high efteem with Barnabas his brother, that he gave him Domitia, his natural daughter in marriage, with an ample fortune. But he, afterwards, from motives which we cannot well account for, and which feem to reflect upon his honour, turned his arms againft his father-in-law. He died at Florence, full of years, and military fame, in 1394. Having gained, among the Florentines, the character of the best foldier of the age, they erected a fumptuous monument to his memory, Paul Jovius the celebrated biographer of illuftrious men, hath written his elogy. He, in the monumental infcription, and the Elogia" is ftyled Joannes Acutus; hence it is that some of our travellers have, in their journals, mentioned him under the name of John Sharp, the great captain. See more of him in Morant's Effex, vol. ii. p. 287, &c. T 66 Mark Alexander Boyd. HIS extraordinary man, who was comparable, if not equal, to the admirable Crichton, was born in Galloway, on the 13th day of Jan. 1562, and came into the world with teeth. He learned the rudiments of the Latin and Greek languages at Glasgow, under two grammarians; but was of fo high and intractable a spirit, that they defpaired of ever making him a scholar. Having quarrelled with his masters, he beat them both, burnt his books, and forfwore learning. While he was yet a youth, he followed the court, and did his utmost to push his intereft there; but the fervour of his temper foon precipitated him into quarrels, from which he came off with honour and safety, though frequently at the hazard of his life. He, with the approbation of his friends, went to ferve in the French army, and carried his little patrimony with him, which he foon diffipated at play. He was shortly after roused by that emulation which is natural to great minds, and applied himself to letters with unremitted ardour, till he became one of the moft confummate scholars of the age. His parts were fuperior to his learning, as is abundantly teftified by his writings in print and manufcript. The Greek and Latin were as familiar to him as his mother tongue. He could readily dictate to three scribes in as many different languages and fubjects. He had an easy and happy vein of poe try, wrote elegies in the Ovidian manner, and his hymns were thought to be superior to thofe of any other Latin poet. He wrote a great number of other poems in the fame language, and tranflated Cæfar's Commentaries into Greek, in the ftyle of Herodotus: this tranflation was never printed. His other manuscripts on philological, political, and hiftorical fubjects, in Latin and French, are enumerated by the author of his life, who tells us that he was the best Scottish poet * He was fon of Robert Boyd, who was eldest son of Adam Boyd, of Pinkhill, brother to Lord Boyd. James Boyd, Archbishop of Glasgow, was a younger fon of Adam. Sir Robert Sibbald, who was defcended from the fame family with Mark Alexander Boyd, took his life from a manufcript in his poffeffion, and inferted it in his " Prodromus Hiftoriæ Naturalis" Scotia.” Lib. III. part ii. p. 2, 3, 4. of of his age; and, that as a writer in his native language, he was upon a level with Ronfard and Petrarch. He was tall, compact, and well proportioned in his perfon; his countenance was beautiful, fprightly, and engaging; he had a noble air; and appeared to be the accomplished foldier among men of the fword, and as eminently the scholar among thofe of the gown. He spent the greateft part of his unfettled life in France, but died at Pinkhill, his father's feat, in April 1601, about the 38th, or 39th, years of his age. W William Lithgow. 'Illiam Lithgow, a Scotfman, whofe fufferings by imprifonment and torture at Malaga, and whofe travels, on foot, over Europe, Afia, and Africa, feem to raise him almost to the rank of a martyr and a hero, published an account of his peregrinations and adventurest. Though the author deals much in the marvellous, the horrid account of the ftrange cruelsies of which, he tells us, he was the fubject, have, however, an air of truth. Soon after his arrival in England, from Malaga, he was carried to Theobald's on a feather bed, that King James might be an eye witness of his "martyred anatomy" by which be means his wretched body, mangled and reduced to a skeleton. The whole court crowded to fee him; and his majefty ordered him to be taken care of; and he was twice fent to Bath at his expence. By the king's command, he applied to Gondamor, the Spanish ambaffador, for the recovery of the money and other things of value, which the governor of Malaga had taken from him, and for a thousand pounds for his fupport. He was promifed a full reparation for the damage he had fuftained: but the perfidious