LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS. FATHER PAUL SARPI. for his application was unintermitted, his head clear, his apprehension quick, and his memory retentive. FATHER PAUL, whose name, before he entered | parts of natural philosophy, and chemistry itself; into the monastic life, was Peter Sarpi, was born at Venice, August 14, 1552. His father followed merchandise, but with so little success, that, at his death, he left his family very ill provided for, but under the care of a mother, whose piety was likely to bring the blessing of Providence upon them, and whose wise conduct supplied the want of fortune by advantages of greater value. Happily for young Sarpi, she had a brother master of a celebrated school, under whose direction he was placed by her. Here he lost no time, but cultivated his abilities, naturally of the first rate, with unwearied application. He was born for study, having a natural aversion to pleasure and gayety, and a memory so tenacious, that he could repeat thirty verses upon once hearing them. Proportionable to his capacity was his progress in literature: at thirteen, having made himself master of school-learning, he turned his studies to philosophy and the mathematics, and entered upon logic under Capella of Cremona, who, though a celebrated master of that science, confessed himself in a very little time unable to give his pupil farther instructions. As Capella was of the order of the Servites, his scholar was induced, by his acquaintance with him, to engage in the same profession, though his uncle and his mother represented to him the hardships and austerities of that kind of life, and advised him with great zeal against it. But he was steady in his resolutions, and in 1566 took the habit of the order, being then only in his 14th year, a time of life in most persons very improper for such engagements, but in him attended with such maturity of thought, and such a settled temper, that he never seemed to regret the choice he then made, and which he confirmed by a solemn public profession in 1572. At a general chapter of the Servites, held at Mantua, Paul, (for so we shall now call him,) being then only twenty years old, distinguished himself so much in a public disputation by his genius and learning, that William Duke of Mantua, a great patron of letters, solicited the consent of his superiors to retain him at his court, and not only made him public professor of divinity in the cathedral, but honoured him with many proofs of his esteem. But Father Paul, finding a court life not agree able to his temper, quitted it two years afterwards, and retired to his beloved privacies, being then not only acquainted with the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee languages, but with philosophy, the mathematics, canon and civil law, all Being made a priest at twenty-two, he was distinguished by the illustrious Cardinal Borromeo with his confidence, and employed by him on many occasions, not without the envy of persons of less merit, who were so far exasperated as to lay a charge against him, before the Inquisition, for denying that the Trinity could be proved from the first chapter of Genesis: but the accusation was too ridiculous to be taken notice of. After this he passed successively through the dignities of his order, and in the intervals of his employment applied himself to the studies with so extensive a capacity, as left no branch of knowledge untouched. By him Aquapendente, the great anatomist, confesses that he was informed how vision is performed; and there are proofs that he was not a stranger to the circulation of the blood. He frequently conversed upon astronomy with mathematicians, upon anatomy with surgeons, upon medicine with physicians, and with chemists upon the analysis of metals, not as a superficial inquirer, but as a complete master. But the hours of repose, that he employed so well, were interrupted by a new information in the Inquisition, where a former acquaintance produced a letter written by him in ciphers, in which he said, "that he detested the court of Rome, and that no preferment was obtained there but by dishonest means." This accusation, however dangerous, was passed over on account of his great reputation, but made such impression on that court, that he was afterwards denied a bishopric by Cle ment VIII. After these difficulties were sur mounted, Father Paul again retired to his solitude, where he appears, by some writings drawn up by him at that time, to have turned his attention more to improvements in piety than learning. Such was the care with which he read the scriptures, that, it being his custom to draw a line under any passage which he intended more nicely to consider, there was not a single word in his New Testament but was underlined; the same marks of attention appeared in his Old Testament, Psalter, and Breviary. But the most active scene of his life began about the year 1605, when Pope Paul V. exasperated by some decrees of the senate of Venice that interfered with the pretended rights of the church, laid the whole state under an interdict. The senate, filled with indignation at this treatment, forbade the bishops to receive or publish the Pope's bull; and convening