152 
N O R T H. 
one of the king's counfel. In 1671 he was raifed to the 
office of folicitor-general, and knighted. He was ap¬ 
pointed attorney-general in 1673, and in the following 
year he fucceeded fir John Vaughan as chief-juftice of the 
common-pleas. When, in 1679, Charles II. dilfolved his 
miniltry and privy-council, and declared his intention of 
choofing a new council, whole character would entitle 
them to the confidence of the nation, fir Francis North 
was one of that honourable lift. In 1682, upon the death 
erf'the earl of Nottingham, he was made keeper of the 
great-feal; and he was raifed to the peerage in 1683, by 
the title of Baron of Guildford in Surrey. Thefe ho¬ 
nours he did not long enjoy; for, his conftitution being 
impaired by the cares and fatigues of, his office, he died 
at his feat of Wroxton, in Oxfordfhire, in 1685. The 
political character of lord Guildford is fpoken of rather 
unfavourably by Burnet and Kennet, who reprefent him 
as too compliant with the will of the court; but it has 
been vindicated by his brother, Roger North ; and he 
appears to have been honoured with the enmity of Jeffries 
and the party who promoted the violent meafures of 
James II. He was by principle a zealous friend to the 
prerogatives of the crown and the national church. As 
an author he is known by his enquiries in natural philo- 
fophy. He publifhed in the Philofophical Tranfadtions a 
paper “ On the Gravitation of Fluids, confidered in the 
Bladders of Fiffies,” which is faid to have given a hint 
further purfued by Boyle, Ray, and other philofophers. 
He alfo wrote, but did not publilh, an “ Anfwer to a 
Paper of Sir Samuel Moreland on his Static Barometer ;” 
and it has been afferted to have been through his means 
that thefe inftruments firft came into popular ufe in 
England. His moll remarkable work was “ A philofophi¬ 
cal Effay on Mufic ;” publilhed without his name in 1677. 
This is a quarto pamphlet of only thirty-five pages, thus 
charafterifed by Dr. Burney : “Though fome of the 
philofophy of this effay has been fince found to be falfe, 
and the reft lias been more clearly illuftrated and ex¬ 
plained, yet, confidering the fmall progrefs which had 
been made in fo obfeure and fubtile a fubjedt as the pro-' 
pagation of found when this book was written, the ex¬ 
periments and conjectures muft be allowed to have con- 
fiderable merit. The fcheme, or table of pulfes, at the be¬ 
ginning, {hewing the coincidence of vibrations inmuiical 
concords, is new, and conveys a clear idea to the eye, of what 
the ratio of founds, in numbers, only communicates to the 
intellect. Thefe coincidences, upon which the degrees 
of perfection in concords depend, being too rapid for the 
fenfe of hearing to enable us to count, are here delineated 
in fuch a manner, as explains the doCrrine of vibrations 
even to a perlon that is deaf. His delineation of the har- 
monical vibration of firings feems to have been adopted 
by Euler, in his Tentamen novte Theorise Muficae. The 
keeper is faid, in the Biographical Dictionary, to have 
compofed feveral concertos in two and three parts. Now 
no compofition, in fewer than four or five parts, is ever 
honoured with the title of concerto; nor was this title 
given to inftrumental mufic during the life of lord-keeper 
North, who died in 1685. The concertos of Corelli, 
Torelli, and Scarlatti, in feven and eight parts, the firft 
of the kind, were not publilhed till the beginning of the 
laft century. Fancies in two and three parts, indeed, 
were, we believe, fometimes called conforts. And, when 
it is afferted, in the fame dictionary, that lord-keeper 
North may be efteemed the father of mufical philofophy, 
it fhould have been added, in this country ; for Galileo in 
Italy, and Merfennus in France, had deeply inveftigated 
the fubjeCt of harmonics many years before the publica¬ 
tion of the lord-keeper North’s ingenious Effay.” 
