.

Having entered into sacred orders, he was presented by Lady Drury to the rectory of Halsted in Suffolk, having previously declined the mastership of Tiverton school. His parochial charge was rendered somewhat troublesome by the impertinences and malice of “ a witty and bold atheist, one Mr Lilly," who, having conceived some dislike to the worthy doctor's faithful ministrations, set himself to prejudice Sir Robert Drury, the son of his patroness, against him. Mr Jones conjectures that this was Lilly the author of Euphues,' who does not however appear to have avowed atheistical principles in any of his fantastic writings. But whoever the man was, he proved himself a source of considerable uneasiness to the future bishop, who confesses, that "finding the obdurateness and hopeless condition of that man, I bent my prayers against him, beseeching God daily, that he would be pleased to remove, by some means or other, that apparent hinderance of my faithful labours, who gave me an answer accordingly: for this malicious man, going hastily up to London to exasperate my patron against me, was then and there swept away by the pestilence, and never returned to do any further mischief." When he had been two years resident on his rectory, "the uncouth solitariness" of his life, and "the extreme incommodity of that single house-keeping," drew his thoughts "to condescend to the necessity of a married state." Dire however as this necessity appeared at first to be to the mind of the studious and quietloving rector, it proved-as he himself confesses-the means of introducing him to "the comfortable society of a meet-help for the space of forty-nine years."

Two years after this deed of " condescension," the paucity of his pecuniary emoluments arising from the rectorship, and the desire he had "to inform himself ocularly of the state and practices of the Romish church, induced him to accept the invitation of Sir Edmund Bacon to accompany him to Spa, and during their continental tour he engaged in a public disputation with some Jesuits at Brussels. An accidental opportunity which he had soon after his return home, of preaching at Richmond before Prince Henry, to whom he had already dedicated his Contemplations,' seems to have given the first impulse to his preferment. He was nominated one of the prince's chaplains, and was presented, by the earl of Norwich, to the valuable living of Waltham, at that time worth £100 a year, "with other considerable accommodations." On this occasion (1612,) he took his degree of doctor of divinity. His incumbency at Waltham lasted twenty-two years, during which period he continued to rise in favour at court, and was more than once engaged abroad on public missions. On his return from having accompanied Lord Doncaster in his embassy to France, he found himself created by the king, dean of Worcester. Subsequently he attended his majesty to Scotland, in an expedition from which James reaped no honours, and his subjects no advantage.

In 1618, Hall was nominated one of the four divines whom the royal polemic, who at that time filled the throne of Britain, thought fit to send to the famous synod of Dort, as the representatives of the English clergy. His colleagues on this occasion, were Carleton, Davenant, and Ward; the first, distinguished for episcopal gravity, the second for a sound judgment, and the third, for extensive reading; the quality which induced the king to appoint Hall a member of this illustrious

legation, as stated by Fuller, was his "expedita concionatio," his readiness and fluency of public address. The synod held its sittings from November, 1618, till the end of the following May; but Hall's constitution was so powerfully affected by the climate of Holland, that after two months' attendance, he was obliged to apply for his dismission The reluctance with which the synod complied with his request is a sufficient proof of the esteem in which he was held by his Dutch brethren, and the states-general sent him a respectful compliment by Heinsius, with a gold medal struck in commemoration of the synod,— a badge which he constantly wore afterwards, and which is appended to his dress in several of his portraits. There can be no reasonable doubt that Hall was a Calvinist in sentiment, and that he maintained the doctrine of election in his writings and conferences; in particular, the "Articles of Accord," which he proposed in his 'Via Media,' a publication intended to moderate the violence of "the Belgic disease," as Hall terms the Calvinistic controversy, then raging in England, as well as in the Netherlands-are explicit with regard to his views on this subject. But there is as little reason to regard him as belonging to the fiery and high-flying Calvinistic party; his views were moderate, and his temperament pacific, and he evidently made the preservation of peace a leading object throughout his whole life.

