JOHN, the biographer, was born in 1560, at Aulton in Hampshire, and educated at Wykeham's school, near Winchester, till he was about 18 years of age: when he was sent to New-college in Oxford, and admitted probationer fellow. Having continued in that university not quite two years, he left the kingdom as a voluntary Romish exile, and retired to Douay; thence he went to the English college at Rheims, where he remained about a year; and then proceeded to Rome, where he continued a member of the English college near seven years, and was made a priest. In 1589 he returned to Rheims; and there, during two years, taught rhetoric and the Greek language. He now quitted Rheims on account of the civil war in France; and retired to Pont à Mousson in Lorraine, where he took the degrees of master of arts and bachelor in divinity. Hence he travelled into Germany, and resided a year and a half at Triers, where he commenced licentiate in his faculty. From Triers he visited several of the principal cities in Germany; and continuing three years at Ingolstadt in Bavaria, took the degree of doctor in divinity. Thence having made the tour of Italy, he returned once more to Lorraine; where he was patronised by the cardinal of that duchy, who preferred him to a canonry of Verdun; and about two years after he became confessor to the duchess of Cleves, daughter to the duke of Lorraine. During the leisure he enjoyed in this employment, he wrote in Latin the lives of the kings, bishops, apostolical men, and writers of England. The last of these, commonly known and quoted by this title, *De illustribus Angliae scriptoribus*, was published after his death. The three first remain still in manuscript among the archives of the collegiate church of Liverdun. The duke of Cleves dying after Pits had been about twelve years confessor to the duchess, she returned to Lorraine, attended by our author, who was promoted to the deanery of Liverdun, which, with a canonry and officialship, he enjoyed to the end of his life. He died in 1616, and was buried in the collegiate church. Pits was undoubtedly a scholar, and not an inelegant writer; but he is justly accused of ingratitude to Bale, from whom he borrowed his materials, without acknowledgment. He quotes Leland with great familiarity, without ever having seen his book; his errors are innumerable, and his partiality to the Romish writers most obvious; nevertheless we are obliged to him for his account of several polish authors, who lived abroad at the beginning of the Reformation.