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, so called because he was a canon of that church. He was born, according to some writers, at Misnia in the eleventh century; he devoted himself early to the church, and in 1067, was made a canon by Adelbert, archbishop of Bremen, and at the same time placed at the head of the school of that city, a situation equally important and honourable at a time when schools were the only establishments for public instruction. Adam employed his whole life in the functions of his office, in propagating religion, and in compiling his history, “Historia ecclesiastica ecclesiarum Hamburgensis et Bremensis vicinorurnque locorum septentrionalium, ab anno 788 ad annum 1072,” Copenhagen, 1579, 4to; Leyden, 159.5, 4to; Helmstadt, 1670, 4to the latter, edited by John Mader, is the best edition. This work contains the most accurate account we have of the establishment of Christianity in the north of Europe. As Bremen was the centre of the missions for this purpose, in which Adam was himself engaged, and had travelled over the countries visited by Anscharius about 200 years before, he had the farther advantage of making valuable collections from the archives of the archbishoprick, the library of his convent, and the conversations he held with the missionaries. He lived in an age when the dignified clergy were not inattentive to temporal affairs, and yet acquitted himself with much impartiality in writing the history of his patron Adelbert, a man of intrigue and ambition. He made a tour in Denmark, where he was favourably received by the reigning sovereign; and on his return wrote a geographical treatise, which was published at Stockholm, under the title of “Chronographia Scandinavise,” 1615, 8vo, and afterwards at Leyden, with the title “De situ Daniae et reliquarum trans Daniam regionum natura,” 1629. This short work is added to Mader’s edition of his history, and although not without a portion of the fabulous, is curious as the first attempt to describe the North of Europe, particularly Jutland, and some of the islands in the Baltic. We also owe to Adam of Bremen the first accounts of the interior of Sweden, and of Russia, the name of which only was then known in Christian Europe. He even speaks of the island of Great Britain, but chiefly from the accounts of Solinus and Martian us Capella, as his visits did not extend so far. This description of the North has been preserved by Lindenbrog in his “Scriptores rerum Gerrn. septentrional.” Hamburgh, 1706; and Muray, one of the most distinguished professors of Gottingen, has enriched it with a learned commentary. The time of our author’s death is not known.

, a writer of romance in the 13th, century, and probably so called from often wearing the laurel crown, was minstrel to Henry III. duke of Brabant and Flanders. In La Valliere’s collection of Mss. are several metrical romances by this author: 1. “The romance of William of Orange,” surnamed Short-nose, constable of France. There are some extracts from this in Catel’s history of Languedoc. 2. “The romance of the Infancy of Ogier the Dane,” written in rhyme by order of Guy earl of Flanders. Of this are several translations published in the 16th century. 3. “The romance of Cleomades,” written by order of Maria of Brabant, daughter of his patron. This, translated into prose by Philip Camus, has been several times printed; at first, without date, at Paris and Troyes; and at Lyons, 1488, 4to. 4. “The romance of Aymeri of Narbonne.” 5. “The romance of Pepin and Bertha his wife;” the facts taken from the chronicles in the abbey of St. Denis. A sequel to this was written by Girardin of Amiens, as the “Romance of Charlemagne, son of Bertha.” 6. “The romance of Buenon of Commarchis,” the least esteemed of all his productions, perhaps from the insignificance of his hero. The time of the death of Adenez is not known.

, a celebrated Roman lawyer, and author of the oldest work on jurisprudence, flourished in the sixth century after the building of Rome. He was successively aedile, consul, and censor. When Cnaeus Flavius divulged his formula, the patricians, who considered themselves as the depositories of the law, composed novels, and endeavoured to conceal them with the utmost care. But Ælius, when scdile, got access to them, and published them. These last obtained the name of theÆlian law, as what Flavius had published were called the Flavian law. It appears also, that notwithstanding what Grotius and Bertrand have advanced, he was the author of a work entitled the “Tripartite,” by far the oldest work on the subject. It was so called as containing, 1. The text of the Law; 2. Its interpretation; and 3. The forms of procedure. He was appointed consul in A. U. C. 556, at the end of the second Punic war; and was distinguished for his homely diet, and simple manners, and his rejecting of presents.

, a fellow-labourer with Luther in promoting the Reformation, was born 1499, in the Marche of Brandenburgh. His family name was Huch, or Hsech, which he changed to Æpinus, a custom very common with the learned men of his time. He was originally a Franciscan friar, and entered that society when in England; but on his return to Germany he studied under Luther, whose religious principles he adopted, and propagated with zeal, first at Stralsund, and afterwards at Hamburgh, where, as pastor of the church of St. Peter, and ecclesiastical inspector, he obtained great influence. In 1547, when Charles V. endeavoured to obtrude the Interim on the Protestants, after he had defeated their forces, and after the death of Luther, he opposed this species of formulary, or confession of faith, so called because it was only to take place in the interim, until a general council should decide all the points in question between the Protestants and Catholics. It indeed satisfied neither party, and the Lutheran preachers refused to subscribe to it. Those who did subscribe got the name of adiaphorists, or indifferent or lukewarm persons, against whom Æpinus contended, both in the pulpit and press. He died May 13, 1553, leaving several works, of which Melchior Adam has given the subjects, but no notice of the dates, or proper titles. In learning, zeal, and intrepid spirit, he was equal to most of his contemporaries who opposed the church of Rome.

, one of the most celebrated followers of Aristotle, flourished about the year 200. He was so called from Aphrodisea, a town in Caria, where he was born. He penetrated, with such success, into the meaning of the most profound speculations of his master, that he was not only respected by his contemporaries as an excellent preceptor, but was followed by subsequent Aristotelians among the Greeks, Latins, and Arabians, as the best interpreter of Aristotle. On account of the number and value of his commentaries, he was called, by way of distinction, “The Commentator.” Under the emperor Septimus Severus he was appointed public professor of the Aristotelian philosopln r, but whether at Athens or Alexandria is uncertain. In his works he supports the doctrine of Divine Providence; upon this head he leaned towards Platonism, but on most other subjects adhered strictly to Aristotle. In his book concerning the soul, he maintains that it is not a distinct substance by itself, but the form of an organized body.

, Alfergani, or Fargani, was a celebrated Arabic astronomer, who nourished about the year 800. He was so called from the place of his nativity, Fergan, in Sogdiana, now called Maracanda, or Samarcand, anciently a part of Bactria. He is also called Ahmed (or Muhammed) Ben-Cothair, or Katir. He wrote the Elements of Astronomy, in 30 chapters or sections. In this work the author chiefly follows Ptolomy, using the same hypotheses, and the same terms, and frequently citing him. There are three Latin translations of Alfragan’s work. The first was made in the twelfth century, by Joannes Hispalensis; and was published at Ferrara in 1493, and at Nuremberg in 1537, with a preface by Melancthon. The second was by John Christman, from the Hebrew version of James Antoli, and appeared at Francfort in 1590. Christman added to the first chapter of the work an ample commentary, in which he compares together the calendars of the Romans, the Egyptians, the Arabians, the Persians, the Syrians, and the Hebrews, and shews the correspondence of their years.

a French cardinal and statesman of the illustrious house of Amboise in France, so called from their possessing the seignory of that name, was born in 1460. Being destined at a very early age for the church, he was elected bishop of Montauban when only fourteen. He was afterwards made one of the almoners to Lewis XI. to whom he behaved with great prudence. After the death of this prince in 1480, he entered into some of the intrigues of the court with a design to favour the duke of Orleans, with whom he was closely connected; but those intrigues being discovered, d‘Aniboise and his protector were both imprisoned. The duke of Orleans was at last restored to his liberty; and this prince having negotiated the marriage of the king with the princess Anne of Britanny, acquired great reputation and credit at court. Of this his favourite d’Amboise felt the happy effect as, soon after, the archbishopric of Narbonne was bestowed on him; but being at too great a distance from the court, he changed it for that of Rouen, to which the chapter elected him in 1493. As soon as he had taken possession of his new see, the duke of Orleans, who was governor of Normandy, made him lieutenant-general, with the same power as if he had been governor in cbief. This province was at that time in great disorder: the noblesse oppressed the people, the judges were all corrupted or intimidated; the soldiers, who had been licentious since the late wars, infested the high-ways, plundering and assassinating all travellers they met; but in less-than a year, d‘Amboise by his care and prudence established public tranquillity. The king dying in 1498, the duke of Orleans ascended the throne, by the name of Lewis XII. and d’Amboise became his prime minister. By his first operation in that office, he conciliated the affection of the whole nation. It had been a custom when a new monarch ascended the throne, to lay an extraordinary tax on the people, to defray the expences of the coronation, but by the counsel of d‘Amboise this tax was not levied, and the imposts were soon reduced one tenth. His virtues coinciding with his knowledge, he made the French nation happy, and endeavoured to preserve the glory they had acquired. By his advice Lewis XII. undertook the conquest of the Milanese in 1499. Lewis the Moor, uncle and vassal of Maximilian, was then in possession of that province. It revolted soon after the conquest, but d’Amboise brought it back to its duty. Some time after he was received at Paris with great magnificence, in quality of legate from the pope. During his legation, he laboured to reform many of the religious orders, as the jacobins, the cordeliers, and those of St. Germain des Pres. His disinterestedness was equal to his zeal. He never possessed more than one benefice, two thirds of which he employed for the relief of the poor and the support of the churches. Contenting himself with his archbishopric of Rouen and his cardinal’s hat, he was not, like his contemporaries, desirous to add abbeys to it. A gentleman of Normandy having offered to sell him an estate at a very low price, in order to portion his daughter, he made him a present of a sum sufficient for that purpose, and left him the estate. He obtained the purple after the dissolution of the marriage between Lewis XII. and Joan of France, to which he greatly contributed: and, on having procured for Caesar Borgia, son of pope Alexander VI. the duchy of Valentinois, with a considerable pension, his ambition was to be pope, with a view to the reform of abuses, and the correction of manners. After the death of Pius III. he might have succeeded in his wishes, and took measures to procure the tiara, but cardinal Julian de Rovera (afterwards Julius II.) found means to circumvent him; and the Venetians having contributed to his exclusion, he took the first opportunity to excite Lewis XII. to make war on them, a circumstance which seems not a little to detract from his character. This celebrated cardinal died in 15 10, in the convent of the Celestines at Lyons, of the gout in his stomach, aged 50 years. It is reported that he often repeated to the friar who attended him in his illness, “Brother John, why have I not during my whole life been brother John?” This minister has been greatly praised for having laboured for the happiness of France; but he has been equally censured for having advised his master to sign the treaty of Blois in 1504, by which France ran the risk of being dismembered. He governed both the king and the state; laborious, kind, honest, he possessed good sense, firmness, and experience, but he was not a great genius, nor were his views extensive. The desire he had to ease the people in their taxes, procured him during his life, but much more after his death, the title of father of the people. He merited this title still more, by the care he took to reform the administration of justice. Most of the judges were venal, and the poor, and those who had no support, could never obtain justice, when their opposers were either powerful or rich. Another evil not less enormous troubled the kingdom; law-suits were spun out to such a length, were so expensive, and accompanied by so much trick and chicanery, that most people rather chose to abandon their rights than engage in the recovery of them by suits which had no prospect of coming to an end. D‘Amboise resolved to remedy this abuse. He called to his assistance many lawyers and civilians, the most learned and of the greatest integrity; and charged them to form a plan, by which justice might be administered without partiality, the duration of lawsuits abridged and rendered less ruinous, and the corruption of the judges prevented. When these commissioners had made their report, d’Amboise undertook the laborious task of examining into the changes they had proposed in the old laws, and the new regulations they designed to establish; and after having made some changes, these new regulations were published throughout the kingdom. As he was governor of Normandy, he made a progress through that province for the express purpose of seeing his new code properly established.

, so called because he was librarian of the church of Rome, was a native of Greece, and one of the most learned men of his age. He flourished about the middle of the ninth century, and was abbot of St. Mary’s trans Tiberim. His chief work, the “Liber Pontincalis,” or the lives of the Popes from St. Peter to Nicholas I. is of a doubtful character: Blondel and Salmasius bestow great encomiums on it, while Hailing, a Roman catholic writer of note, depreciates it as much. To the last edition of this book is joined Ciampinius’s examination of the validity of the facts therein mentioned; and from this we learn that he wrote only the lives of Gregory IV. Sergius II. Leo IV. Benedict III. and Nicholas I. and that the lives of the other popes in that book were done by different authors. Anastasius is said to have assisted at the eighth general council held at Constantinople in the year 869, of which he translated the acts and canons from Greek into Latin. The time of his death is a disputed point, as indeed are many particulars relating to him. Bayle has a very elaborate article on his history, which Cave had previously examined, and Blondel, in his “Familier eclaircissement,” and Boeder in his “Bibl. critica,” have likewise entered deeply into the controversy. He wrote a great number of translations, more valued for their fidelity than elegance, yet they have all been admitted into the popish collections of ecclesiastical memoirs and antiquities. The first edition of the “Liber Pontincalis” was printed at Mentz, 1602, 4to, and two more editions appeared in the last century, one in four vols. fol. by Francis and Joseph Bianchini, 1718—1735, and the other in three vols. 4to, by the abbé Vignoli, 1724—1753, besides an edition by Muratori, in his collection of Italian writers, enlarged by learned dissertations, from which it would appear that Anastafcius was rather the translator, or compiler of those lives, and that he took them from the ancient catalogues of the popes, the acts of the martyrs, and other documents preserved among the archives of the Roman church. The Vatican library then consisted of little else, although it appears that there was before his time a person honoured with the title of librarian.

, or more properly Andrea Del Sarto, so called from his father’s trade, that of a tailor, but whose family name was Venucci, was born at Florence in 1488, and at first instructed in his art by Barile, a mean painter, with whom he spent three years, at the end of which Barile placed him with Peter Cosimo, then accounted one of the best painters in Italy. Under him, he made astonishing proficiency, and his abilities began to be acknowledged, but Cosimo' s morose temper obliged him to leave him, and seek instruction in the works of other artists. As he had, while with Cosimo, employed himself in designing after Vinci, Raphael, and Buonaroti, to whose works he had access at Florence, he persisted in the same practice, formed an admirable taste, and excelled his young rivals at home or abroad, in correctness, colouring, and knowledge of his art. Having contracted a friendship with Francesco Bigio, they determined to live together, and painted a great many works in the churches and convents of Florence, jointly, but Andrea’s reputation began to predominate, and seemed fixed by his representation of the preaching of St. John, executed for the Carmelites at Florence. Some time after this, he went to Rome to study the models of art in that city, but it is thought he did not remain there long enough to reap all the benefit which he might. The excellence of his pencil, and his power of imitation, were remarkably displayed in the copy he made of Leo X. between cardinal Medici and cardinal Rom, the head and hands by Raphael, and the draperies by Julio Romano. The imitation was so exact, that Julio, after the most minute inspection, and being told that it was a copy, could not distinguish it from the original. His superior talents might have raised him to opulence, if his imprudence had not reduced him to shame and poverty. The French king, Francis I. who was extremely partial to his works, invited him to his court, defrayed the expences of his journey, and made him many valuable presents. For a portrait, only, of the Dauphin, an infant, he received tjjree hundred crowns of gold, and he painted many other pictures for the court and nobility, for which he was liberally rewarded. While employed on a picture of St. Jerome, for the queen dowager, he received letters from his wife, soliciting his return to Florence, and, to indulge her, of whom he was excessively fond, he asked, and obtained a few months absence. It was on this occasion that the king, confiding in his integrity, made him several princely presents, and intrusted him with large sums of money to purchase statues, paintings, &c.; but Andrea instead of executing his commission, squandered away not only his own, but the money intrusted to him, became poor, and despised, and at last died of the plague, in his forty-second year, abandoned by his wife, and by all those friends who had partaken of his extravagance. His principal works were at Florence, but there were formerly specimens in many of the palaces and churches of Italy and France. All the biographers and critics of painters, except perhaps Baldinucci, have been lavish in their praises of Andrea. Mr. Fuseli, in his much improved edition of Pilkington, observes, that, on comparing the merits of his works, they seem to have obtained their full share of justice. As a Tuscan, says that judicious critic, the suavity of his tone, and facility of practice, contrast more strikingly with the general austerity and elaborate pedantry of that school, and gain-him greater praise than they would, had he been a Bolognese or Lombard. It cannot, however, be denied, that his sweetness sometimes borders on insipidity; the modesty, or rather pusillanimity of his character, checked the full exertion of his powers; his faults are of the negative kind, and defects rather than, blemishes. He had no notions of nature beyond the model, and concentrated all female beauty in his Lucrezia (his wife), and if it be true that he sacrificed his fortune and Francis I. to her charms, she must at least have equalled in form and feature his celebrated Madonna del Sacco; hence it was not unnatural that the proportions of Albert Durer should attract him more than those of Michael Angelo. His design and his conceptions, which seldom rose above the sphere of common or domestic life, kept pace with each other; here his observation was acute, and his ear open to every whisper of social intercourse or emotion. The great peculiarity, perhaps the great prerogative, of Andrea appears to be that parallelism of composition, which distinguishes the best of his historical works, seemingly as natural, obvious, and easy, as inimitable. In solemn effects, in alternate balance of action and repose, he excels all the moderns, and if he was often unable to conceive the actors themselves, he gives them probability and importance, by place and posture. Of costume he was ignorant, but none ever excelled, and few approached him in breadth, form, and style of that drapery which ought to distinguish solemn, grave, or religious subjects.

, da Fiesole, so called from the place where he was born, in 1387. He was at first the disciple of Giottino, but afterwards became a Dominican friar, and in that station was as much admired for his piety as his painting. His devout manner procured him the name of Angelico, or the angelic painter, and it is said that he never took up his pencil without a prayer, and had his eyes filled with tears when representing the sufferings of our Saviour. Nicholas V. employed him in his chapel, to paint historical subjects on a large scale, and prevailed on him soon after to decorate several books with miniature paintings. Although there are in his best paintings considerable defects, yet he was a most skilful instructor, and his amiable temper procured him many scholars. He always painted religious subjects; and it is given as a proof of his extraordinary humility, that he refused the Archbishopric of Florence when tendered to him by Nicholas V. as the reward of his talents. With respect to the objections made to his pictures, we are farther told, that he purposely left some great fault in them, lest his self-love might be too much flattered by the praises that would have been bestowed; a practice, however absurd in an artist, not unsuitable to monkish ideas of mortification. He died in 1443.

a French ecclesiastic and antiquary, was born at Frejus, July 25, 1643. When he had finished his studies, he succeeded an uncle, in a canonry of the cathedral of that city, and wrote a treatise “De periculis Canonicorum,” on the dangers to which the lives of canons are liable: this curious piece his brother Charles intended to publish, but it remains in manuscripj;. In 1680, he published, what was accounted more valuable, a Latin dissertation on the foundation of the church of Frejus, and its history, lives of the bishops, &c. This was intended as an introduction to a complete history of the city and church of Frejus, which is still in manuscript. In 1684, on the recommendation of father La Chaise, under whom he had studied theology at Lyons, he was appointed grand-vicar and official to J. B. de Verthamon, Mshop of Pamiers, who employed him in restoring peace to his diocese, which had been disturbed by the regale, a right so called in France, by which the French king, upon the death of a bishop, Claimed the revenues and fruits of his see, and the colladon of all benefices vacant in the diocese, before the appointment of a new bishop. Antelmi was so successful in this undertaking, that the bishop on his arrival found his diocese in perfect tranquillity. He then continued to prosecute his studies, and wrote several works, particularly his disquisition concerning the genuine writings of Leo the Great, and Prosper Aquitanus, “De veris operibus, &c.” 1689. In this he maintains that the Capitula concerning the grace of God, the Epistle to Demetrius, and the two books of the Calling of the Gentiles, ascribed to Leo, were really written by Prosper. Father Quesnel was his opponent on this subject, and was the first who ascribed these books to Leo, while Baronius, Sirmond, Labbe, and Noris, conjectured that pope Celestine was the author. Quesnel answered Antelmi, and, in M. du Pin’s opinion, with success, Antelmi’s other and more interesting work, was on the authorship of the Athanasian Creed, “Nova de Symbolo Athanasiano disquisitio,” Paris, 1693, 8vo. Quesnel ascribed this creed to Virgilius or Vigilius Thapsensis, an African bishop in the sixth century; Antelmi, and Pithon before him, to a French divine. The General Dictionary gives a summary of the arguments on both sides.

, so called because he was of that city, was also named Antonello. He was born in 1426, and died in 1475. He was the first of the Italians who painted in oil. Having seen at Naples a picture which king Alfonso had just received from Flanders, he was so struck with the liveliness, force, and softness of the colours, that he quitted his business to go and find out John Van Eyck, who he had been told was the painter of it. The consequences of this journey were, that Van Eyck communicated to him his secret; and on. the return of Antonio to Venice, Bellin artfully inveigled it out of him, and published it abroad. In the mean time, Antonio had intrusted it to one of his scholars, named Dominico. This Dominico, being called to Florence, gratuitously imparted it to Andrew del Castagno, who, actuated by the basest ingratitude and the greediness of gain, assassinated his friend and benefactor. All these incidents happening in rapid succession, occasioned the mystery of painting in oil to be quickly spread over all Italy. The schools of Venice and Florence were the foremost to adopt it; but that of Rome did not hesitate long to follow their example. Although we have given 1426 and 1475 as the dates of his birth and death, they are not absolutely settled by any of his biographers. Gallo is of opinion that he was born in 1447, and died in 1496. Vasari leaves the matter in doubt.

, so called from Aquila, a city of Abruzzo in the kingdom of Naples, was born there in 1466, and gained considerable fame by his Italian poems, but more by his talents as an Improvisator!, which were in high esteem with the princes and patrons of literature in his country. He was the contemporary and rival of Tebaldeo di Ferrara, and together they contributed not a little to the refinement of Italian poetry, but their reputation sunk before that of Sannazarius and Bembo. Aquilano died at Rome, Aug. 10, 1500. His poems, consisting of sonnets, eclogues, epistles, &c. were printed at Rome in 1503, 8vo, but the best edition is that of the Giunti, 1516.

was descended of a most ancient and honourable family, seated at Parkhall, in Warwickshire. He was born' in 1532, and his father dying when he was an infant of two years old, he became, before he inherited the estate of the family, the ward of sir George Throkmorton, of Coughton, whose daughter Mary he afterwards married. In all probability, it was his engagement with this family, and being bred in it, that made him so firm a papist as he was. However, succeeding his grandfather, Thomas Arden, esq. in 1562, in the familyestate, he married Mary (Throkmorton), and settled in the country, his religion impeding his preferment, and his temper inclining him to a retired life. His being a near neighbour to the great earl of Leicester, occasioned his having some altercations with him, who affected to rule all things in that county, and some persons, though of good families, and possessed of considerable estates, thought it no discredit to wear that nobleman’s livery, which Mr. Arden disdained. In the course of this fatal quarrel, excessive insolence on one side produced some warm expressions on the other; insomuch that Mr. Arden npenly taxed the earl with his conversing criminally with the countess of Essex in that earl’s lite-time; and also inveighed against his pride, as a thing more inexcusable in a nobleman newly created. These taunts having exasperated that minister, he projected, or at least forwarded, his destruction. Mr. Arden had married one of his daughters to John Somerville, esq. a young gentleman of an old family and good fortune, in the same county, but who was a man of a hot rash temper, and by many thought a little insane. He was drawn in a strange manner to plot (if it may be so called) against the queen’s life; and thus the treason is alleged to have been transacted. In the Whitsun-holidays, 1583, he with his wife was at Mr. Arden’s, where Hugh Hall, his father-in-law’s priest, persuaded him that queen Elizabeth being an incorrigible heretic, and growing daily from bad to worse, it would be doing God and his country good service to take her life away. When the holidays were over, he returned to his own house with his wife, where he grew melancholy and irresolute. Upon this his wife wrote to Hall, her father’s priest, to come and strengthen his purpose. Hall excused his coming, but wrote at large, to encourage Somerville to prosecute what he had undertaken. This letter induced Somerville to set out for London, but he proceeded no farther than Warwick, where, drawing his sword and wounding some protestaats, he was instantly seized. While he was going to Warwick, his wife went over to her father’s, and shewed him and her mother Hall’s treasonable letter, which her father threw into the fire; so that only the hearsay of this letter could be alleged against him and his wife, by Hall who wrote it, who was tried and condemned with them. On Somerville’s apprehension, he said somewhat of his father and mother-in-law, and immediately orders were sent into Warwickshire for their being seized and imprisoned. October 30, 1583, Mr. Somerville was committed to the Tower for high-treason. November 4, Hall, the priest, was committed also; and on the seventh of the same month, Mr. Arden. On the sixteenth, Mary the wife of Mr. Arden, Margaret their daughter, wife to Mr. Somerville, and Elizabeth, the sister of Mr. Somerville, were committed. On the twenty-third Mr. Arden was racked in the Tower, and the next day Hugh Hall the priest was tortured likewise. By these methods some kind of evidence being brought out, on the sixteenth of December Edward Arden, esq. and Mary his wife, John Somerville, esq. and Hugh Hall the priest, were tried and convicted of high-treason at Guildhall, London; chiefly on Hall’s confession, who yet received sentence with the rest. On the nineteenth of December, Mr. Arden and his son-in-law, Somerville, were removed from the Tower to Newgate, for a night’s time only. In this space Somerville was strangled by his own hands, as it was given out; but, as the world believed, by such as desired to remove him silently. The next day, being December 20, 1583, Edward Arden was executed at Smithfield with the general pity of all spectators. He died with the same high spirit he had shewn throughout his life. After professing his innocence, he owned himself a papist, and one who died for his religion, and want of flexibility, though under colour of conspiring against the state. He strenuously insisted, that Somerville was murdered, to prevent his shaming his prosecutors; and having thus extenuated things to such as heard him, he patiently submitted to an ignominious death. His execution was according to the rigour of the law, his head being set (as Somerville’s also was) upon London-bridge, and his quarters upon the city gates; but the body of his son-in-law was interred in Moornelds. Mrs. Arden was pardoned; but the queen gave the estate which fell to her, by her and her husband’s attainder, to Mr. Darcy. Hugh Hall, the priest, likewise was pardoned; but Leicester, doubting his secrecy, would have engaged chancellor Hatton to send him abroad; which he refusing, new rumours, little to that proud earl’s honour, flew about. Holinshed, Stowe, and other writers, treat Mr. Arden as a traitor fairly convicted; but Camden. was too honest to write thus, and it may be probable, that he died for being a firm Englishman, rather than a bad subject. His son and heir Robert Arden, esq. being bred in one of the inns of court, proved a very wise and fortunate person: insomuch that by various suits he wrung from Edward Darcy, esq. the grantee, most of his father’s estates, and by marrying Elizabeth, daughter of Reginald Corbet, esq. one of the justices of the king’s bench, he restored the credit and splendour of this ancient family, and was so happy as to see Henry Arden, esq. his eldest son, knighted by king James, and married to Dorothy the daughter of Basil Fielding of Kewnham, esq. whose son became earl of Denbigh. On this account, the last editor of the Biographia Britannica remarks, that the conduct of lord Burleigh in Mr. Arden’s fate is somewhat equivocal. If that great man. was convinced of Mr. Arden’s innocence, it was totally unworthy of his character to charge him with having been a traitor. It is more 'honourable, therefore, to lord Burleigh’s reputation, and more agreeable to probability, to suppose that he believed Mr. Arden to be guilty, at least in a certain degree, of evil designs against the queen. Indeed, Arden was so bigoted a papist, that it is not unlikely but that by some imprudent words, if not by actions, he might furnish a pretence for the accusations brought against him. We can scarcely otherwise imagine how it would have been possible for the government to have proceeded to such extremities. We do not mean, by these remarks, to vindicate the severity with which this unfortunate gentleman was treated; and are sensible that, during queen Elizabeth’s reign, there was solid foundation for the jealousy and dread which were entertained of the Roman catholics.

