sentiments of his best pieces; and he has happily expressed, on some occasions, what he him self warmly felt, a detestation of that tyrannical and arrogant disposition of the Romans, which we are too much taught to admire. On the whole, there is a gloominess of colouring thrown over his picces, which gives them a general similarity, and renders them more striking than agreeable. Eloges de D'Alembert. Nouv.

Dict. Hist.-A.

CREBILLON, CLAUDE PROSPER JOLYOT DE, son of the preceding, born in 1707, was a man of letters, and lived with his father as a friend and a brother. By marriage with an English woman, he incurred a temporary breach with his father, but it was soon healed. The only place which he obtained was that of censorroyal. His walk in literature was novel-writing, in a particular species of which he acquired great fame. It is thus characterised by D'Alembert. "In romances full of ingenuity, and dictated by a profound knowledge of all the secret folds of the human heart, he has represented, with the most delicate and accurate pencil, the refinements, the shades, and even the graces, of our vices: that seductive sprightliness which renders the French what is termed amiable, a word which does not signify worthy of being loved; that restless activity which makes them feel listlessness even on the bosom of pleasure; that perversion of principle, disguised, and in some measure softened, by the mask of decencies; in fine, that united corruption and frivolity of our manners, in which the excess of depravity is allied with the excess of absurdity." It is only to the earliest of his works that the commendatory part of this character applies; and in the best, the style is considerably liable to censure. They are also licentious in their descriptions; and they are rendered tedious by a want of action and a sameness of manner. For one of them, which contained some satirical allusions to events of the time, the author was put into the Bastille. The best known of these productions is "Les Egaremens du Cœur & de I'Esprit," 1736, in three parts. It is not worth while to copy the titles of the others, the last of which dates as late as 1771. He died at Paris in 1777 Eloges de D'Alembert. Nouv. Dict.

Hist.-A.

CREECH, THOMAS, a person of some eminence for his poetical translations, was born in 1659 at Blandford in Dorsetshire. He was educated in grammar learning at the free-school of Sherburn, whence he was removed to Wadham college, Oxford. After taking the degree of M.A. in 1683, he was elected probationer

fellow of All-Souls college. He had the year before printed his translation of Lucretius, which established his reputation as a scholar; though it appears that there were not wanting persons who warmly censured the publication of such a performance by a member of an university, and one engaged in its system of education. He also translated several other pieces from the ancient writers; as parts of Ovid and Virgil; almost the whole of Horace; the thirteenth Satire of Juvenal; the Idylls of Theocritus; the Astronomicon of Manilius; and several of Plutarch's lives, with other pieces of that author. He likewise gave an edition of Lucretius in the original, with an interpretation and annotations. He was made B.D. in 1696, and three years afterwards was presented to the rectory of Welwyn in Hertfordshire. But he never took possession of it, unhappily putting an end to his life at Oxford in 1700. Various causes have been assigned for this action; but from a letter extant, it appears to have proceeded from the cold reception he met with from a fellow-collegian on applying to him for a loan of some money, in addition to several he had. before been indulged with. He is said to have been of a morose temper, which had engaged him in several quarrels. He was attached to a lady in Oxford, whom he made his executrix, and wished to have married; but the union was opposed by her friends, and this circumstance probably disposed him to the melancholy catastrophe.

Creech owes his principal fame to his translation of Lucretius, which was probably admired at the time as an extraordinary exertion of scholarship; for the many incorrect and slovenly translations of that period afford but an unfavourable view of the literary talents of its writers. The poetical merit of the translation is, indeed, very small. It fails miserably in almost all the splendid passages of the original, but exhibits some skill in versifying the argumentative and mechanical parts. His other translations never seem to have been much esteemed; yet 'Dr. Joseph Warton (in his Ess. on Pope, v. II.) has spoken handsomely of parts of his Theocritus and Horace, and particularly of his Satire of Juvenal. As an editor of Lucretius; he is chiefly valuable for his expla-nations of the epicurean philosophy; but he has been detected in this as a considerable plagiary of Gassendi. Biɔg. Britan.—A.

