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/260

 ANCOURT. them A]. His merit In this way procured him a very favourable reception at court *, and Lewis XIV. (hewed him many marks of his favour. His fprightly converfation and polite beha- viour made his company agreeable to all the men of figure both at court and in the city, and the moft confiderable per- fons were extremely pleafed to have him at their houfes. .189. Having taken a journey to Dunkirk, to fee his eldeft daugh- ter who lived there, he took the opportunity of paying his compliments to the elector of Bavaria, who was then at Bruf- fels : this prince received him with the utmoft civility, and having retained him a confiderabJe time, difmifled him, with a prefect of a diamond valued at a thoufand piftoles : he Jikewife rewarded him in a very generous manner, when, upon his coming to Paris, Ancourt compofed an entertain- ment for his diverfion. Ancourt began at length to grow weary of the theatre, which he quitted in Lent 1718, and re- tired to his eftate of Courcelles le Roy, in Berry ; where he applied himfelf wholly to devotion, and compofed a tranfla- tion of David's Pfalms in verfe, and a facred tragedy, which were never printed. He died the 6th of December, 1726, being fix ty- five years of age. i [A] The plays which he wrote are afterwards collected into five volumes, fifty-two in all, moft of which were then into feven, and at laft into nine, printed feparately at the time when This laft edition is the moft complete. they were rirft reprefented j they wrc ANDERSON (fir EDMUND), a younger brother of a good family in Lincolnshire, descended originally from Scot- land. He received the firft part of his education in the country, and went afterwards to Lincoln college in Oxford : from thence he removed to the Inner Temple, where he read law with great affiduity, and in due time was called to the bar ; and in the nineteenth year of the reign^pf queen Eliza- beth, he was appointed one of the queen's ferjeants at law. Some time after, he was made a judge ; and, in 1581, being upon the Norfolk circuit at Bury, he exerted himfelf againft the famous Browne, the author of thofe opinions which were afterwards maintained by a fe& called, from him, Brownifts: Strype** for this conduct of judge Anderfon, the bilhop of Norwich Annals, wrote a letter to treafurer Burleigh, defiring the faid judge voi.iii.p.i6. m jg|, t rece i ve tn e queen's thanks. In 1582, he was made lord chief juftice of the common pleas ; and the year follow- ing received the honour of knighthood. In 1586, he was appointed one of the commiilionefs for trying Mary queen of Scots : on the I2th of October, the fame year, he fat in judgement