He

vented by a sudden death, which, as in the case of his grandfather, was by some attributed to unfair means. died September 14, 1646. Parliament directed a public funeral for him, which was performed with great solemnity in the following month, at Westminster abbey. In his conduct, the particulars of which may be seen in the history of the times, a want of steadiness is to be discovered, which candour would refer to the extraordinary circumstances in which public men were then placed. Personal affronts at court, whether provoked or not, led him to go a certain length with those who, he did not perceive, wanted to go much farther, and although he appeared in arms against his sovereign, no party was pleased with his efforts to preserve a balance; yet, with all his errors, Hume and other historians, not friendly to the republican cause, have considered his death as a public misfortune. Hume says, that fully sensible of the excesses to which affairs had been carried, and of the worse consequences which were still to be apprehended, he had resolved to conciliate a peace, and to remedy as far as possible all those ills to which, from mistake rather than any bad intention, he had himself so much contributed. The presbyterian, or the moderate party among the commons, found themselves considerably weakened by his death; and the small remains of authority which still adhered to the house of peers, were in a manner wholly extinguished. 1

DE VERGY (PETER HENRY TREYSSAC), a French adventurer, of whose private life little is known, and whose public history is not of the most reputable kind, requires, however, some notice, as the author of various publications, and an agent in some political transactions which once were deemed of importance. He styled himself advocate in the parliament of Bourdeaux. The first notice of him occurs about 1763, when he had a concern in the quarrel between the count de Guerchy, ambassador extraordinary from the court of France, and the chevalier D'Eon, (see D'EON). About this time D'Eon published a letter to the count de Guerchy, by which we learn that De Vergy solicited his (D'Eon's) acquaintance, which he declined unless he brought letters of recommendation, and that De Vergy, piqued at the refusal, boasted of being perfectly well known to the count de Guerchy, which

Biog. Brit.-Clarendon's History.-Hume, &c.

}

proved to be a falsehood. This produced a quarrel between D'Eon and De Vergy, and a pamphlet in answer to D'Eon's letter, and another answer under the title of "Contre Note." After the more celebrated quarrel between de Guerchy and D'Eon, De Vergy published a parcel of letters from himself to the duc de Choiseul, in which he positively asserts that the count de Guerchy prevailed with him to come over to England to assassinate D'Eon. He even went farther, and before the grand jury of Middlesex, made oath to the same effect. Upon this deposition, the grand jury found a bill of intended murder against the count de Guerchy; which bill, however, never came to the petty jury. The king granted a noli prosequi in favour of De Guerchy, and the attorney-general was ordered to prosecute De Vergy, with the result of which order we are unacquainted; but it is certain that De Vergy, in his last will, confesses his concern in a plot against D'Eon, and intimates that he withdrew his assistance upon finding that it was intended to affect the chevalier's life. After the above transaction, we find him in 1767, publishing "Lettre contre la Raison," or, "A Letter against Reason, addressed to the chevalier D'Eon," in which he repeats some of the hacknied doctrines of the French philosophical school, and professes himself a free-thinker. This was followed by a succession of novels, entitled "The Mistakes of the Heart;" "The Lovers ;" "Nature;" "Henrietta;" "The Scotchman ;" and "The Palinode," written in remarkably good English, and with much knowledge of human nature; but scarcely one of them is free from the grossest indelicacies. He wrote also, in 1770, "A Defence of the duke of Cumberland," a wretched catchpenny. De Vergy died Oct. 1, 1774, aged only forty-two, and remained unburied until March, his executor waiting for directions from his family. He had desired in his will that his relations would remove his body to Bourdeaux, but it was at last interred in St. Pancras church-yard.'

DEUSINGIUS (ANTHONY), a learned physician, and voluminous writer on medicine and natural philosophy, was born at Meurs, in the duchy of Juliers, October 16th, After studying the classics and the Arabic and

1612.

1 Lysons's Environs, vol. III.—Gent. Mag. XLIV, where is part of his will.~ Chesterfield's Letters, vol. II. p. 485, 4to edit,

Persian languages, he went to Leyden, where he completed his education by taking the degree of M. D. in 1634; and three years after was appointed professor in mathematics at Meurs. In 1639, he was called to succeed Isaac Pontanus in the chair of natural philosophy and mathematics; and in 1642 to that of medicine, at Harderwick, to which was added the office of physician to the city. From Harderwick he went to Groningen, where he was not only professor of medicine, but rector of the university, and ancient of the church. Amid the business which such accumulated duties heaped upon him, he found leisure to write a greater number of treatises on the different parts of medicine and philosophy than have fallen from the pen of almost any other man. Haller and Manget have given a list of fifty-four, but a small number of these are on practical subjects, many of them being metaphysical and controversial. Those relating to his controversy with Silvius, are written with great acrimony; though the subjects, which are mostly physiological, do not seem calculated to excite so much rancour as we see infused into them. Among these are, "Joannes Cloppenburgius, Heautontimorumenos, seu retorsio injuriarum de libello falsidico, cui titulus, Res judicata, cumulatarum,” 1643, 4to. The subject of dispute is the nature of the soul, and on the intelligences that direct the course of the stars. "Canticum Avicennæ de Medicina, ex Arab. Lat. reddit." 1649, 4to. "Dissertationes duæ, prior de motu cordis et sanguinis, altera de lacte ac nutrimento fœtus in utero," 1651, 4to. In this he defends the circulation of the blood, as described by our countryman Harvey. "Synopsis Medicinæ universalis," 1649, &c. Deusingius died in the winter of 1666, of a pleuritic affection, occasioned by taking a long journey, in very severe weather, to visit the count of Nassau, to whom he was physician.'

