly to letters, and would hear no mention of marriage. His mother and brother dying in 1581, he lived with Peter Pithoeus, with whom he was very intimate; and having no occupation but study, he employed himself in reading the ancients, in correcting them by Mss. of which he had a great number in his own library, and in writing notes upon them. He laboured particularly on Seneca the rhetorician, whom he published in 1587, with a learned preface and notes, an. edition which we do not find mentioned by Dibdin oc Clarke. He applied himself also to studies of a different kind, to the mathematics particularly; in which he succeeded so well, that he discovered immediately the defect in Scaliger’s demonstration of the quadrature of the circle. When Henry the Fourth of France became at length the peaceable possessor of the crown, he appointed Faber preceptor to the prince of Conde. During this important trust, he found time to labour upon some considerable works; and composed that fine preface to the fragments of Hilary, in which he discovered so many important facts relating to the history of Arianism, not known before. After the death of Henry IV. he was chosen, by the queen, preceptor to Louis XIII. He died in 1611, or according to Perrault, Nov. 4, 1612.

, grandson of sir Anthony, and a very ingenious and learned man, was born in the county of Stafford, in 1552; and sent to either Exeter or Lincoln-college, in Oxford, in 1568. But having been bred a catholic, the college was uneasy to him; and though he would now and then hear a sermon, which was permitted him by an old Roman priest, who lived privately in Oxford, and to whom he recurred for instruction in matters of religion, yet he would seldom go to prayers, for which he was often admonished by the sub -rector of the house. At length, seeming to be wearied with the heresy of the times, as he called it, he receded without a degree to his patrimony: where also refusing to go to his parish church, he was imprisoned about 1572; but being soon set at liberty, he became still more zealous in his religion, maintaining publicly, that catholics ought not to go to protestant churches; for which, being like to suffer, he withdrew, and lived obscurely with his wife and family. In 1580, when the Jesuits Campian and Parsons came into England, he went to London, found them out, was exceedingly attached to them, and supplied them liberally: by which, bringing himself into dangers and difficulties, he went a voluntary exile into France, in 1582, where he solicited the cause of Mary queen of Scots, but in yam. After the death of that princess, and of his own wife, he left France, and went to Madrid, in order to implore the protection of Philip II.; but, upon the defeat of the armada, in 1588, he left Spain, and accompanied the duke of Feria to Milan. This duke had formerly been in England with king Philip, had married an English lady, and was justly esteemed a great patron of the English in Spain. Fitzherbert continued at Milan some time, and thence went to Rome; where, taking a lodging near the English college, he attended prayers as regularly as the residents there, and spent the rest of his time in writing books. He entered into the society of Jesus in 1614, and received priest’s orders much about the same time; after which he speedily removed into Flanders, to preside over the mission there, and continued at Brussels about two years. His great parts, extensive and polite learning, together with the high esteem that he had gained by his prudent behaviour at Brussels, procured him the government, with the title of rector, of the P^nglish college at Rome. This office he exercised for twenty-two years, vrith unblemished credit, during which time he is said to have been often named for a cardinal’s hat. He died there, Aug. 27, 1G40, in his eighty-eighth year, and was interred in the chapel belonging to the English college.

, brother to bishop Fletcher, and a native of the same county, was a very ingenious man. He received his education at Eton; and, in 1565, was elected thence to KingVcollege in Cambridge, where he took a bachelor’s of arts degree in 1596, a master’s in 1573, and that of LL. D. in 1581. He was, says Wood, an excellent poet, and a very accomplished man; and his abilities recommending him to queen Elizabeth, he was employed by her as a commissioner into Scotland, Germany, and the Low Countries. Of his poetical talent, however, no proofs are known to be extant. In 1588, he was sent ambassador to Russia; not only to conclude a league with the emperor there, but also to re-establish and put into good order the decayed trade of our Russia company. He met, at first, with a cold reception, and even rough usage: for the Dutch, envying the exclusive privilege which the Russia company enjoyed of trading thither, had excited prejudices against them: and a false rumour then spread, of our fleet being totally destroyed by the Spanish armada, had created in the czar a contempt for the English, and a presumption that he might safely injure those who were not in a capacity to take revenge. But the ambassador soon effaced those impressions; and having obtained advantageous conditions, returned to England with safety and honour. Fuller says, that upon his arrival at London, “he sent for an intimate friend, with whom he heartily expressed his thankfulness to God for his safe return from so great a danger. For the poets cannot fancy Ulysses more glad to be come out of the den of Polyphemus, than he was to be rid of the power of such a barbarous prince: who counting himself, by a proud and voluntary mistake, emperor of all nations, cared not for the law of all nations; and who was so habited in blood, that, had he cut off this ambassador’s head, he and his friends might have sought their own amends, but the question is, where they would have found it.” Shortly after his return, he was made secretary to the city of London, and a master of the Court of Requests: and, in June 1597, treasurer of St. Paul’s. This worthy person died in 1610, in the parish of St. Catherine Colman, Fenchurch-street; and was probably buried in that church. From the observations he had made during his embassy into Russia, he drew up a curious account, “Of the Russe Commonwealth: or manner of Government by the Russe Emperor, commonly called the Emperor of Moskovia, with the manners and fashions of the people of that country,” 1590, 8vo. This work was quickly suppressed, lest it might give offence to a prince in amity with England: but it was reprinted in 1643, 12mo, and is inserted in Hakluyt’s “Navigations, Voyages,” &c. vol. I. only a little contracted. Camden, speaking of this book, styles it “libellum in quo plurima observanda.” Dr. Fletcher also wrote, “A Discourse concerning the Tartars,” the object of which was to prove that they are the Israelites, or ten tribes, which being captivated by Salmanasser, were transplanted into Media. This opinion was afterwards adopted by Whiston, who printed the discourse in the first volume of his curious “Memoirs.”

His life had as little of affectation in it as his writings: he was all nature, approaching to the extreme of simplicity or even stupidity, without a grain of art. He had a son, whom, after keeping a short time at. home, he recommended to the patronage of the president Harlay. Fontaine, being one day at a house where this son was come, did not know him again, but observed to the company, that he thought him a boy of parts and spirit. Being told that this promising youth was no other than his own son, he answered very unconcernedly, “Ha truly I am glad on't.” This apathy, which so many philosophers have vainly affected, was perfectly natural to Fontaine; it ran through every part of his behaviour, and seemed to render him insensible to every thing without. As he had a wonderful facility in composing, so he had no particular apartment for that purpose, but went to work wherever the humour came upon him. One morning, madam de Bouillon going to Versailles, spied him deep in thought under a tree; and, when she returned in the evening, there was Fontaine in the same place and attitude, though the day had been cold, and much rain fallen. Whether from the same simplicity, or rather, we think, absolute stupidity, we are told that he did not perceive the evil tendency of his writings, not even of his Tales; for being once exhorted by his confessor in a severe illness to prayer and almsgiving, he replied, “I can give no alms for I have nothing to give: but there is a new edition of my Tales in the press, of which the bookseller is to let me have a hundred copies; I will give them to you, that you may sell them for the benefit of the poor.” Another time having written a Tale, in which he made a very profane application of these words of the gospel “Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents” he addressed it to the celebrated M. Arnauld, in a very ingenious prologue, “wishing,.” he said, “to show posterity his great esteem for this learned doctor;” nor did he perceive the indecency of the application of scripture, or of his dedication, till Boileau and Kacine made him sensible of it. Notwithstanding their advice, the same is said to have been his design agairr, with respect to another Tale, which he was going to dedicate to M. Harlai, archbishop of Paris.

