was prefented with a cardinal's hat, and made chancellor of the Roman church, the next dignitary to the pope. The emperor Charles V. granted him great penfions, and when Leo broke with Cæfar, Francis I. to make a recompence for the lofs it would occafion to the cardinal, affigned him an annuity and preferments to the value of ten thousand ducats yearly, as he had be fore done to Lorenzo. His promotions in the church were beyond all decency, holding bishopricks in moft of the kingdoms in Europe; and Leo, after Lorenzo's death, appointed him governor of Florence. "In all thefe various fituations, Julio acted with confummate prudence, and by the confidence Leo placed in him, he plainly pointed him out as heir to the Medicean grandeur. There was none of the elder branch of the family to conteft it with him, and if there had, his vaft advantages would have fecured it to him against every oppo nent. chair about eight. His remains were depofited in a brick grave in St. Peter's church, but were afterwards removed by Paul III. to the church of St, Maria-fopra-Minerva. "Revenge, more than policy, made Leo the inveterate enemy of France; he remembered that the misfortunes of his house were in a great measure owing to that nation; but whenever his own or his family's intereft demanded it, he altered his conduct. He profeffed the utmoft affection for Francis I. at Bologna, where they had an interview, yet he took the firft opportunity to break his engagements with that monarch. He "Leo's excels of magnificence charmed the Romans; a medal was ftruck with Liberalitas Pontificia upon the reverfe, with a device fuitable to the motto. was the firft pontiff that had a medal elegantly wrought; his predeceffor began to firike them. Martin I. is the earliest who had one ftruck in honour of his memory. 6 "In this fituation was the houfe of Medici, when Leo, its head, "Leo's ambition and inclination was fuddenly called away by excets to enlarge the patrimony of St. of joy; for whilft he fat at fupper, Peter was equal to the of his prenews was brought him that the deceffor; but Julius left a full, French were beaten out of Italy; Leo an empty treafury. Other he cried out, God has been fopontificates, it was faid, expir• merciful to me, as to let me feeed at the death of a pope, but his 'three things, which I defired from the bottom of my heart:-To return with honour into Florence, whence I was banished with fhame; to have merit fufficient to advance me to the papacy; and to fee the French beaten out of Italy. In pronouncing of which laft words, he fell dead with the glafs he held in his hand. "This event took place December 2, 1521, when he had within a few days completed his forty eighth year, and fat in the papal continued long after. His nubounded magnificence and liberality, which his revenue, immenfe as it was, could not fupport, by producing the fale of indulgencies, began the Reformation. Some of them the pope had given to be raifed by fale, in particular provinces, to his relations and friends; Saxony was apportioned to his fifter Maddelene, the wife of Francifco Cibo, fon of Innocent VIII. not more from affinity to her than in gratitude to him, whofe family had treated treated the Medici in the kindeft manner after their expulfion from Florence. These were fold at fo great and extravagant a price, that it called forth Luther, and Luther, freedom from papal tyranny. "His affection to his family, by its excefs, became highly criminal, because neither juftice, honour, or gratitude, were any impediment to the promoting their intereft, forgetting for that purpofe every thing due to his facred character. It is faid he did not even pretend to believe in revelation. His mirth was that of a Bacchanalian. With all thefe exceffive defects, he will ever be remembered by the lovers of learning and tafte with veneration. His reign was the golden age of literature, and the arts were not lefs obliged to him, owing in a great measure to his father having felected thofe of the higheft celebrity in every fcience for his tutors and early companions. How much is it to be lamented, that he was not equally virtuous as learned and elegant." MEMOIRS Of BARON BORN. [From TRAVELS in HUNGARY, &c. by ROBERT TOWNSON, LL. D. &c.] HE Baron was born at Carlf with the celebrated Ferber, who "Tburg in Tranfylvania, of a in 1774 published his letters.—It was in this tour that he fo nearly loft his life, and where he was truck with that disease which embittered the rest of his days, and which was only rendered fupportable by a ftrong philofophic mind and active difpofition. "It was at Felfo-Banya where he met with this misfortune, as appears from his eighteenth letter to Mr. Ferber. He defcended here into a mine, where fire was used to detach the ore, to obferve the efficacy of this means, too foon after the fire had been extinguished; and whilft the mine was full of arfenical vapours raifed by the heat. noble family, and came early in life to Vienna, and ftudied under the Jefuits; who, no doubt, perceiving in him more than common abilities, and that he would one day be an honour to their order, prevailed out him to enter into it; but of this fociety he was a member only for about a year and a half. He then left Vienna and went to Prague, where, as it is the cuftom in Germany, he ftudied the law. As foon as he had completed his