defect in the third part of Sidney's Arcadia," printed, according to Mr. Park, at Dublin; and "A Map and Description of New England, with a Discourse of Plantation and the Colonies, &c." Lond. 1630, 4to. He has also Sonnets prefixed to Drayton's Heroical Epistles: to Quin's Elegiac Poem on Bernard Stuart, Lord Aubigne: to Abernethy's "Christian and heavenly treatise, concerning Physicke for the Soule:" and several are interspersed among the works of Drummond, as are a few of his letters, and "Anacrisis," or a censure of the poets, in the folio edition of Drummond's works, which last Mr. Park considers as very creditable to his lordship's critical talents. Two pieces in Ramsay's Evergreen, entitled "The Comparison," and the "Solsequium," are ascribed to him by lord Hailes. His works were added to the late edition of the English poets, 21 vols. 8vo, 1810.

Our author has been liberally praised by his contemporaries, and by some of his successors, by John Dunbar, Arthur Johnston, Andrew Ramsay, Daniel, Davis of Hereford, Hayman, Habington, Drayton and Lithgow. His style is certainly neither pure nor correct, which may perhaps be attributed to his long familiarity with the Scotch language, but his versification is in general very superior to that of his contemporaries, and approaches nearer to the elegance of modern times than could have been expected from one who wrote so much. There are innumerable beauties scattered over the whole of his works, but particularly in his songs and sonnets: the former are a species of irregular odes, in which the sentiment, occasionally partaking of the quaintness of his age, is more frequently new, and forcibly expressed. The powers of mind displayed in his Doomsday and Parænesis are very considerable, although we are frequently able to trace the allusions and imagery to the language of holy writ; and he appears to have been less inspired by the sublimity, than by the awful importance of his subject to rational beings. A habit of moralizing pervades all his writings; but in the Doomsday, he appears deeply impressed with his subject, and more anxious to persuade the heart than to delight the imagination.1

ALEXANDRINI DE NEUSTAIN (JULIUS) was born at Trente, in the 16th century, and was successively physi

1 Johnson's and Chalmers's English Poets, edit. 1810, vol. V.-Biog. Brit. Park's Royal and Noble Authors, vol. V.

eian to the emperors Charles V. Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II. This last bestowed many favours and honours on him, and permitted him to transmit them to his children, although they were illegitimate. He died in 1590, at the advanced age of eighty-four. His works, which are both in prose and verse, are chiefly 'commentaries on Galen. 1. " Salubrium, sive de sanitate tuenda, libri triginta tres," Cologn, 1575, fol. 2. "Pædotrophia," Zurich, 1559, 8vo. in verse. 3. "De Medicina et Medico dialogus," ibid.1559, 8vo. 4. "Methodus Medendi," Venice, 1554, 8vo. In all his works he combines sound theory with practice.1

ALEXIS, a Greek comic poet, was born at Thurium, a colony of Athenians in Lucania, and came to Athens when young. He was uncle to Menander, and his instructor in theatrical composition. He lived in the time of Alexander, about the year 363 B. C. and when advanced to extreme old age, to one who asked him what he was doing, he replied, "I am dying by degrees." The only fragments left of his writings are in Crispinus's collection, "Vetustissimorum Authorum Græcorum poemata," 1570.

ALEXIS (WILLIAM), a Benedictine monk in the abbey of Lyra, afterwards prior of Bussi au Perche, was living in 1505, and has left various pieces of poetry, which were highly esteemed in his time. The principal works that are known of his, are: 1. "Four Chants-royaux, presented at the Games du Puy at Rouen, in 4to, without date. 2. "Le Passe-tems de tout Homme et de toute Femme," Paris, in 8vo, and 4to, without date. The author informs us that he translated it from a work of Innocent III. It is a moral performance, on the miseries of man from the cradle to the grave. 3. "Le grand Blason des Faulses Amours, in 16, and in 4to, Paris, 1493; and in several editions of the Farce de Patelin, and of the Fifteen Joys of Marriage, Hague, 1726 and 1734, with notes by Jacob le Duchat. It is a dialogue on the evils brought on by love. In all his works he preserves the decency becoming his order, which one of his biographers remarks as rather extraordinary for the age in which he lived. 3

ALEXIS, a Piedmontese, the reputed author of a book of "Secrets," which was printed at Basil 1536, in 8vo, and

1 Haller Bibl. Med. Pract. art. Neustain. - Moreri. Biog. Universelle. Fabr. Bibl. Græc.-Vossius de Poet, Græc.

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translated from Italian into Latin by Wecher: it has also been translated into French, and printed several times with additions. In the preface Alexis informs us, that he was born of a noble family; that he had from his most early years applied himself to study; that he had learned the Greek, the Latin, the Hebrew, the Chaldean, the Arabian, and several other languages; that having an extreme curiosity to be acquainted with the secrets of nature, he had collected as much as he could during his travels for 57 years; that he piqued himself upon not communicating his secrets to any person: but that when he was 82 years of age, having seen a poor man who had died of a sickness which might have been cured had he communicated his secret to the surgeon who took care of him, he was touched with such a remorse of conscience, that he retired from the world and ranged his secrets in such an order, as to make them fit to be published. They appeared accordingly at Venice in 1557, 4to, and have been translated and published in every European language; and an abridgement of them was long a popular book at the foreign fairs. Haller says that his real name was Hieronymo Rosello..

