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, a facetious preacher among the dissenters, whose oddities are still traditionary, was born in 1677, at Wakefield, in Yorkshire. His father belonged to a dissenting meeting at Alverthorp, near that town, of which Mr. Peter Naylor, an ejected minister, was pastor. Under his care, and at the free-school at Leeds, he received the first rudiments of learning. He was afterwards sent to an academy kept by Mr. Jollie, at Attercliffe. He began to preach at the early age of eighteen, about the year 1696, when his juvenile figure procured him some rebuffs, which he soon disregarded, and convinced his hearers that he was a boy only in appearance. His conquest over these remarks at this time seems to have formed an aera in his history, as he used to “bless God that from that hour he had never known the fear of man.” He soon after left the academy, and was taken into the family of Mr. Whitaker, who, according to his biographer, checked his ardour, at least so far that he preached but seldom. In 1697 he went to Beverley, where he continued two years, and then became assistant to Dr. Gilpin, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and remained there three years, with almost unbounded popularity. He then removed to Stepney, near London, and in 1707 was chosen pastor of a meeting in Fetter-lane, vacant by the death of Mr. Benoni Rowe. After preaching here to a crowded congregation for twenty years, a quarrel took place; about what, his biographer does not inform us; but Mr. Bradbury was immediately invited to succeed the noted Daniel Burgess, in the meeting at New-court, Carey-street, and in less than a fortnight exchanged his former for his latter pulpit, carrying with him such of his Fetter-lane hearers as adhered to him in the late contest. Here he succeeded Daniel Burgess as a wit as well as a divine, and his biographer gravely informs us, that “this pulpit a se*cond time presented a phenomenon as rare as it is beneficial, wit consecrated to the service of serious and eternal truth.” Of this wit, however, Mr. N. Neal, in a letter to Dr. Doddridge, (1749,) gives a different opinion. “I have seen Mr. Bradbury’s sermons, just published, the nonsense and buffoonery of which would make one laugh, if his impious insults over the pious dead did not make one tremble.” After entertaining the public by this species of comic preaching for thirty-two years, he died at Warwick-court, Gray’s-inn, Sept. 9, 1759, aged eighty-two. Of his character it is said, that “had he possessed as much judgment as quickness of wit, and as much temper as zeal, he would have been a man of much greater consideration. His usefulness was much abated after the Sailers’ -hall synod, for though he was warm on the orthodox side, his ill-conducted zeal did much mischief.” Among his other differences of opinion from his brethren, he made it his business in the pulpit to lampoon and satirize the hymns and psalms of Dr. Watts. It is said, indeed, that whentever he gave out one of the former, it was prefaced with “Let us sing one of Watts’s whims.” Among the numerous anecdotes of Tom Bradbury, as he was familiarly called, we shall give only the following, which contains some characteristic features. “Tom generally gave audience at supper-time, and the ceremony was thus conducted. On a little table lay two pocket bibles, one of which was taken up by Bradbury, and the other by his daughter, and each having read a portion, one of the visiting ministers was desired to pray: they then adjourned to supper; after which, Tom entertained the company with ‘ The roast beef of old England,’ which, it is said, he sung better than any man in England.” His printed works amply justify the character usually given of him, that with much zeal he was totally destitute of judgment, and regardless of the dignity of his sacred calling, dwelling perpetually on political topics, and enforcing them in a strain of ridicule totally unfit for the place in which he stood. These works consist of “Fifty-four Sermons,” 1762, in 3 volumes octavo, all of which, except seven, had been printed separately. They are principally of the political kind, and it was justly remarked of them at the time of publication, that " from the great number of satred texts applied to the occasion, one would imagine the bible was written only to confirm, by divine authority, the benefits accruing to this nation from the accession of king William III.

He had a son of both his names, who was born in 1677, studied historical painting under Bon Boulogne, and became a painter of some note, if we can judge from the number of prints engraved from his works. There is an altar picture by him at the abbey church at Paris, representing the death of Ananias. He was made a member of the royal academy of Paris in 1704, and died, aged eighty-six, in 1763. Another of his sons, Laurent Josse le Clerc, was a man of considerable learning, and published three volumes of remarks on Moreri’s Dictionary, which contributed to improve that work, and compiled the “Bibliotheque des Auteurs cites dans le Dictionnaire cle llichelet,” which was printed with it in the Lyons edition, 1729, 3 vols. fol. but omitted in the 4to Amsterdam edition. He wrote several essays in the literary journals of the time, and died May 6, 1736, in the fifty-ninth year of his age.

