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in their labours. After a residence of nine years, he returned to Paris, and with some opposition was admitted into the academy, where he exhibited his model of " Prometheus," but did not execute it until long after. Next year he executed the "martyrdom of St. Victoria," a basrelief in bronze, for the royal chapel at Versailles. For some time he assisted his brother in "the Neptune;" but, a disagreement occurring, quitted this, and employed himself at the hotel Soubise, the chamber of accounts, and the abbey of St. Dennis. He was a candidate for the mausoleum of the cardinal de Fleury, and the public adjudged him the prize; but Lemoyne was employed. The tomb of the queen of Poland, wife of Stanislaus, is esteemed one of his best works. His Prometheus was finished in 1763, and the king of Prussia offered him 30,000 franks for it; but Adam said it was executed for his master, and no longer his own property. He died March 27, 1778, in his 75th year. His merits as a sculptor have been thought equal to those of his brother. It is said to have been his constant prayer that he might be neither the first nor the last in his art, but attain an honourable middle rank, as the surest way to avoid jealousy on the one hand, or contempt on the other; and his last biographer thinks his prayer was heard. The younger brother, FRANCIS-GASPARD, exercised his profession as a sculptor for some years with considerable reputation, and obtained a prize from the French academy, but no important works of his are mentioned; he died at Paris in 1759.'

ADAM DE MARISCO. See MARISCO.

ADAM (MELCHIOR), a very useful biographer, lived in the 17th century. He was born in the territory of Grotkaw in Silesia, and educated in the college of Brieg, where the dukes of that name, to the utmost of their power, encouraged learning and the reformed religion as professed by Calvin. Here he became a firm Protestant, and was enabled to pursue his studies by the liberality of a person of quality, who had left several exhibitions for young students. He was appointed rector of a college at Heidelberg, where he published his first volume of Illustrious Men in the year 1615. This volume, which consists of philosophers, poets, writers on polite literature, historians, &c. was followed by three others; that which treats of

Biographie Universelle, 1811.-Argenville.

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divines was printed in 1619; that of the lawyers came next; and finally, that of the physicians: the two last were published in 1620. All the learned men, whose lives are contained in these four volumes, lived in the 16th, or beginning of the 17th century, and are either Germans or Flemings; but he published, in 1618, the lives of twenty divines of other countries, in a separate volume. All his divines are Protestants. He has given but a few lives, yet the work cost him a great deal of time, having been obliged to abridge the pieces from whence he had materials, whether they were lives, funeral sermons, eulogies, prefaces, or memoirs of families. He omitted several persons who deserved a place in his work, as well as those he had taken notice of; which he accounts for, from the want of proper materials and authorities. The Lutherans were not pleased with him, for they thought him partial; nor will they allow his work to be a proper standard whereby to judge of the learning of Germany. His biographical collections were last published in one vol. fol. at Francfort, under the title,

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Dignorum laude Virorum, quos Musa vetat mori, immortalitas." His other works were, 1. "Apographum Monumentorum Heidelbergensium," Heidelberg, 1612, 4to. 2. "Parodiæ et Metaphrases Horatianæ," Francfort, 1616, 8vo. 3. "Notæ in Orationem Julii Cæsaris Scaligeri pro M. T. Cicerone contra Ciceronianum Erasmi," 1618; and he reprinted Erasmus's dialogue " De optimo genere dicendi," 1617. The Oxford catalogue erroneously ascribes to him the history of the churches of Hamburgh and Bremen, which, we have just seen, was the work of Adam de Bremen. His biographical works are, however, those which have preserved his name, and have been of great importance to all subsequent collections. He died in 1622.1

ALAM (NICOLAS), a French grammarian, born at Paris, in 1716, was the pupil of Louis Le Beau, and many years professor of rhetoric in the college of Lisieux. The duke de Choiseul, who had a friendship for him, sent him to Venice as charge d'affaires to that republic, where he resided twelve years. On his return to France, he published his various elementary treatises, which have been much approved by teachers. 1. "La vraie maniere d'apprendre une Langue quelconque, vivante ou morte, par le moyen de la langue Française," 1787, 5 vols. 8vo, and often reprinted.

Gen. Dict.- Moreri. Saxii Onomasticon.

This work includes a French, Latin, Italian, English, and German grammar. 2. "Les quatre chapitres, de la Raison, de l'Amour de soi, de l'Amour du prochain, de la Vertu," 1780. Besides these, he published literal translations of Horace, 1787, 2 vols. 8vo. Phædrus, and Dr. Johnson's Rasselas. He died in Paris, 1792, leaving behind him the character of a man of talents, an able linguist, and of amiable manners.1

