MAAS, or MAES, NICOLAS, a celebrated Dutch painter, was born at Dort in 1632. He was a scholar of Rembrandt, whose manner he imitated with so much skill that it was thought difficult to distinguish the works of the pupil from those of the master. But a visit to Antwerp, where he diligently studied the productions of Rubens and Jordaens, led Maas to adopt a new and more independent style; and one in which, while retaining his former neatness and delicacy of touch, and breadth of chiaroscuro, there was more freedom of handling and variety of colour. His early celebrity was acquired by his genre pictures, chiefly domestic interiors, but he eventually devoted himself to portrait painting, especially after his removal to Amsterdam, where he settled in 1678; and where he rose into high reputation as a portrait painter, and acquired a considerable fortune by the practice of that lucrative branch of art. He died at Amsterdam in 1693. Bartsch mentions several plates etched by him. In the National Gallery there are three paintings by him-like most of his genre pictures, of small size, but elaborately finished-'The Cradle,' The Dutch Housewife,' and 'The Idle Servant.'

MABILLON, JEAN, born in 1632, studied at the college of Rheims. He took vows in the congregation of St. Maur, belonging to the Benedictines, in 1654. He afterwards assisted Father D'Achery in his collection entitled 'Spicilegium,' and also edited the works of St. Bernard. In 1668 he published the first volume of his 'Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti,' being the Fasti of his order, preceded by a learned introduction, Præfationes in Acta Sanctorum.' Mabillon was afterwards sent to Italy by Louis XIV. to make a collection of books and manuscripts for the royal library. On his return he published his Museum Italicum,' 1689, a kind of literary and antiquarian itinerary of Italy, in which he briefly describes the towns that he visited, and more at length the churches and convents, especially those of his order, such as Monte-Casino, Vallombrosa, &c., the libraries and colleges, the rare manuscripts, inscriptions, and other curiosities. This work is followed by learned dissertations upon subjects of ecclesiastical history and palæography. The second volume of the 'Museum Italicum' is occupied by a Commentarius in Ordinem Romanum,' or Commentary on the ritual of the various services, or liturgy, and ceremonies of the Roman Church, which are there exhibited at full length. He had previously published 'De Liturgia Gallicana libri tres,' 1685, in which he compares the Gallican with the Mozarabic liturgy.

Mabillon wrote also the 'Iter Germanicum,' being a similar tour through part of Germany, namely, Suabia, Helvetia, and Bavaria, which he likewise undertook by order of Louis XIV. In this journey he visited the abbeys and libraries of St. Gall, Augsburg, &c., and among others the secluded Benedictine convent of Tegern See, where he and his companion met with a very scurvy reception from the librarian, a rough Bavarian, who hated them as being Frenchmen, and the more so as they caused him to be called out of the refectory to attend upon them. He also wrote an 'Iter Burgundicum,' which is among his posthumous works: Ouvrages Posthumes de Jean Mabillon et de Thierri Ruinart, Bénédictins de la Congregation de St. Maur,' 3 vols. 4to, Paris, 1724. This interesting collection contains, among other valuable matter, Mabillon's correspondence, and his 'Reflexions sur les Prisons des Ordres Religieux, in which he censures the cruelties practised in several monastic houses against the monks who transgressed the rules of their order, and speaks among others of the famous "Vade in Pace," or subterraneous dungeons in which

BIOG DIVOL. IV.

MABLY, ABBÉ DE.

some were confined till they died. This strange authority exercised by communities over the liberty and life of individuals, uncontrolled by, and unknown to the state, is one of the most repulsive features of the monastic system.

