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/236

 2op AMES. Anecdotes a fliip-chandler at Wapping. Late in his life he took to the b f Nichols ^ uc *7 ^ antlc l uit i es J an ^ befides his quarto volume [A], con- taining accounts of our earlieft printers and their works, he publifhed a lift in 8vo. of Englifh heads engraved and mezzo* tinto, and drew up the " Parentalia" from Mr. Wren's papers. He died O61. 7, 1759 ; and his coins, medals, {hells s foflils, ores, minerals, natural and artificial curioHties, infcrip- tions, and antiquities, were fold by Langford, Feb. 20 and 21, i/6o; his library and prints by the fame, May 5, &c. 1760. Mr. Ames's daughter, fince dead, was married to Captain Dampier, late a captain of an Eaft-Indiaman, now an officer in the Eaft-lndia houfe, and we believe deicendant or relation of the voyager of that name. [A] "Typographical Antiquities j " time, 1749." Of this ufeful book, ' being an Hjftorical Account of Print- which has long been fcarce, a new edi- '< ing in England ; with fome memoirs tion has been fome time in the preft, " of our ancient printer?, and a regifter with large improvements by Mr. Her- " of the books printed by them, from bert, from whom more ample memoirc " the year 1477, to the year 1600. With of Mr. Ames may be exp idled, with '' an Appendix, concerning printing in his portrait. is Scotland and Ireland to the prefent Kippis AMHURST (NICHOLAS), was born at Marden in Kent, care of his grandfather, a clergyman, he received his grammatical education at Merchant-Taylor's fchool in London ; and thence was removed to St. John's College, Oxford, but expelled for the libertinifm of his principles, the irregularity of his conduct, and fome offence which he had given to the head of the college. From his own account of the matter, in the dedication of his poems to Dr. Delaune, prefident of St. John's, and in his " Terrae Fi- lius," we may collecT: that he wifhed to have it underftood, that he was folely perfecuted for the liberality of his fenti- ments, and his attachment to the caufe of the Revolution and f the Hanover fuccefiion ; but he had probably been gui!ty of real mifbehaviour. Whatever weie the caufes of fiis expulfion, his lefcntment, on the account of it, was very great. He made it therefore his bufmefs to fatirize the Teaming and difcipline of the univerfity of Oxford, and to expofe the cha'iactery of its moft nfpedlable members. This he did in a poem, publifhed in i 24, called " Oculus Bri- tanniae," and in his " Tenae Filius," a work in which there is a confiderabie portion of wit, intermixed with much abufe and
 * 10 %' Britl but in what year is uncertain. Under the proteclion and