fifty piftoles, he lent them the money immediately, even without their note for it. Upon their arrival at Paris, mentioning this generous action to Mr. Dagaeffeau, father of the chancellor, this magiftrate was touched with it; and engaged them to invite Ozanham to Paris, with a promife of his favour. The opportunity was eagerly embraced; and he was scarcely arrived at that city, when his mother falling fick defired to fee him. He haftened to her, but found her dead; fhe had defigned to make him her heir, but was prevented by her eldeft fon. Our cadet therefore returned to Paris, and broke off all correfpondence with a family, of which he enjoyed nothing but the name. The bufinefs of teaching the mathematics brought him in a confiderable income; but he wanted prudence for fome time to make the best of it. He was young, handfome, and sprightly; loved both gaming and gallantry, which continually drained his purfe. Among others, he had a love-intrigue with a woman, who lodged in the fame houfe with him, and set herself out for a perfon of condition. She and her gallant were not fparing of his louis-d'ors to fupport it. However, this expence in time led him to think of matrimony; and thus, being born under an unthriving planet, he married a woman with almost no fortune. It is true, the made amends for that defect by her modefty, virtue, and fweet temper; fo that, though the ftate of his purse was not amended, yet he had more home-felt enjoyment than before, being indeed completely happy in her as long as the lived, and made very much otherwife by her death, in 1701. Neither did this misfortune then come fingle: for, the war breaking out at the fame time, on account of the Spanifh fucceffion, fwept away all his fcholars, who, being foreigners, were obliged to leave Paris. Thus he funk into a very melancholy ftate; under which indeed he received fome relief, from the honour of being admitted, this fame year, an eleve of the Royal Academy of Sciences. He feems to have had a prefentiment of his death, from fome lurking diforder within, of which there appeared no outward fymptoms. In that perfuafion, he refufed to engage with fome foreign noblemen, who propofed to be his scholars; alleging, that he fhould not live long enough to carry them though their intended courfe. Accordingly, he was feized foon after with an apoplexy, which carried him out of the world in less than two hours, April 3, 1717, aged 77. He was of a mild and calm difpofition, a cheerful and pleafant temper, endeared by a generofity almost unrivalled. His manners were irreproachable after marriage; and he was fincerely piqus, and zealoufly devout, ftudioutly avoiding to meddle in theological queftions. He ufed to fay, that it was the business of of the Sorbonne doctors to difcufs them, of the Pope to decide them, and of a mathematician to go ftraight to heaven in a perpendicular line. He left no iffue; for, though his wife brought him no lefs than a dozen children, yet they all died young. OŽELL (JOHN), a writer to whofe induftry, if not to his genius, the world lies under very confiderable obligations, received the first rudiments of his education from Mr. Shaw, an excellent grammarian, and after of the free-fchool at Afhby de la Zouch, in Leicestershire. He afterwards completed his grammatical ftudies under the rev. Mr. Mountford, of Chrift's Hofpital, where having attained a great degree of perfection in the dead languages, viz. the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, it was the intention of his friends to have sent him to the university of Cambridge, there to finish his ftudies, with a view to his being admitted into holy orders. But Mr. Ozell, averfe to the confinement of a college-life, and perhaps difinclined to the clerical profeffion, and defirous of being fooner brought out into and fettled in the world than the regular courfe of academical gradations would permit, folicited and obtained an employment in a public office of accounts; with a view to which, he had taken previous care to qualify himself, by a moft perfect knowledge of arithmetic in all its branches, and a great degree of excellence in writing all the neceffary hands. Notwithstanding, however, this grave attention to bufinefs, he ftill retained an inclination for, and an attention to, even polite literature, that could scarcely have been expected; and, by entering into much conversation with foreigners abroad, and a clofe application to reading at home, he made himself mafter of most of the living languages, more especially the French, Italian, and Spanish, from all which, as well as from the Latin and Greek, he has favoured the world with many valuable tranflations. His plays, though all tranflations, are very numerous, there being included in them a complete English verfion of the dramatic pieces of that justlycelebrated French writer, Moliere, befides fome others from Corneille, Racine, &c. the titles of which are to be found in the "Biographia Dramatica." Mr. Ozell had the good fortune to escape all thofe viciffitudes and anxieties in regard to pecuniary circumftances which too frequently attend on men of literary abilities; for, befides that he was, from his earlieft fetting out in life, conftantly in poffeffion of very good places, having been for fome years auditor-general of the city and bridge accounts, and, to the time of his deceafe, auditor of the accounts of St. Paul's cathedral and St. Thomas's Hofpital, all of them pofts of confiderable emolument; a gentleman, who was a native of the fame fame country with him, who had known him from a schoolboy, and it is faid lay under particular obligations to his family, dying when Mr. Ozell was in the very prime of life, left him fuch a fortune as would have been a competent fupport for him if he fhould at any time have chofen to retire from bufinefs entirely, which, however, it does not apear he ever did. He died O. 15, 1743, and was buried in the vault of a church belonging to the parish of St. Mary Aldermanbury; but in what year he was born, and confequently his age at the time of his death, are particulars that we do not find on record. That Mr. Ozell was rather a man of application than genius is apparent from many circumstances, nor is any thing, perhaps, a ftronger proof of it than the very employment he made choice of; fince it has been much oftener feen, that men of brilliant talents have quitted the more fedentary avocations they have fortuitoufly been