Greek, and Hebrew, he was familiar with almost all the living languages of Europe, and his fame induced the elector Palatine, when he projected the restoration of the university of Heidelberg, to appoint him honorary professor, and electoral counsellor. He accordingly removed with his family to Heidelberg in 1656, and died there in 1660. Freinshemius rendered many services to the republic of letters, first by his edition of Florus, whom he corrected and explained very happily. His father-in-law, Bernegger, engaged him in this work; and was afterwards surprised at the great penetration and judgment which Freinshemius had shewn in discovering what had escaped all the learned before him. This was first published when he was a very young man, in 1632, 8vo, and his notes have been printed entire in the best editions of this author. So have his notes upon Tacitus; which, though short, are very judicious, relating to such particulars as Lipsius and the other critics either knew not or omitted. This was published in 1638 and 1664, with an admirable index. But the works by which he has been most distinguished, are his famous supplements to Quintus Curtius and Livy. There was a supplement, indeed, to Quintus Curtius before; but as that was nothing more than a miserable compilation from Justin and Arrian, without either judgment or order, Freinshemius thought it expedient to draw up a new one. For this purpose he consulted every author, Greek and Latin, ancient and modern, which could be of the least use, and executed his task so much to the approbation and satisfaction of the public, that they almost ceased to deplore the loss of the two first books of this entertaining historian. His edition appeared at Strasburgh, 1640, 2 vols. Some, however, have still more admired his supplement to Livy, which is composed with equal judgment and learning, and must have been a Herculean labour. Le Clerc has printed this supplement with his inaccurate edition of Livy at Amsterdam, 1710. He declares the whole to be very ingenious and learned, but thinks that there is most purity and elegance in the first ten books of it; some speeches in which are incomparable. The fact is, that these ten books were published in the author's life time; the others after his death. Besides what has been mentioned above, Freinshemius wrote notes upon Phædrus, inserted in Holstius's edit. Amst. 1664, and other philological performances. 1 FREIRE DE ANDRADA (HYACINTHE), an elegant Portuguese writer in prose and verse, was born in 1597, at Beja in Portugal, and became abbé of St. Mary de Chans. He appeared at first with some distinction at the court of Spain, but his attachment to the house of Braganza impeded his advancement. In 1640, when John IV. was proclaimed king of Portugal, he went to his court, and was well received. Yet it was found difficult to advance him, for he was of too light and careless a character to be employed in diplomatic business; and though the king would have gone so far as to make him bishop of Visieu, this dignity he had the wisdom to refuse, well-knowing that the pope who did not acknowledge his master as king, would never confirm his appointment as bishop. He did not choose, he said, merely to personate a bishop, like an actor on a stage. He died at Lisbon in 1657. Notwithstanding the levity of his character, he had a generous heart, and was a firm and active friend. He wrote with much success; his "Life of Don Juan de Castro," is esteemed one of the best written books in the Portuguese language. It was published in folio, and was translated into Latin by Rotto, an Italian Jesuit. He wrote also a small number of poems in the same language, which have considerable elegance, and are to be found in a collection published at Lisbon in 1718, under the title of "Fenix Renacida." FREITAG (JOHN), a learned physician, was born at Nieder Wesel, in the duchy of Cleves, Oct. 30, 1581; but his relations being compelled, by the troubles of the times, to retire to Osnaburg, he began his classical studies there. He was afterwards sent to Cologne, Wesel, and Helmstadt; but his disposition being early turned to medicine, as a profession, he studied at Rostock, afterwards returned to Helmstadt to attend the lectures of Duncan Liddell and of Francis Parcovius; he likewise derived much advantage from the lectures of the celebrated Meibomius, in whose ́house he resided in the capacity of tutor to his son, and was soon thought fit to give private lectures to the younger students on the practice of physic. He afterwards lectured 'Moreri.-Baillet Jugemens des Savans.-Saxii Onomast. 2 Moreri.-Dict. Hist. See more of this family under Andrada, vol. II. in public as professor extraordinary; and in 1604, at the age of twenty-three, he obtained the ordinary professorship in the university, which office he filled during four years. He then took his degree of doctor, and went to the court of Philip Sigismund, duke of Brunswick Lunen-, burg, and bishop of Osnaburg, who had appointed him his principal physician. About 1622, Ernest, duke of Holstein and earl of Schawenburg, offered him the same office, with the addition of the chief medical professorship in the university which he had lately founded at Rinteln; but his patron would not permit him to accept it. This prince-bishop dying in 1623, his nephew, duke Frederic Ulric, gave Freitag the option of being his chief physician, or of resuming his professorship at Helmstadt. He continued at Osnaburg, where the new bishop retained him as his physician, and also appointed him one of his chamberlains. He also served his successor in the same capacity, but was dismissed in 1631, on account of his refusal to become a catholic. He found protection and patronage, however, under Ernest Cassimir, count of Nassau, and the counts of Bertheim, who procured for him the vacant professorship in the university of Groningen. He fulfilled this new appointment with great reputation, and continued to distinguish himself by the success of his practice till the decline of his life, which was accelerated by a complication of maladies. Dropsy, gout, gravel, and fever, terminated his life Feb. 8, 1641. Freitag was a follower of the chemical sect, and also a partisan of the philosophy of the ancients, to which indeed he retained his attachment with so much bigotry, that no efforts of his friends could ever prevail upon him to change his opinion. He published several works. 