year, died paralytic anno 1665. He married Gafper's fifter, by whom he had no children. His eftate amounted to no more than fixty thousand livres ; but he valued his cafe above riches, and prefer'd his abode at Rome, where he lived, without ambition, to making his fortune elsewhere [B]. He never made words about the price of his pictures; he put down his rates at the back of the canvas, and it was always given him. He had no difciple. Most painters efteem without imitating him: his manner is too inacceffible, and when once they enter upon it, they cannot go through with it. Pouffin was born with a great and fine genius for painting; his early love of the antique figures put him upon ftudying them with care, and by his studies he came to the knowledge of all their beauties, and of the difference between them as to their goodness. He was an excellent anatomist, and acquired a confummate habitude of defign after the antique gufts; yet even in his defigns, he did not confider nature, as the origin of all beauty, so much as he should have done. He thought sculpture was to be preferred before her, tho' she is the mistress of all arts, and always valued the imitation of the ancients more than the life: by this means the naked of his figures, in moft part of his pictures, has fomewhat in it refembling painted stone, and is rather like the hardness of marble than the delicacy of flesh, full of blood and life. His invention in hiftorical and fabulous fubjects is ingenious, as alfo his allegories: he preferved decorum in all of them, especially in his heroical fubjects: he introduced every thing that could render them agreeable and inftructive: he expreffed them according to their real character, in joyning the paffions of the foul in particular, to the expreflions of the fubjects in general. His landfkips are admirable for their fites; the novelty of the object which composes them; the naturalness of the earth; the variety of the trees, lightnefs of his touches; [B] Bishop Maffini, who was afterwards a cardinal, ftaying once on a vifit to him till it was dark, Pouffin took the candle in his hand, lighted him down ftairs, and waited upon him to his coach. The prelate was forry to fee him do it himself, and could not help faying, I very much pity you, monfieur Pouffin, that you have not one fervant. And I pity you more, my lord, replied Pouffin, that you have so many. and and in fhort, the fingularity of the matters that enter into the compofition: they would have been every way perfect, if he had strengthened them a little more by the local colours, and the artifice of the claro obfcuro. When occafion offered, he adorned his pictures with architecture: he did it with a fine goût, and his perspective which he understood to perfection, was exactly regular. He was not always happy in the difpofition of his figures; on the contrary, he is to be blamed for diftributing them in the generality of his compofitions too much in basso relievo; and in the fame line; his attitudes are not varied enough, nor fo well contrafted as they might be. His draperies in all his pieces are commonly of the fame stuff, and the great number of his folds hinders the fimplicity, which adds a grandeur to works. As fine as his genius was and as extenfive, it was not fufficient for all the parts of painting. He loved the antiquities fo intirely, and applied himself to them fo much, that he had not time to confider his art in every branch of it. He neglected colouring. We may perceive by his works in general, that he knew nothing of local colours and claro obscuro: for which reafon almost all his pictures have a certain grey predominant in them, that has neither form nor effect. Some of the pieces of his firft manner, and fome of his fecond, may however be excepted. Yet to examine the matter narrowly, we shall find that where any of his colouring is good, he is indebted for it to what he remembred of that part of his art in the pictures he copied after Titian, and was not the effect of any intelligence in the principles of the Venetian school: in a word, it is plain Pouffin had a very mean opinion of colours [c]. Indeed his colours, as they appear to the spectators, are nothing but general tints, and not the imitation of nature, which he feldom confulted about them. I fpeak of his figures, and not of his landskips. In the latter he seems to have confidered the natural colours more, and it is not difficult to guess the reason of it; for not being able to [c] In his life by Bellori Felibien, there is a fincere confeffion that he did not understand them, and had as it were abandoned them; an undeniable proof that he never was mafter of the theory of colouring. find out landskips in the antique marble, he was forced to seek after it in nature. As for the claro obfcuro he never had any knowledge of , and if we meet with it in any of his pictures, it came there purely by chance. Had he known that artifice to be one of the most effential parts of painting, as well for the repofe of the fight, as to give force and truth to the whole compofition of a picture, he would always certainly have made use of it. He would have fought after a way to group his lights to the best advantage; whereas they are fo difperfed in his pieces, that the eye knows not where to fix itself. His chief aim was to please the eyes of the understanding, though without dispute every thing that is inftructive in painting, ought to communicate itself to the underftanding, only by the fatisfaction of the eyes, by a perfect imitation of nature: and this is the whole duty, and ought to be the whole aim of painting. Pouffin, by neglecting to imitate nature the fountain of variety, fell often on very apparent repetitions both in the airs