the rectors of the churches, commanded them to celebrate divine service in the accustomed manner, with which most of them readily complied; but the Jesuits and some others refusing, were by a solemn edict expelled the state. Pope's dominions, but were pursued by divine justice, and all, except one man, who died in prison, perished by violent deaths. This and other attempts upon his life obliged him to confine himself to his convent, where he engaged in writing the history of the Council of Trent, a work unBoth parties, having proceeded to extremities, equalled for the judicious disposition of the matemployed their ablest writers to defend their mea-ter, and artful texture of the narration, commended sures on the Pope's side, among others, Cardinal Bellarmine entered the nists, and with his confederate authors defended the papal claims with great scurrility of expression, and very sophistical reasonings, which were confuted by the Venetian apologist in much more decent language, and with much greater solidity of argu ment. On this occasion Father Paul was most eminently distinguished, by his "Defence of the Rights of the supreme Magistrate," his "Treatise of Excommunication" translated from Gerson, with an "Apology," and other writings; for which he was cited before the Inquisition at Rome; but it may be easily imagined that he did not obey the summons. The Venetian writers, whatever might be the abilities of their adversaries, were at least superior to them in the justice of their cause. The propositions maintained on the side of Rome were these: that the Pope is invested with all the authority of heaven and earth. That all princes are his vassals, and that he may annul their laws at pleasure. That kings may appeal to him, as he is temporal monarch of the whole earth. That he can discharge subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and make it their duty to take up arms against their sovereign. That he may depose kings without any fault committed by them, if the good of the church requires it. That the clergy are exempt from all tribute to kings, and are not accountable to them even in cases of high treason. That the Pope cannot err: that his decisions are to be received and obeyed on pain of sin, though all the world should judge them to be false: that the Pope is God upon earth; that his sentence and that of God are the same; and that to call his power in question, is to call in question the power of God; maxims equally shocking, weak, pernicious, and absurd; which did not require the abilities or learning of Father Paul to demonstrate their falsehood, and destructive tendency. It may be easily imagined that such principles were quickly overthrown, and that no court but that of Rome thought it for its interest to favour them. The Pope, therefore, finding his authors confuted, and his cause abandoned, was willing to conclude the affair by treaty, which, by the mediation of Henry IV. of France, was accommodated upon terms very much to the honour of the Venetians. But the defenders of the Venetian rights were, though comprehended in the treaty, excluded by the Romans from the benefit of it; some upon different pretences were imprisoned, some sent to the galleys, and all debarred from preferment. But their malice was chiefly aimed against Father Paul, who soon found the effects of it; for as he was going one night to his convent, about six months after the accommodation, he was attacked by five ruffians armed with stilettoes, who gave him no less than fifteen stabs, three of which wounded him in such a manner, that he was left for dead. The murderers fled for refuge to the nuncio, and were afterwards received into the by Dr. Burnet as the completest model of historical writing, and celebrated by Mr. Wotton as equivalent to any production of antiquity; in which the reader finds "Liberty without licentiousness, piety without hypocrisy, freedom of speech without neglect of decency, severity without rigour, and extensive learning without ostentation." In this and other works of less consequence he spent the remaining part of his life, to the beginning of the year 1622, when he was seized with a cold and fever, which he neglected till it became incurable. He languished more than twelve months, which he spent almost wholly in a preparation for his passage into eternity; and among his prayers and aspirations was often heard to repeat, Lord! now let thy servant depart in peace. On Sunday the eighth of January of the next year, he rose, weak as he was, to mass, and went to take his repast with the rest, but on Monday was seized with a weakness that threatened immediate death; and on Thursday prepared for his change by receiving the Viaticum with such marks of devotion, as equally melted and edified the beholders. Through the whole course of his illness to the last hour of his life, he was consulted by the senate in public affairs, and returned answers, in his greatest weakness, with such presence of mind as could only arise from the consciousness of innocence. On Sunday, the day of his death, he had the passion of our blessed Saviour read to him out of St. John's gospel, as on every other day of that weck, and spoke of the mercy of his Redeemer, and