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, the Roman emperor, was born at Rome Jan. 24, in the year of Christ 76. His father left him an orphan, at ten years of age, tinder the guardianship of Trajan, and Caelius Tatianus, a Roman knight. He began to serve very early in the armies, having been tribune of a legion before the death of Domitian. He was the person chosen by the army of Lower Mcesia, to carry the news of Nerva’s death to Trajan, successor to the empire. The extravagances of his youth deprived him of this emperor’s favour; but having recovered it by reforming his behaviour, he was married to Sabina, a grand niece of Trajan, and the empress Plotina became his great friend and patroness. When he was quaestor, he delivered an oration in the senate; but his language was then so rough and unpolished, that he was hissed: this obliged him to apply to the study of the Latin tongue, in which he afterwards became a great proficient, and made a considerable figure for his eloquence. He accompanied Trajan in most of his expeditions, and particularly distinguished himself in the second war against the Daci; and having before been quaestor, as well as tribune of the people, he was now successively praetor, governor of Pannonia, and consul. After the siege of Atra in Arabia was raised, Trajan, who had already given him the government of Syria, left him the command of the army; and at length, when he found death approaching, it is said he adopted him. The reality of this adoption is by some disputed, and is thought to have been a contrivance of Plotina; however, Adrian, who was then in Antiochia, as soon as he received the news of that, and of Trajan’s death, declared himself emperor on the llth of August, 117. He then immediately made peace with the Persians, to whom he yielded up great part of the conquests of his predecessors; and from generosity, or policy, he remitted the debts of the Roman people, which, according to the calculation of those who have reduced them to modern money, amounted to 22,500,000 golden crowns; and he caused to be burnt all the bonds and obligations relating to those debts, that the people might be under no apprehension of being called to an account for them afterwards. He went to visit all the provinces, and did not return to Rome till the year 118, when the senate decreed him a triumph, and honoured him with the title of Father of his country; but he refused both, and desired that Trajan’s image might triumph. The following year he went to Mcesia to oppose the Sarmatce. In his absence several persons of great worth were put to death; and though he protested he had given no orders for that purpose, yet the odium fell chiefly upon him. No prince travelled more than Adrian; there being hardly one province in the empire which be did not visit. In 120 he went into Gaul, and thence to Britain, where he caused a wall or rampart to be built, as a defence against the Caledonians who would not submit to the Iloman government. In 121 he returned into France, and thence to Spain, to Mauritania, and at length into the East, where he quieted the commotions raised by the Parthians. After having visited all the provinces of Asia, he returned to Athens in 125, where he passed the winter, and was initiated in the mysteries of Eleusinian Ceres. He went from thence, to Sicily, and saw mount Ætna. He returned to Rome the beginning of the year 129; and, according to some, he went again the same year to Africa; and after his return from thence, to the east. He was in Egypt in the year 132, revisited Syria the year following, returned to Athens in 134, and to Rome in 135. The persecution against the Christians was very violent under his reign; but it was at length suspended, in consequence of the remonstrances of Quadratus bishop of Athens, and Aristides, two Christian philosophers, who presented the emperor with some books in favour of their religion. He was more severe against the Jews; and, by way of insult, erected a temple to Jupiter on mount Calvary, and placed a statue of Adonis in the manger of Bethlehem he caused also the images of swine to be engraved on the gates of Jerusalem.

, the Roman emperor, was born at Rome, April 26, in the year 121. When he was adopted by his grandfather by the father’s side, he received his name, M. Annius Verus; and Adrian the emperor, instead of Verus, used to call him Verissimus, on account of his rectitude and veracity. When he was adopted by Antoninus Pius, he assumed the name of M. Ælius Aurelius Verus, because Aurelius was the name of Antoninus’s family, and Ælius that of Adrian’s, into which he entered. When he became emperor, he left the name of Verus to Lucius Commodus, his adopted brother, and took that of Antoninus, under which he is generally known in history. But he is distinguished from his predecessor Titus Antoninus, either by the name of Marcus, or by the name of Philosophus, which is given him by the general consent of writers, although we do not find this title to have been conferred by any public act or authority of the senate. Adrian, upon the death of Cejonius Commodus, turned his eyes upon Marcus Aurelius; but as he was not then eighteen years of age, and consequently too young for so important a station, he fixed upon Antoninus Pius, whom he adopted, on condition that he should likewise adopt Marcus Aurelius. The year after this adoption Adrian appointed him quaestor, though he had not yet attained the age prescribed by the laws. After the death of Adrian, Aurelius married Faustina, the daughter of Antoninus Pius, by whom he had several children. In the year 139 he was invested with newlionours by the emperor Pius, and behaved in such a manner as endeared him to that prince and the whole people.

