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/194

 158 .ALEXANDER. caufe the explication of the natural age in which they were wriUen. In world flievvs the infinite wifc*om of the this piece the author gives -j large ac- Deity. This (fays Mr. Bayle) confifls cot-nt of the three cities which wore of a great many vedes, which have no mod eminent fur learning, Athens, fmal! /hare of elegance and harmony, if Rome, and Paris. we confidcr the barbarous and Gothic ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRQ, a Neapolitan lawyer of great learning, who flourifhed towards the end of the fif- teenth and beginning of the fixteenth century. He followed the profefiion of the law, fir ft at Naples, afterwards at Rome j but he devoted all the time he could fpare to the ftudy of po- lite literature, and at length entirely left the bar, that he might lead a more cafy and agreeable life with the Mufes. Alexand. ab't When I law," fays he, " that the counfellors could notde- ibieron) "*" ^ ent1 nor a ^^ an y one a g a i n ft l ' ne power or favour of the lib. ij. " mighty, I faid it was in vain we took fo much pains, and cap. i. fatigued ourfelves wuh fo much ftucly in controversies of " law, and with learning furh a variety of cafes fo exactly " reported; when I faw the judgements paffed according to " the temerity of every remifs and corrupt perfon who pre- " fsded over the laws, and gave determinations not accord- " ing to equity, but favour ;ind affection." The particulars of his life are to be gathered from his work intitled " Genia- lium dierum :" we are there informed that he lodged at Rome in ahotife that was haunted ; and he relates many fuiprizing Ibid. lib. ^.particulars about the ghoft. He fays alfo, that when he was very young, he went to the lectures of Philelphus, who ex;- plained at Rome the *'Tufculan Queftions" of Cicero ; he was there alfo when Nicholas Perot and Domitius Calderinus read their public lectures upon Martial. Some fay that he aled as prothonotary of the kingdom of Naples, and that he dif- charged this office with great honour; but this is not men- tioned in his work. The particular time when he died is not known, but he was buried in the rnonaftery of the Olivets. Tiraqueau wrote a learned commentary upon his work, which vas printed at Lyons in 1587, and reprinted at Leyden in 1673, with the notes of Denis Godfrey, Chriftopher Colc- rus, and Nicholas Mercerus. ALEXANDER (NOEL), an indefatigable writer of the J/th century, born at Roan in Normandy, 1639. After desHomrr.es finishing his rtudies at Roan, he entered into the order of illuftres, Dominican friars, and was profefted there in 1655. Soon after he went to Paris, to go through a courfe of philofophy and divinity in the great convent, where he diftinguifhecl himfelf