ALAIN RENE, an ingenious French romance-writer, was born at Ruys, in Bretagne, in the year 1667. He had a fine flow of imagination, was a complete master of the French and Spanish languages, and wrote several admired romances in imitation of the Spanish authors. These were, 1. The Bachelor of Salamanca, two vols. 12mo; 2. New Adventures of Don Quixote, two vols. 12mo; 3. The Devil on Two Sticks, two vols. 12mo; and, 4. Gil Blas, four vols. 12mo. He produced also some comedies, and other humorous pieces. This ingenious author died in the year 1747, in the vicinity of Paris.

John, so justly admired by all who knew him for his classical learning and reasoning powers, was born in 1652, in the parish of Creich and county of Fife, where his ancestors had lived for seven generations with great respect, though with little property. His father was a captain in Lord Duffus's regiment, and fought for his king and country when Monk stormed Dundee on the 30th of August 1651.

The issue of the civil wars, and the loyalty of Captain Sage, left him nothing to bestow upon his son but a liberal education and his own principles of piety and virtue. In those days the Latin language was taught in the parochial schools of Scotland with great ability and at a trifling expense; and after young Sage had acquired a competent knowledge of that language at one of those useful seminaries, his father, without receiving from an ungrateful court any recompense for what he had lost in the cause of royalty, was still able to send him to the university of St Andrews. Having remained in college the usual number of terms or sessions, and performed the exercises required by the statutes, he was admitted to the degree of master of arts, the highest honour which it appears he ever received from any university.

During his residence in St Andrews he studied the Greek and Roman authors with great diligence, and was likewise instructed in logic, metaphysics, and such other branches of philosophy as then obtained in the schools. When Mr Sage had taken his master's degree, the narrowness of his fortune compelled him to accept of the first literary employment which was offered to him; and that happened to be nothing better than the office of schoolmaster in the parish of Bingry in Fifeshire, whence he was soon removed to Tippermuir, in the county of Perth. In these humble stations, though he wanted many of the necessaries and almost all the comforts of life, he prosecuted his studies with great success; but in doing so, he unhappily imbibed the seeds of several diseases, which afflicted him through life, and, notwithstanding the native vigour of his constitution, impaired his health and shortened his days. From the miserable drudgery of a parish-schoolmaster he was relieved by Mr Drummond of Cultmalundie, who invited him to superintend the education of his sons, whom he accompanied first to the public school at Perth, and afterwards to the university of St Andrews. This was still an employment by no means adequate to his merit, but it was not wholly without advantages. At Perth, he gained the friendship and esteem of Dr Rose, afterwards bishop of Edinburgh, and at St Andrews that of every man capable of properly estimating genius and learning.

The education of his pupils terminated in 1684, when he was left with no determinate object of pursuit. In this moment of indecision, his friend Dr Rose, who had been promoted from the parsonage of Perth to the professorship of divinity in the university which he was leaving, recommended him so effectually to his uncle, then archbishop of Glasgow, that he was by that prelate admitted into orders, and presented to one of the churches in the city. He was then about thirty-four years of age, and had studied the Scriptures with great assiduity; he was no stranger to ecclesiastical history, or the apologies and other writings of the ancient fathers, and had examined with great accuracy the modern controversies, especially those between the Romish and Reformed churches. A man so far advanced in life, and so thoroughly accomplished as a scholar, would naturally be looked up to by the greater part of the clergy as soon as he became one of their body. This was in fact the case. Mr Sage was, immediately on his admission into orders, appointed clerk to the synod or presbytery of Glasgow; an office of great trust and respectability, to which we know nothing similar in the church of England. During the establishment of episcopacy in Scotland, the authority of the bishops, though they possessed the sole power of ordination, was very limited in the government of the church. They did every thing with the consent of the presbyters over whom they presided. Diocesan synods were held at stated times for purposes of the same kind with those which employ the meetings of presbyteries at present; and the only prerogative which the bishop seems to have enjoyed was to be permanent president, with a negative voice over the deliberations of the assembly. The acts of each synod, and sometimes the charge delivered by the bishop at the opening of it, were registered in a book kept by the clerk, who was always one of the most eminent of the diocesan clergy.

