was born in 1709, at Deane, in Cumberland, where his father was
was born in 1709, at Deane,
in Cumberland, where his father was then rector. He had
his school education at Lowther, in Westmoreland, and
thence was removed, at the age of sixteen, to Queen’seollege, in Oxford. When he had taken his first degrees,
he was employed as tutor or governor to lord Beauchamp,
only son of Algernon Seymour, earl of Hertford, late duke
of Somerset. During his attendance on that noble youth,
he employed some of his leisure hours in adapting Milton’s
“Masque at Ludlow Castle
” to the stage, by a judicious
insertion of several songs and passages selected from other
of Milton’s works, as well as of several songs and other
elegant additions of his own, suited to the characters and
to the manner of the original author. This was received
as a very acceptable present to the public; and it still
continues one of the most favourite dramatic entertainments, under the title of “Comus, a masque,
” being set
to music by Dr. Arne. We cannot omit mentioning to
Dalton’s honour, that, during the run of this piece, he industriously sought out a grand-daughter of Milton’s, oppressed both by age and penury; and procured her a
benefit from this play, the profits of which to her amounted,
it is said, to upwards of 120l. Dr. Johnson wrote the Prologue spoken on this occasion. A bad state of health prevented Dr. Dalton from attending his pupil abroad, and
saved him the mortification of being an eye-witness of his
death, which was occasioned by the small-pox, at Bologna,
in Italy. Soon after, succeeding to a fellowship in his
college, he entered into orders, according to the rules of
that society.
evolution of 1741, renewed in her person the line of that monarch on the throne of Russia. Elizabeth was born in 1709, and when arrived at years of maturity, was extremely
, daughter of Peter the great, by the revolution of 1741, renewed in her person the line of that monarch on the throne of Russia. Elizabeth was born in 1709, and when arrived at years of maturity, was extremely admired for her great personal attractions. Her beauty, as well as her exalted rank, and large dowry, occasioned her several offers, none of which, however, took effect; and she died in celibacy. During the life of her father Peter I. a negotiation had commenced for her marriage with Lewis XV. but although not seriously adopted by the court of France, it was never relinquished until the daughter of Stanislaus, titular king of Poland, was publicly affianced to the young monarch. By the will of Catharine, Elizabeth was betrothed to Charles Augustus, bishop of Lubec, duke of Sleswick and Holstein, and brother to the king of Sweden; but he died before the completion of the ceremony. In the reign of Peter II. she was demanded by Charles margrave of Anspach in 1741, by the Persian tyrant Kouli Kan; and at the time of the revolution, the regent Ann endeavoured to force her to espouse prince Louis of Brunswick, for whom she entertained a settled aversion. From the period of her accession she renounced all' thoughts of the connubial state, and adopted her nephew Peter. Her dislike to marriage, however, certainly did not proceed from any rooted aversion to the other sex; for she would freely and frequently own to her confidants, that she was never happy but when she was in love; if we may dignify by that name a capricious passion ever changing its object. The same characteristic warmth of temper hurried her no less to the extremes of devotion: she was scrupulously exact in her annual confessions at Easter of the wanderings of her heart; in expressing the utmost contrition for her frequent transgressions; and in punctually adhering both in public and private to the minutest ceremonies and ordinances of the church. With respect to her disposition and turn of mind, she is generally styled the humane Elizabeth, as she made a vow upon her accession to inflict no capital punishments during her reign; and is reported to have shed tears upon the news of every victory gained by her troops, from the reflection that it could not have been obtained without great bloodshed. But although no criminal was formally executed in public, yet the state prisons were filled with wretched sufferers, many of whom, unheard of and unknown, perished in clamp and unwholesome dungeons: the state inquisition, or secret committee appointed to judge persons suspected of high treason, had constant occupation during her reign many upon the slightest surmises were tortured in secret many underwent the knoot, and expired under the infliction. But the transaction which reflects the deepest disgrace upon her reign, was the public punishment of two ladies of fashion; the countesses Bestuchef and Lapookin: each received fifty strokes of the knoot in the open square of Petersburg: their tongues were cut out; and they were banished into Siberia. One of these ladies, Madame Lapookin, esteemed the handsomest woman in Russia, was accused of carrying on a secret correspondence with the French ambassador; but her real crime was, her having commented too freely on the amours of the empress. Even the bare recital of such an affecting scene, as that