In the university he was committed to the care of the learned Graevius, whose regard for his father inclined him to superintend his studies with more than common attention, which was soon confirmed and increased by his discoveries of the genius of his pupil, and his observation of his diligence.

One of the qualities which contributed eminently to qualify Graevius for an instructor of youth, was the sagacity by which he readily discovered the predominant faculty of each pupil, and the peculiar designation by which nature had allotted him to any species of literature, and by which he was soon able to determine, that Burman was remarkably adapted to classical studies, and predict the great advances that he would make, by industriously pursuing the direction of his genius.

Animated by the encouragement of a tutor so celebrated, he continued the vigour of his application, and, for several years, not only attended the lectures of Graevius, but made use of every other opportunity of improvement, with such diligence as might justly be expected to produce an uncommon proficiency.

Having thus attained a sufficient degree of classical knowledge to qualify him for inquiries into other sciences, he applied himself to the study of the law, and published a dissertation, de Vicesima Haereditatum, which he publickly defended, under the professor Van Muyden, with such learning and eloquence, as procured him great applause.

Imagining, then, that the conversation of other men of learning might be of use towards his further improvement, and rightly judging that notions formed in any single seminary are, for the greatest part, contracted and partial, he went to Leyden, where he studied philosophy for a year, under M. de Volder, whose celebrity was so great, that the schools assigned to the sciences, which it was his province to teach, were not sufficient, though very spacious, to contain the audience that crowded his lectures from all parts of Europe.

Yet he did not suffer himself to be engrossed by philosophical disquisitions, to the neglect of those studies in which he was more early engaged, and to which he was, perhaps, by nature better adapted; for he attended at the same time Ryckius's explanations of Tacitus, and James Gronovius's lectures on the Greek writers, and has often been heard to acknowledge, at an advanced age, the assistance which he received from them.

Having thus passed a year at Leyden with great advantage, he returned to Utrecht, and once more applied himself to philological studies, by the assistance of Graevius, whose early hopes of his genius were now raised to a full confidence of that excellence, at which he afterwards arrived.

At Utrecht, in March, 1688, in the twentieth year of his age, he was advanced to the degree of doctor of laws; on which occasion he published a learned dissertation, de Transactionibus, and defended it with his usual eloquence, learning, and success.

The attainment of this honour was far from having upon Burman that effect which has been too often observed to be produced in others, who, having in their own opinion no higher object of ambition, have relapsed into idleness and security, and spent the rest of their lives in a lazy enjoyment of their academical dignities. Burman aspired to further improvements, and, not satisfied with the opportunities of literary conversation which Utrecht afforded, travelled into Switzerland and Germany, where he gained an increase both of fame and learning.

At his return from this excursion, he engaged in the practice of the law, and pleaded several causes with such reputation, as might be hoped by a man who had joined to his knowledge of the law, the embellishments of polite literature, and the strict ratiocination of true philosophy; and who was able to employ, on every occasion, the graces of eloquence and the power of argumentation.

While Burman was hastening to high reputation in the courts of justice, and to those riches and honours which always follow it, he was summoned, in 1691, by the magistrates of Utrecht, to undertake the charge of collector of the tenths, an office, in that place, of great honour, and which he accepted, therefore, as a proof of their confidence and esteem.

While he was engaged in this employment, he married Eve Clotterboke, a young lady of a good family, and uncommon genius and beauty, by whom he had ten children, of which eight died young; and only two sons, Francis and Caspar, lived to console their mother for their father's death.

Neither publick business nor domestick cares detained Burman from the prosecution of his literary inquiries; by which he so much endeared himself to Graevius, that he Was recommended by him to the regard of the university of Utrecht, and, accordingly, in 1696, was chosen professor of eloquence and history, to which was added, after some time, the professorship of the Greek language, and afterwards that of politicks; so various did they conceive his abilities, and so extensive his knowledge.

At his entrance upon this new province, he pronounced an oration upon eloquence and poetry.

Having now more frequent opportunities of displaying his learning, he arose, in a short time, to a high reputation, of which the great number of his auditors was a sufficient proof, and which the proficiency of his pupils showed not to be accidental or undeserved.

In 1714, he formed a resolution of visiting Paris, not only for the sake of conferring, in person, upon questions of literature, with the learned men of that place, and of gratifying his curiosity with a more familiar knowledge of those writers whose works he admired, but with a view more important, of visiting the libraries, and making those inquiries which might be of advantage to his darling study.

The vacation of the university allowed him to stay at Paris but six weeks, which he employed with so much dexterity and industry, that he had searched the principal libraries, collated a great number of manuscripts and printed copies, and brought back a great treasure of curious observations.

In this visit to Paris he contracted an acquaintance, among other learned men, with the celebrated father Montfaucon; with whom he conversed, at his first interview, with no other character but that of a traveller; but, their discourse turning upon ancient learning, the stranger soon gave such proofs of his attainments, that Montfaucon declared him a very uncommon traveller, and confessed his curiosity to know his name; which he no sooner heard, than he rose from his seat, and, embracing him with the utmost ardour, expressed his satisfaction at having seen the man whose productions of various kinds he had so often praised; and, as a real proof of his regard, offered not only to procure him an immediate admission to all the libraries of Paris, but to those in remoter provinces, which are not generally open to strangers, and undertook to ease the expenses of his journey, by procuring him entertainment in all the monasteries of his order.

This favour Burman was hindered from accepting, by the necessity of returning to Utrecht at the usual time of beginning a new course of lectures, to which there was always so great a concourse of students, as much increased the dignity and fame of the university in which he taught.

He had already extended to distant parts his reputation for knowledge of ancient history, by a treatise, de Vectigalibus Populi Romani, on the revenues of the Romans; and for his skill in Greek learning, and in ancient coins, by a tract called Jupiter Fulgurator; and after his return from Paris, he published Plaedrus, first with the notes of various commentators, and afterwards with his own. He printed many poems, made many orations upon different subjects, and procured an impression of the epistles of Gudius and Sanavius.

While he was thus employed, the professorships of history, eloquence, and the Greek language, became vacant at Leyden, by the death of Perizonius, which Burman's reputation incited the curators of the university to offer him upon very generous terms, and which, after some struggles with his fondness for his native place, his friends, and his colleagues, he was prevailed on to accept, finding the solicitations from Leyden warm and urgent, and his friends at Utrecht, though unwilling to be deprived of him, yet not zealous enough for the honour and advantage of their university, to endeavour to detain him by great liberality.

At his entrance upon this new professorship, which was conferred upon him in 1715, he pronounced an oration upon the duty and office of a professor of polite literature; de publici humanioris disciplinae professoris proprio officio et munere; and showed, by the usefulness and perspicuity of his lectures, that he was not confined to speculative notions on that subject, having a very happy method of accommodating his instructions to the different abilities and attainments of his pupils.

Nor did he suffer the publick duties of this station to hinder him from promoting learning by labours of a different kind; for, besides many poems and orations, which he recited on different occasions, he wrote several prefaces to the works of others, and published many useful editions of the best Latin writers, with large collections of notes from various commentators.

He was twice rector, or chief governour of the university, and discharged that important office with equal equity and ability, and gained, by his conduct in every station, so much esteem, that when the professorship of history of the United Provinces became vacant, it was conferred on him, as an addition to his honours and revenues, which he might justly claim; and afterwards, as a proof of the continuance of their regard, and a testimony that his reputation was still increasing, they made him chief librarian, an office which was the more acceptable to him, as it united his business with his pleasure, and gave him an opportunity, at the same time, of superintending the library, and carrying on his studies.

Such was the course of his life, till, in his old age, leaving off his practice of walking, and other exercises, he began to be afflicted with the scurvy, which discovered itself by very tormenting symptoms of various kinds; sometimes disturbing his head with vertigos, sometimes causing faintness in his limbs, and sometimes attacking his legs with anguish so excruciating, that all his vigour was destroyed, and the power of walking entirely taken away, till, at length, his left foot became motionless. The violence of his pain produced irregular fevers, deprived him of rest, and entirely debilitated his whole frame.

This tormenting disease he bore, though not without some degree of impatience, yet without any unbecoming or irrational despondency, and applied himself in the intermission of his pains to seek for comfort in the duties of religion.

While he lay in this state of misery he received an account of the promotion of two of his grandsons, and a catalogue of the king of France's library, presented to him by the command of the king himself, and expressed some satisfaction on all these occasions; but soon diverted his thoughts to the more important consideration of his eternal state, into which he passed on the 31st of March, 1741, in the seventy-third year of his age.

He was a man of moderate stature, of great strength and activity, which he preserved by temperate diet, without medical exactness, and by allotting proportions of his time to relaxation and amusement, not suffering his studies to exhaust his strength, but relieving them by frequent intermissions; a practice consistent with the most exemplary diligence, and which he that omits will find at last, that time may be lost, like money, by unseasonable avarice.

