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and on his return occupied himself with mathematical pursuits and theology. In the retirement and seclusion of his castle, he invented the system of Logarithms a system which came complete in all its parts from the hands of its inventor, and which reduced to an incredible extent the labors of scientific computation in all coming time.

Napier's other works were a treatise on the book of Revelation, entitled A Plain Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John; Secret Inventions, a Letter to Anthony Bacon, etc.

"The title of great man is more justly due to him] than to any other whom his country ever produced. These works [on Logarithms and on Revelation] will remain lasting monuments of his sublime judgment, knowledge, and penetration."— Hume.

"The invention of Logarithms," remarks Mr. Hallam, "is one of the rarest instances of sagacity in the history of mankind; and it has been justly noticed as remarkable that it issued complete from the mind of its author and has not received any improvement since his time."-Hist. of Europe.

"His sublime invention of Logarithms about this epoch eclipsed every minor improvement, and as far transcended the denary notation as this had surpassed the numeral system of the Greeks."- Sir John Leslie.

"It is strange that the vigils of a recluse who communed in a fendal castle with the then mysterious world of figures and of signs should, after the lapse of near three hundred years, be recommending his posterity to the benevolence of an American College.""Robert C. Winthrop.

SIR JOHN DAVIES, 1570-1626, was a man of great legal erudition and acuteness in the days of Elizabeth, and rose gradually to the high distinction of Lord Chief Justice.

In addition to his law writings, and to some important political tracts, Davies wrote an extended philosophical poem, which has been much admired. It is called Nosce Teipsum, Know Thyself, and is divided into two parts, Of Human Knowledge, and Of the Soul of Man.

"In the happier parts of his poem, we come to logical truths so well illustrated by ingenious similes, that we know not whether to call the thoughts more poetically or more philosophically just. The judgment and fancy are reconciled, and the imagery of the past seems to start more vividly from the surrounding shades of abstraction." - Campbell.

SIR HENRY SAVILE, 1549-1621, "the most learned Englishman in profane literature of the reign of Elizabeth" (Hallam), was tutor in mathematics and Greek to the Queen, and held various honorary appointments at Oxford.

Savile was a man of large wealth, and founded at Oxford the Professorships of Geom. etry and Astronomy. He published a sumptuous critical edition of Chrysostom, in 8 vols., fol., at an expense of £8,000; also, editions of William of Malmesbury and several others of the Latin chroniclers of England. He translated the Agricola of Tacitus, and Four Books of the Histories; and wrote Commentaries on Roman Warfare. He was one of the men appointed by King James as Translators of the Bible.

ANNIE BACON, 1528-1600, daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, was wife of Sir Nicholas Bacon, and mother of the philosopher Sir Francis Bacon.

This distinguished lady, like the Lady Jane Grey and Queen Elizabeth, and many other noble ladies that we read of in that age, was educated far beyond the point reached by young ladies now-a-days. Among her other accomplishments, she was well versed in Greek, Latin, and Italian. In sending a manuscript to Archbishop Parker, she accompanied it by a letter to that prelate in Greek, which he likewise answered in Greek. She published several works, all of which, however, were translations: Twenty-five Sermons, from the Italian, on Predestination and Election; Bishop Jewel's Apology for the Church of England, from the Latin.

PHILEMON HOLLAND, M. D., 1552-1636, a graduate and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Head-Master of Coventry Free School, was famous in his day for his numerous translations of Latin and Greek authors into English, insomuch that he had the name of Translator-General. Among the works translated by Holland were the following: Livy, Pliny's Natural History, Plutarch's Works, Sueotonius, Ammius Marcellinus, Xenophon's Cyropædia. He also translated Camden's Britannia.

ROBERT BURTON, 1576-1640, a quaint and learned writer, is known almost exclusively by his one work, The Anatomy of Melancholy.

Burton was a mathematician as well as a linguist, and "a curious calculator of nativities." He made a calculation of his own Nativity, predicting that he would die at a certain time," which being exact, several of the students did not forbear to whisper among themselves that, rather than there should be a mistake in the calculation, he sent up his soul to heaven thro' a strap about his neck!"—Wood's Athen. Oxon.

