ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848,

BY WILLIAM H. GRAHAM,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.

TO

His Excellency,

M. LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS,

THE STATESMAN, THE PATRIOT, THE ORATOR, THE HISTORIAN, AND THE

FRIEND OF LIBERTY,

OF SCIENCE, AND OF LITERATURE,

THIS WORK

IS,

FROM A SENTIMENT OF ADMIRATION,

Qumbly Dedicated by

THE AUTHOR.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF

SOME OF THE AUTHORS REFERRED TO IN VOLUME I.

Agatharcides, a philosopher and historian of Samos, who is generally supposed to have lived about two hundred years before Christ.

Appian of Alexandria, governor and manager of the imperial revenues under Trajan, Adian, and Antoninus Pius, in Rome. He wrote a Roman history, from the earliest times to the reign of Augustus, in twenty-four books, of which only half the number have come down to us, an unequal work according to the sources from which the author drew his materials. A good edition of this work was issued 1785, in three volumes. by Schweighæuser, Leipsic, and Strassburg.

Athenæus, a Greek Grammarian, born at Naucratis in Egypt, flourished in the third century of our era. He was one of the most learned men of his time-of all his works there remains only that entitled the Deiphrosophists; that is, the Sophists at Table, where he introduces a number of learned men, who converse upon various subjects, at the table of a Roman citizen, called Larensius. But all the editions we have of this work are very imperfect. There is, however, an infinite variety of facts and citations in it, which make it very interesting.

Bayle (Pierre), a native of France, born in 1647. He gave early proof of an extraordinary memory, and of great mental endowments. He filled, successively, professorships at Sedan, in France, and at Rotterdam, and his life was entirely devoted to literary pursuits. He died at the age of fifty-nine years-of his several works his Historical and Critical Distionary,' is the most celebrated. He was a skeptic, but he never attacked the principles of morality.

Belzoni, (Giambathista)—that is, John Baptist—was born at Padua, and educated at Rome. In 1803 he proceeded to England, when he acted the part of Apollo and Hercules, at Astley's amphitheatre. During his stay in England he is said to have acquired much knowledge of the science of hydraulics, the study of which had been his brief occupation in Rome, and which afterwards carried him to Egypt. He left England, after a residence of nine years, and took his way through Portugal, Spain, and Malta, to Egypt. There he remained from 1815 to 1819, at first as a dancer, till he acquired the favor of the Pacha, who made use of his services. He undertook and succeeded to open two of the greatest Pyramids of Egypt, and several catacombs near Thebes, as we have already had occasion to see. The drawings which he has furnished of these ancient monuments are considered to be very exact. In the year 1816 he succeeded in transporting a bust and a sarcophagus of alabaster, found in the catacombs, from Thebes to Alexandria, from whence they came to the British Museum. Belzoni's narrative of his discoveries, accompanied by a folio volume of forty-four copper plates,

was received with general approbation. This distinguished man died on the 3d of December, 1823, when en route to new discoveries.

Bockart (Samuel), a Protestant clergyman, at Caen in France, was one of the most learned men that has ever existed. He was born in the year 1599. Being of a very respectable family, he got an excellent education. He studied at Leyden, the Arabic language, under Erpenius. When he returned to France he was made a minister. His victory in the year 1628, in the famous literary controversy between him and Father Veron, established his reputation, which increased greatly in the year 1646, by the publications of his Pholeg and his Canaan, wherein he treats, first, of the dispersion of mankind, caused by the alleged confusion of languages; and second, of the colonies and language of the Phoenicians. The inquiries which he must have made in order. to compose these works and some others, made it necessary for him to search into all the ancient authors and the most hidden treasures of the languages of Western Asia. He was invited to Sweden, by the learned Queen Christina, and went thither in the year 1552. In 1650 he published a letter about the authority of kings, and about the institution of priests and bishops; and in 1663 one in which he showed, by many good reasons, that there is no likelihood that Æneas ever arrived at Italy. He died in Caen, May 16, 1667, having lost his speech and his senses, all of a sudden, in the Academy that met at the house of M. de Brieux. His modesty is said to have equalled his learning.

Clarke (Edward Daniel, LL.D.,) a very celebrated English traveller and mineralogist. His travels in the north of Europe, and in Asia, and in Africa, have been published and are of much value. He died in 1821.

Diogenes Laertius, an historian, so named from Laerta, a little town in Cilicia, where he was born in the time of the Emperor Antoninus, the philosopher. Still there are some who think that Laertius was his proper name. He was reputed an Epicurean, and some say that he wrote his ten books for a woman named Arria, beloved by the Emperor. Hippocrates, called the Father of Medicine, the most famous among the Greek physicians, was born in the Isle of Cos, 456 B. C., and lived to the age of ninety. Jamblichus, an eminent philosopher of the sect of the later Platonists. He was a native of Syria, and flourished in the beginning of the fourth century of our era. One of his chief works is a treatise on the mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians.

Lactantius (Lucius Cælius Firmianus), lived in the third century, and at the beginning of the fourth. Some make him to have been an African, others say that he was born at Fermo, a city of Italy, and that from the place of his birth he was called Firmianus. He stood in so high repute that the Emperor Constantine made him teacher to his son Crispus Cæsar. He wrote his book of Institutions, in answer to two philosophers who were opposed to the Christian religion, in which he set down some propositions that made the Pope Gelasius rank them among Apycrophal books. Many of his theological and historical statements have been pointed out as erroneous by different writers. His works were printed 1660, with the notes of Joseph Isæus, and in 1652, at Leyden, with those of Anthonius Thysius.

Lucian, a Greek author distinguished for his ingenuity and wit, was born in Samosata, the capital of Cemagene, on the Euphrates, during the reign of Trajan. He was of humble origin, and was placed while young, with his uncle to study statuary, but being unsuccessful in this attempt, he went to Antioch, and devoted himself to literature and forensic rhetoric. In the reign of Marcus Aurelius he was made procurator of the province of Egypt, and died in the reign of Commodus, between eighty and ninety years old. The works of Lucian which are still preserved, are narrative, rhetorical critical and satirical, mostly in the form of dialogues. The most admired are those in