SAMUEL DE, a very distinguished jurist and historian, was born in 1631, at Fleh, a little village in Misnia, a province in Upper Saxony, being the son of Elias Puffendorf, minister of that place. After having made great progress in the sciences at Leipzig, he turned his thoughts to the study of public law; which in Germany consists of the knowledge of the rights of the empire over the princes and states of which it is composed, and those of the princes and states with respect to each other. But though he used his utmost efforts to distinguish himself, he despised those pompous titles which are so much sought after at universities, and never would take the degree of doctor. He accepted the place of governor to the son of Coyet, a Swedish nobleman, who was then ambassador from Sweden to the court of Denmark. For this purpose he went to Copenhagen, but did not continue long at his ease there; for the war being some time afterwards renewed between Denmark and Sweden, he was seized, along with the whole family of the ambassador. During his confinement, which lasted eight months, as he had no books, and was not allowed to see any person, he amused himself by meditating on what he had read in the treatise of Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, and the political writings of Hobbes. Out of these he drew up a short system, to which he added some thoughts of his own, and published it at the Hague in 1660, under the title of Elementa Jurisprudentiae Universalis. This recommended him to the elector palatine, who invited him to the university of Heidelberg, where he founded in his favour a professorship of the law of nature and nations, which was the first chair of the kind established in Germany. Pufendorf remained at Heidelberg till 1673, when Charles XI. of Sweden gave him an invitation to become professor of the law of nature and nations at Lundem; a place which the elector palatine reluctantly allowed him to accept. He went thither the same year; and after that time his reputation greatly increased. Some years afterwards, the king of Sweden sent for him to Stockholm, and appointed him historiographer and one of his counsellors. In 1688, the elector of Brandenburg obtained the consent of his Swedish majesty, that Pufendorf should come to Berlin in order to write the history of the elector William the Great; and in the year 1694 the elector made him a baron. But he died the same year, of an inflammation in his feet, occasioned by cutting his nails, having already attained his grand climacteric. Of his works, which are numerous, the following are the principal, viz. 1. A Treatise on the Law of Nature and Nations, written in German, of which there is an English translation with Barbeyrac's Notes; 2. An Introduction to the History of the Principal States which at present subsist in Europe, written in German, but also translated into English; 3. The History of Sweden, from Gustavus Adolphus' Expedition into Germany to the Abdication of Queen Christina; 4. The History of Charles Gustavus, in two vols. folio.