ed be God's majesty) I found myself at daybreak safe in a christian country, and here I now am, on a pilgrimage to his holy church.' Every body gives me noble alms when they hear this." And then he turned to Nobrega, "Well brother, have not I won the wager?" Nobrega by this time had made so good a supper, that he did not longer think it necessary to keep his patience. "Thieves and enemies of God," cried he, "who steal the alms of the poor, you all deserve to be hanged, and I shall accuse you to the magistrate!" At this unexpected threat away they all ran out of the hos pital as fast as they could.

When it was determined that jesuit missionaries should be sent to Brazil, Simam Rodriguez, who had established the order in Portugal, would fain have gone himself; but this not being permitted, he nominated Nobrega to be the head of the mission.. His five companions were P. Leonardo Nunez, P. Juan de Aspilcueta Navarro, P. Antonio Peres, and the lay brethren Vicente Rodriguez, and Diogo Jacome. They set sail with Thomé de Sousa, the first governor-general of Brazil, on the first of February 1549.

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These men immediately began that system of kindness and conciliation towards the natives of South America from which the Jesuits never deviated, and on which they established their memorable empire in Paraguay. brega was as able a statesman as he was a missionary. Thomé de Souza and his successors consulted him and were directed by him in all affairs of importance, and to him it is owing that the French did not succeed in establishing themselves in Rio Janeiro, and dividing Brazil with the Portuguese, or ejecting them from it. He was nominated vice-provincial of Brazil in 1550, and provincial in 1553, when that country was made a separate province. He died in 1570, on the eighteenth of October, a remarkable day to him, for it was his birth-day, and on that day also he entered the company. He was only fifty-three at his death, but fairly worn out with the fatigues of a missionary life. Nobrega was assuredly an able and excellent man, and there are few lives in ecclesiastical biography that will better bear examination than his. One miracle is recorded of him, which, if the record be true, discovers considerable ingenuity. Thomé de Sousa would never eat of the head of any bird, beast, or fish, in honour of John the Baptist's head. Nobrega on their voyage endeavoured to persuade him that this was a foolish superstition. One day, after a vain

argument upon the subject, he said to him, "Order a hook and line to be thrown out, and see what God will determine concerning it." This was done, and to the astonishment of all present, when the hook was drawn up, the head of a fish without a body was hanging on it. The governor was convinced; the Jesuits record the story as a miracle, and if the reader do not give them the credit of having invented it, he may admire Nobrega's slight of hand. Baltazar. Tellez. Sim. Vasconcellos.-R. S.

NOCETI, CHARLES, an Italian Jesuit who flourished in the eighteenth century, was born at Pontre-Moli, but in what year we are not in formed. After taking the vows, and completing his academical studies, he was appointed professor of divinity in the college belonging to the society of Jesus at Rome. Afterwards he was made coadjutor to father Turano, penitentiary of St. Peter; and he was appointed one of the examiners of bishops. He died at Rome in the year 1759. He was the author of "Veritas Vindicata," in two volumes; which is a criticism on the "Theologia Christiana" of father Concina, and has excited considerable attention among the Italian divines. Noceti also cultivated an acquaintance with the Muses, and acquired some reputation by publishing a volume of "Eclogues," and poems "On the Rainbow," and "On the Aurora Borealis." Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M.

NOETUS, after whom his followers were called Noetians, is classed by the orthodox fathers among the heretics of the third century. Basnage places him about the year 240; Fabricius about 245. Epiphanius, in his work against heresies, says that he was of Ephesus in Asia; but in his summary or recapitulation, he says that he was of Smyrna. In his larger work he says, that he "taught a doctrine not held by the prophets, or apostles, or the church after them. For such was his pride, that he dared to say, that the father suffered. And with the like arrogance he said that he himself was Moses, and his brother Aaron.” For persisting in these notions, he was expelled out of the church, together with those who were of the same opinion with him. St. Augustine ascribes to him the notion, " that Christ was also the Father himself and the Holy Ghost;" and in his article of the Sabellians, he says, that they "are reckoned to have borrowed their opinion from Noctus. Nor do I know any good reason why Epiphanius should make two heresies of them, for their opinions seem to be the same; only Sabellius