of his heads and his expreffions. His genius was rather of a mafculine, noble and fevere character, than graceful; and one may fee by the works of this very Painter, that there may be beauty fometimes where there is no grace. His manner was new and fingular; he was the author of it, and we must own that in the parts of his art which he poffeffed, his tile was great and heroic; and that take him altogether, he was not only the best painter of his own nation, but equalled the best painters of Italy. Felibien, Felibien de who has written the life of this painter very correctly and Piles. at large, gives a particular account of his pictures, with a description of those that are most esteemed. PRICE US, or PRICE, (JOHN) a man of great learning and judgment, was born in England, and flourished in the 17th century. We know but few particulars of his Bayle's Dic life. He refided fome years at Paris, and published some in voce. books there; but left it through difguft in 1646, when he returned to England. After having travelled many years, he retired to Florence, and there turned Roman catholic. He died at Rome in 1676, after having published feveral books, Prince's Athen. Ox on.-Gen. Dic. in voce. in which he displayed vaft erudition. He wrote notes on feveral parts of the holy fcriptures: but his notes upon the Apology, and commentary upon the Metamorphofes, of Apuleius, are the works, for which he is chiefly known. The former were published at Paris in 1635, 4to: the latter at Tergou 1650, in 8vo, and fells now with us, though it is not easy to say for what reason, at a very extraordinary price. PRIDEAUX (JOHN) a learned English bishop, was born at Stowford in Devonshire, the 17th of September 1578. His father being in mean circumstances, and having a numerous 'family, our prelate, after he had learned to write and read, ftood candidate for the parish clerkship of Ugborow near Harford: but being disappointed, a gentlewoman of the parish maintained him at fchool, till he had gained fome knowledge of the Latin tongue. Then he travelled on foot to Oxford, and at firft lived in a very mean station in Exeter college, doing fervile offices in the kitchen, and profecuting his ftudies at leisure-hours; till at last he was taken notice of in the college, and admitted a member of it in 1596. He took the degrees in arts and divinity; was greatly distinguished by his abilities and learning; and after having been fome years fellow, was in 1612 chofen rector of his college. In 1615, he was made regius profeffor of divinity, by virtue of which place he became canon of Christchurch, and rector of Ewelme in Oxfordshire; and afterwards discharged the office of vice-chancellor for several years. In 1641, he was advanced to the bishopric of Worcefter; but by reafon of the national troubles, which were then commenced, received little or no profit from it, and became greatly impoverished. For, adhering ftedfaftly to his majesty's cause, and excommunicating all thofe of his diocese, who took up arms against him, he was plundered and reduced to fuch ftraits, as to be forced to fell his excellent library. He died of a fever at Bredon in Worcestershire, at the house of his fon-in-law Dr. Henry Sutton, the 30th of July 1650; leaving to his children no legacy, but "pious "poverty, God's bleffing, and a father's prayers," as the words of his will are. Cleveland the Poet wrote an elegy upon upon his death. He was a man of very great learning, and of as great humility; for he used often to fay, after his advancement," if I could have been clerk of Ugborow, I had "never been bishop of Worcester." He was the author of a great number of works, written many of them in Latin. from me PRIDEAUX (Dr. HUMPHREY) an English divine of excellent abilities and learning, was born at Padflow in Cornwall, the 3d of May 1648: being the third fon of Edmund Prideaux, efq; by Bridget daughter of John Moyle of Bake in the faid county, and aunt to the late learn-ed and ingenious Walter Moyle, efq; Being a younger Gen. Dict. brother, he was defigned for the church; and after being moirs by his initiated in the languages at a private fchool or two in Corn- fon Edmund wall, he was removed from thence to Weftminster, where Prideaux, efq;-Life he continued under the celebrated Dr. Busby three years. Be- of Prideaux, ing a king's scholar, he was elected to Chrift-church in Ox- 1748, 8vo. ford, entered a commoner in 1668, and foon after admitted ftudent by Dr. Fell. He took a Bachelor of arts degree in 1672, and a master's in 1676: in which year he published a commentary upon the infcriptions on the Arundelian marbles, in folio. The title of this, to which he was appointed by the univerfity, runs thus; Marmora Oxonienfia ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis, aliifque conflata, cum perpetuo commentario. The Marmora had been published by Mr. Seldon, in 1629. 4to, to which Mr. Prideaux now made feveral additions: but his book fuffering much in paffing thro' the prefs, a more correct edition was undertaken and printed by Michael Maittaire, in 1732, folio. Mr. Prideaux, though he never efteemed this early production of his, yet got great reputation by it; and being or dered to prefent a copy of it to the lord chancellor Finch, afterwards earl of Nottingham, was thereby introduced to the patronage of that nobleman, who foon after fent a fon to be. his pupil, and in 1679 prefented him to the rectory of St. Clements near Oxford. The fame year, he published in 4to, two tracts of Maimonides, with a Latin verfion and notes, under the title of, De Jure Pauperis & Peregrini apud Judæos, in 4to. He had lately been appointed Hebrew lecturer, upen the foundation of Dr. Bufby, in the college of Christ Church; |