HARE.

No particulars can now be collected respecting the early life of FRANCIS HARE. The time and place of his birth are equally unknown. We first hear of him at Eton school, where he received the rudiments of education preparatory to the University. In due time he was entered at King's college, Cambridge, and became a fellow of that foundation.

While in this capacity he was entrusted with the tuition of the Marquis of Blanford, the only son of the Duke of Marlborough, and, by the duke, was appointed chaplain general to the army. In regular course he took the degree of doctor of divinity.

By reason of his connexion with the army his thoughts were turned into the channel of politics; and he first appeared, as an author, in defending the war, and the measures of the Whig administration. His writings on these subjects were chiefly published before the year 1712. He wrote the "Barrier Treaty Vindicated," and also a treatise in four parts, entitled "The Allies and the late Ministry,

defended against France and the present Friends of France." These tracts are said to have been much altered and amended by Maynwaring, and printed under the eye of Oldmixon.* They were serviceable to the war interest, in opposition to the strictures of Swift, and the efforts of the Tory party. Tindal often refers to them, in his continuation of Rapin, as valuable historical documents respecting that period.

In the discharge of his official duties, Hare followed the army to Flanders; but how long he remained there, or when he resigned his station as chaplain general, does not appear. Soon after the publication of his political pieces we find him advanced to the deanery of Worcester, and engaged with great warmth as the coadjutor of Sherlock, Potter, Snape, and others, in the famous Bangorian controversy.

About four years after Hoadly preached his sermon on the Kingdom of Christ, when the controversy to which it gave rise had already raged to an extraordinary height, Hare published an elaborate discourse, in the form of a sermon, on Church Authority. In this discourse Hoadly saw, or fancied he saw, many artful though indirect attacks on his sermon, and its whole tenour was opposite to the principles, which he had avowed and defended. Nothing

* Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. XLIX. p. 441.

more was wanting to rouse the spirit of Hoadly, who was ever ready for action, where truth was to be promoted, or his own sentiments vindicated. Notwithstanding the numerous contests then on his hands with some of the greatest men of his time, he hesitated not to encounter this new opponent with the weapons of controversial warfare, in the use of which no one had acquired greater confidence, or been more successful. He replied to the discourse on church authority, with his usual ability, and perhaps with more than his usual acrimony.

Hare contented himself at first with a few strictures on Hoadly's reply, in a Postscript to a succeeding edition of his discourse, in which argument abounds less than wit, and dignity less than satire. He felt keenly the shafts of his adversary, and endeavoured to destroy their force at one time by ridicule, and at another by personal reflections, neither of which comported with the gravity of the subject, or the character of an honourable disputant. His wit has more point than delicacy, and his animadversions more severity than justice.

The Postscript commences with a hint, which was no doubt intelligible to Hoadly, who had now been Bishop of Bangor nearly four years without once visiting his diocess. It is presumed he had reasons for this neglect satisfactory to himself; but the world did not choose to understand them, nor

to admit them as an apology. Hare was not reluctant to fall in with public opinion, and to make the most of it. "I was apprehensive," he observes, "that the publication of this sermon might give the lord Bishop of Bangor some little trouble, and for that reason, among others, was against it, as thinking it a mean and ungenerous part to add to the number of his adversaries, when he had already so many on his hands; especially at a time when I had good reason to believe his lordship's thoughts were wholly taken up with business of another nature; I mean the primary visitation of his diocess, whither I concluded he was gone or going soon; though I find since, I was mistaken."* This was a seasonable hint, but it was lost on the Bishop of Bangor, who never visited his diocess till he was transferred to another bishopric. Hare next wonders, that the Bishop should waste his moments on a discourse hastily drawn up in two days' time, without premeditation, and published with reluctance at the earnest solicitation of friends. Whoever reads the discourse, perceives it to be a work elaborated with great care, running back into antiquity, and ranging widely in the fields of modern learning, and must acknowledge this to be a piece of affectation, which might have been spared.

* Hare's Works, Vol. 1. p. 161.