, librarian of the house of the oratory in the rue St. Honore, Paris, was born in 1677, and appears to have devoted much of his time to literary history, and became the friend and correspondent of most of the eminent scholars of France, by whom he was admired not more for his extensive knowledge than his amiable manners. He died at Paris April 26, 1760. His principal work is a continuation of Sallengre’s “Memoires de litterature,” 1726 1731, 11 vols. 12mo. The abbe Gouget had some hand in this collection, which contains many curious articles. Desmolets also published “Recueil de pieces d'histoire et de litterature,” Paris, 1731, 4 vols. 12mo, and was editor of father Lami’s treatise “De Tabernaculo foederis,” Paris, folio, and of other works.

, born in 1677, of a noble and ancient family at Tarascon, entered among aie lathers of the oratory, and was pupil to Malebranche. Quitting the oratory, after that celebrated philosopher’s death, he devoted himself wholly to physic and mathematics, in which he acquired great skill, and was appointed professor of philosophy at the royal college in 1723, and afterwards member of the academy of sciences, in 1729. His principal work is “Philosophical Lectures,” 4 vols. 12mo, in which he explains the laws, mechanism, and motions of. the celestial vortices, in order to demonstrate the possibility and existence of them in the system of the Plenum; his system is that of Descartes, but corrected by Newton’s principles. He also left “Mathematical Lectures,” 12mo, very incorrectly printed; and “La premiere partie des Elemens de Geometric,” 12mo. In his temper he shewed very little of the philosopher. In the maintenance of his principles he could bear no contradiction; and when some of his positive assertions provoked the smiles of the academicians, he fell into violent passions, and on one occasion this irritation was so great, as to bring on a fever, of which he died, May 12, 1742. In other respects his character was amiable; but, like some other mathematicians, he was liable in his studies to such absence of mind, as to appear almost wholly insensible to surrounding objects, and this infirmity becoming known, he was made the subject of depredations. A shoe-black, once finding him profoundly absorbed in a reverie, contrived to steal the silver buckles from his shoes, replacing them with iron ones. At another time, while at his studies, a villain broke into the room in which he was sitting, and demanded his money; Molieres, without rising frogi his studies, or giving any alarm, coolly shewed him where it was, requesting him, as a great favour, that he would not derange his papers.

, of CarkhalL in Lancashire, esq. an able Saxon scholar, the only son of Curwen Rawlinson of the same place, who died in 1689, and descended from a family of long standing in High Furness, and very numerous in the parish of' Hawkshead and Colton, was collaterally related to the subjects of the three following articles. He was born in 1677, educated at Queen’s college, Oxford, made upper commoner May 10, 1695, and eminently distinguished for his application to Saxon and Northern literature. He published, whilst at Queen’s college, a beautiful edition of king Alfred’s Saxon translation of “Boethius de Consolatione Philosophise,” Oxon. 1698, 8vo, from a transcript, by Franciscus Junius of a very ancient ms. in the Bodleian library, collated with one in the Cotton library. The “Grammatica Anglo-Saxonica, ex Hickesiano Thesauro excerpta,” printed at Oxford in 1711, is dedicated to this gentleman, in the following words “Viro eximio Christophoro Rawlinson Armigero, Literaturae Saxonicae Fautori egregio, hasce breviculas Institutiones Grammaticas dicat, dedicat, Editor.” He left behind him a large collection of Mss. among which are many relating to Westmorland and Cumberland, of which copies are at sir Michael le Fleming’s at Rydal. He ordered his under-coffin to be heart of oak, and covered with red leather; and died January 8, 1732-3, aged fiftyfive. At the north end of the north transept of the abbeychurch of St. Alban’s is a white marble sarcophagus, with a figure of History sitting on it, reclining on her left arm, holding in her hand a pen, with which she writes in a book, while two other books lie under her feet. Below is this epitaph: