entitled, Marmora Oxoniensia,' Oxford, 1676. In 1679, Chancellor Finch presented our author with the rectory of St Clement's, Oxford. The same year Prideaux published two tracts out of Maimonides in Hebrew, to which he added a Latin translation and annotations. The book bears the title of 'De jure Pauperis, et Peregrini apud Judæos.' This he did in consequence of his having been appointed Dr Busby's Hebrew lecturer in the college of Christ-church; and his principal view in printing this book was to introduce young students in the Hebrew language to the knowledge of the Rabbinical dialect, and to teach them to read it without points.

In 1681 Prideaux received a prebend in the cathedral of Norwich; and next year he was instituted to the rectory of Bladen-cum-Woodstock, which he afterwards exchanged for that of Saham in Norfolk. "From the time," says the author of a life of Prideaux, published in 1748, "that he was Master of Arts and a tutor in the college, he was always very zealous and diligent in reforming such disorders and corruptions as had from time to time crept into it; and made all opportunities in his power for suppressing them. This of course drew on him the ill will of many of his fellow-collegians, as must always happen to hose who endeavour at the reformation of discipline. But at the ame time he had the friendship and esteem of the best men, and such whose reputation was highest in the university; particularly of Bishop Fell; Dr Pocock, the learned Hebrew and Arabic professor; Dr Marshall, dean of Gloucester and rector of Lincoln college; Dr Bernard, Savilian professor of astronomy; Dr Mills, the editor of the Greek Testament; Dr Henry Godolphin, late dean of St Paul's; Mr Guise of All Souls college, and many other learned and valuable men."

Soon after the death of Bishop Fell, Dr Prideaux left Oxford, and retired to his prebend, where he soon began to distinguish himself by his determined opposition to popery. In 1688 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Suffolk. He was also recommended to the bishopric of Norwich by the bishops of London and St Asaph; but declined the appointment. In 1697 he published a life of Mahomet, which passed through three editions the same year. About this time also he projected a history of the Saracen empire, of which, however, his life of the Arabian impostor was the only portion which he completed. In 1702 he succeeded Dr Fairfax in the deanery of Norwich. In 1715 he published the first part of his celebrated Connection of the History of the Old and New Testament.' The second part appeared in 1717.

Dr Prideaux died in 1724. "He was naturally," says his biographer," of a very strong, robust constitution, which enabled him to pursue his studies with great assiduity; and notwithstanding his close application and sedentary manner of life, enjoyed great vigour both of body and mind for many years together, till he was seized with the unhappy distemper of the stone. His parts were very good, rather solid than lively. His judgment excellent. As a writer he is clear, strong, and intelligent, without any pomp of language, or ostentation of eloquence. His conversation was a good deal of the same kind, learned and instructive, with a conciseness of expression on many occasions, which to those who were not well acquainted with him, had sometimes the appearance of rusticity. In his manner of life he was

very regular and temperate, being seldom out of his bed after ten at aight, and generally rose to his studies before five in the morning. His manners were sincere and candid. He generally spoke his mind with freedom and boldness, and was not easily diverted from pursuing what he thought right. In his friendships he was constant and invariable; to his family was an affectionate husband, a tender and careful father, and greatly esteemed by his friends and relations, as he was very serviceable to them on all occasions. As a clergyman, he was strict and punctual in the performance of all the duties of his function himself, and carefully exacted the same from the inferior clergy and canons of his church. In party-matters, so far as he was concerned, always showed himself firmly attached to the interest of the protestant cause and principles of the Revolution, but without joining in with the violence of parties, or promoting those factions and divisions which prevailed both in the church and state during the greater part of his life. His integrity and moderation, which should have recommended him to some of the higher stations in the church, were manifestly the occasion of his being neglected; for busy party zealots and men more conversant in the arts of a court, were easily preferred over him, whose highest and only ambition was carefully to perform what was incumbent on him in every station in life, and to acquit himself of his duty to his God, his friends and his country."

Sir John Vanbrugh.

Died A. d. 1726.

