defray the most ordinary expense of travelling; it has therefore been surmised that he carried on some advantageous branch of traffic with his own country during the three years he resided on the continent, by which he was enabled to support himself genteelly, and to return to England in 1646, bringing home with him ten pounds more than he carried out. In the year 1647, he obtained a patent for an instrument resembling the modern pantograph, whereby two copies of the same thing might be written at once. Some time after this he fixed his abode at Oxford, where he practised chemistry and physic with great success, and assisted Dr Clayton, the professor of anatomy, in his dissections. In 1649, a parliamentary recommendation was sent to Brazen-nose college, to elect him to a fellowship made void by ejectment, which was complied with; and, at the same time, the university conferred upon him an honorary degree of doctor of physic. In 1650, he was admitted to the college of physicians in London. In the beginning of the year 1651, Dr Petty was elected anatomy-professor upon the resignation of Dr Clayton; he likewise succeeded Dr Knight in the professorship of music in Gresham college. The following year he was appointed physician to the army in Ireland; he was likewise physician to three successive lord-lieutenants, Lambert, Fleetwood, and Henry Cromwell. His fertile genius, however, could not be confined to the science of medicine alone. Being an excellent mathematician, he observed that, after the rebellion in Ireland of 1641, the forfeited lands, which had been allotted to the soldiers for suppressing it, were very defectively measured, and made such representations upon the subject to Oliver Cromwell, that he granted him a contract in 1654, to make new admeasurements, which he executed with great accuracy. By this contract he gained upwards of ten thousand pounds. And it appears, by authentic records, that in 1655 he had surveyed 2,800,000 acres of forfeited improveable land, part of which he had divided amongst the disbanded soldiers. Henry Cromwell being appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland in the course of that year, he chose Dr Petty to be his secretary; and, in 1657, made him clerk of the council, and procured him a seat in the English parliament, in which he served for the borough of Westlow in Cornwall. He met with a severe mortification, however, in being impeached in March, 1658, by Sir Hierom Sankey, for highcrimes and misdemeanors in the execution of his office of surveying, and distributing the Irish lands. The matter came not to a final issue, the parliament being suddenly dissolved by Richard Cromwell. But Sir Hierom Sankey commenced a more vigorous prosecution against him in Ireland, upon his return thither soon after the dissolution of the parliament; and though he published a justification of himself, yet neither this performance, nor a letter written in his favour by Henry Cromwell, to his brother the protector, could prevent his being dismissed from all public employment as soon as Richard Cromwell had resigned, and the remnant of the long parliament had re-assumed the reins of government. On the Restoration, Dr Petty came to England, and was very graciously received by his majesty; soon after, he resigned his professorship of Gresham college, the king having appointed him to be one of the commissioners of the court of claims, established in Ireland in 1662, to set tle the claims relating to forfeited estates in that kingdom. His majesty likewise conferred on him the honour of knighthood, granted him a new patent constituting him surveyor-general of Ireland, and, in his instructions to the court of claims, ordered that all the forfeited lands which had been assigned to him, and of which he had been possessed in May, 1659, before his dismission from his former employments, should be confirmed to him for ever. Sir William Petty's estate amounted now, according to his own account, to six thousand pounds per annum. Upon the institution of the Royal society of London, in 1662, Sir William Petty was elected one of the council; and though he no longer practised as a physician, his name was inserted in the list of the fellows, upon the renewal of the charter of the college of physicians, in 1663. Sir William about this time invented a double-bottomed ship, to sail against wind and tide, which performed one successful voyage very expeditiously, from Dublin to Holyhead, in July, 1664. He gave a model of this vessel to the Royal society, which is still preserved in their repository; he likewise communicated to that learned body, in 1665, a discourse on ship-building. Sir William employed great part of his time for many years in attempts to improve upon his ship; and after having made upwards of twenty models at great expense, he at length had a vessel completed according to his own instructions, which was publicly tried in the harbour of Dublin, in December, 1684. Sir William had asserted, "that he would construct passage-boats between Dublin and Chester, which should be a kind of stage-boats; for they