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In Feb. 1659 he was nominated one of the council of state, and was elected one of the representatives of Middlesex, in the parliament which began April 25, 1660. He died at Osterley-park in Middlesex, Sept. 19, 1668, and was bu ried in the chapel in Tothill-street, Westminster. Mr. Seward very erroneously says he was buried in the Abbey-church at Bath. It is his first wife who was buried there, but there is a monumental statue of sir William, as well as of the lady, which perhaps occasioned the mistake. There is a tradition that when James II. visited the Abbey, he defaced the nose of sir William upon this monument, which Mr. Warner in his "History of Bath" allows to be defaced, but Mr. Seward asserts that "there appear at présent no traces of any disfigurement." Of a circumstance so easily ascertained, it is singular there should be two opinions. Anthony Wood gives, as the literary performances of sir William Waller, some of his letters and dispatches respecting his victories, but the only article which seems to belong to that class is his "Divine meditations upon several occasions; with a daily directory," Lond. 1680, 8vo. These were written during his retirement, and give a very faithful picture of his honest sentiments, and of his frailties and failings. Wood also mentions his "Vindication for taking up arms against the king," left behind in manuscript, in which state it remained until 1793, when it was published under the title of "Vindication of the Character and Conduct of sir William Waller, knight; commander in chief of the parliament forces in the West: explanatory of his conduct in taking up arms against king Charles I. Written by himself. And now first published from the original manuscript. With an introduction by the editor," 8vo. The MS. came from one of the noble families descended from him. It appears to be written with great sincerity, as well as precision, and contains many interesting particulars, relative to the democratical parties which struggled for superiority after the king had fallen into their power. The style seems to bear a stronger resemblance to that of the age of James the First, or his immediate predecessor, than to the mode of composition generally practised in England about the middle of the last century. If any thing can confirm the declaration that sir William was actuated solely by disinterested motives, it is the veneration which he professes to entertain for the constitution of his country. He avows himself a sincere friend

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to the British form of government, consisting of king, lords, and commons; and it appears, that, from the beginning, his imputed apostacy from the cause of public freedom, or rather of democratical tyranny, ought justly to be ascribed to the cabals of the republican leaders, and not to any actual change which had ever taken place in his own sentiments. The volume, indeed, is not only valuable as an ingenuous and explicit vindication, but as a composition abounding with shrewd observations, and rendered interesting by the singular manner, as well as the information of the author, who seems to have been no less a man of vivacity and good sense, than of virtue and learning.'

WALLIS (JOHN), an eminent English mathematician, was born Nov. 23, 1616, at Ashford in Kent, of which place his father of the same names was then minister *, but did not survive the birth of this his eldest son above six years. He was now left to the care of his mother, who purchased a house at Ashford for the sake of the education of her children, and placed him at school there, until the plague, which broke out in 1625, obliged her to remove him to Ley Green, in the parish of Tenterden, under the tuition of one James Movat or Mouat, a native of Scotland, who instructed him in grammar. Mr. Movat, says Dr. Wallis, "was a very good schoolmaster, and his scho

*Mr. Wallis was son of Robert and Ellen Wallis of Thingdon (or, as it is usually pronounced, Fyenden) in the eounty of Northampton, and was born there in January 1587, and baptized the 18th of that month. He was educated in Trinity college in Cambridge, where he took the degrees of B. A. and M. A. and about the same time entered into holy orders, in the reign of queen Elizabeth.. Toward the end of that queen's reign he was made minister of Ashford, a market-town in Kent, where he coutinued the remainder of his life in great esteem and reputation, not only in that town and parish, but with the clergy, gentry, and nobility, round about. " He was," says Dr. Wallis, "a pious, prudent, learned, and orthodox divine, an eminent and diligent preacher; and with his prudent carriage kept that great town in very good order, and promoted piety to a great degree. Beside his preaching twice on the Lord's Day,

and other occasional sermons, and his catechising and otherwise instructing the younger sort, he did, with some of the most eminent neighbouring ministers, maintain a week-day lecture, on Saturday, their market-day; which was much frequented, beside a numerous auditory of others, by very many of the neighbour-ministers, the justices of the peace, and others of the gentry; who after sermon did use to dine at an ordinary, and there confer, as there was occasion, about such affairs as might concern the welfare and good government of that town and the parts adjacent, wherein they were respectively concerned." He died at Ashford November 30, and was buried December 3, 1622. By his wife Joanna, daughter of Henry and Sarah Chapman of Godmersham in Kent, he had three sons: John, the eldest, the subject of this article, Henry and William; and two daughters, Sarah and Elien.

! Ath. Ox. vol. II.-Vindication of Sir W. Waller.-Critical Review, 1793,

lar I continued for divers years, and was by him well grounded in the technical part of grammar, so as to understand the rules and the grounds and reasons of such rules, with the use of them in such authors, as are usually read in grammar-schools: for it was always my affectation even from a child, in all parts of learning or knowledge, not merely to learn by rote, which is soon forgotten, but to know the grounds or reasons of what I learn, to inform my judgment as well as furnish my memory, and thereby make a better impression on both." In 1630 he lost this in

structor, who was engaged to attend two young gentlemen on their travels, and would gladly have taken his pupil Wallis with them; but his mother not consenting on account of his youth, he was sent to Felsted school in Essex, of which the learned Mr. Martin Holbeach was then master. During the Christmas holidays in 1631, he went home to his mother at Ashford, where finding that one of his brothers had been learning to cypher, he was inquisitive to know what that meant, and applying diligently was enabled to go through all the rules with success, and prosecuted this study at spare hours on his return to Felsted, where also he was instructed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, and in the rudiments of logic, music, and the French language.