, a celebrated rabbi, in the year 476, in conjunction with Hammai, another rabbi^ composed the Talmud of Babylon, so called from the place of their residence. This collection of visions has had the honour of two commentators, the rabbi Mair in the year 547, and another Asser, who died in 1328, and was printed by Elzivir at Leyden, in 1630, 4to, and again with all its commentators at Amsterdam in 1644, in 12 vols. folio.

, son to the senator Isychius, and brother to Apollinaris, bishop of Valentia, was promoted in the beginning of the sixth century to the archbishopric of Vienna, which his father had also held for some years. His principal object was the refutation and conversion of the Arians, and during his conferences, for this purpose with the Arian bishops before Goudeband king of Burgundy, who was an Arian, he converted his son Sigismorid. Cave thinks he converted the king himself, and when he found him concealing his principles, urged him to a public profession of them. He wrote also in defence of pope Symmachus, and died in the year 523. His principal works were Letters, Sermons, and Poems his Letters, 87 in number, contain many curious particulars of the civil and ecclesiastical history of the times. Of his Homilies, one only is extant on Rogation day, in which he gives the origin of the days so called. In all his works, his style is harsh, obscure, and intricate. His poems were printed at Francfort in 1507, and at Paris and Lyons in 1508, 1509, and 1536 but his whole works were published at Paris by father Sirmond, in 1643, fol. and since that Luc d'Achery published in his Spicilegium, the conference with the Arian bishops.

, the celebrated apologist for the Quakers, and one of the ablest writers of that sect, was born at Gordonstown, in the shire of Murray, Scotland, in 1648, of an ancient and very honourable family. The troubles in Scotland induced his father, colonel Barclay, to send him while a youth to Paris, under the care of his uncle, principal of the Scots college who, taking advantage of the tender age of his nephew, drew him over to the Romish religion. His father, being informed of this, sent for him in 1664. Robert, though now only sixteen, had gained a perfect knowledge of the French and Latin tongues, and had also improved himself in most other parts of knowle_dge. Several writers amongst the quakers have asserted that colonel Barclay had embraced their doctrine before his son’s return from France, but Robert himself has tixed it to the year 1666. Our author soon after became also a proselyte to that sect, and in a short time distinguished himself greatly by his zeal for their doctrines. His rirst treatise in defence of them appeared at Aberdeen, 1670. It was written in so sensible a manner, that it greatly raised the credit of the quakers. The title runs thus “Truth cleared of calumnies, 'wherein a hook entitled, A dialogue between a Quaker and a stable Christian (printed at Aberdeen, and, upon good ground, judged to be writ by William Mitchel, a preacher near by it, or at least that he had a chief hand in it), is examined, and the disingenuity of the author in his representing the Quakers is discovered here is also their case truly stated, cleared, demonstrated, and the objections of their opposers answered according to truth, scripture, and right reason to which are subjoined queries to the inhabitants of Aberdeen, which might (as far as the title tells us) also be of use to such as are of the same mind with them elsewhere in the nation.” The preface to this performance is dated from the author’s house at Ury, the 19th of the second month, 1670. In a piece he published in 1672, he tells us that he had been commanded by God to pass through the streets of Aberdeen in sackcloth and ashes, and to preach the necessity of faith and repentance to the inhabitants he accordingly performed it, being, as he declared, in the greatest agonies of mind till he had fulfilled this command. In 1675, he published a regular and systematical discourse, explaining the tenets of the quakers; which was well received. This was called “A Catechism and Confession of Faith, &c.” Many of those who opposed the religion of the quakers, having endeavoured to confound them with another sect called the ranters, our author, in order to shewr the difference between those pi his persuasion and this other sect, wrote a very sensible and instructive work called “The Anarchy of the Ranters and other Libertines, &e.” In 1676, his famous < e Apology“for the Quakers was published in Latin at Amsterdam, 4to. His” Theses theologies,“which are the foundation of this work, had been published some time before. He translated his Apology into English, and published it in 1678. The title in the English edition runs thus” An apology for the true Christian divinity as the same is held forth and preached by the people called in scorn Quakers being a full explanation and vindication of their principles and doctrines, by many arguments deduced from scripture and right reason, and the testimonies of famous authors both ancient and modern, with a full answer to the strongest objections usually made against them presented to the king: written and published in Latin for the information of strangers, by Robert Barclay; and now put into our own language for the benefit of his countrymen.“This work is addressed to Charles II. and the manner in which he expresses himself to his majesty is very remarkable. Amongst many other extraordinary passages, we meet with the following:” There is no king in the world, who can so experimentally testify of God’s providence and goodness; neither is there any who rules so many free people, so many true Christians which thing renders thy government more honourable, thyself more considerable, than the accession of many nations rilled with slavish aud superstitious souls. Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne and being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man if, after all those warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely, great will be thy condemnation.“These pieces of his, though they greatly raised his reputation amongst persons of sense and learning, yet they brought him into various disputes, and one particularly with some considerable members of the university of Aberdeen an account of which was afterwards published, entitled” A true and faithful account of the most material passages of a dispute between some students- of divinity (so called) of the university of Aberdeen, aud the people called Quakers, held in Aberdeen in Scotland, in Alexander Harper his close (or yard) before some hundred of witnesses, upon the 14th day of the second month, called April, 1675, there being John Lesly, Alexander Sherreff, and Paul Gellie master of arts, opponents and defendants upon the Quakers’ part, Robert Barclay and George Keith praeses for moderating the meeting, chosen by them, Andrew Thompson advocate; and by the quakers, Alexander Skein, some time a magistrate of the city published for preventing misreports by Alexander Skein, John Skein, Alexander Harper, Thomas Merser, and John Cowie to which is added, Robert Barclay’s offer to the preachers of Aberdeen, renewed and reinforced.“It appears also that he suffered imprisonment for his principles, which he bore with the greatest meekness. In 1677, he wrote a large treatise on” universal love.“Nor were his talents entirely confined to this abstracted kind of writing, as appears from his letter to the public ministers of Nimeguen. In 1679, a treatise of his was published in answer to John Brown he wrote also the same year a vindication of his Anarchy of the Ranters. His last tract was published in 1686, and entitled” The possibility and necessity of the inward and immediate Revelation of the Spirit of God towards the foundation and ground of true faith, proved in a letter written in Latin to a person of quality in Holland, and now also put into English.' 7 He did great service to his sect by his writings over all. Europe. He travelled also with the famous IVlr. Penn through the greatest part of England, Holland, and Germany, and was every where received with great respect. When he returned to his native country, he spent the remainder of his life in a quiet and retired manner. He died at his own house at Ury, on the 3d of October 1690, in the forty-second year of his age, leaving seven children, all of whom were alive in October 1740, fifty years after their father’s death, and the last survivor, Mr. David Barclay, a merchant of London, died in March 1769, in his eighty-eighth year, a gentleman still remembered for having had the singular honour of receiving at his house in Cheapside, three successive kings, George I. II. and III. when at their accession they favoured the city with their presence. From his windows they witnessed the procession, previous to dining with the lord-mayor and citizens at Guildhall on the lord-mayor’s day.

, bishop of Norwich in the fourteenth century, and founder of Trinity hall in Cambridge, was born at Norwich, the son of a citizen of good repute in that place. He was, from his tenderest years, of a docile and ingenuous disposition, and having made good proficiency in learning, he was sent to the university of Cambridge. There he particularly studied the civil law, in which he took the degree of doctor before he was thirty years of age, a thing then uncommon. On the 8th of December 1328, he was collated to the archdeaconry of Norwich. Soon after this, he went and studied at Rome, for his further improvement; and so distinguished himself by his knowledge and exemplary behaviour, that he was promoted by the pope to the place of auditor of his palace. He was likewise advanced by him to the deanery of Lincoln, and twice sent by him as his nuncio, to endeavour to procure a peace between Edward III. king-of England, and the king of France. Upon the death of Anthony de Beck, bishop of Norwich, the pope conferred that bishopric upon Bateman, on the 23d of January 1343, after which he returned into his native country, and lived in a generous and hospitable manner. Of pope Clement VI. he obtained for himself and successors, the first fruits of all vacant livings within his diocese; which occasioned frequent disputes between hhnsJ.f and his clergy. In 1347, he founded Trinity-hall in Cambridge, for the study of the civil and canon laws, by purchasing certain tenements from the monks of Ely, for which he gave some rectories in exchange, and converted the premises into a hall, dedicated to the holy Trinity. He endowed it with the rectories of Briston, Kymberley, Brimmingham, Woodalling, Cowling, and Stalling, in the diocese of Norwich: and designed that it should consist of a master, twenty fellows, and three scholars; to study the canon and civil law, with an allowance for one divine. But being prevented by death, he left provision only for a master, three fellows, and two scholars. However, by the munificence of subsequent benefactors, it now maintains a master, twelve fellows, and fourteen scholars. Bishop Bateman, from his abilities and address, was often employed by the king and parliament in affairs of the highest importance; and particularly was at the head of several embassies, on purpose to determine the differences between the crowns of England and France. In 1354, he was, by order of parliament, dispatched to the court of Rome, with Henry duke of Lancaster, and others, to treat (in the pope’s presence) of a peace, then in agitation between the two crowns above mentioned. This journey proved fatal to him; for he died at Avignon, where the pope then resided, on the 6th of January 1354-5, and was buried with great solemnity, in the cathedral church of that city. With regard to his person, we are told that he was of an agreeable countenance; and tall, handsome, and well made. He was, likewise, a man of strict justice and piety, punctual in the discharge of his duty, and of a friendly and compassionate disposition. But he was a stout defender of his rights, and would not suffer himself to be injured, or imposed upon, by any one, of which we have the following instance upon record, which perhaps does not more display his resolution than the abject state into which the king and his nobles were reduced by the usurped powers of the church of Rome Robert lord Morley having killed some deer in his parks, and misused his servants, he made him do public penance for the same, by walking uncovered and barefoot, with a wax taper of six pounds in his hands, through the city of Norwich to the cathedral, and then asking his pardon. And all this was done notwithstanding an express order of the king to the contrary, and though his majesty had seized the bishop’s revenues for his obstinacy. But the king was soon after reconciled to him. It remains to be mentioned that bishop Bateman was executor to Edmund Gonville, the founder of the college so called, which gave rise to the report by Godwin and others that he had founded that college or hall, which is evidently a mistake.

The story of Wishart’s prediction, concerning the fate of his malignant persecutor, seems to be controverted on good grounds. If there be any thing in the fact, it certainly was not a prophecy properly so called, but a mere denunciation of the divine vengeance, which Wishart might naturally think would fall upon the cardinal for his iniquities. He could not but know, too, how hateful Beaton was to many persons, and that he might be expected to become a victim to his arrogance and cruelty. Mr. Hume, who admits the prediction, says that it was probably the immediate cause of the event which it foretold. Whatever becomes of this part of the story concerning Wishart’s martyrdom, the other part of it, relative to the cardinal’s viewing the execution from a window, is highly credible, and perfectly suitable to his character.

On the other hand, Mr. Berington, in his “History of the reign of Henry If.” has attempted a vindication of Becket, in which he differs considerably from lord Lyttelton and other protestant historians, but for this w must refer to the book itself. Few men have had more biographers, if reliance could be placed on them, than Becket, but unfortunately the greater part of them were his panegyrists, and not his historians, and too much under the influence of the monkish principles of their days, to deserve much credit. The following list, however, of his biographers may afford some information to the curious inquirer, taken from Leland, Bale, Pits, and others. 1. Herbert Bosenham, or Bosscham, or de Hoscham, who was this archbishop’s secretary, and also present at the slaughter of him. 2. Edward, a monk, of Canterbury, the martyr’s most intimate friend. 3. Johannes Sarisburiensis, who accompanied Becket in his exile, but never countenanced his behaviour towards the king, being as sharp a writer against the encroachments of the papal see, as any man of his time. 4. Bartholomseus Iscanus, or Exonensis, bisiiop of Exeter, where he died in 118k 5. E. a monk of Eveshatn, who dedicated his book, or wrote it by way of epistle, to Henry, abbot of Croyland. 6. William Stephens, or Fitz-Stephen, a monk of Canterbury, and, for at reason, usually called Gulielmus Cantuariensis. He said to have written three several treatises of the life, martyrdom, and miracles of St. Thomas Becket; which are now in the Cotton library: But that, which there carries his name, seems to have been penned by Johannes Carnotensis, who is the same person with Sarisburiensis above mentioned, since, in the Quadripartite History, what we have from him is often to be found, in the same words, in the life there ascribed to Fitz-Stephen. 7. Benedictus Petroburgensis, abbot of Peterborough, who died in 1200. 8. Alanus Teukesburiensis, abbot of Tewkesbury, who died about the same time. 9. Roger, a monk of Croyland, who lived about 1214. It is observed, that St. Thomas’s miracles were become so numerous in this writer’s time, that he had matter for seven large volumes, in composing of which he spent no less than fifteen years. 10. Stephen Langton, a famous successor of Becket’s in the see of Canterbury, whose work on this subject is said be in the library of Bene't college. 11. Alexander de Hales, so called from the monastery of Hales in Gloucestershire, where he was educated, one of the most eminent schoolmen of his age, and master to Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, &c. 12. John Grandison, or Graunston, who died in 1369. 13. Quadrilogus, or the author of a book, entitled “De vita et processu S.Thomae Cantuariensiset Martyris super Libertate Ecclesiastica.” It is collected out of four historians, who were contemporary and conversant with Becket, viz. Herbert de Hoscham, Johannes Carnotensis, Gulielmus Canterburiensis, and Alanus Teukesburiensis, who are introduced as so many relaters of facts interchangeably. This book was first printed at Paris in 1495, and is often quoted by our historians, in the reign of Henry II. by the name of Quadripartita Historia. 14. Thomas Stapleton, the translator of Bede, in whose book De tribus Thomis, or Of the three Thomas’s, our saint makes as considerable a figure as either Thomas the Apostle, or Thomas Aquinas. 15. Laurence Vade, or Wade, a Benedictine monk of Canterbury, who lived and died we know not when, or where; unless perhaps he be the same person with 16. An anonymous writer of Becket’s life, who appears to have been a monk of that church, and whose book is said to be in the library at Lambeth. 17. Richard James, nephew of Dr. Thomas James, some time keeper of the Bodleian library; a very industrious and eminent antiquary, who endeavoured to overthrow the great design of all the above-mentioned authors, in his “Decanonizatio Thomse Cantuariensis et suorum,” which, with other manuscript pieces by the same hand, is in the public library at Oxford. These are the principal writers of our archbishop’s life besides whom, several other historians have spoken largely of him as John Bromton, Matthew Paris, Gervase, &c.

As this epistle throws much light on the state of ecclesiastical affairs at the time, and, what is more important for our present purpose, affords many proofs of the superior wisdom and good sense of Beda, we shall avail ourselves of the following sketch of it. Amongst other heads of advice, he recommends the finishing St. Gregory’s model to this prelate, by virtue of which York was to have' been a metropolis with twelve Suffragans. He insists upon this plan, the rather, because in some woody, and almost impassable, parts of the country, there were seldom any bishops came either to confirm, or any priests to instruct the people; and, therefore, he is of opinion that the erecting new sees would be of great service to the church. For this purpose he suggests the expedient of a synod to form: the project, and adjust the measures; and that an order of court should be procured to pitch upon some monastery, ani turn it into a bishop’s see and to prevent opposition; from the religious of that house, they should be softened with some concessions, and allowed to choose the bishop out of their own society, and that the joint government of the monastery and diocese should be put into his hands. And if the altering the property of the house should make the increasing the revenues necessary, he tells him there are monasteries enough that ought "to spare part of their estates for such uses; and, therefore, he thinks it reasonable that some of their lands should be taken from them, 'and laid to the bishopric, especially since many of them full short of the rules of their institution. And since it is commonly said, that several of these places are neither serviceable to God nor the commonwealth, because neither the exercises of piety and discipline are practised, nor the estates possessed by men in a condition to defend the country; therefore if the houses were some of them turned into bishoprics, it would be a seasonable provision for the church* and prove a very commendable alteration. A little after he intreats Egbert to use his interest with king Ceolwulf, to reverse the charters of former kings for the purposes above-mentioned: For it has sometimes happened, says he, that the piety of princes has been over-lavish, and directed amiss. He complains farther, that the monasteries were frequently filled with people of unsuitable practices; that the country seemed over-stocked with those foundations; that there were scarcely estates enough left /or the laity of condition; and that, if this humour increased, the country would grow disfurnished of troops to defend their frontiers. He mentions another abuse crept in of a higher nature: that some persons of quality of the laity, who had neither fancy nor experience for this way of living, used to purchase some of the crown-lands, under pretence of founding a monastery, and then get a charter of privileges signed by the king, the bishops, and other great men in church and state; and by these expedients they worked up a great estate, and made themselves lords of several villages, And thus getting discharged from the service of the commonwealth, they retired for liberty, took the range of their fancy, seized the character of abbots, and governed the monks without any title to such authority; and, which is still more irregular, they sometimes do not stock these places with religious, properly so called, but rake together a company of strolling monks, expelled for their misbehaviour; and sometimes they persuade their own retinue to take the tonsure, and promise a monastic obedience. And having furnished their religious houses with such ill-chosen company, they live a life perfectly secular under a monastic character, bring their wives into the monasteries, and are husbands and abbots at the same time. Thus for about thirty years, ever since the death of king Alfred, the country has run riot in this manner; insomuch, that there are very few of the lord-lieutenants, or governors of towns, who have not seized the religious jurisdiction of a monastery, and put their ladies in the same post of guilt, by making them abbesses without passing through those stages of discipline and retirement that should qualify them for it; and as ill customs are apt to spread, the king’s menial servants have taken up the same fashion: and thus we find a great many inconsistent offices and titles incorporated; the same persons are abbots and ministers of state, and the court and cloister are unsuitably tacked together; and men are trusted with the government of religious houses, before they have practised any part of obedience to them. To stop the growth of this disorder, Beda advises the convening of a synod; that a visitation might be set on foot, and all such unqualified persons thrown out of their usurpation. In short, he puts the bishop in mind, that it is part of the episcopal office to inspect the monasteries of his diocese, to reform what is amiss both in head and members, and not to suffer a breach of the rules of the institution. It is your province, says he, to take care that the devil does not get the ascendant in places consecrated to God Almighty; that we may not have discord instead of quietness, and libertinism instead of sobriety.

After the lapse of a few years, which he spent partly at Venice and partly at Padua in the prosecution of his studies, his father being appointed vicedomino of Ferrara, young Bembo accompanied him thither, where he had an opportunity of attending the philosophical lectures of Nicolao Leoniceno, and commenced an acquaintance with Sadoleto, other learned men. He was also favourably received court, but did not desist from the prosecution of his studies. When about twenty -eight years of age, he began his “Asolani,” so called from its having been finished at Asolo, a town in the Venetian territory. This work, in which the subject of love is attempted in a moral and philosophical point of view, soon became so popular as to contribute much to his fame. It was first printed at the Aldine press in 1505, 4to, and was often reprinted. He afterwards returned with his father to Venice, where, and at Padua, he continued his studies principally with a view of improving his native language. At length, unwilling to continue burthensome to his father, he determined to try his fortune at the court of Urbino, at that time the centre of genius, fashion, and taste, and where Castiglioni laid the scene of his “II Cortegiano,” and introduced Bembo as one of the speakers. Bembo was recommended here in 1506, and soon became admired for his address, eloquence, and manners, while he still prosecuted his favourite studies, and produced his “Rime,” and various Latin compositions. He also occasionally visited the court of Rome, where the duchess of Urbino Elizabetha Gonzaga zealously endeavoured to promote his interest. In the last year of the pontificate of Julius II. he accompanied Sadoleto and other persons of distinction to that city; and among other literary services rendered by him to the pope, he decyphered an ancient manuscript written in abbreviated characters, a task which others had in vain attempted, and which the pope appears to have rewarded by some ecclesiastical preferments of the sinecure kind.

, a monk in the tenth century, who was born in the year 923, in the neighbourhood of Annecy, of one of the most illustrious houses of Savoy, rendered himself not more celebrated in the annals of religion than of benevolence, by two hospitable establishments which he formed, and where, for nine hundred years, travellers have found relief from the dangers of passing the Alps in the severe part of the season. Bernard, influenced by pious motives and a love of study, refused in his early years a proposal of marriage to which his parents attached great importance, and embraced the ecclesiastical life. He afterwards was promoted to be archdeacon of Aoste, which includes the places of official and grand-vicar, and consequently gave him considerable weight in the government of the diocese. This he employed in the laudable purposes of converting the wretched inhabitants of the neighbouring mountains, who were idolaters, and made very great progress in ameliorating their manners, as well as religious opinions. Affected at the same time with the dangers and hardships sustained by the French and German pilgrims in travelling to Rome, he resolved to build on the summit of the Alps two hospitia, or hotels, for their reception, one on mount Joux (mons Jcrffis, so called from a temple of Jupiter erected there), and the other, the colonnade of Jove, so called from a colonnade or series of upright stones placed on the snow to point out a safe track. These places of reception were afterwards called, and are still known by the names of the Great and Little St. Bernard. The care of them the founder entrusted to regular canons of the order of St. Augustin, who have continued without interruption to our days, each succession of monks during this long period, zealously performing the duties of hospitality according to the benevolent intentions of St. Bernard. The situation is the most inhospitable by nature that can be conceived even in spring, the cold is extreme; and the whole is covered with snow or ice, whose appearances are varied only by storms and clouds. Their principal monastery on Great St. Bernard, is probably the highest habitation in Europe, being two thousand five hundred toises above the sea. Morning and evening their dogs, trained for the purpose, trace out the weary and perishing traveller, and by their means, many lives are saved, the utmost care being taken to recover them, even when- recovery seems most improbable. After thus establishing these hospitia, Bernard returned to his itinerant labours among the neighbouring countries until his death in May 28, 1008. The Bollandists have published, with notes, two authentic lives of St. Bernard de Menthon, one written by Richard, his successor in the archdeaconry of Aoste y by which it appears that he was neither a Cistertian, nor of the regular canons, as some writers have asserted. The two hospitals possessed considerable property in Savoy, of which they were deprived afterwards, but the establishment still subsists, and the kind and charitable duties of it have lately been performed by secular priests.

