compiler of a very useful work, called "Lexicon, sive Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus Patrum Græcorum:" the best edition of which is that of Amsterdam, 1728, 2 vols. fol. He had a son, HENRY Suicer, distinguished by some literary productions, who was a professor, first at Zurich, then at Heidelberg, and who died in 1705.1

SUIDAS, author of a celebrated Greek Lexicon, is a personage of whom we are unable to give many particulars. Who he was, or when he lived, are points of great uncertainty; no circumstances of his life having been recorded, either by himself or any other writer. Politian and some others have been of opinion that no such person ever existed; but that Suidas was a real person, appears, not only from his name being found in all the manuscripts of his Lexicon, but from his being often, mentioned by Eustathius in his Commentary upon Homer. The learned have differed in the same manner concerning the age of Suidas; some, as Grotius, supposing him to have lived under Constantinus, the son of Leo, emperor of the East, who began to reign in the year 912; while others have brought him even lower than Eustathius, who is known to have lived in 1180. The learned Bentley thinks that as he has referred a point of chronology to the death of the emperor Zimisces, that is, to the year of Christ 975: we may infer that he wrote his Lexicon between that time and the death of the succeeding emperor, which was in 1025. This Lexicon is a compilation of matters from various authors, sometimes made with judgment and diligence, but often from bad copies; and he therefore sometimes gives his reader corrupt and spurious words, instead of those that are pure and genuine. He also mixes things of a different kind, and belonging to different authors, promiscuously; and some of his examples to illustrate the signification of words are very little to the purpose. His Lexicon, however, is a very useful book, and a storehouse of all sorts of erudition. Scholars by profession have all prized it highly; as exhibiting many excellent passages of ancient authors whose works are lost. It is to be ranked with the Bibliotbeca of Photius and works of that kind. The "Etymologicon Magnum" has been ascribed to Suidas, but without sufficient authority, though it may have been composed in the same period with the Lexicon.

1 Moreri.-Dict. Hist.-Saxii Onomast.

Suidas's Lexicon was first published at Milan, 1499, in Greek only it has since been printed with a Latin version: but the best edition, indeed the only good one, is that of Kuster, Gr. & Lat. Cambridge, 1705, 3 vols. folio. To this should be added Toup's valuable "Emendationes in Suidam," Oxon. 1790, 4 vols. 8vo. Mr. Taylor had begun an appendix to Suidas, four sheets only of which were printed off at the time of his death, April 4, 1766. It had the following title, "Appendix notarum in Suidæ Lexicon, ad paginas edit. Cantab. 1705, adcommodatarum; colligente, qui et suas etiam aliquammultas adjecit, Joanne Taylor." This, we believe, was never finished.'

SULLY (MAXImilian de BethUNE, duke of), one of the most able and honest ministers that France ever had, was descended from an ancient and illustrious house, and born in 1559 at Rosni, descended from a younger branch of the ancient counts of Flanders. His father was the baron de Rosni. He was bred in the opinions and doctrine of the reformed religion, and continued to the end of his life constant in the profession of it, which seems to have fitted him for the important services to which Providence had designed him. The queen of Navarre, after the death of her husband Antony de Bourbon, returned to Bearn, where she openly professed Calvinism. She sent for her son Henry from the court of France to Pau in 1556, and put him under a preceptor, who trained him up in the Protestant religion. She declared herself the protectress of the Protestants in 1566; and went to Rochelle, where she devoted her son to the defence of the Reformed religion. In that quality Henry, then prince of Bearn, was declared chief of the party; and followed the army from that time to the peace, which was signed at St. Germains, August 11, 1570. He then returned to Bearn, and made use of the quiet that was given him, to visit his estates and his government of Guyenne, after which he went and settled in Rochelle, with his mother.

The advantages granted to the Protestants by the peace of St. Germains, raised a suspicion in the breasts of their leaders, that the court of France was acting treacherously, and that in reality nothing else was intended by the peace, than to prepare for the most dismal tragedy that ever was

1 Moreri. Saxii Onomast.-Berrington's Middle Ages.-Clarke's Bibliographical Dictionary.

acted; and the truth was, that the queen dowager Catharine de Medicis, and her son Charles IX. being now couvinced that the Protestants were too powerful to be subdued by force, were determined to extirpate them by stratagem. They, however, dissembled their intentions; and, during the whole year 1571, talked of nothing but faithfully observing the treaties of entering into a closer correspondence with the Protestants, and carefully preventing all occasions of rekindling the war. To remove all possible suspicion, the court of France proposed a marriage between Charles the IXth's sister, and Henry prince of Bearn; and feigned, at the same time, as if they would prepare a war against Spain, than which nothing could be more agreeable to Henry. These things, enforced with the appearance of great frankness and sincerity, entirely gained the queen of Navarre; who, though she continued irresolute for some months, yet yielded about the end of 1571, and prepared for the journey to Paris, as was proposed, in May 1572.