, son of the preceding, was born at Havington in Northamptonshire, 1561; and, after a good foundation of grammar-learning, was sent to Christ Church college, Oxford, where he was elected a student in 1678, while his father was dean. He proceeded B. A. in 1580, and M. A. in 1583; about which time he wrote an entertaining piece upon a philosophical subject, where imagination, judgment, and knowledge, keep an equal pace; but this, as it contradicted certain received notions of his times, he never published. It came out about five years after his death, under the title of “The Man in the Moon; or, a discourse of a voyage thither;” by Domingo Gonsales, 1638, 8vo. It has been several times printed, and shews that he had a creative genius. Domingo Gonsales, a little Spaniard, is supposed to be shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, where he taught several ganzas, or wild geese, to fly with a light machine, and to fetch and carry things for his conveniency. He, after some time, ventured to put himself into the machine, and they carried him with great ease. He happened to be in this aerial chariot at the time of the year when these ganzas, which were birds of passage, took their flight to the moon, and was directly carried to that planet. He has given a very ingenious description of what occurred to him on his way, and the wonderful things which he saw there. Dr. Swift seems to have borrowed several hints from this novel, in his Voyage to Laputa; but it is more to Dr. Godwin’s praise that he appears to have been well acquainted with the Copernican system. He suppressed also another of his inventions at that time, which he called “Nuncius inanimatus,” or the “Inanimate Messenger.” The design was to communicate various methods of conveying intelligence secretly, speedily, and safely; but although he asserts that by an agreement settled between two parties, a message may be conveyed from the one to the other, at the distance of many miles, with an incredible swiftness, yet he does not reveal the secret. It appears, however, to have given rise to bishop Wilkins’s “Mercury, or secret and swift Messenger.” It is said that he afterwards communicated the secret to his majesty, but why it was not acted upon is not mentioned by his biographers. The pamphlet was published in 1629, and afterwards, in 1657, was translated by the learned Dr. Thomas Smith, and published with “The Man in the Moon.”

, a very ingenious English painter, was descended from a good family in Salisbury, where he was born. He was the most successful of all the disciples of sir Peter Lely, who is said to have considered him so much as a rival, that he never suffered him to see him paint. Greenhill, however, prevailed with sir Peter to draw his wife’s picture, and took the opportunity of observing how he managed his pencil; which was the great point aimed at. He is said to have been equally qualified by nature for the sister-arts of painting and poetry; but his loose and unguarded manner of living was probably the occasion of his early death; and only suffered him just to leave enough of his hand, to make us wish he had been more careful of a life so likely to do honour to his country. Mrs. Behn, with whom he was a great favourite, endeavoured to perpetuate his memory by an elegy, to be found among her works. He painted a portrait of bishop Ward, which is now in the town-hall of Salisbury. He died May 19, 1676.

He continued at Edinburgh till 1691, when, hearing of Dr. Bernard’s intention to resign the Savilian professorship of astronomy at Oxford, he left Scotland, and, coming to London, was admitted a member of the royal society: and paid his addresses to sir Isaac Newton, who took the first opportunity of recommending him to Mr. Flamstead (master of the mathematical school in Christ’s-hospital, London), with a letter, recommending his mathematical merit above all exception in these terms: “Sir, it. is almost a fortnight since I intended, with Mr. Paget and another friend or two, to have given you a visit at Greenwich; but sending to the Temple coffee-house, I understood you had not been in London for two or three weeks before, which made me think you were retired to your living for a time. The bearer hereof, Mr. Gregory, mathematic professor of Edinburgh college, in Scotland, intended to have given you a visit with us. You will find him a very ingenious person, and a good mathematician, worth your acquaintance.” In proceeding, he mentions our author as a fit person, in case of Mr. Flamstead’s death, to carry on his astronomical views. Thus recommended, the royal astronomer used his best interest to procure him success at Oxford, where he was elected astronomy-professor this year, having been first admitted of Baliol college, and incorporated M. A. February 8, and he was created M. D. on the

A circumstance accompanied his execution which made a deep impression on the people. One friar Campbell, who had often conferred with him, and appeared to be convinced by his arguments, now molested him much when tied to the stake. Hamilton exclaimed “Wicked man, thou knowest that I am not an heretic, and that it is the truth of God for which I suffer. So much thou didst confess to me in private, and thereupon I appeal thee to answer before the judgment-seat of Christ.” This Campbell died raving mad a short time after, when the people began to compare his end with that of the martyr’s, and upon inquiring more closely into the cause of the latter’s death, became many of them converts to his doctrines. One Lindsay, an intimate friend of the archbishop, said, “My lord, if ye burn any more, except ye follow my counsel, ye will utterly destroy yourselves if ye will burn them, let them be burned in hollow cellars, for the smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamilton hath infected as many as it blew upon.” It is certain that his unjust and precipitate execution raised a general clamour against the churchmen, for condemning such a man because he maintained doctrines some of which they could not prove to be heretical, and others of them were proposed only as theological problems to be disputed among divines. He was only twenty-three years of age when he suffered, and his youth and excellent character undoubtedly weighed much with the people. and is published in Fox’s “Acts and Monuments.” It is a very ingenious explanation and defence of the doctrines of justification, free-will, election, &c. and has not in closeness of reasoning and aptness of quotation been exceeded by any divines of the Calvinistic persuasion in later times. If we consider his extreme youth and the age in which he wrote, it will yet appear a more extraordinary composition.

His first publication was a sermon preached before the university of Oxford, entitled “The Resurrection of the body deduced from the Resurrection of Christ,” 1777, 4to, a very ingenious discourse, in which the subject is illustrated in a manner somewhat new. In the same year he published “Alfred, an Ode, with six Sonnets,” 4to, in which Gray’s style is attempted with considerable success. In 1782 he was chosen the third Bampton lecturer, and in 1783 published his eight lectures “on the prophecies and testimony of John the Baptist, and the parallel prophecies of Jesus Christ,” in which he displayed great abilities and judgment. These were followed, in 1788, by a very able defence of some of the essential doctrines of the church, respecting the nature and person, death and sufferings of Christ, in “Four Tracts; on the principle of religion, as a test of divine authority; on the principle of redemption; on the angelical message to the Virgin Mary, and on the resurrection of the body; with a discourse on humility,” 8vo, the whole illustrated by notes and authorities. He published also one or two other single sermons, and an ode for the enccenia at the installation of the duke of Portland in 1793; but what confers the highest honour on his abilities, critical talents, and industry, was his collation of the Mss. of the Septuagint version, which he appears to have begun about 1786. Induced to think that the means of determining the genuine tenor of the Scriptural text would be much enlarged if the Mss. of the Septuagint version were carefully collated, as those of the Hebrew had been, and the collations published in one view, he laid down his plan, the essential parts of which were: that all Mss. known or discoverable at home or abroad, if prior to the invention of printing, should be carefully collated with one printed text; and all particularities in which they differed from it distinctly noted; that printed editions and versions made from all or parts of that by the seventy, and citations from it by ecclesiastical writers (with a distinction of those who wrote before the time of Aquila or after it), should also be collated with the same printed text, and all their variations from it respectively ascertained; and that these materials, when collected, should all be reduced to one plain view, and printed under the text with which the several collations have been made, as by Dr. Kennicott or without the text, as by De Rossi. Upon these general principles, Dr. Holmes embarked on his enterprize, having in the first instance been patronized by the delegates of the Clarendon press, and by liberal subscriptions from other universities, and the public aflarge. The delegates of the press agreed to allow him 40l. a year for three years, “on his exhibiting to them his collations annually, to be deposited in the Bodleian library, and when the whole was finished, to be printed at the university press, at his expen -;e, airj for his benefit, or of his assigns, if he should live to complete his collations; or if they were left imperfect, they were to be at the discretion of the delegates, they undertaking to promote the finishing of them to the best of their power, and to publish them when finished, allowing to his assigns a just proportion of the profits.”