, called Father Bernard, or the Poor Priest, was born December 26, 1588, at Dijon, sou of Stephen Bernard, lieut.-gen. of Chalons-sur-Saone. He had a lively imagination and wit, which, joined to a jovial temper, made him a welcome guest in all gay companies. Going to Paris with M. de Bellegarde, governor of Dijon, he gave himself up to public amusements, and all the vanities of the age, making it his business to act comedies for the diversion of such persons of quality as he was acquainted with but at length he grew disgusted with the world, and devoted himself wholly to relieving and comforting the poor. He assisted them by his charities and exhortations to the end of his days, with incredible fervour, stooping and humbling himself to do the meanest offices for them. Father Bernard having persisted in refusing all the benefices offered him by the court, cardinal Richelieu told him one day, that he absolutely insisted on his asking him for something, and left him alone to consider of it. When the cardinal returned half an hour after, Bernard said, “Monseigneur, after much study, I have at last found out a favour to ask of you When I attend any sufferers to the gibbet to assist them in their last moments, we are carried in a cart with so bad a bottom, that we are every moment in danger of falling to the ground. Be pleased, therefore, Monseigneur, to order that some better boards may be put to the cart.” Cardinal Richelieu laughed heartily at this request, and gave orders directly that the cart should be thoroughly repaired. Father Bernard was ever ready to assist the unhappy hy his good offices, for which purpose he one day presented a petition to, a nobleman in place, who being of a Very hasty temper, flew into a violent passion, and said a thousand injurious things of the person for whom the priest interested himself, but Bernard still persisted in his request; at which the nobleman was at last so irritated, that he gave him a box on the ear. Bernard immediately fell at his feet, and, presenting the other ear, said, “Give me a good blow on this also, my lord, and grantmy petition.” The nobleman was so affected by this apparent humility as to grant Bernard’s request. He died March 23, 1641. The French clergy had such a veneration for him as often to solicit that he might be enrolled in the calendar of saints. In 1638 he founded the school of the Thirty-three, so called from the number of years our Saviour passed on earth, and a very excellent seminary. Immediately after his death appeared “Le Testament du reverend pere Bernard, et ses pensdes pieuses,” Paris, 1641, 8vo, and “Le Recit des choses arrivees a la mort du rev. pere Bernard,” same year. The abbé Papillon also quotes a work entitled “Entretiens pendant sa derniere maladie.” His life was written by several authors, by Legauffre, Giry, de la Serre, Gerson, and Lempereur the Jesuit. This last, which was published at Paris, 1708, 12mo, is too full of visions, revelations, and miracles, to afford any just idea of Bernard.

, so called from Castel Bolognese in the Romania, where he was born in 1495, distinguished himself for his admirable skill in engraving on precious stones. After having resided for several years with Alphonso duke of Ferrara, where his works excited universal admiration, he went to Rome, and attached himself to the cardinal Hyppolito de Medicis, whose friendship he preferred to the brilliant offers made by Charles V. who was very desirous of his residing in Spain. At Rome, Bernard executed some medals in honour of Clement VII. of such exquisite beauty, as to meet with the applause even of his rivals. Among the chefsd'oeuvre which he left, are two engravings on crystal, which have been particularly noticed by connoisseurs. The subjects are the “Fall of Phaeton,” and “Tityus with the vulture,” from designs by Michael Angelo, both which were thought to approach to the perfection of the ancients. Enriched by the patronage of cardinal de Medicis, and esteemed by all who knew him, he passed his latter days in a charming retreat, at Faenza, which he had enriched with a fine collection of pictures, and where he died in 1555.

, minister, and professor of Hebrew at Geneva, at Frankenthal, and at Lausanne, was born at Thouars in Poitou, in 1531, of a reputable family, allied to the house of la Trimouille, and escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew by flying to Cahors and afterwards to Geneva. He died at Lausanne in 1594. He gave to the world, 1. “A dissertation on the Republic of the Hebrews,” Geneva, 1580 again at Leyden in 1641, 8vo, written with precision and method. 2. “A revision of the French Bible of Geneva, according to the Hebrew text,” Geneva, 1588. He corrected that version (by Calvin and Olivetan) in a great number of places; but in others he has too closely followed the authority of the Rabbins, and not sufficiently that of the old interpreters. It is the Bible still in use among the Calvinists. 3. A new edition of the “Thesaurus linguae sanctae” of Pagninus. 4. “A parallel of the Hebrew Tongue with the Arabic.” 5. “Lucubrationes Frankendalenses,” 1685, or expJanations on difficult passages of the New Testament, so called because written at Frankenthal.

, in Latin Beverlacius, archbishop of York in the eighth century, was born of a noble family among the English Saxons, at Harpham, a small town in Northumberland. He was first a monk, and afterwards abbot of the monastery of St. Hilda. He was instructed in the learned languages by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, and was justly esteemed one of the best scholars of his time. Alfred of Beverly, who wrote his life, pretends that he studied at Oxford, and took there the degree of master of arts; but bishop Godwin assures us this cannot be true, because such distinction of degrees was not then known at Oxford, nor any where else. Our abbot’s merit recommended him to the favour of Alfred, king of Northumberland, who, in the year 685, advanced him to the see of Hagustald, or Hexham, and, upon the death of archbishop Bosa in 687, translated him to that of York. This prelate was tutor to the famous Bede, and lived in the strictest friendship with Acca, and other AngloSaxon doctors, several of whom he put upon writing comments on the scriptures. He likewise founded, in 704, a college at Beverly for secular priests. After he had governed the see of York thirty-four years, being tired with the tumults and confusions of the church, he divested himself of the episcopal character, and retired to Beverly; and four years after died May 7, 721. The day of his death was appointed a festival by a synod held at London in 1416. Bede, and other monkish writers, ascribe several miracles to him. Between three and four hundred years after his death, his body was taken up by Alfric, archbishop of York, and placed in a shrine richly adorned with silver, gold, and precious stones. Bromton relates, that William the conqueror, when he ravaged Northumberland with a numerous army, spared Beverly alone, out of a religious veneration for St. John of that place. This prelate wrote some pieces, 1. “Pro Luca exponendo;” an essay towards an exposition of St. Luke, addressed to Bede. 2. “Homiliee in Evangelia.” 3. Epistolae ad Hildara Abbatissam.“4.” Epistolse ad Herebaldum, Andenum, et Bertinum.“- -Pits mentions another John of Beverly, so called from the place of his nativity, who was a Carmelite monk in the fourteenth century, and a very learned man, and doctor and professor of divinity at Oxford. He flourished about 1390, in the reign of Richard II. and wrote, 1.” Questiones in magistrum sententiarum“in four books. 2.” Disputationes ordinariae" in one book.

We have seen that it has been objected to Dr. Birch, that he was sometimes too minute in his publications, and that he. did not always exercise, with due severity, the power of selection. The charge must be confessed not to be totally groundless. But it may be alleged in our author’s favour, that a man who has a deep and extensive acquintance with a subject, often sees a connection and importance in some smaller circumstances, which may not immediately be discerned by others and, on that account, may have reasons for inserting them, that will escape the notice of superficial minds. The same circumstance is noticed in the following character of Dr. Birch by one of our predecessors in this Dictionary, Dr. Heathcote, who knew Dr. Birch well, and consorted with him, for the last thirteen years of his life. Dr. Heathcote “believes him to have been an honest, humane, and generous man warm and zealous in his attachments to persons and principle, but of universal benevolence, and ever ready to promote the happiness of all men. He was cheerful, lively, and spirited, in the highest degree; and, notwithstanding the labours and drudgery he went through in his historical pursuits, no man mixed more in company but he was a very early riser, and thus had done the business of a morning before others had begun it. He was not a man of learning, properly so called he understood the Latin and French languages, not critically, but very well of the Greek he knew very little. He was, however, a man of great general knowledge, and excelled particularly in modern history. As a collector and compiler, he was in the main judicious in the choice of his materials but was sometimes too minute in uninteresting details, and did not always exercise, with due severity, the power of selection. He had a favourite position, that we could not be possessed of too many facts and he never departed from, it, though it was often urged to him, that facts, which admit of no reasoning, and tend to no edification, which can only serve to encumber, and, as it were, smother useful intelligence, had better be consigned to oblivion, than recorded. And indeed, in this very way of biographical compilation, we have always been of opinion, that, if it were less fashionable to relate particulars of every man, which are common to almost all men, we should be equally knowing, and our libraries would be by far less crowded. In his manners, Dr. Birch was simple and unaffected; very communicative, and forward to assist in any useful undertaking; and of a spirit perfectly disinterested, and (as his friends used to tell him) too inattentive to his own emolument.”

, or Bryckinton, or Brickington, so called from Birchington, in the isle of Thanet, where he was born, was a Benedictine monk, belonging to the church of Canterbury, into which order he entered about the year 1382. He wrote a history of the archbishops of Canterbury to the year 1368, which forms the first article in the first volume of Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, who copied it from the ms. in the Lambeth library. Other historical Mss. in the same library are attributed to him, but remain unpublished. He is supposed to have died in 1407.

, an eminent mathematician, who flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries, was the son of John Blagrave, of Bulmarsh, esq. and was born at Reading, but in what year is not known. He acquired the rudiments of his education at Reading, whence he removed to St. John’s college, Oxford, but soon quitted the university, and retired to Southcote Lodge at Reading, where he devoted his time to study and contemplation. His genius seemed to be turned most to mathematics; and that he might study this science without interruption, he devoted himself to a retired life. He employed himself chiefly in compiling such works as might render speculative mathematics accurate, and the practical parts easy. He accordingly finished some learned and useful works, in all which he proposed to render those sciences more universally understood. He endeavoured to shew the usefulness of such studies, that they were not mere amusements for scholars and speculative persons, but of general advantage, and absolutely indispensable in many of the necessaries and conveniences of life with this view he published the four following works: 1. “A Mathematical Jewel, shewing the making and most excellent use of an instrument so called: the use of which jewel is so abundant, that it leadeth the direct path-way through the whole art of astronomy, cosmography, geography,” &c. 1582, folio. 2. “Of the making and use of the Familiar Staff, so called for that it may be made useful and familiarly to walk with, as for that it performeth the geometrical mensuration of all altitudes,” 1590, 4to. 3. “Astrolabium uranicum generale a necessary and pleasant solace and recreation for navigators in their long journeying containing the use of an instrument, or astrolabe,” &c. 1596, 4to. 4. “The art of Dialling, in two parts.” 1609, 4to.

, a German horticulturist, who came to England about the middle of the seventeenth century, was appointed first superintendant of the physic-garden at Oxford, founded in 1632 by Henry earl of Danby. Some writers call him doctor, and some professor of botany, but he was neither, nor was there any professor, properly so called, before Dillenius. The “Catalogus -Plantarum” in this garden, published at Oxford in 1648, 12mo, was drawn up by Bobart, and is a very favourable proof of his zeal and diligence. Under his care and that of his son, the garden at Oxford continued to flourish for many years. The old man, according to Wood, lived in the gardenhouse, and died there Feb. 4, 1679, aged eighty-one. Mr. Granger relates an anecdote that “on rejoicing days old Bobart used to have his beard tagged with silver.” He left two sons, Jacob and Tillemant, who were both employed in the physi-garden. Jacob, who seems to have been a man of some learning, published the second volume of Morison’s “Oxford history of Plants,” 1699, fol. Of him too, an anecdote is told which implies somewhat of a humourous disposition. He had transformed a dead rat into the feigned figure of a dragon, which imposed upon the learned so far, that “several fine copies of verses were wrote on so rare a subject.” Bobart afterwards owned the cheat but it was preserved for some years, as a master-piece of art. Dr. Pulteney thinks Bobart was alive in 1704; but he appears to have lived considerably longer, as Dr. Abel Evans dedicated “Vertumnus,” a poetical epistle, to him in 1713. A descendant of this family, Tillemant Bobart, is still well known to all who wish for civil treatment and a safe carriage on the road to Oxford.

In 1788 he published his “Vindication of the rights of the Holy See on the kingdom of Naples,” 4to, a work now of little importance, and relating to a dispute which will probably never be revived. On the 30th of March, 1789, he was promoted to the rank of cardinal, and about the same time was appointed prefect of the congregation of the Index; and, what was more analogous to his pursuits, he held the same office in the Propaganda, and in the congregation for the correction of the books of the oriental churches. After these promotions, he continued to be the liberal patron of all who had any connection either with his offices or with his literary pursuits, until Italy was inTaded by the French, when, like the greater part of his colleagues, he was involved in losses and dangers, both with respect to his fortune and to his pursuits. He forfeited all his benefices, and was near witnessing the destruction of all the establishments committed to his care, especially the Propaganda. He was soon, however, extricated from his personal difficulties; and, by his timely measures, the invaluable literary treasures of the Propaganda were also saved. He was allowed a liberal pension from the court of Denmark, and he soon obtained the removal of the establishment of the Propaganda to Padua, a city which, being then under the dominion of the emperor <?f Germany, was thought to be sheltered from robbery. Here he remained till the death of pope Pius VI. after which he repaired, with his colleagues, to Venice, to attend the conclave; and, a new pope being elected, he returned to Rome. When the coronation of the emperor of France was ordered, cardinal Borgia was one of those individuals who were selected by the pope as the companions of his intended journey to Paris, but having caught a, violent cold on his way, he died at Lyons, Nov. 23, 1804. Cardinal Stephen Borgia was not much favoured by nature with respect to person. He was so clumsy, and his motions so much embarrassed, as to have little of the appearance of a person of birth and rank. He was far, also, from being nice in his house or equipage. These little defects, however, were compensated by the superior qualities of his mind. From, the time of Alexander Albani, no Roman cardinal had so many distinguished connections and correspondents in every part of Europe: and a great similarity (elegance of manners excepted) was remarked between the character of that illustrious prelate and his own. The Borgian ms. so called by Michaelis, is a fragment of a Coptic-Greek manuscript, brought by a monk from Egypt, consisting of about twelve leaves, and sent to cardinal Borgia. The whole of it is printed in “Georgii Fragmentum Graeco-Copto-Thebaicum,” Rome, 1789, 4to.

Brissot’s influence now gradually declined; and his party was at length overpowered by a more violent and sanguinary faction, denominated the “Mountain,” so called from its members usually sitting in the convention, on the upper seats of the hall, at the head of which was Robespierre, of execrable memory. The treachery and desertion of Dumourier likewise contributed to hasten the downfal of this party. To their imbecility or perfidy, the public calamities that threatened the country, were generally ascribed; and, after the establishment of the “Revolutionary tribunal,” for the purpose of trying crimes committed agains: the state, in March 1793, a petition was presented in the following month by the communes of the 48 sections of Paris, requiring that the chiefs of the Girondists, or Brissotins, denounced in it, should be impeached, and expelled the convention. In May and June decrees of arrest were issued against them; and against Brissot among the rest, who attempted to make his escape into Swisseriand, but was stopped and imprisoned; and in the following October, be and 21 of his associates were brought before the revolutionary tribunal. Brissot, who was elevated in the midst of them, maintained a firm and tranquil mind; but, though their accusers could support their charges by little more than mere surmises, the whole party was immediately condemned to the scaffold; and next morning were led to execution. There Brissot, after seeing the blood of 16 associates stream from the scaffold, submitted to the stroke with the ut.nost composure. In the relations of private life, Ins character stands without reproach; but these afford no counterpoise to his public conduct* and although his sentence was unjust as coming from men as guilty as himself, it was the natural consequence of a tyranny to the establishment of which he had contributed more largely than most of his countrymen.

Dr. Brown was a man of uncommon ingenuity, but unfortunately tinctured with an undue degree of self-opinion, and perhaps the bias of his mind to insanity will assign this best cause, as well as form the best excuse, for this. genius was extensive; for, besides his being so elegant a prose writer in various kinds of composition, he was a poet, a musician, and a painter. His learning does not, however, appear to have been equal to his genius. His invention was, indeed, inexhaustible; and hence he was led to form magnificent plans, the execution of which required a greater depth of erudition than he was possessed of. In divinity, properly so called, as including an extensive knowledge of the controverted points of theology, and a critical acquaintance with the Scriptures, he was not deeply conversant. All we can gather from his sermons is, that his ideas were liberal, and that he did not lay much stress on the disputed doctrines of Christianity. His temper, we are told, was suspicious, and sometimes threw him into disagreeable altercations with his friends; but this arose, in a great measure, if not entirely, from the constitutional disorder described above, a very suspicious turn of mind being one of the surest prognostics of lunacy. He has been charged with shifting about too speedily, with a view to preferment; and it was thought, that his “Thoughts on Civil Liberty, Licentiousness, and Faction,” seemed to have something of this appearance. He, however, in that performance endeavoured to remove the objection, by observing, that, if he had indirectly censured those whom he had formerly applauded, he never was attached to men, but measures; and that, if he had questioned the conduct of those only who were then out of power, he had heretofore questioned their conduct with the same freedom, when in the fulness of their power. Upon the whole, Dr. Brown’s defects, which chiefly arose from a too sanguine temperament of constitution, were compensated by many excellencies and virtues. With respect to his writings, they are all of them elegant. Even those which are of a more temporary nature may continue to be read with pleasure, as containing a variety of curious observations; and in his Estimate are many of those unanswerable truths that can never be unseasonable or unprofitable.

, founder of the sect, if it may be so called, of the Petrobrussians, in the twelfth century, appears to have propagated his doctrines chiefly in Languedoc and Provence, and after a laborious ministry of twenty years, during which he had collected a great number of followers, was burnt at St. Gilles in 1130, by the populace instigated by the popish clergy. His chief tenets were, that no persons ought to be baptised unless adults; that it was an idle superstition to build churches, as God will accept sincere worship wherever it is offered, and that such churches as had been erected were to be destroyed; with all crucifixes or instruments of superstition; that the real body and blood of Christ were not exhibited in the eucharist, but were represented only by figures and symbols, and that the oblations, prayers, &c. of the living were of, no use to the dead.

Dr. Butler published some occasional sermons and charges, nearly the whole of which he collected and republished in 1801, under the title of “Select Sermons: to which are added, Two Charges to the Clergy of the Diocese,” 8vo, and styles them “posthumous,” nor did he survive the publication above a year. He assigns as a motive for preparing this volume for the press, that “being permitted to survive his capacity of paying due attention to clerical duty as a preacher, he became weary at last of being totally useless.” Of his political tracts it may, perhaps, be difficult to procure a list, as they were published without his name. Some of those hi defence of lord North’s measures are said to have appeared under the name Vindtx. If Almon may be credited, his first publications, while connected with the whigs, and in opposition to lord Bute, were, 1. “An Answer to the Cocoa-Tree (a pamphlet so called), from a Whig,” 1762. 2. “A consultation on the subject of a Standing Army, held at the King’s Arms tavern, on the 28th of February, 1763.” 3. “Serious Considerations on the Measures of the present Administration,” i. e. the administration of lord Bute. 4. “Account of the Character of the right hon. Henry Bilson Legge.” He must, however, have changed his sentiments when he afterwards supported the measures of lord North’s administration: yet we find his name among the list of persons suspected to have written Junius’s Letters, for which there seems, in his case, very little foundation.

, one of the most eminent lawyers of the fifteenth century, was so called from Castro his native place. He taught law at Florence, Bologna, Sienna, and JPadua, with such high reputation, that it was commonly said of him, “Si Bartolus non esset, esset Paulus.” He died in a very advanced age, 1437, leaving a son a professor of canon law. There are several editions of his works, in 8 vols. folio.

His next publication arose from his connection with the Dilletanti, a society so called, composed originally (in 1734) of some gentlemen who had travelled in Italy, and were desirous of encouraging at home a taste for those objects which had contributed so much to their entertainment abroad. On a report of the state of this society’s finances in 1764, it appeared that they were in possession of a considerable sum above what their current services required. Various schemes were proposed for applying part of this money to some purpose which might promote taste, and do honour to the society; and after some consideration it was resolved, that persons properly qualified should be sent, with sufficient appointments, to certain parts of the east, to collect information relative to the former state of those countries, and particularly to procure exact descriptions of the ruins of such monuments of antiquity as are yet to be seen in those parts. Three persons were accordingly selected for this undertaking; Mr. Chandler was appointed to execute the classical part of the plan; the province of architecture was assigned to Mr. Revett; and the choice of a proper person for taking views and copying bas-reliefs, fell upon Mr. Pars, a young painter of promising talents.

, the founder of the Clares, an order of nuns so called from her, was born at Assisi, in 1193, and was a model of piety and devotion from her infancy, according to her biographers, whose account is certainly a model of credulity and superstition. Her parents were persons of rank, from whom in 1212 she ran away, and went to St. Francis, who cloathed her in his habit, a piece of sackcloth tied about her with a cord, and sent her to a Benedictine nunnery, and from this epoch the poor Clares date their foundation. She was next placed by St. Francis in a new house of nuns, of which she was appointed the superior, and which was soon crowded with devotees of rank. This female community practised austerities, “of which,” we are told, “people in the world have hardly any conception.” They not only went without shoes and stockings, lay on the ground, and kept perpetual abstinence, but were enjoined profound silence, unless in cases of the greatest necessity. Pope Innocent IV. in 1251, confirmed to this order the privilege of poverty, without any property in common. St. Clare’s abstinence and mortifications brought her into a miserable state of disease, from which she was released Aug. 11, 1253, and was buried the day following, on which her festival is kept. Alexander IV. canonized her in 1255. The nuns of St. Clans are divided into Damianists and Urbanists. The former follow the rule given by St. Francis to St. Clare; the latter are mitigated, and follow the rules given by Urban IV. From their name, Minoresses, sometimes given them, our Minories near Aldgate, is derived, where they had a nunnery from the year 1293.

, one of the popes so called, whose proper name was Bertrand de Gouth, or de Goth, was appointed bishop of Comminges, then archbishop of Bourdeaux by Boniface VIII. and afterwards elected pope at Perugia, June 5, 1305. The ceremony of his coronation was performed at Lyons, Sunday, November 10, but interrupted by a wall giving way, from being overloaded with spectators: by which accident John II. duke of Bretany was ^killed, the king wounded, and the tiara thrown from the pope’s head. This accident was considered as a presage of the misfortunes which afflicted Italy and all Christendom during the pontificate of Clement V. He was the first pope who resided at Avignon. In 1311, he held the general council of Vienne, appropriated to himself the first year’s revenue of all the English benefices, which was the origin of first fruits, abolished the order of templars, and made the collection of what are called the “Clementine Constitutions” of which there are some scarce editions; Mentz, 1460, 1467, and 1471, fol. They formed afterwards part of the body of canon law. Clement V. died at Roquemaure on the Rhone, April 20, 1314, as he was going to Bourdeaux for change of air. It is generally allowed that he was a reproach to the church, and the high office he held in it.

In 1641, Wood informs us, he took degrees at Oxford. At what time he was admitted into holy orders is uncertain, but he soon became a popular preacher, full of energy and enthusiasm. In 1644, when the parliamentary army expelled those members of the university who refused to take the covenant, Crashaw was among the number; and being unable to contemplate with resignation or indifference, the ruins of the church-establishment, went over to France, where his sufferings and their peculiar influence on his mind prepared him to embrace the Roman catholic religion. Before he left England, he appears to have practised many of the austerities of a mistaken piety, and the poems entitled “Steps to the Temple,” were so called in allusion to his passing his time almost constantly in St. Mary’s church, Cambridge. “There,” says the author of the preface to his poems, “he lodged under Tertullian’s roof of angels; there he made his nest more gladly than David’s swallow near the house of God; where like a primitive saint he offered more prayers in the night, than others usually offer in the day; there he penned these poems,” Steps for happy souls to climb Heaven by.“The same writer informs us that he understood Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish, and was skilled in poetry, music, drawing, painting, and engraving, which last he represents as” recreations for vacant hours, not the grand business of his soul."

