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He died Jan. 24, 1708-9, in his fifty-eighth year, and was buried in Canterbury cathedral, where a monument is erected to his memory. In his private life he was a good husband, and a kind master, lived hospitably towards his neighbours, and left behind him a moderate fortune; so moderate, that when he came to make his will it surprized those who were present; but sir George assigned the reason in a few words, “I do not leave much,” said he, i( but what I leave was honestly gotten it never cost a sailor a tear, or the nation a farthing." 1 Rooke (Lawrence), an English astronomer and geometrician, was born at Deptford, in Kent, 1623, and educated at Eton school, whence he removed to King’s college, Cambridge, in 1639. After taking the degree of M. A. in 1647, he retired for some time into the country, but in 1650 went to Oxford, and settled in Wadham college, that he might associate with Dr. Wilkins, and Mr. Seth Ward the astronomy professor; and also accompany Mr. Boyle in his chemical operations. After the death of Mr. Foster he was chosen astronomy professor in Gresham college, London, in 1652. He made some observations upon the comet at Oxford, which appeared in the month of December that year; which were printed by Mr. Seth Ward the year following. And, in 1655, Dr. Wallis publishing his treatise on conic sections, he dedicated that work to those two gentlemen. In 1657 Mr. Rooke was permitted to exchange the astronomy professorship for that of geometry. This step might seem strange, as astronomy still continued to be his favourite study; but it was thought to have been from the convenience of the lodgings, which opened behind the reading hall, and therefore were proper for the reception of those gentlemen after the lectures, who, in 1660, laid the foundation of the royal society. Most of those learned men who had been accustomed to assemble with him at Oxford, coining to London, joined with other philosophical gentlemen, and usually met at Gresham college to hear Mr. Rooke’s iectwes, and afterwards withdrew into his apartment; till their meetings were interrupted by the quartering of soldiers in the college in 1658. And after the royal society came to be formed into a regular body, Mr. Rooke was very zealous and serviceable in promoting that great and useful institution; though he did not live till it received its establishment by the royal charter.

, an English lady, celebrated for personal accomplishments, and her elegant writings both inverse and prose, was the daughter of Mr. Waiter Singer, a dissenting minister, and born at Ilchester in Somersetshire, Sept. 11, 1674. Her father was possessed of a competent estate near Frome in that county, whhere he lived; but, being imprisoned at Ilchester for nonconformity, married and settled in that town. The daughter, whose talents in other respects appeared very early, began to write verses at twelve years of age. She was also fond of the sister-arts, music and painting; and her father was at the expence of a master, to instruct her in the latter. She was also early accustomed to devout exercises, in which her mind was sincere, ardent, and unconstrained: and this habit, which grew naturally from constitution, was also powerfully confirmed by education and example. She was early acquainted with the pious bishop Ken, who had a very high opinion of her: and, at his request, wrote her paraphrase on the 38th chapter of Job. In 1696, the 22d of her age, a collection of her poems was published: they were entitled “Poems on several occasions, by Philomela,” her name being concealed, but they contributed to introduce her to the public with great advantage.

, LL. D. an English divine, and bishop of Derry in Ireland, was born in the parish of Milton-Abbot, near Tavistock, in Devonshire, about 1686, of what family is not known. He was educated at the freeschool of Exeter, under the care of Mr. John Reynolds, uncle to the celebrated painter sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1702 he was removed to Exeter college, Oxford, and about this time his friend and fellow collegian, Joseph Taylor, esq. (father of Thomas Taylor, of Denbury, esq.) introduced him to Mr. Edward Talbot, of Oriel college, the second son of Dr. William Talbot, at that time bishop of Oxford. This event was of great importance in his future life, as it secured him the friendship and patronage of the Talbot family, to whom he owed all his promotion. Recommenced bachelor of civil laws in July 1710, and two years afterwards became acquainted with the celebrated Whiston, and was inclined to adopt his notions as to reviving what he called primitive Christianity. Mr. Whiston, who has given us many particulars respecting bishop Rundie in his “Memoirs of his own Life,” says that Mr. Rundie, before he entered into holy orders, became so disgusted at the corrupt state of the church, and at the tyranny of the ecclesiastical laws, that he sometimes declared against obeying them, even where they were in themselves not unlawful, which, adds Whiston, “was farther than 1 could go with him.” The truth seems to have been, as stated by bishop Rundle’s late biegrapher, that the singular character of Whiston, his profound erudition, and disinterested attachment to the doctrines of Arius, supported by an ostensible love of truth, were likely to attract the notice of young men who, in the ardour of free inquiry, did not immediately perceive the pernicious tendency of their new opinions.

, an English gentleman, author of the “Historical Collections,” was of an ancient family, and born in Northumberland about 1607. He was for a short time a student in the university of Oxford; but left it without being matriculated, and entered himself of Lincoln’s Inn, where he became a barrister. But, his inclination leading him more to state-affairs than the comfrion law, he began early to take down in short-hand, speeches and passages at conferences in parliament, and from the king’s own mouth what he spake to both houses; and contrived to be on all occasions an eye and ear witness of the most important public transactions. He also personally attended and observed all occurrences of moment, during eleven years interval of parliament from 1630 to 1640, in the star-chamber, court of honour, and exchequer-chamber, when the judges met there upon extraordinary cases; and at the council-table, when great causes were tried before the king and council. He also frequently travelled in pursuit of information to considerable distances, and was present, during the civil war, at the camp at Berwick, at the fight at Newborn, at the treaty of Rippon, and at the great council at York.

, a Spanish political and moral writer, was born May 6, 1584, at Algezares, in the kingdom of Murcia, and studied at Salamanca. In 1606, he went to Rome as secretary to the cardinal Gaspar de Borgia, who was appointed Spanish ambassador to the pope, and assisted in the conclaves of 1621 and 1623, held for the election of the popes Gregory XV. and Urban VIII. For these services Saavedra was rewarded with a canonry in the church of St. James, although he had never taken priest’s orders. Some time after he was appointed agent from the court of Spain at Rome, and his conduct in this office acquired him general esteem. In 1636, he assisted at the electoral congress held there, in which Ferdinand III. was chosen king of the Romans. He afterwards was present at eight diets held in Swisserland, and lastly at the general diet of the empire at Ratisbonne, where he appeared in quality of plenipotentiary of the circle and of the house of Burgundy. After being employed in some other diplomatic affairs, he returned to Madrid in 1646, and was appointed master of ceremonies in the introduction of ambassadors; but he did not enjoy this honour long, as he died Aug. 24, 1648. In his public character he rendered the state very important services, and, as a writer, is ranked among those who have contributed to polish and enrich the Spanish language. The Spanish critics, who place him among their classics, say he wrote Spanish as Tacitus wrote Latin. He has long been known, even in this country, by his “Emblems,” which were published in 2 vols. 8vo, in the early part of the last century. These politico-moral instructions for a Christian prince, were first printed in 1640, 4to, under the title of “Idea de un Principe Politico* Christiano representada en cien empress,” and reprinted at Milan in 1642; they were afterwards translated into Latin, and published under the title of “Symbola Christiano-Politica,” and have often been reprinted in various sizes in France, Italy, and Holland. He wrote also “Corona Gotica, Castellana, y Austriaca politicamente illustrada,” 1646, 4to, which was to have consisted of three parts, but he lived to complete one only: the rest was by Nunez de Castro; and “Respublica Literaria,” published in 1670, 8vo. Of this work an English translation was published by I. E. in 1727. It is a kind of vision, giving a satirical account of the republic of letters, not unlike the manner of Swift. The French have a translation of it, so late as 1770.

, an English writer, descended of an ancient family in Shropshire, was born in 1615, and admitted pensioner of Emanuel college, in Cambridge, Nov. I 3, 1630, where he became eminent for his knowledge in the Hebrew and Oriental languages. After having taken his degrees at the usual periods, that of M. A. in 1638, in x which year he was chosen fellow of his college, he removed to Lincoln’s-Inn; where he made a considerable progress in the study of the law, and was admitted one of the masters in ordinary in the court of chancery, June 1, 1644, and was likewise one of the two masters of requests. In 1649, he was chosen town-clerk of London, and published in the same year in 4to, a work with this title, “Rights of the Kingdom: or, Customs of our Ancestors, touching the duty, power, election, or succession, of our kings and parliaments, our true liberty, due allegiance, three estates, their legislative power, original, judicial, and executive, the militia; freely discussed through the British, Saxon, Norman, laws and histories.” It was reprinted in 1682, and has always been valued by lawyers and others. He was greatly esteemed by Oliver Cromwell; who, by a letter from Cork, of Dec. 1, 1649, offered him the place of chief justice of Munster in Ireland, with a salary of 1000l. per annum; but this he excused himself from accepting. In August 1650, he was made master of Magdalen college, in Cambridge, upon the removal of Dr. Rainbow, who again succeeded Sadler after the restoration. In 1653, he was chosen member of parliament for Cambridge. In 1655, by warrant of Cromwell, pursuant to an ordinance for better regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of the high court of chancery, he was continued a master in chancery, when their number was reduced to six only. It was by his interest, that the Jews obtained the privilege of building a synagogue in 'London. In 1658, he was, chosen member of parliament for Yarmouth; and in December of the year following, appointed first commissioner, under the great seal, with Taylor, Whitelock, and others, for the probate of wills. In 1660, he published in 4-to, his “Olbia The New Island lately discovered. With its religion, rites of worship, laws, customs, government, characters, and language with education of their children in their sciences, arts, and manufactures with other things remarkable by a Christian pilgrim driven by tempest from Civita Vecchia, or some other parts about ftome, through the straights into the Atlantic ocean. The first part.” Of this work, which appears to be a kind of fiction, Dr. John Worthiugton, in a letter to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, dated April i, 1661, says, “Is the second part of Olbu like to come out shortly? Jt is said to treat of the religion, worship, laws, customs, manner of education, &c. of that place. The design promiseth much variety.”

, an English lawyer and law-writer of the sixteenth century, is supposed to have been born at Skilton, near Coventry, in Warwickshire, and educated for some time at Oxford, whence he removed to the Inner Temple for the study of the law. After being admitted to the bar, he became an eminent counsellor, and we should suppose a very popular one, as he frequently refused or returned his fees. What he got by honourable practice and some paternal estate, he expended in the purchase of books, and gathered a very fine library, which was all the property he left to his heirs. Besides his legal knowledge, he was conversant in philosophy and the divinity of the times, and wrote on the latter subject with so much freedom as to render his sentiments suspected, for which reason Bale has given him a very advantageous character. He is commended too for his piety, and pious ordering of his family, to whom he read every night a chapter in the Bible, and expounded it. He died Sept. 28, 1540, and not 1539, as Bale states. He was buried in the church of St. Alphage, within CrL'pp legate, London. It appears by his will that he was a considerable benefactor to Skiiton church, where his father sir Henry St. German, knt. and his mother lie buried, and to that of Laleford. St. German has immortalized his name by his valuable and well-known work, which bears the title of “The Doctor and Student, or Dialogues between a doctor of divinity, and a student in the laws of England, concerning the grounds of those laws,” first printed by Rastell, in Latin, 1523, 12mo, and reprinted in 1528. Mr. Bridgman enumerates above twenty editions which followed, the last in 1787, 8vo, with questions and cases concerning the equity of the law, corrected and improved by William Muchall, or Murchall. On the subject of this celebrated work, Mr. Hargrave (in his Law Tracts, 32 I), has published from a ms. in the Cotton library, “A Replication of a Serjaunte at the Laws of England, to certayne pointes alleaged by a student of the said lawes of England, in a Dialogue in Englishe, between a doctor of divinity and the said student;” and a little “Treatise concerning writs of Subpoena.” Two other tracts are attributed by Ames to St. German, though they bear the name of Thomas Godfrey, viz. “A Treatise concerning the power of the Clergy and of the lawes of the Realme,” 12mo, no date and “A Treatise concernynge divers of the Constitucyons provyncyall and legantines,” 12mo, no date. Tanner attributes to him “A Treatise concerning the division between the Spiritualitie and the Temporaltie,” printed by Redman without date; and this seems to be the same work as “The Pacyfyer of the division between the Spiritualitie aod Temporaltie,” printed by Berthelet, which being remarkable for impartiality and temperate language, was pointed out to sir Thomas More, as an example for him to follow in his controversial writings. This incited sir Thomas to publish “An Apologye made by him, anno 1533, after he had gevhi over th' office of lord chancellor of Englande,” printed by Rastell, 1533, 12mo. St. German was also probably the author of “Newe addicions treating most specially of the power of the Parlyament concernynge the Spiritualitie and the Spiritual Jurisdiction,” 1531, 12mo, now reprinted in all the modern editions of the “Doctor and Student.” He had a controversy with sir Thomas More, which produced “Salem and Bizance, being a dialogue between two Englishmen, one called Salem, and the other Bizance,” 1533, 8vo. This was written in answer to More’s “Apologye” above mentioned and sir Thomas replied in the “Debellation of Salem and Bizance,” by Rastell, in 1533, 8vo.

, an ingenious French writer, was born at Auxerre in 1697. The only information we have of his earlv life is restricted to a notice of the affection which subsisted between him and his twin-brother M. de la Curne. It appears that he devoted himself to researches into the language and antiquities of his country, and was admitted a member of the French academy, and that of inscriptions. In all his labours he was assisted by his brother, who lived with him, and was his inseparable associate in his studies, and even in his amusements. St. Palaye died in 1781. La Harpe has published some spirited verses which he addressed in his eightieth year to a lady who had embroidered a waistcoat for him; but he is chiefly known as an author by “Memoires sur PAncienne Chevalerie,” 3 vols. 12mo, in which he paints in very lively colours the manners and customs of that institution. Mrs. Dobson published an English translation of this in 1784. After his decease the abbe Millot drew up, from his papers, “L'Histoire des Troubadours,” in 3 vols. 12mo. St. Palaye had meditated on an “Universal French Glossary,” which was to be more copious than that of Du Cange, and left two works in manuscript, one a history of the variations that have taken place in the French language, the other a Dictionary of French antiquities.

, an English antiquary, was the son of the rev. Thomas Salmon, M. A. rector of Mepsall in Bedfordshire, by a daughter of the notorious Serjeant Bradshaw. He was admitted of Bene‘t college, Cambridge, June 11, 1690, where his tutors were dean Moss and archdeacon Lunn, and took the degree of LL. B. in 1695. Soon after he went into orders, and was for some time curate of Westmill in Hertfordshire; but, although he had taken the oaths to king William, he had so many scruples against taking them to his successor, queen Anne, that he became contented to resign the clerical profession, and with it a living of 140l. per annum ’offered him in Suffolk. He then applied himself to the study of physic, which he practised first at St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, and afterwards at Bishops Stortford, in the county of Hertford. His leisure time appears to have been employed in studying the history and antiquities of his country, on which subjects he published, 1. “A Survey of the Roman Antiquities in the Midland Counties in England,” 1726, 8vo. 2. “A Survey of the Roman Stations in Britain, according to the Roman Itinerary,” 1721, 8vo. 3. “The History of Hertfordshire, describing the county and its ancient monuments, particularly the Roman, with the characters of those that have been the chief possessors of the lands, and an account of the most memorable occurrences,” 1728, folio. This was designed as a continuation of Chauncey’s History, and was dedicated to the earl of Hertford. 4. “The Lives of the English Bishops from the Restoration to the Revolution, fit to be opposed to the Aspersions of some late Writers of Secret History,” 1733, a work which we have occasionally found very useful, although the author’s prejudices, in some instances, appear rather strong. 5. “A Survey of the Roman Stations in England,” 1731, (an improved edition probably of the first two works above mentioned) 2 vols. 8vo. C. “The Antiquities of Surrey, collected from the most ancient records, and dedicated to Sir John Evelyn, bart. with some Account of the Present State and Natural History of the County,” 1736, 8vo. 7. “The History and Antiquities of Essex, from the Collections of Mr. Strangeman,” in folio, with some notes and additions of his own; but death put a stop to this work, when he had gone through about two thirds of the county, so that the hundreds of Chelmsford, Hinkford, Lexden, Tendring, and Thurstable, were left unfinished.

Sanctorius was the first who directed the attention of physicians to the importance of insensible perspiration in the animal ceconomy, concerning which he had gone through a long course of experiments upon himself. For these he constructed a kind of statical chair; by means of which, after weighing the aliments he took in, and the sensible secretions and discharges, he was enabled to determine with wonderful exactness the weight or quantity of insensible perspiration, as well as what kind of food or drink increased and diminished it. On these experiments he erected a curious system, which was long admired by the faculty. It was divulged first at Venice in 1614, under the title of “Ars de Statica Medicina,” comprehended in seven sections of aphorisms; and was often reprinted at different places, with corrections and additions by the author. It was translated into French, and published at Paris 1722; and we had next an English version of it, with large explanations, by Dr. Quincy; to the third edition of which in 1723, and perhaps to the former, is added, “Dr. James Keil’s Medicina Statica Britannica. with comparative remarks and explanations; as also physico-medical essays on agues, fevers, on elastic fibre, the gout, the leprosy, king’s-­evil, venereal diseases, by Dr. Quincy.”

, an English writer, whose history may not be unuseful, was a native of Scotland, and born in, or near, Breadalbane, about 1727. He was by business a comb-maker; but not being successful in trade, and having some talents, some education, and a good memory, he commenced a hackney writer, and in that capacity produced some works which have been relished by the lower class of readers. When he came to London is uncertain; but, having travelled over most of the northern parts of these kingdoms, he compiled, from his own survey and the information of books, an itinerary, entitled “The Complete English Traveller,” folio. It was published in numbers, with the fictitious name of Spencer, professedly on the plan of Fuller’s Worthies, with biographical notices of the most eminent men of each county. As the dealers in this kind of publications thought it too good a thing to be lost, it has been republished, depriving Mr. Spencer of his rights, and giving them to three fictitious gentlemen, Mr. Burlington for England, Mr. Murray for Scotland, and Mr. Llewellyn for Wales. He also compiled, about 1764, a work in 5 or 6 vols. 8vo, with cuts, entitled “The Newgate Calendar, or Memoirs of those unfortunate culprits who fall a sacrifice to the injured laws of their country, and thereby make their exit at Tyburn.” He was some time engaged with lord Lyttelton, in assisting his lordship to compile his “History of Henry II.;” and Dr. Johnson, in his life of that poetical nobleman, introduces this circumstance in no very honourable manner. “When time,” says he, “brought the history to a third edition, Reid (the former corrector) was either dead or discharged; and the superintendence of typography and punctuation was committed to a man originally a conjb-maker, but then known by the style of Doctor Sanders. Something uncommon was probably expected, and something uncommon was at last done; for to the doctor’s edition is appended, what the world had hardly seen before, a list of errors of nineteen pages. 7 ' His most considerable work was his” Gaffer Greybeard,“an illiberal piece, in 4 vols. 12mo, in which the characters of the most eminent dissenting divines, his contemporaries, are very freely handled. He had, perhaps suffered either by the contempt or the reproof of some of that persuasion, and therefore endeavoured to revenge himself on the whole, ridiculing, in particular, Dr. Gill under the name of Dr. Half-pint, and Dr. Gibbons under that of Dr. Hymn-maker. He was also the author of the notes to a Bible published weekly under the name of the rev. Henry Southwell: for this he received about twentyfive or twenty-six shillings per week, while Dr. Southwell, the pseudo-commentator, received one hundred guineas for the use of his name, he having no other recommendation to the public, by which he might merit a posthumous memory, than his livings. Dr. Sanders also compiled” Letter-writers,“” Histories of England,“and other works of the paste and scissors kind but his” Roman History," written in a series of letters from a nobleman to his son, in 2 vols. 12mo, has some merit. Towards the latter end of his days he projected a general chronology of all nations, and had already printed some sheets of the work, under the patronage of lord Hawke, when a disorder upon his lungs put a period to his existence, March 19, 1783. He was much indebted to the munificence of Mr. Granville Sharp. More particulars of this man’s history and of the secrets of Bible-making may be seen in our authority.

We shall now give some account of his writings, which, for good sense, clear reasoning, and manly style, have always been much esteemed. In 1615, he published, 1. “Logicse Artis Compendium,” as we have already mentioned. In 1671 appeared, as a posthumous work, his “Physicae scientiss compendium,” printed at Oxford. 2. “Sermons,” preached and printed at different times, amounting to the number of thirty-six, 1681, folio; with the author’s life by Walton prefixed. 3. “Nine Cases of Conscience resolved;” published at different times, but first collected in 1678, 8vo. The last of these nine cases is “Of the use of the Liturgy,” the very same tract which was published by Walton in his Life of Sanderson, 1678, under the title of “Bishop Sanderson’s judgment concerning submission to Usurpers.” In this tract is given a full account of the manner in which Dr. Sanderson conducted himself, in performing the service of the church, in the times of the usurpation. 4. “De Juramenti Obligatione,” 1647, 8vo; reprinted several times since, with, 5. “De Obligatione Conscientiae.” This last was first printed, as we have said, at the request of Mr. Boyle, and dedicated to him; tfye former, viz. “De Juramenti Obligatione,” was translated into English by Charles I., during his confinement in the Isle of Wight, and printed at London in 1655, 8vo; and of both there is an English translation, entitled “Prelections on the Nature and Obligation of promissory oaths and of conscience,” London, 1722, 3 vols. 8vo, 6, “Censure of Mr. Antony Ascham his book of the Confusions and Revolutions of Government,” 1649, 8vo. This Ascham was the rump parliament’s agent at Madrid, and was murdered there by some English royalists. 7. “Episcopacy, as established by Law in England, not prejudicial to the Regal Power,' 7 1661, mentioned before. 8.” Pax Ecciesiae about Predestination, or theFive Points;“printed at the end of his Life by Walton, 8vo. Our bishop seems at first to have been a strict Calvinist in those points: for in 1632, when twelve of hissermons were printed together, the reader may observe in the margin some accusations of Arminius for false doctrine; but in consequence of his conferences with Dr. Hammond, he relaxed from the rigid sense, as appears by some letters that passed between them, and which are printed in Hammond’s works. 9.” Discourse concerning the Church in these particulars: first, concerning the visibility of the true Church; secondly, concerning the Church of Rome,“&c. 1688 published by Dr. William Asheton, from a ms copy, which he had from Mr. Pullen, the bishop’s domestic chaplain. 10. A large preface to a book of Usher’s, written at the special command of Charles I. and entitled,” The Power communicated by God to the Prince, and the Obedience required of the Subject,“&c. 1661, 4to, and 1633, 8vo. 11. A prefatory Discourse, in defence of Usher and his writings, prefixed to a collection of learned treatises, entitled,” Clavi Trabales; or, nails fastened by some great masters of atsemblies, confirming the king’s supremacy, the subjects’ duty, and church government by bishops,“1661, 4to. 12.” Prophecies concerning the return of Popery,“inserted in a book entitled” Fair Warning, the second part,“London, 1663. This volume contains also several extracts from the writings of Whitgift and Hooker, and was published with a view to oppose the sectaries, who were said to be opening a door at which popery would certainly enter. 13.” The preface to the Book of Common Prayer,“beginning with these words,” It hath been the wisdom of the church.“14.” Ectvo/X^, seu Explanatio Juramenti,“&c. inserted in the” Excerpta e corpore statutorum Univ. Oxon.“p. 194. It was written to explain the oath of obligation to observe the penal statutes. 15.” Articles of Visitation and Inquiry concerning matters ecclesiastical,“&c. Lotid. 1662, 4to. Dr. Sanderson and Dr. Hammond were jointly concerned in a work entitled” A pacific discourse of God’s grace and decrees,“and published by the latter in 1660. In the preface to the Polygiott, Dr. Bryan Walton has classed Dr. Sanderson among those of his much honoured friends who assisted him in that noble work. Peck, in the second volume of his” Desiderata Curiosa,“has published the” History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin St. Mary at Lincoln: containing an exact copy of all the ancient monumental inscriptions there, in number 163, as they stood in 1641, most of which were soon after torn up, or otherways defaced. Collected by Robert Sanderson, S.T. P. afterwards lord bishop of that church, and compared with and corrected by sir William DugdaleVMS survey."

