JOHN, physician to Henry II. king of France, was born at Picardy towards the close of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century. Being sent to Paris to study rhetoric and philosophy, he applied himself so intensely that all other pleasures became insipid, and he cared neither for play, nor walking, nor entertainments, nor even conversation. He read Cicero, Plato, and Aristotle, and also applied himself earnestly to the mathematics. This continual study brought on an attack of sickness, which obliged him to leave Paris. On his recovery he returned, designing to study physic; but before he had an opportunity of applying himself to this pursuit he was employed to teach philosophy in the college of St Barbara. After this he spent four years in the study of physic; and having taken a doctor's degree, confined himself to his closet, in order to read the best authors, and to improve himself in the mathematics, as far as the business of his profession would permit. Never, in fact, was there a man more diligent than Fernel. He used to rise at four o'clock in the morning, and study till it was time either to read lectures or to visit his patients. But as attending patients did not occupy his whole time, he read public lectures upon Hippocrates and Galen, which soon gained him a great reputation throughout France and in foreign countries. When his business increased, however, he left off reading lec- Ferney, a town of France, in the department of the Ain, and arrondissement of Gex. It is situated on an elevated spot, not far from the lake of Geneva, and contains 750 inhabitants. It is only remarkable from the château there having been the residence of Voltaire from 1762 to 1777.