(William), a noted political writer in defence of Sir Robert Walpole, was originally an attorney's clerk; but being recommended to Walpole, he employed him for a course of years in writing the Free Briton and other papers in defence of his administration. By the report of the secret committee, he appears to have received, in the space of four years, no less than £10,997 l. 6s. 8d. out of the treasury for his writings! but spending his money as fast as it came, and his supplies stopping on Sir Robert's resignation, he died broken-hearted and in debt, in the 26th year of his age. His invention was so quick, that his honourable employer used to say, no man in England could write a pamphlet in so little time as Arnall.

ARNAUD de MEYREUIL, or MEREUIL, a poet of Provence, who lived at the beginning of the 13th century. He wrote a book intitled Las recetnas de fa comete; and a collection of poems and sonnets. He died in the year 1220. Petrarch mentions him in his Triumph of Love.

ARNAUD de VILLA NOVA, a famous physician, who lived about the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century. He studied at Paris and Montpelier, and travelled through Italy and Spain. He was well acquainted with languages, and particularly with the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. He was at great pains to gratify his ardent desire after knowledge; but this passion carried him rather too far in his researches: he endeavoured to discover future events by astrology, imagining this science to be infallible; and upon this foundation he published a prediction, that the world would come to an end in the middle of the 14th century. He practised physic at Paris for some time: but having advanced some new doctrines, he drew upon himself the resentment of the university; and his friends, fearing he might be arrested, persuaded him to retire from that city. Upon his leaving France, he retired to Sicily, where he was received by king Frederic of Arragon with the greatest marks of kindness and esteem. Some time afterwards, this prince sent him to France, to attend pope Clement in an illness; and he was shipwrecked on the coast of Genoa, about the year 1313. The works of Arnaud, with his life prefixed, were printed in one volume, in folio, at Lyons, in 1520; and at Basil in 1585, with the notes of Nicholas Tolerus.

ARNAUD d'ANDILLY (Robert), the son of a celebrated advocate of the parliament of Paris, was born in 1588; and, being introduced young at court, was employed in many considerable offices, all which he discharged with great integrity and reputation. In 1644, he quitted cabinets, and retired into the convent of Port Royal des Champs, where he passed the remainder of his days in a continued application to works of piety and devotion; and enriched the French language with many excellent translations of different writers, as well as with religious compositions of his own. He died in 1674, and his works are printed in 8 vols folio.