CRELL, LEWIS CHRISTIAN, a German protestant divine and philosopher in the seventeenth century, was born at Neustadt, in the principality of Coburg, in the year 1671. After

a preparatory education' in the schools of Meimungen and Zeitz, he entered at the university of Leipsic, in 1690, where he made extraordinary progress in the study of classical literature, philosophy, and theology, and took his degree of M.A. in 1693. By his learning and talents, which he displayed in the public exercises of the university, he recommended himself to the situation of corrector of the school of St. Nicholas, at Leipsic, in the year 1696; before which appointment he had been admitted to the degree of bachelor in divinity. In the year 1699 he was made rector of the school of St. Nicholas, and assessor of the faculty of philosophy. In 1708 he was created professor-extraordinary of philosophy, and professor in ordinary in 1714. He died in 1735, after having been four times dean and twice vice-chancellor of the faculty of philosophy. The greater part of his works consists of philological and philosophical dissertations on different subjects; among which are "De Civis Innocentis in Manus Hostium ad Nervum Traditione ;""De Scytala Laconica;" "De Providentia Dei circa Reges constituendos;" "De eo quod in Anacreonte venustum ac delicatum est, &c." He was also the author of several Latin Poems. Moreri.-M.

CRELLIUS, JOHN, a learned German protestant divine, and one of the ablest defenders of the unitarian doctrine, was born near Kittinga, a town in Franconia, in the year 1590. His father was a lutheran minister, eminent for his piety and learning, who himself superintended the earlier years of his son's education, and afterwards sent him to a public seminary at Nuremberg, where the brightness of his parts, the diligence of his application, and the modesty of his manners, soon rendered him a favourite with his tutors and patrons. After quitting Nuremberg, he studied successively in other German academics, and particularly at Altdorf; where, with the assistance derived from the instructions of very able professors, he made considerable advances in every branch of literature and science. In his acquaintance with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, and with philosophy as taught by Aristotle and his more rational interpreters, he particularly excelled. He likewise carefully read the works of the most celebrated divines; but not until he had formed the liberal determination of embracing no opinions concerning the truth of which he should not be perfectly satisfied from his own enquiries, and of submitting to no formularies which his judgment and conscience should not thoroughly approve. Having allowed himself this latitude, he soon conceived

a dislike to the lutheran system, in which he had been educated, and, by degrees, adopted notions entirely incompatible with an honest profession of that communion. In this state of things, his literary merits and excellent character induced the academical senate of Altdorf, about the year 1610, to nominate him to the office of inspector of the youth in that university; an honourable situation, and desirable to a person wishing to rise to the chief appointments in the lutheran church. But with the turn of thinking which he had indulged, hẹ could not conscientiously accept of it; and in a modest petition assigned reasons for declining the office, which were admitted in favour of some other more ambitious or less scrupulous candidate. The reputation which he had acquired, however, and the wishes of his friends, who were urgent for his advancement in the lutheran church, had placed him in a situation in which he found himself obliged either to violate his integrity, in order to comply with their views and inclinations, or to withdraw to some other scene, and other connections, where he might enjoy full and unbiassed liberty of conscience. In this painful predicament he had the fortitude to make all other considerations yield to a scnse of duty; and determined to remove to Poland, where he had no friends, but where freedom of enquiry was at that time cultivated with greater zeal, and with less molestation, than in any other part of Europe. He set out from Nuremberg in the year 1612, and arriving at Racow, was received into the com munion of the unitarian church at that place. He was also patronised by Jacob Sieniensis, palatine of Podolia, under whose encouragement he prosecuted his theological studies with increased ardour, having resolved to devote himself to the profession of the ministry. In the year 1613 he was appointed by the synod of Racow professor of Greek in the university of that place; and in 1615 commenced the office of a public preacher with great acceptability. In the year 1616 he was nominated rector of the university; which post he filled for five years, with improvement to himself, and acknowledged advantage to the public. At the expiration of that period he resumed his ministerial functions, and was fixed upon as one of the stated pastors of the church at Racow. About this time he first appeared in the field of theological controversy, in opposition to the celebrated Grotius, who had attacked the prin ciples of Faustus Socinus on the subject of the satisfaction of Christ. The learning, abilities, and candour, which he displayed in that con