In his hours of relaxation he was gay, and sometimes gave way so far to his temper, naturally satirical, that he drew upon himself the ill-will of those who had been unfortunately the subjects of his mirth; but enemies so provoked, he thought it beneath him to regard or to pacify; for he was fiery, but not malicious, disdained dissimulation, and in his gay or serious hours, preserved a settled detestation of falsehood. So that he was an open and undisguised friend or enemy, entirely unacquainted with the artifices of flatterers, but so judicious in the choice of friends, and so constant in his affection to them, that those with whom he had contracted familiarity in his youth, had, for the greatest part, his confidence in his old age.

His abilities, which would probably have enabled him to have excelled in any kind of learning, were chiefly employed, as his station required, on polite literature, in which he arrived at very uncommon knowledge; which, however, appears rather from judicious compilations, than original productions. His style is lively and masculine, but not without harshness and constraint, nor, perhaps, always polished to that purity, which some writers have attained. He was at least instrumental to the instruction of mankind, by the publication of many valuable performances, which lay neglected by the greatest part of the learned world; and, if reputation be estimated by usefulness, he may claim a higher degree in the ranks of learning, than some others of happier elocution, or more vigorous imagination.

The malice or suspicion of those who either did not know, or did not love him, had given rise to some doubts about his religion, which he took an opportunity of removing on his death-bed, by a voluntary declaration of his faith, his hope of everlasting salvation from the revealed promises of God, and his confidence in the merits of our Redeemer, of the sincerity of which declaration his whole behaviour in his long illness was an incontestable proof; and he concluded his life, which had been illustrious for many virtues, by exhibiting an example of true piety.

Of his works we have not been able to procure a complete catalogue: he published, Quintilianus, 2 vols. 4to; Valerius Flaccus; Ovidius, 4 vols. 4to; Poetae Latini Minores, 2 vols. 4to; cum notis variorum. Buchanani Opera, 2 vols. 4to [51].



SYDENHAM [52].

Thomas Sydenham was born in the year 1624, at Windford Eagle, in Dorsetshire, where his father, William Sydenham, esq. had a large fortune. Under whose care he was educated, or in what manner he passed his childhood, whether he made any early discoveries of a genius peculiarly adapted to the study of nature, or gave any presages of his future eminence in medicine, no information is to be obtained. We must, therefore, repress that curiosity, which would naturally incline us to watch the first attempts of so vigorous a mind, to pursue it in its childish inquiries, and see it struggling with rustick prejudices, breaking, on trifling occasions, the shackles of credulity, and giving proofs, in its casual excursions, that it was formed to shake off the yoke of prescription, and dispel the phantoms of hypothesis.

That the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy of his discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt; for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely related, that did not, in every part of life, discover the same proportion of intellectual vigour; but it has been the lot of the greatest part of those who have excelled in science, to be known only by their own writings, and to have left behind them no remembrance of their domestick life, or private transactions, or only such memorials of particular passages as are, on certain occasions, necessarily recorded in publick registers.

From these it is discovered, that, at the age of eighteen, in 1642, he commenced a commoner of Magdalen hall, in Oxford, where it is not probable that he continued long; for he informs us himself, that he was withheld from the university by the commencement of the war; nor is it known in what state of life he engaged, or where he resided during that long series of publick commotion. It is, indeed, reported, that he had a commission in the king's army, but no particular account is given of his military conduct; nor are we told what rank he obtained, when he entered into the army, or when, or on what occasion, he retired from it.

It is, however, certain, that if ever he took upon him the profession of arms, he spent but few years in the camp; for, in 1648, he obtained, at Oxford, the degree of bachelor of physick, for which, as some medicinal knowledge is necessary, it may be imagined that he spent some time in qualifying himself.

His application to the study of physick was, as he himself relates, produced by an accidental acquaintance with Dr. Cox, a physician, eminent at that time in London, who in some sickness prescribed to his brother, and attending him frequently on that occasion, inquired of him what profession he designed to follow. The young man answering that he was undetermined, the doctor recommended physick to him, on what account, or with what arguments, it is not related; but his persuasions were so effectual, that Sydenham determined to follow his advice, and retired to Oxford for leisure and opportunity to pursue his studies.

It is evident that this conversation must have happened before his promotion to any degree in physick, because he himself fixes it in the interval of his absence from the university, a circumstance which will enable us to confute many false reports relating to Dr. Sydenham, which have been confidently inculcated, and implicitly believed. It is the general opinion, that he was made a physician by accident and necessity, and sir Richard Blackmore reports, in plain terms, [preface to his Treatise on the Small Pox,] that he engaged in practice, without any preparatory study, or previous knowledge, of the medicinal sciences; and affirms, that when he was consulted by him what books he should read to qualify him for the same profession, he recommended Don Quixote.

That he recommended Don Quixote to Blackmore, we are not allowed to doubt; but the relater is hindered by that self-love, which dazzles all mankind, from discovering that he might intend a satire very different from a general censure of all the ancient and modern writers on medicine, since he might, perhaps, mean, either seriously or in jest, to insinuate, that Blackmore was not adapted by nature to the study of physick, and that, whether he should read Cervantes or Hippocrates, he would be equally unqualified for practice, and equally unsuccessful in it.

Whatsoever was his meaning, nothing is more evident, than that it was a transient sally of an imagination warmed with gaiety, or the negligent effusion of a mind intent upon some other employment, and in haste to dismiss a troublesome intruder; for it is certain that Sydenham did not think it impossible to write usefully on medicine, because he has himself written upon it; and it is not probable that he carried his vanity so far, as to imagine that no man had ever acquired the same qualifications besides himself. He could not but know that he rather restored, than invented most of his principles, and, therefore, could not but acknowledge the value of those writers whose doctrines he adopted and enforced.

That he engaged in the practice of physick without any acquaintance with the theory, or knowledge of the opinions or precepts of former writers, is undoubtedly false; for he declares, that, after he had, in pursuance of his conversation with Dr. Cox, determined upon the profession of physick, he "applied himself in earnest to it, and spent several years in the university," (aliquot annos in academica palaestra,) before he began to practise in London.

Nor was he satisfied with the opportunities of knowledge which Oxford afforded, but travelled to Montpellier, as Desault relates, [Dissertation on Consumptions,] in quest of further information; Montpellier, being at that time, the most celebrated school of physick: so far was Sydenham from any contempt of academical institutions, and so far from thinking it reasonable to learn physick by experiments alone, which must necessarily be made at the hazard of life.

What can be demanded beyond this by the most zealous advocate for regular education? What can be expected from the most cautious and most industrious student, than that he should dedicate several years to the rudiments of his art, and travel for further instructions from one university to another?

It is likewise a common opinion, that Sydenham was thirty years old, before he formed his resolution of studying physick, for which I can discover no other foundation than one expression in his dedication to Dr. Mapletoft, which seems to have given rise to it, by a gross misinterpretation; for he only observes, that from his conversation with Dr. Cox to the publication of that treatise, thirty years had intervened.

Whatever may have produced this notion, or how long soever it may have prevailed, it is now proved, beyond controversy, to be false; since it appears that Sydenham, having been for some time absent from the university, returned to it, in order to pursue his physical inquiries, before he was twenty-four years old; for, in 1648, he was admitted to the degree of bachelor of physick.

That such reports should be confidently spread, even among the contemporaries of the author to whom they relate, and obtain, in a few years, such credit as to require a regular confutation; that it should be imagined that the greatest physician of the age arrived at so high a degree of skill, without any assistance from his predecessors; and that a man, eminent for integrity, practised medicine by chance, and grew wise only by murder; is not to be considered without astonishment.

But if it be, on the other part, remembered, how much this opinion favours the laziness of some, and the pride of others; how readily some men confide in natural sagacity; and how willingly most would spare themselves the labour of accurate reading and tedious inquiry; it will be easily discovered, how much the interest of multitudes was engaged in the production and continuance of this opinion, and how cheaply those, of whom it was known that they practised physick before they studied it, might satisfy themselves and others with the example of the illustrious Sydenham.

It is, therefore, in an uncommon degree useful to publish a true account of this memorable man, that pride, temerity, and idleness, may be deprived of that patronage which they have enjoyed too long; that life may be secured from the dangerous experiments of the ignorant and presumptuous; and that those, who shall, hereafter, assume the important province of superintending the health of others, may learn, from this great master of the art, that the only means of arriving at eminence and success are labour and study.

From these false reports it is probable that another arose, to which, though it cannot be with equal certainty confuted, it does not appear that entire credit ought to be given. The acquisition of a Latin style did not seem consistent with the manner of life imputed to him; nor was it probable, that he, who had so diligently cultivated the ornamental parts of general literature, would have neglected the essential studies of his own profession. Those, therefore, who were determined, at whatever price, to retain him in their own party, and represent him equally ignorant and daring with themselves, denied him the credit of writing his own works in the language in which they were published, and asserted, but without proof, that they were composed by him in English, and translated into Latin by Dr. Mapletoft.

Whether Dr. Mapletoft lived and was familiar with him, during the whole time in which these several treatises were printed, treatises written on particular occasions, and printed at periods considerably distant from each other, we have had no opportunity of inquiring, and, therefore, cannot demonstrate the falsehood of this report; but if it be considered how unlikely it is, that any man should engage in a work so laborious and so little necessary, only to advance the reputation of another, or that he should have leisure to continue the same office upon all following occasions; if it be remembered how seldom such literary combinations are formed, and how soon they are, for the greatest part, dissolved, there will appear no reason for not allowing Dr. Sydenham the laurel of eloquence, as well as physick [53].

