ROGERS,(WOODES,) was born about the year 1670; and, in 1708, at which time he was an officer in the navy, was intrusted, by a body of Bristol merchants, with the command of two vessels, the Duke and Duchess of Bristol, on a cruising expedition round the world. He set sail on the 1st of August, having the celebrated Dampier as his pilot. In January, 1709, after having passed the straits of Magellan, he experienced a tremendous storm, of which he gives a very vivid account. "We have no night here," he observes, on the 10th of January, his situation being, at that time, lat. 61 deg. 53 min., long. W. from London, 79 deg. 58 min.; beyond which he was unable to penetrate; but, he continues, "for aught we know, we have run the farthest that any one has yet been to southward." On the 1st of February, he made for the island of Juan Fernandez; and on the following day, having sent some of his men on shore, "our boat," he says, "returned, bringing abundance of crawfish, with a man, clothed in goat-skins, who looked wilder than the first owners of them." This was no other than the celebrated Alexander Selkirk, the original of De Foe's romance of Robinson Crusoe. "He had been on the island," says Captain Rogers, "four years and four months; being left there by Captain Stradling, in the Cinque-Ports, a ship that came here last with Captain Dampier, who told me that this man was the best in her; so I immediately agreed with him to be a mate on board our ship." After examining the island of Juan Fernandez, our voyager steered for the coast of Peru, where he captured and plundered the town of Guiaquil. He had previously taken several rich Spanish prizes, and was in full chase of a galleon of Manilla, when the bad state of his vessel compelled him to put into Port Segura, on California. In January, 1710, he again set sail, and, after touch

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ing at Guam, Batavia, and the Cape of Good Hope, proceeded to England, where he arrived, in October, 1711. In 1717, he was appointed governor of Providence Island, in the Bahamas, where he exterminated the pirates infesting those parts, and fitted out several ships for carrying on a trade with the Spaniards in the gulf of Mexico. His death took place in 1732. The first account of his voyage appeared, written by himself, in 1712; and a French edition was published, at Amsterdam, in 1716. Although containing no new discovery, it is a most useful and instructive work, especially for the information it conveys respecting the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, much of which was gained by the author, from the papers found in the various prizes which he had captured. It is also well worthy of perusal, if only for the interesting account contained in it of Alexander Selkirk, and of the island of Juan Fernandez.

DRURY, (ROBERT,) was, according to his own account, born in Crutched Friars, in London, on the 24th of July, 1687. At the age of fourteen, he went out to the East Indies, and was on his way home, in 1702, in the Degrave, when the vessel struck upon a bank, on the south side of the island of Madagascar. The crew got to shore upon a raft, and were soon afterwards required, by one of the native kings, to assist him in a warlike expedition, which they agreed to do, but not until they had seized upon the king and his son, as hostages for their own safety. Incautiously, however, afterwards delivering them up, the whole crew, after having expended all their ammunition, were surrounded and seized, and butchered, one after another, before the face of Drury, who was the only one, besides two others, that escaped the horrible massacre. On this island, the subject of our memoir remained in slavery for fifteen years,

during which time be was employed in a variety of the most degradi z occupations. The result of a hostile fead, in which he was compelled to take part, put him in possession of a young girl whom he married, and became much attached to. His affection for her, however, was not strong enough to prevent their separation; and, on Ler refusal to join him in his attempt to escape to his own country, he set out alone, and, falling in with another Englishman, they contrived to leave the island together. Drury returned to his native country in 1717, with his complexion so altered by the sun, that his friends could scarcely recognise him; and speaking a language as unintelligible to others, as his own now appeared to himself. Having been left a small inheritance by his father, he made another voyage to Madagascar, and finally returned to England in 1720, when he obtained the situation of porter at the India House, and wrote an account of his captivity, which was published in 1729. Nothing can be more interesting than the events related in this account, which, from their extraordinary nature, do not always appear, and have, by some, been denied, to be credible. There is, however, such an air of truth about the whole, joined to the subsequent confirmation of many of the events, by Admiral Benbow's son, one of the companions of Drury's shipwreck, that his narrative may be read without suspicion, and is now generally admitted to be in accordance with truth. The time of his death is not known.

MIDDLETON,

(CHRISTOPHER,) was one of those adventurous navigators who attempted to find a north-west passage. He sailed from England in May, 1741; and, after having passed the winter at the entrance of Churchill River, in Hudson's Bay, he proceeded to Wager River, and penetrated towards the west as far as 88 degrees. He then steered to the north-west, and reached a bay, which he called Repulse Bay, in consequence of being prevented, by the land and ice, from making further progress. On the 9th of August, he sailed back to England, when a violent controversy took place between him and Mr. Dobbs, a gentleman of fortune, at whose instance, the subject

of our memoir had undertaken the expedition. Middleton having declared that an opening out of Wager River was, in reality, nothing more than a river, an anonymous writer informed Dobos that it was, in fact, a strait; and that Middleton, if he had chosen, might have effected a passage through it. Public opinion was rather against our Voyager on the point, and the Admiralty, in hopes of determining the question, offered a reward of £20,000 to whomsoever should discover the existence of such a passage. A society was soon formed, by Dobbs, for fitting out a new expedition, which was intrusted to the command of Captain Moor. The result proving that Wager River was not a strait, completely established the reputation of Middleton, who was, in consequence, presented with a medal, and elected a member of the Royal Society. Middleton and Moor differ, considerably, in their hydrographical accounts; but, upon the whole, the former is most to be relied on, and, in some instances, he is confirmed by Captain Parry. Captain Middleton died on the 24th of January, 1770.

