have been named after him by direction of the present Lord Holland. 15th of May, 1664. Though only the son of a gardener, he obtained patronagerapidly reached the highest offices-and greatly improved the fortunes of the State. One of his sayings, remarkable for the address and fine taste which it evinced, deserves to be remembered. Impetuous in temper, and free in speech, he one day told a boy who had expressed fear, that he fear nothing, not even God him 66 William Camden, the tutor of Ben Jonson, and one of the chief of English antiquaries, drew his first breath in London, on the 2nd of May, 1551. Camden founded a professorship of history at Oxford. Elias Ashmole, another distinguished antiquary, whom Wood styles the greatest virtuoso and curioso that was ever known should or read of in England," was born on the self." The company appearing shocked 23rd of May, 1617. Besides antiquities, and astonished at such words from the lips of he was a proficient in astrology, botany, a cardinal, Alberoni added, with a meek air chemistry, and heraldry. His "History of and a softened voice, "For we are to feel the Order of the Garter" is eminently curi- nothing towards the good God, but love." ous and interesting. Sir Nicholas Harris, however, of the College of Arms, has recently entered yet more elaborately into that subject. Ashmole, having purchased the curiosities of Tradescant, the celebrated Dutch gardener and antiquary, of Lambeth, presented them, and subsequently his books and manuscripts, to the University of Oxford, and thus laid the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum. Dr. Edward Jenner, to whom England, Europe, and the world at large, owe a vast debt of gratitude for the introduction of vaccination, in the year 1796, was born at Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, on the 17th of May, 1749. For his invaluable discovery, he received a parliamentary grant of 20,000l. When the allied sovereigns visited England, in 1814, the Emperor Alexander, of Russia, sought an interview with him, and offered to confer on him a Russian order of nobility. Niccolo Macchiavelli, historian, statist, and miscellaneous writer-a man who seems to have puzzled all his biographers, and whose name is frequently taken in vain was indebted to Florence for his birth, on the 3rd of May, 1469. His most celebrated work, The Prince, "if taken literally," remarks Maunder, contains the most pernicious maxims of government, founded on the vilest principles : hence the word Machiavellism is used to denote that system of policy which disregards every law, human or divine, to effect its purposes. There are many, however, who regard it rather as a covert satire upon tyranny, than as a manual for a tyrant; while others think it a work full of valuable counsel for a prince, to whom all eyes in Italy were turned for deliverance from foreign thraldom." 66 Giulio Alberoni, cardinal, and prime minister of Spain, was born at Parma, on the He The anniversary of the birth-day of William Pitt, the illustrious son of Chatham, occurs on the 28th of May, when it is celebrated by a dinner of the Pitt Club. was born in 1759; consequently, had he survived till the present hour, he would not have surpassed the age of some of his contemporaries. He has been dead three and It is to the councils of Pitt, even more than to the prowess of Welling. ton, that the battle of Waterloo, though not fought until long after his remains had been consigned to the tomb, may be traced. thirty years. Of philosophers and men of science, we have to mention Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, to whom we are obliged for the thermometer and barometer mostly in use in this country, born at Dantzic, on the 14th of May, 1686; Charles Von Linnæs, the most celebrated of modern naturalists, born at Roshult, in Sweden, on the 23rd, in 1757; John Foi Vaillant, physician, antiquary, and medalist, born at Beauvois, in France, on the 24th, in 1632; and Abraham Demoivre, author of "The Doctrine of Chances," and one of the first mathematical calculators that ever existed, born at Champagne, on the 30th, in 1667. 66 Alghieri Dante, or Durante, author of the Divina Commedia, and the most renowned of all the Italian poets, claimed Florence for his birth-place, on the 27th of May, 1265-now 574 year ago. “Dante's poem, observes Lord Byron, was celebrated long before his death; and, not long after it, States negotiated for his ashes, and disputed for the site of the composition of the Divina Commedia.”