bred to than that they have fixed on any fuch by their own election; and perhaps our author is the only inftance of a perfon, even of a turn to the heavier and more abftrufe branches of literature, who ever chose to bury the greatest part of his hours behind the desk of a compt ing-house. Notwithstanding this obfervation, however, Mr. Ozell's abilites, if lefs entertaining, were not perhaps lefs ufeful to the world than thofe of other writers; for, though he produced nothing originally his own, yet he has clothed in an English habit feveral very valuable pieces; and, though his tranflations may not, perhaps, have all that elegance and spirit which the originals poffefs, yet, in general, it must be confeffed that they are very juft, and convey, if not the poetical, at leaft the literal meaning of their respective authors and indeed, it were rather to be wifhed that this writer had confined himself to the tranflation of works of a more serious nature than have engaged in thofe of humour and genius, which were qualities he feemed not to poffefs himself, and therefore could not do juftice to in others. Moliere, more particularly, is an author of that fuperior genius, that it would require abilities almost equal to his own to tranflate him in fuch a manner as to give him, in the clothing of our own language, the perfect air and manner of a native. Mr. Ozell feems to have had a more exalted idea of his own abilities than the world was willing to allow them, for, on his being introduced by Mr. Fope into the "Dunciad,' (for what caute, however, does not appear,) he published a very extraordinary advertisement, figned with his name, in a paper called "The Weekly Medley," Sept. 1729, in which he expreffes his refentment, and at the fame time draws a comparifon, in his own favour, between Mr. Pope and him 4 felf, felf, both with refpect to learning and poetical genius. The advertisement at length may be feen in the notes to the "Dunciad." But, though we cannot readily fubscribe to this felf-affumed preference, yet, as Mr. Coxeter informs us that his converfation was furprizingly agreeable and his knowledge of men and things confiderable, and as it is probable that, with an understanding fomewhat above the cominon rank, he pofeffed a confiderable fhare of good-nature, we readily allow, that a person of this character might be much more amiable than one of a greater brilliancy of parts, if deficient in these good qualities. P. PAC ACE (RICHARD), a very learned Englishman, was born about 1482, probably at Winchefter; and educated at the charge of Thomas Langton, bifhop of that diocefe, whom he ferved as amanuenfis. The bithop, pleased with his proficiency, and particularly delighted with his genius for mufic, fent him to Padua, to improve himfelf: where he met with Cuthbert Tonftal, afterwards bishop of Durham, and William Latimer, by whole inftructions he was much profited. Upon his return home, he fettled at Queen's-college, in Oxford, of which his patron Langton had been provoft; and foon after was taken into the fervice of Dr. Chriftopher Bainbridge, who fucceeded Langton in the provoftfhip, and became a cardinal. From the fervice of the cardinal he was fent for to court; his accomplishments rendering him very acceptable to Henry VIII. who made him fecretary of ftate, and employed him in matters of high concern. Though much immerfed in political affairs, he went into orders: in the beginning of 1514, he was admitted a prebendary in the church of York; and, the fame year, promoted to the archdeaconry of Dorfet. Thefe preferments were conferred upon him while he was employed in foreign embaflies by the king, who likewife made him dean of St. Paul's, London, upon the death of Colet, in 1519: he was also made dean of Exeter about the fame time. In 1521, he was made a prebendary in the church of Sarum: and, upon the demife of Leo X. was fent to Rome, to folicit the Papal chair chair for cardinal Wolfey; but a Pope was elected before his arrival there. This proved the epoch of his troubles; for, being employed, not long after, ambaffador to Venice, he fell under the difpleasure of Wolfey; for which, two reafons are affigned: firft, That he had fhewed a readiness to affift Charles duke of Bourbon with money, for whom the cardinal had no great affection; and, fecondly, That he had not forwarded the cardinal's defigns of obtaining the Papacy. Wolfey, inflamed against him, took fuch courfes, that, for the fpace almost of two years, he had neither writing from the king, nor council, how to proceed in his bufinefs at Venice, nor any allowance for his diet, although he had fent letters very often to England. Upon this, and efpecially fome private intimations concerning the cardinal's ufage of him, he took it fo much to heart that he became bereft of his fenfes. As foon as his frenzy, and the reafon, was made known to the king, he was ordered home; and, being carefully attended by phyficians at the king's command, was restored in a fhort time to his fenfes, and ftudied the Hebrew language, with the affiftance of Robert Wakefield. In thefe lucid intervals, he was introduced to the king at Richmond, wh expreffed much fatisfaction at his recovery; and admitted him to a private audience, in which he remonftrated against the cardinal's cruelty to him. But the cardinal was too hard for him; and, being urged by the king to purge himself of the charge, he fummoned Pace before him. Here he fat in judgement, with the duke of Norfolk and others, who condemned Pace, and fent him to the Tower of London; where he was confined for two years, till difcharged at length by the king's command. He refigned his deanries of St. Paul and Exeter a little before his death: and, retiring to Stepney for his health, died there, 1532, not quite 50. He published feveral pieces [B]. [B] The titles of which are as fol low: I. "De fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur liber. Bafil. 1517." dedicated to Dr. Colet. It was written by our author at Conftance, while he was ambaffador in Helvetia; but inveighing much against drunkennels as a great obftacle to the attaining of knowledge, the people there fuppofing him to reflect upon them, wrote a fharp answer to it. Erafmus was alfo highly incenfed at fome patfages in this piece, and calls it an indifcreet performance; and a filly bok, in which Pace had, between jeft and earnest, reprefented There Erafm. epift. 275, him as a beggar, and a beggar hated by |