In or about 1777, our bishop gave to the public a handsome edition, in 3 vols. 4to, of the works of Mr. Locke, with a life of the author, and a preface. Mr. Locke’s writings and character he held in the highest esteem, and seems to have drawn from them many of his own principles; he was a disciple of that school. About the same time he published a tract which engaged some attention in the controversy concerning subscription; and he published new editions of his two principal works, with considerable additions, and some alterations. Besides the works already mentioned, he published, in 1734 or 1735, a very ingenious “Inquiry into the Ideas of Space, Time,” &c. in which he combats the opinions of Dr. Clarke and his adherents on these subjects.

Besides his astronomical work,- he published in 1731, under the name of Dicaiophilus Cantabrigiensis, “The Rights of Churches and Colleges defended; in answer to a pamphlet called * An Enquiry into the customary estates and tenant-rights of those who hold lands of church and other foundations, by the term of three lives, &c. by Everard Fleetwood, esq.;' with remarks upon some other pieces on the same subject,” 8vo. The author of this pamphlet, to which our author replied, was not Fleetwood, which was an assumed name, but Samuel Burroughs, esq. a master in chancery. Dr. Long published also a “Commencement-Sermon, 1728;” and an answer to Dr. Gally’s pamphlet “On Greek Accents.” We shall subjoin a few traits of him, as delineated in 1769, by Mr. Jones: " He is now in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and, for his years, vegete and active. He was lately (in October) put in nomination for the office of vice-chancellor. He executed that trust before; I think in the year 1737. A very ingenious person, and sometimes very facetious. At the public commencement in the year 1713, Dr. Greene (master of Bene't college, and afterwards bishop of Ely) being then vice-chancellor, Mr. Long was pitched upon for the tripos-performance; it was witty and humourous, and has passed through divers editions. Some that remembered the delivery of it told me, that, in addressing ttye vice chancellor (whom the university-wags usually styled Miss Greene), the tripos-orator, being a native of Norfolk, and assuming the Norfolk dialect, instead of saying, Domine vice-cancellarie, did very archly pronounce the words thus, Domina vice-cancellaria; which occasioned a general smile in that great auditory. His friend the late Mr. Bonfoy of Ripton told me this little incident: `That he and Dr. Long walking together in Cambridge, in a dusky evening, and coming to a short post fixed in the pavement, which Mr. B. in the midst of chat and inattention, took to be a boy standing in his way, he said in a hurry, `Get out of my way, boy.‘ `That boy, sir,’ said the doctor very calmly and slily, `is a post-boy, who turns out of his way for nobody.'

, recorder of Exeter, was born in that city in 1562, and educated in the grammar school, whence he was sent to Broadgates-hall, now Pembroke college, Oxford, in 1579. Here he is supposed to have taken one degree in arts, and then removed to some of the inns of court in London to study law. In 1605, he was elected reeofder of his native city, where he died April 12, 1617. He is noticed here as the author of a history or chronicle of the kings of England, entitled “The History and Lives of the Kings of England, from William the Conqueror to King Henry VIII.” Lond. 1616, folio, reprinted in 1618, an amusing, and not ill-written work, taken principally from the Chronicles. An appendix was published in 1638, by B. R M. A. including the history of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. It is said that king James took offence at some passages in Mr. Martyn’s work respecting his own family or the Scottish nation, and that the author was brought into some trouble. Of what kind this trouble was we are not told, but that it preyed on his mind, and hastened his death. Mr. Martyn also published a book for the use of one of his sons, entitled “Youth’s Instruction,” Lond. 1612, 'Jto, which Wood saysj shows a great deal of reading. His family appears to have been somewhat poetical, as his history was preluded by copies (if verses by his three sons, and his son-in-law. 1 Ma&Tyr, Justin, see Justin. Martyr, Peter. See Anghiera. Martyr (Peter), a very distinguished divine, was born at Florence, Sept. 8, 1500. His family name was VermiliUs; but his parents gave him that of Marty*, from one Peter a martyr, whose church happened to stand near their house. The first rudiments of literature he received from his mother, who was a very ingenious lady; and used, as it is said, to read Terence and other classics to him in the original. When he was grown up, he became a regular Augustine in the monastery of Fiesoli; and, after three years’ stay there, was sent to the university of Padua, to study philosophy and the Greek language. At twenty-six, in 1526, he was made a public preacher, and preached first at Brixia, in the church of Afra, then at Rome, Venice, Mantua, and other cities of Italy. He read lectures of philosophy and divinity in his college, and applied himself to the study of the Hebrew tongue, the knowledge of which he attained by the assistance of one Isaac, a Jewish physician. Such was his fame at this time, that he was made abbot of Spoletto, in the duchy of Umbria, where he continued three years. Afterwards, he was made go1 Prince’s Worthies 6f Devon. Fuller’s Worthies. Ath. Ox. vol I. vernor of the monastery of St. Peter ad aram in Naples. Here he first became acquainted with the writings of Zuinglius and Bucer, which led him to entertain a good opinion of protestantism: and afterwards his conversation with Valdes, a Spanish lawyer, so confirmed him in it, that he made no scruple to preach it at Rome privately to many persons of quality, and sometimes even publicly. Thus when he came to I Cor. iii. 13, he boldly affirmed, that place not to be meant of purgatory “because,” said he, “the fire there spoken of is such a fire, as both good and bad must pass through and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” “And this,” says Fuller, in his quaint manner, “seeming to shake a main pillar of purgatory, the pope’s furnace, the fire whereof, like the philosopher’s stone, melteth all his leaden bulls into pure gold; some of his under-chemists, like Demetrius and the craftsmen, began to bestir themselves, and caused him to be silenced.”

, a very ingenious and witty English writer, was the son of Mr. Andrew Marvel!, minister and schoolmaster of Kingston upon -Hull, in Yorkshire, and was born in that town in 1620, His abilities being very great, his progress in letters was proportionable; so that, at thirteen, he was admitted of Trinity-college in Cambridge. But he had not been long there, when he fell into the hands of the Jesuits; for those busy agents of the Romish church, under the connivance of this, as well as the preceding reign, spared no pains to make proselytes; for which purpose several of them were planted in or near the universities, in order to make conquests among the young scholars. Marvell fell into their snares, as ChilJingworth had fallen before him, and was inveigled up to London; but his father being apprised of it soon after, pursued him, and finding him in a bookseller’s shop, prevailed with him to return to college. He afterwards applied to his studies with great assiduity, and took a bachelor of arts degree in 1639. About this time he lost his father, who was unfortunately drowned in crossing the Humber, as he was attending the daughter of aa intimate female friend; who by this event becoming childless, sent for young Marvell, and, by way of making all the return in her power, added considerably to his fortune. Upon this the plan of his education was enlarged, and he travelled through most of the polite parts of Europe. It appears that he had been at Rome, from his poem entitled “Flecknoe,” an English priest at Rome in which he has described with great humour that wretched poetaster, Mr. Richard Flecknoe, from whom Dryden gave the name of Mac- Flecknoe to his satire against Shadwell. During his travels, another occasion happened for the exercise of his wit. In France, he found much talk of Lancelot Joseph de Maniban, an abbot; who pretended to understand the characters of those he had never seen, and to prognosticate their good or bad fortune, from an inspection of their band-writing. This artist was handsomely lashed by our author, in a poem written upon the spot, and addressed to him. We know no more of Marvell for several years, only that he spent some time at Constantinople, where he resided as secretary to the English embassy at that court.

