testifying, and abundantly proving, his talents and erudition.

PLACE (FRANCIS), a man of taste in various pursuits, but chiefly known as an engraver, was the son of Mr. Rowland Place, of Dinsdale, in the county of Durham. He was at first intended for the law, and was placed as a clerk to an attorney in London, with whom he resided until 1665, when a house he had taken being shut up on account of the plague, he left London and quitted his profession at the same time. He now turned projector, and expended considerable sums of money in attempting to make porcelaine, which he put in practice at the manorhouse of York. In this it is probable he had not due perseverance; for one Clifton, of Pontefract, took the hint from him, and realized a fortune. Who was his teacher as an artist is not known, and his works are very rare, for he painted, drew, etched, and engraved, merely for his own amusement; and as his productions prove him a man of great abilities, it is to be lamented that he had not equal application, and left many valuable designs unfinished. In the reign of Charles II. it is said he was offered a pension of 500l. to draw the royal navy, but he refused this sum, large as it then was, from a dislike of confinement and dependence. He died in 1728, and his widow, on quitting the manor-house at York, disposed of his paintings; among which was an admired picture of fowls, others of fishes and flowers unfinished, together with his own portrait by himself. He left behind him a daughter, who was married to Wadham Wyndham, esq. This lady was living in 1764.

His etchings, particularly of landscapes and birds, from Griffier, are admirable. The free style in which he treated the foliage of his trees, proves his judgment and good taste; and his portraits in mezzotinto are excellent. Among the latter, Strutt mentions bishop Crew, archbishop Sterne, Dr. Comber, dean of Durham, Henry Gyles, the artist, and general Lambert. In Thoresby's Topography of Leeds are some churches drawn by Place; the plates for Godartius's book of Insects are by him; and he also executed many views in Yorkshire. 2

PLACE (JOSHUA DE LA), a learned protestant minister, and celebrated professor of divinity at Saumur, was de

1 Chaufepie, an elaborate article.-Dict. Hist.-Morhoff's Polyhistor. 2 Lord Orford's Catalogue of Engravers.-Strutt's Dictionary..

scended from a noble and ancient family, and born in 1596. He gained great credit by his writings against the Socinians, but held a singular opinion concerning the imputation of Adam's sin, which was condemned in a French synod. He died August 7, 1655, at Saumur, aged fifty-nine. His works were reprinted at Franeker, 1699, and 1703, 4to, 2 tom. The first contains a treatise "On Types;" treatises on "The imputation of Adam's first Sin, or, "The order of the Divine Decrees, and on Freewill," with an "Abridgment of Theology:" the second volume contains his "Disputes against the Socinians," the most important part of his works. He also wrote "An Examination of the arguments for and against the Sacrifice of the Mass," 8vo. '

PLACE (PETER DE LA), in Latin PLATEANUS, a learned French writer, was born at Angoulême in 1526. He applied with success to the study of jurisprudence, and in 1548 published a Latin paraphrase on the titles of the Imperial institutes, "De Actionibus, Exceptionibus et Interdictis," in 4to. After this he was called to the bar of the parliament of Paris, and acquired the character of a learned, eloquent, and virtuous counsellor. Francis I. appointed him advocate of his court of aids at Paris, and he discharged the duties of that office with so much talent and integrity, that Henry II. nominated him his first president in the same court. He became, in consequence of hearing Calvin, a convert to the protestant religion in 1554, and made an open profession of it on the death of Francis II. On the breaking out of the civil war he retired to one of his houses in Picardy; but at the peace in 1562 vindicated himself before the king from the several charges which had been preferred against him. He was now appointed by the prince of Condè superintendant of the household, and accompanied his highness to the castle of Vè in the Valois, where he continued till Charles IX. granted the protestants advantageous terms of peace in 1569, that he might the more easily extirpate them. La Place, deceived by this treachery, returned to Paris, and was executing the office of president to the court of aids, when he was put to death in the most treacherous as well as barbarous manner in the general massacre of the protestants on St. Bartholomew's day, in 1572, at the age

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forty-six. His clear judgment and discrimination admirably qualified him for the office of magistrate. His chief works are, Commentaries on the state of Religion, and of the Commonwealth, from 1556 to 1561;” “A Treatise on the right use of Moral Philosophy in connection with the Christian Doctrine;" and "A Treatise on the excellence of the Christian Man." 1

PLACENTINUS, or PLACENTIUS (PETER), is said to have been the real name of a German author, who, under the fictitious one of Publius Porcius Porcellus, wrote the Latin poem entitled "Pugna porcorum," consisting of 360 verses, in which every word begins with a P. It was published separately at Antwerp, in 1530, and is in the "Nugæ venales," &c. We have followed Baillet in calling him Peter Placentinus, but Le Clerc says that his name was JOHN LEO PLACENTIUS, a Dominican monk, who died about 1548, and that he composed an history of the bishops of Tongres, Maestricht, and Liege, taken out of fabulous memoirs, and several poems besides the "Pugna Porcorum." In this last he imitated one Theobaldus, a Benedictine monk, who flourished in the time of Charles the Bald, to whom he presented a panegyric on baldness, every word of which began with the letter C (calvities, baldness). Placentinus is said to have had another object,. to satirize the sloth of the prelates, but this is not easily discoverable. Some discussion on the "Pugna Porcorum," if our readers think it worthy of farther inquiry, may be found in our authorities.