of a woman of great beauty and high rank publicly exposed and scourged by the common executioner, must excite the strongest emotions of horror; and forbid us to venerate the memory of a princess, who, with such little regard to her own sex, could issue those barbarous commands. But let us at the same time lament the inconsistency of human nature; and, in considering the character of Elizabeth, let us not deny that her heart, perhaps naturally benevolent, was eventually corrupted by power, and steeled with suspicion; and that although mercy might predominate whenever it did not interfere with her passions and prejudices; yet she by no means deserves the appellation of humane, the most noble attribute of a sovereign when it interposes to temper and mitigate the severity of justice. Elizabeth died in 1761, in the twenty-first year of her reign, and in the fifty-third year of her age; she expired in December (the 25th), the same month in which she was born, and in which she acceded to the throne. It is asserted on unquestionable authority, that it was impossible to obtain this tzarina’s consent for the execution of a felon who had even committed the most horrid species of premeditated murder, and that the master of the police used secretly to order the executioner to knoot to death those delinquents who were found guilty of the most atrocious crimes. It is a pity that she did not reserve her humanity, which in this instance was cruelty to her people, for more respectable objects. By way of conclusion to the present article, it will not be unapt to add the following anecdote, especially as it must at the same time give pleasure to the reader. Although the sovereign of this empire is absolute in the most unlimited sense of the word; yet the prejudice of the Russians in regard to the necessity of torture (and a wise legislator will always respect popular prejudices, be they ever so absurd and unreasonable) was so deeply rooted by immemorial usage, that it required great circumspection in the present tzarina not to raise discontents by an immediate abolition of that inhuman practice. Accordingly, the cautious manner in which it was gradually suppressed, discovered no less judgment than benevolence. In 17C2, Catherine II. soon after her accession, took away the power of inflicting torture from the vayvodes, or inferior justices, by whom it had been shamefully abused. In 1767, a secret order was issued to the judges in the several provinces, that whenever they should think torture requisite to force a criminal to confession, they should draw up the general articles of the charge, and lay the case before the governor of the province for his consideration: and all the governors had received previous directions to determine the case according to the principles laid down in the third question of the tenth chapter of her majesty’s instructions for a code of laws; wherein torture is proved to be no less useless than cruel. This, therefore, was a tacit abolition of torture, which has been since formally and publicly annulled. The prohibition of this horrid species of judicature, throughout the vast dominions of the Russian empire, forms a memorable aera in the annals of humanity.
ural philosophy and mathematics in that university, probably belonging to the same family as Conrad, was born in 1709. He studied at Leyden and Basle with Haller, and
, a canon of Zurich, and professor of
natural philosophy and mathematics in that university,
probably belonging to the same family as Conrad, was born
in 1709. He studied at Leyden and Basle with Haller,
and maintained a close correspondence with him during
the life of that distinguished man. Their taste for botany
was the same, and their characters similar. His letters
make an interesting part of the “Epistolae ad Hallerum,
”
and abound with solid and curious botanical criticism and
information. He paid much attention to the cryptogamic
class, and other difficult branches of the science, as well
as to the anatomy and physiology of plants. He survived
his learned friend twelve years, dying in 1790, at the age
of eighty-one.
, grandson of the preceding, was born in 1709, at Keil, where his father, Sebastian Kortholt,
, grandson of the preceding,
was born in 1709, at Keil, where his father, Sebastian Kortholt, was professor. He discovered an early disposition
towards the sciences, and made so rapid a progress in
them, that he was admitted at twenty to assist in the
“Journal of Leipsic,
” in which may be found some good
pieces of his till 1736, and some well chosen extracts from
works on ecclesiastical history. Kortholt visited Holland
and England, and was esteemed by the learned there.
While in England he drew up a short account of the society of Antiquaries of London, “Epistola ad Kappium de
Soc. Ant. Lond.
” Leipsic, De Ecclesiis suburbicariis
” “De Enthusiasmo Muhammedis
” and several excellent “Dissertations.
” The most
esteemed of those in German are, a “Treatise on the truth
of Christianity
” “Sermons,
” &c. He published four volumes of Latin letters by Leibnitz, a volume of his French
letters, and a collection of various pieces on philosophy,
mathematics, history, &c. by the same author.