THE family of this ingenious architect and successful dramatic poet was originally from Ghent in Flanders. Giles Vanbrugh, or Vanburg, the grandfather of Sir John, fled from his native country when desolated by the persecuting duke of Alva, and, coming to England, settled as a merchant in London, where he died in 1646. His son, the father of our poet, acquired an ample fortune as a sugar-baker in Chester, and married the fifth daughter of Sir Dudley Carleton of Imbercourt in Surrey, by whom he had eight sons, the second of whom was John, who was probably born about the middle of the reign of Charles II.

We have no account of his education; but it probably was liberal, and suited to the rank and circumstances of his family. At an early age he entered the army, in which he, for a short time, bore an ensign's commission. Happening to become acquainted with Sir Thomas Skipwith, who possessed a share in a theatrical patent, the young offcer confessed to him that he occasionally paid his court to the muse of comedy, and showed him the outlines of two plays, which Sir Thomas encouraged him to finish. One of these, The Relapse,' was brought out in 1697, and, notwithstanding the gross indecencies with which it abounded, its success was so great that Vanbrugh abandoned the profession of arms for that of belles lettres. In 1698 he brought out The Provoked Wife,' which was equally well-received as the former, though equally immoral in its tendency, and indelicate in its expression. In the same year he produced his comedy of Æsop; but this was pretty nearly a failure. The False Friend' was acted in 1702.

In 1706, when the Haymarket theatre was finished, Betterton and his associates placed it under the management of Vanbrugh and Congreve, who, in order to humour the prevailing taste, commenced the campaign with a translated opera, set to Italian music, called The Triumph of Love;' but it was coldly received, and lingered out only three nights to thin and disapproving audiences. Immediately after this failure, Vanbrugh produced his comedy called 'The Confederacy,' which was a translation with improvements from the Bourgeois à la Mode' of Dancour. This was a better hit than the preceding. Congreve having given up his share and interest in the theatre to his associate, Vanbrugh was now under an imperious necessity to exert himself, and in one season produced three other imitated pieces from the French. These were, The Cuckold in Conceit,'Squire Treelooby,' and 'The Mistake.' Soon after this he too retired from the management of the theatre. His last comedy, The Journey to London,' was only left in outline. Cibber filled it up with tolerable success.

Hazlitt says of Sir John:-" He is no writer at all as to mere authorship, but he makes up for it by a prodigious fund of comic invention and ludicrous description, bordering somewhat on caricature. He has none of Congreve's graceful refinement, and as little of Wycherley's serious manner and studied insight into the springs of character; but his exhibition of it, in dramatic contrast, and unlooked-for situations, where the different parties play upon one another's feelings, and into one another's hands, keeping up the jest like a game of battledore and shuttlecock, and urging it to the utmost verge of breathless extravagance, is beyond that of any other writer. His fable is not so profoundly learned, nor his characters so well designed as Wycherley's, who in these respects bore some resemblance to Fielding. Vanbrugh does not lay the same deliberate train from the outset to the conclusion, so that the whole may hang together, and lead inevitably from the combination of different agents and circumstances, to the same decisive point; but he works out scene after scene on the spur of the occasion, and, from the immediate hold they take of his imagination at the moment, without any previous bias or ultimate purpose, much more powerfully and in a wider vein of invention. His fancy warms and burnishes out as if he were engaged in the real scene of action, and felt all his faculties suddenly called forth to meet the emergency. He has more nature than art. He has a masterly eye to the advantages which certain accidental situations of character present to him on the spot; and he executes the most difficult and rapid theatrical movements at a minute's warning."

It remains for us to add a brief notice of Sir John in his architectural capacities. At what time he began to exercise the profession of an architect does not appear. His principal buildings are Blenheim, Castle Howard in Yorkshire, and St John's church in Westminster. In his style Sir John frequently attempts to blend the Gothic and Grecian; and the effect this produced is seldom happy. Pope said of Sir John's writings, Van wants grace;' and Horace Walpole applies the saying to his buildings also. But Sir Joshua Reynolds contends 'for Vanbrugh's originality of invention, and great skill in composition. "In the buildings of Vanbrugh," says the learned president," there is a greater display of imagination than we shall find perhaps in any

other; and this is the ground of the effect which we feel in many of his works, notwithstanding the faults with which many of them are justly charged. For this purpose Vanbrugh appears to have had recourse to some principles of the Gothic architecture; which, though not so ancient as the Grecian, is more so to our imagination, with which the artist is more concerned than with absolute truth."

