THOMAS, the author of that well-known and important work the Federa, was born in Yorkshire in 1638 or 1639, and was educated at the grammar-school of Northallerton. He was admitted a scholar at Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge; then became a member of Gray's Inn in 1666; and at length was appointed historiographer to King William, in place of Shadwell, in 1692. He wrote a View of the Tragedies of the Last Age, and a tragedy named Edgar, or the English Monarch. For a critic he was certainly not well qualified, for he wanted candour; nor is his judgment much to be relied on who could condemn Shakspeare with such rigid severity in his Short View of Tragedy, 1693. His tragedy will show that his talents for poetry were by no means equal to those whose poems he has publicly censured. In 1694 appeared his translation of Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poetrie. But though he has no title to the appellation of poet or critic, as an antiquarian and historian his memory will long be preserved. His Federa, which is a collection of all public documents of the kings of England with foreign princes, is esteemed one of our most authentic and valuable records, and is often referred to by the best English historians than any other book in the language. It was published at London in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in 17 vols. folio. Three volumes more were added by Sanderson after Rymer's death. The whole were reprinted at the Hague in 10 vols., 1739. They were abridged by Rapin in French, and inserted in Le Clerc's Bibliothèque, a translation of which was made by Stephen Whatley, and printed in 4 vols. 8vo, 1731. Rymer died on the 14th of December 1713, and was buried in the parish church of St Clement Danes. Some specimens of his poetry are preserved in the first volume of Nichol's Select Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, 1780.