was better known than Noetus; for very few, at that time, knew any thing of the Noetians, but Sabellians were often mentioned." Theodoret says, that he "was of Smyrna. He revived the heresy which one Epigonus first published, and Cleomenes maintained after him. The sum of their heresy is this: that there is one God and father, the creator of all things, not appearing when he thinks fit, appearing when he pleaseth; and that the same is invisible and visible, begotten and unbegotten; unbegotten from the beginning, begotten when he pleased to be born of a virgin; impassible and immortal, and again passible and mortal. For when he was impassible, they say, he willingly suffered on the cross. Him Him they call both son and father, as occasion of fers." After quoting these several statements of the ancient fathers, Beausobre, adverting to the charge preferred against the Noetians of maintaining that the father was born, and suffered, and died, and was Christ, declares, "that this is so absurd, and so manifestly contrary to many texts of the New Testament, that it appears scarce possible it should be maintained by any reasonable man; which makes him suspect, that this was not the opinion of those persons, but a consequence, which the orthodox drew from their principles." The charge brought against him by Epiphanius, of pretending that he was Moses, and his brother, Aaron, the same candid critic thinks to be "An extravagance, that is not at all credible, and that renders the rest of the history more than suspected. The truth," says he, "is this: Noetus and his brother pretended to defend the doctrine of the unity of God taught by Moses and Aaron, and to be sent to cleanse the church from the heathen error of the plurality of Gods." Upon the whole, we think that a comparison of the different testimonies of ancient writers will render it probable, as the judicious Lardner modestly expresses himself, that Noetus, and others who agreed with him, believed in one divine person only, and denied a distinct and proper personality of the word and spirit; or, in other words, that the Noetian was the same with the Sabellian creed. Epiphanii Hæres. LVII. num. i. & Anaceph. num. xi. Augustin. de Hær. num. xxxvi. Theodoret. Her. Fab. lib. iii. cap. 3. Basnag. Ann. 239. Bum. iii. Beausobre Hist. de Manich. par. ii. lib. iii. ch. 6. Dupin. Lardner's Gred. part ii. vol. IV. chap. 41.—M.

NOGAROLA, LEWIS, an Italian man of letters, was descended from an illustrious fa

mily, and born at Verona towards the commencement of the sixteenth century. He applied with great success to the study of the Greek language, and acquired a high reputation by the various Latin versions of books written in that tongue, which he gave to the public. In 1545, he was appointed one of three commissioners to whom was committed the care of supplying Verona with provisions in a time of scarcity; and soon afterwards he was sent to the council of Trent, where he gained much applause by a discourse pronounced by him before that assembly, which was committed to the press. In 15549 he was one of the ambassadors deputed by the city of Verona to compliment that excellent philosopher and celebrated statesman Francis Venieri, on his exaltation to the dignity of doge of Venice; on which occasion Nogarola was made a knight of that republic. After his return to his native city, in the year 1555, he was appointed president of the jurisdiction over the workpeople in the silk manufactories. He accompanied Guy Ubaldi, duke of Urbino, when he went to Rome, to take the command of the troops in the states of the church, to which he had been nominated by pope Julius III. He died at Verona in the year 1559. In the year 1532, he published at Verona, in quarto, a Latin translation of a work attributed to St. John Damascenus, which had appeared in Greek during the preceding year, on the subject "De iis qui in fidem dormierunt." In 1549, he published at Venice, "Apostolica Institutiones in parvum Libellum collectæ," quarto, to which he annexed his discourse delivered before the council of Trent. In 1552, he printed at the same place, in quarto, a Latin treatise relating to the periodical increase of the Nile, from a scarce work printed at Milan in 1526, in quarto, under the title of "Timotheus, sive de Nilo," &c. This work was followed by "Platonicæ Plutarchi Quæstiones in Latinum versæ, & Annotationibus illustratæ," printed at Venice in 1552, quarto. After this he undertook the translation of a work of Ocellus Lucanus, "De universa Natura," from a manuscript sent to Rome by Basil Zanchi, a Bergamese poet; but ill health re tarded his progress in this work, which he was not able to finish before the year 1558. It made its appearance at Venice in 1559, and was reprinted at Heidelberg in 1598, and at Cambridge in 1671. A new translation of this work was printed at Bologna in 1646, by Charles Emmanuel Vizzani, in which he has

