forgiveness, and exhorted the assembled people to love and unity. He died April, 635. Isidore was a very learned man for the time in which he lived. He was kind and beneficent to Jews, pious and charitable, and influential on behalf of the political power of the church. His works are grammatical, theological, and historical; and are very voluminous. The most important are, "Originum sive Etymologiarum libri xx.;" "Chronicon," from the creation till 626; "Historia Gothorum, Vandalorum, et Suevorum;" "De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis;" "De natura rerum;" "De differentiis libri ii.;" "Synonymorum libri ii.;" "Liber proœmiorum;" "Commentaria in Vet. Testament.," &c. The best edition of his works is that of Faustus Arevali, 7 vols. 4to; Romæ, 1797-1803.—S. D.
ISIDORE Mercator, or Peccator, according to other MSS. A number of spurious decretals professing to have been put forth by different popes during the first three centuries, were promulgated in the ninth century. The author of these letters prefixed to them a preface of Isidore Mercator; but it also is spurious. Hence Isidore Mercator is an imaginary person, now commonly termed Pseudo-Isidore. The writer of the decretals probably belonged to France.—S. D.
ISLA, Juan de, a Spanish satirical writer, born in 1703, was a member of the Society of Jesus, and an eloquent preacher. He was expelled from Spain in 1767, with the rest of his order, and died at Bologna in 1781. His sermons, of which we have many (1729-54), are remarkable for their superiority to the gross bad taste then current in the Spanish pulpit. Not content with this, he wrote "The History of the famous preacher Fray Gerundio" (Friar Gerund), a satire (which "reminds us of Rabelais, without his coarseness") on the life of a popular preacher in those days, his education and his adventures as a missionary, with specimens of sermons actually preached, and sketches of national character. Eight hundred copies of the first volume were sold in twenty-four hours, but the work was prohibited in 1760. His next satire was a poem called "Cicero," which is by no means a life of the great Roman—whom the poet leaves in his cradle—but a medley on the education of fine ladies in his day, Spanish poetry, Italy, theatres, country life—in short, whatever occurred to the author's humour. The work, however, by which he is best known, is the translation of Gil Bias. There seems no ground for the assertion on the title-page, that this immortal satire was "stolen from the Spanish," except that Le Sage had freely used such Spanish materials as suited his purpose. There is a good life of Isla by J. I. De Salas, Madrid, 1803.—F. M. W.
ISNARD, Maximin, the president of the French revolutionary convention, was born at Grasse, 16th February, 1751, and died in the same town in 1830. Son of a rich landowner, he adopted the principles of the Revolution, and in 1791 was sent as representative of the bar to the convention. He joined the Girondins, and was the only man amongst them capable of giving direction to the national affairs. He was one of those who voted the death of Louis XVI., unconditionally. He was the originator of the famous comité de salut public, and in May, 1793, was elected president of the convention, but did not retain the office long, as he was too independent for the republicans. He was arrested, escaped, was outlawed; but again, in 1794, appeared in the convention and took part in politics. When Napoleon became emperor, Isnard retired and devoted himself to literature, and left some volumes on politics and philosophy.—P. E. D.
