rectified." In this piece the author has made a variety of what he reckons remarks on the misrepresentations in Echard's History; though he acknowledges it to be, in several respects, a work of considerable merit. "When I became your reader," says he, "I was ready to make all the candid allowances you can desire. According to your own motion, I perused your work in order as it was written; and not by leaps, and starts, and distant parcels. And, now I have gone through the whole, am so little inclined to detract from you, that I can freely say a great deal in your commendation. The clearness of your method, and the perspicuity of your language, are two very great excellencies, which I admire. I am singularly pleased with the refreshing divisions of your matter, and the chronological distinction of the several parts of your history. I neither make any objections against the form of it as irregular or disproportionate, nor the general method as intricate and confused, nor the colouring as weak and unaffecting, nor the style as mean, flat, and insipid; which are the things about which you appear peculiarly concerned. And yet I thought a public animadversion both proper and necessary, and can meet with none of your readers, how different soever in their sentiments, views, and principles, but what herein agree." Dr. Calamy also speaks of the "smooth and polite way" in which Mr. Echard's History is written; and says, that it has several beauties above many that had gone before him. But he adds, that he reckons his first volume to be by much the best of the three. It was also attacked, but with less candour, by Oldmixon in his "Critical History of England," and his "History of the Stuarts."

This History of England was at first, in general, well received, and passed through several editions; but it appears to have greatly sunk in reputation after the publication of Rapin. Echard related facts with perspicuity, whatever objection may be made to his political bias; and his work is rendered the more entertaining by short characters of the most eminent literary men in the different periods of his history.

In 1719 he published, in a thin volume, 8vo, "Maxims and Discourses, moral and divine: taken from the works of archbishop Tillotson, and methodized and connected." He was presented by king George I. to the livings of Rendlesham, Sudborn, and Alford, in Suffolk; at which places VOL. XIII.

C

he lived about eight years; but, in a continual ill state of health. Finding himself grow worse, and being advised to go to Scarborough for the benefit of the waters, he set out, but, declining very fast, he was unable to proceed farther than Lincoln, where soon after his arrival, going out to take the air, he died in his chariot, on the 16th of August, 1730, and was interred in the chancel of St. Mary Magdalen's church, but without any monument or memorial of him. He was a member of the Society of Antiquaries. He married two wives; first, Jane, daughter to the rev. Mr. Potter, of Yorkshire; and, secondly, a daughter of Mr. Robert Wooley, a gentleman of Lincolnshire: but he had no children by either of them.

Besides the works already mentioned, Mr. Echard was also the author of "A History of the Revolution in 1688," one volume, 8vo; of "The Gazetteer's or Newsman's Interpreter, being a Geographical Index of all the considerable cities, &c. in Europe," &c. of which the eleventh edition, in 12mo, was published in 1716; and of "A Description of Ireland," Lond. 1691, 12mo. He likewise published a translation of three comedies of Plautus, being the Amphitryon, Epidicus, and Rudens. Of this the second edition was published in 1716. He had also some share in a translation of Terence, but the language of this and of his Plautus is vulgar and degrading. The ninth edition of the translation of Terence, which is said to be "by Mr. Lawrence Echard, and others," was published in 12mo, in 1741.1

ECKHEL (JOSEPH HILARY), an eminent antiquary and medallist, was born at Entzesfield in Austria, Jan. 13, 1737, and in 1751 entered the order of the Jesuits at Vienna, with whom he studied philosophy, mathematics, divinity, and the learned languages. His skill in medals, which appeared very early, induced his superiors to give him the place of keeper of their cabinet of medals and coins. In 1772, he was sent to Rome, where Leopold II. grand duke of Florence, employed him to arrange his collection, and on his return in 1774, he was appointed director of the imperial cabinet of medals at Vienna, and professor of antiquities. In 1775 he published his first valuable work, under the title of "Nummi veteres anecdoti ex museis Cæsareo Vindobonensi, Florentino magni Ducis Etruriæ,

1 Biog. Brit.

Granelliano nunc Cæsareo, aliisque," Vienna, 4to, in which he arranges the various articles according to the new system which he had formed, and which promises to be advantageous from its simplicity, although it has some trifling inconveniencies. This was followed by his "Catalogus Musei Cæsarei Vindobonensis Nummorum veterum," Vienna, 1779, 2 vols. fol. This has only eight plates, containing such articles as had never been published, or were not noticed in his preceding work. In 1786 he published, Sylloge nummorum veterum anecdotorum thesauri Cesarei," Vienna, 4to, and "Descriptio nummorum Antiochæ Syriæ, sive specimen artis critica numerariæ," ibid. In 1787 he published, in German, a small elementary work on coins for the use of schools, but which has been thought better adapted to give young persons a taste for the science than to initiate them in it. This was followed, in 1788, by his "Explanation of the Gems" in the Imperial collection, a very magnificent book. In 1792 he published the first volume of his great work on numismatical history, entitled "Doctrina nummorum veterum," and the eighth and last volume in 1798; the excellent method and style of this work, and the vast erudition displayed, place him at the head of modern writers on this subject, and have occasioned the remark that he is the Linnæus of his science. This very eminent antiquary died May 16,