It is observable, that his Processus Integri, published after his death, discovers alone more skill in the Latin language than is commonly ascribed to him; and it surely will not be suspected, that the officiousness of his friends was continued after his death, or that he procured the book to be translated, only that, by leaving it behind him, he might secure his claim to his other writings.

It is asserted by sir Hans Sloane, that Dr. Sydenham, with whom he was familiarly acquainted, was particularly versed in the writings of the great Roman orator and philosopher; and there is evidently such a luxuriance in his style, as may discover the author which gave him most pleasure, and most engaged his imitation.

About the same time that he became bachelor of physick, he obtained, by the interest of a relation, a fellowship of All Souls' college, having submitted, by the subscription required, to the authority of the visitors appointed by the parliament, upon what principles, or how consistently with his former conduct, it is now impossible to discover.

When he thought himself qualified for practice, he fixed his residence in Westminster, became doctor of physick at Cambridge, received a license from the college of physicians, and lived in the first degree of reputation, and the greatest affluence of practice, for many years, without any other enemies than those which he raised by the superiour merit of his conduct, the brighter lustre of his abilities, or his improvements of his science, and his contempt of pernicious methods, supported only by authority, in opposition to sound reason and indubitable experience. These men are indebted to him for concealing their names, when he records their malice, since they have, thereby, escaped the contempt and detestation of posterity.

It is a melancholy reflection, that they who have obtained the highest reputation, by preserving or restoring the health of others, have often been hurried away before the natural decline of life, or have passed many of their years under the torments of those distempers which they profess to relieve. In this number was Sydenham, whose health began to fail in the fifty-second year of his age, by the frequent attacks of the gout, to which he was subject for a great part of his life, and which was afterwards accompanied with the stone in the kidneys, and, its natural consequence, bloody urine.

These were distempers which even the art of Sydenham could only palliate, without hope of a perfect cure, but which, if he has not been able by his precepts to instruct us to remove, he has, at least, by his example, taught us to bear; for he never betrayed any indecent impatience, or unmanly dejection, under his torments, but supported himself by the reflections of philosophy, and the consolations of religion; and in every interval of ease applied himself to the assistance of others with his usual assiduity.

After a life thus usefully employed, he died at his house in Pall-mall, on the 29th of December, 1689, and was buried in the aisle, near the south door of the church of St. James, in Westminster.

What was his character, as a physician, appears from the treatises which he has left, which it is not necessary to epitomise or transcribe; and from them it may likewise be collected, that his skill in physick was not his highest excellence; that his whole character was amiable; that his chief view was the benefit of mankind, and the chief motive of his actions, the will of God, whom he mentions with reverence, well becoming the most enlightened and most penetrating mind. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere, and religious; qualities, which it were happy, if they could copy from him, who emulate his knowledge, and imitate his methods.



CHEYNEL [54].

There is always this advantage in contending with illustrious adversaries, that the combatant is equally immortalized by conquest or defeat. He that dies by the sword of a hero will always be mentioned, when the acts of his enemy are mentioned. The man, of whose life the following account is offered to the publick, was, indeed, eminent among his own party, and had qualities, which, employed in a good cause, would have given him some claim to distinction; but no one is now so much blinded with bigotry, as to imagine him equal either to Hammond or Chillingworth; nor would his memory, perhaps, have been preserved, had he not, by being conjoined with illustrious names, become the object of publick curiosity.

Francis Cheynel was born in 1608, at Oxford [55], where his father, Dr. John Cheynel, who had been fellow of Corpus Christi college, practised physick with great reputation. He was educated in one of the grammar schools of his native city, and, in the beginning of the year 1623, became a member of the university.

It is probable, that he lost his father when he was very young; for it appears, that before 1629, his mother had married Dr. Abbot, bishop of Salisbury, whom she had likewise buried. From this marriage he received great advantage; for his mother, being now allied to Dr. Brent, then warden of Merton college, exerted her interest so vigorously, that he was admitted there a probationer, and afterwards obtained a fellowship [56].

Having taken the degree of master of arts, he was admitted to orders, according to the rites of the church of England, and held a curacy near Oxford, together with his fellowship. He continued in his college, till he was qualified, by his years of residence, for the degree of bachelor of divinity, which he attempted to take in 1641, but was denied his grace [57], for disputing concerning predestination, contrary to the king's injunctions.

This refusal of his degree he mentions in his dedication to his account of Mr. Chillingworth: "Do not conceive that I snatch up my pen in an angry mood, that I might vent my dangerous wit, and ease my overburdened spleen; no, no, I have almost forgotten the visitation of Merton college, and the denial of my grace, the plundering of my house, and little library: I know when, and where, and of whom, to demand satisfaction for all these injuries and indignities. I have learnt 'centum plagas Spartana nobilitate concoquere.' I have not learnt how to plunder others of goods, or living, and make myself amends by force of arms. I will not take a living which belonged to any civil, studious, learned delinquent; unless it be the much-neglected commendam of some lordly prelate, condemned by the known laws of the land, and the highest court of the kingdom, for some offence of the first magnitude."

It is observable, that he declares himself to have almost forgot his injuries and indignities, though he recounts them with an appearance of acrimony, which is no proof that the impression is much weakened; and insinuates his design of demanding, at a proper time, satisfaction for them.

These vexations were the consequence rather of the abuse of learning, than the want of it; no one that reads his works can doubt that he was turbulent, obstinate, and petulant; and ready to instruct his superiours, when he most needed instruction from them. Whatever he believed (and the warmth of his imagination naturally made him precipitate in forming his opinions) he thought himself obliged to profess; and what he professed he was ready to defend, without that modesty which is always prudent, and generally necessary, and which, though it was not agreeable to Mr. Cheynel's temper, and, therefore, readily condemned by him, is a very useful associate to truth, and often introduces her, by degrees, where she never could have forced her way by argument or declamation.

A temper of this kind is generally inconvenient and offensive in any society, but in a place of education is least to be tolerated; for, as authority is necessary to instruction, whoever endeavours to destroy subordination, by weakening that reverence which is claimed by those to whom the guardianship of youth is committed by their country, defeats, at once, the institution; and may be justly driven from a society, by which he thinks himself too wise to be governed, and in which he is too young to teach, and too opinionative to learn.

This may be readily supposed to have been the case of Cheynel; and I know not how those can be blamed for censuring his conduct, or punishing his disobedience, who had a right to govern him, and who might certainly act with equal sincerity, and with greater knowledge.

With regard to the visitation of Merton college, the account is equally obscure. Visitors are well known to be generally called to regulate the affairs of colleges, when the members disagree with their head, or with one another; and the temper that Dr. Cheynel discovers will easily incline his readers to suspect, that he could not long live in any place, without finding some occasion for debate; nor debate any question, without carrying opposition to such a length as might make a moderator necessary. Whether this was his conduct at Merton, or whether an appeal to the visiter's authority was made by him, or his adversaries, or any other member of the college, is not to be known; it appears only, that there was a visitation, that he suffered by it, and resented his punishment.

He was afterwards presented to a living of great value, near Banbury, where he had some dispute with archbishop Laud. Of this dispute I have found no particular account. Calamy only says, he had a ruffle with bishop Laud, while at his height.

Had Cheynel been equal to his adversary in greatness and learning, it had not been easy to have found either a more proper opposite; for they were both, to the last degree, zealous, active, and pertinacious, and would have afforded mankind a spectacle of resolution and boldness not often to be seen. But the amusement of beholding the struggle would hardly have been without danger, as they were too fiery not to have communicated their heat, though it should have produced a conflagration of their country.

About the year 1641, when the whole nation was engaged in the controversy about the rights of the church, and necessity of episcopacy, he declared himself a presbyterian, and an enemy to bishops, liturgies, ceremonies; and was considered, as one of the most learned and acute of his party; for, having spent much of his life in a college, it cannot be doubted that he had a considerable knowledge of books, which the vehemence of his temper enabled him often to display, when a more timorous man would have been silent, though in learning not his inferiour.

When the war broke out, Mr. Cheynel, in consequence of his principles, declared himself for the parliament; and, as he appears to have held it as a first principle, that all great and noble spirits abhor neutrality, there is no doubt but that he exerted himself to gain proselytes, and to promote the interest of that party, which he had thought it his duty to espouse. These endeavours were so much regarded by the parliament, that, having taken the covenant, he was nominated one of the assembly of divines, who were to meet at Westminster for the settlement of the new discipline.