ISOCRATES, the son of Theodorus, a musical-instrument maker of Athens, was born 436 b.c. He was educated by the most celebrated sophists of the period, such as Gorgias, Prodicus, Socrates, and Theramenes, and thus became one of the most renowned rhetorical and oratorical teachers and writers of ancient Greece. He was so timid that he could never speak in public, but devoted himself entirely to instructing others, and composing those orations which constituted him, according to the judgment of the Alexandrian critics, fourth amongst the Greek orators. He is said to have written sixty orations, eight of which were forensic and all the remainder political, but only twenty-one of them are extant. There are also nine, or according to some, ten of his letters to his friends on political subjects remaining, and a few fragments of his treatise on the "Art of Rhetoric;" but these latter are so unconnected that we cannot pronounce any opinion upon its merits as an entire work. Plutarch and others inform us that the reason of his devoting himself to teaching was to indemnify himself for the loss of his inheritance in the war against the Lacedæmonians; but be this as it may, it is certain that he amassed a large fortune by his lectures, and by the composition of his orations, as his pupils paid him one thousand drachms each, and he is said to have received as much as twenty talents for his πρὸς Νικοκλέα from Nicocles, king of Cyprus. Although Isocrates ultimately attained so much celebrity, the commencement of his career was anything but successful, for when he first established himself as a teacher of rhetoric at Chios, he only obtained nine pupils. In consequence of his failure he applied himself to politics, and is said to have remodelled the Chian constitution and assimilated it to that of Athens. When he had accomplished this he returned to his native city, and here made his second essay as a teacher, when his reputation increased so rapidly that his school was soon attended by upwards of one hundred pupils. He married the widow of Hippias the sophist, and adopted the youngest of his sons, Aphareus, through whom he excused himself from accepting the trierarchy, to which on account of his known wealth he was elected 355 b.c. The reason which he alleged for his non-execution of the office was bodily infirmity; but hearing that his refusal to act was attributed t o his love of money, he accepted the office in 352, and performed every duty connected with it in the most sumptuous and lavish manner possible. Notwithstanding the calumnies of his enemies, Isocrates was a sincere patriot; and hence when Philip became master of Greece by the battle of Cheronæa, 338 b. c., he refused to take any sustenance, and expired in the nintey-ninth year of his age. Isocrates wrote in the purest Attic, and his style is refined and elegant, although, from the immense pains he bestowed upon it, it is over-polished and sometimes resembles poetry rather than prose. This same care, however, renders the arrangement of his orations admirable, and no ancient rhetorician could ever boast of having had such eminent pupils as Isocrates. His political views were totally devoid of all practical soundness, and the principal aim of all his teaching appears to have been to oppose the doctrines of the sophists; although it is remarkable that in his most strenuous efforts to refute them, he is never able completely to shake off the influence which they had obtained over him during his earlier years. The best editions of Isocrates are those of G. S. Dobson (2 vols. 8vo., London, 1828), and J. G. Baiter (printed in the "Oratores Attici," Didôt Fréres, Paris, 1846) with a Latin translation by Ahrens. There are several good editions of select orations by various editors, and a useful Index Græcitatis published at Oxford in 1827.—E. L—n.
* ISTURIZ, Francisco Xavier de, a Spanish statesman, born in 1790 at Cadiz, where his father was a merchant. During the French invasion of 1808 he, with his elder brother Thomas, took an active part on the national side, and became members of a masonic lodge about 1810. From 1812 to 1814 Thomas was a deputy to the cortes, and after the restoration of Ferdinand in 1814 the house of the brothers, surnamed the Casa Otomana, became a rallying point for all the disaffected. Here the celebrated revolt of the Isla de Leon (1st January, 1820), headed by Riego and Quiroga, was planned; and subsequently Xavier de Isturiz, repairing to Madrid, co-operated with Alcala Galiano and others in the clubs of the capital to overthrow the ministry of Canga Arguelles and Martinez de la Rosa. Elected deputy for Cadiz in 1822, he proposed a vote of want of confidence in the ministry, 30th May. On the 30th June the king closed the session, and Calatrava replaced Martinez de la Rosa in the ministry. In the extraordinary cortes convened on the 7th October, Isturiz supported the measures of the exaltado ministry. On the 9th January, 1823, he supported the motion of Galiano that the cortes would never consent to the alteration of the constitution. As president of the revolutionary junta, he supported the vote by which the king was declared incapable of reigning. On the restoration in October Isturiz was obliged to flee to London, where he became connected with the great mercantile house of Zulucta. Returning under the amnesty granted by the queen regent in 1834, he was again elected for Cadiz, and aided in the overthrow of the ministry of the count of Toreño, August, 1835. At first he supported the ministry of Mendizabel; but a quarrel soon arose, which terminated in a duel. In May, 1836, Isturiz became minister for foreign affairs and president of the council; but in August of the same year he was obliged to flee the country after the insurrection of La Granga. Once more amnestied (1837), he was again elected for Cadiz, and became president of the cortes. During the regency of Espartero he remained in Spain, secretly working in favour of the queen regent; and, on the fall of