Sully's father was one of those who doubted the sincerity of the court, and conceived such strong apprehensions, that when the report of the court of Navarre's journey to Paris first reached him, he could not give credit to it. Firmly persuaded that the present calm would be of short continuance, he made haste to take advantage of it, and prepared to shut himself up with his effects in Rochelle, when every one else thought of leaving it. But the queen of Navarre having informed him of her design, and requested him to join her in her way to Vendome, he went, and took Sully, now in his twelfth year, along with him. He found a general security at Vendome, aud an air of satisfaction on every face; to which, though he durst not object in public, yet he made remonstrances to some of the chiefs in private. These were considered as the effects of weakness and timidity; and therefore, not caring to seem wiser than persons of greater understandings, he seemed to incline to the general opinion. He went to Rosni, to put himself into a condition to appear at the magnificent court of France; but, before he went, presented his son to the prince of Bearn, in the presence of the queen his mother, with great solemnity, and assurances of the most inviolable attachment. Sully did not return with his father to Rosni, but went to Paris in the queen of Navarre's train. He applied himself closely to his studies, without neglecting to pay a proper

court to the prince his master; and lived with a governor and a valet de chambre in a part of Paris where almost all the colleges stood, and continued there till the bloody catastrophe which happened soon after.

Nothing could be more kind than the reception which the queen of Navarre, her children, and principal servants, met with from the king and queen; nor more obliging, than their treatment of them. The queen of Navarre died, and some historians make no doubt but she was poisoned; yet the whole court appeared sensibly affected, and went into deep mourning. Still many of the Protestants, among whom was Sully's father, suspected the designs of the court; and had such convincing proofs, that they quitted the court, and Paris itself, or at least lodged in the suburbs. They warned prince Henry to be cautious; but he listened to nothing; and some of his chiefs were as incredulous, and the admiral de Coligni in particular, though one of the wisest and most sagacious men in the world. The fact to be perpetrated was fixed for the 24th of August, 1572, and is well known by the name of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The feast of St. Bartholomew fell this year upon a Sunday; and the massacre was perpetrated in the evening.

All the necessary measures having been taken, the ringing of the bells of St. Germain l'Auxerrois for matins was the signal for beginning the slaughter. The admiral de Coligni was first murdered by a domestic of the duke of Guise, the duke himself staying below in the court, and his body was thrown out of the window. (See COLIGNI.) The king, as Daniel relates, went to feast himself with the sight of it; and, when those that were with him took notice that it was somewhat offensive, is said to have used the reply of the Roman emperor Vitellius, "The body of a dead enemy always smells sweet." All the domestics of the admiral were afterwards slain, and the slaughter was at the same time begun by the king's emissaries in all parts of the city. Tavanes, a marshal of France, who had been page to Francis I. and was at that time one of the counsellors and confidants of Catharine de Medicis, ran through the streets of Paris, crying, "Let blood, let blood! bleeding is as good in the month of August, as in May!" Among the most distinguished of the Protestants that perished was Francis de la Rochefoucault; who having been at play part of the night with the king, and finding himself seized in bed by men in masques, thought they were the king and his courtiers, who

came to divert themselves with him. During this carnage, Sully's safety is thus accounted for by himself: "I was in bed," says he, "and awaked from sleep three hours after midnight by the sound of all the bells and the confused cries of the populace. My governor, St. Julian, with my valet de chambre, went hastily out to know the cause; and I never afterwards heard more of these men, who, without doubt, were among the first that were sacrificed to the public fury. I continued alone in my chamber dressing myself, when in a few moments I saw my landlord enter, pale, and in the utmost consternation. He was of the reformed religion; and, having learned what the matter was, had consented to go to mass, to preserve his life, and his house from being pillaged. He came to persuade me to do the same, and to take me with him: I did not think proper to follow him, but resolved to try if I could gain the college of Burgundy, where I had studied; though the great distance between the house where I then was, and the college, made the attempt very dangerous. Having disguised myself in a scholar's gown, I put a large prayer-book under my arm, and went into the street. I was seized with horror inexpressible at the sight of the furious murderers; who, running from all parts, forced open the houses, and cried aloud, Kill! kill! massacre the Huguenots!' The blood which I saw shed before my eyes, redoubled my terror. I fell into the midst of a body of guards; they stopped me, questioned me, and were beginning to use me ill, when, happily for me, the book that I carried was perceived, and served me for a passport. Twice after this I fell into the same danger, from which I extricated myself by the same good fortune. At last I arrived at the college of Burgundy, where a danger still greater than any I had yet met with awaited me. The porter having twice refused me entrance, I continued standing in the midst of the street, at the mercy of the furious murderers, whose numbers increased every moment, and who were evidently seeking for their prey; when it came into my mind to ask for La Faye, the principal of this college, a good man, by whom I was tenderly beloved. The porter, prevailed upon by some small pieces of money which I put into his hand, admitted me; and my friend carried me to his apartment, where two inhuman priests, whom I heard mention Sicilian vespers, wanted to force me from him, that they might cut me in pieces; saying, the order was, not to spare even infants at the breast. All the good man could