Urbain, a learned writer, born at Loudun in 1613. He distinguished himself in his youth by his knowledge of the belles-lettres, and became secretary of state to Queen Christina of Sweden. Several German princes invited him to their courts; and Charles Louis, the elector palatine, retained him under the title of counsellor. After the death of that prince he returned to France, and became preceptor to the Duke of Maine. At length retiring to Loudun, he died there in 1701, aged eighty-eight. He was the author of a variety of works, amongst which may be mentioned, 1. Considerations Furtives, and De la Tranquillité d'Esprit, Paris, 1642, 8vo; 2. L'Ecole du Sage, or Le Character des Vertus et des Vices, Paris, 1664, 12mo; 3. Lettres, Paris, 1642, 8vo; 4. Scanderbeg, 1644, 2 vols. 8vo; 5. Hermogène, a romance in two parts, 1648, 8vo; 6. Tableau de la Fortune, Paris, 1651, 4to; 7. Poésies, 1656, 8vo; 8. Histoire du Monde, Paris, 1686, 2 vols. 4to. Chevreau has been accused of having taken his history without acknowledgment from the Theatrum Universum of Christian Mathias; but the charge has not been substantiated.

CHENEY, Dr George, a physician of great learning and abilities, born in Scotland in 1671, and educated at Edinburgh under Dr Pitcairn. He died at Bath in 1742, aged seventy-two. He wrote several treatises that were well received; particularly an Essay on Health and Long Life, and the English Malady, or a Treatise of Nervous Diseases; both the result of his own experience. He is to be ranked among those physicians who have accounted for the operations of medicines, and the morbid alterations which take place in the human body, upon mechanical principles. A spirit of piety and of benevolence, and an ardent zeal for the interests of virtue, are predominant throughout his writings; and he also displays an amiable candour and ingenuity which led him to retract with readiness whatever appeared to him to be censurable in his works. Some of the metaphysical notions which he introduced into his writings may perhaps be thought fanciful and ill-grounded; but an agreeable vivacity enlivens his productions, which also exhibit much openness and frankness, and in general very great perspicuity.