JOHN TUBERVILLE, was born at London on 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; whilst the head of the elder and Protestant branch was Lord Kilmorey, created viscount 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 at 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 Lisbon, where, on account of his bad health, he remained only fifteen months. After his return, he passed at London and Paris several years, 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 at Paris in 1750 in one volume 12mo; and an account of them was also given by M. de Buffon, in the first volumes of his Natural History. An intimate connection existed between the illustrious French naturalist and Mr Needham; they made their experiments and observations together, though the results and systems which they deduced from the same objects and operations were totally different. Mr Needham was admitted as a member of the Royal Society of London in the year 1747, and of the Antiquarian Society some time afterwards. 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, desirous to promote 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 the Count de Cobenzel and the president Neny, and was successively appointed chief director of both these foundations. He held this place, together with some ecclesiastical preferments he had obtained in the Low Countries, until his death, which happened on the 30th of December 1781. His piety, temperance, and purity of manners, were eminent; his attachment to the doctrines and duties of Christianity was inviolable. His opposition to modern infidels was indefatigable, and even passionate; but his probity was untainted. He was incapable of every species of duplicity; his beneficence was universal, and his unsuspecting candour rendered him often the dupe of Needham's perfidy.

The papers of Mr Needham, inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, are contained in vols. xlii. xlv. xiv. and li., and treat, 1. of tubulous concretions; 2. of worms in smutty corn, observed with the microscope; 3. of some electrical experiments made at Paris; 4. of Buffon's burning mirror; 5. of the generation, composition, and decomposition of animal and vegetable substances; and, 6. of the discovery of asbestos in France. Again, his works printed at Paris in French embrace, 1. New Microscopical Discoveries, 1745; 2. The same enlarged, 1750; 3. Observations on the Generation of Organized Bodies, 1769. He had also a considerable share in the well-known controversy respecting the origin of the Chinese; and adopted the opinion of M. de Guignes, that that people are descended from the ancient Egyptians and Phoenicians. (See the article Hieroglyphics.) He arrived at this conclusion from comparing the characters upon the breast and forehead of a bust in the museum of Turin, supposed to be of Egyptian origin, with those of a Chinese dictionary in the Vatican, which had been printed at Pekin, and from perceiving a considerable resemblance between the characters on the one and contained in the other. The result of his investigation he published in a pamphlet, entitled De Inscriptione quadam Egypticae Taurini inventa, et characteribus, Egyptis olim et Sinis communibus exarata, 1761, in 8vo. Nothing could be fairer or more candid than the manner in which Mr Needham proceeded in comparing the characters on the bust with those in the dictionary; but the theory deduced from this comparison is nevertheless entirely groundless and imaginary. In all forms of hieroglyphical writing, such casual coincidences may easily be detected, because picture-writing is the original basis of each; and hence the existence of such resemblances affords no proof whatever of one nation being descended from, or in any way connected with, another. But there is scarcely any similarity between the Chinese characters and the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The former were originally mere rude delineations of external objects, which, in process of time, came to be variously combined and modified, until they assumed the peculiar forms in which we now find them. The latter, however, were constructed on a far more complex and artificial principle, and of their aggregate number only a small portion can be referred to picture-writing. To seek resemblances, therefore, amongst things so disparate, is rather to indulge the fancy than to prosecute rational inquiry.