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, a very useful biographer, lived in the 17th century. He was born in the territory of Grotkaw in Silesia, and educated in the college of Brieg, where the dukes of that name, to the utmost of their power, ^encouraged learning and the reformed religion as professed by Calvin. Here he became a firm Protestant, and was enabled to pursue his studies by the liberality of a person of quality, who had left several exhibitions for young students. He was appointed rector of a college at Heidelberg, where he published his first volume of Illustrious Men in the year 1615. This volume, which consists of philosophers, poets, writers on polite literature, historians, &c. was followed by three others; that which treats of divines was printed in 1619; that of the lawyers came next; and finally, that of the physicians: the two last were published in 1620. All the learned men, whose lives are contained in these four volumes, lived in the 16th, or beginning of the 17th century, and are either Germans or Flemings; but he published, in 16 18, the lives of twenty divines cf other countries, in a separate volume. All his divines are Protestants. He has given but a few lives, yet the work cost him a great deal of time, having been obliged to abridge the pieces from whence he had materials, whether they were lives, funeral sermons, eulogies, prefaces, or memoirs of families. He omitted several persons who deserved a place in his work, as well as those he had taken notice of; which he accounts for, from the want of proper materials and authorities. The Lutherans were not pleased with him, for they thought him partial; nor will they allow his work to be a proper standard whereby to judge of the learning of Germany. His biographical collections were last published in one vol. fol. at Franc-fort, under the title, “Dignorum laude Virorum, quos Musa vetat mori, immortalitas.” His other works were, 1. “Apographum-Monumentorum Heidelbergensium,” Heidelberg, 1612, 4to. 2. “Parodice et Metaphrases Horatianse,” Frapcfort, 1616, 8vo. 3. “Notae io Orationem Julii Caesaris Scaligeri pro M, T. Cicerone contra Ciceronianum Erasmi,” 1618; and he reprinted Erasmus’s dialogue “De optimo genere dicendi,” 1617. The Oxford catalogue erroneously ascribes to him the history of the churches of Hamburgh and Bremen, which, we have just seen, was the work of Adam de Bremen. His biographical works are, however, those which have preserved his name, and have been of great importance to all subsequent collections. He died in 1622.

, a very useful biographer and bibliographer, was born at Montbrison en Forez, Nov. 11, 1544. He appears to have served the king both in a military and civil capacity, and was historiographer and gentleman in ordinary to his majesty. He died at Duerne, Sept. 25, 1600. In his youth he had cultivated poetry, but of his poetical efforts he published only some indifferent specimens in his great work. He had, according to Scaliger, a fine library of Italian, French, Spanish, Greek, and Latin authors, and was conversant in books of all kinds. The fruits of his labours were, 1. “La Prosopographie, ou Description des personnes insignes, &c. avec les effigies d‘aucuns d’iceux, et braves observations de leur temps, annees, fails, et dits,” Lyons, 1373, 4to. This he reprinted three times with improvements; and the last, left also by him for the press, was published by his son Claude, who made some, few additions at Paris in 1603, 3 vols. folio. This is a very miscellaneous compilation, in which, although there are a few particulars of the eminent men of his time, it requires some patience to find them. 2. “Les Diverses lemons d'Antoine Duverclier, suivant celJes de P. Messi-e,” Lyons, 1576, 8vo. Of this there have been several editions, the most complete of which is that ofTournon, 1605. These legons were part of Duverdier’s extracts, in the course of his reading, from various Greek, Latin, and Italian authors, 3. “Le Compseutique, ou Traits facetieux,” 12mo; but there are some doubts whether this, which did not appear until 1584-, was not the compilation of another author. 4. “La Bibliotheque d'Ant. Duverdier, contenant le catalogue de tons les auteurs qui ont ecrit ou traduit en Frangais, avec le supplement Latin, du meme Duverdier, a la biblioiheque de Gesner,” Lyons, 1585, folio. Croix Du Maine’s work of the same kind had appeared the year before, and was thought to be the best executed of the two; but they have both been republished with so many improvements, that, like Moreri’s, they retain very little of the original authors. This improved edition was the production of Rigoley and Juvigny, who added the notes of Lamonnoye, the president Bouhier and Falconet, and published the whole in six handsome volumes, 4to, under the title of Les Bibliotheques Franchises de Lacroix du Maine et de Duverdier,“1772. The work is undoubtedly still capable of improvement, but, as it is, it forms a very valuable addition to the bibliographical library. There is a copy in the king’s library at Paris, with a vast mass of ms additions and corrections by Mercier de Saint-Leger. Le Long and some others attribute to Du. Verdier” La Biographic et Prosopographie des rois de France jusqu'a Henri III.“Paris, 1583, and 1586, 8vo. But others have doubted this, because he makes no mention of it in a list of his works which he wrote in 1585, and in which he gave not only what he had published, but what remained in manuscript, such as a translation of Seneca, &c. His son, Claude Verdier, was born about 1566, and had the ambition to become an author, but turned out to be a bad poet and a worse critic; he also spent the property his father left him, and lived an obscure and miserable life till about 1649, which is said to have been its period. The worst feature of his character is the disrespectful manner in which he has treated his father’s talents and labours, in a work which he published in 1586, and 1609, 4to, entitled” In autores pene omnes anttquos potissimum censiones et correctiones." It is a sufficient character of this work, that he blames Virgil for his bad Latin.