, a native of Spain, was a Latin writer, of whom nothing is known, except that he flourished under the Roman Emperor Claudius, about the year of Christ 42; and has left some books upon agriculture, and a “Treatise upon Trees.” These works are curious and valuable, as well for their matter as style, which latter is thought by some to be not very remote from the Latin of the Augustan age. They have usually been published with the “Scriptores de re rustica.”

In 1690 he translated from the French of Monsieur and Madame Dacier, “The Life of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Roman Emperor; together with some select remarks on the said Antoninus’s Meditations concerning himself, treating of a natural man’s happiness, &c. as also upon the Life of Antoninus.” About the same time he wrote “A Dialogue shewing the way to Modern Preferment,” a humourous satire, which contains some solid truths, under the disguise of a conversation between three illustrious personages; the tooth-drawer to cardinal PortoCarero; the corn-cutter to pope Innocent XI.; and the receiver-general to an Ottoman mufti. On July 7, 1692, he took his degree of B. and D. LL. and Nov. 12, that year, by favour of abp. Tillotson, obtained a fat, which, admitting him an advocate at Doctor’s commons, enabled him to plead in the courts of the civil and ecclesiastical law. In 1693 he published a translation of “New Manners and Characters of the two great Brothers, the Duke of Bouillon and MareschalTurenne, written in French by James de Langdale, Baron of Saumieres.” Either in this, or early in the following year, appeared a very extraordinary morçeau, under the title of “An Answer to a Book which will be published next week entitled A Letter to the Rev. Dr. South, upon occasion of a late Book entitled Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock’s Book, entiiled A Vindication of the Holy and Ever-blessed Trinity. Being a Letter to the Author.” In August 1694, Mr. Molesworth publishing his “Account of Denmark as it was in the year 1692,” in which he treata the Danes and their monarch with great contempt, and takes the opportunity of insinuating those wild principles, by which he supposes liberty to be established, and by which his adversaries suspect that all subordination and government is endangered. Dr. King therefore took up his pen once more in his country’s cause, the honour of which was thought to be blemished by that account, Mr. Scheel, the Danish minister, having presented a memorial against it. Animated with this spirit, Dr. King drew up a censure of it, which he printed in 1694, under the title of “Animadversions on the pretended Account of Denmark.” This was so much approved by prince George, consort to the princess Anne, that the doctor was soon after appointed secretary to her royal highness.

, or Lucius Cælius, or Cæcilius (Firmianus), an eminent father of the church, was, as some say, an African, or, according to others, a native of Fermo, a town in the marche of Ancdna, whence Le is supposed to have taken his surname. Arnobius was his preceptor. He studied rhetoric in Africa, and with so great reputation, that Constantine the Roman emperor appointed him preceptor to his son Crispus. This brought him to court; but he was so far from giving into the pleasures or corruptions incident to that station, that, amidst very great opportunities of amassing riches, he lived so poor as even frequently to want necessaries. He is account^d the most eloquent of all the ecclesiastical Latin authors. He formed himself upon Cicero, and wrote in such a pure, smooth, and natural, style, and so much in the taste and manner of the lloman orator, that he is generally distinguished by the title of “The Christian Cicero.” We have several pieces of his, the principal of which is his “Institutiones Divinae,” in seven books, composed about the year 320, in defence of Christianity, against all its opposers. Of this treatise he made an abridgment, of which we have only a part, and added it to another tract, “De Ira Divina.” In 1777 the late sir David Dalrymple lord Hailes, published with notes a correct edition of the fifth book “De Justitia,” Edin. 12mo. Lactantius had before written a book “De Operibus Dei,” in which he proves the creation of man, and the divine providence. St. Jerome mentions other works of our author, as “Two Books to Æsclepiades;” “Eight Books of Letters;” a book entitled “The Festin,” composed before he went to Nicomedia; a poem in hexameter verse, containing a description of his journey thither; a treatise entitled “The Grammarian;” and another, “De Persecutione.” Concerning this last tract, there are various opinions. Dr. Lardner, after stating the evidence on both sides, seems inclined to deny that it was written by LaCtantius. He allows, however, that it is a very valuable work, containing; a short account of the sufferings of Christians under several of the Roman emperors, from the death and resurrection of Christ to Dioclesian; and then a particular history of the persecution excited by that emperor, with the causes and springs of it; as well as the miserable deaths of its chief instruments. The learned judge above mentioned, who published a translation of this work in 1782, Edin. 12mo, has also examined the opinions of those who have treated of its authenticity, with far more acuteness than Lardner, and concludes with Baluze, Mosheim, and other eminent critics, that the treatise “De Mortibus Persecutorum” was written by Lactantius. Lord Hailes’s preface is a master-piece of critical inquiry, nor are his notes and illustrations, which occupy one half of the volume, of less merit or utility.