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inserted the learned notes of Nogarola. Our author also published a Latin "Letter to Adam Fumano, Canon of Verona, on the Persons of illustrious Italian Families who have written in Greek;" which is given in the Venice edition of the work of Ocellus, in the Opuscula Mythologica," &c. published at Cambridge in 1671, and in the "Supplementa et Observationes ad Vossium de Historicis Græcis et Latinis," by John Albert Fabricius, published at Hamburg in 17c9. The other works of Nogarola are, "Scholia ad Themistii Paraphrasim in Aristotelis Librum Tertium de Aniina," Venice, 1570, with a Latin translation of that work; "Disputatio super Reginæ Britannorum Divortio," quarto; and "Oratio pro Vincentinis ad Maximilianum." Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M.

NOIR, JOHN LE, a celebrated French divine and able, though an intemperate, defender of the principles of Jansenius in the seventeenth century, was the son of a counsellor of the presidial court of Avignon, the date of whose birth is not known. Possessing excellent natural abilities, which were improved by a liberal education, he was ordained priest, and acquired very high reputation at Paris, la Fléche, Belesme, and various other cities, by his qualifications as a preacher. In reward of his merit, he was promoted to a canonry and prebend in the cathedral church of Seez. Jealous of his fame, and hostile to him on account of his having adopted the augustinian doctrine of grace, the Jesuits left no means unattempted of injuring his credit, and even directed against him the fury of a number of fanatics who appeared in Normandy. These fanatics assembled at Argentan, where le Noir was preaching a course of Advent and Lent sermons, and having erected an image of the virgin at the crossing of two streets, chanted litanies before it every evening, into which were introduced the words, "Virgo extirpatrix Jansenistarum." Under the feet of this image was the figure of a large black serpent, by which they meant to designate the preendary of Seez. Some time afterwards they came in procession to Seez, with a fanatical licentiate of divinity at their head, and as soon as they entered the city the men began to chant, after the manner of the litany, "Lord, deliver us from the Jansenists;" to which the women added in turn, "Good Lord, deliver

The civil power, however, now thought proper to interfere, and after committing the ring-leaders to prison, dispersed the rest.

Before the prisoners could obtain their liberty, besides being enjoined a severe penance, they were obliged to wait on the prebendary of Seez at his house, and ask his pardon. After this M. le Noir had a contest with his bishop, who advanced a claim of first-fruits on the incumbents dependent upon his chapter. This claim our prebendary resisted with unbending firmness, as well as some other exactions attempted by his diocesan; and he exerted great spirit in exposing and checking abuses which had the sanction of the bishop's licence. Provoked at his intrepid opposition to his designs, the bishop of Seez obtained a lettre de cachet in the year 1663, by which M. le Noir, under the pretence that he had in his sermons advanced erroneous notions, was for a time exiled to Fougeres in Britanny. In 1665, the manner in which the bishop endeavoured to enforce submission to the formulary occasioned new quarrels between him and his canons; which provoked M. le Noir to publish charges of various errors against that prelate. Among others, one was founded on his refusal to pay any attention to our prebendary, when he denounced to him a catechism published in his diocese, by the Sieur Enguerran, under the title of "Le Chretien Champétre, in which it is stated, "That there are four divine persons who are the proper objects of the devotion of the faithful; namely, Jesus Christ, St. Joseph, St. Anne, and St. Joachim." On account of this refusal, M. le Noir accused the bishop judicially of favouring the propagators of such errors, and of holding several notions which he believed to be heretical. On this subject he published several pieces, in which he overleaped all the bounds of moderation in the language which he applied to the bishop of Seez, and also to his metropolitan Harlay, archbishop of Rouen, whom he represented to be in collusion with his suffragan. Afterwards he opposed the bishop of Secz when about to take possession of the archbishopric of Rouen, upon the translation of Harlay to the see of Paris. The process against his diocesan was referred by the king's council to the ecclesiastical judges, before whom it lay many years. In 1682, he opposed the election of Harlay, archbishop of Paris, to the office of president in the assembly of the clergy, under the plea that he had not yet cleared himself from the suspicion of heresy, and was, consequently, ineligible by the canons. In the following year M. le Noir was arrested, and committed prisoner to the Bastille, where