MONTAGU, (EDWARD WORTLEY,) only son of the celebrated Lady Mary and Mr. Wortley Montagu, was born at Wharncliffe Lodge, near Sheffield, in the year 1713, and received his education at Westminster School, from which he thrice ran away; and, in one of his elopements, exchanged clothes with a chimney-sweeper, whose occupation he, for a short time, followed. His next frolic was to cry flounders, at Rotherhithe, and shortly afterwards he sailed, as a cabin-boy, to Spain, where he hired himself as a mule-driver; and, proceeding to Cadiz, was recognized by the English consul, who sent him back to England. He was then placed, by his friends, under the care of a private tutor, with whom he travelled to the West Indies, and afterwards to the continent, where he seems to have pursued a line of conduct and adventure, in which, in some instances, the criminality was equal to the extravagance. "I have conversed," he says, in a letter to a friend, "with the nobles of Germany, and served my apprenticeship in the science of horsemansh p at their country seats.

I have been a labourer

in the fields of Switzerland and Holland, and have not disdained the humble occupations of postillion and ploughman. I assumed, at Paris, the ridiculous character of a petit-maitre. I was an abbé at Rome. I put on, at Hamburg, the Lutheran ruff, and, with a triple chin, and a formal countenance, I dealt about me the word of God, so as to excite the envy of the clergy." On his return to England, he obtained a seat in the house of commons, which he occupied in two successive parliaments, and, for some time, devoted himself to literary pursuits. Becoming, at length, involved, in consequence of his expensive habits, he again left his native country, and began a new course of eccentricity and adventure. He travelled into Italy, where he professed the Roman catholic religion, which he forsook for that of the Mahometan, on his arrival in Egypt. He appears to have resided chiefly at Rosetta, whence he made excursions to various places bordering on the Adriatic and Mediterranean, attracting attention by the singularity of his habits and demeanour. After he had embraced Islamism, he assumed the license, allowed by that religion, with respect to the sex; and, in many places where he subsequently resided, was accompanied by a harem of women, of various nations and complexions. On the death of his wife, a woman of low origin, and with whom he never cohabited, he, in order to prevent his estate falling to the Bute family, hit upon an expedient, the singularity of which was in perfect accordance with the former acts of his life. Having no legal offspring, he directed a friend in England to advertise for a young woman, already pregnant, who would be willing to marry him; and one of the many applicants having been fixed upon, he was on his way home to espouse her, when he died at Padua, in 1776. The life of so singular a character, is matter of contemplation rather for the philosopher, than the biographer. By the latter, he can only be considered as he appears in the course of his adventures; an apostate without conviction, and a wanderer, without any other aim than that of sensuality or caprice. He was, however, an acute observer of nature; and may have had reasons, known only to himself, for

acting so singular a part in the theatre of life. He was a perfect master of the Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, and Persian languages; and, besides communicating three papers to the Royal Society, on subjects connected with his travels, acquired great literary reputation by the previous publication of a work, entitled Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republics. It appeared in 1759; but, in 1788, a pamphlet was published, in which the work was attributed to the pen of the Rev. Mr. Foster, private tutor to Mr. Montagu. He is alluded to, by Mr. Sharp and Dr. Moore, in their respective works upon Italy, and is mentioned by the latter as "acute, communicative, and entertaining; and blending, in his discourse and manner, the vivacity of a Frenchman, with the gravity of a Turk."

ELLIS, (HENRY,) born some time about the year 1720, having offered his services to the committee of a company who had raised a subscription to defray the expense of an expedition to discover a north-west passage into the South Sea, went out, in the character of their agent, in the May of 1746. The part he was to take in this voyage, to the undertakers of which, if successful, government had offered a reward of £20,000, was to make draughts of all the newly-discovered countries; the bearings and distances of headlands; to mark the soundings, rocks, and shoals upon the coast; to examine the saltness of the water; observe the variation of the compass; notice the different natures of the soil; and to collect, to the utmost of his power, metals, minerals, and all kind of natural curiosities. On the 21st of June, while about sixty leagues to the westward of Rowan and Burra isles, his ship caught fire near the powder-room; and, in this state, proceeded many miles before it was extinguished, the crew cursing, praying, and crying, in the agonies of fear and despair. To the eastward of Cape Farewell, in Greenland, Ellis fell in with an abundance of low ice and drift-wood; and, on nearing Hudson's Straits, was met by a mass of icebergs, which he describes as being five or six hundred yards thick. On the 8th of July, he made an exchange of commodities with the Esquimaux, off the Resolution