He had many children, of whom six, Richard, Henry, Bridget, Elizabeth, Mary, and Frances, survived to advanced age. Richard, his eldest son, was born Oct. 4, 1626. His father has been censured for keeping him at a distance from business, and giving him no employment but for this perhaps there was not any just ground. He married him to a daughter and coheir of Richard Major, of Hunley, in Hampshire, esq. who brought him a good fortune. He suffered him to pursue the bent of his inclinations, and to lead the life of a plain, honest, country gentleman; which for a time was highly suitable to his own interest, as it seemed to correspond with the terms of the Instrument of Government; and with the dislike which the protector, when first so called, had expressed of hereditary right. When he had afterwards brought about a change in affairs, he altered his conduct towards his son; named him the first lord in his other house; resigned to him the chancellorship of Oxford; and conferred upon him all the honours he could. His weak and harmless reign is well known. On his dismission from the protectorate, he resided some time at Pezenas, in Languedoc, and afterwards went to Geneva. Sometime in 1680, he returned to England, and for some time took the name of Richard Clark, and resided at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, where he died July 13, 1712. In 1705 he lost his only son, and became in right of him possessed of the manor of Horsley, which had belonged to his mother. Richard, then in an advanced age, sent or.c of his daughters to take possession of the estate for him. She kept it for herself and her sisters, allowing her father only a small annuity out of it, till she was dispossessed of it by a sentence of one of the courts of Westminster-hall. It was requisite for this purpose, that Richard should appear in person; and tradition says, that the judge who presided, lord Cowper, ordered a chair for him in court, and desired him to keep on his hat: this last circumstance appears wholly incredible. As Richard was returning from this trial, curiosity led him to see the house of peers, when, being asked by a person to whom he was a stranger, if he had ever seen any thing like it before, he replied, pointing to the throne, “Never since I sat in that chair.”

, a cardinal, so called from Cusa, the place of his birth, was born in 1401. His parents were mean and poor; and it was his own personal merit which raised him to the height of dignity he afterwards attained. He was a man of extraordinary parts and learning, particularly famous for his vast knowledge in law and divinity, and a great natural philosopher and geometrician. Nicholas V. made him a cardinal by the title of St. Peter ad viucula, in 1448; and two years after, bishop of Brixia. In 1451 he was sent legate into Germany, to preach the crusade, but not succeeding in this attempt, he performed the more meritorious service of reforming some monasteries which he visited, and of establishing some new rules relating to ecclesiastical discipline. He returned to Rome under Calixtus III. and afterwards was made governor of it by Pius II. during his absence at Mantua, where he was chief concerter and manager of the war against the Turks. He died at Todi, a city of Umbria, in 1464, aged sixtythree years. His body was interred at Rome; but his heart, it is said, was carried to a church belonging to the hospital of St. Nicholas, which he had founded near Cusa, and where he collected a most noble and ample library of Greek and Latin authors. He left many excellent works behind him, which were printed in three volumes at Basil, in 1565. The first volume contains all his metaphysical tracts, in which he is very abstruse and profound; the second, his controversial pieces, and others which relate to the discipline of the church; the third, his mathematical, geographical, and astronomical works. It is said of Cusa, that before he was made a cardinal, he had taken the freedom to reprehend some errors and misdemeanours in the pope; and there are some instances in his works, where he has made no scruple to detect and expose the lying sophistries and false traditions of his church. In his piece entitled “Catholic Concord,” he has acknowledged the vanity and groundlessness of that famous donation of Constantine the Great to Sylvester, bishop of Rome. He gained considerable reputation by his “Cribratio Alcorani.” The Turks had taken Constantinople in 14-53, which seems to have given occasion to his writing this book, by way of antidote, as he proposed it, to the doctrines of the Koran, which were now in so fair a way of being spread through the western parts of the world. It appears by the dedication, that it was not written till after the loss of that city being inscribed to Pius II. who did not enter on the papacy till the Turks had been about three years in. possession of it. It is a very learned and judicious performance.

, an illustrious Italian poet, descended from one of the first families of Florence, of the name of Caccia Guida. Alighieri was the surname of the maternal line, natives of Ferrara, so called from a golden wing which the family bore on their arms. He was born in 1265, a little after the return of the Guelfs or pope’s faction, who had been exiled from their native country in consequence of the defeat at Monte Aperte. The superiority of his genius appeared early, and if we may credit his biographer Boccaccio, his amorous disposition appeared almost as soon. His passion for the lady whom he has celebrated in his poem by the name of Beatrice, is said to have commenced at nine years of age. She was the daughter of Eoleo Portinari, a noble citizen of Florence. His passion seems to have been of the platonic kind, according to the account he gives of it in his “Vita Nuova,” one of his earliest productions. The lady died at the age of twenty-six and Dante, affected by the afflicting event, fell into a profound melancholy, to cure which his friends recommended matrimony. Dante took their advice, but was unfortunate in choosing a lady of a termagant temper, from whom he found it necessary to separate, but not until they had lived miserably for a considerable time, during which she bore him several children. Either at this period, or after the death of his first mistress, he seems by his own account to have fallen into a profligate course of life, from which he was rescued by the prayers of his mistress, now a saint, who prevailed on the spirit of Virgil to attend him through the infernal regions. It is not easy to reduce this account to matter of fact, nor is it very clear indeed whether his reigning vice was profligacy, or ambition of worldly honours. It is certain, however, that he possessed this ambition, and had reason to repent of it.

One of these is the cabinet of natural history in the botanical garden. That before his time served merely as a repository for the products of the different pharmaceutical operations, performed during the public lectures on chemistry, in order that they might be distributed to the poor while suffering under disease. It contained nothing appertaining to natural history, strictly so called, except a collection of shells made by Tournefort, which had afterwards been employed to amuse Lewis XV. during his infancy; but such was the industry of Daubenton, that, within a few years, he collected specimens of minerals, fruits, woods, shells, from every quarter, and methodically arranged them. By applying himself to ascertain, or to improve the operations necessary to preserve the different parts of organized bodies, he succeeded in giving to the inanimate forms of quadrupeds and birds the appearance of real life; and presented to the naturalist the most minute circumstances of. their characters, while at the same time he no less gratified the virtuosi by exhibiting them in their natural forms and colours.

On this high character, after the facts we have exhibited, it will not be necessary to offer any remarks. As the epithet “constitutional lawyer” is here employed, it remains to be mentioned, that he was admitted of the Middle Temple in 1765, and called to the bar in 1779. Much of this time, we have seen, elapsed in his travels, and pursuits of another kind; nor, although his name remained on the books of the society, did he ever enter seriously into the business of the profession. In politics he attached himself to no party, properly so called; he was neither whig nor tory; but joined many of the popular associations about the close of the American war, to which he was a decided opponent, and wrote some political pamphlets on peace, reform of parliament, and other topics which agitated the nation at that period.

, so called from Laerta, or Laertes, a town of Cilicia, where he is supposed to have been born, is an ancient Greek author, who wrote ten books of the Lives of the Philosophers, still extant. In what age he flourished, is not easy to determine. The oldest writers who mention him are Sopater Alexandrinus, who lived in the time of Constantine the Great, and Hesychius Milesius, who lived under Justinian. Diogenes often speaks in terms of approbation of Plutarch and Phavorinus; and therefore, as Plutarch lived under Trajan, and Phavorinus under Hadrian, it is certain that he could not flourish before the reigns of those emperors. Menage has fixed him to the time of Severus; that is, about the year of Christ 200; and from certain expressions in his works, some have fancied him to have been a Christian; however, as Menage observes, the immoderate praises he bestows upon Epicurus will not suffer us to believe this, but incline us rather to suppose that he was an Epicurean. He divided his Lives into books, and inscribed them to a learned lady of the Platonic school, as he himself intimates in his life of Plato. Montaigne was so fond of this author, that, instead of one Laertius, he wishes we had a dozen; and Vossius says, that his work is as precious as old gold. Without doubt we are greatly obliged to him for what we know of the ancient philosophers; and if he had been as exact in the execution, as he was judicious in the choice of his subject, we had been more obliged to him still. Bishop Burnet, in the preface to his Life of sir Matthew Hale, justly speaks of him in the following manner: “There is no hook the ancients have left us,” says he, “which might have informed us more than Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers, if he had had the art of writing equal to that great subject which he undertook: for if he had given the world such an account of them, as Gassendus has done of Peiresc, how great a stock of knowledge might we have had, which by his unskilfulness is in a great measure lost! since we must now depend only on him, because we have no other and better author who has written on that argument.” He is no where observed to be a rigid affecter or favourer of any sect; which makes it somewhat probable, that he was a follower of Potomon of Alexandria, who, after all the rest, and a little before his time, established a sect which were called Eclectics, from their choosing out of every sect what they thought the best. His books shew him to have been a man of universal reading; but as a writer he is very exceptionable, both as to the disposal and the defect of his materials. Brucker, whose opinion must be of sterling value, in estimating the merits of Diogenes Laertius, says, that “he has collected from the ancients with little judgment, patched together contradictory accounts, relied upon doubtful authorities, admitted as facts many tales which were produced in the schools of the sophists, and has been inattentive to methodical arrangement.” Diogenes also composed a book of epigrams, to which he refers. The best edition is that of Meibomius, Amst. 1692, 2 vols. 4to; yet Rossius, in his “Commentationes Laertianae,” has convicted Meibomius of innumerable errors.

Dr. Donne’s reputation as a poet, was higher in his own time than it has been since. Dryden fixed his character with his usual judgment; as “the greatest wit, though not the best poet of our nation.” He says afterwards , that “he affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where Nature only should reign, and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love.” Dryden has also pronounced that if his satires were to be translated into numbers, they would yet be wanting in dignity of expression. From comparing the originals and translations in Pope’s works, the reader will probably think that Pope has made them so much his own, as to throw very little lighten Donne’s powers. He every where elevates the expression, and in very few instances retains a whole line. Pope, in his classification of poets, places Donne at the head of a school, that school from which Dr. Johnson has given so many remarkable specimens of absurdity, in his life of Covyley, and which, following Dryden, he terms the metaphysical school. Gray, in the sketch which he sent to Mr. Warton, considers it as a third Italian school, full of conceit, begun in queen Elizabeth’s reign, continued under James and Charles I. by Donne, Crashaw, Cleiveland, carried to its height by CowJey, and ending perhaps in Sprat. Donne’s numbers, if they may be so called, are certainly the most rugged and uncouth of any of our poets. He appears either to have had no ear, or to have been utterly regardless of harmony. Yet Spenser preceded him, and Drummond, the first polished versifier, was his contemporary; but it must be allowed that before Drummond appeared, Donne had relinquished his pursuit of the Muses, nor would it be just to include the whole of his poetry under the general censure which has been usually passed. Dr. Warton seems to think that if he had taken pains, he might not have proved so inferior to his contemporaries; but what inducement could he have to take pains, as he published nothing, and seems not desirous of public fame? He was certainly not ignorant or unskilled in the higher attributes of style, for he wrote elegantly in Latin, and displays considerable taste in some of his smaller pieces and epigrams. At what time he wrote his poems has not been ascertained; but of a few the dates may be recovered by the corresponding events of his life. Ben Jonson affirmed that he wrote all his best pieces before he was twenty-five years of age. His satires, in which there are some strokes levelled at the reformation, must have been written very early, as he was but a young man when he renounced the errors of popery. His poems were first published in 4to, 1633, and 12mo, 1635, 1651, 1669, and 1719. His son was the editor of the early editions.

, so called from a town in Auvergne, a learned French divine of the fourteenth century, entered the Dominican order, took a doctor’s degree at Paris, was master of the sacred palace, bishop of Puy in Velay, and afterwards bishop of Meaux, where he died in 1333. Durand was one of the most eminent divines of his age he left Commentaries on the four books of Sentence, Paris, 1550, 2 vols. fol. and “Trait de TOrigine des Jurisdictions,” 4to. He frequently combats the opinions of St. Thomas, being an adherent of Scotus, and displayed so much ingenuity in his disputes, as to be called the Most resolute Doctor. Although the Thomists could not conquer him in his life, one of the number contrived to dispose of him after death, in these lines:

, a gentleman of considerable literary and political knowledge, was descended from a protestant family in France, which his father left about the beginning of the last century, in order to reside in England, where he had an opulent brother, but not finding the climate agree with him, returned to France. There he married, and became the father of seven children, one of whom, the subject of this memoir, was born in 1729, and assumed the name of Duchiiion from a small estate so called, which had long been the property of his ancestors. His talents, according to his own account, were extraordinary; in his fifth year he was a proficient at chess; and at ten, he composed comedies for his amusement, enigmas for the Mercure de France, epigrams in the news of the day, and madrigals for the ladies. He read much in romances, belles lettres, poetry, history, and morality, and though somewhat roving and unsettled in his disposition, had evidently laid in a very large stock of general knowledge. After various youthful adventures, which form a very amusing part of his “Memoires d'un Voyageur,” &c. which he published a few years before his death, we find him appointed, in 1758, chaplain (for he was then in orders) and secretary to the hon. Stuart M'Kenzie, envoy extraordinary to the court of Turin.

, an eminent German physician, but perhaps more celebrated as a divine, from being, the reputed founder of the Erastians, or of the opinions so called, for they are not a distinct sect, was born in 1523, or 1524, at Auggenen, a village in the lordship of Badenweiller, which is in the marquisate of Baden Dourlach. His family name was Leiber, or beloved, to which he gave, according to the custom of the times, a Greek turn, and called himself Erastus. In 1540, he was sent to the university of Basil, where he had some difficulties to struggle with, owing to the poverty of his parents; but, according to Melchior Adam, Providence raised him up a patron, who provided for him liberally, and after his studies at Basil, enabled him to travel to Italy for farther improvement. At Bologna he studied both philosophy and physic, the latter for nine years under the ablest masters. Returning, with a doctor’s degree, to his own country, he lived for some time at the court of the princes of Henneberg, where he practised physic with great reputation, until the elector palatine Frederick III. invited him to his court, and made him first physician and counsellor. This prince appointed him also professor of physic in the university 'of Heidelberg. In 1581 be returned to Basil, where he was also chosen professor of physic, and where he made a liberal foundation for the provision and education of poor students in medicine, and after superintending and establishing this, which was long called the Erastian foundation, he died Dec. 31, 1583, or, according to some, Jan. 1, 1584. His medical works were principally, 1. “Disputationum de Medicina nova Philippi Paracelsi,” p. i. Basil, 1572, p. ii. ibid. 1572, p. iii. ibid. 1572, p. iv. et ultima, ibid. 1573, all in 4to. In these volumes he refutes the doctrines which Paracelsus had previously taught at Basil, and had committed to writing, particularly^) astrology and medicine. 2. “Theses de~Contagio,” Heidelberg, 1574, 4to. 3. “De Occult. Pharmacor. Potestatibus,” ibid. 1574, 4to; Francfort, 1611. 4. “Disputat, de Auro Potabili,” Basil, 1578, 1594, 4to. 5. “De Putredine Lu ber,” ibid. 1580, 4to; Lipsiae, 1590. 6. “Epistola de Astrologia Divinatrice,” Basil, 1580, 4to. 7. “De Pinguedinis in Anhnalibus Generatione et Concretione,” Heidelbergae, 1580, 4to. 8. “Com ids Montani, Vicentini, novi Medicorum censoris, quinque Librorum de Morbis nuper Editorum viva Anatome,” Basil, 1581, 4to. 9. “Ad Archangeli Mercenarii Disputationem de Putredine responsioj” ibid. 152, 4to. 10, “Varia Opuscula Medica,” Franc. 1590, folio.

, a Spanish poet, was the son of a celebrated lawyer, and was born at Madrid in 1533. He was brought up in the palace of Philip II. and fought under him at the famous battle of Saint Quentin in 1557, after which being desirous to acquire the knowledge of different countries and their inhabitants, he travelled over France, Italy, Germany, and England. Having heard, while at London, that some provinces of Peru and Chili had revolted against the Spaniards, their conquerors and their tyrants, he was seized with an ardent longing to signalize his courage on this new scene of action. Accordingly he set out on the voyage; and soon after his arrival, he passed the frontiers of Chili into a little mountainous region, where he maintained a long and painful war against the rebels, whom at length he defeated. It is this war which makes the subject of his poem of the “Araucana,” so called from the name of the country, and which has very considerable merit, and several passages glow with all the charms of animated verse. The descriptions are rich, though defective in variety; but we can trace no plan, no unity of design, no probability in the episodes, nor harmony in the characters. This poem consists of more than 36 cantos, the length of which is produced by many repetitions and tedious details. Mr. Hayley, however, has bestowed considerable attention on it in his “Essay on Epic poetry,” with a view to recommend it to the English reader. It was printed, for the first time, in 1597, 12mo; but the best edition is that of Ma1632, 2 vols. 12mo. The time of his death is hot known, nor can he be traced beyond 1596.

, an eminent philosopher, who flourished irv the 97th olympiad, about 390 B. C. was the founder of the Megaric sect, which was so called from Megara, where he was bora. He was endued by nature with a subtle and penetrating genius, and applied himself early to the study of philosophy. The writings of Parmenides first taught him the art of disputation. Hearing of the fame of Socrates, Euclid removed from Megara to Athens, where he long remained a constant hearer, and zealous disciple, of that philosopher; and such was his regard for him, that, when, in consequence of the enmity which subsisted between the Athenians and Megarians, a decree was passed by the forner, that any inhabitant of Megara, who should be seen in Athens should forfeit his life, he frequently came to Athens by night, from the distance of about twenty miles, concealed in a long female cloak and veil, to visit his master. But as his natural propensity to disputation was not sufficiently gratified in the tranquil method of philosophising adopted by Socrates, he frequently engaged in the business and disputes of the civil courts, at which Socrates, who despised forensic contests, expressed some dissatisfaction. This probably was the occasion of a separation between Euclid and his master; for we find him, after this time, at the head of a school in Megara, in which his chief employment was, to teach the art of disputation, which he did with so much vehemence, that Timon said, Euclid had carried the madness of contention from Athens to Megara. He was, however, at times sufficiently master of his temper, as appears from his reply to his brother, who in a quarrel had said, “Let me perish if I be not revenged on you:” “and let me perish,” returned Euclid, “if I do not subdue your, resentment by forbearance, and make you love me as much as ever.” In disputation, Euclid was averse to the analogical method of reasoning, and judged, that legitimate argumentation consists in deducing fair conclusions from acknowledged premises. He held, that there is one supreme good, which he called by the different names of Intelligence, Providence, God; and that evil, considered as an opposite principle to the sovereign good, has no physical existence. The supreme good he defined to be that which is always the same. Good he therefore considered abstractedly, as residing in the Deity, and he seems to have maintained, that all things which exist are good by their participation of the first good, and that in the nature of things there is no real evil. When Euclid was asked his opinion concerning the gods, he replied, “I know nothing more of them than this: that they hate inquisitive persons,” an answer which at that time, and remembering the fate of Socrates, shows his prudence at least.

, so called from his being bishop of Emessa, was among the disciples of Eusebius of Cesarea, and died about the year 359. Several works are ascribed to him, which appear to belong to more modern authors i they are in the library of the fathers.

, an eminent French physician in the reign of Louis XIV. was born at Paris, May 11, 1638. He was the son of Henry Fagon, commissioner in ordinary of war, and of Louisa de la Brosse, niece of Guy de la Brosse, physician in ordinary to Louis XIII. and grandson of a physician in ordinary to Henry IV. He studied first in the Sorbonne, under M. Gillot, an eminent doctor, with whom he resided as student, and who persuaded him to chuse the medical profession. M. Fagon never forgot M. Gillot in his highest prosperity; but, if he met him in the street, alighted from his coach, and conducted him to the house where he was going. This young physician had scarcely begun to dispute, when he ventured to maintain, in a thesis, the circulation of the blood, which was at that time held as a paradox among the old doctors; and also another on the use of tobacco, published long afterwards; “An frequens Nicotian ye usus vitam abbreviet,” Paris, 1699, 4to. He took his doctor’s degree 1664, M. Vallot wishing to repair and replenish the royal garden, M. Fagon offered his services; and going, at his own expence, to Auvergne, Languedoc, Provence, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, returned with an ample collection of curious and useful plants. He had the principal share in the catalogue of the plants in that garden, puhlished 1665, entitled “Hortus Regius,” to which he prefixed a little Latin poem of his own. M. Fagon was made professor of botany and chemistry at the royal garden, and began to have the plants engraved; but there are only forty -five plates finished, which are very scarce. The king appointed bim first physician to the dauphiness in 1680, and to the queen some months after. In 1693 he was made first physician to the king, and superintendant of the royal garden in 1698, to which he retired after the king’s death, and, for the improvement of which, he persuaded Louis XIV. to send M. de Tournfort into Greece, Asia, and Egypt, which produced the scientific voyage so well known to the learned world. Fagon died March 11, 1718, aged near eighty. The academy of sciences had chosen him an honorary member in 1699. He left “Les Qualités du Quinquina,” Paris, 1703, 12mo. He married Mary Nozereau, by whom he had two sons Anthony, the eldest, bishop of Lombez, then of Vannes, died February.16, 1742 the second, Lewis, counsellor of state in ordinary, and to the royal council, and intendant of the finances, died at Paris May 8, 1741, unmarried. The Fagonia, in botany, was so called by Tournfort in honour of him.

, so called, because he was born of poor parents in a cottage, near the forest of Feckenham in Worcestershire, his right name being Howmau, was the last abbot of Westminster. Discovering in his youth very good parts, and a strong propensity to learning, the priest of the parish took him under his care, instructed him some years, and then procured him admission into Evesham monastery. At eighteen, he was sent by his abbot to Gloucester-hall, Oxford; from whence, when he had sufficiently improved himself in academical learning, he was recalled to his abbey; which being dissolved Nov. 17, 1536, he had a yearly pension of an hundred florins allowed him for his life. Upon this he returned to Gloucester-hall, where he pursued his studies some years; and in 1539, took the degree of bachelor of divinity, being then chaplain to Bell bishop of Worcester. That prelate resigning his see in 1543, he became chaplain to Bonner bishop of London but Bonner being deprived of his bishopric, in 1549, by the reformers, Feckenham was committed to the Tower of London, because, as some say, he refused to administer the sacraments after the protestant manner. Soon after, he was taken from thence, to dispute on the chief points controverted between the protestants and papists, and disputed several times in public before and with some great personages.

a learned divine, was born in the parish of St. Clement Danes, London, 1594; elected student of Christ Church from Westminster school in 1601; took a master of arts degree in 1608, served the office of proctor in 1614, and the year following was admitted bachelor of divinity; and about that time became minister of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. In May 1619, he was installed canon of Christ Church, and the same year proceeded doctor in divinity, being about that time domestic chaplain to James I. In 1626, he was made Margaret professor of divinity, and consequently had a prebend of Worcester, which was about that time annexed to the professorship. He was then a Calvinist, but at length, renouncing the opinions so called, he was, through Laud’s interest, made dean of Lichfield in 1637; and the year following, dean of Christ Church. In 1645, he was appointed vice-chancellor, which office he served also in 1647, in contempt of the parliamentary visitors, who at length ejected him from that and his deanery, and their minions were so exasperated at him for his loyalty to the king, and zeal for the church, that they actually sought his life: and being threatened to be murdered, he was forced to abscond. He died broken-hearted, Feb. 1, 1648-9; that being the very day he was made acquainted with the murder of his royal master king Charles. He was buried in the chancel of Sunning-well church, near Abingdon, in Berkshire (where he had been rector, and built the front of the parsonage-house) with only this short memorial, on a small lozenge of marble laid over his grave, “Depositum S. F. February 1648.” He was a public-spirited man, and had the character of a scholar. Wood, though he supposes there were more, only mentions these two Small productions of his; viz. “Primitiae; sive Oratio habita Oxoniae in Schola TheologiiE, 9 Nov. 1626,” and, “Concio Latina ad Baccalaureos die cinerum in Coloss. ii. 8.” They were both printed at Oxford in 1627. He contributed very largely to Christ Church college, completing most of the improvements begun by his predecessor, Dr. Duppa, and would have done more had not the rebellion prevented him.

, so called from his native city, Florence (in Italian Firenze), though his family name was Nannini, was celebrated in his time as a poet, but his works are now in less repute, which, from their light character and indecencies, is not much to be regretted. He originally practised as an advocate at Rome, and then became an ecclesiastic of the congregation of Vallombrosa. He was personally esteemed by pope Clement VII. who was also an admirer of his works. He died at Rome in 1545. His works in prose were published in 8vo, at Florence, in 1548, and his poetry, the same size, in 1549. These editions, as well as his translation of the Golden Ass of Apuleius, are scarce, but a complete edition of his whole works was published at Florence, 4 vols. 8vo, in 1765-66, in which are some comedies, and other productions.

, so called from the trade of a fuller, which he exercised in his monastic state, intruded himself into the see of Antioch, in the fifth century, and after having been several times deposed and condemned on account of the bitterness of his opposition to the council of Chalcedon, was at last fixed in it, in the year 482, by the authority of the emperor Zeno, and the favour of Acacius, bishop of Constantinople, Among the innovations which he introduced to excite discord in the church, was an alteration in the famous hymn which the Greeks called Tris-agion. After the words “O God most holy, &c.” he ordered the following phrase to be added in the eastern churches, “who has suffered for us upon the cross.” His design in this was to raise a new sect, and also to fix more deeply in the minds of the people, the doctrine of one nature in Christ, to which he was zealously attached. His adversaries, and especially Fcelix, the Roman pontiff, interpreted this addition in a quite different manner, and charged him with maintaining, that all the three persons of the Godhead were crucified and hence his followers were called Theopaschites. To put an end to the controversy, the emperor Zeno published in the year 482 the “Henoticon,” or decree of onion, which was designed to reconcile the parties, and Fullo signed it; but the effects of the contest disturbed the church for a long time after his death, which happened in the year 486.

