(Sir John), a physician, famous for his travels, was born at St Albans, about the beginning of the 14th century. He had a liberal education, and applied himself to the study of physic; but being at length seized with an invincible desire of seeing distant parts of the globe, he left England in 1332, and did not return till 34 years after. His friends, who had long supposed him dead, did not know him when he appeared. He had travelled through almost all the east, and made himself master of a great variety of languages. He particularly visited Scythia, Armenia, the Greater and Lesser Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldea, Greece, Dalmatia, &c. His rambling disposition did not suffer him to rest; for he left his own country a second time, and died at Liege in the Netherlands in 1372. He wrote An Itinerary, or an Account of his Travels, in English, French, and Latin.

(Bernard de'), an eminent writer in the 18th century, was born in Holland, where he studied physic, and took the degree of doctor in that faculty. He afterwards came over into England, and in 1714 published a poem, intitled, "The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turned Honest;" upon which he afterwards wrote remarks, and published the whole at London, 1723, in 8vo, under the title of, "The Fable of the Bees, or private Vice made public Benefits; with an Essay on Charity and Charity-schools, and a Search into the Nature of Society." This book was presented by the jury of Middlesex in July the same year, and severely admired upon in "A Letter to the Right Honourable Lord C," printed in the London Journal of Saturday July 27, 1723. Our author published a Vindication. His book was attacked by several writers. He published other pieces, and died in 1724.