test, secured him the applause of those parties whose opinions were most dissonant from his own; and drew such commendations from Grotius himself, that some zealots were led to insinuate that his orthodox faith had been shaken by the arguments of his adversary. During the remaining years of his life, Crellius assiduously applied himself to the duties of the pastoral office, and to the composition of various treatises in defence of the tenets which he had embraced, or in illustration of the Scriptures according to the principles of the unitarians. The most important among his controversial works, besides his "Answer to Grotius," were "Two Books concerning the one God, the Father;" "A Treatise concerning God and his Attributes" "A Treatise concerning the Holy Spirit;" and " A Defence of Religious Liberty." He wrote likewise different treatises in "Ethics," "Sermons," and other pieces of a moral and religious kind. His paraphrases and commentaries were chiefly published from notes, taken down during his delivery of his theological lectures, and afterwards digested and corrected by the author, or by some of his learned friends. They comprehend expositions of a considerable part of the New Testament writings, and form nearly one half of the four volumes folio, which this author's works fill in the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum. In the year 1633, while intent on planning other useful works, he was attacked by an infectious fever, to which he fell a sacrifice in the forty-third year of his age; leaving behind him a character highly respected for erudition, integrity, virtue, and piety. Vita Joh. Crelli Op. Praf. Toulmin's Mem. of Socinus. Moreri.M.

CREMONINI, CESAR, a celebrated Italian philosopher, was born at Cento in the Modenese, in the year 1550. In his early youth he discovered an inclination for literary pursuits, which was strengthened by the acquaintance he was enabled to form with Pigna, Tasso, and other learned men who frequented the court of the princes of the house of Este. Cremonini particularly attached himself to the study of the Aristotelian philosophy, and obtained the character of being one of the first peripatetics of his age. For seventeen years he taught philosophy at Ferrara; and for forty years afterwards in the university of Padua, where he was at first the colleague, and upon his death the successor, of the famous Piccolomini. So high was his reputation, that his decisions were considered as little less than oracular; and princes and kings were eager to obtain his portrait. But if we may judge from the writings which he has left,

the literary fashion of the times must have had considerable influence in establishing that reputation. Bayle informs us, that his printed books did not sell well; and they certainly do not afford evidence of any superior claims to knowledge, judgment, or taste. He was reckoned a freethinker, particularly on the subject of the immortality of the soul. The utmost, however, that can be proved from his writings is, that he considered that doctrine to depend on the evidence of revelation, and not on the deductions of reason. If he was in reality more sceptical than a liberal construction of his language warrants us to suppose, he has not used any terms or expressions in conveying his ideas, which many modern sound believers in the future existence of man would at all hesitate to adopt. He died of the plague in 1630, in the eightieth year of his age. His personal character is far from being represented in an amiable light. While his exterior manners are said to have been uncommonly polite and engaging, he is reported to have been insincere, interested, and envious, and to have delighted in fomenting those divisions among scholars which are ruinous to the progress of improvement and liberality. Among his other works he published " Aminta e Clori, Favola Silvestre," 1591, 4to.; "De Physico Auditu,” 1596, folio; "Il Nascimento di Venetia," 1617, 12mo.; " De Callido Innato," 1626, 4to.; "De Sensibus et Facultate Appetiva" 1644, 4to.; "De Colo;" "De Semini," &c. Moreri. Bayle. Landi Hist. de la Lit. d'Ital. tom. IV.-M.

CREQUI, FRANCIS, marquis of, marshal of France, a distinguished commander, was brought up to arms. He was made lieutenant-general in 1655, general of the galleys in 1661, and marshal in 1668. In the German war, being at the head of a small army, he was defeated at Consarbruck, in 1675, by a superior German army then besieging Treves, and with difficulty escaped with only three attendants. Through numerous perils he threw himself into Treves, which he defended with great valour, till the garrison mutinied, and one of the captains signed a capitulation without his knowledge. He refused to be comprehended in it, and was made prisoner of war. He afterwards made his escape, and commanded in the campaigns of 1677 and 1678. In these, with great skill and vigilance, he foiled all the attempts of duke Charles V. of Lorraine to enter into that province, beat him in some actions, took Friburg and the fort of Kehl, and burned the bridge of Strasburg. He took Luxemburg in 1684, and

died at Paris in 1687. Voltaire characterises him as a man of bold enterprise, capable of the most brilliant and the rashest undertakings, equally dangerous to his country and the enemy. He was thought to have been the general most likely to repair the loss of Turenne, when experience should have moderated his ardour. Voltaire Siècle de Louis XIV. Moreri.-A.