In the above collection of Ouvrages posthumes are: Discours sur les Anciennes Sepultures de nos Rois,' Remarques sur les Antiquités de l'Abbaye de St. Denis,''Histoire de la Contestation sur l'Auteur de l'Imitation de Jesus Christ' [KEMPIS, THOMAS A], Lettres et Ecrits sur les Etudes Monastiques.' These last contain a curious controversy between the Abbé de Rancé, the founder of the order of the Trappists, and the Benedictines. De Rancé, in his ascetic enthusiasm, had forbidden his monks all scientific studies, and indeed all reading except the Breviary and a few monastic tracts. The rest of the clergy, both secular and regular, took the alarm, and Mabillon was requested to defend monastic studies and learning as perfectly compatible with piety and religious discipline, as the Benedictine order had fully proved. Mabillon accordingly wrote his 'Traité des Etudes Monastiques,' in 1691, which was received with great applause, and was translated into Latin and other languages. This led to a controversy with Rancé, who had the worst of it: Réflexions sur la Réponse de l'Abbé de la Trappe,' 1692. Another coutroversy which Mabillon had with Rome concerning the worship of relics of unknown persons whose bones were found in the catacombs fills part of the posthumous works: Lettres et Ecrits sur le Culte des Saints inconnus.' They contain also a "Votum D. Io. Mabillonis de quibusdam Isaacii Vossii Opusculis.' While Mabillon was at Rome, he was asked his opinion by the Congregation of the Index concerning some writings of Isaac Vossius, in which that scholar gave the preference to the chronology of the Septuagint over that of the Hebrew text, and in another place maintained that the deluge had not been universal. Mabillon said that although he believed the opinions of Vossius, especially the latter, were not correct, yet he did not think that they constituted heterodoxy, and accordingly the Congregation did not place Vossius in the Index.

Mabillon wrote also 'De Re Diplomaticâ libri sex, accedit Commentarius de antiquis Regum Francorum Palatiis;' Veterum Scripturarum varia Specimina,' &c., a work much esteemed. In 1701 he was chosen member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and in 1703 he published the first volume of his Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti,' which he brought down to the year 1157, 6 vols. folio. He died at Paris, in 1707. Mabillon was one of the most learned men of his age, and his liberal and candid disposition is clearly exhibited in his Correspondence,' and in his other posthumous writings.

MABLY, ABBÉ DE, was born at Grenoble in 1709. He studied at Lyon in the Jesuit College, and afterwards went to Paris, where he was introduced to the Cardinal de Tencin, who was then minister. In 1740 he wrote his 'Parallèle des Romains et des Français,' which acquired him a kind of popularity. He was employed by the cardinal as his secretary, and while in that office he compiled his 'Droit public de l'Europe, fondé sur les Traités,' a useful work derived from good sources. Mably was employed in several secret negociations between 1743-46, after which he appears to have quarrelled with the cardinal, in consequence of which he gave up his official prospects for a studious retirement. His historical works are:-1. 'De la manière d'écrire l'Histoire;' 2. 'De l'étude de l'Histoire;' 3. 'Observations sur l'Histoire de la Grèce ;' 4. 'Observations sur les Romains;' 5. 'Observations sur l'Histoire de France,' 2 vols. 12mo, 1765, with a posthumous

B

continuation in two more volumes, published in 1790 (this is the best of his historical works); 6. Entretiens de Phocion sur le Rapport de la Morale avec la Politique.' Many of the author's views, especially in the last work, are visionary; such as a community of goods; he would also banish commerce and the fine arts from a republic. Mably was a great admirer of the institutions of Sparta. He died at Paris, April 23, 1785. MABUSE, or MAUBEUGE, JOHN. This eminent painter, whose proper name was John Gossaert, was born at Maubeuge in Hainault, in 1470. Nothing is known of his parents, or of the name of the master under whom he studied. It is evident however that in early life he must have very assiduously devoted himself to the study of nature, and have acquired habits of industry. Considering that he was in after-life of a most restless ardent temperament, indulging in dissolute and licentious habits, and especially addicted to immoderate drinking, we cannot but admire the patience, fidelity, and labour which appear in his works. Most writers have affirmed that he went early to Italy, but even this is not clearly ascertained; whatever advantages he may have derived from the study of the great masters and of the antique, he never attained the elegance of the Roman school.