Gilpin's remarks on the architecture of Blenheim-house are worth quoting."The heaviness and enormity of Blenheim castle," says he, "have been greatly criticised; perhaps too severely. We may be too much bigotted to Greek and Roman architecture. It was adapted often to local convenience. Under an Italian sun, for instance, it was of great importance to exclude warmth, and give a current to air. The portico was well adapted to this purpose. A slavish imitation also of antique ornaments may be carried into absurdity. When we see the skulls of oxen adorning a heathen temple, we acknowledge their propriety. But it is rather unnatural to introduce them in a Christian church, where sacrifice would be an offence. We are fettered also too much by orders and proportions. The ancients themselves paid no such close attention to them. Our modern code was collected by average calculations from their works; by Sansovine particularly, and Palladio. But if these modern legislators of the art had been obliged to produce precedents, they could not have found any two buildings among the remains of ancient Rome, which were exactly of the same proportions. I would not, by any means, wish to shake off the wholesome restraint of those laws of art which have been made rules, because they were first reasons. All I mean is, to apologise for Vanbrugh. For though it may be difficult to please in any other form of architecture than what we see in daily use; yet in an art which has not nature for its model, the mind recoils with disdain at the idea of an exclusive system. The Greeks did not imagine, that when they had invented a good thing, the faculty was exhausted, and incapable of producing another. Where should we have admired, at this day, the beauty of the Ionic order, if, after the Doric had been invented, it had been considered as the ne plus ultra of art; and every deviation from its proportions reprobated as barbarous innovations? Vanbrugh's attempt, therefore, seems to have been an effort of genius: and if we can keep the imagination apart from the five orders, we must allow that he has created a magnificent whole; which is invested with an air of grandeur seldom seen in a more regular style of building. Its very defects, except a few that are too glaring to be overlooked, give it an appearance of something beyond common; and as it is surrounded with great objects, the eye is struck with the whole, and takes the parts upon trust. What made Vanbrugh ridiculous, was his applying to small houses a style of architecture which could not possibly succeed but in a large one. In a small house, where the grandeur of a whole cannot be attempted, the eye is at leisure to contemplate parts, and meets with frequent occasion of disgust."

Observations on the Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland.'

William Croft.

DIED A. D. 1727.

THE limits of our work necessarily preclude us from noticing many names of considerable eminence in science and literature, especially in the department of music. We could with pleasure have enlarged our brief notices of such men as Purcell, Aldrich, and Blow; and devoted separate articles to other names, such as the elder Hall, organist of Hereford, who died in 1707, whose anthems are still much esteemed; Jeremiah Clark, an excellent church composer; and John Weldon, who confined himself almost entirely to the composition of church music. To these names might be added those of the Eccleses, Dr Tudway, Britton the small-coal man, Weldon, Isham, and many others.

The subject of the present memoir was a native of Nether Eatington in Warwickshire. He was educated in the royal chapel under Dr Blow, and in 1707 became organist of the chapel royal. The next year he succeeded his master as organist of St Peter's, Westminster. In 1715 he was created doctor in music by the university of Oxford. His exercise for the degree was published, under the title of Musicus Apparatus Academicus.' In 1724, Dr Croft published his Musica Sacra, or Select Anthems in score.' This noble work consists of two volumes, the first containing the burial service, which Purcell had begun but did not live to finish. In the preface, Croft says of this work, that it is the first essay in music-printing of the kind, that is, in score, and engraven or stamped on plates, and that, for want of some such contrivance, all the music hitherto published in England had proved very incorrect and defective.1 The Musica Sacra' contains a number of thanksgiving anthems, composed by Croft on the occasion of different victories obtained by the English arms during the reign of Queen Anne. One of the finest of these is that of 1708, Sing unto the Lord.' Among his other anthems, the most admired are, O Lord, rebuke me not,' 'God is gone up,' and 'O Lord, thou hast searched

me out.'

The practice of music-printing from copper plates seems to have been begun in Italy about the middle of the 17th century.