in the healing parliament; and after the restoration, made chief keeper of his majesty's records in the Tower, with a falary of 500 1. per annum. He was again elected for Bath in 1661; and in July that year, being discontented at some proceedings in the house, he published a paper, intitled, "Sundry reafons tendered to the moft honorable house of "peers by fome citizens and members of London, and other "cities, boroughs, corporations, and ports, against the new "intended bill for governing and reforming corporations : of which, being discovered to be the author, he was obliged to beg pardon of the house, in order to escape punishment. After the restoration, he published several books. He gave his works bound up together, in forty volumes in folio and quarto, to the library of Lincolns-Inn: fo that a certain writer was not far from the mark, when he called him " one "of the greatest paper-worms, that ever crept into a closet or library." Mr. Anthony Collins ftiles him, " a little, "factious, fcribbling fellow." He died at his chambers in Dr. Rogers. Lincolns-Inn, the 24th of October 1669, and was interred under the chapel there. Mercurius Politicus. No. 7. by Marchmont Needham. Letter to Hift. of Re- The earl of Clarendon calls him learned in the law, as far as mere reading of books could make him learned. His works are all in English, and " by the generality of scholars, "fays Wood, are looked upon to be rather rhapfodical and "confused, than any way polite or concife: yet for anti quaries, critics, and fometimes for divines, they are use"ful. In most of them he fhews great industry, but little judgment, especially in his large folios against the pope's "ufurpations. He may be well intitled voluminous Prynne, 66 as Toftatus Albulenfis was two hundred years before his "time called voluminous Toftatus; for I verily believe, that, "if rightly computed, he wrote a fheet for every day of his "life, reckoning from the time, when he came to the use "of reason, and the state of man.” His greatest work goes under the title of Records, in three volumes folio; another is called Parliamentary Writs, in four parts 4to. He likewife published Sir Robert Cotton's abridgment of the Tower records, with amendments and additions, folio; and obfervations on the fourth part of Coke's inftitutes, folio. PTO lioth. Græc. Hiftoria Aftronomiæ. Wirtemb. 1741, 4to. Magna Conftructio. VII. 2. & IV. 9. PTOLEMÆUS (CLAUDIUS) a great geographer, mathematician, and aftronomer of antiquity, was born at Pelufium in Egypt, and flourished in the reigns of Adrian and Marcus Antoninus. He tells us himself, in one place, Fabria. Bibthat he made a great number of observations upon the fixed V. III.ftars at Alexandria, in the fecond year of Antoninus Pius; Weidleri and in another, that he obferved an eclipfe of the moon, in the ninth year of Adrian: from whence it is reasonable to conclude, that this aftronomer's obfervations upon the heavens were made between A. D. 125, and A. D. 140. Hence appears the error of some in supposing, that this Claudius Ptolemæus was the fame with the aftrologer Ptolemy, who conftantly attended Galba, and promifed Otho that he should furvive Nero, and afterwards that he should obtain the empire: which is as improbable, as what Ifidorus, an ecclefiaftical writer of the 7th century, and fome moderns after him have afferted, namely, that our aftronomer was one of the kings of Egypt. We know no circumstances of the life of Ptolemy: it is noted in his canon, that Antoninus Pius reigned three and twenty years, which fhews, that he himfelf furvived him. The science is greatly indebted to this aftronomer; who has preferved and tranfmitted to us the obfervations and principal difcoveries of the ancients, and at the fame time. augmented and enriched them with his own. He corrected Hipparchus's catalogue of the fixed ftars, and formed tables, by which the motions of the fun, moon, and planets might be calculated and regulated. He was indeed the firft, who collected the scattered and detached obfervations of the ancients, and digefted them into a fyftem: which he fet forth in his Meyann σurrakis, five Magna Conftruétio, divided into thirteen books. He adopts and exhibits here the ancient system of the world, which placed the earth in the center of the universe: and this has been called from him the Ptolemaic fystem, to distinguish it from those of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. About the year 827, this work was tranflated by the Arabians into their language, in which it was called Almageftum, by the command of one of their kings; and from Arabic into Latin, about the year 1230, under the en Plut. in vit. Galbæ.- Tacit. Hift. couragement of the emperor Frederic II. There were other verfions from the Arabic into Latin; and a manuscript of one, done by Girardus Cremonenfis, who flourished about the middle of the 14th century, is faid by Fabricius to be ftill extant, and in the library of All Souls college at Oxford. The Greek text began to be read in Europe in the 15th century; and was firft published by Simon Grynæus at Bafil. 