should be as regular in going out and returning on set days, in all weathers, as the stage-coaches between London and any country town:" but this experiment completely failed. Yet the vexation occasioned by the disappointment did not deter Sir William from continuing his studies for the improvement of shipping during the remainder of his life, and though he made no more public experiments, he wrote several ingenious essays on the subject. In the year 1666, Sir William published a book entitled 'Verbum Sapienti, containing an account of the Wealth and Expenses of England, and the method of raising Taxes in the most equal Manners shewing likewise, that England can bear the charge of Four Million: annually, when the occasions of the Government require it.' Though this was the first tract on the public revenues published by our author, yet it appears that his famous treatise on political arithmetic-of which further mention will be made in the account of his posthumous works —was presented by him to Charles II. in manuscript, upon his restoration. He had likewise published a small piece on a more limited plan in 1662, entitled 'A Treatise on Taxes and Contributions: shewing the Nature and Measures of Crown Lands, Assessments, Customs, Poll-money, Lotteries, Benevolence, &c.' but his 'Verbum Sapienti' was a better display of his abilities as a political calculator, and was well-received from its novelty, there being at that time scarcely any thing extant upon the finances or the property and resources of the kingdom. In 1667, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Hardresse Walbe, and relict of Sir Maurice Fenton, baronet; and from this time he engaged in various pursuits, he opened lead-mines, and began a trade in timber; he likewise set up iron-works, and established a pilchard fishery, all in Ireland, by which he greatly benefited that country and enriched himself. Though he now resided chiefly in England, yet he made frequent visits to Ireland, and promoted the establishment of a philosophical society at Dublin-in imitation of the Royal society of London-of which he was president in 1684. In 1685, he made his will, which is as remarkable as any other transaction of his life; amongst other things he takes notice, that from thenceforward, "he should confine his studies to the anatomy of the people, to political arithmetic, and to the improvement of ships, land-carriages, and pumps, as of most use to mankind, not blaming the study of other men." But death put a period to his useful labours in the year 1687, when he was carried off by a gangrene in his foot, occasioned by the gout. Sir William Petty was the first able financier of this country, who reduced the art of raising and applying the public revenues of the kingdom to a scientific system. His Political Arithmetic' is a master-piece of its kind, considering the time at which it appeared, and long served as a grammar to the students of political economy. It was published in London, by his son, in 1690, in 8vo., and has been frequently reprinted. Sir William Petty's eldest son was created Baron Shelburne, in the county of Waterford, by William III., but dying without issue, he was succeeded in that honour by his younger brother, Henry, who was created Viscount Dunkeron, in the county of Kerry, and earl of Shelburne, in 1718. From this nobleman is descended the present marquess of Lansdowne. Sir William Petty's history affords a remarkable instance of the establishment of a noble family, from the united efforts of ingenuity and industry in one man, who, from so small a beginning as sixty pounds, and after being reduced to such penury in France, as to be obliged "to live for a week on two or three penny worth of walnuts," hewed out a fortune to himself, and left his family at his death, £6,500 per annum in land, above £45,000 in personal effects, and a plan of demonstrable improvement on his estate, to produce £4000 per annum more. Thomas Shadwell. BORN A. D. 1640.-DIED A. D. 1692. THIS dramatic poet was descended of a good family of Staffordshire, but was born at Staunton-hall in Norfolk, a seat of his father's. He was educated at Caius college, Cambridge, and afterwards entered the Middle Temple. The study of the law, however, had no charms for him. He went abroad, and amused himself for a time with travelling. On his return he applied himself to writing for the stage, and with so much vigour, that in a short time he had produced no fewer than seventeen pieces, on the strength of which he succeeded Dryden in the laureateship at the Revolution. Dryden resented the affront thus put upon him through Shadwell by introducing him into his 'Mac Flecknoe' in these lines: IV. "Others to some faint meaning make pretence, 2 P This is severe enough; but Rochester has affirmed that "if Shadwell had burnt all he wrote, and printed all he spoke, he would have had more wit and humour than any other poet." Shadwell was a great favourite too with Otway. The plays of this dramatist are sufficiently imbued with the wretched taste and morals of Charles's profligate court. There is a