JAN. 19, 1850.] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
181 
of him in the Biographie Universelle, vol. xvi. 
(Paris), and in the Biografia Universule, vol. xxi. 
(Venezia). As these works have, perhaps, found 
their way into very few private English libraries, 
I send you the following sketch, which will pro- 
bably be acceptable to your readers. It is much 
to be lamented that sufficient encouragement 
cannot be given in this country for the production 
of a Universal Biography. Rose’s work, which 
promised to be a giant, dwindled down to a 
miserable pigmy; and that under “The Soci ty 
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” was 
strangled in its birth. 
André des Freux, better known by his Latin 
name, Frusius, was born at Chartres, in the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth century. He embraced 
the life of an ecelesiastic, and obtained the cure 
of Thiverval, which he held many years with 
great credit to himself. The high reputation of 
Ignatius Loyola, who was then at Rome, with 
authority from the Holy See to found the Society 
of the Jesuits, led Frusius to that city, where he 
was admitted a member of the new order in 1541, 
and shortly after became secretary to Loyola. 
He contributed to the establishment of the Society 
at Parma, Venice, and many towns of Italy and 
Sicily. He was the first Jesuit who taught the 
Greek language at Messina; he also gave public 
lectures on the Holy Scriptures in Rome. He 
was appointed Rector of the German College at 
Rome, shortly before his death, which occurred 
on the 25th of October, 1556, three months and 
six days after the death of Loyola. Frusius had 
studied, with equal success, theology, medicine, 
and law: he was a good mathematician, an ex- 
cellent musician, and made Latin verses with such 
fucility, that he composed them, on the instant, on 
all sorts of subjects. But these verses were neither 
so elegant nor so harmonious, as Alegambe asserts’, 
since he adds, that it requires close attention to 
distinguish them from prose. Frusius translated, 
from Spanish into Latin, the Spiritual Exercises 
of Loyola. He was the author of the following 
works : — Two small pieces, in verse, De Verborum 
et Rerum Copia, and Summa Latine Syntazeos : 
these were published in several different places ; 
Theses Collecte ex Interpretatione Geneseos ; As- 
sertiones Theologica, Rome, 1554; Poemata, Co- 
logne, 1558 — this collection, often reprinted at 
Lyons, Antwerp, and Tournon, contains 255 t 
Beerams against the heretics, amongst whom he 
_ Erasmus ;—a poem, De Agno Dei; and, 
tly, another poem, entitled Echo de Present’ 
Christiane Religionis Calamitate, which has been 
sometimes cited as an example of a great difficulté 
vaincue. ‘The edition of Tournon contains also a 
_ “TI presume in his Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis 
Jesu. 
+ Duthilleeul, according to Mr, Bruce, says 251, 
poem, De Simplicitate, of which Alegambe speaks 
with praise. ‘To Frusius was also owing an edition 
of Martial’s Epigrams, divested of their obscen- 
ities. Epw. VENTRIS. 
Cambridge, Jan. 10, 1850. 
[Our valued correspondent, Mr. MacCass, has 
also informed us that the “ Epigrams of Frusius were 
published at Antwerp, 1582, in 8vo., and at Cologne, 
1641, in 12mo. Sve Feller's Biographie.”] 
OPINIONS RESPECTING BURNET. 
A small catena patrum has been given respecting 
Burnet, as a historian, in No. 3. pp. 40, 41., to 
which two more scriptorum judicia have been ap- 
pended, in No. 8. p. 120., by “I. H. M.” As a 
sadly disparaging opinion had been quoted, at 
p- 40., from Lord Dartmouth, I hope you will 
allow the following remarks on the testimony of 
that nobleman to appear in your columns : — 
“No person has contradicted Burnet more fre- 
quently, or with more asperity, than Dartmouth. Yet 
Dartmouth wrote, ‘I do not think he designedly pub- 
lished anything he believed to be false.’ At a later 
period, Dartmouth, provoked by some remarks on 
himself in the second volume of the Bishop’s history, 
retraeted this praise; but to such a retraction little 
importance can be attached. Even Swift has the jus- 
tice to say, ‘ After all he was a man of generosity and 
good nature.”” — Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet’s 
History. 
“It is usual to censure Burnet as a singularly in- 
accurate historian; but I believe the charge to be 
altogether unjust. He appears to be singularly inac- 
| curate only because his narrative has been subjected to 
| a scrutiny singularly severe and unfriendly. 
If any 
Whig thought it worth while to subject Reresbv’s 
Memoirs, North’s Examen, Mulgrave’s Account of the 
Revolution, or the Life of James the Second, edited by 
Clarke, to a similar scrutiny, it would soon appear that 
Burnet was far indeed from being the most inexact 
writer of his time.” — Macaulay, Hist. England, vol. ii, 
p- 177, 3rd Ed. T. 
Bath. 
QUERIES. 
SAINT THOMAS OF LANCASTER. 
Sir,—I am desirous of information respecting 
the religious veneration paid to the memory of 
Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, cousin-german to King 
Edward the Second. He was taken, in open re- 
bellion against the King, on the 16th of March, 
1322, condemned by a court-martial, and exe- 
cuted, with circumstances of great indignity, on 
the rising ground above the castle of Pomfret, 
which at that time was in his possession. His 
body was probably given to the monks of the ad- 
jacent priory; and soon after his death miracles 
were said to be performed at his tomb, and at the 