, an English divine, was born about 1604, of a good family, in the parish of Eldsfield, Worcestershire. He entered of Baliol college, Oxford, as a commoner in 1621, took the degree of B. A. in Nov. 1625, in 1628 was made probationer fellow, and in 1630 completed his master’s degree. On the commencement of the rebellion, he travelled into France with William lord Sandys, whose sister, the lady Mary, he afterwards married. Soon after his return he obtained the mastership of his college, Feb. 20, 1650, being at that time bachelor of divinity, and next year took his doctor’s degree in the same faculty. Notwithstanding this compliance with the usurping powers, he was, on the restoration, made chaplain in ordinary to his majesty, prebendary of Gloucester in 1665, and rector of Bladon near Woodstock in Oxfordshire. He died, master of Baliol college, June 2, 1672, and was buried in the chapel.

We have already mentioned several noble instances of his munificence to the republic of letters: and his works exhibit equal zeal for the promotion of literature. In 1581, he published an English version of, 1. “Four Books of the Histories of Cornelius Tacitus, and the Life of Agricola; with notes upon them,” folio, dedicated to queen Elizabeth. The notes were esteemed so valuable as to be translated into Latin by Isaac Gruter, and published at Amsterdam, 1649, in 12mo, to which Gruter subjoined a treatise of our author, published ia 1598, under the title, 2. “A View of certain Military Matters, or commentaries concerning Roman Warfare;” which, soon after its first appearance, was translated into Latin by Marquardus Freherus, and printed at Heidelberg in 1601, but having become exceeding scarce, was reprinted by Gruter. In 1596, he published a collection of the best ancient writers of our English history, entitled, 3. “Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedain praecipui, ex vetustissimis codicibus nunc primum in lucem editi:” to which he added chronological tables at the end, from Julius Caesar to the coming in of William the Conqueror. This was reprinted at Francfort in 1601, which edition has a complete index to it. The collection contains William of Malmsbury’s history of the kings of England, and the lives of the English bishops; the histories of Henry of Huntingdon the annals of Roger de Hoveden the chronicle of Ethelvverd, and the history of Ingulphus with a dedication to queen Elizabeth, &c. Wharton, in the preface to his “Anglia Sacra,” objects only to Malmsbury’s history, which he says was printed from an incorrect ms. 4. He undertook and finished an edition, most beautifully printed, of “St. Chrysostom’s Works” in Greek, printed in 1613, 8 vols. folio. In the preface, he says, “that, having himself visited, about twelve years before, all the public and private libraries in Britain, and copied out thence whatever he thought useful to his design, he then sent some learned men into France, Germany, Italy, and the East; to transcribe such parts as he had not already, and to collate the others with the best manuscripts.” At the same time, he makes his acknowledgment to several great men for their assistance; as Thuanus, Velserus, Schottus, Isaac Casaubon, Fronto Duca3us, Janus Gruterus, Hoeschelius, &c. In the eighth volume are inserted sir Henry Savile’s own notes, with those of the learned John Bois, Thomas Allen, Andrew Downes, and other learned men. The whole charge of this edition, including the several sums paid to learned men, at home and abroad, employed in finding out, transcribing, and collating, the best manuscripts, is said to have amounted to no less than 8000l.; but, as soon as it was finished, the bishops and clergy of France employed, somewhat unfairly, as has been said, Fronton Due, or Fronto Ducaeus, who was a learned Jesuit, to reprint it at Paris, in 10 vols. folio, with a Latin translation, which lessened the price of sir Henry’s edition; yet we are told, that the thousand copies which he printed were all sold*. In 1618, he published a Latin work, written by Thomas Bradwarclin, abp. of Canterbury, against Pelagius, entitled, 5. “De Causa Dei contra Pelagium, et de virtute causarum;” to which he prefixed the life of Bradwardin. This book was printed from six Mss. carefully collated. 6. “Nazianzen’s Steliteutics,” 1610. Towards this, says Oldys, he was favoured with the ms epistles of Nazianzen out of the Bod* leian library, “which was a singular courtesy, and done because of his affection to the storing and preserving of the library,” as if any thing could have been refused to such a benefactor. 7. “Xenophon’s Institution of Cyrus,” Gr. 1613, 4to. In 1621, he published a collection of his own mathematical lectures. 8. <: Praelectiones Tredecim in principium Elementorum Euclidis Oxoniae habitae,“4to. 9.” Oratio coram Elizabetha Regina Oxonice hahita, anno 1592,“Oxon. 1658, 4to; published by Dr. Barlow from the original in the Bodleian library, and by Dr. Lamphire, in the second edition of *' Monarchia Britannica,” Oxford, 1681, 8vo. 10. He translated into Latin king James’s 46 Apology for the Oath of Allegiance.“Six letters of his, written to Hugo Blotius, and Sebastian Tenguagelius, keepers of the imperial library, were published in Lambecius’s” Bibliotheca,“vol. III.; four are printed among” Camdeni fcpistolae,“and others are in the Cotton and, Harleian Mss. He was also concerned in the new translation of the Bible, executed by command of James I. being one of the eight persons at Oxford who undertook to translate the four Gospels, Acts, and Revelations. He left behind him several Mss. some of which are now in the Bodleian library, such as 1.” Orations.“2.” Tract of the original of Monasteries.“3.” Tract concerning the Union of England and Scotland, written at the command of king James I.' 1 He wrote notes likewise upon the margin of many books in his library, particularly of Eusebius’s

, a celebrated commander, was born October 19, 1696, at Dresden, and was the natural son of Frederick Augustus If. king of Poland, and Aurora, countess of Konigsinarc. He gave evident proofs of his taste for military affairs from his childhood; was taught to read and write with the utmost difficulty; nor could he ever be prevailed upon to study a few ho irs in the morning, otherwise than by a promise that he should ride on horseback in the afternoon. He liked to have Frenchmen about him, for which reason their language was the only foreign one which he willingly learnt grammatically. He attended the elector in all his military expeditions; was at the siege of Lisle in 1708, when only twelve years old, and mounted the trenches several times both at the city and at the fortress, in sight of the king, his father, who admired his intrepidity. Nor did he discover less courage at the siege of Tournay, the year following, where he twice narrowly escaped death; and at the buttle of Malplaquet, far from being shocked by the dreadful carnage which attended the engagement, he declared in the evening, “that he was well pleased with the day.” In 1711, he followed the king of Poland to Stralsund, where he swam over the river, in sight of the enemy, with his pistol in his hand, during which time he saw, /vithout any seeming emotion, three officers and above twenty soldiers fall by his side. When he retired to Dresden, the king, who had been witness to his courage and abilities, raised a company of horse for him. Count Saxe spent the whole winter in teaching his regiment some new evolutions, which he had invented, and marched them against the Swedes the year following. This regiment suffered much st the battle of Gadelbusli, where he made them return three times to the attack. This campaign being ended, mad. de Konigsmarc married him to the young countess de Loben, a rich and amiable lady, whose name Avas Victoria, which name, count Saxe afterwards said, contributed as much to fix his choice on the countess, as her beauty and largtr fortune. This lady brought him a son, who died young, and the count having at length a disagreement with her, procured his marriage to be dissolved in 1721, but promised the countess never to marry again, and kept his word. She married a Saxon officer soon after, by whom she had three children, and they lived in harmony together. It was with, great reluctance that the countess had consented to her Carriage being dissolved, for she loved count Saxe; and the latter frequently repented afterwards of having taken such a step. He continued to signalize himself in the war against Sweden, was at the siege of Stralsund in December 1715, when Charles XII. was blocked up, and had the satisfaction of seeing him in the midst of his grenadiers“. The behaviour of this celebrated warrior inspired count Saxe with a high degree of veneration, which he ever retained for his memory. He served against the Turks in Hungary in 1717, and on his return to Poland in 1718, received the order of the white eagle from the king. In 1720, he visited France, and the duke of Orleans, then regent, gave him a brevet of marechal de camp. Count Saxe afterwards obtained leave from his Polish majesty to serve in France, where he purchased a German regiment in 1722, which afterwards bore his name. He changed the ancient exercise of this regiment for one of his own invention; and the chevalier Folard, on seeing this exercise, foretold immediately, in his Commentary on Polybius, torn. III. b. ii. chap. 14, that count Saxe would be a great general. During his residence in France, he learnt mathematics and the art of fortification with astonishing facility, till 1725, when prince Ferdinand, duke of Courland, falling dangerously ill in the month of December, he turned his thoughts to obtaining the sovereignty of Courland. With this view, he set out for Mittau, and arrived there, May 18, 1726. He was received with open arms by the states, and had several private interviews with the duchess dowager of Courland, who had resided there since her husband’s decease. This lady was Anne Iwanaw, second daughter of the czar I wan Alexiowitz, brother of Peter the Great. Count Saxe, having communicated his design to her, soon engaged her in his interests; and she acted with such indefatigable ardour, and conducted affairs so well, that he was unanimously elected duke of Courland, July 5, 1726. Thia choice being; opposed by Poland and Russia, the duchess supported count Saxe with all her interest, and even went to Riga and Petersburg, where she redoubled her solicitations in favour of the late election. There seems indeed to be no doubt, but that, if the count had returned her passion, he would not only have maintained his ground in Courland, but shared the throne of Russia, which this princess afterwards ascended; but, during his stay at Mittau, an affair of gallantry between him and one of her ladies broke off the marriage, and induced the duchess to abandon him. From that moment the count’s affairs took an unhappy turn, and he was forced to go back to Paris in 1729. The following remarkable circumstance occurred during the course of his enterprise: Having written from Ccmrlandto France for a supply of men and money, mademoiselle le Couvreur, a celebrated actress, who was at that time attached to him, pawned her jewels and plate, and sent him 40,000 livres. When count Saxe returned to Paris, he applied himself to obtain a complete knowledge of the mathematics, and acquired a taste for mechanics. He refused the command of the Polish army offered him by the king, his brother, in 1733, and distinguished himself on the Rhine under marechal Berwick, particularly at the lines of Etlingen, and the siege of Philipsburg, after which he was made lieutenant-general August 1, 1734. Hostilities having recommenced on the death of the emperor Charles VI. count Saxc took Prague by assault, Nov. 26, 1741, then Egra and Ellebogen, raised a regiment of Hullans, and brought back marechal de Broglio’s army upon the Rhine, where, he fixed various posts, and seized the trenches of Lanterburg. He was appointed marechal of France, March 26, 1744, and commanded the main bocly of the army in Flanders, where he so exactly observed the motions of the enemies, who were superior in, number, and made use of such excellent manoeuvres, that he reduced them to remain inactive, for they were afraid to undertake any thing. This campaign in Fianders did count Saxe great honour, and was considered as a chefd'ceuvre of the military art. He won the famous battle of Fonterioi, under the king’s command, May 11, 1745, where, though sick and weak, he gave his orders with such presence of mind, vigilance, courage, and judgment, as made him the admiration of the whole army. This victory was followed by the capture of Tournay, which the French be^ sieged; of Ghent, Bruges, Oudenarde, Ostend, Ath, &c. and at the time that the campaign was supposed to be finished, he took Brussels, February 28, 1746. Nor was the next campaign less honourable to count Saxe. He won the battle of Kauconx, Oct. I 1, the same year, 1746; and his majesty, to reward such a constant series of glorious services, dtrlurod him marechal general of his camps and armies, Jan. 12, 1747. Marechal Saxe carried troops into Zealand, gained the battle of Lanfeldt, July 2 following-, approved the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, of which M. de Loewen made himself master, and took Maestrecht, May 7, 1748. In consequence of these victories a peace was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle, Oct. 18, the same year. Marechai Saxe went afterwards to Chambord, which the king had given him, ordered his regiment of Hullans thither, and kept a stud of wild horses, more proper for light cavalry than those used by the French. He visited Berlin some time after, and was magnificently entertained by his Prussian majesty. On his return to Paris, he formed a plan for the establishment of a colony in the island of Tobago; but gave it up, when he found that England and Holland opposed it. Count Saxe died, after a nine days 7 illness, at Chambord, Nov. 30, 1750, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. He wrote a book on the art of war, called” Mes Reveries/ 1 of which a very splendid edition, with his life, was published in 1757, 2 vols. 4to. There is also an English translation of it. His “Life” was printed in 1752 > vols. 12mo, reprinted often.

Such extraordinary merit did not escape the notice of king Charles II., who conferred on him the order of knighthood in 1669, and at the same time appointed him his principal physician. He was nominated to the same honourable office by his majesty’s brother, which he held both before and after his accession to the throne; and he also served king William in the same capacity. He was likewise appointed physician to the Tower of London, and held that office till his death, which occurred about 1696. Sir Charles Scarborough was married and left a son, who was created doctor of civil law at Oxford, in August 1702. In 1705, this gentleman printed in folio, from his father’s manuscript, “An English Translation of Euclid’s Elements, with excellent explanatory notes.” Sir Charles also wrote <c A Treatise upon Trigonometry;“”A Compendium of Lily’s Grammar;“and” An Elegy on Mr. Abraham. Cowley."

, a very learned chemist, was born in 1742, at Stralsund in the capital of Swedish Pomerania, where his father was a tradesman. Having shown an inclination to learn pharmacy, he was bound apprentice to an apothecary at Gottenburg, with whom he lived eight years, and at his leisure hours contrived to make himself master of the science of chemistry, reading the best authors, and making such experiments as his confined means would permit. From Gottenburg, he went to Malmo, and two years after to Stockholm. In 1773 he went to Upsal, and resided for some time in the house of Mr. Loock. Here Bergman first found him, saw his merit and encouraged it, adopted his opinions, defended him with zeal, and took upon him the charge of publishing his treatises. Under this liberal patronage (for Bergman procured him also a salary from the Swedish academy), Scheele produced a series of discoveries which at once astonished and delighted the world. He ascertained the nature of manganese discovered the existence and singular properties of oxymuriatic acid and gave a theory of the composition of muriatic acid, which promises fair to be the true one. He discovered a new earth which was afterwards called barytes; and he determined the constituents of the volatile alkali. All these discoveries are related in one paper published about 1772. He discovered and ascertained the properties of many acids, the nature of plumbago and molybdena; analyzed fluor spar, which had eluded the searches of all preceding chemists; and determined the constituents of tungstate of lime. His two essays on the prussic acid are particularly interesting, and display the resources of his mind, and his patient industry, in a very remarkable point of view. His different papers on animal substances are particularly interesting, and replete with valuable and accurate information. On one occasion, in his treatise on fire, Scheele attempted the very difficult and general subject of combustion; but his attempt was not crowned with success. The acuteness, however, with which he treated it deserves our admiration; and the vast number of new and important facts, which he brought forward in support of his hypothesis, is truly astonishing, and perhaps could not have been brought together by any other man than Scheele. He discovered oxygen gas, and ascertained the composition of the atmosphere, without any knowledge of what had been previously done by Dr. Priestley. His views respecting the nature of atmospheric air were much more correct than those of Priestley; and his experiments on vegetation and respiration, founded on those views, were possessed of considerable value. These and other discoveries which stamp the character of Scheele as a philosopher, are to be found generally in the transactions of the Royal Society of Stockholm. Dr. Beddoes published an English translation of mo t of his dissertations, with useful and ingenious notes. There is also an English translation of his dissertation on air and fire, with notes by Richard Kirwan, esq.

, a distinguished general, was descended of a noble family in Germany, and waa the son of count Schomberg, by his first wife, an English lady, daughter of the lord Dudley; which count was killed at the battle of Prague in Bohemia in 1620, together with several of his sons. The duke was born in 1608. He served first in the army of the United Provinces, and afterwards became the particular confident of William II. prince of Orange; in whose last violent actions he had so great a share, and particularly in the attempt upon Amsterdam, that, on the prince’s death in 1650, he retired into France. Here he gained so high a reputation, that, next to the prince of Conde, and Turenne, he was esteemed the best general in that kingdom; though, on account of his firm adherence to the Protestant religion, he was not for a considerable time raised to the dignity of a marshal. In Nov. 1659 he offered his service to Charles II. for his restoration to the throne of England; and, the year following, the court of France being greatly solicitous for the interest of Portugal against the Spaniards, he was sent to Lisbon; and in his way thither passed through England, in order to concert measures with king Charles for the suppoxt of Portugal. Among other discourse which he had with, that prince, he advised his majesty to set up for the head of the Protestant religion; which would give him a vast ascendant among the princes of Germany, make him umpire of all their affairs, procure him great credit with the protestants of France, and keep that crown in perpetual fear of him. He urged him likewise not to part with Dunkirk, the sale of which was then in agitation; since, considering the naval power of England, it could not be taken, and the possession of it would keep both France and Spain in a dependence upon his majesty.

, an English divine, who was born at Clifton, near Penrith, in Cumberland, of which place his father was rector, had his school-education at Lowther, and his academical at Queen’s college, in Oxford. Of this society he was chosen fellow in 1732. The greatest part of his life was spent at Twickenham, where he was assistant or curate to Dr. Waterland. In 1741, he was presented by his college to the living of Enham in Hampshire, at which place he died in 1747, without ever having obtained any higher preferment, which he amply deserved. He was exemplary in his morals, orthodox in his opinions, had an able head, and a most amiable heart. A late romantic writer against the Athanasian doctrines, whose testimony we choose to give, as it is truth extorted from an adversary, speaks of him in the following terms: “Notwithstanding this gentleman’s being a contender for the Trinity, yet he was a benevolent man, an upright Christian, and a beautiful writer; exclusive of his zeal for the Trinity, he was in every thing else an excellent clergyman, and an admirable scholar. 1 knew him well, and on account of his amiable qualities very highly honour his memory; though no two ever differed more in religious sentiments.” He published in his life-time, “Discourses on several important Subjects,” 2 vols. 8vo and his “Posthumous Works, consisting of sermons, letters, essays, &c.” in 2 vols. 8vo, were published from his original manuscripts by Jos. Hall, M. A. fellow of Queen’s college, Oxford, 1750. They are all very ingenious, and full of good matter, but abound too much in antithesis and point.

He spent his time like an English gentleman, with hospitality and without ostentation. In the winter he resided in London; and of late years, in the summer, he varied his place of abode. At one time he resided at Mr. Coxe’s house, near Salisbury; at another, near Reading; and the summer preceding his death, he made Richmond his residence. At all these places, and, indeed, wherever he came, he found acquaintances who respected and valued him for his amiable qualities. He bore a tedious illness with fortitude and resignation. Without expressing any impatience, he viewed the progress of his disorder, which he early discovered was a dangerous one; and continued his literary pursuits, and received his friends, until a few hours of his dissolution, which took place the 24th April 1799; and, a few days after, his remains were interred in the family vault at Finchley.

, an English poet and physician, was born at Windsor, where his father was treasurer and chapter-clerk of the college; received his education at Eton-school, and Peter-house, Cambridge; where having taken the degree of B. M. he went to Leyden, to study under Boerhaave, and on his return practised physic in the metropolis with reputation. In the latter part of his life he retired to Hampstead, where he pursued his profession with some degree of success, till three other physicians came to settle at the same place, when his practice so far declined as to yield him very little advantage. He kept no house, but was a boarder. He was much esteemed, and so frequently invited to the tables of gentlemen in the neighbourhood., that he had seldom occasion to dine at home. He died Feb. 8, 1726; and was supposed to be very indigent at the time of his death, as he was interred on the 12th of the same month in the meanest manner, his coffin being little better than those allotted by the parish to the poor who are buried from the workhouse; neither did a single friend or relation attend him to the grave. No memorial was placed over his remains; but they lie just under a hollow tree which formed a part of a hedge-row that was once the boundary of the church-yard. He was greatly esteemed for his amiable disposition; and is represented by some writers as a Tory in his political principles, but of this there is no other proof given than his writing some pamphlets against bishop Burnet. It is certain, that a true spirit of liberty breathes in many of his works; and he expresses, on many occasions, a warm attachment to the Hanover succession. Besides seven controversial pamphlets, he wrote, 1. “The Life of John Philips.” 2, “A vindication of the English Stage, exemplified in the Cato of Mr. Addison, 1716;” 3. “Sir Walter Raleigh, a tragedy, acted at Lincoln’s-inn-fields, 1719;” and part of another play, intended to be called “Richard the First,” the fragments of which were published in 1718, with “Two moral Essays on the Government of the Thoughts, and on Death,” and a collection of “Several poems published in his life-time^” Dr. Sewell was an occasional assistant to Harrison in the fifth volume of “The Tatler; was a, principal writer in the ninth volume of” The Spectator; and published a translation of “Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in opposition to the edition of Garth and an edition of Shakspeare’s Poems. Jacob and Gibber have enumerated a considerable number of his single poems; and in Mr. Nichols’s” Collection" are some valuable ones, unnoticed by these writers.

, an English dramatic poet, was descended of a good family in the county of Stafford, but born at Stanton-hail, in Norfolk, a seat of his father’s, about 1640. He was educated at Cains college in Cambridge, and afterwards placed in the Middle Temple; where he studied the law some time, and then went abroad. Upon his return from his travels he applied himself to the drama, and wrote seventeen plays, with a success which introduced him to the notice of several persons of wit and rank, by whom he was highly esteemed. At the Revolution he was, by his interest with the earl of Dorset, made historiographer and poet-laureat; and when some persons urged that there were authors who had better pretensions to the laurel, his lordship is said to have replied, " that he did not pretend to determine how great a poet Shadwell might be, but was sure that he was an honest man.' 7 He succeeded Dryden as poet-laureat; for Dryden had so warmly espoused the opposite interest, that at the Revolution he was dispossessed of his place. This, however, Dryden considered as an indignity, and resented it very warmly. He had once been on friendly terms with Shadwell, but some critical differences appear to have first separated them, and now Dryden introduced Shadwell in his Mac-Fleckno, in these lines:

On the accession of queen Anne, the archbishop was sworn one of her privy council, and was appointed lord almoner. In 1705, he Concurred with those who apprehended the church to be in danger; but their opinions, however zealously defended, when they became the subject of parliamentary debate, were discountenanced by a great majority; and the church was declared to be “in a most safe and flourishing condition.” In 1706, he was nominated one of the commissioners for treating of the union between England and Scotland. He is said to have been appointed merely out of respect to his dignity; but would not be present, even once, at the treaty. In the affair of Sacheverell, on which the opinions of men were so much divided, in 1709, he joined with those peers, who expressed the most contemptuous opinion of the sermon, bat did not > think the preacher guilty of a misdemeanour and who entered their protest against the sentence of the majority. He afterwards opposed the intended promotion of Swift to an English mitre, in this remarkable caution to the queen, "that her majesty should be sure that the man whom she

, an English poet, was descended from an antient family of the same name at Stanyhurst, in Lancashire. His grandfather, Henry, appears to have belonged, but in what capacity is not known, to Corpus Christi college, Oxford, and settled in that city, where Edward the father of our poet was born. This Edward went afterwards to London, and became secretary to the first East India company, established by queen Elizabeth’s charter, and in 1613, obtained a reversionary grant of the office of clerk of the ordnance. He was afterwards knighted by Charles I. He married Frances, the second daughter pf John Stanley of Roydon Hall, in Essex, esq. and resided in Goldsmith’s Rents, near Redcross-street, Cripplegate. Mis son, the poet, was born here Sept 18, 1618, and educated by the celebrated Thomas Farnaby, who then taught a school in Goldsmith’s rents. On his removal to Sevenoaks in Kent, in 1636, young Sherburne was educated privately, under the care of Mr. Charles Aleyn, the poetical historian of the battles of Cressy and Poictiers, who had been one of Farnaby’s ushers. On the death of Aleyn in 1640, his pupil being intended for the army, was sent to complete his education abroad, and had travelled in France and part of Italy, when his father’s illness obliged him to return. After his father’s death in 1641, he succeeded to the clerkship of his majesty’s ordnance, the reversion of which had been procured for him in 1638,- but the rebellion prevented his retaining it long. Being a Roman catholic, and firmly attached to the king, he was ejected by a warrant of the house of Lords in April or May 1642, and harassed by a long and expensive confinement in the custody of the usher of the black rod.

The peace of the country being now re-established, he appears to have applied himself to a studious life, and replenished his library, which, according to Wood, was esteemed one of the most considerable belonging to any gentleman in or near London. In 1675, he published “The Sphere of Marcus Manilius, made an English poem, with annotations, and an astronomical index,” which was honoured by the very particular and liberal approbation of the Royal Society; and in 1679, he published a translation of Seneca’s “Troades, or the Royal Captives/' and he left in manuscript a translation of” Hyppolitus,“which two, with the” Medea" before mentioned, he endeavoured to prove were all that Seneca wrote.