The Anatomy of Melancholy contains a vast amount of curions lore, and the book has been a general favorite among scholarly people, who had the learning and the leisure to follow him in his quiet and somewhat sombre musings.

Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury, 1551-1648, was a man of considerable note, both as a statesman and as a writer. Lord Herbert was educated at University College, London. IIe served in the Continental wars, and also as ambassador to France.

Lord Herbert's writings are of two classes: the grave and the light. The former comprises his treatises De Veritate and De Religione Gentilium, and a History of Henry VIII. The treatises are thoroughly deistical in their nature, and may be regarded as the forerunners of the Bolingbroke-Shaftsbury school. The History has been pronounced by Hallam to be "written in a manly and judicious spirit." The lighter pieces are some fugitive poems, and an autobiography in which he exposes himself in all his strength and his weakness, as a brave soldier, a quarreller over punctilios, a hater of bigotry, and himself a bigot to philosophy.

Sir Richard Baker, 1568-1645, has a place in literature on account of his famous Chronicles of the Kings of England.

Sir Richard was descended of a good family, and was a man of considerable estate; but having lost the latter by becoming surety for some of his relations, he was thrown into the Fleet prison, where he died. He took to authorship to console him in his sorrows, as well as to provide for his necessities.

He wrote Meditations and Disquisitions on the Lord's Prayer, and on several of the Psalms, Apology for a Layinan's writing Divinity, and a poem called Cato's Moral Distiches. His chief work, however, and the only one by which he is at all known, is Chronicle of the Kings of England. Baker's Chronicle was about the only history that Englishmen had until the publication of Rapin. The critics denounced it as unscholarly and inaccurate. But it was written in a pleasant, entertaining style, and it continued for a long time to be published and read, holding its place in the old-fashioned chimney-corners, on the same shelf with the Family Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs. Addison, in his picture of Roger De Coverly, describes him as drawing many observations together, out of his reading of Baker's Chronicle."

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JOHN SPOTISWOOD, 1565-1639, is chiefly known by a History of the Church of Scotland.

Spotiswood was a native of Scotland, educated at the University of Glasgow. He became Archbishop of St. Andrew's, a member of the Privy Council, and finally Chancellor of Scotland, a dignity which no churchman had held since the Reformation. As Primate of the Scottish Church, he had the chief management of ecclesiastical affairs, and great influence also in political matters. He was in great favor with Charles I., and also with James I. Entering, though with reluctance, into the measures of James to introduce a liturgy into the Scottish Church, he fell under the displeasure of the Covenanters, and was obliged to escape to England, where he died. Besides a Latin treatise, he wrote the well-known History of the Church of Scotland, 3 vols., 8vo.

Travels, History, Antiquities, &c.

Captain John Smith, 1579-1631, so famous in the early history of Virginia, has a place also in literature and in general history.

Early History.-Smith is a type of the better class of English adventurers in the times of Queen Elizabeth. The destined founder of Virginia made several attempts, when still a mere boy, to run away from home. In his sixteenth year he served as a volunteer in the wars in the Low Countries. In 1600 he joined the Austrian army under Baron Kissell, then fighting against the Turks. He was captured by the Turks and carried to Constantinople as a slave. His young mistress sent him to her brother Timour, pasha of the district on the Sea of Azov, who treated him cruelly. Smith killed the pasha, and made his escape. After wandering through Russia and Transylvania, and engaging in various adventures in Germany and Morocco, he returned to England in 1604.

Subsequent Career.-In 1606, Smith sailed upon the expedition commanded by Newport, and destined to colonize Virginia. The trials and misfortunes of this expedition are familiar to the readers of history. Smith was the life and soul of the colony. More than once Jamestown would have been abandoned but for his energy and foresight. It was during this period that Smith explored and made his celebrated map of Chesapeake Bay. In 1609 he returned to England. In 1614 he made a voyage of discovery on the coast of New England, and in 1616 settled permanently in England for the remainder of his days.

His Works.-Smith's chief works are A True Relation of such Occurrences of Note as have happened in Virginia, &c., &c., A Description of New England, The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, and the True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Of the General History, Books II. and IV. are written by Smith; the remaining four are edited by him.