DEWAILLY (CHARLES), an eminent French architect, was born at Paris, Nov. 9, 1729. He was educated by one of his uncles, and from his earliest infancy discovered an unconquerable partiality for the study and practice of architecture, in which he afterwards became a great proficient. His chief master was Lejay, who at this period had just established a new school of the profession, and

Moreri.-Haller and Manget.-Rees's Cyclopædia.-Foppen Bibl. Belg.— Niceron, vol. XXII.

recovered it from the contempt in which it had been held from the age of Lewis XIV. In 1752 Dewailly obtained the chief architectural prize, and the privilege of studying at Rome for three years, at the expence of the nation. Upon this success, his biographer notices an action truly generous and laudable in the mind of an emulous young man. The student to whom the second prize was decreed, and whose name was Moreau, appeared extremely sorrowful. Dewailly interrogated him upon the subject of his chagrin; and learning that it proceeded from his having Jost the opportunity of prosecuting his profession in Italy, he flew to the president of the architectural committee, and earnestly solicited permission that his unfortunate rival might be allowed to travel to Rome as well as himself. On an objection being adduced from the established rules"Well, well," replied he, " I yet know a mode of reconciling every thing. I am myself allotted three years; of these I can dispose as I like-I give eighteen months of them to Moreau." This generous sacrifice was accepted; and Dewailly was amply rewarded by the public esteem which accompanied the transaction. In most of the modern buildings of taste and magnificence in his own country, Dewailly was a party employed, and many of his designs are engraven in the Encyclopédie and in Laborde's Description of France. He was a member of the academy of painting, as well as that of architecture; in the latter of which he was at once admitted into the higher class, without having, as is customary, passed through the inferior. Of the national institute he was a member from its establishment. He died in 1799, having been spared the affliction of beholding one of his most exquisite pieces of workmanship, the magnificent hall of the Odeon, destroyed by fire, a catastrophe which occurred but a short time after his demise.'

D'EWES (Sir SYMONDS), an English historian and antiquary, was the son of Paul D'Ewes, esq. and born in 1602, at Coxden in Dorsetshire, the seat of Richard Symonds, esq. his mother's father. He was descended from an ancient family in the Low Countries, from whence his ancestors removed hither, and gained a considerable settlement in the county of Suffolk. In 1618, he was entered a fellow-commoner of St. John's college in Cambridge; and

1 Memoirs of the National Institute,

about two years after, began to collect materials for forming a correct and complete history of Great Britain. He was no less studious in preserving the history of his own times; setting down carefully the best accounts he was able to obtain of every memorable transaction, at the time it happened. This disposition in a young man of parts recommended him to the acquaintance of persons of the first rank in the republic of letters, such as Cotton, Selden, Spelman, &c. In 1626, he married Anne, daughter to sir William Clopton of Essex, an exquisite beauty, not fourteen years old, with whom he was so sincerely captivated, that his passion for her seems to have increased almost to a degree of extravagance, even after she was his wife. He pursued his studies, however, as usual, with great vigour and diligence, and when little more than thirty years of age, finished that large and accurate work for which he is chiefly memorable. This work he kept by him during his life-time; it being written, as he tells us, for his own private use. It was published afterwards with this title: "The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of queen Elizabeth, both of the House of Lords and House of Commons, collected by sir Symonds D'Ewes, of Stowhall in the county of Suffolk, knt. and bart. revised and published by Paul Bowes, of the Middle Temple, esq. 1682," folio. In 1633, he resided at Islington in Middlesex. In 1639, he served the office of high sheriff of the county of Suffolk, having been knighted some time before; and in the long parliament, which was summoned to meet Nov. 3, 1640, he was elected burgess for Sudbury in that county. July 15, 1641, he was created a baronet; yet upon the breaking out of the civil war, he adhered to the parliament, and took the solemn league and covenant in 1643. He sat in this parliament till Dec. 1648, when he was turned out among those who were thought to have some regard left for the person of the king, and the old constitution in church and state. He died April 18, 1650, and was succeeded in his titles and large estate by his son Willoughby D'Ewes; to whom the above Journals were dedicated, when published, by his cousin Paul Bowes, esq. who was himself a gentleman of worth and learning.

Though these labours of sir Symonds contributed not a little to illustrate the general history of Great Britain, as well as to explain the important transactions of one of the most glorious reigns in it, yet two or three circumstances