a title of the royal house of Denmark. The origin of this illustrious family, we are told, is this.

On the death of Christopher king of Denmark, &c., in 1448, without issue, there was a great contest about the succession; and a variety of factions were raised, Oldenburg, particularly in Sweden and Norway, for the promotion of different persons, and various animosities and numerous discords were excited by the several parties, in order each to obtain their own ends.

As soon as these intrigues were known in Denmark, the senate resolved to proceed to the election of a king; for it did not appear expedient to commit the government of affairs to the queen-dowager, at a time when they had everything to fear from the two neighbouring crowns. At this time a lord of great weight, property, and ambition, sought the queen in marriage, the more easily to pave his way to the throne. This is a fact mentioned by Pontanus and Mennius, though neither takes notice of his name. But as for a great number of years there was no precedent for electing a king out of the body of nobility, though agreeable to law, the queen entered into the views of the senate, and declared she would give her hand to no prince who should not be judged deserving of the crown by the supreme council of the nation.

The advantages which would have accrued from annexing the duchy of Sleswick and Holstein to the crown, made the senate first cast their eyes on Adolphus. This matter required no long deliberation; all saw the conveniences resulting from such an union, and gave their assent. Immediately an embassy was dispatched with the offer to Adolphus; but that prince consulting the good of his subjects, whose interest would have been absorbed in the superior weight of Denmark, declined it, with a moderation and disinterestedness altogether uncommon among princes. However, that he might not be wanting in respect to the senate, he proposed to them his nephew Christian, second son to Theodoric, count of Oldenburg, a prince bred up at the court of Adolphus from his infancy. The proposition was so agreeable to the senate, that, without loss of time, the ambassadors were sent to Theodoric, to demand either of his sons he should pitch upon for their king. Theodoric's answer to the ambassadors was remarkable: "I have three sons, says he, of very opposite qualities. One is passionately fond of pleasure and women; another breathes nothing but war, without regarding the justice of the cause; but the third is moderate in his disposition, prefers peace to the din of arms, yet stands unrivalled in valour, generosity, and magnanimity." He said he pointed these characters for the senate's information, desiring they would choose which of the young princes they believed would render the kingdom happiest. It was a matter which would admit of no hesitation: with one voice the senate declared for that prince whose panegyric the father had so warmly drawn; and under these happy auspices commenced the origin of the grandeur of the house of Oldenburg, at this day seated on the throne of Denmark.

(Henry), a learned German gentleman in the 17th century, was descended from the noble family of his name, who were earls of the county of Oldenburg, in the north part of Westphalia, for many generations. He was born in the duchy of Bremen in the Lower Saxony; and during the long English parliament in King Charles I.'s time, was appointed consul for his countrymen, at London, after the usurpation of Cromwell; but being discharged of Oldenburg that employ, he was made tutor to the lord Henry O'Bryan, an Irish nobleman, whom he attended to the university of Oxford, where he was admitted to study in the Bodleian library in the beginning of the year 1656. He was afterwards tutor to William lord Cavendish, and was acquainted with Milton the poet. During his residence at Oxford, he became also acquainted with the members of that body there which gave birth to the royal society; and upon the foundation of this latter, he was elected fellow; and when the society found it necessary to have two secretaries, he was chosen assistant-secretary to Dr Wilkins. He applied himself with extraordinary diligence to the business of his office, and began the publication of the Philosophical Transactions with No. 1, in 1664. In order to discharge this task with greater credit to himself and the society, he held a correspondence with more than seventy learned persons, and others, upon a vast variety of subjects, in different parts of the world. This fatigue would have been intolerable, had not he, as he told Dr Lister, managed it so as to make one letter answer another; and that to be always fresh, he never read a letter before he had pen, ink, and paper, ready to answer it forthwith; so that the multitude of his letters cloyed him not, nor ever lay upon his hands. Among others, he was a constant correspondent of Mr Robert Boyle, with whom he had a very intimate friendship; and he translated several of that ingenious gentleman's works into Latin.

Mr Oldenburg continued to publish the Transactions, as before, to No. xxxvi. June 25, 1677. After which the publication was discontinued till the January following, when it was again resumed by his successor in the secretary's office, Mr Nehemiah Grew, who carried it on till the end of February 1678. Our author dying at his house at Charlton, near Greenwich in Kent, in the month of August that year, was interred there.