the illustrious founders of our Learning and Religion, we owe it to ourselves and to posterity, that no name should perish that was once enrolled on the lists of just and honourable fame.

may

The Editor is aware that, with every degree of circumspection, and the most sedulous care that can be preserved in the conduct of this undertaking, it not be possible in all cases to avoid the errors which have been pointed out, and to satisfy every expectation as to the plan proposed. He can only hope that may be able, by an adherence to the above rules, to improve upon the labours of his predecessors: and for the defects unavoidable in a work of this magnitude, he relies with confidence on the candour of the Publick...

he

May 1, 1812.

Communications respecting persons lately deceased, or pointing out any other sources of information necessary to this work, may be addressed to the Editor, under cover to the Printers, Messrs. NICHOLS, SON, and BENTLEY, Red Lion Passage, Fleet-street.

The New Edition of the Biographical Dictionary will continue to be published in Monthly Volumes, of about 500 pages each, printed with a new type, in a full-sized Demy Octavo, Price 128. in boards.

Printed for J. Nichols and Son; F. C. and J. Rivington; T. Payne; W. Otridge and Son; G. and W. Nicol; Wilkie and Robinson; J. Walker; R. Lea; W. Lowndes; White, Cochrane, and Co.; J. Deighton; T. Egerton; Lackington, Allen, and Co.; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; Cadell and Davies; C. Law; J. Booker; Clarke and Sons; J. and A. Arch; J. Harris Black, Parry, and Co.; J. Booth; J. Mawman; Gale and Curtis; R. H. Evans; J. Hatchard; J. Harding; J. Johnson and Co.; E. Bentley; and J. Faulder.

Volume II. with an Index, pointing out the new and re-written Lives contained in that Volume, will be published on the First of June, by Messrs. WILKIE and ROBINSON, 57, Paternoster-Row.

Although it is impossible, in the present state of the work, to announce the exact number of Volumes to which it will extend, it is calculated that they will not exceed TWENTY-ONE.

A NEW AND GENERAL

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.

AA (PETER VANDER), an eminent bookseller, who began

business at Leyden about the year 1682, and devoted his attention principally to geographical works and the construction of maps. A catalogue appeared at Amsterdam in 1729 of his publications, which are very numerous. Those in highest esteem are: 1. "A collection of Travels in France, Italy, England, Holland, and Russia," Leyden, 1706, 30 vols. 12mo. 2. "A collection of Voyages in the two Indies," Leyden, 1706, 8 vols. fol.; another edition, 29 vols. 8vo, 1707-1710. This consists chiefly of an abridgment of De Bry's collection, with some additions. 3. "A collection of Voyages in the Indies by the Portuguese, the English, the French, and the Italians," 4 vols. fol. Leyden. These three works are in Dutch. 4. An "Atlas of two hundred Maps," not in much estimation. 5. "A Gallery of the World," containing an immense quantity of maps, topographical and historical plates, but without letter-press, in 66 vols. fol. which are usually bound in 35. He also continued Grævius' "Thesaurus," or, an account of the modern Italian writers, with the "Thesaurus Antiquitatum Siciliæ." He died about 17301.

AA (CHRISTIAN CHARLES HENRY VANDER), a learned divine of the Lutheran persuasion, was born at Zwolle, a town of Overyssel, in 1718, and was a preacher in the 'Lutheran church at Haerlem for fifty-one years, where his public and private character entitled him to the highest esteem. His favourite motto, "God is love," was the constant rule of his pastoral conduct. In 1752, he had the

A A.

chief hand in establishing the Haerlem Society of Sciences, and in 1778 formed a separate branch for the study of Economics. In both he acted as secretary for many years; and, besides some Sermons, published, in the Transactions of that Society, a variety of scientific papers. He died at Haerlem in 1795'.