This distinction drew, necessarily, upon him the hatred of the cavaliers; and his living being not far distant from the king's head-quarters, he received a visit from some of the troops, who, as he affirms, plundered his house, and drove him from it. His living, which was, I suppose, considered as forfeited by his absence, though he was not suffered to continue upon it, was given to a clergyman, of whom he says, that he would become a stage better than a pulpit; a censure which I can neither confute nor admit, because I have not discovered who was his successour. He then retired into Sussex, to exercise his ministry among his friends, in a place where, as he observes, there had been little of the power of religion either known or practised. As no reason can be given why the inhabitants of Sussex should have less knowledge or virtue than those of other places, it may be suspected that he means nothing more than a place where the presbyterian discipline or principles had never been received. We now observe, that the methodists, where they scatter their opinions, represent themselves, as preaching the gospel to unconverted nations; and enthusiasts of all kinds have been inclined to disguise their particular tenets with pompous appellations, and to imagine themselves the great instruments of salvation; yet it must be confessed, that all places are not equally enlightened; that in the most civilized nations there are many corners which may be called barbarous, where neither politeness, nor religion, nor the common arts of life, have yet been cultivated; and it is likewise certain, that the inhabitants of Sussex huve been sometimes mentioned as remarkable for brutality.

From Sussex he went often to London, where, in 1643, he preached three times before the parliament; and, returning in November to Colchester, to keep the monthly fast there, as was his custom, he obtained a convoy of sixteen soldiers, whose bravery or good fortune was such, that they faced, and put to flight, more than two hundred of the king's forces.

In this journey he found Mr. Chillingworth in the hands of the parliament's troops, of whose sickness and death he gave the account, which has been sufficiently made known to the learned world by Mr. Maizeaux, in his Life of Chillingworth.

With regard to this relation, it may be observed, that it is written with an air of fearless veracity, and with the spirit of a man who thinks his cause just, and his behaviour without reproach; nor does there appear any reason for doubting that Cheynel spoke and acted as he relates; for he does not publish an apology, but a challenge, and writes not so much to obviate calumnies, as to gain from others that applause which he seems to have bestowed very liberally upon himself, for his behaviour on that occasion.

Since, therefore, this relation is credible, a great part of it being supported by evidence which cannot be refuted, Mr. Maizeaux seems very justly, in his Life of Mr. Chillingworth, to oppose the common report, that his life was shortened by the inhumanity of those to whom he was a prisoner; for Cheynel appears to have preserved, amidst all his detestation of the opinions which he imputed to him, a great kindness to his person, and veneration for his capacity; nor does he appear to have been cruel to him, otherwise than by that incessant importunity of disputation, to which he was doubtless incited by a sincere belief of the danger of his soul, if he should die without renouncing some of his opinions.

The same kindness which made him desirous to convert him before his death, would incline him to preserve him from dying before he was converted; and accordingly we find, that, when the castle was yielded, he took care to procure him a commodious lodging; when he was to have been unseasonably removed, he attempted to shorten his journey, which he knew would be dangerous; when the physician was disgusted by Chillingworth's distrust, he prevailed upon him, as the symptoms grew more dangerous, to renew his visits; and when death left no other act of kindness to be practised, procured him the rites of burial, which some would have denied him.

Having done thus far justice to the humanity of Cheynel, it is proper to inquire, how far he deserves blame. He appears to have extended none of that kindness to the opinions of Chillingworth, which he showed to his person; for he interprets every word in the worst sense, and seems industrious to discover, in every line, heresies, which might have escaped for ever any other apprehension: he appears always suspicious of some latent malignity, and ready to persecute what he only suspects, with the same violence, as if it had been openly avowed: in all his procedure he shows himself sincere, but without candour.

About this time Cheynel, in pursuance of his natural ardour, attended the army under the command of the earl of Essex, and added the praise of valour to that of learning; for he distinguished himself so much by his personal bravery, and obtained so much skill in the science of war, that his commands were obeyed by the colonels with as much respect as those of the general. He seems, indeed, to have been born a soldier; for he had an intrepidity which was never to be shaken by any danger, and a spirit of enterprise not to be discouraged by difficulty, which were supported by an unusual degree of bodily strength. His services of all kinds were thought of so much importance ty the parliament, that they bestowed upon him the living of Petworth, in Sussex. This living was of the value of seven hundred pounds per annum, from which they had ejected a man remarkable for his loyalty, and, therefore, in their opinion, not worthy of such revenues. And it may be inquired, whether, in accepting this preferment, Cheynel did not violate the protestation which he makes in the passage already recited, and whether he did not suffer his resolutions to be overborne by the temptations of wealth.

In 1646, when Oxford was taken by the forces of the parliament, and the reformation of the university was resolved, Mr. Cheynel was sent, with six others, to prepare the way for a visitation; being authorized by the parliament to preach in any of the churches, without regard to the right of the members of the university, that their doctrine might prepare their hearers for the changes which were intended.

When they arrived at Oxford, they began to execute their commission, by possessing themselves of the pulpits; but, if the relation of Wood [58] is to be regarded, were heard with very little veneration. Those who had been accustomed to the preachers of Oxford, and the liturgy of the church of England, were offended at the emptiness of their discourses, which were noisy and unmeaning; at the unusual gestures, the wild distortions, and the uncouth tone with which they were delivered; at the coldness of their prayers for the king, and the vehemence and exuberance of those which they did not fail to utter for the blessed councils and actions of the parliament and army; and at, what was surely not to be remarked without indignation, their omission of the Lord's prayer.

But power easily supplied the want of reverence, and they proceeded in their plan of reformation; and thinking sermons not so efficacious to conversion as private interrogatories and exhortations, they established a weekly meeting for freeing tender consciences from scruple, at a house that, from the business to which it was appropriated, was called the scruple-shop.

With this project they were so well pleased, that they sent to the parliament an account of it, which was afterwards printed, and is ascribed, by Wood, to Mr. Cheynel. They continued for some weeks to hold their meetings regularly, and to admit great numbers, whom curiosity, or a desire of conviction, or a compliance with the prevailing party, brought thither. But their tranquillity was quickly disturbed by the turbulence of the independents, whose opinions then prevailed among the soldiers, and were very industriously propagated by the discourses of William Earbury, a preacher of great reputation among them, who one day gathering a considerable number of his most zealous followers, went to the house appointed for the resolution of scruples, on a day which was set apart for the disquisition of the dignity and office of a minister, and began to dispute, with great vehemence, against the presbyterians, whom he denied to have any true ministers among them, and whose assemblies he affirmed not to be the true church. He was opposed with equal heat by the presbyterians, and, at length, they agreed to examine the point another day, in a regular disputation. Accordingly, they appointed the 12th of November for an inquiry: "Whether, in the christian church, the office of minister is committed to any particular persons?"

On the day fixed, the antagonists appeared, each attended by great numbers; but, when the question was proposed, they began to wrangle, not about the doctrine which they had engaged to examine, but about the terms of the proposition, which the independents alleged to be changed since their agreement; and, at length, the soldiers insisted that the question should be, "Whether those who call themselves ministers, have more right or power to preach the gospel, than any other man that is a christian?" This question was debated, for some time, with great vehemence and confusion, but without any prospect of a conclusion. At length, one of the soldiers, who thought they had an equal right with the rest to engage in the controversy, demanded of the presbyterians, whence they themselves received their orders, whether from bishops, or any other persons. This unexpected interrogatory put them to great difficulties; for it happened that they were all ordained by the bishops, which they durst not acknowledge, for fear of exposing themselves to a general censure, and being convicted from their own declarations, in which they had frequently condemned episcopacy, as contrary to Christianity; nor durst they deny it, because they might have been confuted, and must, at once, have sunk into contempt. The soldiers, seeing their perplexity, insulted them; and went away, boasting of their victory; nor did the presbyterians, for some time, recover spirit enough to renew their meetings, or to proceed in the work of easing consciences.

Earbury, exulting at the victory, which, not his own abilities, but the subtlety of the soldier had procured him, began to vent his notions of every kind, without scruple, and, at length, asserted, that "the saints had an equal measure of the divine nature with our Saviour, though not equally manifest." At the same time he took upon him the dignity of a prophet, and began to utter predictions relating to the affairs of England and Ireland.

His prophecies were not much regarded, but his doctrine was censured by the presbyterians in their pulpits; and Mr. Cheynel challenged him to a disputation, to which he agreed, and, at his first appearance in St. Mary's church, addressed his audience in the following manner:

"Christian friends, kind fellow-soldiers, and worthy students, I, the humble servant of all mankind, am this day drawn, against my will, out of my cell into this publick assembly, by the double chain of accusation and a challenge from the pulpit. I have been charged with heresy; I have been challenged to come hither, in a letter written by Mr. Francis Cheynel. Here, then, I stand in defence of myself and my doctrine, which I shall introduce with only this declaration, that I claim not the office of a minister on account of any outward call, though I formerly received ordination, nor do I boast of illumination, or the knowledge of our Saviour, though I have been held in esteem by others, and formerly by myself; for I now declare, that I know nothing, and am nothing, nor would I be thought of otherwise than as an inquirer and seeker."

He then advanced his former position in stronger terms, and with additions equally detestable, which Cheynel attacked with the vehemence which, in so warm a temper, such horrid assertions might naturally excite. The dispute, frequently interrupted by the clamours of the audience, and tumults raised to disconcert Cheynel, who was very unpopular, continued about four hours, and then both the controvertists grew weary, and retired. The presbyterians afterwards thought they should more speedily put an end to the heresies of Earbury by power than by argument; and, by soliciting general Fairfax, procured his removal.

