Greek tongue, he was invited in 1558 to Heidelberg, to take possession of the Greek professor's chair, then vacant. In 1566, the elector-palatine Frederic III, and the duke of Wirtemberg, having called an assembly of the clergy to hold a conference upon the eucharist, about which there were great disputes, Xylander was chosen by the elector as secretary of the assembly, together with Osiander, who was named by the duke: he executed the same office upon a similar occasion in 1581. Excessive application to study is supposed to have brought an illness upon him, of which he died in February 1576, aged forty-three years.

He had a profound knowledge of the Greek language, and employed it in translating Greek authors into Latin: but his being always very poor, and obliged to labour for bread instead of fame, is the cause of many errors having crept into his versions; since, selling his sheets as fast as he wrote them, to the booksellers, he was naturally led to be more solicitous about the quantity than the quality of what was written. Of the many authors which he translated, the chief are, Dion Cassius, Marcus Antoninus, Plutarch (the very best translation), and Strabo.1

XYPHILIN (JOHN), a patriarch of Constantinople in the eleventh century, was a native of Trebisond. He distinguished himself by his learning and piety, and was raised to the see of Constantinople in 1064. He died Aug. 2, 1075. There is a sermon of his in the Bibl. Patrum. Andrew Scottus and Vossius erroneously imagined him to be the abridger of Dion Cassius: but it was a nephew of his name, as that nephew says himself in the history of Augustus. This nephew made, about the end of the eleventh century, a compendium of the last forty-five books of Dion, which contain the history of the emperors. to the time of Alexander son of Mammea. It is probable he did not abridge the first five and thirty books, since there remains no trace or testimony of it: and, besides, he assures us, that even in his time there wanted some thing of the history of Dion. As to what remains, he has been very exact and faithful in following the sense, and often the very words of his author, as may appear by comparing the abridgment with the original. It has been printed sometimes with Dion Cassius, and sometimes separately, particularly at Paris, 1592, fol. *

1 Melchior Adam.-Moreri.-Gen. Dict. Fabric. Bibl. Græc.-Moreri.-Saxii Onomast.

Y.

YALDEN (THOMAS), a divine and poet, the sixth son

of Mr. John Yalden, of Sussex, was born at Exeter in 1671. Having been educated in the grammar-school belonging to Magdalen college, Oxford, he was, in 1690, at the age of nineteen, admitted commoner of Magdalen Hall, under the tuition of Josiah Pullen, a man whose name is still remembered in the university. He became next year one of the scholars of Magdalen college, where he was distinguished by a declamation, which Dr. Hough, the president, happening to attend, thought too good to be the speaker's. Some time after, the doctor, finding him a little irregularly busy in the library, set him an exercise, for punishment; and, that he might not be deceived by any artifice, locked the door. Yalden, as it happened, had been lately reading on the subject given, and produced with little dif ficulty a composition which so pleased the president that he told him his former suspicions, and promised to favour him. Among his contemporaries in the college were Addison and Sacheverell, men who were in those times friends, and who both adopted Yalden to their intimacy. Yalden continued throughout his life to think, as probably he thought at first, yet did not lose the friendship of Addison. When Namur was taken by king William, Yalden made an ode*. He wrote another poem, on the death of the duke

of Gloucester. In 1700 he became fellow of the college, and next year entering into orders, was presented by the society with the living of Willoughby, in Warwickshire, consistent with his fellowship, and chosen lecturer of moral philosophy, a very honourable office. On the accession of queen Anne he wrote another poem; and is said, by the author of the" Biographia," to have declared himself one of the party who had the distinction of bigh-churchmen. In 1706 he was received into the family of the duke of Beaufort. Next year he became D. D. and soon after he resigned his fellowship and lecture; and, as a token of his gratitude, gave the college a picture of their founder. The duke made him rector of Chalton and Cleanville, two ad joining towns and benefices in Hertfordshire; and he had the prebends, or sinecures, of Deans, Hains, and Peudles, in Devonshire. In 1713 he was chosen preacher of Bride well Hospital, upon the resignation of Dr. Atterbury. From this time he seems to have led a quiet and inoffensive life, till the clamour was raised about Atterbury's plot. Every loyal eye was on the watch for abettors or partakers of the horrid conspiracy; and Dr. Yalden, having some acquaint→ ance with the bishop, and being familiarly conversant with Kelly his secretary, fell under suspicion, and was taken into custody. Upon his examination he was charged with a dangerous correspondence with Kelly. The correspondence: he acknowledged; but maintained that it had no treasonable tendency. His papers were seized; but nothing was found that could fix a crime upon him, except two words in his pocket-book, "thorough paced doctrine." This expression the imagination of his examiners had im pregnated with treason; and the doctor was enjoined to explain them. Thus pressed, he told them that the words had lain unheeded in his pocket-book from the time of queen Anne, and that he was ashamed to give an account of them; but the truth was, that he had gratified his curiosity one day by hearing Daniel Burgess in the pulpit, and these words were a memorial hint of a remarkable sentence by which he warned his congregation to ff beware of thorough-paced doctrine, that doctrine, which, coming in at one ear, paces through the head, and goes out at the other." Nothing worse than this appearing in his papers, and no evidence arising against him, he was set at liberty. It will not be supposed that a man of this character attained high dignities in the church; But he still retained