his confidence in his merits. As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to pronounce the last prayers with which he could only join in his thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, Esto perpetua, Mayest thou last for ever; which was understood to be a prayer for the prosperity of his country. Thus died Father Paul, in the 71st year of his age; hated by the Romans as their most formidable enemy, and honoured by all the learned for his abilities, and by the good for his integrity. His detestation of the corruption of the Roman church appears in all his writings, but particularly in this memorable passage of one of his letters: "There is nothing more essential than to ruin the reputation of the Jesuits: by the ruin of the Jesuits, Rome will be ruined; and if Rome is ruined religion will reform of itself." He appears by many passages of his life to have had a high esteem of the church of England; and his friend, Father Fulgentio, who had adopted all his notions, made no scruple of administering to Dr. Duncomb, an English gentleman that fell sick at Venice, the communion in both kinds, according to the Common Prayer which he had with him in Italian. He was buried with great pomp at the public charge, and a magnificent monument was erected to his memory. BOERHA A VE. THE following account of the late Dr. BOERHAAVE, SO loudly celebrated, and so universally lamented through the whole learned world, will, we hope, be not unacceptable to our readers: we could have made it much larger, by adopting flying reports, and inserting unattested facts; a close adherence to certainty has contracted our narrative, and hindered it from swelling to that bulk at which modern histories generally arrive. students, not well acquainted with the constitu tion of the human body, sometimes fly for relief to wine instead of exercise, and purchase temporary ease by the hazard of the most dreadful consequences. The studies of young Boerhaave were, about this time, interrupted by an accident, which deserves particular mention, as it first inclined him to that science, to which he was by nature so well adapted, and which he afterwards carried to so great perfection. Dr. Herman Boerhaave was born on the last day of December 1668, about one in the morning, at Voorhout, a village two miles distant from In the twelfth year of his age, a stubborn, painLeyden; his father, James Boerhaave, was mi- ful, and malignant ulcer, broke out upon his left nister of Voorhout, of whom his son,* in a small thigh; which, for near five years, defeated all the account of his own life, has given a very amiable art of the surgeons and physicians, and not only character, for the simplicity and openness of his afflicted him with most excruciating pains, but exbehaviour, for his exact frugality in the manage-posed him to such sharp and tormenting applicament of a narrow fortune, and the prudence, tenderness, and diligence, with which he educated a numerous family of nine children. He was eminently skilled in history and genealogy, and versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. His mother was Hagar Daelder, a tradesman's daughter of Amsterdam, from whom he might, perhaps, derive an hereditary inclination to the study of physic, in which she was very inquisitive, and had obtained a knowledge of it not common in female students. This knowledge, however, she did not live to communicate to her son; for she died in 1673, ten years after her marriage. His father finding himself encumbered with the care of seven children, thought it necessary to take a second wife, and in July 1674, was married to Eve du Bois, daughter of a minister of Leyden, who, by her prudent and impartial conduct, so endeared herself to her husband's children, that they all regarded her as their own mother. Herman Boerhaave was always designed by his father for the ministry, and with that view instructed by him in grammatical learning, and the first elements of languages; in which he made such a proficiency, that he was at the age of eleven years, not only master of the rules of grammar, but capable of translating with tolerable accuracy, and not wholly ignorant of critical niceties. tions, that the disease and remedies were equally insufferable. Then it was that his own pain taught him to compassionate others, and his experience of the inefficacy of the methods then in use incited him to attempt the discovery of others more certain. He began to practise at least honestly, for he began upon himself; and his first essay was a prelude to his future success, for, having laid aside all the prescriptions of his physicians, and all the applications of his surgeons, he at last, by tormenting the part with salt and urine, effected a cure. That he might, on this occasion, obtain the assistance of surgeons with less inconvenience and expense, he was brought by his father, at fourteen, to Leyden, and placed in the fourth class of the public school, after being examined by the master: here his application and abilities were equally conspicuous. In six months, by gaining the first prize in the fourth class, he was raised to the fifth and in six months more, upon the same proof of the superiority of his genius, rewarded