1538, in folio, with the eleven books of commentaries by Theon, who flourished at Alexandria in the reign of the elder Theodofius. In 1541, it was reprinted at Bafil, with a Latin verfion by Georgius Trapezuntius; and again at the fame place in 1551, with the addition of other works. of Ptolemy, to which are Latin verfions by Camerarius. We learn from Kepler, that this laft edition was used by Rudolphina Tycho. P.II. p. 114. Tabulæ In Præfat. ad Geogr. Antiq. In not. ad Solinum. P. 1186. Another great and important work of Ptolemy was, Geographiæ libri vii: in which, with his ufual fagacity, he searches out and marks, and he was the firft who did it, the fituation of places according to their longitudes and latitudes. Though this work muft needs fall greatly short of perfection, through the want of neceffary obfervations, yet it is of fingular merit, and has been very useful to modern geographers. Cellarius indeed fufpects, and he was a very competent judge, that Ptolemy did not ufe that care and application, which the nature of his work required: and his reafon is, that the geographer delivers himself with the fame fluency and certainty, concerning things and places at the remotest diftance, and which it was impoffible he fhould know any thing of, that he does concerning those, which lay the nearest to him, and fell the moft under his cognizance. Salmafius had before made fome remarks to the fame purpose upon this work of Ptolemy. The Greek was first published by itself at Bafil 1533, 4to; afterwards with a Latin version, and notes by Gerard Mercator at Amfterdam 1605: which laft edition was reprinted at the fame place, 1618, folio, with elegant geographical tables, by Bertius. . Other works of Ptolemy, though lefs confiderable than these two, are still extant: libri quatuor de judiciis aftrorum, upon the two first books of which Cardan wrote a commentary. Fructus librorum fuorum: a kind of a fupplement to the the former work. Recenfio chronologica regum: this, with another work of Ptolemy de hypothefibus planetarum, was published in 1620, 4to, by Joannes Bainbrigius, the Savilian profeffor of aftronomy at Oxford. Scaliger, Petavius, Dodwell, and all the chronological men, have made great use of it. Apparentiæ Stellarum Inerrantium: this was pubfifhed at Paris by Petavius, with a Latin verfion, 1630, in folio; but from a mutilated copy, whofe defects have fince been fupplied from a perfect one, which Sir Henry Savile had communicated to archbishop Ufher, by Fabricius, in the third volume of his Bibliotheca Græca. Elementorum Harmonicorum libri tres: published in Greek and Latin, with a commentary by Porphyry the philofopher, by Dr. Wallis at Oxford 1682, in 4to; and afterwards reprinted there, and inferted in the third volume of Wallis's works 1699. in folio, &c. Germanico. P. 46. Mabillon exhibits, in his German travels, an effigy of In Itinere Ptolemy looking at the ftars through an optical tube; which effigy, he says, he found in a manufcript of the 13th century, made by Conradus a monk. From hence fome have fancied, that the use of the telescope was known to Conradus; but this is only matter of conjecture, there being no facts or teftimonies to fupport fuch an opinion. PUFFENDORF (SAMUEL de) an eminent German civilian and historian, was born in 1631 at Fleh, a little Village near Chemnitz, in Upper Saxony of which Niceron, village his father Elias Puffendorf was minifter. He difco- T. XVIII, vered early a propenfity to letters, and at a proper age was fent to univerfities; where he was fupported by the gene-. rofity of a Saxon nobleman, who was taken with his promifing parts, his father's circumftances not being equal to the expence. He went first to Grim, and afterwards to Leipfic; where he made a furprizing progress in his ftudies. His father defigned him for the miniftry, and directed him to apply himself to divinity: but his inclinations led him another way. He turned his thoughts to the public law, which in Germany confifts of the knowledge of the rights of the empire over the states and princes of which it is compofed, and of those of the princes and ftates with respect to each other. D 3 other. He confidered this ftudy, as a proper method of raifing himself in time to fome pofts in the courts of Germany for it is well known, that the feveral princes, who compofe the Germanic Body, have no other minifters of state than men of learning, whom they ftile counsellors; and whose principal study is the public law of Germany. As these posts are not venal, and no other recommendation is necessary to obtain them but real and diftinguished merit, Puffendorf refolved to qualify himself for the honors, to which he aspired, After he had refided fome time at Leipfic, he left that city, and went to Jena, where he joined mathematics and the Cartefian philofophy to the study of the law. He returned to Leipfic in 1658, with a view of seeking an employment fit for him. One of his brothers, named Ifaiah, who had been fome time in the fervice of the king of Sweden, and was afterwards his chancellor in the duchies of Bremen and Werden, wrote to him then, and advised him not to fix in his own country, but after his example to feek his fortune elsewhere. Puffendorf refolved to take this advice, and accepted the place of governor to the fon of Mr. Coyet, a Swedish nobleman, who was then ambaffador for the king of Sweden at the court of Denmark. For this purpose he went to Copenhagen, but did not continue long at eafe there: for the war being renewed fome time after between Denmark and Sweden, he was feized with the whole family of the ambaffador, who a few days. before had taken a tour into Sweden. During his confinement which lafted eight months, as he had no books, and was allowed to fee no perfon, he amused himself by meditating upon what he had read in Grotius's treatife de jure belli & pacis, and in the political writings of Hobbes. He drew up a fhort fyftem of what he thought beft in them he turned and developed the fubject in his own way he treated of points, which had not been touched by thofe authors; and he added many new things to the whole. He intended no more, than to divert himself in his folitude : but two years after, fhewing it to a friend in Holland, where he then was, he was advised to review and publish it. This he did at the Hague in 1660, under the title of, Elementorum Juris Prudentiæ Univerfalis libri duo: and it |