Mr. Cheynel published an account of this dispute, under the title of, Faith triumphing over Errour and Heresy, in a Revelation, &c.; nor can it be doubted but he had the victory, where his cause gave him so great superiority.

Somewhat before this, his captious and petulant disposition engaged him in a controversy, from which he could not expect to gain equal reputation. Dr. Hammond had, not long before, published his Practical Catechism, in which Mr. Cheynel, according to his custom, found many errours implied, if not asserted; and, therefore, as it was much read, thought it convenient to censure it in the pulpit. Of this Dr. Hammond being informed, desired him, in a letter, to communicate his objections; to which Mr. Cheynel returned an answer, written with his usual temper, and, therefore, somewhat perverse. The controversy was drawn out to a considerable length; and the papers, on both sides, were afterwards made publick by Dr. Hammond.

In 1647, it was determined by parliament, that the reformation of Oxford should be more vigorously carried on; and Mr. Cheynel was nominated one of the visiters. The general process of the visitation, the firmness and fidelity of the students, the address by which the inquiry was delayed, and the steadiness with which it was opposed, which are very particularly related by Wood, and after him by Walker, it is not necessary to mention here, as they relate not more to Mr. Cheynel's life than to those of his associates.

There is, indeed, some reason to believe that he was more active and virulent than the rest, because he appears to have been charged, in a particular manner, with some of their most unjustifiable measures. He was accused of proposing, that the members of the university should be denied the assistance of counsel, and was lampooned by name, as a madman, in a satire written on the visitation.

One action, which shows the violence of his temper, and his disregard, both of humanity and decency, when they came in competition with his passions, must not be forgotten. The visiters, being offended at the obstinacy of Dr. Fell, dean of Christchurch, and vicechancellor of the university, having first deprived him of his vicechancellorship, determined afterwards to dispossess him of his deanery; and, in the course of their proceedings, thought it proper to seize upon his chambers in the college. This was an act which most men would willingly have referred to the officers to whom the law assigned it; but Cheynel's fury prompted him to a different conduct. He, and three more of the visiters, went and demanded admission; which, being steadily refused them, they obtained by the assistance of a file of soldiers, who forced the doors with pick-axes. Then entering, they saw Mrs. Fell in the lodgings, Dr. Fell being in prison at London, and ordered her to quit them, but found her not more obsequious than her husband. They repeated their orders with menaces, but were not able to prevail upon her to remove. They then retired, and left her exposed to the brutality of the soldiers, whom they commanded to keep possession, which Mrs. Fell, however, did not leave. About nine days afterwards, she received another visit of the same kind from the new chancellor, the earl of Pembroke; who having, like the others, ordered her to depart without effect, treated her with reproachful language, and, at last, commanded the soldiers to take her up in her chair, and carry her out of doors. Her daughters, and some other gentlewomen that were with her, were afterwards treated in the same manner; one of whom predicted, without dejection, that she should enter the house again with less difficulty, at some other time; nor was she mistaken in her conjecture, for Dr. Fell lived to be restored to his deanery.

At the reception of the chancellor, Cheynel, as the most accomplished of the visiters, had the province of presenting him with the ensigns of his office, some of which were counterfeit, and addressing him with a proper oration. Of this speech, which Wood has preserved, I shall give some passages, by which a judgment may be made of his oratory.

Of the staves of the beadles he observes, that "some are stained with double guilt, that some are pale with fear, and that others have been made use of as crutches, for the support of bad causes and desperate fortunes;" and he remarks of the book of statutes which he delivers, that "the ignorant may, perhaps, admire the splendour of the cover, but the learned know that the real treasure is within." Of these two sentences it is easily discovered, that the first is forced and unnatural, and the second trivial and low.

Soon afterwards Mr. Cheynel was admitted to the degree of bachelor of divinity, for which his grace had been denied him in 1641, and, as he then suffered for an ill-timed assertion of the presbyterian doctrines, he obtained that his degree should be dated from the time at which he was refused it; an honour which, however, did not secure him from being soon after publickly reproached as a madman.

But the vigour of Cheynel was thought, by his companions, to deserve profit, as well as honour; and Dr. Bailey, the president of St. John's college, being not more obedient to the authority of the parliament than the rest, was deprived of his revenues and authority, with which Mr. Cheynel was immediately invested; who, with his usual coolness and modesty, took possession of the lodgings soon after by breaking open the doors.

This preferment being not thought adequate to the deserts or abilities of Mr. Cheynel, it was, therefore, desired, by the committee of parliament, that the visiters would recommend him to the lectureship of divinity, founded by the lady Margaret. To recommend him, and to choose, was, at that time, the same; and he had now the pleasure of propagating his darling doctrine of predestination, without interruption, and without danger.

Being thus flushed with power and success, there is little reason for doubting that he gave way to his natural vehemence, and indulged himself in the utmost excesses of raging zeal, by which he was, indeed, so much distinguished, that, in a satire mentioned by Wood, he is dignified by the title of archvisiter; an appellation which he seems to have been industrious to deserve by severity and inflexibility; for, not contented with the commission which he and his colleagues had already received, he procured six or seven of the members of parliament to meet privately in Mr. Rouse's lodgings, and assume the style and authority of a committee, and from them obtained a more extensive and tyrannical power, by which the visitors were enabled to force the solemn league and covenant, and the negative oath upon all the members of the university, and to prosecute those for a contempt who did not appear to a citation, at whatever distance they might be, and whatever reasons they might assign for their absence.

By this method he easily drove great numbers from the university, whose places he supplied with men of his own opinion, whom he was very industrious to draw from other parts, with promises of making a liberal provision for them out of the spoils of hereticks and malignants.

Having, in time, almost extirpated those opinions which he found so prevalent at his arrival, or, at least, obliged those, who would not recant, to an appearance of conformity, he was at leisure for employments which deserve to be recorded with greater commendation. About this time, many socinian writers began to publish their notions with great boldness, which the presbyterians, considering as heretical and impious, thought it necessary to confute; and, therefore, Cheynel, who had now obtained his doctor's degree, was desired, in 1649, to write a vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, which he performed, and published the next year.

He drew up, likewise, a confutation of some socinian tenets advanced by John Fry, a man who spent great part of his life in ranging from one religion to another, and who sat as one of the judges on the king, but was expelled afterwards from the house of commons, and disabled from sitting in parliament. Dr. Cheynel is said to have shown himself evidently superiour to him in the controversy, and was answered by him only with an opprobrious book against the presbyterian clergy.

Of the remaining part of his life, there is found only an obscure and confused account. He quitted the presidentship of St. John's, and the professorship, in 1650, as Calamy relates, because he would not take the engagement; and gave a proof that he could suffer, as well as act, in a cause which he believed just. We have, indeed, no reason to question his resolution, whatever occasion might be given to exert it; nor is it probable that he feared affliction more than danger, or that he would not have borne persecution himself for those opinions which inclined him to persecute others.

He did not suffer much upon this occasion; for he retained the living of Petworth, to which he, thenceforward, confined his labours, and where he was very assiduous, and, as Calamy affirms, very successful in the exercise of his ministry, it being his peculiar character to be warm and zealous in all his undertakings.

This heat of his disposition, increased by the uncommon turbulence of the times in which he lived, and by the opposition to which the unpopular nature of some of his employments exposed him, was, at last, heightened to distraction, so that he was, for some years, disordered in his understanding, as both Wood and Calamy relate, but with such difference as might be expected from their opposite principles. Wood appears to think, that a tendency to madness was discoverable in a great part of his life; Calamy, that it was only transient and accidental, though, in his additions to his first narrative, he pleads it, as an extenuation of that fury with which his kindest friends confess him to have acted on some occasions. Wood declares, that he died little better than distracted; Calamy, that he was perfectly recovered to a sound mind, before the restoration, at which time he retired to Preston, a small village in Sussex, being turned out of his living at Petworth.

It does not appear that he kept his living till the general ejection of the nonconformists; and it is not unlikely that the asperity of his carriage, and the known virulence of his temper, might have raised him enemies, who were willing to make him feel the effects of persecution, which he had so furiously incited against others; but of this incident of his life there is no particular account.

After his deprivation, he lived, till his death, which happened in 1665, at a small village near Chichester, upon a paternal estate, not augmented by the large preferments wasted upon him in the triumphs of his party; having been remarkable, throughout his life, for hospitality and contempt of money.



CAVE [59].

The curiosity of the publick seems to demand the history of every man who has, by whatever means, risen to eminence; and few lives would have more readers than that of the compiler of the Gentleman's Magazine, if all those who received improvement or entertainment from him should retain so much kindness for their benefactor, as to inquire after his conduct and character.

Edward Cave was born at Newton, in Warwickshire, Feb. 29, 1691. His father (Joseph) was the younger son of Mr. Edward Cave, of Cave's-in-the-Hole, a lone house, on the Street road, in the same county, which took its name from the occupier; but having concurred with his elder brother in cutting off the entail of a small hereditary estate, by which act it was lost from the family, he was reduced to follow, in Rugby, the trade of a shoemaker. He was a man of good reputation in his narrow circle, and remarkable for strength and rustick intrepidity. He lived to a great age, and was, in his latter years, supported by his son.