- -"Dante died at Ravenna, in 1321, in the palace of his patron, Guido Novello da Polénta, who testified his sorrow and respect by the sumptuousness of his obsequies, and by giving orders to erect a monument, which he did not live to his superiority of intellect, was addicted to complete.' "I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid: BYRON'S Don Juan. Ugo Foscolo's Essays on Dante and Petrarch are full of beauty and interest. Considerable information is also to be found in the notes appended to Lord Byron's Don Juan, his Prophecy of Dante, &c. The musician follows the poet. Giovanni Paisiello was born at Tarento, on the 9th of May, 1740, or 1741. Placed under the care of Durante, he, in 1763, produced his first opera, La Papilla," with great applause, at the Marsigli theatre, in Bologna. After a rapid career of extraordinary success, we find him, in 1766, in the service of Catherine II., with the Grand-Duchess Maria Federowna as his pupil. Next in succession he was patronized by the Emperor of Germany and the King of Prussia. Then he appeared at Naples, where he composed for the obsequies of General Hoche a funeral symphony, which procured for him Subsea recompense from Buonaparte. quently we find him in Russia, Venice, Naples, and at Paris, under Napoleon, with apartments, a court carriage, a salary of 12,000 francs, and a present of 18,000 francs for the expenses of his stay, besides those of his journey. The climate of Paris not agreeing with his wife, he returned to Naples, where, under King Joseph, new advantages and honours awaited him. Napoleon sent him the cross of the Legion of Honour, which Joseph himself presented to him, with an additional pension of 1000 the study of judicial astrology, and used to calculate the nativities of his children. If the veracity of his biographers may be relied on, some of his predictions respecting his son Charles and himself were fulfilled in a most extraordinary manner. It is related, that for the first play of Dryden's, The Wild Gallant,"published by the elder Tonson, the price given was twenty pounds. This sum the bookseller (whose shop was then in the street near Gray's Inn) was unable to raise without applying to Abel Swale, then a bookseller in Little Britain, who advanced the money for a moiety of the profits. The play sold; and Tonson was enabled by it to purchase the succeeding ones on his own bottom."* George Wither, a poet whose works were not long since recalled to notice by Sir Egerton Brydges, died on the 2nd of May, 1667, at the age of 79. He was born at Bentworth, in Hampshire, and educated at For his first Magdalen College, Oxford. book, entitled "Abuses Whipt and Stript," he was imprisoned. He was, in the civil wars, an officer in the parliament army, and condemned to be hanged. Sir John Denham is said to have begged his life of the king, "that there might be," as he said, "in England, a worse poet than himself." There is a curious account of Wither in Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," a charming book, of which, we observe, two new editions are just advertised. H. Phillips, by the admirable style in which he sings it, has lately rendered very popular a song of Wither's, commencing— "Shall I, wasting in despair, francs. When Joseph went to Spain, Dryden's character of Wither is far too Murat, his successor, confirmed Paisiello in all his employments. Paisiello was the first who introduced the viola into the comic opera at Naples; and also the first who brought into the churches and the theatres of that city the use of concerted bassoons and clarionets. He died in Italy in 1816. Our notice of departures from earth, in May, shall commence with those of five English poets-Dryden, Wither, Cumberland, Rowe, and Warton. "Glorious John Dryden," compared, by Swift, from the long and large wig which he was accustomed to wear, to “a lady in a lobster," died on the 1st of May, 1700. It is remarkable that Dryden, notwithstanding severe : "He fagotted his notions as they fell, And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well." Richard Cumberland, author of "The West Indian," "The Wheel of Fortune," a series of excellent papers entitled the "Observer," numerous plays, novels, and poems, died on the 7th of May, 1811, at the age of seventy-nine. Nicholas Rowe, another poet and dramatist celebrated in his day-poet-laureat in the reign of George I., died on the 13th of May, 1718, at the age of forty-two. A translation of Lucan's Pharsalia was, perhaps, his most considerable performance. During the first and only representation of his farce