After his return from Italy he lived for some time at Utrecht, in the service of the bishop, Philip of Burgundy. From Utrecht he went to Middelburg, where he painted the celebrated altarpiece, representing the Descent from the Cross,' for the great church. This picture, which was of extraordinary dimensions, was highly admired by Albert Durer. The church, with this picture and all the treasures of art that it contained, was destroyed by lightning. Mabuse seems to have lived in a very extravagant manner at Middelburg, and was at last thrown into prison; but whether for debts or for some excesses is not known. It seems to have been after the recovery of his liberty that he came to London, where he was employed in the service of Henry VIII. He painted the king's children, and many portraits of the nobility, which gained him great reputation. Several of his pictures painted in England are still in existence, and others were destroyed in the fire at Whitehall Place. One of his finest works is at Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle, and is in an excellent state of preservation. It represents the Wise Men's Offering, and is a rich conposition, in which there are thirty principal figures. Most of the great galleries on the Continent have specimens of his works. Among these are three in the celebrated Boisserée collection purchased by King Ludwig of Bavaria. These pictures are-a very large and splendid composition representing the Crucifixion, the archangel Michael overcoming Satan, and a small highly-finished picture representing the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven. This is conjectured to be the picture which was most highly extolled during his lifetime, and which he painted while in the service of the Marquis of Verens, a wealthy Flemish nobleman, and in which he took the marchioness and her son as models for the Virgin and Child. This nobleman having to entertain the Emperor Charles V., put all the persons in his service into new and splendid liveries, and among the rest ordered suits of rich white brocade for his painter and two others of his household. Mabuse, under some pretence, got possession of the brocade, which he sold, and spent the produce at a tavern. When the great day came, and the retainers and servants were to pass in procession before the emperor, the dress of Mabuse appeared to be of such superior whiteness and beauty, that the emperor desired to examine it, and, to his astonishment, discovered it to be paper: thus the secret came out, and greatly amused the company. Mabuse died at Antwerp, October 1, 1532. The National Gallery possesses a half-length male portrait' by him (No. 656).

In the catalogue of his pictures belonging to King Charles I. is 'The children of Henry VII.: Prince Arthur, Prince Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), and Princess Margaret.' This picture is now at Hampton Court, where it is attributed to Mabuse; but as Henry VIII. was born in 1491, and the picture represents him as a child of seven or eight years old, it is plain that it could not have been painted by Mabuse, or does not represent Henry. It has in fact been ascertained (1866) to be the Children of Christian of Denmark.'

·

MACADAM, JOHN LOUDON, was born in Scotland in 1756. He was educated for a surveyor, and having been appointed to the management of a district of roads in Ayrshire, invented and practised successfully on them for some time the system of road-making, now known by his name. The principles of this system he developed in two works, A Practical Essay on the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Public Roads,' London, 1819; and Remarks on the Present State of Road-making, London, 1820. The system recommended, so far as it was new, was in the use of broken granite or other hard stone, instead of the rounded pebbles. The stones are broken into irregular shaped fragments, never exceeding six ounces each, which, spread over the road in thin layers of from three inches to six inches in depth, are worked together into a solid mass by the traffic passing over them. When once fixed the road forms a hard crust, impervious to sudden wet, and if the water is prevented from settling, and the moist mud scraped off, will remain firm for a long time. In 1827, when the metropolitan roads were placed under the management of commissioners, Mr. MacAdam became their general surveyor, and for his exertions in making the roads thoroughly efficient, was rewarded by a grant of 10,000l. from the government, but declined the honour of knighthood, which was bestowed on his son in 1834. Many other roads, particularly one in

MACARTNEY, EARL OF.

the mining districts of Cumberland and Durham, were constructed under his inspection. Mr. MacAdam died on November 26th, 1836. MACARTNEY, GEORGE MACARTNEY, EARL OF, was the only surviving son of George Macartney, Esq., a gentleman of Scottish descent, but whose family had been for some generations settled on their estate of Lissanoure, near Belfast in Ireland, where the subject of the present notice was born on the 14th of May 1737. At the age of thirteen he was admitted a fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Dublin; and in 1759, after having obtained his degree of M.A., he came to London, where he entered himself of the Inner Temple, but without any intention of prosecuting the profession of the law. He then made the tour of Europe, and on his return home in 1764 it was arranged, through the interest of Lord Holland, that he should be returned to the British parliament for Midhurst; but this destination was changed by his appointment, on the 22nd of August of the same year, as envoy extraordinary to the Empress of Russia, for the purpose of concluding a commercial treaty with that country. He was knighted before proceeding on this business, which, after a long and arduous negociation, he at last brought to a satisfactory conclusion. He returned to England in June 1767, and soon after received the appointment of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Russia, which however circumstances induced him to resign.

