worth, and had many of their works. The king went very privately and unknown with Rogers, to see them; the widow shewed several finished and unfinished; with many of which the king being pleased, he asked if she would sell them; she replied she had a mind the king should see them first, and if he did not purchase them, she should think of disposing of them. The king discovered himself; on which she produced some more pictures, which she seldom shewed. The king desired her to set a price; she said she did not care to make a price with his majesty; she would leave it to him; but promised to look over her husband's books, and let his majesty know what prices his father, the late king, had paid. The king took away what he liked, and sent Rogers to Mrs. Oliver with the option of 1000l. or an annuity of 300l. for her life. She chose the latter. Some years afterwards it happened that the king's mistresses having begged all or most of these pictures, Mrs. Oliver said, on hearing it, that if she had thought the king would have given them to such whores and strum pets and bastards, he never should have had them. This reached the court, the poor woman's salary was stopped, and she never received it afterwards. The rest of the limnings which the king had not taken, fell into the hands of Mrs. Russel's father. Peter Oliver is supposed to have died before the restoration, probably about 1654. Isaac Oliver, the glass-painter, appears to have been of this fa mily.'

ÖLIVET (JOSEPH THOULIER D'), an elegant French writer, and classical editor, was the son of a counsellor of the parliament of Besançon, and born at Salins, March 30, 1682. After having finished his early studies with much applause, he entered the society of the Jesuits, but left them, to their great regret, at the age of thirty-three. Before this they had conceived so high an opinion of his merit, as to recommend him to be tutor to the prince of Asturias, but the abbé preferred a life of independence and tranquillity. Some time after, he came to Paris, and profited by the conversation of the few eminent survivors of the age of Louis XIV. On his arrival here he found the men of literature engaged in the famous dispute relative to the comparative merits of the ancients and moderns, but had the good sense to disapprove of the sentiments and pa

1 Walpole's Anecdotes.

radoxes of Perrault, and Terrasson, La Mothe, and Fontenelle. His first object appears to have been the study of his own language, which he wrote in great purity In 1723 he was elected a member of the French academy, and from this time devoted himself to the life of a man of letters.

His first publications were his translations from Cicero and Demosthenes, which have supported their reputation through various editions. That of " De Natura Deorum," "Entretiens de Ciceron sur la nature des Dieux," was first published in 1726 In this, and in some other of his translations, he was assisted by the president Bouhier, but is thought, in France, to have excelled him in grammatical knowledge, and in transfusing the spirit of his author. Encouraged by the success of this work, D'Olivet published in 1727 the Philippics of Demosthenes, and Cicero's orations against Cataline. Of all these translations he published for the last time an elegant edition, at the press of Barbou, in 1765 and 1766, 6 vols.

His next employment was a continuation of the history of the French academy, from 1652, where Pelisson left off, to 1700. This ne published in 1729, 4to, and the following year, in 2 vols. 12mo. Having been always a diligent student of the grammar of the French language, he published some works on that subject, which were much approved in France, although, like a few other of his detached pieces, they are less interesting to an English reader. He had however, long meditated what has rendered his name dear to scholars of all nations, his edition of Cicero, which has served as a standard of correctness and critical utility. It appeared first in 1740, 9 vols. 4to, splendidly printed at the expence of the French governIt is formed on the editions of Victorius, Manutius, Lambinus, and Gruter, and has the "Clavis Ernestina." This truly valuable edition was reprinted at Geneva, 1758, 9 vols. 4to, and at Oxford, with the addition of various readings from twenty-nine manuscripts, collated by Hearne, and others more recently examined, 1783, 10 vols. 4to. The abbé Olivet, whose personal character appears to have been as amiable as his labours were valuable, died of a fit of apoplexy, Oct. 8, 1768.'

ment.

OLIVETAN (ROBERT), a person of whose history little is known, was a relation of the celebrated Calvin, and the

Eloge by D'Alembert.-Dict. Hist.

first who translated the Bible into French, which he printed at Neufchatel, in 1535, fol. His translation is not very

accurate, but it was improved in subsequent editions by Calvin, Beza, and others, and formed the foundation of what was called the Geneva translation. The edition of 1540, 4to, called "La Bible de l'Epee," is very scarce. Olivetan died in 1538, in consequence, as some 'say, of having been poisoned at Rome.'

His

OLIVEYRA (Francis Xavier DE), knight of the mili tary order of Christ, and gentleman of the king of Portugal's household, was born at Lisbon, May 21, 1702. father, Joseph de Oliveyra e Souza, held a principal post in the exchequer of Portugal, and was for twenty five years secretary of embassy at the courts of London, the Hague, and Vienna. No expence was spared on the education of his son, whom he procured to be admitted into the exchequer at an early age, and who, in recompense for his own as well as his father's services, was in Dec. 1729, invested with the order of knighthood. In 1732 he visited Madrid, and was introduced at the Spanish court. On his father's death, which happened at Vienna in 1734, he was appointed to succeed him as secretary of embassy, and during his residence in this city, first began to perceive the absurdities of the popish superstition, from the difficulty that he found (as he has himself expressed) in defending it from the attacks of some Lutheran friends in occasional conversation.