In 1632 he was sent to Cambridge, and admitted of Emanuel college, under the tuition first of Mr. Anthony Burgess, afterwards rector of Sutton Colfield; next of Thomas Horton, afterwards master of Queen's college, and lastly of the celebrated Benjamin Whichcot. It is not improbable that he had his divinity from the first two, and somewhat of his style from the last of these tutors. At his first entrance upon academical studies, he was reconciled to having staid a year or two longer at school than appeared necessary, or than he liked, since he found that owing to the knowledge he had accumulated in that time, he was now able to keep pace with those who were some years his seniors. "I found," he says, "that beside the improvement of what skill I had in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages (which I pursued with diligence) and other philologic studies, my first business was to be the study of logic. In this I soon became master of a syllogism, as to its structure and the reason of its consequences, however cryptically proposed, so as not easily to be imposed on by fallacious or false syllogisms, when I was to answer or defend';

and to manage an argument with good advantage, when I was to argue or oppose; and to distinguish ambiguous words or sentences, as there was occasion; and was able to hold pace with those, who were some years my seniors, and had obtained the reputation of a good disputant. And indeed I had the good hap all along, both at school and in the university, to be reputed (if not equal) not much inferior to those of the best of my rank. From logic I proceeded to ethics, physics, and metaphysics (consulting the schoolmen on such points), according to the methods of philosophy then in fashion in that university. And I took into the speculative part of physic and anatomy, as parts of natural philosophy; and, as Dr. Glisson (then public professor of physic in that university) hath since told me, I was the first of his sons, who, in a public disputation, maintained the circulation of the blood, which was then a new doctrine, though I had no design of practising physic. And I had then imbibed the principles of what they now call the new philosophy; for I made no scruple of diverting from the common road of studies then in fashion to any part of useful learning; presuming that knowledge is no burthen; and, if of any part thereof I should afterwards have no occasion to make use, it would at least do me no hurt; and what of it I might or might not have occasion for, I could not then foresee. On the same account I diverted also to astronomy and geography, as parts of natural philosophy, and to other parts of mathematics; though at that time they were scarce looked upon with us as academical studies then in fashion. As to divinity, on which I had an eye from the first, I had the happiness of a strict and religious education all along from a child. Whereby I was not only preserved from vicious courses, and acquainted with religious exercises, but was early instructed in the principles of religion and catechetical divinity, and the frequent reading of scripture and other good books, and diligent attendance on sermons: and whatever other studies I followed, I was careful not to neglect this: and became timely acquainted with systematic and polemic divinity, and had the repute of a good proficient therein." The length of this extract we trust will be excused, as it is but seldom we attain that interesting part of biography, the progress of early studies.

Soon after his admittance into Emanuel college, he was chosen of the foundation, and admitted a scholar of the

house, but by the statutes he was incapable of a fellowship, it being provided that there should not be more than one fellow of the same county at the same time, and there was already one of the county of Kent, Mr. Wellar, who continued in the college long after Mr. Wallis left it. Wallis, however, was so highly esteemed by the society, that when he declared his design of leaving the college, Dr. Richard Holdsworth, then master, and the fellows, had a consultation about founding a new fellowship on his account, that he might not remove from them. But the times growing confused, there was no room for executing such a design, and Mr. Wallis removed to Queen's college in Cambridge, where he was chosen fellow, and continued so, till by his marriage he vacated his fellowship. In Hilary term 1636-7, he took the degree of bachelor of arts, and about four years after that of master; and then removed to Queen's, probably in consequence of the interest of Dr. Horton, his former tutor, and now master of that college.

Being designed for the church, he had studied divinity with great care, and now was admitted to holy orders by Dr. Walter Curle, bishop of Winchester. In 1641 he left college to be chaplain to sir William Darley, at Bustercramb in Yorkshire. In the following year he acted in the same capacity to lady Vere, widow of sir Horatio Vere. It was during her occasional residence in London that he was enabled to discover his surprising talent in decyphering; and as this had an important effect on his future life and fame, it may be necessary to give his own account of the discovery. "About the beginning of our civil wars, in the year 1642, a chaplain of sir William Waller's, one evening as we were sitting down to supper at the lady Vere's in London, with whom I then dwelt, shewed me an intercepted letter written in cypher. He shewed it me as a curiosity (and it was indeed the first thing I had ever seen written in cyphers), and asked me, between jest and earnest, whether I could make any thing of it; and he was surprized, when I said, upon the first view, perhaps I might, if it proved no more but a new alphabet. It was about ten o'clock, when we rose from supper. I then withdrew to my chamber to consider it; and by the number of different characters therein (not above 22 or 23) I judged, that it could not be more than a new alphabet, and in about two hours time, before I went to bed, I had decyphered it; and I sent a copy of it so decyphered the next morning to

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