· PLACETTE (JOHN DE LA), a protestant minister of great eminence, was born at Pontac in Berne, Jan. 19, 1639; and his father, who was a minister, trained him with the greatest attention and care. From 1660, he exercised the ministry in France; but, after the revocation of the edict of Nantz in 1685, he retired to Denmark, where he continued till the death of the queen in 1711; for that princess, apprised of his great merit, kept him near her. From Denmark he passed to Holland, and fixed himself first at the Hague; then removed to Utrecht, where he died April 25, 1718, aged seventy-nine. He was the author of many works upon piety and morality, which are

Gen. Dict. where is an interesting account of his death.-Bibl. Croix du Maine. 2 Baillet des auteurs deguisez.-Merrick's Tryphiodorus, Dissertation, p. 25. -Gent. Mag. XLVI. p. 511 and 60%; and XLVII. p. 70.

reckoned excellent in their kind; and of some of the polemic kind, against the church of Rome, and particularly against Bayle's sceptical works. Among these we may enumerate, 1. "Nouveaux Essais de Morale," 6 vols. 12mo. 2. "Traité de l'Orgueil," the best edition of which is 1699. 3. "Traité de la Conscience." 4. "Traité de la Restitution." 5. "La Communion dévote," the best edition of which is that of 1699. 6. "Traité des bonnes Œuvres en général." 7. "Traité du Serment." 8. Divers Traités sur des Matieres de Conscience." 9. "La Mort des Justes." 10. “Traité de l'Aumône." 11. "Traité des Jeux de Hazard." 12. "La Morale Chrétien abrégée," 1701. 13. "Réflexions Chrétiennes sur divers Sujets de Morale," all in 12mo. 14." De Insanabili Ecclesia Romanâ, Scepticismo, Dissertatio," 1686, or 1696, 4to. 15. "De l'Autorité des Sens contre la Transubstantiation," 12mo. 16. "Traité de la Foi divine," 4 vols. 4to. 17. "Dissertation sur divers Sujets de Théologie et de Morale," 12mo, &c. Some of the above have been published in English, particularly the "Treatise on Conscience," and that on the " Death of the Just." 1

PLANTIN (CHRISTOPHER), an eminent printer, was born at Mont-Louis, near Tours, in 1514. He was instructed in his art at Caen, under Robert Macè, whence he went to Antwerp, and formed by degrees one of the greatest establishments for printing in Europe, and said indeed to be unique in its kind. The whole was upon the most magnificent scale, and even the building was accounted one of the ornaments of the city of Antwerp, and was so amply furnished with presses, founts of letter of all sorts, a foundery, and other matters necessary for the concern, as to have cost an immense sum of money. One of his biographers informs us that Plantin's ideas were so magnificent as that he cast some founts in silver, and considered himself as having in that respect done what no other printer had attempted; but this is a mistake, as Robert Stephens had before indulged himself in the luxury of silver types, although not so rich a man as Plantin. In 1576 Thuanus paid a visit to Plantin, who, although not now in such good circumstances, still had seventeen presses at work, and the wages of his workmen amounted to 200 florins per day. But what redounds most to his credit was

1 Niceron, vol. XI.-Moreri,

the number of men of learning whom he retained in bis service, and rewarded with great liberality for their assistance in correcting the press. Among these were Victor Giselin; Theodore Pulman; Antony Gesdal; Francis Hardouin; Cornelius Kilien; and Francis Raphelengius, who became his son-in-law. Cornelius Kilien, one of the most learned and accurate of these, spent fifty years in this printing-house. The correctness, therefore, of Plantin's editions, with such aid, is not much a matter of surprise, and will appear still less so when it is added that he was so fastidious as not altogether to trust to the assistants now mentioned, nor even to rely on his own skill and knowledge, both of which were great, but used also to hang up the proof sheets, after undergoing every possible degree of correction, in some conspicuous place, promising rewards for the detection of errors. In this, likewise, it will be observed, he followed the example of Robert Stephens. Such care on the part of Plantin, with the beauty of his types, and the judicious choice he made of the authors to be printed, gave him very high reputation among the learned of Europe, who are unbounded in their praises of him, particularly Lipsius, Scaliger, Antonio, Baronius, and Arias Montanus, who expatiates on his merits in the introduction to what may be termed Plantin's capital work, the Antwerp Polyglot. The king of Spain gave him the title of archi-typographus, and accompanied this title with a salary sufficient to support it and his printing-office, and a kind of patent for the printing of certain works, particularly of the religious kind, with which, Bullart says, he almost exclusively served Europe and the Indies.

Besides his great establishment at Antwerp, Plantin set up another at Leyden, notwithstanding the troubles which prevailed in Holland; and a third at Paris. The king of France would have fain persuaded him to return to his native country, but he preferred remaining at Antwerp, where, as just noticed, the king of Spain for some time rendered his situation easy, and even splendid. The printing office at Leyden he bestowed on his son-in-law, Raphelengius; and took into partnership at Antwerp John Moret, who had married his second daughter. He gave likewise to Giles Beys, a Parisian, the office he had established at Paris, as a portion with his third daughter. After all this, and the constant expences of his living and establishment, he was enabled to leave a considerable