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, 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:

, 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.

, 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 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 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.