CRESCEMBINI, JOHN-MARY, or MARIO, the son of a lawyer at Macerata, was born in that city in 1663. He was educated in the Jesuits' college, and made such a progress in polite literature, that he was admitted at the age of fifteen among the members of the academy of Disposti in Jesi. Being destined to the profession of the law, he was made a doctor in that faculty in 1679. He afterwards went to Rome, where he divided his time between the studies of jurisprudence and of letters. His taste in poetry, which hitherto had partaken of the inflation and conceit then in vogue, was purified by reading the best authors; and he not only changed his own style, but undertook to amend the taste of his contemporaries. With this view he employed himself with great zeal in the institution of a new academy under the name of Arcadia, every member of which should have the title of an Arcadian shepherd, and take a name from some place in the ancient realm of Arcadia; a fancy which one would scarcely expect to be the forerunner of a correct and manly taste in literature. The academy was instituted in 1690, and Crescembini, under the name of Alfesibeo Cario, was made its director, a post which he occupied thirty-eight years. Its success was extraordinary: more than forty of the principal towns of Italy chose to associate their academies to that of the Arcadi, and to receive laws and statutes from it. A great reformation in taste is said to have been the consequence, with the banishment of much of that affectation and tinsel which before had infected the Italian poetry. Crescembini, whom his literary occupations had diverted from legal pursuits, embraced the ecclesiastical profession, and was presented by pope Clement XI. in 1705 to the canonry of St. Mary in Cosmedino. He was made archpriest of the same church in 1719, on which occasion he took all the sacred orders. He died in 1728, having in his last illness taken the simple vows of the Jesuits. He was a member of most of the academies in Italy, and of the Society Nature Curiosorum in Germany. He was a little lean man, of a bilious constitution, and with a hoarse and broken voice; but his gentle and engaging manners made him universally beloved. He was

VOL. III.

the author of a number of works in verse and prose, of which it will suffice to mention some of the principal. His "Istoria della Volgar Poesia," of which, with its successive additions, a complete edition was given at Venice, in 7 vols. 4to. 1731, is reckoned a valuable collection of information concerning the lives and works of the Italian and Provençal poets. It is, however, not without considerable errors, being written, says Tiraboschi," at a time when neither had criticism made all the progress necessary to distinguish the true from the spurious, nor had libraries and archives been searched with the learned curiosity which has enriched modern times with so much valuable knowledge." "History of the Academy of Arcadi, with Lives of its principal Members," 7 vols. 4to. 1708; the lives are partly by Crescembini, partly by others: "Le Rime & le Prose degli Arcadi,' 12 vols. 8vo.; in this collection are many of his own pieces: "Notitie Istoriche di diversi Capitani illustri," 1704, 4to.: Translation in Verse of the Hundred Apologues of Bern. Baldi," 1702, 12mo.: "A Translation into Italian of the Homilies and Discourses of Pope Clement XI." folio, 1704. Moreri. Tiraboschi. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-A.

"A

CRESCENS, a native of Megalopolis, in the second century of the christian era, and a cynic philosopher. He was an eloquent declaimer in praise of abstinence, magnanimity, and contempt of death; but by his vices was a disgrace to the character which he assumed. He principally distinguished himself by his inveterate hatred to the Christians, and by the infamous calumnies which he propagated concerning their principles and their practices. These calumnies occasioned Justin Martyr to write his second apology for the Christians. Crescens, however, if he could not triumph over his opponent in argument, gave proof of his dexterity in rendering the prejudices of the times subservient to his malicious enmity against the new sect: for, by accusing them and their apologist of atheism, he was principally instrumental in instigating the Roman Magistrates to condemn Justin Martyr to a cruel death. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 16.-M.

CRESCONIUS, or CRISCONIUS, an African bishop, who lived towards the close of the seventh century. He is principally entitled to notice for having formed a collection of ecclesiastical canons, which, after remaining for ages among the MSS. in the Vatican library, was thought worthy of being published in an abridged form at Paris, in the year 1609, and afterwards at full length in 1661, by Voël and

G G

Justel, editors of the Bibliothèque du Droit Canon. Cardinal Baronius appears to have been the first person by whose notice this collection was rescued from oblivion; which is certainly a work of some curiosity to ecclesiastical historians. Moreri.-M.