All the necessary measures having been taken, the ringing of the bells of St. Germain TAuxerrois for matins was the signal for beginning the slaughter. The admiral de Coiigni was first murdered by a domestic of the duke of Guise, the duke himself staying below in the court, and his body was thrown out of the window. (See Coligni.) The king, as Daniel relates, went to feast himself with the sight of it; and, when those that were with him took notice that it was somewhat offensive, is said to have used the reply of the Roman emperor Vitellius, “The body of a dead enemy always smells sweet.” All the domestics of the admiral were afterwards slain, and the slaughter was at the same time begun by the king’s emissaries in all parts of the city. Tavanes, a marshal of France, who had been page to Francis I. and was at that time one of the counsellors and confidants of Catharine de Medicis, ran through the streets of Paris, crying, “Let blood, let blood! bleeding is as good in the month of August, as in May!” Among the most distinguished of the Protestants that perished was Francis de la Rochefoucault; who having been at play part of the night with the king, and finding himself seized in bed by men in masques, thought they were the king and his courtiers, who came to divert themselves with him. During this carnage, Sully’s safety is thus accounted for by himself: “1 was in bed,” says he, “and awaked from sleep three hours after midnight by the sound of all the bells and the confused cries of the populace. My. governor, St. Julian, with my valet de chambre, went hastily out to know the cause; and I never afterwards heard more of these men, who, without doubt, were among the first that were sacrificed to the public fury. I continued alone in my chamber dressing myself, when in a few moments I saw my landlord enter, pale, and in the utmost consternation. He was of the reformed religion; and, having learned what the matter was, had consented to go to mass, to preserve his life, and his house from being pillaged. He came to persuade me to do the same, and to take me with him: I did not think proper to follow him, but resolved to try if I could gain the college of Burgundy, where I had studied; though the great distance between the house where I then was, and the college, made the attempt very dangerous. Having disguised myself in a scholar’s gown, I put a large prayer/-book under my arm, and went into the street. I was seized with horror inexpressible at the sight of the furious murderers; who, running from all parts, forced open the houses, and cried aloud, ‘ Kill! kill! massacre the Huguenots!’ The blood which I saw shed before my eyes, redoubled my terror. I fell into the midst of a body of guards; they stopped me, questioned me, and were beginning to use me ill, when, happily for me, the book that I carried was perceived, and served me for a passport. Twice after this 1 fell into the same danger, from which I extricated myself by the same good fortune. At last I arrived at the college of Burgundy, where a danger still greater than any I had yet met with awaited me. The porter having twice refused me entrance, I continued standing in the midst of the street, at the mercy of the furious murderers, whose numbers increased every moment, and who were evidently seeking for their prey; when it came into my mind to ask for La Faye, the principal of this college, a good man, by whom I was tenderly beloved. The porter, prevailed upon by some small pieces of money which I put into his hand, admitted me; and my friend carried me to his apartment, where two inhuman priests, whom I heard mention Sicilian vespers, wanted to force me from him, that they might cut me in pieces; saying, the order was, not to spare even infants at the breast. All the good man could do was to conduct me privately to a distant chamber, where he locked me up; and here I was confined three days, unceriain of my destiny, seeing no one but a servant of my friend, who came from time to time to bring me provision.”

the Christian Religion; Dr. Johnson’s character of this literary phenomenon is too remarkable to be omitted. “About this time (1738), Warburton began to make his appearance in the first ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited inquiry, with wonderful extent and variety of knowledge, which yet had not oppressed his imagination nor clouded his perspicacity. To every work he brought a memory full fraught, together with a fancy fertile of original combinations; and at once exerted the powers of the scholar, the reasoner, and the wit. But his knowledge was too multifarious to be always exact, and his pursuits were too eager to be always cautious. His abilities gave him a haughty consequence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify; and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman emperor’s determination, ‘oderint dum metuant;’ he used no allurements of gentle language, but wished to compel rather than persuade. His style is copious without selection, and forcible without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves: his diction is coarse and impure, and his sentences are unmeasured.” To this character, which has been often copied, we shall subjoin some remarks from the able critic of whom we have already borrowed, and whose opinions seem entitled to great attention.