f

J

the friendship, and frequented the conversation of a very numerous and splendid body of acquaintance. He died July 16, 1736, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. Of his poems which have been admitted into Dr. Johnson's collection, his "Hymn to Darkness" seems to be his best performance, and is, for the most part, imagined with great vigour, and expressed with great propriety. His "Hymn to Light" is not equal to the other. On his other poems it is sufficient to say that they deserve perusal, though they are not always exactly polished, though the rhymes are sometimes very ill sorted, and though his faults seem rather the omissions of idleness than the negligences of enthusiasm.'

YELVERTON (HENRY), a distinguished lawyer, is said to have been born at Easton Mauduit, in Northamptonshire, June 29, 1566, but as the register of his baptism, July 5, of that year, occurs at Islington, it is more likely that he was born there, where his father, sir Christopher (then Mr. Yelverton, and a student at Gray's Inn) had, it is probable, country lodgings. He was educated for some time at Oxford, but removed afterwards to Gray's Inn for the study of the law. In 1606 he was elected Lent-reader, being then, Wood says, "accounted a religious gentleman, and a person well read in the municipal laws." In 1613 he was appointed solicitor-general, and received the honour of knighthood by the interest of Carr, earl of Somerset, and on March 17, 1616, was advanced to the higher office of attorney general; but having given offence, as it is said, to the favourite Buckingham, he was accused in the star-chamber of illegal proceedings in his office, and by a sentence of that court deprived of his place, imprisoned in the Tower, and heavily fined. Being afterwards brought before the lords, he made a speech which was so offensive to the king and his favourite, that he was fined 10,000 marks for the reflections which he had cast on his majesty, and 5000 for the insult offered to Buckingham. But by one of those unaccountable changes which occur among politicians of all ages, he became soon afterwards. in great favour with the very man whose enmity had cost him so dear, and was, through his interest, made one of the justices of the king's bench, and afterwards of the common pleas, which last place he retained till his death;

1 Johnson's Lives.-Cibber's Lives.-Nichols's Poems.

and had not the duke been untimely cut off, he would in all probability have been made lord-keeper of the great seal, as he was esteemed one of the first lawyers of his time. He died Jan. 24, 1630, at his house in Aldersgate-street, and was interred in the parish church of Easton Mauduit.

His "Reports of Special Cases in the King's Bench, from 44 Eliz. to 10 Jac. I." were originally published in French by sir W. Wylde, 1661, and 1674, and were afterwards carefully translated into English, and published in 1735, folio. Under his name there are extant in print, several speeches in parliament, and particularly one in Rushworth's collection; also "The Rights of the People concerning Impositions," Lond. 1679; "Thirty-two Sermons of Mr. Edward Phillips," a puritan preacher, taken by him in short-hand. Some additional particulars concerning our author and his family and descendants may be seen in a long note to the article of Baroness Grey de Ruthyn, in Collins's Peerage. It is remarkable that sir Henry, who, we are inclined to think, was a man of independent spirit, fell under king James's displeasure in 1609, by his freedom of speech and conduct in parliament. His own narrative of this affair was lately communicated to the society of antiquaries, and is printed in the "Archæologia," vol. XV.1

YORKE (PHILIP, earl of HARDWICKE), an eminent lawyer, was the son of Philip Yorke, an attorney, and was born at Dover, in Kent, December 1, 1690; and educated under Mr. Samuel Morland, of Bethnal Green, in classical and general learning, which he ever cultivated amidst his highest employments. He studied the law in the Middle Temple under the instruction of an eminent conveyancer of the name of Salkeld; and, being called to the bar in 1714, he soon became very eminent in his profession. In 1718 he sat in parliament as member for Lewes, in Sussex; and, in the two successive parliaments, for Seaford. In March 1719-20, he was promoted to the office of solicitorgeneral by the recommendation of the lord-chancellor Parker; an obligation he never forgot, returning it by every possible mark of personal regard and affection. He received also about the same time the honour of knighthood. The trial of Mr. Layer at the king's bench for high treason, gave him, in Nov. 1722, an opportunity of shew

Ath. Ox. vol. I.-Collins's Peerage, ubi supra.-Lysons's Environs.