Having "with much humble deprecation, refused the bishopric of Gloucester, which was earnestly proffered to him," Hall was raised by Charles I. to the see of Exeter, in 1627; and with his bishopric he was permitted to hold in commendam the rectory of St Brock, in Cornwall, worth £300 per annum, so that his fortune was now ample. But the deplorable state to which, under the guidance of the infatuated monarch, public affairs were fast hastening, had now become evident to all but those who partook of Charles's infatuation; and the good bishop had beautifully expressed the apprehensions which filled his mind in the dedication to his 'Via Medic,' which he published shortly after his elevation to the mitre, and wherein he says:-"There needs no prophetical spirit to discern, by a small cloud, that there is a storm coming to our church; such a one as shall not only drench our plumes, but shake our peace. Already do we see the sky thicken, and hear the winds whistle hollow afar off, and feel all the presages of a tempest." The tempest soon burst forth, and the bishop of Exeter was destined early to abide the pelting of the storm. Assailed on one hand as a partisan of the church of Rome, and on the other as a favourer of Puritanism, he found himself at the same time constrained to oppose the intolerance of the metropolitan Laud, who would have crushed and borne down by the strong hand of power, if he could, all dissentients from the established order of things in church and state. At last the nation arose to vindicate its rights; the long parliament assembled, and Laud was impeached; while Hall, alarmed for the existence of the church, stood up in his place in the house of lords, and, in a spirit rare with him-of no ordinary bitterness, denounced the dissenting congregations which now dared openly to worship God according to their conscience, in the suburbs and liberties of London, as “sectaries instructed by guides fit for them, cobblers, tailors, feltmakers, and such like trash;" he even attempted to represent them as not a shade better than the anabaptists of Munster. Besides delivering this violent speech

parliament, he wrote a reply to the powerful polemical tract entitled 'Smectymnuus.'

In November, 1641, Bishop Hall was translated to Norwich; and on the 1st of January, 1642, he was committed to the Tower with other twelve prelates, on account of a protestation which they had dared to exhibit against whatever measures should be adopted in their absence from the house of lords, while restrained from appearing in public by fear of personal insult and violence from the populace. The fruits of their rash protesting was imprisonment till the 5th of May following, and deprivation of temporal estates and spiritual promotions, with reservation only of an annual allowance for their maintenance. Bishop Hall's allowance was £400 a-year. In his Letter from the Tower,' and his Free Prisoner,' we have the bishop's own account of these troubles, which he appears to have sustained with a becoming spirit of humility and resignation. On his liberation he instantly retired to Norwich, where he preached in the cathedral, on the day after his arrival, "to a numerous and attentive people," and continued to officiate till he was "forbidden by men, and at last disabled by God." It is impossible to justify the severity with which this amiable man was treated on the subversion of prelatical domination. Shortly after his retirement to Norwich an order was passed for the full sequestration of the estates of all notorious political delinquents against the commonwealth; and as this order comprehended the protesting bishops, Hall was of course included under its operation, and driven from his episcopal residence with great harshness. "The soldiers," says Neale, "used him severely, turning him out of his palace, and threatening to sell his books if a friend had not given bond for the money at which they were appraised." Neale intimates that the sequestration against the bishop of Norwich was removed in February, 1647; but the silence which Hall himself preserves on this point in his Hard Measure,' which bears date three months later, inclines us to suspect that this order, like some others, had been without effect. His last years were passed on a small estate which he rented at Heigham, a hamlet in the western suburbs of Norwich, wherein the house which he inhabited is still remaining. In his old age he became the victim of strangury and stone; his sufferings under these acute diseases were extreme, but he bore them with the utmost fortitude and resignation, till death brought his spirit welcome release, on the 8th day of September, 1656, in the S2d year of his age. Notwithstanding his injunction to the contrary, he was buried in the chancel of Heigham church, in which there is a black marble monument erected over his tomb, bearing a short and simple inscription.

Few prelates of the English church-perhaps none-have left to posterity a fairer reputation than Bishop Hall. Living in troublous times, and often placed in circumstances extremely trying to his temper as a man, and his faith and patience as a Christian, he manifested throughout the whole of a long and chequered life, the greatest singleness of heart, mildness of temper, and purity of intention. For his ethical eloquence he has sometimes been denominated the English Seneca. The merits of his writings are general chasteness and terseness of composition, a rich vein of fancy, fine pathos, delicate satire, a spirit of fervent practical piety, and views of futurity always elevating

and sublime; his defects are those of his time,-quaintness of language, and occasional involution and obscurity of style.

Thomas Gataker, B. D.

BORN A. D. 1574.-DIED A. D. 1654.