with another prize, and translated to the sixth : from whence it is usual in six months more to be removed to the university. Thus did our young student advance in learning and reputation, when as he was within view of the university, a sudden and unexpected blow threatened to defeat all his expectations. On the 12th of November, in 1682, his father died, and left behind him a very slender provision for his widow and nine children, of which the eldest was not yet seventeen years old. At intervals, to recreate his mind, and strengthen his constitution, it was his father's custom to send him into the fields, and employ him in agriculture and such kind of rural occupations, which This was a most afflicting loss to the young he continued through all his life to love and prac-scholar, whose fortune was by no means suffitise; and by this vicissitude of study and exercise preserved himself, in a great measure, from those distempers and depressions which are frequently the consequences of indiscreet diligence, and uninterrupted application; and from which Erat Hermanni Genitor Latine, Græce, Hebraice sciens: peritus valde historiarum et gentium. Vir apertus, candidus, simplex ; paterfamilias optimus amore, cura, diligentia, frugalitate, prudentia. Qui non magna in re, sed plenus virtutis. novem liberis educandis, exemplum præbuit singulare, quid exacta parsimonia polleat, et frugalitas.-Ŏrig. Edit. cient to bear the expenses of a learned education, and who therefore seemed to be now summoned by necessity to some way of life more immediately and certainly lucrative; but with a resolution equal to his abilities, and a spirit not so depressed and shaken, he determined to break through the obstacles of poverty, and supply, by diligence, the want of fortune. He therefore asked and obtained the consent of his guardians to prosecute his studies, so long as his patrimony would support him; and, continuing his wonted industry, gained another prize. He was now to quit the school for the univer- | metaphysicians adopted as articles of faith. He sity, but on account of the weakness yet remain- found difficulties raised by niceties, and fomented ing in his thigh, was at his own entreaty continued to bitterness and rancour. He saw the simplicity six months longer under the care of his master, of the Christian doctrine corrupted by the private the learned Winschotan, where he once more fancies of particular parties, while each adhered was honoured, with the prize. to its own philosophy, and orthodoxy was confined to the sect in power. At his removal to the university, the same genius and industry met with the same encouragement and applause. The learned Triglandius, one of his father's friends, made soon after professor of divinity at Leyden, distinguished him in a particular manner, and recommended him to the friendship of Mr. Van Apphen, in whom he found a generous and constant patron. He became now a diligent hearer of the most celebrated professors, and made great advances in all the sciences; still regulating his studies with a view principally to divinity, for which he was originally intended by his father, and for that reason exerted his utmost application to attain an exact knowledge of the Hebrew tongue. Being convinced of the necessity of mathematical learning, he began to study those sciences in 1687, but without that intense industry with which the pleasure he found in that kind of knowledge induced him afterwards to cultivate them. In 1690, having performed the exercises of the university with uncommon reputation, he took his degree in philosophy; and on that occasion discussed the important and arduous subject of the distinct natures of the soul and body, with such accuracy, perspicuity, and subtlety, that he entirely confuted all the sophistry of Epicurus, Hobbes, and Spinosa, and equally raised the characters of piety and erudition. * Divinity was still his great employment, and the chief aim of all his studies. He read the scriptures in their original languages, and when difficulties occurred, consulted the interpretations of the most ancient fathers, whom he read in order of time, beginning with Clemens Romanus. In the perusal of those early writers, he was struck with the profoundest veneration of the simplicity and purity of their doctrines, the holiness of their lives, and the sanctity of the discipline practised by them; but, as he descended to the lower ages, found the peace of Christianity broken by useless controversies, and its doctrines sophisticated by the subtleties of the schools. He found the holy writers interpreted according to the notions of philosophers, and the chimeras of "Jungebat his exercitiis quotidianam patrum lectionem, secundum chronologiam, a Clemente Romano exorsus, et juxta seriem seculorum descendens: ut Jesu Christi doctrinam in N. T. traditam, primis patribus interpretantibus, addisceret. bat. Having now exhausted his fortune in the pursuit of his studies, he found the necessity of ap plying to some profession, that, without engross ing all his time, might enable him to support himself; and, having obtained a very uncommon knowledge of the mathematics, he read lectures in those sciences to a select number of young gentlemen in