, a learned general of the Augustines, and cardinal, was so called from the place of his birth. He was well skilled in languages, and much consulted by the learned of his age on that account. He opened the Lateran council under Julius II. 1512, and conducted several affairs of importance for Leo X. He died November 12, 1532, at Rome. This cardinal left “Commentaries” on some of the “Psalms;” “Remarks on the First Three Chapters of Genesis” “Dialogues, Epistles, and Odes,” in praise of Pontanus, &c. which may be found in Martenne’s “Amplissima Collectio,” and contained many useful notices respecting the state of learning and events of his time.

, D. D. a divine and miscellanebus writer, was descended from a family, originally from Scotland, but a branch of which was settled in Ireland. His father, who had been educated in Trinity college, Dublin, held, at the time of his son’s birth, the living of Edernin, and a prebend in the cathedral of Ferns. Dr. Gregory was born April 14, 1754, and after his father’s death in 1766, was removed to Liverpool, where his mother fixed her residence. He passed some time under the tuition of an excellent schoolmaster of the name of Holder), by whom he was much distinguished for his proficiency in learning. As it was his mother’s desire that he should be brought up to commerce, he spent some years in mercantile employments; but a taste for literature, which continued to be his ruling propensity, produced a final determination in favour of a learned profession. Although the regular process of education for this purpose had been interrupted, the intervening variety of pursuit and observation proved the foundation of a great store of information relative to the arts and sciences, to commerce, manufactures, and political institutions, that was very useful in his subsequent compilations. When his destination was fixed, he passed an interval of study at the university of Edinburgh, and in 1776 entered into holy orders. He first officiated as a curate at Liverpool, where he distinguished himself as a preacher, and wrote some occasional pieces in the periodical journals and magazines, particularly against the slave trade, which he had the spirit to attack in the principal seat of that traffic. In 1782 he removed to London, and obtained the curacy of St. Giles’s Cripplegate, in which parish he became very popular, both in that capacity and afterwards as their morningpreacher. His other London preferments, if they may be so called, were the curacy and lectureship of St. Botolph’s, the lectureship of St. Lute’s, one of the weekly lectureships of St. Antholin’s, and a small prehend in St. Paul’s, which he relinquished for the rectory of Stapleford in Hertfordshire. He was also some time one of the evening preachers at the Foundling hospital. In 1804 he was presented by Mr. Addington, now lord Sidmbuth, to the valuable living of West Ham in Essex, where in a little time the powers of his constitution, although apparently a strong one, suddenly gave way, and he died, after a short confinement, March 12, 1808.

, descended of an ancient family distinguished by many honourable persons, which took its name from a town so called in Norfolk, was the younger son of sir Richard Gresham, knight, alderman, sheriff, and lord mayor of London, an opulent merchant, and a man of great public spirit, who died in February 1548. His brother, sir John Gresham, was also an opulent merchant, and had served the offices of alderman, sheriff, and lord mayor. He died of a pestilential fever in 1556, after, among other acts of munificence, endowing the free school of Holt in Norfolk, and bestowing the government of it on the fishmongers’ company in London. Thomas, the son of the preceding sir Richard, was born in 1519 at London, and bound apprentice to a mercer there while he was young: but, to enlarge his mind by an education suitable to his birth and fortune, was sent to Caius college, then Gonvil-hall, in Cambridge; where he remained a considerable time, and made such improvements in learning, that Caius the founder of the college styles him “doctissimus mercator,” the very learned merchant. However, the profits of trade were then so great, and such large estates had been raised by it in his own family, that he afterwards engaged in it, and was admitted a member of the Mercers’ company in 1543. About this time he warned Anne, the daughter of William Femley, esq. of West Creting, in Suffolk, und widow of William Heade, of Fulham, in Middlesex, esq., by whom he had a son named Richard, who not long after succeeded his father in the office of agent to king Edward for taking up money of the merchants at Antwerp, and removed to that city with his family in 1551.

“In the year 1580,” says he, " a most miserable one to the Low Countries, my father died. I, the youngest and least esteemed of all my brothers and sisters, was bred a scholar; and in the year 1594, which was to me the 17th, had finished the course of philosophy. Upon seeing none admitted to examinations at Louvain, but in a gown, and masked with a hood, as though the garment did promise learning, I began to perceive, that the taking degrees in arts was a piece of mere mockery; and wondered at the simplicity of young men, in fancying that they had learned any thing from their doting professors. I entered, therefore, into a serious and honest examination of myself, that I might know by my own judgment, how much I was a philosopher, and whether I had really acquired truth and knowledge: but found myself altogether destitute, save that I had learned to wrangle artificially. Then came I first to perceive, that I knew nothing, or at least that which was not worth knowing. Natural philosophy seemed to promise something of knowledge, to which therefore I joined the study of astronomy. I applied myself also to logic and the mathematics, by way of recreation, when I was wearied with other studies; and made myself a master of Euclid’s Elements, as I did also of Copernicus’s theory ‘ De revolutionibus orbium ccelestium:’ but all these things were of no account with me, because they contained Jittle truth and certainty, little but a parade of science falsely so called. Finding after all, therefore, that nothing was sound, nothing true, I refused the title of master of arts, though I had finished my course; unwilling, that professors should play the fool with me, in declaring me a master of the seven arts, when I was conscious to myself that I knew nothing.

, a German philosopher of the new school, was born in 1741, in a small town of Prussia, and was originally intended for the profession of a surgeon, but afterwards studied divinity, and was invited to Buckeburg, to officiate as minister, and to be a member of the consistory of the ecclesiastical council, In 1774 he was promoted by the duke of Saxe Weimar, to be first preacher to the court, and ecclesiastical counsellor, to which was afterwards added the dignity of vice-president cjf the consistory of Weimar, which he held until his death, Pec. 18, 1803. Some of his ficst works gained him great^ praise, both as a critic antj philosopher; such as his, 1. “Three fragments on the new German Literature,” Riga, 1776. 2. “On the Writings of Thomas Abbt,” Berlin, 1768; and “On the origin of Language,” ibid. 1772. But he afterwards fell into mysticism, and that obscure mode of reasoning which has too frequently been dignified, with the name of philosophy. The first specimen he gave of this was in his “Oldest Notices of the Origin of Mankind,” Riga, 1774; after which his system, if it may be so called, was more fully developed in his “Outlines of a philosophy of the history of Man,” of which an English translation was published in 1800, 4to, but without attracting much public notice. It was not indeed to be supposed that such extravagant opinions, conveyed in an obscure jargon, made up of new and fanciful terms, and frequently at variance with revealed religion, could be very acceptable to an English public.

, so called rather from his power and talents than his goodness, was a native of Ascalon in Judea, and thence sometimes called the Ascalonite. He was born seventy years before the Christian osra, the son of Antipater an Idumean, who appointed him to the government of Galilee. He at first embraced the party of Brutus and Cassius, but, after their death, that of Antony. By him he was named tetrarch, and afterwards, by his interest, king of Judea in the year 40 A. C. After the battle of Actium, he so successfully paid his court to Augustus, that he was by him confirmed in his kingdom. On all occasions he proved himself an able politician and a good soldier. But he was far from being master of his passions, and his rage very frequently was. directed against his own family. Aristobiilus, brother to his beloved wife Mariamne, her venerable grandfather Hyrcanus, and finally she herself, fell victims to his jealousy and fury. His keen remorse fojp her death rendered him afterwards yet more cruel. He put to death her mother Alexandra, and many others of his family. His own sons Alexander and Aristobulus having excited his suspicions, he destroyed them also, which made Augustus say, that it was better to be Herod’s hog than his son. Among his good actions svas *he rebuilding qf the temple at Jernsalenj, which be performed in nine years, with great magnificence; and in the time of a famine he sold many valuable and curious articles he had collected, to relieve the sufferers. To Augustus he paid the utmost adulation, and even divine honours. At the birth of our Saviour, his jealousy was so much excited by the prophetic intimations of his greatness, that he slaughtered all the infants in Bethlehem, in hopes of destroying him among the number. But his tyranny was now nearly at an end, and two or three years after the birth of Christ he died of a miserable disease at the age of more than seventy. He had nine or ten wives, of which number Mariamiie was the second. A little before his death, soured yet more by his acute sufferings, he attempted a greater act of cruelty than any he had performed in his former life. He sent for all the most considerable persons in Judea, and ordered that as soon as he was dead, they should all be massacred, that every great family in the country might weep for him. But this savage order was not executed. Some have supposed that he assumed the character of the Messiah, and that the persons who admitted that claim were those called in the gospel Herodians. But this is by no means certain. Herod was the first who shook the foundations of the Jewish government. He appointed the high-priests, and removed them at his pleasure, without regard to the laws of succession; and he destroyed the authority of the national council. But by his credit with Augustus, by his power, and the very magnificent buildings he erected, he gave a temporary splendour to that nation. His son, Herod Antipas, (by his fifth wife Cleopatra) was tetrarch of Galilee after his death.

His work is divided into nine books, which, according to the computation of Dionysius Halicarnassensis, contain the most remarkable occurrences within a period of 240 years; from the reign of Cyrus the first king of Persia, to that of Xerxes, when the historian was living. These nine books are called after the nine Muses, each of which is distinguished by the name of a Muse and this has given birth to two disquisitions among the learned first, whether they were so called by Herodotus himself; and secondly, for what reason they were so called. As to the first, it is generally agreed that Herodotus did not impose these names himself; but it is not agreed why they were imposed by others. Lucian, in the place referred to above, tells us, that those names were given them by the Grecians at the Olympic games, when they were first recited, as the best compliment that could be paid the man who had taken pains to do them so much honour. Others have thought, that the name of Muses have been fixed upon them by way of reproach, and were designed to intimate, that Herodotus, instead of true history, had written a great deal of fable, for which, it must be owned, he has been censured by Thucydides, Strabo, and Juvenal, and particularly Plutarch, who conceived a warm resentment against him, for casting an odium upon his countrymen the Thebans, and therefore wrote that little treatise, to be found in his works, “Of the Malignity of Herodotus.” Herodotus, however, has not wanted defenders in Aldus Manutius, Joachim Camerarius, and Henry Stephens, who have very justly observed, that he seldom relates any thing of doubtful credit, without producing his authority, or using terms of caution; and some events, narrated by him, which were once thought wonders, have been confirmed by modern voyages and discoveries.

, a celebrated cardinal of the Dominican order, was so called from the place of his birth, at the gates of Vienne, where there is a church dedicated to St. Cher. He acquired great reputation in the 13th century by his prudence, learning, and genius; was doctor of divinity of the faculty of Paris, appointed provincial of his order, afterwards cardinal by Innocent IV. May 28, 1244, and employed by this pope and his successor Alexander IV. in affairs of the greatest consequence. He died March 19, 1263, at Orvieto. His principal works are a collection of the various readings of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Mss. of the bible, entitled “Correctorium Bibliae,” which is in the Sorbonne in ms.; a “Concordance of the Bible,” Cologn, 1684, 8vo; the earliest work of this kind. He is said to have been the inventor of concordances. “Commentaries on the Bible” “Speculum Ecclesiae,” Paris, 1480, 4to, &c.

, a celebrated Dominican, so called from the place of his birth in the state of Genoa, was born about 1230. He was provincial and counsellor of his order, and afterwards appointed archbishop of Genoa, by pope Nicholas IV. 1292. He ruled his church with great wisdom and prudence, held a provincial council in 1293, and died July 14, 1298. He left a “Chronicle of Genoa,” published in tom. XXVI. of the collection of Italian authors by Muratori; a great number of “Sermons,” 1589, and 1602, 2 vols. 8vo, and other works; among the most celebrated is a collection of legends of the saints, known by the name of “The Golden Legend;” the first edition is Cologna, 1470, fol. scarce; the Italian translation, Venice, 1476, fol. is also very scarce, as is the first edition of the French translation by John Batallier, Lyons, 1476, folio. This work contains so many puerile and ridiculous fables, that Melchior Cano said, “the author had a mouth of iron, a heart of lead, and but little wisdom, or soundness of judgment.”

, so called from the place of his birth, where he is held to be a Protestant martyr. It does not appear in what year he was born, but it is certain that he was neither a monk nor an ecclesiastic: but that, being endowed with excellent natural parts, he had a learned education, and studied at Paris, Heidelberg, Cologne, and perhaps at Oxford. The degree of M. A. was conferred on him in the three first-mentioned universities, and he commenced D. D. in 1396. He began to publish the doctrine of the Hussites in 1408, and it is said he had a greater hare of learning and eloquence than John Huss himself. In the mean time, the council of Constance kept a watchful eye over him; and, looking upon him as a dangerous person, cited him before them April 17, 1415, to give an account of Jiis faith. In pursuance of the citation, he went to Constance, in order to defend the doctrine of Huss, as he had promised; but, on his arrival, April 24, finding his master Huss in prison, he withdrew immediately to Uberlingen, whence he sent to the emperor for a safe conduct, which was refused. The council, very artfully, were willing to grant him a safe-conduct to come to Constance, but not for his return to Bohemia. Upon this he caused to be fixed upon all the churches of Constance, and upon the gates of the cardinal’s house, a paper, declaring that he was ready to come to Constance, to give an account of his faith, and to answer, not only in private and under the seal, hut in full council, all the calumnies of his accusers, offering to suffer the punishment due to heretics, it he should be convinced of any errors; for which reason he had desired a safe-conduct both from the emperor and the council; but that if, notwithstanding such a pass, any violence should be done to him, by imprisonment or otherwise, all the world might be a witness of the injustice of the council. No notice being taken of this declaration, he resolved to return into his own country: but the council dispatched a safe-conduct to him, importing, that as they had the extirpation of heresy above all things at heart, they summoned him to appear in the space of fifteen days, to be heard in the first session that should be held after his arrival; that for this purpose they had sent him, by those presents, a safe-conduct so far as to secure him from any violence, but they did not mean to exempt him from justice, as far as it depended upon the council, and as the catholic faith required. This pass and summons came to his hands, yet he was arrested in his way homewards, April 25, and put into the hands of the prince of Sultzbach; and, as he had not answered the citation of April 17, he was cited again May 2, and the prince of Sultzbach, sending to Constance in pursuance of an order of the council, he arrived there on the 23d, bound in chains. Upon his examination, he denied receiving of the citation, and protested his ignorance of it. He was afterwards carried to a tower of St. Paul’s church, there fastened to a post, and his hands tied to his neck with the same chains. He continued in this posture two days, without receiving any kind of nourishment; upon which he fell dangerously ill, and desired a confessor might be allowed, which being granted, he obtained a little more liberty. On July 19, he was interrogated afresh, when he explained himself upon the subject of the Eucharist to the following effect: That, in the sacrament of the altar, the particular substance of that piece of bread which is there, is transubstantiated into the body of Christ, but that the universal substance of bread remains. Thus, with John Huss, he maintained the “universalia ex parte rei.” It is true, on a third examination, Sept. 11, he retracted this opinion, and approved the condemnation of Wickliff and John Huss; but, on May 26, 1416, he condemned that recantation in these terms: “I am not ashamed to confess here publicly my weakness, Yes, with horror, I confess my base cowardice It was only the dread of the punishment by fire, which drew me to consent, against my conscience, to the condemnation of the doctrine of Wickliff and John Huss.” This was decisive, and accordingly, in the 21st session, sentence was passed on him; in pursuance of which, he was delivered to the secular arm, May 30. As the executioner led him to the stake, Jerome, with great steadiness, testified his perseverance in his faith, by repeating his creed with aloud voice, and singing litanies and a hymn to the blessed Virgin; and, being burnt to death, his ashes, like those of Huss, were thrown into the Rhine.

About this time, an ineffectual attempt was made by his steady friend Mr. Strahan, his majesty’s printer, to procure him a seat in parliament. His biographers have amused their readers by conjectures on the probable figure he would make in that assembly, and he owned frequently that he should not have been sorry to try. Why the interference of his friends were ineffectual, the minister only could tell, but he was probably not ill advised. It is not improbable that Johnson would have proved an able assistant on some occasions, where a nervous and manly speech was wanted to silence the inferiors in opposition, but it may be doubted whether he would have given that uniform and open consent which is expected from a party man. Whatever aid he might be induced to give by his pen on certain subjects, which accorded with his own sentiments, and of which he thought himself master, he by no means approved of many parts of the conduct of those ministers who carried on the American war; and he was ever decidedly against the principle (if it may be so called), that a man should go along with his party right or wrong, “This,” he once said, “is so remote from native virtue, from scholastic virtue, that a good man must have undergone a great change before he can reconcile himself tosuch a doctrine. It is maintaining that you may lie to the public, for you do lie when you call that right which you think wrong, or the reverse.”

, a botanist and disciple of Linnæus, was born in Couriand in 1728, and in 1765 travelled to Iceland, and after having investigated the vegetable productions of that dreary country, and of its circumjacent seas, visited the richer climes of India, and died at Jagrenatpour, in Bengal, in 1785. His communications have greatly enriched the collections of Europe, especially those of Linnteus, lletzius, and sir Joseph Banks. The fine Banksian library contains his botanical manuscripts. His letters to Linnæus are very numerous and instructive. The Koenigia-y a plant which he discovered in Iceland, was so called by Linnæus in honour of him.

, an English chronicler, so called from Langtoft in Yorkshire, flourished in the thirteenth, and beginning of the fourteenth century, and was a canon regular of the order of St. Austin at Bridiington in Yorkshire. He translated out of the Latin into French verse, Bosenham or Boscam’s Life of Thomas a Becket, and compiled likewise in French verse, a Chronicle of England, copies of which are in several libraries. He begun his chronicle as early as the old fable of the Trojans, and brings it down to the end of the reign of Edward I. He is supposed to have died about the beginning of Edward II. or soon after. Robert de Brunne, as we have already mentioned in his article (see Brunne), gave an English metrical version of Langtoft, which was edited by Hearne in 1725, 2 vols. 8vo.

He died June 30, 1694, aged sixty-seven years, and was buried on the north side of the chancel of Chelsea church, where there is a handsome monument, with an epitaph to his memory. He was an excellent philologist and grammarian, particularly in the Latin, as appears from his Dictionary of that language; he appears also to have studied the Greek with equal minuteness, a Lexicon of which he had long been compiling, and left unfinished at his death. He was also well skilled in the Oriental languages and in rabbinical learning; in prosecution of which he exhausted great part of his fortune in purchasing ' books and manuscripts from all parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The consequence of this improvidence, we are sorry, however, to add, was his dying insolvent, and leaving his widow in very distressed circumstances. Some time before his death, he made a small essay towards facilitating the knowledge of the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic tongues, which he intended to have brought into a narrower compass. He was versed also in the abstruse parts of the mathematics, and wrote a great many pieces concerning mystical numeration, which came into the hands of his brother-in-law Dr. Hockin. In private life he was extremely charitable, easy of access, communicative, affable, facetious in conversation, free from passion, of a strong constitution, and a venerable countenance. Besides his “Latin Dictionary,” which appeared first in 1678, 4to, and was often reprinted, but is now superseded by Ainsworth’s, he published, 1. “Tragicomcedia Oxoniensis,” a Latin poem on the Parliament-Visitors,“1648, a single sheet, 4to, which, however, was afterwards attributed to a Mr. John Carrick, a student of Christ-churdi. 2.” Pasor metricus, sive voces omnes Nov. Test, primogenias hexametris versibus compreherusae,“1658, 4to, Greek and Latin. 3.” Diatriba in octo Tractatus distributa,“&c. printed with the former. 4.” Elementa Religionis, sive quatuor Capita catechetica totidem Linguis descripta, in usum Scholarum,“1658, 8vo, to which h added, 5.” Complicatio Radicum in primaeva Hebrseorurh Lingua.“6.” Solomon’s Gate, or an entrance into the Church,“&c. 1662, 8vo. Perhaps this title was taken from the north gate of Westminster-abbey, so called 7.” Sixty-one Sermons,“1680, fol. 8.” A Sermon at a solemn meeting of the natives of the city and county of Worcester, in Bow-church, London, 24th of June, 1680,“4to. 9.” Preface to Cicero’s Works,“Lond. 1681, 2 vols.'fol. 10.” A Translation of ‘ Selden’s Jani Anglorum Facies Altera,’ with Notes,“which for some unkuown reason he published under the name of Redman Westcote, 1683, fol. With this were printed three other tracts of Selden, viz. his” Treatise of the Judicature of Parliaments,“&c.” Of the original of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Testaments.“”Of the Disposition of Intestates Goods.“11.” The Life of Themistocles,“from the Greek, in the first vol. of Plutarch’s Lives, by several hands, 1687, 8vo. He also published” Dissertatio epistolaris de Juramento Medicorum qui Ορκοσ Ἱπποκρατουσ dicitur," &c. also A Latin Inscription, in prose and verse, intended for the monument of the fire of London, in Sept. 1666. This is printed at the end of his Dictionary; with an elegant epistle to Dr. Baldwin Hamey, M. D.

The “Fable of the Bees,” as we have observed, was attacked by several writers; particularly by Dr. Fiddes, in the preface to his “General treatise of morality formed upon the principles of natural religion only,” printed in 1724; by Mr. John Dennis, in a piece entitled “Vice and luxury public mischiefs,” in 1724; by Mr. William Law, in a book entitled “Remarks upon the Fable of the Bees,” in 1724; by Mr. Bluet, in his “Enquiry, whether the general practice of virtue tends to the wealth or poverty, benefit or disadvantage, of a people? In which the pleas offered by the author of The Fable of the Bees, for the usefulness of vice and roguery, are considered; with some thoughts concerning a toleration of public stews,” in 1725; by Mr. Hutcheson, author of the “Inquiry into the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue, in several papers published at Dublin, and reprinted in the first volume of Hibernicus’s Letters;” and lastly, by Mr. Archibald Campbell, in his “Astoria,” first published by Alexander Innis, D. D. in his own name, but claimed afterwards by the true author. Mandeville’s notions were likewise animadverted upon by Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, in his “Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher,” printed in 1732; in answer to which Mandeville published, the same year, “A Letter to Dion, occasioned by his book called Alciphron.” In this year also a pamphlet appeared, entitled “Some remarks on the Minute Philosopher, in a letter from a country clergyman to his friend in London;” the anonymous author of which, supposed to have been John lord Harvey, interferes in the controversy between Mandeville and Berkeley with an apparent impartiality. It would be very unnecessary now, however, to enter minutely into the merits of a work no longer read. The prevailing error in the “Fable of the Bees” appears to us to be, that the author did not sufficiently distinguish between what existed, and what ought to be; that while he could uicontestibly prove “private vices” to be in some degree “public benefits,” that is, useful to the grandeur and financial prosperity of a state, he did not distinguish between vices properly so called, and superfluities, or articles of luxury, which are the accompaniments, and the usetul accompaniments too, of certain ranks of life. As to his tracing good actions to bad motives, and the general disposition he has to dwell on the unfavourable side of appearances in human nature and conduct, no apology can be offered, and none can be wanted for the contempt into which his writings have fallen.

, an ancient Latin poet, and the model of epigrammatists, was born at Bilbilis, now called Bubiera, a town of the ancient Celtiberia in Spain, which is the kingdom of Arragon. He was born, as is supposed, in the reign of Claudius, and went to Rome when he was about twenty-one. He was sent thither with a view of prosecuting the law; but soon forsook that study, and applied himself to poetry. He excelled so much in the epigrammatic style, that he soon acquired reputation, and was courted by many of the first rank at Rome. Silius Italicus, Stella, and Pliny the younger, were his friends and patrons. Stertinius, a noble Roman, had so great an esteem for his compositions, that he placed > his statue in his library, while he was yet living; and the emperor Verus, who reigned with Antoninus the philosopher, used to call him his Virgil, which was as high an honour as could well be paid to him. We learn also from Pliny and Tacitus, as well as from several passages in his own writings, that he had honours and dignities bestowed upon him by some of the emperors. Domitian, whom it must be confessed he has flattered not a little, made him a Roman knight, and gave him likewise the “Jus trium liberorum,” the privileges of a citizen who had three children. He was also advanced to the tribunate. But though he was so particularly honoured, and had so many great and noble patrons, who admired him for his wit and poetry, it does not appear that he made his fortune among them. There is reason to think that, after the death of Domitian, his credit and interest declined at Rome; and if he had still remaining among the nobles some patrpns, such as Pliny, Cornelius Priscus, &c. yet the emperor Nerva took but little notice of him, and the emperor Trajan none at all. Tired of Rome, therefore, after he had lived in that city about four and thirty years, and grown, as himself tells us, grey-headed, he returned to his own country Bilbilis, where he took a wife, and had the happiness to live with her several years. He admired her much, as one who alone was sufficient to supply the want of every thing he enjoyed at Rome. She appears to have brought him a very large fortune; for, in one of his epigrams he extols the magnificence of the house and gardens he had received from her, and says, “that she had made him a little kind of monarch.” About three years after he had retired into Spain, he inscribed his twelfth book of Epigrams to Priscus, who had been his friend and benefactor; and is supposed to have died about the year 100. As an epigrammatist, Martial is eminently distinguished, and has been followed as a model by all succeeding wits. All his efforts, however, are not equally successful, and many of his epigrams are perhaps unjustly so called, being merely thoughts or sentiments without applicable point. He offends often by gross indelicacy, which was the vice of the times; but his style is in general excellent, and his frequent allusion to persons and customs render his works very interesting to classical antiquaries.