minifter never performed his promife. When he was upon the point of leaving England, Lithgow upbraided him with the breach of his word, in the prefence chamber, before feveral gentlemen of the court, This occafioned their fighting upon the fpot; and the ambaffador, as the traveller oddly expreffes it, had his fiftula contrabanded with his fift. The unfortunate Lithgow, who was generally condemned for his fpirited behaviour, was fent to the Marfhalfea, where he continued a prifoner nine months. At the conclufion of the octavo edition of his "Travels," he informs us, that, in his three voyages, " his pain"ful feet have traced over (befides "paffages of feas and rivers) "thirty-fix thoufand and odd "miles, which draweth near to "twice the circumference of the "whole earth." Here the marvellous feems to rife to the incredible, and to fet him, in point of veracity, below Coryat, whom it is nevertheless certain that he far outwalked. His defcription of Ireland is whimfical and curious. This, together with the narrative * He suffered as a spy and heretic, having been condemned by the inquifition. The first edition was printed in 1614, 4to. and reprinted in the next reign, with additions, and à dedication to Charles I. Gondamor was afflicted with a fiftula, which occasioned his using a per forated chair, which is 'exhibited in one of his prints. of of his fufferings, is reprinted in Morgan's "Phænix Britannicus." His book is very fcarce. Lady Anne Clifford. miftrefs, as the fame author expreffes it, of forecast and aftercaft, and was ftrictly regular in all her accounts. Dr. Donne, fpeaking of her extenfive knowledge, which comprehended whatever was fit to Lady Anne Clifford was daugh- employ a lady's leisure, faid, that ter and heiress of George Clifford, earl of Cumberland, the famous adventurer, whofe fpirit fhe inherited. She was first married to Richard Sackville, earl of Dorset, a man of merit, whofe memory was ever dear to her, and whofe life the has written. Her second husband was Philip, earl of Pembroke, a man in every respect unworthy of her, from whom the was foon parted. She was long regarded as a queen in the North; and her foundations and benefactions seem to argue a revenue little lefs than royal. She founded two hofpitals, and repaired, or built, feven churches, aad fix caftles; that of Pendragon ftill retains a magnificence fuitable to the dignity of its ancient inhabitant. Her fpirited letter to Sir Jofeph Williamfon, in the "Royal and noble authors," contains but three lines, but they are mafter ftrokes, and ftrongly expreffive of her character. Ob. 22 March, 1676. So great an original as Anne Clifford well deferves to be minutely traced. Bishop Rainbow, in his fermon, at her funeral, is very circum ftantial as to her character, among the peculiarities of which, he fays, that he was" of a humour pleafing to all, yet like to none; her drefs not difliked by any, yet imitated by none.' Her riches and her charities were almost boundless. This was chiefly owing to her prudence and œconomy. She was a knew how to difcourfe of "all things from predeftination to "flea-filk .99 66 Conftancy was fo "well known a virtue to her, that ΤΗΝ John Bruen. She JOHN Bruen, of Stapleford, ia Chefhire, was a man of confi. derable fortune, who received his education at Alban Hall, in the * Untwisted filk, ufed in embroidery. + Rainbow. university, univerfity of Oxford, where he was a gentleman commoner. Though he was of puritan principles, he was no flave to the narrow bigotry of a fect. He was hofpitable, generous, and charitable, and beloved and admired by men of all perfuafions. He was confcientiously punctual in. all the public and private duties of religion, and divinity was his study and delight. He was a frequenter of the public fermons of these times, called prophecyings; and it was his conftant practice to commit the fubftance of what he heard to writing. Ob. 1625, Et. 65. The reader will fee more of this gentleman in the Second Part of Clark's Marrow of Ecclefiaftical Hiftory. This author alfo informs us, that Mr. Bruen had a fervant, named Robert Pasfield, who was 66 mighty in the fcriptures," tho' he could neither read nor write. He was, indeed, as remarkable for remembering texts and fermons as Jedidiah Buxton for remembering numbers. "For the help of his memory, he invented and framed a girdle of leather, long and large, which went twice about "him. This he divided into fe "veral parts, allotting every book "in the Bible in their order, to "fome of these divifions; then, "for the chapters, he affixed points or thongs of leather to the feveral divifions, and made knots by "fives or tens thereupon, to distinguifh the