In February 1768 he married Lady Jane Stuart, second daughter of the Earl of Bute; and in April he was returned to parliament for Cockermouth, but resigned it in the July following, he having been elected for Armagh in the Irish parliament, in contemplation of his appointment to the office of chief secretary for Ireland, which took place on the 1st of January 1769. Macartney, who was now sworn of the Irish privy council, greatly distinguished himself by his exertions in the debates of the House of Commons against Flood, Dr. Lucas, and the other leaders of the opposition. He held his office till June 1772, when he was made a Knight of the Bath, and in 1774 was appointed to the sinecure of governor of Toome Castle, which produced an income of above 1000l. a year. In October 1774 he was returned to the British parliament as member for the Ayr burghs; but in December 1775 he was sent abroad as governor of the island of Granada. He was raised to the Irish peerage by the title of Baron Macartney, on the 10th of June 1776. He remained in Granada till July 1779, when after a most gallant defence he was compelled to surrender the island at discretion to the French admiral Count d'Estaing, and was himself sent prisoner to France. He was however very soon exchanged, and after having been employed by Lord North in a confidential mission to Ireland, was in September 1780 again returned to the British parliament for Beeralstone.

On the 14th of December of the same year he was appointed by the East India Company governor of Madras. Having returned to England in January 1786, he found that before his arrival he had been appointed governor-general; but the state of his health and other considerations induced him to decline that post, and it was eventually given to Lord Cornwallis. Very soon after his return home Macartney was severely wounded in a duel with Major-General Stuart, an officer whom he had when in India found it expedient to remove from the service. In 1788 he took his seat for the first time in the Irish House of Peers, and he resided chiefly in his native country till 1792, when he was appointed to his most memorable public employment as ambassador extraordinary to Pekin. Having on the 28th of June been made an Irish viscount, he sailed on the 26th of September, taking with him as his secretary his old friend Sir George Staunton, by whom the account of the embassy was afterwards given to the public. The amount of the benefit gained by this first diplomatic communication on the part of England with the court of Pekin has been matter of dispute; but it is generally agreed that no other person could have accomplished more than was done by Lord Macarthey, whose conduct at least was well calculated to impress the subjects of the celestial empire with a respect for the country which he represented. He left China on the 17th of March 1794, and landed at Portsmouth on the 5th of September of the same year, having on the 1st of March previous been made Earl Macartney in the Irish peerage.

In June 1795 he was sent on a confidental mission to Italy, from which he returned in May 1796; and having on the 8th of June been made a British peer by the title of Baron Macartney, he was in the end of the same year appointed governor of the newly-captured territory of the Cape of Good Hope. Here he remained till November 1798, when his impaired health compelled him to return to England. The same cause induced him to refuse the office of president of the Board of Control, with a seat in the cabinet, which was offered him on the formation of the Addington ministry in 1801; and he lived in retirement, suffering severely from gout, till his death, at Chiswick, on the 31st of March 1806. The manner in which Lord Macartney discharged his duty in the various public services in which he was employed procured him from all parties the reputation of very considerable ability and the highest honour. An account of his public life, with a selection from his unpublished writings, was published by Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Barrow, in 2 vols. 4to, London, 1807. His writings here printed, which occupy the second volume, consist of extracts from an Account of the Russian Embassy,' 'A Sketch of the Political History of Ireland,' and A Journal of his Embassy to China.' The manuscript of the Account of Russia' is in the King's Library at the British Museum,

MACAULAY, CATHARINE.

and also a printed but not published copy of the same tract, in 8vo, dated London, 1768.

MACAULAY, CATHARINE, was the daughter of John Sawbridge, Esq., of Olantigh, near Wye, Kent, where she was born in 1733. She took the name by which she is best known from her first husband, Dr. George Macaulay, a London physician, to whom she was married in 1760. It was soon after this date that she commenced authoress, by the publication of her History of England from the accession of James I. to the elevation of the House of Hanover,' the first volume of which, in 4to, appeared in 1763, and the fifth and last, which however only brought the narrative down to the Restoration, in 1771. The work also went through more than one edition in 8vo. On its first publication it attracted considerable attention, principally from the double piquancy of the sex and the avowed republicanism of the writer; but it had not merit enough to preserve it from passing into the oblivion of waste paper. The five volumes of the History' were followed in 1778 by another, entitled 'The History of England from the Revolution to the present time, in a series of Letters to the Reverend Dr. Wilson, rector of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and prebendary of Westminster,' 4to, Bath. The six letters of which this volume consists come down to the termination of the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, in 1742.