, an English dramatic writer and poet, was of an antient family, and born about 1594, in the parish of St. Mar) Wool-church, London. He was educated at Merchant-Taylors school, and thence removed to St. John’s college in Oxford; where Laud, then president of that college, had a good opinion of his talents, yet would often tell him, as Wood relates, that “he was an unfit person to take the sacred function upon him, and should never have his consent;” 'because Shirley had then a large mole upon his left cheek, which appeared a great deformity. Afterwards, leaving Oxford without a degree, he went to Katherine-hall, Cambridge, where he formed a close attachment with Bancroft, the epigrammatist, who has recorded their friendship in one of his epigrams. At Cambridge, Wood supposes he took the degree in arts, as he soon after entered into orders, and took a cure at or near St. Alban’s, in Hertfordshire; but, becoming unsettled in his principles, changed his religion for that of Rome, left his living, and taught a grammar school in the town of St. Alban’s. This employment being after some time uneasy to him, he retired to London, lived in Gray’s-inn, and commenced dramatic writer, which recommended him to the patronage of various persons of rank, especially Henrietta Maria, Charles the First’s queen, who made him her servant. His first comedy is dated 1629, after which he wrote nine or ten, between that year and 1637, when he went to Ireland, under the patronage of George earl of Kildare, to whom he dedicated his tragi-comedy of the “Royal Master,” and by whose influence that comedy was acted in the castle at Dublin, before the lord deputy. From Ireland he returned to England in 1638; but Wood says, that when the rebellion broke out, he was obliged to leave London and his family (for he had a wife and children), and, being invited by his patron, William earl of Newcastle, to accompany him in the wars, he attended his lordship. Upon the decline of the king’s cause, he retired to London; where, among other of his friends, he found Thomas Stanley, esq. author of the “Lives of Philosophers,” who supported him for the present. The acting of plays being now prohibited, he returned to his old occupation of teaching school, which he carried on in White Friars; and educated many youths, who afterwards proved eminent men. At the Restoration, several of his plays were brought upon the theatre again; and it is probable he subsisted very well, though it does not appear how. In 1666 he was forced, with his second wife Frances, by the great fire in September, from his house near Fleet-street, in the parish of St. Giles’s in the fields, where, being extremely affected with the loss and terror that fire occasioned, they both died within the space of twentv-four hours, and were both interred in the same grave, Oct. the 29th.

He passed a portion of the same year, 1784, at Gottingen, where he projected his first tour to Greece, the botanical investigation of which country had for some time past become the leading object of his pursuits. He first, however, visited the principal seats of learning in Germany, and made a considerable stay at Vienna, where he procured an excellent draughtsman, Mr. Ferdinand Bauer, to be the companion of his expedition. On the 6th of March, 1786, they set out together from Vienna, and early in May sailed from Naples to Crete, where, in the month of June, as his biographer says, “they were welcomed by Flora in her gayest attire.” The ensuing winter they spent at Constantinople, in the course of which Dr. Sibthorp devoted himself to the study of the modern Greek. On the 14th of March, 1787, they sailed from Constantinople for Cyprus, taking the islands of Mytilene, Scio, Cos, and Rhodes, and touching at the coast of Asia minor in their way. A stay of five weeks at Cyprus enabled Dr. Sibthorp to draw up a “Fauna” and Flora“of that island. The former consists of eighteen mammalia, eighty-five birds, nineteen amphibia, and one hundred fishes; the latter comprehends six hundred and sixteen species of plants, These and his other catalogues were greatly augmented by subsequent observations, insomuch that the number of species, collected from an investigation of all Dr. Sibthorp’s manuscripts and specimens for the materials of the” Pro-. dromus Florae Graecai," amounts to about 3000. Without minutely tracing our traveller’s steps throiigh Greece, or the various islands of the Archipelago, we may notice that his health, which suffered from the confinement of a ship, and the heat of the weather, was restored at Athens, where he arrived June lyth, 1787. From thence he prosecuted his journeys in various directions, and with various successes. The ascent of mount Delphi*, or Delphi, in Negropont, one of his most laborious, if not perilous adventures, yielded him an abundant botanical harvest; and mount Athos, which he visited a week after, also greatly enriched Ifis collection of rare plants. From hence he proceeded to Thessalonica, Corinth, and Patras, at which last place he embarked with Mr. Bauer, on board an English vessel, for Bristol, on the 24th of September. After a tedious and stormy voyage, they arrived in England the first week in December.

In 1684 he published, at Francfort, “Histoire de l'Origine et du Progres des Revenus Ecclesiastiques,” or, “The History of the Rise and Progress of Ecclesiastical Revenues,” under the name of Jerome a Costa. A second edition of it, with great additions, was printed at Francfort, 1709, in 2 vols. 12mo. In 1684 he published, at London, “Disquisitiones Criticae de variis per diversa loca et tempora Bibliorum Editionibus,” &c. and in the same year, at the same place, appeared an English translation of it, with this title, “Critical Enquiries into the various editions of the Bible, printed in divers places and at several times, together with animadversions upon a small treatise of Dr. Isaac Vossius concerning the oracles of the Sibyls.” There is his usual display of learning in this piece, which may be considered as an abridgment of his “Critical History of the Old Testament.” In 1686, he published an answer to Le Clerc, who had criticised his work the year before; and, upon Le Clerc’s replying in 1686, another in 1687, both under the name of the Prior of Bolleville, at which place he then resided,

In 1688 he published at Francfort, under the name of John Reuchlin, “Dissertation Critique sur la Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecc'eYiastiques par Du Pin, &c.” in which he supports with great spirit some principles in his “Critical History of the Old Testament,” which had been controverted by Du Pin. In 1689 came out his “Histoire Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament,” an English version of which was published the same year at London; in 1690, “Histoire Critique des versions du Nouveau Testament;” in 1693, “Histoire Critique des principaux Commentateurs du Nouveau Testament;” in all which, as indeed in every thing else he wrote, there appears great acuteness, and great learning, with, however, an unfortunate propensity to singularities and novelties of opinion, and too much contempt for those who differed from him, and in this last work he has perhaps unsettled more than he has settled. In 1702 he published a French translation of the New Testament, with critical remarks, in 2 vols. 8vo: which was censured by cardinal de Noailles, and Bossuet, bishop of Meaux. In 1714, was published at Amsterdam, in 2 vols. 12mo, “Nouvelle Bibliotheque Choisie,” or, “A new select library, which points out the good books in various kinds of literature, and tht? use to be made of them;” but this must be reckoned a posthumous work; for Simon died at Dieppe in April 1712, in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried in St. James’s church.

, an ancient philosopher of the sixth century, was a native of Cihcia, a disciple of Ammonias, the peripatetic, and endeavoured to unite the Platonic and Stoic doctrines with the peripatetic. Distrusting his situation under the emperor Justinian, he went to Cosroes king of the Persians: but returned to Athens, after it had been stipulated in a truce between the Persians and the Romans, A. D. 549, that he and his friends should live quietly and securely upon what was their own, and not be compelled by the Christians to depart from the religion of their ancestors. From his wish to unite discordant sects, he is called by a modern (Peter Petit) “omnium veterum philosophorurn coagulum.” He wrote commentaries upon several of Aristotle’s works, once thought to be valuable in themselves, but now consulted only for some curious fragments of ancient philosophers preserved in them. Of these there are three Aldine editions, 152b and 1527. But, of all his productions, some of which are lost, at least unpublished, his “Commentary upon Epictetus” has obtained most reputation. Fabricius is of opinion, that there is nothing in Pagan antiquity better calculated to form the manners, or to give juster ideas of a Divine Providence. It has been several times printed in Greek and Latin, particularly at Ley den, 1639, in 4to, and at London, in 1670, in 8vo. Dacier published a French translation of it at Paris, 1715, 12mo; and Dr. George Stanhope an English one at London, 1704, 8vo.

His infirmities increasing, after fifty years labour in the ministry with unexampled diligence, he now found himself incapable any longer of the discharge of his public duties, and in 1780 took his final leave of Fintona, and removed to Dublin, to end his days. Here he received great respect from many of the higher dignitaries of the church, and in 1781 the university offered him the degree of doctor of divinity, which he declined. In 1784 he published by subscription a sixth volume of his works, containing “An Appeal to common sense on the subject of Christianity,” &c. or a historical proof of the truth of Christianity, superior in style and arrangement to any of his former productions, and which shewed that his faculties were in full force at the age of seventy-six. In the same volume, are “Some Thoughts on Common Sense,” some hymns, and a Latin poem. In 1786 he published his seventh volume, entitled *' Senilia, or an Old Man’s Miscellany," In the same year he published a short answer to a catechism, written by an English clergyman, and used at Sunday schools, which he supposed to contain an erroneous doctrine with respect to the state of men after death, and sent a copy to all the bishops of England and Ireland. The archbishop of Dublin was so convinced by it, that he stopped the use of the catechism in his diocese.

, an English antiquary, was born either in London, or in the county of Middlesex, about 1622. He was admitted on the royal foundation at Christ church in Oxford, 1638; but, the rebellion breaking out before he could take any degree, he travelled, and studied in several universities abroad. About 1646, he returned home; and going to Oxford, which at this time ceased to be a garrison, he took both the degrees in arts the same year. He then resumed his travels through France, Italy, Germany, the Spanish Netherlands, and other countries; visited the courts of several princes; frequented the principal universities; and established an acquaintance with the learned in different parts of Europe. On the restoration of the university of Heidelberg, by Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine, he was honoured with a doctor of physic’s degree; and, returning to England, was incorporated into the same at Oxford in 1654. About this time he settled at Lincoln; where, after practising physic with success, he died of a malignant fever, Sept. 5, 1667. Wood says, “He was a person well versed in most parts of learning, understood all books whether old or new, was most skilful in the Oriental tongues, an excellent Grecian, and, in short, a living library.”

, an English divine of popular fame in the sixteenth century, was born in 1550 of a good family at Withcock in Leicestershire, and after purstuing his studies at Oxford, entered into the church. Wood thinks he took the degree of M. A. as a member of Hart-hall, in 1583; and adds, that “he was then esteemed the miracle and wonder of his age, for his prodigious memory, and for his fluent, eloquent, and practical way of preaching.” His scruples, however, as to subscription and ceremonies were such, that being loth, as his biographer Fuller informs us, “to make a rent either in his own conscience or in the church,” he resolved not to undertake a pastoral charge, but accepted the office of lecturer of the church of St. Clement Danes, London. Here he was patronized by William Cecil, lord Burleigh, to whom he dedicated his sermons, and who prevented the prosecutions to which the other scrupulous puritans were at that time exposed. He appears to have been one of the most popular preachers of his age. Fuller informs us, as an instance, that after his preaching a sermon on Sarah’s nursing of Isaac, in which he maintained the doctrine that it was the duty of all mothers to nurse their own children, “ladies and great gentlewomen presently remanded their children from the vicinage round about London, and endeavoured to discharge the second moietie of a mother, and to nurse them, whom they had brought into the world.” Their compliance with his instructions on this point was the more condescending 1 as Mr. Smith was a bachelor.

, an English divine, was born in Warwickshire in 1563, and elected a scholar of St. John’s college, Oxford, in 1577, where he also obtained a fellowship; and Wood informs us, was “highly valued in the university for piety and parts, especially by those that excelled in both.” He succeeded Dr. Lancelot Andrews as lecturer in St. Paul’s cathedral, London, and was much admired as a preacher. He was presented to the vicarage of Clavering in Essex, in Sept. 1592, where “he shined as a star in its proper sphere, antl was much reverenced for his religion, learning, humility, and holiness oi 'ife.” Wood also speaks of him as being skilled in the original languages, and well acquainted with the writings of the ablest divines. He died Nov. 1616, and was buried in the church of Clavering. He left several books to the library of St. John’s college, and a singular bequest “to ten faithful and good ministers, that have been deprived upon that unhappy contention about the ceremonies in question, 20l. i. e. 40s. to each; and hopes that none will attempt to defeat those parties of this his gilt, considering God in his own law hath provided that the priests of Aaron, deposed for idolatry, should be maintained; and that the canonlaw saith, Si quis excommunicatis in sustentationem dare aiiquid voluerit, non prohibemus.” Mr. Smith’s works are,

, an English divine of distinguished learning, was descended of an ancient family originally seated at Durham, and was the eldest son of the rev. William Smith, rector of Lowther in Westmoreland, by Elizabeth, his wife, daughter of Giles Wetherali of Stockton near Durham. His grandfather, Matthew Smith, was a barrister, and of much reputation for his skill in the law, and for some valuable annotations which he left in ms. on Littleton’s tenures. He wrote also some poetical pieces and two dramas, for which he is commemorated in Gibber’s “Lives of the Poets.” During the rebellion he took up arms in defence of Charles I. and served under prince Rupert, particularly at the battle of Marston-moor in 1644, for which he and his family were plundered and sequestered.

His works are, 1. “De Republica Anglorum, or the Manner of government or police of the kingdom of England,” first printed in 4to, 1533 and 1584, and again with additions “Of the cheefe Courts in England,” 1589, 4to, and again in 1594. It was afterwards often reprinted both in English and Latin, and in the latter language forms one of the “Respublicae.” There is an English ms. of it in the Harleian collection. 2. “De recta et emendata lingua? Grcecie pronunciatione,” of which we have spoken already. 3. “A Treatise concerning the correct writing and true pronunciation of the English tongue,” which does sir Thomas less credit than the former. He even went so far in his whimsical reformation of our language, as to compose a new alphabet, consisting of twenty-nine letters, nineteen of which were Roman, four Greek, and six English or Saxon. An engraving of this novelty is given by Strype in his life of sir Thomas. 4. “Four Orations, for and against queen Elizabeth’s marriage,” also in Strype. 5. Several letters to lord Burleigh and sir Francis Walsingham, printed in the “Complete Ambassador,” and in other collections; and many in ms. are in the paper-office and other public repositories. 6. “Device for the alteration and reformation of Religion,” written in 155S, and printed among the records at the end of Burnet’s History of the Reformation," is attributed by Strype to sir Thomas Smith. Among the Harleian Mss. is a discourse written by our author to sir William Cecil, upon the value of the Roman foot soldiers 7 daily wages. It is comprised in 29 sections. Some of the tables are printed by Strype. Sir Thomas also left some English poetry. Warton informs us, that while a prisoner in the Tower (a circumstance, if we mistake not, overlooked by Strype, but which must have been the consequence of his attachment to the duke of Somerset) he translated eleven of the Psalms into English metre, and composed three English metrical prayers, with three English copies of verses besides. These are now in the British Museum Mss. Reg. 17 A. XVII.

, an ecclesiastical historian, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, was born at Constantinople, in the reign of Theodosius. He studied grammar under Helladius and Ammonius, who, having fled from Alexandria to Constantinople, had opened a school there; and, after he had finished his studies, for some time professed the law, and pleaded at the bar, whence he obtained the name of Scholasticus. In the decline of life he undertook to write the history of the church, beginning from 309, where Eusebius ends, and continued it down to 440, in seven books. This history is written, as Valesins his editor observes, with much judgment and exactness. His veracity may be presumed from his industry in consulting the original records, acts of council, bishops’ letters, and the writings of his contemporaries, of which he often gives extracts. He is also careful in setting down the succession of bishops, and the years in which every thing was transacted; and describes them by consuls and olympiads. His judgment appears in his reflections and observations, which are rational and impartial. He has been accused of being a Novatian; and it cannot be denied that he speaks well of that sect: yet, as Valesius has proved, he was not one of them, but adhered to the church, while he represents them as separated from it. What he says of these Novatians is only a proof of his candour and generous peaceable temper. His style is plain and easy; and has nothing in it of declamation, which he treats with contempt. His history has been translated into Latin, and published in Greek and Latin by Valesius, together with Eusebius and the other ecclesiastical historians; and republished, with additional notes by Reading, at London, 1720, 3 vols, folio. There is also an English edition printed at Cambridge, 1683, fol.

, an English poet, was descended from a very ancient family in the county of Warwick. His ancestors had large possessions at Kingston, in Worcestershire, so early as the reign of Edward I. He was the son of Robert Somervile, of Edston, in Warwickshire, and, as he says himself, was born near Avon’s banks. He was born at Edston, in Warwickshire, in 1692, bred at Winchester school, and chosen from thence fellow of New college, Oxford, as was his brother Dr. Somervile, rector of Adderbury, in Oxfordshire. Dr. Johnson says, he “never heard of him but as a poet, a country gentter man, and a useful justice of the peace;” and indeed very little is known of his history.

In 1653 he embraced the Popish religion; and, going to Paris in 1654, published, according to custom, a discourse upon the motives of his conversion, which he dedicated to cardinal Mazarine. He went afterwards to Rome, where he made himself known to Alexander VII, by a Latin letter addressed to that pope, in which he inveighed against the envious Protestants, as he called them. Upon his return from Rome, he came over to England; and afterwards published, in 1664, a relation of his voyage hither, which brought him into trouble and disgrace; for, having taken some unwarrantable liberties with the character of a nation with which France at that time thought it policy to be on good terms, he was stripped of his title of “Historiographer of France,” which had been given him by the king, and sent for some time into banishment. His book also was discountenanced and discredited, by a tract published against it in the city of Paris; while Sprat, afterwards bishop of Rochester, refuted its absurdities in “Observations on M. de Sorbiere’s Voyage into England,” 1665, 12mo. This work was reprinted with an English edition of Sorbiere’s voyage, and a life of him in 1709, 8vo. Voltaire has also been very severe upon this work: “I would not,” says he, “imitate the late Mr. Sorbiere, who, having stayed three months in England, without knowing any thing either of its manners or of its language, thought fit to print a relation, which proved but a dull scurrilous satire upon a nation he knew nothing of.”

, Sotwellus, but properly Southwell (Nathaniel), was an English Jesuit of the seventeenth century, and is entitled to some notice, as one of the historians of his order, but we have no particulars of his own life. Being employed to write the lives of eminent authors among the Jesuits, he carried on the plan of llibadeneira and Alegambe down to his own times, that is, the latter part of the seventeenth century. His improved edition was published under the title of “Bibliotheca scriptorum societatis Jesu, opus inchoatum a R. P. Petro Ribadeneira, et productum ad annum 1609: continuatum a Philippo Alegambe ad annum 1643; recognitum, et productum ad annum 1675, a Nathanaelo Sotvvello,” Rome, 1676, fol. This is, of course, reckoned the best edition of this collection of biography, but some prefer that of Alegambe, on account of its superior correctness.

, an English divine of great parts and learning, but of very inconsistent character, was the son of a merchant in London, and born at Hackney, in Middlesex, 1633. He was educated in Westminster-school, under Dr. Busby, where he acquired an uncommon share of grammatical and philological learning. In 1648 he made himself remarkable by reading the Latin prayers in the school, on the day in which king Charles was beheaded, and praying for that prince by name. He continued four years at Westminster, and in 1651 was elected thence student of Christchurch, Oxford. He took a bachelor of arts degree in 1654; and the same year wrote a copy of Latin verses, to congratulate the protector Cromwell upon the peace concluded with the Dutch. They were published in a collection of poems by the university. The year after, he published another Latin poem, entitled “Musica Incantans; sive Poema exprimens Musicse vires juvenem in insaniam abigentis, et?lusici hide periculum.” This was at that time highly appLuded for the beauty of the language, and was printed at the request of Dr. Fell; but it is said that Dr. South, to his dying day, regretted the publication of it, as a juvenile and trifling performance. He commenced M. A. in June 1657, alter performing all the preparatory exercises for it with the highest applause, and such wit and humour, as justly entitled him to represent the Terra: F'dius, in which character he spoke the usual speech at the celebration of the act the same year. He preached frequently, and (as Wood thinks) without any orders. He appeared, at St. Mary’s, the great champion for Calvinism against Sociniuuism and Arminianisir; and his behaviour was such, and his talents esteemed so exceedingly useful and serviceable, that the heads of that party were considering how to give proper encouragement and proportionable preferment to so hopeful a convert. In the mean time the protector Cromwell died and then, the presbyterians prevailing over the independents,South sided with them. He began to contemn, and in a manner to defy, the dean of his college. Dr. Owen, who was reckoned the head of the independent party; upon which the doctor plainly told him, that he was one who “sate in the seat of the scornful.” The author of the memoirs of South’s life tells us, that he was admitted into holy orders according to the rites and ceremonies of the church or England, in 1658. In July 1659, he preached the assize-sermon at Oxford, in which he inveighed vehemently against the independents; and by this greatly pleased the presbyterians, who made him their acknowledgments. The same year, when it was visible that the king would be restored, he appeared someuhat irresolute, yet was still reckoned a member of “the fanatic ordinary,” as Wood expresses it; but, as his majesty’s restoration approached, he began to exercise his pulpittalents, which were very great, as much against the presbyterians, as he had done before against the independents. Such was the conduct and behaviour of this celebrated divine in the earlier part of his life, as it is described by his contemporary in the university, Mr. Anthony Wood; and if Wood was not unreasonably prejudiced against him, he is, doubtless, to be classed among those time-servers, who know no better use of the great abilities God has given them, than to obtain the favour of those who can reward them best .

, an English dramatic writer, who has been very improperly admitted by Wood into the “Athenae Oxonienses,” and grossly misrepresented in every particular, was born at Dublin in 1659, and was admitted a student of Trinity college, March 30, 1676, where Dr. Whitenhall was his tutor. In his eighteenth year, he quitted Ireland, and removed to the Middle-Temple, London, where he devoted himself to play-writing and poetry, instead of law. His “Persian Prince, or Loyal Brother,” in 1682, was introduced at a time when the Tory interest was triumphant in England; and the character of the Loyal Brother was no doubt intended to compliment James duke of York, who afterwards rewarded him. After his accession to the throne, Southern went into the army, and served as ensign, upon the duke of Monmouth’s landing, in earl Ferrers’s regiment, before the duke of Berwick had it. This affair being over, he retired to his studies; and wrote several plays, from which he is supposed to have drawn a very handsome subsistence. In the preface to his tragedy called “The Spartan Dame,” he acknowledges, that he received from the booksellers as a price for this play 150l. which was thought in 1721, the time of its being published, very extraordinary. He was the first who raised the advantage of play-writing to a second and third night; which Pope mentions in these lines:

, an English Jesuit and poet, was born in 1560, and is said to have descended from an ancient family, either in Norfolk or Suffolk. Being sent abroad for education, he became a Jesuit at Rome, Oct. 1578. In 1585, he was appointed prefect of studies in the English college there, and not long after was sent as a missionary into England. His chief residence was with Anne countess of Arundel, who died in the Tower of London. After carrying on his mission for some time, he was, in July 1592, apprehended and examined with the strictest rigour, but having evaded the questions put to him, was imprisoned for three years, and as he affirmed, underwent the torture several times. He owned that he was a priest and a Jesuit, that he came into England to preach the truths of the catholic religion, and was prepared to lay down his life for it. In Feb. 1595, he was tried at the bar of the King’s Bench, Westminster, and executed the next day at Tyburn. He was a man of singular parts, says Dodd, and happy in a peculiar talent of expressing himself in the English language, both in prose and verse. Edmund Bolton, whom Warton calls a sensible critic, speaks of Southwell’s works in the same strain of panegyric “Never must be forgotten St. Peter’s complaint, and those other serious poems said to be father Southwell’s: the English whereof, as it is most proper, so the sharpness and light of wit is very rare in them.” Mr. Headley seems first to have revived the memory of Southwell, as a poet, by some curious specimens, in which he has been followed by Mr. Ellis. “There is a moral charm,” says Headley, “in the little pieces of Southwell, that will prejudice most readers of feeling in their favour.” Unless, however, there were encouragement for republication, which is not very probable, Southwell’s fame must principally rest on these specimens, as his works are rarely to be met with; yet Mr. Ellis remarks that the few copies known to exist, are the remnant of at least twenty-four different editions, of which eleven were printed between 1593 and 1600.