Soon after this, some disputes between him and count de Tarouca, plenipotentiary at the imperial court from that of Lisbon, induced him to give up his post as secretary. What the nature of these disputes were, we are not informed, but it appears that they exposed him to the hostility of a powerful party of that nobleman's relations and friends at the court of Lisbon, while his growing attachment to Protestantism making him less guarded in his expressions, the inquisition of Lisbon found a pretence to censure him. Accordingly, when the first volume of the "Memoirs of his Travels" was published at Amsterdam in 1741, though much esteemed by the Portuguese in general, it was soon prohibited by the inquisition; and the three volumes of his "Letters, familiar, historical, political, and critical," printed at the Hague, in 1741 and

1 Moreri.-Dict. Hist.

1742, underwent the same fate. These works being writ ten in the Portuguese language, a stop was thus put to the sale of them; but his " Memoires concernant le Portugal," Hague, 1741 1743, 2 vols. 8vo, in the French language, were well received by the public, and gained him great reputation.

After four years residence in Holland, having obtained but a partial redress from the court of Portugal in the matter of his dispute with count de Tarouca, he came in 1744 to London, to avail himself of the interest of the Portuguese envoy, Mons. de Carvalho, afterwards marquis of Pombal, but although this gentleman professed to admit the justice of his claims, he did him no substantial service. The chevalier, however, had another affair at this time more at heart, and after carefully weighing all the conse quences of the step he was about to take, he determined to sacrifice every thing to the dictates of his conscience, and accordingly in June 1746 he publicly abjured the Roman catholic religion, and embraced that of the church of England. As he was now cut off from all his resources in Portugal, he for some time encountered many difficulties; but that Providence in which he always trusted, raised him several friends in this country, and to the interest of some of these it is supposed he owed the pension granted him by the late Frederick, prince of Wales, which was continued by the princess dowager, and after her decease, by the present queen. He also acknowledges his obligations to Dr. Majendie, lord Grantham, lord Townshend, the duchess dowager of Somerset, and the archbishops Secker and Herring.

His mind becoming easier by degrees, he returned to his favourite studies, and through the course of the year 1751, he published his "Amusements Periodiques," a monthly publication, in which he entered with great freedom into the controversy between the protestant and Romish churches, and they were therefore soon prohibited both in Portugal and Rome. In 1753 he retired to a house at Kentish town, where he divided his time between the eare of a small garden, the pursuit of his studies, and the conversation of several learned friends who frequently visited him. When the news arrived of the dreadful earthquake at Lisbon in December 1755, he published his "Discours Pathetique" early in 1756, addressed to his countrymen, but particularly to the king of Portugal. The rapid sale of several editions of this work, both in French

and English, in the course of a few weeks, was no inconsiderable proof of its merit; but while it made him more known and esteemed in this and other countries, it drew upon him the resentment of some of his countrymen, and particularly of the inquisitors, who now laid a prohibition on all his works in general. Even his brother, Thomas de Aquinas, a Benedictine monk, wrote to exhort him to retract his errors. This occasioned the chevalier to publish a second part, or "Suite de Discours pathetique," 1757, in which he not only answered the objections made to the "Discours," but inserted his brother's letter, with a suitable answer.

Here the contest between the chevalier and the inqui sition seemed to rest, but that tribunal was at the same time proceeding secretly with all its force against him. A discontinuance of the "Acts of Faith," as that horrid ceremony is impiously called, for a while prevented their proceedings from appearing, but at length, at the "Act of Faith" celebrated at Lisbon in Sept. 1762, he was declared an heretic, and sentenced to be burnt in effigy. As soon as he heard of this he published a small tract entitled "Le Chevalier D'Oliveyra brulé en effigie comme Heretique, comment et pourquoi? Anecdotes et Reflections sur ce sujet donnés au public par lui meme," Lond. 1762. In the introduction to this work the chevalier gives some account of his life, and exposes the irregularity of the proceedings of the inquisition against him.

About this time he removed from Kentish town to Knightsbridge, for the convenience of his friends; but time having robbed him of a number of these, he left that situation in 1775 to reside at Hackney, where he continued to pursue his studies, constantly employing the mornings in writing, and the evenings in reading. Besides the works already mentioned, he occasionally published several others, not of less merit, though of less importance to the memoirs of his life. The manuscripts he left were very numerous, and their subjects as various. Among them are what he calls "Oliveyrana, ou Memoires historiques, litteraires," &c. which, in 27 vols. 4to, contain, as he often mentioned, the fruits of his reading and observations for the space of twenty-five years. These were, in 1784, in the possession of his widow, an English lady, whom he married in 1746, and who survived him, but how long we have not discovered. The chevalier died