Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/173

 A L C I A T., J7 wrote to his friend Francis Calvus, after lie had withdrawn from Milan to Avignon. He published many I.uv-bo. and fomc notes upon Tacitus : his Krnhlun h.ivc been much efteemed, and many learned men have thi>u"ht th< m v rt v iy to be adorned with their commentaries. Scaligcr the tl who was not lavifh of praifcs, (peaks thus of them : " 1 i> " not happened (fays he) to fee any thing of Alciat but his " Emblems, and they are inch as may be compared with an/ " work of genius; they are 1'vvcet, they are pun, tlvy are " elegant, and not without Itrcn-tli, :;nJ tl^e fentimentl DC Petf* " (uch as may beofufein li.v. " Thefel m' 1 un>- h ive been 1 '" tranflated into French, Italian, and Spanifh. In his " Parerga," a work he publilhed in his latter day?, he r^tracleil ninny things which the fire of youth had made him utter precipitate- ly; and when his " Difpuncliones" were reprinted in 1529, IK- fignified, that in retouching that book, he had not pretended to give his approbation to all he had infcrted there in his younger years. In 1695, they printed at Leydcn a letter, which Alciat did not intend for the public; it was addrciied to his colleague Bernard Mattius, and contained a ftrong dc- fcription of the abufes of the monadic life. Francis Alciat fucceeded to the chair as well as fortune of Andrew, and foon made himfelf famous for his law-leitures at Pavia. Cardinal Borromeo, who had been his fcholar, fent for him to Rome, and brought him into fuch favour with pope Pius IV. that he procured him a biftiopric, the office of datary or chancellor of Rome, and a cardinal's hat. There are fome treatifes of cardinal Alciat, who died at Rome in April 1580, being about fifty years old. ALCMAN, a lyric poet, who flourished in the ayth Olym- piad. Some fay that he was of Lacedsemon, others that he was born at Sardis, a city in Lvdia. He compofed feveral poems, none of which are remaining, but fragments quoted by Athenaeus and other ancient writers. He was a man of a very amorous conftitution, is accounted the father of love- Ath-n. verfes, and faid to have firft introduced the cuftom of finging ' ! them in public. Megaloftrata was one of his miftrefles, who p ' likewife wrote fome poetical pieces. Alcman is reported to have been one of the greateft eaters of his age ; upon which Mr. Bayle remarks, that fuch a quality would have been ex- tremely inconvenient, if poetry had been then upon fuch a footing as it has been often fince, not able to procure the poet bread. He is faid to have died a very linguLr doth, v;/,. tor:,,t*nh.i bavtf been eaten up with lice, 6 ) llj ) r-4'4- ALCOCK