ALEYN (CHARLES), an English poet, once of some fame, who lived in the reign of Charles I. He received his education at Sidney college in Cambridge; and going to London, became assistant to Thomas Farnaby the famous grammarian, at his great school in Goldsmith's rents, in the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. In 1631, he published two poems on the famous victories of Cressi and Poictiers, obtained by the English in France, under king Edward III. and his martial son the Black Prince; they are written in stanzas of six lines. Leaving Mr. Farnaby, he went into the family of Edward Sherburne, esq. to be tutor to his son, who succeeded his father as clerk of the ordnance, and was also commissary-general of the artillery to king Charles I. at the battle of Edgehill. His next production was a poem in honour of king Henry VII. and that important battle which gained him the crown of England: it was published in 1638, under the title of "The Historie of that wise and fortunate prince Henrie, of that name the seventh, king of England; with that famed battle fought between the said king Henry and Richard III. named Crook-back, upon Redmore near Bosworth." There

Haller Bibl. Med.-Gen. Dict.-Moreri,

are several poetical eulogiums prefixed to this piece, amongst which is one by Edward Sherburne, his pupil. Besides these three poems, there are in print some little copies of commendatory verses ascribed to him, and prefixed to the works of other writers, particularly before the earliest editions of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. In 1639 he published the History of Eurialus and Lucretia, which was a translation; the story is to be found among the Latin epistles of Æneas Sylvius. The year after he is said to have died, and to have been buried in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn.

ALFARABI, a very eminent Arabian philosopher of the tenth century, was born at Farab, now Othrar, in Asia Minor, from which he took the name by which he is generally known. His real name was Mohammed. He was of Turkish origin, but quitted his country to acquire a more perfect knowledge of the Arabic, and of the works of the Greek philosophers. He studied principally at Bagdat, under a celebrated Aristotelian professor, named Abou Bachar Mattey; and then went to Harran, where John, a Christian physician, taught logic. In a short time, he surpassed all his fellow-scholars; and after a visit to Egypt, settled at Damas, where the prince of that city, Seif-edDaulah, took him into his patronage, although it was with difficulty that he could persuade him to accept his favours. Alfarabi had no attachment but to study, and knew nothing of the manners of a court. When he presented himself, for the first time, before the prince, the latter, wishing to amuse himself at the expence of the philosopher, made known his intention to his guards in a foreign language, but was much surprised when Alfarabi told him that he knew what he said, and could, if necessary, speak to him in seventy other languages. The conversation then turning on the sciences in general, Alfarabi delivered his opinions with such learning and eloquence, that the men of letters present were completely put to silence, and began to write down what he said. He excelled likewise in music, and ingratiated himself so with the prince, that he gave him a handsome pension, and Alfarabi remained with him until his death in the year 950. He wrote many treatises on different parts of the Aristotelian philosophy, which were read and admired, not only among the Arabians, but also among the

VOL. I.

1 Biog. Brit.-Winstanley and Jacob,

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Jews, who began about this time to adopt the Aristotelian mode of philosophizing. Many of his books were translated from Arabic into Hebrew, and it is by these versions principally that the Europeans have been made acquainted with his merit. His treatise "De Intelligentiis" was published in the works of Avicenna, Venice, 1495; another, "De Causis," is in Aristotle's works, with the commentaries of Averroes; and his "Opuscula varia" were printed at Paris in 1638. One of his writings, which brought him much reputation, was a kind of encyclopædia, in which he gives a short account and definition of all branches of science and art. The manuscript of this is in the Escurial.'

ALFARO-Y-GAMON (JUAN D'), a Spanish painter of considerable eminence, was born at Cordova in 1640, educated under Castillo, and completed his studies with Velasquez at Madrid, whose style he copied, particularly in his portraits. Velasquez, who was the first painter to the king of Spain, procured Alfaro favourable opportunities to study the fine pictures in the royal collections; and Titian, Rubens, and Vandyke, became his principal models. Many of his pictures, particularly his small ones, are very much in the style of Vandyke. As he principally followed the lucrative business of portrait-painting, both in oil and miniature, he probably would have realized a considerable fortune, but a weakly state of health soon plunged him into melancholy, of which he died in his fortieth year. Mr. Cumberland attributes his death to grief, upon account of the banishment of the admiral of Castille, in whose family he was an inmate, and to his having been rejected when he went to pay his respects to the admiral on his release. Alfaro was not only a good painter, but wrote sensibly on the

art.

Of his pictures, there is an "Incarnation" at Madrid, and a "Guardian Angel," and a portrait of Don Pedro Calderona, in the church of St. Salvador, which are very conspicuous monuments of his skill. *

ALFENUS VARUS, a celebrated Roman lawyer, was born in the year of Rome 713, at Cremona, from whence he came to Rome and studied under Servius Sulpicius. His distinguished talents and probity of character raised him at length to the rank of consul. He was the first who made those collections of the civil law, which are called