SUEUR (EUSTACHE LE), one of the best painters in his time, which the French nation had produced, was born at Paris in 1617, and ftudied the principles of his art under Simon Vouet, whom he infinitely furpaffed. It is remarkable, that Le Sueur was never out of France, and yet he carried his art to the highest degree of perfection. His works fhew a grand gufto of defign, which was formed upon antiquity, and after the best Italian masters. He invented with eafe, and his execution was always worthy of his defigns. He was ingenuous, difcreet, and delicate, in the choice of his objects. His attitudes are fumple and noble; his expreffions fine, fingular, and very well adapted to the fubject. His draperies are fet after the goût of Raphael's laft works. Whatever was the reafon of it, he knew little of the local colours, or the claro obfcuro: but he was so much mafter of the other parts of painting, that there was a great likelihood of his throwing off Vouet's manner entirely, had he lived longer, and once relifhed that of the Venetian school; which he would certainly have imitated in his colouring, as he imitated the manner of the Roman school in his defigning. For, immediately after Vouet's death, he perceived that his mafter had led him out of the way; and by confidering the antiques that were in France, and alfo the defigns and prints of the best Italian mafters, particularly Raphael, he contracted a more refined ftyle and happier manner. Le Brun could not forbear being jealous of Le Sueur, who did not mean however to give any man pain; for he had great fimplicity of manners, much candour, and exact probity. His principal works are at Paris, where he died the 30th of April 1655, at no more than thirty-eight years of age. The life of St. Bruno, in the cloister of the Carthufians at Paris, is reckoned his mafter-piece, but it his defaced by somebody who envied him.

SUICER (JOHN GASPARD), a moft learned German divine, was born at Zurich in 1620; became profeffor there of the Greek and Hebrew languages; and died at Heidelberg in 1705. He is the compiler of a very ufeful work, called "Lexicon, five Thefaurus Ecclefiafticus "Patrum Græcorum:" the best edition of which is that of Amfterdam, 1728, in 2 vols. folio. He had a fon, Henry Suicer, diftinguished by fome literary productions, who was a profeffor, firft at Zuric, then at Heidelberg; and who died alfo in 1705, the fame year with his father SUIDAS,

SUIDAS, author of a Greek Lexicon, the beft edition) of which was published, with a Latin verfion and notes, by Ludovicus Kufterus, at Cambridge 1705, in three volumes folio. Who Suidas was, or when he lived, are points of great uncertainty; no circumftances of his life having been recorded either by himself or any other writer. Politian and fome others have been of opinion that no fuch perfon ever existed; but that Suidas was a real perfon, appears, not only from his name being found in all the manufcripts of his Lexicon, but from his being often mentioned by Euf- Præfat. tathius in his Commentary upon Homer. The learned have Kuter. ad differed in the fame manner concerning the age of Suidas; fome, as Grotius, fuppofing him to have lived under Conftantinus, the fon of Leo, emperor of the Eaft, who began to reign in 912; while others have brought him even lower than Euftathius, who is known to have lived in 1180. Our learned Bentley has written thus concerning it: "As for Differtation *Suidas, he has brought down a point of chronology to pon Phale"the death of the emperor Zimifces, that is, to the year of ris, p. 12. "Chrift 975: fo that he seems to have written his Lexicon

Suide Lexi

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between that time, and the death of the fucceeding em“peror, which was in 1025." As to the Lexicon, it is nothing more than a compilation of matters from various authors, fometimes made with judgement and diligence, and fometimes without. Suidas often ufed bad copies; whence it has happened, that he fometimes gives his reader corrupt and fpurious words, instead of thofe that are pure and genuine. Sometimes he has mixed things of a different. kind, and belonging to different authors, promifcuously; and fometimes he has brought examples to illuftrate the figRification of words which are nothing to the purpofe. Thefe imperfections however being allowed, his Lexicon is upon the whole a very ufeful book, and a storehouse as it were of all forts of erudition. The grammarians by profeffion have all prized it highly; and thofe who are not fo may find their advantage in it, fince it not only gives an account of poets, orators, and hiftorians, &c. but exhibits many excellent paffages of ancient authors that are loft.

This Lexicon of Suidas was first published at Milan 1499, in Greek only: it has fince been printed with a Latin version: but the best edition, indeed the only good one, is that of Kufter, mentioned above, on which Toup, the prefent patriarch of Greek literature in this kingdom, has bestowed no little pains, and in fo doing has demonftrated an un

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common

vol. ix.

Bibl. Græc. common critical acumen. Fabricius has given us a large alphabetical index of the authors mentioned and quoted by Suidas in this Lexicon.

Memoires de Sully.

SULLY (MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, duke of), one of the ableft and honefteft minifters that France ever had, was defcended from an ancient and illuftrious houfe, and born in 1560. He was, from his earliest youth, the fervant and friend of Henry IV. who was juft seven years older than he, being born at Pau in Bearn in 1553. He was bred in the opinions and doctrine of the Reformed religion, and continued to the end of his life constant in the profeffion of it, which fitted him more efpecially for the important fervices to which Providence had defigned him. Jane d'Albert, queen of Navarre, after the death of her husband Anthony de Bourbon, which was occafioned by a wound he received at the fiege of Rouen in 1592, returned to Bearn, where the openly profeffed Calvinifm. She fent for her fon Henry from the court of France to Pau in 1566, and put him under a Huguenot preceptor, who trained him up in the Proteftant religion. She declared herself the protetrefs of the Proteftants in 1566; and came to Rochelle, where the devoted her fon to the defence of the new reli. gion. In that quality Henry, then prince of Bearn, was declared chief of the party; and followed the army from that time to the peace, which was figned at St Germains the 11th of Auguft 1570. He then returned to Bearn, and made ufe of the quiet that was given him, to vifit his eftates and his government of Guyenne; after which he came and fettled in Rochelle, with the queen of Navarre his mother.

