being privy to Catiline's conspiracy; and it was his fondness for dissipated pleasures, which made his countrymen say, that he was the husband of all the women at Rome. It is said that he conquered 300 nations, took 800 cities, and defeated three millions of men, one of which fell in the field of battle. Pliny says, that he could employ at the same time, his ears to listen, his eyes to read, his hand to write, and his mind to dictate. His death was preceded, as many authors mention, by uncommon prodigies; and immediately after his death, a large comet made its appearance. Cæsar when young, was betrothed to Cossutia, a rich heiress, whom he dismissed to marry Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, by whom he had Julia. His attachment to Cornelia was so great, that he never could be prevailed upon by the arts or threats of Sylla to divorce her; but her attachment he boldly preferred to his own personal safety. After her early death, which he lamented with great bitterness of grief, he married Pompeia, the grand-daughter of Sylla; and for his fourth wife he took Calpurnia, the daughter of the consul Piso, a connection formed from political motives. The best editions of Cæsar's Commentaries, are the magnificent one by Dr. Clarke, Lond. 1712, fol.; that of Cambridge, with a Greek translation, 1727, 4to; that of Oudendorp, 2 vols. 4to, L. Bat. 1737; that of Elzevir, 8vo, L. Bat. 1635; that of Homer, London, 1790, 2 vols. 8vo; and of Oberlin, Leipsic, 1805, 8vo.1 CÆSAR (JULIUS), a learned civilian, was born near Tottenham, in Middlesex, in 1557. His father was Cæsar Adelmar, physician to queen Mary and queen Elizabeth; lineally descended from Adelmar count of Genoa, and admiral of France, in the year 806, in the reign of Charles - the Great. This Cæsar Adelmar's mother was daughter to the duke de Cesarini, from whom he had the name of Cæsar; which name Mary I. queen of England, ordered to be continued to his posterity; and his father was Peter Maria Dalmarius, of the city of Trevigio in Italy, LL. D. sprung from those of his name living at Cividad del Friuli. Julius, who is the subject of this article, had his education in the university of Oxford, where he took the degree of B. A. May 17, 1575, as a member of Magdalen hall. Afterwards he went and studied in the university of Paris; where, in 1 The life of Cæsar properly belongs to history, and is detailed at great length in every Roman history, particularly Hooke's and the Universal History. For the above sketch we are indebted to Dr. Lempriere. In the beginning of 1581, he was created D. C. L. and had letters testimonial for it, under the seal of that university, dated the 22d of April, 1581. He was admitted to the same degree at Oxford, March the 5th, 1583; and also became doctor of the canon law. In the reign of queen Elizabeth, he was master of requests, judge of the high court of admiralty, and master of St. Catherine's hospital near the Tower. On the 22d of January, 1595, he was present at the confirmation of Richard Vaughan, bishop of Bangor, in the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, London. Upon king James's accession to the throne, having before distinguished himself by his merit and abilities, he was knighted by that prince, at Greenwich, May 20, 1603. He was also constituted chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer; and on the 5th of July, 1607, sworn of his majesty's privy council. January 16th, in the eighth of king James I. he obtained a reversionary grant of the office of master of the rolls after sir Edward Phillips, knight; who, departing this life September 11, 1614, was succeeded accordingly by sir Julius, on the 1st of October following; and then he resigned his place of chancellor of the exchequer. 1613 he was one of the commissioners, or delegates employed in the business of the divorce between the earl of Essex and his countess; and gave sentence for that divorce. About the same time, he built a chapel at his house, on the north side of the Strand, in London, which was consecrated, May 8, 1614. As he had been privy-counsellor to king James I. so was he also to his son king Charles I.; and appears to have been custos rotulorum of the county of Hertford. We are likewise informed by one author, that he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. After having thus passed through many honourable employments, and continued in particular, master of the rolls for above twenty years, he departed this life April 28, 1636, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He lies buried in the church of Great St. Helen's within Bishopgate, London, under a fair, but uncommon monument, designed by himself; being in form of a deed, and made to resemble a ruffled parchment, in allusion to his office as master of the rolls. With regard to his character, he was a man of great gravity and integrity, and remarkable for his extensive bounty and charity to all persons of worth, or that were in want: so that he might seem to be almoner-general of the nation. Fuller gives the following instance of his uncommon charity: "A gentleman once borrowing his coach (which was as well known to poor people as any hospital in England) was so rendezvouzed about with beggars in London, that it cost him all the money in his purse to satisfy their importunity, so that he might have hired twenty coaches on the same terms." He entertained for some time in his house the most illustrious Francis lord Bacon, viscount St. Alban's. He made his grants to all persons double kindnesses by expedition, and cloached (as one expresses it) his very denials in such robes of courtship, that it was not obviously discernible, whether the request or denial were most decent. He had also this peculiar to himself, that he was very cautious of promises, lest falling to an incapacity of performance he might forfeit his reputation, and multiply his certain enemies, by his design of creating uncertain friends. Besides, he observed a sure principle of rising, namely, that great persons esteem better of such they have done great courtesies to, than those they have received great civilities from; looking upon this as their disparagement, the other