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ced an early friendship, which lasted as long as Mr. Hobbes lived. In 1642, Mr. Aubrey was entered a gentleman-commoner of Trinity college at Oxford, where he pursued his

, an eminent English antiquary, descended from an ancient family in Wiltshire, was born at Easton-Piers in that county, Nov. 3, 1625 or 1626. He received the first rudiments of his education in the grammar-school at Malmesbury, under Mr. Robert Latimer; who had also been preceptor to the famous Thomas Hobbes, with whom Mr. Aubrey commenced an early friendship, which lasted as long as Mr. Hobbes lived. In 1642, Mr. Aubrey was entered a gentleman-commoner of Trinity college at Oxford, where he pursued his studies with great diligence, making the history and antiquities of England his peculiar object. About this time the famous “Monasticon Anglicanum” was talked of in the university, to which Mr. Aubrey contributed considerable assistance, and procured, at his own expence, a curious draught of the remains of Osney abbey near Oxford, which were entirely destroyed in the civil wars. This was afterwards engraved by Hollar, and inserted in the Mouasticon with an inscription by Aubrey. In 1646 he was admitted of the Middle Temple, but the death of his father hindered him from pursuing the law. He succeeded to several estates in the counties of Wilts, Surrey, Hereford, Brecknock, and Monmouth, but they were involved in many law-suits. These suits, together with other misfortunes, by degrees consumed all his estates, and forced him to lead a more active life than he was otherwise inclined to. He did not, however, break off his acquaintance with the learned at Oxford or at London, but kept up a close correspondence with the lovers of antiquity and natural philosophy in the university, and furnished Anthony Wood with a considerable part of the materials for his two large works. W r ood, however, in his own life, does not speak very respectfully of his assistant. He calls him a pretender to antiquities, and after giving an account of the origin of their acquaintance, of the gay appearance which Aubrey made at Oxford, and of his subsequent poverty, Wood adds, “He was a shiftless person, roving and magotie-headed, and sometimes little better than erased. And being exceedingly credulous, would stuff his many letters sent to A. W. with folliries and mis-informations, which sometimes would guide him into the paths of error.

fected in the learned languages, was removed to the university of Cambridge, where he was admitted a gentleman commoner of Trinity college. In 1706 he was sent with his two

, eldest son of the preceding, was educated privately at first, and when perfected in the learned languages, was removed to the university of Cambridge, where he was admitted a gentleman commoner of Trinity college. In 1706 he was sent with his two younger brothers abroad, to finish his studies at Leyden; from whence he appears to have made a tour through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. By his own choice he was bred to the law; but it is uncertain whether he practised at the bar. In 1720 he was one of the unhappy persons who suffered greatly in the infatuation of the South-Sea scheme. He had, however, a place in the revenue, of twelve hundred pounds a year; but, being desirous of retrieving his fortune, he quitted that post, and was appointed governor of New York and the Jerseys. In this station his conduct in general was very acceptable to those colonies, and approved of in England. After the accession of king George the Second, in order to provide for a gentleman who was understood to be in particular esteem with his majesty, Mr. Burnet was removed from the governments of New York and the Jerseys to those of the Massachusets and New Hampshire. This change was highly disagreeable, and he considered it as a great hardship to be obliged to part with posts that were very profitable, for such. as would afford him, at best, only a decent support; and to leave an easy administration for one which he foresaw would be extremely troublesome. Of this he complained to his friends, and it had a visible effect upon his spirits. On the 13th of July, 1728, he arrived at Boston, and was received with unusual pomp. Having been instructed from England to insist on a fixed salary’s being settled upon him as governor, he adhered to his instructions with such unabated vigour and perseverance, as involved him in the warmest disputes with the general assembly of the province. A large detail of these contests may be seen in Mr. Hutchinson’s History of Massachusets’ Bay, from which Mr. Burnet’s abilities, firmness, and spirit will appear in a striking light. Being deprived of his salary, by refusing to receive it in the mode proposed by the assembly, and having by that means been driven to such straits as obliged him to apply to the assistance of his friends for the support of his family, he thought he might be justified in establishing a fee and perquisite which had never been known in the province before. At New York, all vessels took from the governor a pass, or permission for sailing out of the harbour, which, though it had no foundation in law, was submitted to without complaint. The same disposition did not prevail in the inhabitants of Boston. The fee which Mr. Burnet imposed on the ships, for their passes, being complained of to the king and council as illegal and oppressive, it was immediately disapproved. In all other respects his administration was unexceptionable, but this controversy with the general assembly made a great impression upon his mind. In the latter end of August, 1729, he was seized, at Boston, with a fever, which carried him off on the 7th of September, and the assembly ordered him a very honourable funeral at the public expence. Though he had been steady and inflexible in his adherence to his instructions, he discovered nothing of a grasping avaricious temper. His superior talents, and free and easy manner of communicating his sentiments, rendered him the delight of men of sense and learning; and his right of precedence in all companies, facilitated his natural disposition to take a great lead in conversation. His own account of his genius was, that it was late before it budded; and that, until he was nearly twenty years of age, his father despaired of his ever making any figure in life. This, perhaps, might proceed from the exact discipline of the bishop’s family, not calculated alike for every temper. To long and frequent religious services at home in his youth, Mr. Burnet would sometimes pleasantly attribute his indisposition to a scrupulous attendance on public worship. Mr. Burnet' s first lady was a daughter of Dr. George Stanhope, dean of Canterbury, and was a woman equally distinguished for her beauty, wit, good-humour, singing, and various accomplishments. Her sense will appear from the following anecdote: When she was dying, being worn out with a long and painful sickness, as they rubbed her temples with Hungary water, in her last faintings, she begged them not to do it, for “that it would make her hair gray.” Mr. William Burnet was the author of a tract entitled “A View of Scripture Prophecy.