, an English divine, and polite scholar, was born in 1698, we know not of what parents, and educated probably at Winchester school, whence he became a fellow of New college, Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. Nov. 2, 1727 and in that year became first known to the learned world by “An Essay on Pope’s Odyssey; in which some particular beauties and blemishes of that work are considered, in two parts,” 12mo. “On the English Odyssey, says Dr. Johnson,” a criticism was published by Spence, a man whose learning was not very great, and whose mind was not very powerful. His criticism, however, was commonly just; what he thought, he thought rightly; and his remarks were recommended by his coolness and candour. In him Pope had the first experience of a critic without malevolence, who thought it as much his duty to display beauties as expose faults; who censured with respect, and praised with alacrity. With this criticism Pope was so little offended, that he sought the acquaintance of the writer, who lived with him from that time in great familiarity, attended him in his last hours, and compiled memorials of his conversation. The regard of Pope recommended him to the great and powerful, and he obtained very valuable preferments in the church.“Dr. Warton, in his” Essay on Pope,“styles Spence’s judicious Essay on the Odyssey” a work of the truest taste;“and adds, that” Pope was so far from taking it amiss, thut it was the origin of a lasting friendship betwixt them. I have seen,“says Dr. Warton,” a copy of this work, with marginal observations, written in Pope’s own hand, and generally acknowledging the justness of Spence’s observations, and in a few instances pleading, humourously enough, that some favourite lines might be spared. 1 am indebted,“he adds,” to this learned and amiable man, on whose friendship I set the greatest value, for most of the anecdotes relating to Pope, mentioned in this work, which he gave me, when I was making him a visit at Byfleet, in 1754.“He was elected, by the university, professor of poetry, July 11, 1728, succeeding the rev. Thomas War-, ton, B. D. father to the learned brothers, Dr. Joseph, and Mr. Thomas Warton each of these professors were twice ejected to their office, and held it for ten years, a period as long as the statutes will allow. Mr. Speu-.-e wrote an account of Stephen Duck, which was first published, as a pamphlet, in 1731, and said to he written hy” Joseph Spenre, esq. poetry professor.“From this circumstance it has been supposed th:it he was not then in orders, but this is a mistake, as he was ordained in 17 J4; and left this pamphlet in the hands of his friend, Mr Lowth , to be published as soon as he left England, with a Grubstreet title, which he had drawn up merely for a disguise, not choosing to have it thought that he published it himself. It was afterwards much altered, and prefixed io Duck’s poems. He travelled with the duke of Newcastle (then. earl of Lincoln) into Italy, where his attention to his noble pupil did him the highest honour f. In 1736, at Mr. Pope’s desire, he republished J” Gorboduc,“wit ha preface containing an account of the author, the earl of Dorset. He never took a doctor’s degree, hut quitteii his fellowship on being presented by the society of New college to the rectory of Great Horwood, in Buckinghamshire, in 1742. As he never resided upon his living, but in a pleasant house and gardens lent to him by his noble pupil, at Byfleet, in Surrey (the rectory of which parish he had obtained for his friend Stephen Duck), he thought it his duty to snake an annual visit to Horwood, and gave away several sums of money to the distressed poor, and placed out many of their children as apprentices. In June 174-2, he succeeded Dr. Holmes as his majesty’s professor of modern history, at Oxford. His” Polymetis, or an inquiry concerning the agreement between the works of the Roman Poets, andthe f remains of the ancient Artists, being an attempt: to illustrate them mutually from each other," was published in folio, in

The best editions of Statius are these: that of Gronovius, 12mo, 1653; of Barthius, 2 vol. 4to, 1664; and the Variorum, L. Bat. 1671, 8vo. The best edition of the “Sylvac,” is that “cum notis & emendationibus Jeremiae Markland, Lond. 1728,” 4to. There is an English translation of the “Thebaid” by Lewis.

, an English poet and statesman, was descended from a family at Pendigrast in Pembrokeshire, but born at London in 1663. It has been conjectured that he was either son or grandson of Charles third son of sir John Stepney, the first baronet of that family: Mr. Cole says his father was a grocer. He received his education at Westminster-school, and was removed thence to Trinity-college, Cambridge, in 1682; where he took his degree of A.B. in 1685, and that of M.A. in 1689. Being of the same standing with Charles Montague, esq. afterwards earl of Halifax, a strict friendship grew up between them, and they came to London together, and are said to have been introduced into public life by the duke of Dorset. To this fortunate incident was owing all the preferment Stepney afterwards enjoyed, who is supposed not to have had parts sufficient to have risen to any distinction, without such patronage. When Stepney first set out in life, he seems to have been attached to the tory interest; for one of the first poems he wrote was an address to James II. upon his accession to the throne. Soon after, when Monmouth’s rebellion broke out, the Cambridge men, to shew their zeal for the king, thought proper to burn the picture of that prince, who had formerly been chancellor of the university, and on this occasion Stepney wrote some good verses in his praise. Upon the Revolution, he embraced another interest, and procured himself to be nominated to several foreign embassies. In 1692 he went to the elector of Brandenburg’s court, in quality of envoy; in 1693, to the Imperial court, in the same character; in 1694, to the elector of Saxony; and, two years after, to the electors of Mentz, Cologn, and the congress at Francfort; in 1698, a second time to Brandenburg; in 1699, to the king of Poland; in 1701, again to the emperor; and in 1706, to the States General; and in all his negotiations, is said to have been successful. In 1697 he was made one of the commissioners of trade. He died at Chelsea in 1707, and was buried in Westminster-abbey; where a fine monument was erected over him, with a pompous inscription. At his leisure hours he composed poetical pieces, which are republished in the general collection of English poets. He likewise wrote some political pieces in prose, particularly, “An Essay on the present interest of England, in 1701: to which are added, the proceedings of the House of Commons in 1677, upon the French king’s progress in Flanders.” This is reprinted in the collection of tracts, called “Lord Somers’s collection.”

, an English poet and psalmodist, was born, according to Wood’s conjecture, in Hampshire, and, as Hoi imbed says, at Southampton; but Atkins, in his History of Gloucestershire, expressly affirms, that he was born at Awre, a parish about twelve miles from Gloucester; and adds, that his posterity turned papists, and left the place. He studied for some time at Oxford, but not long enough to take any degree. By some interest that he had at court, he was preferred to the office of groom of the robes to Henry VIII. which he discharged so well that he became a personal favourite of the king, who by his will left him a legacy of an hundred marks. Upon the decease of king Henry, he was continued in the same employment by Edward VI. and having leisure to pursue his studies, he acquired some degree of esteem about the court for his poetical talents. He wa> a man of great piety, in his morals consequently irreproachable, and was a stedfast adherent to the principles of the Reformation. Being offended with the immodest Soul'S, which were then the usual entertainment of persons about the court, he undertook to translate the Psalms into English metre, hoping the courtiers might find in them a proper antidote and substitute for their licentious songs: but he died in 1549, without completing the work. His will was proved Sept. 12th of that year, and in it he is styled groom of his majesty’s robes; and it appears that he died seized of lands to a considerable value in Hampshire and Cornwall.

Soon after this disappointment, in 1737, he accompanied his pupil, Mr. Windham, to the Continent. The events of this tour, and the connexions to which it gave rise, fixed the future course, and formed the happiness of his life. Mr. Coxe’s account of it is highly amusing, and introduces us to the acquaintance of many persons, now, or lately, distinguished in the political or literary world. One of the results of this tour was, “A Letter from an English Gentleman to Mr. Arlaud, a celebrated painter at Geneva, giving an account of the Glacieres, or Ice Alps of Savoy, written in the year 1741.” This was written chiefly by Mr. Windham and Mr. Price (of Foxley in Herefordshire), with the assistance of Mr. Siillingfieet, and illustrated with the drawings of Mr. Price. They are said to have been the first travellers who penetrated into these Alpine recesses. In 1743 Mr. Stillingfleet returned with his pupil to England. His pupil’s father gave Mr. Stillingfleet an annuity of 100l. which for some time was his principal support. He now resided partly in London and partly with some friends in the country; and his leisure hours were dedicated to literary pursuits, some of which Mr. Coxe has specified, particularly an edition of Milton, illustrated by notes, in which he had made considerable progress when the appearance of Dr. Newton’s proposals induced him to relinquish his design. His M8S. however, which were in the possession of the late bishop Dampier, were obligingly lent to Mr. Todd, for his excellent edition of our great epic poet. About this time Mr. Stillingfleet composed some of his poems, particularly those on “Conversation,” and “Earthquakes.”

Mr. Stow’s success, however, in the Affair probably ani­* This curate, called Sir Stephen, one c<>mii>- n I e/\p bumr them. Mr. became so contemptible by his furious Slow heat <J 'his sermon, an I saw the zeal, that he was forced to leave the effec’s of it. Another rmrk of the city, and retire tosome unknown place curate’s imprudent zeal w.< his takin the country. “Mr. Stow has re- ing; /ccasion from that church’s name corded some things of him, which Un ^rshaft., as superstitions^ ^iv>n it, though not attended with such fata! to i!<-r are his judgment that thr titles consequences as that already men- of cnurches should be altered, and that tioned, were evidences of his exclusive even the names of the days of the week big‘ try. In a sermon, which he ought to be changed from those ht;apreached before a areat auditory at St. then ones which had been given them; Paul’s Cross, he inveighed bitterly nud that Fridays and Saturdays should against a long may-pole, called -haft, be no more fish-days, but others subin the next parish to his own, which stituted for such in thei>- place from thence was named *r. Andrew that Lent should he kept ai>nv Undershaft. This he insisted upon time than between Shrove-ti e and being an idol; and so warmly did he Raster. Another t.’id ).ia<-tice of this declare against it, that the zeal of many cut ate was, to go out of the pulpi> into of his hearers being excited thereby, the church- yard, and II.Oum' nu h gh they wt-nt in the afternoon of the same elm that grew there and p ea; h from day, and pulled the may-pole do MI tbttnce to his audience, and then return from the place where it hung upon to the church, and say or-ire the hooks, and then sawed it ii to divers English service, not at th,- a^tar. as pieces, each housekeeper taking as w. is usual, but upon a tomb, whit much of it as hung over his door or placed northward of it.” Strype’s Life stall, and then casting the pieces into of Stow. mated him in his antiquarian researches, as he had now demonstrated the practical benefit arising from them. It was about 1560, that he turned his thoughts to the compiling an English chronicle, and he spent the greater part of his future life in collecting such materials relating to the kingdom at large, as he esteemed worthy to be handed down to posterity. But after he had been eagerly employed for a while in these studies, perceiving how little profit he was likely to reap from them, he was on the point of diverting his industry into the channel of the occupation he had been bred to; and the expensiveness of purchasing manuscripts was an additional motive to this resolution. Archbishop Parker, however, himself an excellent antiquary, and a bountiful patron of all who had the same turn, persuaded him to goon, and liberally contributed to lessen his expences, while his grace lived.

, an English engraver of the first eminence, was born in the Island of Pomona in Orkney, July 14, 1721. He was lineally descended from sir David Strange, or Strang, a younger son of the family of Stranges, or Strangs, of Balcasky in the county of Fife, who settled in Orkney at the time of the Reformation. He received his classical education at Kirkwall in Orkney, under the care of a learned, worthy, and much-respected gentleman, Mr. Murdoch M'Kenzie, who rendered great service to his country by the accurate surveys and charts he gave of the island of Orkney, and of the British and Irish coasts.

, a German Luthe-an divine and mathematician, but in this country known only as a chronologist, was born in 1632, at Wittemberg. He studied at Leipsic, and was afterwards professor of theology at Wittemberg, and at Dantzick. He was frequently involved in theological disputes, both with the Roman catholics and the Calvinists, from his intemperate zeal in favour of Lutheranism. He died at Wittemberg in 1682. He published some mathematical works; but was chiefly distinguished for his chronological and historical disquisitions, of which he published a considerable number from 1652 to 1680. One of the best and most useful, his “Breviarium Chronologicum,” was long known in this country by three editions (with improvements in each) of an English translation, by Richard Sault, called in the title F. R. S. but his name does not occur in Dr. Thomson’s list of the members of the Royal Society. Locke’s high commendation of this work probably introduced it as a useful manual of chronology. The edition of 1745, which, we believe, was the last, received many improvements and corrections, but it has since given way to lesser chronological systems.

, an English painter, was born in 1624, and, being a person of great industry as well as capacity, arrived to an eminent degree of perfection in his art. He excelled particularly in history, architecture, and perspective; and shewed himself a great master by the truth of his outlines, and skill in foreshortening his figures.

, an English writer of uncommon parts and learning, and very celebrated in his day, was born at Partney, near Spilsbye in Lincolnshire, Feb. 28, 1631. His father was a minister, and lived at Spilsbye; but being inclined to be an anabaptist, and forced to leave that place, he went with his wife and children into Ireland. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion there in 1641, the mother fled with her son Henry into England; and, landing at Liverpool, went on foot from thence to London, where she gained a comfortable subsistence by her needle, and sent her son Henry, being then ten years of age, to Westminster- school. There Dr. Busby, the master, was so struck with the surprising parts of the boy, that he shewed him more than ordinary favour; and recommended him to the notice of sir Henry Vane, junior, who one day came accidentally into the school. Sir Henry took a fancy to him, and frequently relieved him with money, and gave him the liberty of resorting to his house, “to fill that belly,” says Stubbe, “which otherwise had no sustenance but what one penny could purchase for his dinner, and which had no breakfast except he got it by making somebody’s exercise.” He says this in the preface to his “Epistolary Discourse concerning Phlebotomy;” where many other particulars of his life, mentioned by Mr. Wood, and here recorded, are also to be found. Soon after he was admitted on the foundation, and his master, in consideration of his great progress in learning, gave him additional assistance in books and other necessaries.

, an English divine of considerable abilities in controversy, was educated at Trinity-college, Cambridge, but of his early history we have no account. In 1586, he was installed archdeacon of Taunton, and on Oct. 22, 1588, confirmed dean of Exeter. He had been admitted a civilian in 1582. He died in 162U, leaving a daughter his heiress, who, Prince thinks, was married to the son and heir of the Halse family in Devonshire; and as the estates Dr. Sutcliffe left to Chelsea-college were in that country, it probably was his birth-place. He was esteemed a very learned writer in defence of the protestant establishment; but although long in favour with James I. upon that account, we find that this prince, in 1621, ordered him to be taken into custody for the freedom of his remarks upon public affairs. On the other hand Strype, in his life of Whitgift, has published a long letter from that eminent prelate to Beza, defending Sutcliffe against some disrespectful expressions used by the reformer. Among his works, may be noticed, 1. “A treatise of Ecclesiastical Discipline,” Loud. 1591, 4to. 2. “De Presbyterio, ejusque nova in Ecclesia Christiana Politeia,” the same year, 4to. 3. “De Turco-Papismo,” or, on the resemblance between Mahometanism and Popery, London, 1599, 4to. 4. “De Purgatorio, adversus Bellarminum,” the same year, 4to. 5. “De vera Christi Ecclesia,” 1600, 4to. 6. “De Missa, adversus Bellarminurn,” 1603, 4to. 7. “The Laws of Armes,” 1593, 4to. 8. lt Examination of Cartwright’s Apology," 1596, 4to; and many other works, enumerated in the Bodleian catalogue, of the controversial kind, against Beliarmin, Parsons, Garnet, and other popish propagandists.

The works of this celebrated anatomist and naturalist, are, 1. “Tractatus Physico-Anatomico-Medicus de Respiratione,” Leyden, 1667, 1677, and 1679, in 8vo, and 1738, 4to. 2. “General History of Insects,” Utrecht, 1669, 4to, in Dutch, but published there in 1685, 4to, in French, and at Leyden, in Latin, 1685, with fine engravings. 3. “Miraculuai Naturae, seu, nteri rnuliebris fetbrica,” Leyden, 1672, 1679, 1717, 1729, 4to, with plates. He was impelled to this publication by Van Home, who had claimed some of his discoveries. 4. “Historia Insectorum generalis; adjicitur dilucidatio, qua specialia cujusvis ordinis exempla figuris accuratissime, tarn naturali magnitudine, quam ope microscopii aucta, illustrantur,” Leyd. 1733, 4to. This translation of his history of insects is by Henninius, but the best edition of this valuable work is that which appeared at Leyden in 1737, 2 vols. folio, under the title “Biblia Naturae, sive, Historia Insectorum in classes certas redncta, &c.” The learned owe this to Boerhaave, for the manuscript having been left by the author to his executors, had been handed about till it was difficult to be traced. Of this an English translation was published in 1757, folio, by sir John Hill and others, and with Boerhaave’s plates.

, an English lawyer and antiquary, the son of Bartholomew Tate, of Delapre, in Northamptonshire, was born in that county in 1560, and entered of Magdalen college, Oxford, in 1577. After some application to study he left the university without taking a degree, went to the Middle Temple, and after his admission to the bar, acquired great reputation as a counsellor, not only learned in the law, but as a good antiquary, and Saxon scholar. He had a seat in parliament about the end of queen Elizabeth’s reign, and in the 5th James I. was Lent-reader of the Middle Temple, and about that time became one of the justices itinerant for Wales. He died Nov. 16, 1616, leaving various manuscripts on legal antiquities, the fate of which seems unknown, but the following have been printed in Gutch’s “Collectanea Curiosa:” 1. “The antiquity, use, and privileges of Cities, Boroughs, and Towns.” 2. “The antiquity, use, and ceremonies of lawful Combats in England.” And in Hearne’s “Curious Discourses” are, 3. “Of Knights made by Abbots. 4.” Questions about the ancient Britons.“5.” Of the antiquity of Arms in England.“6.” Of the antiquity, variety and ceremonies of Funerals in England“and 7.” The antiquity, authority, and succession of the High Steward of England."

king of Corsica, baron Niewhoff, grandee of Spain, baron of England, peer of France, baron of the holy empire, prince of the Papal throne for thus he styled himself; “a man whose claim to royalty,” says lord Orford, “was as indisputable, as the most ancient titles to any monarchy can pretend to be;” was born at Metz about 1696. The particulars of his eventful history are thus related. In March 1736, whilst the Corsican mal-contents were sitting in council, an English vessel from Tunis, with a passport from our consul there, arrived at a port then in the possession of the roal-contents. A stranger on board this vessel, who had the appearance of a person of distinction, no sooner went on shore, but was received with singular honours by the principal persons, who saluted him with the titles of excellency, and viceroy of Corsica. His attendants consisted of two officers, a secretary, a chaplain, a few domestics and Morocco slaves. He was conducted to the bishop’s palace; called Himself lord Theodore; whilst the chiefs knew more about him than they thought convenient to declare. From the vessel that brought him were debarked ten pieces of cannon, 4000 fire-locks, 3000 pair of shoes, a great quantity of provisions, and coin to the amount o 200,000 ducats. Two pieces of cannon were placed before his door, and he had 400 soldiers posted for his guard, He created officers, formed twenty-four companies of soldiers, distributed among the mal-contents the arms and shoes he had brought with him, conferred knighthood on one of the chiefs, appointed another his treasurer, and professed the Roman Catholic religion. Various conjectures were formed in different courts concerning him. The eldest son of the pretender, prince Ragotski, the duke de Ripperda, comte de Bonneval, were each in their turns supposed to be this stranger; all Europe was puzzled but the country of this stranger vas soon discovered he was, in fact, a Prussian, well known by the name of Theodore Antony, baron of Niewhoff.

Bestow‘d a kingdom, and deny’d him bread. Theodore had a son, known by the name of colonel Frederick, who, after following his father into England, entered into the army in foreign service, but appears to have been disappointed in his hopes of rising, or acquiring even a competence, and after sustaining many distresses, without timely relief, put an end to his life, by a pistol, near the gate of Westminster Abbey, Feb. 1, 1797. He was a man of gentleman-like manners, and accomplishments, x and much regretted by those who knew him intimately. He was interred in the church-yard of St. Anne’s Soho, by the side of his father. He published in 17G8, “Memuires pour servir a l'Histoire de Corse,” 12mo, of which there is an English translation and, “A Description of Corsica, with an account of its temporary union to the crown of Great Britain, &c.” 8vo.

As good sense, sound reasoning, and profound knowledge, justly entitled archbishop Tillotson to the character of a great and excellent divine, so copiousness of style, and ease of composition, have made him also esteemed and admired as an orator. Yet a polite writer of our own country, Melmoth, in “Fitzosborne’s Letters,” cannot allow this to him, but, on the contrary, “thinks that no man had ever less pretensions to genuine oratory, than this celebrated preacher. One cannot indeed but regret,” says he, “that Dr. Tillotson, who abounds with such noble and generous sentiments, should want the art of setting them off with all the advantage they deserve; that the sublime in morals should not be attended with a suitable elevation of language. The truth, however, is, his words are frequently ill chosen, and almost always ill placed; his periods are both tedious and unharmonious; as his metaphors are generally mean, and often ridiculous.” He imputes this chiefly to his “having had no sort of notion of rhetorical numbers,” which seems, indeed, to have been in some measure the case and, as far as this can detract from the character of a complete orator, it is necessary to make some abatement: yet there is certainly great copiousness, and, as this gentleman allows, “a noble simplicity,” in his discourses. As for his language, notwithstanding some exceptionable passages with regard to the use of metaphors, incident to the best authors, Dryden frequently owned with pleasure, that, if he had any talent for English prose (as certainly he had a very great one), it was owing to his having often read the writings of archbishop Tillotson. Addison likewise considered Tiltotson’s writings as the chief standard of our language and accordingly marked the particular pbrases in the sermons published during his life-time, as the ground-work of an English dictionary, which he had projected. But there are some very just sentiments of Tillotson in one of Warbiirton’s letters, which deserve more attention. Tillotson, Warburton says, “was certainly a virtuous, pious, humane, and moderate man, which last quality was a kind of rarity in those times. His notions of civil society were but confused and imperfect, as appears in the affair of lord Russel. As to religion, he was among the class of latitudinarian divines. I think the sermons published in Iris life-time are fine moral discourses. They bear indeed the character of their author, simple, elegant, candid, clear, and rational. No orator in the Greek and Roman sense of the word, like Taylor; nor a discourser in their sense, like Barrow: free from their irregularities, but not able to reach their heights. On which account I prefer them infinitely to him. You cannot sleep with Taylor; you cannot forbear thinking with Barrow. But you may be much at your ease in the mi^lst of a long lecture from Tillotson: clear, and rational, and equable as he is. Perhaps the last quality may account for it.”