Mr Sage continued in this office, discharging in Glasgow all the duties of a clergyman, in such a manner as endeared him to his flock, and gained him the esteem even of those who were dissenters from the establishment. Many of his brethren were trimmers in ecclesiastical as well as in civil politics. They had been republicans and presbyterians in the days of the covenant; and, with that ferocious zeal which too often characterizes interested converts, had concurred in the severities which, during the reign of Charles II., were exercised against the party whom they had forsaken at the Restoration. When that party again raised its head during the reign of James, and every thing indicated an approaching change of the establishment, those whose zeal for the church had so lately incited them to persecute the dissenters, suddenly became all gentleness and concession, and advanced towards the presbyterians as to their old friends.

The conduct of Mr Sage was the reverse of this. He was an episcopalian and a royalist from conviction; and in all his discourses, public and private, he laboured to instil into the minds of others the principles which to himself appeared to have their foundation in truth. To persecution he was at all times an enemy, whilst he never tamely betrayed through fear what he thought it his duty to maintain. The consequence was, that in the end of the year 1688, he was treated by the rabble, which in the western counties of Scotland rose against the established church, with greater lenity than his more complying brethren.

Mr Sage retired to the metropolis, and carried with him the synodical book, which was afterwards demanded by the presbytery of Glasgow, but not recovered till, on the death of a nephew of Dr Rose, the last established bishop of Edinburgh, it was found in his possession, and restored to the presbytery to which it belonged. Mr Sage had detained it and given it to his friend, in the fond hope that episcopacy would soon be re-established in Scotland; and it was doubtless with a view to contribute what he could to the realizing of that hope, that, immediately on his being obliged to leave Glasgow, he commenced as a polemical writer. At Edinburgh he preached for a time, till, refusing to take the oaths of allegiance when required by the government, he was obliged to retire. Returning to Edinburgh in 1695, he was observed, and obliged to abscond. Yet he returned in 1696, when his friend Sir William Bruce was imprisoned as a suspected person.

After a time Mr Sage found a safe retreat with the Countess of Callendar, who employed him to instruct her family as chaplain, and her sons as tutor. These occupations did not wholly engage his active mind; for he employed his pen in defending his order or in exposing his oppressors. When the Countess of Callendar had no longer sons to instruct, Sage accepted the invitation of Sir John Stewart of Grandtully, who wanted the help of a chaplain and the conversation of a scholar. With Sir John he continued till the decency of his manners and the extensiveness of his learning recommended him to a higher station; and, on the 25th of January 1705, he was consecrated a bishop by Paterson the archbishop of Glasgow, Rose the bishop of Edinburgh, and Douglas the bishop of Dunblane. But this promotion did not prevent him from falling into sickness in November 1706. After lingering for many months in Scotland, he tried the effect of the waters of Bath in 1709, without success. At Bath and at London he remained twelve months, recognised by the great and caressed by the learned. Yet though he was invited to stay, he returned in 1710 to his native country, and died at Edinburgh on the 7th of June 1711.

His works are, 1st, Two Letters concerning the Persecution of the Episcopal Clergy in Scotland, London, 1689; 2. An Account of the late Establishment of Presbyterian Government by the Parliament of Scotland in 1690, London, 1693; 3. The Fundamental Charter of Presbytery, London, 1695; 4. The Principles of the Cyprianick Age with regard to Episcopal Power and Jurisdiction, London, 1695; 5. A Vindication of the Principles of the Cyprianick Age, London, 1701; 6. Some Remarks on the Letter from a Gentleman in the City to a Minister in the Country, on Mr David Williamson's Sermon before the General Assembly, Edinburgh, 1703; 7. A Brief Examination of some Things in Mr Meldrum's Sermon, preached on the 16th of May 1703, against a Toleration to those of the Episcopal Persuasion, Edinburgh, 1703; 8. The Reasonableness of a Toleration of those of the Episcopal Persuasion inquired into purely on Church Principles, Edinburgh, 1704; 9. The Life of Gallow Douglas, in 1710; and 10. An Introduction to Drummond's History of the Five Jameses, Edinburgh, 1711.