1." Noctes Medicæ, sive de Abusu Medicinæ Tractatus," Francfort, 1616. 2. "Aurora Medicorum Galeno-chemicorum, seu de rectâ purgandi methodo è priscis sapientiæ decretis postliminio in lucem redacta," ibid. 1630. 3. "Disputatio Medica de morbis substantiæ et cognatis quæstionibus, contra hujus temporis Novatores et Paradoxologos," Groningen, 1632. 4. "Disputatio Medica calidi innati essentiam juxta veteris Medicinæ & Philosophiæ decreta explicans, opposita Neotericorum et Novatorum Paradoxis," ibid. 1632. 5. "De Ossis natura et medicamentis opiatis Liber singularis, &c." Groningen, 1632. 6. "Disputatio Medico-philosophica de Formarum origine," Groningen, 1663. 7. "Oratio panegyrica de persona et officio Phar macopæi," &c. ibid. 1633. 8. "Detectio et solida Refutatio novæ Sectæ Senuerto-Paracelsicæ," Amsterdam, 1636.1 FREMINET (MARTIN), a celebrated French painter; was born at Paris in 1567. When he was studying at Rome, the suffrages of that place were divided between Michael Angelo Caravaggio, and Joseph of Arpino, called Giuseppino; and he succeeded in imitating the excellencies of both. He was a great master of design, and of the sciences connected with his art, perspective and architecture; but there is a boldness in his manner, approaching to hardness, which is not always approved. Henry IV. however, appointed him his chief painter, and Louis XIII. honoured him with the order of St. Michael. He painted the cieling in the chapel at Fontainbleau, and died at Paris, June 18, 1619.2 FREMONT. See PERROT. FRENCH (JOHN), an English physician, the son of John French, of Broughton, near Banbury in Oxfordshire, was born there in 1616, and entered New-Inn-hall, Oxford, in 1633, when he took his degrees in arts. He afterwards studied medicine, and acted as physician to the parliamentary army, by the patronage of the Fiennes, men of great influence at that time; he was also one of the two physicians to the whole army under general Fairfax. In 1648, when the earl of Pembroke visited the university of Oxford, he was created M. D. and was about the same time physician to the Savoy, and one of the college. He went abroad afterwards as physician to the English army at Bulloigne, and died there in Oct. or Nov. 1657. Besides translations of some medical works from Paracelsus and Glauber, he published "The Art of Distillation," Lond. 1651, 4to.; and "The Yorkshire Spaw, or a Treatise of Four famous medicinal wells: viz. the spaw, or vitrioline well; the stinking or sulphur well; the dropping or petrifying well; and St. Magnus-well, near Knaresborow in Yorkshire. Together with the causes, vertues, and use thereof," Lond. 1652 and 1654, 12mo, republished at Halifax, 1760, 12mo.3 FRENICLE DE BESSY (BERNARD), a celebrated French mathematician of the seventeenth century, was the contemporary and companion of Des Cartes, Fermat, and the Rees's Cyclopædia.-Manget.-Haller Bibl. Med. Pract. 3 Ath. Ox. vol. II.-Gough's Topography. FRENICLE DE BESS Y. 121 other learned mathematicians of their time. He was admitted geometrician of the French academy in 1666; and died in 1675. He had many papers inserted in the ancient memoirs of the academy, of 1666, particularly in vol. V. of that collection, viz. 1. "A method of resolving problems by Exclusions." 2. "Treatise of right-angled Triangles in Numbers." 3. Short tract on Combinations." 4. "Tables of Magic Squares." 5. "General method of making Tables of Magic Squares."-His brother NICOLAS FRENICLE, a poet of the seventeenth century, born 1600, at Paris, was counsellor to the court of the mint, and died dean of the same court, after the year 1661, leaving several children. Frenicle wrote many theatrical pieces; as "Palemon," a pastoral, 8vo; a pastoral, 8vo; "Niobe," 8vo; "L'Entretien des Bergers," a pastoral, which is contained in "Les Illustres Bergers," 8vo. Also a poem, entitled, "Jesus crucifié;" a "Paraphrase on the Psalms," in verse, &c. 1 FRERET (NICOLAS), an author of profound learning and considerable abilities, grossly misapplied, was born at Paris in 1688. He was bred nominally to the law, but his inclinations and talents not being suited to that profession, he devoted himself, from an early period, to his favourite studies of chronology and history. At twenty-five he was admitted into the academy of inscriptions, where he produced at the same time "A Discourse on the Origin of the French." This treatise, at once bold and learned, added to some indiscreet conversations, occasioned his being confined in the Bastille. In his confinement, he could obtain no book but the dictionary of Bayle, which he consequently read so earnestly as almost to learn it by heart. He imbibed, at the same time, the scepticism of Bayle, and even went beyond him in the grossness and impudence of his infidel sentiments, as clearly appears by some of his writings. These were, 1. "Letters of Thrasybulus to Leucippe," in which atheism is reduced to a system. 2. "Examination of the Apologists for Christianity," a posthumous work (not published till 1767), no less obnoxious than the other. Besides these, he was the author of, 3. Several very learned memoirs in the volumes of the academy, to which his name is prefixed; and a few light publications of no consequence. He died in 1749, in his 1 Moreri, Dict, Hist.-Hutton's Dictionary. 7 |