In 1778, or, according to another account, in 1785, Mrs. Macaulay, having lost her first husband, married a Mr. Graham. Both during the progress of her great work and after its completion, she also wrote several pamphlets; among them were :-'Remarks on Hobbes's Rudiments of Government and Society,' 1767, enlarged and republished in 1769, with the more striking title of 'Loose Remarks on some of Mr. Hobbes's Positions;'Observations on a Pamphlet (Burke's) entitled Thoughts on the Causes of the present Discontents,' 1770; An Address to the People of England, Scotland, and Ireland, on the pre-ent Important Crisis of Affairs,' 1775; A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth,' called in a second much enlarged edition, 'Letters on Education,' 1790; and Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. E. Burke on the Revolution in France, in a Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope,' 1791. In 1785 she made a voyage to America to visit Washington. On her return she retired with her husband to a small house in Leicestershire, where she died on the 22nd of June 1791. In 1790 was printed a little volume entitled 'A Catalogue of Tracts,' which a manuscript annotation on the copy in the royal library in the British Museum states to be "Mrs. Macaulay's," meaning apparently the tracts in her library. The titles are between 5000 and 6000 in number, besides about 1300

sermons.

MACAULAY, THE RIGHT HON. THOMAS BABINGTON, was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, October 25, 1800. His father, Zachary Macaulay, well known in the early part of the present century for his exertions against the slave-trade and in other works of philanthropy, was the son of the Rev. John Macaulay, a Presbyterian minister in the Scottish Highlands, descended from the Macaulays of the island of Lewis. This John Macaulay, and a brother of his named Kenneth, also a clergyman of a Highland parish, are both mentioned with respect in Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides.' A daughter of John, that is, a sister of Zachary Macaulay, married a Mr. Thomas Babington, a rich English merchant, and the name Thomas Babington was bestowed on the nephew. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his career was one of distinction. In 1819 he gained the chancellor's medal for a poem entitled 'Pompeii,' then published; in 1821 he gained the same chancellor's medal for another poem entitled Evening,' also published; in the same year he was elected to the Craven scholarship; in 1822 he graduated B.A., and was elected a Fellow of Trinity; and in 1825 he graduated M.A. Having adopted the bar as his profession, he was called at Lincoln's Inn in February 1826. During the whole course of his university career he was noted as a various and indefatigable reader, whose memory was almost miraculously retentive both of words and things. The range of his acquirements, and the brilliancy of his style, were indicated at an early period in his contributions to 'Knight's Quarterly Magazine '-his ballads, and some of his essays in that periodical, having gone far beyond a mere promise of excellence. It was in August 1825, or six months before his call to the bar, and when he was just twenty-five years of age, that Mr. Macaulay contributed his article on Milton' to the 'Edinburgh Review'-the first of that long series of brilliant essays with which, for a period of twenty years, he enriched the pages of the great northern periodical, and upon which even yet so much of his fame in literature depends. Various articles, including those on 'Machiavelli' and on Hallam's Constitutional History,' had succeeded the one on Milton, when, in recognition of the literary articles of the young barrister, and of his relationship to Zachary Macaulay, the Whigs appointed him to a commissionership of bankruptcy. In 1830 he became a member of parliament in the Whig interest, representing the borough of Calne. In this capacity, and holding the ministerial office of secretary to the Board of Control for India, he enacted a very conspicuous part in the debates during the Reform Bill agitation. His greatest parliamentary speech on Reform was published separately in 1831; and at the same time he extended his choice of topics for the Edinburgh Review,' writing occasionally on political questions as well as on themes of

MACAULAY, RT. HON. THOMAS BABINGTON.

