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/232

 196 AMBROSE. eafy and natural turn to every thing he treats of, and is not without ftrength and pathos when there is occafion for it. This is part of the character which Du Pin gives him as a writer: but Erafmus tells us that he h.is many quaint and affe&cd leniences, and frequently very obfcure ones ; and it is certain that his writings are intermixed with many flrange and peculiar opinions. He maintained, that all men indiffe- rently are to pafs through a fiery trial at the laft day ; that even the juft are to fuffer it, and to be purged from their fins, but the unjuft are to continue in it for ever ; that the faithful will be raifed gradually ac the laft day, according to the degree of their pirticular merit; that the bow which God promifed Noah to place in the firmament after the deiuge, as a fign that DalisEus r Dehe never intended to drown the world again, was not to be t r e r ^ ufu ?a ~ under flood of the rainbow, which can never appear in the p. 870. n 'g nt but fome vifible token of the Almighty. He carries the efteem of virginity and celibacy fo far, that he feems to regatd matrimony as an indecent thing. Paulinus wrote his life, snd dedicated it to St. Augufiin : it is prefixed to St. Am- brofe's works, the beft edition of which is reckoned to be that publifhed by the Benedictine monks, in two volumes in folio, at Paris, in 1686 and 1690. AMELIUS, feePLoriNus. AMELOT DE LA HOUSSAI (NICHOLAS), born at Or- leans in 1634, was much efteemed at the court of France, J!V!P, and appointed fecretary of an embafly which that court fent Nouvei.de to the commonwealth of Venice, as appears by the title of 1684. ' Trent; but he aftewards publifiied writings whi_h gave fuch torn. i. offence, that he was irnprifoned in the Baitile. The firft P-457- works he printed were the *' Hiiipry of the Government of Venice," and that of the " Ufcocks," a people cf Croatia: in 1683, he publiflied his tranflations into French of " Ma- crmveFs Prince," and father Paul's " Hiftory of the Councii of Trent," and " Political Difcourfes" of his own upon Ta- citus. Thefe performances were well received by the public. He did not prefix his own name to the two laft mentioned works, but concealed himfelf under that of La Mothe Joffevah His tranflation of father Paul was attacked by the partizans of the pope's unbounded power and authority. In France, however, it met with great fuccefs ; all the advocates for the liberty of the Gallican church promoting the fuccefs of it to the utmoft of their power, though at the fame time there were
 * 8 R Ltrci, his inflation of father Paul's Hiftory of the Council of