English writer, was the eldest son of sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley, in Worcestershire, bart. and was born in 1709. He came into the world two months before the usual
, an elegant English writer,
was the eldest son of sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Hagley, in
Worcestershire, bart. and was born in 1709. He came into
the world two months before the usual time, and was
imagined by the nurse to be dead, but upon closer
inspiection was found alive, and with some difficulty reared. At
Eton school, where he was educated, he was so much distinguished that his exercises were recommended as models
to his school-fellows. From Eton he went to Christ Church,
where he retained the same reputation of superiority, and
displayed his abilities to the public in a poem on Blenheim.
He was a very early writer, both in verse and prose; his
“Progress of Love,
” and his “Persian Letters,
” having both been written when he was very young. After
a short residence at Oxford, he began his travels in
1728, and visited France and Italy. From Rome he
sent those elegant verses which are prefixed to the works
of Pope, whom he consulted in 1730 respecting his four
pastorals. Pope made some alterations in them, which
may be seen in Bowles’s late edition of that poet’s works
(vol. IV. p. 139). We find Pope, a few years afterwards,
in a letter to Swift, speak thus of him: He is “one of
those whom his own merit has forced me to contract an
intimacy with, after I had sworn never to love a man
more, since the sorrow it cost me to have loved so many
now dead, banished, or unfortunate, I mean Mr. Lyttelton, one of the worthiest of the rising generation,
” &c.
In another letter Mr. Lyttelton is mentioned in a manner
with which Dr. Warton says he was displeased .
the immediate descendant of the Robinsons of Rokeby, in the north riding of the county of York, and was born in 1709. He was educated at Westminsterschool, whence he
, archbishop of Armagh, a-nd lord Rokeby, was the immediate descendant of the Robinsons of Rokeby, in the north riding of the county of York, and was born in 1709. He was educated at Westminsterschool, whence he was elected to Christ church, Oxford, in 1726. After continuing his studies there for some years, and taking his master’s degree in 1733, Dr. Blackburn, archbishop of York, appointed him his chaplain, and collated him first to the rectory of Elton, in the east riding of Yorkshire, and next to the prebend of Grindal, in the cathedral of York. In 1751 he attended the duke of Dorset, lord lieutenant of Ireland, to that kingdom, as his first chaplain, and the same year was promoted to the bishopric of Kiilala. A family connexion with the earl of Holdernesse, who was secretary of state that year, with the earl of Sandwich and other noblemen related to him, opened the f.iirest prospects of attaining to the first dignity in the Irish church. Accordingly, in 1759, he was translated to the united sees of Leighlin and Ferns, and in 1761 to Kildare. The duke of Northumberland being appointed to the lieutenancy of Ireland in 1765, Dr. Robinson was advanced to the primacy of Armagh, and made lord almoner and vicechancellor of the university of Dublin. When lord Harcourt was- lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1777, the king was pleased, by privy- seal at St. James’s, Feb. 6, and by patent at Dublin the 26th of the same month, to create him baron Rokeby of Armagh, with remainder to Matthew Robinson of West Lay ton, esq. and in 1783 he was appointed prelate to the order of St. Patrick. On the death of the duke of Rutland, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, in 1787, he was nominated one of the lords justices of that kingdom. Sir William Robiuson, his brother, dying in 1785, the primate succeeded to the title of baronet, and was the survivor in the direct male line of the Robinsons of Rokeby, being the eighth in descent from William of Kendal. His grace died at 1 Clifton, near Bristol, in the end of October, 1794.
ence of the will of his godfather, Charles Williams, esq. of Caerleon, assumed the name of Williams, was born in 1709, and educated at Etdn$ where he made considerable
, a statesman and wit of considerable temporary fame, was the third son of John 1 Hanbury, esq. a South Sea Director, who died in 1734. Charles, who in consequence of the will of his godfather, Charles Williams, esq. of Caerleon, assumed the name of Williams, was born in 1709, and educated at Etdn$ where he made considerable progress in classical literature; and having finished his studies, travelled through various parts of Europe. Soon after his return he assumed the name of Williams, obtained from his father the estate of Coldbrookj and espoused, in 1732, lady Frances Coningsby. youngest daughter of Thomas, earl of Coningsby.