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/251

 A M Y O T. 21 j In both thcfe employments, which Thunnus greatly corn- v;t - fu ' I bins of. Henry 111. perhaps would have yielded to the ' ' v pruning felicitations of the bifhop of St. Flour, who had at- tended him on his journey into Poland, and made g'cat inte- reft for the port of great almoner ; but the duchefs of Savoy, the king's aunt, recommended Amyot fo earneflly to him, when he palled through Turin, on his return from Poland, that he was not only continued in his employment, hut a new honour was added to it for his fake: for when Henry III. named Amyot commander of the order of the Holy Ghoft, he decreed at the fame time, as a mark of refpecl to him, that all the great almoners of France fhould bcofcourfe commanders of that order. Amyot did not neglect hi ftudies in the midft of his honours, but revifed all his tranflations with great care, compared them with the Greek text, and al- tered many paflages : he defigned to give a more complete edition of them, with the various reading of divers manu- fcripts, but died before he had finifhed that work. He died the 6th of February, 1593, in the feventy-ninth year of his age. AMYRAUT (Moses), an eminent French divine, was born in September 1596, at Bourgueil, a fmall town of Touraine, of an ancient family originally from Orleans. Having gone through his courfe of philofophy, he was fenc to Poi<5tiers, to read law, to which he applied himfelfwith great alliduity, and is faid to have fpent fourteen hours a day in that ftudy. At the end of his fir ft year, he took the de- gree of licentiate : but Mr. Bouchereau, minifter of Saumur, advifinghim to ftudy divinity, and the reading of Calvin's Jn- ftitutions having ftrongly inclined him to follow this advice, he acquainted his father that he earneftly defired to be a clergyman, and obtained his afient, though not without a good deal of difficulty. He went to ftudy at Saumur, where he continued a confiderable time as ftudent of divinity. Upon hisadmiffion into orders, he was prefented to the church of St. Agnau, in the country of Mayne; where after having lived eighteen months, he was invited to Saumur, to fucceed Mr. Daille, appointed minifter of Charenton. About th fame time that the church of Saumur defited him for their mi- lufter, the academic council fixed upon him for profeflbr of divinity. His admiffion to the profeflbrfhip, with his pre- vious examination, and his inaugural thefis " De facerdotio '* Chrifti," redounded much to his reputation. P 4 to