, an English deistical writer, was the son of a clergyman of Beer-ferres, in Devonshire, and born about 1657. He became a commoner of Lincoln college, m Oxford, in 1672, where he had the famous Dr. Hickes for his tutor, and thence removed to Exeter college. In 1676 he took the degree of bachelor of arts, and was afterwards elected fellow of All Souls college In 1679 he took a bachelor of laws degree; and in July 1685, became a doctor in that faculty. In the reign of James II. he declared himself a Roman catholic, but afterwards renounced that religion. Wood says that he did not return to the protestant religion till after that king had left the nation; but, according to his own account, he returned to it before that memorable epocha. In 1694 he published, at London, in 4to, “An Esay concerning obedience to the supreme powers, and the duty of subjects iti all revolutions; with some considerations touching the present juncture of affairs;” and “An Essay concerning the Laws of Nations and the right of sovereigns,” &c. He published also some other pamphlets on the same subjects, particularly one concerning the doctrine of the Trinity and the Athanasian. creed; but was first particularly noticed for a publication which came out in 1706, v\itn this title, “The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, against the Romish and all other priests, who claim an independent power over it; with a preface concerning the government of the Church of England, as by law established,” 8vo. Tindal was aware of the. offence this work would give, and even took some pleasure in it; for, as Dr. Hickes relates, he told a gentleman who found him at it with pen in hand, that “he was writing a book which would make the clergy mad.” Perhaps few books were ever published which they more resented; and, accordingly, numbers among them immediately wrote against it. 'Among the most distinguished of his answerers were, I. “The Rights of the Clergy in the Christian Church asserted in a sermon preached at Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, Sept. 2, 1706, at the primary visitation of the right reverend father in God, William lord bishop of Lincoln; by W. Wotton, B. D.” II. “The second pa/t of the Wolf stripped of Shepherd’s cloa thing, in answer to a late book entitled The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, published at London in March,” 1707. III. “Two treatises, one of the Christian Priesthood, the other of the dignity of the Episcopal Order, formerly written, and npw published to obviate the erroneous opinions, fallacious reasonings, and bold and false assertions, in a late book entitled The Rights of the Christian Church; with a large prefatory discourse, wherein is contained an Answer to the said book; all written by George Hickes, D. D.” London, 1707. IV. “A thorough examination of the false principles and fallacious arguments advanced against the Christian Church, Priesthood, and Religion, in a late pernicious book, ironically entitled The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, &c. in a dialogue between Demas and Hierarcha: humbly offered to the consideration of the nobility and gentry of England; by Samuel Hill, rector of Kilmington, and archdeacon of Wells.” London, 1707, 8vo. V. “Three short treatises, viz. 1. A modest plea for the Clergy, &c. 2. A Sermon of the Sacerdotal Benediction, &c. 3. A Discourse published to undeceive the people in point of Tithes, &c. formerly printed, and now again published, by Dr. George Hickes, in defence of the priesthood and true rights of the church against the slanderous and reproachful treatment of The Rights of the Christian Church,” London, 1709, 8vo. VI. “Adversaria; or truths opposed to some of the falsehoods contained in a book called The Rights of the Christian Church asserted,” c.; by Conyers Place, M. A. London, 1709, 8vo. VII. “A Dialogue between Timothy and Philatheus in which the principles and projects of a late whimsical book entitled The Rights of the Christian Church, &c. are fairly stated, and answered in their kinds, &c. written by a layman,” London, 3 vols. 8vo. Mr. Oldisworth was the author. Swift also wrote “Remarks” on Tindal’s book, which are in his works, but were left unfinished by the author. But, whatever disturbance this work might create at home, and whatever prejudices it might raise against its author, among the clergy of the church of England, some of the protestants abroad judged very differently, and even spoke of it in terms of approbation and applause. Le Clerc gave an account of it in his “Bibliotheque choisie,” which begins in these words: “We hear that this book has made a great noise in England, and it is not at all surprising, since the author attacks, with all his might, the pretensions of those who are called highchurchmen; that is, of those who carry the rights of bishops so far as to make them independent in ecclesiastical affairs of prince and people, and who consider everything that has been done to prevent the dependence of the laity on bishops, as an usurpation of the laics against divine right. I am far from taking part in any particular disputes, which the learned of England may have with one another, concerning the independent power and authority of their bishops, and farther still from desiring to hurt in any way the church of England, which I respect and honour as the most illustrious of all protestant churches; but I am persuaded that the wise and moderate members of this church can never be alarmed at such a book as this, as if the church was actually in danger. I believe the author, as himself says, had no design against the present establishment, which he approves^ but only against some excessive pretensions, which are even contrary to the laws of the land, ana* to the authority of the king and parlialiament. As I do not know, nor have any connection with him, I have no particular interest to serve by defending him, and I do not undertake it. His book is too full of matter for me to give an exact abridgment of it, and they who understand English will do well to read the original: they have never read a book so strong and so supported in favour of the principles which protestants on this side the water hold in common.”

, an English writer, one of the founders of modern Deism, was born Nov. 30, 1669, in the most northern peninsula of Ireland, in the isthmus of which stands Londonderry. His Christian name was Janus funius; but, the boys at school making a jest of it, the master ordered him to be called John, which name he retained ever after. Some say he was of a good family, but that his parents were Papists. This last particular we learn from himself; for he tells us, that he “was educated from his cradle in the grossest superstition and idolatry; but God was pleased to make his own reason, and such as made use of theirs, the happy instruments of his conversion for he was not sixteen years old when he became as zealous against Popery, as he ever since continued.” Others have affirmed, that his father was a Popish priest; and this seems to be the general opinion, although one of his biographers has somewhat hardily asserted, that “the contrary is notorious, and has been proved.”

He published some things for the benefit and assistance of youth: as, “Synopsis Grsecas linguae;” “Ovid’s Fasti,” from the Delphin edition, with an English interpretation and notes; and, “The Pantheon, or history of the heathen gods.” This book was first written in Latin by Francis Pomey, a Jesuit, and translated into English by one who conceals his name under initial letters. This translation was afterwards revised and corrected, with the addition of a new index, cuts of the deities, and other improvements, by Mr. Tooke; and the tenth edition, printed in 1726, was adorned with new cuts, copied from the sixth Latin, edition, published at Utrecht by Samuel Pitiscus, in 1701. Mr. Tooke translated PuffendorPs “Whole Duty of Man according to the law of nature,” with the notes of Barbeyrac, into English; and bishop GastrelP* “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” into Latin. The supplement to the account of Gresham college, inserted in the second appendix of “Stow’s Survey of London,” was written by him, and given to the editor Mr. Strype.

, a learned antiquary, was a native of Malton, in Yorkshire and, in an humble situation under the late Philip Carteret Webb, esq. solicitor to the treasury, acquired such a knowledge of ancient hands and muniments as raised him to a place in the state-paper office, with his friends and patrons, the late sir Joseph AyiofFe, bart. who died in his arms, and Thomas Astle, esq. He was also one of the gentlemen engaged in preparing for the press the six volumes of the Rolls of Parliament; an office in which he succeeded his friend Richard Blyke, esq, with whom, in 1775, he was joint editor of Gianville’s “Reports of cases of controverted Elections determined and adjudged in parliament, 21 and 22 Jac. I.” 8vo. To this is prefixed an historical account of the ancient rights of determining cases upon controverted elections. He was also editor, if not translator, of an English edition of sir John Fortescue’s “De laudibus Legum Anglise,” 1775, 8vo. On Mr. Webb’s death he entered himself at Gray’s Inn; applied to the study of the law; was called to the bar, and appointed a commissioner of bankrupts. He succeeded Dr. Lort as keeper of the archbishop of Canterbury’s library at Lambeth; was secretary to the commissioners for selecting and publishing the public records of this kingdom; and registrar to the charity for relief of poor widows and children of clergymen, and treasurer to the orphan charity-school. He married, in 1794, one of the coheiresses of the late Mr. Swindon, an eminent and opulent schoolmaster at Greenwich, in Kent. Mr. Topham’s publications in the Archaeologia are, vol. VI. p. 116, on Esnecca, or the King’s Yacht, in a charter of Henry II.; ibid. 179, on the picture in Windsor castle representing the embarkation of Henry VIII. at Dover; VII. 337, on a subsidy roll of 51 Edward III. The wardrobe account of 21 Edward I. was published by the society in 1787, under his direction; and he was one of the committee for publishing other wardrobe accounts, in “A collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the government of the Royal Household, in divers reigns, from Edward III. to William and Mary,” 1790, 4to. Mr. Topham was elected F. S. A. in 1767, and treasurer (on the death of Mr. Bartlet) in

, an English divine, and voluminous translator, was the grandson of the rev. John Trapp, vicar of Weston-upon-Avon, and schoolmaster at Stratford in Warwickshire, who wrote large commentaries upon almost all the books of the Old and New Testament, published in several quarto volumes, 1646, &c. and other tracts on subjects of divinity. He never had, nor wished to have, any preferment besides his vicarage, which lay at the convenient distance of two miles from his school. His character, as a man and as a preacher, would have recommended him to higher promotion; but he always refused to accept it, as his condition was equal to his wishes. He died Oct. 17, 1669, aged sixty-eight.

, an English political writer, of the democratic cast, was descended of an ancient family, the son of sir John Trenchard, secretary of state to king William III. and was born in 1669. “”He had a liberal education, and was bred to the law, in which he was well skilled; but politics, and his place of commissioner of the forfeited estates in Ireland, which he had enjoyed in the reign of king William, took him from the bar, whither he had never any inclination to return. He was also rendered independent by the death of an uncle, and by his marriage, and determined to employ his time in political discussions. His first publication of this kind, in conjunction with Mr. Moyle, appeared in 1698, entitled “An Argument, shewing that a standing army is inconsistent with a free government, and absolutely destructive to the constitution of the English monarchy;” and, in 1698, “A short history of Standing Armies in England;” which two pamphlets produced several answers. In November 1720, in conjunction with Mr. Thomas Gordon, he began to publish, in the “London,' 7 and afterwards in the” British Journal,“a series of letters, under the name of” Cato,“upon various and important subjects relating to the public. These were continued for almost three years with very great reputation among those who were not very closely attached to the government or the church; but there were some papers among them, written by Mr. Trenchard, under the name of” Diogenes,“upon several points of religion, which were thought exceptionable, and animadverted upon, particularly by Mr. John Jackson, in a” Defence of human Liberty.“Dr. Clarke also wrote some animadversions upon Trenchard’s principles, but which were never published. They are inserted in the General Dictionary. Mr. Gordon afterwards collected the papers written by Mr. Trenchard and himself, and published them in four volumes, 12mo, under the title of” Cato’s Letters, or Essays on Liberty, civil or religions, and other important subjects;“the fourth edition of which, corrected, was printed in 1737. It was imagined at the time, that lord Molesworth had a chief, at least a considerable, hand in those letters; but Mr. Gordon assures us, in the dedication of them to John Milner, esq. that this noble person never wrote a line in them, nor contributed a thought towards them. As to the purport and design of them, Mr. Gordon says, that” as they were the work of no faction or cabal, nor calculated for any lucrative or ambitious ends, or to serve the purposes of any party whatsoever, but attacked falsehood and dishonesty in all shapes and parties, without temporising with any, doing justice to all, even to the weakest and most unfashionable, and maintaining the principles of liberty against the practices of boih parties; so they were dropped without any sordid composition, and without any consideration, save that it was judged that the public, after all its terrible convulsions, was become calm and safe. They had treated of most of the subjects important to the world, and meddled with public measures and public men only in great instances.“He wrote also in” The Independent Whig," another paper hostile to 'the hierarchy.

The first edition of Tryphiodorus’s “Destruction of Troy” was published at Venice by Aldus, together with Quintus Calaber’s “Paralipomena,” and Coluthus’s Poem on the rape of Helen. It was afterwards reprinted at several places, particularly at Francfort in 1588, by Frischlinus, who not only restored many corrupted passages in the original, but added two Latin versions, one in prose, the other in verse. That in verse was reprinted with the Greek at Oxford, 1742, in 8vo, with an English translation in verse; and notes upon both the Greek and the English by J. Merrick of Trinity-college. There is another good edition more recently published by Mr. Northmore, Oxford, 1791, 8vo; and one was printed at Leipsic in 1809, in fol. amounting only to twenty-five copies.

, an English poet, descended from a family of considerable note in Dorsetshire, was a younger son of Nicholas Turbervile of Whitchurch, and supposed to have been born about 1530. He received hia education at Winchester school, and became fellow of New college, Oxford, in 1561, but left the university without taking a degree, and resided for some time in one of the inns of court. He appears to have accumulated a stock of classical learning, and to have been well acquainted with modern languages. He formed his ideas of poetry partly on the classics, and partly on the study of the Italian school. His poetical pursuits, however, did not interfere with more important business, as his well-known abilities recommended him to the post of secretary to Thomas Randolph, esq. who was appointed queen Elizabeth’s ambassador at the court of Russia. While in this situation, he wrote three poetical epistles to as many friends, Edward Davies, Edmund Spenser (not the poet), and Parker, describing the manners of the Russians. These may be seen, in Hackluyt’s voyages, vol. I. p. 381. After his return, he was much courted as a man of accomplished education and manners; and the first edition of his " Songs and Sonnets/* published in 1567, seems to have added considerably to his fame. A second edition appeared in 1570, with many additions and corrections.

, an English prelate, son of the preceding, received his education at Winchester school, and was thence elected fellow of New college, Oxford; where he took his degrees in arts, that of bachelor, April 14, 1659, and that of master in the beginning of 1663. He commenced B. I), and D. D. July 6, 1669, and in December following was collated to the prebend of Sneating in St. Paul’s. On the promotion of Dr. Gunning to the see of Chichester, he succeeded him in the mastership of St. John’s college, Cambridge, April 11, 1670. In 1683, he was made dean of Windsor, and the same year, was promoted to the see of Rochester, being consecrated on Nov. 11, and next year Aug. 23, was translated to the bishopric of Ely. Though he owed most of these preferments to the influence of the duke of York, afterwards James II. yet on the accession of that prince to the throne, as soon as he perceived the violent measures that were pursued, and the open attempts to introduce popery and arbitrary power, he opposed them to the utmost. He was one of the six bishops who joined archbishop Sancroft on May 18, 1688, in subscribing and presenting a petition to the king, setting forth their reasons, why they could not comply with his commands, in causing his majesty’s “Declaration for liberty of conscience” to be read in their churches. This petition being styled by the court, a seditious libel against his majesty and his government, the bishops were all called before the privy council; and refusing to enter into recognizances, to appear in the court of the king’s bench, to answer the misdemeanour in framing and presenting the said petition, were, on June 8, committed to the Tower; on the 15th of the same month they were brought by habeas corpus to the bar of the king’s bench, where, pleading not guilty to the information against them, they were admitted to bail, and on the 29th came upon their trials in Westminster-hall, where next morning they were acquitted to the great joy of the nation. However, when king William and queen Mary were settled on the throne, our bishop, among many others of his brethren and the clergy, refused to own the established government, out of a conscientious regard to the allegiance he had sworn to James II.; and refusing to take the oaths required by an act of parliament of April 24, 1689, was by virtue of that act suspended from his office, and about the beginning of the following year, deprived of his bishopric. After this he lived the rest of his days in retirement, and dying Nov. 2, 1700, was buried in the chancel of the parochial church of Therfteld in Hertfordshire, where he had been rector, but without any memorial except the word Expergiscar engraven on a stone over the vault.

, an English poet of the sixteenth century, and styled the British Varro, was born, as it is supposed, about the year 1515, at Rivenhall near Witham in Essex. His father, William Tusser, married a daughter of Thomas Smith, of Rivenhall, esq. by whom he had five sons and four daughters; and this match appears to have been the chief foundation of “the gentility of his family,” for which he refers his readers to “the Heralds’ book.” The name and race, however, have long been extinct. At an early age, much against his will, he was sent by his father to a music-school; and was soon placed as a chorister or singing-boy in the collegiate chapel of the castle of Wallingford; and after some hardships, of which he complains, and frequent change of place, he was at length admitted into St. Paul’s, where he arrived at considerable proficiency in music, under John Redford, the organist of that cathedral, a man distinguished for his attainments in the science. From St. Paul’s he was sent to Eton school, and was some time under the tuition of the famous Nicholas Udall, of whose severity he complains, in giving him fiftythree stripes at once for a trifling fault. Hence he was removed to Cambridge, and, according to some, was first entered of King’s college, and afterwards removed to Trinity hall; but his studies being interrupted by sickness, he left the university, and was employed about court, probably in his musical capacity, by the influence of his patron, William lord Paget. He appears to have been a retainer in this nobleman’s family, and he mentions his lordship in the highest terms of panegyric.

When this translation was imported into England, the supporters of popery became very much alarmed; they asserted that there were a thousand heresies in it; that it was too bad to be corrected, and ought to be suppressed; that it was not possible to translate the Scriptures into English; and that it would make the laity heretics, and rebels to their king. It is more painful, however, to record that such men as William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, and Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of London, issued their orders and monitions to bring in all the New Testaments translated into the vulgar tongue, that they might be burnt. To destroy them more effectually, Tunstall being at Antwerp in 1526 or 1S27, procured Augustin Packington, an English merchant, to buy up all the copies of the English Testament which remained unsold; these were accordingly brought to England, and publicly burnt at Paul’s cross. But this ill-fudged policy only took off many copies which lay dead upon Tyndale’s hands, and supplied him with, money for another and more correct edition, printed in 1534, while the first edition was in the mean while reprinted twice, but not by the translator. Of Tunstall’s singular purchase, the following fact is related: “Sir Thomas More being lord chancellor, and having several persons accused of heresy, and ready for execution, offered to compound with one of them, named George Constantine, for his life, upon the easy terms of discovering to him who they were in London that maintained Tyndale beyond the sea. After the poor man had got as good a security for his life as the honour and truth of the chancellor could give him, he told him it was the bishop of London who maintained Tyndale, by sending him a sum of money to buy up the impression of his Testaments. The chancellor smiled, saying that he believed he said true. Thus was this poor confessor’s life saved.” Strict search, however, continued to be made among those who were suspected of importing, and concealing them; of whom John Tyndale, our author’s brother, was prosecuted, and condemned to do penance. Humphrey Monmouth, his great patron and benefactor, was imprisoned in the Tower, and almost ruined.

But these rigorous measures not producing the intended effect; and burning the word of God, in any shape, being regarded by the people as a shocking profanation, sir Thomas More was induced to take up the pen. In 1529, he published “A Dyaloge,” in which he endeavoured to prove that the books burnt were not New Testaments, but Tyndale’s or Luther’s testaments; and so corrupted and changed from the good and wholesome doctrine of Christ to their own devilish heresies, as to be quite another thing. In 15 Jo, Tyndale published an answer to this Dialogue, and proceeded in translating the Five Books of Moses, from the Hebrew into English; but happening to go by sea to Hamburgh, to have it printed there, the vessel was wrecked, and he lost all his money, books, writings, and copies, and was obliged to begin anew. At Hamburgh he met with Miles Coverdale, who assisted him in translating the Pentateuch, which was printed in 1530, in a small octavo volume, and apparently at several presses. He afterwards made an English version of the prophecy of Jonas, with a large prologue, which was printed in 1531; but he translated no more books of the Scripture, as Hall, Bale, and Tanner, have asserted.

, an English historian, descended from an ancient family, was the eldest son of sir Timothy Tyrrell, of Shotover near Oxford, kiit. by Elizabeth his wife, sole daughter of the celebrated archbishop Usher. He was born in Great Queen -street, Westminster, in May 1642, and educated chiefly at the free school of Camberwell in Surrey. In 1657 he was admitted a gentleman commoner of Queen’s college, Oxford, where he continued three years under the tuition of Mr. Thomas Tully and Mr. Timothy Halton. After going to the Temple to study law, he returned to Oxford in September 1663, and was created M. A. In 1665 he was called to the bar, but did not practise, employing his time chiefly in historical researches, particularly respecting the history and constitution of England. Having an independent fortune, he resided chiefly on his estate at Onkeley, near Brill in Buckinghamshire, and was made one of the deputy lieutenants and justices of the peace for that county; in which offices he continued till king James If. turned him and the rest out of the commission, for not assisting in taking away the penal laws and test. On the revolution, he zealously espoused king William’s interest, and wrote with great effect in vindication of his right to the crown.

, a celebrated Spanish mathematician, and a commander of the order of St. Jago, was born at Seville Jan. 12, 1716. He was brought up in the service of the royal marines, in which he at length obtained the rank of lieutenant-general. In 1735 he was appointed, with Don George Juan, to sail to South America, and accompany the French academicians who were going to Peru to measure a degree of the meridian. On his return home in 1745, in a French ship, he was taken by two English vessels, and after being detained some time at Louisbourg in Cape Breton, was brought to England, where his talents recommended him to Martin Folkes, president of the Royal Society, and he was the same year elected a member of that learned body. On his return to Madrid he published his “Voyage to South America,” which was afterwards translated into German and French. There is also an English translation, in two vols. 8vo, 1758, but miserably garbled and inaccurate. In 1755 he made a second voyage to America, where he collected materials for another work, which however did not appear until 1772, under the title of “Entretenimientos Physico-historicos.” He travelled afterwards over a considerable part of Europe to collect information respecting such improvements in arts and manufactures as might be serviceable to Spain, and was the means of introducing many which had not before been known in Spain, or very imperfectly carried on. He died on July 5, 1795. There are a few of his papers in the “Philosophical Transactions.”

, a celebrated traveller, was a Roman gentleman, and member of the academy dell' Umaristi. He commenced his travels in 1614, over the East, and his account of it in Italian, 1662, 4 vols. 4to, has always been considered as giving the best account that had then appeared of Egypt, Turkey, Persia, and India. Gibbon calls him “a gentleman and a scholar, but intolerably vain and prolix.” The French have a good translation by Carreau and le Comte, 1663, 4 vols. 4to, and Rouen, 1745, 8 vols. 12mo. There is also an English translation, London, 1665, folio. He did not return from his travels until 1626. He married at Babylon a virtuous young woman, who accompanied him in his journeys, and died at Mina in Carainania, 1622, aged twenty-three. Her husband was so deeply affected with her loss, that he caused her body to be embalmed and carried it always with him in a wooden coffin, till his arrival at Rome, where he buried it with great magnificence in his family vault in the church of Ara cceli. He spoke her funeral oration himself, which may be found in Italian and French, in the 12mo edition of his Travels, He died at Rome in 1652.

, an English statesman, whose family name had for some generations been Fane, but originally Vane, to which he restored it, was born Feb. 18, 1589. The family is said to have been at first of the diocese of Durham, but were now settled in Kent. (See Collins, art. Darlington). In 16 11 he had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him by king James I. after which he improved himself by travel, and the acquisition of foreign languages. On his return he was elected member of parliament for Carlisle, in which his abilities were conspicuous. Such also was his attachment to the royal family, that king James made him cofferer to his son Charles, prince of Wales, on the establishment of his household, and he was continued in the same office by the prince when Charles I. He was also sent by the new king to notify to the States of Holland the death of his royal father, and made one of the privy-council. In Sept. 1631 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary, to renew the treaty of friendship and alliance with Christian IV. king of Denmark; and to conclude peace and confederacy with Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden. He returned to England in Nov. 1632, and in May of the following year, entertained Charles I. in a sumptuous manner, at Raby-castle, on his way to Scotland to be crowned; as he did again, April 30, 1639, in his majesty’s expedition to Scotland, when sir Henry commanded a regiment of 1099 men. In 1639 he was made treasurer of the household, and next year, principal secretary of state in the room of sir John Coke. Hitherto he had enjoyed the confidence of the king, and had always been employed in the most important public affairs. But when he appeared in the prosecution against the earl of Strafford, his motives to which appear to have been of a personal kind, the king was so offended, that he removed him from his places of treasurer of his household, and also from being secretary of state, though, in the patent granting that office to him, he was to hold it during life. The parliament therefore made this one of their pleas for taking up arms against the king. In their declaration, they avowed, “it was only for the defence of the king’s person, and the religion, liberties, and laws of the kingdom, and for those, who for their sakes, and for those ends, had observed their orders. That, by the instigation of evil counsellors, the king had raised an army of papists, by which he intended to awe and destroy the parliament, &c.; and the putting out the earl of Northumberland, sir Henry Vane, and others, &c. from their several places and employments, were sufficient and ample evidences thereof.”

Vanini has not been without his apologists, who bay* considered him rather as a victim to bigotry and envy, than as a martyr to impiety and atheism. They even go so far as to maintain that neither his life nor his writings were so absurd or blasphemous as to entitle him to the character of a despiser of God and religion. The arguments of these apologists may be found in Buddeus’s “Theses de Atheismo et Superstitione,” in Arp’s “Apologia pro Vanino,” 1712, and in Heister’s “Apologia pro medicis.” The life of Vanini has been written several times; but that by M. Durand, entitled “La Vie et les Sentimens de Lucilio Vanini,” and printed at Rotterdam, 1727, in 12 mo, comprises every thing which has been said of him, bnt by no means justifies the zeal of his apologists. An English translation of Durand was published in 1730.

, an English poet and translator, called the Silurist, from being a native of that part of Wales whose ancient inhabitants were called Silures, was born, in 1621, at Newton St. Bridget, in Brecknockshir. After being educated at home under Matthew Herbert, an able grammar- master, he was entered of Jesus college, Oxford, in 1638, but after two years residence, he departed without taking a degree, his father wishing him to study law in London. On the breaking out of the rebellion he was sent for home, and followed, as Wood says, “the pleasant paths of poetry and philology,” but afterwards studied and practised physic with reputation. He was, adds Wood, “esteemed by scholars an ingenious person, but proud and humorous.” He died in April 1695, and was buried in the parish church of Llansenfreid near Brecknock. His poetical works are, 1. “Olor Iscanus, a collection of some select poems,” Lond. 1650, 8vo. 2. “Silex scintillans, or the Bleeding Heart, sacred poems and private ejaculations,” 1650, 1655, 12mo. 3. “The Mount of Olives: or. Solitary Devotions,” 1652, 8vo. 4. “Thalia Rediviva,” poems, which Wood says were ready for the press in 1673, but knows not whether they were printed. Mr. Ellis has given a few specimens from Vaughan’s poetry, but without being able to applaud it much. He translated some parts of Plutarch’s Morals, which were printed in a second edition of his “Olor Iscanus;” Anselm’s “Blessed state of Man;” Guevara “On the praise and happiness of the Country Life;” the “Life of Paulinus bishop of Nola,” and a few other articles mentioned by Wood.

