thirteen books concerning his own life,* and Tiberius, that came after him, did the same. Several others also of their Emperors wrote Ephemerises, or Diaries. And the same thing was done by divers persons of distinction, as well as those of an inferior rank and meaner figure, who lived and acted in a more private sphere. Marcus Antoninus, in the remarks he has made upon himself,‡ has really given us a master-piece.

We have yet extant, the Life of Flavius Josephus, the learned Jew, (who was a priest, and descended from those of the first rank of the four-andtwenty, which was reckoned honourable among those of their nation,) which was drawn up by himself when he was fifty-six years old, (which was exactly my own age at the time when the narrative ensuing was first begun,)§ and the reading of it helps us to understand both his History and Antiquities the better.

St. Gregory of Nazianzum, who was as eminent a divine as any among all the Fathers, (whom St. Hierome calls his master, saying that it was of him that he learned to explain the Scriptures,) wrote his own Life, in a poem, which remains in his works to this day. In the first part of it, he gives an ac

* Vossius, 1. i. c. 18.-C.

+ Ibid. 1. i. c. 24.-C.

Which now form the first Book of his Meditations.-ED. § In 1727. The author was born in 1671. See infra.—ED.

count of public transactions, from the time of his birth to his quitting the city of Constantinople, which account is both natural and elegant. He therein relates his public and most notable actions, and drops many things that help to explain to us the History of the Constantinopolitan Council, An. 381,* and the division between the Eastern and Western churches; and with freedom inveighs against the ignorance, pride, and corrupt manners of the bishops of that age. And, in the second part, he describes his own inward disposition, and touches upon morality. The first is in iambics, and the second in hexameter verses.

St. Austin, also, the famous bishop of Hippo, in Africa, in the ten first of his thirteen books of Confessions, gives us an admirable narrative of his own life, which has been, generally, as much valued as any part of his work.

And, among those who have lived in more modern times, there have been several in foreign parts, that have gratified such as came after them in the same way.

Cardan's Tract, De Vitâ Propri⇠has many things in it that are fantastical, others lewd, and some

See "The Lives of the Primitive Fathers, by Le Clerc,

done into English.”—(1701) pp. 260-267.—Ed.

+ Whom, in his "Carmen de Vita," (p. 28) he called Xpiséumopor, Mercatores Christi."-Ibid. p. 272.—ED.

First published 1654, and again 1663, among the author's works, in 10 vols. fol.-ED.

profane, and yet a great deal may be learned from it.* As for his horoscope of our blessed Saviour,

*"La nature lui accorda un esprit pénétrant, accompagné d'un caractère beaucoup moins heureux. Bizarre, inconstant, opinionâtre, il se piquoit comme Socrate, d'avoir un démon familier; mais son démon, s'il en eut un, fut moins sage que celui de Philosophe Grec.

"Dans l'histoire de sa vie, il avoue egalement ses bonnes, et ses mauvaises qualités, avec une franchise, peu commune. Il attribuoit à son étoile ses impiétés, ses méchancetés, ses déréglemens." Nouv, Dict. Hist. ii. 395, 396.

"He has collected," says Mr. Granger, "all the testimonies of his contemporaries relating to his own character, and has placed at the head of them, Testimonia de me." Biog. Hist. (1775,) i. 151.

In his Vita Propria, Cardan has given an interesting character of Edw. VI., written "after his death, when nothing was to be got by flattering." Burnet quotes the passage, which he has thus introduced:

"This year (1552,) Cardan, the great philosopher of that age, passed through England, as he returned from Scotland. The Archbishop of St. Andrew's had sent for him out of Italy, to cure him of a dropsy; in which he had good success. But being much conversant in astrology and magic, he told him he could not change his fate, and that he was to be hanged," (which happened in 1571.)

"He waited on king Edward, as he returned, and was so charmed with his great knowledge, and rare qualities, that he always spake of him as the rarest person he had ever seen." Hist. of Reform. (1738) ii. 167.

Dr. Robertson remarks, that "the Archbishop, it is probable, considered him as a powerful magician, when he applied to him for relief; but it was his knowledge as a philosopher, which enabled him to cure the disease."

From "a calculation of the Archbishop's nativity," (as he is said, also, to have calculated king Edward's,) "he pretends both to

of which the giddy-headed Vanini* had so great a fondness, it was to the full as weak, as it was audacious; and his remarks upon it, and the inferences he draws from it, are perfectly ridiculous. And they must needs be so, not only because nothing can be more precarious than the principles of judicial astro

have predicted his disease, and to have effected his cure. He received a reward of 1800 crowns." See " History of Scotland," (1776) i. 136.-ED.

Who is said to have "studied Cardan very much, and given him the character of a man of great sense, and not at all affected with superstition."-Gen. Biog. Dict. xii. 307.

Lucilio Vanini, a native of Italy was burnt, after his tongue had been cut out, at Tholouse, in 1619, at the age of 34, under a charge of Atheism. He had been imprisoned for a short time in London, in 1614, apparently on the same account.

The deportment of this victim to a barbarous zeal, unworthy of theism, has been very differently represented.

Bayle says that "Vanini, was, all along, exact enough in his conduct; and whoever had brought an action against him for any crime except his doctrine, had run a great risque of being convicted of slander."-Misc. Ref. ii. 356, 376.

On the other hand, from passages in his Dialogues, De admirandis Naturæ arcanis, it has been inferred, “ que Vannini étoit aussi licencieux dans ses moeurs que dans ses écrits."—Nouv. Dict. Hist. ix. 286, 287.

It has been maintained, with much plausibility, that Vanini, though not always "exact enough in his conduct," thus cruelly suffered, under an unjust imputation. He had the misfortune to live at a period, when "quiconque avait un secret dans un art, courait risque de passer pour un sorcier, et tout philosophe qui s'écartait du jargon de l'école, était accusé d'Atheisme, par les fanatiques et par les frippons, et condamné par les sots."--See "Questions sur l'Encyclopedie," (1771) ii. 207–212. --ED.

logy;* but also, because we neither have, nor can have, any certain knowledge either of the day, or hour of our Saviour's birth, the knowledge of which is supposed, in the horoscope drawn up.† And, withall, it was, most certainly a very affected thing in Cardan, to give so nice and exact an account of his own writings.

There are six books of Commentaries of the life of the celebrated historian, Jacobus Augustus Thuanus, which are added at the end of his history; but they seem not to have been so properly drawn up by himself, as to have been extracted out of such papers as he left behind him. They are filled with

See the Theological Works of Dr. Henry More, pp. 240, 241, &c.; M. Bayle's "Miscellaneous Reflections, occasioned by the Comet which appeared in December 1680," i. 27-29, &c.-C.

These pages form S. xvii. which proposes to show "that astrology, which is the foundation of particular predictions from the comets is most ridiculous." The The Reflections, chiefly tending to explode popular superstitions, written to a Doctor of the Sorbonne," were published in 1708, as "translated from the French."-ED.

+ Cardan died Sept. 21, 1576, aged 75, and is said to have abstained from food, "pour accomplir son horoscope."--Nouv. Dict. Hist. ii. 395.

"J. C. Scaliger affirms, that Cardan having fixed the time. of his death abstained from food, that his prediction might be fulfilled, and that his continuance to live might not discredit his art." Gen. Biog. Dict. iii. 145.-Ed.

Mr. Collinson (see supra, p. 3, note †) at the beginning of his "Life of Thuanus," mentions his "chief materials" as