, a learned Italian antiquary, and one of the most voluminous writers of his age and country, was born at Vignola in the duchy of Modena, Oct. 21, 1672. He was educated at Modena, and his inclination leading him to the church, as a profession, he went through the regular courses of philosophy and divinity, but without neglecting polite literature, to which he was early attached. Bacchiiri recommended the ecclesiastical writers to his attention, and he at length became so devoted to general reading, as to pay little attention to his destined profession. In 1695, the knowledge of books which he had accumulated, procured him the place of one of the librarians of the celebrated Ambrosian collection at Milan; and although he had by this time received his doctor’s degree and been admitted into orders, it was now that he entered upon that course of study and research which distinguished him in future life. His first publication was vols. I and II. of his “Anecdota Latina,” printed at Milan in 1697 and 1698, 4to. In 1700 he went to Modena to take possession of the office of keeper of the archives of the house of Este, and that of librarian to the duke of Modena, his patron. Here he remained for some years, with the exception of an interruption occasioned by the war in 1702, when the French took possession of Modena. The same year that he came here he was editor of “Vita et Rime di Carlo M. Maggi,” printed at Milan, 5 vols. and in 1703 published his “Primi disegni della Republica Letteraria d'ltalia;” this was followed by “Prolegomena, &c. in librum, cui titulus, Elucidatio Augustiniange de divina gratia doctrinae,” Cologn, 1705; “Lettere ai generosi e cortesi Letterati d'ltalia,” Venice, 1705; “Delia Perfetta Poesia Italiana, &c.” 2 vols. a very ingenious dissertation on Italian poetry, which occasioned a prolonged controversy, now no longer interesting. Two editions, however, were afterwards published, with critical notes by Salvini, the one in 1724, 2 vols. 4to. and the other, which is esteemed the best, in 1748. He published also at Bologna in 1707, “Lettera in disesa del March. G. G. Orsi;” and “Introduzione alle paci private,” Modena, 1708. In the same year he first began to write tinder the assumed name of Lamindo Pritanio, “Riflessioni SDpra il buon gusto, &c.” of which a second part appeared at Naples in 1715. After this appeared, under his proper name, “Osservazioni sopra una lettera intitolata, II dominio temporale della sede Apostolica sopra la citta di Comacchio,” &c. Modena, 1708; and “Epistola ad Jo. Albert. Fabricium,” 1709. In this last year he published another of his valuable collections under the title of “Anecdota Grseca,” Gr. & Lat. 4to, which, as well as his “Anecdota Latina,” (completed in 4 vols. at Padua, 1713) were taken from Mss. in the Ambrosian library. He published also before 1715 some other works of lesser value, which, however, showed how intense his labours were, for he had accepted of some preferments in the church, the duties of which he performed with great assiduity, and wai particularly distinguished for his humane care of the poor, who indeed shared the greater part of the profits of his benefices, and the rest went to the repairs or furniture of the churches under his care.

, a very ingenious and learned critic, was descended from a good family, and born at Muret, a village near Limoges, in France, April 11, 1526. We know not who were his masters, nor what the place of his education; but it was probably Limoges. JJencius, in his funeral oration on him, and Bullart say that be spent his youth at Agen, where he had Julius Caesar Scaliger for his preceptor; but Joseph Scaliger, his son, denies this, and affirms that Muretus was eighteen when he first came to Agen, to see his father. He adds, that he passed on thence to Auch, where he began to teach in the archiepiscopal college, and to read lectures upon Cicero and Terence. After some stay in this place, he went to Villeneuve; where he was employed by a rich merchant in the education of his children, and at the same time taught Latin in a public school. Two years after his settling here, he went to Agen, to pay a visit to Scaliger, who had the highest opinion and affection for him, and who ever kept up a most intimate correspondence with him. He removed from Villeneuve to Paris, from Paris to Poictiers, from Poictiers to Bourdeaux in 1547, and from Bourdeaux to Paris again in 1552. This year he recited in the church of the Bernardins, his first oration, “De dignitate ac praestantia studii theologici;” and this year also he printed his poems, entitled “Juvenilia;” from the dedication of which we learn, that he taught at that time philosophy and civil law.

, a very ingenious man, was the son of Robert and Sarah Nutt, and born at Hinckley in September 1700. He was educated at the free grammar-school in that town, where he made a very considerable progress in learning; and at a proper age, was put apprentice to Mr. John Parr of Hinckley, an eminent apothecary; in, which station, by his diligence and industry, he gained great confidence and respect from his master and the whole family. After this, he attended the hospitals in London; and on his return to Hinckley, carried on for many years a considerable business with reputation and success. Some time about the middle of life he was chosen one of the surveyors of the highways for the parish, when he adopted a new method for improving the same, by turning over the roads the water that came from the town; which being considerably enriched by washing the streets and public sinks, what he could spare from the roads, or rather after it had done the business there, he conveyed upon the lands of those who approved of his proceedings. The consequence was, the land was greatly enriched. The effect of the water upon the road, in that part below the town that is now the Coventry turnpike-road, was, that it served like a boultingmill; the muddy foul parts upon the land being carried off, and the sandy, gravelly, and stony parts, remaining by their own gravity, were left firm; for the. road was sometimes wet, and sometimes dry, as he let it out of a reservoir for that purpose at pleasure. By this method it became good for saddle and pack-horses; the last of which were much used upon the roads at that time, the pit-coal from the Warwickshire mines being brought by them in considerable quantities. It was also much better for the draft horses; though when much used by these, especially in the coal business, the wheels of these carriages being at that time very narrow, and generally laying on great loads, were apt to disturb and cut the roads; for the materials used were commonly sand dug by the road side, which was done at a moderate expence. If upon this more gravelly or stony materials had been applied, there is no doubt, though the expence would have been greater, the road would have been much better. This, being a new way of proceeding, met with a difference of reception in the parish; and some enemies were ready on every occasion to insult and ridicule their surveyor. He spent much of his time in the valuation of land, and many persons entertained a good opinion of his abilities in this branch, particularly sir Dudley Ryder, when attorney-general, the ancestor of the present lord Harrowby.