sir John Ford, knt. and was born at Up-park in the parish of Harting in Sussex, in 1605. He became a gentleman commoner of Trinity college, Oxford, in 1621, but left it without

, an ingenious gentleman of the seventeenth century, was the son of sir John Ford, knt. and was born at Up-park in the parish of Harting in Sussex, in 1605. He became a gentleman commoner of Trinity college, Oxford, in 1621, but left it without taking a degree, after which Wood has not been able to trace his history, until he served the office of high sheriff for Sussex, and demonstrated his loyalty to Charles I. who conferred on him the honour of knighthood at Oxford, Oct. 4, 1643. About that time he bore a colonel’s commission in the army, or, according to Clarendon, had a regiment of horse in lord Hopton’s troops, and was afterwards a considerable sufferer for his adherence to the royal cause. In 1647, he and Dr. Stephen Goffe were imprisoned on. suspicion of being accessary to his majesty’s escape from Hampton court. How or when he was released we are not told, but as he had married general Ireton’s sister, he might owe his release to the influence of his brother-inlaw with the parliamentary party. In 1656 we find him employed in certain mechanical inventions of considerable importance. With Cromwell’s encouragement, and at the request of the citizens of London, he contrived machinery for raising the Thames water into all the higher streets of the city, a height of ninety-three feet. This he is said to have accomplished in a year’s time, and at his own expence; and the same machinery was afterwards employed in other parts of the kingdom for draining mines and lands, which it performed better and cheaper than any former contrivance. He also constructed the great water engine at Somerset-house, for supplying the Strand, &c. but this obstructing the prospect from the windows, queen Catherine, the consort of Charles II. caused it to be pulled clown. After the restoration he invented a mode of coining copper money (Wood says, farthings) which could not possibly be counterfeited, as each piece was made to differ from another in some minute circumstance. He failed in procuring a patent for these for England, but obtained one for Ireland. He went over accordingly to carry his design into execution there, but died before he could accomplish it, on Sept. 3, 1670, and his body being brought over, was interred in the family buriai place at Harting. Wood speaks of him as a man who might have done great things if he had met with proper encouragement. He published, 1. “A Design for bringing a River from Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire to St. Giles’s in the Fields, near London; the benefits of it declared, and the objections against it answered,” Lond. 1641, 4to. 2. “Experimental Proposals how the king may have money to pay and maintain his fleets, with ease to the people London may be re-built, and all proprietors satisfied money may be lent at six per cent, on pawns and the fishing trade set up, and all without straining or thwarting any of our laws or customs,” ibid. 1666, 4to. To this last was added a “Defence of Bill Credit.” About 1663 he had printed a proposal fur the raising of money by bills of exchange, which should pass current instead of money, to prevent robbery.

place of his nativity. When he had made a progress in classical learning, he was admitted in 1629 a gentleman-commoner of Trinity college, in Oxford, and placed under Mr.