AAGARD (CHRISTIAN), a Danish poet, born at Wibourg in 1616, was professor of poetry at Sora, and afterwards lecturer in theology at Ripen, in Jutland. Among his poems are: 1. "De hommagio Frederici III. Daniæ et Norw. Regis," Hafnia, 1660, fol.; and 2. "Threni Hyperborei" on the death of Christian IV. All his pieces are inserted in the "Deliciæ quorundam Poetarum Danorum, Frederici Rostgaard," Leyden, 1695, 2 vols. 12mo. He died in February 1664, leaving a son, Severin Aagard, who wrote his life in the above collection 2.

AAGARD (NICHOLAS), brother of the above, was librarian and professor in the University of Sora, in Denmark, where he died Jan. 22, 1657, aged forty-five years, and left several critical and philosophical works, written in Latin. The principal are: 1. "A treatise on Subterraneous Fires." 2. "Dissertation on Tacitus." 3. "Observations on Ammianus Marcellinus." And 4. "A disputation on the Style of the New Testament," Sora, 4to, 1655. He and his brother were both of the Lutheran Church3.

AAGESEN (SUEND, in Latin SUENO AGONIS), a Danish historian, flourished about the year 1186, and appears to have been secretary to the archbishop Absalon, by whose orders he wrote a history of Denmark, intituled, "Compendiosa historia regum Daniæ à Skioldo ad Canutum VI." This work is thought inferior in style to that of Saxo Grammaticus; but, on some points, his opinions are in more strict conformity to what are now entertained by the literati of the North. He was also author of "Historia legum castrensium Regis Canuti magni," which is a translation into Latin of the law called the law of Witherlag, enacted by Canute the Great, and re-published by Absalon in the reign of Canute VI. with an introduction by Aagesen on the origin of that law. Both works are included in "Suenonis Agonis filii, Christierni nepotis, primi Daniæ gentis historici, quæ extant opuscula. Stephanus Johannis

1 Dict. Hist. edit. 1810. 2 Moreri.-Diet. Hist. 1810.

3 Ibid.

Stephanius ex vetustissimo codice membraneo MS. regiæ bibliothecæ Hafniensis primus publici juris fecit. Soræ, typis Henrici Crusii," 1642, 8vo. His history is also printed, with excellent notes, in Langebek's "Scriptores rerum Danicarum," vol. I.; and the "Leges castrenses," are in vol. III. 1

AARON, a presbyter of Alexandria, the author of thirty books on physic in the Syriac tongue, which he called the Pandects. They were supposed to be written before 620, and were translated out of the Syriac into Arabic, by Maserjawalh, a Syrian Jew, and a physician in the reign of the calif Merwan, about A. D. 683; for then the Arabians began to cultivate the sciences and to study physic. In these he has clearly described the small-pox, and the measles, with their pathognomonic symptoms, and is the first author that mentions those two remarkable diseases, which probably first appeared and were taken notice of at Alexandria in Egypt, soon after the Arabians made themselves masters of that city, in A. D. 640, in the reign of Omar Ebnol Chatab, the second successor to Mohammed. But both those original Pandects, and their translation, are now lost; and we have nothing of them remaining, but what Mohammed Rhazis collected from them, and has left us in his Continens; so that we have no certain account where those two diseases first appeared; but it is most probable that it was in Arabia Fœlix, and that they were brought from thence to Alexandria by the Arabians, when they took that city.

AARON (ST.) a Briton, who suffered martyrdom with another, St. Julius, during the persecution under the emperor Dioclesian, in the year 303, and about the same time with St. Alban, the protomartyr of Britain. What the British names of Aaron and Julius were, we are not told; nor have we any particulars of their death. They had each a church erected to his memory in the city of Caer-Leon, the antient metropolis of Wales, and their festival is placed, in the Roman Martyrology, on the first of July3.

HARI

AARON-HARISCON, a celebrated Jewish rabbi, was a physician at Constantinople towards the end of the 13th century, and a man of extensive reputation. He wrote:

1 Biographie Universelle, 1811.

2 Mangeti Bibl.-Dict. Hist.-Fabric. Bibl. Græc.

3 Biog. Brit.-Tauner.-Leland.