, There are two saints of this name, of whom some notice may be taken; the oldest Maximus, of Turin, so called because he was bishop of that city in the fifth century, was eminent for his learning and piety. Many of his “Homilies” remain, some of which bear the name of St. Ambrose, St. Augustin, and Eusebius of messa, in the Library of the fathers. The other St. Maximus was an abbot, and confessor in the seventh century, born of an ancient and noble family at Constantinople. He warmly opposed the heresy of the Monothelites, and died in prison, August 13, 662, in consequence of what he had suffered on that occasion. We have a commentary of his on the books attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, and several other works, which father Combesis published, 1675, 2 vols. folio; and they are also in the Library of the fathers.

, great grandson of the preceding, and a major-general in the army, was born about 1728, and was the son of John Monckton, the first viscount Galway, and baron of Killard, by his wife the lady Elizabeth Manners, daughter to John second duke of Rutland. He was sent with a detachment to Nova Scotia in 1755, and served under general Wolfe against Quebec. He dislodged a body of the enemy from the point of Levi, and formed a plan for landing the troops near the heights of Abraham, and assisted in the execution for conducting the right wing at the oattle of Quebec, where he was dangerously wounded. He received the thanks of the House of Commons, and afterwards went to New York, where he recovered of his wounds. He was also at the taking of Martinico, and was sometime governor of Portsmouth, where Fort Monckton was so called in honour of him. He died in 1782, leaving the character of a brave, judicious, and humane officer. In his account of the taking of Martinico in 1762, he mentions an attack made by the French troops from Morne Gamier on some of our posts, in which they were repulsed, and such was the ardour of our troops, that they passed the ravine with the enemy, seized their batteries, and took post there. It is also said that on this occasion the English party had no colours with them when they took possession of the batteries, and supplied the want of them by a shirt and a red waistcoat. From the many instances which have been given of General Monckton’s liberality, the following may be selected as deserving to be remembered. When the troops were sent to Martinico, general Amherst took away the usual allowance of baugh and forage- money. General Monckton, knowing the difficulties which subaltern officers have to struggle with in the best situation, felt for their distress, and in some degree to make it up to them, ordered the negroes which were taken, to be sold, and the money divided among the subalterns. On finding that it would not produce them five pounds a-piece, he said he could not offer a gentleman a less sum, and made up the deficiency, which was about 500l. out of his own pocket. He kept a constant table of forty covers for the army, and ordered that the subalterns chiefly should be invited, saying, he had been one himself; and if there was a place vacant, he used to reprimand his aid-de-camp.

, so called from the village of Nancel, his native place, between Noyon and Soissons, was born in 1539. He studied at the college de Presles at Paris, and was employed to teach Greek and Latin there when scarcely eighteen years of age, probably by the interest of Peter Ramus, principal of the college, who conceived very highly of his talents. He was afterwards proKssor in the university of Douay, where he made two pei.:ches “On the excellence and importance of the Greek Language.” Being invited to return to Paris, he was again professor in the college de Presles, and took a doctor’s degree in physic. He went afterwards to practise at Soissons; but principally at Tours, which he found an eligible situation. He was lastly appointed physician to the abbey of Fontevrauld, in 1587; and died there in 1610, leaving a son, who wrote some sacred tragedies. His principal works are, 1. “Stichologia Grseca Latinaque informanda et reformanda,” 8vo. In this work he endeavours to subject the French poetry to the rules of the Greek and Latin, for the purpose, as he says, of rendering it more difficult and less common; a whimsical project, which, it may be supposed, did not succeed. 2. A treatise “On the Plague,” 8vo. 3. “Tr. de Deo, de immortalitate animse contra Galenum, et de sede anima? in corpore,” 8vo. 4. “Declamationuin Liber, eas complectens orationes quas vel ipse juvenis habuit ad populum, vel per discipulos recitavit,” &c. 8vo. 5. “Petri Kami vita,” 8vo. This Life is curious and interesting, and the best of Nancel’s works.

, one of the bravest, and the most successful navai commander that 'ever appeared in the world, the fourth son of the rev. Edmund Nelson, rector of Burnham- Thorpe, in the county of Norfolk, was born in the parsonage-house of that parish, September 29, 1758. His father’s progenitors were originally settled at Hilsborough, where, in addition to a small hereditary estate, they possessed the patronage of the living, which our hero’s grandfather enjoyed for several years. His father married, in May 1749, Catherine, daughter of Maurice Suckling, D. D. prebendary of Westminster, whose grandmother had been sister to sir Robert Walpole, earl of Orford. By this lady he had eight sons and three daughters. Horatio, so called after the late earl of Orford, was placed at the high-school of Norwich, whence he was removed to NorthWalsham, both within the precincts of his native county. In his twelfth year, the dispute having taken place between the courts of St. James’s and Madrid, relative to the possession of the Falkland Islands, an armament was immediately ordered, and captain Maurice Suckling, his maternal uncle, having obtained a ship, young Nelson was, at his own earnest request, placed on his quarter-deck as a midshipman, on board the Raisonable, of 64 guns. But in consequence of the dispute being terminated, and capt. Suckling being appointed to a guard-ship in the Medway, Nelson was sent a voyage to the West Indies, and on his return he was received by his uncle on board the Triumph, then lying at Chatham, in the month of July 1772. It was observed, however, that although his voyage to the East Indies had given him a good practical knowledge of seamanship, he had acquired an absolute horror of the royal navy and it was with some difficulty that captain Suckling was enabled to reconcile him to the service; but an inherent ardour, coupled with an unabating spirit of enterprize, and utter scorn of danger, made him at length ambitious to partake in every scene where knowledge was to be obtained or glory earned.

, from whom the sect of the Nestorians derive their name, was born in Germanica, a city of Syria, in the fifth century. He was educated and baptized at Antioch, and soon after the latter ceremony withdrew himself to a monastery in the suburbs of that city. When he had received the order of priesthood, and began to preach, he acquired so much celebrity by his eloquence and unspotted life, that in the year 429 the emperor Theodosius appointed him to the bishopric of Constantinople, at that time the second see in the Christian church. He had not been long in this office before he began to manifest an extraordinary zeal for the extirpation of heretics, and not above five days after his consecration, attempted to demolish the church in which the Arians secretly held their assemblies. In this attempt he succeeded so far, that the Brians, grown desperate, set fire to the church themselves, and with it burnt some adjoining houses. This fire excited great commotions in the city, and Nestorius was ever afterwards called an incendiary. From the Arians he turned against the Novatians, but was interrupted in this attack by the emperor. He then began to persecute those Christians of Asia, Lydia, and Caria, who celebrated the feast of Easter upon the 14th day of the moon; and for this unimportant deviation from the catholic practice, many of these people were murdered by his agents at Miletum and at Sardis. The time, however, was now come when he was to suffer by a similar spirit, for holding the opinion that “the virgin Mary cannot with propriety be called the mother of God.” The people being accustomed to hear this expression, were much inflamed against their bishop, as if his meaning had been that Jesus was a mere man. For this he was condemned in the council of Ephesus, deprived of his see, banished to Tarsus in the year 435, whence he led a wandering life, until death, in the year 439, released him from farther persecution. He appears to have been unjustly condemned, as he maintained in express terms, that the Word was united to the human nature in Jesus Christ in the most strict and intimate sense possible; that these two natures, in this state of union, make but one Christ, and one person; that the properties of the Divine and human natures may both be attributed to this person; and that Jesus Christ may be said to have been born of a virgin, to have suffered and died: but he never would admit that God could be said to have been born, to have suffered, or to have died. He was not, however, heard in his own defence, nor allowed to explain his doctrine. The zealous Cyril of Alexandria (see Cyril) was one of his greatest enemies, and Barsumas, bishop of Nisibis^ one of the chief promoters of his doctrines, and the co-founder of the sect. In the tenth century the Nestorians in Chaldsea, whence they are sometimes called Chaldaeans, extended their spiritual conquest beyond mount Imaus, and introduced the Christian religion into Tartary, properly so called, and especially into that country called Karit, and bordering on the northern part of China. The prince f that country, whom the Nestorians converted to the Christian faith, assumed, according to the vulgar tradition, the name of John, after his baptism, to which he added the surname of Presbyter, from a principle of modesty; whence it is said, his successors were each of them called Prester John, until the time of Jenghis Khan. But Mosheim observes, that the famous Prester John did not begin to reign in that part of Asia before the conclusion of the eleventh century. The Nestorians formed so considerable a body of Christians, that the missionaries of Rome were industrious in their endeavours to reduce them under the papal yoke. Innocent IV. in 1246, and Nicolas IV. in 1278, used their utmost efforts for this purpose, but without success. Till the time of pope Julius III. the Nestorians acknowledged but one patriarch, who resided first at Bagdat, and afterwards at Mousul; but a division arising among them in 1551, the patriarchate became divided, at least for a time, and a new patriarch was consecrated by that pope, whose successors fixed their residence in the city of Ormus, in the mountainous part of Persia, where they still continue distinguished by the name of Simeon; and so far down as the seventeenth century, these patriarchs persevered in their communion with the church of Rome, but seem at present to have withdrawn themselves from it. The great Nestorian pontiffs, who form the opposite party, and look with a hostile eye on this little patriarch, have, since 1559, been distinguished by the general denomination of Elias, and reside constantly in the city of Mousul. Their spiritual dominion is very extensive, takes in a great part of Asia, and comprehends also within its circuit the Arabian Nestorians, and also the Christians of St. Thomas, who dwell along the coast of Malabar. It is observed, to the honour of the Nestorians, that of all the Christian societies established in the East, they have been the most careful and successful in avoiding a multitude of superstitious opinions and practices that have infected the Greek and Latin churches* About the middle of the seventeenth century the Romish missionaries gained over to their communion a small number of Nestorians, whom they formed into a congregation or church, the patriarchs or bishops of which reside in the city of Amida, or Diarbekir, and all assume the denomination of Joseph. Nevertheless, the Nestorians in general persevere, to our own times, in their refusal to enter into the communion of the Romish church, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties and alluring offers that have been made by the pope’s legate to conquer their inflexible constancy.

Any investigation of his mathematical discoveries, or a laboured analysis of his philosophy, called, by way of distinction, the Newtonian, would be out of place in a work of this kind, and to be satisfactory would exceed all bounds. Dr. Keill said that if all philosophy and mathematics were considered as consisting of ten parts, nine of them would be found entirely of his discovery and invention. “Does Mr. Newton eat, drink, or sleep, like other men?” said the marquis de l'Hospital, one of the greatest mathematicians of the age, to the English who visited him. “I represent him to myself as a celestial genius entirely disengaged from matter.” Of his philosophy, properly so called, the great principle is the power of gravity: this had been hinted at by Kepler, but the glory of bringing it to a physical demonstration was reserved for Newton. It was first made public in 1686, but republished in 1713, with considerable improvements. Several other authors have since attempted to make it plainer, by setting aside many of the more sublime mathematical researches, and substituting either more obvious reasoning, or experiments, in lieu of them; particularly Whiston, in his “Prælect. Phys. Mathemat.;” S'Gravesande, in “Element, et Instit.” Dr. Pemberton, in his “View” and Maclaurin, in his excellent work, entitled “An Account of sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries.” Notwithstanding the great merit of this philosophy, and the universal reception it has met with at home, it gained ground at its first publication but slowly abroad, and Cartesianism, Huygenianism, and Leibnitzianism, maintained their ground, till the force of truth prevailed. It is now, bowever, held in the utmost veneration both at home and abroad. The philosophy itself is laid down principally in the third book of the Principia. The two preceding books are taken up in preparing the way for it, and laying down such principles of mathematics as have the nearest relation to philosophy: such are the laws and conditions of powers. And these, to render them less dry and geometrical, the author illustrates by scholia in philosophy, relating chiefly to the density and resistance of bodies, the motion of iight and sounds, a vacuum, &c. In the third book he proceeds to the philosophy itself; and from the same principles deduces the structure of the universe, and the powers of gravity, by which bodies tend towards the sun and planets; and from these powers, the motion of planets, and comets, the theory of the moon, and the tides. This book, which he calls “De Mundi Systemate,” he tells us was first written in the popular way; but considering, that such as are unacquainted with the said principles would not conceive the force of the consequences, nor be induced to lay aside their ancient prejudices, he afterwards digested the sum of that book into propositions, in the mathematical manner; so as it might only come to be read by such as had first considered the principles; not that it is necessary a man should master them all; many of them, even the firstrate mathematicians, would find a difficulty in getting over. It is enough to have read the definitions, laws of motion, and the three first sections of the first book: after which the author himself directs us to pass on to the book “De Systemate Mundi.”

, so called from the village of Ockham in Surrey, where he was born, was, according to Wood, a fellow of Merton college, Oxford, in the thirteenth century, and was a renowned teacher of the scholastic doctrines at that university. He had the offer of the archdeaconry of Stow in the diocese of Lincoln in January 1300, but refused it. In 1302 he was collated by bishop D'Alderby to the prebend of Bedford major in that church; and having thought proper to accept the archdeaconry on a second offer, was collated to it May 15, 1305, but seems to have vacated it about the latter end of 1319. He was a pupil of Duns Scotus, and was little inferior to his master in subtlety. The school of the Scotists had, till his time, followed the popular opinion of the realists; but Occam, probably from an ambition of becoming the head of a separate body, revived the opinions of the nominalists, and formed a sect under the name of Occamists, which vehemently opposed the Scotists, upon the abstract questions concerning universals, which had been formerly introduced by Rosceline.

, or of Kent, so called because he was a native of that county in England, where he flourished in the twelfth century, was a Benedictine monk, of which order his learning and eloquence raised him to be prior and abbot, first of St. Saviour’s, and afterwards of Battleabbey. He died in March 1200. Thomas a Becket was his friend, and his panegyric was made by John of Salisbury. He composed several works, as “Commentaries upon the Pentateuch;” “Moral Reflections upon the Psalms, the Old Testament, and the Gospels;” a treatise entitled, “De onere Philistini;” another, “De raoribus ecclesiasticis” a third, “De vitiis & virtutibus animae,” &c. Besides these, a “Letter to a brother novitiate,” in the abbey of Igny, is printed by Mabillon in the first tome of “Analects;” and another “Letter to Philip earl of Flanders,” about 1171, upon the miracles of St. Thomas, is in the “Collectio amplissima veterum monumentorum,” p. 882, published by the fathers Martenne and Durand, Benedictines.

, an eminent botanist, was born at Anspach, Feb. 3, 1728, and studied physic, but particularly botany, at Gottingen, under the celebrated Haller, through whose recommendation he was appointed professor of botany at Copenhagen. While in this station the “Flora Danica” was intrusted to him, of which he completed three volumes, containing 540 plates, when he resigned the chair, and the work was consigned to Muller, and afterwards to Vahl. He was induced, by the patronage of the unfortunate Struensee, to quit his situation and pursuits in 1773, Struensee having procured for him a considerable appointment in the college of finances, but on the death of his patron soon after, he left this place. He was afterwards appointed to the office of landvogt at Oldenburgh, which he retained until his death, Feb. 10, 1791. His other botanical publications are, “Elementa Botanica,” published at Copenhagen, in two parts, in 1764- and 1766; “Nomenclator Botanicus,” 1769; and “Enumeratio Plantarum Florae Danicge,” 1770. The Oedera, of Linnæus, was so called in honour of him.

, so called, because he was bishop of that diocese in the twelfth century, was son of Leopold, marquis of Austria, and Agnes, daughter of the emperor Henry IV. He studied in the university at Paris, and retiring afterwards to the Cistertian monastery of Morimond in Burgundy, became abbot there. In 1138, he was made bishop of Frisingen, accompanied the emperor Conrad to the Holy Land, and died at Morimond, September 21, 1158, leaving a “Chronicle” in seven books, from the creation to. 1146. This work, which is principally to be consulted for the history of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, was continued to 1210, by Otho de St. Blaise. Otho of Frisingen, who was an able Aristotelian, also wrote a treatise on the end of the world, and on Anti-Christ, and two books of the “Life of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa.” Each of these works may be found in the collections by Pistorius, Muratori, &c. and also separately.

, a learned English divine, was born in Derbyshire in 1625, and in 1641 was admitted of Trinity college, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B. A. in 1645, and according to his epitaph, seems to have been fellow of that college, as he was afterwards of Christ’s. In this last he took the degree of M. A. in 1649, and that of D. D. in 1660. His first preferment was in Lincolnshire, and he appears to have succeeded Dr. Josias Shute in the rectory of St. Mary Woolnoth, which he resigned in 1666. On July 30, 1669, he was installed archdeacon of Leicester, to which he was collated by Dr. William Fuller, bishop of Lincoln. In July 1670 he was also installed prebendary of Westminster, and was some time rector or minister of St. Margaret’s, Westminster. He died August 23, 1679, aged fifty-four, and was interred in Westminster abbey, where a monument was erected to his memory, with a Latin inscription. In this he is recorded as “a complete divine in all respects, a nervous and accurate writer, and an excellent and constant preacher.” It is also noticed that intense application to study brought on the stone, which at last proved fatal to him. He was an accomplished scholar in the Oriental languages, as appears by his excellent work “De Sacrifices,” Loud. 1677. This is divided into two books: in the first he treats of the origin of sacrifices; the places for sacrificing, and the tabernacle and temple of the Jews. His object is to defend the doctrine of vicarious punishment, and of piacular or expiatory sacrifices, in opposition to the Socinian notions. In the second book he treats of the priesthood of Christ; proves that Christ is a priest properly so called; that his sacrifice is an expiatory sacrifice, which takes away the sins of mankind; that his death is a vicarious punishment, or, that he suffered for, and in the stead of, sinful men, &c. &c. Some of his sermons having been surreptitiously printed, his relations selected twenty from his Mss. which were published by Dr. James Gardiner, afterwards bishop of Lincoln. Of these a second edition appeared in 1697, 8vo, with a preface by the editor, in which he gives a high character of Dr. Ovvtram. Baxter also speaks highly of him, Peck has published, in his “Desiderata,” a fragment of one of Dr. Owtram’s sermons.

, the Young, so called in contradistinction of the preceding Jacob, his great-uncle,^ may be considered as the last master of the good, and the first of the bad period of art at Venice. Born in 1544, he left the scanty rudiments of his father Antonio, a weak painter, to study the works of Titian, and particularly those of Tintoretto, whose spirit and slender disengaged forms were congenial to his own taste. At the age of fifteen he was taken under the protection of the duke of Urbino, carried to that capital, and for eight years maintained at Rome, where, by copying the antique, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and more than all, Polidoro, he acquired ideas of correctness, style, and effect: these he endeavoured to embody in the first works which he produced after his return to Venice, and there are who have discovered in them an union of the best maxims of the Roman and Venetian schools: they are all executed with a certain facility which is the great talent of this master, but a talent as dangerous in painting as in poetry. He was not, however, successful in his endeavours to procure adequate employment: the posts of honour and emolument were occupied by Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, and he owed his consideration as the third in rank to the patronage of Vittoria, a fashionable architect, sculptor, and at that time supreme umpire of commissions: he, piqued at the slights of Paul and Robusti, took it into his head to favour Palma, to assist him with his advice, and to establish his name. Bernini is said to have done the same at Rome, in favour of Pietro da Cortona and others, against Sacchi, to the destruction of the art; and, adds Mr. Fuseli, as men and passions resemble each other in all ages, the same will probably be related of some fashionable architect of our times. Palma, overwhelmed by commissions, soon relaxed frdnl his womed diligence; and his carelessness increased when, at the death of his former competitors, and of Leonardo Corona, his new rival, he found himself alone and in possession of the field. His pictures, as Cesare d'Arpino told him, were seldom more than sketches; sometimes, indeed, when time and price were left to his own discretion, in which he did not abound, he produced some work worthy of his former fame; such as the altar-piece at S. Cosmo and Datniano; the celebrated Naval Battle of Francesco Bembo in the public palace; the S. Apolloniaat Cremona; St. Ubaldo and the Nunziata at Pesaro; the Finding of the Cross at Urbino: works partly unknown to Ridolfi, but of rich composition, full of beauties, variety, and expression. His tints fresh, sweet, and transparent, less gay than those of Paul, but livelier than those of Tintoretto, though slightly laid on, still preserve their bloom. In vivacity of expression he is not much inferior to either of those masters; and his Plague of the Serpents at St. Bartolomeo may vie for features, gestures, and hues of horror, with the same subject by Tintoretto in the school of St. Rocco: but none of his pictures are without some commendable part; and it surprises that a man, from whom the depravation of style may be dated in Venice, as from Vasari at Florence, and Zuccari at Rome, should still preserve so many charms of nature and art to attract the eye and interest the heart. He died in 1628, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.

, the Deacon, or Paulus Diaconus, so called because he had been a deacon of the church of Friuli, though some call him by his father’s name Warmafridcs, and others, from the profession he took up in his latter years Paulus Monachus, was originally a Lombard, born in the city of Friuli, in the eighth century, and educated in the court of the Lombard kings at Pavia. After Desiderius, the last king of the Lombards, was taken prisoner by Charlemagne, and carried to France, tired of the tumult of the public world, he retired from the busy scenes he had been engaged in, and became a monk in the famous monastery of Monte Casino, where he wrote his history of the Lombards, in six books, from their first origin down to the reign of Luitprandus, who was their eighteenth king that reigned in Italy, and died in the year 743. He was an eye-witness of many of the transactions he relates; and as he was a Lombard, we may suppose him well informed of the affairs of his own nation, and had read the history of the Lombards, written in the same century in which they began to reign in Italy, by Secundus Tridentinus, originally a Lombard, but a native of the city of Trent, who flourished, according to Baronius, in the year 615; but his history is now lost. He often quotes his authority, and though he sometimes falls into trivial mistakes, about foreign affairs, and such as happened long before his time, as Grotius learnedly evinces, yet, in the transactions of his own nation, he is, generally speaking, very exact. He died in the year 799.His history was printed at Hamburgh in 1611, and is besides to be found in the eighteenth volume of Muratori’s Rerum Italic. Scriptores.

, a late learned prelate, a descendant of the ancient earls of Northumberland, was born at Bridgenorth in Shropshire, in 1728, and educated at Christ church, Oxford. In July 1753 he took the degree of M.A.; and in 1756 he was presented by that college to the vicarage of Easton Mauduit, in Northamptonshire, which he held with the rectory of Wilbye, in the same county, given him by the earl of Sussex. In 1761 he began his literary career, by publishing “Han Kiou Chouan,” a translation from the Chinese; which was followed, in 1762, by a collection of “Chinese Miscellanies,” and in 1763 by “Five Pieces of Runic Poetry,” translated from the Icelandic language. In 1764 he published a new version of the “Song of Solomon,” with a commentary and annotations. The year following he published the “Reliques of Antient English Poetry,” a work which constitutes an aera in the history of English literature in the eighteenth century. Perhaps the perusal of a folio volume of ancient manuscripts given to the bishop by a friend, in early life (from which he afterwards made large extracts in the “Reliques,”) led his mind to those studies in which he so eminently distinguished himself. It appears likewise that Shenstone encouraged him in publishing the “Reliques.” The same year he published “A Key to the New Testament,” a concise manual for Students of Sacred Literature, which has been adopted in the universities, and often reprinted. After the publication of the “Reliques,” he was invited by the late duke and duchess of Northumberland to reside with them as their domestic chaplain. In 1769 he published “A Sermon preached before the Sons of the Clergy at St. Paul’s.” In 1770 he conducted “The Northumberland Household Book” through the press; the same year he published “The Hermit of Wark worth,”' and a translation of Mallet’s “Northern Antiquities,” with notes. A second edition of the “Reliques of Ancient Poetry” was published in 1775, a third in 1794, and a fourth in 1814. In 1769 he was nominated chaplain in ordinary to his majesty; in 1778 he was promoted to the deanery of Carlisle; and in 1782 to the bishopric of Dromore in Ireland, where he constantly resided, promoting the instruction and comfort of the poor with unremitting attention, and superintending the sacred and civil interests of the diocese, with vigilance and assiduity; revered and beloved for his piety, liberality, benevolence, and hospitality, by persons of every rank and religious denomination. Under the loss of sight, of which he was gradually deprived some years before his death, he steadily maintained his habitual cheerfulness; and in his last painful illness he displayed such fortitude and strength of mind, such patience and resignation to the divine will, and expressed such heartfelt thankfulness for the goodness and mercy shewn to him in the course of a long and happy life, as were truly impressive and worthy of that pure Christian spirit, in him so eminently conspicuous. His only son died in 1783. Two daughters survive him; the eldest is married to Sarruiel Isted, esq. of Ecton, in Northamptonshire; and the youngest to the hon. and reV. Pierce Meade, archdeacon of Dromore. In 1777 the rev. John Bowie addressed a printed letter to Dr. Percy, announcing a new and classical edition of “Don Quixote.” In 1780 Mr. Nichols was indebted to him for many useful communications for the “Select Collection of Miscellany Poems.” When elevated to the mitre, Mr. Nichols was also under further obligations in the “History of Hinckley,” 1782. In 1786 the edition of the Tatler, in six volumes, small 8vo, was benefited by the hints suggested by bishop Percy to the rev. Dr. Calder, the learned and industrious annotator and editor of those volumes. The subsequent editions of the Spectator and Guardian were also improved by some of his lordship’s notes. Between 1760 and 1764, Dr. Percy had proceededvery far at the press with an admirable edition of “Surrey’s Poems,” and also with a good edition of the Works of Villiers duke of Buckingham; both which, from a variety of causes, remained many years unfinished in the warehouse of Mr. Tonson in the Savoy; but were resumed in 1795, and nearly brought to a conclusion, when the whole impression of both works was unfortunately consumed by the fire in Red Lion Passage in 1808. His lordship died at his episcopal palace, Dromore, on Sept. 30, 1811, in his eighty-third year. So much of his life had passed in the literary world, strictly so called, that authentic memoirs of his life would form an interesting addition to our literary history, but nothing has yet appeared from the parties most able to contribute such information. The preceding particulars we believe to be correct, as far as they go, but we cannot offer them as satisfactory.

