At Rome he was consulted by the Pope and his council, and by them employed in all negociations. and transactions of high concern, resorted to by the Pope in all affairs relating to kings and sovereigns, was one of the legates at the Grand council at Trent, and even the sovereign Pontiff's amenuensis and chief penman, when great occasions presented. The tran→ quillity of Rome being soon after disturbed by wars with France, and on the borders of Italy, Pole took sanctuary and retired to a monastery in the territory of Verona, where he lived till the death of Edward VI. when, on the accession of Mary to the throne of England, Pole was selected as the fittest instrument for reducing the kingdom of Great Britain to the obedience, of the Pope, and appointed legate to subserve that end. He emerged from the dreary cells of a monastery, and again appeared in the shining retinue of a court. His timidity and caution induced him to know not only the queen's intentions with regard to the reestablishment of the Romish religion, but also whether the act of attainder passed against him by Henry, and confirmed by Edward, was repealed, before he would set his foot on English ground. He being therein soon satisfied, set out for England by way of Germany, where the Emperor suspecting that Pole designed to marry Mary of England, contrived means to stay his progress, until her intermarriage with Philip of Spain, so that he did not arrive in England till Nov. 1554, when he was conducted to the Archbishop's palace at Lambeth, Cranmer being attainted and imprisoned. On the 27th of the same month Pole went to the Parliament, and in a long, grave and excellent speech, invited them to a reconciliation with the Romish church. He concluded, by observing that, he was expressly sent by the Pope himself, for the purpose of accomplishing this great work; and that in the event of their acknowledging the supremacy of the See of Rome, he was authorised

by his holiness to extend to them a full and complete absolution. The parliament accepted these overtures; they all went in a body to mass and sung te deum on the occasion, and thus restored the authority of the Papal throne over that of Great Britain. The Cardi nal after two days allotted for the preparation, made his public and triumphant formal entry into London, with all the solemnities of a Legate, and formalities of popery, and had the sole management and regulation of all ecolesiastical affairs in England, till the dear of Pope Julius and his successor, when the queen powerfully recommended Pole to the Popedom; which, had Mary's dispatches timely arrived, would have been effected, but Peter Caraffa took the name and stile of Paul IV. by election, before her dispatches reached Rome.

Pole at first gave many proofs of his philosophic temper, how suitably or otherwise to the religion of Jesus and sound policy, the sanguinary persecutions under Mary, will ever stand recorded as undeniable proof. His breathing of slaughters and concurrence in the butcheries of that reign, were not ample to secure him against the attack of his, old foe Paul IV. who, on various and vain pretences, suspected and accused him as a heretic, summoned him to Rome, deprived him of his legantine powers, and conferred them on a Franciscan Friar, by the name of Peyto, whom he had made a Cardinal for that purpose. The new Legate, when queen Mary was apprised of the business, and of his approach, assumed a tincture of her father, Henry the VIIIth's spirit, and forbade Peyto at his peril, to set his foot on English ground. Pole's timidity again depressed him, and knowing the Pontiff's great displeasure, and from motives of veneration which he invariably and constantly preserved for the apostolic see, voluntarily disrobed himself of the ensigns of his legation, and forbore the exercise of his powers and functions, dispatched his trusty

minister Ornameto, to his holiness at Rome with letters, vindicating himself in terms of such submission, as to melt the obdurate heart of Paul, who restored the Cardinal to his legantine, but the vibration of his nerves was apparent. He did not live long to enjoy the restoration; within a year he was seized with a quartan ague, as historians term it, which deprived him of life Nov. 18, 1558, aged fifty eight years. After lying in state forty days, at the palace of Lambeth, he was carried in pomp to Canterbury, and very magnificiently interred.

POMPHRET, (JOHN) an English poet, son of a Rector of Luton in Bedfordshire, was born about 1667. From a country grammar school, he was sent to Cambridge, where he accomplished himself in polite literature; wrote many fugitive political pieces, and was clothed with the honors of that seminary, by both degrees in the arts; took orders, and was presented to the living of Malden. About 1703 he was called to London, to a more considerable living, but was delayed in his progress for some time by Compton, then bishop of London, for some lines in his collegiate poetry, in the piece entitled "The Choice," which malice had represented to the bishop, as a proof that Pomphret preferred licentious to hymeneal love; which, when understood by Pomphret, he candidly and promptly subjected the poem to the bishop's inspection, which totally eradicated the stain, which was proved to have been the effect of malice, as Pomphret was, at the time he wrote it, a married man. This opposition had a fatal effect, for his continuance in London was thereby protracted to such a length, and his mind so engrossed in his ecclaircisement, that neglecting the prerequisite cautions, so essential at that time, he caught the small pox, which ended his days at the age of thirty-five years,

A volume of his poems was published by himself in 1699, with a preface which did honor to his modesty and sensibility. Sundry posthumous pieces were published by his friend Philathes, under the titles of "Reason," "Dies Novissima, or The Last Epiphany," a pindaric ode, but his untimely death deprived the world of his extensive usefulness.

POOLE, (MATHEW) a nonconformist minister of eminence, son of Francis Poole, Esq. of York, where he was born in 1624, and regularly educated according to the custom of that day in England. Having passed through the grammar schools and those of the languages, he was entered at Emmanuel college in Cambridge, and duly received the degrees of B. A. and M. A. he embraced the sentiments of the Presbyterians, which were soon brought into opposition to the ecclesiastical opinions and polity of that day. In 1648 he entered into the ministry, and was made rector of St. Michaels le Quern in London.

The first display of his weight and consequence, was about ten years after his settlement, by his publication of a treatise entitled "A Model for the Maintenance of Pupils of choice Abilities, &c." He took care to obtain the signatures and patronization of his scheme, of several heads of families in Cambridge; to that degree did his opposition exalt him, that he refused to sign the act of uniformity in 1662, but was therefore ejected his living, and immediately after published his "Voix Clamantis in Deserto;" but submission was his lot, and his resignation has been celebrated in those ages. Being a bachelor, he chose to seclude himself, and lived upon his patrimonial estate which did not exceed more than four hundred and forty-four dollars per. ann. and applied himself to study, resolving to employ his pen in the service of religion in general, without interfering in the disputes

of the respective parties. Under this impression he drew the design of a very extensive work, of great labour, study and use, and in 1669, published it under the title of "Synopsis Criticorum Bibliorum," in five vols. folio, which was well received by both parties. He must, however, discover his zeal against Popery, and published a book entitled "The Nullity of the Romish Church or Faith," which, when Oates's depositions were made, upon the subject of popish plots, occasioned the registry of his name on the list of those who were to be cut off. He therefore withdrew, and went to Holland where he died, suspected to have been poisoned. His Annotations upon the Holy Bible, he had progressed so far as the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, when he died, and which are now extant, and grace the libraries of the clergy of Christendom.

POLYBIUS, an ancient historian, son of Lycortas, was born at Megalopolis in Arcadia, in the fourth year of the hundred and forty-third Olympiad, about two hundred years before Christ, and was afterwards General of the Arcadians, at a period when that republic assumed as much power and importance as any one in Greece. At the age of twenty-four the Arcadians sent him with his father, ambassador to Egypt, which honor was again conferred on Polybius. He was also deputized to go to Rome at the time the Consul made war against Persius king of Thessaly.

During the consulships of Æmilius Pætus and Julius Pennus, they summoned a thousand Arcadians to Rome, suspected of designs against the Romans, who were detained seventeen years. Polybius was included among the number, then thirty-eight years old. By some means he registered himself among the philosophers, and commenced a touring life, he would never depend on the accounts of others, so much as