ADAM (ROBERT), an eminent architect, was born in 1728, at the town of Kirkaldy, in Fifeshire, Scotland. He was the second son of William Adam, esq. of Maryburgh, an architect of distinguished merit, He received his education at the university of Edinburgh. The friendships which he formed in that seat of learning were with men of high literary fame, among whom were Mr. Hume, Dr. Robertson, Dr. Adam Smith, and Dr. Ferguson. As he advanced in life, he had the happiness to enjoy the friendship and intimacy of Archibald duke of Argyle, Mr. Charles Townsend, and the celebrated earl of Mansfield. To perfect his taste in the science to which he had devoted himself, he went to Italy, and there studied, for some time, the magnificent remains of antiquity which still adorn that country. He was of opinion, that the buildings of the ancients are, in architecture, what the works of nature are with respect to the other arts; serving as models for our imitation, and standards of our judgment, Scarce any monuments, however, of Grecian or Roman architecture now remain, except public buildings. The private edifices, however splendid and elegant, in which the citizens of Athens and Rome resided, have all perished; few vestiges remaining, even of those innumerable villas with which Italy was crowded, although, in erecting them, the Romans lavished the spoils and riches of the world. Mr. Adam, therefore, considered the destruction of these buildings with particular regret; some incidental allusions in the ancient poets, and occasional descriptions in their historians, conveying ideas of their magnificence, which astonish the artists of the present age. He conceived his knowledge of architecture to be imperfect, unless he should be able to add the observation of a private edifice of the ancients to his study of their public works. He therefore formed the scheme of visiting the ruins of the emperor Dioclesian's

Biographie Universelle. Dict. Hist.

palace, at Spalatro, in Venetian Dalmatia. To that end, having prevailed on M. Clerisseau, a French artist, to accompany him, and engaged two draughtsmen to assist him in the execution of his design, he sailed from Venice, in June 1757, on his intended expedition, and, in five weeks, accomplished his object with much satisfaction.

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In 1762, he was appointed architect to their majesties. In 1764, he published the result of his researches at Spalatro, in one volume large folio: it was entitled, "Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Dioclesian, at Spalatro, in Dalmatia." It is enriched with seventy-one plates, executed in the most masterly manner. He had at this time been elected a member of the Royal and Antiquary Societies. In 1768, he resigned his office of architect to their majesties, it being incompatible with a seat in parliament, and he being this year elected representative for the county of Kinross. By this time, in conjunction with his brother James Adam, he had been much employed by the nobility and gentry, both in constructing many noble modern edifices, and in embellishing ancient mansions: and, in 1773, they first began to publish "The Works in Architecture of R. and J. Adam," in numbers, four of which appeared before 1776, and contain descriptions of Sion House, Cane Wood, Luton Park House, and some edifices at Whitehall, Edinburgh, &c. That noble improvement of the metropolis, the Adelphi, will long remain an honour to the brothers; but, as a speculation, it was not so fortunate. In 1774, however, they obtained an act of Parliament to dis pose of the houses by way of lottery.

The many other elegant buildings, public and private, erected in various parts of the kingdom by this ingenious architect, display a great variety of original designs. To the last moment of his life, he evinced an increasing vigour of genius, and refinement of taste: for in the space of one year preceding his death, he designed eight great public works, besides twenty-five private buildings, so various in their style, and so beautiful in their composition, that they have been allowed by the best judges, sufficient of themselves to establish his fame as an architect. His talents, too, extended beyond the line of his own profession; and in his numerous drawings in landscape, we observe a luxuriance of composition, and an effect of light and shadow, which have scarce ever been equalled.

His death, which happened at his house in Albemarlestreet, London, March 3, 1792, was occasioned by the bursting of a blood-vessel in his stomach. His remains were interred, on the 10th of the same month, in the south aile of Westminster Abbey.

His brother JAMES died Oct. 20, 1794, also very eminent as an architect, of which that magnificent range of buildings called Portland-place, afford an undeniable proof.-Most of his other works were executed in conjunction with his brother.1

ADAM SCOTUS, a famous Sorbonnic doctor, flourished in the 12th century. This author, who is well known as a monkish writer, and a voluminous author of biography, was boru in Scotland, and educated in the monastery of Lindisferne, now called Holy Island, a few miles south of Berwick on Tweed, at that time one of the most famous seminaries of learning in the north of England. He went afterwards to Paris, where he settled several years, and taught school divinity, in the Sorbonne. In his latter years he returned to his native country, and became a monk in the abbey of Melrose, and afterwards in that of Durham, where he wrote the life of St. Columbanus, and the lives of some other monks of the 6th century. He likewise wrote the life of David I. king of Scotland, who died 1153. He died in 1195. His works were printed at Antwerp in fol. 1659.2

ADAMANTIUS, a Greek physician and sophist of the fifth century, was originally a Jew, and lived at Alexandria. He then went to Constantinople, and became a Christian. He dedicated to the emperor Constantine a work in two books on Physiognomy, which has descended to our days, and has often been reprinted, particularly in Sylburgius's edition of Aristotle, and among the "Physiognomoniæ veteres, Gr. Lat. cura J. G. Franzii," Altenburgh, 1780, 8vo, a work of great accuracy.3

ADAMANUS, or ADAMNANUS, abbot of the monastery of Hey, or Icolmkil, was born in 624, but whether in Scotland or Ireland is uncertain. He appears to have been a man of considerable learning, and, according to Bede, of a peaceable disposition; yet he enforced the discipline of the church with much severity, and partook of the credulity of the times. He died Oct. 23, 704, in the eightieth year of his age. Having hospitably entertained

Gent. Mag. 1792, &c.
Biographie Universelle. Fabr. Bibl. Gr.

Cave. Tanner.

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