BELLENDEN, WituAm. A Scottish author in the time of Queen Mary and dames VI. Ilis personal history is meagre and obscure: all that we know being the testimony of Dempster (Hist. Beet.) that he was a professor in the University of Paris and an advocate in the Parlement there, and that he was employed in that city in a dip lomatic capacity by Queen Mary, and also by her son, who conferred on hint the appointment of Master of Requests. His first work, entitled Cieeronis Prineeps, etc., was published in Paris in 1608; his next, Ciceronis Consul, 'Senator, Populusque, Rumanus, in 1012. Both these works are compilations from the NV1+61112:8 of Cicero. His next work, Dr Stahl Prisei Orbis, appeared in 1015, and consists of a condensed skcteh of the history and progress of religion, government, and philosophy in ancient times. These three works lie republished in a collected form the year after, under the title De Matti Libri Tres. His crowning labor, be Tribus Lu minibus leonianorum, was published after his death. The 'three luminaries' were Cicero, Sen
eca, Pliny, out of whose works he intended to compile, on the same plan as his previous works, a comprehensive digest of the civil and religious history, and the moral and physical science of the Romans. The first of these alone was completed, and forms a remarkable monu ment of Bellenden's industry and ability. "Bel lenden," says Hallam, "seems to have taken a more comprehensive view of history, and to have reflected more philosophically on it, than perhaps any one had done before." Bellenden's works furnished the materials for Dr. Middle ton's Life of Cicero, though that learned divine abstains from any allusion to the forgotten Scot. from whom lie plundered wholesale. Warton first denounced the theft. which was afterwards made clear by Dr. Parr, in his edition of Dc Motu, in three books, published in 1787.