of The Biter Bit, which was furiously hissed by the audience, Rowe himself was delighted, laughing, with great vehemence, whenever he had, in his own opinion, produced a jest! Thomas Warton (son of the Rev. Thomas Warton, professor of poetry at Oxford) died on the 21st of May, 1790, aged 62. While only in his twentieth year, he distinguished himself by his "Triumph of Isis," a poetical vindication of Oxford against the reflections of Mason. His History of English Poetry" is an exceedingly valuable work. He succeeded Whitehead as poet laureat. An elegant and highly-gifted French poet, the Abbé de Lille, author of Les Jardins, &c., and translator of Virgil and Milton, born in 1738, died on the 1st of May, 1813. Though a royalist his genius procured him the respect even of the tyrant Robespierre. Exceedingly cheerful, gay, and amiable, the Abbé was not altogether without eccentricity. With a body of seventy-five, his soul was only fifteen. He would visit a duchess in deshabille, and ride a hunting in full dress. "He will give you his company for hours," says Madame du Molé, "and is happy with you: but so he is with the housekeeper: or his horse, which he will sometimes caress for two hours, and then forget that he has one." On the 9th, John Frederic Christopher Schiller, one of the ablest historians and poets of Germany, will have been dead thirty-four years. His first production was that extraordinary play, "The Robbers," by which half the young German noblesse were seduced, and the performance of which was, in consequence, prohibited. His tragedies of " Fiesco,' Cabal and Love," Don Carlos," 66 Wallenstein," Mary Stuart," Joan of Arc," and "William Tell," all rank high in genius and merit. Schiller will also be remembered as the author of a 66 History of the Thirty Years' War," The Ghost Seer," and various other works. 66 Four painters stand next upon our list. The illustrious Leonardo Da Vinci, born in 1452, died at Fontainbleau, in the arms of Francis I., on the 2nd of May, 1519. He was the rival of Michael Angelo. Had he never painted aught but "The Last Supper," he would have been immortalised. Sir Peter Paul Rubens, the great Flemish artist, with whose works every critic and amateur are intimately conversant, died at his native place, Antwerp, on the 30th of May, 1640, aged 63. Rubens came to England in the reign of Charles I., who employed him to paint the ceiling of the Banqueting House, Whitehall, for which he was paid 3000l. De Piles, in his " Balance of Painters," placed Rubens two degrees higher, as a colourist, than Correggio. Rubens, moreover, was master of six languages-an ac complished gentleman, scholar, and statesman. Sir James Thornhill, nephew of the famous Dr. Sydenham, and remembered for his performances in the dome of St. Paul's church, in Greenwich Hospital, at Blenheim, and at Hampton Court, died on the 4th of May, 1732, at the age of 56. Richard Wilson, one of the earliest members of the Royal Academy, died at the age of 68, on the 11th of May, 1782. "The name of this extraordinary man," observes Sir M. A. Shee, in one of the notes appended to his Rhymes on Art, "is a reproach to the age in which he lived: the most accomplished landscape painter this country ever produced; uniting the composition of Claude with the execution of Poussin; avoiding the minuteness of the one, and rivalling the spirit of the other. With powers which ought to have raised him to the highest fame, Wilson was suffered to live embarrassed, and to die poor." 66 Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, whose valuable library is now in the British Museum, was a distinguished member of the Society of Antiquaries, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. He wrote a book on duelling, the Life of Henry III." and collected the Parliamentary Records." Sir Robert Cotton was the first who collected English coins; and the first engravings we have in that class of the antique were taken from originals in his collection. Sir Robert died on the 6th of May, 1631. Dr. Isaac Barrow, excelled in mathematical learning only by his pupil, Sir Isaac Newton, died on the 4th of May, 1677, in the 47th year of his age. Famous for exhausting all subjects that he meddled with, he ultimately gave himself up to divinity, and sometimes preached sermons of three or four hours in length. Dr. Paley, who died on the 25th of May, 1805, in his 61st or 62nd year, was wiser in his day; he illustrated without exhausting—either himself or his hearers or auditors. His "Natural Theology," and his "Evidences of