, Lord Vaux of Harwedon, an English poet, was the eldest son of Nicholas, the first lord Vaux, and was born in 1510. In 1527 he was among the attendants in Wolsey’s stately embassy, when that prelate went to treat of a peace between the emperor Charles V. and the kings of England and France; and in January 1530, he took his place in parliament as a baron. In 1532 he waited on the king in his splendid expedition to Calais and Boulogne, a little before which time he is said to have had the custody of the persecuted queen Catherine. In the following year he was made a knight of the bath, at the coronation of Anne Boleyn. He appears to have held no public office but that of the captain of the island of Jersey, which he surrendered in 1536. He died early in the reign of Philip and Mary.

In the new edition, the three former publications were formed into two handsome and uniform volume*; with the geui-nil title of “The Commerce and Navigation of the Aucieuts in the Indian Ocean, by William Vincent, D. D. dean of Westminster.” Each volume had also a second till the first for the voyage of Nearchus, the second for the Peripius. Gratitude now demanded the introduction of lord Sidmouth’s name, to whose unsolicited patronage the author owed so much. To him, therefore, the whole work was now dedicated, in. a sincere and manly strain of acknowledgment; retaining, however, the two dedications to the king, which had introduced the two parts of the Periplus. It was afterwards translated into German and French, the latter by M. Billecoq, under the express authority of Buonaparte. At that period of inveterate enmity on his part, it would not have been safe, perhaps, to translate an English work, on any subject, without that sanction. Approbation so undeniably impartial gave the author a pleasure, which he avowed as frankly as he did his other sentiments; and that satisfaction was complete, when, in 1814, a degree from Goitingen, conferred upon him by diploma, was transmitted to him, with the most honourable testimony borne to the merit and value of his works. Though far from anxious for fame, he was much above affecting an insensibility to it, which no man ever felt who was capable of deserving it.

The genuine and undisputed works of this poet are, ten “Eclogues, or Bucolics,” four books of “Georgics,” and the “Æneid,” in twelve books. The “Culex,” the “Ciris,” and some smaller pieces, called “Catalecta,” are subjoined to some editions of his works; particularly to that of Masvicius, with the notes of Servius, at JLeewarden, 1717, in 2 vols. 4to; which is, perhaps, the best edition of Virgil, although that of Burman, at Amsterdam, 1746, in 4 vols. 4 to., bears a higher price. There are, besides these 4 several good ones; as the “Elzevir” in 1636, 12mo; “Da la Cerdu’s” in 1642, folio; that “in Usum Delphini a Ruæo, 1675,” 4to; the “Variorum” edition at Leyden, 1680, 3 vols. 8vo and the edition of Heyne, republished in London in 1793. The versions of, and commentaries upon, his works are innumerable; those into our own lair* guage by Ogilby, Dryden, and Trapp, are well known: but Dr. Warton’s edition in Latin and English, referred to above, is preferable to any of these, not on account of th translation only, but because the Latin text is correctly printed with it. The “Bucolics” and “Georgics” have also been published by Dr. John Martyn, F. R. S. professor of botany in Cambridge, with an English version in prose, and with useful and curious notes.

In Oct. 1688, he married Miss Ethelred Hovel, daughter and coheiress of sir William Hovel, of Illington, in the county of Norfolk, knight. As he was a favourer of the revolution, he was, after that event, appointed deputy clerk of the closet to king William. In July 168.9, according to Wood, he accumulated his degrees in divinity at Oxford, but another account says that he was created D. D. having been the preceding month preferred to a canonry of Christ-church, in the room of Dr. Aldrich, appointed dean. With a view to contribute to a defence of the doctrine and government of the church of England, against the adversaries of its hierarchy, be published in 1693, “An English Version of the genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers, with a preliminary discourse concerning the use of those Fathers.” Of this excellent volume he published a new edition in 1710, with so many improvements, as almost to make it a new work, and a fourth edition appears about the time of his death, in 1737. The reasons why he lays great stress on the authority of these fathers are; “that they were contemporary with the apostles, and instructed by them that they were men of an eminent character in the church, and therefore could not be ignorant of what was taught in it; that they were careful to preserve the doctrine of Christ in its purity, and to oppose such as went about to corrupt it: that they were men not only of a perfect piety, but of great courage and constancy, and therefore such as cannot be suspected to have had any design to prevaricate in this matter; that they were endued with a large portion of the Holy Spirit, and as such could hardly err in what they delivered as the gospel of Christ; and that their writings were approved by the church in these days, which could not be mistaken in its approbation of them.” In July of the same year, he was preferred to the rectory of St. James’s Westminster.

He took a very active part in that memorable controversy with regard to the Convocation, which we shall only notice so far as he was concerned, something having been already said upon it under the article of Atterbury. In 16i>7, there was published an anonymous pamphlet, entitled, “A Letter to a Convocation man, concerning the Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of that Body:” to which an answer was published the same year, by Dr. Wake, under this title, “The Authority of Christian Princes over their ecclesiastical Synods asserted, with particular respect to the Convocations of the Clergy of the realm and Church of England,” 8vo: and, this being attacked, the doctor vindicated himself in “An appeal to all the true members of the church of England, in behalf of the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy, as by law established; by our convocations approved; and by our most eminent bishops and clergymen stated and defended, against both the popish and fanatical opposers of it, 1698,” 8vo. In 1700, the celebrated Atterbury entered into this dispute with great vigour and resolution, and published an answer to Dr. Wake’s book, entitled, “The Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of an English Convocation, stated and defended,” 8vo: reprinted in 1701, with additions. The controversy novr grew warm, and several writers of considerable note engaged in it. Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, and Kennet, afterwards bishop of Peterborough, wrote animadversions upon Atterbury’s work; and Kennet’s piece against it was a particular reply to it, written under the countenance of archbishop Tenison. Hody, Gibson, Hooper, were concerned in it: Hooper was on the side of Atterhury; Hody and Gibson against him. But the most considerable and decisive answer to Atterbury was Dr. Wake’s large work, entitled, “The State of the Church and Clergy of England, in their Councils, Synods, Convocations, Conventions, and other public assemblies, historically deduced from the conversion of the Saxons to the present times, 1703,” in folio. This work was esteemed not only a full and sufficient answer to Atterbury, but decisive with regard to the controversy in general.

During his confinement, he composed several pamphlets, and planned some works of greater magnitude; among the former were a series of “Essays from Dio Chrysostom;” an imitation in English iambic rhyme, of Juvenal’s first satire; and a small volume entitled “Noctes carcerarise” among the latter were an edition of an English and Greek Lexicon, which failed for want of sufficient encouragement; and a series of classical lectures, to be given in London after his liberation, and the first course of which, consisting of observations on the second book of Virgil’s Æneid, he lived to complete. These lectures occupied him almost immediately on his release; but towards the end of August, 1801, he was attacked by a typhus fever, and died Sept. 9, in the forty-sixth year of his age.

, author of some valuable and popular works on the English language, was born March 18, 1732, at Colney-hatch, a hamlet in the parish of Friern-Barnet. Of his parents little is known, and it does not appear that he was enabled to receive a liberal education. He was intended for some trade, but had a reluctance to every effort of that kind, and went when young upon the stage, on which he had some, although no brilliant success. He continued, however, to accept various theatrical engagements until 1768, when he finally quitted the stage; and in January 1767 joined Mr. James Usher (see Usher) in forming a school at Kensington Gravel-pits, but their partnership lasted only about two years, after which Mr. Walker began to give those instructions on elocution, which formed the principal employment of his future life, and procured him a very just fame. About the same time he instituted his inquiries into the structure of language, and the rationale of grammar, and particularly directed his attention to the orthoepy of the English language, in which he endeavoured, by tracing it to its principles, to form a consistent and analogical theory. The unwearied attention he bestowed upon the subject, enabled him to accomplish this end, and to demonstrate the errors, inconsistencies, and affectations which had crept into pronunciation, and which had been propagated, rather than corrected, By many or' those who had hitherto professed to teach it. He therefore resolved to make the public participators in the result of his researches; and in 1772 he published, by way of prospectus, a quarto pamphlet entitled, “A general idea of a Pronouncing Dictionary of the English language,” a work which, though an imperfect attempt had been made by Dr. Kenrick, in his “Rhetorical Dictionary,” might yet be considered as a desideratum. But as he found it impossible to proceed on tiiis without farther encouragement than was then offered, he compiled an English Dictionary on a smaller scale, and on a plan not hitherto attempted, in which the words should be arranged according to their terminations; a mode of arrangement which, though not calculated for general use, possesses many peculiar advantages. This he published in 1775, under the title of “A Dictionary of the English language, answering at once the purposes of rhyming, spelling, and pronouncing;” it has since been republisheu under the shorter title of “A Rhyming Dictionary.”

nable drunke at Somerset House, where, company without drinking but Ned Waller.“The praisegiven him by St. Evremond is a proof of his reputation; for it was only by his reputation that he could be known, as a writer, to a man who, though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, never condescended ta understand the language of the nation that maintained him. In parliament, Burnet says, Waller was the delight of the house, and though old, said the- liveliest things of any among them. 1 * His name as a speaker often occurs in Grey’s” Debates," but Dr. Johnson, who examined them, says he found no extracts that could be more quoted as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency of argument. He was, however, of strch consideration, that his remarks were circulated and recorded; nor did he suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which might easily happen in a long life; but renewed his claim to poetical distinction, as occasions were offered, either by public events, or private incidents; and contenting himself with the influence of his* muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he never accepted any office of magistracy. He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune; for he asked from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton college, and obtained it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, alleging that it could be held only by a clergyman. It is known that sir Henry Wotton qualified himself for it by deacon’s orders.

, D. D. and F. R, S. was an English Benedictine monk, and a Roman catholic bishop also senior bishop and vicar apostolic of the western district, as well as doctor of theology of the Sorbonne. He died at Bath in 1797, in the seventy-sixth year of his age; and the forty-first of his episcopacy. He was the last survivor of those eminent mathematicians who were concerned in regulating the chronological style in England, which produced a change of the style in this country in 1752. Besides some ingenious astronomical essays in the Philosophical Transactions, he printed several separate works, both on mathematics and theology; as, 1. “Analyse cles Mesures des Rapports et des Angles,” 1749, 4to, being an extension and explanation of Cotes’ s '“Harmonia Mensurarum.” 2. “Theorie du monument des Aspides,” 1749, 8vo. 3. “De inaequalitatibus motuum Lunarium,” 1758, 4to. 4. “An Explanation of the Apocalypse, Ezekiel’s Vision,” &c. By the fire at Bath in the time of the riots, 1780, several valuable manuscripts which he had compiled in the course of his life and travels through many countries, were irretrievably lost.

, an English critic and poet, was the son of Joseph Walsh of Abberley in Worcestershire, esq. and born about 1663, for the precise time does not appear. According to Pope, his birth happened in 1659; but Wood places it four years later. He became a gentleman-commoner of Wadham-college in Oxford in 1678, but left the university without a degree, and pursued his studies in London and at home. That he studied, in whatever place, is apparent from the effect; for he became, in Dryden’s opinion, “the best critic in the nation.” He was not, however, merely a critic or a scholar. He was likewise a man of fashion, and, as Dennis remarks, ostentatiously splendid in his dress. He was likewise a member of parliament and a courtier, knight of the shire for his native county in several parliaments, in another the re* presentative of Richmond in Yorkshire, and gentleman of the horse to queen Anne under the duke of Somerset. Some of his verses shew him to have been a zealous friend to the Revolution; but his political ardour did not abate his reverence or kindness for Dryden, to whom, Dr. Johnson says, he gave a Dissertation on Virgil’s Pastorals; but this was certainly written by Dr. Chetwood, as appears by one of Drydeu’s letters. In 1705 he began to correspond with Pope, in whom he discovered very early the power of poetry, and advised him to study correctness, which the poets of his time, he said, all neglected. Their letters are written upon the pastoral comedy of the Italians, and those pastorals which Pope was then preparing to publish. The kindnesses which are first experienced are seldom forgotten. Pope always retained a grateful memory of Walsh’s notice, and mentioned him in one of his latter pieces among those that had encouraged his juvenile studies.

, an English prelate of great abilities and eminence, was born at Newark-upon-Trent, in the county of Nottingham, Dec. 24, 1698. His father was George Warburton, an attorney and town-clerk of the place in which this his eldest son received his birth and education. His mother was Elizabeth, the daughter of William Hobman, an alderman of the same town; and his parents were married about 1696. The family of Dr. Warburton came originally from the county of Chester, where his great-grandfather resided. His grandfather, William Warburton, a royalist during the rebellion, was the first that settled at Newark, where he practised the law, and was coroner of the county of Nottingham. George Warburton, the father, died about 1706, leaving his widow and five children, two sons and three daughters, of which the second son, George, died young; but, of the daughters, one- survived her brother. The bishop received the early part of his education under Mr. Twells, whose son afterwards married his sister Elizabeth; but he was principally trained under Mr. Wright, then master of Okehamschool in Rutlandshire, and afterwards vicar of Campden in Gloucestershire. Here he continued till the beginning of 1714, when his cousin Mr. William Warburton being made head -master of Newark-school, he returned to his native place, and was for a short time under the care of that learned gentleman. During his stay at school, he did not distinguish himself by any extraordinary efforts of genius or application, yet is supposed to have acquired a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin. His original designation was to the same profession as that of his father and grandfather; and he was accordingly placed clerk to Mr. Kirke, an attorney at East Markham in Nottinghamshire, with whom he continued till April 1719, when he was qualified to engage in business upon his own account. He was then admitted to one of the courts at Westminster, and for some years continued the employment of an attorney and solicitor at the place of his birth. The success he met with as a man of business was probably not great. It was certainly insufficient to induce him to devote the rest of his life to it: and it is probable, that his want of encouragement might tempt him to turn his thoughts towards a profession in which his literary acquisitions would be more valuable, and in which he might more easily pursue the bent of his inclination. He appears to have brought from school more learning than was requisite for a practising lawyer. This might rather impede than forward his progress; as it has been generally observed, that an attention to literary concerns, and the bustle of an attorney’s office, with only a moderate share of business, are wholly incompatible. It is therefore no wonder that he preferred retirement to noise, and relinquished what advantages he might expect from continuing to follow the law. It has been suggested by an ingenious writer, that he was for some time usher to a school, but this probably was founded on his giving some assistance to his relation at Newark, who in his turn assisted him in those private studies to which he was now attached; and his love of letters continually growing stronger, the seriousness of his temper, and purity of his morals, concurring, determined him to quit his profession for the church. In 1723 he received deacon’s orders from archbishop Dawes and his first printed work then appeared, consisting of translations from Cæsar, Pliny, Claudian, and others, under the title of “Miscellaneous Translations in Prose and Verse, from Roman Poets, Orators, and Historians,” 12mo. It is dedicated to hig early patron, sir Robert Sutton, who, in 1726, when Mr. Warburton had received priest’s orders from bishop Gibson, employed his interest to procure him the small vicarage of Gryesly in Nottinghamshire. About Christmas, 1726, he came to London, and, while there, was introduced to Theobald, Concanen, and other of Mr. Pope’s enemies, the novelty of whose conversation had at this time many charms for him, and he entered too eagerly into their cabals and prejudices. It was at this time that he wrote a letter to Concanen, dated Jan. 2, 1726, very disrespectful to Pope, which, by accident, falling into the hands of the late Dr. Akenside, was produced to most of that gentleman’s friends, and became the subject of much speculation. About this time he also communicated to Theobald some notes on Shakspeare, which afterwards appeared in that critic’s edition of our great dramatic poet. In 1727, his second work, entitled “A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, as related by Historians,” &c. was published in 12mo, and was also dedicated to sir Robert Sutton in a prolix article of twenty pages. In 1727 he published a treatise, under the title of “The Legal Judicature in Chancery stated,” which he undertook at the particular request of Samuel Burroughs, esq. afterwards a master in Chancery, who put the materials into his hands, and spent some time in the country with him during the compilation of the work. On April 25, 1728, by the interest of sir Robert Sutton, he had the honour to be in the king’s list of masters of arts, created at Cambridge on his majesty’s visit to that university. In June, the same year, he was presented by sir Robert Sutton to the rectory of Burnt or Brand Broughton, in the diocese of Lincoln, and neighbourhood of Newark, where he fixed himself accompanied by his mother and sisters, to whom he was ever a most affectionate relative. Here he spent a considerable part of the prime of life in a studious retirement, devoted entirely to letters, and there planned, and in part executed, some of his most important works. They, says his biographer, who are unacquainted with the enthusiasm which true genius inspires, will hardly conceive the possibility of that intense application, with which Mr. Warburton pursued his studies in this retirement. Impatient of any interruptions, he spent the whole of his time that could be spared from the duties of his parish, in reading and writing. His constitution was strong, and his temperance extreme; so that he needed no exercise but that of walking; and a change of reading, or study, was his only amusement.

, an English prelate, famous chiefly for his skill in mathematics and astronomy, was the son of John Ward an attorney, and born at Buntingford, in Hertfordshire. Wood says he was baptised the 16th of April, 1617; but Dr. Pope places his birth in 1618. He was taught grammar-learning and arithmetic in the school at Buntingford; and thence removed to Sidney college in Cambridge, into which he was admitted in 1632. Dr. Samuel Ward, the master of that college, was greatly taken with his ingenuity and good nature; and shewed him particular favour, partly perhaps from his being of the same surname, though there was no affinity at all between them. Here he applied himself with great vigour to his studies, and particularly to mathematics, his initiation into which, Pope thus relates: “In the college library Mr. Ward found by chance some books that treated of the mathematics, and they being woolly new to him, he inquired all the college over for a guide to instruct him in that way; but all his search was in vain; these books were Greek, I mean unintelligible, to all the fellows of the college. Nevertheless he took courage, and attempted them himself, proprio Marte, without any confederates or assistance, or intelligence in that country, and that with so good success, that in a short time he not only discovered those Indies, but conquered several kingdoms therein, and brought thence a great part of their treasure, which he shewed publicly to the whole university not long after.”

Mr. Wase was afterwards made fellow of King’s-college, and went out bachelor of arts. In 1650 he published an English translation in verse of the “Electra” of Sophocles. For something offensive in the preface of this translation, or some other accusation bythe parliamentary party, which is not quite clear, (Walker says he delivered a feigned letter from the king to Dr. Collins) he was ejected from his fellowship, and obliged to leave the kingdom. He was afterwards taken at sea, and imprisoned at Gravesend, from which he contrived to escape, and served in the Spanish army against the French. He was taken prisoner in an engagement, but released soon after, and came to England, where he was appointed tutor to William lord Herbert, eldest son to the earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. To this nobleman he dedicated “Gratii Falisci Cynegeticon, a poem on hunting by Gratius, &c.” Lond. 1654, 8vo. This translation, and his comment on that elegant poem, are sufficient proof of his abilities. Waller addressed a copy of verses to him on his performance.

, an English divine, of whom some account may be acceptable, preparatory to that of his more celebrated son, was the son of a nonconformist minister, ejected in 1662. He was born about 1662. He was educated in nonconformist sentiments, which he soon relinquished, owing to the violent prejudices of some of his sect in favour of the murder of Charles I. He spent some time at a private academy, and at the age of sixteen walked to Oxford, and entered himself of Exeter college, as a servitor. He had at this time no mure than two pounds sixteen shillings, nor any prospect of 'future supply but from his own exertions. But by industry, and probably by assisting his fellow students, he supported himself until he took his bachelor’s degree, without any preferment or assistance from ^his friends, except five shillings. He now came to London, having increased his little stock to 10l. 15s. Here he was ordained deacon, and obtained a curacy, which he held one year, when he was appointed chaplain of the Fleet. In this situation he remained but a year, and returned to London, where he again served a curacy for two years, during which time he married and had a son. He now wrote several pieces which brought him into notice and esteem, and a small living was given him in the country, that, if we mistake not, of South Ormesby, in the county of Lincoln. He was strongly solicited by the friends of James II. to support the measures of the court in favour of popery, with promises of preferment if he would comply with the king’s desire. But he absolutely refused to read the king’s declaration; and though surrounded with courtiers, soldiers, and informers, he preached a bold and pointed discourse against it, from Daniel iii. 17, 18. “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” When the revolution took place he wrote a work in defence of it, dedicated to queen Mary, who, in consequence of it, gave him the living of Epworth, in Lincolnshire, about 1693; and in 1723 he was presented to the living of Wroote, in the same county, in addition to Epworth, which last he held upwards of forty years.

, an English divine and critic, the son of Richard Whalley, of an ancient Northamptonshire family, was born at Rugby, in the county of Warwick, Sept. 2, 1722. He was admitted at Merchant-Taylor’s-school, London, Jan. 10, 1731, whence, in June 1740, he was elected scholar of St. John’s-college, Oxford, and, in 1743, was admitted Fellow. On quitting the university, he became vicar of St. Sepulchre’s, Northamptonshire. It was here that he probably laid the foundation of that topographical knowledge which, in 1755, induced a committee of gentlemen of that county to elect him as the proper person to prepare for the press Bridges’s and other Mss. for a History of Northamptonshire.

During his stay at Paris, his winning address and astonishing parts gained him the esteem and admiration of all the British subjects of both parties who happened to be there. The earl of Stair, then the English ambassador there, notwithstanding all the reports to the marquis’s disadvantage, thought proper to shew some respect to the representative of so great a family. His excellency never failed to lay hold of every opportunity to give some admonitions, which were not always agreeable to the vivacity of his temper, and sometimes provoked him to great indiscretions. Once in particular, the ambassador, extolling the merit and noble behaviour of the marquis’s father, added, that he hoped he would follow so illustrious an example of fidelity to his prince and love to his country: on which the marquis immediately answered, that “he thanked his excellency for his good advice, and, as his excellency had also a worthy and deserving father, he hoped he would likewise copy so bright an original, and tread in his steps.” This was a severe sarcasm, as the ambassador’s father had betrayed his master in a manner that was not very creditable. Before he left France, an English gentleman expostulating with him for swerving so much from the principles of his father and whole family, his lordship answered, that “he had pawned his principles to Gordon, the Pretender’s banker, for a considerable sum, and, till he could repay him, he must be a Jacobite; but, when that was done, he would again return to the Whigs.”

, an English divine, of most uncommon abilities, was born Nov. 9, 1664, at Worstead in Norfolk; of which parish his father Edmund, who survived him, was vicar. He was educated under his father; and made such a progress in the Greek and Latin tongues, that, from his first entrance into the university, he was thought an extraordinary young man. On Feb. 17, 1679—80, he was admitted into 'Caius-college, Cambridge, of which his father had been fellow, under the tuition of John, afterwards sir John Ellys, one of the senior fellows. Here he prosecuted his studies with the greatest vigour, and was instructed in the mathematics by Mr. (afterwards sir) Isaac Newton, then fellow of Trinity-college and Lucasian professor, amongst a select company, to whom that great man read lectures in his own private chamber. He took a bachelor of arts degree in 1683-4, and resided in the college till 1686, was a scholar on the foundation of his great uncle Stockys, but, observing no probability of a vacancy among the fellowships, he left it, and was recommended by Dr. Barker, afterwards chaplain to archbishop Tillotson, to Dr. Cave, whom he assisted in compiling his “Historia Literaria.” Of the nature of that assistance, and the manner in which he conducted himself, we shall have occasion to speak afterwards. In 1687 he was ordained deacon; and the same year proceeded master of arts by proxy; which favour was indulged him on account of being then dangerously ill of the small-pox at Islington. About this time the reputation he had acquired recommended him to the notice of Dr. Tenison, vicar of St. Martin’s in the Fields, London, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, who employed him to prepare for the press a manuscript on “The incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome,” written in Latin by Placette of Hamburgh. This Wharton translated into English and epitomized. Tenison also recommended him to lord Arundel of Trerice, as tutor for his son. Soon after being presented to archbishop Sancroft, his grace put into his hands, in April 1788, the manuscript of archbishop Usher’s dogmatical history of the Holy Scriptures, which he published, in 4to, under the title, “J. Usserii, &c. Hist. Dogmatica controversial inter orthodoxos et pon-r tificios de scripturis, &c.” to which he added an “auctarium,” or supplement. He also published before and about this time several treatises against popery, among which are, 1. “The Speculum Ecclesiasticum considered, inits false reasonings and quotations,” Lond. 1687, 4to. The “Speculum Ecclesiasticum” was a production of Thomas. Ward, whom we have noticed already. 2. “A treatise proving Scripture to be the rule of Faith, writ by Reginald Pecock, bishop of Chichester, before the reformation, about 1450,” Lond* 1688, 4to. This, to which Mr. Wharton prefixed a preface on the same subject, is the only production of that learned prelate which has been pub-, lished. 3. “A treatise of the Celibacy of the Clergy, wherein its rise and progress are historically considered, 7 * ibid. 1688, 4to. In this he proves that the celibacy of the clergy was not enjoined either by Christ or his apostles; that it has nothing excellent in itself; that the imposition of it is unjust, and that, in point of fact, it was never universally imposed or practised in the ancient church. 5. A, translation of Dellon’s” History of the Inquisition of Goa. n 6. About the same time he translated some homilies of St. Macarius, the prologue and epilogue of Euronius to his “Apologetic Treatise” (formerly transcribed by him out of a manuscript of Dr. Tenison) with a treatise of “PseudoDorotheus,” found by Mr. Dodwell jn the Bodleian library, out of Greek into Latin, and the famous Bull “in Ccena Domini” out of Latin into English annexing a short preface containing some reflections- upon the Bull, and animadversions on the account of the proceedings of the parliament of Paris. 7. He gave his assistance likewise to a new edition of Dr. Thomas James’s “Corruption of the Scriptures, Councils, and Fathers, by the Prelates of the Church of Rome for the maintenance of Popery;” and at the request of Mr. Watts he revised the version of “Philalethe & Philirene,” fitting it for the press. 8. “A brief declaration of the Lord’s Supper, written by Dr. Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London, during his imprisonment. Witfo some other determinations and disputations concerning the same argument, by the same author. To which is annexed an extract of several passages to the same purpose out of a book entitled * Diallecticon,' written by Dr. John Poynet, bishop of Winton in the reigns of Edward VI. and queen Mary,” 1688, 4to. 9. “The Enthusiasm of the Church of Rome demonstrated in some observations upon the Life of Ignatius Loyola,” 1688, 4to.

