walled town of Prussian Westphalia, government of Arnsberg, and 23 miles N.E. of the town of that name, on the left bank of the Lippe. It is entered by five gates, and has a court-house and an orphan hospital. It has brandy distilleries, and manufactures of woollens, leather, vinegar, and starch. A part of it formerly belonged to Lippe-Detmold. Pop. 4862.

Lipsius, Justus, an eminent critic and antiquary, was born on the 18th of October 1547, at Isque, a village between Brussels and Louvain. After receiving his elementary education at Brussels, he began, at the age of ten, to study Latin at Ath, in Hainaut; and after the lapse of two years, entered the Jesuit College at Cologne. There applying himself to history, philosophy, and Greek, he gave so far a promise of future eminence, that the Jesuits, who were eager to employ the talents of their pupils in their own service, used all their arts to draw him within their fraternity. Their designs, however, were defeated by his parents, who removed him, in 1564, to the University of Louvain. In addition to his favourite studies of philology and philosophy, Lipsius, at the desire of his father, who had destined him for the legal profession, now began to study jurisprudence. The death of his father, however, in the ensuing year, left him to follow the full bias of his own mind. His first work, Variarum Lectionum libri tres, published in 1567, and dedicated to Cardinal de Granvelle, secured for him the patronage of that ecclesiastic, who appointed him his Latin secretary. In this capacity he accompanied the cardinal in that same year to Rome, where he remained till 1569, cultivating an intimacy with several learned men, and poring over the manuscripts preserved in the Vatican and other libraries. On his return to Louvain, he spent a year there with little profit either to his learning or morals. He then set out on a tour, and after travelling in Austria, was passing through Germany towards Louvain; but receiving an alarming account of the war that was raging in the Netherlands, he was induced to settle down at Jena as professor of history and eloquence. After remaining this office for two years, he removed to Cologne in 1574, and there he married a lady descended from a good family in Louvain. In the same year his first edition of Tacitus was printed in octavo at Antwerp. He improved the succeeding editions with great assiduity; and the sixth edition, in folio and quarto, was printed at the same place in 1600. His Antiquarum Lectionum libri quinque appeared at Antwerp in 1575.

From Cologne, after a sojourn of nine months, he retired to Isque; but upon the renewal of hostilities in the vicinity, he withdrew to Louvain. Here, at the suggestion of his friends, he resumed the study of jurisprudence, and in 1576 took the degree of LL.D. His knowledge of law, though never used professionally, aided his critical labours by elucidating many points in Roman antiquities. In 1577 he published his Epistolaeorum Questionum libri quinque. He became professor of history at Leyden in 1579, and taught there with high reputation. At Louvain he had been a Papist, at Jena a Lutheran, and at Leyden he now became a Calvinist.

At Leyden he produced some of his more elaborate works. Liquation. His Electorum liber trium appeared in 1580; Electorum libri duo in 1582; De Amphitheatro liber, to which is subjoined De Amphitheatris qua extra Romana libellus in 1584; Saturnalium Sermonum libri duo in 1585; Recta Pronuntiatione Latinae Linguae Dialogus, dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, in 1586; and an edition of Seneca's Tragedies in 1588. He also published two political works,—De Constantia libri duo, in 1584; and Politicorum sive Civitatis Doctrinae libri sex, in 1589. This latter treatise, advocating the punishment of dissenters from the established faith, was immediately attacked by Theodore Koornhert, and feebly defended by its author in his De Una Religione edecemna Dialogismat liber, published 1590. Resigning his chair in 1591, he withdrew to Spa, and afterwards to Mentz; and in the same year was publicly reconciled to the Roman Church. During a sojourn of two years at Spa and Liège, he refused several preferments proffered to him by princes and dignitaries of the Church. Benedictus Arias Montanus, a learned Spaniard, also offered him a share of his house and income during his life, and promised him his entire property after his death. His desire to reside in his native country induced him, however, to reject this offer; and Lipsius finally returned to Louvain as professor of history and eloquence. Here his scanty salary of 800 florins was supplemented by a pension of 1000 florins from Philip II., and one of 200 from Archduke Albert. The high eminence he attained as a professor was confirmed by the publication of the following antiquarian works:—De Cruce libri tres, 1595; De Militia Romana libri quinque, and Poliorceticon, 1596; Admiranda sive de Magnitudine Romana libri quatuor, 1598; and De Vesta et Vestalliae in 1603. His Manuductionis ad Stoicam Philosophiam libri tres, and his Physiologie Stoicorum libri tres, appeared in 1604; his Monita et Exempla Politica, his edition of Seneca the philosopher, and his Lovanium, in 1605. He also wrote two detailed accounts of the miracles of the Virgin,—Diva Virgo Halleanis, in 1604, and Diva Siechemensis, in 1605. These, furnishing the subject of a bitter controversy, aroused the contempt of Protestants, without securing any sympathy for their promulgator in the Church of Rome. Lipsius died March 23, 1606, dedicating, with his last breath, his academical gown to the Virgin.

His erudition in Latin literature was very great, and was employed with much critical skill in illustrating many different branches of Roman antiquities. Less adapted, through a defective sensibility, to excel in poetical criticism, he was still an able critic of the style and scope of historians, philosophers, grammarians, and rhetoricians. His knowledge of Greek was less intimate; and his exposition of Polybius, incorporated with his De Militia Romana, is asserted by Casaubon to have shed no light on the dark passages of the original. The graver charge of plagiarism has been brought against this same work by Scaliger, Salmasius, and many later writers. Nor has his edition of Tacitus, the chief pillar of his fame, escaped this stigma. That his judgment was weak, when beyond the province of criticism, is evinced by the shortsighted views and illiberal spirit of his political treatises. His Latinity, fantastic and unnatural, excited the disgust of his learned contemporaries, and was the subject of a volume of 560 pages by H. Stephanus. In the hands of a few imitative disciples it underwent a tenfold deterioration.

An edition of his entire works, accompanied by a life, was published at Antwerp in 1637, by Aubert le Mire. His original works were published at Wesel in 1675.