1798.1

ECKIUS (JOHN), a learned divine, and professor in the university of Ingoldstadt, was born in Suabia, in 1483. He is memorable for promoting the reformation by the weakness of the opposition he gave to Luther, Melancthon, Carolostadius, and other leading protestants in Germany; and for his disputes and writings against them in defence of his own communion, all which terminated in his defeat, and in exciting a spirit of inquiry and discussion which eminently advanced the reformation. In 1518 he disputed with Luther at Leipsic, about the supremacy of the pope, penance, purgatory, and indulgences, before George duke of Saxony; at which time even the Lutherans were ready to grant that he acquitted himself as well as a man could do in the support of such a cause, and were not a little pleased that they were able to answer its greatest supporter. He disputed the year after, against

Dict. Hist. Saxii Onomasticon, vol. VIII,

Carolostadius, on the subject of free will. He appeared at the diet of Augsburg in 1538, where he argued against the protestant confession; and in 1541 he disputed for three days with Melancthon and other divines at Worms, concerning the continuance of original sin after baptism. This conference, by the emperor's command, was adjourned to Ratisbon; where he dissented again from Pflug and Gropper, with reference to the articles of union. He was the most conspicuous orator in all the public disputes which the Roman catholics had with the Lutherans and Zwinglians. He wrote a great many polemical tracts; and, among the rest, a Manual of Controversies, in which he discourses upon most of the heads contested between the papists and protestants. This book was printed at Ingoldstadt, in 1535. He wrote another tract against the articles proposed at the conference at Ratisbon, printed at Paris in 1543. He composed likewise two discourses upon the sacrifice of the mass; some other controversial pieces; an exposition upon the prophet Haggai; and several homilies. Upon the whole, he was a person of uncommon parts, uncommon learning, and uncommon zeal; and to his perseverance in the cause of popery, the reformers were greatly indebted. He died at Ingoldstadt, in 1543, aged sixty years, 1

ECLUSE (CHARLES), in Latin Clusius, an eminent bo tanist, was born at Arras, in French Flanders, on Feb. 19, 1526, and was educated at Ghent and Louvain, in the languages, jurisprudence, and medicine, in which last faculty he took a degree, but without any view to practice. At the age of twenty-three he began his travels, and pursued in them all the study of botany, to which he was extremely partial. He visited England three times, and in all his journeys cultivated the acquaintance of the learned in his favourite science. He also not only collected and described a number of new plants, but made drawings of several with his own hand. In 1573 he was invited to Vienna, by the emperor Maximilian II. with whom, as well as with his son, afterwards the emperor Rodolphus II. he was in great favour, and was honoured by the former with the rank of nobility. In 1593, the sixty-eighth year of his age, he was chosen professor of botany at Leyden, where he resided in great reputation

Mosheim; and particularly Milner's Church Hist: vol. IV. p. 377.—Moreri.

till his death, April 4, 1609. At his funeral, in St. Mary's church, Leyden, a Latin oration in his praise was delivered by the rector of the university. With respect to bodily health, Ecluse was unfortunate beyond the usual lot of humanity. In his youth he was afflicted with dangerous fevers, and afterwards with a dropsy. He broke his right arm and leg by a fall from his horse in Spain, and dislocated, as well as fractured his left ankle at Vienna. In his sixty-third year he dislocated his right thigh, which, being at first neglected, could never afterwards be reduced, and he became totally unable to walk. Calculous disorders, in consequence of his sedentary life, accompanied with colic and a hernia, close the catalogue of his afflictions. Yet his cheerful temper and ardour for science never forsook him, nor did any man ever enjoy more respect and esteem from those who knew him.

Although not like his great contemporary, Conrad Gesner, a systematic genius, Ecluse was one of the best practical botanists. He discriminated plants very happily, and his histories of them are rendered interesting by innumerable remarks and anecdotes. He introduced the cherrylaurel and horse-chesnut, now so common and so ornamental, which he received, among many other plants, from the Imperial ambassador at the Porte, in 1576. As all the rest of the cargo perished, it is but just that his memory should be perpetuated along with those two beautiful trees, with which all botanists of taste ought for ever to associate his name.

The principal publications of Ecluse are, 1. " Rariorum aliquot Stirpium per Hispanias observatarum Historia," Antwerp, 1576, 8vo, with above 220 wooden cuts, admirably executed. 2. Rariorum aliquot Stirpium per Pannoniam, Austriam, et vicinas quasdam Provincias observatarum Historia," Antwerp, 1583, 8vo, with above 350 wooden cuts. 3. The foregoing were republished with the title of "Rariorum Plantarum Historia," in folio, at Antwerp, in 1601. This is the edition in common use, and most generally quoted. 4. "Exoticorum Libri decem," Antwerp, 1605, folio, with numerous cuts of animals, exotic fruits, and gums. 5. "Cure Posteriores," Antwerp, 1611, folio. This posthumous work is generally bound with the last. It consists of a few excellent figures and descriptions of rare plants. The funeral oration of Ecluse, with various poetical tributes to his memory, are