a process was carried on against him before special commissaries, who pronounced him guilty of publishing defamatory writings, and adjudged him to make the amende honorable before the metropolitan church of Paris, and then to be sent to the galleys for life. The first part of this sentence was executed upon him; but the punishment of the galleys was commuted for imprisonment. He was first confined at St. Malo's; afterwards for five years in the citadel of Brest; and lastly at Nantes, where he died in 1692. He was the author of "A Collection of Requests, or Cases, &c." in folio, relative to the treatment of the Jansenists, which display a passionate eloquence, with an uncommon knowledge of law, and will be found useful by the ecclesiastical historian; "The Guide to the Cloister," translated from a work attributed to St. Bernard; "The indisputable Advantages of the Church over the Calvinists, in the Controversy between M. Arnauld and the Minister Claude," 1673, octavo; "The new Political Light, or, the new Gospel of Cardinal Palavicini, revealed by himself in his History of the Council of Trent," 1676, 12mo. which occasioned the suppression of a French translation of that history which was about to be published; "The Heresy of the Episcopal Dominion established in France," 12mo; "The courtly Bishop," 12mo.; "Protest against the Assemblies of the Clergy in 1681," quarto, &c. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M.

NOLDIUS, CHRISTIAN, a learned Danish divine and able professor of theology in the seventeenth century, was born at Hoybia, in Scania, in the year 1626. When he was of a proper age, he was sent to be instructed in grammar learning at Lunden; whence he was removed, in 1644, to the university of Copenhagen. Here he distinguished himself by the progress which he made in his academical studies, and was enrolled among the citizens of the metropolis. In 1650, he was nominated rector of the college at Landscroon; and in the following year took his degree of M. A. In 1654, he resigned his charge at Landscroon, determined on travelling into foreign countries for further improvement. He first visited the most celebrated universities of Germany, and obtained introduction to an acquaintance with some of the most eminent divines, and other distinguished literary characters in that country. Afterwards he visited Holland, England, and France, and in 1657, returned to his native country to settle his family affairs.

Having accomplished this business, within three months he set out for Holland a second time, and pursued his studies nearly three years in the universities of Franeker and Leyden. In 1660, he accepted the post of tutor and governor of the sons of the lord of Gerstorff, grand master of the palace to the king of Denmark; and four years afterwards, he was ordained minister, and was called to fill the divinity chair in the university of Copenhagen. To this post the king was pleased to add the honourable one of rector of that seminary. Noldius died in 1683, at the age of fifty-seven. He was a man who was incessantly occupied in his studies; and subjects requiring the most profound research, had for him peculiar attractions. He is said to have been one of the first who ventured so far to oppose the popular notion of demonology, as to maintain that devils could not work miracles for the purpose of introducing or countenancing vice. He was the author of "Concordantia particularum Hebræo Chaldaicum," &c. an excellent and much esteemed work, of which the best edition is that of Jena, in 1734, quarto; "Sacrarum Historiarum et Antiquitatum Synopsis;" "Leges distinguendi, seu, de Virtute et Vitio Distinctionis Opus; "Historia Idumæa, seu, de Vita et Gestis Herodum. Diatribe;" "Logica;" a "new Edition of Josephus's History, &c." Freheri Theatr. Vir. Erud. Clar. Moreri. Nouv. Dict. Hist.-M.