the university. At length, his propension to the study of physic grew too violent to be resisted; and, though he still intended to make divinity the great employ ment of his life, he could not deny himself the satisfaction of spending some time upon the medi cal writers, for the perusal of which he was so well qualified by his acquaintance with mathematics and philosophy. But this science corresponded so much with his natural genius, that he could not forbear making that his business which he intended only as his diversion; and still growing more eager as he advanced farther, he at length determined wholly to master that profession, and to take his degree in physic, before he engaged in the duties of the ministry. It is, I believe, a very just observation, that men's ambition is generally proportioned to their capacity. Providence seldom sends any into the world with an inclination to attempt great things, who have not abilities likewise to perform them. To have formed the design of gaining a complete knowledge of medicine by way of digression from theological studies, would have been little less than madness in most men, and would have only exposed them to ridicule and contempt. Boerhaave was one of those mighty geniuses, to whom scarce any thing appears impossible, and who think nothing worthy of their efforts but what appears insurmountable to common understandings. But He began this new course of study by a dili gent perusal of Vesalius, Bartholine, and Fallo pius; and, to acquaint himself more fully with the structure of bodies, was a constant attendant upon Nuck's public dissections in the theatre, and himself very accurately inspected the bodies of different animals. Having furnished himself with this preparatory knowledge, he began to read the ancient physi cians in the order of time, pursuing his inquiries downwards from Hippocrates through all the Greek and Latin writers. Horum simplicitatem sinceræ doctrinæ, disciplinæ Finding, as he tells us himself, that Hippocrates sanctitatem, vitæ Deo dicatæ integritatem adorabat. Subtilitatem scholarum divina postmodum inquinasse dole was the original source of all medical knowledge, Egerrime tulit, Sacrorum interpretationem ex and that all the later writers were little more than sectis sophistarum peti: et Platonis, Aristotelis, Thomæ transcribers from him, he returned to him with Aquin tis, Scoti; suoque tempore Cartesii, cogitata metaphysica adhiberi pro legibus, ad quas castigarentur more attention, and spent much time in making sacrorum scriptorum de Deo sententiæ. Experiebatur extracts from him, digesting his treatises into me acerba dissidia, ingeniorumque subtilissimorum acerri-thod, and fixing them in his memory. ma certamina, odia, ambitiones, inde cieri, foveri; adeo He then descended to the moderns, among contraria paci cum Deo et homine. Nihil hic magis illi whom none engaged him longer, or improved obstabat; quam quod omnes asserant sacram scripturam dvorras loquentem, os explicandam, et him more, than Sydenham, to whose merit he has O pérovav singuli definiant ex placitis sux metaphysices. left this attestation, "that he frequently perused Horrebat, inde dominantis secte prævalentem opinio- him, and always with greater eagerness." nem, orthodoxie modum, et regulas, unice dare juxta dictata metaphysicorum, non sacrarum literarum; unde tam variæ sententia de doctrina simplicissima."-Origin. Edit. His insatiable curiosity after knowledge engaged him now in the practice of chemistry, which he prosecuted with all the ardour of a phi losopher, whose industry was not to be wearied, and whose love of truth was too strong to suffer him to acquiesce in the reports of others. Yet did he not suffer one branch of science to withdraw his attention from others: anatomy did not withhold him from chemistry, nor chemistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany, in which he was no less skilled than in other parts of physic. He was not only a careful examiner of all the plants in the garden of the university, but made excursions for his farther improvement into the woods and fields, and left no place unvisited where any increase of botanical knowledge could be reasonably hoped for. In conjunction with all these inquiries he still pursued his theological studies, and still, as we are informed by himself, "proposed, when he had made himself master of the whole art of physic, and obtained the honour of a degree in that science, to petition regularly for a license to preach, and to engage in the cure of souls," and intended in his theological exercise to discuss this question, "why so many were formerly converted to Christianity by illiterate persons, and so few at present by men of learning." This was observed by a stranger who was in the boat with them; he inquired of his neighbour the name of the young man, whose question had put an end to the discourse, and having learned it, set it down in his pocket-book, as it appears, with a malicious design, for in a few days it was the common conversation at Leyden, that Boerhaave had revolted to Spinosa. It was in vain that his advocates and friends pleaded his learned and unanswerable confutation of all atheistical opinions, and particularly of the