It was fortunate for Edward Cave, that, having a disposition to literary attainments, he was not cut off by the poverty of his parents from opportunities of cultivating his faculties. The school of Rugby, in which he had, by the rules of its foundation, a right to be instructed, was then in high reputation under the reverend Mr. Holyock, to whose care most of the neighbouring families, even of the highest rank, intrusted their sons. He had judgment to discover, and, for some time, generosity to encourage, the genius of young Cave; and was so well pleased with his quick progress in the school, that he declared his resolution to breed him for the university, and recommended him, as a servitor, to some of his scholars of high rank. But prosperity which depends upon the caprice of others, is of short duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations; and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem, when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault was sure to fall upon poor Cave.

At last, his mistress, by some invisible means, lost a favourite cock. Cave was, with little examination, stigmatised as the thief and murderer; not because he was more apparently criminal than others, but because he was more easily reached by vindictive justice. From that time, Mr. Holyock withdrew his kindness visibly from him, and treated him with harshness, which the crime, in its utmost aggravation, could scarcely deserve; and which, surely, he would have forborne, had he considered how hardly the habitual influence of birth and fortune is resisted; and how frequently men, not wholly without sense of virtue, are betrayed to acts more atrocious than the robbery of a hen-roost, by a desire of pleasing their superiours.

Those reflections his master never made, or made without effect; for, under pretence that Cave obstructed the discipline of the school, by selling clandestine assistance, and supplying exercises to idlers, he was oppressed with unreasonable tasks, that there might be an opportunity of quarrelling with his failure; and when his diligence had surmounted them, no regard was paid to the performance. Cave bore this persecution awhile, and then left the school, and the hope of a literary education, to seek some other means of gaining a livelihood.

He was first placed with a collector of the excise. He used to recount, with some pleasure, a journey or two which he rode with him as his clerk, and relate the victories that he gained over the excisemen in grammatical disputations. But the insolence of his mistress, who employed him in servile drudgery, quickly disgusted him, and he went up to London in quest of more suitable employment.

He was recommended to a timber-merchant at the Bankside, and, while he was there on liking, is said to have given hopes of great mercantile abilities; but this place he soon left, I know not for what reason, and was bound apprentice to Mr. Collins, a printer of some reputation, and deputy alderman.

This was a trade for which men were formerly qualified by a literary education, and which was pleasing to Cave, because it furnished some employment for his scholastick attainments. Here, therefore, he resolved to settle, though his master and mistress lived in perpetual discord, and their house was, therefore, no comfortable habitation. From the inconveniencies of these domestick tumults he was soon released, having, in only two years, attained so much skill in his art, and gained so much the confidence of his master, that he was sent, without any superintendant, to conduct a printing-office at Norwich, and publish a weekly paper. In this undertaking he met with some opposition, which produced a publick controversy, and procured young Cave the reputation of a writer.

His master died before his apprenticeship was expired, and he was not able to bear the perverseness of his mistress. He, therefore, quitted her house upon a stipulated allowance, and married a young widow, with whom he lived at Bow. When his apprenticeship was over, he worked, as a journeyman, at the printing-house of Mr. Barber, a man much distinguished, and employed by the tories, whose principles had, at that time, so much prevalence with Cave, that he was, for some years, a writer in Mist's Journal; which, though he afterwards obtained, by his wife's interest, a small place in the post-office, he for some time continued. But, as interest is powerful, and conversation, however mean, in time persuasive, he, by degrees, inclined to another party; in which, however, he was always moderate, though steady and determined.

When he was admitted into the post-office, he still continued, at his intervals of attendance, to exercise his trade, or to employ himself with some typographical business. He corrected the Gradus ad Parnassum; and was liberally rewarded by the company of stationers. He wrote an account of the criminals, which had, for some time, a considerable sale; and published many little pamphlets, that accident brought into his hands, of which it would be very difficult to recover the memory. By the correspondence which his place in the post-office facilitated, he procured country newspapers, and sold their intelligence to a journalist in London, for a guinea a week.

He was afterwards raised to the office of clerk of the franks, in which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and often stopped franks, which were given by members of parliament to their friends, because he thought such extension of a peculiar right illegal. This raised many complaints, and having stopped, among others, a frank given to the old dutchess of Marlborough by Mr. Walter Plummer, he was cited before the house, as for a breach of privilege, and accused, I suppose very unjustly, of opening letters to detect them. He was treated with great harshness and severity, but, declining their questions, by pleading his oath of secrecy, was at last dismissed. And it must be recorded to his honour, that, when he was ejected from his office, he did not think himself discharged from his trust, but continued to refuse, to his nearest friends, any information about the management of the office.

By this constancy of diligence and diversification of employment, he in time collected a sum sufficient for the purchase of a small printing-office, and began the Gentleman's Magazine, a periodical pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language is spoken. To this undertaking he owed the affluence in which he passed the last twenty years of his life, and the fortune which he left behind him, which, though large, had been yet larger, had he not rashly and wantonly impaired it, by innumerable projects, of which I know not that ever one succeeded.

The Gentleman's Magazine, which has now subsisted fifty years, and still continues to enjoy the favour of the world [60], is one of the most successful and lucrative pamphlets which literary history has upon record, and therefore deserves, in this narrative, particular notice.

Mr. Cave, when he formed the project, was far from expecting the success which he found; and others had so little prospect of its consequence, that though he had, for several years, talked of his plan among printers and booksellers, none of them thought it worth the trial. That they were not restrained by virtue from the execution of another man's design, was sufficiently apparent, as soon as that design began to be gainful; for, in a few years, a multitude of magazines arose and perished: only the London Magazine, supported by a powerful association of booksellers, and circulated with all the art and all the cunning of trade, exempted itself from the general fate of Cave's invaders, and obtained, though not an equal, yet a considerable sale [61].

Cave now began to aspire to popularity; and being a greater lover of poetry than any other art, he sometimes offered subjects for poems, and proposed prizes for the best performers. The first prize was fifty pounds, for which, being but newly acquainted with wealth, and thinking the influence of fifty pounds extremely great, he expected the first authors of the kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered the allotment of the prize to the universities. But, when the time came, no name was seen among the writers that had ever been seen before; the universities and several private men rejected the province of assigning the prize. At all this Mr. Cave wondered for awhile; but his natural judgment, and a wider acquaintance with the world, soon cured him of his astonishment, as of many other prejudices and errours. Nor have many men been seen raised by accident or industry to sudden riches, that retained less of the meanness of their former state.

He continued to improve his magazine, and had the satisfaction of seeing its success proportionate to his diligence, till, in 1751, his wife died of an asthma. He seemed not at first much affected by her death, but in a few days lost his sleep and his appetite, which he never recovered; but, after having lingered about two years, with many vicissitudes of amendment and relapse, fell, by drinking acid liquors, into a diarrhoea, and afterwards into a kind of lethargick insensibility, in which one of the last acts of reason, which he exerted, was fondly to press the hand that is now writing this little narrative. He died on the 10th of January, 1754, having just concluded the twenty-third annual collection [62].

He was a man of a large stature, not only tall but bulky, and was, when young, of remarkable strength and activity. He was, generally, healthful, and capable of much labour and long application; but in the latter years of his life was afflicted with the gout, which he endeavoured to cure or alleviate by a total abstinence both from strong liquors and animal food. From animal food he abstained about four years, and from strong liquors much longer; but the gout continued unconquered, perhaps unabated.

His resolution and perseverance were very uncommon; in whatever he undertook, neither expense nor fatigue were able to repress him; but his constancy was calm, and to those who did not know him appeared faint and languid; but he always went forward, though he moved slowly. The same chilness of mind was observable in his conversation; he was watching the minutest accent of those

Assisted only by a classical education, Which he received at the Grammar school Of this Town, Planned, executed, and established A literary work, called THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, Whereby he acquired an ample fortune, The whole of which devolved to his family, Here also lies The body of WILLIAM CAVE, Second son of the said JOSEPH CAVE, Who died May 2, 1757, aged 62 years; And who, having survived his elder brother, EDWARD CAVE, Inherited from him a competent estate; And, in gratitude to his benefactor, Ordered this monument to perpetuate his memory.

He liv'd a patriarch in his numerous race, And show'd in charity a Christian's grace: Whate'er a friend or parent feels, he knew; His hand was open, and his heart was true; In what he gain'd and gave, he taught mankind, A grateful always is a generous mind. Here rest his clay! his soul must ever rest; Who bless'd when living, dying must be blest.

whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was surprised when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.

He was, consistently with this general tranquillity of mind, a tenacious maintainer, though not a clamorous demander, of his right. In his youth, having summoned his fellow-journeymen to concert measures against the oppression of their masters, he mounted a kind of rostrum, and harangued them so efficaciously, that they determined to resist all future invasions; and when the stamp-offices demanded to stamp the last half-sheet of the magazines, Mr. Cave alone defeated their claim, to which the proprietors of the rival magazines would meanly have submitted.

He was a friend rather easy and constant, than zealous an'd active; yet many instances might be given, where both his money and his diligence were employed liberally for others. His enmity was, in like manner, cool and deliberate; but though cool, it was not insidious, and though deliberate, not pertinacious.