NORTH (the Hon. Roger), brother of the preceding, 
was likewife brought up to the law, and was attorney- 
general to James II. He publilhed an “ Examen into the 
Credit and Veracity of a pretended complete Hiflory,” 
viz. Dr. White Kennet’s Hillory of England; and alfo 
the Lives of his three brothers, the Lord-keeper Guild¬ 
ford, Sir Dudley North, and the Rev. Dr. John North* 
In thefe pieces there is much curious' and truly valuable 
information, but not without conliderable partiality. 
The Hon. Roger North was an amateur muiician of con- 
fiderable tafte and knowledge; leaving behind him, at 
his deceafe in 1733 a manufcript, entitled “Memoirs of 
Mufic,” to which Dr. Burney acknowledges great obli¬ 
gations. This honourable cultivator and patron of mn- 
lic lived chiefly at Rougham, in Norfolk ; where his life 
was extended to the age of 83. 
NORTH (Frederic), fecond earl of Guildford, chiefly 
known as Lord North, under which title he was for many 
years the premier of England. His lordlhip was born 
April 13, 1732; but did not fucceed to the earldom and 
eftates till the year 1790. As a minilter, he fucceeded the 
celebrated Mr. Charles Townfend as manager of the 
houfe of commons and chancellor of the exchequer; and 
in 1770, on the refignation of the duke of Grafton, he 
was made firft lord of the treafury; in which office he 
continued till the clofe of the American war, or rather 
till the formation of the Rockingham miniftry, by which 
he and his party, who had defolated the empire by a long 
and bloody war, and by the lofs of the American colonies, 
were removed. After this he formed a coalition with Mr. 
Fox, which was efteemed by the public as one of the moll 
unnatural jundlions ever entered into by political cha¬ 
racters: It excited an almoft univerfal abhorrence, and 
of courfe did not laft long. 
Lord North, in 1790, fucceeded his father as earl of 
Guildford; and died Auguft the 5th, 1792. He was a 
man of Itrong mental abilities; and, either by his elo¬ 
quence, or by ftill more attractive means, he commanded 
attention and enforced conviction: but, taking the helm 
at a time when the king’s party was unpopular, and when 
it was fuppoled that the late earl of Bute was the great 
machine by which the cabinet was moved, he continued 
in that Hate of unpopularity until he refigned the feals. 
During the whole of his premierlhip, he lludioufly avoided 
impoling any taxes that Ihouid materially affeCt the lower 
clafs of people: the luxuries, and not the neceflaries, of 
life were repeated objeCts of his budget. As a financier, 
he flood high, even in the opinion of oppofition ; and 
they were a combination of all the great talents in the 
kingdom : but, fatally wedded to the deltructive plan of 
fubduingthe republican fpirit of the Americans, his ad- 
miniftration will not only (land marked in the page of 
hillory with an immenfe wafte ot public treafure, but it 
will appear befprinkled with the kindred blood of thou- 
lands of Britifh fubjeCts. To the very laft moment he 
fpoke in the fenate, however, he defended that war; and 
faid, he was then, as he was formerly, prepared to rheet 
the minuteft inveftigation as to his condudi in that bufi- 
nefs; which nothing but the unforefeen intervention of 
France could have prevented from being crowned with 
fuccels. See the articles America and England; and, 
for fartherparticularsof the family, the article Heraldry, 
vol. ix. p. 522, 3. 
NORTH (George, M. A. J, an eminent Englilh divine 
and antiquary, born in London in 1707. He wrote “A 
Table of Englilh Silver Coins from the Conqueft to the 
Commonwealth, with Remarks;” and died in 177a. 
Jones's Biog. 
NORTH AMER'ICA. See the article America, 
vol. i. and London, vol. xiii. By referring to the latter 
article, p. 359, it will be feen, that the American com- 
miflioners had arrived at Gottenburgh, on the nth of 
April,1814, that place having been (very unaccountably) 
agreed on for carrying on negociations for peace with 
Great Britain. Ghent was the place afterwards fubftitu- 
ted ; the envoys arrived there on the 8th of Auguft ; and 
the treaty was figned on the 24th of December following. 
Between the time of the fignature of the treaty and 
the ratification, much human blood was miferably wafted. 
Among other inftances, an expedition was carried into 
effedt againit New Orleans, the maritime key of the vaft 
province 