Christianity," are eminently valuable works. The former has been enlarged upon by Lord Brougham, with considerable effect. Another eminent English author and divine, Richard Hurd, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, died on the 28th of May, 1808, at the age of 88. Thomas Simpson, a great self-educated mathematician, died on the 14th of May, 1761, aged 51. His widow exactly doubled his age. Simpson was the son of a weaver at Market Bosworth, in Leicestershire. After many vicissitudes in early life, that of turning fortune-teller amongst them, he acquired a perfect knowledge of mathematics, and became mathematical professor at the Royal Academy, Woolwich, and a member of the Royal Society. Napoleon Buonaparte and Earl Ferrers, two madmen and two tyrants, went to their long account on the same day of the month -the 5th of May; the former in 1821, the latter in 1760. Two statesmen-Ohe! jam satis-Lord Chatham and Henry Grattan, died in May: the former on the 11th, in 1778; the latter on the 14th, in 1820. May their shades forgive us for naming them together! Two Britons, the venerable Bede, a monk, and the most eminent writer of his time; and Sir James Mackintosh, a man infinitely overrated by his party, also died in May: the former on the 14th, in 735; the latter on the 30th, in 1832. Anthony Laurence Lavoisier, a celebrated French chemist, was guillotined on the 8th of May, 1794, on the frivolous charge of having adulterated tobacco with ingredients obnoxious to the health of the people ;- Sir Humphry Davy, the first of his day in the same science, died at Geneva, on the 29th, in 1829, at the age of 51 ;-George Leopold Christian Frederic, Baron Cuvier, the most eminent naturalist of modern times-to whom France is indebted for the finest osteological collection in the world-and to whom geologists of all countries ae under inestimable obligations for his illustrations of ancient zoology-died on the 15th, in 1833, aged 64. Christopher Columbus, Giovanni Battista Beccaria (not the author of the "Treatise on Crimes and Punishments"), Nicholas Copernicus, and John Calvin, all died in the month of May. On the 20th, Columbus -Columbus, the discoverer of America, the victim of ingratitude and injustice during life, and who has not been permitted to enjoy his fair portion of fame even in the grave-will have been dead 333 years. Beccaria, professor of philosophy at Palermo and at Rome, and author of several works of merit, particularly on the nature of the electric fluid, will have been dead 58 years on the 22nd. Copernicus, the founder, as it may be said, of a new system of astronomy, died on the 24th, 296 years ago. Calvin, generally regarded as the chief of religious reformers after Luther, died on the 27th, in 1564, at the age of 59. MR. JERMYN'S DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS, EPITHETS, AND PHRASES. To the Editor of the Aldine Magazine. heaven's majestic arch. Proud. THOMSON. Lo! the proud arch With easy sweep bestrides the chafing flood. Rising. HARTE. Round columns swell and rising arches bend. Graceful. Cowper. How airy and how light the graceful arch. Pompous. POPE. No Grecian stone the pompous arches graced. Swelling. SAVAGE. The swelling arch and stately colonnade. Strong. YOUNG. Turns the strong arch and bids the columnsrise. Ponderous. DARWIN. his foamy flood he steers Through ponderous arches. Hollow. DRYDEN. hollow arches of resounding brass. Moon'd. YOUNG. thro' gold unweighed Bent the moon'd arch. * Vide p. 10. LETTER Pillar'd. W. SCOTT. The pillar'd arches. Spanning. GRAHAME. stones below a shallow ford, Stood in the place of the now spanning arch. Wide-ribb'd. DARWIN. The wide-ribb'd arch with hurrying torrents fill. Stupendous. JAGO. Now with stupendous arches bridge the vale. Sculptur'd. POPE. Beneath a sculptur'd arch he sits. Trophy'd. DARWIN. The trophy'd arch had crumbled into dust. Triumphal. BROOME. Let vulgar souls triumphal arches raise. Sky-threatening. DRUMMOND. Sky-threatening arches, the rewards of worth, Broken. ROGERS. the shades of time serenely fall devoted to the glooms seek the portico's sussurant arch. Emerald. ROGERS. Dr Mr Blackwell OF WHITFIELD. From the Autograph Collection of a Lady. I hope ere now Your heart is entirely taken off Lumbard-street and fixed wholly on our Dr Lord Jesus. Pray tell me whether it be so, or not. I find nothing but tht, nothing but tht can satisfy my soul. That God may keep us both thus minded is the earnest prayer of New Brunswick April 28 1740 5 in ye morning Your affec: obliged Friend G. W. |