he was offered the deanery of Rochester, which he might have held until 1662, and enriched himself by letting leases; but, either dissatisfied with the advances he had already made towards conformity, or foreseeing that greater would soon be expected, he honourably refused to enrich himself by accepting a dignity, the very existence of which he and his brethren were prepared to oppose. In 1661 he was one of the commissioners at the Savoy conference, and continued preaching until St. Bartholomew's day in 1662, when he was obliged to resign his living. After this he preached occasionally, either in private or public, as he found it convenient, particularly during the indulgence granted to the nonconformists from 1668 to 1670, but was imprisoned for continuing the practice when it be came illegal. From this time his history is too generally involved with that of his brethren to admit of being sepa rated. He preserved, amidst all vicissitudes, the friendship of the duke of Bedford, the duke of Richmond, lord Wharton, and many other persons of rank. To this they were probably induced by a congeniality of principle; but independent of this, Dr. Manton was a man of great learning and extensive reading, and his conversation as much recommended him to men of the world, as to those who admired his pious services. Waller, the poet, said “that he never discoursed with such a man as Dr. Manton in all his life." He was also a person of extraordinary charity, and supplicated the assistance of his great friends more for the poor than for himself, being perfectly disinterested. Wood has misrepresented his character in all these respects. His constitution, although a man of great temperance, early gave way; and his complaints terminating in a lethargy, he died Oct. 18, 1677, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was buried in the chancel of the church at Stoke Newington, where his intimate friend Dr. Bates preached his funeral sermon, which includes a very copious character of him.

He published in his life-time only some occasional sermons, and the Commentaries on St. Jude and St. James, already mentioned, except a controversial work, entitled "Smectymnuus Redivivus, being an answer to a book entitled An humble remonstrance.' After his death, various treatises and collections of sermons were printed separately, all of which, if we are not mistaken, were afterVOL. XXI.

S

wards incorporated in an edition of his "Works" in five large volumes, 1681-1691, folio.'

MANTUAN (BAPTIST), an Italian poet of great temporary fame, was born at Mantua, whence he took his name, in 1448, and not in 1444, as Cardan and others have said; for Mantuan himself relates, in a short account of his own life, that he was born under the pontificate of Nicholas V. and Nicholas was only made pope in March 1447. He was of the illustrious family of the Spagnoli, being a natural son of Peter Spagnolo, as we learn from Paul Jovius, who was his countryman, and thirty-three years old when Mantuan died, and therefore must have known the fact. Mantuan too speaks frequently and highly, in his works, of his father Peter Spagnolo, to whom he ascribes the care of his education. In his youth, he applied himself ardently to books, and began early with Latin poetry, which he cultivated all his life; for it does not appear that he wrote any thing in Italian. He entered himself, we do not know exactly when, among the Carmelites, and came at length to be general of his order; which dignity, upon some disgust or other, he quitted in 1515, and devoted himself entirely to the pursuit of the belles-lettres. He did not enjoy his retirement long, for he died in March 1516, upwards of eighty years of age. The duke of Mantua, some years after, erected to his memory a marble statue crowned with laurel, and placed it next to that of Virgil; and even Erasmus went so far as to say that a time would come, when Baptist Mantuan would not be placed much below his illustrious countryman. In this opinion few critics will now join. If he had possessed the talents of Virgil, he had not his taste, and knew not how to regulate them. Yet allowance is to be made, when we consider that, in the age in which he lived, good taste had not yet emerged. Lilius Gyraldus, in his "Dialogues upon the poets of his own times," says, "that the verses which Mantuan wrote in his youth are very well; but that, his imagination afterwards growing colder, his latter productions have not the force or vigour of his earlier." We may add, that Mantuan was more solicitous about the number than the goodness of his poems; yet, considering that he lived when letters were but just reviving, it must be owned, that he was a very extraordinary person.

Memoirs of Dr. Manton by Win. Harris, 1725, 8vo —Calamy.-Neal's Puritans.-Ath. Ox. vol. II.-Wilson's Hist. of Dissenting churches and meetings.

His poetical works were first printed, in a folio volume without a date, consisting of his eclogues, written chiefly in his youth; seven pieces in honour of the virgins inscribed on the kalendar, beginning with the virgin Mary; these he calls "Parthenissa I." "Parthenissa II." &c.; four books of Silvæ or poems on different subjects; elegies, epistles, and, in short, poems of every description. This was followed by an edition at Bologna, 1502, folio, and by another at Paris in 1513, with the commentaries of Murrho, Brant, and Ascensius, 3 vols. fol. but usually bound in one. A more complete, but now more rare, edition of them was published at Antwerp, 1576, in four vols. 8vo, under this title, "J. Baptista Mantuani, Carmelitæ, theologi, philosophi, poëtæ, & oratoris clarissimi, opera omnia, pluribus libris aucta & restituta." The Commentaries of the Paris edition are omitted in this; but the editors have added, it does not appear on what account, the name of John, to Baptist Mantuan.'

