1712. Joshua Barnes died; an eminent English critic and professor of Greek. He wrote the Life of Edward III, and several Latin and English poems.
1715. A cobbler of Highgate, London, was whipped from Holloway to that place for reflecting on the government.
1720. N. Heinsius, an eminent Dutch statesman, died. He was 30 years grand pensionary of Holland, and exerted the energy of his mind and the resources of his country to abridge the power of the French monarch.
1721. Grinlin Gibbon died, an eminent English sculptor and carver in ivory and wood. The place or country of his birth is not known. He was discovered by sir John Evelyn, who walking by accident near a poor solitary thatched cottage, had the curiosity to look in at the window, when he saw him carving a large cartoon or crucifix of Tintoret, a copy of which Evelyn himself had brought from Venice. His performances in marble and ivory were so very fine, that they often required to be defended by a glass case. Many of his flower pieces are light almost as fancy, and shake to the rattling of passing carriages. There is no instance before him, says Walpole, of a man who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the various productions of the elements with the free disorder natural to each species.
1732. The first stone laid of the bank of England.
1761. John Matthew Gesner, a German scholar and critic, died. He published several valuable editions of the classics.
1763. Thomas Godfrey, an American poet, died, aged 27. He was a watchmaker, and said to have been the real inventor of Hadley's quadrant.
1768. Thomas Secker, archbishop of Canterbury, died; whose lectures and sermons are masterly compositions.
1777. Fort Schuyler, at the head of the Mohawk river, invested by the British, about 1,800, under St. Leger. The garrison consisted of 600 continentals under general Gansevoort, who maintained their position till the British abandoned the siege and returned to Canada, leaving their tents standing; their artillery, and ammunition and provisions fell into the hands of the Americans.
1780. Stephen Bonnot de Condillac, a distinguished French philosopher, died. His works are characterized by great clearness and sagacity, and were published in 1798 in 35 volumes.