, an eminent political writer, was born in January 1611, being the eldest son of sir Sapcote Harrington, and Jane the daughter of sir William Samuel of Upton, in Northamptonshire, the place of his nativity. When he had made a progress in classical learning, he was admitted in 1629 a gentleman-commoner of Trinity college, in Oxford, and placed under Mr. Chillingworth, who had lately been elected fellow of that college; from whom he might possibly acquire some portion of that spirit of reasoning and thinking for himself, which afterwards shone forth so conspicuously in his writings. About three years after, his father died; upon which he left the university, and commenced travelling, having previously furnished himself with the knowledge of several foreign languages. His first step was into Holland, then the principal school of martial discipline; and, what may be supposed to have affected him more sensibly, a country wonderfully flourishing, under the auspices of liberty, commerce, strength, and grandeur. Here it is probable that he began to make government the subject of his meditations; for, he was often heard to say, that, “before he left England, he knew no more of anarchy, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, or the like, than as hard words, whose signification he found in his dictionary.” On coming into the Netherlands, he entered a volunteer, and remained in that capacity some months, in lord Craven’s regiment; during which time, being much at the Hague, he had the farther opportunity of accomplishing himself in two courts, those of the prince of Orange, and of the queen of Bohemia, daughter of our James I. who was then a fugitive in Holland. He was taken into great favour by this princess, and also by the prince elector, whom he attended to Copenhagen, when his highness paid a visit to the king of Denmark; and, after his return from travelling, was entrusted by him with the affairs of the Palatinate, so far as they were transacted at the British court.

gentleman-commoner of Trinity college, Oxford, was the second son of John

, gentleman-commoner of Trinity college, Oxford, was the second son of John Lethieullier, esq. of Aldersbrook, in Essex, where he had a noble collection of Mss. choice books, medals, and na-, tural curiosities, which he had collected in his travels through France, Italy, and Germany. His father dying Jan. 1, 1736-7, and his elder brother being dead before, he became heir to the paternal estates, which were very considerable. He was elected F. S. A. in July 1724. He married, Feb. 6, 1725-6, Margaret, daughter of William Sloper, esq. of Woodhay, in Berkshire; but died Aug. 27, 1760, aged fifty-nine, without issue. He was succeeded in his estates, to which he had added the manor of Birch- hall in They don Bois, by Mary, only daughter of his next brother Charles Lethieullier, LL.D. fellow of All Souls college, F. A. S. and counsellor at law, who died the year before him. He was an excellent scholar, a polite gentleman, and universally esteemed by all the learned men of his time. Some papers of his are printed in Phil. Trans. No. 497, and Archseologia, I. p. 26, 57, 73, 75; II. 291. His library was sold by auction, 1760. The following eloge was written by the late Mr. Collinson immediately after the death of Mr. Lethieullier: “He was descended from an ancient family from France in time of persecution, and a gentleman every way eminent for his excellent endowments. His desire to improve in the civil and natural history of his country led him to visit all parts of it; the itineraries in his library, and the discoveries he made relating to its antiquities, with drawings of every thing remarkable, are evidences of his great application to rescue so many ancient remains from mouldering into oblivion. His happy turn of mind was not confined solely to antiquities, but in these journeys he was indefatigable in collecting all the variety of English fossils, with a view to investigate their origin: this great collection, which excels most others, is deposited in two large cabinets, disposed under their proper classes. The most rare are elegantly drawn, and described in a folio book, with his observations on them. As the variety of ancient marbles had engaged his attention, and he found so little said of them with respect to their natural history, it was one of his motives, iti visiting Italy, to furnish himself with such materials as he was able to procure from books, and learned men, relating to them. He collected specimens of the most curious, and had drawings, finely painted, of the most remarkable monuments of the ancient marbles; they are bound up in a folio volume, with all the observations he could gather relating to their natural history and antiquity. His cabinet of medals, his collection of antiquities of various kinds, and most elegant books of the finest engravings, are ‘instances of the fine taste with which he has enriched his library and cabinet with the spoils of Italy. This short but imperfect memoir is candidly offered as a tribute due to a Jong friendship. It is wished it may excite an abler pen ’to do more justice to the memory of this great and good man. But it is humbly hoped that these hints will be accepted not only as a testimony of respect, but may also inform an inquisitive genius in these branches of science where he may be assisted with such valuable materials for the prosecution of his future studies.

He had an elder brother William, who was some time gentleman commoner of Trinity college in Oxford, and, entering into the

He had an elder brother William, who was some time gentleman commoner of Trinity college in Oxford, and, entering into the parliament’s army, acquitted himself so well, that he rose, by several gradations, to the highest post and dignities. In 1649, he was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight, and made vice-admiral of that isle and Hampshire. In 1653, he was summoned to parliament for Dorsetshire; in 1654, made commissioner of the treasury, and member of the privy-council; and in 1658, summoned to parliament by the protector Richard Cromwell. This connection, together with his own principles and former engagements, would probably hinder Dr. Sydenham from being a very popular physician, during the period of his flourishing, that is, in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; yet he seems to hare owed more of his neglect to the envy of his contemporary brethren.