as their glory. Besides sir Julius, Cæsar Adelmar had two sons that were eminent in their way. His second son, sir Thomas Cæsar, was one of the barons of the exchequer. And his third son, Henry Cæsar, educated in Baliol college, and St. Edmund Hall, Oxon, became prebendary of Westminster in the second stall, in September 1609, which he resigned the latter end of 1625; and dean of Ely in 1614. He died at Ely the 27th of June, 1636, aged seventytwo, and was buried on the north side of the presbytery of the cathedral. He founded two scholarships and two fellowships in Jesus college, Cambridge, to be elected from the king's free-school at Ely, and gave a noble benefaction to the choir, &c. of Ely cathedral, but his nephew and executor having been prevailed upon to lend the principal money of these benefactions, the whole was lost both to the cathedral and the college. In December 1757, sir Julius Cæsar's collection of manuscripts, which had long been preserved in the family, was sold by public auction by Sam. Paterson. By the lapse of time and the decay of the family, they had fallen into the hands of some uninformed persons, and were on the point of being sold by weight to a cheesemonger, as waste-paper, for the sum of ten pounds; but some of them happened to be shewn to Mr. Paterson, who instantly discovered their value. He then digested a masterly cata logue of the whole collection, and distributing it in several thousands of the most singular and interesting heads, caused them to be sold by auction, which produced 3561. Many of them were in the library of the late marquis of Lansdowne, and are now, consequently, in the British museum.1 CAGLIARI (PAUL), a celebrated artist, called PAUL VERONESE, the great master of what is called the ornamental style, was born at Verona in 1530, and was the disciple of Antonio Badile. When young, in concurrence with Batista del Moro, Domenico Brusasorci, and Paol Farinato, he painted at the summons of cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, in the cathedral of Mantua, and left no doubt of his superiority in the contest. He then went to Venice, and with the procurator Grimani to Rome, where, from the frescos of M. Angelo and Raffael, he acquired the idea of that breadth which distinguishes him in all his allegorical and mythologic pictures; and though the simplicity inseparable from real grandeur was not a principle to be courted by him who aimed at captivating the debauched Venetian eye, he gave proofs, that, if he did not adopt, he had a sense for its beauties. The Apotheosis of Venice in the ducal palace, in magnificence of combination, loftiness, splendor, variety, offers in one picture the principles and the elemental beauties of his style. It was, however, less to this work, than to his Cene, or convivial compositions, that Paolo owed his celebrity. He painted four at Venice, for four refectories of convents, all of enormous dimensions and equal copiousness of invention. The first, with the Nuptials of Cana, once in the refectory of St. Giorgio Maggiore, now in the Louvre, and known by numerous copies, is thirty palms long, comprizes 130 figures, with a number of distinguished portraits; and yet was painted, says Lanzi, for no more than ninety ducats. The second, better preserved, was painted for the convent of S. Giovanni and Paolo, and represents the call of St. Matthew; it is chiefly praised for the character of the heads, which Ricci copied for his studies at an advanced age. The third, at St. Sebastian, is the Feast of Simon, which is likewise the subject of the fourth, painted for the refectory of the Servi, but sent to Lewis XIV. and placed at Versailles. This, perhaps, is the master-piece of the four, 1 Biog. Brit.-Bentham's Ely. A though placed in an unfavourable light, and greatly injured by neglect, and the dampness of the place. No painter ever was hurried along by a greater torrent of commissions, and no painter ever exerted himself with greater equality of execution. Light grounds and virgin tints have contributed to preserve the freshness of his pictures: the family of Darius presented to Alexander, in the Pisani palace at Venice, and the S. Giorgio, once at Verona, now in the Louvre, have, without the smallest loss of the bloom that tones them, received from time that mellowness, that sober hue, which time alone can give. More fixed in a system, and consequently nearer to manner than Titian, with less purity and delicacy; greyer, not so warm, so sanguine, or so juicy as Tintoretto, Paolo excels both in fascinating breadth of bland and lucid demi-tints; and in his convivial scenes, though thronged with pomp, gorgeous attire, and endless ornament, never once forgets that they were admitted to shew and not to eclipse the actors. The actors were not, indeed, those of the historian, no more than the costume that of the times, or the ornaments and architecture those of the country. The ostentation of ornamental painting is not to be arraigned at the tribunal of serious history. The humble guests of Cana, the publican forsaking his till, Magdalen at the feet of Christ, travestied into Venetian patriarchs, belles, or nobles, were only called upon to lend their names, and by their authority to palliate or flatter the reigning taste or vice of a debauched and opulent public. This great artist was highly esteemed by all the principal men of his time; and so much admired by the great masters, as well his contemporaries as those who succeeded him, that Titian himself used to say, he was the ornament of his profession. And Guido Reni being asked, which of the masters his predecessors he would choose to be, were it in his power, after Raphael and Corregio, named Paul Veronese, whom he always called his Paolino. He died of a fever at Venice in 1588, and had a tomb and a statue of brass erected in the church of St. Sebastian. Paul left great wealth to his two sons, Gabriel and Charles, who were painters, and lived very happily together. They joined in finishing several pieces left imperfect by their father; and followed his manner so closely in other works of their own, that the connoisseurs do not easily distinguish them from those of Paul's hand. Charles : |