ftudies, he made a tour through a part of Germany, Holland, the Netherlands, and France; and returning to Prague, he engaged in the ftudies of natural hiftory, mining, and their connected branches; and in 1770 he was received into the department of the mines and int at Prague. As we learn from his letters, this year he made a tour, and vifited the principal mines of Hungary and Tranfylvania, and during it kept up a correfpondence mine was ftill full of fmoke." My long filence,' fays he to his friend Ferber, is the confequence of an unlucky accident, which had almost coft me my life. I defcended the Great Mine to fee the manner of applying the fire, and its effects on the mine, when the fire was hardly extinct, and the How How greatly he fuffered in his health by this accident appears from his letter which we mentioned when we spoke of Tokay; where it will be remembered he complained that he could hardly bear the motion of his carriage: upon this misfortune he haftened to Vienna. After this he was appointed at Prague counfellor of the mines. In 1771 he published a small work of the Jefuit Poda, on the machinery used about mines; and the next year his Lithophylacium Borneanum. This is the catalogue of his collection of foffils which he afterwards difpofed of to the hon. Mr. Greville. This work drew on him the attention of mineralogists, and brought him into correfpondence with the first men in this line. He was now made a member of the Royal Societies of Stockholm, Sienna and Padua; and in 1774, the fame honour was conferred on him by the Royal Society of London. "During his refidence in Bohemia, he did not apply himself to the bufinefs of his charge alone; but his active difpofition induced him to feek for opportunities of extending knowledge, and of being ufeful to the world. He took a part in the work entitled Portraits of the Learned Men and Artifts of Bohemia and Moravia. He was likewife concerned in the Acta Literaria Bohemiæ et Moraviæ; and the editor of the latter publicly acknowledges in the preface to it, how much Bohemian literature is indebted to him. Prague and Vienna were both without a public cabinet for the ufe of the ftudents: it was at his inftigation that government was induced to form one, and he himself affifted by his contributions and his labours. In 1775 he laid the foundation of a literary fociety, which published feveral volumes under the title of Memoirs of a private Society in Bohemia.' "His fame reaching the empress Mary Therefa, in 1776 the called him to Vienna to arrange and de fcribe the imperial collection: and about two years after, he published the fplendid work containing the Conchology: in the execution of this, I believe, he had fome af fiftance. The empress defrayed the expences for a certain number of copies. On the death of this pa tron the work was difcontinued, her fucceffor, the emperor Jofeph not favouring the undertaking. He had likewife the honour of inftructing the arch-duchefs Maria Anna in natural history, who was partial to this entertaining ftudy; and he formed and arranged for her a neat museum. In 1779 he was raifed to the office of Actual Counsellor of the court chamber (Hof Kammer) in the department of the mines and mint. This office detained him conftantly in Vienna, and engaged the chief part of his time. "The confequences of his miffortune at Felfo-Banya began now to be felt in the fevereft manner; he was attacked with the most excruciating colics, which rofe to fuch a degree as to threaten a speedy termination of his life and miferies. In this depth of torment he had recourfe to the ufual calmer of bo dily pain, opium; and a large portion of this being placed by the fide of him, which he was ordered only to take in small dofes; once brought to defperation through the intenfity of his pain, he fwallowed it at one draught. This brought on a lethargy, which lafted fourand-twenty hours; but when he awoke he was free of his pains. The disorder now attacked his legs and feet, particularly his right leg, and in this he was lame for the reft of of his life; fometimes the lame, nefs was accompanied by pain, fometimes not. But his feet by degrees withered, and he was obliged to fit, or lie, or lean upon a fopha; though fometimes he was fo well as to be able to fit upon a ftool, but not to move from one room to the other without affift ance. their meetings, differtations on fome fubject of Hiftory, Ethics, or Moral Philofophy, were read by the members; and commonly fome thing on the hiftory of ancient and modern myfteries, and fecret fo cieties. Thefe were afterwards published in the Diary for Freemafons, for the ufe of the initiat ed, and not for public fale.