In 1692 he published, in 8vo, “A Defence of Pluralities,” in which the subject is handled with great ingenuity; and the same year was printed, in two volumes folio, his “Anglia Sacra, sive Collectio Historiarum, partim antiquitus, partim recenter, scriptarum, de Archiepiscopis &, Episcopis Anglise, a prima Fidei Christianas susceptione ad annum MDXL.” He has been generally commended for having done great service to the ecclesiastical history of this kingdom by this work yet bishop Burnet, in his “Reflections” on Atterbury’s book of “The Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of an English Convocation,” tells us, that “he had in his hands a whole treatise, which contained only the faults of ten leaves of one of the volumes of the ‘ Anglia Sacra.’ They are, indeed,” adds he, “so many, and so gross.^ that often the faults are as many as the lines: sometimes they are two for one.” This may be perhaps asserting too much, but unquestionably the errors in transcription, from haste, or from employing improper amanuenses, are so considerable as to render it necessary to peruse it with great caution, otherwise it is a truly valuable collection. There is a copy of it in the Bodleian? library, among Mr. Gough’s books, with an immense addition of ms notes by bishop Kennet. Jn 1693, Wharton published, in 4to, “Bedae Venerabilis Opera queedam Theologica, nunc primum edita; nee non Historica antea semel edita:” and the same year, under the name of Anthony Harmer, “A Specimen of some errors and defects in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England, written by Gilbert Burnet, D. D.” 8vo. In the answer to this, addressed by way of letter to Dr. Lloyd bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, Dr. Burnet observes, that “he had not seen any one thing relating to his history which had pleased him so much as this specimen. It is plain,” says he, “that here is a writer, who has considered those times and that matter with much application; and that he is a master of this subject. He has the art of writing skilfully; and how much soever he may be wanting in a Christian temper, and in the decency that one who owns himself of our communion owed to the station I hold in it, yet in other respects he seems to be a very valuable man; so valuable, that I cannot, without a very sensible regret, see such parts and such industry like to be soured and spoiled with so ill a temper.” And afterwards, in his “Reflections’ 1 upon Atterbury’s book just mentioned, he speaks of the specimen in these words” Some years ago, a rude attack was made upon me under the disguised name of Anthony Harmer. His true name is well enough known, as also who was his patron: but I answered that specimen with the firmness that became me; and I charged the writer home to publish the rest of his “Reflections.” He had intimated, that he gave then but the sample, and that he had great store yet in reserve. I told him upon that, I would expect to see him make that good, and bring out all he had to say; otherwise, they must pass for slander and detraction. He did not think fit to write any more upon that, though he was as much solicited to it by some as he was provoked to it by myself.“In 1695 he published, in folio,” The History of the Troubles and Trials of Archbishop Laud;“the second part or volume of which was published after his death by his father, the Rev. Edmund Wharton, in 1700. This is one of the most useful collections of facts illustrative of the times in which Laud lived, that we are in possession of. He published also a new edition of Becatelli’s Life of Cardinal Pole, in Latin, with the confest between the ambassadors of England and France at the council of Constance. He published in 8vo,” Historia deEpiseopis & Decanis Londinensilxus, nee non de Episcopis & Decanis Assavensibus, a prima sedis utriusque fundatione ad annum MDXL.“Besides these works he left several pieces behind him, about which he had taken great pains: and two volumes of his” Sermons“have been printed in 8vo since his death. Among his Mss, are several English historians not yet published, which he had transcribed and collated with the originals, and prepared for the press; viz. 1.” Benedictus Abbas de Gestis Henrici secundi Regis Angliae, A. D. U70.“2.” Chronicon Nicolai Tribettt (vulgo de Trebeth) Dominicani, ab ann. 1136 ad ann, 1307.“3?” Chronicon Petri Ickham, Compilatio de Gestis Britonum & Anglorum.“4.” Stephani Birchington Monachi Cantuariensis Historia de regibus Angliae post conquestum.“5.” Liber nonus de miraculis Anglorum.“In some of these are contained vast collections out of the ancient and modem records relating to church affairs. Among his manuscripts was likewise” An Account of the Mss. in Lambeth Library“in which, besides giving a most exact catalogue of them, he had under every book transcribed all those treatises contained in them which were not yet published. Among the printed books, towards a new and more correct edition of which Wharton had considerably contributed, were the following: 1.” Historia Matt. Parkeri Archiepiscopi Cantuar. de antiquitate Britaonicae Ecclesiae,“&c. enlarged with notes, collections, and additions, partly made by Parker himself, and partly by others, and several by Wharton; together with the Life of the said Archbishop, as also that of St. Austin of Canterbury, written by George Acworth. 2.” Franciscus Godwinus de Praesulibus Angliae," with some notes. 3. Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthew of Westminster, both with many notes, corrections, and additions. He had likewise made notes on several of his own books already published by him; which it is probable were designed for additions to those books whenever they should receive a new impression. All these, which were purchased by archbishop Tenison, are now in the Lambeth Library.

, an English divine of great name, was descended of an ancient and good family in the county of Salop, and was the sixth son of Christopher Whichcote, esq. at Whichcote-hall in the parish of Stoke, where he was born March 11, 1609-10. He was admitted of Emanuel-college, Cambridge, in 1626, and took the degrees in arts: that of bachelor in 1629; and that of master in 1633. The same year, 1633, he was elected fellow of the college, and became a most excellent tutor; many of his pupils, as Wallis, Smith, Worthington, Cra,­dock, &c. becoming afterwards men of great eminence. Jn 1636 he was ordained both deacon and priest at Buckden by Williams bishop of Lincoln; and soon after set up an afternoon-lecture on Sundays in Trinity church at Cambridge, which, archbishop Tillotson says, he served near twenty years. He was also appointed one of the university-preachers; and, in 1643, was presented by the master and fellows of his college to the living of North-Cadbury in Somersetshire. This vacated his fellowship; and upon this, it is presumed, he married, and went to his living; but was soon called back to Cambridge, being appointed to succeed the ejected provost of King’s-college, Dr. Samuel Collins, who had been in that office thirty years, and was also regius professor of divinity. This choice was perfectly agreeable to Dr. Collins himself; though not so to Dr. Whichcote, who had scruples about Accepting what was thus irregularly offered him: however, after some demurring, he complied, and was admitted pro-r vost, March 16, 1644. He had taken his bachelor of divinity’s degree in 1640; and he took his doctor’s in 1649. He now resigned his Somersetshire living, and was presented by his college to the rectory of Milton in Cambridgeshire, which was void by the death of Dr. Collins. Jt must be remembered, to Dr. Whichcote’s honour, that, during the life of Dr. Collins, one of the two shares out of the common dividend allotted to the provost was, not only with Dr. Whichcote’s consent, but at his motion, paid punctually to him, as if he had still been provost. Dr. Whichcote held Milton as long as he lived; though, after the Restoration, he thought proper to resign, and resume it by a fresh presentation from the college. He still continued to attend his lecture at Trinity, church with the same view that he had at first set it up; which was, to preserve and propagate a spirit of sober piety and rational religion in the university of Cambridge, in opposition to the style of preaching, and doctrines then in vogue: and he may be said to have founded the school at which many eminent (divines after the Restoration, and Tillotson among them, who had received their education at Cambridge, were formed, and were afterwards distinguished from the more orthodox by the epithet latitudinarian. In 1658 he wrote verses upon the death of Oliver Cromwell, which, his biographer supposes, were done entirely out of form, and not put of any regard to the person of the protector. Nor had Dr. Whichcote ever concurred with the violent measures of those times by signing the covenant, or by any injurious sayings or actions to the prejudice of any man. At the Restoration, however, he was removed from his provostship by especial order from the king; but yet he was not disgraced or frowned upon. On the contrary, he went to London, and in 1662 was chosen minister of St. Anne’s, Blackfriars, where he continued till his church was burned down in the dreadful fire of 1666. He then retired to Milton for a while; but was again called up, and presented by the crown to the vicarage of St. Lawrence Jewry, vacant by the promotion of Dr. VVilkins to the see of Chester. During the building of this church, upon invitation of the court of aldermen, in the mayoralty of sir William Turner, he preached before the corporation at Guildhall chapel, with great approbation, for about seven years. When St. Lawrence’s was rebuilt, he preached there twice a week, and had the general love and respect of his parish, and a very considerable audience, though not numerous, owing to the weakness of his voice in his declining age. A little before Easter in 1683, he went down to Cambridge; where, upon taking cold, he fell into a distemper, which in a few days put an end to his life. He died at the house of his ancient and learned friend Dr. Cuclworth, master of Christ’s-college, in May 1683 and was interred in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Dr. Tillotson, then lecturer there, preached his funeral-sermon, where his character is drawn to great advantage. Burnet speaks of him in the following terms: “He was a man of a rare temper; very mild and obliging. He had credit with somewhat had been eminent in the late times; but made all the use he could of it to protect good men of all persuasions. He was much for liberty of conscience; and, being disgusted with the dry systematical way of those times, he studied to raise those who conversed with him to a nobler set of thoughts, and to consider religion as a seed of a deiform nature (to use one of his own phrases) . In order to this, he set young students much on reading the ancient philosophers, chiefly Plato, Tully, and Piotin; and on considering the Christian religion as a doctrine sent from God, both to elevate and sweeten human nature, in which he was a great example as well as a wise and kind instructor. Cudworth carried this on with a great strength of genius, as well as a vast compass of learning.” Baxter numbers him with “the best and ablest of the conformists.”

, an English divine of very uncommon parts and more uncommon learning, but of a singular and extraordinary character, was born Dec. 9, 1667, at Norton near Twycrosse, in the county of Leicester; of which place his father Josiah Whiston, a learned and pious man, was rector. He was kept at home till he was seventeen, and trained under his father; and this on two accounts: first, because he was himself a valetudinarian, being greatly subject to the flatus hypocondriaciis in various shapes all his life long; secondly, that he might serve his father, who had lost his eye-sight, in the quality of an amanuensis. In 1684, he was sent to Tamvvorth school, and two years after admitted of Clare-hall in Cambridge, where he pursued his studies, and particularly the mathematics, eight hours a day, till 1693. During this time, and while he was under-graduate, an accident happened to him, which he relates for a caution and benefit to others in the like circumstances. He observed one summer, that his eyes did not see as usual, biU dazzled after an aukward manner. Upon which, imagining it arose fro'm too much application, he remitted for a fortnight, and tried to recover his usual sight, by walking much in green fields; but found himself no better. At that time he met with an account of Mr. Boyle’s having known a person, who, having new-whited the wall of his chamber on which the sun shone, and having accustomed himself to read in that glaring light, thereby lost his sight for some time; till, upon hanging the place with green, he recovered it again: and this, he says, was exactly his own case, in a less degree, both as to the cause and the remedy.

, an English divine, and very ingenious naturalist, was the eldest son of John White of Selborne, in Hampshire, esq. and of Anna, the daughter of the rev. Thomas Holt, rector of Streatham, in Surrey. He was born at Selborne, July 18, 1720, and received his school education at Basingstoke, under the rev. Thomas Warton, vicar of that place, and father of those two distinguished characters, Dr. Joseph, and Mr. Thomas Warton. In Dec. 1739, he was admitted of Oriel college, Oxford, and took his degree of B. A. in 1743. In March 1744 he was elected fellow of his college. He became M. A. in Oct. 1746, and was admitted one of the senior proctors of the university in April 1752. Being of an unambitious temper, and strongly attached to the charms of rural scenery, he early fixed his residence in his native village, where he spent the greater part of his life in literary occupations, and especially in the study of nature. This he followed with patient assiduity, and a mind ever open to the lessons of piety and benevolence, which such a study is so well calculated to afford. Though several occasions offered of settling upon a college living, he could never persuade himself to quit the beloved spot, which is, indeed, a peculiarly happy situation for an observer. He was much esteemed by a select society of intelligent and worthy friends, to whom he paid occasional visits. Thus his days passed, tranquil and serene, with scarcely any other vicissitudes than those of the seasons, till they closed at a mature age on June 26, 1793.

, an English historian, was born at Basingstoke, in Hampshire, of the great part of which place his ancestors had been proprietors. He was educated at Winchester school, whence he was admitted fellow of New college, Oxford, in 1557. In the beginning of queen Elizabeth’s reign he obtained leave of absence for a set time, but his attachment to the Roman catholic religion being discovered, his fellowship was declared void, in 1564. He had gone abroad, and after Remaining some time at Louvain, settled at Padua, where he studied the canon and civil law, and received his doctor’s decree in both those faculties. Afterwards, being invited to Douay, he was made regius professor, and taught civil and canon law nearly twenty years. The universityappointed him their chancellor, or rector magnificus, not only on account of his own merit, but in consequence of the particular recommendation of the pope. At length he was created count palatine, a title conferred by the emperor upon lawyers that have distinguished themselves in their profession. He had married two wives, by both of whom he had fortunes, and when the last died, being desirous of entering into the church, he obtained a dispensation from the pope for that purpose. He was now ordained priest, and made a canon of St. Peter’s church, in Douay. He died in 1612, and was buried in St. James’s hurch, the cemetery of most of the English catholics.

, an English philosopher, and Roman catholic priest, who obtained considerable celebrity abroad, where he was usually called Thomas Anglus, or Thomas Albius, was the son of Richard White, esq. of Hatton, in the county of Essex, by Mary, his wife, daughter of Edmund Plowden, the celebrated lawyer in queen Elizabeth’s reign. His parents being Roman catholics, he was educated, probably abroad, in the strictest principles of that profession, and at length became a secular priest, in which character he resided very much abroad. He was principal of the college at Lisbon, and sub-principal of that at Douay; but his longest stay was at Rome and Paris. For a considerable time he lived in the house of sir Kenelm Digby; and he shewed his attachment to that gentleman’s philosophy by various publications. His first work of this kind was printed at Lyons, in 1646. It is entitled “Institutionum Peripateticarum ad mentem summi clarissimique Philosophi Kenelmi Equitis Digbaei.” “Institutions of the Peripatetic Philosophy, according to the hypothesis of the great and celebrated philosopher sir Kenelm Digby.” Mr. White was not contented with paying homage to sir Kenelm on account of his philosophical opinions, but raised him also to the character of a divine. A proof of this is afforded in a book published by him, the title of which is “Quaestio Theologica, quomodo secundum principia Peripatetices DigbsEanae, sive secundum rationem, et abstrahendo, quantum materia patitur, ab authoritate, human! Arbitrii Libertas sit explicanda, et cum Gratia efficaci concilianda.” “A Theological question, in what manner, according to the principles of sir Kenelm Digby’s Peripatetic Philosophy, or according to reason, abstracting, as much as the subject will admit, from authority, the freedom of a man’s will is to be explained and reconciled with efficacious grace.” Another publication to the same purpose, which appeared in 1652, was entitled “Institutiones Theologicae super fundamentis in Peripatetica Digbacana jactis exstructae.” “Institutions of Divinity, built upon the foundations laid down in sir K. Digby’s Peripatetic Philosophy.” By his friend sir Kenelm Mr. White was introduced, with large commendations, to the acquaintance of Des Cartes, who hoped to make a proselyte of him, but without success. White was too much devoted to Aristotle’s philosophy to admit of the truth of any other system. In his application of that philosophy to theological doctrines, he embarrassed himself in so many nice distinctions, and gave such a free scope to his own thoughts, that he pleased neither the Molinists nor the Jansenists. Indeed, though he had a genius very penetrating and extensive, he had no talent at distinguishing the ideas which should have served as the rule and foundation of his reasonings, nor at clearing the points which he was engaged to defend. His answer to those who accused him of obscurity may serve to display the peculiarity of his disposition. “I value myself,” says he, “upon such a brevity and conciseness, as is suitable for the teachers of the sciences. The Divines are the causg that my writings continue obscure; for they refuse to give me any occasion of explaining myself. In short, either the learned understand me, or they do not. If they do understand me, and find me in an error, it is easy for them to refute me; if they do not understand me, it is very unreasonable for them to exclaim against my doctrines.” This, observes Bayle, shews the temper of a man who seeks only to be talked of, and is vexed at not having antagonists enough to draw the regard and attention of the public upon him. Considering the speculative turn of Mr. White’s mind, it is not surprising that some of his books’ were condemned at Rome by the congregation of the “Index Expurgatorius,” and that they were disapproved of by certain universities. The treatises which found their way into the “Index Expurgatorius” were, “Institutiones Peripatetica?;” “Appendix Theologica de Origine Mundi” “Tabula suffragialis de terminandis Fidei Litibus ab Ecclesia Catholica Fixa;” and “Tessera3 Romanae Evulgatio.” In opposition to the doctors of Douay, who had censured two-and-twenty propositions extracted from his “Sacred Institutions,” he published a pieoe entitled “Supplicatio postulativa Justitiae,” in which he complains that they had given a vague uncertain censure of him, attended only with a respective, without taxing any proposiiion in particular; and he shews them that this is acting like prevaricating divines. Another of his works was the “Sonitus Buccina?,” in which he maintained that the church had no power to determine, but only to give her testimony to tradition. This likewise was censured. Mr. White had a very particular notion concerning the state of souls separated from the body, which involved him in a dispute with the bishop of Chalcedon. Two tracts were written by him upon this subject, of which a large and elaborate account is given in archdeacon Blackburne’s Historical View of the controversy 'concerning an intermediate state. The conclusion drawn by the archdeacon is, that Mr. White entered into the questibn with more precision and greater abilities than any man of his time; and that it is very clear, from the inconsistencies he ran into to save the reputation of his orthodoxy, that if the word purgatory had been out of his way, he would have found no difficulty to dispose of the separate soul in a state of absolute unconscious rest.

, an English poet and satirist, the youngest son of Edmund Whitehead, a taylor, was born at his father’s house, in Castle-yard, Holborn, Feb. 6, 1709—10, St. Paul’s day, O. S. to which circumstance he is said to owe his name. As he was intended for trade, he received no other education than what a school at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, afforded; and, at the usual age, was placed as an apprentice to a mercer or woollen-draper in London. Here he had for his associate the late Mr. Lowth, of Paternoster-row, long the intimate friend, and afterwards the executor, of the celebrated tragedian, James Q,uin. Whitehead and Lowth were both of a lively disposition, and fond of amusement: Lowth had attached himself to the theatre, and by his means Whitehead became acquainted with some of the theatrical personages of that day; and among others, with Fleetwood, the manager. Lowth, however, continued in business, while Whitehead was encouraged to enter himself of the Temple, and study the law.

, the puritan dean of Durham, the son of William Whittingham, esq. by a daughter of Haughton, of Haughton Tower, was born in the city of Chester, in 1524. In his sixteenth year he became a commoner of Brasenose college, Oxford, where he made great proficiency in literature. After taking his degree of bachelor of arts, he was elected fellow of All Souls in 1545, and two years afterwards was made one of the seniors of Christ-church, on the foundation oi Henry VIII. In May 1550, having obtained leave to travel for three yearsj he passed his time principally at Orleans, where he married the sister of Calvin. He returned to England in the latter end of the reign of Edward VI. but, as he was a staunch adherent to the doctrines of the reformation, he found it necessary to leave home, when queen Mary came to the throne, and joined the exiles at Francfort. Here he became one of those who took part against the ceremonies of the Church of England being observed among the exiles, and afterwards became a member of the Church of Geneva. On the Scotch reformer, Knox, leaving that society to return to his own country, Whittingham was prevailed upon by Calvin to take orders in the Geneva form, and was Knox’s successor. While here, he undertook, along with other learned men of the same society, an English translation of the Bible, which was not completed when those employed upon it had an opportunity to return to England, on the accession of queen Elizabeth. Whittingham, however, remained at Geneva to finish the work, during which time he translated into metre five of the Psalms, inscribed W. W. of which the 119th was one, together with the ten commandments, and a prayer, all which make part of the collection known by the names of Sternhold and Hopkins. Soon after his return to England, he was employed to accompany Francis, earl of Bedford, on his embassy of condolence for the death of the French king, in 1560. And he attended Ambrose, earl of Warwick, to Havre de Grace, to be preacher there, while the earl defended it against the French; and Wood says, he preached nonconformity in this place. Warwick appears to have had a very high opinion of him, and it was by his interest that Whittingham was promoted to the deanery of Durham in 1563, which he enjoyed for sixteen' years. During this time he was one of the most zealous opponents of the habits and ceremonies, and so outrageous in his zeal against popery, as to destroy some of the antiquities and monuments in Durham cathedral, and even took up the stone coffins of the priors of Durham, and ordered them to be used as troughs for horses to drink in.

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

, an English antiquary and physician, was the eldest son of Mr. Richard Wilkes, of Willenhall, in the county of Stafford, a gentleman who lived upon his own estate, and where his ancestors had been seated since the time of Edward IV. His mother was Lucretia, youngest daughter of Jojias Asteley, of Woodeaton, in Staffordshire, an ancient and respectable family. He was born March 16, 1690-91, and had his school-education at Trentham. He was entered of St. John’s college, Cambridge, March 13, 1709- 10, and was admitted scholar in 1710. On April 6, 1711, he attended Mr. Saunderson’s mathematical lectures, aud ever after continued a particular friendship with that gentleman. In the preface to “Saunderson’s Elements of Algebra,” the reader is told, that whatever materials had been got together for publishing Saunderson’s life, had been received, among other gentlemen, from Mr. Richard Wilkes. He took the degree of B.A. January 1713-14; and was chosen fellow Jan. 21, 1716-17; and April 11, 1716, was admitted into lady Sadler’s Algetra Lecture, and took the degree of M. A. at the commencement of 1717; also July 4, 1718, he was chosen Linacre Lecturer. It does not appear that he ever took any degrees in medicine. He seems to have taken pupils and taught mathematics in the college from 1715 till tfet time thathe left it. It is not known when he took deacon’s orders, but a relation of his remembered his having preached at Wolverhampton. He also preached some time at Stow, near Chartley. The disgust he took to the ministry has been imputed to his being disappointed in the hope of preferment in the church, and he thought he could make his talents turn to better account, and accordingly began to practise physic at Wolverhampton, Feb. 1720, and became veryeminent in his profession. On the 24th June 1,725, he married Miss Rachel Manlove, of Lee’s-hill, near Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, with whom he had a handsome fortune, and from that time he dwelt with his father at Willenhall. In the beginning of 1747 he had a severe fit of illness, during which, among other employments, he composed a whimsical epitaph on himself, which may be seen in Shaw’s History of Staffordshire. His wife dying in May 1756, he afterwards married in October the same year, Mrs. Frances Bendish (sister to the late Rev. sir Richard Wrottesley, of WYottesley, bart.) who died Dec. 24, 1798, at Froxfield, Hampshire, at a very advanced age. Dr. Wilkes died March 6, 1760, of the gout in his stomach, greatly lamented by his tenants, to whom he had been an indulgent landlord, and by the poor to whom he had been a kind and liberal physician and friend.

