In the midst of all this activity and strife, the hand of death arrested his career on the 28th of July, 1750. His miscellaneous works were published in five volumes, octavo. Very different opinions have been formed of Middleton's religious character. Dr Parr, usually a liberal judge on such a point, considered him "a concealed infidel." Others have praised him for his liberality of sentiment and unaffected pursuit of truth. His literary character is a point of less uncertainty. Parr was a great admirer of his style, and used to repeat particular passages in his works with much animation. Bolingbroke, a still higher authority, says that Middleton is "the best writer in England;" he is indeed an admirable prose writer, superior perhaps to Addison, in what has been called the Middle-style of composition.

William Whiston.

BORN A. D. 1667.- died A. D. 1752.

THIS singular and extraordinary character was the son of the Rev. Josiah Whiston, rector of Norton, near Twycrosse, in the county of Leicester. His education, which had been chiefly conducted at home, was finished at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship in 1693, and soon after became chaplain to Moore, bishop of Norwich. While filling this office, he published a work, entitled 'A New Theory of the Earth, from its original to the consummation of all things.' He says that the manuscript was examined and approved by Bentley, Sir Isaac Newton, and Sir Christopher Wren. Locke, writing to his friend Molyneaux, soon after the publication of this book, says, "I have not heard any one of my acquaintance speak of it, (the Theory,) but with great commendations, as I think it deserves; and truly, I think, he is more to be admired, that he has laid down an hypothesis whereby he has explained so many wonderful, and, before, inexplicable things in the great changes of this globe, than that some of them should not easily go down with some men, when the whole was entirely new to all."

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In 1698 he was presented to the living of Lowestoft in Suffolk, and immediately applied himself most conscientiously to the discharge of his pastoral duties. In 1700 Sir Isaac Newton, who subsequently resigned in his favour, appointed him his deputy in the Lucasian professorship of mathematics, upon which he resigned his living, and removed to Cambridge. In 1702 he published A Short View of the Chronology of the Old Testament, and of the Harmony of the Four Evangelists.' In 1703 he edited an edition of Tacquet's Euclid, with select theorems of Archimedes.' In 1706 he published an Essay on the Revelation of St John;' and the next year, Prælectiones Astronomicæ,' and an edition of Sir Isaac Newton's Arithmetica Universalis.' In 1707 he preached the Boyle lectures. During the following year he drew up an Essay upon the Apostolical Constitutions;' but the vice-chancellor refused to license it for the Cambridge press, on discovering that it contained what were considered heterodox notions upon the article of the Trinity. Whiston, however, was not a

• Butler's Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 249.

man to be daunted by the opposition of others, and even the remonstrances of friends failed to persuade him to an ordinary measure of prudence in the promulgation of his peculiar sentiments. He insisted on openly avowing his Arian sentiments even from the pulpits of the university. His friend Dr Clarke besought him not to publish a piece which he had written on the family of Joseph and Mary, the reputed parents of our Saviour, arguing that its publication might do him much harm, and could be attended with little good, for the common opinion on the subject might go undisturbed. Whiston replied that "such sorts of motives were of no weight with him, compared with the discovery and propagation of truth." Dr Laughton and Mr Priest came to him "in a way of kindness," to use his own words, "to dissuade him from going on with his publication of the Apostolical Constitutions,' and of his argument for their authority;" but he told them, "You may as well persuade the sun to come down from the firmament as turn me from this my resolution." Even the redoubtable Bentley's powers of entreaty if he condescended to resort to entreaty-and threatening, were set at nought by the indomitable Whiston, who calmly says of the great master of Trinity: "he aimed prodigiously to terrify me with the irresistible authority of the convocation." The enthusiasm of the man, at this critical period of his fortunes, appears in the following passage from his autobiography :-" Continuing to act boldly, according to my duty and conscience, I enjoyed a great calm within, how roughly soever the waves and billows abroad seemed ready to overwhelm me. Nor do I remember, that during all the legal proceedings against me— which lasted in all four or five years at Cambridge and London-I lost my sleep more than two or three hours one night on that account. This affords a small specimen of what support the old confessors and martyrs might receive from their Saviour when they underwent such miseries and torments as we should generally think insupportable by human nature. But to proceed as to myself, when I saw that it was not unlikely that I might come into great trouble, by my open and resolute behaviour in these matters, and resolving to hazard all in endeavouring to restore the religion of Christ as he left it, which I well knew what it was in almost every single point, I took particular notice of the martyrdom of Polycarp, and learned that admirable prayer of his at his martyrdom by heart; and if it should be my lot to die a martyr, I designed to put up the same prayer in the same circumstances; being satisfied that no death is so eligible to a Christian as martyrdom, in case the preservation of his integrity and a good conscience make it necessary."