thorough profligacy in his comedies, yet he is said to have been an amiable private character: nay, he actually takes no small credit to himself for the morality of his writings! With equal complacency, and with equal reason, he looked upon himself as the restorer and improver of Molière and of Shakspeare himself! He says, in the preface to his Psyche,' "I will be bold to affirm, that this is as much a play as could be made upon this subject," whereas nothing more utterly contemptible was ever conceived than his treatment of that most beautiful fiction of antiquity. Altering a play from Molière, he says, that he is bold to assert, "without vanity, that Molière's part has not suffered in his hands," whereas he has mangled the witty Frenchman wherever he has touched him. But it is in his improvements of Shakspeare that the consummate vanity and besotted tastelessness of the man shine forth most conspicuously. "Shakspeare," he says, never made more masterly strokes than in Timon of Athens;' yet," he adds, "I can truly say I have made it into a play." This he has done by introducing two female characters, the one a mistress, whom Timon is about to cast off in order to take a wife, the other his intended bride; the latter jilts him in his misfortunes, the former follows him in private at his death, and kills herself for grief. The following is Mr Shadwell's improved version of the concluding speech of Alcibiades : --- 66 "Poor Timon! I once knew thee the most flourishing man Of all th' Athenians; and thou still hadst been so, Had not these smiling flattering knaves devoured thee, And murdered thee with base ingratitude! His death pull'd on the poor Evandra's too, That miracle of constancy and love! Now all repair to their respective homes, Their several trades, their business and diversions; And may its wealth and power e'er increase !" Shadwell is not to be too severely thought of for these absurdities. He lived in an age when men of infinitely higher genius, and who ought to have known better what they were about, and felt more keenly the atrocities they were perpetrating, were guilty of equal, and, in some instances, still more daring profanation. Davenant and Dryden, be it remembered, improved Shakspeare's Tempest;' and Dryden extended the benefit of his powers to the 'Paradise Lost,' which he kindly turned into rhyme for its future credit with the world! Henry Purcell. BORN A. D. 1658.-died a. D. 1695. THIS eminent musician was the pupil of Dr Blow, but his earliest published compositions were formed, according to his own account, after the style of the Italian masters. They consist of twelve sonatas for two violins and a bass, and resemble those of Bassani in their structure. "The unlimited powers of Purcell's genius," says Dr Burney, "embraced every species of musical composition known in his time, and with equal felicity. In writing for the church, whether he adhered to the elaborate style of his predecessors, in which no instrument is employed but the organ, and the several parts are constantly moving in fugue and counterpoint,-or, giving way to feeling and imagination, adopted the new and more expressive style of which he was himself one of the principal inventors, accompanying the voice-parts with instruments to enrich the harmony,-he manifested equal abilities and resources. compositions for the theatre, though the colouring and effects of an orchestra were then but little known, yet he employed them more than any of his predecessors had done, and gave to the voice a melody more interesting and impassioned than had yet been heard out of Italy." In Many of our popular songs are the composition of Purcell. Among these may be mentioned Mad Tom,' the first part of which was the work of this composer, and the second, added at a much later period, of Hayden. Another splendid piece of composition is entitled, "The Croaking of the Toad;' it is a song in three strains, containing some most exquisite passages, such as would do honour to any composer. Much of his most excellent church music still remains in manuscript in our cathedrals, and it is to be feared that some of it was irrecoverably lost in the late burning of York-minster. Purcell died at the early age of 37; having been born in 1658, and dying of consumption in 1695. Had he lived longer he would probably have exercised a deeper influence over our music, and laid the foundation of something like a national school in his art. John Eachard. BORN A. D. 1636.-died A. D. 1697. JOHN EACHARD, master of Catharine-hall, Cambridge, and author of several highly erudite and ingenious works, was born about the year 1636. He was educated at Cambridge, where he took the degree of M. A. in 1660. In 1670, he appeared, for the first time, as an author in a piece entitled, The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion inquired into.' Eachard was a thorough churchman, but he plainly affirms that "the ignorance of some, and the poverty of others, of the clergy" are daily bringing the church into contempt, and endangering its very existence, as well as impeding its usefulness. He |