Patru was in his personal character honest, generous, sincere; and preserved a gaiety of temper which no adversity could affect: for this famous advocate, in spite of all his talents, lived almost in a state of indigence. The love of the belles lettres made him neglect the law; and the barren glory of being an oracle to the best French writers had more charms for him, than all the profits of the bar. Hence he became so poor, as to be reduced to the necessity of selling his books, which seemed dearer to him than his life; and would actually have sold them for an underprice, if Bqileau had not generously advanced him a larger sum, with this further privilege, that he should have the use of them as long as he lived. His death was preceded by a tedious illness, during which he received a present of five hundred crowns from the statesman Colbert, as a mark of the esteem which the king had for him. He died Jan. 16, 1681. He had been elected a member of the French academy in 1640, by the interest of cardinal Richelieu, and made a speech of thanks on his reception, with which the academicians were so much pleased, as to order that every new member should in future make one of a similar kind on being admitted; and this rule has been observed ever since. When M. Conrart, a member of the French academy died, one of the first noblemen at court, but whose mind was very moderately cultivated, having offered for the vacant place, Patru opened the meeting with the following apologue: “Gentlemen, a.:mcien Grecian had an admirable Lyre; a string broke, but instead of replacing it with one of catgut, he would have a silver one, and the Lyre with its silver string was no longer harmonious.” The fastidious care with which he retouched and finished every thing he wrote, did not permit him to publish much. His miscellaneous works were printed at Paris in 1670, 4to; the third edition of which, in 1714, was augmented with several pieces. They consist of <f Pleadings,“” Orations,“” Letters,“” Lives of some of his Friends,“” Remarks upon the French Language,“&c. A very ingenious tract by him was published at Paris in 1651, 4to, with this title,” Reponse du Cure a la Lettre du Mar^uillier sur la conduite de M. le Coadjuteur."

, a very ingenious but visionary man, was by birth a Norman, of a small hamlet called Dolerie where he was born in 1510. Never did genius struggle with more vigour against the extremes of indigence. At eight years old, he was deprived of both his parents by the plague when only fourteen, unable to subsist in his native place, he removed to another near Pontoise, and undertook to keep a school. Having thus obtained a little money, he went to Paris, to continue his studies but there was plundered and suffered so much from cold, that he languished for two years in an hospital. When he recovered, he again collected a little money by gleaning irv the country, and returned to Paris, where he subsisted by waiting on some of the students in the college of St. Barbe; but made, at the same time, so rapid a progress in knowledge, that he became almost an universal scholar. His acquirements were so extraordinary, that they became known to the king, Francis I. who, touched with so much merit, under such singular disadvantages, sent him to the East to collect manuscripts. This commission he executed so well, that on his return, he was appointed royal professor of mathematics and languages, with a considerable salary. Thus he might appear to be settled for life; but this was not his destiny. He was, unfortunately for himself, attached to the chancellor Poyet, who fell under the displeasure of the queen of Navarre and Postel, for no other fault, was deprived of his appointments, and obliged to quit France. He now became a wanderer, and a visionary. From Vienna, from Rome, from the order of Jesuits, into which he had entered, he was successively banished for strange and singular opinions; for which also he was imprisoned at Rome and at Venice. Being released, as a madman, he returned 10 Paris, whence the same causes again drove him into Germany. At Vienna he was once more received, and obtained a professorship; but, having made his peace at home, was again recalled to Paris, and re-established in his places. He had previously recanted his errors, but relapsing into them, was banished to a monastery, where he performed acts of penitence, and died Sept. 6, 1581, at the age of seventy-one. Postel pretended to be much older than he was, and maintained that he had died and risen again which farce he supported by many tricks, such as- colouring his beard and hair, and even painting his face. For the same reason, in most of his works, he styles himself, “Postellus restitntus.” Notwithstanding his strange extravagances, he was one of the greatest geniuses of his time; had a surprising quickness and memory, with so extensive a knowledge of languages, that he boasted he could travel round the world without an interpreter. Francis I. regarded him as the wonder of his age Charles IX. called him his philosopher; and when he lectured at Paris, the crowd of auditors was sometimes so great, that they could only assemble in the open court of the college, while he taught them from a window. But by applying himself very earnestly to the study of the Rabbins, and of the stars, he turned his head, and gave way to the most extravagant chimeras. Among these, were the notions that women at a certain period are to have universal dominion over men that all the mysteries of Christianity are demonstrable by reason that the soul of Adam had entered into his body that the angel Raziel had revealed to him the secrets of heaven and that his writings were dictated by Jesus Christ himself. His notion of the universal dominion of women, arose from his attachment to an old maid at Venice, in consequence of which he published a strange and now very rare and high-priced book, entitled “Les tres-marveilieuseS victoires des Femmes du Nouveau Monde, et comme elles doivent par raison a tout le monde commander, et me' me a; eeux qui auront la monarchic du Monde viel,” Paris, 1553, 16mo. At the same time, he maintained, that the extraordinary age to which he pretended ttf have lived, was occasioned hy his total abstinence from all commerce with that sex. His works are as numerous as, they are strange and some of them are very scarce, hut very little deserve to be collected. One of the most important is entitled “De orbis concordia,” Bale, 1544, folio. In this the author endeavours to bring all the world to the Christian faith under two masters, the pope, in spiritual affairs, and the king of France in temporal. It is divided into four books; in the first of which he gives the proofs of Christianity; the second contains a refutation of the Koran; the third treats of the origin of idolatry, and all false religions and the fourth, on the mode of converting Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans, Of his other works, amounting to twenty-six articles, which are enumerated in the “Dictionnaire Historique,” and most of them by Brunet as rarities with the French collectors, many display in their very titles the extravagance of their contents; such as, “Clavis absconditorum a, constitutione ixmndi,” Paris, 1547, 16mo; “De Ultimo judicio;” “Proto-evangelium,” &c. Some are on subjects of more real utility. But the fullest account of the whole may be found in a book published at Liege in 1773, entitled “Nouveaux eclaircissemens sur 3a Vie et les ouvrages de Guillaume Postel,” by father des Billons. The infamous book, “De tribus impostoribus,” has been very unjustly attributed to Postel, for, notwithstanding all his wildness, he was a believer.

, a very ingenious and learned man, was the son of a physician, and born at Paris in 1577. He was brought up among the Jesuits, and afterwards admitted advocate; but, not being able to conquer the disgust he had conceived to the profession of the law, he devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of polite literature The public received the first fruits of his labours in his “Funus Parasiticum,” printed in 1596; the ingenuity and learning of which so charmed Thuanus, thathe immediately took him into his friendship, and made him the companion of his studies. This excellent person conceived a particular esteem for him; as appeared, when he died in 1617, from naming him in his will, to superintend the education of his children. He was chosen, with Isaac Casaubon, to put the king’s library into order; and in 1610, when that learned man went over to spend some time in England with James [. succeeded him in the office of librarian to the king. His majesty conferred on him other marks of distinction made him procurator- general of the supreme court of Nancy, counsellor of the parliament of Metz, and then intendant of that province. He died in 1654, after having given numerous proofs of uncommon erudition in editions of “Minutius Foelix,” “Phaedrus,” “Martial,” “Rei accipitrarii scriptores,” “Rei agrarige scriptores,” the works of “Cyprian” and “Tertullian,” &c. His notes upon these last two are learned and critical; but the matter of some of them shews him to have been not a rigid catholic. He takes occasion to observe, from a passage in Tertullian’s “Exhortation to Chastity,” that Jaymen have a right and power to consecrate the eucharist, when there is no opportunity of recurring to the regular ministers; and this, with other opinions of a similar kind, not only gave offence to those of his own communion, but even to some- of“ours.” Rigaltius,“says Mr. Dodwell,” though an ingenious and learned critic, is by no means exact upon the subjects he treats of: for, though of the Roman communion, he is often fou/)d on the side of the Calvinists; and, when he meets with anything in the authors he publishes that appears contrary to the customs, not oflly of his own, but of the universal church, he remarks it with great care; perhaps to render his notes more agreeable to the reader, by presenting him with something new and unexpected." It is probable, that many persons may not think the worse of Rigakius, as an editor, for the censure here passed on him by Mr. Dodtvell. Rigaltius was also concerned in the edition of Thuanus, published at Geneva in 1620.

