sprightly, and sometimes insipid. His epistolary pieces have a smooth equability, which cannot much tire, because they are short, but which seldom elevates or surprizes. But from this censure ought to be excepted his " Advice to Belinda," which, though for the most part written when he was very young, contains much truth and much prudence, very elegantly and vigorously expressed, and shews a mind attentive to life, and a power of poetry which cultivation might have raised to excellence.

LIVES

OF

EMINENT PERSONS.

FATHER PAUL SARPI.*

FATHER PAUL, whose name, before he entered into the monastick 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 gaiety, 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 schoollearning, he turned his studies to philosophy and the mathematicks, and entered upon logick 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

* This Life was composed for the Gentleman's Magazine, for the year 1738.

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 publick 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 publick disputation by his genius and learning, that William duke of Mantua, a great patron of letters, solicited the consent of his superiours to retain him at his court, and not only made him publick professor of divinity in the cathedral, but honoured him with many proofs of his esteem.

But Father Paul, finding a court life not agreeable 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 mathematicks, canon and civil law, all parts of natural philosophy, and chemistry itself; for his application was unintermitted, his head clear, his apprehension quick, and his memory retentive.

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 his studies with so extensive a capacity, as left no branch of knowledge untouched. By him Acquapen

dente, 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 afterward denied a bishoprick by Clement VIII. After these difficulties were surmounted, 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 Vth, 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, commandedthem 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.

Both parties, having proceeded to extremities, employed

their ablest writers to defend their measures: on the Pope's side, among others, cardinal Bellarmine entered the lists, and with his confederate authours defended the papal claims with great scurrility of expression, and very sophistical reasonings, which were confuted by the Venetian apologists in much more decent language, and with much greater solidity of argument.

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 superiour 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 falsehold, 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, there