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eternity; and among his prayers and afpirations was often heard to repeat, Lord! now let thy fervant depart in peace.

On Sunday the eighth of January of the next year, he rofe, weak as he was, to mafs, and went to take his repast with the reft, but on Monday was feized with a weaknefs that threatened immediate death; and on Thursday prepared for his change by receiving the Viaticum with fuch marks of devotion, as equally melted and edified the beholders.

Through the whole courfe of his illness to the laft hour of his life, he was confulted by the fenate in publick affairs, and returned answers, in his greatest weaknefs, with fuch prefence of mind as could only arise from the consciousness of innocence.

On Sunday, the day of his death, he had the paffion of our bleffed Saviour read to him out of St. John's gofpel, as on every other day of that week, and spoke of the mercy of his Redeemer, and his confidence in his merits.

As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to pronounce the last prayers, with which he could only join in his thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, Efto perpetua, Mayft thou laft for ever; which was understood to be a prayer for the profperity of his country.

Thus died Father Paul, in the 71ft year of his age: hated by the Romans as their most formidable enemy, and honoured by all the learned for his abilities, and by the good for his integrity. His deteftation of the corruption of the Roman church appears in all his writings, but particularly in this memorable paffage of one of his letters: "There is nothing more effential "the

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"than to ruin the reputation of the Jefuits: by the "ruin of the Jefuits, Rome will be ruined; and if "Rome is ruined, religion will reform of itself.”

He appears by many paffages of his life to have had a high esteem of the church of England; and his friend, Father Fulgentio, who had adopted all his notions, made no fcruple of administering to Dr. Duncomb, an English gentleman that fell fick at Venice, the communion in both kinds, according to the Common Prayer which he had with him in Italian.

He was buried with great pomp at the publick charge, and a magnificent monument was erected to his memory.

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BOERHAAVE

THE

HE following account of the late Dr. BOERHAAVE, fo loudly celebrated, and fo univerfally lamented through the whole learned world, will, we hope, be not unacceptable to our readers: We could have made it much larger, by adopting flying reports, and inferting unattefted facts; a close adherence to certainty has contracted our narrative, and hindered it from fwelling to that bulk, at which modern hiftories generally arrive.

Dr. Herman Boerhaave was born on the last day of December, 1668, about one in the morning, at Voorhout, a village two miles diftant from Leyden: his father, James Boerhaave, was minifter of Voorhout, of whom his fon*, in a small account of his own life,

* "Erat Hermanni Genitor Latine, Græce, Hebraice sciens: pe ritus valde hiftoriarum & gentium. Vir apertus, candidus, fim. plex paterfamilias optimus amore, cura, diligentia, frugalitate, prudentia. Qui non magna in re, fed plenus virtutis, novem liberis educandis exemplum præbuit fingulare, quid exacta par fimonia polleat, & frugalitas," Orig. Edit,

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has given a very amiable character, for the fimplicity and openness of his behaviour, for his exact frugality in the management of a narrow fortune, and the prudence, tenderness, and diligence, with which he educated a numerous family of nine children. He was eminently skilled in history and genealogy, and versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.

His mother was Hagar Daelder, a tradesman's daughter of Amfterdam, from whom he might, perhaps, derive an hereditary inclination to the study of phyfick, in which she was very inquifitive, and had obtained a knowledge of it not common in female students.

This knowledge, however, fhe did not live to communicate to her fon; for fhe died in 1673, ten years after her marriage.

His father, finding himself encumbered with the care of feven children, thought it neceffary to take a fecond wife, and in July 1674, was married to Eve du Bois, daughter of a minister of Leyden, who, by her prudent and impartial conduct, so endeared herself to her husband's children, that they all regarded her as their own mother.

Herman Boerhaave was always defigned by his father for the miniftry, and with that view inftructed by him in grammatical learning, and the first elements of languages; in which he made fuch a proficiency, that he was, at the age of eleven years, not only mafter of the rules of grammar, but capable of tranflating with tolerable accuracy, and not wholly ignorant of critical niceties.

At intervals, to recreate his mind, and ftrengthen his conftitution, it was his father's custom to fend him

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into the fields, and employ him in agriculture, and fuch kind of rural occupations, which he continued through all his life to love and practise; and by this viciffitude of study and exercife preferved himself, in a great measure, from those diftempers and depreffions which are frequently the confequences of indifcreet diligence, and uninterrupted application; and from which ftudents, not well acquainted with the conftitution of the human body, fometimes fly for relief to wine inftead of exercise, and purchase temporary cafe by the hazard of the most dreadful confequences.

The ftudies of young Boerhaave were, about this time, interrupted by an accident, which deferves a particular mention, as it first inclined him to that fcience, to which he was by nature fo well adapted, and which he afterwards carried to fo great perfection,

In the twelfth year of his age, a stubborn, painful, and malignant ulcer, broke out upon his left thigh; which, for near five years, defeated all the art of the furgeons and phyficians, and not only afflicted him with most excruciating pains, but expofed him to fuch fharp and tormenting applications, that the disease and remedies were equally infufferable, Then it was that his own pain taught him to compaffionate others, and his experience of the inefficacy of the methods then in ufe incited him to attempt the difcovery of others more certain.

He began to practise at least honeftly, for he began upon himself; and his first effay was a prelude to his future fuccefs, for, having laid afide all the prefcriptions of his phyficians, and all the applications of his surgeons, he, at laft, by tormenting the part with falt and urine, effected a cure,

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