In the year of his banishment from the university, but before that transaction occurred, Whiston published his Prælectiones PhysicoMathematicæ,' in which the doctrines established by Sir Isaac Newton were first popularly expounded. These prelections were afterwards published in English. They contain abundant proofs of Whiston's powers and acquirements as a mathematician. Had he confined himself to the science of demonstration, he would have taken a very high rank among the mathematicians of his country; but his head was unfortunately full of crude notions about "the genuine, canonical, and apostolical" constitutions, and his scheme for the revival of "primitive Christianity;" and upon these subjects he went on writing and blunder

ing with a zeal and precipitation that defied either restraint or guidance. A single anecdote will suffice to illustrate the fervent zeal with which this mistaken but well-meaning man set about enforcing the authority of his favourite Constitutions.' Hoadly, he says, told him one day that Bishop Burnet, soon after the publication of his four volumes of Primitive Christianity,' had expressed his surprise, that a man of Whiston's erudition and sagacity should have fallen into such a wild theory on the subject of the constitutions. This was enough for Whiston. Without further ado, he waited upon the bishop to debate the point personally with him. "I desired to know his reasons against them," he says. His lordship replied, "that he certainly had had some reasons against them, but he could not now recall them. However," Whiston's narrative goes on," he soon recollected one of these reasons, namely, the dryness and dulness of the prayers. I answered, Your lordship greatly surprises me by saying so, for I thought all who ever perused them have allowed that they were amongst the best prayers now in the world.' The bishop said further," he adds, "in excuse for his present unacquaintedness with such matters of antiquity, that it was thirty years ago since he read over the three first centuries." Whiston was now supporting himself mainly by lecturing on astronomy in the metropolis; and this source of income would probably have proved sufficient for all his wants, had he not neglected every thing in his passion for illuminating the world on points of high faith and doctrine, and primitive ecclesiastical antiquity. In the month of January, 1711, we find him addressing a letter to Tennison, archbishop of Canterbury, in which he solicits a public hearing from his grace, in order that he might vindicate himself from the unjust reproaches and calumnies with which he had been assailed. The archbishop did not see proper to indulge him with an interview, whereupon the undaunted Whiston sent his humble duty to his grace, and proceeded with his theological investigations." In the same year," says he, "that great general, Prince Eugene of Savoy, was in England. And because I did then, as I do now, interpret the end of the hour and day, and month and year, for the Ottoman devastations, (Apoc. ix. 15,) to have been put, by his glorious victory over the Turks, September 1, 1697, O. S., or the succeeding peace of Carlowitz, 1698, I printed a short dedication of my first imperfect Essay on the Revelation of Saint John,' and fixed it to the cover of a copy of that essay, and presented it to the prince, upon which he sent me a present of fifteen guineas." From this period we find Whiston applying various Scripture prophecies to passing events; of course his absurd predictions were continually falsified; but his confidence in his ability to interpret prophecy sustained no shock from repeated failures. In 1712 he discovered "the ancient error of the baptism of uncatechized infants," and wrote a book on the subject with his usual precipitation and confidence. His affairs were still before the convocation; but the queen seemed to discourage any further proceedings against him, by delaying to confirm the censure of convocation when forwarded to her for her approbation. "This was not unacceptable," observes Burnet, "to some of us, and to myself in particular. I was gone into my diocese when that censure was passed; and I have ever thought that the true interest of the Christian religion was best consulted when nice disputing about mysteries was laid aside and

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forgotten." In the beginning of the next year, Whiston published "Reflections on a Pamphlet of Mr Anthony Collins, entitled 'A Discourse of Free-thinking.' "I have been informed," says he, "that when Bishop Burnet had read this paper of mine, he liked it so well, that he said, for its sake I forgive him all his heresy.'"

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The court of delegates now took up Whiston's publications for cution, and the duke of Newcastle gave him ten guineas to fee Mr Lechmere as his counsel; " with leave," adds he, "to keep these ten guineas to myself if he would not accept of them." Lechmere allowed him to keep the duke's gratuity, and " gave me," says he, "the best advice in the world, as I thought, and, what I highly approved of, gratis, namely, not to trust to an extempore defence, but to write it down, to print it, to read it in open court, and to publish it the next day." Lord-chief-justice Dod at last put an end to the prosecution of Whis ton, by declaring that "he would not sit as a judge upon heresies ;" and Whiston complimented the court by presenting each member with "a single sheet, wet from the press;" which, on examination, instead of a petition for mercy, as at first they supposed it to be, turned out a • Demonstration of the Cause of the Deluge!'