purely literary or historical interest. In December 1832 Mr. Macaulay was returned to the first reformed parliament as member for Leeds; and he retained his seat till 1884, increasing his reputation as a parlia mentary orator and as a liberal and philosophic politician. In 1834, somewhat to the surprise of the public, he resigned his seat, in order to go out to India as a member of the Supreme Council of Calcutta. The special purpose of Mr. Macaulay's appointment was the preparation of a new Indian code of law. He was therefore exempted from all share in the executive government, and had four assistants assigned to facilitate his labours. He remained in India two years and a half, and after his return in 1838 his proposed Penal Code was published. It contained twenty-six short chapters, embracing 488 clauses. Its great ability was generally acknowledged; but the variety of races and customs to which it was to be applied, and other difficulties, have prevented any attempt to carry it into execution, While in the East he increased or acquired that knowledge which at a later period he exhibited in his splendid essays on Clive' and Warren Hastings.' Nor while residing in India did he cease to write for the Edinburgh Review;' several of his most celebrated articles, including, we believe, that on 'Bacon,' having been sent over from Calcutta. It was one consequence, too, of Mr. Macaulay's absence in India that, when he did return to England, he returned with a fortune which, if not large, rendered him independent.

Re-entering political life as secretary-at-war in 1839, Mr. Macaulay was elected member of parliament for the city of Edinburgh in January 1840. He held the secretaryship-at-war, and was a conspicuous member of the Whig administration, till September 1841, when the accession of Sir Robert Peel deprived him of office. On the return of the Whigs to office in 1846, under the premiership of Lord John Russell, he was appointed paymaster-general of the forces, with a seat in the cabinet; and this office he held till July 1847, when, chiefly on account of a disagreement with the majority of his Edinburgh constituents on the subject of the Maynooth grant, he lost his election. The rejection of such a man in such circumstances caused great surprise, and Mr. Macaulay could easily have found another constituency, but he preferred withdrawing altogether from parliament.

"He

It was the consolation of Mr. Macaulay's admirers on his retirement from active politics that his time would thus be given in larger measure than before to literary labour. During the first four or five years after his return from India, and while first acting in parliament as representative for Edinburgh, he had continued as sedulously as ever his contributions to the Edinburgh Review;' where, indeed (his style being known), they were now regularly looked for by an eager circle of readers. He also found time to return to a form of literature of which he had been fond in his youth-the metrical ballad-aud to compose those well-known 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which were pub lished in 1842. After this publication he wrote but four or five articles for the 'Review;' the last from his pen being, it is understood, that on The Earl of Chatham,' which appeared in the number for October 1844. As almost all the articles of the splendid twenty years' series of which this was the last, were well known, the Americans had already in 1840 reprinted in five volumes such of them as had appeared up to that time; and copies of the reprint in considerable numbers had been imported into Britain. This led to the publication by Mr. Macaulay himself in 1843, of an authorised English edition in three volumes, revised by himself, and containing, with a few exceptions, all the essays included in the American reprint. Three papers on the Utilitarian Philosophy, not included in the American edition, were also omitted from this, for a reason very honourable to the author. has determined," he says, speaking of himself in the third person in the preface, "to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain; but because he is unwilling to offer what might be considered as an affront to the memory of one [Mr. James Mill] from whose opinions he still widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerly did not do justice. Serious as are the faults of the Essay on Government,' a critic, while noticing these faults, should have abstained from using contemptuous language respecting the historian of British India. It ought to be known that Mr. Mill had the generosity, not only to forgive, but to forget the unbecoming acrimony with which he had been assailed, and was, when his valuable life closed, on terms of cordial friendship with his assailant." The essays thus republished have passed through numerous editions, and have been by far the most popular of such republications in this country. The later editions close with the article on Chatham above alluded to. In that article Mr. Macaulay took farewell of the Essay' form of literature, in which he had won such reputation and which he had done so much to dignify. It was known that in doing so he was reserving his strength for a more continuous and laborious, if not a more brilliant species of work; and, believing this work to be already somewhat advanced, the public, in its interest, regretted less in 1847 Mr. Macaulay's retirement from parliament. At length in 1849, the fruits of his leisure in his town residence in the Albany were seen; and the first two volumes of his 'History of England from the Accession of James II.' were given to the world. Since the publication of Gibbon's immortal work, few historical works have had such a reception; edition after edition was called for; and after a little while the public began to be anxious for the appearance of the succeeding volumes.