NOLLET, JOHN ANTHONY, a French ecclesiastic and celebrated natural philosopher in the eighteenth century, was born at Pimprè, in the diocese of Noyon, in the year 1700. His parents, who were persons of reputable character though of humble fortunes, as they could not make him wealthy, determined to bestow on him the advantages of a good education. With this view they sent him to the college of Clermont in the Beauvoisin, and afterwards to Beauvais, where he laid a good foundation of grammar learning; which encouraged them to send him to Paris, in order to go through a course of philosophy at that university. It was their wish that he should embrace the ecclesiastical profession; and young Nollet adopted, without repugnance, the choice which they made for him. From a very early age he had shewn a taste for the study of natural philosophy, which had not yet become his ruling passion; he was therefore enabled to check himself in a pursuit which was likely to interfere with the studies more appropriate to his destined character, and gave

himself up entirely to the study of scholastic theology. Having completed his academical course, and passed with reputation through the usual examinations, in 1728 he was admit'ted to deacon's orders, and soon became a licenced preacher. This new occupation, however, did not wholly divert his attention from the subjects of his early enquiries, and they insensibly claimed more and more of his time. At length, his inclination for the sciences became irresistible, and he gave himself up to the study of natural philosophy with an ardour to which the kind of privation in which he had so long lived gave augmented force. It was now his good fortune to become known to M. du Fay and M. Reaumur, and under their instructions his talents were rapidly developed. By the former he was received as an associate in his electrical researches; and the latter resigned to him his laboratory. He was also received into a Society of Arts, established at Paris under the protection of the count de Clermont. In the year 1734, he accompanied M. M. du Fay, du Hamel and de Jussieu, on a visit to England, where he had the honour of being admitted a foreign member of the Royal Society, and he profited so well of this visit, as to institute a friendly and literary correspondence with some of the most celebrated men in this country. Two years afterwards, he made a tour to Holland, where he formed an intimate connection with s'Gravesande and Musschenbroek. Upon his return to Paris, he resumed a course of experimental philosophy which he commenced in 1735, and which he continued to the year 1760. These courses of experimental physics gave rise to the adoption of similar plans in other branches of science, such as chemistry, anatomy, natural history, &c.

In the year 1738, the count de Maurepas prevailed upon cardinal Fleury to establish a public_professorship of experimental philosophy at Paris, and the abbé Nollet was the first person who received that appointment. During the following year, the Royal Academy of Sciences appointed him adjunct mechanician to that body; and in 1742, he was admitted an associate. In the year 1739, the king of Sardinia being desirous of establishing a professorship of physics at Turin, gave an invitation to the abbé Nollet to perform a course of experimental philosophy before the royal family, with which he complied. From Turin he took a tour to Italy, where he collected some good observations concerning the natural history of

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the country. In the year 1744, he had the honour of being called to Versailles, to give lessons in natural philosophy to the dauphin, at which the king and royal family were fre quently present. By the excellence and amiableness of his personal character, as well as by his scientific talents, he recommended him-. self to the confidence of his illustrious pupil, who continued as long as he lived to express the greatest esteem for our philosopher. It is to be lamented that his liberality did notprompt him to better the mediocrity of his tutor's fortune. In the year 1749, the abbé Nollet took a second journey into Italy, whence wonderful accounts had been circulated throughout Europe, of the communication of medicinal virtues by electricity; which seemed to be supported by numerous well attested facts. To examine into these facts, and to be assured of their truth or fallacy, was grand motive with our author in passing the Alps at this time, and in visiting the gentlemen who had published any accounts of those experiments. But though he engaged them to repeat their experiments in his presence, and upon himself, and though he made it his business to get all the information which he could concerning them, he was soon convinced that the pretended facts were deceptions or exaggerations, and that no method had been discovered, by means of which the power of medicine could by electricity be made to insinuate itself into the human body. But these wonders were not the only objects which en gaged our abbe's attention in this visit to Italy: for his enquiries were extended to all the branches of natural philosophy, the arts, agriculture, &c. On his return to France through Turin, the king of Sardinia made him an offer of the order of St. Maurice; which he thought it his duty to decline, not having the permission of his own sovereign for accepting it. In the year 1753, the king established a professorship of experimental philosophy at the Royal College of Navarre, and nominated the abbe Nollet to fill that post. In the year 1757, the king bestowed on him the brevet of master of natural philosophy and natural history to the younger branches of the royal family of France; and in the same year appointed him professor, of natural philosophy to the schools of artillery: and engineers. Soon after this last preferment, he was received a pensionary of the Royal Academy of Sciences. This celebrated and laborious natural philosopher died in 1770, in the seventieth year of his age, regretted by

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