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, an English civilian, was born at Heavy-Tree, near Exeter in Devonshire, 1580, of a considerable family, and was the younger brother of Nicholas Duck, recorder of Exeter. At the age of fifteen he was entered of Exeter college, Oxford, took his degree of B. A. and became a fellow-commoner in 1599. From thence he removed to Hart-hall, took his master’s degree, and afterwards was elected fellow of All-souls but his genius leading him to the study of the civil law, he took his degree of doctor in that faculty.* He travelled into France, Italy, and Germany; and, after his return, was made chancellor of the diocese of Bath and Wells. He was afterwards made chancellor of London, and at length master of the requests: but the confusions, which were then beginning, probably hindered him from rising higher. In 1640 he was elected burgess for Minehead in Somersetshire, and soon after siding with king Charles in the time of the rebellion, became a great sufferer in the fortunes of his family, being stripped by the usurpers of 2000l. In 1648 he was sent for by his majesty to Newport in the Isle of Wight, to assist in his treaty with the commissioners from the parliament; but, that treaty not succeeding, he retired to his habitation at Chiswick near London, where he died in May 1649, but in Smith’s obituary he is said to have died in December preceding. He was an excellent civilian, a man of piety, a tolerable poet, especially in his younger days, and very well versed in history, ecclesiastical as well as civil. His only defect was a harshness of voice in pleading. He left behind him, “Vita Henrici Chichele,” &c. Oxon. 1617, 4to, added to Bates’s Lives, and translated into English, 1699, and “De usu & authoritate Juris Civilis Romanorum in dominiisprincipmn Christianorum:” a very useful and entertaining work, which has been printed several times at home and abroad, and is added to De Ferriere’s “History of Civil Law,” 1724, 8vo. He was greatly assisted in this work by the learned Dr. Gerard Langbaine.

, a lawyer of eminence of the last century, and recorder of Exeter, was a celebrated scholar and an author. He wrote, 1. “An Essay towards a demonstrative proof of the Divine Existence, Unity, and Attributes; to which is premised, a short defence of the argument commonly called a priori,” 17iO. This pamphlet was dedicated to Dr. Oliver of Bath, and is to be ranked amongst the ablest defences of Dr. Clarke’s, or rather Mr. Howe’s, hypothesis; for it appears to be taken from Howe’s “Living Temple.” 2. “The case of the county of Devon with respect to the consequences of the new Excise Duty on Cyder and Perry. Published by the direction of the committee appointed at a general meeting of that county to superintend the application for the repeal of that duty,” 1763, 4to. To this representation of the circumstances peculiar to Devonshire, the repeal of the act is greatly to be ascribed; and very honourable notice was taken of it at a general meeting or the county. 3. “Notre sive Lectiones ad Tragicorum Graecorum veterum, JEschyli, &c.” 1752, 4to a work which places the author’s learning and critical skill in a very conspicuous light a principal object of which was to restore the metre of the Greek tragic poets. It is highly valued by all sound critics of our own and foreign countries. He also furnished the notes on the Eton Greek tragedies. The same solidity of judgment distinguished the author’s last production, 4. “A Revisal of Shakspeare’s Text, wherein the alterations introduced into it by the more modern editors and critics are particularly considered,” 1765, 8vo. It appears from the list of Oxford graduates, that he was created D. C. L. by diploma, March 31, 1762. He died Sept. 13, 1766. The brother of this author, Mr. Thomas Heath, an alderman of Exeter, published “An Essay towards a new Version of Job,” &c. in 1755. This gentleman was father to John Heath, esq. one of the judges of the common pleas.

, recorder of Exeter, was born in that city in 1562, and educated in the grammar school, whence he was sent to Broadgates-hall, now Pembroke college, Oxford, in 1579. Here he is supposed to have taken one degree in arts, and then removed to some of the inns of court in London to study law. In 1605, he was elected reeofder of his native city, where he died April 12, 1617. He is noticed here as the author of a history or chronicle of the kings of England, entitled “The History and Lives of the Kings of England, from William the Conqueror to King Henry VIII.” Lond. 1616, folio, reprinted in 1618, an amusing, and not ill-written work, taken principally from the Chronicles. An appendix was published in 1638, by B. R M. A. including the history of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. It is said that king James took offence at some passages in Mr. Martyn’s work respecting his own family or the Scottish nation, and that the author was brought into some trouble. Of what kind this trouble was we are not told, but that it preyed on his mind, and hastened his death. Mr. Martyn also published a book for the use of one of his sons, entitled “Youth’s Instruction,” Lond. 1612, 'Jto, which Wood saysj shows a great deal of reading. His family appears to have been somewhat poetical, as his history was preluded by copies (if verses by his three sons, and his son-in-law. 1 Ma&Tyr, Justin, see Justin. Martyr, Peter. See Anghiera. Martyr (Peter), a very distinguished divine, was born at Florence, Sept. 8, 1500. His family name was VermiliUs; but his parents gave him that of Marty*, from one Peter a martyr, whose church happened to stand near their house. The first rudiments of literature he received from his mother, who was a very ingenious lady; and used, as it is said, to read Terence and other classics to him in the original. When he was grown up, he became a regular Augustine in the monastery of Fiesoli; and, after three years’ stay there, was sent to the university of Padua, to study philosophy and the Greek language. At twenty-six, in 1526, he was made a public preacher, and preached first at Brixia, in the church of Afra, then at Rome, Venice, Mantua, and other cities of Italy. He read lectures of philosophy and divinity in his college, and applied himself to the study of the Hebrew tongue, the knowledge of which he attained by the assistance of one Isaac, a Jewish physician. Such was his fame at this time, that he was made abbot of Spoletto, in the duchy of Umbria, where he continued three years. Afterwards, he was made go1 Prince’s Worthies 6f Devon. Fuller’s Worthies. Ath. Ox. vol I. vernor of the monastery of St. Peter ad aram in Naples. Here he first became acquainted with the writings of Zuinglius and Bucer, which led him to entertain a good opinion of protestantism: and afterwards his conversation with Valdes, a Spanish lawyer, so confirmed him in it, that he made no scruple to preach it at Rome privately to many persons of quality, and sometimes even publicly. Thus when he came to I Cor. iii. 13, he boldly affirmed, that place not to be meant of purgatory “because,” said he, “the fire there spoken of is such a fire, as both good and bad must pass through and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” “And this,” says Fuller, in his quaint manner, “seeming to shake a main pillar of purgatory, the pope’s furnace, the fire whereof, like the philosopher’s stone, melteth all his leaden bulls into pure gold; some of his under-chemists, like Demetrius and the craftsmen, began to bestir themselves, and caused him to be silenced.”