, an ingenious English mathematician and philosopher, was fellow of Magdalen college, Cambridge, and afterwards rector of Anderby in Lincolnshire, in the gift of that society. He was a constant attendant at the meetings of the Spalding Society, and was a man of a philosophical turn of mind, though of a cheerful and companionable disposition. He had a good genius for mechanical contrivances in particular. In 1738 he printed at Cambridge, in 8vo, “A Compendious System of Natural Philosophy,” in 2 vols. 8vo; a very ingenious work, which has gone through several editions. He had also two pieces inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, viz. I. “A Description of a Barometer wherein the Scale of Variation may be increased at pleasure;” vol. 38, p. 39. And 2. “Directions for making a Machine for finding the Roots of Kquations universally, with the manner of using it;” vol. 60, p. 240. Mr. Rowning died at his lodgings in Carey -street, near Lincoln’s-Inn Fields, the latter end of November 1771, at the age of seventy-two. Though a very ingenious and pleasant man, he had but an unpromising and forbidding appearance: he was tall, stooping in the shoulders, and of a sallow down-looking countenance*.

, a very ingenious artist, was born at Bassano, in the Venetian territory, April 1, 1765. His father was a stationer, who was enabled to give him a useful, but limited education. From his infancy he had a peculiar taste for drawing; and attained such proficiency, that an able painter, Julius Golini, to whom some of his productions were shewn, undertook to instruct him in that art. At the age of thirteen Lewis was put under his care, and the high opinion he had formed of the hoy’s genius was confirmed by the rapid progress he made, while his amiahle disposition endeared him so much, that he loved him as his own son* After three years of useful instruction, he had the misfortune to lose this master, who expired in his arms. Left to pursue his own course, he turned his views to Count Remaudini, whose extensive typographical and chalcographical concern is rendered more famous by the giving employment to Bartolozzi and Volpato; and the works of those artists gave fresh impulse to the youth’s ardour for improvement. About this time he became acquainted with one Lorio, an indifferent engraver, with whom he worked about twelve months, when, finding he bad exhausted his fund of instructions, he resolved to alter his situation. A copy of a holy family in the line manner, from Bartolozzi, after Carlo Maratta, gained him immediate employment from Count Remaudini, and attracted the notice of Mr. Suntach, an engraver and printseller in opposition to Remaudini. About this time came to Bassano a wretched engraver of architecture, but a man of consummate craft ancf address. He became acquainted with Schiavonetti at Mr. Sumach’s, and was ultimately the means of bringing him to England, where he became acquainted with Bartolozzi, and lived in his house until he established himself on his own foundation; after which Schiavonetti cultivated his genius with a success; that answered the expectations which vtere first formed' of it, and conducted all his affairs with an uprightness and integrity that will cause his memory to be equally revered as a gentleman and an artist. He died at Bromptoiv June 7, 1810, in the forty-fourth year of his age; and on the -14-th was buried in Paddington church-yard, with a solemnity worthy of his talents and character.

Besides the works already enumerated, a fifth volume of his “Sermons” was published in 1776: this consists of fourteen occasional sermons, printed at the expense of Lockyer Davis and Thomas Davies, two well-known booksellers, whose initials D. D. are subscribed to the preface, and but for this notice, may perhaps perplex some future inquirer. He was also the author of “The Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus,” first published in 1729, without his name, and which went through fourteen editions. Dr. Leland remarks that this piece has been “very justly admired for the polite and uncommon turn, as well as the judicious way of treating the subject.” It is indeed a very ingenious effort both of argument and imagination, and places Sherlock’s talents in a new light*. On

, a very ingenious lady, the only child of Edward Talbot, second son of William, bishop of Durham, and nephew to the chancellor, was born in May 1720. She was born five months after the decease of her father, who died at the early age of twenty-nine, and being a younger brother, left his widow in a situation very inadequate to his rank in life. She was the daughter of the rev. George Martyn, prebendary of Lincoln, and had been married to Mr. Talbot only a few months. Happily, however, for her, the kind attentions of a dear and intimate friend were not wanting at that critical period. Catharine, sister to Mr. Benson, afterwards bishop of Gloucester, who had been the companion of her early youth, and whose brother was upon an equally intimate footing with Mr. Talbot, was residing with her at the time of his death, and was her great support in that heavy affliction; and they continued to live together and bestow all their joint attention upon the infant Catherine. But before she was five years of age, this establishment was broken up by the marriage of Miss Benson to Mr. Seeker, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury (See Secker), but then rector of the valuable living of Houghton-le-Spring in Durham. Mr. Seeker, mindful of his obligations to Mr. Edward Talbot, as mentioned in our account of him, immediately joined with his wife in the request that Mrs. and Miss Talbot would from that time become a part of his family. The offer was accepted, and they never afterwards separated; and upon Mrs. Seeker’s death, in 1748, they still continued with him, and took the management of his domestic concerns.

, a very ingenious artist, in the modelling department, was born in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, of obscure parents, and began life as a country stonemason, without the expectation of ever rising higher. Going to Glasgow on a fair-day, to enjoy himself with his companions, at the time when the Foulis’s were attempting to establish an academy for the fine arts in that city, he saw their collection of paintings, and felt an irresistible im^ pulse to become a painter. He accordingly removed to Glasgow; and in the academy acquired a knowledge of drawing, which unfolded and improved his natural taste. He was frugal, industrious, and persevering; but he was poor, and was under the necessity of devoting himself to stone-cutting for his support; not without the hopes that he might one day be a statuary if he could not be a painter. Resorting to Dublin for employment, he became known to Dr. Quin, who was amusing himself in his leisure hours with endeavouring to imitate the precious stones in coloured pastes, and take accurate impressions of the engravings that were on them.

, LL. D. a very ingenious and learned English critic, was the son of Mr. Thirlby, vicar of St. Margaret’s in Leicester, and born about 1692. He received his education first at the free-school of Leicester, under the rev. Mr. Kiiby, then head usher, from which school he was sent in three years to Jesus college, Cambridge, and shewed early in life great promise of excellence. From his mental abilities no small degree of future eminence was presaged: but the fond hopes of his friends were unfortunately defeated by a temper which was naturally indolent and quarrelsome, and by an unhappy addiction to drinking. Among his early productions of ingenuity was a Greek copy of verses on the queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon. In 1710 he published “The university of Cambridge vindicated from the imputation of disloyalty it lies under on account of not addressing; as also from the malicious and foul aspersions of Dr. Bentley, late master of Trinity college, and of a certain officer and pretended reformer in. the said university,” Lond. 1710. This was followed in 1712 by “An answer to Mr. Whiston’s seventeen suspicions concerning Athanasius, in his Historical Preface ,” and by two other pamphlets on the same subject. He obtained a fellowship of his college by the express desire of Dr. Charles Ashton, who said“he had had the honour of studying with him when young;” though he afterwards spoke very contemptuously of him as the editor of “Justin Martyr,” which appeared in 1723, in folio; and the dedication to which has always been consid-‘M’ed as a masterly production, in style particularly. After Thirlby’s publication of Justin, Dr. Ashton, perhaps to shew him that he had not done all that might have been done, published, in one of the foreign journals, “Some emendations of faulty passages,” which when Thirlby he said, slightingly, that “any man who would, might have made them, and a hundred more.” Thus far MI. Thirlby went on in the study of divinity; hut his versatility led him to try the round of the other learned professions. His next pursuit was physic, and for a while he was called “Doctor.” While he was a nominal physician, he lived some time with the duke of Chandos, as librarian, and is reported to have affected a perverse and indolent independence, so as capriciously to refuse his company when) it was desired. It may be supposed they were soon weary of each other.