MANUTIUS (ALDUS), the elder of three justly celebrated printers, was born about 1447, at Bassiano, a small town in the duchy of Sermonetta. He was educated at Rome, under Gaspar of Verona and Domitius Calderinus, both of whom he has mentioned in several of his prefaces, as men of talents and erudition. Having acquired a knowledge of the Latin language from them, he went to Ferrara to study Greek under Baptist Guarini, and, probably after his own studies were completed, became the preceptor of the prince of Carpi, a nephew of the celebrated Picus of Mirandula. In 1482, Ferrara being closely besieged by a Venetian army, he retired to Mirandula, and spent some time in the society of Picus, who, though not quite twenty years of age, was already a consummate master of almost all learning. From Mirandula, Aldus went, some time after, to reside with his pupil, who, though only twelve years of age, had made such advances in learning, that he was already qualified to take a part in the serious conversations, and the designs of his uncle and his preceptor; and it is believed to have been at this time, that Aldus conceived the project of bis subsequent printing establishment at Venice, to the expences of which, Picus and his pupil probably contributed. He began, however, to print, at Venice, in 1488, with an edition of the small

1 Niceron, vol. XXVII.—Ginguené Hist. Lit. D'Italie.—Roscoe's Leo.

Greek poem of Musæus, in quarto, with a Latin translation, but without date. In 1494 he published the Greek grammar of Lascaris, and in 1495, in one collection, the grammatical treatises of Theodore Gaza, Apollonius, and Herodian.

He had already begun to prepare for the press the manuscripts of the then unprinted originals of the works of Aristotle, which, in number and extent, were sufficient to fill five volumes in folio. Although the state of these MSS. required almost incredible efforts of diligence and erudition, Aldus brought out a first volume in 1495, and the edition was completed in 1498. Aldus was from that time confessed, without dispute, to stand as an editor in the very first rank among his contemporaries. He was not, however, the very first that printed an entire Greek book. The Greek grammar of Lascaris had been printed in folio, at Milan, in 1476. The works of Homer were printed at Florence in 1488; and several other Greek works had also appeared in print, when Aldus began his establishment; yet he must be allowed the praise of having first used elegant Greek types, and printed from the most correct and authentic manuscripts.

In imitation, it is said, of the hand-writing of the celebrated Petrarch, Aldus procured the first examples of that which is called, in printing, the Italic character, to be cut and cast for him by Francesco of Bologna, about 1500. An edition of the works of Virgil, in octavo, was the first book he printed in this type, which was long known among printers by the name of Aldine. The inventor obtained a patent from the Senate of Venice, for its exclusive use for ten years, from the 13th of November, 1502; and another similar patent from pope Alexander the Sixth, from the 17th of November, 1502. The last of these was renewed for fifteen years more, by Julius the Second, on the 27th of January, 1513; and again by Leo the Tenth, on the 28th of the following November.

From 1502, the different works printed by Aldus, were reprinted at Lyons, with a close imitation of the Aldine type and edition. The very prefaces of Aldus and his assistants, were copied in the editions of Lyons. But the imitation was disgraced by many typographical errors. Aldus, observing and noting these, published on the 16th of March, 1503, a list in which they were particularly enumerated, and which he appears to have distributed to

the purchasers of copies of his own genuine editions. The cunning and industrious Lyonnese took this list of their errors, corrected them in new editions of the same books; and thus still divided the market with Aldus, and now more successfully than at the first.

In 1501, 1502, 1503, 1504, and 1505, Aldus printed in folio, or in octavo, a considerable number of the pest authors, Greek, Roman, and Italian, such as Deatosthenes, Lucian, Dante, Horace, Petrarch, Cicero's epistles to his familiar friends, Juvenal, Lucan, Homer, Sonuocles, Euripides, &c. &c. He published, at the least, a volume every month. These publications were in all respects excellent. They were of works the most valuable in all literature, ancient or modern. The composition of the types was finely regular and uniform; the press-work vas zamirably executed; and the ink so truly good, that it retains to this day all its beauty and lustre of colour.

In the necessary pains upon these works, Aldes had the assistance of some of the best and most learned a among bis contemporaries. His house became sort of ew atdemy. The learned in Venice began, about 1506, to assemble there on fixed days of frequent recurve ice, for conversation on interesting literary topics: and the meetings were continued for several years subsequent. The topics on which they conversed were, ospally, what books were fittest to be printed, what manuscripts nigh. consulted with the greatest advantage, wirt readings, out of a diversity, for any one passage, ought to be preferred. Among those who attended these conversations, were, besides Aldus himself, the famous A. Navage rus, P. Bembo the celebrated cardinal, Eres aus, when he was at Venice, P. Alcionius, M. Musurus, Marc-Ant. Cocci. Sabellicus, Albertus Pius, prince of Carpi, and others, whose na nes, though they were then eminent, are not now equally in remembrance. Among those who assisted aldus in the correction of the press, were men doss eminer than Demetrius Chalcondylas, Aleander, af rwards amou, as a cardinal, and even Erasmus.

There are some curious circumstances in the history of the acquaintance and connexion between Erasues and Aldus. The "Adagia" of Polydore Vergil had been printed at Venice, and well received in the world. Erasmus, aware of this fact, wrote fom Boga, to request that Aldus would undertake the painting of his "Adagia."