De Tocqueville says of Smith, "his style is simple and concise, his narratives bear the stamp of truth, and his descriptions are free from false ornament."

Character. Smith has always borne the reputation of being a stout-hearted and kind-hearted man, a prudent as well as bold captain, and an upright judge. His name was held by the Indians in great reverence. The story of his romantic rescue by Pocahontas, so long and so universally received without question, has been rejected lately by several investigators. If false, the story has at least its justification in Smith's character and personal influence. John Smith has become the type of the Virginia colonist, as Miles Standish is looked upon as the type of the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts. Upon the whole, Smith seems to have been the more genial and the abler man of the two, with broader views and more varied resources.

SHERLEY BROTHERS. These were three Englishmen of rank and fortune, who spent many years in travel in Turkey and Persia, and on their return to Europe published various accounts of what they had seen. They were Sir Anthony Sherley, 1565-1630; Sir Robert Sherley, 1570-1628; Sir Thomas Sherley, 1564

The account of what they saw and heard is published in various forms by different authors, who seem to have gleaned the information by the process now familiarly known among reporters as "interviewing." The following is the title of one of these works. The Three English Brothers: Sir Thomas Sherley, his Travels, with his Three Years' Imprisonment in Turkey: Sir Anthony Sherley, his Embassage he came back, as our Mr. Burlingame did, an Ambassador from the Emperor of Persia to the European Powers]; Master Robert Sherley, his Wars against the Turks and Marriage to the Emperor of Persia's Niece.

GEORGE SANDYS, 1577-1643, a son of Archbishop Sandys, was a man of great repute in his day, as well for his travels as for his learning and literary ability.

Sandys travelled extensively in the East, and also lived for a time in Virginia, where he was treasurer of the colony. He published a book, in folio, of travels, Relation of a Journey begun in 1610, containing a description of the Turkish Empire, of the Holy Land, and of the remote parts of Italy, a work of far more importance then than such a work would be now, when books of travel are so abundant; Ovid's Metamorphoses Englished; Paraphrases upon the Psalms of David, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Job, Lamentations of Jeremiah, &c., being metrical versions of these several works; Christ's Passion, a Tragedy. The version of Ovid's Metamorphoses was one of the earliest pieces of pure literary work done in America, having been written on the bank of the James River, Virginia.

Thomas Coryat, 1577-1617, was celebrated for his pedestrian excursions.

Coryat travelled through France, Germany, and Italy, walking 1975 miles. More than half of this he accomplished in one pair of shoes, and on returning he hung them up in the village church. He was a half-witted, or half-crazed, sort of person, and was kept in the service of Henry Prince of Wales as Court Fool.

Works.-Coryat wrote accounts of his various travels, which contain much curious information: Coryat's Crudities, hastily gobbled up in Five Months' Travels, etc.; Coryat's Crambe, or his Colwort Twice Sodden, and now served up with other Macaronic Dishes; Traveller for the English Wits, etc. He died in Surat, after having explored Greece, Egypt, Western Asia, and India.

JOHN DAVIS,

1605, was the celebrated British navigator from

whom the strait of that name was called.

Davis made three voyages for the discovery of a northwest passage to the Indies; Bailed with Cavendish to the South Seas; and made five voyages to the East. He published The World's Hydrographical Description; A Report of Three Voyages for the Discovery of the Northwest Passage, etc. His works are mostly contained in Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages.

RICHARD EDEN, in the middle and latter half of the sixteenth century, translated into English from the Latin and the Spanish a number of Voyages and works on Navigation, which contributed quite as much probably to the roving enterprise of English navigators as did the more celebrated Hakluyt's Voyages.

"Eden was the first Englishman who undertook to present in a collective form the astonishing merits of that spirit of maritime enterprise which had been everywhere awakened by the discovery of America."- Rich's Bibl. Am.

RICHARD HAKLUYT, 1553-1616, contributed to the literature of voyages and travels by the valuable collection which he published, commonly known as Hakluyt's Voyages.

Hakluyt was educated at Oxford, and afterwards took orders in the Church of Eng. land. He was not a traveller himself, but merely a publisher of the travels of others. To his zeal and industry it is that we owe the preservation of many accounts of voy

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