(Sir Richard), author of the Chronicle of the kings of England, was born at Sissinghurst, in Kent, about the year 1568. After going through the usual course of academical learning at Hart-hall, in Oxford, he travelled into foreign parts; and upon his return home was created master of arts, and soon after, in 1603, received from king James I. the honour of knighthood. In 1620, he was high sheriff of Oxfordshire; but engaging to pay some of the debts of his wife's family, he was reduced to poverty, and obliged to betake himself for shelter to the Fleet prison, where he composed several books, among which are, 1. Meditations and Disquisitions on the Lord's Prayer. 2. Meditations, &c. on several of the Psalms of David. 3. Meditations and Prayers upon the seven Days of the Week. 4. Cato Variagiatus, or Cato's Moral Difficulties varied, &c.—Mr Granger observes, that his Chronicle of the Kings of England was ever more esteemed by readers of a lower class, than by such as had a critical knowledge of history. The language of it was, in this reign, called polite; and it long maintained its reputation, especially among country gentlemen. The author seems to have been sometimes more studious to please than to inform, and with that view to have sacrificed even chronology itself to method. In 1658, Edward Philips, nephew to Milton, published a third edition of this work, with the addition of the reign of Charles I. It has been several times reprinted since, and is now carried as low as the reign of George I. Sir Richard also translated several works from the French and Italian; and died very poor, in the Fleet prison, on the 18th of February, 1645.

(Thomas), an eminent mathematician, was born at Ilton, in Somersetshire, about the year 1625, and entered at Magdalen-hall, Oxon, in 1640; after which he was vicar of Bishop's-Nymmet, in Devonshire, where he wrote The Geometrical Key, or the Gate of Equations unlocked; by which he gained a considerable reputation. A little before his death, the members of the Royal Society sent him some mathematical queries, to which he returned so satisfactory an answer, that they presented him a medal, with an inscription full of honour and respect. He died at Bishop's-Nymmet, on the 5th of June, 1690.

(Thomas), a dramatic writer, was the son of an eminent attorney in the city of London. His turn was entirely to comedy, and his plays are five in number, viz. 1. Act at Oxford. 2. Fine Ladies airs. 3. Hampstead Heath. 7. Humours of the age. 5. Tunbridge Walks. All of them have a considerable share of merit; yet only one among the number stands on the present list of acting plays, viz. Tunbridge Walks. It is said that the character of Maiden in this play, which is perhaps the original of almost all the Fribbles, beau Mizens, &c. that have been drawn since, and in which effeminacy is carried to an height beyond what any one could conceive to exist in any man in real life, was absolutely, and without exaggeration, a portrait of the author's own former character; whose understanding having at length pointed out to him the folly he had so long been guilty of, he reformed it altogether in his subsequent behaviour, and wrote this character, in order to set it forth in the most ridiculous light, and wran others from that rock of contempt which he had himself for some time been wrecked upon. Whether this gentleman's attachment to the mules drew him from any application to business, or from what other cause, is not known; but during the latter part of his life he stood on indifferent terms. ferns with his father, who allowing him a very scanty income, he was obliged to retire into Worcestershire, where he is reported to have died of that loathsome disorder the morbus pediculosis.

a person whose occupation or business is to bake bread. See the articles Baking and Bread.

The learned are in great doubt about the time when baking first became a particular profession, and bakers were introduced. It is however generally agreed, that they had their rise in the east, and passed from Greece to Italy after the war with Pyrrhus, about the year of Rome 583. Till which time every house-wife was her own baker: for the word pistor, which we find in Roman authors before that time, signified a person who ground or pounded the grain in a mill or mortar to prepare it for baking, as Varro observes. According to Athenaeus, the Cappadocians were the most applauded bakers, after them the Lydians, then the Phoenicians.—To the foreign bakers brought into Rome, were added a number of freed-men, who were incorporated into a body, or, as they called it, a college; from which neither they nor their children were allowed to withdraw. They held their effects in common, and could not dispose of any part of them. Each bakehouse had a patronus, who had the superintendency thereof; and these patroni elected one out of their number each year, who had superintendence over all the rest, and the care of the college. Out of the body of the bakers were every now and then one admitted among the senators.—To preserve honour and honesty in the college of bakers, they were expressly prohibited all alliance with comedians and gladiators; each had his shop or bakehouse, and they were distributed into fourteen regions of the city. They were excluded from guardianships and other offices, which might divert them from their employment.—By our own statutes bakers are declared not to be handicrafts. No man for using the mysteries or sciences of baking, brewing, surgery, or writing, shall be interpreted a handicraft. The bakers were a brotherhood in England before the year 1155, in the reign of king Henry II, though the white bakers were not incorporated till 1307, by king Edward III, and the brown bakers not till 1621, in king James I's time. Their hall is in Harp-lane, Thames-street; and their court-day on the first Monday of the month.—They make the 19th company; and consist of a warden, 4 masters, 30 assistants, and 140 men on the livery, besides the commonality.—The French had formerly a great baker, grand pannier de France, who had the superintendency of all the bakers of Paris. But, since the beginning of this century, they have been put under the jurisdiction of the lieutenant-general de police. In some provinces of France, the lord is the only baker in his seigniory; keeping a public oven, to which all the tenants are obliged to bring their bread. This right is called surmagnon, or furnaticum, and makes part of the baronialte.