chapters of that book; "and by other points he divided "the chapters into their particular "contents or verfes, as occafion "required. This he ufed in "tead of pen and ink, in hearing "fermons, and made fo good ufe "of it, that, coming home, he was "able by it to repeat the fermon, VOL. XVII. 68 Of Henry Welby. Lincolnshire, where he had Enry Welby was a native of an eftate of above a thousand pounds a year. He poffeffed, in an eminent degree, the qualifications of a gentleman. Having been a competent time at the univerfity and the inns of court, he completed his education, by making the tour of Europe. He was happy in the love and esteem of his friends, and indeed of all that knew him, as his heart was warm, and the virtues of it were confpicuous from his many acts of humanity, benevolence, and charity. When he was about forty years of age, his brother, an abandoned profligate, made an attempt upon his life with a pistol, which not going off, he wrefted it from his hands, and found it charged with a double bullet. Hence he formed a refolution of retiring from the world; and taking a houfe in Grub-street, he reserved three rooms for himself; the firft for his diet, the fecond for his lodging, and the third for his ftudy. In these he kept himself so closely retired, that for forty-four years he was never feen by any human creature, except an old maid that attended him, who had only been permitted to fee him in fome cafes of great neceffity. His diet was conftantly bread, wa ter-gruel, milk, and vegetables, and, when he indulged himfelf moft, the yolk of an egg. He E bought bought all the new books that were published, most of which, upon a flight examination, he rejected. His time was regularly spent in reading, meditation, and prayer. No Carthufian monk was ever more conftant and rigid in his abftinence. His plain garb, his long and filver beard, his mortified and venerable afpect, bespoke him an ancient inhabitant of the defert råther than a gentleman of fortune in a populous city. He expended a great part of his income in acts of charity, and was very inquifitive after proper objects. He died the 29th of October, 1636, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and lies buried in St. Giles's church, near Cripplegate. The old maid- fervant died but fix days before her mafter. He had a very amiable daughter, who married Sir Chriftopher Hilliard, a gentleman of Yorkshire; but nei-" housewife, and as capable of defcending to the kitchen with propriety, as fhe was of acting in her exalted ftation with dignity. It has been afferted, that the as deeply interested herself in steering the helm, as fhe had often done in turning the Spit; and that he was as conftant a fpur to her husband in the career of his ambition, as fhe had been to her fervants in their culinary employments: certain it is, that the acted a much more prudent part as protectrefs, than Henrietta did as queen; and that fhe educated her children with as much ability as the governed her family with addrefs. Such a woman would, by a natural tranfition, have filled a thronet. She furvived her hufband fourteen years, and died the 8th of O&t. 1672. Robert Perceval, Efq; Obert Perceval was, in early ther the, nor any of her family, life, a youth of uncommon ever faw her father after his retirement. Mrs.Cromwell, the Protector's Wife. Lizabeth,daughter of Sir James R expectation, as, during his application to literary purfuits, he made a very confiderable progrefs. He was fome time of Chrift's College in Cambridge, and afterwards en Cromwell, was a woman of an enlarged understanding and an elevated fpirit. She was an excellent of a high fpirit, and having a ftrong propenfity to pleasure, he neglected his ftudies, and abandoned himself This gentleman was of the fame family with the ancient earls of Effex, of the fame name. His feat was in that county. † James Heath informs us, that fhe was a relation of Mr. Hamden's, and Mr. Goodwin's, of Buckinghamshire, and that she was, by Oliver, "trained up and made the waiting-woman of his providences, and lady rampant of his "fuccessful greatnefs, which the perfonated afterwards as imperiously as him"felf;" and that "the incubus of her bed made her partaker too in the pleasures "of the throne." We are told by an Italian author, that he gradually and artfully affumed the government at the inftigation of his wife. Sir James Burrow, in his "Anecdotes and Obfervations relating to Cromwell," invalidates the charge brought against her by this writer. I know no more of her, but that about the time of the Reftoration, the very prudently ftole cut of town, and lived for the remainder of her life in the obfcurity of retirement. to |