The advantages granted to the Protestants by the peace of St. Germains, raised a fufpicion in the breafts of their leaders, that the court of France did not mean them well; and in reality nothing else was intended by the peace, than to prepare for the most difmal tragedy that ever was acted. The queen dowager Catharine de Medicis, and her fon Charles IX. were now convinced, that the Proteftants were too powerful to be fubdued by force: a refolution was taken therefore to extirpate them, by ftratagem and treachery. For this purpofe queen Catharine and Charles diffembled to the laft degree; and, during the whole year 1571, talked of nothing but faithfully obferving the treaties of entering into a clofer correfpondence with the Proteftants, and carefully preventing all occafions of rekindling the war. To re

move all poffible fufpicions, the court of France propofed a marriage between Charles the IXth's fifter, and Henry prince of Bearn; and feigned, at the fame time, as if they would prepare a war against Spain, than which nothing could be more agreeable to Henry. Thèfe things, enforced with great feeming frankness and fincerity, entirely gained the queen of Navarre; who, though the at firft doubted, and continued irrefolute for fome months, yet ylelded about the end of the year 1571, and prepared for the journey to Paris, as was propofed, in May 1572.

Still there were a thousand circumftances, which were fufficient to render the fincerity of thefe great promifes fufpected; and it is certain, that many among the Proteftants did fufpect them to the very laft. Sully's father was one of thefe, and conceived fuch ftrong apprehenfions, that when the report of the court of Navatre's journey to Paris firft reached him, he could not give credid to it. Firmly perfuaded that the prefent calm would be of Thort continuance, he made hafte to take advantage of it, and prepared to fhut himself up with his effects in Rochelle, when every one else talked of nothing but leaving it. The queen of Navarre informed him foon after more particularly of this defign, and requested him to join her in her way to Vendome. He went, and took Sully, now in his twelfth year, along with him. He found a general fecurity at Vendome, and an air of fatisfaction on every face; which though he durft not object to in public, yet he made remonftrances to fome of the chiefs in private. Thefe were looked upon as the effect of weakness and timidity; and fo, not caring to feem wifer than perfons of greater understandings, he fuffered himself to be carried with the torrent. He went to Rofhy, to put himself into a condition to appear at the magnificent court of France; but, before he went, prefented his fon to the prince of Bearn, in the prefence of the queen his mother, with great folemnity, and affurances of the most inviolable attachment. Sully did not return with his father to Rofny, but went to Paris in the queen of Navarre's train. He applied himself closely to his ftudies, without neglecting to pay a proper court to the prince his mafter; and lived with a governor and a valet de chambre in a part of Paris where almoft all the colleges ftood, and continued there till the bloody catastrophe which happened foon after.

Nothing could be more kind than the reception which the queen of Navarre, her children, and principal fervants, VOL. XII.

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met with from the king and queen; nor more obliging, than their treament of them. The queen of Navarre died, and fome historians make no doubt but he was poisoned; yet the whole court appeared fenfibly affected, and went into deep mourning. In a word, it is not fpeaking too feverely upon this conduct of Catherine de Medicis and Charles IX. to call it an almoft incredible prodigy of diffimulation. Still many of the Proteftants, among whom was Sully's father, fufpected the defigns of the court; and had fuch convinceing proofs, that they quitted the court, and Paris itself, or at leaft lodged in the fuburbs. They warned prince Henry to be cautious; but he liftened to nothing; and fome of his chiefs, the adiniral de Coligny in particular, though one of the wifeft and most fagacious men in the world, were as incredulous. The fact to be perpetrated was fixed for the 24th of Auguft, 1572, and is well known by the name of the maffacre of St. Bartholomew. The feaft of St. Bartholomew fell this year upon a Sunday; and the maffacre was perpetrated in the evening.

All the neceffary measures having been taken, the ringing of the bells of St. Germain l'Auxerrois for matins was the fignal for begining the flaughter. The admiral de Coligny was firft murdered by a domeitic of the duke of Guife, the duke himfelf ftaying below in the court, and his body was thrown out of the window. They cut off his head, and carried it to the queen-mother; and, when they had offered all manner of indignities to the bleeding carcafe, hung it on the gibbet of Montfaucon. The king, Hiftoire de as father Daniel relates, went to feast himself with the fight France, ad of it; and, when fome that were with him took notice ann. 1572 that it was fomewhat offenfive, is faid to have used the reply of the Roman emperor Vitellius: "The body of a

dead enemy always finells fweet." All the domestics of the admiral were afterwards flain, and the flaughter was at the fame time begun by the king's emiffarics in all parts of the city. Tavannes, a marfhal of France, who had been page to Francis I. and was at that time one of the counfellors and confidents of Catharine de Medicis, ran through the ftreets of Paris, crying, "Let blood, let blood! bleed

ing is as good in the month of Auguft, as in May !" The moft diftinguifhed of the Calvinifts that perihed were Francis de la Rochefoucault; who having been at play part of the night with the king, and finding himself feized in bed by men in mafques, thought they were the