His mental faculties were slow. He saw little at a time, but that little he saw with great exactness. He was long in finding the right, but seldom failed to find it at last. His affections were not easily gained, and his opinions not quickly discovered. His reserve, as it might hide his faults, concealed his virtues; but such he was, as they who best knew him have most lamented.



KING OF PRUSSIA [63].

Charles Frederick, the present king of Prussia, whose actions and designs now keep Europe in attention, is the eldest son of Frederick William, by Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George the first, king of England. He was born January 24, 1711-12. Of his early years nothing remarkable has been transmitted to us. As he advanced towards manhood, he became remarkable by his disagreement with his father.

The late king of Prussia was of a disposition violent and arbitrary, of narrow views, and vehement passions, earnestly engaged in little pursuits, or in schemes terminating in some speedy consequence, without any plan of lasting advantage to himself or his subjects, or any prospect of distant events. He was, therefore, always busy, though no effects of his activity ever appeared, and always eager, though he had nothing to gain. His behaviour was, to the last degree, rough and savage. The least provocation, whether designed or accidental, was returned by blows, which he did not always forbear to the queen and princesses.

From such a king and such a father it was not any enormous violation of duty in the immediate heir of a kingdom, sometimes to differ in opinion, and to maintain that difference with decent pertinacity. A prince of a quick sagacity and comprehensive knowledge, must find many practices in the conduct of affairs which he could not approve, and some which he could scarcely forbear to oppose.

The chief pride of the old king was to be master of the tallest regiment in Europe. He, therefore, brought together, from all parts, men above the common military standard. To exceed the height of six feet, was a certain recommendation to notice, and to approach that of seven, a claim to distinction. Men will readily go where they are sure to be caressed; and he had, therefore, such a collection of giants, as, perhaps, was never seen in the world before.

To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure, and to perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a tall woman, he immediately commanded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that they might propagate procerity, and produce heirs to the father's habiliments.

In all this there was apparent folly, but there was no crime. The tall regiment made a fine show at an expense not much greater, when once it was collected, than would have been bestowed upon common men. But the king's military pastimes were sometimes more pernicious. He maintained a numerous army, of which he made no other use than to review and to talk of it; and when he, or perhaps his emissaries, saw a boy, whose form and sprightliness promised a future soldier, he ordered a kind of badge to be put about his neck, by which he was marked out for the service, like the sons of Christian captives in Turkey; and his parents were forbidden to destine him to any other mode of life.

This was sufficiently oppressive, but this was not the utmost of his tyranny. He had learned, though otherwise perhaps no very great politician, that to be rich was to be powerful; but that the riches of a king ought to be seen in the opulence of his subjects, he wanted either ability or benevolence to understand. He, therefore, raised exorbitant taxes from every kind of commodity and possession, and piled up the money in his treasury, from which it issued no more. How the land which had paid taxes once, was to pay them a second time, how imposts could be levied without commerce, or commerce continued without money, it was not his custom to inquire. Eager to snatch at money, and delighted to count it, he felt new joy at every receipt, and thought himself enriched by the impoverishment of his dominions.

By which of these freaks of royalty the prince was offended, or whether, as perhaps more frequently happens, the offences of which he complains were of a domestick and personal kind, it is not easy to discover. But his resentment, whatever was its cause, rose so high, that he resolved not only to leave his father's court, but his territories, and to seek a refuge among the neighbouring or kindred princes. It is generally believed that his intention was to come to England, and live under the protection of his uncle, till his father's death, or change of conduct, should give him liberty to return.

His design, whatever it was, he concerted with an officer in the army, whose name was Kat, a man in whom he placed great confidence, and whom, having chosen him for the companion of his flight, he necessarily trusted with the preparatory measures. A prince cannot leave his country with the speed of a meaner fugitive. Something was to be provided, and something to be adjusted. And, whether Kat found the agency of others necessary, and, therefore, was constrained to admit some partners of the secret; whether levity or vanity incited him to disburden himself of a trust that swelled in his bosom, or to show to a friend or mistress his own importance; or whether it be in itself difficult for princes to transact any thing in secret; so it was, that the king was informed of the intended flight, and the prince, and his favourite, a little before the time settled for their departure, were arrested, and confined in different places.

The life of princes is seldom in danger, the hazard of their irregularities falls only on those whom ambition or affection combines with them. The king, after an imprisonment of some time, set his son at liberty; but poor Kat was ordered to be tried for a capital crime. The court examined the cause, and acquitted him: the king remanded him to a second trial, and obliged his judges to condemn him. In consequence of the sentence thus tyrannically extorted, he was publickly beheaded, leaving behind him some papers of reflections made in the prison, which were afterwards printed, and among others an admonition to the prince, for whose sake he suffered, not to foster in himself the opinion of destiny, for that a providence is discoverable in every thing round us.

This cruel prosecution of a man who had committed no crime, but by compliance with influence not easily to be resisted, was not the only act by which the old king irritated his son. A lady with whom the prince was suspected of intimacy, perhaps more than virtue allowed, was seized, I know not upon what accusation, and, by the king's order, notwithstanding all the reasons of decency and tenderness that operate in other countries, and other judicatures, was publickly whipped in the streets of Berlin.

At last, that the prince might feel the power of a king and a father in its utmost rigour, he was, in 1733, married against his will to the princess Elizabetha Christina of Brunswick Luneburg Beveren. He married her indeed at his father's command, but without professing for her either esteem or affection, and considering the claim of parental authority fully satisfied by the external ceremony, obstinately and perpetually, during the life of his father, refrained from her bed. The poor princess lived about seven years in the court of Berlin, in a state which the world has not often seen, a wife without a husband, married so far as to engage her person to a man who did not desire her affection, and of whom it was doubtful, whether he thought himself restrained from the power of repudiation by an act performed under evident compulsion.

Thus he lived secluded from publick business, in contention with his father, in alienation from his wife. This state of uneasiness he found the only means of softening. He diverted his mind from the scenes about him, by studies and liberal amusements. The studies of princes seldom produce great effects, for princes draw with meaner mortals the lot of understanding; and since of many students not more than one can be hoped to advance far towards perfection, it is scarcely to be expected that we should find that one a prince; that the desire of science should overpower in any mind the love of pleasure, when it is always present, or always within call; that laborious meditation should be preferred in the days of youth to amusements and festivity; or that perseverance should press forward in contempt of flattery; and that he, in whom moderate acquisitions would be extolled as prodigies, should exact from himself that excellence of which the whole world conspires to spare him the necessity.

In every great performance, perhaps in every great character, part is the gift of nature, part the contribution of accident, and part, very often not the greatest part, the effect of voluntary election, and regular design. The king of Prussia was undoubtedly born with more than common abilities; but that he has cultivated them with more than common diligence, was probably the effect of his peculiar condition, of that which he then considered as cruelty and misfortune.

In this long interval of unhappiness and obscurity, he acquired skill in the mathematical sciences, such as is said to have put him on the level with those who have made them the business of their lives. This is, probably, to say too much: the acquisitions of kings are always magnified. His skill in poetry and in the French language has been loudly praised by Voltaire, a judge without exception, if his honesty were equal to his knowledge. Musick he not only understands, but practises on the German flute, in the highest perfection; so that, according to the regal censure of Philip of Macedon, he may be ashamed to play so well.

He may be said to owe to the difficulties of his youth an advantage less frequently obtained by princes than literature and mathematicks. The necessity of passing his time without pomp, and of partaking of the pleasures and labours of a lower station, made him acquainted with the various forms of life, and with the genuine passions, interests, desires, and distresses, of mankind. Kings, without this help from temporary infelicity, see the world in a mist, which magnifies every thing near them, and bounds their view to a narrow compass, which few are able to extend by the mere force of curiosity. I have always thought that what Cromwell had more than our lawful kings, he owed to the private condition in which he first entered the world, and in which he long continued: in that state he learned his art of secret transaction, and the knowledge by which he was able to oppose zeal to zeal, and make one enthusiast destroy another.

The king of Prussia gained the same arts, and, being born to fairer opportunities of using them, brought to the throne the knowledge of a private man, without the guilt of usurpation. Of this general acquaintance with the world there may be found some traces in his whole life. His conversation is like that of other men upon common topicks, his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and his whole conduct is that of a man who has to do with men, and who is not ignorant what motives will prevail over friends or enemies.

In 1740, the old king fell sick, and spoke and acted in his illness with his usual turbulence and roughness, reproaching his physicians, in the grossest terms, with their unskilfulness and impotence, and imputing to their ignorance or wickedness the pain which their prescriptions failed to relieve. These insults they bore with the submission which is commonly paid to despotick monarchs; till at last the celebrated Hoffman was consulted, who failing, like the rest, to give ease to his majesty, was, like the rest, treated with injurious language. Hoffman, conscious of his own merit, replied, that he could not bear reproaches which he did not deserve; that he had tried all the remedies that art could supply, or nature could admit; that he was, indeed, a professor by his majesty's bounty; but that, if his abilities or integrity were doubted, he was willing to leave, not only the university, but the kingdom; and that he could not be driven into any place where the name of Hoffman would want respect. The king, however unaccustomed to such returns, was struck with conviction of his own indecency, told Hoffman, that he had spoken well, and requested him to continue his attendance.