, a polite scholar, was born in 1700, and received his education at Westminster- school, where he was much befriended by bishop Atterbury, who chose him for his son’s tutor, in which capacity he resided in the bishop’s family about the time of the supposed plot in 1722. From Westminster Mr. Titley went off to Trinitycollege, Cambridge, in 1719, in which he for many years held the lay-fellowship founded for a civilian. He was early in life sent envoy extraordinary to the court of Copenhagen, where he died Feb. 1768, after a long residence, very highly esteemed on account of his many amiable qualilies. Of his productions as an author, which were rather little elegant trifles than elaborate performances, a good specimen may be seen in his celebrated “Imitation of Horace,*' book IV. Ode 2. And some of his Latin \erses are in the” Reliquiae. Galeanae.“He bequeathed iOOo/. to Westminster-school, Iooo/. to Trinity-college, Cambridge, and Iooo/. to the university of Cambridge, part of which was to be applied to the public buildings. This sum in 1768, when sir James Marriot, master of Trinity-hall, was vice-chancellor, was voted to erect a music-room, of which a plan was engraved to solicit a further aid from contributions, but failed of success. It would have given us pleasure to have given more particular memoirs of this ingenious gentleman, of whom so little has yet been said. Bishop Newton characterises him, among his contemporaries at Westminster, as” a very ingenious young man, at first secretary to the embassy at Turin, afterwards for many years his majesty’s envoy to the court of Denmark. During the time that he was a king’s scholar, he lived with bishop Atterbury as tutor to his son, and his taste and learning were much improved by the bishop’s conversation. His plan of life, as laid down by himself, was, to prosecute his studies at Cambridge till he should be thirty, from thirty to sixty to be employed in public business, at sixty to retire and return to college, for which purpose he would keep his fellowship. This plan he nearly pursued; he kept his fellowship; he resigned his public employment; but, instead of returning to college, where in a great measure there was a new society, and few or none were left of* his own age and standing, he remained at Copenhagen, where, by his long residence, he was in a manner naturalized, and there lived and died, greatly respected and lamented by all ranks of people."

, a famous botanist of France, was born of a good family, at Aix in Provence, June 5, 1656. He had a taste for observing and collecting plants from his childhood; and, when he was at school, used frequently to play truant, though he was frequently punished for it, in order to traverse the fields in quest of new discoveries. The same passion continued when he was more grown up, and after he began to study philosophy and divinity; and, though all endeavours were used by his father, who designed him for the church, to cure him of it, his favourite study prevailed, and plants continued his object. In pursuit of them he was ready to traverse the globe, as he did a great part of it afterwards; but, for the present, was obliged to content himself with what the neighbourhood of Aix and the gardens of the curious afforded. Becoming his own master by the death, of his father in 1677, he quitted theology, which indeed he had never relished, and gave himself up entirely to physic, natural philosophy, and botany, at the instigation of an uncle, who was a very ingenious and reputable physician. In 1678, he ran over the mountains of Dauphine and Savoy, and thence enriched his collection with a great number of curious specimens. In 1679 he went to Montpelier, to study medicine and anatomy. In this town was a garden of plants, which had been established by Henry IV. but this did not satisfy his curiosity: he travelled over the country round about Montpelier, and brought back with him plants which were before unknown to the botanists of that place. His curiosity becoming more ardent, he formed a scheme of passing over into Spain, and set out for Barcelona in April 1681. He spent some time in the mountains of Catalonia, whither he was accompanied by the young physicians of the country, and the students in physic, to whom he pointed out and explained the various sorts of plants; but was often exposed to dangers, and was once stripped naked by the miquelets, a kind of banditti, who, however, so far took pity on him as to return him his waistcoat, in the lining of which, by good luck, he happened to have some silver tied up in a handkerchief. After other risks, he arrived safe at Montpelier in 1681, and continued his studies in medicine, and his operations in chymistry and anatomy. He was afterwards received doctor of physic at Orange, and thence went to Aix, where his passion for plants, which was as high as ever, did not suffer him to continue long. He now visited the Alps, and he brought back with him new treasures, which he had acquired with great fatigue and danger.

, a very ingenious lady, and a zealous promoter of religious education, was the daughter of Joshua and Sarah Kirby, and was born at Ipswich, Jan. 6, 1741. Her father, known in the literary world as the author of Taylor’s “Method of Perspective made easy,” and “The Perspective of Architecture,” was a man of an excellent understanding, and of great piety and so high was his reputation for knowledge of divinity, and so exemplary his moral conduct, that, as an exception to their general rule, which admitted no layman, he was chosen member of a clerical club in the town in which he resided. Under the care of such a parent it may be supposed she was early instructed in those principles of Christianity, upon which her future life and labours were formed. She was educated in English and French, and other customary accomplishments, at a boarding-school near Ipswich; but at the age of fourteen she left Ipswich, with her father and mother, to settle in London, where Mr. Kirby had the honour of teaching perspective to the present king, then prince of Wales, and afterwards to her majesty.

, a very celebrated French mathematician, was born in 1540, at Fontenai, or Fontenai-le-­Comte, in Lower Poitou, a province of France. He was master of requests at Paris, where he died in 1603, in the sixty-third year of his age. Among other branches of learning in which he excelled, he was one of the most respectable mathematicians of the sixteenth century, or indeed of any age. His writings abound with marks of great originality and genius, as well as intense application. His application was such, that he has sometimes remained in his study for three days together, without eating or sleeping. His inventions and improvements in all parts of the mathematics were very considerable. He was in a manner the inventor and introducer of Specious Algebra, in which letters are used instead of numbers, as well as of many beautiful theorems in that science. He made also corir siderable improvements in geometry and trigonometry. His angular sections are a very ingenious and masterly performance: by these he was enabled to resolve the problem of Adrian Roman, proposed to all mathematicians, amounting to an equation of the 45th degree. Romanus was so struck with his sagacity, that he immediately quitted his residence of Wirtzbourg in Franconia, and came to France to visit him, and solicit his friendship. His “Apollonius Gallus,” being a restoration of Apollonius’s tract on Tangencies, and many other geometrical pieces to be found in his works, shew the finest taste and genius for true geometrical speculations. He gave some masterly tracts on Trigonometry, both plane and spherical, which may be found in the collection of his works, published at Leyden in 1646, by Schooten, besides another large and separate volume in folio, published in the author’s life-time at Paris 1579, containing extensive trigonometrical tables, with the construction aad use of the same, which are particularly described in the introduction to Dr. Hutton’s Logarithms, p. 4, &c. To this complete treatise on Trigonometry, plane and spherical, are subjoined several miscellaneous problems and observations, such as, the quadrature of the circle, the duplication of the cube, &c. Vieta having observed that there were many faults in the Gregorian Calendar, as it then existed, he composed a new form of it, to which he added perpetual canons, and an explication of it, with remarks and objections against Clavius, whom he accused of having deformed the true Lelian reformation, by not rightly understanding it. Besides those, it seems, a work greatly esteemed, and the loss of which cannot be sufficiently deplored, was his “Harmonicon Cceleste,” which, being communicated to father Mersenne, was, by some perfidious acquaintance of that honest-minded person, surreptitiously taken from him, and irrecoverably lost, or suppressed, to the great detriment of the learned world. There were also, it is said, other works of an astronomical kind, that have been buried in the ruins of time, Vieta was also a profound decypherer, an accomplishment that proved very useful to his country. As the different parts of the Spanish monarchy lay very distant from one another, when they had occasion to communicate any secret designs, they wrote them in cyphers and unknown characters, during the disorders of the league: the cypher was composed of more than five hundred different Characters, which yielded their hidden contents to the penetrating genius of Vieta alone. His skill so disconcerted the Spanish councils for two years, that they reported at Rome, and other parts of Europe, that the French king had only discovered their cyphers by means of magic.