From his childhood Dr. Willan had been of a delicate constitution; his complexion in early life being pale and feminine, and his form slender. His extremely regular and temperate mode of life, however, had procured him an uninterrupted share of moderate health, and latterly even a certain degree of corpulency of person, though without the appearance of robust strength. In the Winter of 1810, some of his friends had remarked a slight shrinking of bulk and change in his complexion; but it was not till the following spring that symptoms of actual disease manifested themselves, and increased rapidly. With a view to obtain some respite from professional fatigue, as well as the advantage of a better air, he took a house in June 1811 at Craven-hill, about a mile from town, on the Ux bridge- road, where he spent his time, with the exception of two or three hours in the middle of the day, when he went to Bloomsbury-square, to receive the patients who came thither to consult him; but the probability of becoming phthisical, under the influence of an English winter, induced him to accede to the strenuous recommendation of some of his friends, and to undertake a voyage to Madeira. He accordingly embarked on the 10th of October, and arrived at Madeira on the 1st of December. By perseverance in an active course of medicine, after his arrival at Funchall, all his bad symptoms were considerably alleviated; insomuch that, in the month of February, he meditated a return to the south of England in April, But this alleviation was only temporary: his disease was again aggravated; the dropsy, and its concomitant obstruction to the functions, increased; and with his faculties remaining entire to the last, he expired on April 7, 1812, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

, an English prelate of great abilities and very distinguished character, was the youngest son of Edward Willjams, esq. of Aber-Conway, in Caernarvonshire, in Wales, where he was born March 25, 1582. He was educated at the public school at Rutbin, in 1598, and at sixteen years of age admitted at St. John’s college, in Cambridge. His natural parts were very uncommon, and his application still more so; for he was of so singular and happy a constitution, that from his youth upwards he never required more than three hou'rs sleep out of the twentyfour for the purposes of perfect health. He took the degree of A. B. in 1602, and was made fellow of his college; yet this first piece of preferment was obtained by a mandamus from James I. His manner of studying had something particular in it. He used to allot one month to a certain province, esteeming variety almost as refreshing as cessation from labour; at the end of which he would take up some other subject, and so on, till he came round to his former courses. This method he observed, especially in his theological studies; and he found his account in it. He was also an exact philosopher, as well as an able divine, and admirably versed in all branches of literature. In 1605, when he took his master’s degree, he entertained his friends at the commencement in a splendid manner, for he was naturally generous, and was liberally supplied with money by his friends and patrons. John lord Lumley often furnished him both with books and money; and Dr. Richard Vaughan, bishop of London, who was related to him, gave him an invitation to spend his time at his palace at vacation times. Being thus introduced into the best company, contributed greatly towards polishing his manners.

, an English historian, was the son of Richard Wilson, of Yarmouth, in the county of Norfolk, gentleman; and was born in that county, 1596. In 1609 he went to France, where he continued almost two years; and upon his return to England was placed with sir Henry Spiller, to be one of his clerks in the exchequer office; in whose family he resided till having written some satirical verses upon one of the maid-servants, he was dismissed at lady Spiller’s instigation. In 1613 he took a lodging in Holborn, where he applied himself to reading and poetry for some time; and, the year after, was taken into the family of Robert earl of Essex, whom he attended into the Palatinate in 1620; to the siege of Dornick, in Holland, in 1621 to that of Rees in 1622 to Arnheim, in 1623 to the siege of Breda in 1624 and in the expedition to Cadiz in 1625. In 1630 he was discharged the earl’s service, at the importunity of his lady, who had conceived an aversion to him, because she had supposed him to have been against the earl’s marrying her. He tells us, in his own life, that this lady’s name, before she marrie,d the earl, was Elizabeth Paulet; that “she appeared to the eye a beauty, full of harmless sweetness; that her conversation was affable and gentle; and, as he was firmly persuaded, that it was not forced, but natural. But the height of her marriage and greatness being an accident, altered her very nature; for,” he says, “she was the true image of Pandora’s box,” nor was he much mistaken, for this lady was divorced for adultery two years after her marriage. In 1631 he retired to Oxford, and became gentlman commoner of Trinity college, where he stayed almost two years, and was punctual in his compliance with the laws of the university. Then he was sent for to be steward to the earl of Warwick, whom he attended in 1637 to the siege of Breda. He died in 1652, at Felstead, in Essex, and his will was proved in October of that year. The earl and countess of Warwick received from him the whole of his library, and 50l. to be laid out in purchasing a piece of gold plate, as a memorial, particularly applying to the Jatter, “in testimony,” as he adds, “of my humble duty and gratitude for all her noble and 1 undeserved favours to me.” Gratitude seems to have been a strong principle with Wilson, as appears from his life, written by himself, and printed in Peck’s “Desiderata.” Wood’s account of him is, that “he had little skill in the Latin tongue, less in the Greek, a good readiness in the French, and some smattering in the Dutch. He was well seen in the mathematics and poetry, and sometimes in the common law of the nation. He had composed some comedies, which were acted at the Black Friars, in London, by the king’s players, and in the act-time at Oxford, with good applause, himself being- present; but whether they are printed I cannot yet tell; sure lam, that I have several specimens of his poetry printed in divers books. His carriage was very courteous and obliging, and such as did become a wellbred gentleman. He also had a great command of the English tongue, as well in writing as speaking; and, had he bestowed his endeavours on any other subject than that of history, they would without doubt have seemed better. For, in those things which he hath done, are wanting the principal matters conducing to the completion of that” faculty, viz. matter from record, exact time, name, and place, which, by his endeavouring too much to set out his bare collections in an affected and bombastic style, are much neglected.“The history here alluded to by Wood, is” The Life and Reign of king James I.“printed in London in 1653, folio; that is, the year after his death and reprinted in the 2d volume of” -The complete History of England,“in 1706, folio. This history has been severely treated by many writers. Mr. William Sanderson says, that,” to give Wilson his due, we may find truth and falsehood finely put together in it.“Heylin, in the-general preface to his” Examen,“styles Wilson’s history” a most famous pasquil of the reign of king James; in which it is not easy to judge whether the matter be more false, or the style more reproachful to all parts thereof.“Mr. Thomas Fuller, in his” Appeal of injured Innocence,“observes, how Robert earl of Warwick told him at Beddington, that, whenWilson’s book in manuscript was brought to him, his lordship expunged more than an hundred offensive passages: to which Mr. Fuller replied,” My lord, you have done well; and you had done better if you had put out a hundred more.“Mr. Wood’s sentence is,” that, in our author’s history, may easily be discerned a partial presbyterian vein, that constantly goes through the whole work: and it being the genius of those people to pry more than they should into the courts and comportments of princes, they do take occasion thereupon to traduce and bespatter them. Further also, our author, having endeavoured in many things to make the world believe that king James and his son after him were inclined to Popery, and to bring that religion into England, hath made him subject to many errors and misrepresentations.“On the other band, archdeacon Echard tells us, that” Wilson’s History of the life and reign of king James, though written not without some prejudices and rancour in respect to some persons, and too much with the air of a romance, is thought to be the best of that kind extant:“and the writer of the notes on the edition of it in the” Complete History of England“remarks, that, as to the style of our author’s history,” it is harsh and broken, the periods often obscure, and sometimes without connection; faults, that were common in most writers of that time. Though he finished that history in the year 1652, a little before his death, when both the monarchy and hierarchy were overturned, it does not appear he was an enemy to either, but only to the corruptions of them; as he intimates in the picture he draws of himself before that hook."

, an English divine and writer, was born in 1689, and became a member of Trinity-college, Oxford, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1712, and that of A. M. in 1719. In the following year he was pre^ bendary of Lowtb, and afterwards of Scamblesbey in the church of Lincoln in 1727, about which time he was also vicar of Newark in Nottinghamshire, master of the hospital there, and an alderman. He is thought to have owed his preferments chiefly to bishop Reynolds of Lincoln. From the crown he had a prebend of Worcester, and another of Carborough in LichnVld, where he had a house given him by bishop Chandler. In July 1735, he was presented to Bottesford in Leicestershire, but never took possession of it. In 1737 he took his degree of D. D. He died April 30, 1772, aged eighty-three, and was interred in the church of Newark with an inscription, extolling his extensive benevolence, by his nephew Robert Wilson Cracroft, esq.

He had now books and leisure, and he was resolved to make use of them, He was perfectly acquainted with the elementary parts of learning, and with the learned languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, &c. He thought it necessary to add to these such a degree of philology and criticism as seemed likely to be useful to him: and also mathematical sciences, or at least the fundamentals of them; the general philosophy of nature the history and antiquities of the more known and noted states and kingdoms; and in order to attain the knowledge of true religion, and the discovery of truth, the points which he always had particularly in view, and to which he chiefly directed all his studies, he diligently inquired into the idolatries of the heathens; and made himself master of the sentiments, rites, and learning of the Jews; the history of tjie first settlement of Christianity, and the opinions and practice introduced into it since. In the mean time he exercised and improved his mind by using himself to clear images, observing the influence and extent of axioms, the nature and force of consequences, and the method of investigating truth. In general, he accustomed himself to much thinking as well as much reading. He likewise delighted in method and regularity: and chose to have his labours and refreshments periodical, and that his family and friends should observe the proper seasons of their revolution. He was most remarkably cheerful and lively in conversation, which rendered his company agreeable, and himself worthy to be courted by the learned and virtuous. But a general acquaintance was what he never cultivated, and it grew (as is mostly the case) more and more his aversion, so that he passed his days principally at home, with a few friends, with whom he could enjoy an agreeable relaxation of mind, and receive all the advantages of a sincere and open friendship. Having thus fixed his resolution to deserve honours, but not to wear them, it was not long before he published a piece entitled, “The Design of Part of the Book of Ecclesiastes, or the Unreasonableness of Man’s restless Contentions for the present Enjoyments, represented in an English poem,” in 8vo. But as he had never made poetry his study, he was very sensible of the defects of this attempt, and was afterward very desirous to suppress it. Ttiis poem was printed in 1690. Notwithstanding he declined to accept of any public employment, yet his studies were designed to be of public use, and his solitude was far from being employed in vain and trifling amusements, terminating in himself alone. But neither in this last view, could his retirement be without some inconveniences. His intimates were dropping off, and their places remained unsupplied; his own infirmities were increasing; the frequent remission of study, growing more and more necessary; and his solitude at the same time becoming less and less agreeable, for want of that conversation which had hitherto supported it.

, an English prelate, was a native of Norfolk, born in 1612, and the son of Lawrence Womock, B. D. rector of Lopham and Fersfield in that county. He was admitted pensioner of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, July 4, 1629, and in October following was chosen a scholar of sir Nich. Bacon’s foundation. He took the degree of A. B. in 1632, was ordained deacon Sept. 21, 1634, and proceeded A.M. in 1639. He is supposed to have succeeded his father in the living of Lopham upcfi his diocese in 1642, but was ejected by the Norfolk committee for the examination of those who were deemed scandalous ministers, and appears to have been afterwards imprisoned for his principles of religion and loyalty, and to have suffered extreme hardships. After the restoration v however, he was promoted by letters mandate to the degree of D. D. and made both archdeacon of Suffolk, Sept. 8, 1660, and a prebendary of Ely. In 1662 he was presented to the rectory of Horningsheath in Suffolk, and in 1663 to that of Boxford in the same county. He was at length promoted, but late in life, to the bishopric of St. David’s, Nov. 11, 1683, a preferment which, owing to his short continuance in it, was detrimental to his relations. He died March 12, 1685, aged seventy-three, and was buried near the remains of his only daughter in the south aile of the church of St. Margaret, Westminster, where, on a small compartment affixed to the pillar next the west end, is an inscription to his memory.

, an English divine, very notorious in his day for the pertinacity with which he published the most dangerous opinions, was born in 1669, at Northampton, where his father was a reputable tradesman. After a proper education at a grammar-school, he was entered of Sidney college, in Cambridge, in 1685, where he took both the degrees in arts, and that of bachelor of divinity, and was chosen fellow of his college. From this time, in conformity to the statutes of that society, he applied himself to the study of divinity and entering into holy orders, soon, we are told, became distinguished and esteemed for his learning and piety. Of what sort the latter was, his life will shew. It appears that he had very early conceived some of those notions which afterwards so much degraded his character. His first appearance as an author was in 1705, when he printed at Cambridge a work entitled “The old Apology of the Truth for the Christian Religion against the Jews and Gentiles revived,” 8vo. The design of this work, which is an octavo of near 400 pages, is to prove that all the actions of Moses were typical of Christ, and to shew-tljat some of the fathers did not think them real, but typical relations of what was to come. This allegorical way of interpreting the scriptures of the Old Testament our author is said to have adopted from Origen, whose works, however, he must have studied very injudiciously; yet he became so enamoured of this methocf of interpretation, that he not only thought it had been unjustly neglected by the moderns, but that it might be useful, as an additional proof of the truth of Christianity. He preached this doctrine first in the college chapel, and afterwards before the university at St. Mary’s, to the great surprise of his audience. Yet, as his intentions seemed to be good, and his character respected, and as he had not yet begun to make use of the indecent language which disgraced his subsequent works, no opposition was raised; and when the volume appeared in print, though there were some singular notions advanced, and a new manner of defending Christianity proposed, yet there was nothing that gave particular offence, and many things which shewed great ingenuity and learning. He still continued to reside at Cambridge, applying himself indefatigably to his studies, in a quiet and retired way, until 1720, ^hen he published a Latin dissertation entitled “De Pontii Pilati ad Tiberium Epistola circa res Jesu Christi gestas; per Mystagogum,” 8vo, in which he endeavours to prove that Pontius Pilate wrote a letter to Tiberius Caesar concerning the works of Christ; bwt that the epistle delivered down to us under that name among the writings of the fathers, was forged. The same year he published another pamphlet in Latin, with the title of “Origenis Adamantii Renati Epistola ad Doctores Whitbeium, Waterlandium, Whistonium, aliosque literates hujus saeculi disputatores, circa fidem vere orthodoxam et scripturarum interpretationem;” and, soon after, a second epistle with the same title. The rage of allegorizing the letter of the holy scriptures into mystery, with which this writer was incurably infected, began now to shew itself more openly to the world than it had hitherto done. In 1720 and 1721, he published two letters to Dr. Bennet, rector of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, London; one upon this question, “Whether the people called quakers do not the nearest of any other sect of religion resemble the primitive Christians in principles and practice?” by Aristobulus; the other, “In defence of the Apostles and Primitive Fathers of the Church, for their allegorical interpretation of the law of Moses, against the ministers of the letter and literal commentators of this age;” and, soon after, he himself published an answer to these two letters; in all which his view appears to have been rather to be severe upon the clergy th,an to defend either apostles, fathers, or quakers. At what time he left college does not appear, but he had about this time absented himself from it beyond the time limited by the statutes. The society and his friends, however, compassionating his case, and judging it to be in some degree the effect of a bodily distemper, allowed him the revenues of his fellowship for a support. The supposition hurt his pride, and he went directly to Cambridge to convince the gentlemen of his college that he laboured under no disorder, and as he at the same time refused to reside, he lost his fellowship.

His writings are, 1. “An answer to a popish pamphlet, &c. entitled ‘Certain Articles,’ &c.” Lond. 1605, 4to. 2. “A defence of Mr. Perkins’ booke called A Reformed Catholike, &c.” ibid. 1606, 4to. 3. “The tryal of the Roman Clergy’s title to the Church,” ibid. 1608, 4to. 4. “Sermons on part of chapter first of St. John’s Gospel,” ibid. 1609, 4to. 5. “Run from Rome; or, The necessity of separating from that Church,” ibid. 1624, 4to. 6. “De reconciliatione peccatoris, &c.” Basil. 1624, 4to. 7. “An answer to a book, entitled Appello Coesarem, written by Mr. Richard Mountague,” ibid. 1626. 8. “The art of Logick,” ibid. 1626, 8vo. This is an English translation of Ramus’s logic, made by his son, and with a dedication by our author. This son, Samuel, who died in 1680, was rector of East and West Wretham in Norfolk.

, an English divine of uncommon parts and learning, was the son of Mr. Henry Wotton, rector of Wrentham, in Suffolk, a man of considerable learning also, and well skilled in the Oriental tongues. He was born at Wrentham the 13th of August, 1666, and was educated by his father. He discovered a most extraordinary genius for learning languages; and, though what is related of him upon this head may appear wonderful, yet it is so well attested that we know not how to refuse it credit. Sir Philip Skippon, who lived at Wrentham, in a letter to Mr. John Ray, Sept. Is, 1671, writes thus of him: “I shall somewhat surprise you with what I have seen in a little boy, William Wotton, five years old the last month, the son of Mr. Wotton, minister of this parish, who hath instructed his child within the last three quarters of a year in the reading the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, which he can read almost as well as English; and that tongue he could read at four years and three months old as well as most lads of twice his age. I could send you many particulars about his rendering chapters and psalms out of the three learned languages into English,” &c. Among sir Philip’s papers was found a draught of a longer letter to Mr. Ray, in which these farther particulars are added to the above: “He is not yet able to parse any language, but what he performs in turning the three learned tongues into English is done by strength of memory; so that he is ready to mistake when some words of different signification have near the same sound. His father hath taught him by no rules, but only uses the child’s memory in remembering words: some other children of his age seem to have as good a fancy and as quick apprehension.” He was admitted of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, in April 1676, some months before he was ten years old; and upon his admission Dr. John Eachard, then master of the college, gave him this remarkable testimony: Gulidmns Wottonus infra decem annos nee Ilammondo nee Grotio secundus. His progress in learning was answerable to the expectations conceived of him; and Dr. Duport, the master of Magdalen-college, and dean of Peterborough, has described it in an elegant copy of verses; “In Gulielmum Wottanum stupendi ingenii et incomparabilis spei puerum vixdum duodecim annorum.” He then goes on to celebrate his skill in the languages, not only in the Greek and Latin, which he understood perfectly, but also in the Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldee; his skill too in arts and sciences, in geography, logic, philosophy, mathematics^ chronology.

, a learned and loyal divine of the seventeenth century, was the son of Richard Wright, citizen and silk-dyer of London, who was the son of Jeffrey Wright, of Loughborough, in Leicestershire. He was born in Black- Swan alley, Thames-street, in the parish of St. James’s, Garlick Hythe, London, Dec. 23, 1611, and educated partly at Mercers’- chapel school, but principally at Merchant Taylors, whence he was elected scholar of St. JobnVcollege, Oxford, in 1629, by the interest of Dr. Juxon, then president, w/ho became his patron. He was much admired at this time for a natural eloquence, and a love of polite literature. In 1632 he was elected fellow, and while bachelor of arts, made a collection of modern Latin poetry, which he published afterwards under the title of “Delitiae delitiarum, siveepigrammatum ex optimis quibusque hujus novissimi seculi Poetis in amplissima ilia Bibl. Bodleiana, et pene omnino alibi extantibus artthologia in unum corollum connexa,” Ox. 1637, 12mo. In 1636, when archbishop Laud entertained the royal family at St. JohnVcollege, Mr. Wright was selected to make an English address, and afterwards distinguished himself as a performer in a comedy called “Love’s Hospital,” which was acted before their majesties in the hall, by a company of St. John’s men.

, a noted English mathematician, who flourished in the latter part of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth, is thus characterised in a Latin paper in the library of Gonvile and Caius college, Cambridge: “This year (1615) died at London, Edward Wright, of Garveston, in Norfolk, formerly a fellow of this college; a man respected by all for the integrity and simplicity of his manners, and also famous for his skill in the mathematical sciences; so that he was not undeservedly styled a most excellent mathematician by Richard Hackluyt, the author of an original treatise of our English navigations. What knowledge he had acquired in the science of mechanics, and how usefully he employed that knowledge to ths public as well as to private advantage, abundantly appear both from the writings he published, and from the many mechanical operations still extant, which are standing monuments of his great industry and ingenuity. He was the first undertaker of that difficult but useful work, by which a little river is brought from the town of Ware in apew canal, to supply the city of London with water but by the tricks of others he was hindered from completing the work he had begun. He was excellent both in contrivance and execution, nor was he inferior to the most ingenious mechanic in the making of instruments, either of brass or any other matter. To his invention is owing whatever advantage Hondius’s geographical charts have above others; for it was Wright who taught Jodocus Horn dius the method of constructing them, which wa.s till then unknown; but the ungrateful Hondius concealed the name of the true author, and arrogated the glory of the invention to hjmself. Of this fraudulent practice the good man could nqt help complaining, and justly enough, in the preface to his treati.se of the” Correction of Errors in the art of Navigation;“which he composed with excellent judgment and after long experience, to the great advancement of naval affairsi For the improvement of this art he was appointed mathematical lecturer by the East India company, and read lectures in the house of that worthy knight sir Thomas Smith, for which he had a yearly salary of fifty pounds, This office he discharged with great reputation, and much to the satisfaction of his hearers. He published in English a book on the doctrine of the sphere, and another concerning the construction of sun-dials. He also prefixed an ingenious preface to the learned Gilbert’s book on the loadstone. By these and other his writings, he has transmitted his fame to latest posterity. While he was yet a fellow of this college, he could not be concealed in his private study, but was called forth to the public business of the nation by the queen, about 1593. He was ordered to attend the earl of Cumberland in some maritime expeditions. One of these he has given a faithful account of, in the manner of a journal or ephemeris, to which he has prefixed an elegant hydrographical chart of his own contrivance. A little before his death he employed himself about an English translation of the book of logarithms, then lately discovered by lord Napier, a Scotchman, who had a great affection for him. This posthumous work of his- was published soon after by his only son Samuel Wright, who was also a scholar of this college. He had formed many other useful designs, but was hindered by death from bringing them to perfection. Of him it may truly be said, that he studied more to serve the public than himself; and though he was rich in fame, and in the promises of the great, yet he died poor, to tfie scandal of an ungrateful age.” So far the memoir; other particulars concerning him are as follow:

, an English comic poet, eldest son of Daniel Wycherley, of Cleve, in Shropshire, esq. was born about 1640. At fifteen years. of age he was sent to France, in the western parts of which he resided, upon the banks of the Charante, where he was often admitted to the conversation of one of the most accomplished ladies of the court of France, madame de Montausier, celebrated by Voiture in his “Letters.” A little before the restoration of Charles II. he became a gentleman-commoner of Queen’s-college in Oxford, where he lived in the provost’s lodge, and was entered in the public library, under the title of “Philosophic Studiosus,” in July 1660. He left the university without being matriculated, or any degree conferred on him; having, according to Wood, been by Dr. Barlow, reconciled to the Protestant Religion, which he bad a little before deserted in his travels. He afterwards entered himself of the Middle Temple; but, making his first appearance in town in a reign when wit and gaiety were the favourite distinctions, he soon quitted the dry study of the law, and pursued things more agreeable to his own genius, as well as to the taste of the age. As nothing was likely to succeed better than dramatic performances, especially comedies, he applied himself to the writing of these and in about the space of ten years published four: “Love in a Wood, or St. James’s Park,” in 1672; “The Gentleman-Dancing-Master,” 1673; “Plain Dealer,” in 1678; and “Country-Wife,” in 1683. These were collected and printed together in 1712, 8vo.

, a celebrated traveller, was a native of Gluckstad in Holstem, a man of ingenuity, activity, and enterprize, whose curiosity after voyages and discoveries led him to Moscow about the beginning of the reign of the czars John and Peter Alexiewitz. The latter, better known by the name of Peter the Great, discovered the talents of Ysbraad, took him into his service, and employed him on some regulations which he was about to form, and which laid the foundation for the commercial prosperity of Russia. Peter having afterwards a dispute with the emperor of China, respecting certain boundaries, considered Ysbrand as a very proper person to conduct a negociation, and therefore sent him to China, invested with the character of ambassador. He set off in March 1692, and returned in Jan. 1695, and afterwards published an account of his voyage, at Amsterdam in 169y, reprinted in 1704 and 1710. An English translation was published at London in 1704, 4to, with maps and plates, and is deemed a work of great curiosity and considerable value. It has also been translated into other languages. We have no farther notice of the author than that he was living in 1700.