and vast understanding, and of a very solid judgment; and that, after his retiring into the country, he addicted himself to reading, study, and meditation; and, being very assiduous in his contemplations, he wrote a great deal on various subjects, his genius not being confined to any one particular study and learning." What we have, however, of his in print is, "A Discourse of Government, as examined by reason, scripture, and the law of the land, written in 1678," and published by Dr. Thomas Smith in 1694, with a preface, which, being displeasing to the then administration, was suffered to remain but in very few copies *. His principal work was, "Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles I. with a Continuation to the Restoration;" adorned with a head of the author after Lely, engraved by White, and taken at a later period of his life than that which appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for Sept. The Memoirs were published in 1701, 8vo; and to which is not unfrequently added his "Discourse on Government," before mentioned. This History, with several others of the time of Charles I. have this peculiar merit, that the authors of them were both actors and sufferers in the interesting scenes which they describe. Our author is justly allowed to be exceeded by none of them in candour and integrity. There is likewise ascribed to our author "A Letter to Mr. Lenthal, shewing that Peace is better than War," small 8vo, of 10 pages, published anonymously, 1646; and in the British Museum some recommendatory letters from him in favour of Mr. Collins the mathematician; which are published in Birch's "History of the Royal Society;" and in the Life of Collins, in the new edition of the " Biographia Britannica." 1.

WASE (CHRISTOPHER), a man of considerable learning, was born at Hackney in Middlesex, and admitted scholar of King's-college, Cambridge, Nov. 25, 1645. Before he was made junior fellow, he turned Grotius's "Baptizatorum puerorum institutio," from the original Latin verse into Greek verse, which was published by his schoolmaster at Eton, Dr. Nicholas Grey, under the title, "Hugonis Grotii baptizatorum puerorum institutio; cui accesserunt Græca ejusdem metaphrasis a Christophero Wase Regalis Coll. Cantab. et Anglicana versio a Francisco Goldsmith, Ar*This seems doubtful. See Granger's Letters, published by Malcolm, pp. 385, 387, 389. 1 Gent. Mag. vol. LX.-Granger, and Granger's Letters.

migero, una cum luculentis e S. S. testimoniis, a N. G. scholæ Etonensis informatore," Lond. 1647, 8vo. A second edition of this appeared in 1650, and a third in 1668, with a somewhat different title, and the addition of a "Praxis in Græcam metaphrasin per Barthol. Beale.”

Mr. Wase was afterwards made fellow of King's-college, and went out bachelor of arts. In 1650 he published an English translation in verse of the "Electra" of Sophocles. For something offensive in the preface of this translation, or some other accusation by the parliamentary party, which is not quite clear, (Walker says he delivered a feigned letter from the king to Dr. Collins) he was ejected from his fellowship, and obliged to leave the kingdom. He was afterwards taken at sea, and imprisoned at Gravesend, from which he contrived to escape, and served in the Spanish army against the French. He was taken prisoner in an engagement, but released soon after, and came to England, where he was appointed tutor to William lord Herbert, eldest son to the earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. To this nobleman he dedicated "Gratii Falisci Cynegeticon, a poem on hunting by Gratius, &c." Lond. 1654, 8vo. This translation, and his comment on that elegant poem, are sufficient proof of his abilities. Waller addressed a copy of verses to him on his performance.

In 1655 he proceeded M. A. and was schoolmaster of Dedham near Colchester in Essex, and about the same time married. He was afterwards made master of the freeschool of Tunbridge in Kent, probably about 1660. While here he published his "Dictionarium Minus; a compendious Dictionary English-Latin, and Latin-English," Lond. 1662, 4to. In 1671 he was elected superior beadle of law in the university of Oxford, and printer or architypographus to the same university. The same year he published "Cicero against Cataline, in four invective orations; containing the whole manner of discovering that notorious conspiracy," Lond. 8vo. This was followed by "The History of France under the ministry of cardinal Mazarine, written in Latin by Benjamin Priolo," Lond. 8vo. In 1678 he published at Oxford, "Considerations concerning free-schools as settled in England," 8vo; and in 1687, Christopheri Wasii Senarius, sive de legibus et licentia veterum poetarum," Oxon. 4to. He wrote also "Structuræ Nonianæ," and appears to have been concerned in an edition of sir John Spelman's life of king

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1

Alfred. Hearne says he translated it into Latin, and published it at Oxford in a thin folio, with a commentary by Obadiah Walker, master of University-college. He died Aug. 29, 1690, and appears to have been a man of great parts, and a very considerable sufferer for his loyalty. Hearne, at p. 20 of his discourse, prefixed to the eighth volume of Leland's Itinerary, stiles him "that eminent philologer," and makes honourable mention of a son of bis of the same name, who was fellow of Corpus Christicollege, Oxford. He died, B. D. 1711, aud was buried at Corpus, where is an inscription to his memory. . WASHINGTON (GEORGE), commander in chief of the armies, and first president of the United States of America, was born Feb, 11, 1732, in the parish of Washington, Virginia. He was descended from an ancient family in Cheshire, of which a branch had been established in Virginia about the middle of the seventeenth century. remarkable circumstances have transpired of his education or his early youth; and we should not indeed expect any marks of that disorderly prematureness of talent, which is so often fallacious, in a character whose distinguishing. praise was to be regular and natural. His classical instruction was probably small, such as the private tutor of a Virginian country gentleman could at that period have imparted; and if his opportunities of information had been more favourable, the time was too short to profit by them. Before he was twenty he was appointed a major in the Colonial militia, and he had very early occasion to display those political and military talents, of which the exertions on a greater theatre have since made his name so famous throughout the world.