system of Spinosa, in his discourse of the distinction between soul and body. Such calumnies are not easily suppressed, when they are once become general. They are kept alive and supported by the malice of bad, and sometimes by the zeal of good men, who, though they do not absolutely believe them, think it yet the securest method to keep not only guilty, but suspected men out of public employments, upon this principle, that the safety of many is to be preferred before the advantage of few. Boerhaave, finding this formidable opposition raised against his pretensions to ecclesiastical honours or preferments, and even against his deIn pursuance of this plan he went to Harde- sign of assuming the character of a divine, thought wich, in order to take the degree of doctor in it neither necessary nor prudent to struggle with physic, which he obtained in July, 1693, having the torrent of popular prejudice, as he was equally perforined a public disputation, "de utilitate ex- qualified for a profession, not indeed of equal digplorandorum excrementorum in ægris, ut sig-nity or importance, but which must undoubtedly norum." claim the second place among those which are of the greatest benefit to mankind. He therefore applied himself to his medical studies with new ardour and alacrity, reviewed all his former observations and inquiries, and was continually employed in making new acquisitions. Then returning to Leyden full of his pious designs of undertaking the ministry, he found to his surprise unexpected obstacles thrown in his way, and an insinuation dispersed through the university that made him suspected, not of any slight deviation from received opinions, not of any Having now qualified himself for the practice pertinacious adherence to his own notions in of physic, he began to visit patients, but without doubtful and disputable matters, but of no less than that encouragement which others, not equally deSpinosism, or, in plainer terms, of Atheism itself. serving, have sometimes met with. His business How so injurious a report came to be raised, was, at first, not great, and his circumstances by circulated, and credited, will be doubtless very no means easy; but still, superior to any diseagerly inquired; we shall therefore give the rela-couragement, he continued his search after knowtion, not only to satisfy the curiosity of mankind, but to show that no merit, however exalted, is exempt from being not only attacked, but wounded, by the most contemptible whispers. Those who cannot strike with force, can however poison their weapon, and, weak as they are, give mortal wounds, and bring a hero to the grave: so true is that observation, that many are able to do hurt, but few to do good. ledge, and determined that prosperity, if ever he was to enjoy it, should be the consequence not of mean art, or disingenuous solicitations, but of real merit, and solid learning. His steady adherence to his resolutions appears yet more plainly from this circumstance : he was while he yet remained in this unpleasing situation, invited by one of the first favourites of King William III. to settle at the Hague, upon very advantageous conditions; but declined the offer. For having no ambition but after know any restraint upon his looks, his thoughts, or his tongue, and at the utmost distance from all contentions, and state partics. His time was wholly taken up in visiting the sick, studying, making chemical experiments, searching into every part of medicine with the utmost diligence, teaching the mathematics, and reading the scriptures, and those authors who profess to teach a certain method of loving God.* This detestable calumny owed its rise to an incident from which no consequence of importance could be possibly apprehended. As Boer-ledge, he was desirous of living at liberty, without haave was sitting in a common boat, there arose a conversation among the passengers upon the impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa, which, as they all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all religion. Boerhaave sat, and attended silently to this discourse for some time, till one of the company, willing to distinguish himself by his zeal, instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument, began to give a loose to contumelious language, and virulent invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that at last he could not forbear asking him whether he had ever read the author he declaimed against. The orator, not being able to make much answer, was checked in the midst of his invectives, but not without feeling a secret resentment against the person who had at once interrupted his hatangue, and exposed his ignorance. "Circa hoc tempus, lautis conditionibus, lautioribus promissis, invitatus, plus vice simplici, a viro primarie dignationis, qui gratia flagrantissima florebat regis Gulielmi II. ut Hagam comitum sedem caperet fortunarum, declinavit constans. Contentus videlicet vita libera, remota a turbis, studiisque porro percolendis unice impensa, ubi non cogeretur alia dicere et simulare, alia sentire et dissimulare: affectuum studiis rap, regi. Sic tum vita erat, ægros visere, mox domi in museo se condere, officinam Vulcaniam exercere; omnes medi |