John Tuberville, was born at London the 10th of September in the year 1713. His parents were descended from ancient and noble families. His father, who had once possessed a considerable patrimony at Hilston, in the county of Monmouth, was of the younger and Catholic branch of the Needham family: the head of the elder and Protestant branch was Lord Kilmory, created vicount in the year 1625. The father of Mr Needham died young, and left but a small fortune to his four children. His eldest son, who is the subject of this article, prosecuted his studies under the secular clergy of the English college of Douay, where he took orders, taught rhetoric for several years, gave eminent proofs of sagacity and genius, and surpassed all the other professors of that seminary in the knowledge of experimental philosophy. In 1740, he was engaged by his superiors in the service of the English mission, and was intrusted with the direction of the school erected at Twyford, near Winchester, for the education of the Roman Catholic youth. In 1744, he was appointed professor of philosophy in the English college at Lilbon, where, on account of his bad health, he remained only 15 months. After his return, he passed several years at London and Paris, which were principally employed in microscopical observations, and in other branches of experimental philosophy. The results of these observations and experiments were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1749, and in a volume in 1750 at Paris in 1750; and an account of them was also given by M. de Buffon, in the first volumes of his Natural History. There was an intimate connexion between this illustrious French naturalist and Mr Needham: they made their experiments and observations together; Needham together; though the results and systems which they deduced from the same objects and operations were totally different. Mr Needham was admitted to a place in the Royal Society of London in the year 1747, and in the Antiquarian Society some time after. From the year 1751 to 1767 he was chiefly employed in finishing the education of several English and Irish noblemen, by attending them as tutor in their travels through France, Italy, and other countries. He then retired from this wandering life to the English seminary at Paris, and in 1768 was chosen by the Royal Academy of Sciences in that city a corresponding member.

When the regency of the Austrian Netherlands, in order to the revival of philosophy and literature in that country, formed the project of an Imperial academy, which was preceded by the erection of a small literary society to prepare the way for its execution, Mr Needham was invited to Brussels by Count Cobenzel and the president Neny, and was appointed successively chief director of both these foundations. He held this place, together with some ecclesiastical preferments in the Low Countries, until his death, which happened the 30th of December 1781. "His piety, temperance, and purity of manners (we follow the expressions of the abbé Mann) were eminent: his attachment to the doctrines and duties of Christianity was inviolable. His zealous opposition to modern infidels was indefatigable, and even passionate. His probity was untainted. He was incapable of every species of duplicity; his beneficence was universal, and his unsuspicious candour rendered him often a dupe to perfidy." These and other good qualities the panegyrist attributes to his deceased friend; and the learned authors of the Monthly Review, to whom Mr Needham was known, admit the justness of the panegyric. He was undoubtedly (say they), both an honest man and a worthy citizen; but though his death be a real loss to the literary world, yet he died seasonably for himself; for had he lived to see Joseph II. and the Great, making free with the paint, patches, and trinkets of the mother church, confiscating her lands, abolishing her convents, suppressing her holidays, introducing common sense into her worship, erecting political conductors to disperse the thunder of the Vatican, and achieving many other things in this style of improvement, it would have vexed full force his feeling heart. For this honest man was narrow even to superstition and bigotry in his religious system; and we never knew a man in whom there was such an unaccountable mixture of implicit faith and philosophical curiosity as in Mr Needham. He was a keen and judicious observer of nature, had a peculiar dexterity in confirming his observations by experiments, and he was always occupied (sometimes indeed with too much fancy and precipitation) in generalizing facts, and reducing them to his system. "His pen (says Abbé Mann) was neither remarkable for fecundity nor method: his writings are rather the great lines of a subject expressed with energy, and thrown upon paper in a hurry, than finished treaties." His works are well known both in Britain and in France.

town in Suffolk, 73 miles from London, stands on the Orwell, 9 miles from Ipswich, in the road to Huntingdonshire.

**Needle**, a very common little instrument or utensil made of steel, pointed at one end, and pierced at the other, used in sewing, embroidery, tapestry, &c.