CRESPET, PETER, a French friar of the celestine order, was born at Sens in the year 1543, and died at Vivares, in 1594. He sustained a high character among his contemporaries for learning, prudence, and piety, which recommended him to honourable stations in the order of which he was a member, and induced pope Gregory XIV. to make him an offer of a bishopric. Bur he steadily refused that dignity, and chose to devote his whole time to the services of the monastic life, and literary pursuits. He was well read both in profane and ecclesiastical writers, and wrote a variety of works, which are at once evidences of his industry and of his learning. Among others are, "Summa Ecclesiastica Disciplinæ, & totius Juris Canonici," published after the author's death, in 1598; "Absolutissimi Legis Evangelicæ Pandectæ, Figuris, Prophetiis, & Sanctæ Scripturæ Testimoniis elucidati," 1566; "The Garden of Pleasure and Spiritual Recreation," 2 vols. 1587; " Catholic Discourses on the Origin, the Essence, the Excellence, and Immortality of the Soul," 2 vols.; "Twelve Dialogues on Virtue," translated from the Italian of father Marcellini; and other pieces in catholic theology and ecclesiastical history. Moreri. Bayle.-M. CRESSEY, or CRESSY, HUGH-PAULIN, or SERENUS, an English catholic divine, and celebrated controversialist, was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, in the year 1605. His parents, who were respectable members of the church of England, after he had received the necessary preparatory education at a grammar-school in his native place, sent him to Oxford in the year 1619; where, notwithstanding some disadvantages which he at first experienced for want of a vigilant tutor, he applied to his studies with great vigour and diligence, and, in the year 1626, was admitted fellow of Merton college in that university. After taking the degrees of B.A. and M.A. he entered into orders, and became chaplain to Thomas lord Wentworth, then lord president of the north, with whom he appears to have continued in that capacity for some time after his patron was raised to the earldom of Strafford. In the year 1638 he went to Ireland, as chaplain to the accomplished and virtuous Lucius lord viscount Falkland; and when that nobleman became secretary of state, was through his influence made canon of Wind

sor in 1642, and also dean of Laughlin in Ireland. By the distracted state of the times, however, he was rendered incapable of deriving any benefit from those appointments; and by the subsequent death of his patron and friend, who was killed in the battle of Newbury, he found himself reduced to embarrassed circumstances. In this situation he accepted an offer that was made to him of becoming tutor to Charles Bertie, esq afterwards earl of Falmouth, and accompanied his pupil on his travels to the continent in 1644. During his progress through the catholic countries, the hopeless state of the church of England, and the persuasions of the Komish divines, concurred in producing a rapid change in his religious sentiments; and, in the year 1646, he made a public profession at Rome of his being reconciled to that church. Soon after this event he went to Paris, where he published his "Exomologesis, or a faithful Narration of the Occasion and Motives of his Conversion to Catholic Unity," 1647. This work the catholics then considered, and still consider, to be a complete answer to the writings of the advocates for the protestant faith, and particularly to the arguments of the learned and judicious Chilling worth. Of this work he sent a copy to his friend Dr. Henry Hammond, who conceived it unnecessary to expose the vein of fallacy which runs through the whole of it; but whose liberality and kindness towards the author induced him to urge his return to his native country, with an assurance that he should be comforta bly provided for, and left at perfect liberty on subjects of religion and conscience. Mr. Cressey was not deficient in grateful acknowledgments for this generous and disinterested offer, but he declined complying with it, as inconsistent with the resolution which he had formed of embracing the monastic life. He was for some time inclined to enter into the Carthusian order in an English monastery at Nieuport in Flanders; but by the persuasion of his catholic countrymen, who were apprehensive that the severe discipline of that order would deprive them of those defences of their religion which they expected from his pen, he was led to relinquish that design. While he continued at Paris he was taken under the protection of Henrietta-Maria, queen-dowager of England, from whom he received a temporary_support, and supplies to bear his expences to Douay in Flanders; where he became a member of the benedictine college of English monks, and, on taking the vows, changed his baptismal name of Hugh-Paulin for that of Serenus de Cressey.