, a learned prelate of the fifteenth century, was born at Sasso Ferrato, of an illustrious but reduced family. Being obliged to maintain, himself by teaching Latin, he brought the rudiments of that language into better order, and a shorter compass for the use of his scholars; and going afterwards to Rome, was much esteemed by cardinal Bessarion, who chose him for his conclavist or attendant in the conclave, on the death of Paul II. It was at this juncture that he is said to have deprived Bessarion of the papacy by his imprudence; for the cardinals being agreed in their choice, three of them went to disclose it, and to salute him pope; but Perot would not suffer them to enter, alledging that they might interrupt him in his studies. When the cardinal was informed of this blunder, he gave himself no farther trouble, and only said to his conclavist in a mild, tranquil tone, “Your ill-timed care has deprived me of the tiara, and you. of the hat.” Perot was esteemed by several popes, appointed governor of Perugia, and afterwards of Ombria, and was made archbishop of Siponto, 1458. He died 1480, at Fugicura, a country house so called, which he had built near Sasso Ferrato. He translated the first five books of “Polybius,” from Greek into Latin, wrote a treatise “De generibus metrorum,” 1497, 4to also “Rudimenta Grammatices,” Rome, 1473, fol. a very rare and valuable edition, as indeed all the subsequent ones are; but his most celebrated work is a long commentary on Martial, entitled “Cornucopia, seu Latinae Linguae Commentarius,” the best edition of which is that of 1513, fol. This last is a very learned work, and has been of great use to Calepin in his Dictionary.

, so called, a learned Italian, and author of a “History of the Popes,” was born in 1421 at Piadena, in Latin Platina, a village between Cremona and Mantua; whence he took the name by which he is generally known. He first embraced a military life, which he followed for a considerable time but afterwards devoted himself to literature, and made a considerable progress in it. He went to Rome under Calixtus III. who was made pope in 1455 and procuring an introduction to cardinal Bessarion, he obtained some small benefices of pope Pius II. who succeeded Calixtus in 1458, and afterwards was appointed to an office which Pius II. created, called the college of apostolical abbreviators. But when Paul II. sue-‘ ceeded Pius in 1464, Platina’ s affairs took a very unfavourable turn. Paul hated him because he was the favourite of fris predecessor Pius, and removed all the abbreviators from their employments, by abolishing their places, notwithstanding some had purchased them with great sums of money. On this Platina ventured to complain to the pope, and most humbly besought him to order their cause to be judged by the auditors of the Rota. The pope was offended at the liberty, and gave him a very haughty repulse “Is it thus,” said he, looking at him sternly, “is it thus, that you summon us before your judges, as if you knew riot that all laws were centered in our breast Such is our decree they shall all go hence, whithersoever they please I am pope, and have a right to ratify or cancel the acts of others at pleasure.” These abbreviators, thus divested of their employments, used their utmost endeavours, for some days, to obtain audience of the pope, but were repulsed with contempt. Upon this, Platina wrote to him in bolder language “If you had a right to dispossess us, without a hearing, of the employments we lawfully purchased; we, on the other side, may surely be permitted to complain of the injustice we suffer, and the ignominy with which we are branded. As you have repulsed us so contumeliousjy, we will go to all the courts of princes, and intreat them to call a council; whose principal business shall be, to oblige you to shew cause, why you have divested us of our lawful possessions.” This letter being considered as an act of rebellion, the writer was imprisoned, and endured great hardships. At the end of four months he had his liberty, with orders not to leave Rome, and continued in quiet for some time; but afterwards, being suspected of a plot, was again imprisoned, and, with many others, put to the rack. The plot being found imaginary, the charge was turned to heresy, which also came to nothing; and Platina was set at liberty some time after. The pope then flattered him with a prospect of preferment, but died before he could perform his promises, if ever he meant to do so. On the accession, however, of Sixtus IV. to the pontificate, he recompensed Platina in some measure by appointing him in 1475, keeper of the Vatican library, which was established by this pope. It was a place of moderate income then, but was highly acceptable to Platina, who enjoyed it with great contentment until 1481, when he was snatched away by the plague. He bequeathed to Pomponius Laetus the house which he built on the Mons Quirinalis, with the laurel grove, out of which the poetical crowns were taken. He was the author of several works, the most considerable of which is, “De Vitis ac Gestis Summorum Pontificum” or, History of the Popes from St. Peter to Sixtus IV. to whom he dedicated it. This work is written with an elegance of style, and discovers powers of research and discrimination which were then unknown in biographical works. He seems always desirous of stating the truth, and does this with as much boldness as could be expected in that age. The best proof of this, perhaps, is that all the editions after 1500 were mutilated by the licensers of the press. The Account he gives of his sufferings under Paul II. has been objected to him as a breach of the impartiality to be observed by a historian but it was at the same time no inconsiderable proof of his courage. This work was first printed at Venice in 1479, folio, and reprinted once or twice before 1500. Platina wrote also, 2. “A History of Mantua,” in Latin, which was first published by Lambecius, with notes, at Vienna, 1675, in 4to. 3. “De Naturis rerum.” 4. “Epistolae ad diversos.” 5. “De honesta voluptate et valetutiine.” 6. “De falso et vero bono.” 7. “Contra amores.” 8. “De vera nobilitate.” 9. “De optimo cive.” 10.“Panegyricus in Bessarionem.” 11. “Oratio ad Paulum II.” 12. “De pace Italiae componenda et bello Turcico indicendo.” 13. “De flosculis lingua? Latin.” Sannazarius wrote an humorous epigram on the treatise “de honesta voluptate,” including directions for the kitchen, de Obsoniis, which Mr. Gresswell has. thus translated:

Some of these appointments, it is probable, he owed ta Sir Thomas More, with whom he was early acquainted, and some to lord Audley, both lord chancellors,; but in 1539 he received one of greater importance, being constituted by the king, treasurer of the court of augmentations. on its first establishment byact of parliament. The business of this court was, to estimate the lands of the dissolved monasteries, vested in the crown, receive their revenues, and sell the monastic possessions for the king’s service 5 and it was so called from the increase which the royal revenue thus received. The treasurer’s office was a post of considerable profit, and of considerable dignity, as the person holding it ranked with the principal officers of state, and was privileged to retain in his house a chaplain, having a benefice with cure of souls, who should not be compelled to residence. What the emoluments of this office were, is not s,o clear, but they were greater than the allowance of sir John Williams, treasurer in Edward Vlth’s reign, who had 320l. yearly: and it may be supposed the office gave those advantages in the purchase of the dissolved possessions which probably formed the foundation of sir Thomas’s vast fortune.

Dr. Pulteney married, in 1779, Miss Elizabeth Galton, of Blandford, a lady who bore him no children, but whose society and attainments contributed very essentially to his happiness, and who has in every respect proved herself worthy of her amiable and distinguished husband. His remains were interred at Langton, near Blandford', a tablet to his memory having been placed, by his widow, in the church of the last-mentioned town. This monument is decorated with a sprig of the Pultenaea stipularis, so called in honour of him by the president of the Linnaean society but in obedience to the strict commands of the deceased, the inscription is of the simplest kind.

From the gall, or gall-nut, properly so called, Reaumur proceeds, in his fourth volume, to the history of those protuberances which, though galls in appearance, are really insects, but condemned by nature to remain forever fixed and unmoveable upon the branches of trees; and he discloses the astonishing mystery of their multiplication. He then proceeds to give an account of flies with two wings, and of the worms in which they pass the first part of their lives; this article includes the very singular history of the gnat. The fifth volume treats of four-winged flies, and among others of the bee, concerning which he refutes many groundless opinions, and establishes others not less extraordinary.

There is perhaps no branch of collectorship that exhibits more caprice than that of prints in general, or of Rembrandt’s prints in particular, which appears by the different estimation in which the same subject is held, merely on account of a slight alteration in some unimportant part. Mr. Daulby instances this in the Juno without the crown, the Coppenol with the white back-ground, the Joseph with the face unshaded, and the good Samaritan with the horse’s tail white, which are regarded as inestimable; whilst the same subjects, without these distinctions, are considered as of little comparative value. Strutt mentions that, in consequence of a commission from an eminent coin lector, he gave forty-six guineas for the Coppenol with the white back-ground, i. e. before it was finished; when, the same evening, at the same sale, he bought a most beautiful impression of the same print finished, distinguished by having a black back-ground, &c. which had an address to Rembrandt at the bottom, written by Coppenol himself (for he was a writing-master of Amsterdam, and this print is his portrait), for fourteen guineas and a half. In the second instance, he adds, that he exceeded his commission by the half guinea; but in the first did not reach it by nearly twenty guineas. Mr. Daulby seems to be of opinion that Rembrandt, who loved money, availed himself of this humour in collectors. The facility with which he could change the effect of his etchings, by altering, obliterating, or working on them again, enabled him to provide sufficient amusement for his admirers; and hence varieties frequently occur which are not easily explicable. He is even said to have frequently suffered himself to be solicited before he would consent to dispose of them; and it is a well-attested fact, that the print of “Christ healing the sick,” usually denominated the “Hundred Guelder,” was so called because he refused to sell an impression of it under that price. Of this print we may remark that it is generally esteemed the chef d'aeuvre of Rembrandt, being highly finished, the characters full of expression, and the effect of the chiaroscuro very fine. Gilpin mentions twenty guineas, as the price of a good impression of this print; Mr. Daulby thirty, to which twenty more, we are assured, must now be added. Captain Baillie purchased the plate in Holland, and retouched it for publication, in 1776, at four guineas to subscribers, and five to non-subscribers. It has since been cut up, but there are impressions of the two groups from the left extremity, one above the other. Rembrandt’s rarest and most expensive portraits are those of Wtenbogardus, called in Holland, “the Goldweigher,” and in France “the Banker;” Van Tol, the advocate, sold as high as fifty-guineas; and the burgomaster Six, of equal value. This burgomaster was Rembrandt’s particular friend and patron, and had the largest collection of his prints that ever was formed in his life-time. Strutt gives 340 as the number of Rembrandt’s prints; but the largest collection known, that of M. De Burgy, at the Hague, collected between the years 1728 and 1755, consisted in the whole, including the varieties, of 655 prints. This great artist died at Amsterdam in 1688, or, according to some, in 1674. The little known of his personal character is not favourable. He was extremely fond of money, and not very scrupulous in his mode of procuring it. He is also represented as being fond of low company; a degrading taste, which seldom fails to affect a man’s profession, whatever it may be.

, a celebrated German physician and philosopher, was born March 3, 1649, at Jena,.;ui was son of Christopher Schelhamm T, a it an- lessor of anatomy and surgery in that city, and fir where he was also physician to the duke of Holstei“uthier died January 11, 1716, in his sixtyseventieth year leaving” Introductio in artem medicam," Hali. 1726, 4to, and a great number of valuable and learned wor > physu;, of which it is to be wished that a complete co: v'Jtion was published. He published also some botanical dissertations, and first described the peculiar change wliici during germination, takes place in the cotyledon of palms. The Schelhammera, in botany, was so called in honour of him. His life, by Scheffelius, in Latin, Visnr*r, 17 % 8vo, is prefixed to the letters written to him by several of the literati.

, an apothecary of Amsterdam, who died in 1736, prepared a splendid description, with plates, of his own museum, in four large folio volumes, which came out between 1-734 and 1765. His three lattervolumes were posthumous publications. Many Cape plants are here engraved, and amongst them one of the genus Sebea, so called, in honour of him. Yet Seba does not deserve to rank as a scientific botanist; nor did Linna3us, who knew him, an4 by whose recommendation he employed Artedi to arrange his fishes, ever think him worthy to be commemorated in a genus. If, however, we compare him with numbers who have been so commemorated, he will not appear to so much disadvantage; for as a collector he stands rather high.

Mr. Sharp wrote, besides the works already mentioned 1. “Remarks on several very important Prophecies in five Parts. I. Remarks on the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th Verses in the seventh Chapter of Isaiah; in answer to Dr. Williams’s Critical Dissertation on the same subject; II. A Dissertation on the nature and style of Prophetical Writings, intended to illustrate the foregoing Remarks III. A Dissertation on Isaiah vii. 8 IV. On Gen. xlix. 10; V. Answer to some of the principal Arguments used by Dr. Williams in Defence of his Critical Dissertation,” 1768, 8vo. 2. “A Representation of the injustice and dangerous tendency of tolerating Slavery, &c.” with some other tracts in support of his opinions. 3. “Remarks on the Encroachments on the Riyer Thames, near Durham Yard,” 1771, 8vo. 4. “Remarks on the Opinions of some of the most celebrated writers on Crown Law, respecting the due distinction between Manslaughter and Murder; being an attempt to shew tiiat the plea of sudden anger cannot remove the imputation and guilt of murder, when a mortal wound is wilfully given with a weapon: that the indulgence allowed by the courts to voluntary manslaughter in rencounters, and in sudden affrays and duels, is indiscriminate, and without foundation in law: and that impunity in such cases of voluntary manslaughter is one of the principal causes of the continuance and present increase of the base and disgraceful practice of duelling. To which are added, some thoughts on the particular case of the gentlemen of the army, when involved in such disagreeable private differences. With a prefatory address to the reader, concerning the depravity and folly of modern men of honour, falsely so called; including a short account of the principles and designs of the work,” 1773, 8vo. 5. “Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek of the New Testament; containing many new proofs of the Divinity of Christ, from passages which are wrongly translated in the common English Version. To which is added a plain matter-of-fact argument for the Divinitv of Christ, by the Editor,” Durhiin, '798, 8vo. The first twenty pages of this important, critical, and theological work, appeared in t797, in the second fasciculus of the “Museum Oxoniense,” published by Dr. Burgess, the present very excellent bishop of St. David’s. A Supplement to the Remarks was, at the same time, promised in the third fasciculus of the Museum. “But,” says Dr. Burgess, “as many learned friends concurred with the editor in thinking that the Remarks contain a very valuable accession to the evidences of Christ’s divinity, he was unwilling to detain the Supplement, which exemplifies the rules of the Remarks, any longer from the public; and has, therefore, prevailed on Mr. Sharp to permit him to publish it with the Remarks. He earnestly recommends them both to Mr. Wakeneiu’s must deliberate consideration. To Mr. Sharp’s Remarks and Supplement he has subjoined a plain historical proof of the divinity or Cnrist, iounded on Chnst’s own testimony of himself, attested and, interpreted by his living witnesses and enemies, the Jews; on the evidence of his trial and crucifixion; and on the most explicit declarations of the apostles after the resurrection of Christ. What appeared to him on a former occasion (in a sermon on the divinity of Christ, 1792, second edition), to be a substantial and unanswerable argument, he has, in this little exercise on the subject, endeavoured to render an easy and popular proof of our Saviour’s divinity. It was printed separately for the use of the unlearned part of his parishioners; and is subjoined to this treatise for the convenience of other unlearned readers, and such as have not much considered the subject.” A second edition of the “Remarks” was published in 1804, with the following letter to Mr. Sharp prefixed: “Dear sir, I have great pleasure in presenting you with a new edition of your valuable tract. That you have very happily and decisively applied your rule of construction to the correction of the common English version of the New Testament, and to the perfect establishment of the great doctrine in question, the divinity of Christ, no impartial reader, I think, can doubt, who is at all acquainted with the original language of the New Testament. I say decisively applied, because I suppose, in all remote and written testimony, the weight of evidence must ultimately depend on the grammatical analogy of the language in which it is recorded. I call the rule yours; for, though it was acknowledged and applied by Bege and others to some of the texts alluded to by you, yet never so prominently, because singly, or so effectually, as in your remarks, In the addition to the former edition, I wished to excite the attention of a learned and declared enemy to the doctrine of our Saviour’s divinity; but he is no more and J do not know that he even expressed, or has left behind him, any opinion on the subject, or that any other Socinian has undertaken to canvass the principles of your Remarks. The public has, however, lately seen an ample and learned confirmation of your rule, drawn from a very minute, laborious, and candid examination of the Greek and Latin fathers, in ‘Six Letters addressed to Granville Sharp, Esq. respecting his Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament. London, 1802.’ I have taken some pains to improve the plain argument for Christ’s divinity, which I before subjoined to your Remarks. In this edition I have prefixed to it a table of evidences by Dr. Whitby, which I hope the younger part of your readers will find useful to them in pursuing the different branches of this most important subject; and you, J think, will not disapprove, because it is conducive to the principal purpose of your tract.” Bishop Burgess afterwards adverted, in a note on his primary charge, to a weak attack on Mr. Granville Sharp, in a publication entiled “Six more Letters, &c. by Gregory Blunt, esq.” 1803. Of this Dr. Burgess says with great truth, “These letters are very well calculated to mislead the unlearned reader, by abstract questions, gratuitous assertions, and hypothetical examples, but communicate nothing on the score of authority, which bears any comparison with the unanimous consent of the Greek fathers; and nothing at all which has any pretence to grammatical observation.” In the latter part of 1812, Mr. Sharp demonstrated that his faculties retained their full vigour, by an elaborate illustration of the LXVIIIth Psalm, relative to the Hill of Bashan, and the calling together of the Jews.

“J. Sceltonus Vates Pierius hie situs est.” Skelton appears to have been a more considerable personage, at one time at least, than his contemporaries would have us to believe. It is certain that he was esteemed a scholar, and that his classical learning recommended him to the office of tutor to prince Henry, afterwards king Henry VIII., who, at his accession, made him royal orator, an office so called by himself, the nature of which is doubtful, unless it was blended with that of laureat. As to his general reputation, Erasmus, in a letter to Henry VIII. styles him “Britannicarum literarum decus et lumen,” a character which must have either been inferred from common opinion, or derived from personal knowledge. Whatever provocation he gave to the clergy, he was not without patrons who overlooked his errors and extravagancies for the sake of his genius, and during the reign of Henry VII. he had the enviable distinction of being almost the only professed poet of the age. Henry Algernon Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland, one of the very few patrons of learned men and artists at that time, appears to have entertained a high regard for our author. In a collection of poems magnificently engrossed on vellum for the use of this nobleman, is an elegy on the death of the earl’s father, written by Skelton. This volume is now in the Bullish Museum, but the elegy may be seen in Skelton’s works, and in Dr. Percy’s Relics.

In 1751 Mr. Smith was elected professor of logic in the university of Glasgow; and the year following, upon the death of Mr. Cragie, the immediate successor of Dr. Hutcheson, he was removed to the professorship of moral philosophy in that university. His lectures in both these professorships were of the most masterly kind, but no part of them has been preserved, except what he himself published in his two principal works. A general sketch of his lectures has indeed been given by his biographer, in the words of one of his pupils, from which it appears that his lectures on logic were at once original and profound. His course of moral philosophy consisted of four parts; the first contained natural theology, or the proofs of the Being and Attributes of God; the second comprehended ethics, strictly so called, and consisted chiefly of the doctrines which he published afterwards in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments.” In the third part he treated more at length of that branch of morality which relates to justice. This also he intended to give to the public; but this intention, which is mentioned in the conclusion of the “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” he did not live to fulfil. In the fourth and last part of his lectures he examined those political regulations which are founded, not upon the principle of justice, but of expediency. Under this view he considered the political institutions relating to commerce, to finances, to ecclesiastical and military establishments. What he delivered on these subjects formed the substance of the work which he afterwards published under the title of *' An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of tue Wealth of Nations." There was no situation in which his abilities appeared to greater advantage than that of a professor. In, delivering his lectures he trusted almost entirely to extemporary elocution. His manner, though not graceful, was plain and unaffected; and, as he seemed to be always interested in his subject, he never failed to interest his hearers. His reputation was accordingly raised very high, and a multitude of students from a great distance resorted to the university of Glasgow merely on his account.

His first publication, in this retirement, if it may be so called, was the “Adventures of Ferdinand count Fathom,” in 1753. This novel, in the popular opinion, has been reckoned greatly inferior to his former productions, but merely perhaps because it is unlike them. There is such a perpetual flow of sentiment and expression in this production, as must give a very high idea of the fertility of his mind; but in the delineation of characters he departs too much from real life, and many of his incidents are highly improbable. Mr. Cumberland, in the Memoirs of his own life, lately published, takes credit to himself for the character of Abraham Adams, and of Sheva, in his comedy of the Jew, which are, however, correct transcripts of Smollett’s Jew, nor would it have greatly lessened the merit of his benevolent views towards that depressed nation, had Mr. Cumberland frankly made this acknowledgment.

He set out, however, for Italy early in 1770, with a debilitated body, and a mind probably irritated by his recent disappointment, but not without much of the ease which argues firmness, since, during this journey he could so pleasantly divert his sorrows by writing “The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker.” This novel, if it may be so called, for it has no regular fable, in point of genuine humour, knowledge of life and manners, and delineation of character, is inferior only to his “Roderick Random” and “Peregrine Pickle.” It has already been noticed that Matthew Bramble, the principal character, displays the cynical temper and humane feelings of the author on his tour on the continent; and it may now be added that he has given another sketch of himself in the character of Serle in the first volume. This account of the ingratitude of Paunceford to Smollett is strictly true, and as his biographers seem unacquainted with the circumstances, the following may not be uninteresting, as related to the writer of this article by the late intimate friend of Smollett, Mr. Hamilton, the printer and proprietor of the Critical Review.

, so named in Italy, and usually so called, was born in 1589, at Xativa, a city in Spain, about ten leagues from Valentia. Though his parents were not in circumstances to give him the education in painting which his early genius deserved, he contrived to travel into Italy, and there applied to his art under the greatest masters. He first resided at Parma, where he so completely studied the works of Correggio, as to be able to imitate his style and colouring with great success. He then removed to Rome, where he changed his manner altogether, and adopted Caravaggio as his model. Like that master, he painted with bold and broad lights and shadows, and gave so extraordinary a degree of force to his pictures, that the works of most other artists, when placed near them, appear comparatively tame and feeble. In his colouring he is esteemed equal to Caravaggio, and superior to him in correctness of design; yet inferior in sweetness and mellowness of touch. It is said, that a cardinal having become his patron at Rome, and given him apartments in his own palace, he became indolent, and unable to exert his talents; in order to do justice to which, he found it necessary to return to that poverty in which he was bred, and therefore voluntarily renounced this asylum, and fixed himself at Naples. Here his works being greatly admired, and his pencil being, after a time, constantly employed by the viceroy of Naples, and other potentates of Europe, he gradually rose to that affluence, the sudden acquisition of which, had produced so bad an effect. It was not so now; he continued to paint historical pictures, and sometimes portraits, which are dispersed throughout Europe; but he rarely worked for the churches or convents. His principal works are at Naples, and in the Escurial in Spain.