-la the winter they met occafionally, and held more public difcourfes, to which the members of the other lodges were allowed accefs. As moft of the learned of Vienna belonged to this lodge, it was very natural to fuppofe, that many of the differtations read here were not quite within the limits of the original plan of the fociety. It was thefe differtations, I believe, which gave rife to another peris odical work, entitled, Phyfica "His free and active genius led him to intereft himself in all the occurrences of the times, and to take an active part in all the inftitutions and plans for enlightening and reforming mankind. With thefe benevolent intentions he formed connections with the Free Mafons, whofe views in this part of the world were fomething more than eating and drinking, as may be conjectured by the laws and regulations made againft mafonry by the emperor Jofeph. Under The-lifche Arbeiten der einträchtigen refa, this order was obliged to keep itself very fecret in Auftria; but Jofeph, on his coming to the throne, tolerated it, and the baron founded in the Auftrian metropolis a lodge called the True Concord. This was no card club, or affociation for eating and drinking, where the leading members were chofen by their capacity for taking in folids and liquids, and where a good fong was confidered as a firft rate qualification; but a fociety of learned men, whofe lodge was a place of rendezvous for the literati of the capital. "No doubt the obftacles thefe gentlemen would find, to the progrefs of fcience and ufeful knowledge, in the church hierarchy, and in the cabals of courtiers, would draw their attention to political fubjects; and fubjects were really difcuffed here which the church had forbid to be spoken of, and which the government muft have withed not to be thought of. At Freunde in Wien,' which was continued for fome time by the Ba ron and his brother Mafons. He was likewife active in extirpating fuperftitions of arious kinds which had crept into the other lodges, and equally zealous in giving to thefe focieties fuch an organization as might render them ufeful to the public. "The Raron, and many others of his lodge, belonged to the fociety of the Illuminated.' This was no difhonour to him: the views of this order, at least at first, seem to have been commendable; they were the improvement of mankind, not the deftruction of fociety. Such inftitutions are only useful or dangerous, and to be approved of or condemned, according to the ftate of fociety; and this was before the French revolution, and in a country lefs enlightened than almost any other part of Germany. So zeal ous a friend was he to them, that when the elector of Bavaria or dered 1 dered all those in his fervice to quit this order, he was fo difpleafed that he returned the academy of Munich the diploma they had fent him on their receiving him amongft them, publicly avowed his attachment to the order, and thought it proper to break off all further connection with Bavaria as a member of its literary fociety. The Free Mafons did not long retain the patronage of their fovereign; the emperor Jofeph foon became jealous of their influence, and put them under fuch reftrictions, and clogged them with fuch incunbrances, as to amount almost to a prohibition; and as fuch they act ed, for the fociety found it neceffary to diffolve. What raised the baron fo high in the public opinion, was his was his knowledge of mineray, and his fuccefsful experiments in metallurgy, and principally in the process of amalgamation. The ufe of quickfilver in extracting the noble metals from their ores, was not a difcovery of the baron's, nor of the century in which he lived; yet he extended fo far its application in metallurgy as to form a brilliant epoch in this most important art. After he had at great expence made many private experiments, and was convinced of the utility of his method, he laid before the emperor an account of his difcovery, who gave orders that a decifive experiment on a large quantity of ore fhould be made at Schemnitz in Hungary. To fee this he invited many of the most celebrated chymifts and metallurgifts of Europe; and Ferber, Elhujer, Charpentier, Trebra, Poda, and many more were prefent, and approved of his invention. On this general approbation he published, by order of the emperor, his Treatife on the Procefs of Amalgamation, with a great many engravings of the requifite inftruments and machinery. To fuppose that his fuccefs, whilft it brought him fame and emolument, did not draw upon him the envy and ill will of many of his brother me tallurgifts and affociates in office, would fhow a great ignorance of what is daily paffing in common life. Envy has its hare even in maintaining order in fociety: it is this which tends to keep the great from rifing higher, whilst a contrary paflion lifts up the little, or prevents them from falling lower. "Though great cabals were raised against him, and against the introduction of his method, yet the advantages of it in many cafes were fo evident, that the emperor ordered it to be used in his Hungarian mines; and as a recompenfe for his difcovery, gave him for ten years the third part of the favings arifing from its application, and four per cent. of this third part for the next twenty years. Even this did not defend him from being ftill haraffed by his enemies; obftacles were still thrown in the way to prevent the introduction and fuccefs of his difcovery, and to defraud him of his well-earned recompenfe. "Though he fuffered very much in the latter part of his life, yet this did not prevent him from continuing his literary purfuits. In 1790 he published his Catalogue methodique raifonné' of the collection of fotfils of Mifs Raab, which had been chiefly formed by his donations. This work, elegantly printed in two volumes, was well received by the public, and he was writing the Fafti Leopoldini,' and a mineralogical work, when death put an end to his ufeful life and to his fufferings. 6 "Notwithstanding the varied advice of his phyficians, his disease |