The plenipotentiaries who framed the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, by leaving the boundaries of the British and French territories in North America unfixed, had sown the seeds of a new war, at the moment when they concluded a peace. The limits of Canada and Louisiana, furnished a motive, or a pretext, for one of the most successful but one of the most bloody and wasteful wars in which Great Britain had ever been engaged. In the disputes which arose between the French and English officers on this subject, major Washington was employed by the

1 Cole's MS Athenæ in Brit. Mus.-Walker's Sufferings.-Hearne's Life of Alfred.-Harwood's Alumni Etonenses.

governor of Virginia, in a negotiation with the French governor of Fort du Quesne (now Pitsburgh); who threatened the English frontiers with a body of French and their Indian allies. He succeeded in averting the invasion; but hostilities becoming inevitable, he was in the next year appointed lieutenant colonel of a regiment raised by the colony for its own defence; to the command of which he soon after succeeded. The expedition of general Braddock followed in 1755; of which the fatal issue is too well known to require being described by us. Colonel Washington served in that expedition only as a volunteer; but such was the general confidence in his talents, that he may be said to have conducted the retreat. Several British officers lately alive, attested the calmness and intrepi dity which he shewed in that difficult situation, and the voluntary obedience which was so cheerfully paid by the whole army to his superior mind. After having acted a distinguished part in a subsequent and more successful expedition to the Ohio, he was obliged by ill health, in 1758, to resign his military situation. The sixteen years which followed of the life of Washington, supply few materials for the biographer. Having married Mrs. Curtis, a Virginian lady of amiable character and respectable connections, he settled at his beautiful seat of Mount Vernon, of which we have had so many descriptions; where, with the exception of such attendance as was required by his duties as a magistrate and a member of the assembly, his time was occupied by his domestic enjoyments, and the cultivation of his estate, in a manner well suited to the tranquillity of his unambitious mind. At the end of this period he was called by the voice of his country from this state of calm and secure though unostentatious happiness.

For almost half a century symptoms of disaffection to the mother country had been so visible in the New England provinces, that as far back as 1734, the celebrated bishop Berkeley had predicted a total separation of North America from Great Britain. That prelate, when a private clergyman, had lived three years in Rhode-Island, and was an attentive and sagacious observer of the manners and principles of the people, among whom he perceived the old leaven of their forefathers fermenting even then with great violence. The middle and southern provinces, however, were more loyal, and their influence, together with perpetual dread of the French before the peace of 1763,

put off the separation to a more distant day than that at which, we have reason to believe, the bishop expected it to take place. Virginia, the most loyal of all the colonies, had long been in the habit of calling itself, with a kind of proud pre-eminence, "his Majesty's ancient dominion," and it was with some difficulty that the disaffected party of New England could gain over that province, when the time arrived for effecting their long-meditated revolt. At last, however, they succeeded, and we find Mr. Washington a delegate from Virginia in the Congress, which met at Philadelphia Oct. 26, 1774. As no American united in so high a degree as he did, military experience with an estimable character, he was appointed to the command of the army which had assembled in the New England provinces, to hold in check the British army which was then encamped under general Gage at Boston.

At this period there is some reason to believe that nei ther general Washington nor his constituents entered heartily into the views of the New Englanders; but afraid lest their army, after shaking off the yoke of Great Britain, might give laws to the Continent, he took upon himself the command of that army in the month of July 1775. To detail his conduct in the years which followed, would be to relate the history of the American war. It may be said generally, that within a very short period after the declaration of independence, the affairs of America were in a condition so desperate, that perhaps nothing but the peculiar character of Washington's genius could have retrieved them. Activity is the policy of invaders, and in the field of battle the superiority of a disciplined army is displayed. But delay was the wisdom of a country defended by undisciplined soldiers against an enemy who must be more exhausted by time than he could be weakened by defeat. It required the consummate prudence, the calm wisdom, the inflexible firmness, the moderate and well-balanced temper of Washington, to embrace such a plan of policy, and to persevere in it: to resist the temptations of enter prize; to fix the confidence of his soldiers without the attraction of victory; to support the spirit of the army and the people amidst those slow and cautious plans of defensive warfare which are more dispiriting than defeat itself; to contain his own ambition and the impetuosity of his troops; to endure temporary obscurity for the salvation of his country, and for the attainment of solid and immortal