THIS eminent theologian was descended from an ancient Shropshire family. He was educated at Cambridge, and received a fellowship of Sydney college from Whitgift. During his residence in Cambridge, he read prelections on the Hebrew scriptures, which were greatly admired for the depth of erudition which they displayed, as well as for their singular piety. At the age of twenty-six he was chosen lecturer at Lincoln's inn. The appointment excited the alarm of his friends lest it should be found too severe a task for one so young; but the result justified the choice of the benchers. He soon became the most popular preacher in the metropolis; while at the same time his published pieces procured for him a high standing amongst foreign as well as English divines. Though an advocate for moderate episcopacy, he attended the Westminster assembly, and took a part in preparing the annotations on the scriptures which were published under the authority of that learned body. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the book of Lamentations, were the portions which he executed, and, in the opinion of Calamy, he has greatly surpassed all his coadjutors in the work. In 1645, appeared his learned treatise, 'De Nomine Tetragrammato,' being a defence of the common way of pronouncing the word Jehovah. In 1646, he published an answer to Saltmarsh's treatise on Grace, in which he demolished the Antinomian view of his opponent, and exposed with great vigour and effect that affected style of quaint antithesis then so much in vogue in treating of theological subjects. In 1648, he subscribed the remonstrance to the army against the design of trying the king. In 1653, he was drawn into a dispute with Lilly, the astrologer, in which he handled that 'blind buzzard' with well-merited severity and contempt. He died in 1654. His annotations on Marcus Anto

ninus are well known to scholars.

Henry Hammond, D. D.

BORN A. D. 1605.-DIED A. D. 1660.

THIS learned and amiable divine was born at Chertsey, in Surrey, on the 18th of August, 1605. He was the youngest son of Dr John Hammond, a physician. He received his grammar learning at Eton, and in 1618 was sent to Magdalen college, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in July, 1625. During his residence in Oxford, he applied himself with extreme diligence to classical studies. In 1629, he entered into holy orders; and in 1633 was presented to the rectory of Penshurst, in Kent, by the earl of Leicester, who had conceived a high opinion of his talents and piety from a sermon which he accidentally heard him deliver. Bishop Duppa conferred upon him the archdeaconry of Chichester in 1643.

In this latter year he retired to Oxford, having rendered himself ob

noxious to the ruling party, by joining in the fruitless attempt at Tunbridge, in favour of the king. His retirement he dedicated to the purpose of drawing up a Practical Catechism,' which he published next year. The committee of presbyterian divines soon after took exceptions to various doctrines advanced by Hammond in his catechism, whereupon he published a spirited vindication of the obnoxious passages, and challenged his opponents to a public disputation. During the Uxbridge negotiations, Hammond, as one of the divines on the king's side, took an active part in the discussions with the presbyterian commissioners. In 1645, the king bestowed a canonry of Christ church upon him, and made him one of his chaplains in ordinary. On the surrender of Oxford, he followed his royal master to the isle of Wight, where he remained till 1647, when he returned to Oxford.

The parliamentary commissioners deprived Hammond of his college offices in 1648, and placed him and his colleague, Dr Sheldon, under personal restraint for about ten weeks. It was during this confinement that he began his celebrated Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament. It came out first in 1653. A new and enlarged edition of it was published in 1656; and in 1698, Le Clerc published a Latin translation of it. It is a work of great learning, but abounding in fanciful interpretations. He afterwards formed the design of commenting upon the books of the Old Testament, but only lived to execute the book of Psalms, and a portion of Proverbs.

The death of the king—against whose trial he had drawn up a firm but modest protest-greatly affected him; but the moderation and kindness with which he was treated by many who, while they disliked his political principles, yet admired the man and his theological writings, revived his spirits, and encouraged him to resume his studies. His constitution, however, began to give way in a few years, and, while on the eve of promotion to the bishopric of Worcester, he was carried off by a violent attack of gravel in 1660. Bishop Burnet says of him that "his death was an unspeakable loss to the church." He was one of the most learned, most pious, and most active men of his day. His collected works were published in four volumes folio, in 1684.

Thomas Fuller.

BORN CIRC. A. D. 1608.-died a. d. 1651.

THOMAS FULLER, an eminent historian and divine of the church of England in the 17th century, was the son of the parish-minister of Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, in which village he was born about the year 1608. He received the elements of instruction under the paternal roof, but at a very early age was sent to Queen's college, Cambridge, of which his maternal uncle, Dr Davenant, was master, and where he pursued his studies with such vigour and success that he took the degree of A. B. in 1624, and that of A. M. in 1628. During his residence in Queen's college he stood candidate for a vacant fellowship, being urged thereto by the desire of the whole house, but upon its being ascertained that there existed a statute against the admission of two fellows from Northamptonshire. he instantly withdrew his claim