or BALLANTINE, WILLIAM, a Scotch writer who flourished in the beginning of the 17th century, was professor of humanity or belles lettres at Edinburgh, and matter of requests to James I. of England. But the former is supposed to have been only nominal, or early given up, and the latter also to have consisted in the name only, since he appears to have resided almost constantly at Paris, where by the favour of his sovereign, he was enabled to live in easy circumstances. There he published, in 1608, his Cicero Princeps, a singular work; in which he extracted, from Cicero's writings detached passages, and comprised them into one regular body, containing the rules of monarchical government, with the line of conduct to be pursued, and the virtues proper to be encouraged, by the prince himself: and the treatise, when finished, he dedicated, from a principle of patriotism and gratitude, to the son of his master, Henry, then prince of Wales. Four years afterwards, namely, in 1612, he proceeded to publish another work of a similar nature, which he called Cicero Consul, Senator Senatusque Romanus, in which he treated, with much perspicuity, and a fund of solid information, on the nature of the consular office, and the constitution of the Roman senate. Finding these works received, as they deserved, with the unanimous approbation of the learned, he conceived the plan of a third work, De Statu priisci Orbis, which was to contain a history of the progress of government and philosophy, from the times before the flood to their various degrees of improvement under the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. He proceeded so far as to print a few copies of this work, in the year 1615, when it seems to have been suggested that his treaties, De Statu Principis, De Statu Republicae, and De Statu Orbis, being on subjects so nearly resembling each other, there might be a propriety in uniting them into one work, by republishing the two former, and entitling the whole Bellendenus De Statu. With this view, he recalled the few copies of his last work that were abroad, and after a delay of some months, published the three treaties together, under their new title, in 1616. These pieces have been lately reprinted by an ingenious political editor, who has thought proper to inscribe them to Mr Burke, Lord North, and Mr Fox, whose respective portraits are prefixed to each dedication, and whose talents and virtues he celebrates and defends in a preface of 76 pages, containing a very free and bold discussion of our public men and measures in very classical language, and a strong and satirical representation, under borrowed names of antiquity, of the chiefs of the other party, or the present ministry. Bellenden wrote another work, published after his death,