Having a design to serve in the last parliament of queen Anne, he resigned his place of commissioner of the Stampoffice, in June 1713; and was chosen member for the borough of Stockbridge in Hampshire; but he did not sit long in the House of Commons, before he was expelled for writing “The Englishman,” being the close of a paper so called, and “The Crisis.” This last is one of his political writings, and the title at full length runs thus "The Crisis, or a Discourse representing, from the most authentic records, the just causes of the late happy Revolution, and the several settlements of the crown of England and Scotland on her majesty; and, on the demise of her majesty without issue, upon the most illustrious princess Sophia, electress and duchess-dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body being Protestants, by previous acts

Vol. XXVIII. A A of both parliaments of the late kingdoms of England and Scotland, and confirmed by the parliament of Great-Britain. With some seasonable remarks on the danger of a popish successor.“He explains in his” Apology for himself,“the occasion of his writing this piece. He happened one day to visit Mr. William Moore of the Inner-Temple; where the discourse turning upon politics, Moore took notice of the insinuations daily thrown out, of the danger the Protestant succession was in; and concluded with saying-, that he thought Steele, from the kind reception the world gave to what he published, might be more instrumental towards curing that evil, than any private man in England. After much solicitation, Moore observed, that the evil seemed only to flow from mere inattention to the real obligations under which we lie towards the house of Hanover: if, therefore, continued he, the laws to that purpose were reprinted, together with a warm preface, and a well-urged peroration, it is not to be imagined what good effects it would have. Steele was much struck with the thought and prevailing with Moore to put the law- part of it together, he executed the rest; yet did not venture to publish it, till it had been corrected by Addison, Hoadly, afterwards bishop of Winchester, and others. It was immediately attacked with great severity by Swift, in a pamphlet published in 1712, under the title of,” The Public Spirit of the Whigs set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the Crisis:“but it was not till March 12, 1715, that it fell under the cognizance of the House of Commons. Then Mr. John Hungerford complained to the House of divers scandalous papers, published under the name of Mr. Steele; in which complaint he was seconded by Mr. Auditor Foley, cousin to the earl of Oxford, and Mr. Auditor Harley, the earl’s brother. Sir William Wyndham also added, that” some of Mr. Steele’s writings contained insolent, injurious reflections on the queen herself, and were dictated by the spirit of rebellion.“The next clay Mr. Auditor Harley specified some printed pamphlets published by Mr. Steele,” containing several paragraphs tending to sedition, highly reflecting upon her majesty, and arraigning her administration and government.“Some proceedings followed between this and the 18th, which was the day appointed for the hearing of Mr. Steele; and this being come, Mr. Auditor Folejr moved, that before they proceed farther, Mr. Steele should declare, whether he acknowledged the writings that bore his name? Steele declared, that he” did frankly and ingenuously own those papers to he part of his writings; that he wrote them in behalf of the house of Hanover, and owned them with the same unreservedness with which he abjured the Pretender.“Then Mr. Foley proposed, that Mr. Steele should withdraw; but it was carried, without dividing, that he should stay and make his defence. He desired, that he might be allowed to answer what was urged against him paragraph by paragraph; but his accusers insisted, and it was carried, that he should proceed to make his defence generally upon the charge against him. Steele proceeded accordingly, being assisted by his friend Addison, member for Malmsbury, who sat near him to prompt him upon occasion; and spoke for near three hours on the several heads extracted from his pamphlets. After he had withdrawn, Mr. Foley said, that,” without amusing the House with long speeches, it is evident the writings complained of were seditious and scandalous, injurious to her majesty’s government, the church and the universities;“and then called for the question. This occasioned a very warm debate, which lasted till eleven o'clock at night. The first who spoke for Steele, was Robert Walpole, esq. who was seconded by his brother Horatio Walpole, lord Finch, lord Lumley, and lord Hinchinbrook: it was resolved, however, by a majority of 245 against 152, that” a printed pamphlet, entitled l The Englishman, being the close of a paper so called,‘ and one other pamphlet, entitled * The Crisis,’ written by Richard Steele, esq. a member of this House, are scandalous and seditious libels, containing many expressions highly reflecting upon her majesty, and upon the nobility, gentry, clergy, and universities of this kingdom; maliciously insinuating, that the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover is in danger under her majesty’s administration; and tending to alienate the good affections of her majesty’s good subjects, and to create jealousies and divisions among them:“it was resolved likewise, that Mr. Steele,” for his offence in writing and publishing the said scandalous and seditious libels, be expelled this House.“He afterwards wrote” An Apology for himself and his writings, occasioned by his expulsion,“which he dedicated to Robert Walpole, esq. This is printed among his” Political Writings/' 1715, I2i“. He had no'v nothing to do till the death of the queen, but to indulge himself svith his pen; and accordingly, in 1714, he published a treatise, entitled” The Romish Ecclesiastical History of late years.“This is nothing more than a description of some monstrous and gross popish rites, designed to hurt the cause of the Pretender, which was supposed to be gaining ground in England: and there is an appendix subjoined, consisting of particulars very well calculated for this purpose. In No. I. of the appendix, we have a list of the colleges, monasteries, and convents of men and women of several orders in the Low Countries; with the revenues which they draw from England. No. II. contains an extract of the” Taxa Cameroe,“or” Cancellariat Apostolicse,“the fees of the pope’s chancery; a book, printed by the pope’s authority, and setting forth a list of the fees paid him for absolutions, dispensations, indulgencies, faculties, and exemptions. No. 111. is a bull of the pope in 1357, given to the then king of France; by which the princes of that nation received an hereditary right to cheat the rest of mankind. No. IV. is a translation of the speech of pope Sixtus V. as it was uttered in the consistory at Rome, Sept. 2, 1589; setting forth the execrable fact of James Clement, a Jacohine friar, upon the person of Henry III. of France, to be commendable, admirable, and meritorious. No. V. is a collection of some popish tracts and positions, destructive of society and all the ends of good government. The same year, 1714, he published two papers: the first of which, called” The Lover;“appeared Feb. 25; the second,” The Reader," April 22. In the sixth number for May 3, we have an account of his design to write the history of the duke of Marlborough, from the date of the duke’s commission of captain general and plenipotentiary, to the expiration of those commissions: the materials, as he tells us, were in his custody, but the work was never executed.

, so called from his being bishop of Mopsuestia, a city in Cilicia, was educated and ordained priest in a monastery, and became one of the greatest scholars of his time, and had the famous Nestorius for a disciple. He died in the year 429, or 430. This bishop wrote a great number of learned works, of which are now only extant, “A Commentary on the Psalms,” which is in father Corder’s “Catena,” the authenticity of which was verified, in one of his dissertations by the duke of Orleans, who died in 1752, at Paris, one of the most learned princes Europe has produced. Theodore left also a “Commentary” in ms. on the twelve minor prophets; and several “Fragments,” enumerated hy Dupin, which are printed in the “Bibliotheca” of Photius. Those parts of his works supposed to contain the distinction of two persons in Christ, the letter from Ibas, bishop of Edossa, who defended him, and the anathemas published by the celebrated Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, against St. Cyril, in favour of Theodore of Mopsuestia, occasioned no little disturbance in the church. This dispute is called the affair of the “Three Chapters,” and was not settled till the fifth general council, in the year 553, when he and his writings were anathematized. His confession of faith may be found in father Garnier’s Dissertations on Marius Mercator.

In 1705, having had no parochial duty for some years, he undertook the charge of St. Giles’s parish, in the city of Norwich; and in October 1706 was instituted to St. James’s, Westminster, on the promotion of Dr. William Wake to the bishopric of Lincoln. In January 1707, he was elected bishop of Norwich in the room of Dr. John Moore, translated to Ely, and was permitted to keep the rectory of St. James’s with his bishopric for one year. In 1709 he published a charge to the clergy at his primary visitation, in which he spoke with great freedom against some prevailing opinions and practices, which he thought prejudicial to the true interest of the church of England in particular, and of religion in general. These opinions were, the “independence of the church upon the state; the” power of offering sacrifice,“properly so called; and the” power of forgiving sins: “all of them,” he says, “I am persuaded, erroneous, in the manner they have been urged, and no way agreeable to the doctrine of the church of England about them. The making more things follow our sacred function, than can fairly and plainly be grounded upon it, will never advance our character with wise and considering men, such as we should desire all men to be; but must be a real prejudice to us. Our, pretending to an independent power in things within the compass of human authority; and a right to offer sacrifice properly speaking; and a commission to forgive sins directly and immediately; may, and will weaken the grounds and occasions of the reformation; and give our adversaries of the church of Rome, as well as others, great advantage against us; but can never, I am persuaded, advance the interest of the Christian religion in general, or of our church in particular.” He added an Appendix to the charge in answer to some authorities that had been produced from ancient writers in favour of the independence of the church upon the state; which, he says, he did the rather, because he “thought the peace both of church and state more immediately concerned in it, and could not but apprehend mischief coming to both from a pretension so new among those who call themselves members of the church of England: a church that has hitherto been as much distinguished, as it has been supported, by rejecting that claim.” In a sermon preached in 1707 before the sons of the clergy, he had expressed himself in as strong a manner upon this subject, viz. “Let us take care that, while we maintain the distinction and dignity of our order, we do not suffer ourselves to be carried into a separate interest from that of those who are not of our order, or from that of the state For we cannot pretend to be a separate body, without making the worst kind of schism, and the nearest to that which is condemned in scripture, that can be imagined: nor can any thing give greater advantage to those other schisms that disturb the peace of the church, than our dividing ourselves, in any degree, from the true interest of that government to which we belong.” In his charge he censured a pa*sage in favour of a proper sacrifice from Mr. Johnson’s second part of the “Clergyman’s Vade Mecum” (in the note upon the second apostolical canon), which Mr. Johnson defended in a postscript to a pamphlet called “The Propitiatory Oblation.” The bishop replied, in vindication of what he had said on that subject; and afterwards inserted the substance of his Reply in the body of the second edition of his charge.

Dr. Tucker was esteemed an excellent Greek and Latin scholar. “The purity of his Latin pen,” says Fuller, “procured his preferment. He was an able divine, a person of great gravity and piety, and well read in curious and critical authors.” His publications are, 1. “Charisma, sive Donum Sanationis, seu Explicatio totius qusestionis de mirabilium sanitatum gratia, &c.” Lond. 1597, 4to. This is the work which, Prince says, introduced him to the favour of queen Elizabeth. It is a historical defence of the power of our kings in curing what is called the king’s evil. Deirio, the Jesuit, answered it, and “with him,” say Wood and Prince, “are said to agree most fanaticks,” and we may add, most persons of common sense. Tucker was, if we mistake not, the first who wrote in defence of the royal touch, and Carte, the historian, the last, or perhaps the celebrated Whiston, who has a long digression on the subject in his life. 2. “Of the Fabrick of the Church and Church-men’s Living,” Lond. 1604, 8vo. This appears’ to have been written to obviate the scruples of some of the puritan party. The subjects treated are: I. “Of parity and imparity of gifts; of competency and incompetency of men’s livings; and of the reward of men’s gifts or maintenance, so called; of parity and imparity of men’s livings, which ariseth out of the equality or inequality of men’s gifts, and of preferments so called; of singularity and plurality of beneh'ces, and of the cause thereof, viz. dispensations; of the friends and enemies of pluralities; and of supportance and keeping of the fabrick of the church upright, in which he vindicates the hierarchy and constitution of the church of England against the enemies thereof, who are for reducing all to a parity and equality.” 3. “Singulare Certamen cum Martino Becano Jesuita,” Lond. 1611, 8vo, in defence of James I. against Becan and Bellarmin.

The place of second master at Westminster schoqi is a situation of much labour and responsibility. Besides the daily business of the school, which, if not arduous, is at least fatiguing, the person who holds that office has the whole care and superintendence of the scholars on the foundation when out of school; that is, of forty boys, rapidly growing up into men, and yearly drafted off, by elections of from eight to ten, to the two universities. Yet in this much occupied situation it was, that Mr. Vincent was prosecuting those studies which gradually established his reputation at home as a scholar, and a man of research; and finally extended his celebrity over the whole continent of Europe. What is much to his honour, he studied under a natural disadvantage, which to a less ardent and persevering spirit would have served as an excuse for idleness. From an early period of life h was subject to a weakness of the eyes, attended with pain and inflammation, which never suffered him to read or write with impunity by artificial light. These attacks were so severe, that, to avoid yet more formidable consequences, he found himself compelled altogether to relinquish evening studies. But zeal can always find resources,. As he could not read at night he formed the habit of rising very early. Before the hours of school, in the intervals between morning and evening attendance, and after both, when the length of the days permitted, he was generally employed in his study. Of exercise, properly so called, he took very little, but his constitution was robust; and of a man who completed seventy-six years, we can hardly say that his days were shortened by his habits of life, of whatever kind they might be.

, an eminent Dutch divine, and the founder of a sect, if it may be so called, who were in opposition to the Cartesian philosophy, was born at Heusden, March 3, 1589, of an ancient and considerable family. His education commenced in the schools of his native place, and was greatly promoted by a memory of more than common retention, which he displayed to the astonishment of his teachers and friends, while he was learning Greek and Latin, rhetoric, arithmetic, and logic. It is said that he could repeat without book three entire comedies of Terence, as many of Plautus, the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the first book of Horace’s Odes, &c. and many other extensive parts of the authors he read. After finishing his classical course, he was sent in 1604 to Leyden, where he passed seven years, increasing his knowledge of the Greek language, but particularly employed on the study of the belles lettres, philosophy, and theology. In general science he had made such progress, as to be able to give lectures on logic, during his divinity course, and had among other pupils the celebrated Burgersdicius, afterwards professor of philosophy at Leyden. Voetius was also solicited to take the degree of doctor, but some particular reasons prevented him at this time. Having completed his academical studies in 1611, he returned to Heusden, and became a candidate for the ministry. He had also a design to have visited Germany, France, and England, but was long confined by an illness; and on his recovery was appointed to officiate in the church of Vlymen, a village between Heusden and Bois-le-Duc. He preached also occasionally at Engelen, about a league from Vlymen, and in both places with great ability and reputation, for about six years. In 1617 he accepted a call to Heusden, where he settled for seventeen years, although repeatedly invited to superior situations in Rotterdam and other parts of the United Provinces. In 1619, he assisted for six months at the synod of Dort, and during this time, along with three of his brethren, preached at Gouda against the Arminians or Remonstrants, to whom he was always a decided enemy, and was as zealous a friend to the doctrines of Calvin. While at Heusden, he preached occasionally at other places, and in 1629 to the army which besieged Bois-le-duc, and after the capture of that city he officiated there for about nine months alone with three other ministers. During his residence here, he and his brethren published a sort of manifesto, inviting all the inhabitants, and particularly the clergy, to a conference, either public or private, on the points in dispute between the reformed and the Romish church. Jansenius answered this manifesto in a work entitled '“Alexipharmacum civibus Sylvsc-ducensibus propinatum ad versus mi nistrorum suorum fascinum,” Brussels, 1630, This produced a controversy, of whicu we have already given an account. (See Jansen, p. 470——471).

That work of Wace’s which his learned biographer places first, was composed in 1155. It is his translation in verse of the famous “Brut of England,” so called from Brutus the great grandson of Æneas, and first king of the Britons. It contains the history of the kings of Great Britain, almost from the destruction of Troy to the year 689 of the common sera. Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, had imported the original from Armoric Britain, Geoffroy of Monmouth translated it into Latin, and Wace into French verse. Several copies of this work are in the British Museum, one at Bene't college, Cambridge, and one, at least, a very superb one, in the royal library at Paris, supposed to be coeval with the author. The verses of this poem are always masculine of eight syllables, and feminine of nine; by which circumstance the error of attributing this work, as Fauchet has done, to a Huistace, or Wistace, is detected; for, by substituting Wace, as is found in the ancient ms. the verses acquire their necessary measure. Warton has fallen into this mistake by depending upon Fauchet; and the same error is repeated by several French writers. The learned Tyrwhitt was the first person who attempted to clear up a subject which from time to time became more involved in darkness, and to vindicate our author from the errors or injustice of modern writers. By means of sound criticism, the authority of the manuscripts in the British Museum, and the testimony of Layamon and Robert de Brunne, he proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that Wace was the author of the translation of the “Brut” into French verse. Lastly, Dr. Burney, in, his < c History of Music," by means of the rules of French poetry alone, demonstrated the want of fidelity in the manuscripts which had misled Fauchet and all other writers, who, as he had done, drew their materials from faulty and imperfect copies.

This was once a place of great fame in the university, and may be traced to very high antiquity. In 1251, pope Innocent IV. granted a power to the friars eremites of St. Austin, to travel into any countries, build monasteries, and celebrate divine service. With this permission, they first established a house in London, but deputed some of their number to go to Oxford, where they hired an obscure bouse near the public schools. Acquiring some reputation for their skill in philosophy and divinity, or at least what were then so called, they attracted the attention of sir John Handlove, or Handlow, of Burstall in Buckinghamshire, a very opulent gentleman, who purchased for them a piece of ground, enlarged afterwards by a gift from Henry III. On this tney built a house and chapel in a sumptuous form, and held schools for divinity and philosophy of such reputation, that, before the divinity school was built, the university acts were kept, and the exercises in arts were performed in this place. It was in particular enjoined that every bachelor of arts should once in ea^h year dispute, and once answer, at this house, and this continued until the dissolution, when the disputations were removed to St. Mary’s, and afterwaids to the schools. Alter the dissolution, the premises were let, on a lease of twenty-one years, at 3l. yearly, to Thomas Carwarden, or Carclon, esq. who appears to have demolished the whole, and carried off the materials. In 1552, king Edward VI. sold the site to Henry duke of Suffolk, and Thomas Duport, gentleman, who almost immediately conveyed it to Henry Baylie, M. D. formerly a fellow of New college, for forty-five shillings yearly. In 1553, Baylie sold it to his father-in-law, Edward Freere, of Oxford, who left it to his son William, by whom, in 1587, it was again sold to the mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of Oxford lor the principal sum of 450l.

After lying in prison till 1689, he was brought by habeas corpus to Westminster-hall, and sued for bail, but instead of obtaining it, he was brought to the bar of the House of Commons, and charged with the following offences: 1. For changing his religion. 2. For seducing 1 others to it; and 3. For keeping- a mass-house in the university of Oxford. His defence was more artful than honourable to his candour. “I cannot say that I ever altered my religion, or that my principles do now wholly agree with those of the church of Rome. Mr. Anderson was my governor and director, and from him in my youth I learned those principles which I have since avowed. If they were popish, I have not changed my religion and they will not be found to be wholly agreeable with the doctrine of the Roman catholic church. 2. I never seduced others to the Romish religion. All my books and precepts tend only to make men good moralists and good Christians; nor did I ever interest myself in persuading any body to this or that party. This will be plain to every body that reads my books of” The Life of Christ,“my book” Of Education,* my book of *' Benefits,“&c. &c.” These arguments, if they may be so called, being delivered, he was, in Jan. 1690, brought again from the Tower to the bar of the king’s bench, and having given bail, was set at liberty; but in May following he was excepted out of the act of pardon of William and Mary.

ver, one of Mr. Warton’s pupils, who could not write for themselves. Kiddington, Oxon. on the presentation of George Henry earl of Litchfield, then chancellor of the university, a nobleman whose memory he afterwards honoured by an epitaph. In 1774 he published the first volume of his “History of English Poetry,” the most important of all his works, and to the completion of which the studies of his whole life appear to have been bent. How much it is to be regretted that he did not live to complete his plan, every student in ancient literature must be deeply sensible. He intended to have carried the history down to the commencement 6f the eighteenth century. A second volume accordingly appeared in 1778, and a third in 1781, after which he probably relaxed from his pursuit, as at the period of his death in 1.790, a few sheets only of the fourth volume were printed, and no part left in a state for printing. His original intention was to have comprised the whole in two or three volumes, but it is now evident, and he probably soon became aware, that five would have scarcely been sufficient if he continued to write on the same scale, and to deviate occasionally into notices of manners, laws, customs, &c. that had either a remote, or an immediate connection with his principal subject. What his reasons were for discontinuing his labours, cannot now be ascertained. It is well known to every writer that a work of great magnitude requires temporary relaxation, or a change of employment, and may admit of both without injury; but he might probably find that it was now less easy to return with spirit to his magnum opus, than in the days of more vigour and activity. It is certain that he wished the public to think that he was making his usual progress, for in 1785, when he published “Milton’s Juvenile Poems,” he announced the speedy publication of the fourth volume of the history, of which, from that time to his death, ten sheets only were finished. His brother, Dr. Joseph, was long supposed to be engaged in completing this fourth volume. In one of his letters lately published by Mr. Wooll, and dated 1792, he says, “At any leisure I get busied in finishing the last volume of Mr. Warton’s History of Poetry, which I have engaged to do, for the booksellers are clamorous to have the book finished (though the ground I am to go over is so beaten) that it may be a complete work.” Yet on his death in 1800, it did not appear that he had made any progress . Mr. Warton’s biographer has traced the origin of this work to Pope, who, according to Ruffhead, had sketched a plan of a history of poetry, dividing the poets into classes or schools; but Ruffhead’s list of poets is grossly erroneous. Gray, however, Mr. Mason informs us, had meditated a history of English poetry, in which Mason was to assist him. Their design was to introduce specimens of the Provencal poetry, and of the Scaidic, British, and Saxon, as preliminary to what first deserved to be called English poetry about the time of Chaucer, from whence their history, properly so called, was to commence. Gray, however, was deterred by the magnitude of the undertaking; and being informed that Warton was employed on a similar design, more readily relinquished his own.

At Oxford he resided from Nov. 172y to Oct. 1735, and it was during this period that the first Methodist society was established, or rather begun. In the mean time he obtained pupils, and became a tutor in Lincoln college; he also presided in the hall a* moderator in the disputations, beld six times a week, and had the chief direction of the religious society, which, as we have already observed, had at first no other view than their own benefit. By the advice of one f the number, Mr. Morgan, a commoner of Christ Church, they began to visit some prisoners in the jail, and thence extended their visits to the sick poor in the city. In this they first 'met with some degree of encouragement, but afterwards had to encounter considerable opposition and much ridicule; and, among other names, were called Saoramentarians, because they partook of the sacrament once a week. But their principal name was Methodists^ alluding to a sect of ancient physicians so called, who were the disciples of Themison, and boasted that they found out a more easy method of teaching and practising the art of physic. In the mean time the society, which consisted only of John and Charles Wesley, Mr. Morgan before-mentioned, Mr. Kirkman of Merton college, Mr. Ingham of Queen’s, Mr. Broughton of Exeter, Mr. Clayton of Brasenose, Mr. James Hervey, and George Whitfield, continued to visit the prisoners, and some poor families in the town when they were sick; and that they might have wherewith to relieve their distress, they abridged themselves of all the superfluities and of many of the conveniences of life. They also took every opportunity of conversing with their acquaintance, to awaken them to a sense of religion; and by argument defended themselves as well as they could against their opponents, who attacked them principally because they thought all this superfluous, mere works of supererogation. But it does not appear that either they or the society itself had fear or hope of the important consequences that would follow.

Mr. Mason complains that these elegies were not popular, and states various objections made to them; he does not add by whom: but takes care to inform us that the poet bore his fate contentcrdly, because he was no longer under the necessity of adapting himself to the public taste in order to become a popular writer. He had received, while yet in Italy, two genteel patent placesf, usually united, the badges of secretary and register of the order of the Bath; and two years after, on 'he death of old Gibber, he was appointee) poet laureat. This last place was offered to Gray, by Mr. Mason’s mediation, and an apology was made for passing over Mr. Mason himself, “that being in orders, he was thought, merely on that account, less eligible for the office than a layman.” Mr. Mason says, he was glad to hear this reason assigned, and did not think it a weak one. It appears, however, that a higher respect was paid to Gray than to Whitehead, in the offer of the appointment. Gray was to hold it as a sinecure, but Whitehead was expected to do the duties of the Laureat. In this dilemma, if it may be so called, Mr. Mason endeavoured to relieve his friend by an expedient not very promising. He advised him to employ a deputy to write his annual odes, and reserve his own pen for certain great occasions, as a peace, or a royal marriage: and he pointed out to him two or three needy poets who, for the reward of five or ten guineas, would be humble enough to write under the eye of the musical composer. Whitehead had more confidence in his powers, or more respect for his royal patron, than to take this advice, and set himself to compose his annual odes with the zeal that he employed on his voluntary effusions. But although he had little to fear from the fame of his predecessor, he was not allowed to enjoy all the benefits of comparison. His odes were confessedly superior to those of Gibber, but the office itself, under Gibber’s possession, had become so ridiculous, that it was no easy task to restore it to some degree of public respect. Whitehead, however, was perhaps the man of all others, his contemporaries, who could perform this with most ease to himself. Attacked as he was, in every way, by “the little fry” of the poetical profession, he was never provoked into retaliation, aud bore even the more dangerous abuse of Churchill, with a real or apparent indifference, which to that turbulent libeller must have been truly mortifying. He was not, however, insensible of the inconvenience, to say the least, of -a situation which obliges a man to write two poems yearly upon the same subjects; and with this feeling wrote “The Pathetic Apology for all Laureats,” which, from the motto, he appears to have intended to reach that quarter where only redress could be obtained, but it was not published till after his death.