'A new Method of discovering the Longitude,' and a 'Vindication of the Sibylline Oracles,' were the next subjects that employed Whiston's pen. Meanwhile, he got up a meeting for the purposes of Christian worship, according to his new views of Scripture." On Easter day, 1715," he says, 66 we began to have a solemn assembly for worship and the eucharist, at my house in Cross-street, Hatton-garden, according to the form in my liturgy. About fifteen communicants present. On Whitsunday the same year we had a second solemn assembly for the same purpose, which was continued several years, at least three times in a year, at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas. In pursuance of my proposals for erecting societies for promoting primitive Christianity, such a society was erected about this time, and met weekly at the primitive library, which was at my house in Cross-street, Hatton-garden, in which house I have heard the famous Mr Flamsteed once also lived. It lasted about two years, from July 3d, 1715, to June 28th, 1717, of which society, its chairman, and secretary, and rules, see Dr Clarke's life.2 However, I will here add one particular circumstance, not related elsewhere, which concerns this society. When we first met, and were very desirous no bar should be laid in the way of any that pretended to be Christians from joining with us, Mr Josiah Martin, the most learned of all the people called Quakers that I ever knew, offered himself to be a member, and was readily received as such. I then proposed that we should use some short collects taken out of our Common Prayer book, before we began, and after we ended every meeting, to implore the blessing of God upon our inquiries: to which proposal all readily agreed but Mr Martin, who entirely scrupled joining with us in such prayers unless when the Spirit moved him, which occasioned a good deal of difficulty to the society."

While poor Whiston was struggling with bishops and delegates, and unruly quakers, who would not conform to his ideas of primitive worship, the eclipse of 1715 came in good time to replenish his exhausted

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History of his own Times.

* 1st edition, pp. 86-91.

"This most

purse, and supply his family with the means of livelihood. eminent eclipse," says he, "was exactly foretold by Mr Flamsteed, Dr Halley, and myself. Its beginning came to one minute, and its end within four of the calculations. And it was perhaps more exactly observed by the French astronomers in London, and by our own at the Royal society and elsewhere, than any other eclipse ever was. I myself, by my lectures before,-by the sale of my schemes before and after,-by the generous presents of my numerous and noble audience, who, at the recommendation of my great friend, the Lord Stanhope, then secretary of state, gave me a guinea apiece,-by the very uncommon present of twenty guineas from another of my great benefactors, the duke of Newcastle, and of five guineas at night from the Lord Godolphin, gained in all about £120 by it. Which," he adds, with affecting naïvete, "in the circumstances I then was and have since been, was a very seasonable and plentiful supply, and, as I reckoned, maintained me and my family for a whole year together." This eclipse of the sun, he afterwards discovered, must have been intended as a divine signal that the end of that overbearing persecution in two of the ten idolatrous kingdoms, which arose in the fifth century in the Roman empire, namely, the Britons and the Saxons, had come or was nigh at hand. Whiston's memoirs of himself abound with curious notices of his life, habits, and opinions, all told in the most simple and inartificial manner. His great passion appears to have been to discover and introduce what he conceived to be the order, discipline, and doctrines of primitive Christianity. Every day threw some new light upon his researches, and his conclusions were as enthusiastically adopted in his own practice and pressed by him upon the attention of others, as they were rapidly arrived at. For example, he found out that he could produce more evidence, as he thought, for the observance of half-fasts, or the Wednesday's and Friday's stations, than for that of the Lord's day itself; and straightway he became a rigid observer of these two stations, beyond any of the Roman Catholic persuasion; for he tells us, that he could not in his observance of these half-fasts avail himself of the Catholic maxim, "liquidum non solvit jejunium." "I once went," says he, "to speak with the learned Dr Woodward, the physician. It was on a Wednesday or Friday, I do not know which. He offered me a dish of chocolate, which I refused, telling him that I kept the old rule of Christians, and should not take any more food till three o'clock in the afternoon. He replied that I might drink chocolate-if it were milled, and thereby made a liquidand be fasting still. And, to prove his assertion, he produced a thin book in quarto, written by a cardinal, to that very purpose; however, neither did the cardinal's authority nor reason move me to alter my own Christian practice." Dr Halley, provoked by a similar exhibition of Whiston's pertinacity, observed to him he was afraid he had a Pope in his belly; to which the undaunted Whiston promptly replied, that, had it not been for "the rise now and then of a Luther and a Whiston" he would himself have gone down on his knees to St Winifred and St Bridget. Again, he cautions the reader to observe that, "though he sometimes complies with custom as to the denomination of great men, both in church and state, to prevent giving too much offence, such as 'His most excellent Majesty,' 'His royal Highness,' "The right reverend Father in God,'-yet is he not quite satisfied with the justness of such