The king, finding his distemper gaining upon his strength, grew at last sensible that his end was approaching, and, ordering the prince to be called to his bed, laid several injunctions upon him, of which one was to perpetuate the tall regiment by continual recruits, and another, to receive his espoused wife. The prince gave him a respectful answer, but wisely avoided to diminish his own right or power by an absolute promise; and the king died uncertain of the fate of the tall regiment.

The young king began his reign with great expectations, which he has yet surpassed. His father's faults produced many advantages to the first years of his reign. He had an army of seventy thousand men well disciplined, without any imputation of severity to himself, and was master of a vast treasure without the crime or reproach of raising it. It was publickly said in our house of commons, that he had eight millions sterling of our money; but, I believe, he that said it had not considered how difficultly eight millions would be found in all the Prussian dominions. Men judge of what they do not see by that which they see. We are used to talk in England of millions with great familiarity, and imagine that there is the same affluence of money in other countries, in countries whose manufactures are few, and commerce little.

Every man's first cares are necessarily domestick. The king, being now no longer under influence, or its appearance, determined how to act towards the unhappy lady who had possessed, for seven years, the empty title of the princess of Prussia. The papers of those times exhibited the conversation of their first interview; as if the king, who plans campaigns in silence, would not accommodate a difference with his wife, but with writers of news admitted as witnesses. It is certain that he received her as queen, but whether he treats her as a wife is yet in dispute.

In a few days his resolution was known with regard to the tall regiment; for some recruits being offered him, he rejected them; and this body of giants, by continued disregard, mouldered away.

He treated his mother with great respect, ordered that she should bear the title of queen mother, and that, instead of addressing him as his majesty, she should only call him son.

As he was passing soon after between Berlin and Potsdam, a thousand boys, who had been marked out for military service, surrounded his coach, and cried out: "merciful king! deliver us from our slavery." He promised them their liberty, and ordered, the next day, that the badge should be taken off.

He still continued that correspondence with learned men which he began when he was prince; and the eyes of all scholars, a race of mortals formed for dependence, were upon him, as a man likely to renew the times of patronage, and to emulate the bounties of Lewis the fourteenth.

It soon appeared that he was resolved to govern with very little ministerial assistance: he took cognizance of every thing with his own eyes; declared, that in all contrarieties of interest between him and his subjects, the publick good should have the preference; and, in one of the first exertions of regal power, banished the prime minister and favourite of his father, as one that had "betrayed his master, and abused his trust."

He then declared his resolution to grant a general toleration of religion, and, among other liberalities of concession, allowed the profession of free-masonry. It is the great taint of his character, that he has given reason to doubt, whether this toleration is the effect of charity or indifference, whether he means to support good men of every religion, or considers all religions as equally good. There had subsisted, for some time, in Prussia, an order called the "order for favour," which, according to its denomination, had been conferred with very little distinction. The king instituted the "order for merit," with which he honoured those whom he considered as deserving. There were some who thought their merit not sufficiently recompensed by this new title; but he was not very ready to grant pecuniary rewards. Those who were most in his favour he sometimes presented with snuffboxes, on which was inscribed, "Amitie augmente le prix."

He was, however, charitable, if not liberal, for he ordered the magistrates of the several districts to be very attentive to the relief of the poor; and, if the funds established for that use were not sufficient, permitted that the deficiency should be supplied out of the revenues of the town.

One of his first cares was the advancement of learning. Immediately upon his accession, he wrote to Rollin and Voltaire, that he desired the continuance of their friendship; and sent for Mr. Maupertuis, the principal of the French academicians, who passed a winter in Lapland, to verify, by the mensuration of a degree near the pole, the Newtonian doctrine of the form of the earth. He requested of Maupertuis to come to Berlin, to settle an academy, in terms of great ardour and great condescension.

At the same time, he showed the world that literary amusements were not likely, as has more than once happened to royal students, to withdraw him from the care of the kingdom, or make him forget his interest. He began by reviving a claim to Herstal and Hermal, two districts in the possession of the bishop of Liege. When he sent his commissary to demand the homage of the inhabitants, they refused him admission, declaring that they acknowledged no sovereign but the bishop. The king then wrote a letter to the bishop, in which he complained of the violation of his right, and the contempt of his authority, charged the prelate with countenancing the late act of disobedience, and required an answer in two days.

In three days the answer was sent, in which the bishop founds his claim to the two lordships, upon a grant of Charles the fifth, guaranteed by France and Spain; alleges that his predecessors had enjoyed this grant above a century, and that he never intended to infringe the rights of Prussia; but as the house of Brandenburgh had always made some pretensions to that territory, he was willing to do what other bishops had offered, to purchase that claim for a hundred thousand crowns.

To every man that knows the state of the feudal countries, the intricacy of their pedigrees, the confusion of their alliances, and the different rules of inheritance that prevail in different places, it will appear evident, that of reviving antiquated claims there can be no end, and that the possession of a century is a better title than can commonly be produced. So long a prescription supposes an acquiescence in the other claimants; and that acquiescence supposes also some reason, perhaps now unknown, for which the claim was forborne. Whether this rule could be considered as valid in the controversy between these sovereigns, may, however, be doubted, for the bishop's answer seems to imply, that the title of the house of Brandenburg had been kept alive by repeated claims, though the seizure of the territory had been hitherto forborne.

The king did not suffer his claim to be subjected to any altercations, but, having published a declaration, in which he charged the bishop with violence and injustice, and remarked that the feudal laws allowed every man, whose possession was withheld from him, to enter it with an armed force, he immediately despatched two thousand soldiers into the controverted countries, where they lived without control, exercising every kind of military tyranny, till the cries of the inhabitants forced the bishop to relinquish them to the quiet government of Prussia.

This was but a petty acquisition; the time was now come when the king of Prussia was to form and execute greater designs. On the 9th of October, 1740, half Europe was thrown into confusion by the death of Charles the sixth, emperour of Germany, by whose death all the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria descended, according to the pragmatick sanction, to his eldest daughter, who was married to the duke of Lorrain, at the time of the emperour's death, duke of Tuscany.

By how many securities the pragmatick sanction was fortified, and how little it was regarded when those securities became necessary; how many claimants started up at once to the several dominions of the house of Austria; how vehemently their pretensions were enforced, and how many invasions were threatened or attempted; the distresses of the emperour's daughter, known for several years by the title only of the queen of Hungary, because Hungary was the only country to which her claim had not been disputed: the firmness with which she struggled with her difficulties, and the good fortune by which she surmounted them; the narrow plan of this essay will not suffer me to relate. Let them be told by some other writer of more leisure and wider intelligence.

Upon the emperour's death, many of the German princes fell upon the Austrian territories, as upon a dead carcass, to be dismembered among them without resistance. Among these, with whatever justice, certainly with very little generosity, was the king of Prussia, who, having assembled his troops, as was imagined, to support the pragmatick sanction, on a sudden entered Silesia with thirty thousand men, publishing a declaration, in which he disclaims any design of injuring the rights of the house of Austria, but urges his claim to Silesia, as rising "from ancient conventions of family and confraternity between the house of Brandenburg and the princes of Silesia, and other honourable titles." He says, the fear of being defeated by other pretenders to the Austrian dominions, obliged him to enter Silesia without any previous expostulation with the queen, and that he shall "strenuously espouse the interests of the house of Austria."

Such a declaration was, I believe, in the opinion of all Europe, nothing less than the aggravation of hostility by insult, and was received by the Austrians with suitable indignation. The king pursued his purpose, marched forward, and in the frontiers of Silesia made a speech to his followers, in which he told them, that he considered them rather "as friends than subjects, that the troops of Brandenburg had been always eminent for their bravery, that they would always fight in his presence, and that he would recompense those who should distinguish themselves in his service, rather as a father than as a king."

The civilities of the great are never thrown away. The soldiers would naturally follow such a leader with alacrity; especially because they expected no opposition: but human expectations are frequently deceived.

Entering thus suddenly into a country which he was supposed rather likely to protect than to invade, he acted for some time with absolute authority; but, supposing that this submission would not always last, he endeavoured to persuade the queen to a cession of Silesia, imagining that she would easily be persuaded to yield what was already lost. He, therefore, ordered his minister to declare, at Vienna, "that he was ready to guarantee all the German dominions of the house of Austria; that he would conclude a treaty with Austria, Russia, and the maritime powers; that he would endeavour that the duke of Lorrain should be elected emperour, and believed that he could accomplish it; that he would immediately advance to the queen two millions of florins; that, in recompense for all this, he required Silesia to be yielded to him."

These seem not to be the offers of a prince very much convinced of his own right. He afterwards moderated his claim, and ordered his minister to hint at Vienna, that half of Silesia would content him.

The queen answered, that though the king alleged, as his reason for entering Silesia, the danger of the Austrian territories from other pretenders, and endeavoured to persuade her to give up part of her possessions for the preservation of the rest, it was evident that he was the first and only invader, and that, till he entered in a hostile manner, all her estates were unmolested.