, an eminent Oriental scholar, canon of Christ Church, Regius professor of Hebrew, and Laudian professor of Arabic in the university of Oxford, was born in 1746, of parents in low circumstances in Gloucester, where his father was a journeyman-weaver, and brought up his son to the same business. Being however a sensible man, he gave him what little learning was in his power at one of the charity-schools at Gloucester. This excited a thirst for greater acquisitions in the young man, who employed all the time he could spare in the study of such books as fell in his way. His attainments at length attracted the notice of a neighbouring gentleman of fortune, who sent him to the university of Oxford, where he was entered of Wadham college. He took the degree of M. A. Feb. 19, 1773; and about that time engaged in the study of the Oriental languages, to which he was induced by the particular recommendation of Dr. Moore, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. He had before acquired a tolerable share of Hebrew learning, by which his progress in the other Oriental languages was greatly facilitated. In 1775, he was appointed archbishop Laud’s professor of Arabic; on entering upon which office he pronounced a masterly oration, which was soon afterwards printed with the title of f ' De Utilitate Ling. Arab, in Studiis Theologicis, Oratio habita Oxoniis in Schola Linguarum, vii Id. Aprilis, 1775,“4to. He was at this time fellow of his college, being elected in 1774. In 1778, Mr. White printed the Syriac Philoxenian version of the Four Gospels (the ms. of which Dr. Gloster Ridley had given to New college), entitled, <c Sacrorum Evangeliorum Versio Syriaca Philoxeniana, ex Codd. Mss. Ridleianis in Bibl. Coll. Nov. Oxon. repositis, nunc primum edita, cum Interpretatione et Annotationibus Josephi White,” &c. 2 vols. 4to. On November 15, 1778, he preached a very ingenious and elegant sermon before the university, which was soon afterwards printed, under the title of “A revisal of the English translation of the Old Testament recommended. To which is added, some account of an antient Syriac translation of great part of Origen’s Hexaplar edition of the LXX. lately discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan,” 4to. About this time he was appointed one of the preachers at Whitehall chapel. In 1779, he took the degree of bachelor of divinity; and in the same year published “A Letter to the bishop of London, suggesting a plan for a new edition of the LXX; to which are added, Specimens of some inedited versions made from the Greek, and a Sketch of a Chart of Greek Mss.” In 1780, Mr. White published, “A Specimen of the Civil and Military Institutes of Tjmour, or Tamerlane; a work written originally by that celebrated Conqueror in the Magul language, and since translated into Persian. Now first rendered from the Persian into English, from a ms. in the possession of William Hunter, M.D.; with other Pieces,” 4to. The whole of this work appeared in 1783, translated into English by major Davy, with Preface, Indexes, Geographical Notes, &c. by Mr. White, in one volume, 4to. In Easter term, 1783, he was appointed to preach the Bampton lecture for the following year. As soon as he was nominated, he sketched out the plan; and finding assistance necessary to the completion of it in such a manner as he wished, called to his aid Mr. Samuel Baclcork and Dr. Parr. Although his own share of these labours was sufficient to entitle him to the celebrity which they procured him, he bad afterwards to lament that he had not acknowledged his obligations to those elegant scholars, in a preface to the volume, when it was published. As soon as the lectures were delivered, the applause with which they were received was general throughout the university. They were printed the same year, and met with universal approbation. A second edition appeared in 1785; to which the author added a sermon, which he had recently preached before the university, on the necessity of propagating Christianity in the East Indies. Mr. White’s reputation was now established, and he was considered as one of the ablest vindicators of the Christian doctrines which modern times had witnessed. Lord Thnrlow, then lord chancellor, without any solicitation, gave him a prebend in the cathedral of Gloucester, which at once placed him in easy and independent circumstances. In 1787 he took his degree of D. D. and was looked up to with the greatest respect in the university, as one of its chief ornaments. In the year 1788, the death of Mr.Badcock was made the pretence for an attack on Dr. White’s character both as an author and a man, by the late Dr. R. B. Gabriel, who published a pamphlet, entitled, “Facts relating to the Rev. Dr. White’s Bampton Lectures.” By this it appears that there was found among the papers of the deceased Mr. Badcock, a promissory note for 500l. from Dr. White for literary aid; the payment of which was demanded, but refused by him on the ground that it was illegal in the first instance, as not having the words “value received,' 7 and, secondly, it was for service to be rendered in the History of Egypt, which the doctor and Mr. Badcock had projected. The friends of the deceased, however, were of a different opinion; and the doctor consented to liquidate the debt. This he informs us he did,” partly because he apprehended that his persisting to refuse the payment of it might tend to the disclosure of the assistance which Mr. Badcock had given him in the Bampton Lectures; and partly, because he was informed that the note, by Mr. Badcock’s death, became a part of his assets, and, as such, could legally be demanded.“But whoever reads Dr. White’s” Statement of Literary Obligations“must be convinced that he was under no obligation to have paid this money, and that his opponents availed themselves of his simplicity and the alarm which they excited for his literary character. Gabriel, however, a man neither of literary talents or character, was at the head of an envious junto who were determined to injure Dr.White if they could; and notwithstanding his payment of the money, printed all Mr, Badcock’s letters in the above pamphlet, in order, as he said, to vindicate the character of the deceased, as well as his own, both of which he ridiculously pretended had been assailed on this occasion. In consequence of this publication, Dr. White printed” A Statement of his Literary Obligations to the Rev. Mr. Samuel Badcock, and the Rev. Samuel Parr, LL.D,“By this it appeared, that, though Mr. Badcock’s share in the Lectures was considerable, yet that it was not in that proportion which had been maliciously represented, the plan of the whole, and the execution of the greatest part, being Dr. White’s, and Dr. Parr’s being principally literal corrections. This statement gave sufficient satisfaction to the literary world at large. But the malice of his enemy was not yet satiated, as may appear by the following correspondence, which having been circulated chiefly at Oxford, may be here recorded as an additional defence of Dr. White. ”A printed paper, entitled ‘Minutes of what passed at three interviews which lately took place between Dr. White and Dr. Gabriel in London and in Bath,’ and signed